Radbertus and to the Council of Trent in three particulars 1. He asserts that what is orally received is not the true and natural Body of Christ 2. He asserts that the substance of Bread and Wine remain after Consecration 3. That what is orally received feeds the body and that Christ is eaten Spiritually and not Orally 1. It is very plain from the determination of the second Question that Bertram expresly contradicts Paschasius for the words of the Question are taken out of his book and Bertram denies flatly what Paschasius affirms viz. That in the Sacrament we receive the same Body of Christ which was born of the Virgin Crucified and rose again He urges a multitude of Authorities out of the Fathers to confirm his own judgment herein and in short but pithy expositions sheweth how they are pertinent to the business In obviating an objection from the Testimony of St. Ambrose he tells us That the sensible object is Christs body and blood not in nature or kind but virtually He observes that St. Ambrose distinguisheth between the Sacrament of Christs Flesh and the Verity of Christs Flesh affirming the latter to be that Flesh which was born of the Virgin and the Holy Eucharist to be the Sacrament of that true Flesh in which he was Crucified mystically representing the former Again upon an objection that St. Ambrose calls it the body of Christ he answers That it is the body and blood of Christ not corporally but Spiritually He shews that what is orally received in the Sacrament is not Christ's Natural body because Christs natural body is incorruptible whereas that which we receive in the Holy Eucharist is corruptible visible and to be felt He farther proves a great difference between Christs Natural and Sacramental Body and Blood in this that his Natural Body really was what it appeared to our senses whereas the Eucharist is one thing in nature and appearance and another thing in signification Likewise expounding St. Hieroms Testimony he saith Christs natural body had all the organical parts of an humane body and was quickened with a reasonable soul whereas his body in the Sacrament hath neither He makes the body of Christ in the Sacrament to be only an Image or Pledge but the Natural body of Christ to be the Truth signified And in the first part he proves that the words of Christ Instituting this Sacrament are Figurative and that the thing orally received or the Symbols had the name of the things signified thereby it being usual to give Signs or Sacraments the name of the very thing represented under them And this he proves from St. Augustine It must be acknowledged that Bertram sometimes saith that it is truly Christs body and blood but mark how he explains himself he saith they are not so as to their visible nature but by the power of the Divine Word i. e. not corporally but spiritually And he adds the visible creature feeds the body but the virtue and efficacy of the Divine Word feeds and sanctifies the soul of the Faithful So that when he affirms the Sacrament to be truly Christs body he means truly in opposition to falshood not truly as that word is opposed to Figuratively But F. Mabillon and F. Alexander make Bertram and Paschasius to say the same thing and tell us that the former doth not deny the Truth of Christs natural body in the Sacrament which he as well as Paschasius holds but only that it is there propria specie i. e. in its proper shape and visible form or in its natural existence I must now requite the candour of F. Mabillon to Archbishop Vsher and impute this Opinion of his to the prejudice of Education For it s very evident that what Ratramnus labours to prove is an essential difference between the Sacrament received by the Faithful and Christs body as great a difference as between a body and a spirit between a corruptible and an incorruptible thing between the Image and the Original Truth between Figure and Verity And it is as plain that he admits these sensible qualities to be clear proofs of an essential difference and also allows our outward senses to be proper Judges in the case appealing to our eyes our taste and smell * Sect. 99. He shews that our Saviours body after its Resurrection was visible and palpable and cites Luke 24.39 Compare this with what he saith Sect. 72. where he sheweth the difference between Christs Natural and Spiritual Body as our Saviour did to the outward senses to prove the Verity of his body after his Resurrection Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self Handle me and see for a Spirit hath not FLESH and BONES as you SEE me to have So that in his Opinion we have the same evidence that the Sacramental Elements after Consecration are not Christs natural body in which he suffered which the Disciples had that the body in which he appeared to them after his Resurrection was the same body in which he was Crucified and buried 2. Ratramnus contradicts the Council of Trent in affirming the substance of Bread and Wine to remain after Consecration which those Fathers deny with an Anathema to all that affirm it He tells us expounding a citation out of St. Ambrose As to the substance of the Creatures what they were before Consecration they remain after it Bread and Wine they were before and after Consecration we see they continue beings of the same kind or nature F. Mabillon conceives Ratramnus to assert Transubstantiation in using the words turn conversion and that it is made Christs Body invisibly by the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost That the Bread and Wine after Consecration are not what they were before That they are truly by the Mystery turned into the substance of his body and blood c. which last is the most plausible sentence he quotes But I would fain know whether when he denies it to be a natural change and affirms it to be a Spiritual and which is all one an invisible change also that the substance of Wine is seen after Consecration and that by Consecration the Wine is made the Sacrament of Christs blood that it is made Christs Blood divini significatione Mysterii by the signification of the Divine Mystery That there was in the Manna and Water a spiritual power of the Word viz. Christ which fed the Souls of the believing Israelites That the Psalmist teacheth us both what the Father 's received in the Heavenly Manna and what the Faithful ought to believe in the Mystery of Christs body in both certainly Christ is signified And in express terms that as he could before his Passion turn the Bread and Wine into his body which was to suffer c. So before his Incarnation in the Wilderness he turned the Manna and Water into his body and blood And that as the Bread is Christs body so is it the body of the Faithful People and that if the
of the Ninth Century the Age immediately before him and of the true Importance of the controverted Terms and Phrases of this Book from Aelfric than from Mr. Boileau or any interessed Writer of these times How large a part of the Saxon Homily for Easter day was taken out of this Piece (t) Dissert ch 3. I have shewn before And as Mr. Wheelock (u) In notis ad Bedae l. v. c. 22. p. 462. Liber Catholicorum Sermonum Anglice in Ecclesia per annum recitandus well observeth from the general Title of the Manuscript from which he hath Printed it this Sermon must not be looked upon as the Private Judgment of a single Doctor but the publick Doctrine of the English Church in that Age. Now Bertram's expressions are so Translated into the Saxon as renders them incapable of that Paraphrase which Mr. Dean of Sens hath given us This I hope to make appear from sundry Passages of the Homily which now and then upon occasion I shall crave leave to Translate for my Self where the Version Printed with the Text is too literal and therefore somewhat obscure 1. Here is acknowledged what some of our Adversaries are loth to own though it is impossible to deny it that there were Controversies about the Presence of Christ's Body in the Holy Eucharist in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (w) Nu smeadon ge hÆ¿ilc men oft and git gelome smeagaþ Nonnulli saepe disputaâ—unt etiamnum frequenter disputant Male in praesenti disputat per C l. Wheelock redditur smeadon Men oft have Disputed and still do frequently Dispute c. And the Question was not as M. Boileau bears us in hand whether there be any Figure in the Sacrament But what is the effect of Consecration By what sort of change it makes Bread and Wine become Christ's Body and Blood Whether by a Physical or a Mystical change And consequently whether the Holy Sacrament be called the Body and Blood of Christ in Propriety of Speech that is in a Literal or Figurative Sense The Words are these How Bread made of Corn and Baked with Fire can be turned into Christ's Body And how Wine is by Consecration turned into Christ's Blood That Ratram's first Question and that here discussed by our Homilist is one and the same is apparent from the Answers given by both Authors and the Instances whereby they explain the Terms Figure and Truth And as in the Saxon the Emphasis lies unquestionably on the Word (x) Hu se hlaf mage be on aÆ¿end to cristes lichaman oððe ê§ Æ¿in þeor þe aÆ¿end c. Fol. 30. Turned so doubtless in Ratram the Word Fiat is of the like force and imports the Question to be By what kind of change the Consecrated Elements are made Christ's Body and Blood Whether it be by a Substantial or only by a Sacramental change 2. As Ratram to clear his Discourse gives us such definitions of a Figure and Truth as best agree to Figurative and True that is proper Forms of Speech So Aelfric premiseth (y) ðurh getacnunge ðurh geÆ¿issum ðinge Fol. 30. a distinction of things attributed to Christ some Figuratively and some Truly and Properly And to express the latter he useth a Word which answers to manifestatio and res manifesta in Ratram and fully expresseth its Sense in the Explication of the first Question and the Terms above-mentioned The Saxon (z) Ãurh geÆ¿issum ðinge geÆ¿is Certus planus manifestus Somneri Lex The opposition of this term to getacnunge directs us in this place which acceptation to chuse as Bread Lamb Lion c are affirmed of Christ in an improper or Figurative Sense so that he was born of the Virgin Crucified and rose again are affirmed of him in the plain manifest and proper Sense of the words Word signifies certain plain or manifest and is opposed to Figurative and therefore cannot import the sensible Evidence of Things as Mr. Boileau pretends but the plain manifest and natural Signification of Words The Instances both in the Homily and Bertram are an undeniable Proof hereof and withal give us Light into their Sense of our Saviours Words This is my Body which they understood not literally but figuratively which is what Aelfric himself meant by not corporally but spiritually and no doubt in that Sense he understood Bertram and that he was not mistaken is evident from num 74. where the Words corporally and spiritually can be no other Sense (a) Sicut non Corporaliter sed Spiritualiter Panis ille credentium Corpus DICITUR sic quoque Christi Corpus non Corporaliter sed Spiritualiter necesse est INTELLIGATUR n. 74. Aelfric saith Fol. 23. that Christians must not keep the Old Law lichamlice corporally i. e. literally But learn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it Spiritually signifieth that is of what Christian Duties it was the Figure And in this Sense the Letter and Spirit and the Flesh and Spirit are opposed each to other by Saint Paul. As the Bread is not corporally but spiritually that is not literally and properly but figuratively said to be the body of the Faithful so is there a necessity of understanding it in the same Sense to be the Body of Christ Not corporally SAID to be c. not corporally UNDERSTOOD c. can signifie nothing else but not literally and properly affirmed to be the Body of Christ or of the Faithful In this Sense the word Corporally is taken when it is applied to Terms and Propositions but when applied to things as the Baptismal Water the Consecrated Elements in the Eucharist or the Types of the Old Testament it signifies the natural Substance by positive Institution made a Figure in opposition to its Sacramental Signification and Virtue and our Homilist calls the spiritual Mystery the spiritual Virtue or spiritual Vnderstanding thereof 3. Aelfric so expounds Ratram as to make him expresly deny that the Holy Eucharist is Christ's Body in Truth of Nature and affirm it to be Bread and Wine after Consecration When the Objection is made Why is the Holy Sacrament called Christs Body and Blood if it be not Truly what it is called He admits that the Consecrated Elements are not in Verity of Nature the Body and Blood of Christ Whereas if Aelfric had been a Transubstantiatour he would have denied the Supposition and with M. Boileau have said The sensible part of the Holy Sacrament i. e. the Accidents of Bread and Wine are not Christ's Body they are only the Vails and Figures that cover it but his very natural Body and Blood are environed by and contained really under those Vails He would roundly have answered That by Consecration the Substance of Bread and Wine was substantially converted into Christ's Body and Blood so that nothing of their Substances but only the sensible Qualities and outward Figure of them remained Whereas he saith that we sensibly discern them in Figure and Tast to be Bread and Wine
able to resolve us I shall only add That had our Saxon Ancestors believed the Housel to be Christ's Natural and true Flesh it is incredible that their Canons should enjoyn fresh Consecrations every Week or Fortnight at longest to prevent such Accidents and that if (c) Canones sub Edgaro apud Spelman Concil Tom. I. vide Canon 38. p. gif hit forheaden sy þat his man brucan ne maege þonne sorbaern hit man on claenum fire I know the Roman Missal in some cases injoyns Burning but not till the Species be wholly corrupted when in the Judgment of the Schoolmen Christ's Body and Blood are retired the Housel grew stale and nauseous it should be burnt in a clear Fire and the Ashes buried under the Altar I say it is incredible that they should order it to be burnt if they believed it the very Body of our Saviour I shall trouble the Reader with nothing further till I come to shew how absurdly Mr. Boileau in his Remarks senseth some terms of Ratram whose true meaning the Saxon words used as equivalent in this Homily will very much illustrate III. My third Reason to shew that Mr. Boileau hath not given us a true account of the Sentiments and Design of Ratram is because his Arguments prove a great deal more than that there is a Figure in the Sacrament or that the Accidents are not the Sensible Truth of Christ's Body The very first Inference he makes is this (d) Claret quia Panis ille Vinumque FIGURATE Christi Corpus Sanguis EXISTIT n. 10. Hence it is evident that this Bread and Wine are Figuratively Christ's Body and Blood which is a great deal more than that there is a Figure in the Sacrament 1. He saith positively that this Bread and this Wine not the Sensible Qualities of them are Christ's Body and Blood. 2. He saith they are Figuratively not simply and in propriety of Nature Christ's Body and Blood. These words Mr. Boileau hath fraudulently Translated IN A FIGURE Again When he hath proved that there is no Physical change upon Consecration neither Generation nor Corruption nor Alteration he thence infers (e) Necesse est jam ut FIGURATE facta esse dicatur scil commutatio n. 16. that of necessity it must be Figuratively changed which is somewhat more than Mr. Boileau will acknowledge to have been in dispute between him and his Adversaries For it determines the Nature of the change to be Figurative and if so the Elements are not Substantially turned into Christ's Body and Blood as the Church of Rome hath defined That a Figurative change infers no Substantial change in Ratram's Judgment we may observe in his Explication of the words Figure and Verity where having said that Christ was by a Figure called Bread and a Vine he tells us however (f) Nam SUBSTANTIALITER nec Panis Christus nec Vitis Christus nec Palmites Apostoli Quapropter hic FIGURA n. 8. that Christ is not Substantially either Bread or a Vine c. And this is in express Terms the Heresie which Chifflet's Anonymous Writer chargeth Berengarius with advancing contrary to the Catholick Faith. He tells us (g) Asserens Panem Vinum in Sacrificio Domini non VERE ESSENTIALITER sed FIGURATE tantum CONVERTI in Corpus Sanguinem Dominicum Concil To. IX col 1050. Edit Labbei that Berengarius taught that the Consecrated Bread and Wine was not Truly and Essentially but only in a Figurative manner turned into Christ's Body and Blood. This Author is said to have written A. D. 1088. in which year Berengarius died and if he misrepresent not his Sentiments and understood what was then esteemed the Catholick Faith we have great reason to believe that had Bertram stood a Trial before the same Judges with Berengarius he would have fallen under the same Condemnation Mr. Boileau hopes to excuse him from asserting in the forementioned Expression that which he takes to be the Doctrine of Berengarius and the Reformed Churches by this shift Saith he (h) Remarks p. 219. II ne dit pas qu'ils sont seulement en Figure le Corpus de J. C. Ratram doth not teach that the Holy Eucharist is ONLY IN A FIGURE Christ's Body But this will not serve the turn For 1. If he intend by adding the word ONLY to make the Asserters of a Figurative change to exclude any Spiritual Efficacy or Grace annexed to this Sacrament and to own no more than empty Signs he grossly abuseth the Reformed Religion as may be seen by our Confessions No sober Protestant ever affirmed it nor did Berengarius who with Ratram owned a Divine Virtue therein conferring Grace (i) Sacramentum quidem transitorium est Virtus vero quae per ipsum operatur Gratia quae insinuatur aeterna Bereng in Ep. ad Ricardum Conc. Tom. XI col 1062. Which words with those that follow are ascribed to Paschase in the Bibl. Patrum Edit Par. 1610. Tom. VI. col 296. the order of the Sentences differs but the words are the same The Sacrament saith he is Transitory but the Virtue that worketh thereby and the Grace conferred is eternal Yet this Declaration did not satisfie the Councils of the XI Century nor did it please Paschase as hath been shewn and the Council of (k) Sed dixerit tantummodo esse in eo ut in Signo vel Figura aut Virtute Anathema sit Conc. Trid. Sess XIII Can. I. Trent hath Anathematized all such as acknowledge not Christ personally present in the Sacrament but only in Sign in Figure or Virtue 2. Ratram doth in effect say That the Consecrated Elements are ONLY in Figure and Virtue Christ's Body and Blood because he denies them to be Corporally or in Nature changed or to be Christ's Body born of the Virgin c. and affirms them to be the Figures Pledges Images Sacraments of Christs true and natural Flesh and Blood which are indeed more express Exclusives than the Conjunction ONLY I shall not here call Mr. Boileau to an account for his sly and fraudulent Translation of the word (l) En Figure instead of en maniere Figurative or par une Figure n. Figurate in a Figure in stead of by a Figure to insinuate that Ratram held Christ's natural Body to be invisibly under the Forms or remaining Accidents of Bread and Wine but remember him of it in another place Again The Parallel which Ratram makes between the Holy Eucharist and Baptism manifestly shews his intention to prove somewhat more than barely that there is a Figure in the Sacrament For the Analogy between the two Sacraments lieth in this as Material Water in Baptism without any Physical change hath through the Blessing annexed to that Institution by our Saviour a Spiritual Efficacy and Sanctifying Virtue which worketh a real effect on the Soul which resembleth the cleansing effect of common Water So in the Holy Eucharist Material Bread and Wine do by the same means obtain
