our Kings had not set some bounds to the enterprises of the Court of Rome As for Order or Orders for the Council sets down Seven under this name to wit the Priest the Deacon Order the Subdeacon the Acolyte the Exorcist the Reader and the Porter The Bishop of Condom speaks onely a word of Order in general as he hath done of Marriage to put it into the number of Sacraments It is true as he saith that we hold the ministry of the Word of God for a sacred thing taking the term in a general sense We practise the ceremony of Imposition of Hands as it was practised in the Apostles time but we cannot agree that Order or Orders are a true Sacrament as Baptism and the Eucharist as well for that in Orders there is no Element or Visible sign no more than in Marriage and in confession as also because it is in truth the nature of the Sacraments of the Gospel that the Sacraments ought to be common to all the Church and Orders are not It is in this point also the interest of Rome that made Orders a true Sacrament to the end she might withdraw all the great Body of the Roman Clergy from the Jurisdiction of the civil Magistrate and thereby make unto her self proper subjects of other Princes people in the midst of their States and Kingdoms as a particular Kingdom or Hierarchy apart not only distinct from the Temporal Monarchy but superiour and over-ruling Kings themselves Many things might be said upon this Article to shew principally that the Priesthood and the sacrificing of the Roman Church is an invention purely humane and that it hath no example nor any foundation in the Gospel for there can be no true Priesthood where there is not a true Sacrifice and in the following Discourse it shall be made appear that there is none such in the Mass But in this place we will be content to follow the Bishop of Condom who had no mind to engage in all these Questions whether it be that he deserts them tacitely by his silence or that he thought them to be fitter for the Schools than for publick edification or Lastly that he hastened to pass unto the matter of the Eucharist where he believed he might inlarge himself with less disadvantage THE FIFTH PART We are saith he now at last X. The Doctrine of the Church of Rome touching the Real presence of the Body Bloud of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament the manner how she understands these words This is my Body arrived at the Question of the Eucharist c. as if one should say after a great deal of bad way now we are gotten a little more at large On the whole there is this difference betwixt all these Questions of the worshipping of Saints of Images and Relicks of Satisfactions of Purgatory of Indulgences of the number and efficacy of the Sacraments whereof we have hitherto treated and this of the Eucharist whereon at present we enter that in all the others there is not to be found any Footstep of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in all the Scripture of the Old and New Testament nor in the very First ages of Christianity whereas upon the question of the Eucharist the Roman Church pretends that she hath the Scripture it self on her side Therefore also it is that whereas the Bishop of Condom did but lightly pass over all the rest here saith he it will be necessary more amply to explain our Doctrine And here the better to accommodate our selves to the Bishop of Condom's method as we have done upon the other articles we will distinctly examine all the several Heads of which he makes so many Sections 1. The Doctrine of the Church of Rome touching the Real Presence of the Body and Bloud of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament and how she understands these words THIS IS MY BODY 2. How she unâ—erstands these other words DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME. 3. The Exposition which she makes of our belief as to the reality 4. Transubstantiation and Adoration and in what sense the Eucharist is a sign 5. The sacrifice of the Mass 6. What the Apostle teacheth in the Epistle to the Hebrews when he saith That Jesus Christ offered himself once 7. The reflexion which the Bishop of Condom makes upon this Doctrine 8. and Lastly The point of Communion under both kinds which the Bishop of Condom doth onely consider as a sequel or consequent of all the rest We will touch each of these Heads with as much brevity as shall be possible The Bishop of Condom begins with this proposition that the Real Presence is firmly established by these words of the institution of the Eucharist THIS IS MY BODY The reason which he gives thereof is because the Church of Rome doth understand them according to the letter and here it is that he saith what hath been alledged elsewhere upon another subject that you must no more ask them wherefore they apply themselves to the literal sense than of a Traveller why he follows the High way Let any one judge of the sequel by the beginning The Question betwixt us is Whether the Bread and the Wine in the Sacrament are truly and really the Body and Bloud of Jesus Christ or whether they are so onely in the mystery That is to say whether the words of the institution This is my Body ought to be understood literally or figuratively whether they truly signifie a real presence as they speak or a presence mystical and of virtue for it is all one and the same thing The Bishop of Condom saith without any other pretext that the belief of the real presence is firmly established upon these words because the Church of Rome doth understand them according to the letter that is it is so because I understand it so that is to say that he decides the question by the thing it self which is in question or that he doth give us his sense his will for a reason To have the liberty to speak as the Bishop of Condom doth we must lay it as a principle that there is nothing in the Scripture that one should not or at least that may not be taken literally Then might she take literally what our Saviour saith elsewhere John 6.35 19.5 that he is the bread of Heaven or that he is a vine and his Disciples are the branches and that none should be allowed to inquire how it might be The Bishop of Condom judging truly enough that this was not a proposition maintainable enters upon two other conceipts more reasonable On the one side he ingageth us to prove that the words of institution of the Eucharist ought to be taken in a Figurative sense On the other he engages to prove himself Pa. 80 that they ought to be taken according to the letter It is their part saith he who have recourse to Figurative senses to give a reason of what they do We
is wont to call Sacramental It is by virtue of these words alone that the consecration is made one would think that the others signifie nothing or that they be nothing in comparison of the former whereas if we rightly take the thing according to the end which it is plain our Lord proposed to himself in this Institution these first words are onely the introduction the vehicle or the foundation of all that follows as in arguing the first propositions are onely a leading unto the conclusion and are far less considerable than the conclusion it self The true essence the force virtue of the Sacrament is without doubt in the sense of these other terms 1 Cor. 11. Luk 22.19 which is broken for you do this and do it in remembrance of me and to shew forth my death until I come which is the sense in which St. Paul explicates these latter words of our Saviours for Jesus Christ gives his body 1 Coâ— 11. onely as it was broken for us and his bloud as poured out for our sins This is properly the Mystery of our salvation the expiation of our sins the accomplishment of the Law These are the words properly which make the true likeness betwixt the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the Cross betwixt the Sacrament and the thing signified by the Sacrament We ought to take them altogether to form a true Idea of this Mystery and it may be truly said that it is onely for not taking them altogether that the Church of Rome is fallen into all these errours which make us separate from her If instead of insisting so much as she doth upon these first words this is my body she had weighed a little more the following words which is broken for you she would doubtless have acknowledged that Jesus Christ having not yet suffered death when he spake them and nevertheless giving his body as broken and in a state of death his intention could not be that his proper body was really in the Sacrament and less yet that it was there in a state of life such as the Doctrine of the Church of Rome doth suppose it If instead of insisting so much as she doth upon the first words she had also weighed a little more those other do this in remembrance of me she would have also understood thereby that the sense of these words imports that Jesus Christ kept aloof from and did not at all put himself in the place of the bread and to conclude if she had a little better weighed these last words drink ye all of this instead of insisting onely upon the former she had never proceeded so far as to take away the cup in the Sacrament But to return to the point on which we are here principally concerned what hath been now said doth not onely shew the relation there is betwixt the bread and the body of Jesus Christ but doth wholly overthrow the consequence of the Bishop of Condom's Argument to wit that Jesus Christ did not on this say any thing to explain himself as he was careful to doe in the other figures or in other parables For in the first place we know that Jesus Christ did not explain generally all the Figures he used whether it were that he would leave some exercise for our Faith and meditation or that he thought them sufficiently intelligible of themselves as we do pretend that this very passage is 2. If this Figure had not been so plainly intelligible of it self it hath been already shewed that Jesus Christ had prepared the Apostles to understand it having told them that these sorts of expressions were to be understood spiritually And to conclude John 6 63. how can it be said that Jesus Christ said nothing to explain himself If our Lord had said no more but these words this is my body as the Bishop of Condom onely frames his Argument upon these words it might seem somewhat less strange that they should dare to speak thus to us but Jesus Christ said all in the same breath this is my body which was broken for you doe this in remembrance of me 1 Cor. 11.24 Mat. 26.29 This is the New Testament in my bloud which is shed for many I will not any more drink of this fruit of the vine c. And the Apostle St. Paul who very well understood the words of our Lord doth add 1 Cor. 11.26 that as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew the Lords death till he come What greater explication or rather what greater clearness can be desired in a Mystery to give to understand that Jesus Christ leaving his Apostles and speaking to them as it were his last Farewel left them this Sacrament as an earnest a memorial and a seal of the death which he suffered for them and for us XI The explication of those words Do this in remembrance of me The Bishop of Condom passing over the first words of the Institution This is my body to those which immediately follow Doe this in remembrance of me is no longer the Traveller that those follows the great High way I mean words he no longer understands the words of our Lord according to the letter The literal and natural sense of these last words altogether Do this in remembrance of me is this that we should do what Jesus Christ ordained to put us in remembrance of him for it is Jesus Christ that saith in remembrance of me But the Bishop of Condom somewhat detorts this sense and would have it that the intention of our Lord should be only to oblige us to remember his death under pretence that the Apostle concludes with these words that we shew forth the death of our Lord. It is not difficult to comprehend what this the Bishop of Condom's little detortion tends to namely that if this be the sense of those words Do this in remembrance of me we ought to call to remembrance the very person of Jesus Christ This sense leads us naturally to believe that the divine person that we ought to call to remembrance is not really present For according to the manner of usual conceiving and speaking amongst men to call to remembrance is properly of persons absent Otherwise supposing the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament as the Church of Rome supposeth the sense and the Idea which these words carry Do this in remembrance of me is this Eat my proper body to call your selves to remembrance of me in my presence or as if I were present which makes but an odd and inconsistent sense In the mean time neither the nature of the thing that is to say Jesus Christ who was now about to leave the Apostles nor his expressions at all suffer us to doubt but that he requires precisely these two things to wit to call our selves to remembrance of him by an act of love and acknowledgment and that we meditate also on his death as an effect
