she would have made her Intentions plain enough by putting down the Praises for the Martyrs as distinctly and as properly as she would the Prayers for others I must not forget to prove this also from that Prayer in the Canon of the Mass urged by our Compiler wherein they pray not only for those Servants of God who have gone before them with the Seal of Faith and rest in the Sleep of Peace but for ALL WHO REST in CHRIST which does comprehend all even Martyrs as well as Saints or Men of Lesser Sanctity and as it includes Martyrs it prays for those whom the Compiler and his whole Church believe to be in Heaven But this Prayer is no more consistent with the Doctrines of the present Writers of the Church of Rome than it is with the present Purgatory of that Church which supposes the Faithful deceased to endure Fiery Torments in order to Expiation whereas this very Old Prayer supposes them to rest in the Sleep of Peace That they prayed also even for the Damned is plain from S. Chrysostom who in his above-quoted Third Homily upon the Philippians did advise such Prayers upon this Perswasion that tho' they could not obtain a Release for them from Hell yet they would procure for them some Alleviation of Torments some small Relief and S. Austin himself seems to be for the same thing when he speaks of the Prayers of the Living profiting so much as either p Aut ad hoc prosunt ut sit plena Remissio aut certe tolerabilior fiat ipsa Damnatio D. August Enchirid. ad Laur. c. 110. to procure a compleat and full Remission or that their Damnation should be made more tolerable Our Compiler cavils before he leaves this Point very rudely at me for saying S. Chrysostom only advises the Oblation of Alms for the Increase of Happiness to his Son's Soul and does very scornfully ask me what means S. Chrysostom's bidding him also pray for the discharge of his Son's Guilt I can answer him without such rudeness in a very few Words That the Increase of Glory was the sole Intention of his praying for the discharge of the Guilt of Sin and that the latter was wholly design'd for the former Thus I have got through that Chapter about Purgatory and have fixed all that I had proved before in my Answer to the Nubes Testium that the Fathers neither knew of nor taught any such Purgatory as the Church of Rome doth and therefore since they believed the Romish Purgatory no more than we of the Church of England they are no more Papists than we are in this thing When he is come to the next great Controversy about Transubstantiation he was resolved to divert himself and his Reader and in order to it by perverting of my sense to make himself sport He pretends to be mightily at a loss what I would have the Doctrine of our Church to be about the Eucharist and brings me in first saying Christ's Body is really present in the Eucharist then that 't is the Body of Christ Figuratively only but within four lines after that it is the Flesh and Blood of Christ ABSOLUTELY without any addition of really or figuratively yet that in the next page 't is not Christ's True Natural Body but his Figurative or Symbolical Body So that he says I play backward and forward in declaring the Doctrine of our Church and make the Sacrament to be really Christ's Body and yet to be Figuratively only that is really not his Body But does this Man believe himself in all this Does he from his heart think that I am guilty of all this confusion and contradiction about this thing I am well enough assured that no Man of the least sense doth find such stuff in my Book it self and therefore that the Compiler did not but was forc'd to abuse my sense and falsify my words in order to his ridiculing of them and me For as to the first passage about Christ's Body being really present in the Eucharist it was occasion'd by my telling Him that the Controversy betwixt the Church of England and Rome is not about a Real Presence which the Church of England did believe when she looks upon the Consecrated Elements not to be the Body and Bloud of Christ themselves but to be appointed by God to exhibit to every faithful Receiver not to every Receiver the Body and Bloud of Christ But for the Consecrated Elements themselves she believes them to be Figuratively only Christ's Body and Bloud the Reason of which I so often inculcated because BREAD and WINE CAN NO OTHERWISE BE THE BODY and BLOUD of CHRIST AND BREAD STILL AT THE SAME TIME and therefore our Compiler ought to blush at his great disingenuity when he brings me in contradicting those very words within four lines of them and says I grant there that It that is the Sacrament is the Flesh and Bloud of Christ ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT ANY ADDITION of Really or Figuratively whereas any Man else would have carried my meaning along with him for so short a way as four lines had I said so absolutely without any Addition of Really or Figuratively but this is absolutely false for immediately after I had granted as to Justin Martyr's words that the Consecrated Food was the Flesh and Bloud of Christ to prevent any such misinterpretation of my words as the Compiler would make notwithstanding it I added these very words However to corroborate what we said above which was that the Blessed Bread is the Flesh of Christ but