Scripture be so necessary search there first this main point that decides all others and saves endless searches viz. our Lord 's establishing a just Church-Authority for ending Controversies Ibid. § 1 MUch-what the same course takes Monsieur Claude in his last Reply to Dr. Arnauld For the shewing of which a little more at large because I am speaking here of the Eucharist and what I shall say may serve for a pre-advertisement to some less experienced in this Controversie that may light on his Book and are in danger of receiving some impressions from it prejudicial to the Catholick Faith I beg leave of the Reader to make a step though somewhat out of my way yet not much beside my purpose Remitting those who think this Foreign Author less concerns them to the prosecution of the former Discourse resum'd below The Controversie concerning the Real or Corporal Presence of our Lord's Body in the Eucharist which for several precedent Ages had exercised the Pens of divers learned Persons who successfully maintained the truth of the Article and happily secured the Churches Peace against their numerous new-risen Opponents became of late years the matter of Contest in France betwixt two able and eminent Disputants Monsieur Arnauld a Sorbon Doctor and Monsieur Claude an Huguenot Minister A Combate not only sharp and long but thro the Manager's skill carried on with specious new Arguments on the one side and in a way formerly untrod The new Doctrine opposing Real Presence had boldly but as it proved unsuccessfully demanded an hearing and obtained it being by several Western Councils publickly silenced and coerced whereupon it seemed to some a fit expedient for encouraging a cause disgraced to sound the inclination of the then persecuted and therefore likelier to join with so thriving a Sect as the Protestants then appeared Eastern Churches herein and if possible unite their interests in case they could find them consenting in this main Article To this end the Lutherans whose Sentiments approached much nearer the truth than those of Zuinglius and the later Calvinists addressed themselves to the Patriarch of Constantinople ‖ See Acta Theolog. Wittenburg Jeremy but so unprosperously that instead of obtaining the so much desired Union they got only a severe check and reprehension from him tired with their importunity and offended at the extravagant liberty taken by them of differing not only in this but several other points from the sense of the whole Catholick Church But of late years by the more frequent Negotiations and Embassies into those parts the Opinion of the Orientals hath been in this matter more fully discovered by the industry and exact Collection exhibited in the learned Writings of Monsieur Arnauld one of the Antagonists in this Dispute wherein his Adversary much pressed by many plain and evident Testimonies produced against him is forced to summon up all his Arts and Skill in his defence to support an undertaking he found too difficult to maintain and too disadvantageous for him to quit after so much defiance of a just Authority opposing and such pretensions that the Orientals consented with him and his adherents in the Point 1st This Author busies himself ‖ l. 2. c. 1. to accumulate many Testimonies concerning the miserable ignorance and decay of Learning in the modern Greek and other Oriental Churches as also that of the Moscovites ‖ l. 5. c. 1. even amongst their Monasticks Priests and Bishops which industrious disparaging of their Science shews he hath no mind to stand to their Judgment He relates their many Superstitious and ridiculous Rites and Ceremonies in Religion their extreme Poverty and so how easily they are to be gained to say or do any thing with the Mony or to speak in better Language with the Charities which the Latins frequently bestow on them Hence these Nations being so ignorant their sentiments in Religion are less to be valued and so poor their testimony more easily corrupted § 2 2. He proceeds ‖ l. 2. c. 2 c. to tell us the many opportunities the Latins have had of introducing Innovations and propagating the Roman Faith in those Countries 1. By so many Western Armies that have passed thither for the Conquest of the Holy Land and have setled there to maintain their Victories and so kept the Orientals in Subjection for near two hundred years 2. By the inability of the later Grecian Emperors to defend their Dominions and so their often endeavouring to accommodate Religion after the best way for their Secular advantages and that was by a Conformity in it with the West 3. By the continual Missions of Priests and Religious of all Orders each of them striving to have some plantation in the East especially the Missions of Jesuits thither who by their manifold diligence in instructing their children educating their youth distributing many charities to the necessitous playing the Physitians teaching the Mathematicks c. insinuate also into them their Religion having corrupted also several of their Bishops Hence we may imagine these Missions of the Latins having thus overspread the whole face of the East and practising so many Arts to change its Faith it will seem a hard task to prove concerning any particular Testimony procured from thence that the persons subscribing it are no way Latiniz'd no way tainted in their judgment and that they are not already circumvented and won over in some Points though perhaps they may still stand out in some others All this he doth to shew the great industry of these Missions to pervert the Truth there But indeed manifests their indefatigable zeal and courage through infinite hazards to advance it negociating the Conversion of Infidels as well as the instruction of ignorant Christians And Roman Catholicks are much indebted to M. Claude for his great pains in giving so exact an account of their Piety § 3 3. Having premised such a Narration as this to be made use of as he sees fit for invalidating the Testimonies of the modern Greeks 3ly He declares that he doth not undertake at all to shew that the Greeks concur with Protestants in their Opinion concerning our Lord's presence in the Eucharist and much complains of his Adversary for imposing such an attempt upon him L. 3. c. 1. It is not our business here saith he to shew whether the Greeks have the same Faith which we Protestants have on the subject of the Holy Sacraâ—â—â—ts This is a perpetual Illusion that M. Arnauld puts upon his Readers but whether the Greeks believe of the Sacrament that which the Church of Rome believes And l. 3. c. 13. He saith He would have none imagine that he pretends no difference between the Opinion of the Greeks and Protestants and he thinks that none of the Protestant Doctors have pretended it And Ibid. after his stating of the Greek Opinion To the censure that he makes it peu raisonnable he saith * P. 336. That to this he hath nothing to answer save