received in the Gospel and in Baptism Now the manner in which he is received in Baptism and in the Gospel is by Faith Therefore it must needs be that there should be a real manner of receiving the body and bloud of our Lord in the Sacrament which is not by Faith By any the least Attention to his Argument it will at first sight be found faulty In summe it is certain there is in it a kind of sophism Of a thing which is onely true in some regards he draws consequences as if it were absolutely true and in all râ—gards He changes the terms of the Propositions as we speak in the Schools and he puts more in the conclusion than there is in the propositions whence the conclusion should be formed It is almost as if a man should say the manner of a mans going is upright and different from that of beasts the beast goeth upon his feet therefore men do not go upon their feet Or to make all more plainly to be understood by an example which hath nearer relation unto the subject here in question The Argument of the Bishop of Condom is much like unto this The Sun at Noon-day communicates to us objects or the sight of objects in a full manner and different from that in which he communicates them unto us at his rising or if you will in a different manner from that wherein Torches communicate them unto us in the night Now the Sun at his rising and Torches in the night do communicate objects onely by the light therefore the Sun at Noon-day doth not communicate the objects unto us by the light Or to form a conclusion upon the Bishop of Condom's very terms therefore it needs must be that there is something in the Sun at Noon-day which causeth a manner of communicating objects which is not by the light The Sophism lies herein that the difference of the manner whereby the Sun communicates the objects at Noonday from that whereby it communicates them at his rising or that whereby Torches communicate them in the night is in truth onely in the more or less of the light a difference in degree as we speak and not in kind in the means it self rather than in the effect because these divers manners fail not to communicate the same objects though with more or less clearness whereas it is plain that this argument concludes that there is in the Sun at Noonday something else than the light which makes this difference But leaving the form of the Argument to follow the thing it self if the Bishop of Condom would have pleased to have taken the sense of the Article of the Catechism intirely as it had been just he would have seen that he had not the least pretext to play with words as he doth Sunday 52. The Catechism having laid down that the communion which we have with Jesus Christ is not onely in the Sacrament but also in preaching the Word of God the Minister demands What is it that the Lords Supper adds unto the VVord or what have we more in the Lords Supper and what is its use This saith the Child that in the Lords Supper our communion is more fully confirmed and as it were ratified after which it immediately adds that though Jesus Christ be truly communicated unto us by Baptism and by the Gospel it is but in part and not fully These words taken together do most clearly give to understand that what the Sacrament of the Lords Supper adds unto the Word is not another manner of communion with Jesus Christ more real in substance or different in kind from that which we have with him by the Ministry of the Word or by Baptism for Jesus Christ being truly communicated by these three divers means as the Catechism it self layes down it cannot in any manner be understood that Jesus Christ can be as it were divided and more or less communicated Or that there is more union with him by the Lords Supper than by Baptism and by the preaching of the Word but onely that in the Lords Supper we have yet a new and more ample confirmation of our union with Jesus Christ and as it were a final ratification which are the words of the Catechism Baptism properly is instituted onely to shew our entrance into the Church and to let us understand that as the water doth cleanse our bodies so the bloud of Jesus Christ doth wash us from our sins and particularly from our Original sin without representing more expresly either the death of Jesus Christ or our spiritual union with him though upon the whole the operation of the Holy Ghost doth nevertheless thereby produce this spiritual union of the Faithful with Jesus Christ and the eternal happiness of them which are baptised The word doth very well represent unto us the promise of Salvation and all that depends thereon it is a very effectual means to work Faith and to unite us unto Jesus Christ when God is pleased to accompany it with his grace Rom. 10.17 for Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the VVord of God But whereas the Word onely works upon one of our senses the Eucharist speaks unto all our senses in general and we know that the sight in particular makes a greater impression upon our spirits than the hearing and whereas Baptism onely sets forth our entrance into the Church and onely applyes or communicates unto us the bloud of Jesus Christ by the form of washing the Eucharist doth yet more expresly represent unto us that the body of Jesus Christ was broken for us and that his bloud was poured out for the remission of our sins communicating both one and the other unto us by the form of meat and of drink In a word the Sacrament of the Eucharist gives us to understand that as bread and wine nourish our bodies so the body and bloud of Jesus Christ nourish and vivifie our souls and lastly that the bread and the wine are not more truly and really united unto our bodies then Faith doth really and spiritually unite us unto the body of our Saviour This is it as every one may see for which our Catechism saith that in the Lords Supper our communion with Jesus Christ is more amply confirmed and ratified unto us than in Baptism and in the preaching of the Gospel or that in Baptism and in the Gospel Jesus Christ is communicated in part unto us and in the Lords Supper fully for it is but one and the same thing in the sense of the Catechism The manner in which Baptism communicates Jesus Christ unto us in admitting of us into the Church may be compared if we please unto that wherein it was said that the Sun communicates the sight of objects at his rising the manner in which the Word also communicates Jesus Christ to us in declaring unto us the promises of the Gospel unto that of Torches communicating the same objects in the night and Lastly the manner wherein
that we partake of Jesus Christ very really indeed but spiritually nevertheless the Bishop of Condom correcting the term of real presence which he imputed unto us leaves the same consequences which he had seemed upon this Idea prejudging that the belief of the real participation ought to have the same effect as if we believed the presence it self This is called to take away the Foundation and leave the Building in the air or at best but to underprop it by putting in some other support in the place of the Foundation 13. In the First among the many consequences that he draws from our believing a real participation after having said that it must needs be that besides the spiritual communion of the Body of Christ c. we must admit of a real communion of the Body of the same Saviour Pag. 100. he concludes that the Church of Rome would be satisfied would we make this confession which is of very great consequence because that this conclusion doth free us from Transubstantiation and shelter the Lutherans that believe the reality In the latter some other consideration made the Bishop of Condom stifle this opinion pa. 112. and put another altogether different in the place they will never saith he explain this truth in any the least solid manner if they do not return unto the opinion of the Church pag. 109 14. In the First the word Transubstantiation is seen in the Margin in form of a title or article as well as in the Last to mark out the matter of Controversie treated of in that place but throughout the Exposition there is nothing in any place of the Article nor the term of Transubstantiation nor this Proposition that the Bread and Wine are changed into the Body and Bloud of Jesus Christ In the latter pag 124 after these words the true Body and the true Bloud of Jesus Christ he hath added into which the Bread and the Wine are changed which is that that is called Transubstantiation pag. 115. 15. In the First speaking of the Mass he concludes onely that it may reasonably be called a Sacrifice which implies also that one may safely forbear giving it that name In the latter he changeth this conclusion into another far different for he affirms strongly that there is nothing wanting in the Mass to be a true Sacrifice which yet are two consequences very different to be drawn from one Doctrine that is to say that what the Bishop of Condom proposes in this place for the proving that the Mass is a true Sacrifice doth prove no more than that it may reasonably be called by this name 16. In the First p 132 treating of the belief of them who are called Lutherans the Bishop of Condom speaketh generally of the whole Party that they reject the adoration of the Sacrament which is true In the latter pag. 148. he reduces this general Proposition unto a particular one which destroyes the former for he onely saith that some Lutherans reject the adoration without the appearance of any ground which should oblige him to the making such restriction 17. In the First pag. 113. he draws this consequence from the Doctrine of the real presence that he that can endure the reality which saith he is the most important and most difficult point may easily digest the rest In the latter he bethought himself that this rest comprehends Transubstantiation Adoration the Sacrifice of the Mass and the taking away the Cup and that they are not things so easily believed wherefore he speaks a little slacker that enduring the reality we ought also to endure the rest pag. 165. 18. In the First touching the authority of the Holy Chair he saith that their profession of Faith doth oblige them to acknowledge the Church of Rome as Mistriss and to tender true obedience unto the Pope as Sovereign In the latter he wraps up this Soveraign power in more general terms which conclude nothing positively we acknowledge saith he this Sovereignty speaking of St. Peter in his Successors unto whom is due for this reason the submission and obedience that the holy Councils and Fathers have alwayes taught 19. Upon the same point he saith in the First Edition that the rights of pretensions of the Popes which the Reformed Ministers are alwayes alledging to make that power odious are not of the Catholick Faith nor at all set down in the Profession of Faith In the latter he saith in more indefinite termes that as to those matters of which there is dispute in the Schools c. it is not at all necessary to speak thereof seeing they are not â—f the Catholick Faith 20. To conclude pag. 518. in the First Edition the Bishop of Condom drawing to the conclusion of his Treatise saith that the Fundamentals of Salvation are the adoration of one only God Father Son and Holy Ghost and a belief in one Saviour c. In the Latter he recalls this so absolute Proposition plainly seeing that the allowing this Maxime is to acknowledge that it is us properly who have the fundamentals of Salvation for our Doctrine reduces it self unto these two Heads and we have nothing contrary unto them neither in reality nor in appearance I pass over some other alterations that are less considerable especially if looked on each apart but all together do sufficiently speak the trouble the Bishop of Condom had to put his Treatise into the condition it is now in The only thing to be added in this regard is that though it may plainly be perceived that the Bishop of Condom proposed to himself two principal ends in his Treatise the one to insinuate the Doctrine of the Church of Rome diminishing as much as he could what she holds that is most violently offensive the other to oppose ours principally upon two points in which he believed he could have put us unto great difficulties namely the reality of the Body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and the authority of the Church nevertheless it appears that it is only upon the positive Doctrine of the Roman Church that the Bishop of Condom hath stagger'd that he hath touched and retouched withdrawn diminished or added and finally that he hath made all the alterations above mentioned Now from whence could proceed this kind of variation in an Exposition of Faith for it is known how well the Bishop of Condom is qualified and the great clearness and readiness he hath in expressing himself It cannot be said but that he understood perfectly not only the grounds of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome but of ours also four yeares past when his Manuscript Copy was dispersed amongst us or ten moneths since when he caused his Treatise to be printed the first time as well as he knows it at this present Therefore it must needs be that these difficulties do proceed from the very nature of the Opinions that he laies down which have no certain foundation which
