Sacrament yet Monsieur Duval consesseth this was Genebrards private conjecture not founded on any Authority or Testimony I believe Genebrard in Liturg Dionys Duval annot in lib. Ecclesiae Lugd. adv Scot. the conceit of a Corporal Presence was hardly so much as known at that time in England and after it came to be vended here it was a long time e're it came to that value as to be made the price of Blood. There were many other men of note in this Ninth Century whom divers Writers on our side have proved to have declared their minds against the Innovation of Paschasius such as Hincmarus Walesridus Strabo Heribald Drusilmanus and several more whose names you meet with in many Latin Tracts and in that English Treatise I mention'd just now But I will not spend my time upon every little quotation least I should make this Letter swell beyond a due proportion and besides I think it not amiss to divert you a little with some account of the posture of this affair about that time here at home because I have just spoken of Scotus who was either our Country Man or a near Neighbour Somewhat after the 900th year from Christ Odo was ArchBishop of Canterbury and he would have brought into England the belief of a Corporal presence But it seems the Clergy were too Honest to be wrought upon In those days most doubted of the Truth meaning the Substantial Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament saith William Malmesb. de gest pontif Angl p. 201. Osbern in vita Odon of Malmesbury Some Clergy Men asserted saith Osbern that the Bread and Wine after Consecration remain in their own former Substance He saith some but he should have said the Generality of Men believed so for it was then the common Opinion in the Church of England But this has been the custome of that sort of men when they are to tell Noses or go to the Poll to represent the adverse party as a little Handful though sometimes to their cost they find themselves sadly mistaken in their account For after the death of Odo this was the common Faith of the Church of England even in the days of Elfrick or Alfrick who was made Abbot of Malmesbury by King Edgar Anno 974. if Ingulphus be right in his computation Indeed about that time Men did search how bread that is gather'd of Corn and A Saxon Homily on Easter-Day through fires heat baked may be turned to Christ's Body c. But the Doctrine of our Church which was then profest and which upon that search was the more vigorously maintain'd was that 't is Christ's Body Mystically Spiritually and by signification The Reason why I say it is this Elfrick was of such great esteem in the Church that his Writings were sorted among the publick Acts of the Church and judged to contain the avowed and Authentick Doctrine of the Church of England then For some of them were put among the Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions for the instruction and good Government of the Clergy and some of his Writings were publickly read in Churches as Authoriz'd Homilies for the Information of all People This account I find in in the Preface to a very scarce Book under this Title A Testimony of Antiquity shewing the Ancient Faith of the Church of England touching the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord here publickly preached and also received in the Saxon time This Book was Printed in Archbishop Parkers days but there is no printed date of the year only in MSS. 1567. and Mr. Fox seems to have taken out of it all that account which he gives us of this matter in his Acts and Monuments It is a little Manual of some of Elfrick's Works First a Sermon Translated by Elfrick out of some Latin Author into the Saxon Language which was publickly read here on Easter-Day and then two of his Epistles to two Bishops Out of which saith the Prefacer it is not hard to know not only so much what Alfrickes judgment was in this Controversie but also that more is what was the common received Doctrine herein of the whole Church of England as well when Elfricke himself lived as before his time and also after his time even from him to the Conquest The piece I now speak of being a Rarity I will give you this account of it premising this only that by Housel is meant the Elements in the Sacrament the Sacramental Bread and Wine In the Sermon for Easter the Saxon Language on the one Page and the common English over against it on the other after a pretty long comparison made in the beginning between the Paschal Lamb in Egypt and our Blessed Saviour these words follow Now Men have often searched and do yet often search how Bread that is gathered of Corne and through fyers heate baked may be turned to Christes Body or how Wyne that is pressed out of many Grapes is turned through one blessing to the Lords Bloude Now say we to suche men that some thinges be spoken of Christ by signification some thyngs by thyng certain True thyng is and certain that Christ was born of a Maid and suffered Death of his own accorde and was