conformable to these words of Jesus Christ This is my Body nor to these others The Bread which I shall give is my Flesh nor to these He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood dwells in me and I in him Let but Mr. Arnaud read Paschasus his Text and he 'l find what I say to be true Jesus Christ says he did not say this is or in this mystery is the virtue or figure of my Body but he has said without feigning This is my Body S. John introduces likewise our Lord saying the Bread which I shall give is my Flesh not another than that which is for the life of the world And again He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood dwells in me and I in him Vnde miror adds he quid velint c What can be concluded hence for the novelty of this solution of virtue IN fine Frudegard himself says moreover Mr. Arnaud to whom Paschasus Page 857. wrote about the latter part of his life to remove some doubts he had on this mystery may serve further to confute the falsity of Mr. Claude ' s fable who pretends no body could have the idea of the Real Presence unless he took it from Paschasus his Book Dicis says Paschasus to him te sic antea credidisse in libro quem de Sacrament is edidi ita legisse sed profiteris postea te in libro tertio de doctrina Christiana B. Augustini legisse quod tropica sit locutio Mr. Arnaud will have these words Dicis te sic antea credidisse to denote that the Doctrin of the Real Presence was the Faith in which he had been brought up and that the following Et in libro quem de Sacramentis edidi ita legisse denote that the reading of Paschasus his Book had confirm'd him in it But who knows not that in these kind of discourses the Particle Et is very often a Particle which explains or gives the reason of what was before said and not that which distinguishes as I have already observ'd in another place He would only say that before he thus believed it having so read it in Paschasus his Book And that Mr. Arnaud's subtilty might take place he must have said not that he had thus believ'd it before but thus believ'd it from the beginning in his youth that he afterwards thus found it in Paschasus his Book who had confirm'd him in his belief but that afterwards he had found in S. Austin that 't was a figurative locution In this manner he had distinguish'd the three terms of Mr. Arnaud whereas he distinguishes but two antea and postea and as to the first he says he had thus believ'd it and thus read it in Paschasus his Book denoting by this second clause the place where he drew this Faith AND these are Mr. Arnaud's objections but having examin'd them 't will not be amiss to represent the conclusion he draws from ' em I do not believe says he that having considered all these proofs seriously one can imagin that Paschasus in declaring the Eucharist to be the true Flesh of Jesus Christ assum'd of the Virgin has proposed a new Doctrin Neither can I believe that amongst the Calvinists themselves any but Mr. Claude will be so obstinate as to maintain so evident a falsity and one so likely to demonstrate to the world the excessive boldness of some of their Ministers Thus does Mr. Arnaud wipe his Sword after his victory Can you but think he has offered the most convincing proofs imaginable oblig'd us to be everlastingly silent and that the Minister Claude must be a strange kind of a man seeing he alone of all his party will be able to harden himself against such puissant demonstrations and clear discoveries CHAP. IX Proofs that Paschasus was an Innovator I SAID in the preceding Chapter that the best way to be informed whether Paschasus has been an Innovator was to search whether those that went before him and wrote on the same subject have or have not taught the same thing as he has done I repeat it here to the end it may be considered whether after the discussion which Mr. Aubertin has made of the Doctrin of the Ancients and what I have wrote also thereupon either to the Author of the Perpetuity or Father Noüet or Mr. Arnaud we have not right to suppose and to suppose as we do with confidence that no body before Paschasus taught the conversion of the substances of Bread and Wine or substantial Presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist Whence it follows he was the first that brought this new Doctrin into the world BUT besides this proof which is an essential and fundamental one we shall offer several others taken from the circumstances of this History which do much illustrate this truth The first of this rank is taken from Paschasus himself 's acknowledging he moved several persons to understand this mystery Altho I wrote nothing worth the Reader 's perusal in my Book Epist ad Frud which I dedicated cuilibet puero I had rendred these words to a young man because that in effect his Book was dedicated to Placidus Mr. Arnaud would have it rendred to young people this is no great matter yet am I inform'd that I have excited several persons to understand this mystery Now this shews that before his Book came forth his Doctrin was unknown whereunto we may also add the passages wherein he declares how the Church was ignorant of this mystery as we have already observ'd TO judg rightly of the strength of this proof and to defend it against Mr. Arnaud's vain objections we should first shew what kind of ignorance and intelligence Paschasus here means For Mr. Arnaud has wonderful distinctions on this subject Ought not Mr. Claude to know says he that besides Book 8. ch 10. p. 860. this knowledg common to all Christians which makes 'em believe the mysteries without much reflection there is another clearer one and which is often denoted in S. Austin by the word intelligence which does not precede but follows Faith as being the fruit and recompence of it sic accipite sic credite says this Father Vt mereamini intelligere fides enim debet proecedere intellectum ut sit intellectus fidei proemium As then all Christians believe the mysteries they believed likewise all of 'em the Eucharist in Paschasus his time in the same manner as we believe it which is to say that they all believ'd the Real Presence and Transubstantiation but they had not all of 'em an understanding of it that is to say they had not all considered this adorable Sacrament with the application which it deserves That they did not all know the mysteries contained in the symbols the relations of the Eucharist with the Sacraments of the ancient Law the ends which God had in appointing them those that have right to partake of 'em the dispositions with which
God alone THE Author that wrote Mr. De la Haye's Voyages the French Ambassadour Mr. Haye's Voyages part 49. observes the same thing as the others concerning the linnen bag and that they hang it on a nail behind the Altar wherein they put the consecrated Particles He says he thus saw it at Selivrée and several other places But because this remark might offend his Readers he has therefore attributed the cause thereof to the great poverty of the Greeks but this is but a false colour for the Greeks are not so poor but that they may keep the Eucharist in a more decent manner did they believe it to be the proper Substance of Jesus Christ The true reason of this Custom is that they do not believe what the Latins do or as speaks Caucus they do not believe there is any command which enjoyns them to reverence the Sacrament according to the made of the Latins MR. Thevenot an exact and inquisitive Traveller gives us an account of Thevenot's Voyages part 2 ch 77. the manner which the Patriarch of Alexandria uses in celebrating the Sacrament but in all his Relation there is not a word of Adoration and he is even forced to say that they do in truth behave themselves with less respect at the Communion than the Latins MR. de Montconis describes likewise very exactly the Divine Service Montconis's Voyages p. 228. c. which he saw perform'd by a Greek Archbishop at Mount Sinai and observes not any thing which shews they adored the Sacrament MR. Arnaud who has seen the use which might be made of the express Testimonies by which it appears the Greeks adore not the Sacrament and several other Proofs which might be added and which conclude the same thing has betook himself to his usual Artifices First of all he has avoided the handling of the question touching the Adoration as a means whereby to clear up that of Transubstantiation or the real Presence He on the contrary handles it only as a necessary consequence of it I would say that instead of arguing thus the Greeks give to the Sacrament the Supreme Honour which is due to Jesus Christ they believe therefore that the Sacrament is Jesus Christ in propriety of Substance he reasons on the contrary after this manner the Greeks believe Transubstantiation and the real Presence therefore they adore the Sacrament Now I say there is a great deal of deceit in this method for although Transubstantiation may be used when 't is agreed 't is believed as a means whereby to conclude that those who believe it adore it yet who sees not that in this debate wherein I deny both one and the other of these to Mr Arnaud it had been a more just and natural course to begin with the Adoration as a means whereby to conclude Transubstantiation For Adoration is a thing which discovers it self by outward acts a publick Rite wherein a whole Church agrees and consequently is more sensible and apparent and more easily known than an Article of Faith concerning which we must consult the Writings of the Learned judge of Persons and weigh their expressions It is certainly a great deal easier for us to know whether the Greeks give the same honour to the Sacrament which the Church of Rome does or one equivalent thereunto than to know what their belief is touching the Substantial Conversion We may be imposed on by this last for there may be forged attestations produced and hunger starv'd Greeks brought in as witnesses whom a small pension will byass either way or the Decrees of Latinis'd Synods offer'd us for those of the Greeks A Consul zealous for his Religion may easily give or admit a change The testimony of a false Greek may be alledged as of that of a true one and moreover 't is no hard matter to dazle peoples eyes by a long train of Narrations and Arguments But it is not so easie a matter to make use of all these false colours in the point of the Adoration In a word it plainly appears that Mr. Arnaud's design was to send back this Article to his Treatise of Consequences to hinder us from treating of it according to our method of Proofs THE second thing he does seems to correct the first for he pretends to establish this Adoration by particular Proofs which he calls gross Proofs to distinguish them from that other more fine and slender Proof which he draws from the real Presence He immediately produces a passage of Cabasilas in Lib. 10. cap. 9. these Terms The faithful desirous to shew their Faith in receiving the Communion do adore bless and praise Jesus Christ as God who is manifested in the Gifts I answer he ought faithfully to translate this passage Cabasilas speaks of the Gifts and say's That the Faithful adore bless and praise Jesus Christ who is understood in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now a man must be very Cap. 37. little conversant amongst Greek Authors not to know that when the question is concerning the Symbols 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Spiritual and Mystical Object represented by the outward Sign Jesus Christ then being represented by the Gifts is adored according to Cabasilas and not the Gifts themselves Which is what I observ'd in my Answer to the Perpetuity Mr. Arnaud would have me before I make use of this passage to consider all that he has taken out of this Author to shew he believed the real Presence For say's he Cabasilas asserts in his Book that our Saviour Christ is really present in the Sacrament and shews us in this passage we ought to adore him Lib. 3. cap. 8. p. 317. in the Gifts Therefore does he teach the. Adoration of the Eucharist I answer that Cabasilas neither teaches Transubstantiation nor the real Presence as I shall make appear in its place and had the Author of the Perpetuity alledged the passages cited by Mr. Arnaud we should not have been wanting to examine them but the question then in hand only concerning the Adoration I could not without great injustice tire the Reader with a long Dispute about the real Presence before I could alledge one formal passage touching the Subject I handled MR. Arnaud tells us afterwards that Cabasilas blames those that adore before Lib. 10. cap. 9. the Consecration the Gifts which are carri'd about and that speak to them as to our Saviour himself and approves they should give the same respect to the Eucharist after its Consecration I answer that the Greeks prostrate themselves before the Book of the Gospels and speak to it as to our Saviour himself and yet it cannot hence be concluded they adore the Book it self with an absolute Adoration as if the Book were in effect our Saviour himself Cabasilas likes they should do the same thing in respect of the consecrated Gifts but does not approve they should do it before their Consecration altho he already
that the doubt was rejected in these terms I believe the Eucharist to be the true and proper Body of Jesus Christ nor to make the world believe that all Nations and Ages spake in this sort The term of true may be met with in some passages which Mr. Arnaud alledges and that of proper in others and both of these are therein used in senses far different from that which he gives them but he must not under this pretence form this proposition That the Eucharist is the true and proper Body of Jesus Christ for there 's a great deal of difference between these terms being separate which offer themselves in divers passages and in divers Authors and these same terms joyned together by way of exageration I confess that Nicephorus according to Allatius's relation joyns together the two terms of properly and truly but besides that Nicephorus is not all Ages nor all Nations we have already shew'd that he speaks only thus upon an Hypothesis far different from that of Transubstantiation or the substantial Presence and therefore Mr. Arnaud cannot make any advantage of what he says AND these are my general answers to Mr. Arnaud's passages Should we descend at present to the particular examination of these passages we must first lay aside those of Anastasius Sinait of Damascen of the second Council of Nice of Nicephorus the Patriarch of Constantinople the profession of Faith made by the Saracens that were Converts of the 12th Century and that of the Horologium of the Greeks for they have been all of 'em already sufficiently answer'd 't is only needful to remember what I have already established touching the real Belief of the Greek Church There must likewise be retrenched those that be taken from the Liturgies of the Copticks and Ethiopians seeing we have already answered them We have also answer'd that taken out of the common Liturgy of the Armenians or to speak better the Armenians themselves have answer'd it IF those of Leopolis call the Bread and Wine the true Body and the true Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour there is no likelihood for all this that they have another Belief than that of the rest of the Armenians who formally declare as we have already seen that they mean nothing else by these terms than a true mystery of this Body and Blood and in effect it is said in the same Liturgy whence Mr. Arnaud has taken his Quotation that the Priest says in Communicating I eat by Faith O Lord Jesus Apud Cassand iâ— Liturgicis Christ thy holy living and saving Body I drink by Faith thy holy and pure Blood THE passage of Adam the Arch-deacon of the Nestorians mention'd by Strozza is impertinently alledg'd for two reasons First That these are the words of a man that reconciled himself with the Church of Rome who in embracing its Religion wrote in Rome it self under the inspection of Pope Paul V. and from whose words by consequence there can be nothing concluded touching the Nestorian Church Secondly That what he says concerning our eating the true Body of God but of God Incarnate that we drink truly the Blood of a Man but of a Man that is God relates not to our question nor is not said in this respect but in regard of the Error of the Nestorians who will have the Body of Jesus Christ to be the Body of a mere man and not the true Body of God Incarnate What 's this to the question to wit Whether that which we receive with the mouths of our bodies be the substance it self of the Body of Jesus Christ WHAT he alledges touching the Liturgy of the Indian Christians that added to the saying of our Saviour these words In veritate saying Hoc est in veritate corpus hic est in veritate sanguis meus is a thing very doubtful 'T is not likely Alexis Menesez the Arch-bishop of Goa who laboured to reduce these Indians to the Faith of the Roman Church would have retrenched from their Liturgy these words in veritate had he in truth found them in it Those that wrote the actions of this Arch bishop say this addition was made by a Bishop that came from Babylon Mr. Arnaud tells us we must not much heed what they relate This is a mere Chaos wherein a Book 5. Ch. 10. p. 500. man can comprehend nothing The Deacon says he sings still in their Mass Fratres mei suscipite corpus ipsius filii Dei dicit Ecclesia But what consequence can be drawn from these words 'T is certain that this corpus ipsius filii Dei is a clause added by Menesez against the Error of the Nestorians who would have it to be no more than the Body of a mere man for every one knows this was the Heresie of the Nestorians There remains still in this Liturgy as correct as 't is several passages that do not well agree with the Doctrine of the Roman Church as what the Priest says Jesus Missae Christ apud Indos Bibl. patr tom 6. Christ our Lord the Son of God that was offer'd for our salvation and who commanded us to Sacrifice in remembrance of his Passion Death Burial and Resurrection receive this Sacrifice from our hands Were the Sacrifice Jesus Christ in his proper substance there 's no likelihood they would offer it to Jesus Christ himself Having read the passage of S. Paul That whilst we are in this Body we are absent from the Lord that we desire to be out of the body to have his presence that we desire to please him whether present or absent c. rehearsed the Creed the Priest says This Sacrifice is in remembrance of the Passion Death Burial and Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Then praying for the Consecration O Lord God says he look not upon the multitude of my sins ' and be not angry with us for the number of our Crimes but by thy ineffable Grace Consecrate this Sacrifice AND INDUE IT WITH THAT VIRTUE AND EFFICACY THAT IT MAY ABOLISH THE MULTITUDE OF OUR SINS to the end that when thou shalt at last appear in that humane form which thou hast been pleased to take on thee we may find acceptance with thee On one hand he restrains the Consecration to the virtue or efficacy which God gives to the Sacrament for the abolishing of our sins and on the other formally distinguishes the Sacrament from the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ in which he will appear ar the last day Immediately after he calls the gifts the Holy Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ And then beseeches God they may be made worthy to obtain the remission of their sins by means of the Holy Body which they shall receive by Faith Again he says That he Sacrifices the Mystery of the Passion Death Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and prays to God That his Holy Spirit may come down and rest on this Oblation and sanctifie it to
learned but a very honest man a bold defender of the Dissert c. 17. Catholick Faith against all Innovators and that he wrote against Hincmar his own Bishop altho he was upheld by the Kings Authority What likelihood is there that a man who scrupled not to write against his Metropolitan and such a man as Hincmar who was countenanced by the King would stick to write by the Kings order too against Paschasus altho he was his Abbot IT signifies nothing for Mr. Arnaud to say That Paschasus clearly testifies that his Doctrin was only attack'd by private Discourses and not by Books For this cannot be collected from his expressions unless we read 'em with glosses and interpretations of Mr. Arnaud Let those says Paschasus in his Commentary on the 26th of S. Matthew that will extenuate the term of Body hear me those that say that 't is not the true Flesh of Jesus Christ which is now celebrated in the Sacrament in the Church and that 't is not his true Blood imagining they know not what that 't is in this Sacrament the virtue of the Flesh and Blood and make the Lord a lyar saying that 't is not his true Flesh nor his true Blood by which we declare his true death whereas truth it self says This is my Body And a little lower I am astonish'd at some peoples saying 't is not the real Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ in the same thing but that it is Sacramentally so a certain virtue of his Flesh and not his Flesh the virtue of his Blood and not his Blood the figure and not the truth the shadow and not the Body And in another place a little further I spake of these things the more largely and more expresly because I understand that some rereprehend me as if I would in the Book which I wrote concerning the Sacraments of Christ attribute to these words more than the truth it self promises And in his Letter to Frudegard Sed quidam says he loquacissimi magis quam docti dum hoec credere refugiunt quaecunque possunt ne credant quoe veritas repromittit opponunt dicunt nullum corpus esse quod non sit palpabile visible hoec autem inquiunt quia mysteria sunt videri nequeunt nec palpari ideo corpus non sunt si corpus non sunt in figura carnis sanguinis hoec dicuntur non in proprietate naturoe carnis Christi sanguinis quoe caro passa est in cruce nata de Maria Virgine Ecce quam bene disputant contra fidem sine fide It appears from these passages that Paschasus his opinion was contradicted That he was accused for taking Christs words in a wrong sence That he had several clear and solid objections offered him whether by word of mouth or writing or by Books or bare discourses he does not inform us But one may well conclude hence that this opposition consisted not in secret discourses as Mr. Arnaud would have us believe Are we wont to call private discourse a formal opposition by way of objection dispute censure and clear and precise explication of the contrary opinion Opponunt says he quoecunque possunt Ecce quam bene disputant dicunt non in se esse veritatem carnis Christi vel sanguinis sed in Sacramento virtutem carnis non carnem Audivi quosdam me reprehendere c. Do men thus express themselves when they would represent private discourse But says Book 3. ch 8. p. 843. Mr. Arnaud Paschasus in his Letter to Frudegard assures that altho some are deceived thro ignorance yet there is no body that dared openly contradict what the whole earth believes and confesses of this mystery I answer that the sense of Paschasus is that no body dared contradict openly what the whole Earth believes and confesses of this mystery to wit that 't is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ according as 't is express'd in this clause of the Liturgy which he alledges Vt fiat Corpus Sanguis dilectissimi filii tui Domini nistri Jesu Christi and by the words of Christ This is my Body Now what he says is true in the sense which we suppose must be given to the words of Christ and to the terms of the Liturgy but it does not hence follow that those that opposed the sence which Paschasus gave to these very words of the Liturgy and to those of Christ explain'd themselves very plainly against him for there 's a great deal of difference between acknowledging the truth of these words and acknowledging the sense which an Author would give 'em They confessed that the words were true and could not be question'd without a crime but yet this hindred 'em not from setting ' emselves against the sense of Paschasus Paschasus pretends to draw advantage against 'em by their acknowledging the words imagining the words were plainly for him but he does not at all say they dared not to dispute openly against him nor against the sense he gave these words This is a delusion of Mr. Arnauds just as if any one having said that there 's no body yet amongst the Protestants that has openly denied the Eucharist to be the Body of Jesus Christ Mr. Arnaud would thence conclude that there 's none of 'em then that has yet openly contradicted the sense in which the Roman Church understands it and that they explain themselves about it only in secret discourses But pray why must these be secret discourses during Paschasus his life seeing Mr. Arnaud is obliged to confess there were after his death publick Writings which appeared against his Doctrin Is not this a silly pretension which at farthest can only make us imagin Paschasus as a formidable man who held the world in awe during his life and against whom no body dared open his mouth till after his death BUT laying aside this imagination of Mr. Arnaud come we to the principal question to wit whether Paschasus was an Innovator Mr. Arnaud to defend him from this charge has recourse to the Greek Church which gives says he such an express testimony to his Doctrin of the Real Presence Book 8. ch 9. in the 7th 8th and 9th Centuries that it must needs shame those who out of a rash capricio have the boldness to affirm that Paschasus was the inventer of it He adds That all the principal Authors of the Latin Church of the same time who clearly taught it in such a manner as they ought to teach it according to the state of their time do overthrow this ridiculous Fable To pass by Mr. Arnauds expressions which are always stronger than his reasons we need only send him to th'examination of the Greek Authors of the 7th 8th and 9th Centuries and Latin Authors of the 7th and 8th for he will therein find wherewithal to satisfie himself above his desires Let 's only see whether he has any thing better to offer us HE has recourse next