the Eucharist he alwayes supposes that real and corporal are but one and the same thing and that a thing is not real if it be not corporal The eating or partaking of the body of Jesus Christ is very real according to us as real and effective as the expiation of our sins but it doth not follow for all that that there is a necessity that this participation be corporal that is to say that we must receive the proper flesh and the proper bloud of Jesus Christ with the mouth of the body according as in Baptism we doe agree both the Gentlemen of the Roman Church and we that we do partake of or that we are truly and really united unto Jesus Christ and unto his sacrifice and yet for all that this union is not corporal In fine there is a kind of incompatibility or of contradiction in the Bishop of Condom's arguing He would have it that as the Jewes did effectively eat of the sacrifice offered for their sins we also should effectively eat the body of Jesus Christ our sacrifice and he doth not consider that as the sacrifices which the Jewes did eat were dead so it would be necessary that the body of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament were in a state of death that it might be eaten as a sacrifice whereas the Church of Rome teacheth that he is there in a state of life that is to say living and not dead As to what is the Bishop of Condom's other proposition that there is no relation betwixt the bread and the body of Jesus Christ is it not openly to gainsay what hath been already alledged out of St. Austin and Theodoret that the Sacraments doe not take the name of the things whereof they are Sacraments but because of the relation which there is betwixt the Sacraments and the things themselves that without this relation they could not be Sacraments that it is formally because of this relation that the bread and the wine are called the body the bloud of Jesus Christ for these are St. Austin's own words and that to conclude Epist 23 ad Bonif. As Jesus Christ had said that he was bread and a vine he said afterward that the bread was his body and the wine his bloud giving as it were reciprocally the names of the one unto the other Dial. 1. as Theodoret speaks In summe our Saviour seeing his Disciples bent upon the things of this life taking an occasion by the miracle of the Loaves did himself strongly establish the resemblance which there is betwixt him and bread saying that he is the bread which came down from Heaven John 6.41.51 55. that this bread is his flesh that his flesh is meat indeed and his bloud is drink indeed shewing plainly that as the bread doth nourish our bodies Jo. 6.68 so his flesh and his bloud is the life and nourishment of our souls This word seemed hard to many who forsook him but the Apostles understood very well from that time the relation or similitude which made Jesus Christ say he was bread and that his flesh was this bread unto whom shall we go Lib. 1. de Offic. Eccl. cap. 18. Com. en Marc. 14 saith St. Peter thou hast the words of eternal life St. Isidore Bede and many others very far from saying that there is no relation betwixt the Sacraments and the body and bloud of Jesus Christ as doth the Bishop of Condom say on the contrary that the bread is called his body because bread nourisheth and fortifieth the body and that the wine is called his bloud because wine breedeth bloud in our flesh and rejoyceth the heart There is another resemblance also well known which the Fathers have explained not onely betwixt the bread and wine and the flesh and bloud of Jesus Christ Theoph. Antioc 1 Comment in 4 Evan. pa. 359. St. Cyprian Ep. 63. but betwixt the Sacraments and that other mystical body of Jesus Christ whereof he himself is head to wit the Church that as the bread is made of many grains and the wine of many clusters of grapes so the mystical body of Christ is composed of many Believers which are his living members So that we may plainly see so far is it from there being no relation betwixt bread and the body of Jesus Christ as the Bishop of Condom supposeth that we find on the contrary the two relations which he calls natural relation and relation of institution and of which he demands but one or the other that the sign may take the name of the thing and that it might be proper to bring down the Idea into the mind to wit a relation of the natural virtue of bread unto that of the body of Jesus Christ the body of Jesus Christ being the nourishment of our souls as bread is the nourishment of our bodies and the relation which Jesus Christ had established before in the minds of his Apostles Jo. 6.52 by the use which he had made of this likeness having accustomed them unto this manner of speaking even before the institution of the Sacraments and confirming or establishing anew this relation by the very words of the institution it self But there is here yet something else to be understood The Bishop of Condom doth curteil if I may so say the words of institution or rather the sense and secretly makes a kind of Sophisme in dividing the words and examining them in a sense separate the one from another instead of taking them altogether Here it concerned not to enquire the relation there is betwixt bread and the body of Jesus Christ barely this relation consists as it was said in that the one doth nourish our bodies and the other doth nourish our souls The likeness betwixt the bread broken and the body broken should have been searched into for Jesus Christ gives us not his body properly but in this regard and Jesus Christ sayes not onely this is my body he saith in the same breath my body which is broken for you And suppose that these first words had not clearly enough intimated the relation which there is betwixt the bread and the body of Jesus Christ these others which our Saviour adds are as a second touch of a pencil or a new colour which heighthens the draught and better expresses the resemblance betwixt the Image and the Divine Original that is to say that as the bread is broken in pieces to serve us for nourishment and as the wine is poured out to serve us for drink so the body of Jesus Christ was broken and his bloud was shed upon the Cross to be the spiritual nourishment of our souls Here we must observe the perpetual errour or the continual source of the errour of the Roman Church upon this point The Roman Church makes the Essential the Principal the force and virtue of the institution of the Sacrament to consist in these first words This is my body which are the onely ones she
the Prayer being ended the Minister doth read unto us publickly with a loud voice the Liturgy of the Lords Supper which contains principally the manner wherein St. Paul relates that our Saviour did institute it with another exhortation well to prepare our hearts Lastly the Minister taking the bread and the wine saith with a loud voice The bread which we break is the body of Jesus Christ or the communion of the body of Jesus Christ The Cup which we bless is the bloud of Jesus Christ which was poured out for your sins Or the Cup which we bless is the communion of the bloud of Jesus Christ for either one or the other of these expressions are indifferently used the grace of God according to us not being tyed unto the words After which in distributing the Bread to the communicants the Minister saith again unto them to raise and awaken their zeal and their faith This is the body of Jesus Christ which was broken for you and in giving the Cup This is the bloud of Jesus Christ which was shed for your sins or some words to this sense And last of all when every one hath done communicating we conclude with thanksgiving in singing the song of Simeon and with the Blessing wherewith the Minister dismisseth the Assembly This particular account is onely for them who are misinformed of our practice We appeal here to the conscience of all sincere persons in the first place if it be not true that this manner of celebrating and of giving and receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist be not most conform unto what we see in the institution of our Lord and unto the practice of the Apostles and of the first and purest Ages of Christianity and without comparison more conform than that of the Church of Rome And in the second place which of these two manners of communicating is the most proper to excite and nourish true piety according to knowledge and a sincere remembrance of the death of Jesus Christ There remaines no more as to this point but to touch the Bishop of Condom's last consideration in which he saith That we do not deny the real communication of the substance of the Son of God in the Lords Supper so that there is a necessity that we should agree that the remembrance doth not exclude all manner of presence but only that which doth strike our senses We do not indeed say that remembrance excludes all manner of presence for on the contrary it is said of remembrance as it is of Faith that it makes things to be present that are at the greatest distance There is a moral presence and a mystical presence a presence of object of virtue as they speak which are not incompatible with remembrance For example the Heavens the Stars though almost at an infinite distance are in some sort present with us not onely because we see them but by the influences which they cast upon us We onely say that remembrance excludes a presence real personal and as it were physical local and immediate under the colours and exteriour appearances of Bread and Wine such as the Church of Rome teacheth of the Body of Jesus Christ in the hands of a Priest or in the mouth or stomach of the Communicants But because both here and elsewhere the Bishop of Condom grounds himself upon what he saith that at the same time that we deny this real presence of the Body of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament we teach a real participation of his Body and that upon this occasion the Bishop of Condom here makes an express Article of the Exposition of our Belief upon the reality what we will say of our Doctrine upon this point shall serve for an answer unto all the consequences which he draws both here or elsewhere To remove at once XII An examination of the exposition which the Bishop of Condom makes of our Doctrine of the Reality saith the Bishop of Condom the equivocations which the Calvinists use upon this matter and to make appear at the same time how near they are come unto us though I have undertaken onely to explain the Doctrine of the Church It will be expedient here to add the exposition of their Judgement