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A66965 The Greeks opinion touching the Eucharist misrepresented by Monsieur Claude in his answer to Mr. Arnold R. H., 1609-1678. 1686 (1686) Wing W3447; ESTC R26397 39,994 38

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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