delights the Palate What Is to taste the Lord to perceive any Corporeal Object Wherefore he invites them to make Tryal by their Spiritual Faculty of Tasting and not think of any thing Corporeal either in that Drink or Bread but to understand every thing Spiritually For the Lord is a Spirit and blessed is the Man that trusteth in him LIX And afterwards Christ is in the Sacrament because it is the Body of Christ yet it is not therefore Bodily Food but Spiritual What could be more plainly clearly and more divinely said For he saith in that Sacrament Christ is but he doth not say that Bread and that Wine is Christ which should he have said he would have made Christ corruptible and mortal which God forbid he should For it is certain that whatsoever is corporeally seen or tasted in that Food is liable to corruption LX. He adds Because it is Christ's Body You will reply upon me Look here he plainly acknowledges this Bread and Wine to be Christ's Body But have patience and mark what he subjoyns Yet this is not bodily Food but spiritual Use not therefore thy bodily Sense for it is no Judge in this Matter It is the Body of Christ indeed yet not Corporal but Spiritual It is the Blood of Christ yet not Corporal but Spiritual So that nothing is here to be understood Corporally but Spiritually It is the Body of Christ but not Corporally It is the Blood of Christ but not Corporally LXI And afterwards Wherefore the Apostle saith he speaking of the Type thereof saith That our Fathers did eat Spiritual Meat and drank Spiritual Drink For the Body of God is Spiritual The Body of Christ is the Body of a Divine Spirit as we read in the Lamentations * The Place St. Ambrose cites is Lam. 4.20 where the LXX read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the vulgar Latine Christus Dominus but our English Translation renders it truly The Lord 's Anointed By which Expositors understand not Jesus Christ but either Josiah or as some think Zedekiah Christ the Lord is the Spirit before our Face LXII He very clearly teaches how we are to understand the Mystery of Christ's Body and Blood For having said our Fathers did eat Spiritual Meat and drank Spiritual Drink when no body doubts that the Manna which they did eat and the Water which they drank were Corporeal He adds concerning the Mystery which we now celebrate in the Church determining in what Sense it is Christ's Body For the Body of God is a Spiritual Body Verily Christ is God and the Body which he took of the Virgin Mary which Suffered was Buried and Rose again was his true Body that is it remained such as might be seen and felt but the Body which is called the Mystery of God is not Corporeal but Spiritual and if Spiritual then it can neither be seen nor yet felt And for this reason St. Ambrose proceeds to say The Body of Christ is the Body of a Divine Spirit Now a Divine Spirit is no Corporeal Corruptible or palpable Being But that Body which is celebrated in the Church according to its visible Nature is both Corruptible and such as may be felt LXIII In what respect then is it called the Body of a Divine Spirit Truly as it is Spiritual that is as it is invisible as it cannot be felt and is therefore incorruptible LXIV Which makes him further add That Christ is a Spirit as we read Christ the Lord is the Spirit before our Face Whereby he plainly shews in what respect it is accounted Christ's Body to wit in as much as the Spirit of Christ is therein that is to say the Power of the Divine Word which doth not only feed but also purifies the Soul. LXV Wherefore our Author goes on Lastly this Meat strengtheneth our Heart and this Drink maketh glad the Heart of Man as the (b) Psal 104.15 Prophet testifies Now doth our Bodily Food strengthen or doth this Bodily Drink make glad the Heart of Man But to shew of what Meat and Drink it is that he speaks he adds emphatically This Meat and this Drink What is this Meat and this Drink Even the Body of Christ the Body of the Divine Spirit and to explain the Matter yet more Christ himself who is a Spirit of whom he saith Christ the Lord is the Spirit before our Face By all which Discourse it evidently appears that in this Meat and Drink nothing is to be corporally understood but all must be Spiritually taken LXVI For the Soul which is in this place signified by the Heart of Man is not fed with bodily Meat or Drink but is nourished by the Word of God and grows thereby Which the same Doctor doth more expresly affirm in his Fifth Book upon the Sacraments saying It is not that Bread which goes into the Body but the Bread of Life Eternal which affords Sustenance to our Souls LXVII And that St. Ambrose spake not this of common Bread but of that Bread which is also Christ's Body is most manifest from the following Passages For he speaks of the Daily Bread which the Faithful pray for LXVIII Adding If it be Daily Bread why dost thou receive it but once in the Year as the Greeks