importance is a good reason for shunning all tedious Digressions which tire the Readers mind and divert it from attending to so necessary a truth But it would be very unreasonable to charge me with this irksome length of our Debates since none can be justly blamed but those who have first made this Labyrinth and then plunged themselves into it to the end they might forcibly draw others after them For as to my own part I have ever protested that I entred not into it but in condescention only to follow them and that I might endeavour to draw them out of it and bring 'em into the right way IT is certain that for ending of this Controversie we must have recourse only to the Holy Scriptures by which we may examin the nature of the Sacrament which our Saviour instituted and the end which he hath appointed it for the force of the Expressions which he hath made use of the manner after which he himself did Celebrate it the circumstances which accompanied this Celebration the Impression which his Words and his Actions may be thought to make on the minds of his Apostles who were eye-witnesses of what they have delivered to us and the agreement which this Sacrament ought to have with the other parts of the Christian Religion and in a word every thing which is wont to be consider'd when men make an exact search after truth This way without doubt would be the shortest and certainest or to speak better the only certain method for satisfaction and that which can only quiet the Conscience For the Sacraments of the Christian Religion being as they are of an immediate Divine Institution our Faith our Hope and our observance of them ought to be grounded immediately on the Word of God there being no Creature who is able to extend them beyond the bounds of the Heavenly Revelation IT were indeed to be desired that the Author of the Perpetuity and Mr. Arnaud had taken this course but seeing they have been pleased to take another and enquire after the Faith of the Ancient Church before the rise of these Controversies they ought at least to have spared their Readers the trouble of all fruitless and unprofitable Digressions for so I call whatsoever they have done hitherto especially in Mr. Arnaud's last Volume He hath engaged himself to give us another wherein he promiseth to enquire into the belief of the six first Ages which plainly shews that he himself confesses the necessity of such a Disquisition Wherefore then hath he not at first taken this course seeing that at length he must come to it What necessity is there of taking up imaginary suppositions concerning the distinct belief of the Presence or rather Real Absence and of the conformity of the Greeks and other Eastern Christians with the Roman Church in the Doctrin of Transubstantiation WE have seen within a short time three different methods of handling this Subject that of Father Maimbourg's that of Father Nouet's and that of Mr. Arnaud The first seems to put a stop to all farther enquiry by this reason that what hath been once established ought not to be called in question and on this Principle he justifies the Doctrin of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation which having been decided by Councils ought not again to be brought under examination The second consents to a Review and to this end allows us to search for the true Doctrin of the Church in the Scriptures and amongst the Fathers from Age to Age. The last permits what hath been already decided to be called in question but withal proposeth for finding out the true Doctrin of the Church that men ought also to hearken to such arguments as are grounded on certain maxims which it supposeth OF these three methods that of Father Nouets is certainly the most reasonable and easie and had he contented himself with the holy Scripture without entangling himself in the Writings of the Fathers which be himself hath compared to a Wood where such as are pursued do save themselves on this account his method had been commendable That of Father Maimbourg is unjust because he sets up the decisions of Councils against us not remembring that nothing can be prescribed against Truth especially when Salvation is concerned and that the determinations of Councils are not considerable any farther with us than they are agreeable with the holy Scripture and the Principles of Christian Religion there cannot therefore be any more reasonable or effectual way to end these particular Differences which divide us than to examin strictly and impartially whether this agreeableness which we plead for be necessary or no. Yet it must be granted that this method of Father Maimbourg's is far more direct and better contriv'd than that of Mr. Arnaud's For besides that it is more agreeable to the Doctrin and interest of the Roman Church taking for its Principles the Authority of the Ecclesiastical decisions which the other doth not it engageth not a man as the other doth into new Disputes and new dangers yet both of them avoid a thro search into the bottom of the Controversie Now that which opposeth the judgment of the Councils can only involve us in that Debate which concerns the Authority of the Representative Church and its Assemblies whereas the other makes suppositions which we affirm to be false and of which we pretend there cannot any good use be made even tho we were not able to shew the falsity of them and by this means it entangles us into new and long Controversies whereby they gain nothing but rather run a greater risque of losing the whole Cause which they defend so that it seems this new way was invented for no other end but to give us new advantages against the Church of Rome and its Doctrins AND this will evidently appear if we take but the pains to read this work For first we shall see in general the uselesness of the suppositions and reasonings of the Author of the Perpetuity and of Mr. Arnaud and in particular the unprofitableness of their suppositions touching the Greeks and other Churches which are called Schismaticks This is the Subject of the first and second Book In the first I show that the method of these Gentlemen can be of no effect in respect of us and that we are not in reason oblig'd to hear or answer them whilst they lay aside the holy Scripture which is the only Rule of our Faith and yet leave unanswer'd the proofs of fact taken from the testimony of the Fathers by which we are persuaded that there hath been made a change in the Roman Church In the second I make it appear that tho it were granted that the Greeks and other Christians of the East do agree with the Roman Church in the Doctrins of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation yet the consequences which these Gentlemen would draw thence will be of no force for it will not hence follow that these Doctrins have been always
to keep these from me but likewise to watch against their susprizes And for this purpose I can affirm I have laboured as in the sight of God not proposing to my self any other aim than his glory and truth always remembring that I write not a line of which I must not one day give him an account I have not warp'd from that sincerity and uprightness which an honest man ought to observe on these occasions I have not taken Mr. Arnaud's words in a wrong sense nor charged him with saying what indeed he saith not nor strained his expressions beyond their natural signification No man can reproach me for making false citations or maiming any passages by suppressing that which is important neither have I alledged them abusively and contrary to the intention of their Authors I hope there is no unfair dealings either in my Arguments or Answers in my Suppositions or my other Discourses I have followed Reason and Nature as much as I could and have not made use of Philosophy but to strengthen the ordinary notions of common sense and not to stifle or hinder their effects I hope likewise that I shall not be complain'd of as having not observed either in general towards the Church of Rome or in particular towards Mr. Arnaud all that moderation which might be reasonably expected from me I have noted the Errors and Sophisms of Mr. Arnaud which I have found very numerous in every Subject on which he hath treated especially concerning the Greek Church I was not a little troubled to see with what sincerity he alledged several passages whereof some are not faithfully translated and others so imperfectly that he hath suppressed whole Clauses which would clear up the difficulty and others which are palpably perverted contrary to the sense of their Authors I could not but resent his unhandsome dealing when he disjoynted from the series of a discourse several of my words to make them look of a quite contrary sense than what was intended or fastned on them strange chimerical senses that he might have some matter of triumph or groundlesly slandered some famous men or endeavoured to decry by violent and odious terms our morals which cannot but be holy and pure seeing we have no others but what are taken from the Law and the Gospel In fine when he employs his declamatory stile to dazle the eyes of the world and to mis-represent the truth I have discovered several of his contradictions and how much his opinions are influenc'd by his interest several fallacious suppositions which he would have introduc'd into this Dispute and some vain and ill-grounded accusations with which he hath charged me are clearly laid open and some faults of his in History and Grammar I have but lightly touched upon In short I have set before him what I believe he ought to have said on these occasions and others of the like kind and do moreover here protest that I should have wholly spared him in the most part of these matters had the interest of the cause which I take upon me to defend permitted me so to do But what I have said to him has been without sharpness and passion and even with as little complaining as may be against his starch'd Prefaces and imperious tartness which appears throughout his whole Book wherein I every where meet with the rough terms of Enthusiasm Extravagancy sensless Propositions and other such like expressions I confess that these injurious terms were not at all pleasing to me and presently I wondred that Mr. Arnaud should use a stile so little becoming his profession but at length being accustom'd to it I pass'd over it and have comforted my self by the motives of Christian patience There are very deserving persons even of his own Communion whom he has handled no better than my self and after all it suffices me to know that I have not given just cause for so great animosity and bitterness as I do believe some have already acknowledg'd and which I believe Mr. Arnaud himself will acknowledg when he has read my last Chapter in which I answer his 11th Book which concerns our pretended personal differences AS to exactness I believe I have kept as much to it as can be desired in such an Answer as this Indeed I have not followed blindfold Mr. Arnaud when he strayed from his own subject as he has done in the last Chapters of his first Book where he treats of Episcopacy of Praying for the Dead th' Invocation of Saints the Worship of Relicks and the Prohibition of certain Meats FOR seeing the matter in hand only concerns the Eucharist it would have been contrary to sense and a gross abuse to the Readers patience to engage in these Controversies on each of which there might be written whole Volumes not to say farther that I have endeavoured to avoid that prolixity which Mr. Arnaud seems on the contrary to have affected But according to prudence and discretion I have omitted nothing considerable in Mr. Arnaud's Book which relates to our present Controversie unanswer'd except the two Dissertations of the Criticism on John Scot and on Bertram to which there is a distinct Answer preparing It cannot be said that Mr. Arnaud and his friends have done the like by me for to speak ingeniously and freely is there any thing less exact or more careless than their large work considering it as a Refutation of my answer to the Perpetuity of which they have scarcely handled the tenth part They have taken here and there some one of my passages separated from the sequel of my discourse and the greatest part of them turn'd into another sense hereupon they have travelled from East to West And this they call the Perpetuity of the Faith defended against the Book of the Sieur Claude Minister of Charenton But seeing I have followed the second Treatise of the Perpetuity and even accommodated my self to its method ought not then the Author in defending it against my Book â—o follow me a little more closely And when he was oblig'd to write a second Volume as to what respects the first six Ages certainly he ought to have considered the rest with some care Mr. Arnaud's In his Preface excuse is vain and frivolous which he alledgeth for the length of this work For to make it short he needed only to have insisted on matters essential avoiding fruitless digressions and retrenching injurious invectives It is likewise a vain pretence of his that in following my fancies as he is pleased to speak the connexion of his Principles with their consequences remain hid and obscured For what else does he intend by this but to preserve these colours and appearances which cannot otherwise subsist Wherefore should he call that method which the Author of the Perpetuity hath himself begun and which I have but follow'd wherefore I say should he term this my fancies Wherefore should he at least suppress several things which I proposed in order to the discovery of the falsity
other For the Fathers may be free from damnable Errors in any Article of our Religion by the agreement their Doctrine hath with that Rule which enjoyneth us to believe without becoming a Rule themselves and without arrogating this supreme Authority over mens Consciences which ought to decide all Questions of this Nature But perhaps it will be replyed that provided we attain the knowledge of the Truth in what we ought to believe concerning so important a Subject as that of the Eucharist what need we matter by what means we obtain it whether by means of the holy Scripture or by Consent of the antient Church If we follow not the Fathers as the Rule of our Faith let us follow them then as an Example held out for us to imitate To which I answer That the cause which I have taken upon me to defend would in the main lose nothing though we should take the Belief of the Antient Church in this matter for the Model and Rule of ours so that this doth not at all trouble us BUT be it as it will we must not forsake the Word of God nor wholly build our Faith on any other Principles but those which are drawn from the Holy Scriptures Our Faith would not then be what it ought to be that is to say A Divine Faith were it but an imitation of the Belief of the Fathers This Maxim of regulating our Religion by an Imitation of them who have preceded us without having any fixed Principle is certainly of very dangerous Consequence For 't would happen at length after some Ages that the last would have no resemblance with the former because that humane Imperfections which commonly mix themselves in such an Imitation would never be wanting to disorder and corrupt it as is commonly seen in the drawing of a Picture Draughts of which being taken one from the other become still every time less Perfect as they are farthest distant from their Original THE Author then of the Perpetuity cannot be excused for his perverting the order of the Dispute with which I charge him that he would decide this Question of Right by matters of Fact Neither is he less inexcusable when he would have the Question of matter of Fact to depend on the force of his Reasoning The matter before us is to know what has bin the Opinion of the Fathers touching the Eucharist and he pretends to decide this Question not by the Testimony of the Fathers themselves but by certain Impossibilities he imagines in the change which we suppose I know very well that there are sometimes Enquiries made into matters of Fact the Truth of which cannot be attested by any Witness and I confess in this case no man can be blamed for having recourse to Reasonings because there being no other Evidence to help us in our Search even Necessity warranteth this way of Proceeding altho it be indirect But we are not in these Circumstances seeing we have the Writings of the Antients and those no less considerable for their Number than for the many clear Passages they contain touching the Eucharist which if we will apply our selves unto we shall soon discover their Opinions about it What need is there then for us to leave our enquiries into the Opinion of the Fathers to hearken to the Author of the Perpetuity's Arguments May we not now justly complain of him and answer him this is the way of Inquiry which Nature it self hath prescribed us and comparing these two ways the more natural appeareth to us to be the more direct and certain From whence it immediately follows That his manner of proceeding may well be suspected as artificial and deceitful for it is usual with us to suspect that Person who leaves the common Road to walk in by-Paths MY second Observation on the Author of the Perpetuity's Method respects The second Observation justified Lib. Chap. 1. p. 4. the manner of his Assaulting Mr. Aubertin's Book And seeing Mr. Arnaud hath charged me with falsity for affirming Mr. Aubertin's Book hath chiefly occasioned this Controversie and that the Author of the Perpetuity hath set upon it after an indirect manner I am thereupon obliged to divide the Subject of my justification under two Heads I shall first then make it appear that Mr. Aubertin's Book hath bin assaulted and hath bin the first occasion of this Debate Secondly that his Book has bin Assaulted after an unjust manner THE first of these Particulars shall be dispatched in two Words for on one hand I have no more to do but only desire the Reader himself to peruse the second Section of the first Treatise of the Perpetuity where he shall find that in fifty one Pages which it contains his whole design is only to refute Mr Aubertin's Account of the Innovation which hath hap'ned touching Transubstantiation And on the other I have no more to do but declare to the World That from the first Moment of our Debate which was precisely then when I began to answer this Treatise I proposed to my self not only particularly to maintain the Truth of this Account but defend in general the whole Book against the indirect attempts of that Treatise Now if this may not be called the first occasion of this Contest I know not any longer how to name things For what is there which maketh a Book the first occasion of a Debate which is not here Must a Book be assaulted this hath bin so Must it be defended this hath bin so Ought he who takes upon him the Defence of it to do it with a design of keeping up its Credit This hath bin likewise my Design because its Interests have appeared to me to be the same with those of the Truth Where then is this notorious Falsity with which Mr. Arnaud chargeth me THE Author of the Perpetuity saith he never pretended his Treatise was Lib. 1 Chap. 1 Pag. 4. a refutation of that Ministers Book and in a matter as this is which dependeth on the Intention of a man yet living it were sufficient to convince Mr. Claude of rashness to tell him as from him he is mistaken and that this Author never designed what he charges him with Moreover he adds That this Treatise was primarily intended only as a Preface to the Office of the blessed Sacrament and that we seldom find any man undertake to refute a Book in Folio in a Preface That he handleth the Question of the Impossibility of an Innovation That he refuteth Blondel and Aubertin by the way who had imposed fabulous Relations on the World And that he directly indeed argueth against Mr. Aubertin ' s pretended Innovation but medleth farther with no other part of his Book Mr. Arnaud I hope will pardon me if I affirm that there 's not one word of Truth in all this For to speak properly the occasion of this Contest can be no other but that taken from the Obligation I had to enter into this Dispute seeing our Debate began
the help of his Senses but his Reason he will turn it on every side and invent Distinctions which will signifie nothing as are the greatest part of them which have bin made on this Subject yet will he still keep firm to his Eye-sight and common Sense IT will be replied perhaps that unless we are extream Obstinate we cannot pretend our Proofs of Fact are of this kind which is to say that they have the certainty of our Senses for they are taken from the Testimony of the Fathers whose Faithfulness may be called in question by setting up this fantastical Hypothesis mentioned by Mr. Arnaud which is That all our Passages are false and invented by the Disciples of John Scot or else in saying that the Fathers are mistaken or some such like matter which may Lib. 1. Ch. 2. Pag. 1. make the Truth and Validity of these Proofs to be called in Question and moreover that our Passages are not so plain but they may well be questioned seeing there have bin great Volums written concerning them on both sides To which I answer in supposing two things which seem to me to be both undenyable by Mr. Arnaud we can pretend against him our Proofs of Fact have such a kind of Certitude as is that of our Senses MY first Supposition then shall be That the Writings of the Fathers are faithful Witnesses of the Belief of the Antient Church He cannot disagree with me in this Point for we have not receiv'd it but from them of the Church of Rome they produce it themselves and we use it only out of Condescension to them not having need as to our own particular of any thing but the Word of God to regulate our Faith in this Mystery of the Eucharist And when this Point should be questionable yet must then the Author of the Perpetuity put it out of Question by his refuting of it before he proposes to us his Arguments and not having done it we are at liberty to act against him on this Principle The other Supposition we must make is That we know very well what is the Church of Romes Belief touching the Eucharist and that we rightly apprehend it so that there is no danger of our Mistake in this matter and this is that which hath never yet bin disputed against us In effect we neither say nor imagine any thing on this Subject more than what we find in Books and hear discoursed on every Day which is that the whole Substance of Bread is really converted into the Substance of the Body of Jesus Christ and the whole Substance of Wine into the whole Substance of his Blood there not remaining any thing more of the Bread and Wine but their meer Accidents which are not sustained by any Subject and further that the Substance of our Saviour's Body is really present at the same time both in Heaven and Earth on all the Altars whereon this Mystery is celebrated that they which communicate eat and drink this Substance with the Mouths of their Bodies and that it ought to be Worshipped with the Adoration of Latria This is undenyable I say then on these Grounds we have reason to presume our Proofs of Fact are evident even to Sense it self For we read the several Passages of the Fathers which speak of the Eucharist our Eyes behold them and our Senses are Judges of them But there are not any of these Articles to be met with which do distinctly form the Belief of the Roman Church neither in express Terms nor in equivalent ones We are agreed in the Contents of these Articles and in what they mean we are likewise agreed of the Place where they were to be found in case the Antient Church had taught them We know likewise that it belongeth to our Eyes and common Sense to seek them and judge whether they are there or no for when a Church believes and teaches them she explains them distinctly enough to make them understood and we must not imagine they lie buried in far fetched Principles or couched in equivocal Terms which leave the Mind in Suspense or wrapt up in Riddles from whence they cannot be drawn but by hard Study If they are in them they ought to be plain according to the measure and Capacity of an ordinary and vulgar Understanding Yet when we seek them we cannot find 'em if they were set down in express Terms our Eyes would have discovered them had they bin in Equivalent ones or drawn thence by evident and necessary Consequences common Sense would have discovered them But after an exact and thorow Search our Eyes and common Sense tell us they are not to be found in any manner This altho a Negative Proof yet is it of greatest Evidence and Certainty After the same manner as when we would know whether a Person be at home we are agreed both touching the House and the Person that one might not be taken for the other and after an exact Search if a mans Eyes and Senses tell him that he is not there the proof of a Negative Fact hath all possible Force and Evidence Yet we are upon surer Terms for a man may easily hide himself in some corner of his House and steal away from the sight of those that seek him and therefore the Negative Proof serves only in this Respect to justifie we have made a full and thorow Search But if the Articles of the Romish Creed were established in the universal Consent of all Ages as is pretended it would not be sufficient they were hid in some one of the Fathers Writings they must near the matter have appeared in all of them whence it follows our Negative Proof is yet more certain by the Confirmation it receives from an Affirmative Proof which consisteth in that our Eyes and Senses find out many things directly Opposite to these Articles and these two Proofs joyned together do form one which appeareth to be so plain and intire that there needs nothing to be added to it And yet this is it which the Author of the Perpetuity doth pretend to strip us of by his Arguments But let him extend his Pretensions as far as he will I believe he will find few Persons approve of them and who will not judge that even then when our Eyes should have deceived us which is impossible after so diligent and careful a Search the only means to disabuse us would be to desire us to return to the using of them again and to convince us our Inquiry hath not bin sufficient we should at least have bin shewed what we our selves were not able to find For whilst nothing is offered us but Arguments they will do us no good we may be perhaps entangled with them if we know not how to answer them but they will never make us renounce the Evidence and Certainty which we believe to be contained in our Proofs of Fact WE are confirmed in this Belief when we consider the Nature of the Author
