Effiqies D. Joannis Corin Episcopi Dunelmensis c THE HISTORY OF POPISH Transubstantiation To which is Premised and opposed The CATHOLICK DOCTRIN OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE The Ancient Fathers and the Reformed Churches About the Sacred Elements and Presence of CHRIST in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist Written Nineteen years ago in Latine By the Right Reverend Father in GOD JOHN Late Lord Bishop of DURHAM And allowed by him to be published a little before his Death at the earnest request of his Friends LONDON Printed by Andrew Clark for Henry Brome at the Gun at the West end of St. Paul's 1676. To the Right Honourable HENEAGE Lord FINCH Baron of Daventry Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England My Lord THe Excellency of this Book answers the greatness of its Author and perhaps the badness of the Version is also proportioned to the meanness of the Translator But the English being for those that could not understand the Original that they also might be instructed by so instructive a Discourse I hope with them my good intent will excuse my fault only my fear is I shall want a good Plea wherewith to sue out my pardon for having intituled a person of the highest honour to so poor a labour as is this of mine My Lord these were the inducements which set me upon this attempt it being the subject of the Book to clear and assert an important truth which is as a Criterion whereby to know the Sons of the Church of England from her Adversaries on both hands those that adore and those that profane the blessed Sacrament these that destroy the visible Sign and those that deny the invisible Grace I thought I might justly offer it to so pious and so great a Son of this Church who own'd her in her most calamitous condition and defends her in her happy and most envied restauration I was also perswaded that the Translation bearing your illustrious name would be thereby much recommended to many and so become the more generally useful And I confided much in your goodness and affability who being by birth and merits raised to a high eminency yet doth willingly condescend to things and persons of low estate My Lord I have only this one thing more to alledge for my self That besides the attestation of publick fame which I hear of a long time speaking loud for you I have these many years lived in a Family where your Vertues being particularly known are particularly admired and honoured so that I could not but have an extraordinary respect and veneration for your Lordship and be glad to have any occasion to express it If these cannot clear me I must remain guilty of having taken this opportunity of declaring my self Your Lorships Most humble and most obedient Servant Luke de Beaulieu THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER IT is now nineteen years since this Historical Treatise was made by the Right Reverend Father in God John Cosin when in the time of the late accursed Rebellion he was an Exile in Paris for his Loyalty and Religion's sake for being then commanded to remain in that City by his gracious Majesty that now is who was departing into Germany by reason of a League newly made by the French King with our wicked Rebels he was also ordered by him as he had been before by his blessed Father Charles the First a Prince never enough to be commended to perform Divine Offices in the Royal Chappel and to endeavour to keep and confirm in the Protestant Religion professed by the Church of Englang his fellow-Exiles both of the Royal Family and others his Country-men who then lived in that place Now the occasion of his writing this Piece was this when his Gracious Majesty had chosen Colen for the place of his residence being solemnly invited he visited a neighbouring Potent Prince of the Empire of the Roman Perswasion where it fell out as it doth usually where Persons of different Religions do meet some Jesuits began to discourse of Controversies with those Noblemen and Worthies who never forsook their Prince in his greatest straights but were his constant Attendants and Imitators of his ever constant Profession of the Reformed Religion charging the Church of England with Heresie especially in what concerns the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper They would have it that our Church holds no real but only a kind of imaginary presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ but that the Church of Rome retained still the very same faith concerning this sacred Mystery which the Catholick Church constantly maintained in all Ages to wit that the whole substance of the Bread and wine is changed into the substance of the Body and Bloud of Christ and right-well called Transubstantiation by the Council of Trent This and much more to the same purpose was pronounced by the Jesuits in presence of His Majesty and the German Prince with as much positiveness and confidence as if it had been a clear and self-evident truth owned by all the Learned His Sacred Majesty and his Noble Attendants knew well enough that the Jesuits did shamelesly belie the Church of England and that their brags about Roman Transubstantiation were equally false and vain But the German Prince having recommended to the perusal of those Honourable Persons that followed the King a Manuscript wherein as he said was proved by Authentick Authors all that had been advanced by the Jesuits They thought it fit to acquaint the Reverend Dr. Cosin with the whole business and intreat him that he would vindicate the Church of England from the Calumny and plainly declare what is her avowed Doctrine and belief about