Bloud of Christ was truly presented given and received together with the visible signs of Bread and Wine by the operation of our Lord and by vertue of his institution according to the plain sound and sense of his words and that not only Zuinglius and Oecolampadius had so taught but they also in the publick Confessions of the Churches of the Vpper Germany and other Writings confest it so that the Controversie was rather about the manner of the presence or absence than about the presence or absence it self All which Bucer's Associates confirm after him He also adds That the Magistrates in their Churches had denounced very severe punishments to any that should deny the presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Lords Supper Bucerus did also maintain this Doctrine of the blessed Sacrament in presence of the Landgrave of Hesse and Melancthon confessing That together with the Sacrament we truly and substantially receive the body of Christ Also That the Bread and Wine are conferring signs giving what they represent so that together with them the Body of Christ is given and received And to these he adds That the Body and Bread are not united in the mixture of their substance but in that the Sacrament gives what it promiseth that is the one is never without the other and so they agreeing on both parts that the Bread and Wine are not changed he holds such a Sacramental Union Luther having heard this declared also his opinion thus That he did not locally include the Body and Bloud of Christ with the Bread and Wine and unite them together by any natural connexion and that he did not make proper to the Sacraments that vertue whereby they brought Salvation to the Receivers but that he maintained only a Sacramental Vnion betwixt the Body of Christ and the Bread and betwixt his Bloud and the Wine and did teach that the power of confirming our Faith which he attributed to the Sacraments was not naturally inherent in the outward signs but proceeded from the operation of Christ and was given by his Spirit by his Words and by the Elements And finally in this manner he spake to all that were present If you believe and teach that in the Lords Supper the true Body and Bloud of Christ is given and received and not the Bread and Wine only and that this giving and receiving is real and not imaginary we are agreed and we own you for dear Brethren in the Lord. All this is set down at large in the twentieth Tome of Luthers Works and in the English Works of Bucer 14. The next will be the Gallican Confession made at Paris in a National Synod and presented to King Charles IX at the Conference of Poissy Which speaks of the Sacrament on this wise Although Christ be in heaven where he is to remain until he come to judge the World yet we believe that by the secret and incomprehensible virtue of his Spirit he feeds and vivifies us by the substance of his Body and Bloud received by Faith now we say that this is done in a spiritual manner not that we believe it to be a fancy and imagination instead of a truth and real effect but rather because that Mystery of our Vnion with Christ is of so sublime a nature that it is as much above the capacity of our senses as it is above the order of nature Item We believe that in the Lords Supper God gives us really that is truly and efficaciously whatever is represented by the Sacrament with the signs we joyn the true Possession and fruition of the thing by them offered to us And so that Bread and Wine which are given to us become our spiritual nourishment in that they make it in some manner visible to us that the Flesh of Christ is our food and his Bloud our drink Therefore those Fanaticks that reject these Signs and Symbols are by us rejected our blessed Saviour having said This is my body and this Cup is my bloud This Confession hath been subscribed by the Church of Geneva 15. The Envoyes from the French Churches to Worms made a declaration concerning that Mystery much after the same manner We confess say they that in the Lords Supper besides the benefits of Christ the substance also of the Son of man his true body with his bloud shed for us are not only figuratively signified by Types and Symbols as memorials of things absent but also truly and certainly presented given and offered to be applied by signs that are not bare and destitute but on Gods part in regard of his offer and promise always undoubtedly accompanied with what they signifie whether they be offered to good or bad Christians 16. Now follows the Belgick Confession which professeth it to be most certain that Christ doth really effect in us what is figured by the signs although it be above the capacity of our reason to understand which way the operations of the Holy Ghost being always occult and incomprehensible 17. The more ancient Confession of the Switzers made by common consent at Basil and approved by all the Helvetick-Protestant Churches hath it That while the Faithful eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord they by the operation of Christ working by the Holy Spirit receive the Body and Bloud of our Lord and thereby are fed unto Eternal life But notwithstanding that they affirm that this food is spiritual yet they afterwards conclude That by spiritual