should he rise from the Dead he would find his Sense and Doctrine as much changed as the French Tongue is since his days For Mr. Boileau doth not content himself to refer the Reader to the Margin or to his Remarks for the Exposition of a controverted Term which he might have done without impeaching his own Sincerity but he mixeth his gloss by way of Paraphrase with the Text and doth not by any difference of Character or by enclosing them in Hooks distinguish his own words from the Authors so that the Reader who understands not Latin cannot tell when he reads Bertram and when Mr. Boileau I shall not tire my self or the Reader with a compleat List of his unfair Dealings but give him some remarkable instances by which he may take an estimate of Mr. Boileau's exactness and fidelity I shall begin with his Fraudulent Omissions which are but few and of these I shall give you two Instances both near the beginning of the Book Mr. Boileau For it is not the Appearance of Flesh that is seen in that Bread or of Blood in the Wine Ratram N. 10. (h) Car ce n'est pas l'apparence de la chair que l'on voit dans ce pain ny du sang dans le vin Non enim secundum quod videtur vel carnis Species in illo Pane cognoscitur vel in illo vino cruoris unda monstratur Having rendred Species Carnis the appearance of Flesh he gently slides over the word unda and leaves it Untranslated by which means he tacitly insinuates to the unwary Reader that Ratram doth not deny the Substance of Flesh and Blood to be in the Sacrament But only saith that the Appearance of Flesh and Blood is not discerned therein Whereas the word unda Liquor imports the Liquid Substance of Blood and therefore by parity of Reason Species must signifie somewhat more than the meer visible accidents of Flesh So that if he deny the Substance of Blood to be in the Wine he could not believe the Substance of Flesh to be in the Bread. If it be alledged that Ratram only saith that they are not known or discerned or shewn therein he doth not say they are not there invisibly The answer is obvious Ratram esteemed our Senses competent Judges of what we orally receive in the Sacrament and able to distinguish Flesh from Bread. And withal as I shall shortly prove the words cognoscitur and monstratur and ostenditur are frequently used as the Copula of a Proposition and signifie no more than Est and have nothing of Emphasis in them Another crafty omission is of the word Sacrament which he leaves out in Translating the last words of Number XII Ratram Hic vero Panis Vinum prius fuere (i) Avant qu'ils passassent au Corps au sang de J. C. quam transitum in Sacramentum Corporis Sanguinis Christi fecerunt M. Boileau But here the Bread and Wine did exist before they passed into or were changed into the Body and Blood of Christ How wide difference there is between being turned into Christs Body and Blood and into the SACRAMENT of his Body and Blood any one knows who is not blind because he will not see I wonder why Mr. Boileau did not omit the same word in other like Passages as where our Author saith That Wine is made the Sacrament of Christs Blood by the Priests Consecration thereof And again That the Elements are Spiritually made Mysteries or Sacraments of Christs Body and Blood c. For these Expressions teach us how to understand him in other places where he saith That Bread and Wine are made the Body and Blood of Christ viz. that they are made the Memorials Symbols or Sacraments thereof For we have no reason to doubt that Ratram who from St. Augustine observeth that it is familiar to give the name of the thing signified to the Sign or Sacrament by reason of its Analogy thereunto I say we have no reason to doubt but that he frequently doth so himself in this Book I shall next give you a taste of his bold Paraphrases and Additions to the Author's Text so that it is very difficult for a Common Reader to distinguish Ratram's own words from Mr. Boileau's Exposition of them And passing by many of his less Material though large Interpolations I shall instance in some foisted in to serve the Cause of Transubstantiation against the Author's true Sense What is not in the Latin I have enclosed thus in Hooks for the Readers ease Ratram N. XI (k) Et que tout ce que l'on y voit soit la Pure Veritè Sed totum in Veritate conspiciatur Mr. Boileau But the whole that is seen there is the Pure verity So N. XXXII And in several other places he renders Veritas the Pure Verity If he believe that really to be the Author's meaning he might have advertised his Reader in a Marginal Note but the inserting that Explication into the Text is more than well consists with that great exactness in Translating to which he pretends It were easie to guess though he had not acquainted us in a Remark for what end he foisted in the word Pure it was to insinuate that Ratram disputes not against Paschase but against some unknown Adversaries who held there was no Vail or Figure in the Sacrament and that Christ's Body presented it self Naked to our View Now that these Extravagant Opinionists never had any being save in Mr. Boileau's Imagination hath been already shewn And as he is pleased to make them express their Sentiments viz. That the whole which is seen is the pure Verity it were more reasonable to think that they believed nothing but a Figure in the Sacrament nothing but Bread and Wine since nothing else is discerned by the Eye And he makes them elsewhere to say (l) Mais que tout y est tel qu'il paroist aux yeux n. 54. That the whole is just what it appears to the Eye If the Notion were that the Accidents of Bread and Wine whose first Subject was destroyed were translated into Christ's Natural Body it was very improper for him to make them say that the Sensible Object was the Pure Verity for it must needs be a Prodigious Compound of one Substance divested of its natural Qualities and the proper Accidents of another Substance Again This Translator in many places doth greatly corrupt the Author's Sense by inserting the Particle there which though it be the addition of a single Letter y in the French yet it makes almost as great a change in Ratram's Doctrine as the Arrians made in the Christian Faith by the addition of an Iota to the word Homoousios For hereby he insinuates the Presence of Christ's Natural Body in an invisible manner where the Author had no intention to say any thing of Christ's Presence at all but only to shew that the Consecrated Elements are Christ's Body and Blood which in Ratram's sense
the force of the word Nature it self do any way oblige him to it For 1. St. Ambrose parallels the change made by Consecration in the Holy Eucharist with several others which are not Substantial changes as the dividing the Waters of the (h) Nonne claret Naturam vel maritimorum fluctuum vel fluvialis cursus esse mutatam Ambros Ibid. Red Sea and Jordan The sweetning of the Waters of Marah the causing of Iron to swim which are only changes of the Natural Qualities not of the Substances of things 2. Neither doth Bertram expounding St. Ambrose any way Authorize that Gloss but on the contrary directs us to take the word Nature in another Sense by an express denial of any change in the Substance of Bread and Wine As to (i) Nam secundum Creaturarum Substantiam quod fuerunt ante Consecrationem hoc postea consistunt Panis Vinum prius extitere c. N. LIV. the Substance of the Creatures they continue after Consecration what they were before viz. Bread and Wine 3. Neither will he say that the word Natures can bear no other Sense who contends that the word Substance may signifie no more than the Sensible Qualities of a thing And it were gross Trifling for me to labour in the proof of the contrary by Examples Nevertheless I shall give him one out of Salvian speaking of some of those changes which St. Ambrose parallels with that in the Sacrament Having proved Gods Providence by miraculous methods in which he brought the Israelites out of Egypt protected and fed them in the Wilderness he goes on thus (k) Adde huc fontes repentè natos adde medicatas aquas vel datas vel immutatas SPECIEM servantes NATURAM relinquentes Salv. de Gub. l. 1. p. 21. Edit Baluz Par. 1669. To this add new Fountains instantly springing out of the Earth also Medicated Waters the one given Miraculously the others changed and made wholesome keeping their Species or Natural Substance and forsaking their Nature i. e. Natural Qualities viz. Bitterness and Unwholesomeness Here Species signifies the Substance and Natura the Sensible Quality of Bitterness Another corrupting Interpolation may be observed in the words which immediately follow N. LIV. (l) St. Ambroise dit due le changement qui se fait d'une chose en une autre est admirable c. Dicit Sanctus Ambrosius in illo Mysterio Sanguinis Corporis Christi commutationem esse factam mirabiliter c. St. Ambrose saith That in this Mystery of Christ's Body and Blood the change of one thing into another is admirable Not to insist on his licentious alteration of the Syntax I appeal to any Man that understands Latin whether Ratram make St. Ambrose to say (l) St. Ambroise dit due le changement qui se fait d'une chose en une autre est admirable c. that in the Sacrament one thing is changed into another that is as Mr. Boileau would have it (m) Remarquer p. 246. one Substance into another Ratram infers no more than this That there is a change made which no Body denies But that this change is of one thing or substance into another is Mr. Boileau's Fiction who basely imposeth on his Reader both in his Preface and Remarks citing this place so Translated to prove that this Author's Sentiments could not possibly be different from those of the Church of Rome Whereas in the words immediately following as I observed just before he denieth expresly any substantial change I might add many more Instances of his foul Glosses inserted into the Text such as Translating Veritas the Visible and Sensible Truth or with all its Dimensions Proprium Corpus Christi the Proper Body of Christ together with its Natural Properties c. But I am weary of tracing him in these By-ways and should I follow him further my trouble would be endless almost every Paragraph to the end of the Book being thus corrupted I shall therefore give but an Example or two of his bold Variations from the Author's Words as well as Sense N. XIV Quaerendum ergo est ab eis qui nihil hic Figurate volunt accipere sed totum in veritatis simplicitate consistere (n) Il faut donc demander comment ce Changement soit fait de sorte que les choses qui etoient auparavant ne soient plus c'est a dire que le pain le vin qui etoient auparavant ne soient plus mais c. secundum quod demutatio facta sit ut jam non sint quod ante fuerunt videlicet Panis atque Vinum sed sint Corpus atque Sanguis Christi It must be demanded of those who pretend that there is no Figure and who maintain that all is there spoken in the pure and simple Verity how this Change is made so that the things which were before are no longer that is the Bread and Wine which were or did exist before are or do exist no longer but are become the Body and Blood of J. Christ All that the Author intended to say was no more than this That after Consecration the Elements are not what they were before it but somewhat more excellent than common Bread and Wine viz. The Body and Blood of Christ He never intended to deny the Existence of the Elements as this Version makes him to do The words are plain and intelligible but Mr. Boileau by some unknown Rules of Construction inverts their natural Order and joyns a Nominative Singular to a Verb Plural and then by a sort of Logick as peculiar to himself making the Predicate the Subject of his Proposition so renders the Passage as by a (o) A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter vel ab est tertii adjecti ad est secundi adjecti in propositione Negativa quales consequentiae non necessario valent non raro falsissimae sunt Notorious Fallacy to make the Author deny the Existence of Bread and Wine immediately after he had been proving it and against the Scope of his Discourse in this place For Ratram thus argues against his Adversaries Either Consecration makes a Figurative Change of the Elements or else it makes no change The absurdity of saying the latter is this that then the Consecrated Elements are not the Body and Blood of Christ which to say is Impious And to make good his Consequence he reminds them of what he had largely proved just before that the Elements as to their Species or Nature had undergone no change there being no Substance produced a-new none corrupted nor yet so much as altered in its Natural Qualities by Consecration and therefore no Physical Change made thereby But Mr. Boileau is resolved in defiance both of Priscian and Aristotle to make poor Ratram say what he pleaseth I hope it may be denied of the Water in Baptism or the Chrism or a Church after Consecration that they are what they were before that is common
BERTRAM OR RATRAM Concerning the BODY and BLOOD OF THE LORD In LATIN With a New English Translation To which is Prefix'd An Historical Dissertation touching the Author and this Work. The Second Edition Corrected and Enlarged with an APPENDIX WHEREIN Monsieur Boileau's French Version and Notes upon BERTRAM are Considered and his Unfair Dealings in both Detected LONDON Printed by H. Clark for Thomas Boomer at the Chirurgeons-Arms in Fleetstreet near Temple-Bar 1688. Imprimatur Liber Ratramni de Corpore Sanguine Domini cum Versione Anglica Praefatione secundum hoc Exemplar ab Interprete recognitum cum Appendice Oct. 6. 1687. H. Maurice Rmo. in Christa P. D. Willielmo Archiepiscopo Cant. a Sacris Amplissimo Viro Generis Eruditions Virtutis Omnigenae Ornamentis Praenobili HENRICO COVENTRY Armigero Serenissimo Regi JACOBO II. uti pridem Fratri Charissimo CAROLO II. A Privatis Consiliis Cui etiam Optimo Principi Ob Fidem Patri Sibi nec non S. Matri Ecclesiae Anglicanae In adversis fortiter servatam Ob munera in S. Palatio honorifica Egregie defuncta Ob res arduas variis apud exteros Legationibus Summa Fidelitate Singulari Prudentia Parique felicitate Gestas Apprime Charus extitit Secretariusque Primicerius Hoc Opusculum Ratramni Corbeiensis De S. Eucharistia Fidei Veteris Ecclesiae Gallicanae Testis luculenti Nec non Nostrae vere Catholicae Anglicanae Vindicis Eximii Vna cum Versione Vernacula Dissertatione praemissa In Testimonium Obsequii Gratitudinis LMQDDDCQ VVHSAEPR Editor THE PREFACE IT is now seven Years and more since I first read over this little Piece of Bertram in Latin and the Satisfaction I had to see so Learned a Writer expresly confute the Error of Transubstantiation at its first rise in the Western Church invited me to a second and third Reading and the Book not being very common I entertained thoughts of Reprinting it both in Latin and English for remembring where I had seen an English Bertram Published by Sir Humphrey Lynd A. D. 1623. I promised my self that Publishing it in English would add but little to my trouble not suspecting that a Translation published by that Learned Gentleman could have been other than accurate I therefore got together as many various Editions of the Book as I could and sent for the English Version upon sight of which I saw my self disappointed For there are some Mistakes in rendring the Latin words two of which may be seen in the Preface For Instance Catholice Sapere is Translated to be universally Wise which should have been rendred to be Orthodox or Catholick in his Judgment and again Non aequanimiter ista perpendens is rendred though perhaps not quietly and indifferently considering of these things instead of sadly laying to heart these things viz. the Schism on occasion of the new Doctrin of Transubstantiation And several other slips of that kind I observed which made me guess the Translation could not be the work of the worthy Knight who recommended it to the Publick But had this been all a little time and pains might have rectified those Mistakes That which rendred the Translation unserviceable to me was the perplexity of the style through unnecessary Parentheses and the multiplying of Synonimous words and in some places by rendring the Author too much word for word so that it doth not give the Reader a clear apprehension of the Author's sense And to justifie this charge I need only refer the Reader to the ninth and tenth Pages of the new Impression of Bertram where he proves that Consecration makes no Physical change in the Bread and Wine but as he is there Translated his reasoning is hardly intelligible Yet I accuse not the Translator of unfaithfulness but freely acknowledge that had his skill been equal to his Fidelity I would have used his Version and saved my self the trouble of a new one which I made and transcribed in Septem 1681. Having finished my Translation I proceeded to collect materials for the Dissertation I intended which I cast into loose Papers and desiring a Learned Friend to assist me with what he knew on that Subject he put into my hands an Edition I had not before met with in French and Latine with a Learned Advertisement prefixed in which I found the Work designed by me was already very well performed so that my Labour might be spared Thus I laid aside my Papers and all thoughts of making them publick till about two Months since and then resumed them upon the request of some worthy Friends who judged it necessary since the Reprinting of the former Translation Besides the faults of the Translator in the new Impression there are great ones committed by the Printer in the Technical words of the Discourse particularly in the beginning of the Eleventh Page he hath printed Verity instead of Variety At the desire of those Gentlemen I resolved to Review and Print my Translation with the Authors Text that the Reader might have it in his Power to judge of my Fidelity therein And though I see no reason to be proud of my performance yet I persuade my self this Book will be somewhat more useful than that which now goes abroad In the Dissertation prefixed I have Collected all the little Historical Passages I have met with any where touching our Author and his Works and perhaps the Reader may think I insist too long upon some matters of no great moment But in regard Ratramnus was an extraordinary Man and no Body that I know hath in our Language given any considerable account of him and his Writings I thought it would not be altogether unacceptable to the Reader Though the French Advertisement be exceedingly well done yet I have had great helps for the clearing the Antiquity and Authority of that Tract which the Author of that Advertisement wanted To mention no other the most Learned and Ingenuous Father Mabillon to whom I acknowledge my self obliged for my best Informations had not then published the Acts of the Benedictines of the IX Century in which our Author lived What I design in my Dissertation the Contents of each Chapter will inform the Reader I shall only add that my design is not to engage in the Controversie of Transubstantiation which is so compleatly handled and clearly discussed by the Learned and Reverend Author of a small Discourse against it that it is wholly needless for me or any one else to write further on that Argument All I intend is with Fidelity to relate what I have upon diligent search been able to Collect touching the Author and Work which I Publish and I hope I have said what may prevail with all Impartial Judges to admit our Author for a competent Witness of the belief of the Church in his Age touching Christs Presence in the Holy Sacrament THE CONTENTS Chap. I. AN Historical Account of the Author and his Writings Chap. II. Of his Treatise concerning Christ's Body and Blood and the Author