the true and real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament Hereupon our worthy Doctor who was ever ready and zealous to do good especially when it might benefit the Church of God fell presently to work and writ this excellent Treatise as an Answer to the Prince's Manuscript that if those worthy Persons pleased they might repay his Highness kindness in kind Yet notwithstanding the solicitations of those that occasioned it and of others that had perused it he would not yield to have it made publick while a few months before he died because having composed it for particular Friends he thought it sufficient that it had been useful to them But the Controversie about the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist being of late years resumed with much vigour and even now famous by the learned and eloquent Disputes of Monsieur Claude Minister of the Reformed Church in Paris and Monsieur Arnold Doctor of Sorbon and others who moved by their example have entred the Lists The reiterated and more earnest importunities of his friends obtained at last his consent for the publication of this Work and the rather because he thought that the Error constantly maintained by the famous Doctor of Sorbon was by a lucky anticipation clearly and strongly confuted throughout this Book for whatever the Fathers have said about the true
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
and real Presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Sacrament that stout Roman Champion applies to his Transubstantiation and then crows over his Adversaries supposing that he hath utterly overthrown the Protestants cause whereas there is such a wide difference as may be called a great Gulf fixed betwixt the true or real Presence of Christ in the Lords Supper and the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into his Body and Bloud This last is such a Prodigie as is neither taught by Scripture nor possible to be apprehended by faith it is repugnant to right reason and contrary to sense and is no where to be found in Ancient Writers But the other is agreeable to Scripture and to the Analogy of faith it is not against Reason although being spiritual it cannot be perceived by our bodily senses and it is back'd by the constant and unanimous Doctrine of the holy Fathers For it makes nothing against it that sometimes the same Fathers do speak of the Bread and Wine of the holy Eucharist as of the very Body and Bloud of Christ it being a manner of speech very proper and usual in speaking of Sacraments to give to the sign the name of the thing signified And however they explain themselves in other places when they frequently enough call the Sacramental Bread and Wine Types Symbols Figures and Signs of the Body and Bloud of Christ thereby declaring openly for us against the Maintainers of Transubstantiation For we may safely without any prejudice to our Tenet use those Expressions of the Ancients which the Papists think to be most favourable to them taking them in a Sacramental sense as they ought to be whereas the last mentioned that are against them none can use but by so doing he necessarily destroys the whole contrivance of Transubstantiation it being altogether inconsistent to say the Bread is substantially changed into the Body of Christ and the Bread is a Figure a Sign and a Representation of the Body of Christ For what hath lost its being can in no wise signifie or represent any other thing Neither was ever any thing said to represent and be the Figure and Sign of it self But this is more at large treated of in the Book it self Now having given an account of the occasion of writing and publishing this Discourse perhaps the Reader will expect that I should say something of its excellent Author But should I now undertake to speak but of the most memorable things that concern this great Man my thoughts would be overwhelmed with their multitude and I must be injurious both to him and my Readers being confined within the narrow limits of a Preface But what cannot be done here may be done somewhere else God willing This only I would not have the Reader to be ignorant of That this Learned man and as appears by this constant Professor and Defendor of the Protestant Religion was one of those who was most vehemently accused of Popery by the Presbyterians before the late Wars and for that reason bitterly persecuted by them and forced to forsake his Country whereby he secured himself from the violence of their Hands but not of their Tongues for still the good men kept up the noise of their clamorous Accusation even while he was writing this most substantial Treatise against Transubstantiation John Durel CHAP. I. 1. The Real that is true and not imaginary Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is proved by Scripture 2 and 3. Yet this favours not the Tenet of Transubstantiation being it is not to be understood grosly and carnally but spiritually and Sacramentally 4. The nature and use of the Sacraments 5. By means of the Elements of Bread and Wine Christ himself is spiritually eaten by the Faithful in the Sacrament 6. The eating and presence being spiritual are not destructive of the truth and substance of the thing 7. The manner of Presence is unsearchable and ought not to be presumptuously defined 1. THose words which our blessed Saviour used in the institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist This is my body which is given for you This is my bloud which is shed for you for the remission of sins are held and acknowledged by the Universal Church to be most true and infallible And if any one dares oppose them or call in question Christs Veracity or the truth of his words or refuse to yield his sincere assent to them except he be allowed to make a meer figment or a bare figure of them we cannot and ought not either excuse or suffer him in our Churches for we must embrace and hold for an undoubted truth whatever is taught by Divine Scripture And therefore we can as little doubt of what Christ saith Joh. 6. 