food they understand not imaginary but the very body of Christ which was given for us 18. And the latter Confession of the Switzers writ and Printed in 1566. affirms as expresly the true presence of Christs body in the Eucharist thus Outwardly the bread is offered by the Minister and the words of Christ heard Take eat this is my Body drink ye all of this this is my Bloud Therefore the Faithful receive what Christs Minister gives and drink of the Lords Cup And at the same time by the power of Christ working by the Holy Ghost are fed by the flesh and bloud of our Lord unto eternal life c. Again Christ is not absent from his Church celebrating his holy Supper The Sun in heaven being distant from us is nevertheless present by his efficacy how much more shall Christ the Sun of righteousness who is bodily in heaven absent from us be spiritually present to us by his life-giving virtue and as he declared in his last Supper he would be present Joh. 14. 15 16. Whence it follows that we have no Communion without Christ Now to this Confession not only the Reformed Switzers did subscribe but also the Churches of Hungary Pannonia or Transilvania Poland and Lithuania which follow neither the Augustan nor Bohemian Confessions It was subscribed also by the Churches of Scotland and Geneva 19. Lastly Let us hear the renowned Declaration of the Reformed Churches of Poland made in the Assembly of Thoran
indeed simply as it is flesh without any other respect for so it is not given neither would it profit us but as it is crucified and given for the redemption of the world neither doth it hinder the truth and substance of the thing that this eating of Christ's body is spiritual and that by it the souls of the Faithful and not their stomachs are fed by the operation of the Holy Ghost For this none can deny but they who being strangers to the Spirit and the divine vertue can savour only carnal things and to whom what is Spiritual and Sacramental is the same as if a meer nothing 7. As to the manner of the presence of the body and bloud of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament we that are Protestant and Reformed according to the ancient Catholick Church do not search into the manner of it with perplexing inquiries but after the example of the primitive and purest Church of Christ we leave it to the power and wisdom of our Lord yielding a full and unfeined assent to his words Had the Romish maintainers of Transubstantiation done the same they would not have determined and decreed and then imposed as an Article of faith absolutely necessary to Salvation a manner of presence newly by them invented under pain of the most direful Curse and there would have been in the Church less wrangling and more peace and unity than now is CHAP. II. 1 2 and 3 c. The unanimous consent of all Protestants with the Church of England in maintaining a real that is true but not a carnal presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament proved by publick Confessions and the best of Authorities 1. SO then none of the Protestant Churches doubt of the real that is true and not imaginary Presence of Christ's body and bloud in the Sacrament and there appears no reason why any man should suspect their common Confession of either fraud or error as though in this particular they had in the least departed from the Catholick faith 2. For it is easie to produce the consent of Reformed Churches and Authors whereby it will clearly appear to them that are not wilfully blind that they all zealously maintain and profess this truth without forsaking in any wise the true Catholick Faith in this matter 3. I begin with the Church of England wherein they that are in holy Orders are bound by a Law and Canon Never to teach any thing to the people to be by them believed in matters of Religion but what agrees with the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and what the Catholick Fathers and Ancient Prelates have gathered and inferred out of it Vnder pain of Excommunication if they transgress troubling the people with contrary Doctrine It teacheth therefore that in the Blessed Sacrament the body of Christ is given taken and eaten so that to the worthy Receivers the consecrated and broken bread is the communication of the body of Christ and likewise the consecrated Cup the communication of his bloud But that the wicked and they that approach unworthily the Sacrament of so sacred a thing eat and drink their own damnation in that they become guilty of the body and bloud of Christ And the same Church in a solemn Prayer before the consecration prays thus Grant us gracious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear SonJesus Christ and to drink his bloud that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious bloud and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us The Priest also blessing or consecrating the Bread and Wine saith thus Hear us O merciful Father we most humbly beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy Creatures of Bread and Wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution in remembrance of his Death and Passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and bloud Who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying