difficulty is the same For is not This of which our Lord speaks the same that hee took If you say not so because hee gave thanks before hee said This is my Body This is my Bloud at least it must be that which hee broke after hee had given thanks and that of necessity is the same bread which hee took as the same wine For to imagine that This demonstrates bread and wine which when hee sayes is my Body and Bloud are then abolished to make room for the Body and Bloud is that which his affirmation is will by no means allow requiring that which it affirmeth to be verified for that time which it demonstrateth or presenteth to the understanding So that This must be the Body and Bloud of Christ at such time as it is This that is that Bread and that Wine which Gods word demonstrateth In fine whatsoever it is which This may be said to demonstrate besides Bread and Wine it will be unpossible to make appear that the Disciples understood that which the Scriptures whereby wee must learn what they understood expresse not But this is not all When S. Matthew sayes I will drink no more of this production of the Vine which S. Luke sayes that our Lord said before the consecration of the Sacrament either wee must say that hee repeated the same words which is nothing unlikely seeing the tender of the cup at which they were said is repeated by our Lord as it is agreed upon that the Jewes at the Supper of the Passeover did customarily repeat the same And this answer takes away all imputation of confusion from the text of S. Matthew But if any man stand upon it that these words were said onely before the consecration though they are repeated by S. Matthew after it at the delivering of the cup and therefore that it is not called wine which is in the cup after the consecration If hee consider how pertinently hee makes S. Matthew bring in this saying upon the delivery of the cup not supposing that to be wine which was in it hee will finde himself never a whit easied by that escape For how grosse were it for him to put these sayings together This is my bloud of the New Testament which is shed for many to the remission of sins And I say unto you I will drink no more of this production of the Vine had hee not taken that which was in the cup for wine The same holds in the words of S. Mark having followed S. Matthew in this So when S. Paul makes our Lord say Take eat this is my Body which is broken for you is it not manifest that breaking is properly said of bread of a body of flesh not without some impropriety to be understood by that which is common to bread and to a body of flesh And would S. Paul have used a term which necessarily referrs him that hears it to bread were it not bread which our Lord brake after the consecration of the Sacrament in resemblance wherewith this body is said to be broken because it was wounded But when the same S. Paul speaking of that which they take which they eat which they drink which certainly they do after the consecration when it is the Sacrament saith So oft as yee eat this bread and drink this cup yee declare the Lords death till hee come Therefore whoso eateth this bread and drinketh this cup unworthily is guilty of the body and bloud of Christ Is there then any reason left why wee should not believe bread to be bread and wine to be wine when the word of God sayes it but that whatsoever the word of God say wee are resolved of our prejudice And when hee saith again Let a man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup speaketh hee of eating and drinking any thing else but that which all Christians receive in the Sacrament of the Eucharist If any thing can possibly be more manifest than this it is that which hee addeth arguing that all Christians are one Body â—s the bread is one to wit which they eat because they all partake of onâ— bread And therefore when hee saith further The cup of blessing which weâ— blesse is it not the communion of the bloud of Christ The bread which wee break is it not the communion of the body of Christ I will not insist upon this that it is called bread after the blessing though S. Matthew observeth that our Lord calleth it so after giving of thanks because the cup may be called the cup of blessing which wee blesse before the blessing be past and done But I say confidently that to make our Lord say that the bread is the communion of the Body and the cup that is the wine that is in the cup which is blessed for what else can be understood to be in the cup with correspondence to bread is the communion of the bloud of Christ is to make him say that which hee did not mean unlesse hee did mean that that is bread and wine whereby Christians communicate in the body and bloud of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist But shall this evidence of the nature and substance of Bread and Wine remaining in the Sacrament of the Eucharist even when it is a Sacrament that is when it is received either deface or efface the evidence which the same Scriptures yield us of the truth of Christs body and blood brought forth and made to be in the Sacrament of the Eucharist by making it to be that Sacrament Surely wee must not suffer such a conceit to prossesse us unlesse wee will offer the same violence to the manifest and expresse words of the Scripture For of necessity when our Lord saith This is my body this is my blood either wee must make is to stand for signifieth and This is my body this is my bloud to be more than this is a sign of my body and bloud Or else the word is will inforce the elements to be called the body and bloud of Christ at that time and for that time when they are not yet received That is to say whether hee that receives them who think it for their advantage to maintain that This is my body and my bloud signifies no more but this is a sign of my body and bloud to advise how they can ground the true real participation of the body and bloud of Christ in by the Sacrament of the Eucharist upon the Scripture allowing no more than the signification of the body bloud of Christ by that Sacrament to be declared in those words of the Scripture that describe the institution of it For that a man receives the body and bloud of Christ spiritually through faith in receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist is no more than hee does in not receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist if by the act of a living faith wee do eat the flesh of Christ and drink his
the bread and the wine to remain in the Sacrament of the Eucharist as sense informs and the word of God inforces if the same word of God assirm there to be also the body and bloud of Christ what remaineth but that bread and wine by nature and bodily substance be also the bodily flesh and bloud of Christ by mystical representation in that sense which I determined even now and by spiritual grace For what reason can be imagined why the material presence of bread and wine in bodily substance should hinder the mystical and spiritual presence of the body and bloud of Christ as in a Sacrament whereby they are tendered of grace to them that receive Shall they be ever a whit the more present in this sense if the substance of bread and wine be abolished than if it be not Certainly unlesse wee believe the spiritual grace of Christs body and bloud in the Sacrament of the Eucharist to possesse those dimensions which the Elements hold and if so then are they not there Sacramentally and mystically but bodily and materially wee can give no reason why the bodily presence of the Elements should hinder it So farr is this from being strange to the nature and custome of humane speech that supposing the invisible presence of one thing in another and with another which is visibly present it cannot otherwise be expressed than by saying this is that though every man know what distance there is between their natures The Dove in the which the Holy Ghost was seen to come down and rest upon our Lord the fiery Tongues in which the Holy Ghost rested upon the Apostles the fire and the whirlewinde in the which Gods Angels attend upon him and upon his commands in regard whereof it is said Psalm CIV 4. Hee maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flaming fire are they not as truly said to be the Holy Ghost or those Angels as the Holy Ghost or those Angels is said to come down to rest or to move because those things rest and come down or move whereas the Holy Ghost otherwise can neither rest nor come down nor those Angels move as the fire or the winde moves in which they are I know it may be said that neither the Dove nor those Tongues are called the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures Nor do I intend to build upon any supposition that they are This I say whosoever understands the capacity of words serving for instruments to signifie mens mindes may firmly conclude rhat they may as well be said to be the Holy Ghost as it may be said that the Holy Ghost came down because the Dove came down For can there be any occasion for a man of sense to conceive cloven Tongues of fire to be the Godhead of the Holy Ghost because they are called the Holy Ghost in regard they are used to demonstrate the presence of it when no man complains that any man of sense hath occasion to mistake the God-head to move because the Holy Ghost is said to come down in the bodily shape of a Dove I know it may be said and is said that in the Text of the Psalm that I quoted it is not to be translated winds but spirits or spiritual substances because the Apostle having alleged it to show the difference between them and our Lord Christ Ebr. I. 7 14. inferreth that they are ministring Spirits signifying thereby not winds but that which Christians signifie by the name of spiritual substances And I yield that they are so called not onely in the common language of Christians but in the Apostle also here and by our Lord speaking in the common phrase of Gods people when hee saith A spirit hath not flesh and bones as yee see mee have Luke XXIV 39. upon occasion of that appearance of Gods majesty which is either presented to or described by the Prophets in the Old Testament with his Throne attended by Angels the visible signs of whose presence are whirlewind and fire So in the place quoted Psalm CIV 2. That puts on light for a robe stretches the heavens as a curtain laies the beams of his chambers in the waters makes the clouds his chariot and walks upon the wings of the winde Whereupon followes That makes his Angels Spirits or Winds and his Ministers a flame of fire which answers winds not spiritual substances Compare the description of Gods appearance Psal L. 3. Our God shall come and shall not keep silence a consuming fire shall go before him and be very tempestuous round about either with the visions of the Prophet Ezekiel I. and Daniel VII or with the description of the same laid down Psalm XVIII 10-14 and you will have reason to say as I do Especially when you reade Hee rode upon a Cherub and did fly hee came flying upon the wings of the wind where a Cherub in the first clause is the wind in the second The same sense being repeted according to the perpetual custome of the Psalms So when Angels appeared in the shape of men was it not true to say this is an Angel but wee must suppose the nature of man abolished If the Holy Ghost and Angels be of spiritual nature the flesh and the bloud of Christ bodily then are they at as great distance from the Dove from the Tongues from the Fire from the Wind from the men in which they appeared as the flesh and bloud of Christ from the elements of the Eucharist Nor is the mystical and Sacramental presence of the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist ever a whit more destructive to the bodily presence of the elements then the invisible presence of the Holy Ghost or Angels to the visible presence of those things in which they were Nay if I may without offense allege that which is most pertinent to this purpose not being usually alleged in it That maner of speech which all orthodoxe Christians use in calling the person of our Lord Christ either God or Man according to the nature which they intend chiefly to signifie or in ascribing the properties of each nature to the said person respectively to the subject of their speech hath no other ground than this which I speak of For all affirmatives Philosophers know signifie the subject that a man speaks of to be the very same thing with that which is attributed to it As when this wall is said to be white this wall is the same subject with this white Therefore when a thing is said to be that which in nature wee see it is not as when a mans picture is said to be hee the saying though extremely proper if you regard what use the elegance of speech requires is unproper to the right understanding of the nature of the things wee speak of though a man would not be so well understood commonly if hee should go about to explain his meaning by more or other words As I conceive I am not so well understood in writing thus