55 My flesh is meat indeed and my bloud is drink indeed which according to St. Paul are both given to us by the consecrated Elements For he calls the Bread the Communion of Christs Body and the Cup the Communion of his bloud 2. Hence it is most evident that the Bread and Wine which according to St. Paul are the Elements of the holy Eucharist are neither changed as to their substance nor vanisht nor reduc'd to nothing but are solemnly consecrated by the words of Christ that by them his blessed body and bloud may be communicated to us 3. And further it appears from the same words that the expression of Christ and the Apostle is to be understood in a Sacramental and mystick sense and that no gross and carnal presence of body and bloud can be maintained by them 4. And though the word Sacrament be no where used in Scripture to signifie the blessed Eucharist yet the Christian Church ever since its Primitive ages hath given it that name and always called the presence of Christs body and bloud therein Mystick and Sacramental Now a Sacramental expression doth without any inconvenience give to the sign the name of the thing signified And such is as well the usual way of speaking as the nature of Sacraments that not only the names but even the properties and effects of what they represent and exhibite are given to the outward Elements Hence as I said before the Bread is as clearly as positively called by the Apostle the Communion of the body of Christ 5. This also seems very plain that our Blessed Saviour's design was not so much to teach what the Elements of Bread and Wine are by nature and substance as what is their use and office and signification in this Mystery For the body and bloud of our Saviour are not only fitly represented by the Elements but also by vertue of his institution really offered to all by them and so eaten by the faithful Mystically and Sacramentally whence it is that he truly is and abides in us and we in him 6. This is the spiritual and yet no less true and undoubted than if it were corporal eating of Christ's flesh not
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
famous and so worthy a Father as Theodoret alledge that he was accused of some errours in the Council of Ephesus though he repented afterwards as they themselves are forced to confess Fain would they if they could get out at this door when they cannot deny that he affirmed that the Elements remain in their natural substance as he wrote in the Dialogues which he composed against the Eutychian Hereticks with the applause and approbation of the Catholick Church And indeed the evidence of this truth hath compelled some of our Adversaries to yield that Theodoret is of our side For in the Epistle before the Dialogues of Theodoret in the Roman Edition set forth by Stephan Nicolinus the Popes Printer in the year 1547 it is plainly set down That in what concern'd Transubstantiation his opinion was not very sound but that he was to be excused because the Church of Rome had made no decree about it 22. With Theodoret we may joyn Gelasius who whether he were Bishop of Rome or no as Bellarmine confesseth was of the same age and opinion as he and therefore a witness ancient and credible enough He wrote against Eutyches and Nestorius concerning the two natures in Christ in this manner Doubtless the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ which we receive is a very divine thing whereby we are made partakers of the divine nature and yet it doth not cease to be Bread and Wine by substance and nature And indeed the image and resemblance of the Body and Bloud of Christ is celebrated in this mysterious action By this therefore we see manifestly enough that we must believe that to be in Christ which we believe to be in his Sacrament that as by the perfecting vertue of the Holy Ghost it becomes a divine substance and yet remains in the propriety of its nature so this great Mystery the Incarnation of whose power and efficacy this is a lively image doth demonstrate that there is one intire and true Christ consisting of two natures which yet properly remain unchanged It doth plainly appear out of these words that the change wrought in the Sacrament is not substantial for first the sanctified Elements are so made the Body and Bloud of Christ that still they continue to be by nature Bread and Wine Secondly The Bread and Wine retain their natural properties as also the two natures in Christ Lastly The Elements are said to become a divine substance because while we receive them we are made partakers of the Divine Nature by the Body and Bloud of Christ which are given to us These things being so their blindness is to be deplored who see not that they bring again into the Church of Rome the same Error which Antiquity piously and learnedly condemned in the Eutychians And as for their thread-bare objection to this That by the substance of Bread and wine the true substance it self is not to be understood but only the nature and essence of the accidents it is a very strange and very poor shift There is a great deal more of commendation due to the ingenuity of Cardinal Contarenus who yielding to the evidence of truth answered nothing to this plain Testimony of Gelasius 23. Now I