buryed and on thys day rose from Death He is sayd Bread by a signification and a Lamb and a Lyon and a Mountayne He is called bread because he is our Life and Angels Life He is sayd to be a Lamb for his innocence a Lyon for strength wherewith he overcame the strong Devil But Christ is not so notwithstanding after true Nature neither Bread nor a Lamb nor a Lyon why is then that holy Housel called Christ's Body or his Blood if it be not truly that it is called Truly the Bread and the Wyne which by the Masse of the Priest is Halowed shew one thing without to humayne understanding and another thing they call within to beleving mindes Without they be sene Bread and Wine both in Figure and in tast and they be truely after their halowing Christes Body and hys bloude through Ghostly mistery An heathen Childe is Christened yet he altereth not hys shape without though he be chaunged within He is brought to the Font-Stone sinful through Adams disobedience Howbeit he is washed from all Sinne within though he hath not altered hys shape without Even so the Holy Font Water that is called the well spryng of Life is lyke in shape to other Waters and is subject to corruption but the Holy Ghostes myght commeth to the corruptible Water through the Priestes Blessing and it may after wash the Body and Soule from all Sinne through Ghostly myghte Beholde now we see two thyngs in this one Creature After true Nature that Water is corruptible Water and after Ghostly mistery hath halowing mighte So also if we beholde that Holy Housell after bodely understanding then see we that it is a Creature corruptible and mutable If we acknowledge therein ghostly myghte then understand we
Durand Ep ad Henr. 1. and was his Contemporary reckons it among those old Heresies which he accused Bruno the Bishop of Anger 's and Berengarius for reviving at that time You must make the man allowance for the word Herisie It was a scolding expression which some used in those days for want of strong Arguments But if you strip the Malice and Virulency off the naked and true meaning is that Berengarius held an Ancient opinion and you may easily see it by comparing his last judgement with the Faith of the Ancients 2. Tho' some private Doctors of the Roman Church strove at that time to Establish the Doctrine of the Corporal presence and to Introduce the other of a Substantial Change of the Holy Symbols in the Eucharist yet these Inovations were so far from being generally received that the Writers of those times nay on that very side sufficently shew us how distracted the world was about those points and what vast numbers in several parts of Christendome sided with Berengarius Durandus in his fierce Sanguinary Letter to Henry the first of France call'd the Berengarian Faith the foul reproach of his whole most Noble Kingdom And Totius nobilissime regni vestri heu nimis turpe opprobium hearing that the Berengarians defired to be heard in a publick Council and that King Henry had summon'd a Council in order to it he disswaded him from that course because as he told the King He and others were very much afraid least the Berengariand should come off and so the last State of things would be worse than the first therefore he besought the King to punish them unheard After this Man Guitmund tells us that not the Berengarians only but several others though Enemies to the Berengarians were very much divided in their sense about the Sacrament some believing the Bread and Wine to be changed in part only others imagining that though there should be an entire change yet where there are unworthy Receivers the Sacrament Returns into Bread and Wine again Some years after Algerus speaks of Alger Prolog in Librum de Sacrament no less than six different opinions about the Sacrament besides that New Opinion which now begun to spread Some held no other change to be in the Symbols than is in the Water at Baptism Others held such an Union between Christ and the Symbols as is between his Divinity and his Flesh Others held a change of them to be into the Flesh and Blood not of Christ but of some Son of Man who is acceptable unto God. Others believed that no change could be made by a wicked Priest Others again that though there were a change yet it doth not continue but that there is a return into Bread and Wine And others again that the Sacrament is Digested and doth Corrupt after eating All these hot Disputes which naturally sprang out of the Bowels of a gross opinion so full of sensible difficulties did plainly shew it to be a quite different thing from the Faith of the Ancient Church when there were none of these quarrols because the prolysick Doctrine which Naturally brought them into the World was not then in being for had it been so those many difficulties it necessarily yields must have brought forth abundance of Disputes especially in times when Men had a greater Liberty of disputing than in Berengarius his Days when the Pope and his party had usurped and did not