that Protestants are not obliged to defend the Sentiment of the Greeks and that his business is to enquire what it is not how maintainable And saith elsewhere P 337. That both the Greeks and Latins are far departed from the Evangelical simplicity and the main and natural explication the Ancients have given to the Mystery of the Eucharist Here then 1. as to the later ages of the Church Protestants stand by themselves and the Reformation was made as Calvin confessed it †Epist P. Melancthoni a toto mundo 2. After such a Confession M. Claude seems not to deal sincerely in that with force enough he draws so frequently in both his Replies the sayings of the Greek writers of later times to the Protestant sense and puts his Adversary to the trouble of confuting him And from the many absurdities that he pretends would follow upon the Greek Opinion taken according to their plain expressions saith these intend only * a Presence of Christ's Body in the Eucharist as to its Vertue and Efficacy opposite to its Reality and Substance and * an Vnion of the Bread there to the Divinity only so far as the Divinity to bestow on it the Salvifical Virtue or Efficacy of Christ's Body and * a conjunction of the Bread there to Christ's natural Body born of the Blessed Virgin but to it as in Heaven not here to it as a Mystery may be said to be an Appendix or Accessary to the thing of which it is a Mystery But all this is the Protestant Opinion 3. Again seems not to deal sincerely in that whilst he affirms the modern Greeks to retain the former Doctrine of their Church as high as Damascen and the 2d Council of Nice ‖ l. 3. c. 13. p. 315. and again †l. 3. c. 13. p. 326. l. 4. c. 9 p. 488. Damascen not to have been the first that had such thoughts viz. of an Augmentation of Christs Body in the Eucharist by the Sanctified Elements as it was augmented when he here on earth by his nourishment but to have borrowed them from some Ancient Greek Fathers naming Greg. Nyssen Orat. Catechet c. 37. See this Father's words below § 321. n. 14. and Anastasius Sinait who explained their Doctrine by the same comparison as Damascen and the Greeks following him did yet doth not freely declare both these the Ancient Greeks as well as the later either to differ from or to agree with the Protestant Opinion § 4 4. Having said this That however the Greek Opinion varies from the Protestants it concerns him not Next he declares That what ever the Greeks may be proved to have held concerning some transmutation of the Bread and Wine into Christ's Body and Blood or concerning a Real or Corporal presence and their understanding Hoc est Corpus meum in a literal sense neither doth this concern his cause who undertakes only to maintain that these Churches assert not Transubstantiation at least assert it not so as to make it a positive Article of their Faith His words upon D. Arnauld's resenting it That whereas he contented himself â—nly to shew that the Real presence was received by the Oriental Schismatical Churches M. Claude diverted the Controversie to Transubstantiation His words I say are these * l. c. 1. p. 157. In the Dispute concerning the Greeks our business is only about Transubstantiation and not at all about Real presence For it was to this only and Adoration that I formerly limited my self in my last Answer But then as if this might do him some prejudice he as it were cautiously addeth Yet I would have none draw a Consequence from hence that I acknowledge a Real presence established in the Greek Church But here to make his words true he adds again in that sense as the Roman Church understands it And what sense is that surely by the way of Transubstantiation And so you see he pares his words till they say no more than just what he said before That he acknowledgeth no Real presence viz. by way of Transubstantiation established in the Greek Church And this is to say only that he acknowledgeth them not to hold Transubstantiation Next concerning the Greek their receiving or opposing Transubstantiation he hath one Hold more Ibid. It is not saith he our business to know whether the Greeks formally reject Transubstantiation Or whether they have made It an Article of Controversie between them and the Latins but only whether they comprehend it amongst their points of Faith or no Our Dispute is only concerning this matter One would think that he had been chaced very much and driven up to the wall that to preserve himself safe he makes so many outworks and contracts the Subject of his Disputation within so narrow a Compass But doth he not here for the Greek Church also thus decline and tacitly as it were yield up that to the Catholicks which they have always professed to be the main Controversie with Protestants on this Subject viz. The Real and Corporal presence of our Lord and the perpetuity of the Christian Faith as well East as West in the constant Belief of this for all the later times of the Church Catholick which consent found in the later times is the truest proof from which we may collect also the true sense of the former And from this Corporal presence once established whether a Transubstantiation be or be not necessarily follows also the lawfulness of a Soveraign Adoration which renders the Dispute concerning one of the two Points he contesteth needless and decideth it against him since an Adoration of the Mysteries practised among the Greeks he is content to allow but not Soveraign Now Real presence makes it out a Soveraign one § 5 5. His way thus far made and his cause pretended not to be concerned in that the Greeks have a different Sentiment of the Eucharist from Protestants Nor that they take Hoc est Corpus meum as also the Latins in a literal sense and hold a Real presence Nor that they do not reject the Roman Transubstantiation Or make any Controversie with the Latins about it And so all Authorities save those that press Transubstantiation being removed from giving him any trouble Next For the Greeks asserting a Transubstantiation the alledging such Testimonies as these which follow and frequently occur in their Authors will not be admitted by him as good or to the purpose That by the Consecration the Bread is changed and converted into the very the proper the True or in veritate in reipsa Body of Christ which Body also is the same with that born of the Blessed Virgin and that suffered on the Cross That the Eucharist is not a Figure or Image only of this Body but the very Body of our Lord united to his Divinity as the Body born of the Blessed Virgin was Neither are these now two but one Unum corpus unus Sanguis cum eo quod sumpsit in utero Virginis
