THE Greeks Opinion TOUCHING THE EUCHARIST MIS-REPRESENTED BY Monsieur CLAVDE IN HIS ANSWER TO Mr. ARNOLD Printed in the Year MDCLXXXVI A DIGRESSION Reflecting on the Opinion of the Greek and other Oriental Churches holding a Real Presence of our Lord's Body and Blood whether by Transubstantiation or not much mis-represented by Mr. Claude a French Minister § 321. Whose various Artifices are detected in * Insinuating the Greek's Ignorance Poverty Imbecillity the Latin's Power Missions Industry to gain them n. 1 2 3 4. * Wresting the Greek's sayings to the Protestant's sense contrary to their plain expressions * Affirming the Greeks to retain their former Church-Doctrine as high as Damascen or Gregory Nyssen yet not freely declaring the ancient and modern Greeks to differ from or agree with the Protestant opinion n. 5. * Waving the main point viz. Real Presence which infers a Soveraign Adoration contending about Transubstantiation and that as an Article of Faith n. 6. * Barring all Testimonies save such as press Transubstantiation * Vsing the term Vertue unreasonably as excluding Substance and thereby making the Greek opinion contradictory absurd and indefensible and then leaving them to make it good whereas he ought to have confessed their holding a Presence as well in Substance as in Vertue n. 7 8. * Shifting all Testimonies against him by disingenuously requiring testimony upon testimony or by personal exceptions taken against them n. 9. The Greek Opinion concerning Transubstantiation if made good how prejudicial to the Protestant's Cause n. 10. 1. Concerning Transubstantiation M. Claude in receding from the Latins makes the Greeks fall short of their own Similitude and usual Expressions in three Particulars n. 13 c. That Vertue may be taken as well augmentatively adding to Substance as diminutively excluding it n 14. The Common Doctrine of the Greeks carrying further than their Simile to a total Transubstantiation Proved 1. From their holding the same numerical Body of our Lord born and crucified to be exhibited in the Eucharist present not by descending from Heaven but by a conversion of the Elements and by a multiplication of its local existence in more places than before n. 15 16. 2. From holding the Body thus present by Consecration to be Incorruptible and its Incorruption to depend on its Resurrection and so to relat◠to that numerical Body crucified and raised again Now the Bread remaining intire for its substance or its matter and qualities cannot be such a Body of our Lord as suffers no digestion or corruption Yet something in the Sacrament suffers this For the Greeks then whilst holding the Substance of Bread to remain to lay these changes only on the Accidents not the Substance eating bread fed only by the accidents were without a Transubstantiation to espouse the difficulties of it and therefore their opinion implies an entire change of the Bread as well its matter as form n. 17. 3. From holding this Body in the Eucharist whenever broken whole and entire in each piece to all distributed no way diminished The Lamb broken not impaired ever eaten yet not consumed Which things cannot be said of our Lords Body if the matter of bread still remain n. 18. Whereas Greeks and Latins former and later times may be accorded this Author to maintain the variance seems to fasten on the Greeks an opinion less eligible than Transubstantiation and to offer violence to the natural sense of their words leaving the Greeks to stand apart by themselves from Protestants as well as other Catholicks n. 20. The Greeks confessed by him not to have opposed the Latins for holding Transubstantiation the Latins never to have accused the Greeks as not holding it n. 21. 2. Concerning Adoration of the Eucharist 1. As to their Doctrine Granted 1. That the Greeks allow and pay to the Mysteries in the Eucharist an inferior relative Adoration 2. A Supreme Adoration lawful and due to our Lords Humanity where-ever present and given by Protestants in their Communion 3. No soveraign Adoration pretended by Greeks or Latins to be given to the Symbols venerable only with an inferior cult but to the Body and Blood of our Lord. 4. Real Presence not being contested but only Transubstantiation From such Presence granting its true consequences followes a lawfulness of Adoration n. 22. 2. As to their Practice 5. The Greeks adore after their mode by inclining the head and body Whether this be only relative or soveraign Adoration is understood from their Doctrine and Belief For not to allow the extent of their Adoration as far as their belief of the Presence of the Person adored and their Worship the same latitude with their Faith seems unjust and groundless as also to pretend only an inferior adoration given where the same Communicants hold a supreme due to the Person there present n. 22. More Devotions performed in the Western Churches than in the East from the Berengarian Errors here n. 23. M. Claude 's Concessions and their Consequences sufficient § 1. To diswade from a Communion opposed both by Greeks and Latins concerning the Eucharist 2. To perswade rather to the Roman Communion n. 24. For trying our Obedience God permits Evil with many Allurements Error with many Verisimilities yet