consecrated Wine were corporally converted into Christs blood the Water mixt with it must be corporally converted in the blood of the Faithful People I say after all this I would fain know whether it be possible to impose this sense upon Ratramnus I must more than half Transcribe the Book should I collect all Passages which confute F. Mabillion's Notion of the change which Ratramnus owns His sense is very clear to any man who shuts not his Eyes where he enumerates the three several kinds of Physical or Natural Changes and proves that the Sacramental Change which Consecration makes is none of these * Sect. 12. 13 14 15. Not Generation for no new being is produced Not corruption for the Bread and Wine are not destroyed but remain after Consecration in truth of Nature what they were before Not alteration for the same sensible qualities still appear Wherefore since Consecration makes a change and it is not a Natural but a Spiritual change he concludes it is wrought †Sect. 16. Figuratively or Mystically and that there are not together in the Sacrament two different things a Body and a Spirit but that it is one and the same thing which in one respect viz. Naturally is Bread and Wine and in another respect viz. of its signification and efficacy is Christs Body and Blood. Or as he saith presently they are in their nature corporeal Creatures but according to their virtue or efficacy they are Spiritually made Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ And this Spiritual virtue feeding the Soul and ministring to it the sustenance of Eternal Life is that which Bertram means when he saith that it is mystically changed into the substance of his Body and Blood for he calls this virtue Substantiam vitae Aeternae and as he calls our spiritual nourishment the Bread of Eternal Life and the substance of Eternal Life so in the place cited by F. Mabillon he useth the word substance in the same sense viz. for food or sustenance and he elsewhere calls it the Bread of Christs Body and presently after explaining himself calls it the Bread of Eternal Life * Manifestum est de quo pane loquitur de pane videlicet Corporis Christi qui non ex eo quod vadit in corpus sed ex eo quod panis sit vitae aeternae c. Sect. 68. He means by the substance of Christs Body in that place what he here calls the Bread of Christs Body and Sect. 83. Esca illa Corporis Domini Potus ille Sanguinis ejus are terms equivalent to Substantia in the place cited by F. Mabillon If F. Mabillon had observed those two excellent Rules for understanding the sense of Old Authors which he quotes out of Facundus viz. not to interpret them by the chink of words but their intention and scope and to explain dubious and obscure passages by plain ones He could not have concluded him to hold a carnal Presence and Transubstantiation But we are not to wonder that the Romanists attempt to reconcile Bertram with Transubstantiation though he wrote expresly against it when we remember that †Ad calcem libri cui Titulus Deus Natura Gratia. Quarto Ludg. 1634. Franc a sancta Clara about 50 years since had the confidence to attempt the expounding the 39 Articles of our Church so as to make them bear what he calls a Catholick sense though they are many of them levelled by the Compilers point blank against the Errors of the Roman Church 3 To these I may add what by consequence destroyeth Transubstantiation and Christs carnal Presence in the Sacrament I mean he frequently affirms That what the mouth receiveth feeds and nourisheth the body and that it is what Faith only receiveth that nourisheth the Soul and affords the sustenance of Eternal Life I know our Adversaries tell us those Accidents have as much nourishing virtue as other substances So the Authors of the Belgick Index * Index Expurg Belg. in Bertramo answer the Berengarian experiment of some who have lived only upon the Holy Sacrament Sure they must be very gross Accidents if they fill the belly But what if the Trent Faith that the Accidents of Bread and Wine remain without their substances be built upon a mistaken Hypothesis in Philosophy What if there be no such thing in Nature as pure Accidents What if Colours Tasts and Scents are nothing else but matter in different positions lights or motions and little parts of the substance it self sallying out of the body and making impressions apon the Organs of Sense Which Hypothesis is embraced by the most curious Philosophers of our Age who have exploded the former what then becomes of the Species or Accidents imagined to subsist in the Air To close this Digression I shall add * Bell. explic Doct. Christ De Sanctissima Eucharist Quicunque hanc statuam videbat ille speciem figuramque uxoris Loth videbat quae tamen uxor Loth amplius non fuit sed Sal sub specie mulieris delitescens Bellarmines Illustration of a body under species not properly its own He tells his Catechumen Lots Wife was turned into a Pillar of Salt and yet the species and likeness of a Woman remained She was no longer Lots Wife but Salt hid under the Species or outward form of a Woman Thus do Errours and Absurdities multiply without end I have said enough to shew that Bertram expresly contradicts the Doctrine of Transubstantiation but I must add a word or two in Answer to the Evasions of the Romanists Cardinal Perron tells us that the Adversaries whom Ratramnus encounters were the Stercoranists a sort of Hereticks that rose up in the IX Century and (a) Vterque Stercoranistarum Haeresin quae illo tempore orta est confutavit uterque Catholicam veritatem asseruit sed Radbertus Transubstantiationis veritatem clarius expressit Maug Tom. 2. Diss c. 17. p. 134. Mauguin followeth him with divers others They are said to Believe that Christ's Body is corruptible passible and subject to Digestion and the Draught and that the Accidents were Hypostatically united to Christ's Body But we read of no such Errours censured by any Council in that Age we do not find any Person of that Time branding any Body with that infamous hard Name The Persons whom some late Writers have aaccused as Authors of that Heresie viz. Rabanus Archbishop of Mentz and Heribaldus Bishop of Auxerre lived and died with the repute of Learned Orthodox and Holy Men and are not accused by any of their own Time of those foul Doctrines The first I can learn of the Name is that Humbertus Bishop of Sylva Candida calls Nicetas Stercoranist And Algerus likewise calls the Greeks so for holding that the Sacrament broke an Ecclesiastical Fast which is nothing to the Gallicane Church and the IX Century If (a) Vide Labbeum de script Eccles Tom. 1. p. 484. Cardinal Humbert drew up Berengarius his
our Lord's Passion or Resurrection is celebrated are called by the name of those Days because they have some Resemblance of those very Days in which our Saviour once suffered and rose again XXXVIII Hence we say to Day or to Morrow or next Day is the Passion or Resurrection of our Lord whereas the very Days in which those things were done are long past So we say the Lord is offered when the Sacraments of his Passion are celebrated Whereas he was but once offered in his own Person for the Salvation of the World as the Apostle saith (a) 1 Pet. 2.21 Christ hath suffered for us leaving you an Example that you should follow his steps Not that Christ suffers every day in his own Person This he did but once but he hath left us an Example which is every day presented to the Faithful in the Mystery of the Lord's Body and Blood So that whosoever cometh thereunto must understand that he ought to have a fellowship with him in his Sufferings the Image whereof he expects to receive in the Holy Mysteries according to that of the Wise-man (a) Prov. 23.1 2. If thou comest to the Table of a Great man consider diligently what is set before thee knowing that thou thy self must prepare the like To come to this Great-man's Table is to be made a Partaker of the Divine Sacrifice To consider what is set before thee is to understand the Lord's Body and Blood of which whosoever is partaker ought to prepare the like that is to imitate him by dying with him whose Death he commemorates not only in believing but also in eating XXXIX So St. Paul to the Hebrews (a) Heb. 7.26 27. Such an High Priest became us who is holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners and made higher than the Heavens who needeth not as those daily to offer up Sacrifice first for his own Sins and then for the Peoples For this the Lord Jesus Christ did once when he offered himself What he did once he now every day repeats For he once offered himself for the Sins of the People yet the same Oblation is every day celebrated by the Faithful but in a Mystery So that what the Lord Jesus Christ once offering himself really did the same is every day done in Remembrance of his Passion by the Celebration of the Mysteries or Sacraments XL. Nor yet is it falsly said That in those Mysteries the Lord is offered or suffereth because they have a Resemblance of his Death and Passion whereof they are Representations whereupon they are called The Lord's Body and the Lord's Blood because they take the Names of those things whereof they are the Sacrament For this reason St. Isidore in his Book of Etymologies saith thus Sacrificium the Sacrifice is so called from Sacrum Factum a sacred Action because it is consecrated by mystical Prayer in Memory of the Lord's Passion for us Whence by his Command we call it the Body and Blood of Christ which though made of the Fruits of the Earth is sanctified and made a Sacrament by the invisible Operation of the Spirit of God. Which Sacrament of the Bread and Cup the Greeks call the Eucharist that is in Latine bona Gratia good Grace And what is better than the Body and Blood of Christ * These words which lie between two little Stars are not in the Printed Editions of St. Isidore I wish they were not purposely omitted by the Publishers of his Works or rather expunged anciently by the Enemies of Berengarius Now Bread and Wine are therefore compared to the Body and Blood of Christ because as the Substance of this visible Bread and Wine feed and inebriate the outward man so the Word of God which is the living Bread doth refresh the Souls of the Faithful by the receiving thereof * These words which lie between two little Stars are not in the Printed Editions of St. Isidore I wish they were not purposely omitted by the Publishers of his Works or rather expunged anciently by the Enemies of Berengarius XLI Likewise this Catholick Doctor teaches That the holy Mystery of the Lord's Passion should be celebrated in Remembrance of the Lord 's Suffering for us In saying whereof he shews that the Lord suffered but once but the Memory of it is represented in sacred and solemn Rites XLII So that the Bread which is offered though made of the Fruits of the Earth when Consecrated is changed into Christ's Body as also the Wine which flowed from the Vine is by Sacramental Consecration made the Blood of Christ not visibly indeed but as this Doctor speaks by the invisible Operation of the Spirit of God. XLIII And they are called the Blood and Body of Christ because they are understood to be not what they outwardly appear but what they are inwardly made by the invisible Operation of the Holy Ghost And that this invisible Operation renders them much a different thing from what they appear to our Eyes he St. Isidore observes when he saith That the Bread and Wine are therefore compared to the Lord's Body and Blood because as the Substance of material Bread and Wine doth nourish the outward Man so the Word of God which is the Bread of Life doth refresh the Souls of the Faithful in partaking thereof XLIV In saying this we most plainly confess That in the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood whatsoever is outwardly received serves only for the Refreshment of the Body But the Word of God who is the invisible Bread being invisibly in the Sacrament doth in an invisible manner nourish and quicken the Souls of the Faithful by their partaking thereof XLV Wherefore again the same Doctor saith There is a Sacrament in any divine Office when the thing is so managed that there is somewhat understood which must be spiritually taken In saying thus he shews that every Sacrament or Mystery of Religion contains in it some secret thing And that there is one thing that visibly appears and another thing to be Spiritually understood XLVI And soon after shewing what are the Sacraments which the Faithful should celebrate he saith And these Sacraments are Baptism Chrism or Confirmation and the Body and Blood of Christ Which are called Sacraments because under the Coverture of bodily things the Power of God doth in a secret way work the Salvation or Grace conferred by them And from these secret and sacred Vertues they are called Sacraments And in the following words he saith It is called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Mystery because it contains a secret or hidden Dispensation XLVII What do we learn hence but that the Body and Blood of Christ are therefore called Mysteries because they contain a secret and hidden Dispensation That is it is one thing which they outwardly make Shew of and another thing which they operate inwardly and invisibly XLVIII And for this Reason they are called Sacraments because under the Covert of bodily Things a
proper Body which he assumed of the Virgin which might be seen and felt after his Resurrection as he saith to his Disciples Luke 24.40 Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have XC Let us hear also what St. He urges the Authority of Fulgentius Fulgentius speaks in his Book of Faith. Firmly believe and doubt not in any wise that the very only begotten Son God the Word being made Flesh (a) Ephes 5.2 offered himself for us a Sacrifice and Oblation of a sweet smelling savour to God to whom with the Father and Holy Ghost by Patriarchs Prophets and Priests living Creatures were sacrificed in the time of the Old Testament and to whom now that is under the New together with the Father and Holy Ghost with whom he hath one and the same Divinity the Catholick Church throughout the World ceaseth not to offer a Sacrifice of Bread and Wine in Faith and Charity In those Carnal Sacrifices there was a signification of the Flesh of Christ which he without Sin should offer for our Sins and of that Blood which he was to shed on the Cross for the Remission of our Sins but in this Sacrifice there is a Thanksgiving and Commemoration of that Flesh of Christ which he offered for us and of that Blood which the same Christ our God hath shed for us Of which the Apostle St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles saith (a) Acts 20.28 Take heed to your selves and to the whole Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops to rule the Church of God which he redeemed with his own Blood. In those Sacrifices what was to be given for us was represented in a Figure but in this Sacrifice what is already given is evidently shewn XCI By saying That in those Sacrifices was signified what should be given for us but that in this Sacrifice what is already given is commemorated he plainly intimates That as those Sacrifices were a Figure of things to come so this is the Figure of things already past XCII By which Expressions he most evidently shews how vast a difference there is between that Body of Christ in which Christ suffered and that Body which we celebrate in remembrance of his Death and Passion For the former is properly and truly his Body having nothing mystical or figurative in it The latter is mystical shewing one thing to our outward Senses by a Figure and inwardly representing another thing by Faith. XCIII He concludes with another Testimony of S. Augugustine Let me add one Testimony more of Father Augustine which will confirm what I have said and shall put an end to my Discourse in his Sermon to the People touching the Sacrament of the Altar Thus he saith What it is which you see upon God's Altar you were shewn last Night but you have not yet heard what it is what it meaneth and of how great a Thing this is a Sacrament That which you see is Bread and the Cup thus much your own Eyes inform you But that wherein your Faith needs Instruction is that this Bread is the Body of Christ and the Cup is the Blood of Christ This is a short account of the Matter and perhaps as much as Faith requires but Faith needeth further Instruction as it is written (a) Isa 7.9 Except you believe you will not understand You may be apt to say to me You require us to believe expound to us that we may understand Such a Thought as this may arise in any man's Heart We know that our Lord Jesus Christ took Flesh of the Virgin Mary when an Infant he was suckled nourished grew and arrived to the Age of a young Man was Persecuted by the Jews suffered was hanged on a Tree put to Death taken down and buried the third day he rose again and on that day himself pleased he ascended the Heavens and carried up his Body thither and shall from thence come to Judge both quick and dead where he is now sitting at the right Hand of the Father How is Bread his Body and how is the Cup or the Liquor in the Cup his Blood These my Brethren are stiled Sacraments because in them we see one thing and understand another That which we see hath a Bodily Nature that which is understood hath a Spiritual Fruit or Efficacy XCIV In these Words this Venerable Author instructs us what we ought to believe touching the proper Body of Christ which was born of the Virgin Mary and now sitteth at the right Hand of God and in which he will come to Judge the Quick and the Dead as also touching that Body which is placed on the Altar and received by the People The former is entire neither subject to be cut or divided nor is it veiled under any Figure But the latter which is set on the Lord's Table is a Figure because it is a Sacrament That which is outwardly seen hath a Corporeal Nature which feeds the Body but that which is understood to be contained within it hath a spiritual Fruit or Virtue and quickneth the Soul. XCV And in the following Words having a Mind to speak more plainly and openly touching this Mystical Body he saith If you have a mind to understand the Body of Christ hearken to the Apostle who saith Ye are the Body of Christ and his Members And if ye are the Body of Christ and his Members then there is a Mystical Representation of your selves set on the Lord's Table You receive the Mystery of your selves and answer Amen and by that Answer (a) i.e. Own your selves to be the Body and Members of Christ subscribe to what you are Thou hearest the Body of Christ named and answerest Amen become thou a Member of Christ that thy Amen may be true (a) i. e. How are we represented as Christ's Body in the Bread But why in the Bread I shall offer nothing of my own but let us hear what the Apostle (b) 1 Cor. 10.17 himself speaks of this Sacrament who saith And we being many are one Bread and one Body in Christ c. XCVI St. Augustine sufficiently teaches us That as in the Bread set upon the Altar the Body of Christ is signified so is likewise the Body of the People who receive it That he might evidently shew That Christ's proper Body is that in which he was born of the Virgin was suckled suffered died was buried and rose again in which he ascended the Heavens sitteth on the right Hand of the Father and in which he shall come again to Judgment But this which is placed upon the Lord's Table contains a Mystery of that as also the Mystery of the Body of the Faithful People according to that of the Apostle And we being many are one Bread and one Body in Christ. XCVII Your Wisdom He determines this second Question in the negative Most Illustrious Prince may observe how both by Testimonies out of the