all Ecclesiastical Writers do with one mouth bear witnesse to the presence of the Body and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist Neither will any one of them be found to asscribe it to any thing but the Consecration or that to any Faith but that upon which the Church professeth to proceed to the celebrating of it And upon this account when they speak of the Elements supposing the Consecration to have passed upon them they alwaies call them by the name not of their bodily substance but of the body and bloud of Christ which they are become Justine in the place afore quoted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For wee take them not as common bread and drink but as our Saviour Jesus Christ being incarnate by the Word of God hath both flesh and bloud for our salvation so are wee taught that this food which thanks have been given for by the prayer of that Word which came from him by the change whereof are our bloud and flesh nourished is both the flesh and bloud of that incarnate Jesus Where by comparing the Eucharist with the flesh and bloud of Christ incarnate wherein divers of the Fathers have followed him hee justifies that reason of expounding This is my body this is my bloud which I have drawn from the communication of the properties of the several natures in our Lord Christ incarnate But chiefly you see the Elements are made the body and bloud of Christ by virtue of the Consecration as by the Incarnation humane flesh became the flesh and bloud of Christ So Irenâ—us IV. 34. Quemadmodum qui à terrâ— panis percipiens invocationem Dei jam non communis panis est sed Eucharistia ex duabus rebus constans terrenà coelesti Sic corpora nostra percipientia Eucharistiam â—am non sunt corruptibilia spem resurrectionis â—â—bentia As the bread that comes from the earth receiving the invocation of God upon it is not now common bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things the â—arâ—â—ly and the heavenly So also our bodies receiving the Eucharist are not now corruptible having the hope of rising again For hee had argued afore that because our flesh is nourished by the body and bloud of Christ which if they were not in the Eucharist it could not be therefore they shall rise again By virtue therefore of the conâ—ecration they are there not by the faith of him thâ—t receives according to henaeus Tertul. de Resur cap. VIII Caro corpore sanguine Christi vescitur ut anima de Deo saginetur The flesh feeds on the body and bloud of Christ that the soul may be fatned with God Origen in diver loc Hom. V. is the â—â—rst that adviâ—es to say with the Cenâ—uâ—ion when thou receiveâ—â— the Eucharist Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof For then the Lord comes under thy roof saith Origen S. Cyprian upon the Lords Prayer having said that Christ is our bread makes that the daily bread which wee pray for to wit in the Eucharist And in his book de lapsis makes it to be invading and laying violent hands upon the body of Christ for them who had fallen away in persecution to presse upon the Communion without Penance going afore The Council of Nicâ—a in Gelasius Cyzicenus II. 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us not basely consider the bread and the cup set before us but lifting up our mindes let us conceive by faith that there lies upon that holy Table the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world sacrificed without sacrificing by Priests And that wee receiving truly his precious body and bloud S. Hilary de Trin. VIII censuring the Arians who would have the Son to be one with the Father as wee are maintains that wee are not onely by obedience of will but naturally united to Christ because as hee truly took our nature so wee truly take the flesh of his body in the Sacrament Our Lord having said My flesh is truly meat and my bloud truly drink And Hee that cats my flesh and drink my bloud dwells in mee and I in him And much more to the same purpose which could signifie nothing did not our bodies feeding upon the Elements feed upon that which is truly the body and bloud of Christ in the Sacrament or mystically not by virtue of our feeding which follows but by virtue of the Consecration which goes before For this natural union of the body with that which feeds it serves S. Hilary for the argument of that unity which the Son hath with the Father by nature being the union of our flesh with the flesh of Christ by virtue of our flesh united to the Word incarnate S. Cyril of Jerusalem Catech. Mystag IV. V. argueth that Christ having said of the bread and of the cup This is my body this is my bloud who otherwhiles changed water into wine wee are not to doubt that wee receive his body and bloud under the form of bread and wine And therefore wee are not to look on them as plain bread and wine but as the body and bloud of Christ hee having declared it All this by Sanctification of the Holy Ghost according to the Prayer of the Church But I will go no further in rehâ—arsing the texts of the Fathers which are to be found in all books of Controversies concerning this for the examination of them requires a volume on purpose It shall be enough that they all acknowledg the Elements to be changed translated and turned into the substance of Christs body and bloud though as in a Sacrament that is mystically Yet therefore by virtue of the Consecration not of his faith that receives On the other side that this change is to be understood with that abatement which the nature and substance of the Elements requires supposing it to remain the same as it was I will first presume from those very Authors which I have quoted For would not Justine have us take that for bread which hee saith wee are not to take for common bread when hee saith further that our bodies are nourished by it which by the flesh of our Lord they are not Would not Irenaeus have us think the Bread to be the earthly thing as well as the Body the heavenly when hee saies the Eucharist consists of both Tertullian ad Vxorem II. 5. perswades his wife not to marry a Gentile when hee is dead because when hee perceives her to receive the Eucharist and knows it to be bread hee believes it not to be that which Christians call it Origen when hee tells upon Mat. XV. 11. that it was called the bread of our Lorâ— gives no man in his wits occasion to think that the Elements vanish When hee saith further that it is not the bread but that which was said upon it which profits him that worthily receives it hee would have us take it for what it was whatsoever it is become S. Cyprian saith
places to burn the remains of the Sacrament as Hesychiuâ— in Levit. VIII witnesseth or at Constantinople to give them to School-boies had they not conceived the change of the elements to be in order to the use of them and that this use and that which is done in order thereunto expireth when the occasion of giving them to those for whom the Church interideth them ceaseth And upon these premises I conclude that as it is by no means to be denied that the elements are really changed translated turned and converted into the body and bloud of Christ so that whoso receiveth them with a living faith is spiritually nourished by the same hee that with a dead faith is guilty of crucifying Christ Yet is not this change destructive to the bodily substance of the elements but cumulative of them with the spiritual grace of Christs body and bloud So that the body and bloud of Christ in the Sacrament turns to the nourishment of the body whether the body and bloud in the truth turn to the nourishment or the damnation of the soul And upon these terms if I reade in S. Cyril of Jerusalem where afore that the elements in the Eucharist are not bread and wine I should think my self very simple to imagine that therefore S. Cyril believed Transubstantiation Knowing as any man that pretends to understand the nature and use of language ought to know that any thing may be absolutely denied to be that which in some sort it is not when a man intends to contest that in some sort it is not For so S. Cyril saith that the elements are not bread and wine to signifie that they are not bare bread and wine but mystically the body and bloud of Christ that is as in the Sacrament of it And to speak properly whoso believes Transubstantiation ought not to believe that the elements are changed into the body and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist For wheresoever there is a change there something of the subject that is changed ought to remain though it be not sensible Whereas in Transubstantiation the whole subject of Christs body and bloud is imagined to be substitured in stead of bread and wine under their dimensions and accidents Which is the absolute ceasing of them to be and the beginning of the thing signified not absolutely to be but to be under those dimenâ—ions So that there remains no subject for that change which the Fathers understand the accidents remaining unchanged the substance of the terms having nothing common to bear the passion of that change which must be attributed to it But what can be said to them that affirm in expresse terms that the substance of the elements remains unchanged Who are so many as may very well serve to interrupt and defeat any pretense of Tradition for the ceasing of them For there can be no pretense that any thing should belong to the common Faith of the Church the contrary whereof it hath been free for men of note and rank in the Church to professe The Author de Sacramentis in S. Ambrose IV. 4. Si ergò tanta vis est in sermone Domini Jesu ut incipiant esse quae non â—rant quantò magis operatorius est ut sint quae erant in aliud commutentur If then there is that force in the word of the Lord Jesus that those things should begin to be which were not How much more is it so operative that remaining what they were they be changed into what they were not Lanâ—ranck I see contra Berengarium hath questioned the reading of these words by saying that other Copies reade ut quae erant in aliud commutentur But I see also that hee had so little confidence in those Copies that â—ee held himself obliged to expound the other reading and say that they remain what they were in their accidents Which whether it serve the turn let common reason judge I see also that Guitmund Bishop of Aversa hath owned Berengarius his reading de Sacram. III. and therefore have no reason to distrust those who affirm that it is owned by Algerus Paschasius Berâ—ram Ives of Chartres Gratiane and P. Lombard in their quotations of it The words of S. Chrysostome Epistolâ ad Caesarium contra Apollin are these Sicut antetequam sanctificetur panis panem nominamus divinâ autem sanctificante gratiâ mediante Sacerdote liberatus quidem est ab appellatione panis dignus autem habitus est Demini corporis appellatione etsi natura panis in ipso permansit divinâ mundante naturâ As before the bread be consecrated wee call it bread But when the grace of God hath sanctified by the means of the Priest it quitteth the name of bread and is held worthy of the title of the Lords Body though the nature of bread remain in it So also here the divine nature cleansing Cardinal Bellarmine de Euchar. 22. allegeth that there is no such Epistle of S. Chrysostomes neither is it found in his works P. Martyr reports it as hee found it in a written Copy of the Library at Florence And it is found in the Bibliotheca Patrum and in several pieces collected by Canisius What would it then avail that it were not S. Chrysostomes but some other ancient Church Writers For neither the mater of the comparison between the inâ—amation and the Eucharist nor the terms in which it is delivered will ever render it suspicious to any man that observes those conceptions and expressions of the Fathers which I have reported in the premises Gelasius de dâ—abus naturis in Christo Certè sacramenta quâ— sumimus corporis sanguinis Christi divina res est prâ—â—ter quod per eadem divinae efficimur consortes naturae Et tamen esse non deâ—init substantia vel natura panis vini Certainly the mysteries of the body and bloud of Christ which wee receive is a thing divine Therefore by the means of them wee become also partakers of the divine nature And yet ceaseth not to be the naâ—uâ—e and substance of bread and wine By and by Sicut in hanc transeunt scilicet divinam Spiritu Sancto perficiente substantiam permanent tamen in suâ proprietate naturae As by the operation of the Holy Ghost they passe into this to wit a divine substance and yet remain in the property of their own nature Ephrem Patriarch of Antiochia in Photius Cod. CCXXIX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So also the Body of Christ which believers receive neither departs from the sensible substance nor is divided from the intelligible grate And spiritual baptisme which becometh and is one whole preserves the property of the sensible substance the water I mean yet looses not that which it is become This coâ—parison makes mee adde here that passage of those extractions out of Theodotus which is found at the end of Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the bread of the Eucharist and the oile of the Chrâ—â—â—ne which