hath always left evidence enough to clear all necessary Truth to the humble and obedient not to force the self-confident and interessed n. 25. In a Search by comparing Scriptures and Councils what endless labour and distraction in Obedience to Councils what peace and vacancy for better employments Besides that the rude and illiterate the most of men cannot search Must these believe a former Church now or submit to an inferior church-Church-Authority against a Superior But this is Schism in them both and he justly ruined by believing an Authority usurped that denies to believe one whereto he is bound n. 25. The Issue of Scripture-Trial long since was a double sense of Scripture that Sense was declared by one nay several Councils The Party condemned appealed to Fathers and Primitive Church whose sense as formerly that of Scripture being double was decided again by Councils but their Authority rejected And now it is desired that the Controversie begin anew and return to the Scriptures or that the Question determine the Controversie and whilst Protestants are the weaker party that all have liberty for when the stronger they too well discern the necessity of Synods for ending differences among themselves which tho not held infallible yet upon the Evangelical Promises of our Lord's assistance require on pain of Suspension subscription to their Decrees and excommunicate persons teaching the contrary Witness the Dort Synod n. 26. M. Claude's strange Method for exempting from Obedience to the Church those that pretend not to a Certainty of their new Opinions considered That if it prove valid it serves as well Catholicks against Protestants upon the same pretensions and affords both sides the same plea one against the other in any controversie arising amongst Protestants Ibid. If searching the
without the which a Real Presence may not be believed and a due Adoration in some convenient manner or other practised 2ly The occasion of them is well known to have been the Berengarian and many other Errors concerning the Eucharist which appeared here in the West but disturbed not the East Which Errors inferring many Indignities and affronts to this richest and dearest Legacy of our departing Lord caused the Church to multiply also the external testifications of her Devotion Gratitude and Reverence to it and God's wisdom as usually out of such vilifyings and disrespects extracted a greater Honour as to External Ceremony to these High Mysteries So also the many subtle Questions that have been discussed and stated among the Latins not so much thought on by the Greeks but all shut in a Quo modo novit Deus another frequent Argument with this Author of the Greeks not believing Transubstantiation acknowledge the same Original viz. the Provocations Objections contrary false-positions of the Heterodox which forced the Church to descend to the same particulars with them Nor could she censure these as Errors without establishing their Contradictories as Truth This of Adoration § 22 To conclude The many Concenssions of M. Claude and the Consequences of them forementioned seem to me sufficient 1st To disswade any sober and modest person who relies not on his own judgment for the controverted sense of Holy Scriptures but holds it a safer way to conform to that of Church-Authority to disswade him I say from any such Communion as he sees by the former Account opposed both by the Latins and the Greeks Greeks present or past as high as Damascen in the eighth age and may not I say as high as Gregory Nyssen †See before §. 12. in the fourth whilst both these Latins and Greeks hold a Real or Corporal presence of our Lord in the Eucharist and agree in a literal sense of Hoc est Corpus meum Nor will M. Claude enter with his Adversary into this Controversie 2. Next to perswade him of the two rather to the Roman Communion as whose Transubstantiation besides that it hath been established by so many Councils †See the Guide in Controversie Disc 1. is of it self much more credible and more accommodated to the Scripture-expressions then I know not what fancied Augmentation of Christ's natural Body born of the Blessed Virgin by a new Breaden one assumed in the Eucharist numerically distinct from the other yet by the like assumption and Union to our Lord's Divinity rendred personally one and the same Body with it §. 57 58. But how much more will he be confirmed in the same Resolution if by what hath been said above ‖ §. 14 c. he discerns M. Claude's Relation of the Modern Greek opinion unsound and that the main Body of them except perhaps some few Impanatists that have been there as also in the Western Church in holding a total substantial change of the Bread have accorded with the Roman Church § 23 I hope the Reader will pardon this digression the rather because it serves much to illustrate that whereof I was discoursing ‖ §. 