stick to exercise a Tyrannical power over Princes themselves But of all these disagreeing parties they that stuck to Berengarius was the most formidable Body to the innovating Faction Sigebert shews that all France abounded with them William of Malmesbury though a hater of Berengarius his memory tells us the same Malmesbur ad an 1087. thing so doth Matthew Paris and Matthew of West-minister faith that Berengarius had almost corrupted as his Language is all the French Italian and English And indeed the vast endeavours the Popes used to suppress the Ancient Faith not in those Countries only but in Germany too plainly shews that their Innovations did not gain ground without meeting with strong opposition how lightly soever Lanfranck and Guitmund speak of this matter thinking thereby to disgrace Berengarius 3. Nay It is very observable as a further plain sign of the Novelty of Transubstantiation that the very Men who were the Patrons of it found so many perplexities in bringing it to its form that they could not agree among themselves but spake inconsistently so that it cost them much time to mould the absurdity into the shape wherein it appears now And this I shall shew you as briefly as the Matter will give me leave according to the Series of time The best Key to open the whole thing and the only way of doing right to Berengarius his Memory and Cause It being found by his Letters to Lanfranck then Abbot of Caen in Normandy that he was against the Opinion of Paschasius it was thought he held the Sacred Symbols to be nothing but empty Types and shadows which as I said perhaps might have been his first Opinion Hereupon to make him an Example to all of that perswasion Several Synods were called one after another at Rome and Verceil Anno 1050. under Leo the 9th besides several other Assemblies which Mabillon mentions in some of Mabillon Analect vet Tom. 2. p. 477. c. which Synods Berengarius was condemned though absent Now to give you my free thoughts and to be just to all parties very probable it is that they condemned him thus only upon his First supposed Opinion and therein indeed they seem to have been unanimous My Reasons are these 1. For in the Synod at Tours under Pope Victor II. Anno 1056. where and when Berengarius appeared in person he own'd his Correct Opinion which in common construction amounts to no more but a Citat ab Usser desucc statu cap. 7. p. 201. Confession of the Real Spiritual presence that the Bread and Wine do become not umbratically but truly the Flesh and Blood of Christ This doth not favour either Transubstantiation or a Corporal Presence and yet this gave satisfaction so that he was not only dismist but kindly received into the Communion Guitmund de Sacram. lib. 3. of the Roman Church saith Guitmund 2. Mabillon tells us of another short Confession which he saw in a Manuscript and which is supposed Mabillon Analect Tom. 2. p. 487. to have been voluntarily drawn up by Berengarius and presented to Gregory the 7th Anno 1078. that the Bread is the true Body of Christ and the Wine his true Blood Nor doth this Confession reach to the business of Transubstantiation without straining of it after a most violent manner but only asserts the Truth of Christ's presence in the Sacrament in opposition to a bare Type or shadow and therefore Mabillon himself doth acknowledg that this Confession was Artificially and cunningly worded And though
touching the Antiquity of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation For it is not imaginable that the Ancients would have spoken so peremptorily and dogmatically in this point had they not had the Authority of the whole Church to have back't them And because they spake this so freely and that as a common Argument against those Learned Hereticks we may be sure that what they said was the common Faith of the Catholick Church in those times I mean in the Sixth Century And now Sir I shall proceed to Examine how the matter stood as to this point in the times following It is evident that the great Council of 338. Fathers who met at Constantinople Anno 754. were of this Faith That the Bread in the Eucharist is not Christ himself but the Image of him For this they urg'd as an Argument against the use of all other Images because the Symbols in the Eucharist are the only Image of himself which he left his Church Now this utterly overthrows the Doctrine of the Corporal presence and much rather the conceit of Transubstantiation For if the Bread be the Image of his Body it cannot be the Body it self as the Second Nicene Council argued when they oppos'd the Definitions of this Council at Constantinople And besides there is something very observable in the Discourse of this Council upon this point which I wonder so many Writers have not taken notice of and it is this that Christ Ordaining at his last Supper this Image of himself intended to shew the Mystery of his Incarnation And to this purpose they exprest themselves as any one may see by