A FOURTH LETTER TO A PERSON of QUALITY BEING AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE SACRAMENT From the PRIMITIVE Times TO THE COUNCIL of TRENT SHEWING The NOVELTY of Transubstantiation LONDON Printed for Ben. Griffin and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1688. IMPRIMATUR Liber cui Titulus A Fourth Letter to a Person of Quality May 17th 1688. H. Maurice R mo in Christo P. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacris A FOURTH LETTER TO A Person of Quality BEING AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE SACRAMENT SIR I HAVE been longer in your Debt than I intended when I last engaged my Credit to you I hope now to give you satisfaction in full but you must not expect Interest to make the payment swell because the thing I am accountable to you for is so Trite and worn that I think it a kindness to you to make as short payment as is possible because 't will save you the trouble of Examining a world of small quotations which is worse than the telling of odd and broken Mony. I promised you an account of the Doctrine of the Holy Sacrament which the Church of Rome hath turned at last into the Doctrine of Transubstantiation By which they mean that upon the Priests Consecration of the Bread and Wine the Substance of them is turn'd into Christ's Natural Flesh and Blood nothing remaining but the Species and Properties of the Elements that is the Smell the Taste c. This absurd Doctrine being so repugnant to Scripture to Reason and to the very Senses of Mankind their main business is to delude poor People into an Opinion that it was the sense of the Primitive Churches of Christ We are desirous to come to a fair Tryal of this matter and that I may do my part towards it I shall endeavour to bring it to a very short issue by this Method 1. I shall shew you the Faith of the Ancient Churches from a long Controversie they had with those Hereticks the Apollinarians and Eutychians Which being undeniable and publick matter of Fact will clear up the sense of the Ancients far better than single broken passages out of the Fathers which Men of parts know how to interpret to their own advantage 2. I shall shew you when and how the sense of the Ancient Church came to be alter'd what Progress that alteration made and what strong opposition it met with for several Ages after it began And by this plain Historical Account you will easily discern what an Innovation the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is 3. And then I shall give a Summary Answer to those things which the Modern Romanists do urge out of the Fathers by shewing you the Genuine meaning of them which they by wresting or by not understanding them rightly have used to deceive the world with false Notions I. As for the Faith of the Ancient Churches it will soon appear if you do but observe this One thing and bear it carefully in your mind About the year of Christ 370. or a little before Apollinarius Bishop of Laodicea had spread about this Heretical Opinion that the humanity of Christ was turned and swallowed up into the Deity so that tho his two Natures were distinct before the Union yet by and upon the Union they became one Nature his humane part being converted or Transubstantiated into the Divine the Properties only and appearance of Humane Body remaining This indeed was not all his Heresie for he asserted too that Christ took a Body without a Rational Soul the Deity supplying the place of it and several other strange Opinions he held to the great disturbance of the Church But it is too notorious to need any proof that this was part of Apollinarius his Heresie that upon the Union of Christs two Natures his Manhood was changed into his Divinity saving only the Properties of it so that he was forced to yield that the Deity was Circumcised and suffered upon the Cross in the appearance or if you will have it in the Language of the Romanists under the Species of Humane Flesh Within the compass of Twenty Years Apollinarius his Heresie was condemned by Three Councils at Alexandria at Rome and at Constantinople But about Sixty Seven years after I mean Anno 448. it was revived by Eutyches a Presbyter at Constantinople whose positive Opinion was that the two Natures of Christ being United the substance of the one utterly ceased his Humanity being quite converted into his Divinity so that nothing was left of his Humane Nature but the Qualities and Accidents This Heresie begun by Apollinarius and promoted by Eutyches lasted a long time and 't is very well worth your Observation how nearly it resembles the Romish Doctrine of Transubstantiation in the Sacrament For as our Adversaries hold that the Substance of Bread and Wine is upon Consecration turned into the very Substance of Christ's Flesh and Blood nothing of them remaining but the Accidents so the Apollinarians and Eutychians held that the Substance of Christ's Humane Nature was upon its Union turned into the Substance of his Divinity nothing of his Humanity remaining but the Qualities and Properties As these hold that the very Substance of Christ's Body and Blood is received under the Species of Bread and Wine so those Hereticks held that the very Deity Vide Histor Council Chalced in init Leonis ep 17. ad Maxim. part 3. istius Concilii of Christ was Born and did Grow Suffer Dye and Rise again under the Species of Humane Flesh Or briefly that Christ appeared not in the Truth or Substance of Humane Nature but only in the outward Form and Figure of a Man his Humanity being transubstantiated as they presumed into his Divinity all but the Idea of it Now among many Arguments which the Ancients used against those Hereticks some of the Greatest Men in the Church drew One Argument from the Doctrine of the Sacrament and made use of Our principle against Transubstantiation to expose the Heresie of the Apollinarians and Eutychians which plainly shews that Our Opinion as to the Holy Sacrament was in those times the received Opinion of the Catholick Church To prove this particularly St. Chrysostome Patriarch of Constantinople writing to his old Acquaintance Caesarius to reclaim him from the Apollinarian Heresie into which he had unluckily fallen among other Arguments he used to convince him he drew a parallel from the Eucharist to shew that Christ had two distinct Natures in one Person As saith he before Consecration we call it Bread but the Divine Grace having sanctified it by the Prayer of the Priest it is no longer called Bread but is thought worthy to be called the Lords Body altho the Nature of Bread remains in it and we do not say there be two Bodies but one Body of the Son so here the Divine Nature of Christ being joyned to the Humane they both make one Son and one Person You must know that the Greek