Let us be permitted before we enter upon this Article to complain that the Bishop of Condom doth at the very first here begin to treat us in termes prohibited by the Edicts of our Kings at the same time also charging us with affected equivocations which in no wise agree with the simplicity of our Doctrine we are apt to think that it is the heat of dispute which hath here insensibly transported him beyond his natural equity and we would not at all concern our selves to take notice of these sorts of expressions especially in a time wherein we are accustomed unto more strict dealings if the least thing of this nature proceeding from a person of his dignity and for whom we have a great esteem were not more remarkable and of worse example than all the bitterest things that might be said by other persons This Article of the Bishop of Condom's Treatise though more copious is for all that obscure and intangled full of repetitions of digressions and of comparisons odious and besides his business which he makes of us to Socinians Arrians Nestorians Pelagians insulting over us upon words contrary to what appears manifestly to be our sense But we will leave the words and apply our selves to the things In the first place instead of giving a plain and intire Exposition of our Belief and afterwards drawing the consequences which he had a mind of he onely gives it by shreds and so perplext that it cannot be understood He onely reports here and there some of our Expressions separate from each other endeavouring therein to find some obscurity and afterwards he grounds upon this obscurity which himself hath made the equivocations and contradictions which he imputes unto us We need onely take notice what course he takes in the very entrance to make a judgment that he speaks after his own manner and not after ours Their Doctrine saith he hath two parts the one speaks onely of the figure of the body and bloud the other speaks onely of the reality of the body and bloud Divisions are wont to give order and to give light unto discourses but this on the contrary doth at first sight so little set forth our Doctrine that our people would not understand it The explication which follows is neither juster nor more natural Instead of laying down what we believe affirmatively he layes down indeed but onely the negative part of our Belief Wherefore we shall do better to explain our own Doctrine our selves in a few words with relation unto what the Bishop of Condom sayes hereof This shall be that plain Form of Doctrine which he saith we have not and shall serve for a general refutation of all that he hath produced We will not forbear answering afterwards
unto whatsoever he shall oppose that is most considerable Our Doctrine is simple as the Bishop of Condom saith that it ought to be incomparably more simple than that of the Church of Rome Here as well as elsewhere we have this advantage that the Church of Rome believes all that we do believe the difference is onely in the things which she adds and which we cannot believe We believe that Jesus Christ having taken our humane nature to suffer the death which we had deserved it was necessary that we should be united unto him as the members are united unto the head to the end that his obedience and his righteousness should be imputed unto us that we might partake of all his merits We say that this union is made on our part by the faith which we have in him that it is God himself who gives us this Faith and that to give it unto us and to confirm it in our hearts he maketh use of two sundry sorts of means the one interiour which is the secret operation of his Holy Spirit without which those others were in vain the others exteriour which are the Word and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper the Word to declare unto us the promises of Salvation Baptism more particularly to shew forth our Entrance into the Church and the washing away of our sins and the Lords Supper to shew forth yet more perfectly the death of Jesus Christ and our communion with him Hitherto we go along with the Gentlemen of the Roman Church They believe as we doe that it is necessary we be spiritually united unto Jesus Christ that this Union is made by Faith that it is the Holy Spirit which produces this Faith in our hearts and that the Word Baptism and the Eucharist are the outward means which the Holy Spirit makes use of whether to produce or to increase and strengthen Faith in our hearts If there be any difference about this betwixt the Gentlemen of the Roman Church and us it is not about what we have now said but upon those several other Doctrines which she hath added As to the Eucharist in particular whereof here the Question is betwixt them and us we also say very plainly that the Bread and Wine are outward signs which Jesus Christ hath added unto the Word to set forth his death before our eyes more livelily more sensibly than by Baptism or by the Gospel and that when we receive these signs by Faith Jesus Christ gives himself unto us or that he confirmes the gift which he hath already made unto us of himself in Baptism or in the preaching of the Gospel for the communicating to us all his benefits Not that his body is in the bread and his blood in the Wine or under the forms of bread and wine but by lifting our hearts up unto heaven where he is and uniting us unto himselfe by his holy spirit This is truly the abridgment of our Doctrin drawne from our confession of Faith and our catechisme conformable unto what the scriptures teach us throughout of the spirituall union of the faithful with our Lord Jesus Christ There is nothing in all this which is not plain and easie to be conceived excepting onely the ineffable incomprehensible manner in which this holy Spirit worketh in us and whereby he effects this union of the faithful with Jesus Christ our Divine Head Yet we have some resemblances though very imperfect Eph. 5.30 31 32. 1 Cor. 6.16 17. as well of this operation of the holy Spirit in our hearts as of the union of the faithful with Jesus Christ in the conjugal love which unites husband and wife and which is the reason that the Scripture saith that they are but one body and one soul However the matter stands it is very observable in this case that this difficulty such as it is is common with us and them of the Church of Rome and that it proceeds not more or less from hence that our Doctrine is different from theirs They believe the same as we do the spiritual union of the Faithful with Jesus Christ by the operation of the holy Spirit as we have just now said as well in the preaching of the Gospel as in Baptism and the Eucharist They conceive not at all this spiritual union any better than we nor explain themselves otherwise therein than we do and what they believe more than we in the Sacrament to wit that they receive the proper body of Jesus Christ by the mouth of the body into their stomach doth not add any thing at all according to their own principles either to effect or make understood this spiritual union which we have with Jesus Christ which is the onely and true cause of our Salvation For they do not deny that those who receive Baptism without the Word and without the Eucharist or Baptism and the Word without the same Eucharist may be saved and united perpetually unto Jesus Christ as well as they who receive also the Eucharist Neither do they say that the body of Jesus Christ which they do believe they receive into their stomach is united unto their soul or unto their body by his presence nor even that the substance of their body or of their soul doth touch the substance of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ They say onely that their substance doth touch the sensible Forms of Bread and Wine and that the real presence of the body of Jesus Christ under these Formes is an earnest unto them of their spiritual union with Jesus Christ Some also add that it is unto them a blossoming of life and immortality by its virtue without pretending for all that that the substance of their soul or body doth join or unite it self unto the substance of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ Let us now see wherein the Bishop of Condom doth pretend that we use Equivocations or that we come near unto the Church of Rome To render his accusation the more plausible he begins with the reason which he pretends hath as it were forced us to come nearer unto the Church of Rome in the point of the reality and afterwards he passeth unto the objections which he makes to prove that in effect we are come nearer unto them It is sufficient saith he to have learned by the Scriptures that the Son of God would testifie his love unto us by incomprehensible effects This love saith he was the cause of this so real union by which he became man this love induced him to offer up for us that his body as really as he had taken it and all these designs are followed and this love is maintained throughout by the same fervour So whensoever it shall please him to make any of his children sensible of the goodness which he hath expressed unto all in general by giving himself to them in particular he will find a means to satisfie himself by things that are as effectual as
the figure of the words themselves or in the occasion and in the nature of the things The Bishop of Condom had before alledged the same reason and almost in the same terms upon the point of the reality and in effect suppose that these words this is my body may be taken in a literal sense they could not be at all alledged for more than the real presence but that nothing advantageth the particular Doctrine of Transubstantiation For these words do not give the least intimation that the substance of bread and wine vanish or that they be changed into the substance of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ but onely that the bread and wine of which our Saviour spoke were his body and bloud in the sense which our Saviour himself intended Those of the Confession of Ausburg have this common with the Roman Church that they also understand our Saviours words in a literal sense for a real presence but in regard of the manner of this presence which according to them is the impanation or consubstantiation as they speak that is to say that the two several substances that of bread and that of the body of Jesus Christ are in the Sacrament they take their argument as well from the name of bread and wine which the Scripture gives unto the sign after the consecration as from the other Topicks whether of Scripture or of the senses and right reason Further Transubstantiation being a Doctrine different from the real Presence which adds something unto it and which regards properly the manner of this Presence which thing is the reason also that the Bishop of Condom makes it an Article distinct it is necessary that the Bishop of Condom should seek other reasons for this Doctrine than these words This is my body or that he should say that he finds Transubstantiation in these very words by this consequence which he draws thence that the bread cannot be made the body of Jesus Christ but by this onely way of changing one substance into another in which cases he abandons his principle acknowledging that his Faith is not any longer so attentive to the words of our Saviour as not to call his reason to its assistance to help him to comprehend not the power nor the authority of him that speaks but the import and intire sense of his words And in this case things being brought to this point behold here a way open to dispute We have right to examine whether the Bishop of Condom draws his consequence well or ill When it is said the Bishop of Condom we mean the Church of Rome and therefore it may yet be truly said here as well as upon all the other Articles that the Bishop of Condom's Treatise being very far from putting an end unto disputes and objections onely gives us occasion to make new ones upon the most important points of Faith The third Assertion of the Bishop of Condom's upon this Article is that the reality of the Eucharist doth not hinder the Eucharist's being a sign But this is again to change the terms of the Question The Question is properly Whether if the Sacrament being the sign of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ that doth not hinder its