take eat this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me Likewise after Supper he took the Cup and when he had given thinks he gave it to them saying drink ye all of this for this is my bloud of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me The same when he gives the Sacrament to the people kneeling giving the bread saith The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life Likewise when he gives the Cup he saith The bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee preserve thy body and soul to everlasting life Afterwards when the Communion is done follows a thanksgiving Almighty and ever living God we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received these holy Mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and bloud of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ With the Hymn Glory be to God on high c. Also in the publick Authorized Catechism of our Church appointed to be learned of all it is answered to the question concerning the inward part of the Sacrament that it is the body and bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lords Supper And in the Apology for this Church writ by that worthy and Reverend Prelate Jewel Bishop of Salisbury it is expresly affirmed That to the faithful is truly given in the Sacrament the body and bloud of our Lord the life-giving flesh of the Son of God which quickens our souls the bread that came from heaven the food of immortality grace and truth and life And that it is the Communion of the body and bloud of Christ that we may abide in him and he in us and that we may be ascertained that the flesh and bloud of Christ is the food of our souls as bread and wine is of our bodies 4. A while before the writing of this Apology came forth the Dialectick of the famous Dr. Poinet Bishop of Winchester concerning the truth nature and substance of the body and bloud of Christ in the blessed Sacrament writ on purpose to explain and manifest the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of England in that point In the first place it shews that the holy Eucharist is not only the figure but also contains in it self the truth nature and substance of the body of our blessed Saviour and that those words nature and substance ought not to be rejected because the Fathers used them in speaking of that Mystery Secondly He inquires whether those expressions truth nature and substance were used in this Mystery by the Ancients in their common acceptation or in a sense more particular
Eucharist after the Invocation of the Holy Ghost is no longer ordinary Bread but is the Body of Christ so this holy Oyntment is no longer a bare common Oyntment after it is consecrated but is the gift or grace of Christ which by his Divine Nature and the coming of the Holy Ghost is made â—fficacious so that the Body is anointed with the Oyntment but the soul is sanctified by the holy and vivifying Spirit Can any thing more clear be said Either the Oyntment is transubstantiated by consecration into the spirit and grace of Christ or the Bread and Wine are not transubstantiated by Consecration into the Body and Bloud of Christ Therefore as the Oyntment retains still its substance and yet is not called a meer or common ointment but the Charisme or grace of Christ So the Bread and Wine remaining so as to their substance yet are not said to be only Bread and Wine common and ordinary but also the Body and Bloud of Christ Vnder the Type of Bread saith he the Body is given thee and the Bloud under the type of the Wine This Grodecius doth captiously and unfaithfully interpret under the appearances of Bread and Wine for those meer appearances or accidents subsisting without a subject never so much as entred into the mind of any of the Ancients 15. Much to the same purpose we have in the Anaphora or Liturgy attributed to St. Basil We have set before you the Type of the Body and Bloud of Christ which he calls the Bread of the Eucharist after the Consecration If it be the Type of the Body then certainly it cannot be the Body and nothing else For as we said before nothing can be the figure of it self no more than a man can be his own Son or Father There be also Prayers in that Liturgy That the Bread may become the Body of Christ for the remission of sins and life eternal to the receivers Now true it is that to the faithful the Element becomes a vivifying Body because they are truly partakers of the heavenly bread the Body of Christ but to others who either receive not or are not believers to them the Bread may be the Antitype but is not neither doth become the Body of Christ for without Faith Christ is never eaten as is gathered from the same Father 16. St. Gregory Nyssene his Brother doth clearly declare what change is wrought in the Bread and Wine by Consecration saying As the Altar naturally is but common stone but being consecrated becomes an holy Table a spotless Altar so the bread of the Eucharist is at first ordinary but being mysteriously sacrificed it is and is called the Body of Christ and is efficacious to great purposes and as the Priest yesterday a Lay-man by the Blessing of Ordination becomes a Doctor of Piety and a Steward of Mysteries and though not changed in body