consulting the Acts of the Council As Conc. Nic. 2. Act. 6. when Christ took our Nature he took barely the matter of Humane Substance not his whole Person Divinity and all for to suppose that would be an Offence or Derogation to the Deity so when he appointed this Image of himself he chose barely the Substance of Bread not any shape of Man in it but only a Representation of his Natural Flesh for that would have been an Intreduction of Idolatry Moreover they say that as Christ's Natural Body was Holy by being filled with the Deity so this Image of him becomes Holy by being Sanctified by Grace and as that Flesh of ours which Christ took became Sanctified by being united to the Deity so is the Bread in the Eucharist the true Image of his Natural Flesh Sanctified by the Advent of the Holy Spirit c. Is this at all consistent with Transubstantiation or with the Doctrine of Christ's Corporal presence in the Sacrament And yet this was the sense of those 338. Fathers which they Dogmatically deliver'd as the sense of the Church whereof they lookt upon themselves as the Representatives Therefore Cardinal Bellarmine understanding their sense throughly and finding how strongly and invincibly it made against Transubstantiation had no other way left him but to rank this great Council among Hereticks nay he says they were the first that ever called in question the Truth of the Lords Body in the Eucharist Now this Bellarm. de Euchar. l. 1. c. 1. is easily said but by his favour they denied not the reality of Christ's Spiritual presence but of his Corporal presence only as we Protestants do Nay he himself rightly observes in the same place that the Protestant Faith in this point was not reckon'd among any of the Ancient Heresies nor so much as disputed against by any one of the Ancients for the first 600. Years For how should any Dispute against that which was the Common Faith of the Church and had been so all along to the time of this Constantinopolitan Council Those Fathers did no more but declare that publickly which they had received from former Ages and now made use of as a proper Argument against Images The Patrons of Images finding themselves pinch't with this Argument began to move a point which hitherto lay quiet and to strain those words This is my Body to a sense beyond what had been formerly taught though it was a great while before they could hammer out their New Notions into any Form for they spake very confusedly inconsistently and grosly as if Christ's Natural Body were in the Sacrament And though I do not find that any of them went so far as to own yet a Substantial change of the Nature of the Bread and Wine into the Substance of Flesh and Blood which is the conceit of the Church of Rome now yet 't is plain that what these Innovators said caused a New Great Controversie in Christendom and that just upon the neck of the former Quarrel about Images whereof I have already given you a particular and Faithful account II. And now I am come to the Second Thing I promised to shew you which was when and how the sense of the Ancient Church about the Sacrament came to be alter'd what progress that alteration made and what strong Opposition it met with for several Ages after it began It is generally agreed that Paschasius Rathbertus was one of the first Innovators in the Latin Church Vide Albertin de Sacram. p. 920. about Anno 818. He was first a Monk and afterwards Abbot of Corbey in France and a Man of some considerable Reputation especially for those times when Learning was most decayed which perhaps might transport him into an undue Opinion of his own abilities and that might make him affect singularity However it came about two very Learned Jesuites are agreed that Paschasius was a Leading Man in this business So says Bellarmine that Paschasius Bellarm. de Scriptor Eccles in Paschas Sirmond in vita Paschasii operibus ejus prefix was the first Author that wrote seriously and copiously of the Truth of the Lords Body and Blood in the Eucharist And so saith Sirmondus that Paschasius was the first that explained the Genuine sense of the Catholick he means the Roman Church so as that he opened the way to others who afterwards wrote upon the same Subject The Book which they chiefly mean is that of the Body and Blood of the Lord written to one Placidus a young man whom Paschasius dearly loved In reading of this Book one shall find so many dark Riddles unconquerable perplexities and plain inconsistences that it may be justly questioned whether they are possible to be reconciled to Truth or Sense nay whether the Man himself understood what he would be at One while he will have it to be nothing else but the Flesh and Blood of Christ and another while to be a Figure and the Flesh and Blood of Christ Mystically Now he says that Christ's Body is Created in the Sacrament than that it is made of the Substance of Bread and by and by that the Mystery is Celebrated in the Substance of Bread and Wine Sometime he tells us that 't is the very Body which Christ took of the Virgin and presently that it is wholly a Spiritual and Divine thing