accomplishment and whatsoever Clouds have fallen on the Ministration of it by the mixture of mens Devices with Gods everlasting Truths yet has our Saviour taken care to preserve the Faithful and execute the Decree of his Election So that such a one has no need to perplex himself with History nor with reading over of three or four hundred Volums which will not yield him the least Satisfaction much less need he entangle himself in the Author of the Perpetuity's Method which is a fourth way the World hath yet never been acquainted with When such a Person hears of Mr. Aubertin's Book and the account he gives of the Change which hath hapned I doubt not but he is glad to hear that even by this way which is only proper to the Learned the Truth he believes has bin illustrated neither do I doubt but he believes with a humane Faith what is told him concerning it but we must not imagine that his Belief touching the Eucharist hath changed its Foundation and left its Relyance on the Word of God for it remaineth still where it was so that when he should be questioned concerning the solidity of Mr. Aubertin's Proofs or that of any other Minister relating to this Subject he will not be troubled about it nor farther concern himself in these Debates for he knows his Incapacity He will content himself with a favourable Opinion of the Fathers and with his Confidence in God leaving these Debates to those that have Skill to manage them NOW as to such as contemn Mr. Aubertins Book I know none in our Communion of that number and perhaps in the Church of Rome there will be found as few of that Mind if we except Mr. Arnaud and his Friends who have given their Judgments about it after a very slighting and peremptory manner But I shall not take any farther Notice of this here but continue my Observations I do affirm then I never yet had the Luck to meet with this wretched Calvinist whom he has described in such pittiful Strains I was never yet told That the Scripture fills the Mind with Doubts Lib. 1. C. â— P. 34. which it doth not resolve and that such a Person finds the Writings of the Fathers Obscure and that the Divines of either Party could not satisfy him and there was nothing but the Arguments of the Perpetuity which could win his Heart Is not this such a Model of Calvinism as Mr. Arnaud desires drawn from an Idea of his own Conceiving and offered to them who would henceforward be of the number of its Proselytes But what likelyhood is there that any man to become Mr. Arnaud or the Author of the Perpetuity's Proselyte would Sacrifice the Scriptures Fathers and Divines of both parties to them What Probability I say is there that their Pretention should so far prevail upon any man Howsoever it be it 's an idle Fancy to imagine that a Person who is really of our Communion can fall into this Condition and thereupon take up a Resolution of changing his Belief and the Proof which Mr. Arnaud gives us is entirely faulty for it can at farthest but conclude an Uncertainty touching the Fathers but not at all as it relates to the Word of God from which a good man will never depart even when he shall fall into Doubts touching the Opinions of the Fathers BUT let us see who these Persons are who are represented to us floating on Doubts and Scruples They are two sorts of Person the most knowing Ministers on one hand and all the unlearned Calvinists on the other It is Lib. 1. C. 5. P. 36. most False saith Mr. Arnaud that the most able Ministers are perswaded the Fathers are manifestly for them To which he addeth that all Protestants of mean Capacities who are not able to make this Search are rash in believing it and cannot be perswaded of it but by a fond Humor The former of these Points is grounded on slight Proofs Observe here the first of them Lewis Lavater relates that Oecolampadius began to doubt of the Truth of Transubstantiation and the Real Presence in reading St. Austins Works that he was strengthened in his Doubtings by reading of the Evangelists that he immediately rejects his first Thoughts by considering these Doctrines were generally entertained yet being willing to overcome this weakness of Mind he applyed himself to the reading of the Fathers but could not be fully satisfied by them because he oftentimes met in their Writings with the Expressions of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament Whereupon at length rejecting the Authority of men he wholly applied himself to the Word of God and then the Truth appeared more clearly unto him This Testimony concludes nothing unless it be this that it is not easy for a man that has imbibed the Principles of the Romish Church from his Infancy to discover immediately the Truth seeing that Oecolampadius who perceived the first Beams of it shining in St. Austins Works and afterwards received deeper Impressions by reading of the Holy Scriptures was puzled by reading the Fathers till such time as he wholly applyed himself to the studying of the Word of God by which he was put out of Doubt and afterwards came more easily to the Knowledg of the real Doctrine of the Fathers whose Writings from that time he vehemently urged against all opposers of the Truth This shews us the strength of Prejudice and how necessary it is for the Understanding of the Fathers to become first well exercised in the Holy Scriptures AS to the Centuriators of Magdebourg it is known they held the Ausbouyg Confession and taught the Doctrine of the Real Presence and consequently are not competent Judges in this Controversy For they have bin greatly concerned to have the Fathers on their side some of them choosing rather to impose the Sence of Transubstanciation on the indefinite general Expressions which import that the Bread is made the Body of Jesus Christ or that it is changed into the Body of Jesus Christ rather than to understand them in a mystical Sence which would overthrow their Doctrine Howsoever it be they are not of the number of our Ministers and Mr. Arnaud ought not to stray thus beyond the Bounds of this Controversy THAT Passage of Scaligers which he urgeth against us is taken out of one of the most impertinent Books as ever was written and Mr. Arnaud hath more Leasure than he pretends seeing he sets himself upon inquiring after such kind of Proofs This Book being a Collection of what Scaliger is pretended to have discoursed in a familiar Colloquy which is stuffed with all manners of Fooleries and Absurdities For the School Boyes from whose Memoirs these Exercitations were committed to the Press have inserted whatsoever came into their Heads after a childish and inconsiderate manner which shews us they had not yet arrived to years of Discretion Moreover Mr. Arnaud informs us himself that one of these Youths who helpt to
the Greeks of taking up their Dead a Year after they are buried If they find their Bodies are not yet consumed they examine what remains of them and if it doth not stink but hath a good Colour they esteem that Person a Holy Man But if on the contrary the Corps be Black or Swelled they repute him to have bin an ill Liver and an Excommunicated Person Wherefore it is that in their form of Excommunication one of their Imprecations is that such a Person may not be consumed after Death neither in this World nor in that which is to come but that he may be swelled like a Drum They verily believe this is perfectly accomplished And Leo Allatius tells us several Stories of those Phantasms which they call Burcolaques which are saith he Excommunicated Persons who being deceased torment the living and of whom the Greeks are as much afraid as our Children when we tell them of Fryar Bourru's Ghost Nay so greatly are they Prepossessed with false Opinions as to imagine an Excommunication pronounced by a Christian that afterwards turns Turk produces the same Effect that is to say keeps the Body from Consuming and causes it to grow hard and swell till such time as this Excommunication be taken off by him who pronounced it altho never so great an Infidel Which is confirmed by Leo Allatius concerning the Patriarch Raphael who to dissolve Christoph Angel C. 42. the Body of an excommunicated Person was forced to apply himself to a Renegado for his Absolution WE may reckon in the Number of the Grecian Superstitions the belief they have long held touching a Miracle that happens every Year in the Sepulcher at Jerusalem on the Saturday before Easter which is That all the Lamps being extinguished the Patriarch enters alone into the Sepulcher and God sends a Beam of Light from Heaven wherewith he kindles the Torch he holds in his hand and therewith lights all the rest Which is performed Annot. Allat de quorund Graecor opinat alii passim with great Ceremony and publick Acclamations of Rejoycing not only by the Greeks but all the Eastern Christians which are at Jerusalem for they all hold this Miracle to be true NEITHER do they at all suspect the Truth of another Miracle which Christoph Angel C. 42. they say happens once a Year in Caire near the River of Nile and which lasts from Holy Thursday to Ascension Day Which is that in several Countries the dead Bodies arise out of their Graves But this Miracle only happens when they celebrate Easter according to antient Custom Whereas should they Celebrate it according to the new Kalender the Miracle would infallibly cease as it fell out about fourscore or a hundred Years since when the Greeks altered the time of the Celebration upon which the dead Bodies arose no more and the Sacred Fire was also withheld from the Sepulcher which obliged them to the Observance again of the former Day whereupon the Miracles returned And this Relation we have from Christophorus Angelus and some others We might give a farther Description of the Ignorance and Superstition of these poor People were not what has bin already mentioned sufficient to inform the World of M. Arnaud's vain Triumphs For when it should appear that all these Sects held Transubstantiation and the real Presence what Advantage would accrue to him thereby Would it hence appear impossible that these Doctrines have crept in amongst them by the same means the true Mysteries of Christianity have slipt out for Ignorance and Superstition are but sorry keepers of Evangelical Truths It is easy to impose on these People whose Minds have bin so darkned with Errours all marks of Christianity having bin long since lost amongst them They may be made believe any thing being in this respect as white Paper whereon men may write what they please There needs but one mans falling into an Errour to draw all the rest after him And this Mr. Poulet hath well Relation of the Levant or the Sieur of Poulet's Voyage Part. 2. C. 28. observed in the Account he gives us of the Nestorians who still obstinately retain their old Errours for which Reason they are hated by all the Levantine Christians They know not what they Believe saies he being ready to receive any new Opinion be it what it will provided it includes not a Submission to the Holy See Which is as much as to say they are not firm or Precautioned against any Article but that of Obedience to the Pope having bin oftentimes tempted and sometimes surprized into an acknowledgment of his Supremacy but as to other Points they are very Ductil being ignorant of their Meaning And these are such People Mr. Arnaud desires and who seem to him fit Objects to ground his Dispute on He thought to make his Advantage of this Confusion but certainly he ought to give the World a true account of these Matters and not so highly to extol his own Victories seeing the Honour of them is much diminished by what I have allready offered CHAP. II. That the temporal State of the Eastern People since the eleventh Century and the Efforts the Latins have â—ade to communicate to them their Religion do invalidate the Proof which is pretended to be drawn from their Belief Mr. Arnaud's Artifice discovered HERE is then Mr. Arnaud's first Deceit detected which consists in the concealing from us the real Condition wherein this People have so long layn as to Religion to the end the weakness of his Arguments may lye undiscovered The second consists in setting before us several impertinent historical Passages on purpose to avert his Readers Mind from a due Consideration of those things which he knows would prove disavantagious to him It is without doubt a very disingenuous Artifice thus to change the natural Use and Order of things and snatch out of mens Sights the true and important Consequences may be drawn thence by substituting others which are but mere Amusements And yet this Mr. Arnaud has done for not being able to deny that the temporal State of the Eastern People since the eleventh Century hath very much facilitated the Attempts of the Latins establishing their Doctrines in those Parts He thereupon supposes I affirm the Greeks never knew the Latins believed Transubstantiation and under pretence of opposing this Fancy sprung from his own Brain he retails out the History of the East to shew that the Greeks could not be ignorant of the Belief of the Latins touching the Eucharist I will not insist at present on the little reason he had to charge me with this Opinion I shall make it appear in the following parts of this Discourse that this is his Chimera and not mine I shall only represent here the same historical Passages Mr. Arnaud has produced in that manner wherein they ought to be proposed to make a right Judgment of this Dispute and not in that false View wherein he has represented them In a Word
Dispute and consider things without passion I am perswaded he would soon acknowledge that the sence he imputes to the Greeks has no resemblance with the Terms of their Liturgies nor other usual expressions As for example we would know how we must understand this Clause of their Liturgies Make this Bread the precious Body of thy Christ and that which is in this Cup the precious Blood of thy Christ changing them by the virtue of thy Holy Spirit Mr. Arnaud understands them as mentioning a change of Substance I say on the contrary these are general Terms to which we cannot give at farthest any more than a general sence and that if they must have a particular and determinate one we must understand them in the sence of a Mystical change and a change of Sanctification which consists in that the Bread is to us in the stead of the Natural Body of Jesus Christ that it makes deep impressions of him in our Souls that it spiritually communicates him to us and that 't is accompani'd with a quickning grace which sanctifies it and makes it to be in some sence one and the same thing with the Body of Jesus Christ and yet does not this hinder but that the Natural Substance of Bread remains Let us examine the Liturgies themselves to see which of these two sences are most agreeable thereunto WE shall find in that which goes under the name of St. Chrysostom and which is the most in use amongst the Greeks that immediately after the Priest has said Make this Bread to become the precious Body of thy Christ and that Euchar. Graecorum Jacobi Goar Bibl. patr Graecor Lat. Tom. 2. which is in the Chalice the precious Blood of thy Christ changing them by thy Holy Spirit he adds to the end they may purifie the Souls of those that receive them that is to say be made a proper means to purifie the Soul by the remission of its sins and communication of the Holy Spirit c. These words do sufficiently explain what kind of change we must understand by them namely a change of Sanctification and virtue for did they mean a change of Substance it should have been said changing them by thy Holy Spirit to the end they may be made the proper Substance of this Body and Blood or some such like expressions In the Liturgy which goes under the name of St. James we find almost the same thing Send say's it thy Holy Spirit upon us and these Holy Gifts lying Bibliot Patr. Graeco Lat. Tom. 2. here before thee to the end that he coming may sanctifie them by his holy good and glorious presence and make this Bread to become the Holy Body of thy Christ and this Chalice the precious Blood of thy Christ to the end it may have this effect to all them which shall receive it namely purifie their Souls from all manner of sin and make them abound in good works and obtain everlasting life And this methinks does sufficiently determine how the Bread is made the Body of Jesus Christ to wit in being sanctifi'd by the presence of his Spirit and procuring the remission of our sins and our Sanctification The Liturgy which bears the name of St. Marc has almost the same expressions Send on us and on these Loaves and Chalices thy Holy Spirit that he Ibid. may sanctifie and consecrate them even as God Almighty and make the Bread the Body and the Cup the Blood of the New Testament of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ our Sovereign King to the end they may become to all those who shall participate of them a means of obtaining Faith Sobriety Health Temperance a regeneration of Soul and Body the participation of Felicity Eternal Life to the glory of thy great name A Person whose mind is not wholly prepossessed with prejudice cannot but perceive that this Clause to the end they may become c. is the explication of the foregoing words change them into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and that it determines them to a change not of Substance but of Sanctification and Virtue This Truth is so evident that Arcudius has not scrupled to acknowledge that if this Clause be taken make this Bread the Body of thy Christ in an absolute sence Arcud lib. 3. cap. 33. that is to say that it be made the Body of Christ not in respect of us but simply in it self it will have no agreement nor coherence with these other words that follow to the end they may be made c. And he makes of this a Principle for the concluding that the Consecration is not performed by this Prayer but that 't is already perfected by the words this is my Body directly contrary to the Sentiment of the Greeks who affirm 't is made by the Prayer So that if we apply Arcudius's Observation to the true Opinion of the Greek Church to wit that the Consecration is performed by this Prayer we shall plainly perceive that their sence is That the Bread is made the Body of Jesus Christ in respect of us inasmuch as it sanctifies us and effects the remission of our sins AND with this agrees the Term of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Sanctifie which the Greeks commonly make use of to express the Act of Consecration and that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sanctifications by which they express their Mysteries as appears by the Liturgies and those of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy Gifts the sanctified Gifts the holy Mysteries the quickning Mysteries the holy Bread which are common expressions amongst them All which favours the change of Sanctification ON the other hand we shall find in the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom that the name of Bread is given three times to the Sacrament after Consecration in the Pontificia four times and in the declaration of the presanctifi'd Bread it is so called seven times In the Liturgy of St. Basil the Priest makes this Prayer immediately after the Consecration Lord remember me Archi. Habert Apud Goar in Euchol a sinner and as to us who participate all of us of the same Bread and Cup grant we may live in Union and in the Communion of the same Holy Spirit Likewise what the Latins call Ciborium the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much as to say a Bread Saver and 't is in it wherein they put that which they call the presanctifi'd Bread being the Communion for the sick I know what is wont to be said in reference to this namely that the Eucharist is called Bread upon the account of its Species that is to say of its Accidents which remain sustain'd by the Almighty Power of God without a Subject but the Greeks themselves should give us this explication for till then we may presume upon the favour of the natural signification of the Term which we not finding attended with the Gloss of the Latins it must therefore be granted not
Servitude by which the Sacrament links us to God The Body has nothing but what it derives from the Soul and as its pollutions proceed from the evil thoughts of the heart from the heart likewise comes its Sanctification as well that of the Virtues as that of the Mysteries If then the Soul has no need of the Body to receive Sanctification but the Body on the contrary of the Soul why then must the Souls which are yet cloathed with their Bodies be greater partakers of the Mystery than those stript of them We must be strangely prepossessed with prejudice if we do not acknowledge that this Author only establishes the sanctifying and spiritual Communion and not that of the proper Substance of the Body and Blood of our Saviour for if we suppose the Bread to be the Body of Jesus Christ in Sanctification and Virtue it is easie to comprehend what he means but if we suppose Transubstantiation how shall we then understand what he say's viz. that the Gift is indeed received by the Body but it immediately passes to the Soul and afterwards communicates it self from the Soul to the Body Does not the Substance of the Body of Jesus Christ descend immediately from the Mouth into the Stomack and does it not remain there till the change of the Species How then shall we understand him when he say's that our Communion with Jesus Christ is first established in the Soul For 't is certain that to judge of it in the sence of Transubstantiation it would be established on the contrary first of all in the Body which would be the first Subject that would receive the Substance of the Flesh and Blood of our Lord. How shall we understand the Conclusion he draws from all this Discourse to wit that the Souls of the dead are no less partakers of this Mystery than those of the living for the living do communicate after two manners Spiritually and Substantially whereas the dead only in one How in fine shall we understand what he means in saying that the Body has no other Sanctification by means of the Mystery than that which comes to it from the Soul Is it no wise sanctifi'd by touching the proper Substance of the Son of God CABASILAS stay 's not here for concluding by way of Interrogation that the Souls cloathed with their Bodies do not more partake of the Mystery than those which are stript of them he continues to demand what they have more Is it say's he that they see the Priest and receive from him Cap. 43. the Gifts But they that are out of the Body have the great Eternal High Priest who is to them all these things It being he indeed that administers to them that truly receive Was there ever any man that betrayed such a want of memory as this man does should it be supposed he believed Transubstantiation Could he not remember that the living have not only this advantage above the dead to behold the Priest and receive from him the Gifts but likewise to receive the proper Substance of their Saviour Could not he call to mind that the Spiritual Communion remaining common both to the one and the others the Substantial was particularly to the living Moreover what does he mean in saying that as 't is Jesus Christ that administers it to the dead so it is he likewise that gives it to the living that effectually receive it Is it that the Priest who gives the proper Substance of Jesus Christ does not truly and effectually administer it Is it that this Substance which is called with so great an Emphasis the Truth and Reality and which Mr. Arnaud always understands when he finds these kind of expressions the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ Is it I say that this is not a Truth MR. Arnaud can without doubt remove all these difficulties when he pleases and 't is likely he will find a way to reconcile them with the belief of Transubstantiation seeing he himself has heretofore written that God admits Of frequent Com. part 3. P. 725. us to the participation of the same Food which the Elect feed on to all Eternity there being no other difference betwixt them and us but only that here he takes from us the sensible taste and sight of it reserving both one and the other of these for us when we come to Heaven He will tell us there 's no body doubts but that he is of the number of Transubstantiators seeing he has with so much honour vanquished the Minister Claude and yet that what he has maintain'd is not contradictory to the discourse of Cabasilas I do verily believe his single Proposition has almost as much force as whatsoever I have mention'd from Cabasilas for if there be no other difference between the participation of the Faithful on Earth and that of the Elect in Heaven than that of the sight and sensible taste which we have not here nor shall have but in Heaven I do not see any reason wherefore Mr. Arnaud should so bestir himself to shew us that what we take by the Mouths of our Bodies and which enters into our Stomacks is the proper Substance of the Body and Blood of Christ seeing 't is certain the Elect in Heaven do not receive Jesus Christ in such a manner But it being no ways reasonable that what Mr Arnaud has said at one time contradictorily to what he has said at another should serve me as a Rule for the understanding of Authors all that I can do in his favour is this freely to offer him to lay aside the Proof taken from Cabasilas when he shall have made his Proposition to be approved of in the Court of Rome CHAP. VII That the Greeks adore not the Sacrament with an Adoration of Latria as the Latins do and consequently believe not Transubstantiation The Thirteenth Proof Mr. Arnaud's Eleventh Illusion VVE may I think already begin to doubt whether the Greeks have in effect the same Sentiments with the Latins touching Transubstantiation and whether the assurances Mr. Arnaud has given us thereof be well grounded He appears very brisk and confident in asserting this Point and behaves himself as a Person that has already conquered but 't is more than probable that these flourishes are the effects of that kind of Rhetorick which teaches men to put forth their voices in the weakest part of their cause to the end they may obtain that by noise which they could not by reason But howsoever it may now be demanded what will become of all those Historical Collections Arguments Attestations Consequences Keys Systems those confident Defies and Challenges to produce any thing which had the least appearance of Truth or Reason against his Proofs and in a word of all this great torrent of Eloquence and mundane Philosophy Aurae Omnia discerpunt nubibus irrita donant THE Proofs I have already produced do sufficiently confirm this but that which I shall farther offer will yet more evidence it
Bishop and Metropolitan of Carie and contemporary with Photius according to Gretzer the Jesuites conjecture borrowed the same Comparison whereby to explain how the Bread is made the Body of Christ He introduces in one of his Dialogues a Saracen disputing Bibl. Patr. Tom. 2. Graeco-Lat with him on this Subject The Saracen Tell me Bishop why do ye Priests so impose on other Christians Of the same Flower you make two Loaves the one for common use and th' other you divide into several pieces distributing 'em to the People which you call the Body of Jesus Christ and perswade them it confers remission of sins Do ye deceive your selves or the People whose Guides you are The Christian We neither abuse our selves nor others The Saracen Prove me this then not by Scripture but by reason The Christian What do ye say Is not the Bread made the Body of Jesus Christ The Saracen I know not what to answer to that The Christian When your Mother first brought you forth into the World was you then as big as you are now The Saracen No I was born a little one and became bigger by means of Food God thus ordering it The Christian Has the Bread then been made your Body The Saracen Yes The Christian And how was this done The Saracen I know not the manner thereof The Christian The Bread descends into the Stomach and by the heat of the Liver the grossest parts separating themselves the rest are converted into Chyle the Liver attracting them to it and changing them into Blood and afterwards distributes 'em by means of the Veins to all the parts of the Body that they may be what they are bone to bones marrow to marrow sinew to sinews eye to eyes hair to hair nail to nails and thus by this means the Child grows and becomes a Man the Bread being converted in to his Body and the Drink into his Blood The Saracen I believe so The Christian Know then that our Mystery is made after the same manner the Priest places Bread and Wine on the Holy Table and praying the Holy Spirit descends thereon and the efficacy of its Divinity changes them into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ neither more nor less than the Liver changes the Food into the Body of a Man THEODORUS Graptus a Greek Monk who lived in the Ninth Century Apud Leonem Allat post diatribas de Simeon â—â—ia Collect 1. uses likewise the same Comparison We do not call say's he the Holy Mysteries an Image or Figure of the Body of Jesus Christ altho they be a Symbolical Representation thereof but the very deified Body of Jesus Christ he himself saying if ye eat not the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you And this is what he taught his Disciples when he said to 'em take and eat my Body not a Figure of my Body for thus did he form his Flesh of the Substance of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit Which may be explained likewise by things familiar to us for as the Bread Wine and Water do naturally change themselves into the Body and Blood of him that eats and drinks them So by the Prayers of the Priest and Descent of the Holy Spirit these things are supernaturally changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ And this is done by the Priest's Prayer and yet we understand not that this is two Bodies but one and the same Body NICEPHORUS the Patriarch of Constantinople and Contemporary Allat de perp Cons lib. 3. cap. 15. M. Arn. lib. 7 cap. 5 p. 662. with Theodorus Graptus say's the same thing in a Passage which Allatius and Mr. Arnaud after him has related If it be lawful say's he to explain these things by a humane Comparison as the Bread Wine and Water are naturally changed into the Body and Blood of those that eat and drink them and become not another Body so these Gifts by the Prayer of him that officiates and descent of the Holy Spirit are changed supernaturally into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ For this is what is contained in the Priest's Prayer and we understand not that this is two Bodies but one and the same Body THIS way of explaining the change of the Bread and Wine is not peculiar to these Authors alone whom I now alledged Damascen who according to Mr. Arnaud is to be esteemed as the common Oracle of the Greeks made use of it in his Fourth Book of the Orthodox Faith As in Baptism Damascen de fide Orthod lib. 4. cap. 14. say's he because men are wont to wash and anoint themselves God has added to the Oyl and Water the Grace of his Holy Spirit and made thereof the Laver of our Regeneration so in like manner because we are wont to eat Bread and drink Wine and Water he has joyned to these things his Divinity and made them his Body and Blood to the end that by things familiar to our nature he might raise us above nature This is really the Body united to the Divinity the Body born of the Virgin Not that the Body which ascended up on high descends from Heaven but because the Bread and Wine are changed into the Body and Blood of God If you ask how this comes to pass it will be sufficient to tell ye that 't is by means of the Holy Spirit and after the same manner as he became Flesh in the Virgin 's Womb. All that we know of it is this that the Word of God is true efficacious and Almighty and that the manner of this change is inconceiveable Yet we may say that as naturally the Bread we eat the Wine and Water we drink are changed into the Body and Blood of him that eates and drinks and yet become not another Body than that which he had before so after the same manner the Bread and Wine which are placed on the Altar are supernaturally changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ by Prayer and Descension of the Holy Spirit and these are not two Bodies but one and the same Body IT is probable that Damascen and the others aforementioned who use this Comparison have taken it out of the Catechism of Gregory of Nysse wherein we find almost the same Conceptions For he say's that as the Gregor Nyss in Orat. Catâ—chet Bread which Jesus Christ eat was changed into his Body and received thereby a divine virtue the same likewise comes to pass in the Eucharist For there it was the Grace of the Word that sanctified the Body which was nourished with Bread and was in some sort Bread and here after the same manner the Bread is sanctified by the Word of God and by Prayer not being in truth made the Body of the Word by Manducation but by being changed in an instant by the Word into the Body of Christ according to what he said himself this is my Body THIS Comparison does already