add Cyril of Alexandria who said That the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Sacrament are received only by a pure faith as we read in that Epistle against Nestorius which six hundred Fathers approved and confirmed in the Council of Chalcedon I omit to mention the other Fathers of this Age though many things in their Writings be as contrary to Transubstantiation and the independency of accidents as any I have hitherto cited 24. I come now to the Sixth Century about the middle whereof Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch wrote a Book which was read and commended by Photius concerning sacred Constitutions and Ceremonies against the Eutychians therein that he might prove the Hypostatical Union that in Christ there is no confusion of natures but that each retains its own substance and properties he brings the comparison of the Sacramental Union and denies that there should be any conversion of one substance into another in the Sacrament No man saith he that hath any reason will say that the nature of the palpable and impalpable and the nature of the visible and invisible is the same For so the Body of Christ which is received by the faithful remains in its own substance and yet withal is united to a spiritual grace and so Baptism though it becomes wholly spiritual yet it loseth not the sensible property of its substance that 's water neither doth it cease to be what it was made by grace 25. It is not very long since the works of Facundus an African Bishop were Printed at Paris but he lived in the same Century Now what his Doctrine was against Transubstantiation as also of the Church in his time is plainly to be seen by those words of his which I here transcribe The Sacrament of Adoption may be called Adoption as the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ consecrated in the Bread and Wine is said to be his Body and Bloud not that his Body be Bread or his Bloud Wine but because the Bread and Wine are the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud and therefore so called by Christ when he gave them to his Disciples Sirmondus the Jesuit hath writ Annotations on Facundus but when he came to this place he had nothing to say but that the Bread is no Bread but only the likeness and appearance of Bread An opinion so unlike that of Facundus that it should not have been Fathered upon him by a learned and ingenuous man as Sirmondus would be thought to be For he cannot so much as produce any one of the ancient Fathers that ever made mention of accidents subsisting without a subject called by him the appearances of Bread And as for his thinking That some would take the expressions of Facundus to be somewhat uncouth and obscure how unjust and injurious it is to that learned Father may easily be observed by any 26. Isidore Bishop of Hispal about the begining of the Seventh Century wrote thus concerning the Sacrament Because the bread strengthens our body therefore it is called the Body of Christ and because the Wine is made bloud therefore the Bloud of Christ is expressed by it Now these two are visible but yet being sanctified by the Holy Spirit they become the Sacraments of the Lords Body For the Bread which we break is the Body of Christ who said I am the Bread of life and the Wine is his Bloud as it is written I am the true Vine Behold saith he they become a Sacrament not the substance of the Lords Body for the Bread and Wine which feed our Flesh cannot be substantially nor be said to be the Body and Bloud of Christ but Sacramentally they are so as certainly as that they are
lest not only Hereticks but also stubborn Catholicks read the Book with the more greediness and cite it with the more confidence because it is forbidden and so it doth more harm by being prohibited than if it was left free What patch then will they sow to amend this in Bertram Those things that differ are not the same that Body of Christ which died and rose again and is become immortal dies no more being eternal and impassable But that which is celebrated in the Church is temporal not eternal is corruptible and not incorruptible To this last mentioned passage they give a very commodious sense namely that it should be understood of the corruptible species of the Sacrament or of the Sacrament it self and the use of it which will last no longer than this world If this will not do it may not be amiss to leave it all out to blot out visibly and write invisibly And this What the Creatures were in substance before the Consecration they are still the same after it must be understood according to the outward appearance that is the accidents of the Bread and Wine Though they confess that then Bertram knew nothing of those accidents subsisting without 〈◊〉 substance and many other things which thi◠latter age hath added out of the Scriptures wit◠as great truth as subtilty How much easier had it been at one stroke to blot out the whole Book And so make short work with it as the Spanish Inquisitors did i◠their Index expurgat Let the whole Epistle say they of Udalricus Bishop of Ausburg be blotted out cencerning the single life of the Clergy and let the whole Book of Bertram the Priest about the Body and Bloud of the Lord be supprest What is this but as Arnobius said against the Heathen to intercept publick Records and fear the Testimoy of the Truth For as for that which Sixtus Senensis and Possevin affirm That that Book of the Body and Bloud of the Lord was writ by Oecolampadius under the name of Bertram it is so great an untruth that a greater cannot be found 36. We are now come to the tenth Century wherein besides those many Sentences