Figuratively only it is evident to a Demonstration that This Consecrated Food was still Bread and NOT TRANSUBSTANTIATED into the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ Did I here then say it was the Flesh of Christ absolutely without any Restriction or Explication of my words and sense Is this the Candour that becomes a Scholar Is this the Sincerity that becomes a Christian Is this the Veracity of a Priest of the Living God Well Well If this be answering an Adversary I perceive it is no matter whether it be true or false which we write nor whether it be right or wrong which we assert so that we secure our main design of ridiculing or abusing our Adversary That I might state the Controversy betwixt us and Rome aright in this great point I shewed our Compiler that it was whether upon Consecration the Bread and Wine were transubstantiated into that very Body and Bloud of Christ which was nail'd and pour'd out upon the Cross or whether after Consecration there is no other substance there but the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ This I told him we expect they should prove and that it is to no purpose to bring us only passages of the Fathers to shew that they gave to the Consecrated Elements the Name and Appellation of the Body and Bloud of Christ and that they said of the Elements that they were Consecrated made or turned into the Body and Bloud of
as well as the rest P. 34 35. 15. I desired an Answer from our Compiler himself whether he designed the passage from Valentinian's Letter to prove the Bishops of Rome had power alone or with other Bishops of judging Matters of Faith and the Cause of Priests or Bishops and shewed him that if he designed only the latter he was guilty of trifling if the former that he was contradicted by his own Master F. Alexandre and by the Clergy of France But the Compiler is sullen and was too angry to give an Answer in his Vindication to such an ensnaring Question P. 35 16. I charged our Representer and his Master with a false Assertion in saying the Council of Constantinople did submissively desire the Confirmation of their Decrees from Pope Damasus but Natalis Alexandre is too far off and the Compiler too sullen to make a Defence P. 36 17. I charged our Compiler with Impertinence in saying the Hereticks rejected Doctrines and Practices because they were not in Scripture I charged his Master with egregious falshood in saying the Hereticks appealed only to Scripture and shewed them that had either of them read that Chapter nay but the bare Title of that Chapter which they both quote in Iraenaeus in defence of what they so falsly affirmed they would have been ashamed of what they did But I cannot find a word of Reply to this P. 42 18. I charged our Compiler with Ignorance in Chronology and with contradicting his Master in the very places he transcribes from and gave the Instances of his placing Vigilantius in the beginning of the fourth Century whom his Master and all men of Learning place a hundred Years later of his placing Damasus and Julius in the Third Century who lived in the Middle of the Fourth Century of his putting Victor into the First Century who flourished not till the Second Century was almost at an end and lastly of the gross and intolerable Blunder of putting Aerius in the middle exactly of the First Century whereas he lived not till Three Hundred years after Our Compiler in his Vindication wanted not only forehead to defend them but ingenuity to acknowledge his Mistakes and therefore thought it were best to say nothing about it P. 49 19. I charged him with making use of a false Translation of a passage in Eusebius To this not a Syllable of Reply P. 54 20. I charged our Compiler and his Master with making use of a passage in defence of their Purgatory which was direct Heresy But not a word of Reply to this P. 56 21. I charged Our Compiler with abusing Gregory Nazianzen by an ensnaring Translation of his words To which our Compiler will give us no Reply P. 61 22. I charged both N. Alexandre and our Compiler with abusing and quite perverting a passage from St Ambrose by leaving out a Line which was connected to it and would have given light to the whole passage To which no Reply P. 55 56 57. c. to 62. 23. I charged them both with misunderstanding and misapplying St. Ambrose's words about Theodosius I charged them of being guilty of the same towards all the passages urged by them from S. Basil S. Chrysostom S. Hierom and S. Austin but cannot find a word of Reply to this large Charge in our Compiler's Vindication of himself P. 67 24. I charged the Compiler with disingenuity for curtailing and maiming the passage from Gelasius Cyzicenus about receiving but a small portion of Christ's Body and Bloud To which I meet with not one word of Reply P. 78 25. I laid to his charge either gross Ignorance or great disingenuity in saying that the Jews Marcionites Manichees and Theopaschites had always shewed themselves Enemies of holy Images No Answer to this P. 85 26. I charged the Compiler with giving a false state of the Controversie about Images with palliating in talking only of respect to Images when not only their Council of Trent but that second of Nice commanded a Worship of them and their Index Expurgatorius was so