remarks their Opinion touching the Unity of our Saviour's Nature but mentions not a Word of Confession Nicephorus Callistus observes likewise in his Ecclesiastical History their Heresy touching the Unity of our Saviour's Nature but takes no notice of their rejecting the Article of Confession THE Nestorians which are another Christian Church in the East and have as well as others their apartment in the Temple of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem and are consequently continually amongst the Greeks in this place where their common Devotion brings them do acknowledg no more than the Jacobits the Doctrine of Confession nor that of Confirmation as appears by the Profession of Faith of Sulak their Patriarch which is inserted in the Bibliotheca Patrum Let Mr. Arnaud shew us if he can that the Greeks have raised any Controversies on this Subject he I say that believes these latter are at agreement with the Latins touching the number of seven Sacraments THOMAS a Jesu tells us that the Pope having sent Apostolical Legats for the Reforming of the Maronites and purging their Books from some Thom. a Jesu lib. 7. part 2. c. 7. Errors which were common to them say's he as well as to other Eastern Nations that is to say other Christians in that Country they found they misunderstood some Passages of Scripture and especially that touching the Institution of the Sacrament this is my Body They affirm say's he that we must read this is the Sacrament of my Body Let Mr. Arnaud be pleased to tell us whether the Greeks ever censured the Proposition of these other Eastern Churches in the midst of whom they live For if it be true that the Greeks believed Transubstantiation as well as the Latins 't is the strangest thing in the World they should approve such a Corruption or such an Interpretation of the Words of Christ seeing 't is only on the literal Sence of these Words the Church of Rome pretends her Doctrine is grounded I shall prove in its place as clearly as 't is possible to prove a thing of this nature that the Armenians do not believe Transubstantiation nor the substantial Presence This Truth will be plainly manifest and yet it will not appear the Greeks ever upbraided them with this their Opinion or made thereof a Point of Controversy Were it fair to argue from the Silence of the Greeks might I not conclude from their not disturbing the Armenians in reference to this matter that they are agreed with them to reject these Doctrines and conclude it too with a thousand times more Strength and Evidence than Mr. Arnaud concludes they are at Agreement with the Latins to believe it because they do not make thereof a Controversy AND here methinks are Instances enough to overthrow Mr. Arnaud's Argument and discover the weakness of his Consequence But we must proceed farther for having shewed him that the Principle on which I ground my Answer is reasonable to wit that the Greeks do not believe Transubstantiation altho they never disputed against it I will likewise shew him there is all the likelyhood in the World that the matter is as I lay it down whence it will follow that not only his Consequence has no Necessity but even no Probability I. FOR this Effect it will be necessary to call to mind the profound Ignorance wherein the Greeks have lived from the eleventh Century till this present For I already related in the second Book what Wm. of Tyre James de Vitry Belon Cottovic Anthony Caucus Francis Richard Allatius du Loir Thevenot and Barbereau the Jesuit have written of this matter I moreover produced the Testimonies of Bozius and Thomas a Jesu All which has no other end but to shew us the miserable Condition wherein this Church has for so long time layn Observe here likewise what say's a Latiniz'd Monk called Barlaam who lived about the beginning of the fourteenth Century There are Barlaam Epist 1. Bibl. patr Tom. 2. Edit 4. say's he few Persons amongst them that trouble themselves with Learning And there are yet fewer that apply themselves to the Study of the Scriptures preferring the Heathenish Sciences above it to which they willingly apply themselves All the People in general are ignorant especially of that Holy Word that brings Salvation So that for one Person amongst them that understands the Summary of the Christian Faith there are Millions ignorant of it Observe here moreover what Cyrillus Lucaris the same Patriarch mentioned in the preceding Book writes I can bear with the Ignorance of the common People for I know their Ignorance Epist ad Wittemborg in Epist Virro erudi and Simplicity can defend them against the Enemies of their Faith whom they Combat not with Arms but Patience and so remain faithful to Jesus Christ But I cannot bear with the Ignorance and Stupidity of our Pastors and Bishops and therefore I continually upbraid them with it but to no purpose The Jesuits making their advantage thereof have setled themselves in Constantinople to instruct Youth and are like Foxes amongst Geese It is certain we can find no Book from this People worth our Reading written since Photius's time excepting some few Histories and Collections of the antient Canons the rest only consisting in Explanations of their Liturgy and some pittiful Treatises wherein they Transcribe one out of another Word for Word without any Art or Sence almost II. WE should likewise consider the temporal State of Greece since the eleventh Century to this present for there can be nothing imagined more dreadful and miserable Most of their Emperors have been either lazy or effeminate continually accompanied with Misfortunes or Prophane and Impious Persons that made a Mock of Religion or Villains that ascended the Throne by Seditions and Murthers by means whereof Greece became divided into Factions and horrible Confusions In the Year 1034 Romanus Argirus Peteau Rat. tempor ex Curopal L 8. Ch. 18. Ibid. the Emperor having lost Syria was cruelly murthered by the Treachery of Zoa his Wife who gave the Empire afterwards to her Adulterer Michael Michael Reigned seven Years possessed by the evil Spirit He lost Sicily and Bulgaria and at length turned Monk in the Year 1041. Zoa his Wife adopted one Michael Calaphatus and made him Emperor but four or five Months Ibid. after she caused his Eyes to be bored out and gave the Empire to Constantin Monomaque whom she espoused He lost Poville and was terribly beaten by the Serviens who killed forty Thousand of his Men. Constantin dyed in 1054 and a Woman named Theodora succeeded him who Reigned but one Ibid. Year After her came one named Michael Stratiotique who Reigned also but one Year Isaack Comnenus dispossessed him and took his Place wherein he remained Ibid orewhelmed with Diseases for the space of two Years and some Months He resigned the Empire in the Year 1059 to Constantin Ducas a dull Ibid. and mean Spirited Prince who suffered the Barbarians
will affirm that the Sence of the Roman Church is not a literal Sence For the literal Sence of our Saviour's Words must retain two things First that 't is Bread and secondly that 't is the Body of Christ which Transubstantiation does not BUT say's Mr. Arnaud Baptism contains the Virtue of Christ's Blood and yet we do not say Baptism is not the Figure of it but the Blood it self of Christ Lib. 2. c. 9. p. 179. I answer that this is still to dispute against the Greeks and not against me For supposing it were more true than it is that the Water of Baptism is not mentioned like as the Greeks speak of the Bread in the Eucharist yet still these two things are certain First that they affirm the Bread to be the Body of Christ by this Impression of Virtue and secondly that 't is thus they Understand the Words This is my Body Ely de Crete having told us that God Comment in Orat. 1. Greg. Naz. changes the Oblations into the Efficacy of his Flesh Immediately adds and doubt not of the Truth of this seeing he himself plainly say's this is my Body this is my Blood It is apparent he grounds this change of the Bread into the Efficacy of Flesh on the express Words of our Saviour Whence it follows that 't is thus he understands them Cyrillus of Alexandria having likewise said in the same manner that God changes the Oblations into the Efficacy of his Cyrill apud Victor Ante MS. in Bibl. Reg. Flesh adds that we must not doubt of the Truth of this seeing he has said it which evidently shews that according to him these Words this is my Body signifies no more than that this has the Efficacy of my Body or is my Body in Efficacy Yet should we take upon us to reply in behalf of the Greeks to the Instance or Example Mr. Arnaud alledges touching Baptism We might tell him that the Reason why they express not themselves in the same manner in reference to the Water as they do to the Bread is because our Saviour never said of it this is my Blood as he said of the Bread this is my Body and that the Holy Scripture having differently explained it self touching Baptism and the Eucharist we must not think it strange if Divines have expressed themselves about them in a different manner He may be moreover answered that the same Oeconomy observed touching the Body and Blood of Christ is not observed in the Water of Baptism as it is observed in the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist and therefore it cannot be so well said that the Water becomes the Blood by this way of Growth and Augmentation as may be said of the Bread altho it receives the Impression of the Virtue of Blood AS to what Mr. Arnaud adds that the Ministers acknowledg these Words this is my Body must be either understood in a real or figurative Sence whence it follows according to him that Theophylact understood them in one or the other of these I say this Reasoning is false as well in its Principle as Consequence For the Ministers do not acknowledg either that we ought or can understand these Words in this Sence of Reality the Church of Rome gives them We all hold that this is an absurd and impossible Sence and that none but a figurative one can subsist But supposing the Ministers should say what he makes them why would he have us regulate thereby the Sence of Theophylact and other Greeks They have argued on their own Hypothesis and not on that of the Ministers Whether their Hypothesis be justifiable or not is not to be disputed with the Ministers for Mr. Arnaud was never yet told that the Greeks were agreed in all things with us It is sufficient that on one hand he be shewed in what manner the Greeks pretend the proper Sence of our Saviour's Words is observed and on the other that this manner whatsoever it be Good or Bad Justifiable or Unjustifiable Conformable or not Conformable to what the Ministers say is directly opposite to Transubstantiation for our only Question is Whether the Greeks believe Transubstantiation or not THIS is then a mere Illusion to explain Theophylact by what the Ministers say or not say and it is yet a greater to tell us as if it were a thing earnestly Disputed between him and us that Euthymius excludes the Key of Figure and does not take the Word EST in the Sence of Significat that 't is not likely we would borrow Euthymius his Words to instruct a Man in our Opinion and Lib. 2. c. 12. that we are not wont to say that Christ gave us not the Figure of his Body but his Body because he said this is my Body And thus do Men argue that impose on the World which Mr. Arnaud never fails of doing HAVING produced these Arguments which in my Mind have not proved very successful to him he offers us others drawn from the Doubts or Difficulties which the Greeks propose to themselves as arising from their Sentiment and which they endeavour to resolve in the best manner they can Theophylact say's he testifies there arises naturally a Doubt from what Faith teaches concerning this Mystery that the Bread is really the Flesh of Christ which difficulty Lib. 2. c. 9. p. 183. he expresses in these Words Quomodo inquit neque enim caro videtur How can this be For this Bread does not seem to me to be Flesh Whence he observes the natural Consequence of this Change must be that the Bread being Flesh must appear to be so and seeing it does not 't is astonishing Et quomodo inquit aliquis non apparet caro sed Panis Now say's he let a man take Aubertin's or Mr. Claude's Gloss to expound Theophylact and we shall find nothing can be more Extravagant For this is as much as to say according to them if it be true the Bread contains the Virtue of Christ's Body how comes it to pass that it does not appear to us to be Flesh Whence is it we see only Bread and not Flesh Is it not ridiculous to make People reason after so absurd a manner And why must this Bread containing only the Virtue of Christ's Body appear Flesh when it is not so Does it follow from the Breads partaking of a spiritual Quality of the Flesh of Christ either morally or physically that it must appear Flesh Would it not be on the contrary a dreadful Prodigy if the Flesh of Christ being only in Virtue in the Bread of the Eucharist should appear Flesh AND this is Mr. Arnaud's Reasoning set forth with its usual Sweetness that is to say of Extravagancies and Absurdities with which he charges both me and Mr. Aubertin I answer he is under a Mistake and such a kind of Mistake too wherein his Reputation is deeply concern'd for he takes for the Ground of Theophylact's Doubt that which is on the contrary the
about fifty years since that they have wholly renounced this Fancy But this confession on which Breerewood grounds his supposal is at most only the private sentiment of this Catholick of Armenia and not that of this Church If Breerewood adds any thing of his own Head without any Proof his bare word is not to be preferred before the Testimony of other Authors whom we have already alledged that which we have seen of Cyril and his dispute against Barsabas in the presence of all the People and in the very Temple of Jerusalem is later than the confession he mentions And so is that also which Cottovic relates The Letter of Barbereau the Jesuit bears Date 1667. The Relation of the Bishop of Heliopolis which says as we have already seen That the Patriarch of the Armenians to whom he gave a visit resided near the City of Herivan in a famous Monastery of Eutychien Hereticks who are no less obstinate than ignorant and being desirous to confer with one of these Monks on the principal Point of the Heresie of Eutyches he cunningly shunned the occasion This Relation I say is Dated 1668. All these Testimonys shew us that the Armenians do still keep their Ancient error and have in no wise changed their belief BUT supposing they were changed within these fifty or sixty years as Breerewood imagins yet would what Euthymius Isaac and other Authors say be no less true on the contrary the change which Breerewood attributes to them would only more Authorize their Testimony For if it be true as Breerewood says that they have now renounced that Fancy they had it then heretofore for People are not wont to renounce those Opinions which they never held so that the Argument drawn from their Doctrine touching the unity of the Nature of Jesus Christ to shew they do not believe Transubstantiation do's still continue in full force as to the time past and all that Mr. Arnaud can conclude hence is that it is possible for the Body of a Church to change an Opinion and pass over to another which is quite Opposite without any noise or disturbance whence it follows that the pretensions of the Author of the Perpetuity touching the impossibility of a change are vain and groundless As to those other late Authors Mr. Arnaud speaks of when he pleases to give us a particular Account of them we will examine 'em but there 's no body but sees after what I have related that he ought not to speak so generally as he has done That other Modern Authors are agreed therein seeing John Cottovic Pietro Della Vallé Cyrillus Thomas a Jesu Barbereau the Bishop of Heliopolis are late Authors and yet assert the contrary of what Mr. Arnaud affirms NEITHER can Mr. Arnaud meliorate his cause by the Letter which was written by a Patriarch of Armenia and sent to the Emperour Emanuel nor by the conference which Theorien this Emperour's Deputy had with this Patriarch altho it were true that this Letter has these Expressions we hold there is but one Nature in Jesus Christ not in confounding it as Theorien Dial. advers Arm. Bibl. Patr. Graeco lat tom 1. Eutyches does nor in denying Christs humane Nature like Apollinairus but according to Cyrillus Patriarch of Alexandria in the Books he wrote against Nestorius in saying there was but one Nature of the Word which is Incarnate But we must not immediately Imagine that this was the sentiment of the Armenian Church It was the Patriarchs in particular as appears by the Dialogue of Theorien For after Theorien had for a long time disputed that our Saviour had two Natures two Wills and two Operations the Patriarch himself confessed this had been ever his Opinion since he read the sacred Writings Whereupon Theorien having demanded of him why he inserted in his Letter to the Emperour that there was but one only Nature in Jesus Christ The Patriarch answered that he had at that time in his thoughts the instance which is commonly made use of touching man who is made up of Body and Soul and yet is said to have but one Nature altho the two Natures of which he consists remain without confusion and change and that he believed St. Cyril meant the same In fine he told him he would shew him a secret which had not yet been Divulged amongst his People That there was a Patriarch of Armenia named John who was a bitter Enemy to the Monophysits which is to say to those that believe only one Nature in Jesus Christ and that he had the writings of this John together with the approbation of another of his Predecessors named Gregory who added thereunto these words I believe likewise what the holy Patriarch has here written and Anathematise those that do not believe it It is evident by all these circumstances that the belief of the two Natures in Jesus Christ thus united to make thereof but one was not the publick sentiment of the Armenian Church but the private Opinion of the Patriarch who disputed with Theorien and that he had taken this Opinion from the secret writings of this John and Gregory BUT it will be perhaps here demanded how this person could in conscience continue a Patriarch in the Armenian Church being of a contrary judgment To answer this Objection I need only give the Character of this person such as it appears to be in this same conference and this will more confirm the truth of what I now said This says he do I intend to do I will immediately write to all the Armenian Bishops whithersoever they be to assemble in Council And when met I will produce all the Arguments alledged by the Armenians and which in effect do seem to favour them Then will I propose on the other hand all the contrary proofs which you have now offered me and at first will take the Armenians part and dispute against you But insensibly and by degrees and with great caution will begin to discover the Error of the Armenians which has hitherto so greatly obtained amongst them I will convince them by John the Patriarchs Book and all the other Proofs you have furnished me with In fine I will declare my self openly for the Greeks or to speak better I will contend for the truth against the Armenians I hope by Gods assistance my sheep will hear my voice and follow me so that there will be but one Flock and one Shepherd If all the Bishops shall be for me nothing will be more welcome to me But if not I will notwithstanding confirm the true Doctrine together with those on my side and send to the Emperour and your Patriarch a writing under my Hand and Seal and signed by my Bishops containing the Orthodox Faith Now this writing shall contain amongst other Articles this same That we receive the Holy and universal Council of Chalcedon and all the Holy Fathers which that Council has receiv'd That we Anathematise all those Anathematised by that Council espcially
of Consecration the Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ Born of the Virgin who suffered and rose again But they hold that this Sacrament is a representation a resemblance or a figure of the true Body and Blood of our Lord. And this some of the Armenian Doctors have particularly asserted to wit that the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are not in the Eucharist but that it is a representation and a resemblance of them They say likewise that when our Saviour instituted this Sacrament he did not Transubstantiate the Bread and Wine into his Body but only instituted a representation or a resemblance of his Body and Blood and therefore they do not call the Sacrament of the Altar the Body and Blood of our Lord but the Host the Sacrifice or the Communion One of their Doctors called Darces has written that when the Priest says these words this is my Body then the Body of Jesus Christ is Dead but when he adds by which Holy Spirit c. then the Body of Jesus Christ is alive yet has he not expressed whether it be the true Body or the resemblance of it The Armenians likewise say we must expound that which is say'd in the Cannon of their Mass by which Holy Spirit the Bread is made the real Body of Jesus Christ in this sence that by the real Body of Jesus Christ we must understand the real resemblance or representation of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ And therefore Damascen censuring them for this says that the Armenians have this Two Hundred years abolished all the Sacraments and that their Sacraments were not given them by the Apostles nor Greek or Latin Church but that they had taken them up according to their own Fancy MR Arnaud who in looking over his Raynaldus has met with this clear Testimony yet 〈◊〉 has not been perplexed with it for his invention never fails of finding out ways to shift the force of the most plain and positive truths and to turn them to his own advantage He tells us that after an exact search into the cause which might move Guy Carmes to impute this Error to the Armenians he at length found it in this information which Pope Benedict the XII ordered to be drawn up He adds that if this Original has been known to the Ministers yet they have found greater advantage in standing by the Testimony C 9. 348. 485. of Guy Carmes then in ascending up to this Source BUT all this Discourse is but a meer Amusement For when Mr. Arnauds conjecture should be right it would not thence follow Guy Carmes his Testimony were void and the Ministers had no right to alledge him nor that the Information aforementioned do's impute to the Armenians those Doctrines which they have not There is great likelyhood that Guy Carmes made not this information his rule for besides that he say's nothing of it he reckons up but Thirty Errours of the Armenians whereas the information computes 'em to be about One Hundred and Seventeen But supposing it were so all that can be concluded thence is that in the Fourteenth Century the truth of the things contained in this act was not questioned but past for such certainties that the Writers of those times scrupled not to make them the Subject of their Books And this is all the use which can be made of Mr. Arnaud's Remark BUT howsoever what can be said against an act so Authentick as that of Benedict's which was not grounded on uncertain Reports but on the Testimonies of several Persons worthy of credit Armenians or Latins who had been in Armenia and whom the Pope would hear himself that he might be ascertain'd of the Truth TO know of what weight or Authority this piece is we need but read what the Pope wrote on this Subject to the Catholick or Patriarch of Armenia Raynald Ibid. We have long since says he been informed by several Persons of good credit that in both the Armenia's there are held several detestable and abominable Errors and that they are maintained contrary to the Catholick Faith which the Holy Roman Church holds and teaches which is the Mother and Mistress of all the Faithful And altho at first we were unwilling to credit these reports yet were at length forced to yield to the certain Testimony of Persons who tell us they perfectly understand the state of those Countries Yet before we gave full credit we thought our selves Obliged to make exact search of the Truth by way of judiciary and solemn information both by hearing several witnesses who likewise told us they knew the state of these Countrys and taking in Writing these their Depositions and by means of Books which we are informed the Armenians do commonly use wherein are plainly taught these Errors He says the same in his Letter to the King of Armenia and in his information 't is expresly said that the Pope caused these Witnesses to appear personally before him and gave Raâ—nald Ibid. them an Oath to speak the truth of what they knew concerning the Doctrines of the Armenians that these Witnesses were not only Latins that had been in Armenia but Armenians themselves and that the Books produced were written in the Armenian tongue and some of those were such as were in use in both the Armenia ' s I think here are as many formalities as can be desired and all these circumstances will not suffer a man to call in question the truth of those matters of fact which are contained in this act YET will not Mr. Arnaud agree herein He says that in this monstrous heap of Errors there are several senceless extravagant and Socinian Opinions Lib. 5. C. 9. P. 4â—4 That therein Original Sin the Immortality of the Soul the Vision of God the Existence of Hell and almost all the points of Religion are denyed That therein are also contrary Errors so that 't is plain this is not the Religion of a People or Nation but rather a Rapsody of Opinions of several Sects and Nations I confess there are in these Articles several absurd Opinions and some that differ little from Socinianism but this hinders not but they may be the Opinions of a particular People The Pope expresly distinguishes in his Bull three sorts of Errors contained in his information some that are held in both one and the other Armenia others which are held only in one Armenia and the third which are only held and taught by some particular Persons And this distinction is exactly observed in the Articles themselves in which the Particular Opinions are Described in these terms quidam or aliqui tenent as in Article CVI. Quidam Catholicon Armenorum dixit scripsit quod in generali Resurrectione omnes homines consurgent cum Corporibus suis sed tamen in Corporibus eorum non erit Sexuum discretio And in the CVIII Article Aliqui magni Homines Armeni Laici dixerunt