comparison S. Cyril of Jerusalem uses in this case is sanctified by virtue of the Name of Christ remaining the same for sensible substance for I confidently maintain that the negative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 destroyes the sense as the comparison justifies for who sayes that the oile of the Chrisme or the water of Baptisme is changed for substance but for force changed into a spiritual virtue So also the water both that is exâ—rcized and that which Baptisme is done with not onely retains the worse but also receiveth sanctification Theodoret Dial. I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our Lord would have those that receive the divine mysteries not regard the nature of the things they see but upon the change of their names believe the change which grace effecteth For hee who called his natural body corn and bread and again named himself the Vine honours the visible Symboles with the name of his body and bloud not changing the nature but adding his grace to it And Dial. II. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For neither do the mystical signes after consecration depart from their own nature but remain in the same substance and figure and form and may be seen and touched as afore The Pâ—eface to the Romane Edition of these Dialogues â—aith that Theodoret uses this language because the Church had as yet decreed nothing in this point An excuse much like the censure of the Epistles of Isidore of Pâ—lusium printed at Anwerpe which are licenced as containing nothing contrary to faith oâ— good manners For if the Church is able to make new Articles of Faith then may whosoever licenses books passe this censure because by the act of the Church making that Faith which was not so afore the dead might incurr the contrary censure But supposing that the Church is not able to do such an act that which was not contrary to the Faith when Theodoret writ it can never be contrary to it I will end with Facundus because the formal terms of my opinion are contained in his words Sicut Sacramentum corporis sanguinis ejus quod est in pane poculo consecrato corpus ejus sanguinem dicimus non quòd propriè corpus ejus sit panis poculum sanguis sed quod in se mysterium corporis ejus sanguinisque contineant Hinc ipse Dominus benedictum panem calicem quem discipulis tradidit corpus sanguinem suum vocavit As wee call the Sacrament of his body and bloud which is in the consecrated bread and cup his body and bloud Not because the bread is properly his body and the cup his bloud but because they contain in them the mystery of his body and bloud Whereupon our Lord himself also called the bread and cup which having blessed hee delivered to his disciples his body and bloud This is in few words the sense of the whole Church concerning this businesse Ignatius in his Epistle to the Church of Smyrna saith that the Gnosticks forbore the Eucharist because they believed not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins which the Lord raised again by his goodnesse But why believed they not this because they would not believe Transubstantiation or because they would not believe that our Lord Christ had flesh Let Tertullianâ— speak contra Marc. IV. Acceptum panem distributum discipulis corpus suum illum fecit Hoc est corpus meum dicendo id est figura corporis mei Figura autem non fuisset nisi veritatis esset corpus Caeterùm vacua res quod est phantasma figuram capere non posset That bread which hee took and distributed to his disciples hee made his body saying This is my body That is the figure of my body But the figure it had not been if the truth of his body were not Otherwise an empty thing such as an apparition is â—ad not been capable of a figure For as Maximus saith in the third of those Dialogues against the Marcionists that go under Origens name what body and bloud was that whereof hee ministred the bread and the cup for signs and images commanding the Disciples to renew the remembrance of them by the â—ame As for that which is alleged out of Irenaeus I. 9. of Marcus the Magician and Heretick Pro calice enim vino mixto â—ingens se gratias agere in multum extendens sermâ—nem invocationis purpureum rubicundum apparere facit uâ— putetur ea Gratia ab eis quae sunt super omnia suum sanguinem stillare in illius caliâ—em l. illum per invocationem ejus Making as though hee would give thanks for the cup mixed with wine and inlarging the word of invocation by which I said the Eucharist is consecrated to much length hee makes it to appear purple and red That men may think that Grace drops the bloud thereof from the Powers over all into that cup by the means of his invocation For had Irenaeus said that this Magician turned the wine into the substance of bloud in truth or in appearance it might have been alleged that the Christians whose Sacrament this Magician counterfeited though other Gnosticks as Ignatius saith quite balked the Eucharist and used it not believed that to be bodily bloud which is in the chalice and that therefore hee did it But when hee saith onely that hee made it appear purple and red perhaps hee used white wine which by juggling hee made seem red However there is no appearance that because hee made that look red which was in the cup therefore those Christians whom hee labored thereby to seduce did believe the bodily substance of Christs bloud to be in the Eucharist in stead of the substance of wine and under the dimensions of it It remains that I take notice in as few words as is possible of those contentions that have passed about this presence and the dissiculties which Transubstanhath found in getting the footing which it hath in the Western Church The book which Paschasius Radbertus Abbot of Corby near Arniens writ under the Sons of Charles the Great to prove that the Body of Christ in the Eucharist is that same which was born of the Virgin is yet extant Though the more curious finde no such thing as Transubstantiation in it but rather a conceit of the impanation of Christs body if such a hideous term may passe that is that the God-head of our Lord Christ being by the operation of the Holy Ghost united to the elements the body and bloud of Christ is by the same means united to the fame A conceit not farr wide of that which Rupertus Abbot of Duitsh near Cullen about the year MCX teacheth that the bread is assumed by the Word of God to be his body as that is his body which was formed of the flesh of the Virgin Nor is there in effect much difference between this conceit and that of Consubstantiation at least according to those that ground
his Crosse faithfully resolve to undertake it do by the Spirit eat his flesh and drink his bloud Therefore when in correspondence hereunto hee pretends to institute the Sacrament of the Eucharist that they who eat his flesh and drink his bloud in that Sacrament may eat and drink the same spiritually as unlesse they crucifie him again they cannot chuse but do it behoves indeed that hee procure the flesh and bloud of Christ to be there by the operation of that Spirit which framed them for an habitation to it self in the womb of the Virgin that so the receiving of his flesh and bloud may be the means of conveying his Spirit But how is it requisite that they be there in bodily substance as if the mystical presence of them were not a sufficient means to convey his Spirit which we see is conveyed by the meer spiritual consideration and resolution of a lively and effectual faith S. Paul writes thus to the Corinthians I would not that you should be ignorant Brethren how that all our Fathers did eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink For they drank of the spiritual rock that went with them Now that rock was Christ 1 Cor. X. 1 3 4. The meat and drink of the Fathers in the wilderness can no otherwise be understood to be spiritual then as I have proved the Law of Moses to be spiritual That is as intimating spiritual promises it intimates a contract for spiritual obedience So S. Pauls argument holds If they who were sustained by God in their travel to the Land of Promise not keeping their Covenant with God fell in the wildernesse Then shall it not serve our turn that being baptized wee are fed by the Eucharist to everlasting life if wee perform not that which by our Baptism wee undertake The Rock then and the Mâ—nnâ— were spiritual meat and drink because they signified the flesh and the bloud of Christ crucified for us Which who so believes as thereupon to undertake Christianity our Lord when hee had not yet instituted the Eucharist promiseth that hee shall be nourished by his flesh and bloud to life everlasting The effect of which promise all Christians find that by the assistance of his Spirit overcome the world in approving themselves Christians When our Lord annexed the promise of his Spirit to his Baptisme and Eucharist by instituting those Sacraments hee tied the spiritual eating and drinking of his body and bloud to the Sacramental in respect of all them whom the affirmative Precepts of using those Sacraments should oblige Christ then was the food and the drink of them who attained Salvation under Moses Law because by the faith of Christ to be crucified they were saved as wee by the faith of Christ crucified But to follow God in hope of Salvation by Christ to come is not the same as to undertake that Christianity which by his coming hee hath taught us The signs of good things to coâ—â—â—ed onely those that were led by the promise of them The rest found by them onely the nourishment of their bodies in their travel to the Land of promise But when our Lord having promised his flesh and bloud for food to those Souls that should conform themselves to his Crosse instituteth the Eucharist and confineth the spiritual eating and drinking of his flesh and bloud to it so far as the precept thereof obligeth Shall hee not be understood to promise his body and bloud by that Sacrament without which hee will not grant it to those that are tied to the Sacrament and neglect it The presence of his body and bloud in the Sacrament is that which makes good the promise of his body and bloud made before the instituting of the Sacrament to them who are obliged to use the Sacrament by the institution of it CHAP. III. That the presence of Christs body in the Eucharist depends not upon the living Faith of him that receives but upon the true profession of Christianity in the Church that celebrates The Scriptures that are alleged for the dependence of it upon the communication of the properties They conclude not the sense of them by whom they are alleged How the Scripture confineth the flesh of Christ to the Heavens IF these things be true it will be requisite that wee acknowledge a change to be wrought in the Elements by the consecration of them into the Sacrament For how should they come to be that which they were not before to wit the body and bloud of Christ without any change And in regard of this change the Elements are no more called by the name of their nature and kind after the consecration but by the name of that which they are become