in the East were wont to do Receive that every Day which may every Day do thee good and live so that thou mayest be every Day worthy to receive So that it is plain of what Bread he speaks to wit of the Bread of Christ's Body which sustains our Souls not as it passes into our Bodies but as it is the Bread of Eternal Life LXIX By the Authority of this most Learned Father He Sums up the force of St. Ambr. his Discourse we are taught how vast a difference there is between the Body in which Christ suffered and the Blood which he shed out of his Side as he hung on the Cross and that Body which is daily celebrated by the Faithful in the Mystery of his Passion and that Blood which is received with their Mouths as the Sacrament of that Blood wherewith the whole World was Redeemed For that Bread and Drink are not the Body and Blood of Christ as they are visible but as they Spiritually minister the Sustenance of Life Moreover that Body in which Christ once suffered appeared to be no other thing than really it was for such it really was as it appeared to the eye to the touch the same thing which was Crucified and Buried Likewise the Blood issuing from his Side did not outwardly appear one thing and inwardly contain another So that true Blood flowed from his true Side But now the Blood of Christ which the Faithful drink and that Body which they eat are one thing in their Nature and another in their Signification one thing as they feed the Body Bodily Food and another thing as they feed the Soul viz. the Sustenance of Eternal Life LXX Of which matter St. Hierom in his Comment
they did eat the same spiritual Meat with us He adds And they drank the same spiritual Drink They drank one thing and we another but (a) In its visible Nature only as to what outwardly appeared which by a spiritual vertue signified and same thing How was it the same Drink They drank faith he of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. Thence had they Bread whence they had Drink The Rock was Christ in a Type but the true Christ was the Word incarnate LXXIX Again (b) John 6.63 This is the Bread which came down from Heaven whosoever eats thereof shall never die which must be understood of him who eats the Vertue of the Sacrament not the meer visible Sacrament him who eats inwardly not outwardly who feeds on it in his Heart not who presseth it with his Teeth LXXX Again in what follows quoting our Saviour's Words he saith Doth this offend you that I said I give you my Flesh to eat and my Blood to drink What if you shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was before What means this Here he resolves that which troubled them here he expounds the Difficulty at which they were offended For they thought he would have given them his Body but he tells them that he should ascend in his Body entire into Heaven When you shall see the Son of Man ascend where he was before certainly then you will see that he did not give his Body in the way which you imagine then you will understand that the Grace of God is not eaten by Morsels He saith It is the Spirit that quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing LXXXI And after many other Passages he adds Whosoever saith the same Apostle hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his Therefore it is the Spirit that quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing (a) John 6.63 The words which I have spoken unto you are Spirit and life What means he by saying they are Spirit and Life That they must be Spiritually understood If thou understandest them Spiritually they are Spirit and Life if thou understandest them Carnally even so also they are Spirit and Life but not to thee LXXXII By the Authority of this Doctor treating on the Words of our Lord touching the Sacrament of his own Body and Blood we are plainly taught That those words of our Lord are to be spiritually and not carnally understood as he himself saith The words which I speak unto you are Spirit and Life That is his Words concerning eating his Flesh drinking his Blood. He had spoken those things at which his Disciples were offended Therefore that they might not be offended their Divine Master calleth them back from the Flesh to the Spirit from Objects of the outward Sense (a) That is to spiritual Objects to the understanding of things invisible LXXXIII So then we see that food of the Lord's Body that drink of his blood are in some respect truly his Body and his Blood that is in the same respect in which they are Spirit and Life LXXXIV Again those things which are one and the same are comprehended under the same Definition We say of the true Body of Christ that he is very God and very Man God begotten of God the Father before the World began and Man born of the Virgin Mary in the end of the World. But since these things cannot be said of the Body of Christ which is mystically celebrated in the Church we know that it is only in