and that (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore not in verity of Nature in spiritual Mystery they are truly Christs Body and Blood that is Sacramentally or in Signification Again he Illustrates the matter by comparing the change made by Consecration in the Eucharist with a twofold change made in Baptism neither of which is a substantial change 1 (c) Fol. 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inwardly changed With the change made in the Person Baptised who is inwardly changed not in Nature or Substance either of Soul or Body but morally 2 (d) gelice on hiÆ¿oðrum Æ¿aeterum i. e. Common Water a corruptible Liquor So the Eucharist With the change wrought in the Baptismal Water whose Substance as well as the sensible Accidents is confessed to remain and which by Consecration only acquires a Sanctifying Virtue And as he saith of the Water that in Verity of Nature it is a corruptible Liquor So (e) Hit is on gecynd brosniendlic hlaf and brosniendlic Æ¿in In Nature corruptible and therefore common Bread and Wine gesepenlican hiÆ¿e agenes gecyndes Fol. 34. which is of the same importance with Substantiae suae Species in Ratr. de Pred l. 2. p. 88. On gecynd is Substantialiter for so it is Translated by Aelfric where Bertram saith That Christ is neither Bread â—or a Vine Substantialiter n. 8. saith he of the Holy Eucharist it is in kind or nature Corruptible Bread and Wine distinguishing between the Invisible or Spiritual Virtue of it and the visible Species of its proper Nature This latter expression confounds the Popish Notion of Species conjoining the sensible Accidents with the Substance upon which Aelfric immediately addeth It is in kind or nature corruptible Bread and Wine but through the power of the Divine Word it is truly Christ's Body and Blood yet not corporally but spiritually The Saxon Word (f) gecynd signifying kind or nature cannot be perverted as the Latin Species is because though perhaps it may sometimes signifie the Natural Qualities of a thing yet it never signifies the Image or Resemblance of a thing and much less the sensible Qualities without their Subject Again he makes (g) Fol. 36. and Fol. 44. He bad them not to eat the Body ðe he mid befanten Æ¿aes in which he was apprehended but he meant the Holy Housel or Eucharist the Sacrament not to be Christ's Body wherein he Suffered nor his Blood shed on the Cross but to be his Body and Blood as the Manna and Rock in the Wilderness were And how is that (h) Fol. 40. Nas se stan lichamlice Crist ac he getacnode Crist. Not Corporally i. e. Not in Substance or truth of Nature Not Corporally Christ but it signified or was a Type of Christ Again reciting the words of our Saviour spoken to his Disciples Aelfric expounds THIS as signifying Bread which whoever doth cannot understand those words literally by the confession of our Adversaries (i) Etaþ Æ¿isne hlaf hit is min lichama This occurs twice in the Homily Fol. 28. and in Aelfrics latter Epistle Fol. 68. Eat THIS BREAD IT is my Body Which also Ratram in effect doth in those places which M. Boileau with little reason brags of for they make against him where he saith The Bread and Cup which is called and IS the Body and Blood of Christ For if Bread and the Cup be the Subject they cannot be affirmed to be the Body and Blood of our Saviour which was Born of the Virgin For Bread and Wine were not Born of the Virgin. Nor were they in rerum natura when our Saviour's Body was broken and his Blood shed for us on the Cross and consequently could not be that very Body And therefore of two absurd Opinions Transubstantiation seem'd a less absurdity than Consubstantiation and accordingly the Romanists being sensible of it rejected (k) Which appears to have been the Notion of Rupertus and others who held a Corporal Presence see the Preface to a Determination of Joan. Parisiensis Impanation and asserted a Miraculous Conversion whereby the substance of Bread is destroyed Now this Ratram in several places affirms viz. That Bread is Christ's Body but then teacheth us elsewhere in what sense he affirms it is so Figuratively it is so Spiritually which is the same The like also doth Aelfric with great Caution more than once adding nevertheless not so Corporally but Spiritually that is by a Figure In the same sense as the great City where our Lord was Crucified is said to be Spiritually called Sodom and Egypt Rev. 11.8 which all confess to be Figurative To this I shall add as a further evidence of our Saxon Ancestors belief that the Elements remain in their first substance that the Translator (l) Os þysum eorþlican Æ¿ine Mat. 26.29 of St. Matthew's Gospel calleth the Consecrated Wine Earthly Wine which was a voluntary Gloss to the use whereof the (m) De genimine vitis the Vulgar Latine gave him no Invitation and the same words are by Translators of the other Evangelists rendred literally The Fathers understand our Saviour to speak of the Consecrated Wine which this Translator would never have called Earthly Wine if he or the Saxon Church had believed it to be the Natural Blood of Christ or not believed the substance of Wine to remain after Consecration 4. Aelfric all along so expresseth himself that any Man may see he did not hold the Substance of Christ's Body and Blood to be in the Sacrament but only the Virtue and Efficacy thereof This is Ratram's express Doctrine and reflected on with displeasure by Paschase (n) Miror quid velint nunc quidam dicere non in re esse veritatem Carnis Christi vel Sanguinis sed in Sacramento Virtutem Carnis non Carnem virtutem Sanguinis non Sanguinem Figuram non Veritatem who professeth to wonder what some Persons meant who said that the Eucharist was not in reality Christ's true Flesh and Blood but Sacramentally the Virtue of his Flesh not Flesh the Virtue of Blood not Blood a Figure not the Truth Accordingly Aelfric when there is occasion to make an Antithesis of the Visible Sign to the Res Sacramenti doth not oppose an Invisible Substance or a Spiritual Body to the Visible Sacrament but only an Invisible Power or Virtue As in Baptism the Sanctifying Virtue to the Corruptible Liquor So in the Lord's Supper he opposeth a Spiritual Virtue to the Sensible Object which he calls a Corruptible Creature adding that there is a vast difference between the Invisible Virtue of the Holy Eucharist and the Visible shape of its proper Nature And speaking of some Mens receiving a bigger piece of the Consecrated Bread and others a less he saith the (o) Ac hit biþ ðeah phpaeder aeften gast lure miht on aelcum daele eall Fol. 36. whole Virtue not Substance of Christ's Body is as much in the one as the other and the Virtue being entire
Saviour But can any man in his Wits believe that their Scruple was meerly about the cutting and mangling of our Saviour's Body and that they would have made no bones of swallowing him whole No sure they stumbled at the Literal Sense of his Words they could not digest a command to eat mans Flesh which seemed as St. Austine observes to be an impious Precept and they would no doubt have as much abhorred him could such a Monster have been found who should swallow a man whole as an ordinary Canibal But is Mr. Boileau in earnest when he tells us (w) J'ay ajoute c'est a dire en la broiant avec les dents le coupant par morceaux parce que c'est le veritable sens de ces mots Charnellement c. Remarques p. 236. that to cut Christ's Body in pieces and tear it with the Teeth is the true Notion of Carnal eating Doth our Saviour's answer to those murmuring Deserters any wise countenance this Notion Doth it give the least hint that their mistake and scandal lay in apprehending that Christ's Body was to be eaten piece-meal No but he blames their stupidity for taking his Words which are SPIRIT and LIFE in a carnal or litteral Sense St. Austine cited by Bertram expounding our Saviour's Answer makes it import that his words touching the necessity of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood must be Spiritually that is Mystically and not carnally or literally understood In another place cited by (x) N. 33 34. Bertram he makes the hard saying an Instance of the necessity of understanding the words of Scripture in a Figurative Sense telling us those words are a FIGURE enjoyning us to communicate in our Saviour's Sufferings by a faithful and profitable commemoration of his Death on the Cross for us I confess both St. Austine and Bertram describing the mistake of these Disciples deny that his Body was to be cut into pieces and eaten by bits but they make not this to have been the scruple of those Infidels nor do either of those Writers so much as hint that Christ's Body was to be swallowed whole On the contrary St. Austine makes it to have been their Erroneous conceit that (y) Illi putabant se erogaturum Corpus suum ille autem dixit se ascensurum in coelum utique integrum Apud Ratram n. 80. Christ intended to give them his Natural Body his Body which they saw with their Eyes And Bertram shewing how our Saviour's Words confute that gross Conceit saith by way of Paraphrase on them that when his Disciples should behold him ascend into Heaven with his Body and Blood entire and without Diminution they should then understand the mistake of those carnal Infidels viz. That he did not command them to eat his Natural Body which was impossible since it was conveyed from them unto Heaven This Paraphrase he borrowed from (z) Verba quae locutus sum Spiritus Vita sunt spiritualiter intelligite quod locutus sum Non hoc Corpus quod videtis manducaturi estis c. Aug. in Ps 98. in Joannem Tract 27. Intellexerunt quia disponebat Jesus carnem qua indutum erat verbum veluti concisam distribuere credentibus c. St. Austine whom he cites for it N. 80. And (a) Sax. Hom. Fol. 44. Aelfric as hath been shewn expounds the words as did (b) Aug. in Ps 98. St. Aust Again N. XL. (c) Parce que comme la Substance visible c'est a dire ce qui paroist aux yeux de ce pain de ce vin Sicut hujus Visibilis Panis Vinique substantia exteriorem nutrit inebriat hominem c. As the Visible Substance that is to say what appears to our Eyes of this Bread and this Wine nourisheth and quencheth the thirst of the outward man c. In rendring this half Sentence there is a double Fraud committed 1. The Adjective Visible is unduly applied to the word Substance whereby he hoped to persuade the Reader that Substance is not here to be understood in its proper Sense but only for the Sensible Qualities of Bread and Wine whereas this Author joyned that Adjective to the Bread and Wine Isidore saith (d) Hujus visibilis Panis Vinique Substantia The substance of this Visible Bread and Wine not as Mr. Boileau Translates him the Visible Substance i. e. Qualities of this Bread and Wine feed the outward Man. 2. The Notion of the word Visible is corrupted by the Translator's Gloss inserted into the Text of Isidore viz. That which appears to the Eye of this Bread c. viz. the Accidents whereas the Author meant material Bread and Wine The Passage is a clear Authority against Transubstantiation and deserves a Remark or two 1. The Bread and Wine whereof he speaks is Consecrated Bread and Wine which the Pronoun THIS demonstrates 2. He saith that the SUBSTANCE of this Bread and Wine after Consecration do nourish the Body 3. He calls it Visible Bread and Wine which Term is so far from importing what our Adversaries would have it viz. The Sensible Qualities only that it signifies Material Bread and Wine as I hope to prove beyond all Dispute when I come to Examine Mr. Boileau's Exposition of the Controverted Terms So that I do not wonder that these words are not now read in Isidore's Works In the like manner he corrupts Bertram N. LII (e) Car ce Corps Visible Sensible que l'on recoit Hoc enim quod sumit Corpus Corruptibile est For this Visible and Sensible Body which is received is subject to Corruption The Epithetes Visible and Sensible are impertinently as well as deceitfully foisted in for if he had minded the Authors words Corpus in that place imports not the Body of Christ received but the Body of the Receiver and the Clause should have been thus rendred That which the Body receives is Corruptible I should not have taken notice of this Slip as I have not of some other meer slips in Translation had it not been for the Fraud thereby designed A worse piece of false dealing appears in the next Paragraph N. LIII where he adds a false Gloss to the words of St. Ambrose Doth it not require a greater power to Create a thing of nothing than to change the Natures that is the Substances of things Nonne majus est novas res dare quam mutare (f) Pour changer les Natures c'est a dire les Substances des choses naturas He tells us (g) Remarks p. 245. That the Natures here mentioned can be no other than those of Bread and Wine changed into Christs Body and Blood and this obliged him to add the word Substances by way of Explication Now admitting what he saith I can see no such necessity of understanding the word of the Natural Substances of the Elements Neither this Context of St. Ambrose to which he refers nor Bertram's Exposition of that Father nor yet
Specierum sed ipsae quae postulantur Species inferendae Cod. Theod. l. xi Tit. 2. Leg. 4. requiring them to be brought in kind and not a composition for them in Mony Particularly that the (m) Speciem Vini Ibid. Leg. 2. Species of Wine be paid in Kind There are Laws to compel all Farmers to furnish their proportions of all Species to oblige Men and Ships and Wagons for the Carriage of them to Rome and other places Laws also directing the mixing of sweet and fresh with the Species decayed and corrupted by long lying in publick Granaries and Cellars Cassiodorus (n) 1. Speciem Laridi lib. 2. Ep. 12. 2. Tritici Speciem l. 3. Ep. 41. Vini tritici panici Speciem l. 12. Ep. 26. Vini olei vel tritici Species l. 12. Ep. 23. 3. 4. Casei Vini Palmatiani Species l. 12. Ep. 12. 5. De ferro l. 3. Ep. 25. Convenit itaque hanc Speciem diligenti indagatione rimari in his Epistles issues out orders for the providing of the Species 1 of Bacon 2 wheat 3 4 Cheese wine and 5 Iron And the Law-Notion of the Term I conceive took its rise from the great variety of Necessaries of several sorts and kinds that are requisite for the subsistance of Armies or great Cities or else from the variety of such Provisions paid in the Nature of Rents or Tribute Now as the word Sacrament is generally acknowledged to be a term borrowed from the Roman Military Laws so probably was the word Species and as Corn and Wine and other stores for the publick use either of the Prince the City or Army go by that Name especially what came in by way of Pension (o) Species praeterea quae mensis Regiis apparentur perquirite l. 12. Ep. 18. or Tribute so it is not unlikely that the Oblations of the Faithful brought to the Altar as a Tribute to God for the use of his Holy Table consisting of Bread and Wine the two main supports of Life might in allusion thereunto be called Species by Ecclesiastick Writers Now this premised I shall attempt to shew two things 1. That Species in Bertram imports the same thing which ' its used to signifie in the first (p) Bestias terra juxta Species suas Gen. l. 25. of Genesis by the Author of the Vulgar Latin Version viz. the Specifick Nature the Substance as well as the Appearance 2. That the word bears the same sense in other Authors and particularly in the Books de Sacramentis falsly ascribed to St. Ambrose To evince the former I shall present you with some passages which will appear very absur'd if the word be understood in Mr. Boileau's sense And I shall begin with that on which he himself hath bestowed a Remark (q) Quoniam secundum veritatem Species Creaturae quae fuerat ante permansisse cognoscitur n. 12. For ' its well known that the Species of the Creature remains in Truth what it was before Now if by Species we are with Mr. Boileau to understand the sensible Appearance these absurdities will follow 1. Ratram will contradict himself in what he had said in the very Sentence next before viz. (r) Hic quoque non iste transitus sc ab esse ad non esse factus esse cognoscitur Ibid. That in the Sacrament nothing is changed by way of Corruption nothing passeth from being into a state of Non Existence If in these words he intended only to affirm that the Accidents of Bread and Wine and not their Substance do remain after Consecration How can he say that nothing here is Corrupted if he thought that Accidents only remained and that their Specifick Nature perished 2. Whereas Ratram proposeth a distinction consisting of three Members if Species import only the sensible Qualities the two latter Members will be Coincident For in the next Paragraph (Å¿) Nihil enim hic vel tactu vel colore vel sapore permutatum esse deprehenditur n. 13. he proves there is no alteration because we perceive no Alteration either as to Touch Colour or Tast Now if in the preceeding Paragraph he designed only to assert that the sensible Qualities remain after Consecration I desire to be informed what other sensible qualities the Holy Elements have besides those here mentioned 3. It is plain that as passing from Non Entity into being is a substantial Change so the contrary is a substantial Change whereas if Species do not import the substance instead of the universally received distinction of two sorts of Substantial Mutation and one Accidental he makes Ratram the Author of a Novel and unknown Distinction of two kinds of Accidental Mutation and one Substantial And I might add that the Emphatical word in Truth which I take to signifie verity of Nature must stand for just nothing whereas the true meaning of the place is That the Creatures of Bread and Wine remain in Reality after Consecration what they were before Again (t) Figurae sunt secundum speciem visibilem n. 49. They are Figures in respect of the Visible Species In this place if we understand him of the Sensible Qualities the Assertion is false for it is the substance of Bread and Wine which have any resemblance of the Body and Blood of Christ the Accidents have no Analogy to it or the Benefits of our Saviours Death It is not Whiteness or Roundness or Driness or Moistness but the substance of Bread and Wine which feeds the Body and therefore aptly represents the Spiritual Improvements which the Soul finds in the worthy participation of the Holy Eucharist and therefore what Ratram calls the Visible Species in the former part of the Paragraph is stiled the Visible Creature in the latter Again (u) Quod illa Caro secundum quam Crucifixus est Christus sepultus non sit Mysterium sed Veritas Naturae haec vero Caro quae nunc similitudinem illius in Mysterio continet non sit Specie caro sed Sacramento Si quidem in Specie Panis est c. n. 57. where he tells us That the Flesh in which Christ suffered was no Mystery but the Truth of Nature whereas his Body in the Holy Eucharist is not Flesh in Specie but in Sacrament or Mystery for in Specie its Bread There will be no Antithesis unless we understand him to deny the Sacrament to be Flesh in the same sense wherein he affirmed his Body born of the Virgin to be Flesh viz. in verity of Nature Also where he declareth (w) Ast nunc Sanguis Christi quem Credentes ebibunt Corpus quod comedunt aliud sunt in specie aliud in significatione n. 69. That what the Faithful do Orally receive is one thing in Specie and another in Signification if Species imply only the outward appearance the Antithesis is frigid and without force For in Sacramental Discourses Things are opposed to their Mystical signification so that the force of such Antithesis lies