Not as if the substance thereof were abolished but because it remains no more considerable to Christians who do not nor are to look upon this Sacrament with any account of what it may be to the nourishment of their bodies by the nature of the Elements but what it may be to the nourishment of their Souls by the Spirit of God assisting in and with his flesh mystically present in it But this change consisting in the assistance of the Holy Ghost which makes the Elements in which it dwells the body and bloud of Christ it is not necessary that wee acknowledge the bodily substance of them to be any way abolished Nay as I am perswaded that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist cannot be better expressed than by that term which the Council of Trent useth calling it a Sacrament and saying that the flesh and bloud of Christ is Sacramentally there So there is nothing more demonstrative to mee that no such thing as the abolishing of the Elements is revealed by the Scriptures than that the sense of them is so fully satisfied by this term So that the anathema which it decreeth against them that do not believe them to be abolished can by no means be grounded upon the Scriptures Nor do I think the term any lesse fit or serviceable because it serves them to signifie the Local presence of Christs body and bloud under the dimensions of the Elements the substance of them being gone For I shall not be obliged to grant that the Sacrament of Christs body and blood can properly be understood supposing the sign and the thing signified to be both the same subject the dimensions of the Elements being become the dimensions of Christs body and bloud and by the means of them all the bodily accidents of the Elements subsisting in the same And therefore the Sacramental presence of Christs body and bloud cannot properly be maintained unlesse acknowledging the true being and presence of the thing signified wee acknowledge also the sign to remain But if a man demand further how I understand the body and bloud of Christ to be present in or with or under the Elements when I say they are in and with and under them as in and with and under a
expresly that it was wine which our Lord calls his bloud And that the wine of the Chalice to wit already consecrated demonstrates his bloud In his Epistle against those who consecrated in water alone The Council of Nicaea calls it Bread which the eye of Faith discerns to be the Lamb of God S. Hilary will have us truly to receive the body and bloud of Christ as Justine saith that our bodies are nourished by it but hee adds in Sacramento to signifie the abatement which I speak of that is mystically and as in a Sacrament S. Cyril when hee saith wee are not to look upon the Elements as plain or bare or simple bread and wine saith that wee may look upon it as Bread and wine though that is not it which profits him that worthily receives it as Origen said There are a great many more that have named and described the Elements after consecration by the name of their nature and substance and say that the bread and the wine become and are the body and bloud of Christ Ignatius Epist ad Philadelph Irenâ—us V. 2. Clemens Strom. I. Paedag. II. 2. Tatian before Irenaeus in Diatessaron Constitutiones Apostol VIII 12. Tertullian de Oratione cap. VI. contra Marcionem IV. 40. III. 19. Gregory Nyssene de Baptismo Origen contra Celsum VIII Athanasius in Synopsi Eusebius in Parallelis Damasceni S. Cyril Catech. Mystag I. III. Macarius Hom. XXVII Gaudentius Brixiensis in Exodum Serm. II. S. Austine de Civitate Dei XVII 5. de diversis Serm. XLIV cap. XXVIII Sermone LXXXIIII Sermone LXXXVII Sermone ad Baptizatos S. Jer. in Esaiae LXVI lib. ult in Jeremiae XXXI lib. VI. Isidore de Offic. Eccles I. 18. In fine the Canon of the Masse it self prayes that the Holy Ghosts coming down may make this Bread and this Cup the Body and Bloud of Christ And certainly the Romane Masse expresses a manifest abatement of the common and usual sense of the body and bloud of Christ unto that sense which is proper to the intent and subject of them who speak of this Sacrament when the Church in the consecration prayes ut nobis corpus fiat Dilectissimi Filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi That they may become the Body and bloud of thy most dearly beloved Son our Lord Christ Jesus to us No man that understands Latine and sense will say it is the same thing for the Elements to become the body and bloud of Christ as to become the body and bloud of Christ to those that receive which imports no more than thaâ— which I have said And yet there is no more said in those Liturgies which pray that the Spirit of God may make them the flesh and bloud of Christ to this intent and effect that those which received them may be filled with the grace of his Spirit For the expression of this effect and intent limits the common signification of the words to that which is proper to this action of the Eucharist as I have delivered it In the words of S. Ambrose de iis qui initiantur myst cap. XI ante consecrationem alia species nominatur post consecrationem caro sanguis Christi appellatur Before the consecration it is named another kinde After the consecration it is called the flesh and bloud of Christ No man that understands Latine can conceive the word species to signifie the outward appearance but the substance and nature of those kindes For so wee call outlandish kindes spices not the appearance of their outward accidents And in the Romane Laws species an non are the kindes that are stored up for men cannot live upon the outward accidents of them Therefore when S. Austine saith That the Eucharist consists of two things visibili elementorum specie invisibili D. N. J. C. carne sanguine hee means that it consists of the nature and substance of the elements which is visible as of the body and bloud of our Lord Christ which are invisible Again when S. Ambrose sayes that they are called the Body and Bloud of Christ hee signifies that abatement in the property of his words that requires not the absence of the elements As when S. Austine sayes in Gratian de Consecratione distinct II. Can. Hoc est Coelestis panis qui est caro Christi suo modo vocatur corpus Christi cùm reverà sit Sacramentum corporis Christi That heavenly bread which is the flesh of Christ is after the maner of it called the body of Christ whereas it is indeed the Sacrament of the body of Christ The same abatement it is that S. Cyril afore Catech. Myst IV. the Council of Nicâ—a Victor Antioch in Marci XIV 22. and Theodoret Dial. III. signifie when they will us not to consider the elements but the things which they signifie For does hee that wills us not to consider the bread and wine intend to say that there is no such thing there Or that our interest lies not in them but in the body and bloud of Christ which they â—ender us well and good So said Origen afore The same abatement is signified evidently by abundance of their sayings importing them to be called the body and bloud of Christ as types or antitypes for type and antitype differ not but as relative and correlative that is figures symboles images similitudes representations paterns pledges and riddles in fine as figures or sacraments of the same Not as if they contained not the thing signified which I have already settled but because the heavenly grace hinders not nor destroyes the earthly nature This language then is used by S. Gregory Nazianzene Orat. XLII calling the Passeover a more obscure Type of a Type By Ephrem de inscrutabili naturâ Dei By Theodoret Dial. I. II. III. By the Constitutions of the Apostles V. 13. VI. 29. VII 26. By S. Basils Liturgy By Gregory Nazianzene again in Gorgoniam By Eusebius de demonstrat Evang. I. 10. V. 3. VIII 1. By S. Chrysostome in Mat. Homil. LXXXII By Palladius in the life of S. Chrysostome Chap. VII VIII IX By Victor in Marci XIV By Dionysius Eccles Hierarch cap. III. By Origen in Mat. Hom. XXXV By Pope Gelasius de duabus naturis Christi By S. Ambrose de iis qui initiantur mysteriis cap. IX de Sacramentis IV. 4. VI. 1. By Tertulliane contra Marc. III. 19. IV. 14 40. By S. Austine contra Adimantum cap. XII in Psalmum III. Epist CLXIII de Trinitate III. 4. By Facundus Bishop of Hermiana in Africk pro tribus capitulis IX ult And truly the ancient Christians when they made a scrâ—ple of receiving the Eucharist when they were to fast least they should break their fast by receiving it as wee understand by Tertullian de Oratione cap. XIV must needs understand the nature of bread and wine to remain unlesse they thought they could break their fast upon the accidents of them Nor would it have been a custome in some
as they pretended to do thence calling themselves Gnosticks may be convinced by that evidence which the consent of all Churches in the same Faith tenders common sense for the Tradition of the Apostles Which saith hee wee must have stuck to had they left us nought in writing as those Christians then did which had not the use of leters Epiphanius Haer. LXI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Gods words do not need allegory but are to be understood as they are But they need consideration to know the force of each mater Tradition also is to be used For all is not to be had from Gods Sriptures For the Holy Apostles delivered some things in writing others by Tradition as the Apostle saith So Haer. LV. LXXV S. Jerome advers Lucif Multa quae per Traditionem in Ecclesiis observantur auctoritatem sibi scriptae Legis usurpà runt Orthod Non quidem abnuo hanc esse Ecclesiasticam consuetudinem Sed quale est ut Leges Ecclesiae ad haeresim transferas Many things that are observed in the Churches by Tradition have usurped to themselves the authority of written Law The Orthodox party answers I deny not the custome of the Church to be such But what a business is it that you transform the Lawes of the Church into Heresie S. Austine Epist CXVIII Illa autem quae non scripta sed tradita custodimus quae quidem toto terrarum orbe servantur dantur intelligi vel ab ipsis Apostolis vel plenariis Conciliis quorum est in Ecclesiâ saluberrima auctoritas commendata atque statuta retineri But those things which wee observe though not written but delivered being observed all over the world wee are given to understand that they are held as recommended and setled either by the Apostles themselves or by General Councils the authority whereof is very wholesom in the Church To the same purpose de Bapt. contra Donat. II 7. IV. 6 24. V. 23. de Vnitate Ecclesiae XIX contra Cresconiam I. 31 32 33. The supposed Dionysius the Areopagite Eccles Hierarchiae cap. I. mentioneth that instruction which the Apostles delivered without writing as a witnesse of the Church though not as a Scholar of the Apostles And Eusebius de demonstr Evang. I. 8. acknowledgeth written Lawes of the Apostles Concilium Gangrense in fine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And wee desire in summe that all things delivered by the Scriptures of God and the Traditions of the Apostles be observed in the Church And Greg. Nazianzene Orat. I. advers Jul. referrs those Ordinances which I quoted out of him afore to the Apostles as Authors of them Some sayings of the Fathers are also alleged to show that they held the Scriptures obscure Origen in Levit. Hom. V. allegorizeth the Law of burning some part of the peace-offerings to signifie that some things in the Scriptures are reserved to Gods knowledg least wee understand them otherwise than truth requires The same saith Irenaeus II. 47. even in the world to come that man may alwayes learn but God alwayes teach the maters of God S. Chrysostome in Joan. Hom. XL. observes that our Lord bids Search the Scriptures By digging as for mines or treasure So if they may be understood with searching yet it followeth not that every one is able to take that course in searching them that is requisite And Opus imperfectum in Mat. Hom. XLIV Ergò non sunt Scriptnrae clausae Sed obscurae quidem ut cum labore inveniantur non autem clausae ut nullo modo inveniantur Therefore the Scriptures are not shut Dark indeed they are so that they are found with pains But not shut so as by no means to be found Adding that as it is for the praise of them that finde them that they sought so for the condemnation of them that seek not that they understand them not S. Jerome ad Algasiam Quaest VIII Omnis Epistola ad Romanos miris