some particular manner the Body of Christ which manner is Figurative and in the way of an Image so that the Verity is the Thing it self LXXXV He argues from a Prayer in his time used after the H. Communion In the Prayer used after the Mystery of Christ's Body and Blood to which the People say Amen the Priest speaks thus (a) This Prayer is not found in the present Roman Mass-book We who have now received the Pledge of eternal Life most humbly beseech thee to grant that we may be (a) Or Really manifestly made partakers of that which here we receive under an Image or Sacrament LXXXVI A Pledge and Image are the Pledge and Image of somewhat else that is they do not respect themselves but another thing It is the Pledge of that thing for which it is given the Image of the thing it represents They signifie the thing of which they are the Pledge or Image but are not the very thing it self whence it appears that this Body and Blood of Christ are the Pledge and Image of something to come which is now only represented but shall hereafter be (b) Or Really plainly exhibited Now if it only signifie at present what shall be hereafter really exhibited then it is one thing which is now celebrated and another which shall hereafter be manifested LXXXVII Wherefore it is indeed the Body and Blood of Christ which the Church celebrates but in the way of a Pledge or an Image The truth we shall then have when the Pledge or Image shall cease and the very thing it self shall appear LXXXVIII And in another Prayer He argues from another Collect. (a) This is extant in the ordinary Mass-Book Let thy Sacrament work in us O Lord we beseech thee those things which they contain that we may really be made partakers of those things which now we celebrate in a figure He saith that these things are celebrated in a Figure not in Truth that is by way of Representation and not the (b) Or Real Presence Manifestation of the Thing it self Now the Figure and the Truth are very different things Therefore that Body and Blood of Christ which is celebrated in the Church differs from the Body and Blood of Christ which is glorified That Body is the Pledge or Figure but this the very Truth it self the former we celebrate till we come to the latter and when we come to the latter the former shall be done way LXXXIX It is apparent therefore that they differ vastly as much as the Pledge and that whereof it is the Pledge as much as the Image and the Thing whose Image it is as much as the Figure and Truth We see then how vast a difference there is between the Mystery of Christ's Body and Blood which the Faithful now receive in the Church and that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary which suffered was buried rose again ascended into Heaven and sitteth at the Right-hand of God. For that Body which is celebrated here in our way must be spiritually received for Faith believes somewhat that it seeth not and it spiritually feeds the Soul makes glad the Heart and confers Eternal Life and Incorruption if we attend not to that which feeds the Body which is chewed with our Teeth and ground to pieces but to that which is spiritually received by Faith. Now that Body in which Christ suffered and rose again was his own
falsly that Ratram intended to dispute against the Real Presence yet since he treats his Adversaries as Catholicks and calleth them the Faithful the Question in dispute must necessarily have been some opinion of less moment than the Real Presence the belief thereof or of the contrary could never have been held indifferent by the Faithful Not to spend time in exposing his absurd pretence to suppose a thing when he immediately assumes and concludeth the contrary I deny this consequence viz. Ratram doth not call his Adversaries Hereticks but treats them as Brethren therefore he did not write against the Real Presence All that can be concluded thence is that the Adversaries of that Doctrin were then as they still are Persons of a more charitable and meek Spirit than those who maintain and propagate it There is a great deal of difference between Heresie and some gross Errors whose Patrons do not desert the Communion of the Church and therefore it doth not follow that because Ratram treats these Erring Brethren as Catholicks and includes them with their Adversaries in the common Notion of Faithful he must needs esteem the Question in dispute of so little moment that it was indifferent which way it was held It 's plain he (a) Num. 11. chargeth them with Consequences very absurd (b) Num. 15. with contradicting themselves with subverting what they pretended to believe (c) Num. 32. Sanctorum Scriptis Patrum contraire comprobantur and with contradicting the Authority of the Fathers which are no very slight Accusations and shew plainly that he did not esteem it a matter of no moment whether his own or his Adversaries Opinion were embraced His second Reflection is That Ratram could not