Resp p. 514. in Answer to D. Arnauld 's Objections touching Remigius that if the Bread were made the body of Christ in its Substance it would follow that our Lord would have so many Bodies as he is united i.e. in his Divinity to different Breads this he grants notwithstanding Remigius his arguing all these Breads but one and the same Body from the same Divinity replenishing them of which more below But the Bread not being made Christ's Body save only in Vertue and in Efficacy this consequence is null because this Vertue through the whole world is one and the same For this is indivisible and is all of it entire where-ever it is Thus he And that such are his Answers and Explications of these expressions of the Greeks as I have here represented You may see in his 2d Answer part 3. c. 2. 4. His last Answer l. 3. c. 9 10. l. 4. c. 7. l. 5. c. 7. l. 6. c. 10. and frequently elsewhere § 6 Where chiefly you may observe that how punctual soever the Expressions of the Greeks are concerning the presence of Christ's very Body yet he expounds them only of the Vertue exclusive to the Substance of Christ's Body And yet this person confesseth that the Greeks hold †l. 4. c. 7. That the Bread is made the proper Body of Christ opposed to figure by the way of Augmentation of his Natural Body so as our Nourishment is made our Body And yet elsewhere more fully †l. 6. c. 10. That upon the Consecration they held an Vnion of the Bread with the Divinity of our Lord and by the Divinity an Vnion to his natural Body and that they understood that by the means of this Vnion or of this Conjunction the Bread becomes the Body of Christ and is made the same Body with it I add as our nourishment by its union to the same Soul is made the same Body with ours Now then when we say that our nourishment upon such an operation passing upon it is or is changed into or is made our Body or Flesh did he candidly here interpret our meaning who should say that we affirm only that this nourishment is our Body or Flesh in Vertue or changed into the Vertue of it exclusively to its being also made the Substance of it So doth this person deal candidly for instance when Euthymius a Greek Author that held this opinion expresseth himself thus †Comment in Mat. c. 64. Quemad-modum Jesus Christus supernaturaliter assumptam carnem deificavit Etiam Haec the Bread and Wine ineffabiliter transmutat i. e. by his united Deity in ipsum vivificum Corpus in ipsum pretiosum sanguinem suum in gratiam ipsorum Which Grace he explains presently after by this Body strengthning us as Bread doth and this Blood exhilarating and encouraging us as Wine †See Psal 103.15 I say doth he deal ingenuously to expound the here by a C ' est a dire or id est Transmutat ineffâ—biliter in ipsum Corpus in ipsum Sanguinem id est in gratiam ipsorum Making the Body a Synonyma with its Vertue Such a Synonymon saith he as that of St. Paul in 1 Tim. 4.3 They who believe and know the Truth Or 1 Tim. 6.3 Wholesom words and Doctrine of Godliness But might he not have said more aptly such a Synonymon as that in Psalm 32. Verbo Domini Caeli firmati sunt omnis virtus eorum firmati sunt Caeli id est virtus eorum Or Psalm 147. Magnus Dominus magna virtus ejus Dominus id est virtus Domini But if the Greeks mean as he saith indeed they do That the Bread by Consecration is made our Lord's proper Body though not that Numerical one born of the Virgin yet another added to it by way of Augmentation and so in some sense made the same with it viz. so as our nourishment is with ours by the Union and inhabitation of our Lord's Divinity to and in them both and lastly that by its being thus made our Lords Body it hath also the vivificating vertue of his natural Body inherent in it then I say in plain dealing this Person expounding the Expressions of the Greeks ought to have confessed their maintaining the presence in the Eucharist of this Substance of Christ's Body as well as of its Vertue this Substance I say of which they affirm that it is the same with the other crucified so far as to be united to the same Divinity and in the same person of our Lord and from this to receive the same vivificating Vertue though indeed this new Substance from that crucified numerically distinct Nor consequently ought he to impose upon the Greeks as every where he doth their holding the Bread after Consecration to remain still so entirely Bread as it was before but only the matter of it so to remain as the matter of our Nourishment doth when yet that which was Bread is now truly our Flesh and no more Bread our Flesh not by I know not what Mystical Relation to it but by a most interior Reception and Incorporation into it and dispersion through that our Substance or Flesh which was existent before Nor lastly using the same integrity ought he to have said this new Substance to have been held by the Greeks augmentative of Christ's Natural Body or also to be the same with it as the Greeks always say it is by reason of a supernatural vertue of Christ's Natural Body communicated to it as he usually explains them for one thing may have the Vertue of another without being an augmentative part of it or contracting any Identity with it But that this new Substance is held by the Greeks an accruit to our Lord 's Natural Body and the same also with it from its Vnion to the Divinity and so its change into Christ's Flesh and so its partaking also the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Graces or Vertues of it which the Greeks speak of with much reason as well as of the substance because in these we are most concern'd Thus perhaps with much less labour might this ingenious Person have comprehended in his Answers and explications of the Greek's opinion more Truth and gained from his Readers more belief And for this I appeal to any other sober Person when he shall have considered M. Claude's concessions set down below § 9. and the necessary consequences of them § 10. But this Person well saw the great prejudice he should do to his Cause in explaining these Authors in such a manner which would have made a fair way at least toward a Total Transubstantiation and therefore judged it safest to hold fast to a vertual presence Now in this way he takes many of these Expressions seem so clearly to say the contrary to what he would have them as a proof can hardly be brought against such answers that will not have as little or perhaps less evidence in it than the thing that
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