naturally arises in the minds of all men May it not happen that the same expression has been used in divers ages and amongst divers people under different respects and yet have been used for different ends and on different occasions 'T is not good reasoning to conclude there has been an universal and uniform reason in all Ages and amongst all people that has obliged them to make use of a term under pretence that it has been every where and at all times used For how many ancient terms are there which are at this day in use altho the reason of their being at first used no longer subsists The use of terms is a thing unaccountable enough and sufficiently subject to change either in regard of divers People or Ages and the occasions the reasons or principles of this use are no less unaccountable too SUPPOSING this expression has been generally received by a general reason why must this reason be a general doubt that naturally arises in the minds of all men Is it not sufficient that it was a general interest which all Christians had to establish the truth of the Nature and Humane Substance in the Person of Jesus Christ and to make thereof a common confession in the Sacrament it self of his Incarnation I mean in the Eucharist for so the Fathers have called it Is it not sufficient 't was a general interest which they had in all places and in all Ages to receive with a profound respect the words of Jesus Christ who has said of the Bread This is my Body and to acknowledg publickly the truth of them These two interests are general belong to all times and all Nations and are a sufficient reason of this expression in question were it as general as Mr. Arnaud says it was BUT in fine supposing it was a general doubt that occasion'd these terms of true and truly I say 't is sufficient 't was a doubt likely to happen in the minds of weak persons and not necessarily in those of all men For there have been weak Christians at all times and in all places the Church having never been without 'um and of whom there ought always to be a particular care taken Now this doubt touching the virtue of the Eucharist that it can spiritually communicate to us the Body of Jesus Christ that it procures us the remission of our Sins the Grace of Sanctification the hope of Everlasting life that by it we obtain the Communion of our Saviour this doubt I say easily arises in the minds of weak persons who as I have already said are sufficiently puzled at the simplicity of this Sacrament wherein there only appears Bread and Wine Supposing then one should say that the terms of the true Body of Jesus Christ or of truly the Body of Jesus Christ were only used to prevent this doubt to strengthen the weak in this regard and conciliate more respect to the Sacrament what can Mr. Arnaud find in this which is not reasonable and conformable to the sense of the Church WERE there any body now says he tempted with this doubt and Page 783. needed to be strengthened against it does not common sense shew that he would express it in proper terms to make himself understood and disacknowledg it by expressions which are directly contrary to it He will say for example that he doubts whether God works on our souls by means of the Bread of the Eucharist and whether he fills it with his efficacy He will say that he does not doubt but the Eucharist is endowed with the virtue of the Body of Jesus Christ but he will never think of expressing this doubt in these terms I doubt whether the Eucharist be the Body of Jesus Christ nor of rejecting it in these here I believe the Eucharist to be the true and proper Body of Jesus Christ LET Mr. Arnaud tell us if he pleases why these pretended doubters whom he introduces without any occasion or reason would not consult common sense whereby to express their doubt in intelligible terms supposing they doubted of Transubstantiation or the substantial presence Why should they not say We doubt whether the substance of Bread be changed into the substance of the Body of Jesus Christ or we doubt whether the substance of the Body of Jesus Christ be contained under the vail of the appearances of Bread Those that have now their minds possessed with these doubts do they think of proposing them in these equivocal terms which need a Commentary to explain them We doubt whether the Eucharist be the Body of Jesus Christ Clear and proper terms are not so hard to be found had the Church then believed the substance of Bread to be converted into the substance of Jesus Christ and the common opinion it self against which they would form their doubts would have furnished them with requisite expressions Let Mr. Arnaud likewise tell us why this doubt was not repelled in formal terms by saying We must believe that the substance of Bread is changed into that of the Body of Jesus Christ and that under the accidents of Bread is contained the proper substance of this Body Let him shew us from Antiquity his pretended doubt explained in requisite terms according to the sense he gives it and I will shew him that which he finds so ridiculous stated according to my sense in Palladius How are the gifts said a Religious Pallad Hist Laus cap. 75. person able to sanctifie me I will shew him that this is in effect the doubt which was heretofore design'd to be prevented as appears by Cyril of Alexandria God says he changes the things offered into the efficacy of his Flesh Apud Vict. Ant. Miss AND WE NEED NOT DOUBT BUT THIS IS TRUE and by Elias of Crete God changes the things offered into the efficacy of his Flesh Elias Cret in Greg. AND DOUBT NOT BUT THIS IS TRUE Let him shew us the Fathers have said that the Eucharist is the true Body or truly the Body of Jesus Christ in reference to the question of the Conversion and the substantial Presence and I will shew him they have said it in reference to the question touching the virtue For Walafridus Strabo an Author of the 9th Century having given this Title to one of the Chapters of his Book De Virtute Sacramentorum says afterwards in the Text of the same Chapter Valafridus Strabo de rec Eccles cap. 17. Rupert in Mat. cap. 10. by way of confirmation That the Mysteries are truly the Body and Blood of our Lord. And Rupert altho he lived in the 12th Century that is to say in a time wherein Transubstantiation had introduced it self into the Latin Church yet said That the Bread is rightly called and is TRVLY the Flesh of Jesus Christ because in reference to us it effects the same thing as the Flesh of Jesus Christ Crucified Dead and Buried Moreover Mr. Arnaud has no reason to be so positive in affirming
Ch. 4. That most of the expressions which the Ministers pervert against the Real Presence and Transubstantiation are naturally of kin to this Doctrine The equity says Mr. Arnaud of this Consequence is apparently visible For why must these terms subsisting in Authors that lived since the seventh Century with the persuasion of the Real Presence be inconsistent with this Doctrine in the six preceding Ages And why must not nature which has put later Authors upon making use of them without prejudice to their sentiment produce the same effect in the first Ages And in fine what difficulty is there in understanding these terms of the Fathers of the first Ages in a sense that contradicts not the Catholick Doctrine provided this sense be found authoriz'd by the consent and practice of the ten following Ages Reflection Mr. ARNAVD seeming to forget the distinction which the Author of the Perpetuity made and which he himself has sometimes used concerning a natural language and one that is forced will not I suppose take it ill if I remember him of it and use it against his pretended Consequence There is a difference between the expressions which the Fathers use on the subject of the Eucharist and the same expressions in Authors of later Ages The last borrowing sometimes the expressions of the Fathers have at the same time declared themselves in favour of Transubstantiation or the Real Presence the former have done nothing like this The first have left their expressions in the full extent of their natural sense without any mistrust of their being abused The last have commonly restrained and mollified them by violent expositions and such as are contrary to their natural sense as well knowing they may be used against themselves The first have used them indifferently in all occasions because they contained their real opinion but the last have used 'em only accidentally as the necessity of their discourse required The first have likewise used without any difficulty other emphatical expressions which the last dared not use for dare they say for example what Theodoret and Gelasius have said that the Bread loses not its nature or substance dared they say what Facundus said that the Bread is not properly the Body of Jesus Christ but is so called because it contains the mystery of it whence it appears that when they use any of the Fathers expressions 't is by constraint because they must endeavour to accommodate as much as in them lies their stile to the stile of the Ancients whereas the Ancients delivered themselves in a natural manner We must then make another judgment of these expressions when we find them in the Fathers than when we meet with 'em in Authors of later Ages since Transubstantiation has been established There they explain the real Belief of the Church here they are expressions which are endeavoured to be linked with another Belief which is expounded in another manner There they must be taken in their natural signification here in a forced and forein one THE natural sense of these words of Justin Ireneus Cyril of Jerusalem and some others that the Eucharist is not mere Bread common Bread is that it is in truth Bread but Bread that is Consecrated The strained sense of these words is that 't is only Bread in appearance and in respect of its accidents THE natural sense of these words which are frequently used by the Fathers that our Lord called the Bread his Body that he gave to the Bread the name of his Body that he honored the Bread with the name of his Body That our Saviour made an exchange of names giving to the Bread the name of his Body and to his Body that of the Bread Their natural sense is I say that the Bread without ceasing to be Bread has assumed the name of Christ's Body the forced sense is that the Bread takes the name of it because the substance is really changed into the substance of this Body THE natural sense of the passages of the Fathers which assert the Bread and Wine are symbols signs figures images of our Lords Body and Blood is that by the consecration the Bread and Wine are exalted to the glory of being the mystical signs of the Body and Blood of Christ without losing their own nature The forced sense is either that the Body of Jesus Christ is the sign of it self or that the accidents that is to say the appearances of Bread and Wine are signs IT is the same in respect of other expressions of the Fathers which the modern Doctors have endeavoured to accommodate to their stile in giving 'em strained senses and forced explanations which were unknown to the Ancients To take from us the liberty of making use of them we must first be shew'd that the Fathers themselves have taken them in this extraordinary and distorted sense Otherwise we shall still have reason to use them according to their natural and ordinary one CHAP. XI Other Reflections on Mr. Arnaud's Consequences The fifth Consequence HITHERTO we have not found Mr. Arnaud's pretensions very equitable but we may truly say that that which we are now about examining and which is contained in his fifth Consequence is less reasonable than the rest He proposes it in these terms That the Catholicks have right to suppose without any other proofs that the passages of the Fathers are to be understood in the sense wherein they take 'em and that all the Answers of the Calvinists in which they establish not theirs by evident demonstrations are ridiculous and unreasonable THIS proposition being very surprizing and contrary to the true rules of Disputation which do not allow any other right or liberty than what reason and truth afford Mr. Arnaud therefore endeavours to confirm it by a long train of big words and censures full of Authority and with which he has enriched his 5th and 6th Chapters The result of all which amounts only to this That the Dispute being reduced to the expounding of certain terms which the Catholicks take in one sense and the Ministers endeavour to turn into another the Catholicks stopping at the literal signification of these expressions that they take the Body of Jesus Christ for the Body of Jesus Christ and the change of the Bread into the Body of Jesus Christ for the change of the Bread into the Body of Jesus Christ But that the Ministers hereto apply one of their two general solutions or famous keys of virtue and figure so often used by them That in this contest 't is evident that the right of the supposition belongs to the Catholicks The other thing is that the expressions which the Catholicks alledg for themselves have been taken in the sense wherein they use them this thousand years by all Christians in the world That these two qualities reduce this sense into such a point of evidence that nothing but demonstrations can counterpoise them and hinder our reason from acquiescing in them The first Reflection THE first of
it there must be made this contradictory opposition Men are not always lyars men are sometimes lyars or men are always lyars men are not always lyars they are sometimes true That man will justly render himself ridiculous who having offer'd this proposition That during a thousand years men always spake the truth and attempting to maintain it shall afterwards give an exchange and say the question is Whether men could remain a thousand years without speaking any truth He may be well told this is impertinently stated and that this is not the point in hand but only to know whether they always said the truth during a thousand years without ceasing ever to speak it or whether they have been sometimes lyars This instance alone exactly discovers the Author of the Perpetuity's illusion who having offer'd this proposition That the faithful ever had a distinct knowledg whether the Eucharist was or was not the Body of Jesus Christ that is to say the proper substance of the Body of Jesus Christ for 't is thus he understands it has afterwards proposed the state of the question in these terms It concerns us to know whether the faithful could remain a thousand years in the Church without forming a distinct and determinate notionâ— whether that which they saw was or was not the true Body of Jesus Christ We have just cause to tell him that this is not the point but whether they always were in a condition to form this distinct notion or whether sometimes they were not Mr. ARNAVD endeavours in vain to excuse the Author of the Perpetuity that he only established this state of the question on the very terms of my answer For supposing it were true that the terms of my Answer furnished him with an occasion or pretence for this yet must he not thus establish it to the prejudice of the publick interests which require a man to proceed right on in a Dispute to find the truth and not to amuse ones self in deceitful and fruitless contests and prove things which will signifie nothing Now this is what the Author of the Perpetuity has done and Mr. Arnaud likewise by means of this false state of the question as will appear if we consider that when they have proved most strongly and solidly and in the most convincing manner imaginable That the faithful could not remain a thousand years in the Church without forming a distinct and determinate notion whether that which they saw was or was not the true Body of Jesus Christ which is a proposition contradictorily opposite to that which they express in their state of the question they will do nothing in order to the clearing up of our difference We dispute whether the change which the Protestants suppose be possible or not Now to prove that 't is impossible by the Argument of the distinct knowledge it signifies nothing to shew that the faithful could not remain a thousand years in the Church without forming this distinct notion now in question For they might remain only a hundred years in it fifty years thirty years without forming it this is sufficient to invalidate their proof and give way to the change which we pretend To shew it is impossible that a man has entred into a house it is not enough to prove that the door of this house could not remain open for ten years together it must be shew'd that it was always kept shut For if it has been left open only one day the proof concludes nothing It is then evident that these Gentlemen beat the air and that whatsoever they built on their state of the question is only an amusement to deceive silly people Whence it follows that persons of sense may justly complain of them in that they have made my words be they what they will a pretence whereby to entertain the world with fruitless discourses BUT moreover 't is certain that the Author of the Perpetuity has perverted my words and sense 'T is true that in the fifth Observation of my first Answer I established this general Principle That error and truth have equally two degrees the one of a confused knowledg and th' other of a distinct one and that 't is hard to discover any difference betwixt them whilst they are in this first degree of confused knowledg unless a man comes to the other termed a distinct knowledg that the ideas are so like one another that a man cannot easily discern them It is true that from this Principle I generally concluded That before an Error becomes famous by its being opposed the greatest part of the Church content themselves with holding the truth in this indistinct degree I now mention'd and so it is easie for a new Error to insinuate and settle it self in mens minds under the title of an illustration of the ancient truth It is moreover true that in applying this Principle I added these terms To apply this to the matter which we treat of I say that before Transubstantiation came into the world every one believed our Saviour to be present in the Sacrament and that his Body and Blood are really therein received by the faithful Communicant and that the Bread and Wine are the signs and memorials of his Death and Passion on the Cross this was the Faith of the whole Earth but I shall not be mistaken when I say there were few that extended their thoughts so far as to observe exactly the difference of the two Opinions which do at this day separate the Reformists and Romanists there were also some who knew the truth only in general When then error came in thereupon and building ill on a foundation declared we must understand our Saviour is present in the Eucharist stubstantially and locally that his Body and Blood are received in it by the mouth of our bodies and that the sign of his Body is his Body it self this was without doubt in effect an extraordinary novelty and of which there was never heard any mention but yet I do not find it strange that several people were deceived by it and took this not for a novelty but as an illustration of the common Faith So far extends my fifth Observation BUT he ought not to stop here to raise a state of a question he ought to see likewise what I add immediately after in the sixth Observation Had the Author of the Perpetuity and Mr. Arnaud consulted it they would have acknowledged that I gave therein a formal explication and as it were a limitation to this general Principle which I laid down that this does not wholly take place in enlightned Ages wherein there are eminent Pastors for knowledg that take care to instruct clearly their Flocks in the truths of Faith For then their good instructions hinder the growth of Error and render people capable of knowing and rejecting it But it is wholly applicable to the Ages of darkness wherein Ignorance and Superstition have corrupted the Church Which I express in these words Which
manner in which the Bread might be the Body of Jesus Christ to wit in Figure aed Virtue In the mean time the doubt against which the Fathers have pretended to fortifie the Faithful is removed by the same Fathers by confirming and several times repeating that the Eucharist is the Body of Jesus Christ without the addition of an explication of Figure or Virtue Whence it follows that the doubt they would take away is not in any wise that which Mr. Claude attributes to three of his ranks For his doubt requires not proofs but illustrations that is to say the question is not to prove the Eucharist to be the Body of Jesus Christ but to explain in what sense this is true Now in all the passages of the Fathers wherein they mention a doubt they are only solicitous to prove that the Eucharist is the Body of Jesus Christ without any elucidation and they prove it by these words Hoc est corpus meum or by these Panis quem ego dabo caro mea est or by the divers examples of the Power of God the Creation of the world the Miracles of the Prophets and by that of the Incarnation I PRETEND not to examin here all the parts of this discourse 't will be sufficient to make some remarks which will clearly discover the impertinency of it First The division Mr. Arnaud makes of the doubts is insufficient for the subject we are upon for he should again subdivide into two the second kind of doubt and say that sometimes those that doubt in being ignorant of the causes or manner of the thing yet do nevertheless acknowledg the truth of the thing it self and hold it for certain altho they know not how it is Thus when a man doubts of the causes of the flux or reflux of the Sea he yet believes that this flux and reflux is true When Divines doubt of the manner after which God knows contingent matters this hinders 'em not from believing he knows them and when they doubt concerning the manner in which the three persons exist in one and the same essence this does not hinder them from believing that they do exist But sometimes the ignorance of the manner makes people doubt of the truth of the thing it self Thus Nestorius not being able to comprehend how the two Natures make but one Person in Jesus Christ doubted of this truth that there were in Jesus Christ two Natures and one Person and not only doubted of it but deny'd it Thus Pelagius because he could not understand how Grace operates inwardly on the hearts of the Faithful rejected this operation We may call this first doubt a doubt proceeding from mere ignorance and the second a doubt of incredulity Secondly Mr. Arnaud takes no notice that the doubt which arises from the inconsistency of these terms Bread and Body so far prevail'd in the minds of some as to make 'em doubt of the truth it self of these words How can this be said they seeing we see Bread and Wine and not Flesh and Blood Who will doubt Cyril Hieros Catech. myst 1. says Cyril of Jerusalem and say 't is not his Blood You will tell me perhaps says the Author of the Book De Initiatis I see quite another thing how will you persuade me I receive the Body of Jesus Christ And the same kind of doubt we have observ'd among the Greeks of the 11th Century in Theophylact Quomodo inquit caro non videtur and in the 12th in Nicolas Methoniensis for he entitles his Book Against those that doubt and say the Consecrated Bread and Wine are not the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ Perhaps says he you doubt and do not believe because you see not Flesh and Blood but Bread and Wine Thirdly Mr. Arnaud takes notice that when we have to do with these kind of doubters who will not acknowledg the truth of the thing it self because they are ignorant of the manner of it we usually take several ways to persuade them sometimes we confirm the thing it self without expounding to 'em the manner altho it be the ignorance of the manner which makes them doubt of the thing Thus our Saviour seeing the doubt of the Capernaits How can he give us his flesh to eat did not set about explaining the manner of this manducation to 'em but opposes 'em by a reiterated affirmation of what he had told ' em Verily verly says he if you eat not the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his Blood you will have no life in you c. Sometimes the explication of the thing and the manner of it are joyn'd together and thus our Saviour dealt with the doubt of Nicodemus How can a man be born when he is old can he enter again into his Mothers womb and be born Verily verily says our Saviour I say unto you unless a man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God These words do at the same time both confirm and explain But when we have to do with doubters that are only ignorant of the manner without calling into question the truth of the thing then we usually explain only the manner without confirming any more the thing because this alone is sufficient to instruct them and 't is thus the Angel bespeaks the Virgin How said she can this be for I know not a man The Holy Spirit says he shall come upon thee and the virtue of the most high shall overshadow thee therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God TO apply these things to the present occasion I say the Fathers had to do with two sorts of Doubters the one who were only ignorant of the manner how the Bread is or is made the Body of Jesus Christ but yet who held the proposition to be true altho they knew not the sense of it and they are those that make up the third second and fourth ranks in my Answer to the Perpetuity others who went so far as to call in question the truth of the proposition under pretence they understood not the manner of it As to these last supposing the Fathers contented themselves with sometimes confirming their proposition by the words of Jesus Christ who is Truth it self it must not be thought strange the nature of the doubt led 'em to this yet is it true they have always added to the confirmation of the thing the explication of the manner as may be apparently justifi'd by several passages which we have elsewhere cited But when they had only to do with the first sort of Doubters then they contented themselves with explaining the manner without pressing the truth of the words Thus does S. Austin after he had proposed the doubt of those that were newly Baptiz'd How is the Bread his Body and the Wine his Blood make this answer My Brethren these things are called Sacraments because that which we