Copy of this Epistle is not yet come to light Very probably it is supprest by those who know how to suppress many things which hurt their Cause But a Latin Copy of it was found in Archbishop Cranmer's time in a Library at Florence by Peter Martyr who brought a Transcript of it with him into England and put it into the Archbishops Library And this passage in it is such a stabbing blow to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation that the Romanists have turn'd and twin'd themselves every way to evade the force of it were it possible First they denied this Epistle to be St. Chrysostome's But this pretence has been since thrown out of doors by some learned Doctors of the Roman Church her self Stephen Gardiner that dissembling and bloudy Bishop of Winchester being somewhat conscious to himself that this Epistle was Genuine pretended Secondly that by the Nature of Bread which St. Chrysostome saith remains he meant not the Substance but the Accidents and Properties of it wherein he was followed by Bellarmine and divers others and this is pretended still by some Popish Writers here in England now But this is flatly to contradict the plainest and most natural expressions in the world And besides it utterly overthrows the great design of St. Chrysostome for his purpose was to shew Cesarius that the Substance of Christs Humanity remained after its union to the Deity for this was the thing in dispute with the Apollinarians They owned the Accidents the Properties the Qualities of Humanity to remain in Christ but affirm'd the substance of his Humane Nature to be turned into the Deity So that had St. Chrysostome meant that the Accidents only of Bread remained in the Sacrament the example would not have been to the purpose nor would the Argument have had any force at all but St. Chrysostome would have proved himself the most weak and impertinent man at reasoning that could be I will give you the words of a learned and moderate person of the Roman A Treatise of Transubstant Communion now living whose Book I hope you have by you St. Chrysostome saith plainly that the Nature of Bread abideth after consecration and this Fathers Argument would be of no validity if this Nature of the Bread were nothing but in shew for Appollinarius might have made another opposite Argument and say that indeed it might be said there were two Natures in Jesus Christ but that the Humane Nature was only in appearance as the Bread in the Eucharist is but in shew and hath only outward and visible Qualities remaining in it whereby it is termed to be Bread. One thing more I will observe to you concerning this Epistle to shew how injuriously some have dealt with St. Chrysostome and how those men speak against their own Consciences when they tell us as they have often done that this great man is on their side A few years ago the learned Mounsieur Bigotius found this Epistle at Florence and Anno 1680. printed it in his Edition of Palladius with the best Apology he could make for this passage But when the Book was now ready to be published some of the Sorbon Doctors fraudulently cut out this Epistle and Bigotins his Preface to it What an Art is this first to cut out an Authors Tongue for speaking against them and yet to pretend that he spake on their behalf Yet it was not so cunningly done but that the abuse was complain'd of and by good Providence the Leaves which were thus shamefully cut out are lately fallen into the hands of a learned man of our Church who hath given us a full and particular account of this whole matter in his excellent Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England to which I refer you for your more ample satisfaction both as to the Epistle it self and as to the strength of St. Chrysostome's Argument against the Apollinarians which utterly destroyes the Doctrine of Transubstantiation To go on now with our Historical Account Our next ancient Writer is Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus in Syria a great Man at the Council of Chalcedon Anno 451. and without controversie one of the most learned Men of that Age. The Heresie of Apollinarus had now been espoused by Eutyches of Constantinople Theodoret undertook the quarrel and wrote excellently against the Eutychians by way of Dialogue and among several other strong Arguments he drew an example from the Holy Eucharist as St. Chrysostome had done before him I think it is my best way to lay before you that part of the Dialogue which chiefly concerns us nakedly as it lies in Theodoret only you must remember that 't is between Orthodoxus and Eranistes now Orthodoxus personates the Catholick and Eranistes the Heretick the former held that Christ had two Natures in one Person the latter that his Humane Nature was absorpt and substantially changed into his Divinity Eran. It is necessary to turn every stone as the Proverb is that Truth may be found especially in Divine Matters Orthod Tell me then those mystical Symbols which are offered by the Priests at the Eucharist what are they representations of Eran. Of the Lords Body and Bloud Orthod Of a True or not of a True Body Eran. Of a True Body Orthod Right for there must be an Original of a Copy for even Painters imitate Nature and draw Pictures of things that are seen Eran. 'T is true Orthod If then the Divine Mysteries be the Similitudes or Figures of a True Body then is the Body of our Lord even now a True Body not changed into the Nature of the Divinity but filled with divine Glory Eran. You have spoken very seasonably of the Divine Mysteries or Sacrament For I will from thence shew the Conversion of our Lords Body into another Nature Answer my questions therefore Orthod I will Answer Eran. What do you call the Gift that is Offered before the Invocation of the Priest Orthod We are not to speak plainly least some should be here that are not sufficiently instructed Eran. Answer then Aenigmatically Orthod I say then it is Nourishment from certain Seeds Eran. But how do we call one of the Symbols Orthod Why it is a common Name that signifies a kind of Drink Eran. But what do you call those things after Consecration Orthod The Body of Christ and the Blood of Christ Eran And do you believe that you participate of Christ's Body and Blood Orthod Yes I believe so Eran. As then the Symbols of our Lords Body and Blood are other things before the Priests Invocation but after Invocation are changed and become other things even so was the Lords Body after its Assumption changed into the Divine Substance Orthod You are taken in the Nets which you your self have made for the Mystical Symbols do not in any wise pass out of their own Nature no not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theod. Dialogue 2. after Consecration for they remain in their own former Substance and