careful to strike out of any Author any thing that did but offer to deny Adoration to Images nay his own Quotations do prove as far as they are able that Images were to be adored But to this I find not one syllable of a Reply 27. I challenged the Compiler to shew that as they made use of the Figure of the Cross in Constantine's time so they adored it that the Antients did adore the Image of the Cross and paid that Latria to the Image of the Cross which the Church of Rome doth now say is due to it But our Compiler is not at leisure to answer Challenges and therefore finds it the wisest way to say nothing Thus I have given the Reader a Catalogue of a great many severe and very considerable Accusations against our Compiler and his Master Natalis Alexandre to which he hath not given one Syllable of Reply or made any Defence for himself or Master against them though they be charges that call not only their Learning but their Ingenuity and Honesty so often into question should I add to this Catalogue another of abundance of considerable passages in my Book which I put down to explain the true and genuine sense of the several Fathers and to confront those curtail'd misunderstood misappliea and abused passages with which he had filled his Nubes Testium to all which I find no better or more Reply than to the former Catalogue in his pretended Vindication I should be forced to transcribe almost my whole Answer hither for this Representer hath a considerable knack of his own to answer Authorities by saying nothing to them He does not in that whole Vindication bear up fairly to any one Argument or Authority urged in confutation of him but knows very well how to fence off any thing that does press home by stepping out of the way of it and has got a peculiar Art first of abusing and misrepresenting his Adversaries words or sence and then of ridiculing them and making them for to appear absurd or unreasonable and then this must pass for a full answer and a compleat Vindication of himself After such an account of the Compiler's giving no answer nor making any defence against so very many severe charges and of his skulking and shifting off all replying fairly to the rest of my Book the Reader will be very desirous to know about what it is that the Compiler hath employed his six sheets and what he would mean by a Vindication of himself if nothing be said to so very many and so very heavy charges I come therefore to satisfie that desire and to shew the Reader how very well the Compiler's Answer deserves the name of a Vindication of the Nubes Testium from the Cavils of the Answerer by which false Title I do not question but it was his design to make people believe that I had only carpt at a passage here and there and never bore up
Christ since we can demonstrate to them that by the Body and Bloud of Christ which the Fathers said the Elements were made they meant always that Body of Christ which in contradistinction to his Natural Body which he took from the Virgin Mary and his Mystical Body which is his Church we call Christ's Symbolical or Figurative Body And therefore Our Compiler is miserably out in his Vindication when he thinks to carry his Cause by repeating only what he had put down more at large in his Nubes Testium and by supposing the very words of Body and Bloud of Christ sufficient Reply to all I had said in my Answer to the Nubes I did not say only this means and that signifies only so and so as he would represent me to do in answer to any thing that did seem strong against us but did all along give my Reasons for such things till to repeat them further to the same Objections would have been more tedious to the Reader than me He talks as if the Fathers were clearly in their possession and wholly on their side and therefore that he need not much concern himself in confuting some untoward passages out of the Fathers urged by us against Transubstantiation since he supposes the Fathers are on their side and would not contradict themselves else surely we should find Him answering fairly to our Objections as I had done to all his But this is not the Man's way tho' he is desirous it should be his Adversaries but for himself he writes as if the Controversy had not made one step forwards betwixt us two But to let the World be judge also what a sort of an Adversary he is I will very briefly run over his first Testimonies in the Nubes and my answer to them and shew how He does reply To the passage from S. Ignatius that the Eucharist was the Body of Christ I answered that it was but that it could be Figuratively only so since Bread could no otherwise be the Body of Christ and Bread still to this he makes no Reply In Answer to the passage from the Council of Nice about not minding the Bread and Wine before us but raising up our minds by Faith to consider the Lamb of God offered by the Priests without shedding of Bloud I shew'd him it meant only that Communicants should by Faith represent to themselves the offering of the Lamb and that had he but transcribed on the rest of that passage out of his Master Alexandre every one would have seen at first blush that by the pretious Body and Bloud of the Lamb was not meant Christ's Natural Body but his Figurative only since the Communicants are advised to take but