or shape yet is transformed and made better as to his soul by an invisible power and grace so also by the same consequence water being nothing but water of it self yet blest by a heavenly grace renews the man working a spiritual regeneration in him Now let the Assertors of Transubstantiation maintain that a Stone is substantially changed into an Altar a man into a Priest the water in Baptism into an invisible grace or else that the Bread is not so changed into the Body of Christ For according to this Father there is the same consequence in them all 17 Likewise St. Ambrose explaining what manner of alteration is in the bread when in the Eucharist it becomes the Body of Christ saith Thou hadst indeed a being but wert an old creature but being now Baptized or consecrated thou art become a new creature The same change that happens to man in Baptism happens to the Bread in the Sacrament If the nature of man is not substantially altered by the new Birth no more is the bread by Consecration Man becomes by Baptism not what Nature made him but what Grace new-makes him and the Bread becomes by Consecration not what it was by Nature but what the Blessing consecrates it to be For Nature made only a meer man and made only common bread but Regeneration of a meer man makes a holy man in whom Christ dwells spiritually And likewise the Consecration of common bread makes Mystick and Sacramental bread Yet this change doth not destroy Nature but to Nature adds Grace As is yet more plainly exprest by that holy Father in the fore-cited place Perhaps thou wilt say saith he this my bread is common bread it is bread indeed before the blessing of the Sacrament but when it is consecrated it becomes the Body of Christ This we are therefore to declare how can that which is bread be also the body of Christ By Consecration And Consecration is made by the words of our Lord that the venerable Sacrament may be perfected You see how efficacious is the word of Christ If there be then so great a power in the word of Christ to make the Bread and Wine to be what they were not how much greater is that power which still preserves them to be what they were and yet makes them to be what they were not Therefore that I may answer thee it was not the Body of Christ before the Consecration but now after the Consecration it is the Body of Christ he said the word and it was done thou thy self wert befere but wert an old Creature after thou hast been consecrated in Baptism thou art become a new creature By these words St. Ambrose teacheth how we are to understand that the Bread is the Body of Christ to wit by such a change that the Bread and Wine do not cease to be what they were as to their substance for then they should not be what they were and yet by the Blessing become what before they were not For so they are said to remain as indeed they do 〈◊〉 what they were by nature that yet they are changed by grace that is they become assured Sacraments of the Body and Bloud of Christ and by that means certain pledges of our Justification and Redemption What is there can refute more expresly the dream of Transubstantiation 18. St. Chrysostome doth also clearly discard and reject this carnal Transubstantiation and eating of Christs Body without eating the bread Sacraments saith he ought not to be contemplated and considered carnally but with the eyes of our souls that is spiritually for such is the nature of mysteries where observe the opposition betwixt carnally and spiritually which admits of no plea or reply again As in Baptism the spiritual power of Regeneration is given to the material water so also the immaterial gift of the Body and Bloud of Christ is not received by any sensible corporal action but by the spiritual discernment of our faith and of our hearts and minds Which is no more than this that
so called But this he declares yet more clearly Lib. 6. Etymol cap. 19. For as the visible substance of Bread and Wine nourish the outward man so the Word of Christ who is the bread of Life refresheth the souls of the faithful being received by Faith These words were recorded and preserved by Bertram the Priest when as in the Editions of Isidore they are now left out 27. And the same kind of expressions as those of Isidorus were also used by Venerable Bede our Country-man who lived in the Eighth Century In his Sermon upon the Epiphany of whom we also take these two testimonies following In the room of the flesh and bloud of the Lamb Christ substituted the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud in the figure of Bread and Wine Also At Supper he gave to his Disciples the figure of his holy Body and Bloud These utterly destroy Transubstantiation 28. In the same Century Charles the Great wrote an Epistle to our Alcuinus wherein we find these words Christ at Supper broke the bread to his Disciples and likewise gave them the Cup in figure of his Body and Bloud and so left to us this great Sacrament for our benefit If it was the figure of his body it could not be the Body it self Indeed the Body of Christ is given in the Eucharist but to the faithful only and that by means of the Sacrament of the Consecrated bread 29. But now about the beginning of the Ninth Century started up Paschafius a Monk