figure and kind and are to be Seen and Touched as they were before Nothing can be plainer than this to Men who are not obstinately addicted to an Opinion in spight of all Reason and Sense And what Theodoret saith here is very agreeable to what he told Eranistes in the First Dialogue viz. That our Saviour honoured the visible Symbols with the Appellation of his Body and Blood not changing the Nature of them but adding Grace to Nature To avoid all this our Adversaries pretend that by Substance and Nature Theodoret means the Accidents of Bread which is in effect to tell us that they are utterly resolved to believe or at least to befriend a Lie For who that really loves Truth would thus confound things so as to make Substance and Accident the same But if they will strain their parts to play tricks with words how can they make this their interpretation to come up to Theodoret's design or to reach the Argument he had in hand which was about the supposed substantial change of Christ's Humane Nature into his Divinity Theodorets purpose was to Confute this by Arguing from the Doctrine of the Sacrament and had the Church believed a Substantial change of the Bread this would have confirm'd the Eutychian in his Opinion but it could not have Confuted it For the Heretick desired no more to be granted him but this that the Nature or Substance of the Elements doth cease though the Accidents continue And this indeed would have favour'd his conceit that the Substance of Christ's Humanity did cease the Properties of it Remaining still But Theodoret could not be so weak as to yield this for then he would inevitably have lost himself in his Dispute But what think you of a Pope that disputed against the Eutychians too and that from the very same Doctrine of the Sacrament It was no less a Man than Gelasius who was Bishop of Rome Anno 492. and wrote a Celebrated Book of the two Natures in Christ Which though Bellarmine and some more about Bellarmine's time denied to be this Galasius his Book yet the Arguments against them are so strong that Cardinal Perron Petavius and other Learned and more Ingenuous Men since have yielded us that point And the moderate Writer I quoted before saith This Work is assuredly of Pope Gelasius c. In that piece of Gelasius his Book which we have extant Treatise of Transub p. 40. in the Bibliotheca Patrum he teacheth the same Doctrine which Theodoret did and for the confirmation of the same thing as Cardinal Bellarmine doth Bellarm. de Euch. lib. 2. cap. 27. confess And what can be plainer than these words of Gelasius Viz. That the Sacraments which we receive of the Body and Blood Certè Sacramenta quae sumimus Corporis Sanguinis Domini divina res est propter quod per eadem divinae efficimur consortes naturae tamen esse non desinit Substantia vel Natura Panis Vini c. of the Lord is a Divine thing because by them we are made partakers of the Divine Nature and yet the Substance or Nature of the Bread and Wine doth not cease to be And truly the Representation and Similitude of Christ's Body and Blood is Celebrated in the Ministration of these Mysteries and therefore it is plain that we must think that of Christ himself which we profess and Celebrate in this Representation of him His meaning evidently is that we must believe the Permanency of Christ's Humane Nature though united to the Divine because in the Holy Eucharist which is the Representation of Christ the Nature and Substance of Bread and Wine remaineth though Consecrated by the Minister And yet we have another eminent Writer on our side no less a Man than Ephram who was Patriarch of Antiâ—ch about Anno 540. He disputed too against the Eutychians and drew the very same Argument from the Sacrament which others had used before him shewing that the Humanity of Christ did not Cease in its Substance by being united to the word no more than the Bread ceaseth in its Substance by the Addition of Spiritual Grace That says he Phetii Bibliothee cod 229. which is received by the Faithful doth not depart out of its own sensible Substance and yet continues undivided from the intelligible Grace And least it should be replyed though 't is strange it should that by Substance he means the Species and Accidents of the Bread he says the same thing of the Sacrament of Baptism where no Romanist ever affirmed any Transubstantiation to be His words are these Baptism also which becomes entirely a Spiritual thing and is One doth conserve still the propriety of the sensible Substance I mean Water and loseth not what it was Whence 't is clear that Ephram lookt upon the case in both Sacraments to be the same an Addition of Spiritual Grace to be in both but a loss of Substance to be in neither nor any other change to be in the Eucharist than what is in Baptism Sir I have instanced in those four Writers particularly not only because they were all Great Men in their Times Three of them Patriarchs nay one of them Patriarch of Rome but because they all argued against the same Heresie after the same manner which to me seems very observable and providential For tho the Eutychian Heresie prevailed so long and did spread so far that it did vast mischief yet God directed the issues of it so that 't was an occasion of shewing us what the Catholick Faith was both in the Greek and Latin Churches in those most Learned and flourishing times of Christianity concerning that great point which in these latter Ages hath made so many distractions in Christendom For it is not to be imagined but that these Eminent Bishops spake the sense of the whole Catholick Church over which they presided For having to do with obstinate Hereticks they were obliged to encounter them upon principles which all Christians consented to and were agreed otherwise the Disputations would have been Endless had they argued from principles of their own and which they were still to prove It was necessary for them to proceed upon some common Foundation whereon both Hereticks and Catholicks did stand and such was this Doctrine of the Sacrament for which Reason the Learned Doctors of the Church chose to insist upon it nor do I find that the Hereticks did contradict it or endeavour to destroy it which they would most certainly have done considering how much it made against them had they not known it to have been a principle universally receiv'd that the Bread and Wine are not Transubstantiated but remain still in their own Nature and Substance even after Consecration For this Reason I have omitted an hundred other quotations out of the Ancients and have taken notice only of this their common Argument against the Eutychians because I think it a plain and concise way of confuting the Popish pretence