his most Holy Passion He adds That nothing could be found out more proper to signifie the Vnity between the Head and Members than those SPECIES For as the Bread consisting of many Grains is by Water reduced into one Body and as the Wine is pressed out of many Grapes Thus also is the Body of Christ made up of the Vnited Multitude of Saints Observe that in the words immediately preceding our Author stiles these Species the Substance of Bread and Wine and in the following words describing the way in which they are made and thereby adapted to signifie the Union between Christ and his Members he calls them simply Bread and Wine The same Author (a) Vnde Eutychianus XXVIII Sedis Pomanae Praesul constituit fruges super altare tantum Fabae Vvae benedici Alias autem diversarum SPECIES rerum statutum est ubilibet benedici a sacerdotibus c. Ibid. cap. 18. Fruges Species pro Synonymis habuit Walafridus useth the word Species for the Fruits of the Earth and cites for it a forged Decretal Epistle under the name of Pope Eutychian which orders all other Species that is Fruits of the Earth except what by the Apostles constitutions may be offered on the Altar to be brought home to the Priest to receive Benediction and the Species allowed to be Blessed on the Altar are Beans and Grapes And Regino citing that Canon of the Apostles to which Walafridus or rather the pretended Eutychian referreth gives it this Title (b) Quae Species ad altare non ad Sacrificium sed ad Benedictionem simplicem debent offerri Regino de Discip Eccles l. 1. c. 64. ex Can. 4. Apost What Species ought to be offered at the Altar not for Sacrifice but for simple Benediction and the Canon mentions (c) Praeter novas Spicas Vvas Oleum Thymiama id est incensum Can. 5. Reliqua poma omnia ad domum Episcopi vel Presbyteri dirigantur c. Ears of new Corn Grapes Oyl and Incense Now in these Instances none can doubt but by Species the Specifick Nature the Substance is to be understood and not the Sensible Qualities of the Particulars mentioned In the very same sense Arnobius Junior (d) Non solum Speciem frumenti sed Vini Olei administrans Arnob. in Ps 104. useth the Term speaking of God's bounty to the Israelites Whom he furnished not only with the Species of Corn but also with those of Wine and Oyl And it appears that the Unconsecrated Elements were stiled Species from a Prayer in the Gothick Missal to be used after the Sanctus which is before Consecration (e) Vt Dominus Deus Noster SPECIEM istam suo ministerio CONSECRANDAM coelestis gratiae inspiratione sanctificet Missale Gothicum p. 375. Collectio post Sanctus in Codd Sacramentorum editis per Thomasium Quarto Romae 1680. Most dear Brethren let us pray that our Lord and God would Sanctifie by the Inspiration of his Heavenly Grace this SPECIES which is TO BE Consecrated c. Now here Species must necessarily import the Substance for our Adversaries themselves do not pretend that the substance of Bread and Wine cease before Consecration But in regard M. Boileau will have it that Ratram learn'd this use of the word from St. Ambrose and particularly from his Books De Sacramentis I shall crave leave a little more largely to expose the falshood and indecent confidence of that Assertion That the Instance produced by M. Boileau is Impertinent and Mistaken I have already shewn and shall now make some Instances to disprove his pretence intirely In the Book De Initiandis which more plausibly pretends to the Authority of St. Ambrose than the six Books of the Sacraments which follow it we have manifest Examples of the use of the word Species for the Specifick Nature or Substance (f) SPECIEM autem pro VERITATE legimus de Christo Specie inventus ut Homo dâ— Patre Deo Neque Speciem ejus vidistis Ambr. de iis qui Myst initiantur c. 4. He tells us That the word Species is sometimes used to signifie the truth and not the bare resemblance as when it is said of Christ that he was found in Specie in fashion as a Man and of God the Father neither have ye at any time seen his Species it 's plain that this Author understands by Species in the first place Christ's true Humane Nature and in the latter the Divine Substance or Essence (g) Gravior est enim ferri Species quam aquarum liquor cap. 9. For the Species of Iron is heavier than the Liquor of Water Here Species ferri implieth the substance of Iron And the Author who some Ages after St. Ambrose enlarged this Tract into six Sermons (h) The fourth of these is among St. Austins Sermons de Verbis Dom. Serm. 28. which have long passed for so many Books of that Father on the Sacraments but plainly appear both by the beginnings and conclusions to be Homilies I say that Author expounds Species by Matter or Substance saying of Iron (i) Est enim Materies gravior quam aquarum est Elementum de Sacram. l. 4. c. 4. For it is a more weighty Substance than the Element of Water Again (k) Ante Benedictionem Verborum coelestium species nominatur post Consecrationem Corpus Christi significatur De initiandis c. 9. Before Consecration the Species is named after Consecration the Body of Christ (l) De Consecr dist 3. c. 69. Gratian cites the words thus Before Consecration another Species is named and the Gloss (m) Alia Species i. e. alterius rei Species id est substantia fuit Glossa expounds the word Species by Substance as the Homilist (n) Panis iste PANIS est ante verba Sacramentorum c. l. 4. c. 4. Dixi vobis quod ante verba Christi quod offertur PANIS dicatur c. Ibid. l. 5. c. 4. doth by Bread twice Also our Ambrosiaster in his comparison between the Supernatural Effect of Baptism and the Miracle wrought by the Prophet Elisha when he made Iron to swim saith That (o) Vbi Baptizatus fuerit non tanquam ferrum sed tanquam jam levior fructuosi ligni Species levatur de Sacram. l. 2. c. 4. before Baptism every Man sinks like Iron but when Baptised he riseth like the lighter Species of fruitful Wood. In this place who doubts but he intended the Substance and not the appearance of Wood In the third Book he saith The (p) Hesterno die de fonte Baptismatis disputavimus cujus Species veluti quaedam Sepulchri forma est de Sacra l. 3. c. 1. Species of the Font is of the form of a Grave where doubtless he meaneth the very Font-stone or if not then its Figure united with the Stone Again He starts an Objection (q) Forte dicis Speciem Sanguinis non video Sed habet
diversitas inter eos esse dinoscitur n. 2. In quo nulla permutatio facta esse cognoscitur n. 12. Non iste transitus factus esse cognoscitur ibid. There is no small difference known to be among them Again How can that be called Christ's Body in which no change is known to be made And the same Occurs at least four times over in the same and the next Paragraph and is expounded by the Author himself saying expresly (l) Si ergo nihil hic EST permutatum c. n. 13. Nihil HABENT in se permutatum n. 14. that there IS nothing changed and that the Bread and Wine HAVE NOTHING changed in them Again (m) Num mare secundum quod Elementum VIDEBATVR i. e. fuit Baptismi potuit habere virtutem Vel Nubes juxta quod densioris crassitudinem aeris OSTENDEBAT i. e. aer crassus condensatus fuit n. 20. could either the Sea as it was seen to be an Element have a Baptismal vertue or the Cloud as it did shew condensed Air sanctifie the People Did the Sea only seem to be Water or had the Cloud only an Appearance of condensed Air or were they in substance the one Water and the other thick Air I must needs say M. Boileau plays at small Games when he lays so much stress on nothing and hath the confidence because Ratram saith That the Body and Blood of Christ celebrated in the Church are different from that Body and Blood which now is known to be Glorified to aver that (n) Toute la difference qu'il y etablit entre le Corps de J. C. dans la gloire est que ce dernier per resurrectionem jam glorificatum cognoscitur ae lieu qu'il n'avoit qu' a dire jam glorificatum existit qui est un mot en usage c. Pref. p. 40. all the Difference that Ratram makes between Christ's Body in Heaven and on the Altar is that both being his Glorified Body the former Glorificatum Cognoscitur is known to be Glorified whereas he might as easily have said simply IS Glorified Now if by Cognoscitur M. Boileau means is sensibly Glorified as I presume he doth Christ's Body in Heaven to us appeareth not Glorious being received up out of our sight He likewise mightily vapours with the word (o) P. 40. Pref. p. 224. Rem c. Iste Panis Calix qui Corpus Sanguis Christi nominatur EXISTIT n. 99. Existit as though it imported the Existence of Christ's Natural Body in the Sacrament and ten times over twits us with these words The Bread and Cup is called the Body and Blood of Christ and IS SO. Now all this Flourish hath nothing in it For first Our Author (p) N. 21. Baptismum tamen extitisse pro fuisse n. 26. Angelorum cibus existit n. 40. Mortis Passionis cujus existunt repraesentationes useth the word Existit for Est in forty places of this Book of which see two or three Examples in the Margin 2. Where he useth the word Existit he generally addeth something that is Inconsistent with their Notion of Christ's Presence in the Sacrament (q) Spirituale Corpus Spiritualisque Sanguis existit n. 16. Existum repraesentationes ejus sumunt appellationem cujus existunt Sacramentum n. 40. Secundum quid n. 83. id est Secundum quendam modum nimirum Figurate quemadmodum clarius rem exponit Ratramnus n. 84. Item de Corpore ex Virgine Proprium salvatoris Corpus existit de Mystico Corpus quod per Mysterium existit n. 97. 96. Claret quia Panis ille Vinumque Figurate Christi Corpus Sanguis existunt Telling us either that the Bread and Cup are his Spiritual Body and Blood or they are the SACRAMENT of his Body and Blood. That in some respect not simply they are truly his Body and Blood and elsewhere intimates that they are not his proper Body but only a Figure or Mystery thereof and expresly saith near the beginning of this Tract that it is clear that the Holy Bread and Wine are FIGURATIVELY the Body and Blood of Christ by which Exposition of the Author himself we are satisfied how we must understand that Passage M. Boileau so much Triumphs in But what most amazeth me is to find that in his Remarks on N. 16. and these words whence it necessarily followeth that the change is made Figuratively he makes a Flourish with Authorities and makes a Parallel between Ratram Paschase and the second Nicene Council (r) Rem p. 225. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making them all teach the same Doctrin whereas our Author saith That the Holy Elements are Figuratively the Body and Blood of Christ or the Spiritual Body and Blood which is all one and the Nicene Doctors say that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly his Body and Blood. I would gladly be informed in what Greek Lexicon Mr. Boileau finds that word expounded by Figurate But thirdly Those words of Ratram overthrow the Doctrin of Transubstantiation and by very firm (ſ) Ab est vel existit adjecti tertii ad est adjecti secundi valet consequentia Panis Corpus Christi existit ergo Panis existit consequence infer that the Bread and Wine do remain after Consecration For by the Rules of Logick this Argument is good M. Boileau is Dean of Sens therefore M. Boileau IS in being and in like manner after Consecration Bread and Wine are the Body and Blood of Christ Therefore after Consecration Bread and Wine do exist Thus at length I have done with his Exposition of our Author 's controverted Terms which if true Mr. Dean would do well to Publish a Glossary on purpose to assist the Reader who by the help of all the Dictionaries yet extant will never be able to comprehend this Author's sense But I must needs say the difficulties are all Fictions of the Translator who delights to perplex the most plain Expressions and by new and bold Figures and forced Significations invented to serve his design hath offered manifest violence to our Author's words in an hundred Passages of this small Piece I confess he useth so great License and indulgeth his Fancy at so extravagant a Rate that I was almost tempted to think that M. Boileau the Poet had commenced Doctor in the Sorbon and began unluckily to play the Divine as Poets commonly do when they begin their Theological Studies in their Old Age. If it had really been so I could have pitied and forgiven him many Extravagancies which are venial Faults in a Poet but unpardonable in a Professor of Divinity Here I once thought to dismiss him but upon second Thoughts I resolved to attend him a little further and consider the Reflections wherewith he concludeth his Preface I shall say nothing in defence of Protestant Translators three Reflections which stand firm after all his weak assaults upon them His first Reflection is That supposing though
signification p. 31. i. e. figuratively and some in propriety A true thing and certain it is that Christ was born of a Maid suffered death of his own accord He is called Bread by signification i. e. figuratively but Christ is not so in true nature neither Bread c. p. 32. Truly the Bread and Wine which through the Mass of the Priest is hallowed sheweth one thing outwardly to human Senses and another thing they inwardly call to believing minds clypâ—aþ Outwardly they appear Bread and Wine both in figure and in taste And they be truly after their hallowing Christ's Body and Blood through Ghostly Mistery p. 33. So the Holy Font-Water which is called the Well-Spring of Life is like in shape to other Water and subject to corruption but the Holy Ghosts might cometh to the corruptible Water through the Priest blessing and it may afterwards wash the Body and Soul from all sin through Ghostly might Behold now we see two things in this one Creature After true nature that Water is corruptible moisture and after Ghostly Mystery hath hallowing might So also if we behold the Holy Housel or Sacrament after bodily sense then we see that it is a Creature corruptible and mutable if we acknowledge therein Ghostly might then understand we that Life is therein and that it giveth immortality to them that eat it with Faith. p. 35. Much difference is betwixt the Body in which Christ suffered and the Body which is hallowed to housel The Body truly in which Christ suffered was born of the Flesh of Mary with Blood with Bones with Skin with Sinews with human Limbs and with a reasonable Soul living And his Ghostly Body which we call the Housel p. 36. is gathered of many Corns without Blood and Bone without Limb and without Soul whatsoever is in that Housel that giveth the substance of Life that is of the Ghostly might and invisible operation And therefore is the Holy Housel called a Mystery because there is one thing in it seen and another thing understood p. 37. Certainly Christ's Body in which he suffered Death and rose again from Death never dieth henceforth but is Eternal and Impassible But that Housel is Temporal not Eternal corruptible and divided into several parts chew'd betwixt the Teeth and sent into the Belly p. 38. This Mystery is a pledge and a * * Hip and not as above getacnunge which is a figure in speech Figure Christ's Body is the Truth itself This Pledge we keep mystically until we be come to the p. 68. Quod dente premitur fauce glutitur quod receptaculo ventris fuscipitur Truth itself then is that Pledge ended Truly it is so as we said before Christ's Body and Blood not Bodily but Ghostly See p. 35. You should not search how it is done but hold in Faith that it is so done p. 43. We said to you erewhile that Christ hallowed Bread and Wine to Housel before his Suffering and said This is my Body and my Blood. He had not suffered as yet he turned through invisible might that Bread to his own Body and that Wine to his own Blood as formerly he did in the Wilderness before that he was born to Men when he turned that Heavenly Meat to his Flesh and that Water flowing from the Rock to his own Blood. That which next follows is a quotation out of St. Augustine which it is very likely that Elfrick took from Bertram and not at first hand from that Father p. 44. Moses and Aaron and many others of that People which pleased God eat that Heavenly Bread and they died not that Everlasting death though they died the common death they saw that the Heavenly Meat viz. Manna was visible and corruptible and they understood somewhat Spiritual by that visible thing and Spiritually received it p. 46. Once Christ suffered in himself and yet nevertheless his suffering is daily renewed through the Mystery of the Holy Housel at the Holy Mass p. 47. We ought also to consider diligently how this Holy Housel is both Christ's Body and the Body of all Faithful Men after Ghostly Mystery as Wise Augustine saith If you will understand of Christ's Body hear the Apostle Paul thus speaking Ye truly be Christ's Body and his Members Now is your Mystery set on God's Table and ye receive your Mystery p. 48. which Mystery ye be yourselves be that which you see on the Altar and receive that which yourselves be And again St. Paul saith We many be one Bread and one Body * * i. e. Cannons Ecclesiastical not the Holy Scripture Holy Books command that Water be mingled with Wine which shall be for Housel because the Water signifieth the People and the Wine Christ's Blood therefore shall not the one without the other be offered at the Holy Mass That Christ may be with us and we with Christ the Head with the Limbs and the Limbs with the Head. p. 51. And after these words our Homilist resumes his former Discourse of the Paschal Lamb. Thus have I at large set down in Parallel the Passages of that Saxon Homily taken out of Bertram The (a) See the Preface of the Homily Sermon was originally Latin which Elfrick translated into Saxon whether he were the Compiler in Latin I cannot be positive But it seems the succeeding Ages would not bear this Doctrine for which reason the Latin is utterly lost either being wilfully made away or the Governors of our Church not thinking it fit to transcribe and propagate what after the condemnation of Berengarius and the promotion of his great Adversary Lanfranc to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury was generally reputed Heresie But through the wonderful good Providence of God the whole is preserved in the Saxon Tongue which few understood By this account of that Homily you learn Two things and a Third Observation I shall add 1. That Bertram's Book was neither forged by Oecolampadius nor yet depraved by Berengarius or Wiclef his Disciples since the most express Passages against the Popish Real Presence are read in that Homily 70 or 80 years before Berengarius made any noise in the World. 2. What I design to insist upon more largely in the last Chapter of this Discourse viz. That Ratramnus or Bertram stood not alone but had others of the same judgment with him in the IX and X Century and that Paschasius his Doctrine had not received as yet the stamp of publick Authority either by any Popes or Councels confirmation 3. Nevertheless this carnal Doctrine of Paschasius did daily get ground in that obscure and ignorant Age next that he lived in as may appear by some Passages in this Homily which I have not recited because they are not in Bertram the absurd consequences of that errour For instance p. 39 and 40 there are two Miracles inserted to prove the Carnal Presence contrary to the scope of the whole Discourse and the one contrary to their