obscuritatibus involuta est The whole Epistle to the Romanes is involved with marvellous darkness Epist ad Paulinum Hoc autem velamen non solùm in facie Moysi sed in Evangelistis Apostolis positum est This vail is not onely in Moses face but upon the Evangelists and Apostles And Nisi aperta fuerint universa quae scripta sunt ab eo qui habet clavem David qui aperit nemo claudit qui claudit nemo aperit nullo alio reserante pandentur Unless all things that are written be opened by him who hath the Key of David who opens and no man shuts who shuts and no man opens no man else will unlock and lay them forth Before him Origen in Exodum Hom. XII is afraid that the Evangelists and Apostles as well as the Prophets will prove not onely vailed but sealed to us as the Prophet saith unlesse wee both study and pray that the Lamb of the Tribe of Juda may open us the Seals of it Here I will advise the parties to consider how they can advantage themselves by those sayings of the Fathers which contain not the terms of that position which they do nothing unlesse they inforce Allege they what they can allege out of the Fathers to show that they acknowledg the Scriptures both sufficient and perspicuous I shall not be troubled at it but shall willingly concurr to acknowledg the same I acknowledg the Scriptures to be an Instrument of God though a Moral Instrument And I shall have a care not to acknowledg that God ever provided or used au Instrument that would not serve his turn Instrumentum Vetus Novum is a term in every mans mouth to signifie the Old and New Testament But there are Natural Instruments and there are Moral Instruments I say not that there is no third kind of Instruments for it may be there are Artificial Instruments of a several nature from both but my present purâ—ose obliges mee not to consider that difference When the substance or frame of the Instrument inables it to serve him that imployes it well may it be called a Natural Instrument as the parts of mans body or other creatures which execute the operations of the soul When neither the substance nor frame of the thing which that substance produces concurrs to the work to the which it is Instrumental but it is done meerly by the consent of mans will the reason is the same of Gods will if it be an Instrument between man and God then is it great reason why it should be called a Moral Instrument because the force of it lyes in the maners of those who use it to testifie those acts which they do not mean to transgresse Such as all civil records are in regard of the effect of those contracts or deeds which they come to witnesse The Old and New Testament are the records of two several Treaties or Contracts if you please that have passed between God and Man And therefore authentick because the writings of those who contracted those Treaties But does
consideration of his merits and sufferings which they neither acknowledge to have been tendred by our Lord nor accepted by the Father to any such effect or purpose But nothing hinders him therefore to acknowledge it the Grace of God that is a meere grant of his free goodnesse whatsoever condition he require thereby to qualifie him that imbraces it for the promises which it tenders provided it be such as he that it is tendred to can accomplish For that Faith which alone justifieth according to S. Paul he maketh to consist in believing the Truth of Christianity and sincerely indeavouring to bring forth the fruits thereof out of a grounded confidence of obtaining the said promises And that in consideration hereof those that thus believe are counted righteous before God that is treated as if they had been originally righteous and not sinners before they came to believe As for the Sacrament of Baptism making no more of a Church then of an arbitrary Society of so many as agree to serve God together in the same Faith it is no marvel if he make it a meer Ceremony the use whereof was during the time of the Disciples of our Lord and the conversion of Jews and Gentiles to Christianity by their preaching to signifie the purifying of them by that Faith to which they professed thereby to be converted which intent ceasing in those who being born of Christian Parents were never tainted with the filthinesse either of Jewes or Gentiles by consequence that ceremony though it may freely be used by Christians in the nature of a thing indifferent yet ought not to carry that opinion as if any mans salvation depended upon it And having related this opinion I must relate another opposite to this in another extream which is the opinion of those that hold that Faith which alone justifieth to consist in believing that a man is predestinated by God to life from everlasting as being of the number of them whom Christ was sent to redeem exclusively to the rest of Mankind And that therefore the whole consideration for which this Faith justifieth is the obedience of Christ imputed unto them which are of thâ—s number upon no other account then the eternall purpose of God to give him for them alone whereby his sufferings are theirs in Law as much as if they had been performed by themselves the condition of Faith serving only to limit a qualification without which this purpose availeth them not being limited to take place from the time that this purpose of God is revealed unto them the revelation whereof they suppose to be that Faith which alone justifieth Who they are that maintain this opinion I will not here dispute which I intend to show cause why it is to be thought so ill of that I could with that no man that is called a Christian would own it And perhaps many of those who either expresly or in effect do hold it do withall hold other points which indeed and in effect are contradictions to it Neither can I say that our Presbyterians are parties in it but this I say that this is the opinion in opposiâ—ion to which Socinus brought in the Opinion hitherto described voiding the Grace and satisfaction of Christ by declining to the other extream as any man may see that with a little care shall peruse the fourth part of his Book De Christo Servatorâ— Cap. III. IX X. And therefore I conceive I may justly infer that to maintain this extremity which he not consulting the Catholick Church and the Faith thereof thought necessary to the voyding of that other extream which he found inconsistent with the principles of Christianity he proceeded so far as to deny any Godhead any being of Christ before his birth of the Virgin taking away by consequence that reason and ground both of satisfaction for sin and of merit of Grace which the Church ascribeth to his obedience and sufferings and placeth the Godhead of Christ which he acknowledgeth so far as to tender him the worship that is proper to God at least in some circumstances in that height of eminence to which God hath exalted him for undertaking and performing the Commission of reconciling Man to God though bound to it as a meer man and Gods Creature before he undertooke it And thus you see how that part of Socinus his Heresie in denying the Faith of the Holy Trinity indirectly commeth in to the question of the Covenant of Grace Seeing it is manifest to the sence of all men that had he not questioned the Godhead of Christ there had been no pretence of bringing the Faith of the Trinity into any dispute But of what consequence this opinion concerning Justifying Faith and the nature of it is to the substance of Christianity it will be time to consider when I have shewed why it is not true In the mean I shall note here another opinion differing in somewhat but agreeing in much with this which I take to be the opinion of our Antinomians but shall not be much troubled if any man shall dispute that I mistake it For seeing them so full with a blasphemous conceit of Gods Spirit that they would think it a disparagement to it to be tied to any dispute of reason though upon supposition of the Christian Faith to distinguish between principles and conclusions to infer a certaine position from certain grounds even of Scripture I cannot think it any great imputation to misunderstand them whose perfection it is not to understand themselves For when I name Antinomians I intend to comprise in the opinion which I refute all our Anabaptists all our Familists all our Enthusiasts and Quakers all Sectaries whatsoever that do believe themselves possessed of the Spirit not presupposing not only the beliefe of that Faith which is necessary to the salvation of all Christians but also whatsoever else it shall appear that the condition of the Covenant of Grace importeth The having of Gods Spirit as it inferreth a right to everlasting life so supposing whatsoever the Covenant of Grace importeth But by the noise which they make with the free Grace of God and the Covenant of Grace I conceive the main of their position lies in one step beyond that extream which I described even now in opposition to Socinus That we are justified by the obedience of Christ performed for them for whom God appointed it and therefore imputed to them from everlasting by vertue of that appointment made from everlasting but revealed to them by that faith whereby they know themselves to be elected to life from everlasting not depending upon the revelation thereof but the revelation upon the being of it And upon this ground it is that they say that God sees not nor can see sin in his Elect that all their sins are pardoned before they are done and that there is no mortall sin but repentance implying the want of saving faith with which no sin can stand nor any thing be but sin without
Catechising which the Church tendered those who stood for Baptisme the subject of that Thanksgiving which the Eucharist was consecrated with do more effectually evidence the common sense of Christians in the mater of our common Christianity then the sayings of divines being solicitous so to maintaine the grace of God that the free will of man which the interest of our common Christianity equally obligeth us justly to maintaine may suffer no prejudice How much more when it is to be justified that those sayings of divines expounded by other sayings of their owne and principles evidently acknowledged by themselves can create no other sense then the necessity of preventing grace might the Church be able and obliged to proceed to those decrees Though as for the persons whom we do not find involved in any further censure then the mark set upon their writings by the See of Rome as there is cause to think that respect was had to them because their principles did not really ingage them in any contradiction to the faith of the Church So is there cause to think that being better informed in it by the treaty of that Council they surceased for the future all opposition to the decrees of it For the evidence of that which hath been said in the point of fact I remit the reader to my author so oft named with these considerations pointing out the consequence of each particular His ingenuity learning and diligence is such that I have neither found my self obliged to quarrel at any thing that he hath delivered in point of historicall truth nor to seek for more then he hath laid forth And by that which hath been said we presume not that the preaching of the Gospel is not the grace of Christ which Pelagius acknowledged necessary to salvation but that the determination of the will to imbrace that grace which the grace of the gospel tendereth is not effected by the will alone without those helps of grace which are granted in consideration of Christ though depending upon the preaching of the Gospel and the reasons and motives which it tendereth to imbrace it Here then you see I might have made a great book to set forâ—h those things which are commonly alledged by those that write of the great dispute between grace and free will now on foot to show what the Church insisted upon and what reasons it did proceed upon against Pelagius But because there is no question made of all this by those that deny the consequences of it it shall serve my turne to have pointed out the reasons of those consequences and now to take notice of this great dispute which is come in my way so crosse that it is not possible for me to voide the difficulties which I have undertaken concerning the Covenant of Grace without voiding of it For having first shewed that the condition which the Covenant of Grace requires on our part consists in an act of mans free will to imbrace