being together the sign and the thing signified This is the reason also that the Bishop of Condom perceiving that he did not proceed directly to the purpose afterwards changes the proposition and changes it so Strongly on the other side that he resolves the sign to be a sign of such nature as to be so far from excluding the reality that it necessarily carries it with it the reason is this saith he that Jesus Christ having said this is my body this is a sign that he is present We confess we find it difficult to understand this arguing of the Bishop of Condom's How can he say that the bread and the wine which are the signs here in question are signs of such nature that they are so far from excluding the presence of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ as necessarily to carry it with them for this proposition hath no foundation in the nature of bread and wine And for the reason which the Bishop of Condom adds that Jesus Christ having said this is my body is a sign that he is present is it not onely to play with words and to make therewith but an empty sound and vain amusement This here again is called giving the change and to prove the Question by the thing it self in question The Question is Whether the bread and wine are together the signs of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ and the body and bloud of Jesus Christ themselves We say that signs Symbols Seals and Pledges are not the things themselves whereof they are the signs Symbols Seals and Pledges and nothing is more conformable unto nature and unto reason The Bishop of Condom saith that the bread and the wine being the body and bloud of Jesus Christ as to what they have inward this hinders not but that they may be signs as to what they have outward and sensible but this is onely to say what is in question and how doth he prove it This speech this is my body is a sign that he is present but here we treat of the signs of bread and wine and this speech it self is not the sign that you would have it to be but onely by giving it the literal sense which you give it and this literal sense alone makes our first and principal question The fourth and last Assertion of the Bishop of Condom upon the Article of Transubstantiation is touching the adoration of the Host This Assertion is without doubt the most fundamenâ—al and most important point that separates us from the Church of Rome because it is not onely a doctrine but 〈◊〉 worship and a practice wherein â—he question is Whether we are to â—dore or not to adore In which behalf we cannot mistake without falâ—ing into impiety or into Idolatry Nevertheless the Bishop of Condom â—â—sseth swifter than lightning over â—his point without giving himself the â—ouble to confirm it by any proof All that he saith is pa. 126. that the presence of 〈◊〉 adorable an object being certified by the 〈◊〉 we scruple not at all saith he to pay 〈◊〉 ouâ— adorations This proposition is conceived in so equivocal a manner â—hat the adoration may refer to the â—â—esence to the object or to the sign 〈◊〉 self He intends without doubt the â—bject believed present under the sign But why not scruple at all for these â—igns do not now certifie any thing â—ut what they certified in the times of the Apostles themselves and in all â—he following times of the purest Christianity Yet it is certain that there is not one word of it in the relation of the institution of the Sacrament which shews that the Apostles did prostrate themselves in receiving of it nor that they shewed any mark of adoration Neither
of the Eucharist Jesus Christ did onely speak to his Disciples and that that did not concern the people but they have at last sufficiently seen that it was needful to seek other excuses because that there as well as almost in all other places the Disciples did represent the body of the faithful and that Jesus Christ saying that his bloud was shed for many he intended that all those for whom it was shed should have part in this Sacrament Behold here what the Bishop of Condom puts in the place of it Jesus Christ saith he being really present in the Sacrament the grace and blessing is not tyed unto the sensible forms but unto the proper substance of his flesh which is living and quickning because of the Divinity which is united unto it Therefore it is that all those who believe the Reality ought not to be troubled to communicate under one kind onely because they thereby receive all that is essential to this Sacrament with a fulness so much the more certain in that the separation of the body and bloud not being real as it hath been said there is received intirely and without division him that onely is able to satisfie us We need onely to observe at the first view how these expressions are wrapped up to discern how wide this Doctrine is from the simplicity of the Gospel the Bishop of Condom would say in a word that the body is not without the bloud and that he that believes he receives the body ought to believe that he receives the bloud also under one and the same form by reason of what they call concomitance that is to say that the bloud doth accompany the body But in the first place this is constantly to suppose what is in question to wit that the body of Jesus Christ is really under the form of bread and by consequence the reasons which we have against the Doctrine of the Real presence do directly oppose this particular doctrine of taking away the Cup. 2. Who hath given this right to the Roman Church to seek for reasons to take away so considerable a part of the Institution of our Lord 3. And to conclude what ground hath the Bishop of Condom to conclude as he doth that the separation of the body and bloud is not real for our Lord doth separate them in the Institution he saith of the bread apart that it is his body broken for us and of the wine apart that it is his bloud shed for us and he also commands severally that we eat of the bread and drink of the Cup. The Bishop of Condom saith without any more ado that the separation of the body and bloud is not real and if any would know how he proves it he adds coldly pa. 132. as it was said That is elsewhere upon occasion then also he insinuated by the way that this separation is mystical and figurative without giving the least reason for it any more than he doth here and it is enough according to him to make this separation not to be real that he insinuate it without more ado with an as it hath been said Nevertheless if the bread and wine be really made the body and bloud of our Lord according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome by what reason can one part of the Institution be taken to be real and the other part pretended to be mystical and figurative Or rather if the separation of the body and bloud be onely in the mystery and figure wherefore will they not also grant that the bread and the wine also is but the mystery and the figure of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ for there is no more reason for the one than for the other Our Saviour hath said this is my body which was broken for you if these words this is my body ought to be understood in a proper and real sense there cannot any good reason be given wherefore these other words that follow to wit which is broken for you ought not also be taken in the same sense as those that went before but that the first should be understood in a proper sense and they that follow in a mystical and figurative sense is unreasonable For as our Saviour said that the bread is his body he saith that this body is broken it is the same Lord speaks that is in a word if it must be understood that the bread is really made the body of Jesus Christ it cannot be understood but that it is also made his body really broken I mean his dead body and his body really separated from his bloud So that what way soever we take the Doctrine of the Church of Rome it manifestly contradicts it self for either the bread is not really the body of Jesus Christ or if it be his body it is his body broken and in a state of death which cannot be said without impiety because our Lord is risen from the dead and death hath no more dominion over him And Lastly suppose that his proper body were in the Sacrament in a state of death and separate from his bloud this separation being real it could not be said as saith the Bishop of Condom that the Sacrament is received fully and without division under one kind onely nor by consequence that the Cup ought to be taken away The Bishop of Condom not being able to justifie this retrenchment uses two reasons to endeavour to make it indureable The first is that it is not at all through contempt that the Church reduces the Faithful to one kind onely but on the contrary that it is to hinder the irreverencies that the confusion and negligence of the people had caused in the last Ages reserving unto her self the re-establishment of the Communion under both kinds according as it should be most useful for increasing of peace and unity But is not this in some sort to say that our Saviour did not foresee these Irreverencies when he commanded we should all drink of the Cup or that foreseeing them he was so far from preventing them that he authorised them by this Commandment These Irreverencies were much more to be feared in the Apostles times and in the first Ages of Christianity than in the time when this innovation was made for in the first times the Christians were persecuted they communicated as they could from house to house and communicated at the holding the Feasts which they called Feasts of Charity The Apostle complains of disorders committed in those Feasts saying 1 Cor. 11.20 that was not to eat the Supper of the Lord and yet the Apostle never thought of taking away the Cup because of these Irreverencies They must be very much prejudicate who see not the true reason why neither Jesus Christ nor the Apostle nor the Church during the space of above a thousand years ever thought of taking away the Cup and that yet the Church of Rome at last be thought her self to take it away The
God doth forgivâ— us our sins and give us everlasting Life Lastly we believe that we ought to be so far from making the goodness and mercy of God a motive of sin or of neglecting good works that we ought on the contrary to make it a motive of Love of Fear of Thankfulness and of an humble obedience unto all his commandments This is the summe of our Doctrine wholly conformable to the Spirit of the Gospel worthy of the infinite goodness of God and of the honour that we have of being his children and which also leaveth unto him all the glory of our Salvation and thereby puts us by its very own nature under an indispensable obligation of being an holy people and of doing his Will There are other Doctrines which do proceed from hence or relate hereto whereof it is true that many times the dispute is only of words and it seemeth that a man may be in an errour as to some of these Doctrines without derogation from the Glory of God or prejudicing the rule of our conduct as touching the assurance which Believers may have of their Election and touching the sense wherein it is said that God doth recompense our good works but as to what concerns those due sentiments which we laid down touching the onely cause of our Justification namely the Bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ which blotteth out our sins without our bringing any thing on our parts but that grace wherewith he himself makes us to imbrace the merits of his Death as it is the Foundation of the love and regard which we owe unto him so also of the quiet of our own consciences and not to think of God on this respect as highly as may be and as we are thereby bound or to diminish directly or indirectly by our thoughts or expressions the least point of this glory which he hath to be the onely Authour of our Salvation or of the obligation which we have towards him is to offend his Divine Majesty in the most tender part as we may so say of that love which he himself hath for us We have this advantage on this point as on many others that the Gentlemen of the Roman Church do agree almost to all that we believe the dispute is for the most part onely touching what they add unto that which we believe They confess as we that God is the onely Authour of our Salvation