is not immediately false where the Praedicate is a Metaphor or Metonymy and doth not in its first and native signification agree to the subject for unless the Trope be too obscure it conveys the Speakers true meaning into the mind of such as hear him Now in this sence (a) Non utique mentitur c. sect 35. supra cur nemo tam ineptus est ut nos ita loquentes arguat esse mentitos c. St. Augustine cited by our Author saith he tells no Lye who giveth the Name of the thing itself to the Sign and Sacrament of it and that this manner of speaking was perfectly understood And I may add it was very familiar among the Jews and is Authorised by a multitude of Scripture Examples Now in this sence Ratramnus in some places affirms that the consecrated Elements are truly Christ's Body and Blood and this without the least contradiction to himself though in the other sence he more frequently denies it And a due regard to these two sences of Verity or Truth will clear the obscurity of which the Romanists accuse our Author in many Passages of this Work. There is another term of the same importance Manifestation viz. Manifestation but our Adversaries pretend it is a Key of the whole Work because Ratramnus defines Truth to be rei manifestae demonstratio and charge the (a) Mabilonius A.B. Sec. IV P. 2. Praef. n. 101. French Translator of falsifying the Author because he renders manifestae manifesta participatione real and really They say whatever is manifest is real but the word real doth not express the full notion of manifest which further includes evidence many things being real which are not manifest And this is true But yet Bertram's sence of the word must be judged by his own use of it which will appear by inspecting the several places of the Book where it occurs and I must needs say that I cannot make sence of him if he mean not as the French Translator hath rendred him In the state of the question where he explains Verity by that which appears manifestationis luce in a manifest light or naked and open his meaning in that Question or rather the meaning of those against whom he writes and whose error the first part of this Discourse is intended to rectifie cannot be whether the Sacrament was the Body of Christ appearing in its own shape to our bodily Eye For that Cardinal Perron or Mr. Arnaud do not pretend the Stercorarists or whoever else Bertram opposeth to have believed but that the accidents of Bread and Wine affected or were subjected in the natural Body and Blood of Christ Now as to the matter of the Manifest appearance of Christ's Body it is all one whether the accidents of Bread and Wine be subjected in the Body and Blood of Christ or subsist without a subject for the bodily Eye doth not behold the Body of Christ the more or less manifestly for that nor doth it at all manifestly behold Christ's Body unless it see him in the form of a Man. And therefore if they meant any thing it must be whether the sensible Object in the Sacrament were Christ's very Body though under the figure of the Sacramental Elements But to clear the point we need only compare the two Prayers in the close of Bertram's Discourse on the second Question and we shall find that what in one Prayer they beg of God to receive by a manifest participation in the other they pray to be made really partakers of and in the same Collect manifest participation is opposed to Receiving in a Sacramental Image Now there is nothing more naturally opposed to an Image than the very thing whose Image it is or to a Sacrament than the res Sacramenti the real Object signified and exhibited under it The Reader will find the word bears the same sence in those few other places where Ratramnus useth it which are all near the end of the Book Another controverted Term is Species Species which hath two sences in this Book It is most commonly used to signifie the kind and specifical nature of any thing and is always so taken where it is set in opposition to a Figure or Sacrament or where the Author is declaring the nature of the consecrated Elements Sometimes it signifies the appearance or likeness of a thing so it is taken when it is opposed to Truth as in the Post-Communion Prayer cited by Ratramnus and in his Inferences from it Besides these the Romanists have another acceptation of the word making it to signifie the sensible qualities of the consecrated Elements subsisting without their substance in which sence I positively affirm that Species is no where used in this Treatise And herein the Authors of the (a) Index Expurg Belg. in Bertramo tametsi non diffitear Bertramum tunc temporis nescivisse exacte accidentia ista absque omni substantia sua subsistere c. Belgick Index will bear me out who acknowledge that Bertram did not exastly know how Accidents could subsist out of their Subjects which subtil Truth latter Ages have learnt out of the Scripture As Species ordinarily signifies Nature Species Visibilis so the addition of Visibilis alters not its signification For Ratramnus doth not speak of those qualities which immediately affect the sence abstracted from their Subject And I know nothing in Reason nor yet in the Holy Scriptures which are the Rule of our Faith that can inforce us to believe that our Senses are not as true Judges of what the Mouth receiveth in the Sacrament as they are of the nature of any other Object whatsoever and may as easily discern whether it be Bread or Flesh as they can distinguish a Man from a Tree Our Author frequently mentions the Divine Word Divine Word by whose power the Sacred Elements are Spiritually changed into Christ's Body Now when he thus speaks we must not imagine that he means a natural change of the Substance of the thing consecrated by the efficacy of the words of consecration but a Spiritual change effected by the Power and Spirit of Christ who is God the Word as he explains himself The last Term that needs explaining Spiriutal Body is Christ's Spiritual Body this he affirms the Sacrament to be in many places Now by a Spiritual Body we are not to understand the natural Body of Christ but existing after the manner of a Spirit or as our Adversaries love to speak not according to its proper existence that is to say it is Christ's Natural Body but neither visible nor local nor extended this is not Bertram's sence of Christ's Spiritual Body but that the thing so called is Figuratively and Mystically Christ's Body and that it Spiritually communicates to the Faithful Christ with all the benefits of his Death I may also add that Bertram uses great variety of Phrases to express that which we call the outward sign in the Sacrament that
Sacrament made him weary of his Abby is F. Mabillon's conjecture and not mine And if so we have reason to believe that the Doctrine of Ratramnus had rather the Princes countenance and the stronger party in the Convent And it will yet seem more probable when we consider that Odo afterwards Bishop of Beauvais a great Friend of Ratramnus was made Abbot in the room of Paschasius What the Doctrine of Paschasius was I shall now briefly shew He saith * Pasch Radb de Corp. Sang. Dom. c. 1. Licet Figura Panis Vini hic sit omnino nihil aliud quam Caro Christi Sanguis post consecrationem credenda sunt Et ut miâ—abilius loquar non alia plane quam quae nata est de Maria passa in Cruce resurrexit de Sepulchro That although in the Sacrament there be the Figure of Bread and Wine yet we must believe it after consecration to be nothing else but the Body and Blood of Christ. And that you may know in what sence he understands it to be Christ's Body and Blood he adds And to say somewhat yet more wonderful It is no other Flesh than that which was born of Mary suffered on the Cross and rose again from the Grave He illustrates this Mystery further by intimating that whosoever will not believe Christs natural Body in the Sacrament under the shape of Bread that man would not have believed Christ himself to have been God if he had seen him hanging upon the Cross in the form of a Servant And shelters himself against all the Absurdities that could be objected against this Opinion as the Papists still do under God's Omnipotence laying down this Principle as the foundation of all his Discourse That the nature of all Creatures is obedient to the Will of God who can change them into what he pleaseth He renders these two Reasons why the miraculous change is not manifest to sense by any alteration of the visible form or tast of what is received viz. * Sic debuit hoc mysterium temperari ut arcana Secretorum celarentur infidis meritum cresceret de virtute Fidei c. 13. ubi plura ejusmodi cceurrunt That there may be some exercise for Faith and that Pagans might not have subject to blaspheme the Mysteries of our Religion Yet notwithstanding this no man who believes the Word of God saith he can doubt but by Consecration it is made Christ's Body and Blood in Verity or Truth of Nature And he alledgeth stories of the miraculous appearance of Christ's Flesh in its proper form for the cure of doubting as a further confirmation of his carnal Doctrine These are the sentiments of Paschasius Radbertus and differ little from those of the Roman Church at present which I shall deduce from the Authentick Acts of that Church especially the Council of Trent 1. In the Year 1059. there was a Council assembled at Rome by Pope Nicolaus the II in which a form of Recantation was drawn up for Berengarius wherein he was required to declare * Apud Gratianum de Consecratione Dist 2. c. 42. Ego Berengarius c. That Bread and Wine after Consecration are not only the Sacrament Sign and Figure but the very Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which is not only Sacramentally but Sensibly and Truly handled and broken by the Priests hands and ground by the Teeth of the Faithful And this being the form of a Recantation ought to be esteemed an accurate account of the Doctrine of the Church yet they are somewhat ashamed of it as may appear by the Gloss upon Gratian who hath put it into the body of the Canon Law. But the Council of Trents difinitions are more Authentick which hath determined I. If any one shall deny that in the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist there is contained really and substantially the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and consequently whole Christ But shall say that it is therein contained only as in a Sign or Figure or Virtually let him be accursed II. If any one shall say that in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist there remains the substance of Bread and Wine together with the Body or Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and shall deny that singular or wonderful conversion of the whole substance of Bread into his Body and of the whole substance of 1. Concil Trid. sess 13. can 1. 2. Conc. Trid. Ibid. c. 2. Wine into his Blood there remaining only the species i. e. Accidents of Bread and Wine which conversion the Catholick Church very aptly calls Transubstantiation let him be accursed i. e. By faith and not orally III. If any man shall say that in the Eucharist Christ is exhibited and eaten only Spiritually and not Sacramentally and Really let him be accursed These are the definitions of the Church of Rome in this matter and now let us see whether the Doctrine of Ratramnus in this Book be agreeable to these Canons I might make short work of it by alledging all those Authors who either represent him as a Heretick or his Book as forged or Heretical and in so doing I should muster an Army of the most Eminent Doctors of the Roman Church with two or three Popes in the Head of them viz. Pius the IV. by whose Authority was compiled the Expurgatory Index in which this Book was first forbid Sixtus V. who inlarged the Roman Index and Clement the VIII by whose order it was Revised and published They are all competent 3. Conc. Trid. Ibid. can 8. cap. 8. Witnesses that his Doctrine is not agreeable to the present Faith of the Roman Church And our Authors * Vide Indic Belgic in Bertramo Excogitato commento kind Doway Friends are forced to Exercise their Wits for some handsome invention to make him a Roman-Catholick and at last they cannot bring him fairly off but are forced to change his words directly to a contrary sense and instead of visibly write invisibly and according to the substance of the Creatures must be interpreted according to the outward species or accidents of the Sacrament c. Which is not to explain an Author but to corrupt him and instead of interpreting his words to put their own words into his Mouth And after all they acknowledge that there are some other things which it were not either amiss or imprudent wholly to expunge in regard the loss of those passages will not spoil the sense nor will they be easily missed But I shall not build altogether upon their confessions in regard others who have the ingenuity to acknowledge the Author Orthodox and the work Catholick have also the confidence to deny our claim to Bertram's Authority who is as they pretend though obscure yet their own Therefore I shall shew in his own words that his sentiments in this matter are directly contrary to Paschasius
though (a) Bib. Patrum Tom. 6. Par. 1610. Col. 226 227. Florus Deacon of the Church of Lyons accord not with Scotus in his Sentiments touching Predestination yet he agrees with him in contradicting the carnal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament for in his Exposition of the Mass he saith That when the Creature of Bread and Wine is by the ineffable sanctification of the Spirit translated into the SACRAMENT of Christ's Body Christ is eaten That he is eaten by parts in the Sacrament and remains whole in Heaven and in the Faithful Receiver's heart And again All that is done in the Oblation of the Lord's Body and Blood is a Mystery there is one thing seen and another understood that which is seen hath a Corporal nature that which is understood hath a Spiritual fruit And in the Manuscript (a) In Homiliario MS. Eccles Lugd. apud Mabillon A. B. Sec. IV. Par. 2. Praefat. nu 80. Homilies which F. Mabillon concludes are his expounding the words of our Saviour instituting the Sacrament he saith commenting on This is my Body the Body that spake was one thing the Body which was given was another The Body which spake was substantial that Body which was given was Mystical for the Body of our Lord died was buried rose again and ascended into heaven but that Body which was delivered to the Apostles in the Sacrament is daily consecrated by the Priests hands * Apud Hittorpium De rebus Eccles c. 16. Walafridus Strabo in the same Century teacheth That Christ in his last Supper with his Disciples just before he was betrayed after the Solemnity of the Ancient Passeover delivered the Sacraments of his own Body and Blood to his Disciples in the substance of Bread and Wine †Apud Albertinum de Euchar. lib. 2. pag. 934. Hoc est corpus meum id est in Sacramento Christian Druthmarus a Monk of Corbey and contemporary both with Bertram and Paschasius in his Comment on St. Matthew expounding the words of Institution saith That Christ gave his Disciples the Sacrament of his Body to the end that being mindful of this Action they should always do this in a Figure and not forget what he was about to do for them This is my Body that is Sacramentally or in a Sacrament or Sign And a little before he saith Christ did Spiritually change Bread into his Body and Wine into his Blood which is the Phrase of Bertram a Monk in the same Cloyster with him To these may be added * Apud L' Arroque in Hist Euchar. lib. 2. c. 13. ex Dacherii Spicileg Tom. 6. Ahyto Bishop of Basil in the beginning of this Century whose words cited by Mr. L' Arroque in his History of the Eucharist are these The Priest ought to know what the Sacrament of Baptism and Confirmation is and what the Mystery of the Body and Blood of the Lord is how a visible Creature is seen in those Mysteries and nevertheless invisible Salvation or Grace is thereby communicated for the salvation of the Soul the which is contained in Faith only Mr. L' Arroque well observes that his words relate to Baptism and Confirmation as well as the Lord's Supper he distinguisheth in both the sign from the thing signified and asserts alike in all three that there is a visible Creature communicating Invisible or Spiritual Grace which is received by Faith only Moreover the Question moved by Heribaldus to Rabanus which he answers and upon that score both those Learned and Holy Bishops have been traduced