321 n. 1. That notwithstanding whatever evidence of Truth Answers and Replies from Persons ingenious and pre-engaged find no end and that when Controversies are by one of the contending parties denied any Decisive Judge though error may easily be overcome yet it can hardly be silenced For as God for the greater trial of our obedience hath permitted in the world not only Evil but very many allurements also and enticements to it so not only Errors but many verisimilities and appearances of Reason ever ready to support it with those that do not by Humility attain the illuminations of his Grace Evidence sufficient God hath left always to clear and manifest all necessary Truth to those who are of an obedient Spirit and willing to learn it But not sufficient to force like the Mathematicks the Understanding of the self-confident and interested to gain-say it but that they may have some fair colour or other to oppose to it and catch the credulous All which still more infers the great necessity of Church-Authority and a conformity to it and the reasonableness of Monsieur Maimbourg's Method for reducing Protestants to the true Faith viz. ‖ §. 8. That matters once decided by this Authority should be no longer disputed A Rule the Protestants i. e. the more potent Party of them for preserving their own peace would have to be observed in the Differences among themselves shewed in the proceedings of the Synod at Dort of which see before § 254. n. 2. but not in those between them and Roman Catholicks because here they are the weaker To whom M. Claude's answer in the Preface of his last Reply to D. Arnauld is this It is unjust saith he that he will have the Decisions of Councils to be Prescriptions against us the Protestants not remembring that nothing can prescribe against Truth especially when it concerns our Salvation And the Determinations of Councils not being with us of any Consideration but as they do conform to the Holy Scriptures and to the Principles of Christian Religion we cannot have from hence any reasonable or profitable way to end the particular differences that divide us but only this to examine the matter to the bottom to discern whether such conformity i. e. of the Councils to the Scriptures which we suppose necessary is or is not To which he adds there as also frequently elsewhere That the shortest and surest and only right way for settling the Conscience in repose which must rest its Faith immediately on God's Word and Divine Revelation is for both Parties to proceed to the Trial of their cause all other Authority and Methods laid aside by the Holy Scriptures And when he is pressed by his Adversary That in these Controversies at least all persons doubting i. e. what is the true sense of the Scriptures controverted and of Antiquity expounding them and not certain of the contrary of what the Church teacheth concerning them as all unlearned Protestants must be ought herein to conform and adhere rather to the Church than to Separatists he seeks to decline it thus That the simplest person may receive sufficient certainty from the clearness of Scripture in all matters necessary that from these Scriptures learning what he ought to believe he may easily know also whether the society he lives in be a true Church and such as will conduct him to Salvation that hence he needs not trouble himself with Controversie touching what the former Church hath believed Yet that our Lord promising to be with true Believers to the end of the World so as they shall not fall into damnable error Charity obligeth him without his reading them to believe that the Fathers are of this number and so that they believed as they ought and so were of his Faith To give you his own words l. 1. c. 4.
The word of God saith he contains purely and clearly all that which is necessary to form our Faith to regulate our Worship and Manners And God assisting us with his Grace it is easie for the most simple to judge whether the Ministery under which we live can conduct us to salvation and consequently whether our society is a true Church For for this he needs only examine It as to these two Characters One if they teach all the things clearly contained in God's word and the other if they teach nothing besides that is contrary to those things or doth corrupt the efficacy and force of them And afterward This Examen saith he is short easie and proportion'd to the capacity of all the world and it forms a judgment as certain as if one had discussed all the Controversies one after another Again l. 1. c. 5. There are two Questions One touching what we ought to believe on the matter of the Eucharist The other touching what hath been believed by the ancient Church The first of these cleared we need not trouble our selves about the second Now as for those of our Communion the first Question is cleared by the Word of God And for the second he resolves it thus l. 1. c. 6. That the Promises of Jesus Christ assure us that he will be with true Believers to the end of the world Whence he concludes that there hath always been a number of true Believers whose Faith hath never been corrupted by damnable Errors Then that charity obligeth us to believe that the Fathers were of this number And then lastly We knowing from Scripture what we ought to believe in this Point we also are confirmed without studying them that the Father believed the same Now to reflect briefly on what he hath said in the order it lies here A Council saith he cannot prescribe against Truth True But the Council is brought in for a Judge where a Dispute and Question is what or on what side is the Truth The