and it would be said at first sight that all which the Bishop of Condom hath set forth as to his Belief touching Justification doth intirely agree with our Doctrine for he saith as we do That our sins are freely forgiven unto us through the Divine mercy for his Son Jesus Christ's sake who blotted them out by his own Bloud He saith also that the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed unto us which is an expression we ordinarily keep our selves to according to the stile of Scripture for the better understanding the very Word the nature and means of Justification The Gentlemen of the Roman Church and the Council of Trent in particular do commonly decline this expression because it intimates openly enough that it is not by any righteousness that is in us that we are justified but by that righteousness of Jesus Christ which is out of us and which is made ours by imputation as the Money which is paid by the surety is made the Debtors or reputed to be his because the Creditor is accountable for it and dischargeth him of his debt Those of the Church of Rome do not at all accommodate themselves unto this manner of thinking or speaking because they joyn unto this Righteousness of Jesus Christ that is imputed unto us a righteousness that is proper and inherent in us as they say which doth concur with the former This it is which is properly the ground of the Question betwixt them and us and the source of several other Doctrines which we do reject as shall be spoken in the following Discourse However it is true that the Bishop of Condom here seems to advance a step towards us at least it is certain that he hath done much good to Religion in general in discharging it in some sort from all the vain speculations not onely of the Schoolmen but also of the Council it self which is evidently as much or more Scholastical on this point of Justification as the most thorny School-Doctors The Decree contains no less than sixteen great Chapters and thirty two Canons to which the Chapters of the Decree are reduced The Decree is full of distinctions of the final cause the efficient cause the meritorious cause the formal cause the instrumental cause and the like the Canons full of Anathema's against a great many opinions if not good or innocent being yet in dispute at least doubtful and indifferent and which are visibly of the opinions of those particular Doctours which the Bishop of Condom would with good reason have laid aside the Council thereby making Articles of Faith of all those subtilties in Canonising them and by this means putting an invincible obstacle unto a reunion by the great number of Anathema's which it thunders generally against all those who will not admit all these opinions and distinctions of the Schools Our Confession of Faith reduces all this matter of Justification unto a few Articles in Apostolical stile very simple and very clear And the Bishop of Condom doth also reduce the very Chapters of the Decree and all the Canons unto a few words so far we seem to go as it were hand in hand But it must needs be that the kindness which the Bishop of Condom doth us is not sincere what he gives us with one hand he taketh away at the same time with the other and it may be said that this is still one of those Articles of Faith which the Roman Church receives as we do well nigh as fundamental but from whence at the same time she derogates by contrary Doctrines The Bishop of Condom saith here That God doth freely forgive us our sins and that he blots them out by the bloud of his Son In the following Sections it will appear that these sins are not so forgiven nor so blotted out but that we are bound necessarily to satisfie our selves by temporal pains in this life by the torments of Purgatory in the other or by the Pardons and Indulgences of the Holy Chair and from hence without going farther having said that our sins are blotted out by the bloud of Jesus Christ he immediately adds and by the Grace which regenerates us Now here we must observe that it is the constant Doctrine of the Church of Rome that it is in our power to reject this grace or accept it when it is offered unto us and that then when it falls out that we do not reject it but receive it and afterward act of our selves with the assistance of this grace we have a proper merit of our own and some part in
these Gentlemen do in some sort salve the former of these inconveniences in declaring as they do that they do not attribute any merit unto Works but by virtue of the free promise which God hath made to reward them producing them himself in us by his grace and besides the moderate persons amongst them do not dissent but that these sorts of expressions of merit may very well be waved and that ours are more humble and more safe as also on our part we do not deny but that those of the Roman Church may be suffered in the sense wherein they now explain them And it may be this is it which the Bishop of Condom doth here understand when he saith that the Learned of our Communion do not believe some of our Disputes upon this point to be very material What is here most mysterious is that upon this expression that good Works do merit eternal life there are â—ounded two other Doctrines which are very evil The first is that they are not contented to command works that are truly good and commanded as to worship God onely to serve none but him to obey our Superiours and lastly to love God with all our hearts and our Neighbour as our selves which is the summe of the Law and of Christian Religion but they have brought in the practice of Vows of Abstinences of Pilgrimages Macerations and all those other Works which the Bishop of Condom doth call Pennances because in very deed God hath not required any of that nature The other evil Doctrine which proceeds from the merit of Works is that of Satisfaction of Purgatory and Indulgences for those who do these Works of Pennance believe they satisfie at least in some part the justice of God and therefore it is that they call them Satisfactions and those who do none of them believe themselves destin'd to the pains of Purgatory and have recourse unto Indulgences to deliver them VIII Satisfactions Purgatory and Indulgences The Doctrine of Satisfactions is in reality so evil according to us that it doth intirely vitiate all that is good in that of Justification and of good Works One would say that it were another Gospel a Discourse meerly humane the several parts whereof do so ill agree together Very far is the whole Article from being conform unto the Analogy of Faith Es 1.18 Psal 32.12 Ps 103.12 The Scripture reiterates unto us throughout that God doth pardon us our sins for his Son's sake that if our sins were redder than scarlet he makes them white as snow that he imputes them not unto us that he covers them that he blotteth them out that he separateth them from us as far as the East is from the West The Bishop of Condom saith on the contrary that God doth pardon our sins but upon such condition under such Law and with such reservation as he pleaseth that he confers an intire abolition of all sins committed for Baptism but as for those that are committed after Baptism God forced by our ingratitude changes the eternal pain into a temporal This is what the Council of Trent calls remitting the sin and retaining the punishment This is to say that God doth pardon and he doth not pardon or at least that he doth not fully pardon Our sins all blotted out as they are do nevertheless cry for vengeance It is not enough that Jesus Christ hath atoned for them nor that we repent and endeavour to amend and to keep the Commandments of God if together herewith we do not Works which the Bishop of Condom calls painful and laborious or if we suffer not temporal pains either in this life or after death This is what hath been already touched the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is not onely injurious unto the mercy of God and unto the merit of the death of Jesus Christ by the conditions and restrictions which she presumes to bring thereunto but she contradicts her very self pulling down with one hand what she builds up with another On the one hand Jesus Christ hath fully payed the price of our ransome there is nothing wanting of this payment his justice is imputed unto us our sins are blotted out by his bloud In a word Jesus Christ hath fully satisfied for us And on the other hand Pag. 60 61. the justice of God and a certain way which he hath appointed will have us not to suffer our selves for our sins The Bishop of Condom would salve this contradiction by saying as he doth that these pains which God reserves are onely to keep us in our duty within the hands of Justice as he speaks and not to satisfie for our sins therefore it is that he makes a kind of protestation that if after the explication which he gives in that sense We shall object unto those of his Communion that they do prejudice unto the satisfactions of Jesus Christ that we must forget what he hath already told us that Jesus Christ has paid the full price of our ransom c. and that if we yet object to them that they believe they shall be able to satisfie of themselves as to some part of the pain which is due to their sins he may boldly say that the contrary doth appear by the Maxims which he hath established Unto which he adds for a conclusion That what they call satisfaction with the ancient Church is nothing AFTER ALL but an application of the infinite satisfaction of Jesus Christ It may plainly be seen by these last expressions of the Bishop of Condom's that he seemes to doe like the Dove which returned unto the Ark not knowing where to rest her foot AFTER ALL what they call satisfaction is nothing but the application of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ This expression hath something in it improper and incumbred because it cannot be any thing but Faith onely which is the hand of the Soul that can apply unto us the satisfaction of Jesus Christ by acts of love and reliance It cannot properly be said that any Workes done by us or that any pain that we suffer can be the application of the obedience which Jesus Christ rendred unto his Father and of the paines which he suffered for us The truth is that the Bishop of Condom after having defended as much as he could the opinions and the expressions of the Church of Rome will give to understand that AFTER ALL what they call satisfactions are not properly satisfactions that they themselves do not believe they can satisfie as they just now said more expresly and that in conclusion there is nothing really but the satisfaction of Jesus Christ which ought to be called by this name This Doctrine is sound and it is certain that it is in some sort to come unto us or rather to the truth of the Gospel but this is nothing in the main if the Doctrine of the Council of Trent be still allowed to stand that is to say if that be the Supreme