Serm. ad inf see is one thing and that which we hear another what we see has corporeal species but what we hear has a spiritual fruit To this end do all the passages of the Fathers tend which declare how the Bread is the Body of Jesus Christ to wit or because 't is the Sacrament of it the sign and figure or because it stands for it or because it communicates it to us or because Christ changes it into the efficacy of his Flesh and those which term it the typical Body the symbolical Body the mystical Body and those that attribute to the words of Christ a Sacramental or figurative sense for these are as so many explications of the manner which serve to clear up the doubt in question Mr. ARNAVD's illusion then is a double one for on one hand what ought to be referred to one kind of doubt he refers to another what refers to the doubt of incredulity which respects the truth of the words he refers to the simple doubt of ignorance which consists only in not knowing the manner how the Bread is the Body of Jesus Christ and this illusion is grounded on the imperfect division which he has made of the doubts On the other hand he suppresses whatsoever the Fathers have said in order to th' explaining in what sense the Sacrament is the Body of Jesus Christ and offers only what they have said to confirm that it is so As to the passages he proposes he shews but small sincerity in telling us the Fathers add no explication of figure or virtue for the greatest part of those he alledges speak either of the Type or Figure or Sacrament or spiritual Understanding or Virtue Cyril of Jerusalem speaks of the type of Bread and of the type of Wine The Author of the Treatise De Initiatis concludes that 't is the Sacrament of the Flesh of Jesus Christ Gaudencius says That the Bread is the figure of the Body of Jesus Christ Chrysostom says that God gives us in the Sacrament the intelligible or spiritual things by means of sensible And Hesychius recommends to our consideration the virtue of the Mystery and spiritual understanding of it CHAP. IV. Defence of the Fifth Rank against the Objections of Mr. Arnaud THE fifth rank of persons which I supposed were in the ancient Church was of those that at the hearing of these propositions the Bread is the Body of Jesus Christ the Bread is chang'd into the Body of Jesus Christ the Bread is made the Body of Jesus Christ proceeded immediately to their true and natural sense without perplexity or difficulty and without considering the inconsistency of the terms very well understanding that the Bread remaining Bread is consecrated to be to us a Sacrament which imparts to us our Lords Body and these had a more clear and distinct knowledg of the truth and an apprehension better fitted to understand the style and common expressions of the Church Mr. ARNAVD spends all the 11th Chapter of his sixth Book to shew that these persons whom I suppose had necessarily before their eyes a distinct idea of the Real Presence Which is what he endeavours to prove First By the example of this infinite number of Christians which were found to hold in the beginning of the 11th Century the belief of the Real Presence and who had taken up this Faith from the same expressions of the Fathers which ever rung in the ears of the Faithful of the first eight Centuries whence it without doubt follows that these expressions which have persuaded the whole world into the belief of the Real Presence might well give the idea of it to those which preceded them Secondly He offers the double idea which the metaphorical terms offer to the mind for they offer says he to the mind that which one would have it understand and shew it at the same time the image by which one represents it Thus this expression of Scripture Vicit Leo de tribu Juda puts us upon thinking that Jesus Christ is compared to a Lion by reason of his strength so that the word Lion forms at the same instant in the mind two ideas that of the strength of Christ which is the natural idea of the thing conceiv'd as true and which the Scripture would signifie and the idea of a Lion which is the natural idea of the Word but which is only the resemblance of the truth which the Scripture would make us conceive It is easie says he moreover to conclude hence that when a man should take all the words of the Fathers which express the Real Presence for metaphorical ones when one shall give 'em all the senses which the Ministers give them and suppose that the Faithful of the fifth Rank were all of 'em born every whit as metaphorical as Aubertin was after he had corrupted his judgment by vain wranglings for thirty years space when we should grant they had all an infused knowledg of 'em and had 'em also as present as the first Principles they could not but see the Real Presence in the expressions of the Fathers either as the true idea which they would mark or as the image of this idea but an image so lively and sensible and denoted by such a great number of expressions that 't is impossible but their mind must have been touch'd with ' em Thirdly Mr. Arnaud uses for the same design the example of other Ministers Who conceiv'd says he a literal sense in the passages produc'd by the Catholicks In fine he uses for this end the very passages of the Fathers and especially one of S. Hilary and another of Gregory of Nysse We shall answer in order these four pretended reasons AS to the first which is taken from th' example of the people of the 11th Century it is evidently ineffectual by means of two essential differences there are between these people and those of the eight first Centuries The first is that the idea of the Real Presence I mean of that about which we dispute was offered to those of the 11th Century by the Disciples and followers of Paschasus who maintain'd and taught it and applied thereunto the passages of the Fathers dazling the eyes of the world by false colours and giving to these passages a sense which the people would never have discovered had they been led by the light of nature But there can be nothing said like this of the people of the eight first Centuries to whom the idea of this substantial and invisible Presence was not yet discovered They had not been taught it nor were they told 't was in this sense they must take the expressions of their Pastors Moreover the people of the 11th Century had not the clear and easie passages of the Fathers proposed to 'em which might give the true meaning of the Sacrament and at the same time serve for an explication to the obscure expressions and by this means shewing 'em only one side of the thing
was not then wholly extinct that is to say in the beginning of the 11th Century when Berenger appear'd THESE are Mr. Arnaud's first objections which as is plainly seen are not over demonstrative that the change we suppose is impossible Those which follow are not much better as will appear from the reflections we shall make on ' em The second order of these pretended Machins which he attributes to me is what he calls Machins of Preparations and he draws these from two passages the one of my first answer and th' other from my second The first is contain'd in these terms In this dark Age that is to say in the 10th the distinct knowledg of the true Doctrin was lost not only in reference to the Sacrament but almost all other Points of the Christian Religion The second speaks of the Ages which followed the first eight in these terms The first light which was taken from the people to keep 'em in ignorance Answer to the second Treatise Part 2. chap. 3. was God's Word The second was the clear and solid Expositions of the Writings of the Holy Fathers in reference to the Sacrament The third the knowledg of other Mysteries of Christianity which might strengthen mens minds and encourage their zeal for the truth The fourth was suffering natural reason to decay and fall into a kind of languishment And as to their senses they had open War declar'd against ' em THOSE that shall take the pains to read the 4th Chapter of Mr. Arnaud's Chap. 4. page 891. 9th Book which has for its title The Machins of Preparation Examin'd will find therein a prodigious profusion of words much heat and vehement declamations but very few things worth regarding wherefore passing by as I shall do whatsoever is useless and redundant the rest will not take up much time First he charges me with offering things without any foundation proof or reason I answer then Mr. Arnaud has forgot the proofs Page 892. we brought touching the disorders of the 10th Century and according to his reckoning the testimonies of Guitmond Verner Rollevink Marc Antony Sabellic John Stella Polydor Virgil Elfric Arch bishop of Canterbury Edgar King of England Genebrard Bellarmin Baronius Nicolas Vignier and the Author of the Apology for the Holy Fathers the defenders of the Doctrin of Divine Grace shall be esteem'd as nothing The one tells us That the truths of Religion were vanish'd away in this Age from men The other That therein was a total neglect of all ingenious Arts. The third That all persons in general so greatly indulged ' emselves in idleness that all kinds of Virtues seem'd to be laid asleep with ' em The fourth That the Monks and Priests minded only th' enriching ' emselves The fifth That the Bishops and Priests neglected the reading of the Holy Scriptures and instructing the people out of ' em The sixth That the Church-men spent their lives in Debauches Drunkenness and Vncleanness The seventh That 't was an unhappy Age an Age void of excelling men either in Wit or Learning The eighth That there were no famous Writers in it nor Councils nor Popes that took care of any thing The ninth That Barbarism and ignorance of Learning and Sciences either Divine or Human reigned more in it than in the former Ages The tenth That 't was an iron and leaden Age an obscure and dark Age. And the eleventh That 't was an Age of Darkness and Ignorance wherein excepting some few Historians there were no famous Writers on the Mysteries of Faith Mr. Arnaud knows all this and that we might increase the number of these Testimonies with several others were it necessary yet tells me with the greatest transport That I offer things without any ground proof or reason things which I know to be false and mere imaginations HE says adds he speaking of me that the distinct knowledg of almost all Chap. 4. page 829. the other Mysteries but that of the Eucharist was lost in the 10th Age. Now he knows the contrary of this and is persuaded of it seeing that as to the common Mysteries and such as are believed by both Parties and contained in the ancient Symbol it cannot be said they of the 10th Age were ignorant of 'em and yet as to the points controverted between the Calvinists and the Roman Church excepting that of the Eucharist all the Ministers his Brethren do frankly acknowledg that long before the 9th and 10th Century the whole Church believed what the Roman Church does believe at present of ' em Let him tell us then what are these truths of Faith the distinct knowledg of which were lost in the 10th Century 'T IS no hard matter to satisfie Mr. Arnaud These truths the distinct knowledg of which was lost in the 10th Century are the same which are contained in the Symbols Does he imagin that if a man be not ignorant of the Symbols that therefore he must know distinctly the Mysteries therein contained and does he put no difference between being ignorant of a thing consusedly knowing it and distinctly knowing it Do all those that know the Creed distinctly understand the Mysteries contained therein Certainly a mans mind must be strangely benighted that reasons after this manner They were not ignorant of the Mysteries contain'd in the ancient Symbols they had then a distinct knowledg of ' em If this Argument holds good we may attribute the distinct knowledg of the principal Points of Christianity almost to all kinds of persons to Artificers Husbandmen Women yea Children for there are few in either Communion but have heard of them and know something in 'em and yet it must be granted there are few of these who can be properly said to know them distinctly I pretend not to treat here on the common place of the confused knowledg and the distinct knowless This is needless 'T is sufficient to observe that the term of distinct knowledg is equivocal for 't is sometimes taken for the formal and express knowledg of a thing in opposition to the ignorance of this same thing or to what the Schools call an implicit knowledg and sometimes 't is taken for a clear and full knowledg in opposition to a confused and perplex'd one When the Author of the Perpetuity said that all the Faithful ought always to have a distinct knowledg of the Presence or Real Absence he took the term distinct knowledg in the first sense for he did not mean that all the Faithful must know clearly and fully the Doctrin of the Real Presence in every respect but that they had a formal express and determinate thought of rejecting or admitting it But when I said that the distinct knowledg of the Mystery of the Eucharist and almost all the other Mysteries of Christian Religion was lost in the 10th Century I took this term in the second sense meaning not that there was no more formal knowledg of these Mysteries that is to say that they form'd
and dispers'd it in the minds of several without resistance and thus this Doctrin has made in the space of these hundred years insensible progresses establishing it self by little and little under the name and title of the Churches Faith till having been at length directly and formally contradicted in the 11th as an innovation this Doctrin found it self the strongest and triumph'd over the contrary Doctrin What difficulty can be rais'd against this Hypothesis which may not be casily solved If it be said that Paschasus did not propose any thing but what all the faithful already distinctly knew and believed Paschasus himself will answer for me that he has moved several persons to the understanding of this Mystery which supposes that before his time 't was not sufficiently known and that he discovered things of which the people were ignorant Odon will answer for me that the most learned had but little knowledg of the mystery of the Eucharist if they had not read Paschasus his Book If it be said his Doctrin met with no contradiction Paschasus himself will tell you that some blamed him for attributing more to the word of Christ than the truth it self has promised us and 't is hereon he disputes against his Adversaries Should a man deny that the two Doctrins that of Paschasus and that of his Adversaries were both taught in the 10th Century he will I think be convinced of the contrary by the proofs I have given and in effect there 's no great likelihood that the Doctrin of John Scot and Bertram who wrote by the command of King Charles the Bald of France and that of Raban three persons of great note in the Church should be thus extinct in so short a time without any Councils condemning it without the Court of Romes concerning her self with it without the interposition of temporal Princes and that there should I say remain no trace of it in the 10th Century He that shall think it strange that the people of the 10th Century have taken for the Faith of the Church that which was in effect an innovation need only call to mind the ignorance wherein the people lived for when a man does not know what the Church believes 't is no hard matter for him to be deceived and to take that which she does not believe for what she does That man that questions this ignorance need only for his conviction to read the proofs I have given of it Should any man alledg it to be strange such men as an Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and an Abbot of Clugny should be deceived 't is easie to shew the weakness of this objection by th' example of several that are men of better parts than those now in question who now take for the Doctrin of the Church what is not so The Disciples of Paschasus found in his Book such specious Arguments as deceiv'd 'em and 't is a thing ordinary enough to be surprized by false colours Should it be said to be impossible but that the Disciples of Paschasus knowing Bertram's Doctrin was taught in several places have openly condemned it and disputed against those that held it First I answer I do not know whether we may absolutely say there was no dispute about it for there may be disputes and we not know of 'em but supposing there were not I answer that seeing 't is no Miracle that disputation should cease sometimes in an enlightned Age amongst learned and zealous men without any Conversions on either side 't is much less one in a dark and troublesom Age wherein persons thought of nothing less than disputing The Disciples of Paschasus thought they were oblig'd to be contented in recommending the reading of Paschasus his Book to all persons and in confirming their Opinion by Miracles If it be likewise said that those that followed the Doctrin of Bertram ought to dispute against those that follow'd that of Paschasus I must say so too but that men do not do always what they are obliged to do because they have not always that zeal knowledg or industry which they ought to have How should they dispute one against another who left for the most part their Flocks without Pasture without Instruction without Preaching Howsoever this is as I said a thing certain that there were persons in this Century who held the Doctrin of Paschasus and others that of Bertram Whether they disputed or no it concerns me not to know 't is sufficient for me that this Age held both these Doctrins which I think cannot be denied When two opposite Doctrins are taught and both as the true Faith of the Church in an Age of Ignorance to speak after the manner of men and according to the terms of our Dispute 't is equally impossible either of them should get the upper hand because they want that understanding which is requisite to to make aright judgment and moreover if the one be asserted by persons of Authority and great Reputation it is almost impossible but this will carry it away from the other Whence it follows the progress of the Real Presence in the 10th Century has been not only possible but easie and even unavoidable To which if we add another matter of fact which is that we do not find there were Disputes in this Century on this subject whence we will conclude that these progresses we speak of have been made in an insensible manner at least in our respect which is to say that if there were any noise or contests the knowledg of 'em never came to us which suffices to decide the question between us two AND this is what I had to say touching the state of the 10th Century in respect of Transubstantiation and the Real Presence I take no notice of those violent accusations which Mr. Arnaud brings against our Morals under pretence we do not reckon Piety to consist in affected Penances and outward Mortifications which for the most part have more shew than substance We praise and recommend as earnestly as we can the practice of Fasting but believe it better to abstain from Vice than Meats the use of which God has given us with sobriety We believe every man ought to be content with the condition wherein God has placed him to make good use of his Estate and endure Poverty without envy murmurings and repinings to live holily in Caelibacy and chastly in Marriage to carry our selves justly to our Inferiors and obediently to Superiors But we do not approve of mens withdrawing themselves out of that rank and order wherein providence has placed them nor making of particular rules and binding men to th' observance of 'em by Vows nor that the Rich should ransom their sins by great offerings to Ecclesiastical persons who have no need of 'em â—or of Voluntary Poverty much less that men should imagin to satisfie the Almighty for their sins and merit any thing of him by these kind of observances 'T is not from Seneca we have learn'd this Divinity
to his great common place of moral impossibilities and supposing that according to us none of the Clergy or Laity imagin'd that Jesus Christ was really present in the Eucharist that they all took the Eucharist for Bread and Wine in substance that they knew the Bread and Wine were signs and Sacraments of the Body of Jesus Christ by which we obtain his Graces and that we must meditate on the Passion of Jesus Christ in receiving them that Paschasus very well knew that his opinion was opposite to that of the Church and that he remain'd in her external Communion only out of a carnal motive lest he should find himself too weak if he departed out of it supposing I say this he thus reasons Let us imagin a Religious under a Regular Discipline and him so young that he calls himself a Child and who thinks he has discovered this marvellous secret that Jesus Christ is really present on Earth in infinite places that all Christians receive him really every time they partake of the Eucharist but that by a deplorable blindness they are ignorant of this happiness do not know the Saviour whom they have often in their hands and which they receive into their mouths and take his real Body for an image and simple figure that he is the only man that knows the truth of this Mystery and is destin'd to declare it to the world This conceit is already very strange and contrary to the idea which a man necessarily forms on Paschasus from his Writings there being nothing more remote from the humility and simplicity appearing in 'em than this prodigious insolency with which Mr. Claude charges him so that we may truly say he could not worse represent the character of his mind He afterwards says that this enterprise of Paschasus of instructing all people in this new opinion was the greatest enterprize that ever any man undertook far greater than that of the Apostles when they determin'd to Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout all the world For in fine they were twelve they wrought Miracles had other proofs than words they made Disciples and establish'd them Doctors of the truth which they preach'd Paschasus had nothing of all this He triumphantly fills five great pages with this discourse TO answer this with somewhat less heat we 'l reply that these arguings would have been perhaps of some use had Mr. Arnaud liv'd in Paschasus his time and was oblig'd to make an Oration before him in genere deliberativo to dissuade him from making his Book publick But who told him at present that Paschasus must necessarily have all these things in his mind and studied 'em neither more nor less than Mr. Arnaud has done in his Closet Who told him that all those who teach novelties think throly on what they do When Arius a simple Priest of Alexandria troubled the Church by teaching this dreadful novelty that the Son of God was but a Creature there 's no great likelihood he proposed to himself at first the changing of the Faith of the whole world for instructing the people and every where overthrowing what the Apostles had establish'd or compared his design with that of the Apostles and examin'd what there was more or less in it 'T is the same in reference to Eutychius and other teachers of new Doctrins their first thoughts were presently to set forth what they imagin'd most consonant to truth leaving the success to time and mannaging themselves afterwards as occasion required The greatest affairs do usually begin after this manner men enter upon 'em without much reflection and afterwards drive 'em on thro all that happens unforeseen 2. TO discover the vanity of Mr. Arnaud's arguings we need only apply them to John Scot or Bertram Suppose we then as he would have us that in their time the whole world believed firmly and universally the Real Presence and Transubstantiation and all the Faithful had a distinct knowledg of it knew all of 'em that the substance of Bread and Wine no longer subsists after their Consecration that what we receive in the Communion is the proper substance of the Body of Jesus Christ the same numerical substance which was born of the Virgin dead and risen and is now sate at the right hand of God that the same Body is in Heaven and on Earth at the same time John Scot a simple Religious undertakes to disabuse all the people to persuade them that what they had hitherto taken for the proper substance of the Son of God was a substance of Bread that thro a deplorable error they had hitherto worship'd an object which deserv'd not this adoration and that henceforth by his Ministry and at his word all the Earth should change its Faith and Worship Does this design appear less strange to Mr. Arnaud than that he imputes to Paschasus upon our supposition All the difference I find is that Scot's enterprize would be greater and harder than that of Paschasus for 't is difficulter to root ancient and perpetual Opinions out of mens minds than to inspire them with new ones to make 'em lay aside their Rites Altars th' object of their supreme Adoration and Piety than to make 'em receive new Services in reference to a subject for which they have already a great respect Howsoever 't is certain that John Scot wrote a Book against the Real Presence and according to Mr Arnaud's Hypothesis this Book was an innovation contrary to the common Faith of his Age. A thousand Arguments will never hinder but that according to him this is true Why then will he have it to be impossible for Paschasus who wrote a Book touching the Real Presence to advance any novelty with which the Church before that time was unacquainted Why must there be in Hypothesis's which are alike facilities on the one side and impossibilities on the other Paschasus and John Scot wrote one for the Real Presence and the other against it This is a fact which is uncontroulable One of 'em must necessarily have offered a new Doctrine contrary to the general belief and consequently one of 'em must be an Innovator If it be possible that 't was John Scot it is yet more probable 't was Paschasus if it be impossible that 't was Paschasus it is yet more impossible to be John Scot. Mr. Arnaud then need not so warm himself in his consequences seeing 't is his interest as well as ours to acknowledg the nullity of 'em and we may truly affirm without doing him wrong that never man spent his pains to less purpose than he has done in this occasion 3. ALL that can be reasonably said of Paschasus is that being yet young and imagining the substances of Bread and Wine did not subsist in the Eucharist but were chang'd into the substance of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ he thought this marvail was not enough known and that 't was necessary to explain it And therefore he undertakes to instruct his