of Corbie who first as some say whose Judgment I follow not among the Latines taught that Christ was Consubstantiated or rather inclosed in the Bread corporally united to it in the Sacrament for as yet there was no thoughts of the Transubstantiation of Bread But these new sorts of expressions not agreeing with the Catholick Doctrine and the Writings of the ancient Fathers had few or no Abettors before the Eleventh Century And in the Ninth whereof we now treat there were not wanting learned men as Amalarius Archdeacon of Triars Rabanus at first Abbot of Fulda and afterwards Archbishop of Ments John Erigena an English Divine Walafridus Strabo a German Abbot Ratramus or Bertramus first Priest of Corbie afterwards Abbot of Orbec in France and many more who by their Writings opposed this new Opinion of Pascasius or of some others rather and delivered to Posterity the Doctrine of the Ancient Church Yet we have something more to say concerning Paschasius whom Bellarmine and Sirmondus esteemed so highly that they were not ashamed to say that he was the first that had writ to the purpose concerning the Eucharist and that he had so explained the meaning of the Church that he had shewn and opened the way to all them who treated of that subject after him Yet in that whole Book of Paschasius there is nothing that favours the Transubstantiation of the Bread or its destruction or removal Indeed he asserts the truth of the Body and Bloud of Christs being in the Eucharist which Protestants deny not he denies that the Consecrated Bread is a bare figure a representation void of truth which Protestants assert not But he hath many things repugnant to Transubstantiation which as I have said the Church of Rome it self had not yet quite found out I shall mention a few of them Christ saith he left us this Sacrament a visible figure and character of his Body and Bloud that by them our Spirit might the better embrace spiritual and invisible things and be more fully fed by Faith Again We must receive our spiritual Sacraments with the mouth of the Soul and the taste of Faith Item Whilst therein we savour nothing carnal but we being spiritual and understanding the whole spiritually we remain in Christ And a little after The flesh and bloud of Christ are received spiritually And again To savour according to the flesh is death and yet to receive spiritually the true Flesh of Christ is life eternal Lastly The Flesh and bloud of Christ are not received carnally but spiritually In these he teacheth that the Mystery of the Lords Supper is not and ought not to be understood carnally but spiritually and that this dream of corporal and oral Transubstantiation was unknown to the Ancient Church As for what hath been added to this Book by the craft without doubt of some superstitious forgerer as Erasmus complains that it too frequently happens to the Writing of the Ancients it is Fabulous as the visible appearing of the Body of Christ in the form of an Infant with fingers of raw flesh such stuff is unworthy to be Fathered on Paschasius who profest that he delivered no other Doctrin concerning the Sacrament than that which he had learned out of the Ancient Fathers and not from idle and uncertain stories of Miracles 30. Now it may be requisite to produce the testimony of those Writers before mentioned to have written in this Century In all that I write saith Amalarius I am swayed by the Judgment of holy men and pious Fathers yet I say what I think my self Those things that are done in the Celebration of Divine Service are done in the Sacrament of the Passion of our Lord as he himself commanded Therefore the Priest offering the Bread with the Wine and Water in the Sacrament doth it in the stead of Christ and the Bread Wine and Water in the Sacrament represent the Flesh and Bloud of Christ For Sacraments are somewhat to resemble those things whereof they are Sacraments Therefore let the Priest be like unto Christ as the Bread and Liquors are like the Body and Bloud of Christ Such is in some manner the immolation of the Priest on the Altar as was that of Christ on the Cross Again The Sacrament of the Body of Christ is in some manner the Body of Christ For Sacraments should not be Sacraments if in some things they had not the likeness of that whereof they are Sacraments Now by reason of this mutual likeness they oftentimes are called by what they represent Lastly Sacraments have the vertue to bring us to those things whereof they are Sacraments These things writ Amalarius according to the Expressions of St. Austin and the Doctrine of the purest Church 31. Rabanus Maurus a great Doctor of this Age who could hardly be matcht either in Italy or in Germany publisht this his open Confession Our blessed Saviour would have the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud to be received by the mouth of the Faithful and to become their nourishment that by the visible body the effects of the invisible might be known For as the material Food feeds the body outwardly and makes it to grow so the Word of God doth inwardly nourish and strengthen the soul Also He would have the Sacramental Elements to be made of the fruits of the earth that as he who is God invisible appeared visible in our Flesh and