will therefore here set down some of the reasons which we have for the Figurative sense seeing that the Bishop of Condom doth require it of us and afterwards we will examine those which the Bishop of Condom doth alledge for the proper and literal sense In the First place whensoever any great of a Mystery and of a Sacrament 〈…〉 and the common use to take the â—â—pressions and the things themselves mystically and figuratively The very word it self Mystery doth lead us thereto otherwise it were no more a Mystery Let any examine generally all the Sacraments as well of the Old as the New Testament not one excepted no not the very ceremonies of the Roman Church it self where there is any visible sign as the Passover and Circumcision under the Law Baptism under the Gospel that which the Church of Rome doth call Confirmation and Extreme Unction through all will be found things and words which must be understood in a mystical and a Figurative sense But if it be demanded more particularly wherefore the Bread and the Wine are said to be the Body Bloud of Jesus Christ St. Austin and Theodoret Aug. Epist 23. ad Bonif. answer for us The First saith that it is because of the relation which the Sacraments have to the things whereof they are Sacraments and the latter to keep us from resting in the nature of the things that are seen Theodoret Dial 1. and that as Jesus Christ said that he was bread and a stock or vine so be honours the Symbols of bread and wine with the name of his Body and of his Bloud The force of these Testimonies is not here urged as to the maine Question they are onely alledged to give a reason of the use wherefore it is that the sign doth bear the name of the thing signified by a kind of mystical and Figurative way of speaking to elevate our spirits and our heartes above the Visible signs 2. We know in general that all the Scripture of the Old and New Testament is full of these sorts of Figurative expressions whether it was the Style of the Eastern Nations in those times as indeed it was or that God judged this Style the fittest to exercise our Faith We see that the First preaching of Jesus Christ is nothing else but a continued succession of Figures John 6.35 Joh. 15.3 every one knows those just now mentioned I am the bread which came down from Heaven I am the vine The rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 Mat. 5.29 De Doctrin Christ lib. 3. cap. 6. If thine eye offend thee pluck it out and an infinite number of others Now if it be demanded of us how we can distinguish betwixt Figurative expressions and those which are proper and literal St. Austin here again answers for us that what seemes to offend good manners or the truth of Faith ought to be taken in a Figurative sense and yet more expresly that this which Jesus Christ saith that we must eat his body and drink his bloud appearing a wicked thing is therefore a Figure We press not still this passage as to the main Question we onely alledge it to make the reason which we have for the Figurative sense better apprehended 3. Finally what can there be more natural and more reasonable than to understand the Scripture by the Scripture it self the obscure places by them which are more plain those which have a double meaning by them which have but a single The Authour of the Book intituled Lawful Prejudices layes down this Maxim for the understanding of Books that when there is any passage which may admit of a double sense that must be taken which agrees best with the whole and which is the most reasonable There is but one passage onely in the Scripture which seems to favour the literal sense that the Church of Rome gives to these words This is my Body to wit that which we now spoke of If you eat not the flesh and drink the bloud of the Son of man you have no life in you and this very expression St. Austin notes ought to be understood Figuratively whereas there are a great number of others which say that Jesus Christ is no more with us but by the operation of the Holy Spirit The poor you shall have always with you Mat. 26.11 but me ye shall not have always And if I depart I will send the Comforter unto you and so many more Joh. 16. that make us daily say in the Creed he ascended into Heaven and from thence he shall come c. the very words of the Eucharist require that we do this in remembrance of him and to shew forth his Death till he come To be in Heaven corporally and upon Earth by representation are not two senses repugnant but not to be any more with us or to be corporally in Heaven and yet to be every day upon Earth in mens hands in his proper Body are two terms contradictory and incompatible It is therefore natural to take these words This is my body in a mystical and Figurative sense which alone doth perfectly agree with all the other passages of the Scripture It is well known that the Church of Rome doth suppose that there be two divers ways according unto which she pretends that the Body of Jesus Christ may be present in Heaven and upon Earth the one with his dimensions and his exteriour qualities such as he was seen upon Earth and it is after this manner that she will have it to be said that Jesus Christ is no more with us or that he is onely in Heaven the other without his dimensions and exteriour qualities as she pretends that he is under the covert of Bread and Wine But this is to answer here punctually the thing in question We formally deny this second manner of being bodily in a place it is not contested but that nature the senses reason far from teaching any such thing cry loudly against it It would therefore highly concern the Church of Rome upon the whole case to establish this second manner of being in a place by some passage the sense whereof were not at all in question and till that is done it may be truly said that the figurative sense of these words This is my Body is the true and genuine sense the first and the onely that presents it self unto the mind We might here add many other reasons as to the main to make appear that the Doctrine of the real presence is not onely above reason as the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation but directly against reason and which in fine destroyes the testimony of the senses which nevertheless is it that our Lord made use of John 20.27 Theodoret Dial. 2. to prove unto Thâ—mas the truth of his presence as the Church also hath since done to prove that the Body of Jesus Christ was a true Humane body against the Eutychians but this would be
those which he hath already accomplished for our Salvation Wherefore it is not to be wondred at if he gives unto every one of us the proper substance of his Flesh and of his Bloud he doth it to imprint in our hearts that it is for us that he took them and that it is for us that he offered them as a sacrifice And a little afterwards he adds Our adversaries have very well seen that simple figures and simple signs of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ would not satisfie Christistians accustomed to the bounty of a God which gives himself so really unto us therefore it is that they would not be accused to deny this real participation of Jesus Christ in their Sacrament Behold here the reason that he saith hath forced us to approach unto the Church of Rome but Christians are then either very ingrateful or very difficult to be contented if they are not satisfied that Jesus Christ died for them that these sacred signs assure them of it and that they serve them as an effectual and saving means to raise their hearts and their Faith unto Jesus Christ They have then the ears of their understanding close stopped if it be true that these sacred signes joyned unto the Word do not yet tell them plainly and loud enough that Jesus Christ became man for them that his body was broken for them and that lastly his bloud was poured out for the remission of their sins The Opinion which the Church of Rome adds that Jesus Christ is present being very far from better setting forth his death incumbers as I may so say the conception of it as hath been shewed before because it represents the body of Jesus Christ in a living state under dead signs and moreover the way of giving these signes in a language not understood or ill understood makes much less impression in the hearts than the way wherein it hath been shewed they are given amongst us But in fine where is the reason of this consequence The Love which Jesus Christ hath for us induced him to dye really for us therefore it is the part of this Love to give really unto us the proper substance of his flesh and of his bloud What bond or what necessary consequence is there of one and the other of these things From what time and in what place hath it been known or usual that it is a sign of love in any to give his proper flesh to eat to them whom he loves I do not say onely by morsels as some possibly may say the Capernaites understood the words of our Saviour but in any manner or under any coverts under which it may be put For although God doth testifie his Love unto us by incomprehensible effects though his ways are not our ways grace doth not for all that destroy nature his ways are above our ways and even contrary to what ours have of evil and irregularity but not at all to what they have that is good and right which proceeds from God himself What there is incomprehensible in the effects of his Love is nothing as to the manner as we may say but to the degree or rather the infinity of this Love it self For as to the other point we in some sort conceive all that this infinite Love makes him do for us by a comparison though very imperfect of what an intire Love doth make us doe one for another To pay for another is the true office of a Friend and to dye for another hath always passed for a true test of Love Joh. 15.13 Greater Love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his Friends To dye for an Enemy is a generosity that hath had no example amongst men before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ dyed for us who were originally his creatures but were become his enemies This is that which this Love hath in it incomprehensible and nevertheless this Love which was foretold by the prophets was accomplished in the time that was foretold But neither prophesie nor reason nor humane manners ever yet taught us that Jesus Christ should give us his real flesh to eat with the mouth of our body as a token of the Love that he hath for us and when Jesus Christ said unto his Disciples John 6. That he would give his flesh for the life of the world and that whosoever did not eat his flesh had no life in him seeing that this word offended many it doth not appear unto us that our Saviour condemned their surprise but onely that he presently explained this speech unto them and that he made them understand that they should receive it spiritually The Gentlemen of the Roman Church do always fall into this error that although they do not directly deny that the communion which we have with Jesus Christ by Faith is very real of its self sufficing to salvation as they do confess in particular of the communion which we have with him either by the Word or by Baptism nevertheless always when there is any mention of the Mystery of the Eucharist they have this impression reigning in their minds which overbears all others that Jesus Christ cannot give himself really unto them but when they believe that he gives his proper flesh to be eaten with the mouth of their body It is from this apprehension that the Bishop of Condom faith here again that Jesus Christ makes as tast his bounty by things as effectual as those which he accomplished for our salvation as if the Faith which he gives as and the communion which we have with him by his Spirit even out of the Eucharist were not all of these effectual things and as effectual as it is true that he dyed for us Let us now come unto the Objections which the Bishop of Condom makes against some of our expressions to prove that we are approached nearer unto the Church of Rome pa. 146. In the first place he seems to contradict himself for he says afterwards that the more we explain our selves the Gentlemen of the Roman Church and we upon this Article the more contrary we find our selves one to another he gives also the reason for it which is that the more we consider the consequences of Transubstantiation the more we are discouraged with the difficulties which sense and reason discover in it This doth not import that we are approached nearer Besides there are very few persons who should hear him say that we are approached unto the Church of Rome but would believe that the reason is because some of our late Synods or some of our more famous modern Doctours had relaxed somewhat of our Doctrine either in the sense or in the expressions In the mean while there is nothing less than this All this accusation bears onely upon three diverse Expressions drawn from our Catechism which is as it is known the ancient explanation of our Doctrine The Bishop of Condom