which we Eat of and that 't is his Spiritual Flesh In one fit he says 't is the Flesh of Christ which repairs and nourishes our Flesh because the whole Man is redeemed and in another he says as positively that all must be spiritually understood that we must not think of any thing here that is Carnal and that if there were a real change of the Bread into Flesh it would be no more the Flesh of Christ than now it is because the whole Mystery is Spiritual Throughout the whole book there are so many loose uncouth and inconsistent Notions that there is hardly any thing plain in it but this that he owns a Real presence though the Man seems miserably confounded how to make you in any measure to understand it or how to understand himself his own meaning As I was reading the Book I was apt to believe that either he harped upon that Notion of Christ's Spiritual Body and Blood in the Sacrament which several of the Ancient Fathers insisted on and which is of such great use for the unfolding of this mystery or else that his conceits were meerly the raw issue of an unripened Judgment for he Wrote that piece while he was yet a Monk. But comparing it with his Epistle to Frudegard and his exposition upon St. Matthew 26. v. 26. both which he wrote when he was now Abbot and an Old Man I thought it more reasonable to conjecture that as at first he affected singularity so to the last he was resolved to persist in it For he stifly held it that the very Body of Christ wherein he Suffer'd and Rose again is of a Truth in the Sacrament materially and in the propriety of its Nature And yet to do him right I do not see that he believ'd the Nature of Bread to be Annihilated or Transubstantiated no his opinion seems quite different from that He comes nearer to the Doctrine of Consubstantiation that it is true Bread and true Flesh too or rather to the conceit of Impanation as they call it as if Christ assumed the Bread and united it Corporally to himself upon the Consecration as he assumed our Flesh and united it to the Divinity at his Incarnation But this is a Candid interpretation Whatever his fancy was it soon startled many Learned and Great Men in the Church For Paschasius himself doth confess that many doubted of of the Truth of his Doctrine that many questioned how the Sacrament could be the Body and Blood of Christ and yet Christ remain entire that he had provoked many to look narrowly into the thing because it is said the Flesh profiteth nothing Ep ad Frudegard expos in Matth. that others understood it to be not true Flesh and true Blood but only the Vertue of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament that some reprehended him for what he had written in his Book of the Sacrament believing that it was not true and suspecting that his design was to be in the head of a Faction and then with some choler he calls them Prating and Unlearned Men that would not believe but that a Body must be palpable and visible But hard words were far from stifling this matter Paschasius his New Opinion had taken air and though it fell vastly short of Transubstantiation yet there was enough in it to stirr the the zeal of the Orthodox and so it was ventilated till by degrees it brake out into a flaming Controversie Paschasius his Contemporary Rabanus was one of the most Eminent Men of that time first a Monk at Fuld in Franconia where afterward he succeeded his Friend Egilo in the Abbacy Anno 822. and at last was Archbishop of Mentz The Glory of Germany and admirably skill'd in all sorts of Learning especially in the Hebrew Greek and Latin Languages as the Romanists themselves do confess As soon as Paschasius's Book came abroad and made a noise in the World this Rabanus undertook and confuted it in an Epistle directed to Egilo then Abbot of the Monastery at Fuld Indeed this Epistle is not now extant care enough has been taken by some who thought themselves concern'd to suppress it But that such an Epistle was Written by Rabanus against Paschasius undeniably appears from several Manuscripts of an Author of the same Age and a Friend to Paschasius his Opinion Three of these Manuscripts were seen by the Learned Albertinus in some Libraries in France and a Fourth is in the Cottonian Albert de Euchar lib. 3. pag. 921. Usher Answer to the Challenge p. 17. de succes stata p. 38 39. Library and a Fifth at Sidney Colledge in Cambridge both which were perused by the incomparable Bishop Usher This Author I say having laid down Paschasius his Opinion that the Flesh which is received at the Altar is no other than that which was born of the Virgin Mary suffer'd on the Cross Rose again from the Grave and as yet is daily offer'd for the Life of the World at last he says contra quem sc Paschasium satis argumentatur Rabanus c. against Paschasius both Rabanus in his Epistle to Abbot Egilo and one Ratrannus in a Book written