a small portion of his Body and Bloud and that tho' it is sense to talk of receiving little or much of the Elements yet that it is not sense to talk of taking a little or much of the True Natural Body of Christ To all which there is no Reply and Reason good since there was not room for any And when in the next place to explain a very obscure Passage in S. Hilary I had produced a place that proved he did not believe any Annihilation or Transubstantiation of the Elements since he says it was Wine which they drank in the first Institution of the Eucharist the Compiler had nothing to reply with and therefore runs back and makes much adoe with the obscure Passage In answer to S. Cyril he was told that that very Passage wherein the Bread is said by Christ to be his Body was proof sufficient that Cyril did not believe Transubstantiation since as I had urged before Bread can be Christ's Body only Figuratively To this he gives no manner of Reply but when I had further answered that Cyril had spoken as lofty things of the Chrism-Oyl as he does of the Eucharist and that no Body for all that did believe that the Chrism-Oyl was Transubstantiated tho' he said it was no longer bare or common Oyl he asks me whether Cyril said that Oyl is changed into the Body and Bloud of Christ A Question so ridiculous that I would forgive no Body the asking it me that had three Grains of Sense S. Cyril if this Compiler knew any thing of Him does compare the Change in the Eucharist to this in the Chrism-Oyl but I would feign know how the one Change does illustrate or prove the other when according to the wise Masters of the Church of Rome the one is changed in its very Substance but the other is not It is a tedious thing to have to do with People that know nothing of the Fathers themselves but by a little Quotation which they make such a fluttering with and as much noise as if they had read them through and understood them as throughly To his next Authorities from Gregory Nyssen about the Body of Christ being received into our stomach and making our Bodies Immortal by the Dispersion of the Sacrament into our several parts in order to their being cured of that poison which had affected every part and made them Mortal I shew'd him that this was directly against them since this nourishing of our Bodies in a strict and proper sense cannot without Blasphemy be attributed to the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ All the Reply he makes to this is to ask What need of nourishing here in a strict and proper sense My Answer is very ready because this was the general opinion of the Fathers That our Bodies are nourished with the Sacramental Body and Bloud of Christ This I did abundantly clear in my Expostulatory Letter to Mr. Sclater of Putney and made it the Instance of my Second Corollary against Transubstantiation in that Book Veteres Vindicati p. 93 94. that to attribute a nourishing of our Bodies to the Sacramental Body and Bloud of Christ doth altogether exclude their being Transubstantiated into the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ and that the Fathers did attribute such a Nourishment of our Bodies to them I proved from Justin Martyr who did assert in plain terms That our Flesh and Bloud are nourished by the Consecrated Elements being changed into our Substance from Irenaeus and Tertullian That our Flesh is fed and nourished with the Body and Bloud of Christ I proved it from Origen who says That the Eucharist as to its Material Part goes into the Belly and is cast out into the Draught from Isidore of Sevil from Rhathramn and from our Saxon Paschal Homily which proves that the Eucharist is corruptible for that it may be broke into several Pieces grinded by the Teeth and cast out into the Draught I will add to these but one other Proof from Rabanus Maurus who lived in the Ninth Century and does not only tell us That the Sacrament is made to nourish our Bodies p Sacramentum enim in ali mentum corporis redigitur Sicut ergo in nos Id convertitur cum Id manducamus bibimus
he is professedly treating of the Sacraments of the Church If we look then into his 24th Chapter of his first Book of the Institution of the Clergy we do find him using the very same Expressions and almost the same numerical words in his Explication of the Nature of Sacraments which is another Evidence that this Tract is really Rabanus's and this too when he is instructing the Clergy professedly about the Nature and Number of the Sacraments for in that Book having treated first of the Vnity of the Church and the three Orders of Clergy in the Church and those under them and of their several habits he comes to treat chap. 24. of the Sacraments of the Church and there it is that he says plainly that the Sacraments are Baptism Chrism and the Body and Bloud of our Lord after which having treated distinctly about every one of them he says ch 32. that having spoken sufficiently of the Sacraments of the Church he would there pass on to discourse of the Office of the Mass Rabanus in the 41. ch of this Tract according to us which is but the 15th in Sirmondus's Edition says in Explication of our Saviour's words Take and Drink of this All of you as well Ministers as the rest of the Believers This Doctrine being expresly against their