himself affirms that is to say in the moment that they receive it this is the reason that they admit not the Sacrifice of the Mass and adore not the Sacrament believing that it is not there that Jesus Christ will be adored and that it is sufficient that in receiving the Sacrament they address their adoration unto Jesus Christ himself without circumscription of place as they speak that is to say without considering him precisely as being in the bread The Bishop of Condom goes on God hath even permitted that the Calvinists have declared that this Doctrine of the Reality hath no poyson in it and ought not to cause a separation amongst Brethren This is the Bishop of Condom's third proposition where one may see the continuance of the equivocation upon the word Reality for it is not of the belief of the Reality in general that we have declared that it hath no poyson in it and that it ought not to break communion but it is in particular of the belief of the Lutherans in the terms in which they set it down Therefore ought the Calvinists also to maintain the Sacrifice of the Mass and the adoration of the Host as natural consequences of the Reality This is the consequence of the Bishop of Condom's argument but every one sees that it is a false consequence and besides the Question This falsness is caused by the equivocation of the word and by the ill manner of reasoning for the Reality of the Lutherans which we allow of is not the foundation of the Sacrifice of the Mass nor of the adoration of the Host as is the Reality of the Roman Church Upon the whole supposing here again that the Doctrine of the Church of Rome touching the Reality may â—â—em more consequent than that of â—he Lutherans as the Bishop of Conâ—â—m sayes that our Doctours doe aâ—ree that is to say supposing that we once believe the Real presence of â—e body of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament we have reason to believe â—nd to practise the Sacrifice of the Mass and to adore the Host if the Doctrine of the Reality it self be an Errour whether it be understood after the manner of the Lutherans or after the manner of the Church of Rome as it must also be supposed according to us it is not a paradox nor 〈◊〉 subtilty of the Ministers to say an Errour which seems more consequent â—s not more tolerable On the contrary the more consequent an Errour is the more natural also is it that it leades from the truth For example a man that goes out of the right way but after some digression returns back into it suddenly again by another way doth far less go astray than he that having once taken a by way doth a long time go on in a contrary way how straight soever that way seems to be Who can reasonably doubt but that the Errour of the Manichees had been more tolerable if they had rested at the belief that God gave particular marks of his presence in the body of the Sun and of the Moon and that for all that they had not adored the Sun nor the Moon or that those that by Errour should believe that there were some Divinity in Images but yet would not adore them not believing that the Deity would be adored in the Images were not less Idolaters or less faulty than those in whom the motions of the heart did follow the Errour of the mind But to conclude what must be well distinguished here is that we do not receive nor approve the belief of the Lutherans touching the Reality In summe we do onely endure it and blame them for it and we have not admitted them into our communion but through a spirit of peace and of charity when they have desired to be thereinto admitted and according to the conditions mentioned in the Act of our Synod Nâ—w although the Bishop of Condom seems onely here to demand our condescendence to endure also the belief of the Church of Rome it is most certain that in effect he intends all along that we should receive this belief such as it is and that we should profess it as it is professed in the Church of Rome In a word his design is that the Reality or Transubstantiation is the foundation of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the adoration of the Host that both the one and the other being consequences of the Reality they should no more trouble our mind than the Reality it self and that to conclude we should receive this Doctrine altogether and not onely swallow it down but also digest it There remains but one Article more of the Bishop of Condom's Exposition XVII The Communion under both kinds touching the Eucharist to examine The title is conceived in these terms The communion under both kinds as if it were the Doctrine of the Church of Rome that we ought to communicate under both kinds of bread and wine in stead of saying The taking away the Cup or the communion under one kind which is properly the thing meant It is plain here that they find it troublesome to say the thing as it is because it cannot be said without shewing at first sight that they have taken away something of the institution of our Lord. However the case stands the Bishop of Condom onely considers this Article as a consequence of the Doctrine of the Real presence a thing which is so far from being a reason to make us to like it that it cannot but more and more increase the just a version which we have for the Doctrine it self upon which are built so many evil consequences Mat. 26 27 28. The Bishop of Condom makes not the least mention of these words of our Saviour Drink ye all of this for this is the bloud of the New Testament which was shed for many which yet are words most essential to this subject and which contain not onely an express command to all to drink of the Cup but also the reason of the command which is that the bloud of the Lord was shed for many Let the Bishop of Condom tell us here why he makes so much reflexion upon the former words of the Institution and that he makes none at all upon this as if they had not not all proceeded equally out of the mouth of our Saviour What is the reason that he takes the former according to the letter and that he takes not these also so which are neither less express nor less clear And wherefore in fine is his Faith which is attentive to the authority of our Lord when he doth but just begin a proposition and doth as yet ordain nothing wherefore I say is not the same Faith attentive to the same authority of our Lord when he doth not onely propose but command and when he commands that we should all drink ot the bloud of the New Testament At other times they pay us with this escape that in the Institution
the Eucharist communicates the same Jesus Christ unto us by form of nourishment that vivifies us unto that of the Suns communicating also the same objects at full Noonday especially if the Eucharist be considered as being added unto the Word and unto Baptism as the Catechism doth consider it These three manners of communicating Jesus Christ are different betwixt themselves because that these three exteriour means have each their proper way of working upon us to produce or to strengthen Faith in our hearts and to confirm our communion with Jesus Christ by the operation of the Holy Spirit But it is alwayes Jesus Christ whole and intire which is communicated unto us by each of these three means and it is alway by Faith and by the operation of the Holy Spirit which is the manner common to all those three as it is the sight of the same objects which is communicated by Torches in the night and by the Sun at his rising or at full Noonday always by the light which is the common mean to Torches and to the Sun to illuminate the objects But it is remarkable saith the Bishop of Condom here that how great a desire soever the Reformers had to equal Baptism and preaching to the Lords Supper in that Jesus Christ is therein truly communicated unto us they did not dare to say in their Catechism that Jesus Christ was given unto us in his proper substance in Baptism and in preaching as they have said in the Lords Supper But the reason of this difference may easily be gathered from what hath been said hitherto it is that when an Exposition is made of the meanes whereof God makes use to unite us unto him every one ought to be spoken of according to the proper use for the which it is known they are established Our Catechism doth not say that Jesus Christ spiritually regenerates us in the Lords Supper or that he washeth us from our sins as it doth speak of Baptism nor that Faith comes by the Lords Supper to use that manner of speaking that is to say that the Lords Supper produces in our hearts Faith as it is said that Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God for that the Lords Supper is not instituted to represent unto us our union with Jesus Christ under this notion but to represent it unto us under the notion of a substantial union such as is that of nourishment In like manner if the Catechism saith not that we are made partakers of the substance of Jesus Christ in Baptism or in the preaching of the Gospel as it saith of the Lords Supper it is not but that in these very actions we are really united unto Jesus Christ or that Jesus Christ doth not there spiritually nourish our souls with his substance as really as he doth in the Sacrament and the Bishop of Condom dares not say the contrary but so it is that although these divers means produce for the main the same effect yet the same expressions do not equally agree to the one and the other because the water of Baptism and the sound of the Word are not at all proper as the Symbols of bread and of wine to represent unto us as well the spiritual nourishment of our souls as the intimate union which is made betwixt us and Jesus Christ The third and last of our expressions upon which the Bishop of Condom strains himself more than upon the former is taken from an Article of our Catechism which follows that which we have now examined In the first Article it is said that in the Lords Supper we have a new and more ample confirmation of the communion which we have with Jesus Christ by the preaching of the Gospel here the Minister proceeds to demand VVhat is it then in summe Sunday 52. which we have by the sign of bread As if he should say On what in fine doth the use which we should make of this Sacrament terminate it self or what is the fruit of this confirmation which you say that we therein have of our communion with Jesus Christ The Child answers It is this that the body of Jesus Christ inasmuch as it was once offered a sacrifice to reconcile us unto God is given unto us to certifie us that we have part in this reconciliation This word certifie is a word of those very times which signifies to assure us fully or to make us certain or assured of our reconciliation with God and every one sees that the clear and intire sense of this Answer is that the union or communion which we have with Jesus Christ doth fully assure us that we have part in the fruit of his death pa 112. In the mean time what is the use that the Bishop of Condom would make of these words It is that by a long deduction of consequences he would conclude one way or other that besides the communion by which we doe partake spiritually of the body of our Saviour and of his spirit both together in receiving the fruit of his death there is yet another real communion as he speaks of the body of the same Saviour which is an assured pledge unto us that the other is secured for us Here again we may observe as we pass the effect of the errour of the Gentlemen of the Roman Church which makes them perpetually to oppose communion real to spiritual as if that which is spiritual or which is spiritually effected were not real But to return to what the Bishop of Condom proposes to himself upon this Article it may be said that this is one of those forc'd arguments the strainedness of which shews that there is in it no more truth than there is nature To answer unto it in such a manner as that we may understand something we must necessarily repeat his Propositions one after another in the same terms that he conceived them for putting them altogether and all in consequence they make such an entangled piece as will create no small difficulty to unravel If these words saith he pa. 1◠have any sense to wit those of the Catechism if they be not an unprofitable sound and vain amusement they should give us to understand that Jesus Christ doth not give us a Symbol onely but his true body to assure us that we have an interest in his sacrifice This is the first consequence which the Bishop of Condom 〈…〉 the words of the Catechism and it is true that thus far he keeps the sense and the expressions very exactly But on the other side this consequence is useless enough though made with such an ample and specious preface For we never brought into dispute in the least whether without the Symbols or with the Symbols Jesus Christ gives us not what is represented by the Symbols that is to say his body and bloud the sign and the thing signified both together and whether he gives us not both one and the other to assure us