to King Charles of France argue largely saying that it is another kind of Flesh And besides Rabanus himself tells us that he wrote against this Errour of Paschasius's in an Epistle to Abbot Egilo For in his Penitential set out at Inglostad by Peter Steuart he says repeating the very words of Paschasius some of late not having a Right opinion of the Sacrament of the Lords Body and Blood have affirmed Raban penitential c. 33. de Euchar. ad Heribald that 't is that very Body and Blood of the Lord which was born of the Virgin Mary and in which the Lord suffer'd on the Cross and rose again from the Grave Against which Errour saith he we have imployed our last endeavours writing to Abbot Egilo declaring what is truly to be believed concerning Christs Body It seems there was a little Dash or rasure in this passage of Rabanus supposed to have been made by the Monks at Heingart where the Manuscript was found and indeed 't is an Artifice which has been commonly used by many disingenuous Romanists and a very great Honour it is to their Cause to mutilate and corrupt writings which make against them but 't is sufficient for me to note how Rabanus calls the conceit of a Corporal presence a late Errour and yet then it was not so bulky as in later Ages when it swell'd into the most gross Opinion of Transubstantiation Anno 837. or thereabout a great Council was held at Carisiacum in France the same Council if I mistake Vide Usser Histor Gottes Chalch p. 87. not where the Opinions of Gotteschalchus touching Predestination were consider'd and condemn'd and Paschasius Ratbertus then Abbot of Corbey was one of that Council Whether they determin'd any thing against Paschasius himself is not certain for the Printed
that lyfe is therein and that it giveth immortality to them that eat it with beliefe Muche is betwixt the invisible myght of the Holy Housell and the visible shape of its proper Nature It is naturally corruptible Bread and corruptible Wyne and is by myght of Gods worde truely Christes Body and his Bloude Much is betwixt the Body Christ suffered in and the Body that is Halowed to Housell The Body truely that Christ suffred in was born of the Flesh of Mary with bloude and with bone with Skinne and with Sinews in Humane Limmes with a reasonable Soule living And his Ghostly Body which we call the Housell is gathered of many cornes without Bloude and Bone without Limme without Soule and therefore nothing is to be understand therein bodelye but all is Ghostly to be understand Whatsoever is in that Housell which giveth Substance of Lyfe that is of the Ghostly myghte and invisible doing Therefore is the Holy Housell called a misterye because there is one thing in it seene and another thing understanded That which is there sene hath bodily shape and that we do there understand hath Ghostly might Certainly Christ's body which suffred Death and rose from Death never dyeth henceforth but is Eternal and unpassible That Housell is Temporal not Eternall corruptible and dealed into sondrye parts Chewed between Teeth and sent into the Belly Howbeit neverthelesse after Ghostly myghte it is all in every parte This misterye is a pledge and a Figure Christes Body is Truth it self This pledge we do keep mistically until that we become to the Truth it self and then is this Pledge ended Truely it is so as we before have sayd Christes Bodye and hys Bloude not bodilye but Ghostly The Saviour sayeth He that eateth my Flesh and Drinketh my Blood hath everlasting Life And he bad them not eat that Body which he was going about with nor that bloude to drink which he shed for us but he ment with those wordes that Holy Housell which Ghostley is hys Body and hys Bloude and he that tasteth it with beleaving hart hath that Eternal Lyfe Certainly this Housell which we do now halow at God's Altar is a remembrance of Christes body which he offred for us and of his Bloude which he shed for us The meaning of this Mystery being there thus unfolded the rest of that Sermon is touching the manner how people should receive it which I shall not transcribe because it is not so much to my present In Hen. 8. about the six Articles purpose and the whole is in Mr. Fox where you may peruse it at your leisure The next thing is an Epistle of Elfrick's to Wulfsine Bishop of Scyrburne by occasion of an ill custome the Priests had of keeping the Consecrated Elements by them an whole year It is a short one and you shall have it all Some Pristes keepe the Housell that is consecrate on Easter Day all the yere for Syke Men. But they do greatlye amysse because it waxeth horye and rotten And these will not understand how grevous penaunce the paenitential Booke teacheth by thys if the Housell become horye and rotten or yf that it be lost or be eaten of Beasts by neglygence Men shall reserve more carefullye that holy Housell and not reserve it to long but Consecrate other of newe for Syke men alwayes within a weke or a fortnight that it be not so much as horye For