determinations of Councils are not with us of any consideration but as they do conform to the Holy Scriptures Right But the Council is called in for a Judge where a doubt and dispute is what or on what side is the true sense of such and such Scriptures Where if he meaneth that they refuse to submit to a Council unless conforming to Scripture as the sense of Scripture is given by the Council that is it we desire for the Council will still profess its following the sense of Scripture if as this sense is understood by the Protestants what is this but to say they will submit to the Judgment or Decision of a Council so often as it shall agree with their own The only reasonable and profitable way to end differences is this to examine the matter to the bottom i. e. whether the Decisions of the Council conform with Holy Scripture But when this is done How will the Difference end Will not the Controversie as the Replies multiply swell rather still bigger as his and D. Arnauld's doth Search to the bottom Suppose a Socinian should say this against the former Church-decisions concerning the Trinity the supreme Deity of the Son and Holy Ghost Gods essential Omnipresence his absolute prescience of future Contingents c. will Protestants say he makes a rational motion Then how can any Protestant rest his Faith in these Points upon the Authority of the Councils and their Creeds will you say he doth not but on the Scriptures Have they ten searched all these Points to the bottom there compared the particular Scriptures urged by the Socinian and those urged against him and weighed them in the Ballance If yet they have not ought they If they ought what a task here for young Protestant-students what an Eternal Distraction in this a search what heavenly peace in the other obedience to the judgments of former Councils and Vacancy for better employments Again If they ought what all Protestants the most of them as of all Christians are illiterate Men not having either leisure or ability to search c. Must these adhere therefore to former Councils and their Creeds in these Points Then so must they in others and in this of Real Presence or Transubstantiation and so they remain no longer on M. Claude's party Or will he bind them to submit their judgment to some inferior Ecclesiastical Authority or Ministry standing in opposition to a superior But this is Schism in them both and justly is such person ruin'd in his credulity to one authority usurp'd for his denying it to another to whom it is due Nor would M. Claude be well pleased if any one should follow some few reformed Ministers divided from the rest of their Consistory Class or Synod § 24 As for the Trial he motions to be made by Holy Scriptures This is a thing that hath been by the Two Parties already done first as it ought And the issue of it was That one Party understood these Scriptures in one sense the other in another For Example The one understood Hoc est Corpus meum liberally the other in a Metaphor and so differently understood also all the other Texts of Scripture produced in this Cause Here the true sense of Scripture became the Question and their Controversie For the Judge and Decider of this Controversie between them when time was they took a Council For since Scripture they could no more take the sense of that being their Question to whom should they repair but the Church and of the Church a Council is the Representative Councils several to a great number in several ages ‖ See Guide in Controver Disc 1. §. 57 58. decided this matter and declared the sense of the Scriptures but so as it liked not one Party These therefore thought fit to remove the Trial from thence to the more Venerable Sentence of the Fathers and Primitive Church i. e. of their Writings Again the sense of these Writings as before that of Scriptures is understood diversly by the Contesters and now the true sense of the writings of the Fathers is the Question and Controversie Nor here will Disputes end it Witness so many Replies made on either side Former Councils as they have given their Judgment of the Sense of the Writings of Holy Scriptures so they have of those of the Fathers but their Authority is rejected in both And a new Council were it now convened besides that M. Claude's Party being the fewer and so easily over-voted would never submit to it we may from M. Claude's Confession ‖ l. 3. c. 13. p. 337. That both Greeks and Latins are far departed from the Evangelical simplicity and the natural explication that the Ancients have given to the Mystery of the Eucharist rationally conjecture that Protestants in such Councils would remain the party condemn'd What then would this person have He would have the Controversie begin again and return to the Scriptures Which is in plain Language