and persevere in Christianity till death And now that man is not able to perform this condition without the help of Gods grace by Christ The question is at the height how the act of free will depends upon Gods free grace and a man becomes intitled to the promise for doing that which without the help of Gods grace he cannot do And this the greater because if the help of grace determine the free will of them that imbrace and persevere in Christianity so to do then it seems the sinne and damnation of those that do not so is to be imputed to the want of those helps and Gods appointment of not giving them to those that have them not CHAP. XX. Wherein Originall sinne consisteth What opinions are on foot That it is not Adams sinne imputed to his posterity Whether man were at the first created to a supernaturall end or not An estate of meer nature but innocent possible Originall sinne is Concupiscence How Baptisme voids it Concerning the late novelty in the Church of England about Originall sinne THIS inquiry must begin with the question about originall sinne wherein it consists because thereupon depends the question of the effect and consequence thereof which is to say what is the estate wherein the Gospel of Christ overtakes the naturall man For it is well enough known that there is a question yet on foot in the Church Whether Originall sinne do consist in Concupiscence or in the want of Originall righteousnesse which having been planted in our first parents their posterity ought to have And whosoever thinks there can be little difficulty in this dispute little considers the difficulty that S. Augustine found in satisfying the Pelagians how Concupiscence can be taken away by Baptisme which all Christians find to remaine in the regenerate Seeing there can be no question made that Originall sin is taken away by Baptisme Christianity pretending to take away all sinne and Baptisme being the solemn execution of Christianity that is the solemn profession of the Christian faith This is evidently the onely difficulty that driveth so many of the Schoole Doctors to have recourse not onely to S. Anselms devise of the want of originall righteousnesse but to another more extravagant speculation of a state of pure nature which God might have created man in had he not thought more fit of his goodnesse to create him in a state of supernaturall grace that is to say indowed with those gifts and graces that might inable him to attaine that happinesse of the world to come which is now promised to Christians This state of pure nature they hold to be liable to concupiscence as the product by consequence of the principles of mans nature compounded of a materiall and spirituall a mortall and immortall substance and originally inclined the one to the sensual good of the body the other to the spiritual good of the soul here which the eternal good of it is consequent to in the world to come The nature of man liable to this condition they say was prevented by supernaturall grace as a bridle to rule and moderate the inclination of nature not to come into effect so long as so over-ruled But so that this grace being forfeited by the rebellion of Adam consequently it came into effect without more adoe and that by consequence originall sinne cannot consist in this opposition between the inclinations to sensuall and spirituall good which man hath but in the want of that grace from whence it proceedeth This controversie Doctor Field in his learned work of the Church counteth to be of such consequence that he maintaineth all the difference which the Reformation hath with the Churche of Rome about Justification free will the merit of good works and the fulfilling of the Law and the like to be grounded upon it so that there can be no cause of difference supposing it to be set aside His reason is because the opinion of Justification by inherent righteousnesse supposes that the reluctation of our sensuall
that the Grace whereby we are justified is a quality habitually informing the soule of man as supernaturally infused by God into it But onely that Faith Hope and Charity are infused into them that are justified and inherent in them as shed into theire hearts by the Holy Ghost Which they say may all be understood supposing that a man is justified by the acts of Faith Hope and Love infused or shedde into the hart by the Holy Ghost as well as by habites supernaturally created to reside in the soule For you may see by Morinus in his Late worke de Administrationâ— Pâ—nitentiâ— VIII 2. 3. 7. that for MCC yeares after Christ a good while after the Schoole Doctors were come in there was no question at all made whether we are justified by an infused habit of grace or not and that it was about the yeare MCCL that this opinion intirely prevailed in the Schooles Whereby it appeareth that as this opinion containes nothing destructive to the faith if it be understood in that sense which the Church of Rome allowes that it is not the naturall worth of it which justifies but Gods accepting of it to that effect So if it did yet could not the Church of Rome be said to teach any thing destructive to the faith But onely to allow since â—uch things to be taught For the Council of Vienna under Clement V. determines it not as matter of faith but as the more probable opinion as you may see Clement de summa Trin. Fide Cathol Tit. I. Cap. VII And therefore Albertus Pâ—ghius de libero Arbitrio lib. V notwithstanding this decree stickes not to count this doctrine forged without any authority of Scripture And those that speake of it with more respect then he thinke not themselves tied to that which the Council holdâ— the more probable It is indeed manifest by the experience of all Christians that the custome and practice even of supernaturall actions to which the inclination of corrupt nature is utterly averse breedes in a man an habituated disposition of doing those things with â—ase and pleasure which at the beginning of his Christianity he could not doe without offering himselfe much violence But that habit which custome and practice leaves behind it though supernaturall for the cause or effect of it because the acts upon which it accrues as also those which it produces cannot accrue from meere nature without the helpe of Christs grace is notwithstanding for that wherein it consists a disposition really qualifying the nature and substance of the soule and inclining it to act otherwise then without it Besides the Gospell promising the Holy Ghost for a Gift to abide with and dwell in those that are baptized nothing hinders the Gift thereof to be held and termed an habituall grace In these regards I find it neither prejudiciall nor inconsequent to the Christian faith to acknowledge habituall grace though neither scripture nor tradition of the Church owne any habit of grace created by God and infused into the soule in a moment as the Schoole imagineth But they seeme to have committed another mistake in that the Church having decreed against Pelagius that the Grace of Christ is necessary to all truly good actions and therefore that man cannot merit the first grace this infused habit of grace they have made to be that First grace which God giveth before man will indeavor any thing towards it For so the Master of the Sentences determineth that grace which preventeth mans indevors to be faith with Love libro II. distinct XXVI D. which though it be capable of a very good sense That the motion to beleeve the truth of Christianity out of the love of God is that which Gods grace prevents all mans compliance with yet in what sense they swallowed it will appeare by the difficulties and dispuâ—es they were intangled with about that sorrow which the heart conceives for sinne out of meerâ— love to God not feare of punishment which the love of our selves breedeth For this sorow being necessarily a disposition preparing him for justification that cometh to God in regard the first grace which God preventeth all manâ— indeavors with is to them this infused habit of Faith and love which formally justifieth how he should come prepared for justification by that contrition which without Gods grace man cannot have who is justified by that infused habit of grace which he was first prevented by God with hath been among them the subject of endlesse jangles Whereas it is manifest the maintenance of the Faith against Pelagius requireth no more then that the resolution of persevering in Christianity to the â—nd be thought necessarily to depend upon the motion to imbrace it which God first preventeth man with without respect to any act of man obliging God to grant it And therefore it is manifest that the Church decreed no more against Pelagius but that the first motion to become a good Christian that every man is prevented with must be ascribed to Gods free grace through Christ not ingaged by any act of mans goeing afore Now requiring onely the actuall assistance of Gods preventing grace it is easy enough to say not how attrition that is sorrow for sinne in regard of punishment accompanied with slavish feare is changed into contrition that is sorrow for sinne out of the love of God whome it offendeth For it is not possible that he who loveth God should be sory for sinne for the same reason which he was sorry for while he loved the world But how the man that was attrite becomes contrite For when first the Gospell reveales unto a man his desperate estate in and by the first Adam it is not possible that he should remaine uâ—touched either with sorrow for the present or apprehension for the future And yet no lesse unpossible is it according to Gods ordinary way of working even by his Grace that he should in an instant resolve to imbrace the onely way to give him peace in that exigence But while he neither casts off the motion of grace nor resigneâ— his interest in himselfe and the world to it but considers upon what reason it behoves him to resolve this consideration by the worke of Gods Spirit disâ—overing to him how much God and the next world is to be preferred before himselfe and this as the love of God and the world to come prevailes in him above the love of himselfe and this accordingly of necessity must the greife of having offended God afore prevaile in him above all that he can conceive for the misery he hath incurred And all this by virtue of those helpes which God grants though allwayes in consideration of our Lord Christ yet not by virtue of that Covenant which is not contracted till â— man be baptized but of his owne free goodnesse dispensing the effects of Christs coming according to the reason of his secret wisdome which the Covenant of grace discovers not I neede say no more to show how a