so holy is the Housell which to day is halowed as that which on Easter-day was hallowed That Holy Housell is Christes Body not bodily but Ghostly Not the bodye which he suffred in but the Body of which he spake when he blessed Bread and Wyne to Housell a night before his suffring and said by the Blessed Bread thys is my Body and agayne by the Holy Wyne this is my bloude which is shed for many in forgiveness of Sinnes Understand now that the Lord who could turn that Bread before his suffring to his Body and the Wyne to his Bloude Ghostlye that the selfe same Lorde blesseth dayly through the Priestes handes Bread and Wyne to hys Ghostlye bodye and to his Ghostlye bloude The other Epistle is to Wulfstane Archbishop of Yorke to the same purpose with the former only somewhat longer and about the middle of it he saith Christ Haloweth dayly by the handes of the Priest Bread to hys Body and Wyne to his bloud in Ghostly mistery as we read in bokes And yet that lively bread is not so notwithstanding not the selfe same Body that Christ suffered in Nor that Holy Wyne is the Saviours Bloud which was shed for us in bodely thing but in Ghostly understanding Both be truely that bread hys Body and that Wyne also hys bloud as was the Heavenly Bread which we call Manna that fed forty yeres God's people This Epistle to Wulfstane was first Written by Elfricke in Latin and then by Wulfstanes directions Translated by him into English though not Word for Word as Elfrick tells him And the Words observable in the Latin are these Intelligite modo sacerdotes quod ille Dominus qui ante passionem suam potuit convertere illum panem illud Vinum ad suum Corpus sanguinem ipse quotidie sanctificat per manus Sacerdotum suorum Panem ad suum Corpus spiritualiter Vinum ad suum Sanguinem non fit tamen hoc Sacrificium Corpus ejus in quo passus est pro nobis nec Sanguis ejus quem pro nobis effundit Sed spiritualiter Corpus ejus efficitur sanguis sicut Manna quod de Coelo pluit aqua quoe de Petra Fluxit Sir These Three Things of Elfrick's are a Noble Monument of the Faith of the Church of England even to the Tenth Century And though we find them in Mr. Fox and some other Authors yet I thought my self obliged to give you this short account of them out of a little Manual which a Reverend Friend of mine hath lent me because at the end of it there is an attestation in Manuscript signed by Seventeen Bishops of our Church under their own hands as it seems that the English Translation of this Sermon and the two Epistles is exactly agreeable to the Saxon Copies which upon the Reformation were found in the Libraries of the Cathedral Churches Worcester Hereford and Exeter from which places saith the Preface divers of these Books have been deliver'd into the hands of the most Reverend Father Matthew Archbishop of Canterbury I suppose Dr. Parker Least any doubt should arise about the Translation whether it were skillfully or faithfully done there is as I told you at the End this attestation in Manuscript Now that this foresaid Saxon Homily with the other Testimonies before alledged do fully agree to the Old Ancient Books whereof some be written in the Old Saxon and some in the Latine from whence they are taken These here under-written upon diligent perusing and comparing the same have found by conference that they are truly
all this fell short of the New Opinion then so that it satisfied not the bigotted Men at Rome yet it gave satisfaction to others nay to the Pope himself so that the Case of Berengarius was put off to further consideration another year Now if the matter was thus as in all probability it was I cannot see what hurt this doth Berengarius's Reputation or why thy Romanists should take occasion hence to roar against him so for a perfidious and perjur'd person when in these instances he declared his ripened and deliberate judgment as far as the belief of a Real presence went to which as far as I can find he was constant all his Life time Nor do I see what advantage those Condemnations of him in his absence can bring to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation because those Synods seem to have been so zealously concern'd only for the Catholick Doctrine of the real presence and to have been unanimous as to that sole point not understanding rightly the sense either of Scotus or Berengarius For when the business was carried further from a real to a Corporal presence and from the belief of the main Thing to a belief of the Modus I mean when once it came to be urged that Christ's Body is Substantially and Materially in the Sacrament and that by a Substantial Conversion of the very Nature of the Elements into it when the matter was brought to this height Berengarius's very Judges blunder'd miserably and were much divided about it and inconsistent with themselves Thus we are expresly told by Zacharias Chrysopolitanus Sunt nonnulli imd forsan multi sed vix notari possunt qui cum damnato Berengario idem sentiant tamen eundem