said to this Here we have formally an actual ignorance on the Article of the Real Presence on the same Article which was disputed him by his Adversaries on the same Article on which he produc'd the words of Jesus Christ This is my Body and the clause of the Liturgy Vt fiat Corpus Sanguis dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Jesu Christi on the same Article whereon he had alledged several passages of the Fathers Quamvis says he ex hoc quidam de ignorantia errent DOES any man desire another express and formal testimony of Paschasus I need only produce these words of his Commentary on the 26th of S. Matthew to satisfie him I have been more large on this subject of our Lords Supper than the brevity of 〈◊〉 Commentary permits because there are several that have another sentiment touching these mystical things and several are so blind as to think the Bread and Wine are nothing else but what we see with our eyes and tast with our mouths Here we have then actually persons that did not believe the Real Presence and those not inconsiderable for their number seeing he denotes them by the term of several and which he expresses so clearly that Mr. Arnaud will be at a loss what to answer Mr. ARNAVD who well perceived he might be opposed on the first answer bethought himself of giving us another in which contrary to his usual manner he relaxes something of what he advanced Not but that says Book 8. ch 10. p. 852. he this word intelligence may likewise respect the Real Presence not as a new truth but as a truth which might be fuller comprehended and in a manner which penetrates more lively the heart for there are several degrees of growing in the knowledg of a mystery which one believes already by Faith He would say there might be people who knew less strongly and livelily the Real Presence and that in this respect they might acquire the intelligence of it but that there were none that were wholly ignorant of it or to whom Paschasus his Book gave the intelligence of it as of a new truth But Paschasus himself refutes this gloss Quamvis ex hoc quidam de ignorantia errent This is an ignorance which according to him extends so far as the making 'em err in the Article of the Real Presence To err in an Article thro ignorance is it not a not believing of it at all as having never heard it mentioned Is not this a knowing nothing of it a having no knowledg and consequently no Faith in it Now such were Paschasus his ignorant persons who were far different from those of Mr. Arnaud In a word they were people who thought the Bread and Wine were nothing else in respect of their substance than what they appear to our eyes and tast as Paschasus now spake THIS Principle being well establish'd as I believe it is at present 't will be no hard matter to see the consequence of it The Author of the Perpetuity and Mr. Arnaud affirm as an undoubted truth that all the faithful Communicants have ever had a distinct knowledg either of the Real Presence or Real Absence of the Presence if it were taught in the Church of the Absence if the Presence were not therein taught Whereupon I raise this Argument There cannot be any person in a Church wherein the Real Presence is commonly taught but knows distinctly the Real Presence Now in the Church of the 9th Century at which time Paschasus lived there were people that were ignorant of the Real Presence and erred in this Article thro ignorance Therefore in the Church of the 9th Century the Real Presence was not commonly taught The first proposition is of the Author of the Perpetuity and Mr. Arnaud without distinction or restriction the second is of Paschasus himself the conclusion of it I think then is inevitable 'T WILL be reply'd that this Argument is one of those called ad hominem which does indeed press an adversary by his own proper Principles but which are not always absolutely conclusive because it may happen that the Principles of an Adversary on which they are grounded be false and imprudently offered This Argument then may be convictive against the Author of the Perpetuity and Mr. Arnaud But the Principle of Mr. Arnaud and the Author of the Perpetuity may be false and consequently the conclusion I draw thence TO solve this difficulty besides that 't is a great advantage for the cause which I defend that as able Doctors as these Gentlemen remain convict by their own proper Principles 'T is to be observ'd that theirs being alternative must be distinguish'd into two propositions one of which is All the Communicants have had a distinct knowledg of the Real Presence if the Church of their time taught it And the other All the Communicants have had a distinct knowledg of the Real Absence if the Church of their time did not teach the Real Presence In respect of this second proposition the Principle is false as I have shew'd in my Answer to the Perpetuity and in the beginning of his 6th Book in I think an unanswerable manner But in respect of the first the Principle is true and must be granted for in effect it is not conceivable that a Church should believe and teach commonly that what we receive in the Communion is the proper substance of the Body of Jesus Christ and yet let persons of age Communicate without instructing them in it That she should believe and teach a man must adore this Sacrament which we receive publickly practise this supreme Adoration and yet one part of the Communicants know nothing of it and in this respect err thro ignorance It is then clear that my argument is not barely one of those term'd ad hominem seeing 't is not grounded on the second proposition of these Gentlemens Principle which is in contest but on the first in which both sides are agreed so that my conclusion has all the strength and truth that can be desired in every respect NEVERTHELESS we must answer two of Mr. Arnaud's minute objections Paschasus says That he dedicated his Book to young People 'T is Book 8. ch 10. p. 859. then says he unlikely that Paschasus design'd to instruct the whole world in a truth of which he believ'd both the learned and unlearn'd were ignorant I answer 't was not indeed likely that he had immediately so vast a design 'T is more likely he proposed his Doctrin as he himself says petentibus to hir Scholars who pray'd him to shew them his sentiment in this matter but this does not hinder his Doctrin from being new He says says Mr. Arnaud again That he had not written any thing worth his Readers pains Now no man who discovers a mystery of this importance uses such humble expressions which suppose he says nothing but what 's vulgarly known Mr. Arnaud deceives himself for besides what I intimated in
several places that those who introduce new Opinions by way of addition or explication of the ancient ones do not openly declare 'em to be new but on the contrary endeavour to make 'em slip in by means of received expressions besides this I say this humility of Paschasus relates not to the things themselves which he wrote nor his sentiment for he could not term them scarcely worth his Readers perusal whether they were new or not But this relates to the manner of writing 'em according to what he says to Frudegard Celare non debui quoe loqui ut oportuit minime potui BUT pass we on to the second proof which shews Paschasus to be an Innovator 'T is taken from the effect which his Doctrin produced in several persons minds which was that they opposed him I have discoursed Comment in Matth. 26. says he of these things more at large because I am informed some people have blamed me as if in the Book which I publish'd of the Sacraments of Christ I would give more to his words than they will bear or establish something else than the truth promises These censurers proceed further for they opposed a contrary Doctrin against that of Paschasus to wit that 't was the Body of Jesus Christ in figure in Sacrament in virtue Which Paschasus himself tells us Let those says he that will extenuate this term of Body hear Ibid. They that tell us 't is not the true Flesh of Christ which is now celebrated in the Sacrament in the Church nor his true Blood They tell us or rather feign I know not what as if 't were a certain virtue of the Flesh and Blood He afterwards repeats two or three times the same thing They proceeded so far as to accuse Paschasus of Enthusiasm twitting him with having a young mans vision as we remark'd in the foregoing Chapter For this is what may be justly collected from these words to Frudegard You have at Epist ad Frud the end of this Book the sentiments of the Catholick Fathers which I briefly marked that you may know that 't is not thro an Enthusiasm of rashness that I have had these Visions being as yet a young man Supposing Paschasus taught nothing but what the whole Church believ'd and commonly taught the Faithful whence I pray you came these Censurers The whole world lived peaceably during eight hundred years in the belief of the Real Presence all the Preachers taught it all Books contain'd it all the Faithful believ'd it and distinctly knew it there not having been any body yet that dared contradict it and yet there appear persons who precisely oppose it as soon as Paschasus appeared in the world But who so well and quickly furnish'd 'em with the Keys of figure and virtue which Mr. Arnaud would have had all the world to be ignorant of and th' invention of which he attributes to the Ministers Why if we will believe him they were people that dared not appear openly that whispered secretly in mens ears and yet were so well instructed that they knew the principal distinctions of the Calvinists and all the subtilties of their School But moreover what fury possessed them to attack thus particularly Paschasus who said nothing but what all the world knew even the meanest Christian and what all the world believ'd and who moreover had no particular contest with them They could not be ignorant that the whole Church was of this opinion supposing she really did hold it for as I already said the Doctrin of the Real Presence is a popular Doctrin It is not one of those Doctrins which lie hid in Books or the Schools which the learned can only know 'T is a Doctrin which each particular person knows if he knows any thing Why then must Paschasus be thus teas'd If they had a design to trouble the peace of the Church why did they not attack its Doctrin or in general those that held it which is to say according to Mr. Arnaud the whole world Why again must Paschasus be rather set upon than any body else Does Mr. Arnaud believe this to be very natural Are people wont to set upon a particular person to the exclusion of all others when he has said no more than what others have said and what is taught and held by every body Is such a one liable to reproaches and censures Are we wont to charge such a one with Enthusiastical rashness and pretence to Visions It is clear people do not deal thus but with persons that have gone out of the beaten road and would introduce novelties in the Church 'T is such as these whom we are wont to accuse to censure and call Enthusiasts and Visionaries and not those that neither vary from the common terms or sentiments TO elude the force of this proof Mr. Arnaud has recourse to his Chronology Lib. 8. Ch. 10. p. 861 862. He says that the last eight Books of Paschasus his Commentaries on S. Matthew were not written till thirty years after his Book De Corpore Sanguine Domini That he speaks therein of his Censures as persons that reprehended him at the very time he wrote this Commentary Miror quid volunt nunc quidam dicere and that it does not appear he was reprehended before seeing he did not attempt to defend himself Whence he concludes That this Book which Mr. Claude says offended the whole world as soon as 't was made was publish'd near thirty years before 't was censur'd by any body I have already replied to this Chronology of Mr. Arnaud Supposing there were in effect thirty years between Paschasus his Book and the Censures of his Adversaries 't will not hence follow that his Doctrin received a general approbation during these thirty years for perhaps this Book was not known or considered by those that were better able to judg of it than others Printing which now immediately renders a Book publick was not in use in those times and 't is likely Transcribers were not in any great hast to multiply the Book of a young Religious of Corbie which he at first intended only for his particular friends Supposing this Book was known it might be neglected thro contempt or some other consideration as it oft happens in these cases altho a Book may contain several absured and extraordinary Opinions because it may not be thought fitting to make 'em publick till it afterwards appears there are persons who be deceiv'd by it and that 't is necessary to undeceive them Moreover what reason is there to say that the censures of these people hapned not before the time wherein Paschasus wrote his Commentary on S. Matthew 'T is because says Mr. Arnaud he says Miror quid volunt quidam nunc dicere But this reason is void for this term nunc according to the common stile of Authors does refer it self rather in general to the time in which Paschasus lived than precisely to that in which he wrote
because an addition made to the natural Body becomes the true Body And these are not two Bodies but one only Body because that according to the argument of Damascen an augmentation or a growth of a Body does not make another but the same Body When this Bread is broken and eaten Jesus Christ is immolated and eaten to wit in this Bread which is joyn'd to him and yet he remains entire and living to wit in his natural Body This Bread is offered for our Redemption inasmuch as 't is a commemoration of it and an application made to us of the price of our Redemption on the Cross And in this sense 't is a true Sacrifice which expiates us because it does represent and apply to us the true Sacrifice of the Cross of Jesus Christ as Remy thereupon formally explains himself in these words Do this that is to say Consecrate this Body in remembrance of me to wit of my Passion and your Redemption for I have redeemed you by my Blood Here are the objections which Mr. Arnaud has made on Remy let any one judg whether he has had reason to make such a bustle with this Author and say That it appears strange any man should question the sentiment of an Author which speaks in this sort For in fine a body would think the license of contradicting every thing should have its bounds 'T were well if Mr. Arnaud would accustom himself to judg of things with less prejudice WE must now pass on to Christian Drutmar of whom I had alledged a very considerable passage taken from his Commentary on the 26. Chapter of S. Matthew that is to say from an explication which he makes precisely of th' institution of the Holy Sacrament The Author of the Perpetuity had cavil'd on this passage as much as 't is possible sometimes saying that the translation which I made of it was not faithful sometimes that the Text it self was corrupted sometimes that the words of which it consists had no coherence sometimes that the passage was question'd by Sixtus of Sienne and that there was a Manuscript of Drutmar in the Convent of Grey-Friers at Lyons which instead of this explication Hoc est Corpus meum Id est in Sacramento contain'd these words Hoc est Corpus meum Hoc est in Sacramento vere subsistens And I know not how many other frivolous evasions which may be seen fully refuted in my answer to the Perpetuity Mr. Arnaud did Answer to the second Treatise part 3. ch 2. not think it necessary again to engage himself in this dispute He only tells us that 't is the direct attention to the Sacrament and external vail which makes Drutmar to explain these words Hoc est Corpus meum by these id est in Sacramento For when a man directs his mind to the Sacrament and that Book 8. ch 4. p. 797. which strikes our senses one cannot say strictly that 't is the Body it self of Jesus Christ It is apparent Bread 't is the sign the similitude the Sacrament of this Body which is the Body of Jesus Christ only in Sacrament as Drutmar says This is not the point in question But the question is to know in what sort the people of those days believed the Body of Jesus Christ was joyn'd to this Sacrament and Vail 'T is by this we must supply Drutmar ' s expression for nothing can be more unjust than to judg of his sentiment by a word which he spake cursorily and by an abridged expression IT must be acknowledg'd no easie matter to sound the bottom of these Gentlemens minds who ever could imagin that after so many attempts to elude the passage of Drutmar Mr. Arnaud finding his labour in vain should betake himself to the direction of attention Drutmar writes an express Commentary on the institution of the Eucharist He explains these words of our Saviour This is my Body in this sense that is to say Sacramentally And Mr. Arnaud comes and tells us by his own Authority that he minded directly only the vail and appearances of Bread which cover the Body of Christ as if Drutmar did not design to give the true sense of our Saviour in the explication of these words or as if our Saviour meant only by these words that the appearances of Bread signifie his Body or as if a Commentator were not obliged to direct his attention to the principal natural and essential sense of the words he explains without falling into forein and fantastical senses which no body could imagin but himself For I do not believe it has ever yet entred into any man's thoughts that these terms This is my Body signifie that the accidents of Bread or the vail of the appearances of Bread which cover the Body of Jesus Christ are this Body only in sign and Sacrament Neither must Mr. Arnaud tell us that this is a word which Drutmar spake transiently and for brevity sake for 't is an express and formal explication of our Saviours words Supposing people commonly believed Transubstantiation and the Real Presence as Mr. Arnaud would have it what likelihood is there that in an age wherein people could not be ignorant that this Doctrin met with much contradiction in the person of Paschasus that Drutmar who was a Religious of the Convent of Corbie which is to say of the same Convent as Paschasus was Abbot of would deceive the world betray the publick Faith of the Church favour those that opposed it scandalize his own proper party and give way to an heretical explication of Christs words and this by the rule of direct attention and by the means of abbreviated expressions In truth Mr. Arnaud shews what kind of opinion he has of us when he supposes such kind of answers as these will satisfie us CHAP. XI Of other Authors in the Ninth Century Amalarius Heribald Raban Bertram and John Scot. AFter Drutmar we must examin Amalarius If we believe what Andrew du Val the Sorbonist Doctor says of him in his Notes on the Treatise of the Church of Lyons entituled De tribus Epistolis the question will be soon decided For having related on the testimony of Florus a passage of Amalarius he concludes in these terms Ex quo conjecturae locus relinquitur Amalarium istum una cum Joanne Scoto fuisse Berengarii praecursores veluti ante signanos Hence we may conjecture that this Amalarius with John Scot were Berenger ' s fore-runners If we believe M. the President Maugin Amalarius was only a Stercoranist of whom we shall speak hereafter If we will believe the Author of the Perpetuity Amalarius was Paschasus his Adversary for he strongly assures us That Bishop Usher was Perpetuity of the Faith page 83. mistaken when he thought Amalarius ' s error consisted in holding the Doctrin of the Roman Catholicks not only because this supposition is without any ground but also because the Epitomy of William of Malmsury joyns Amalarius with Heribald
Author of it This is nothing but powder thrown into the Readers eyes for supposing 't were true that the Author of the Perpetuity were of the opinion of Mr. De Marca which is that this Book which bears the name of Bertram is John Scot's and not Ratram's yet 't is certain what he says of the person of this Bertram or Ratram for he proves that these two names are but one and the same name is on our supposition that 't was the Religious of Corby Whether he admits our supposition as believing it in effect to be true or whether he admits it merely thro condescention 't is needless to inquire for supposing he admitted it only thro mere condescention the least his words could signifie will be that supposing he held our supposition to be true which he does not he will have these objections or reproaches to offer against the person of this Author to wit that he is a Divine who departs from the common belief of the Church by vain Speculations a Divine who falls into frivolous reasonings which suffices to justifie the contradiction between him and the Author of the Apology for the Holy Fathers Mr. ARNAVD's second complaint is that I ridicul'd the Author of the Perpetuity on the means he proposed whereby to make Mr. Aubertin ' s Book an excellent piece which is to change the Objections of it into Proofs and his Proofs into Objections Mr. Arnaud who has been toucht to the quick with it thought he was oblig'd to defend himself by heaping up of words intermixing several common places of raillery alledging instances which have no relation to the point in question to distinguish and argue in mood and figure and thereupon conclude with authority the sentiment of the Perpetuity is most just and reasonable WERE it worth our while 't would be easie to shew he deceives himself in whatsoever he offers But it being unjust to hold the Readers any longer on trifles we shall only say if either he or the Author of the Perpetuity have been offended at a very innocent raillery it does not follow that others have been so too We may tell him that his way of changing Proofs into Objections and Objections into Proofs is a conception so rare and well express'd that 't is hard to hear it offered without finding in it matter of laughter Moreover there 's a great deal of difference between saying that to discover the falsities of a Book we need only to confront the passages of it with the Originals and to say that to make of Mr. Aubertin's Book an excellent piece in the sense of the Catholicks there need only be changed the Proofs into Objections and the Objections into Proofs The confrontation of passages is the juster means the most natural and most ordinary to discover falsities but the change of Proofs into Objections and Objections into proofs is a kind of world turn'd upside down We may answer him that were his pretended method receiv'd 't would be applicable to all sorts of Books of Controversie on either side there being few of them but what consist of Proofs and Objections and each Party pretending still there is more light in his Proofs than in the Proofs of his Adversary which are called Objections We may tell him in fine that Mr. Aubertin's Book consists not only of Proofs and Objections but also of Instances or Replies against the ordinary Answers which are made to Proofs and of Answers to Objections and this is what cannot be changed so that when a man should turn the Proofs into Objections and the Objections into Proofs yet would he be perplexed by these instances and answers and consequently must acknowledg he has lost his time and pains and that the Author of the Perpetuity has abused him Mr. ARNAVD's third complaint is an accusation couch'd under this title A bitter Calumny against the Author of the Perpetuity He proposes it in his 9th Chapter with an impetuosity beyond example and which shews he wrote it in the most cholerick temper imaginable He ascends his tribunal and thence pronounces this sentence against me that I am guilty Ch. 9. p. 1130 1131. of an heinous crime such a one as obliges me both by the Laws of God and men to publick satisfaction I is says he again a detestable calumny an abominable crime the most base and unjust proceeding a man can be capable of Let not Mr. Claude marvel at these reproaches this is no jesting matter He must not abuse persons of Honor for to fill up a sentence If he has express'd himself thus thro incogitancy I cannot but affirm him to be the most imprudent man in the world and if he has done this with mature deliberation I must declare him one of the boldest Calumniators as ever was and am certain there 's no honest man of his Communion but will grant what I say of him and condemn this his proceeding I protest before God with a sincere heart that I am in no wise concern'd at what Mr. Arnaud tells me I have answer'd his Book and am therewith content But I am troubled he should spoil this Dispute which the publick of either side might read perhaps with profit and pleasure and having discrediied it I say with passionate and violent expressions which cannot but disgust every man he should moreover finish it with rash transports wholly unbeseeming him What reason has he for such a passion I wrote these words in my Book God will one day shew who they are that wrong his Answer to the second Treatise part 2. ch 3. at the end of the Chapter Church the light of his judgment will discover all things yea and I hope before this comes to pass men will break thro this ignorance and then 't will be no longer necessary to write in favour of Transubstantiation There will be no need of this course for a Reconciliation with Rome and regaining peoples favour for when the face of things shall be changed this worlds wisdom will be useless Here is my crime this the spark that has set all on fire We Book 11. ch 9. page 1131. understand says he this language and Mr. Claude knows well enough what he has said himself and what interpretation his words will bear He means then the Author of the Perpetuity wrote not of Transubstantiation by persuasion but out of policy and for worldly respects For when a Catholick Divine defends the Church to which he is united if he believes what he says we must not search for other reasons of his undertaking the common cause of the Church in whose truth he places his hope of Salvation deserves sufficiently to be defended So that to charge the Author of the Perpetuity to write only out of political and worldly respects is to charge him with not believing what he writes and to give this account of it THIS passion is a strange thing Had Mr. Arnaud considered these words with less heat he would have
acknowledgment that Bertram is no other than Ratram an Author in whom these three things meet if we compare the Title of the Book with what Authors say that have spoken of this Religious This is the judgment of the Divines of Doway whom Vsher has only followed AFTER the Divines of Doway and Bishop Vsher who discovered this truth more distinctly Mr. De Marca was one of the first who lent his hand to it as appears from his Treatise in French of the Eucharist wrote before the year 1640. and publish'd by Monsieur the Abbot Faget his Cousin Theophilus Raynaud the Jesuit has since likewise follow'd the same sentiment Erotem p 132. Dissert Hist p. 134. in his Treatise of good and bad Books Mr. Mauguin acknowledges it likewise in his famous defences of Grace wherein he has been follow'd by Mr. Hermon a Canon of Beauvais under the Title of HIERONYMVS AB ANGELO FORYI Cellot the Jesuit agrees in this point with Mr. Epist 3. S. xxiii seq opp ad hist Goth. p. 569. col 2. Herman and Mr. Mauguin altho he elsewhere opposes the later in several things De Luc d' Achery and Mr. De S. Beuve have equally testifi'd they were of the same opinion the one in his Preface on the first Tome of his Spicilege th' other in his Manuscript Lectures on the Eucharist 'T IS true that since the late conjecture of Mr. De Marca became publick to wit that John Scot is the Author of the Work of our Lords Body and Blood and not Ratram De Luc seems to yield to this novelty and has Praefat. in T. 2. Spicil Part 3. c. 5. T. 1. de Script Eccl. p. 53. T. 2. p. 06. Triumph of the Euchar. p. 18 63 66 68 94 95 96 97. since been followed by the Author of the Perpetuity who speaks of it in a doubtful manner and by the Author of the Dissertation which I examin But a while after the learned Jesuit Labbeus opposed this conjecture of Mr. De Marca as handsomly as he could in a Book which he dedicated to him For in this Book he takes indifferently Bertram and Ratram for one and the same Author Mr. Pavillon also ingenuously acknowledges in his Book against Mr. Daillé that Ratram and Bertram are but one and the same person citing always Ratram of the Body and Blood of our Lord. The famous Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament book 5. ch 2. p. 264. Jesuit Noüet against Mr. Claude shews in this matter the same sincerity as Mr. Pavillon and Mr. Arbusti has follow'd them in his declaration HOWSOEVER it be after the reasons which I have alledged I believe I may affirm with all these learned men of the Church of Rome that Bertram and Ratram are but one and the same Author It only then remains that I refute in a few words what the Author of the Dissertation offers most considerable against some of these reasons TO one of these reasons viz. that the Religious of Corby being named Artic. 2. of the Dissert on John Scot. Ratram and Cellot's anonymous Author saying that Ratram wrote a Book of the Body and Blood of our Lord the Book of the Body and Blood of our Lord known under the name of Bertram is then Ratram's to this reason I say our Author answers that altho Cellot caused the name of Ratramnus to be Printed in the two places of his Anonymous wherein are mention'd Paschasus his Adversaries yet 't is not thus found in two Manuscripts of the Abby of S. Victor but in the first there 's Intramus and in the second Ratramnus Cellot having caused the name of Ratramnus to be Printed contrary to what the Manuscripts bear BUT this answer is not sufficient First Cellot has caused his Anonymous to be Printed from Father Sirmond's Copy who had taken it from a Manuscript of Corby and not from the Manuscripts of the Abby of S. Victor Secondly These two Manuscripts which are apparently false are not so considerable as the Manuscripts of the Anonymous mention'd by Vsher and others which have all of 'em the name of Ratramnus nor as the Manuscript De Success Eccles p. 39. c. 2. Du Perron Book 2 Auth. 39. p 666. of the Book of the Body and Blood of our Lord which bears the name of Ratramnus nor as the Manuscripts of the Catalogue of Sigebert of which we have spoken The Intram of the Manuscripts of the Abby of S. Victor is the Transcribers fault who has disfigured the name of Ratramnus just as his Babanus is the famous Raban TO another reason drawn from Sigebert who makes the Author of the De Success Eccl. c. 2. Book of Predestination to wit Ratramnus the Author of the Book of the Body and Blood of our Lord and of whom in effect two Manuscripts represent the name of Ratramus instead of Bertramus to this reason I say the Author answers First That the work of Bertram of Predestination is different from that of Ratramnus because that according to Trithemius the work of Bertram contain'd only one Book and was not dedicated to Charles the Bald whereas that of Ratram is dedicated to him and contains two Books Secondly That all the Editions of Sigebert having constantly the name of Bertram we may believe that a fault has slipt into the Manuscripts of Gemblou and of Vauvert where we have the name of Ratramnus BUT these two Answers are not satisfactory As to the first Trithemius as well as Sigebert says positively in two places that the Book of Bertram of Predestination is dedicated to Charles the Bald and brings such reasons for the proof of what he says that there 's no way to avoid the force of his testimony Secondly Either our Author supposes that Trithemius saw a Treatise of Predestination under the name of Bertram which contain'd only one Book or he will have him not to have seen it as he believes that Trithemius has not seen the Book of our Lords Body and Blood If Trithemius has seen this Treatise of Predestination what is become of it since Trithemius his time How comes it to pass no body ever heard of it but this our Author If Trithemius never saw it why will our Author give credit to his testimony when the question concerns this Book of Predestination and yet will not have us believe what he says of the Book of the Body and Blood of our Lord. Thirdly Our Author abuses the passage of Trithemius Trithemius has follow'd Sigebert and by librum seems to understand opus a work without having respect to the number of the parts of which it is composed unless we will suppose that one number has escaped the Printer and that instead of these words de Predestinatione j. we should read de Predestinatione jj which is very possible and of which there are an hundred examples in the Catalogue of Trithemius now in question OUR Author's second Answer is something worse than the first I