designs upon the matter of the Differences between the two Communions Catholick and Protestant which they pretend to accommodate and reconcile So he Censures Casaubon out of Spondanus †Levitatem animi Vacillantem eum perpetuo tenuisse cum his illis placere cuperet nulli satisfecisset Where indeed whose judgment ought sooner to be credited than theirs who appear more indifferent between the two contending parties So To Archbishop Lanfrank's words to Berengarius Interroga Graecos Armenios seu cujus libet Nationis quoscunque homines uno ore hanc fidem i. e. Transubstantiationis se testabuntur hahere cited by Dr. Arnauld He answers ‖ p. 361. That Pre-occupation renders his Testimony nothing worth Urge the Socinians because the Fathers oppose so manifestly their own opinions therefore more apt to speak the truth of them in their opposing also those of other Protestants and particularly in their differing from them in this point of the Eucharist He tells us they are not creditable in their Testimony because so much interested to decry the Doctrine of the Fathers in their own regard and thus they imagine Protestants will have less countenance to press them with an Authority that themselves cannot stand to Urge the Centurists confessing Transubstantiation found in some of the Fathers and in magnifying their new-begun Reformation more free plainly to acknowledge those they thought errours of former times He ‖ l. 1. c. 5. denies them fit witnesses in this Controversie because themselves holding a Real Presence they had rather admit a Transubstantiation in the Fathers than a Presence only Mystical And suppose such excuses should fail him yet how easie is it to find some other whereby a person may be represented never to stand in an exact indifferency as to whatever Subject of his Discourse With such personal exceptions M. Claude frequently seeks to relieve his Cause where nothing else will do it Whereas indeed such a common Veracity is to be supposed amongst men especially as to these matters of Fact that where a multitude though of a party concern'd concur in their Testimony they cannot reasonably be rejected on such an account either that their being deceiv'd or purpose to deceive and to relate a lie is possible or that what they say can be shewed a thing well-pleasing and agreeable to their own inclinations For as it is true that ones own interest if as to his own particular very considerable renders a Testimony less credible So on the other side almost no Testimony would be valid and current if it is to be decried where can be shewed some favour or engagement of affection to the thing which the person witnesseth and cannot be manifested an equal poise to all parties and so for Example in the Narration of another Country's Religion often made by all Parties none here can be believed save in what he testifies of them against his own Such things therefore are to be decided according to the multitude and paucity and the Reputation of the Witnesses rather than their only some way general interest and the Credibility of such things is to be left to the equal Reader 's Judgment § 8 But 7ly Should all that is said touching the later Greek's from the eleventh or the eighth to the present age their holding Transubstantiation be undeniably made good and all the Testimonies concerning it exactly true Yet he saith ‖ l. 2. c. 1. It will not follow that a change of the Church's former Faith in this Point is impossible or hath not actually happened and consequently that all M. Arnauld 's long dispute about it is vain and unprofitable I add and then so his Replies But here since the true sense and meaning of Antiquity on what side this stands is the thing chiefly questioned and debated between the Roman Church and Protestants unless he will throw off this too and retreat only to sense of Scripture I suppose to wise men it will seem little less than the loss of the Protestant cause and too great a prejudice to it to be so slightly yielded up if that not the Roman only but the whole visible Catholick Church besides themselves from the eleventh to the present age doth defend a Corporal Presence and a literal sense of Hoc est Corpus meum or also Transubstantiation and so consequently doth concur and Vote against them touching the sense of former Antiquity for this each side in their present Doctrine and Practice pretend to follow And I can hardly think M. Claude would seem to spend so great a part of his Book to defend a Post the loss of which he thought no way harm'd him Again thus it is manifest that in an Oecumenical Council if now assembled the Protestants would remain the Party Condemned § 9 8. After all these Defences wherewith he seems sufficiently guarded He proceeds l. 3. c. 13. thus to declare the true opinion of the Modern Greeks on this Subject which I will give you in his own words p. 310. They believe saith he That by the Sanctification or Consecration is made a Composition of the Bread and Wine and of the Holy Ghost That these Symboles keeping their own Nature are joined to the Divinity and That by the impression of the Holy Ghost they are changed for the Faithful alone the Body of our Lord being supposed either to be not present at all or to cease to be so in the particles of the Symbole received by the unworthy into the vertue of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ being by this means made not a Figure but the proper and true Body of Jesus Christ and this by the way of Augmentation of the same natural Body of Jesus Christ To which they apply the comparison of the nourishment which is made our own Body by Assimilation and Augmentation Again p. 237. more briefly The Doctrine of the Greek Church is That the substance of Bread conserving its proper Being is added to the Natural Body of Jesus Christ that it is rendred like unto it That it augments and by this means becomes the same Body with it By this also he saith p. 334. and see the same in his 4th l. c. 7. the Greeks would observe in some sort the literal sense of the words Hoc est Corpus meum which saith He we do not we understand them in this sense This Bread is the sacred sign or Sacrament of my Body Or which comes to the same pass The Bread signifies my Body They on the contrary taking the word is in some sort according to the letter would have that the same subject which is the Bread is also the Body of Christ. From preserving this pretended literal sense it is also That they would have it That the Bread is made one with the Body by its Vnion to the Divinity by the Impression of the Holy Ghost and by a change of vertue Or as he hath it in his 6th l. c. 10. That there is an Vnion of
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.
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-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