cum Ecclesia damnant In hoc videlicet damnant eum quia formam verborum Ecclesioe abjiciens nuditate sermonis seandalum movebat Non sequebatur ut dicunt usum scripturarum quoe passim res significantes tanquam significatas appellant presertim in Sacramentis Zachar. Chrysopol in concord Evangel lib. 4. cap. 156. BB. PP Soec. 12. in the next Age That there were some yea perhaps many who held the same Opinion with Berengarius although they condemned him In this thing they condemned him that laying aside the Churches way of speaking he gave offence by his open manner of expressing himself He did not observe the Language of Scripture which frequently gives the Name of the thing signified to that which signifies it especially in Sacraments This was the only quarrel which many had against him who as to his Doctrine perfectly concurr'd and agreed with him The truth is Berengarius his Judges were much to seek what to say to him or how to deal with him when he appeared personally before them Of which we have two plain instances in Two Synods at Rome the one under Nicolas the Second Anno 1059. the other under Gregory the 7th in February 1079. The first of these two Synods was called chiefly about the Election of Popes and against Simony which was then a great Trade at Rome Thither Berengarius was summon'd and there he defended himself with such irrosistible Evidence of truth against a material change in the Nicolaus Papa comperiens te docere panem vinumque altaris post Consecrationem sine materiali mutatione in pristinis essentiis remanere concessâ tibi respondendi licentid c. Lankfranc de Euchar. adv Berengarium Eique Berengario cum nullus valeret obsistere Albericus evocatur ad Synodum c. Leo Ostiensis in Chronic. Cassinens lib. 3. c. 33. Sacrament that he quite confounded the whole Synod though it consisted of no less than 113 Bishops Not a man of them had a word to say against his Arguments so that they were forced to send for Albericus a Cardinal Deacon and a man of great reputation for his Learning But he was so confounded too that he desired a Weeks time to write against Berengarius Lanfranck who relates things partially as the modern Romanists have done after him not only omits the main of this story but falsifies one part of it as if Berengarius had not answer'd for himself though the Pope had given him leave Whereas Leo Ostiensis who lived about that time relates the particulars of the story and Sigonius confirms it nay Guitmund himself though a bitter Adversary to Berengarius owns there was a conflict in that Synod All which the Learned Bishop Usher De succes statu cap. 7. has noted to my hands 'T is true after all this Berengarius Elegisti-palam atque in audientia Sancti Concilii orthodoxam fidem non amore veritatis sed timore mortis confiteri Lanfrane de Euchar in initio recanted in that Synod meerly for fear of Death An Argument that even great Men are subject to humane srailty especially in extremity of danger tho' the scandal of his complyance falls upon that cause which needed Fire and Faggot for its last Argument and an Executioner instead of a Disputant to bring it to a Conclusion But observe what a Blunder these Men committed in this their Sanguinary attempt on behalf of the New Opinion Humbertus was order'd by the Pope to draw up the Form of a Confession the Synod approved it and poor Berengarius to save his Life was forced to subscribe it Now the Confession was this in short That the Bread and Wine which are set upon the Altar after Consentio autem sanctoe Romanoe Ecclesioe scilicet Panem Vinum quoe in altari ponuntur post Consecrationem non solum Sacramentum sed etiam verum Corpus Sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi esse sensualiter non solum Sacramento sed in veritate manibus Sacerdotum tractari frangi fidelium dentibus atteri Lansranc Alger alii multi Consecration are not only the Sacrament but also the true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that this true Body is sensually not only in the Sacrament but in Truth handled and broken by the hands of the Priests and ground or torn by the Teeth of the Faithful This was very harsh for it renders Christ liable to New Sufferings every day it is inconsistent with the finer Notion of the presence of Christ's Body after the manner of a Spirit it introduces such a crass sort of Eating as our Saviour rebuked the Capernaites for thinking of it makes us to be not only Eaters of a Sacrament but in very Truth Eaters of Mans Flesh Therefore the present Church of Rome will not stand to these Expressions divers of her Doctors formerly have renounced this definition as erronous and absurd though it was made by the Pope in Cathedra and in a publick Synod the boldest Writers have been lamentably put to it how to give it a Tolerable construction The Glossator upon the decrees confesseth that if it be not understood in a sound sense it leads into a greater Heresie than what Berengarius himself was charged with But