comply with it For how can you think that such Men in such an Age would resist the strong Temptations of a Court and not resign up Truth and their own Consciences as a composition for their Crimes or as a price for their Preferments the Popes having now got so much power into their hands Besides the Priests might easily foresee what a prositable Errour this would prove in time what Authority they would hereby gain over people and how easily they might have their Purses and Consciences at Command For what will not Men do to have the very Body of their Saviour put into their Mouths And when a Priest hath his Penitent at his knee he must needs have full power over him if he can make him believe that he hath his God in his hand too For these and the like Reasons the Paschasian Opinion of the Corporal Presence stole about without meeting with any publick opposition in this Age wherein there was such a great scarcity of Writers and a greater of Scholars Yet in all this time I do not find any footsteps of Transubstantiation That Doctrine was grafted afterwards upon the wild conceit of Paschasius to the great mischief of the World that hath been poyson'd since with its very unsavoury and deadly Fruit somewhat like that which grew upon the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil the occasion of Mans Fall. I will not dissemble with you The most Learned and impartial Men about this time both before and after the Tenth Century did speak of the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament in very high terms But their Opinon was this that the consecrated Bread becomes Christs Body not by a Substantial change of the one into the other nor by an Identity of Nature in Both for they all held the True Body of Christ to be still in Heaven and in Heaven only But they conceived the Bread and the Body to be United by means of a Third Thing that is by the Holy Spirit whereby the Bread and the Body were United by a mysticall Consociation and by an ineffable Conjunction both Bread and Body remaining still distinct in their own proper Natures I pray observe it They believed as very many of the Ancient Fathers did that upon the Priests blessing that Divine Spirit which replenisheth and dwelleth in Christ's glorified Body in Heaven doth also replenish the Bread and Wine at the Eucharist and that by this mediation of the Spirit the Holy Elements are joyned to Christ's Body by a Divine and Spiritual coadunation Now this is a quite different thing from Transubstantiation for that supposeth the matter of the Elements to be annihilated or to pass into another Substance whereas the Divines of former Ages believ'd no more but a Mystical and Spiritual Union And howsoever they exprest themselves about the Conversion Transmutation and Transfusion of the Elements 't is evident they meant only the transferring of them from a Common to a Sacramental Use and the raising of them up from the meer condition of Earthly Creatures to an high degree of Divine Dignity and Excellence being now no longer bare Bread and bare Wine but things of a sublime Quality and Condition the venerable Means and Instruments of Communicating Christ's Body and Blood to us through the secret Operation of the Holy Ghost All which is very consistent with the Church of England's Notion of Christ's Real Spiritual Presence but is opposite to the Paschasian conceit of a gross Corporal Presence and utterly Destructive of the later conceit of Transubstantiation But to go on In the beginning of the Eleventh Century the Paschasian Doctrine met with fresh Opposition For the Romish Writers themselves confess that Leuthericus who was Archbishop of Sens in France Anno 1004 was a Great Stickler against it Baronius tells us that he fell under King Roberts displeasure for that Reason The Writer of the Life of Pope John the Seventeenth in one of the Tomes of the Councils would have it that this Leuthericus scatter'd Hujus tempore Leuthericus Senonensis Archiepiscopus hoeresis Berengarianae primordia semina sparsit the Seeds of the Berengarian Heresie And Spondanus insinuates that Fulbertus in his Epistles to Leuthericus reprehended him for dissenting from the Catholicks in this point But upon perusing those Epistles as they are set out by Carolus de Villiers in the Bibliotheca Patrum I find no such thing Some hard words indeed past upon the score of Ecclesiastical Discipline but as to this matter I can see nothing Nor can I conceive how it should be so not because Fulbertus was Berengarius his Instructor but because his Writings shew him to have been of an Opinion quite different from nay contrary to that of Paschasius though indeed the Romanists would fain pull him on their side because he was of such Authority and Eminence in his time so greatly admired that some Dreaming Monks devis'd this pleasant Romance of him which some Learned Writers too have been willing to report that when he was Sick the Virgin Mary was seen to come and Suckle him with Milk out of her own Breasts But let us be serious This Fulbertus was Bishop of Chartres in the Province of Leuthericus Anno 1007. And the first thing to our purpose which I find in his Epistle to Adeodatus is very remarkable For having mentioned Three Things necessary to be understood whereof this is the Third viz. what the two Sacraments of life that is of the Lords Body and Blood do consist of presently he saith that many looking on this and other things too Carnally while they gazed on a Carnal Sense or meaning more than on the secret Mysteries of Faith they tumbled down the precipice of a pernicious Errour And is not this directly against the Carnal opinion of Paschasius as well as against those who lookt upon these Mysteries as Empty things And after he saith because Christ was to take away into Heaven that Body which he offer'd up for us that we might not want the help of his Body so taken away he left us this Pledge of his Body and Blood not the Symbol of an empty Mystery but that which a secret Vertue invisibly works in under the visible Form of a Creature the Holy Ghost joyning the True Body of Christ to it You see Fulbertus runs clearly upon that Mystical ' Compaginante Spiritu Sancto Corpus Christi verum Union I spake of before which supposes the Substance and Nature both of Bread and Body to remain still in themselves distinct In his Epistle ad Finardum he plainly distinguisheth that Body which Christ took in the Virgin 's Womb from that which is in the Sacrament And at the End of his Sermons he tells us that some Eat to Life and others to Destruction but that the Thing represented by the Sacrament is to every Man for Life only so that he who Eateh to his Condemnation Eateth not the Flesh of Christ nor Drinks his