That the Question should decide the Controversie and till this can do it That so long as the Protestants are the weaker Party all should have their Liberty For when they are the stronger they do well discern the necessity of Synods for ending such Differences and though not professing themselves infallible yet upon the Evangelical promises of our Lord's assistance to such Councils think fit to require all the Clergy under their jurisdiction upon pain of Suspension from their Function to receive and subscribe their Decrees for God's Truth and to teach them to the People as such and think fit to Excommunicate those teaching the contrary till they shall recant their Error Of which see before § 200. Witness such carriage of the Synod of Dort towards the Remonstrants who challenged the same exemption from their Tribunal as they had done from that of Trent but could not be heard As for that which follows in Answer to D. Arnauld's most rational challenging a submission and Conformity of so many Protestants as have no certainty of their new Opinions rather to the Church than to Innovators to me it sounds thus That every plain and simple Protestant 1st Thinks his Exposition or sense of Scripture in this Point of the Eucharist and so in others any way necessary to be clear and without dispute and the more simple he is the sooner he may think so because he is not able to compare all other Texts nor to examine the contrary senses given by others or the reasonable grounds thereof 2ly Next that every one who thinks his Exposition or Sense of Scripture clear in such Point is by this sufficiently assured that he hath a right Faith or from this sense of his knows what he ought to believe and forms a Judgment herein as certain as if one had discussed all the Controversies one after another a strange proposition but I see nothing else from which such person collects his faith to be right if any doth produce it 3ly That every such simple person now easily knows whether the Society wherein he lives be a true Church or otherwise viz. as they agree with or dissent from that right Faith of his already supposed or as he finds them to teach the things clearly contained in God's word i. e. in his clear Sense thereof 4ly Knowing thus from this his clear exposition or sense of Scripture what he ought to believe he needs not trouble himself what the Ancient Church hath believed which is very true nay he knows without reading them or M. Arnauld's and M. Claude's discourses upon them that the Fathers if of the number of the Faithful were of his Opinion by M. Claude's arguing fore-mentioned I desire the Reader to review his words or the 5th and 6th Chapters of his 1st Book and see if he can make any better construction of them Now if there be any Sense in this he saith How can he hinder but that a simple Catholick may use the self-same Plea church-Church-Authority being laid aside for a certainty of his Faith upon the same pretentions viz. his clear sense of Scripture quite contrary to the Protestants clear sense And in any Controversie amongst Protestants Suppose that of the Remonstrants and Anti-Remonstrants here both sides have the same Plea one against another namely the certainty of their Faith from their own Sense of the Scripture controverted between them And why doth not this certainty void their Synods For M. Claude saith The word of God contains nettement and clairement all that which is necessary to form our Faith and that the most simple are capable to judge of it c. Unless the Protestant Controversies be never about any thing necessary This is the way M. Claude thought on to leave no Doubters though never so unlearned among Protestants as to the Eucharist or other Points of their Faith But mean-while if after such Speculations of his any such Doubters there be I do not find but that he leaves so many wholly to D. Arnauld's disposal viz. that they return to and remain in the bosome of the former Church so long till they become certain of its errors and not follow strangers that have not entred by the door into Christ's Fold and I hope they will consider it As for the settling of our Conscience this person speaks of by resting our Faith immediately on God's Word I see not where the sense of the Scriptures is supposed the thing controverted how any one rests his Faith more immediately on God's Word by following his own Exposition or Sense thereof or the Exposition of a Minister c. for some persons exposition he must follow than he that follows that of the Church If we are then for a total application to the Scriptures and for searching things to the bottom Let us search there first this main Point that decides all other concerning our Lord's establishing a just Church-Authority for ending contentions Where we shall find also that he is not a God of dissension or Confusion in his House 1 Cor. 14.33 Eph. 4.11.14 1 Cor. 12.28 the Church but of Peace And That he hath given his Clergy in a certain Subordination that We should not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine as we must be when ever these disagree in expounding Scripture to us if we have no Rule which of them to follow The truth of this once found out by our search will save many other searches of which without it I see no end In vain do we endeavour with what-ever pains to discern God's Truth without the illumination of his Holy Spirit and Grace and since revelat parvulis in vain expect this without great Humility and self-dis-esteem and a reverent preference of and pious Credulity toward our just and lawful Spiritual Superiors Credendo first i. e. Ecclesiae saith S. Austin in his Tract De utilitate Credendi †c. 1. praemunimur illuminaturo praparamur Deo FINIS