taking the Cup from the Laity Sirmondus is very hard put to it in his Notes about it and tells us that John of Louvain and Bellarmine and others think the place is abused and that instead of Drink ye it should be read Eat ye well it shall be so to please those men and now let 's see how the period will run Take and Eat ye all of this as well the rest of the Faithful as the Ministers This is the Cup of my Bloud of the New and Eternal Testament which is very pleasant stuff and therefore Sirmondus looking upon this emendation as too bold and unreasonable has a better way to solve the difficulty and that is that the rest of the Faithful do indeed drink the Bloud of the Lord but that they did not do it under the Species of Wine but under the Species of Bread by concomitancy since they do not receive a Bloudless Body But to expose the violence of such an Interpretation of Rabanus's words and to let all see how forced this is we need only appeal to this Chapter it self nay to the bare Title it self which I am afraid Sirmondus did for that reason omit which tells us that we do receive and offer t Quod non alium calicem accipimus offerimus hodie nisi quem ipse Jesus in suis Sanctis manibus accepit in Coena Tit. c. 41. at this very day no other Cup but that which our Saviour himself took into his blessed hands at his last Supper and there I hope Sirmondus will grant me that our Saviour did make use of a real Cup and that He did give it his Disciples to drink as the Church did in Rabanus's time give the Cup to all the Faithful I need make no Apology for this large Digression since it is a Justice we owe to the Memories of those who did oppose Transubstantiation when it was first started into the World and since it disarms our Adversaries of One Weapon which they use to employ against us tho' it was really intended by the Author of it for us but I did it chiefly because of that popular Argument so often in their mouths which they use when ever they are urged with any Passage out of the Fathers or Church-Writers against their Transubstantiation We grant cry they that this Argument looks very promising for you but notwithstanding this the Father is consistent with himself and certainly for us and was always lookt upon to be so we 'll give you an Instance of it no Body hath written things so plausible for you and which at first blush seem so perfectly inconsistent with Transubstantiation as Paschasius Radbertus himself in his Treatise about the Body and Bloud of our Lord and yet who ever doubted that Paschasius was of the contrary Opinion and the greatest Man for Transubstantiation the Church ever had Thus we see what Feats may be done meerly by the supposing this and such Books to belong to Paschasius and such as he and how they carry the Cause by looking upon this Book to be certainly Paschasius Radbertus's For which very Reason and that mentioned above I have taken some pains here effectually to prove that this Treatise was most certainly none of Paschasius Radbertus's but does certainly belong to Rabanus Maurus the True Author of it It is high time to return to my Friend the Compiler and the Business of Transubstantiation and see whether he makes a better Defence for the rest of his Fathers for Transubstantiation than for those hitherto To the rest of his Quotations from Gregory Nyssen I shewed him that that Father does compare the Changes of the Water in Baptism and the Oyl in Chrism and the Altar at its Dedication to that of the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist which plainly shews he meant no more Change of the Substance of any one of these than of the rest What he says to this is nothing but confusion I did not only prove that the Water and the Oyl have a Virtue from Christ but that the Father said they were changed as well as the Bread and Wine so that if the Change of the Bread and Wine was more than a Change of Use and Quality only theirs must be so too since he makes them all the very same and it is too childish to urge that he does not say the Water and Oyl are changed into the Body of Christ since we do see he asserts the same Change in them all and what matters it that he does not determine into what He hopes next to secure S. Chrysostom by saying that I would fain evacuate all the plain and positive Testimonies of that Father by a doubtful and obscure Passage out of his Epistle to Caesarius But I have too fully shewn in my Answer to repeat it here That those Testimonies from Chrysostom were not plain but very Allegorical and not positive but very Rhetorical as reasonable People of their own side must own that consider them And for the Passage from Caesarius I urged that alone against them because it was so very plain and so positive against Transubstantiation and I will be judged by the Reader whether I needed tho' I easily could have done it and was prepared to add any other Evidence to It which runs thus For as in the Eucharist before the Bread is consecrated we call it Bread but after that by the Mediation of the Priest the Divine Grace hath sanctified it it is no longer called Bread but is honoured with the NAME of our LORD'S BODY THO' THE NATURE OF BREAD CONTINUE IN IT STILL I cannot discommend the Compiler for calling it obscure since it is the easier