touching the Antiquity of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation For it is not imaginable that the Ancients would have spoken so peremptorily and dogmatically in this point had they not had the Authority of the whole Church to have back't them And because they spake this so freely and that as a common Argument against those Learned Hereticks we may be sure that what they said was the common Faith of the Catholick Church in those times I mean in the Sixth Century And now Sir I shall proceed to Examine how the matter stood as to this point in the times following It is evident that the great Council of 338. Fathers who met at Constantinople Anno 754. were of this Faith That the Bread in the Eucharist is not Christ himself but the Image of him For this they urg'd as an Argument against the use of all other Images because the Symbols in the Eucharist are the only Image of himself which he left his Church Now this utterly overthrows the Doctrine of the Corporal presence and much rather the conceit of Transubstantiation For if the Bread be the Image of his Body it cannot be the Body it self as the Second Nicene Council argued when they oppos'd the Definitions of this Council at Constantinople And besides there is something very observable in the Discourse of this Council upon this point which I wonder so many Writers have not taken notice of and it is this that Christ Ordaining at his last Supper this Image of himself intended to shew the Mystery of his Incarnation And to this purpose they exprest themselves as any one may see by consulting the Acts of the Council As Conc. Nic. 2. Act. 6. when Christ took our Nature he took barely the matter of Humane Substance not his whole Person Divinity and all for to suppose that would be an Offence or Derogation to the Deity so when he appointed this Image of himself he chose barely the Substance of Bread not any shape of Man in it but only a Representation of his Natural Flesh for that would have been an Intreduction of Idolatry Moreover they say that as Christ's Natural Body was Holy by being filled with the Deity so this Image of him becomes Holy by being Sanctified by Grace and as that Flesh of ours which Christ took became Sanctified by being united to the Deity so is the Bread in the Eucharist the true Image of his Natural Flesh Sanctified by the Advent of the Holy Spirit c. Is this at all consistent with Transubstantiation or with the Doctrine of Christ's Corporal presence in the Sacrament And yet this was the sense of those 338. Fathers which they Dogmatically deliver'd as the sense of the Church whereof they lookt upon themselves as the Representatives Therefore Cardinal Bellarmine understanding their sense throughly and finding how strongly and invincibly it made against Transubstantiation had no other way left him but to rank this great Council among Hereticks nay he says they were the first that ever called in question the Truth of the Lords Body in the Eucharist Now this Bellarm. de Euchar. l. 1. c. 1. is easily said but by his favour they denied not the reality of Christ's Spiritual presence but of his Corporal presence only as we Protestants do Nay he himself rightly observes in the same place that the Protestant Faith in this point was not reckon'd among any of the Ancient Heresies nor so much as disputed against by any one of the Ancients for the first 600. Years For how should any Dispute against that which was the Common Faith of the Church and had been so all along to the time of this Constantinopolitan Council Those Fathers did no more but declare that publickly which they had received from former Ages and now made use of as a proper Argument against Images The Patrons of Images finding themselves pinch't with this Argument began to move a point which hitherto lay quiet and to strain those words This is my Body to a sense beyond what had been formerly taught though it was a great while before they could hammer out their New Notions into any Form for they spake very confusedly inconsistently and grosly as if Christ's Natural Body were in the Sacrament And though I do not find that any of them went so far as to own yet a Substantial change of the Nature of the Bread and Wine into the Substance of Flesh and Blood which is the conceit of the Church of Rome now yet 't is plain that what these Innovators said caused a New Great Controversie in Christendom and that just upon the neck of the former Quarrel about Images whereof I have already given you a particular and Faithful account II. And now I am come to the Second Thing I promised to shew you which was when and how the sense of the Ancient Church about the Sacrament came to be alter'd what progress that alteration made and what strong Opposition it met with for several Ages after it began It is generally agreed that Paschasius Rathbertus was one of the first Innovators in the Latin Church Vide Albertin de Sacram. p. 920. about Anno 818. He was first a Monk and afterwards Abbot of Corbey in France and a Man of some considerable Reputation especially for those times when Learning was most decayed which perhaps might transport him into an undue Opinion of his own abilities and that might make him affect singularity However it came about two very Learned Jesuites are agreed that Paschasius was a Leading Man in this business So says Bellarmine that Paschasius Bellarm. de Scriptor Eccles in Paschas Sirmond in vita Paschasii operibus ejus prefix was the first Author that wrote seriously and copiously of the Truth of the Lords Body and Blood in the Eucharist And so saith Sirmondus that Paschasius was the first that explained the Genuine sense of the Catholick he means the Roman Church so as that he opened the way to others who afterwards wrote upon the same Subject The Book which they chiefly mean is that of the Body and Blood of the Lord written to one Placidus a young man whom Paschasius dearly loved In reading of this Book one shall find so many dark Riddles unconquerable perplexities and plain inconsistences that it may be justly questioned whether they are possible to be reconciled to Truth or Sense nay whether the Man himself understood what he would be at One while he will have it to be nothing else but the Flesh and Blood of Christ and another while to be a Figure and the Flesh and Blood of Christ Mystically Now he says that Christ's Body is Created in the Sacrament than that it is made of the Substance of Bread and by and by that the Mystery is Celebrated in the Substance of Bread and Wine Sometime he tells us that 't is the very Body which Christ took of the Virgin and presently that it is wholly a Spiritual and Divine thing