the year 1080. seeing it is certain he lived till the beginning of the 12th Century But it does not follow from the error of Vossius that he was posterior to William This Continuer clearly denotes that he was Contemporary to Guitmond now Guitmond preceded William of Malmsbury for this latter wrote in 1142. whereas the other died about the end of the 11th Century or at the beginning of the 12th That if there be found several things alike in this Continuer and in William it is more reasonable to say that William has taken from the Continuer than to say the Continuer has taken from William and that the rather because William has enlarged his History farther than the other by thirty years which is the natural Character of a later Historian BUT supposing William of Malmsbury be the first who has spoken of the Martyrdom of John Scot this does but the more confirm the truth of this History for writing as he did in the very place and in the same Convent wherein what he relates hapned 't is just to believe that in this Narration he has offered nothing but what was grounded on authentick Acts or on a Tradition which in his time pass'd for an undeniable truth in this Convent IT is to no purpose for the Author of the Dissertation to distinguish what this William of Malmsbury has taken from the ancient Monuments of his Church and what he has added thereunto of his own He ought not thus to make of his own head this distinction on an Historian of the 12th Century and to tell us precisely here 's what he has taken from the Monuments of his Church here 's what he has added thereunto of his own There was one John that suffered Martyrdom and was reputed a Saint this is of the ancient Monuments of the Church of Malmsbury but that this John was John Scot is an addition of William This distinction of our Author is bold enough and was in effect unknown to Simeon of Durham to Roger de Howden to Matthew of Westminster and to all those other Historians which I have already denoted who all certainly believ'd that the Martyrdom of John Scot related by William of Malmsbury was a truth of History which is beyond question HIS telling us that William was the first Historian who gave to King Alfred two Masters of the name of John the one surnam'd the Saxon Abbot of Aetheling the other surnam'd Scot and since a Martyr First William does not say formally that this was two different men John the Saxon and John Scot nor that one was surnam'd the Saxon and the other Scot he says only in one place Joannem ex antiqua Saxonia oriundum and in another Joannes Scotus Neither must one necessarily conclude from his discourse that he regarded them as two different men as will appear if we take notice of what he wrote and of the occasion which has oblig'd him the first time to make mention of this John as it were transiently reserving himself to speak of him more amply afterwards as he has done But when we should suppose that William would distinguish these two Johns this makes nothing to th' establishing what he relates of the Martyrdom of John Scot's being a fable of his own invention on the contrary this very thing would help to establish that knowing two Johns and distinguishing them he must have better known what ought to be said of both one and the other Neither can it be said that he made two Johns Tutors of Alfred for when he speaks of John who was Abbot of Aetheling he does not say that he was the Tutor of Alfred he says this only under the name of John Scot. AS to what the Author of the Dissertation has remark'd that Anastasius in his Letter written to Charles the Bald in 875. seems to speak of John Scot as of a man already dead which shews that he was not the Tutor of Alfred seeing that this Prince gave not himself to learning till in the year 884. Neither is it moreover likely that so Religious a Prince would make use of such a man as John Scot who was decried as an Heretick driven out of th' University of Paris at the earnest pursuit of Nicolas I. as holding Doctrins contrary to the principal Fundamentals of Christian Religion I answer first That our Author returns continually to his fabulous History as if John Scot could have been driven out in the 9th Century from the University of Paris which began only in the 12th Secondly It is certain that Anastasius speaks of Erigenus as of an holy and famous man Virum says he per omnia sanctum which does not shew that he was thought then unworthy of being the Kings Tutor nor that he was decried at Rome for an Heretick Thirdly Seeing that John Scot was very much esteem'd by Charles the Bald he might be so too by Alfred Son of Aetelwolph Son in law to Charles the Bald. And in effect William of Malmsbury testifies that he had seen the Letters of Alfred wherein this Prince treated John Scot with great esteem and affection Alfredi munificentia ministerio usus ut ex scriptis Regis intellexi sublimis Melduni resedit and this is a mere mockery to make these Letters pass for fictious ones fram'd by the friends of John Scot and Berenger Fourthly It is not true that Anastasius speaks positively of John Scot as of a man already deceased and supposing it were he might think so by reason of his great age or some false report of his death In fine our Author absurdly supposes that Alfred did not betake himself to learning till the year 884. he has faln into this mistake for want of considering that altho Asserus and some of those that have follow'd him have attributed to this year what they have said of the Piety of Alfred and his applying himself to learning yet this happens merely from their recapitulating what hapned since the year 868 till 884 as I have already observ'd NEITHER is there more strength in the Argument which our Author draws from some terms which William of Malmsbury makes use of in relating the History of the Martyrdom of John Scot. Hoc tempore creditur fuisse Joannes Scotus propter hanc infamiam credo taeduit eum Franciae à pueris quos docebat ut fertur perforatus martyr aestimatus est He pretends that these terms are doubtful fears and suspicions and that these ways of speaking are likely to make one doubt of the truth of this relation BUT all this deserves no answer First The Author of the Dissertation has mixt Simeon of Durham's Text which bears Propter hanc infamiam c. with that of William of Malmsbury who relates this fact as a thing evidently certain And in effect the first term creditur refers to the time wherein John Scot lived in England The second credo is added by the Author of the Dissertation being not the Text of Simeon of
irreverence shewing them how grievously they erred in that they testifi'd a greater respect to the Saints who are the servants and friends of our Saviour than to himself who is their Lord and Master These Papa's gave me no other answer but that there was no command which enjoyned this respect and adoration This answer is Heretical as I shall hereafter manifest for John Oecolampadus that arch Heretick of our time the ring-leader of the Sacrament aries asserted that our Saviour was not contain'd in the Sacrament of the Eucharist has likewise written and publickly taught that we ought in no wise to adore the Eucharist with an Adoration of Latria terming all them Idolaters that did so Wherefore let Catholicks judge whether this does not well agree with the Opinion of the Greeks IT will be thought perhaps this Author speaks only of some particular Persons and not of the Greek Church in general but such Persons may be soon satisfi'd when they read what follows towards the end of his Relation Behold most Holy Father say's he all the Heresies of the Modern Greeks which I have laid open and confuted as well as I could I say the Heresies of the Greeks not only of the Inhabitants of Corfou but of all the Eastern Greeks to the end the others may not magnifie themselves for they have all the same belief the same will and obstinacy to maintain every where the same things And here I think is another good Witness being likewise an Archbishop and a Person that wanted neither Wit nor Learning who dwelt among the Greeks He affirms precisely as well as the rest that the Greeks do not adore the Sacrament He proceeds farther and lays this to their charge as a crime and aggravates it by comparing it with the respect they shew the Images he relates their Reasons there being no command enjoyning this Adoration He condemns this Opinion as Heretical and likens it unto that of the chief of Hereticks he farther tells us that this is not only the opinion of some particular Persons but of all the Eastern Greeks and in short he remarks the irreverences which are directly opposite to all kinds of Adoration What can be more expressive and what can Mr. Arnaud reply to this Will he call again here to his assistance Allatius who disputes against Caucus and would have it believed that this Archbishop has falsely charged the Greeks But besides that it cannot be shewed by what interest Caucus should be moved to form such an accusation contrary to the respect he owed the Pope and that his testimony is found conformable to that of several others it is certain that Allatius himself is of all men the most passionate and least sincere frequently denying and affirming things according to his own Capricio or rather Interest and that which likewise is most considerable is that Allatius who meddles with other Articles dared not touch in particular on this so that his silence is a confirmation of what I say THE Jesuit that wrote the Relation touching St. Erinis affirms almost Relation of the I sle of St. Frinis cap. 12. pag. 142. the same thing as Caucus A great abuse say's he has crept in amongst the Greeks For when the Priest comes from the lesser Altar to the Offertory to pass on to the great one all the People there present adore the Bread which is not yet consecrated and shew a greater devotion during this action than in or after the time of Consecration for in the time of the Consecration they put out the Torches which they lighted for the Offertory And in another place We see Cap. 20. by what has been said in the foregoing Chapters how greatly the Greeks are to blame for the little respect they yield to this adorable Sacrament seeing that having consecrated on Holy Thursday a great quantity of Particles they keep them all the year in a little wooden box inclosed in a bag and hanged on a nail over the Altar or behind an Image without a light or any other mark of veneration When they enter into the Church to say their Prayers you may see 'em make a profound bow before the Images of our Lord or Virgin Mary or some other Saint but you will never see them prostrate themselves before this adorable Sacrament We have often reprehended them for this fault and some have promised to amend it others are really sensible of the unseemliness of this their carriage but being loath to appear singular in their Devotions they choose rather to follow the Customs of an ignorant People than to render themselves up to reason So great force has ill examples over weak minds Some time since the Lady Margareta D'argenta a Person both devout and eloquent told me that being in company with some Greeks she sharply rebuked them upon this occasion you Greeks really show your selves said she in matters of Religion to be void of sence not knowing to whom you owe your respects nor to whom to direct your Prayers On one hand you acknowledge that Jesus Christ who is God and Man our Creator and Redeemer is really in the Sacrament with all the Treasures of his Graces and on the other we can see you show him not any reverence answerable to the respect of his Majesty I have been several times in your Churches and having sought the only object of my affection and the God of my heart I found you keep him close shut in a wooden box hanging up in a little bag on a nail covered with dust and cobwebs A Saviour in a pitiful box an Infinite Majesty in the dust an Almighty God in a bag hanged on a nail He is not thus treated amongst us you may see him receive an other kind of usage shewing him far greater respect than this Our Priests keep him in a silver Pyx he rests in a Tabernacle gilded without and within covered with Sattin and to shew that we believe he is the Light which light'neth our Understandings and enflameth our Affections we have Lamps always burning day and night before him When we come into our Churches we set not our selves upon considering the several Pictures and other Ornaments for our affections do immediately lead us to the place where we believe our Treasure is Whereas you keep your selves standing like the Pharisees and we fall on our knees with the Publican THAT which the Jesuit makes this woman speak concerning the Greeks believing the real Presence is forged by him without any grounds in the sence wherein he takes it that is to say as a Substantial Presence for 't is certain the Greeks do not thus understand it But whatsoever he otherwise tells us is matter of fact which he has seen himself and concerning the truth of which we have no reason to doubt Now these Facts are such that we cannot but judge them inconsistent with the belief of adoring the Sacrament of the Eucharist with such a Supreme Adoration as is due to the Son of
which is to say that 't is to us instead of the Body of Jesus Christ and communicates the virtue and efficacy of it 'T is in this sense that the Faithful say in the 84. Psalm That God is to 'em a Sun and a Shield And David in the 119. Psalm That the Statutes of God have been to him as so many musical songs And in the 41. Psalm according to the vulgar Translation Fuerunt mihi lachrymoe panis die ac nocte This way of speaking is very usual amongst the Latins as appears by these examples of Virgil Erit ista mihi genetrix eris mihi magnus Apollo erit ille mihi semper Deus Mens sua cuique Deus Dextra mihi Deus And so far concerning Florus WE must now pass on to Remy of Auxerre to whom as Mr. Arnaud Book 8. ch 7. page 824. says is attributed not only the Exposition of the Mass which goes under his name but also the Commentary of S. Paul which others refer to Haymus Bishop of Alberstat They that will take the pains to examin the Doctrin of this Author not in the declamations of Mr. Arnaud but in the passages themselves wherein 't is found explain'd will soon find that he held the Opinion of Damascen and the Greeks which is the union of the Bread with the Divinity and by the Divinity to the natural Body of Jesus Christ and that by means of this union or conjunction the Bread becomes the Body of Jesus Christ and is made one and the same Body with him Which does manifestly appear by what I have related of it in my Answer to the Perpetuity The Flesh says he which the Word has taken in the Womb of the Virgin Comment in 1 Cor. 10. in unity of person and the Bread which is consecrated in the Church are the same Body of Christ For as this Flesh is the Body of Christ so this Bread passes to the Body of Christ and these are not two Bodies but one Body For the fulness of the Divinity which was in that Body fills likewise this Bread and the same Divinity of the Word which is in them fills the Body of Christ which is consecrated by the Ministry of several Priests throughout the whole world and makes it one only Body of Christ He does not say as Paschasus that 't is entirely the same Flesh born of the Virgin dead and risen nor that 't is the same Flesh because it pullules or multiplies But he makes of this Flesh and Bread the same Body by an unity of union because that the same Divinity which fills the Flesh fills likewise this Bread And elsewhere Altho this Bread be broken in pieces and Consecrated all over the world yet Ibid. in c. 11. the Divinity which fills all things fills it also and makes it become one only Body of Christ It lying upon him to give a reason why several parts of the same Bread and several loaves consecrated in divers places were only one Body of Jesus Christ there was nothing more easie than to say on the hypothesis of Transubstantiation that 't was one and the same numerical substance existing wholly entire under the species in each part and on every Altar where the Consecration is perform'd But instead of this he falls upon enquiries into the reason of this unity in the Divinity which fills both all the Loaves of the Altars and all the parts of a Loaf Again in another place As the Divinity of the Word which fills the whole world is one so altho In Exposit Can. this Body be Consecrated in several places and at infinitely different times yet is not this several Bodies nor several Bloods but one only Body and one only Blood with that which he took from the Virgin and which he gave to the Apostles For the Divinity fills it and JOYNS it to it self AND MAKES THAT AS IT IS ONE SO IT BE JOYN'D TO THE BODY OF CHRIST and is one only Body of Christ in truth To say still after this that the Doctrin of Remy is not that this Bread is one with the natural Body of Jesus Christ because 't is joyn'd with it and that 't is joyn'd with it because one and the same Divinity fills them this is methinks for a man to wilfully blind himself seeing Remus says it in so many words He teaches the same thing a little further in another place As the Flesh of Jesus Christ which he took of the Virgin is his true Body which was put to death for our Salvation so the Bread which Jesus Christ gave to his Disciples and to all the Elect and which the Priests Consecrate every day in the Church with the virtue of the Divinity which fills it is the true Body of Jesus Christ and this Flesh which he has taken and this Bread are not two Bodies but make but one only Body of Christ We may find the same Doctrin in his Commentaries on the 10th Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews This Host says he speaking of the Eucharist is one and not many as were the ancient ones But how is it one and not many seeing 't is offered both by several persons and in several places and at several times A person that had the hypothesis of Transubstantiation in his mind would not have stuck to say that it is in all places and at all times one and the same numerical substance the same Body which pullutes or multiplies it self as Paschasus speaks Whereas Remy betakes himself to another course without mentioning a word either of this unity of substance or this pullulation We must says he carefully remark that 't is the Divinity of the Word which being one filling all things and being every where causes these to be not several Sacrifices but one altho it be offered by many and is one only Body of Christ with that which he took of the Virgin and not several Bodies IT cannot be denied but this Opinion of the unity of the Bread with the Body of Jesus Christ by way of conjunction and by means of the Divinity which fills the one and the other got some footing in the Latin Church even since Damascen's time We find it in the Book of Divine Offices falsly attributed to Alcuinus almost in the same terms wherein we have seen it in Remus so that it seems that one of these Authors only copied out from the other As the Divinity of the Word says this supposed Alcuinus is one who fills the whole world so altho this Body be Consecrated Cap. 40. in several places and at an infinite number of times yet are not these several Bodies of Christ nor several Cups but one only Body of Christ and one only Blood with that which he took of the Virgin and which he gave to his Apostles For the Divinity of the Word fills him who is every where which is to say that which is Consecrated in several places and makes that as it
is one it be also joyn'd to the Body of Christ and that it be but one only Body in truth WE find this same opinion in another Book of Divine Offices which Rupert lib. 2. de Divin Off. cap. 2. some attribute to Rupert and others to Walramus This Body which is taken from the Altar and that which is taken from the Virgin are not said to be nor indeed are two Bodies because one and the same Word is on high in the Flesh and here below in the Bread IT is likewise very likely that in the 11th Century during the greatest heats of the Dispute of Lanfranc against Berenger there were several adversaries of Berenger who followed this Opinion Which may be manifestly collected from an argument which Lanfranc attributes to the Berengarians in these terms If the Bread be changed into the true Flesh of Jesus Christ Lanfran de Corp. Sang. Dom. either the Bread must be carried to Heaven to be changed there into the Flesh of Christ or the Flesh of Jesus Christ must descend on the Earth to the end that the Bread may be changed into it Now neither of these is done This Argument necessarily supposes that the Berengarians did set themselves against persons who thought the Bread was changed into the Body of Jesus Christ by way of union and conjunction or as speaks Damascen by way of addition as the food is changed into our body On this Hypothesis they had some reason to say that either the Body which is above must come down here below or that the Bread which is here below must be carried above for it does not seem immediately that the conjunction can be well made otherwise But they could not have the least reason or likelihood of reason to form this objection against the Doctrin of Transubstantiation in the manner wherein the Church of Rome understands it For if the substance of Bread be converted into the same numerical substance of the Body of Jesus Christ which is in Heaven the distance or proximity of this Bread and of this Body make not this conversion either more easie or more difficult Tho the Bread here below be carried up into Heaven tho the Body of Jesus Christ which is above in Heaven descends here below on Earth this contributes nothing to the making of the one to be converted into the other For the conversion of one substance into another speaks quite another thing than a kind of local motion as is that of ascending or descending It is then evident that the opinion which the Berengarians opposed was that the Bread is made the Body of Jesus Christ by way of union WE may moreover justifie the same thing by a passage of Ascelinus one of Berenger's adversaries for observe here in what manner he explains his sentiment in his Letter to Berenger himself Neque vero mirari vel diffidere In notis d' Acheri in vitam Lanfr debemus Deum facere posse ut hoc quod in Altari consecratur virtute Spiritus Sancti ministerio Sacerdotis uniatur corpori illi quod ex Maria Virgine redemptor noster assumpsit quippe utrumque substantia corporea utrumque visibile si reminiscimur nos ipsos ex corporea incorporea ex mortali immortali substantia esse compactos si denique firmiter credimus divinam humanamque naturam convenisse personam 'T is neither a matter of admiration nor of doubt for God to make that which is consecrated on the Altar by virtue of the Holy Spirit and ministry of the Priest to be VNITED TO THIS BODY which our Redeemer took of the Virgin Both one and the other being a corporeal substance both one and the other visible if we consider that we our selves are composed of a corporeal substance and of another that is incorporeal of a mortal substance and of another that is incorporeal of a mortal substance and of another that is incorporeal and if in fine we firmly believe that the two natures the Divine and Humane are joyn'd together in unity of person IT is necessary to relate these passages to shew the Readers how greatly Mr. Arnaud deceives them when he would persuade 'em that this opinion of the conjunction of the Bread with the Body of Jesus Christ by means of the same Divinity which fills them is a chimera of the Ministers invention It appears on the contrary that 't is a sentiment which has been in effect held by divers Authors in the Latin Church not to mention here that 't is the Doctrin of Damascen and the Greeks which have followed him And this is the first conclusion which can be drawn hence but from hence also follow several other most important matters For first by this we see that the sentiment of Paschasus was not that of the Church of his time as some would persuade us seeing those very Authors which Mr. Arnaud alledges in his favour and who seem to come the nearest to Paschasus his expressions are at bottom and in effect infinitely distant from his Doctrin Secondly Hence it appears there was nothing regular in the Latin Church touching Transubstantiation neither in the 11th nor 12th Century seeing considerable Authors then publickly explain'd their belief concerning the Eucharist in a manner which suffers the Bread and Wine to subsist in their first substance In the third place from hence is apparent how little certainty and confidence a rational man can put in the principle of the Author of the Perpetuity and Mr. Arnaud who suppose it as a thing certain that in the time when Berenger was first condemned that is to say in the year 1053. the whole Latin Church was united in the Faith of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation seeing the contrary may be justifi'd as well by the argument which Lanfranc relates of the Berengarians as by the passage of Ascelinus In fine it may be seen here how frivolous and vain Mr. Arnaud's negative arguments be who would prove that the Greeks believ'd in the 11th Century Transubstantiation because they did not take Berengarius his part nor disputed on this Article against the Latins For if Transubstantiation was not then determin'd in the Latin Church if one might therein make a free profession to believe the union of the Bread with the Body of Jesus Christ by means of the Divinity as appears from the example of Ascelinus Berenger's great Adversary what reason could the Greeks have to dispute and make oppositions IT signifies nothing for Mr. Arnaud to raise objections against the sentiments of these Authors whom I last mention'd and to say that if the habitation Book 8. ch 7. p. 828. of the Divinity in the Body of Jesus Christ remaining in Heaven and in the Bread remaining on Earth and conserving its nature and the application of this Bread to serve for an instrument to communicate the graces merited by the Body of Jesus Christ rendred the Bread the Body of Jesus Christ the