possibly write against Paschase because he takes no notice of the Miracle of Christ's Apparition in the form of Flesh alledged by Paschase in the fourteenth Chapter of his Book To which I Answer 1. That there is no necessity that he should take notice of this Miracle any more than he doth of his other Arguments since as it hath been before observed that it is the Notion and not the Book of Paschase against which he disputeth He acts the part of an Opponent throughout and never answers one Argument save that he once N. 56. obviates an Objection from St. Ambrose 2. That admitting us to pretend that Ratram encountered the Book of Paschase we may as fairly from our Author's Silence infer that there were no such Miracles alledged in it but that those Fables were since foisted in M. Boileau saith that Blondel rejects the whole Chapter as spurious I have not his Book at command to see his Reasons but I cannot believe he did it without all Authority as is pretended M. Boileau (d) Pref. p. 52. himself saith enough to shew that the two last Miracles were foisted in when he acquaints us that one Old Manuscript hath all Three but another more Antient only One. If one Superstitious Monk took liberty to Insert those two why might not the first which doubtless was the Fiction of some Greek Monk after the Second Nicene Synod together with the Discourse that ushers it in be a Forgery too As for the Story of Gregory the Great and the Roman Matron which is likewise foisted into our Saxon Homily out of the Life of that Pope it was impossible that Paschase should alledge it Since that Life of Gregory was not written in many years after (e) According to F. Maubillon A. D. 831. Paschase had Published his Book and admitting him to have Lived till 865. which is fourteen Years after the time when Sirmondus saith he Died Paschase must have been at least seven Year in his Grave before (f) Vide Vossium de Hist Latin. l. 2. c. 36. de Joanne Diacono Joannes Diaconus wrote the Life of Gregory in which only it occurs and Dedicated it to Pope John the VIII who was Advanced to the Papal Throne A. D. 872. that is about forty Years after Paschase first Published his Book and above twenty after his (g) A. D. 851. Resignation of the Abby and consequently after his second Publication of it with an Epistle to Carolus Calvus in which he stileth himself Abbot As for the story of Plegils the Saxon Presbyter who prayed to see Christ in the form of a Child and obtained his Request it is a shrew'd Presumption against the Antiquity and Authority thereof that it is omitted by the Interpolator of the Saxon Homily who would hardly have neglected so remarkable a Miracle wrought in Favour of an English Priest But Thirdly not to stand exposing the Falshood and Impudence of these fained Apparitions or rather of their Fabulous Author (h) Joannes Diaconus lived neer 300 years after Gregory's Pontificate is a Fabulous Writer and Author of the story of Trajans Soul being Praid out of Hell by that Pope they all prove too much or else just nothing For either in these Apparitions they saw what really was under the forms of Bread and Wine and what really was Transacted in the Sacrament or they did not If they did not the whole was a meer Illusion and Fancy And on the other hand if they did Then Christ according to the description of the first and third Miracle is still an Infant both the Jew and the Saxon Priest are said to have seen a little Child Again Christ must be divided into several parts as the Jew saw his Body broken in Pieces in St. Basil's Hands Again every Communicant doth not Receive Christ Intire but only some part of him for the Roman Matron saw the Piece which she was to receive turned (i) him bam Æ¿ear ð aeteoÆ¿ed seo snaed ðaes husles ðe heo ðicgan sceolde sÆ¿ylce ðar laeg on ðam disce anes fingres liþ aeal geblodgod Hom. Sax. Fol. 38. into a Joint of the little Finger all Bloody Again at this rate Christ must be actually slain and the Sacrifice of the Altar be a Bloody Sacrifice for the Jew is said to see his Body divided in S. Basils hands and our Saxon Miracle Monger tells us that the two Monks saw an Angel with a Sword at Consecration divide the Childs Body and pour his Blood into the Chalice and if so what becomes of the Doctrin of Concomitancy So that either these Miracles prove nothing at all or else they prove what will as little consist with the Romish Belief as with ours His Third Reflection is this That if Ratram had been against the Real Presenâ—e he would not have failed to have Reproached the Greeks with the Belief of it in his four Books Written against them But this is a very Trifling Remark for this was a point upon which the Greek as well as the Latin Church was at that time divided and as it had been unreasonable to Reproach the whole Church with the Errors of one Party so it had been Imprudently done to object to the Greek a Reproach which might have been