Account we have hitherto had of that Council is very imperfect but the Learned and inquisitive Du Plessis saw some Manuscript Acts of this Council which though they struck immediately at Amalarius for some Errours he held about the Sacrament De missa lib. 4. cap. 8. pag. 743. yet are they so Opposite to Paschasius's Fancy and Destructive of it as if the Council had intended to wound Paschasius through Amalarius his side Thus it was Amalarius Archbishop of Lyons was a considerable men in that Age but in some points he held very absurd and monstrous Opinions for which reason the Church of Lyons afterwards took it ill that Amalarius Multum molestè dolenter accepimus ut Ecclesiastici prudentes viri tantam injuriam sibimetipfis fecerint ut Amalarium de Fedei ratione consulerent qui verbit Libris suis mendaciis erroribus fantasticis atque hereticis disputationibus plenis omnes pene apud Frauciam Ecclesias nonnullas etiam aliarum regiontum quantum in se fult infecit atque corrupit c. Eccles Lug. dunens de tribut Epistolis Bibliothec. P 9. had been consulted in the cause against Gotteschalchus because he had done his endeavour to infect and corrupt all the hurches in France With Lyes and Errours and with fantastical and He retical disputations that his Writings ought to have been burnt The Errours thus objected against him seem plainly to have been those concerning the Sacrament For this was one of his Fantastical and Heretical Notions that Christ hath a Tripartite Body one that he took of the Virgin another that is in us who live upon the Earth and a Third that is in those who are dead This monstrous Opinion we find in the 35th Chapter of his Third Book de Officiis Ecclesiasticis and it was laid to his charge by the Carisiac Synod as Du Plessis shews And this seems to be that foolery about the Tripartite Redy of Ad ultimum quoeso ne sequaris ineptias de Tripartito Christi Corpore Paschas ad Frudegard in fine Christ which Paschasius himself caution'd Frudegard against For this was a different thing from Paschasius his Imagination of the threefold Body of Christ Though Amalarius favour'd Paschasius his Opinion as to the main of it yet in some things they were divided that Innovation being as yet Raw and Undigested But besides this Amalarius had another New conceit agreeable to that of Paschasius that the simple Nature of Amalar. de Offic Ecclesiast c. 24. Bread and Wine is turn'd into a reasonable Nature that is the Nature of Christ's Body and Blood though he could not tell what becomes of this Body when 't is received whether it goes up to Heaven or flies out into the Air or remains in the Communicants Body till death or goes out at the opening of the Vein Such phantastical and heretical conceits had this Man Answer to the Jesuites Challenge pag. 79. about this matter for Bishop Usher saw in Bennet's Colledge Library one of his Epistles in Manuscript to Guitard wherein he exprest himself to this purpose and the same Errours were charged upon him by the Carisiac Synod also Now the Councils definition upon this strikes at all in short to the ruin of Amalarius and Paschasius his cause too viz. That the Bread and Wine is Spiritually made the Body of Christ that is the Mystery of our Life and Salvation wherein one thing is seen by the Eye of the Body and another by the Eye of Faith that it is the Food of the mind not of the Belly that in that visible Bread and Drink a Man receives the virtue of invisible Grace and that the Body of Christ is not in the visible thing but in the Spiritual Virtue c. The Acts of this Council were written by Florus and dedicated to several Bishops and other Great Men at that time Which is a clear Argument that the sense of the Carisiac Synod was very agreeable to the received Doctrine of the Church then Which I note the rather because for the space of about 200. years no Council but this took any notice that I know of the Doctrine of the Sacrament and yet a great many Synods were held on several occasions in that long tract of time and a Controversie upon such a weighty point could not have escaped them all and this being the first that ruin'd the pretence of a Corporal Presence it is easie to believe that till now there had been no occasion for a publick difinition in this point and that when this occasion was offer'd they were resolved to stifle this Innovation upon its first appearance To go on now with matter of Fact Of those that singly engaged in the quarrel with Paschasius Bertram was the next You find by the Nameless Author above mentioned that not only Rabanus wrote against him but also Ratranus who is now usually called Bertram for he is indifferently called Bertramus Ratramnus Ratrannus Whatever his right Name was he was a Monk of Corbey and a very Eminent Person about Anno 840. for the Controversie now growing hot especially in France where it had been kindled and Carolus Calvus being very desirous to quench it in time directed Bertram so I will now call him to give his sense of it Bertram in obedience to the King's Command wrote an Excellent book upon the Subject in the beginning whereof he takes notice of no small Schism that then was in the Church about the Mystery of Christ's Body and Blood and then he states the Two Great Questions which Carolus Calvus had proposed to him I. Whether the Sacrament be a Figure of some secret thing which is exhibited with it and which is the Object not of Sense but of Faith. II. Whether that thing so exhibited be the very Natural Body of Christ which was Born of the Virgin Mary which Suffer'd which was Dead and Buried which Rose again which Ascended into Heaven and Sitteth at the Right Hand of the Father which was the Opinion and the very words of Paschasius I. As to the First though at the close of his Book he denies the Sacrament to be a meer Figure a bare Shadow an empty Sign without Christ's real Presence yet he owns it to be a Figure and solidly proves from Scripture Reason and the Authority of several Ancient Fathers that it is a Figure and that under the visible and corruptible Elements as under a Cover is contained a Divine and Spiritual Thing which is believed to be there upon Consecration through the Operation of the Spirit without any Corporal change of the things we see but the Elements Neque ista commutatio corporaliter sed spiritualiter facta Quoniam sub velamento Corporei panis Corporeique vini spirituale Corpus Christi spiritualisque sanguis existit Nam secundum Creaturarum Substantiam quod fuerunt ante Consecrationem hoc posten consistunt remaining still