as our Lord was when hee spoke the words that I indeavor to clear When therefore the properties of the divine nature are attributed to the Manhood of our Lord supposing as all good Christians do that neither natures nor properties are confounded what can wee say but this That by such attributions as these in the Language of his Prophets the Apostles God would have us understand a supernatural conjunction and union of two natures in one person of our Lord And what shall wee then say when the name of Christs body and bloud is attributed to the bread and wine of the Eucharist but that God would have us understand a supernatural conjunction and union between the body and bloud of Christ and the said bread and wine whereby they become as truly the instrument of conveying Gods Spirit to them who receive as they ought as the same Spirit was alwaies in his natural body and bloud For it maters not that the union of the two natures is indissoluble that of Christs body and bloud onely in order to the use of the elements that is speaking properly from the consecration to the receiving The reason of both unions being the same that makes both supernatural to wit the will of God passed upon both and understood by the Scriptures to be passed upon both though to several effects and purposes Therefore I am no way singular in this sense All they of the Confession of Auspurg do maintain it before mee and think it enough to say that it is an unusual or extraordinary maner of speech when one thing is said to be another of a several kinde and nature but which the unusual and extraordinary case that is signified both expounds and justifies They indeed maintain another reason of this presence and therefore another maner of it For if by virtue of the hypostatical union the omnipresence of the God-head is communicated to the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist then is the flesh and bloud of Christ there not onely mystically but bodily But if supposing both the elements and the flesh and bloud of Christ bodily present it may neverthelesse truly be said This is my flesh This is my bloud How much more if as I say the elements onely be there bodily but the flesh and bloud of Christ onely mystically and spiritually And therefore I finde it reasonable for mee to argue that the sense of so many men both learned and others understanding the words of our Lord in this sense ought to convince any man that it is not against common sense and therefore tending so much to make good the words of our Lord and the holy Scripture it not to be let go I do not intend neverthelesse hereby to grant that the sense of these words This is my body this is my bloud for This is the signe of my body and bloud is a true sense because abundance of learned as well as ordinary people take it so to be But well and good that it might have been maintained to be the true sense of them had no more been expressed by the Scripture in that businesse For then I suppose the sense of the Church of which I say nothing as yâ—t could not have evidenced so much more as I have deduced by consequence from the rest of the Scripture But the mystical presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Eucharist being further deduced from the Scripture by good consequence I conceive the common understanding of all those men who granting that do not grâ—nt the Elements to be abolished sufficient ground for mee that the signification of these words This is my body this is my bloud inforceth it not Whereas on the other side the substance of the Elements is not distinguishable by common sense from their accidents for whether the quantity and the mater be all one or not whether beside the mater and accidents which the quantity is invested with a substantial form berequisite is yet disputable among Philosophers And therefore no reason can presume that the Apostles to whom these words were spoken did understand This of which our Lord speaks to signifie the sensible accidents of bread an swine severed from the material substance of the same I may therefore very well undertake to say that this sense of the words is more proper than conceiving the substance of bread and wine to be abolished the effect of grace to the Church remaining the same For the property of speech is not to be judged by the signification of a single word but by the tenor of the speech wherein it stands and the intent of him that speaks declared by his actions and the viâ—ible circumstances of the same Now our Lord having taught those to whom this was spoken that the eating of his flesh and drinking of his bloud is done by living faith must be supposed by appointing this Sacrament tendring his flesh to eat and his bloud to drink to limit and determine an office in the doing whereof his flesh and bloud is either eaten and drunk or crucified according to the premises If then the eating and drinking of his flesh and bloud out of the Sacrament be meerly spiritual by living faith shall not the presence thereof in the Sacrament be according Shall it not be enough that they are mystically present in the Sacrament to be spiritually eaten by them that receive them with living faith to be crucified of them that do not Is it any way pertinent to the spiritual eating of them that they are bodily present Is it not far more proper to that which our Lord was about tending without question to the spiritual union which hee seeks with his Church that hee should be understood to promise the mystical than the bodily presence of them in the Sacrament which is nothing else than a Mystery by the proper signification and intent of it I grant an abatement of that which the terms of body and bloud were originally imposed to signifie being without question that which is visible and subject to sense But if the nature of the action which our Lord was about of the subject which his words expresse be such as requires this abatement then cannot the original sense of these words be so proper for this place as this abatement Here I will observe that the Council of Trent it self Sess XIII cap. I. speaketh so warily in this mater as not to exclude all maner of tropes from the right sense of these words saying Indignissimum sanè flagitium est ea à quibusdam contentiosis pravis hominibus ad sictitia imaginarios trapos quibus veritas caernis sanguinis Christi negatur contra universum Ecclesiâ— sensum detorqueri It is indeed a very great indignity that they are by some contentious and perverse persons wrested aside to contrived and imaginary tropes whereby the truth of Christs flesh and bloud is denied contrary to the whole sense of the Church They were wiser than to
and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist is a very great miracle taking that to be miraculous which requires the infinite power of God to effect it not that which contains a visible effect thereof apt to bear witnesse to that truth which it is done to confirm I must remit you to that which hath been already said to judge whether the miracle consist in abolishing the substance of the Elements and substituting the body and bloud of Christ in their stead Or in placing the substance of Christs body and bloud under the same dimensions in which the substance of the Elements subsisteth Or rather then either of both that it be enough to ingage the infinite power of God that by his Spirit hee tendreth the flesh and bloud of Christ so Sacramentally present in the Elements that whoso receiveth them faithfully thereby communicates as truly in the Spirit of God according to his Spirit as according to his body hee communicates Sacramentally in his body and bloud Here is the place for mee to allege those Scriptures which inform us of the true nature and properties of the flesh and bloud of Christ remaining in his body even now that it is glorified For if in the proper dimensions thereof hee parted from his Disciples and went was carried or lifted and taken up into heaven Acts I. 2 9 10. 1 Pet. III. 22. Luke XXIV 50 51. Mark XVI 19. If in the same visible form and dimensions hee shall come again to judgement Acts I. 11. 1 Thes IV. 16. if the Heavens must receive him till that time for sure no man will be much tempted with that frivolous conceit that S. Peters words Acts III. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are to be construed whom it behoveth to contain the Heavens but whom it behoveth that the Heavens contain Unlesse it could appear how S. Peter should understand the body of Christ to contain the heavens not the heavens it sitting at Gods right han◠till his Enemies be made his foot-stool Psal CX 1. if to that purpose hee leave the world John XVI 28. no more to be in it XVII 11. so that wee shall have him no more with us Mat. XXVI 11. it behoveth us to understand how wee are informed that the promise of his body and bloud in the Eucharist imports an exception to so many declarations before wee believe it Indeed there is no place of Gods right hand by sitting down at which wee may say that our Lords body becomes confined to the said place But seeing the flesh of Christ is taken up into Heaven to sit down at Gods right hand Though by his sitting down at Gods right hand wee understand the man Christ to be put into the exercise of that divine power and command which his Mediators Office requires Yet his body wee must understand to be confined to that place where the Majesty of God appears to those that attend upon his Throne Neither shall the appearing of Christ to S. Paul Acts XXIII 11. be any exception to this appointment Hee that would insist indeed that the body of Christ stood over Paul in the Castle where then hee lodged must say that it left Heaven for that purpose For that is the miracle which the Text expresseth that hee was there whose ascent into Heaven it had reported afore But seeing the very body of Christ might in a vision of Prophesie appear to Paul in the Spirit without any contravention to that determination which the Scripture otherwise had expressed Were it not madnesse to go about to limit the sense and effect of it upon pretense of a promise altogether impertinent to the occasion in hand and every whit as properly to be understood without so limiting the sense of it This is all the argument that I pretend to maintain upon this consideration Knowing well enough that it is said indeed that the flesh of Christ remaining in Heaven in the proper dimensions thereof which the Exaltation allowes nothing hinders the same to be present under the dimensions of the Elements whether the substance of them be there which Consubstantiation allowes or whether they be abolished as Transubstantiation requires Which hee that would contradict must enter here into a Philosophical dispute whether or no the infinite power of God can bring to passe either or neither of these effects That is to say whether it imply a contradiction that the body and bloud of Christ which is as sure in Heaven as the faith of Christ is sure should at the same time be present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist under the dimensions of the Elements whether wee suppose the substance of them to be abolished or to remain present This dispute I am resolved not to touch at this time Partly for that reason which I have alleged upon other occasions Because I desire to discharge this Book being written in our mother tongue of all Philosophical disputes tending rather to puzzle than to edifie the main of those that speak English Partly for a reason peculiar to this point because it hath been argued that if wee deny Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation as contradictory to reason there can be no cause why wee should cleave to the Faith of the Trinity which every man sees to be no lesse contradictory to humane reason than either of both For though I do no ways admit this consequence because it is evident that the nature of bodily substance is far better comprehended by mans understanding than the incomprehensible nature of God which it is impossible to apprehend any thing of but under the resemblance of something belonging to sensible substance yet I am willing to go to issue without drawing this dispute into consequence referring to judgment whether the evidence for Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation be such as for the holy Trinity out of the Scriptures That is to say whether the presence of the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist is so to be understood as to void the confining of them to those dimensions which the Scripture allowes them in Heaven And this as necessarily by the Scripture as the Scripture necessarily obligeth to believe the Holy Trinity When as it may be more properly to the nature of the businesse understood mystically as in a Sacrament intended to convey the communion of his Spirit In the mean time allowing any man that submits his reason to all that Christianity imports the sober use of it in disputing whether the presence of the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Eucharist as Consubstantiation or as Transubstantiation requires be contradictory to the evidence of reason or not CHAP. IV. The opinion which maketh the Consecration to be done by rehearsing the operative words That our Lord consecrated by Thanksgiving The Form of it in all Liturgies together with the consent of the Fathers Evidence that there is no Tradition of the Church for the abolishing of the Elements COming now to consider wherein the Consecration of the Eucharist consists I find