of Catholick Fathers against Innovaters in what concerns the Body and Bloud of Christ collected by Herigerus Abbas Lobiensis we have also an ancient Easter Homily in Saxon English which then used to be read publickly in our Churches out of which we may gather what was then the Doctrine received amongst us touching this Point of Religion but chiefly out of that part wherein are shewn many differences betwixt the natural Body of Christ and the Consecrated Host For thus it teacheth the people There is a great difference betwixt that body wherein Christ suffered and that wherein the Host is consecrated That Body wherein Christ suffered was born of the Virgin Mary consisting of bloud and bones skin and nerves humane members and a rational soul But his spiritual body which we call the Host is made of many united grains of corn and hath neither bloud nor bones neither members nor soul Afterwards The Body of Christ which once died and rose again shall die no more but remains eternal and impassible but this Host is temporal and corruptible divided into parts broken with the teeth and swallowed down into the stomach Lastly this Mystery is a pledge and a figure The body of Christ is that very truth What is seen is bread but what is spiritually understood is life There is also another Sermon of Bishop Wulfinus to the Clergy bearing the title of a Synod of Priests wherein the same opinion and Doctrine is explained in this manner That Host is the Body of Christ not corporally but spiritually not that Body wherein he suffered but that Body whereof he spake when he consecrate◠the Bread and Wine into an Host Which to this day in the Church of England we hold to be a Catholick truth 37. And so hitherto we have produced the agreeing Testimonies of Ancient Fathers for a thousand years after Christ and have transcribed them more at large to make it appear to every one that is not blind that the true Apostolick Doctrine of this Mystery hath been universally maintained for so long by all men some few excepted who more than eight hundred years after Christ presumed to dispute against the ancient Orthodox Doctrine of the manner of Christs Presence and of his being received in the Sacrament though they durst not positively determine any thing against it Now what more concerns this Point we refer to the next Chapter lest this should be too long CHAP. VI. Shews more at large that the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church is inconsistent with Transubstantiation and Answers the Romish Objections vainly alleadged out of Antiquity 1. MAny more Proofs out of Ancient Records might have been added to those we have hitherto brought for a thousand years but we desiring to be brief have omitted them in each Century As in the First After the holy Scriptures the Works of Clemens Romanus commended by the Papists themselves and those of St. Ignatius Bishop of Antioch and Martyr are much against Transubstantiation In the Second likewise St. Theophilus fourth Bishop of Antioch after Ignatius Athenagoras and Tatianus Scholars to Justin Martyr In the Third Clemens Alexandrinus Tutor to Origen and Minutius Felix a Christian Orator In the Fourth Eusebius Bishop of Cesarea Juvencus a Spanish Priest Macarius Egyptius St. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers Optatus Bishop of Milevis Eusebius Emissenus Gregorius Nazianzenus Cyrillus Alexandrinus Epiphanius Salaminensis St. Hierom Theophilus Alexandrinus and Gaudentius Bishop of Brixia In the Fifth Sedulius a Scotch Priest Gennadius Massiliensis and Faustus Bishop of Regium In the Sixth Fulgentius Africanus Victor Antiochenus Primasius Bishop and Procopius Gazeus In the Seventh Hesychius Priest in Jerusalem and Maximus Abbot of Constantinople In the Eighth Johannes Damascenus In the Ninth Nicephorus the Patriarch and Hincmarus Archbishop of Rhemes Lastly in the Tenth Fulbert Bishop of Chartres And to compleat all to these single Fathers we may add whole Councils of them as that of Ancyra of Neocesarea and besides the first of Nice which I have mentioned that of Laodicea of Carthage of Orleans the fourth of Toledo that of Bracara the sixteenth of Toledo and that of Constantinople in Trullo Out of all these appears most certain that the infection of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation was not yet spread over the Christian world but that the sound Doctrine of the Body and Bloud of Christ and of their true yet spiritual not carnal Presence in the Eucharist with the Elements still the same in substance after Consecration was every where owned and maintained And though the Fathers used both ways
proper Zenith none can raise His merits do so far exceed all praise Then surely thou art blest nor dost thou less Heaven with thy Soul Earth with thy Body bless When I go hence O may I dwell with thee In thine appointed place where e're it be Now this Berengarius was not only Archdeacon of Anger 's but also the Scholasticus or Master of the Chair of the same Church which dignity is ever enyoyed by the Chancellor of the Vniversity for his Office is in great Churches to teach the Clergy and instruct them in sound doctrine All this I have produced more at large to manifest the base and injurious Calumnies cast upon this worthy and famous man by latter Writers as John Garetius of Lovain William Alan our Country-man and others who not only accuse him of being an Heretick but also a worthless and an unlearned man 5. Berengarius stood up valiantly in defence of that Doctrine which 170 years before was delivered out of Gods Word and the holy Fathers in France by Bertram and John Erigena and by