Sacrament yet Monsieur Duval consesseth this was Genebrards private conjecture not founded on any Authority or Testimony I believe Genebrard in Liturg Dionys Duval annot in lib. Ecclesiae Lugd. adv Scot. the conceit of a Corporal Presence was hardly so much as known at that time in England and after it came to be vended here it was a long time e're it came to that value as to be made the price of Blood. There were many other men of note in this Ninth Century whom divers Writers on our side have proved to have declared their minds against the Innovation of Paschasius such as Hincmarus Walesridus Strabo Heribald Drusilmanus and several more whose names you meet with in many Latin Tracts and in that English Treatise I mention'd just now But I will not spend my time upon every little quotation least I should make this Letter swell beyond a due proportion and besides I think it not amiss to divert you a little with some account of the posture of this affair about that time here at home because I have just spoken of Scotus who was either our Country Man or a near Neighbour Somewhat after the 900th year from Christ Odo was ArchBishop of Canterbury and he would have brought into England the belief of a Corporal presence But it seems the Clergy were too Honest to be wrought upon In those days most doubted of the Truth meaning the Substantial Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament saith William Malmesb. de gest pontif Angl p. 201. Osbern in vita Odon of Malmesbury Some Clergy Men asserted saith Osbern that the Bread and Wine after Consecration remain in their own former Substance He saith some but he should have said the Generality of Men believed so for it was then the common Opinion in the Church of England But this has been the custome of that sort of men when they are to tell Noses or go to the Poll to represent the adverse party as a little Handful though sometimes to their cost they find themselves sadly mistaken in their account For after the death of Odo this was the common Faith of the Church of England even in the days of Elfrick or Alfrick who was made Abbot of Malmesbury by King Edgar Anno 974. if Ingulphus be right in his computation Indeed about that time Men did search how bread that is gather'd of Corn and A Saxon Homily on Easter-Day through fires heat baked may be turned to Christ's Body c. But the Doctrine of our Church which was then profest and which upon that search was the more vigorously maintain'd was that 't is Christ's Body Mystically Spiritually and by signification The Reason why I say it is this Elfrick was of such great esteem in the Church that his Writings were sorted among the publick Acts of the Church and judged to contain the avowed and Authentick Doctrine of the Church of England then For some of them were put among the Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions for the instruction and good Government of the Clergy and some of his Writings were publickly read in Churches as Authoriz'd Homilies for the Information of all People This account I find in in the Preface to a very scarce Book under this Title A Testimony of Antiquity shewing the Ancient Faith of the Church of England touching the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord here publickly preached and also received in the Saxon time This Book was Printed in Archbishop Parkers days but there is no printed date of the year only in MSS. 1567. and Mr. Fox seems to have taken out of it all that account which he gives us of this matter in his Acts and Monuments It is a little Manual of some of Elfrick's Works First a Sermon Translated by Elfrick out of some Latin Author into the Saxon Language which was publickly read here on Easter-Day and then two of his Epistles to two Bishops Out of which saith the Prefacer it is not hard to know not only so much what Alfrickes judgment was in this Controversie but also that more is what was the common received Doctrine herein of the whole Church of England as well when Elfricke himself lived as before his time and also after his time even from him to the Conquest The piece I now speak of being a Rarity I will give you this account of it premising this only that by Housel is meant the Elements in the Sacrament the Sacramental Bread and Wine In the Sermon for Easter the Saxon Language on the one Page and the common English over against it on the other after a pretty long comparison made in the beginning between the Paschal Lamb in Egypt and our Blessed Saviour these words follow Now Men have often searched and do yet often search how Bread that is gathered of Corne and through fyers heate baked may be turned to Christes Body or how Wyne that is pressed out of many Grapes is turned through one blessing to the Lords Bloude Now say we to suche men that some thinges be spoken of Christ by signification some thyngs by thyng certain True thyng is and certain that Christ was born of a Maid and suffered Death of his own accorde and was buryed and on thys day rose from Death He is sayd Bread by a signification and a Lamb and a Lyon and a Mountayne He is called bread because he is our Life and Angels Life He is sayd to be a Lamb for his innocence a Lyon for strength wherewith he overcame the strong Devil But Christ is not so notwithstanding after true Nature neither Bread nor a Lamb nor a Lyon why is then that holy Housel called Christ's Body or his Blood if it be not truly that it is called Truly the Bread and the Wyne which by the Masse of the Priest is Halowed shew one thing without to humayne understanding and another thing they call within to beleving mindes Without they be sene Bread and Wine both in Figure and in tast and they be truely after their halowing Christes Body and hys bloude through Ghostly mistery An heathen Childe is Christened yet he altereth not hys shape without though he be chaunged within He is brought to the Font-Stone sinful through Adams disobedience Howbeit he is washed from all Sinne within though he hath not altered hys shape without Even so the Holy Font Water that is called the well spryng of Life is lyke in shape to other Waters and is subject to corruption but the Holy Ghostes myght commeth to the corruptible Water through the Priestes Blessing and it may after wash the Body and Soule from all Sinne through Ghostly myghte Beholde now we see two thyngs in this one Creature After true Nature that Water is corruptible Water and after Ghostly mistery hath halowing mighte So also if we beholde that Holy Housell after bodely understanding then see we that it is a Creature corruptible and mutable If we acknowledge therein ghostly myghte then understand we