time the place the maner and form the ceremonies and solemnities whereby the celebration of Church offices is either already determined by Gods Law or remains determinable by the Law of the Church And this I cannot do better then beginning with the times of divine service and considering what Laws of God what Laws of the Church all Christians ought to be tied to in that point whence it may appear what may be the subject of Reformation in it Where I find it requisite in the first place to debate by what right the first day of the week called Sunday is set apart for the service of God under Christianity There is an opinion too well known amongst us that the first day of the week is kept by Christians in virtue of the fourth Commandment which obliged the Jews to keep the seventh day of the week Which opinion if it be true they have some ground for confining the service of God to it But it cannot be maintained without two assumptions The first That the seventh day in the fourth Commandment signifies not the seventh day of the week on which God rested from creating any more but one of the seven dayes The second That the resurrection of Christ upon the first day of the week is a reason that necessarily determines all Christians to do that which they are bound to do on one day of the seven upon the first and none else Neither of which is true though the later have farre the more appearance of truth in it For it is manifest that the will of God may be having obliged the Jewes to keep one day in seven to oblige Christians to keep one day in six or lesse unesse it be otherwise determined by some commandment of Gods Now it appeareth that the first day of the week was kept in the times of the Apostles our Saviour having peared unto them after his Resurrection upon that day Joh. XIX 26. Act. XX. â— 1 Cor. XVI 2. Apoc. I. 10. But of any precept to make this a Law to all Christians nothing appears in the Scriptures of the New Testament Again it may be said That the Gospel requireth more plentiful fruits of obedience then the Law And therefore if the Law required one day of seven for the service of God that the Gospel requires more Nor will it concern me here to prove that this opinion is true It is more then enough that I can say that before this novelty came into England it cannot appear that ever any Christian thought otherwise For I argue no more in this place but that the rising of our Lord upon the first day of the week doth not necessarily determine the Church to keep one day of the seven as the command of God doth For had God commanded one day of seven to be kept under the Gospel as under the Law there had been no room for further consideration But so long as there is onely a reason on the one side That the Resurrection to Christians is as the Creation to Jews And a reason on the other side That it becomes Christians in this as in all to do more then Jews I cannot deny that there is a sufficient reason for him that hath power of determining that which God hath not determined to appoint the first day of the week but I utterly deny that there is any Law of God before the act of this power to determine it And the reason is plain For in maters of this nature there may be sufficient reason for several determinations because it is not the substance but the circumstance of that which is by nature necessarily good and Gods service Again supposing that Christians are bound to keep one day of seven for Gods service may I not ask why the passion of Christ should not determine them to keep the sixth as well as the Resurrection the first day of the week Especially in the sense of them who think they have reason to feast on good Friday and to celebrate their Fasts on the Lords day For if the resurrection of Christ be no reason to make the day thereof Festivall nor his Passion why we should rather fast on the day of it certainly where both cannot be kept the one concerns us as much as the other do and therefore there is as much reason to keep this as that This to the later of the two assumptions But in the former there is no colour of truth Nor do I see how any thing can be more strange then this That so many men professing learning and zeal to the Scriptures alone should read in the Commandment that God resâ—ed the seventh day from making the world and therefore commanded the seventh day to be kept holy And understand by all this onely that God would have one day of seven not that day of the seven on which himself rested Unlesse it be still more strange that men of common sense should believe that the Jews were not tyed by Gods Law to keep the day on which God rested but onely one of seven so that the keeping of the seventh was not by Gods Law but by mans For if it be once granted that God commanded them to keep not onely one day of seven but in particular the seventh how can any common sense understand that Christians by the same command should be tied to keep the first day of the week If prejudice and faction went not under the colour of zeal to the Scriptures it would appear to be zeal towards our selves and ours that offers such violence to our own sense in seeking to impose this sense upon the Scriptures In plain terms there can be nothing more manifest to Christians in the Law of Moses then it is manifest that the precept of the Sabbath is a ceremonial Precept figuring the rest of Christians from the bondage of sin by doing for the future God works here in the Church militant and from the bondage of pain when that rest is become perfect in the triumphant Church of the World to come And all this by the work of this precept that is by resting from bodily labour in the Land of promise in remembrance of the bondage of Aegypt which the Israelites had escaped For in Deutronomy V. 15. this is the reason alleged why they where to rest Ezek. XX. 12. Ex. XXXI 31. I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that it is I the Lord their God that sanctifieth them And therefore the Apostle Heb. IV. 4. 5 9 10. showeth the seventh day to signifie the rest of the Land of pâ—oâ—iâ—e For saith he in one place it is said God rested on the seventh day from all his work And here Psalm XCV 11. if they shall enter into my rest For he that is entred into his rest hath ceased from his own works as God from his Therefore there remaineth another rest to the people of God as the Apostle argueth by the same reason as
know the truth as men of lying spirits and teaching the doctrines of Devils speaking lies in hypocrisy with seared consciences 1 Tim. IV. 1-4 But always understanding those followers of Simon Magus and Cerinthus from whom the Hereticks that succeeded learned that this world was not made by God and that the bond of mariage came in by the spirits that made the world whom we must escape by abstaining from some kinds of creatures What Christian can dare to say with a good conscience that the rule or custome of the Church to forbear those meats and drinks that inflame the blood most for the mortification of the flesh hath any dependence upon those wicked blasphemies Nay who can read that Daniel in his fastings eat no pleasant meat but he must inferr that there is no fasting observed where men observe no difference of meats Look into the Jews Constitutions and see how they observed their Fasts and their Festivalls you shall find it more ancient then Christianity to solemnize Sabbaths and proportionably other Festivalls with the best meats the best drinks the best apparel all things of the best And on the other side as much care that there be nothing to signifie or ground any such construction upon their Fasts and Humiliations So that we may well ask those that appoint their solemn Humiliations upon the Sabbath for so they will needs call the Sunday right or wrong what Religion they intend to be of neither Judaism nor Christianity having produced any such sect till our time And therefore we must say that those who make a disference of meats for conscience sake as if all meats were not Gods creatures alike or as if we held choice of meats to be still the service of God because once it intitled the Jews to the Land of promise are justly reproved by S. Paul adding in the place afore-named as a reason of the premises For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving being sanctified by the word of God assuring us hereof and by prayer But if the meaning be further to say that it is superstitious to observe fasting with meats of less nourishment that signifie mourning that effect the mortification of the flesh and the concupisences thereof and that for conscience sake not onely in that regard but in regard the Church hath appointed it for that purpose then must I say plainly that this Doctrine in stead of reforming or maintaining the service of God is the author of that licentiousness which we see come to pass I will not here dispute that there may not be as much riot as much contradiction to the end and purpose of fasting in eating of fish as in flesh especially allowing Wine and Sweet-meats as the Church of Rome doth to those that are content to submit to other Laws of it For he who maintains that there is no fasting properly so called where there is no difference made between meats and those that provoke the appetite and inflame the blood are not laid aside those that signifie mourning best are not used maintain sthat is it not properly fasting where onely fish is served if the quality or the quantity of that which is served may serve for feasting And such customes as those are meâ—re irregularities which the rule and practice of the primitive Church no way alloweth all the dyet which it granted being onely exceptions from total absâ—inenâ— to sustain nature and to maintain health which no Religion destroyeth and therefore excepteth weak ages and constitutions from this strictness The granting of fish above bread and water and salt and herbs is an abatement of the primitive strictness which Clemens Alexandrinus reports S. Mathew Poedagg II. 1. Hegesippus in Eusebius of S. James of Jerusalem Hist Eccles II. 23. and S. Austine adversus Faustum libro XX. câ—napura in Ireneus that is to say a supper without any thing of a living creature at it being the same that parasceve or Friday And if we may reasonably imagine that the cold climate wherein we live and the spending of our bodies by the aire requireth more effectuall restauratives then the Eastern Countries from whence these practices first came yet to make fasting and forbid difference of meats will always be things contradictory To abate of that difference by litle and litle acknowledging the general ground of it will be but the same that may be observed in all exercises of Christianity that the strictness thereof decayed by degrees in succeeding times from that which was practiced from the beginning under the Apostles For the measure of Fasting in the ancient Church was also till three in the afternoon which the more devout extended with the Jews until the appearing of the Starres and that the Montanists would have imposed upon the Church for a Law declared by their Prophets Now in all these Western parts at least according to practice whatsoever be the Rule it is granted that fasting is but eating one meal a day though it be at noone not denying the collation at night nor every where no not at Rome it self a draught of drink in the morning and a bit of bread least that draught do harm And this is called the Fast of the Church in opposition to the fast of nature prescribed to those that celebrate and receive the Eucharist even from Physick and any thing that may be received afore But these are abatements which no rule or custome of the ancient Church justifieth onely when more cannot be obtained it is requisite rather to cherish such a measure as can be maintained then to let all order go under pretense of Christian liberty which is indeed abandoning our selves to sensuality by casting off the rules which oblige us to mortifie natural concupisence In the next place it is a marvail to see how ready men are to imbrace a slight plea why the solemnity of our Lords birth should not be observed though in the end they forfeit the credit of their skill in reforming by discovering their ignorance Joseph Scaliger a very learned man and much studied in Chronology thinking that he had found the true year of Christs birth which had not been preserved past question in any record of the Church for the world when it was not Christian counted not by the time of Christs coming as now it doth bethought himself that by counting the courses of the Priests in the Temple from the cleansing thereof by Judas Maccabâ—us the year and the moneth and day whereof is certain he might attain to the day that the course of Abia whereof Zachary was being the first course Luke I. 5. came on to Minister in the Temple the XXIV divisions spending XXIV times seven days in one course certain and by consequence the day of the Annunciation Vâ— moneths after and the day of our Lords birth nine moneths after that at least for the moneth and season of the year though not to a day And accordingly