others elsewhere against those who taught that in the Eucharist neither Bread nor Wine remained after the Consecration Yet he did not either believe or teach as many falsly and shamelesly have imputed to him that nothing more is received in the Lords Supper but bare Signs only or meer Bread and Wine but he believed and openly profest as St. Austin and other faithful Doctors of the Church had taught out of Gods Word that in this Mystery the souls of the Faithful are truly fed by the true Body and Bloud of Christ to life eternal Nevertheless it was neither his mind nor his doctrine that the substance of the Bread and Wine is reduced to nothing or changed into the substance of the natural Body of Christ or as some then would have had the Church believe that Christ himself comes down carnally from heaven Intire books he wrote upon this subject but they have been wholly supprest by his Enemies and now are not to be found Yet what we have of him in his greatest Enemy Lanfrank I here set down By the Consecration at the Altar the Bread and Wine are made a Sacrament of Religion not to cease to be what they were but to be changed into something else and to become what they were not agreeable to what St. Ambrose had taught Again There are two parts in the Sacrifice of the Church this is according to St. Irenaeus the visible Sacrament and the invisible thing of the Sacrament that is the Body of Christ Item The Bread and Wine which are Consecrated remain in their substance having a resemblance with that whereof they are a Sacrament for else they could not be a Sacrament Lastly Sacraments are visible Signs of divine things but in them the invisible things are honoured All this agrees well with St. Austin and other Fathers above cited 6. He did not therefore by this his Doctrine exclude the Body of Christ from the Sacrament but in its right administration he joyned together the thing signified with the sacred Sign and taught that the Body of Christ was not eaten with the mouth in a carnal way but with the Mind and Soul and Spirit Neither did Berengarius alone maintain this Orthodox and ancient Doctrine for Sigibert William of Malmesbury Matthew Paris and Matthew of Westminster make it certain that almost all the French Italians and English of those times were of the same opinion and that many things were said writ and disputed in its defence by many men amongst whom was Bruno then Bishop of the same Church of Anger 's Now this greatly displeaseth the Papal faction who took great care that those mens Writings should not be delivered to Posterity and now do write that the Doctrine of Berengarius owned by the Fathers and maintained by many famous Nations sculkt only in some dark corner or other 7. The first Pope who opposed himself to Berengarius was Leo the Ninth a plain man indeed but too much led by Humbert and Hildebrand For as soon as he was desired he pronounced sentence of Excommunication against Berengarius absent and unheard and not long after he called a Council at Verceil wherein John Erigena and Berengarius were condemned upon this account that they should say that the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist are only bare Signs which was far from their thoughts and farther yet from their belief This roaring therefore of the Lion frighted not Berengarius nay the Gallican Churches did also oppose the Pope and his Synod of Verceil and defend with Berengarius the oppressed truth 8. To Leo succeeded Pope Victor the Second who seeing that Berengarius could not be cast down and crusht by the Fulminations of his Predecessor sent his Legate Hildebrand into France and called another Council at Tours where Berengarius being cited did freely appear and whence he was freely dismist after he had given it under his hand that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrifice of the Church are not shadows and empty figures and that he held none other but the common Doctrine of the Church concerning the Sacrament For he did not alter his judgment as modern Papists give out but he persisted to teach and maintain the same Doctrine as before as Lanfrank complains of him 9. Yet his Enemies would not rest satisfied with this but they urged Pope Nicholas the Second who within a few months that Stephen the Tenth sate succeeded Victor without the Emperours consent to call a new Council at Rome against Berengarius For that sensual manner of presence by them devised to the great dishonour of Christ being rejected by Berengarius and he teaching as he did before That the Body of Christ was not present in such a sort as that it might be at pleasure brought in and out taken into the stomach cast on the ground trod under foot and bit or devoured by any beasts they falsly charged him as if he had denied that it is present at all An hundred and thirteen Bishops came to the Council to obey the Popes Mandate Berengarius came also And as Sigonius and Leo Ostiensis say when none present could withstand him they sent for one Albericus a Monk of Mont Cassin made Cardinal by Pope Stephen who having asked seven days time to answer in writing brought at last his Scroll against Berengarius The Reasons and Arguments used therein to convince his Antagonist are not now extant but whatever they were Berengarius was commanded presently without any delay to recant in that form prescribed and appointed by Cardinal Humbert which was thus I Berengarius c. assent to the holy Roman and Apostolick See and with my heart and mouth do profess that I hold that Faith concerning the Sacrament of the Lords Table which our Lord and Venerable Pope Nicholas and this sacred Council have