Blood although he Eats and Drinks that which is the Sacrament of so great a thing All which how can it possibly consist with the fulsome Doctrine of a Corporal presence which supposes that very Flesh and Blood which Christ took of the Virgin to be truly Really Substantially and materially in the Sacrament This last passage in Fulbertus is probably thought to have been that which did stick so deeply in the mind of his Scholar Berengarius Whose famous case I am at length come to and shall search into it impartially though it be no small unhappiness that we must have recourse to the Writings of his profest Adversaries there being little extant which either he wrote for himself or his Friends for him though it was a case wherein we may be sure many Pens were at work And so we are expresly told by Sigebort who lived near the time of this Controversie that many disputed much both in their Discourses and Writings some Contra eum Berengarium pro eo multum à multis Verbis Scriptis disputatum est Sigeb Chron. ad an 1051. against Berengarius and some for him And the Truth of this will appear in the Sequel Though some Romanists have endeavoured to oppress the Memory of Berengarius with a heavy weight of ill Characters as 't is usual with them in all such cases yet several of that side have ingenuously acknowledg'd that he was a most Eminent person in his time not only for his great Charity Humility and Austerities of Life but also for his great Parts and Learning And the thing is evident partly from his Dignity in the Church for he was Archdeacon of Anger 's in France intrusted with the Office of Instructing the Clergy and of training them up in the Studies of Divinity And partly from those great stirs which hapned in so many parts of Christendom upon his Quarrel Not that I can imagine such hot contentions should arise in France England and Italy as 't is plain there were purely upon the personal account of Berengarius For it is impossible to conceive how one single Frenchman though of the greatest Note could engage such distant Numbers in a common Controversie by any New Doctrines of his own No their general Concurrence with him is a plain sign that they had a deeply radicated Love for the Ancient Truth however it was Deprest by the then prevailing Patrons of the Paschasian phancy that they were well prepared for a publick Declaration of the Truth and that they waited only for a fair Opportunity of declaring it and for some such Leading Man as Berengarius was to appear in the Head of them So you know it was at the time of the Reformationl people had had such bitter Experience of the Spirit of Popery that 't was every where Hated and the World was well disposed for the entertainment of Christ's Religion so that when Luther cryed out against Indulgences and Priest-craft the cry went presently round not so much for Luthers sake as for the respect men had for Truth and honesty and out of their detestation of a Lucrative contrivance which some Popes and their fellow work men had formed to oppress the world Thus a great part of Christendom seems to have been dispos'd in Berengarius his days if that had been God's time for a general Reformation But the Sins of the World were to be punish'd and God in his Wisdom chose rather to bring good out of evil afterwards than to prevent the evil at that time As to Berengarius his Principles I must intreat you to observe that his First opinion seems to have been that the Bread and Wine are barely Figures and Shadows without the invisible thing if we may believe those that wrote against him Lancfranck Adelmannus Durandus of Liege and especially Guitmund But searching more narrowly into this point and finding how obnoxious he was to his adversaries who could not but object against him the sense of the whole Catholick Church his Opinion afterwards rose higher as to this and his settled Judgement was That the Lancfranck de Euchar. Sacram Sacrifice of the Church consisteth of two things the visible Sacrament and the Thing of the Sacrament that is the spiritual Body of Christ as the Ancients themselves spake And to this exactly agrees what Guitmund fairly said of the Berengarians that they were divided in their positive Opinions some of them believing that there is Berengariani multum in hoe differunt quod alii nihil omnino de Corpore Sanguine Domini Sacramentis istis in esse sed tantummodo umbras hoec figur as esse dicant Alii verò dicunt ibi Corpus Sanguinem Domini revera sed latenter continueri ut sumi possint quodammodo ut ita dixerim impanari Et hanc ipsius Berengarii subtiliorem esse Sententiam aiunt Guitmund de Veritate Euchar. lib. 1. non procul ab initio nothing at all of the Lords Body and Bloud in the Sacrament but that the Symbols are shadows and figures only whereas others of them confest the Lords Body and Blood to be there truly but secretly and as it were joyned with the Bread and Wine that they may be received which they say saith Guitmund is the more subtile Opinion of Berengarius himself So that the main of the Controversie wherein Berengarius and his Party where concern'd lay in these two Negative Points which are now the great Points in Controversie between us and the Church of Rome 1. They utterly opposed the Paschasian Error of a corporal Presence 2. They absolutely denied any Essential change of the Nature and Substance of the Bread and Wine For now the Evil began to swel to a very high degree Tho I do Isti enim licet inter se diversi sint contra nos tamen unam habent penè sententiam argumentis nituntur eisdem Utrisque enim nibil de pane vino mutari essentialiter asserunt Id. not yet find the word used yet the Doctrine of Transubstantiation began now in this Age in the 11. Century to be introduced as an Additional Doctrine which some endeavoured to obtrude upon the World because they found it impossible for them to maintain their new Paschasian conceit of a corporal Presence without maintaining lustily this Newer fancy of a substantial change of the Sacramental Elements But the extream Novelty of this Opinion will easily appear from these following Considerations 1. Cardinal De sacr Euch. lib. 1. cap. 1. Bellarmine tho he seldome yields any thing that is against him and when he doth 't is with a sparing hand and against His own Will yet he confesseth that Berengarius was not reputed the first Inventer of his Error as he is pleased to call it Durandus the Bishop of Liege who wrote against Berengarius Qualiter Bruno Andegavensis Episcopus item Berengarius Turonensis antiquas hoereses modernis temporibus introducendo c.