as Stercoranists evidently shews the Sentiments of Heribaldus to have been contrary to those of Paschasius on this Argument For he never could have moved the Question if he had not believed the external part of the Sacrament to be corporal Food as Ratramnus doth The Judgment of Rabanus Archbishop of Mentz whom Baronius stiles the brightest Star of Germany and as Trithemius says who had not his fellow in Italy or Germany agrees with that of Ratramnus and appears in several of his writings He teacheth * Raban de institut Cleric lib. 1. c. 31. That our Lord chose to have the Sacraments of his Body and Blood received by the mouth of the Faithful and reduced to Nourishment on purpose that by the visible Body the Spiritual effect might be shewn For as Material food outwardly nourisheth and gives vigor to the body so doth the Word of God inwardly nourish and strengthen the Soul. Again The Sacrament is one thing and the virtue of the Sacrament is another for the Sacrament is received with the mouth but the inner man is fed with the virtue of the Sacrament In his †Ad Calcem Reginon Prum editi per Baluzium habetur Epistola haec Rabani unde Heribaldum vide c. 33. Quidam nuper de ipso Sacramento corporis Sanguinis Domini non rite sentientes dixerunt hoc ipsum Corpus Sanguinem Domini quod de Maria Virgine natum est in quo ipse Dominus passus est in cruce resurrexit de Sepulchro idem esse quod sumitur de Altari cui Errori c. Penitential he makes the Sacrament subject to all the affections of common food and tells of some of late viz. Paschasius and his followers who had entertained false Sentiments touching the Sacrament of the Lords Body and Blood saying That this very Body of our Lord which was born of the Virgin Mary in which our Lord suffered on the Cross and rose again from the Grave is the same which we receive from the Altar against which error writing to Egilus the Abbot we have according to our ability declared what we are truly to believe concerning the Lords very Body From which Passage many things of moment may be collected 1. That Paschasius was written against in his life-time and not long after his propounding his Doctrine publickly by sending his Book together with an Epistle to Carolus Calvus For Rabanus died before Paschasius and * In praefat ad Rabani Epist n. 17. Baluzius makes it out very well that he wrote this Answer to the Queries of Heribaldus A. D. 853. In which year Egilus mentioned by him was made Abbot of Promie and the question of the validity of Orders conferred by Ebbo Archbishop of Rhemes after his Deposition was discussed in the Synod at Soissons 2. We learn from this Passage that Rabamus judged the Doctrine of Paschasius to be a Novel Error which he would not have done had there been any colour of Antient Tradition or Authority for it 3. That F. Cellot is mistaken in charging his Anonymous Writer with slandering Rabanus as also in saying that what Rabanus wrote on this Argument he wrote in his youth falsly presuming that Egilus to whom he wrote was Abbot of Fulda and immediate Predecessor to Rabanus in the Government of that Monastry where as it was another Egilus made Abbot of Promie A. D. 853. when Rabanus was
very old and but three years before his death 4. These words the same which is received from the Altar were as * Baluz in notis ad c. 33. Ad calcem Reginonis Baluzius and F. Mabillon observe razed out of the MS from whence Stevartius published that Epistle of Rabanus Which I take notice of because Mr. Arnauds Modest Monk of St. Genouefe makes so much difficulty to believe Arch-bishop Vsher who tells of a Passage of the same importance razed out of an old MS. Book of Penitential Canons in Bennet Colledg Library in Cambridge though he had seen it himself and no doubt the other MS. also out of which the lost passage was restored This Passage is an Authority of the X Century confirming †At the end of the Saxon Homily Printed by Jo. Day Bertram's Doctrine which I shall Transcribe But this Sacrifice is not the Body in which he suffered for us nor his Blood which he shed for us but it is Spiritually made his Body and Blood like the Manna rained down from Heaven and the Water which Flowed from the Rock as c. These words inclosed between two half Circles some had rased out of Worcester book but they are restored again out of a book of Exeter Church as is noted in the Margin by the first Publishers of this Epistle and the Saxon Homily they are both one Authors work viz. Elfric's Thus the Reader may be satisfied how the Passage was recovered And Bishop Vsher did not invent it which had it been lost utterly might also have been restored out of the Saxon Epistle printed immediately before it And now I am speaking of such detestable practices I cannot but add what for the sake of such a Passage hath befallen St. Chrysostom's Epistle to Caesarius The Passage runs thus * Sicut enim antequam Sanctificetur Panis Panem nominamus Divina autem illum sanctificante gratia mediante Sacerdote liberatus est quidem appellatione panis dignus autem habitus est Dominici Corporis appellatione etiemsi natura Panis in ipso permansit non duo corpora sed unum corpus Filii praedicamus sic c. Apud Steph. Le Moine inter Varia Sacra Tom. 1. p. 532. As before the Bread is Consecrated we call it BREAD but after the Divine Grace hath consecrated it by the Ministry of the Priest it is freed from THE NAME OF BREAD and honoured with THE NAME OF THE LORDS BODY though the NATVRE OF BREAD remaineth in it and we do not teach two Bodies but one Body of the Son so c. This Epistle Peter Martyr found in the Florentine Library and Transcribed several Copies of it one of which he gave to Arch-bishop Cranmer the Copies of this Epistle being lost the World was persuaded by the Papists that the Passage was a Forgery committed by Peter Martyr This past current for about a 100 years till at last Emericus Bigotius found it and Printed the whole Epistle with * Palladii vita Chrysostomi Gr. lat c. Quarto Par. 1680. Inter paginas 235. 245. In Schedis signatis G. g. H. h. the Life of St. Chrysostom and some other little things but when it was Finisht this †Vide Expostulationem hac de re editam in Quarto Londini 1682. Epistle was taken out of the Book and not suffered to see Light. The place out of which this Epistle was expunged is visible in the Book by a break in the Signature at the bottom and the numbers at the top of the Page But at length it is published by Mr. le Moine among several other Ancient pieces at Leyden 1685. And since more accurately in the Appendix to the Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England So that notwithstanding the French Monks indignation at the Learned Vsher for charging the Papists with the razure of an old MS. it s plain that such tricks are not unusual with them that they are more ancient than their publick Expurgatory Indices and more mischievous and that some of their great Doctors at this day make no conscience of stifling antient Testimonies against their corruptions when it lies in their power I shall trouble the Reader with no more Citations to prove the concurrence of other Doctors of the Ninth and Tenth Century with Ratramnus in his Sentiments touching Christ's Presence in the Holy Sacrament These are enough to shew that his opinion was neither singular nor novel and that though he be the fullest and most express witness of the Faith of those times yet he is not a single Evidence but is supported by the Testimonies of many of the best Writers of those times And his Doctrine is reproved by no body but Paschasius who reflects a little upon it in his Epistle to Frudegardus and that piece of his commentary on Matthew that is annext to it On the contrary the Doctrine of Paschasius was impugned as Novel and Erroneous by the Anonymous Writer published by F. Mabillon by Rabanus and Ratramnus neither doth it in all things please his Anonymous Friend said to be Herigerus who writes in his favour and collects passages out of the Ancients to excuse the simplicity of Paschasius His own writings shew that he valued himself upon some new discovery which excited many to a more perfect understanding of that great Mystery That his Paradox was in danger of passing for a Dream or * In Epistolis hortatur Placidum Regem Carolum ne existiment illum contexere fabulam de salsura Maronis Poetical fiction and that when he wrote to Frudegardus many doubted the truth of his Doctrine Frudegardus once his Proselite upon reading a Passage in St. †Augustin de Doct. Christ l. 3. c. 16. Augustine which Bertram also cites was dissatisfied with his Explication of Christs Presence and whether this Epistle did effectually establish him in the belief of Radberts Doctrine or whether he adhered to St. Augustine cannot now be known It is evident notwithstanding some gross conceipts which began to possess the minds of men in those dark and barbarous Ages that the Church had not as yet received the Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation which was left by Paschasius its Damme a rude Lump which required much Licking to reduce it into any tolerable shape or form as a * The B. of St. Asaph in a Sermon before the late King 1678. Reverend Author observes and was not confirmed by the Authority of any Pope or Council in 200 Years after nor did the Monster receive its name till the Fourth Lateran Council The Writers of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries speak of a change or conversion of the Elements into Christ's Body but it is plain they mean not a Natural but a Mystical or Sacramental change such as happens upon the †See the Saxon Homily Christening of a Pagan they affirm the Elements to be Christs Body and Blood after
the New Testament in my Blood which shall be shed for you You see Christ had not yet Suffered and yet nevertheless he celebrated the Mystery of his own Body and Blood. XXVIII For I am confident no Christian doubts but that Bread was made the Body of Christ which he gave to his Disciples saying This is my Body which is given for you or but the Cup contains the Blood of Christ of which he also saith This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood which shall be shed for you Wherefore as a little before his Passion he could change the Substance of Bread and the Creature of Wine into his own Body which was to Suffer and his own Blood which was to be shed so also could he in the Wilderness change Manna and Water out of the Rock into his Body and Blood though it were a long time after ere that Body was to be Crucified for us or that Blood to be shed to wash us XXIX Here also we ought to consider how those Words of our Saviour are to be understood He expounds Joh. 6.53 wherein he saith * John 6.53 Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you have not Life in you For he doth not say that his Flesh which hung on the Cross should be cut in pieces and eaten by his Disciples or that his Blood which he was to shed for the Redemption of the World should be given his Disciples to drink For it had been a Crime for his Disciples to have eaten his Flesh and drunk his Blood in the sense that the unbelieving Jews then understood him XXX Wherefore in the following words he saith to his Disciples who did not disbelieve that Saying of Christ though they did not yet penetrate the true Meaning of it * John 6.53 Doth this offend you What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascending up where he was before As though he should say Think not that you must eat my Flesh and drink my Blood corporally divided into small pieces for when after my Resurrection you shall see me ascend into the Heavens with my Body entire and all my Blood Then you shall understand that the Faithful must eat †John 6.69 my Flesh not in the manner which these Unbelievers imagine but that indeed Believers must receive it Bread and Wine being mystically turned into the substance of my Body and Blood. XXXI And after * John. 6.66 It 's the Spirit saith he that quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing He saith The Flesh profiteth nothing taken as those Infidels understood him but otherwise it giveth Life as it is taken mystically by the Faithful And why so He himself shews when he saith It is the Spirit that quickneth Therefore in this Mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ there is a spiritual Operation which giveth Life without which Operation the Mysteries profit nothing because they may indeed feed the Body but cannot feed the Soul. XXXII Now there ariseth a Question moved by many who say that these things are done not in a Figure but in Truth but in so saying they plainly contradict the Writings of the Fathers XXXIII St. Augustine St. Augustine quoted an eminent Doctor of the Church in his Third Book De Doctrina Christiana writes thus Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man saith our Saviour and drink his Blood you shall not have Life in you He seems to command a flagitious Crime Therefore the Words are a FIGURE requiring us to communicate in our Lord's Passion and faithfully * In the printed Edition of St. Augustine and Bertram we read sweetly and profitably to lay up to lay up this in our Memory that his Flesh was Crucified and Wounded for us XXXIV We see this Doctor saith that the Mystery of Christ's Body and Blood is celebrated by the Faithful under a FIGURE For he saith To receive his Flesh and Blood carnally is not an Act of Religion but of Villany For which Cause they in the Gospel who took our Saviour's Words not Spiritually but Carnally departed from him and followed him no more XXXV Likewise in his Epistle to Boniface a Bishop among other things he saith thus We often speak in this manner when Easter is near we say to Morrow or the next day is the Lord's Passion although he Suffered many Years since and Suffered but once Likewise we say on the Lord's Day This day our Lord rose again when yet so many years are passed since he rose again Why is no Man so foolish as to charge us with Lying when we speak thus But because we call these Days after the likeness of those Days in which these things were really done So that the Day is called such a Day which in truth is not that very Day but only like it in Revolution of Time and by reason of the Celebration of the Sacrament that is said to be done this Day which was not done this very Day but in Old Times Was not Christ offered up once only in his own Person and yet in the Sacrament he is offered for the People not only every Easter but every Day Nor doth that Man tell a Lye who being asked shall answer that he is offered For if Sacraments had not some Resemblance of those things of which they are the Sacraments they would not be Sacraments at all And from that Resemblance they commonly take the Names of the Things themselves Whereas the Sacrament of Christ's Body is in some sort the Body of Christ and the Sacrament of Christ's Blood is in some sort the Blood of Christ so the (a) The Sacrament of the Faith i. e. Baptism as appears by the following words in St. Austin in his 23. Epistle which is here cited Sacrament of the Faith is the Faith. XXXVI We see St. Augustine saith that Sacraments are one thing and the things of which they are the Sacraments are another thing Now the Body in which Christ suffered and the Blood which issued out of his Side are Things but the Mysteries of these things he saith are Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ which are celebrated in Remembrance of our Lord's Passion not only every Year at the great Solemnity of Easter but every day of the Year XXXVII And whereas there was but one Body of the Lord in which he suffered once and one Blood which was shed for the Salvation of the World yet the Sacraments of these have assumed the Names of the very things so that they are called the Body and Blood of Christ And yet are so called by reason of the Resemblance they bear to the things which they signifie As they stile these respective Days which are annually celebrated the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord whereas in truth he suffered and rose again but once in his own Person nor can the very Days return any more being long since past Nevertheless the Days in which the Memory of
divine Power doth secretly dispense Salvation or Grace to them that faithfully receive them XLIX By all that hath been hitherto said it appears that the Body and Blood of Christ which are received by the Mouths of the Faithful in the Church are Figures in respect of their visible Nature but in respect of the invisible Substance that is the Power of the Word of God they are truly Christ's Body and Blood. Wherefore as they are visible Creatures they feed the Body but as they have the vertue of a more powerful Substance they do both feed and sanctifie the Souls of the Faithful L. We must now consider the Second Question The Second Question and see (a) Which Paschasius Radbertus affirms and Ratramnus denies as also did Rabanus Maurus c. whether that very Body which was born of Mary which Suffered was Dead and Buried and which sits at the Right Hand of the Father be the same which is daily received in the Church by the Mouths of the Faithful in the Sacramental Mysteries LI. Let us enquire what is the Judgment of St. Ambrose in this point He argues from a testimony of St. Ambrose For he saith in his First Book of the Sacraments Truly it is wonderful that God rained down Manna to the Fathers and they were fed every day with Heavenly Food whereupon 't is said that Man did eat Angels Bread and yet they who did eat that Bread all died in the Wilderness But that Food which thou receivest that living Bread which came down from Heaven ministers the Substance of Eternal Life and whosoever eats thereof shall never die and this is the Body of Christ LII See in what sense this Doctor saith That the Body of Christ is that Food which the Faithful receive in the Church For he saith That Living Bread which comes down from Heaven ministers the Substance of Eternal Life Doth it as it is seen as it is corporally received chewed with the Teeth as it is swallowed down the Throat and received into the Belly minister the Substance of Eternal Life In this respect it only feeds the Mortal Flesh it doth not minister Incorruption nor can it be truly said That whosoever eats thereof shall never die For what the Body receives is corruptible nor can it preserve the Body so that it shall never die for what is it self subject to corruption cannot give Immortality Therefore there is in that Bread a certain Principle of Life which doth not appear to our bodily Eyes but is seen by those of Faith which also is that Living Bread which came down from Heaven and concerning which it is truly said that whosoever eats thereof shall never die and which is Christ's Body LIII And afterwards speaking of the Almighty Power of Christ he saith thus Therefore the Word of Christ which could produce things that were not out of nothing cannot it change the things that actually exist into that which they were not Is it not a greater Work to create things at first than to alter their Natures LIV. St. Ambrose saith That in this Mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ there is a Change made and wonderfully because it is Divine Ineffable and indeed Incomprehensible I desire to know of them who will by no means admit any thing of an inward secret Virtue but will Judge of the whole matter as it appears to outward Sense in what respect this Change is made As for the substance of the Creatures what they were before Consecration the same they remain after it Bread and Wine they were before and after Consecration we see they continue Beings of the same Nature and Kind So that it is changed Internally by the mighty Power of the Holy Ghost and this is the mighty Object which Faith beholds which feâ—ds the Soul and ministers the substance of Eternal Life LV. And again it follows Why dost thou here require the Order of Nature in the mystery of Christ's Body when our Lord God himself was contrary to the Order of Nature born of a Virgin LVI Now perhaps An Objection obviated some one at the hearing of this may start up and say That it is the Body of Christ which we behold and his Blood that we drink yet we must not enquire how it becomes so but only believe stedfastly that it is so Thou seemest to think aright but yet if thou didst carefully observe the Importance of thy Words when thou sayest That thou faithfully believest it to be the Body and Blood of Christ thou would'st understand that what thou believest thou dost not see For if thou sawest it thou would'st say I see and not I believe that it is the Body and Blood of Christ Whereas now because Faith discerns the whole matter whatever it is and the Bodily Eye perceives nothing of it thou must understand that those things which are seen are the Body and Blood of Christ not in Kind or Nature but Virtually For which Reason he saith That the Order of Nature is not to be considered but the Power of Christ must be adored which changes what he will how he will into what he will creating what had no Being and changing the Creature into what it was not before And the same Author adds Doubtless it was the true Flesh of Christ which was Crucified and Buried (a) Or it may be rendred The Sacrament of that true Flesh therefore this is really the Sacrament of that Flesh The Lord Jesus himself saith This is my Body LVII How warily Another Argument from St. Ambrose and wisely doth he distinguish Speaking of the Flesh of Christ which was Crucified and Buried or in which Christ was Crucified and Buried he saith It is the true Flesh of Christ But of that which is taken in the Sacrament he saith It 's therefore truly the Sacrament of that Flesh distinguishing between the Sacrament of his Flesh and the Verity of his Flesh or his true Flesh in as much as he saith in that true Flesh which he took of the Virgin he was Crucified and Buried whereas he saith the Mystery now celebrated in the Church is the Sacrament of that true Flesh in which he was Crucified expresly teaching the Faithful that that Flesh in which Christ was Crucified and Buried is not a Mystery but true and natural whereas that Flesh which mystically represents the former is not Flesh in kind or Naturally but Sacramentally For in its Kind or Nature it is Bread but Sacramentally it is the true Body of Christ as the Lord Jesus saith This is my Body LVIII And in the following words The Holy Ghost hath in another place by the Prophet declared to thee what it is that we eat and drink saying * Psal 34.8 Taste and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusteth in him Doth the Bread and Wine eaten and drunk corporally shew how sweet the Lord is Whatsoever is an Object of Tasting is corporeal and
they did eat the same spiritual Meat with us He adds And they drank the same spiritual Drink They drank one thing and we another but (a) In its visible Nature only as to what outwardly appeared which by a spiritual vertue signified and same thing How was it the same Drink They drank faith he of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. Thence had they Bread whence they had Drink The Rock was Christ in a Type but the true Christ was the Word incarnate LXXIX Again (b) John 6.63 This is the Bread which came down from Heaven whosoever eats thereof shall never die which must be understood of him who eats the Vertue of the Sacrament not the meer visible Sacrament him who eats inwardly not outwardly who feeds on it in his Heart not who presseth it with his Teeth LXXX Again in what follows quoting our Saviour's Words he saith Doth this offend you that I said I give you my Flesh to eat and my Blood to drink What if you shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was before What means this Here he resolves that which troubled them here he expounds the Difficulty at which they were offended For they thought he would have given them his Body but he tells them that he should ascend in his Body entire into Heaven When you shall see the Son of Man ascend where he was before certainly then you will see that he did not give his Body in the way which you imagine then you will understand that the Grace of God is not eaten by Morsels He saith It is the Spirit that quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing LXXXI And after many other Passages he adds Whosoever saith the same Apostle hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his Therefore it is the Spirit that quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing (a) John 6.63 The words which I have spoken unto you are Spirit and life What means he by saying they are Spirit and Life That they must be Spiritually understood If thou understandest them Spiritually they are Spirit and Life if thou understandest them Carnally even so also they are Spirit and Life but not to thee LXXXII By the Authority of this Doctor treating on the Words of our Lord touching the Sacrament of his own Body and Blood we are plainly taught That those words of our Lord are to be spiritually and not carnally understood as he himself saith The words which I speak unto you are Spirit and Life That is his Words concerning eating his Flesh drinking his Blood. He had spoken those things at which his Disciples were offended Therefore that they might not be offended their Divine Master calleth them back from the Flesh to the Spirit from Objects of the outward Sense (a) That is to spiritual Objects to the understanding of things invisible LXXXIII So then we see that food of the Lord's Body that drink of his blood are in some respect truly his Body and his Blood that is in the same respect in which they are Spirit and Life LXXXIV Again those things which are one and the same are comprehended under the same Definition We say of the true Body of Christ that he is very God and very Man God begotten of God the Father before the World began and Man born of the Virgin Mary in the end of the World. But since these things cannot be said of the Body of Christ which is mystically celebrated in the Church we know that it is only in some particular manner the Body of Christ which manner is Figurative and in the way of an Image so that the Verity is the Thing it self LXXXV He argues from a Prayer in his time used after the H. Communion In the Prayer used after the Mystery of Christ's Body and Blood to which the People say Amen the Priest speaks thus (a) This Prayer is not found in the present Roman Mass-book We who have now received the Pledge of eternal Life most humbly beseech thee to grant that we may be (a) Or Really manifestly made partakers of that which here we receive under an Image or Sacrament LXXXVI A Pledge and Image are the Pledge and Image of somewhat else that is they do not respect themselves but another thing It is the Pledge of that thing for which it is given the Image of the thing it represents They signifie the thing of which they are the Pledge or Image but are not the very thing it self whence it appears that this Body and Blood of Christ are the Pledge and Image of something to come which is now only represented but shall hereafter be (b) Or Really plainly exhibited Now if it only signifie at present what shall be hereafter really exhibited then it is one thing which is now celebrated and another which shall hereafter be manifested LXXXVII Wherefore it is indeed the Body and Blood of Christ which the Church celebrates but in the way of a Pledge or an Image The truth we shall then have when the Pledge or Image shall cease and the very thing it self shall appear LXXXVIII And in another Prayer He argues from another Collect. (a) This is extant in the ordinary Mass-Book Let thy Sacrament work in us O Lord we beseech thee those things which they contain that we may really be made partakers of those things which now we celebrate in a figure He saith that these things are celebrated in a Figure not in Truth that is by way of Representation and not the (b) Or Real Presence Manifestation of the Thing it self Now the Figure and the Truth are very different things Therefore that Body and Blood of Christ which is celebrated in the Church differs from the Body and Blood of Christ which is glorified That Body is the Pledge or Figure but this the very Truth it self the former we celebrate till we come to the latter and when we come to the latter the former shall be done way LXXXIX It is apparent therefore that they differ vastly as much as the Pledge and that whereof it is the Pledge as much as the Image and the Thing whose Image it is as much as the Figure and Truth We see then how vast a difference there is between the Mystery of Christ's Body and Blood which the Faithful now receive in the Church and that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary which suffered was buried rose again ascended into Heaven and sitteth at the Right-hand of God. For that Body which is celebrated here in our way must be spiritually received for Faith believes somewhat that it seeth not and it spiritually feeds the Soul makes glad the Heart and confers Eternal Life and Incorruption if we attend not to that which feeds the Body which is chewed with our Teeth and ground to pieces but to that which is spiritually received by Faith. Now that Body in which Christ suffered and rose again was his own
7. but advanced such a Notion of it as amounted to no more than the Illumination of the Mind by God's Spirit Whereas the Catholicks did further acknowledge its powerful Sway over our Wills and its assistance in every good Work. Now if Paschasius and his Party do in Words acknowledge a Sign or Figure but such as in effect is none Ratram might well enough charge them with denying any Vail or Figure in the Sacrament Bertram and (k) Quae ob id Sacramenta dicuntur quia sub tegumento corporalium rerum Virtus Divina Secretius Salutem eorundem Sacramentorum operatur n. 46. Isidore cited by him make Sacramental Figures to be res corporales Corporal Things not only the proper Accidents of a Body as the Figure and Tast of Bread and Wine which Paschase and Haymo both admit in the Sacrament but Corporal Substances And in the Holy Eucharist (l) Sub velamento corporei Panis corporeique Vini c. n. 16. See Numb 97.98 Ratram saith That Christ's Spiritual Body and Blood are under the Vail of Corporeal Bread and Corporeal Wine which are Bodily Substances He also saith of the Consecrated (m) Corpus Sanguis Christi quae Fidelium ore in Ecclesia percipiuntur Figurae sunt secundum visibilem Speciem Which is expounded by Visibilem Creaturam in four Lines after n. 49. Bread and Cup which is called Christ's Body and Blood that it is a Figure of Christ's proper Body That the Body and Blood of Christ received in the Church are Figures as they are Visible Creatures Whereas (n) Lib. de C. S. D. c. 4. Est autem figura vel character hoc quod exterius sentitur sed totum veritas nulla adumbratio quod intrinsecus percipitur Paschase contends that the Consecrated Elements are both a Figure and the Truth as Christ who is true God is stiled (o) Heb. 1.3 the Figure or Character of his Substance This Haymo although he teacheth a Real Presence of Christ's natural Body look'd upon as absurd saying that nothing can be a Figure or Sign of it self and upon that account denied (p) Panis ille Sacratus Calix signa dicuntur Non autem hoc quantum ad carnem Christi Sanguinem accipiendum est Jam enim Corpus Sanguis Christi non essent Nullum enim Signum est illud cujus est Signum Nec res aliqua sui ipsius dicitur Signum sed alterius Apud Mabill A. B. S. 4. p. 2. Praef. n. 93. The consecrated Elements to be Signs of Christs Body Nor will the Text cited by Paschase bring him off for in the (q) It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Original Christ is said to be the Figure of his Person not his Substance and the Vulgar Interpreter must mean Subsistence by Substantia or he was an Arian For the Son was the Image not of the Essence but the Person of the Father and consequently Christ was not truly the Father though truly God so that the same thing is not proved to be both a Figure and Truth I confess Paschase expounds the Words of Christ's Human Nature which tho' it clear him of Arianism yet it spoils his proof that a thing may be a Figure of it self Upon reading his Book with the best attention I was able I cannot say whether he deny the Substance of the Consecrated Elements to remain or not he is so inconsistent with himself and seems rather to be for Impanation than Transubstantiation But our Adversaries believing his Doctrine to be the same with that of the present Church of Rome which is that meer Accidents remain to be a Figure or Vail of Christs natural Body he and they are as justly chargeable with denying any Figure as the Fancied Predecessors of Abbaudus and Walter nay as those Authors themselves who only asserted that Christ's very Body not the Accidents only was sensible and sensibly broken but never denied that the Accidents or somewhat which made the same Impressions on Sense as did the Accidents of Bread and Wine before Consecration shrowded it from their Eyes Whether those Accidents were subjected in Christ's Body or only environed it or whether God miraculously Imprinted the Idea of them on the Organs of Sense the case is no way varied For the Natural Body of Christ is still covered from the outward Senses so that what is pretended could not be the Point in Dispute between Ratram and his Adversaries who must needs admit a Figure and Vail in the Holy Eucharist as the Roman Catholicks now do 2. A right Understanding of the Terms of the Question will clear the Truth of what I said last and overthrow M. Boileau's Fancy In the Question there are three Parts to be considered 1. (r) Subjectum Quod in Ecclesia ore fidelium sumitur Suppositum Quod Corpus Sanguis Christi fiat Quaesitum An hoc fiat in Mysterio an in Veritate The Subject of it which is comprized in these words That which the Faithful do in the Church receive with the Mouth which import somewhat more than the bare Accidents or Superficies of Bread and Wine viz. the Substance which they environ and which passeth into the Mouth with them 2ly A thing admitted by both Parties touching this Subject viz. That by Consecration it is made Christ's Body and Blood. 3ly The point remaining in debate which is in what manner and by what sort of change it is made Christ's Body and Blood whether by a true and natural change or only by a Mystical and Sacramental change There is a great Emphasis in the Word Fiat which is more than a bare Verb Substantive in the Question and imports a change made (s) At quia confitentur Corpus Sanguinem Dei esse nec hoc esse potuisse nisi facta in melius commutatione neque ista commutatio Corporaliter sed Spiritaliter facta sit necesse est jam ut figurate facta esse dicatur Ratr. n. 16. Ratram proves against his Adversaries that it was a Figurative and Mystical not a Substantial and Corporal change and Haymo (t) Idem Panis in Carnem Domini mutatur idem Vinum in Sanguinem Domini transfertur non per figuram neque per umbram sed per Veritatem Haymo Hom. in Evang. die S. Palmarum Item in 1 Cor. 11. eadem habet prope ad verbum who was of the contrary Opinion makes the Elements to be converted into Christs Body and Blood not Figuratively or Mystically but in Verity so that if Haymo were as F. Mabillon (u) A. B. S. 4. p. 2. n. 93. supposes the Adversary whom our Author disputes against on the first Question Ratram as expresly denies the Real Presence of Christ's Natural Body in the Holy Eucharist as Paschase or Haymo can assert it I confess he explains Verity by Manifestation and makes them to say that the Object of their Faith was also perceived by the bodily Eye
in the smaller piece must consequently be equal to the Virtue of the whole Host This is a very intelligible Notion That in Signification and Efficacy a part may be equal to the whole especially where it operates as a Moral Instrument But to say that in Substance or Quantity after infinite Divisions the least sensible Part should be equal to the whole is an insolent Contradiction to the standing Principles of Geometry And in some places he so renders Bertram that the Passages which in the Author appear a little favourable to M. Boileau's Exposition in Aelfric's Paraphrase quite subvert it comparing the Sacrament of Baptism with the Holy Eucharist having determined that Water in the Former is in its own nature a corruptible Liquor but in the Sacrament it is an Healing Virtue saith in like manner of the Holy Eucharist That outwardly considered the Body and Blood of Christ is a corruptible Creature but if you ponder its Mystical Virtue it is Life M. Boileau Translates Superficie tenus considerata consider'd as to its Exterior Superficies which falleth under Sense on purpose to beguile the Reader and make him believe that Bertram calls the Sensible Accidents only a corruptible Creature But Aelfric renders Superficie tenus (p) aeften lichamlicum andgite Fol. 32. after bodily Understanding that is consider'd Corporally or in its Nature in opposition to its Virtue and Beneficial Efficacy For so he expounds himself immediately and that Ratram intended not to separate the Superficies from its Subject is I think very evident from N. 10. (q) Vinum quoque aliud Superficie tenus ostendit aliud interius continet Quid enim aliud in Superficie quam SUBSTANTIA VINI conspicitur Ratr. N. 10. where he saith of the Consecrated Wine What do we discern else in its Superficies but the Substance of Wine And speaking of the Baptismal Water he useth the like Phrases (r) In eo tamen fonte si consideretur solummodo quod corporeus aspicit Sensus c. n. 17. Cognoscitur ergo in eo fonte inesse quod Sensus corporis artingat idcirco mutabile atque corruptibile n. 18. as it is seen by the Bodily Sense it is a corruptible fluid Element and again There is in the Holy Font that which the Bodily Sense can reach which is mutable c. and yet no Body will pretend that those Phrases import no more than the Sensible Accidents of Water without its natural Substance So then Substances are Objects of Sense by the good leave of the (s) Transubstantiation defended p. 5 Defender of Transubstantiation tho' he Chastiseth his Learned Adversary as one who hath less Logick than a Junior Soph for saying that it is a matter of Sense that we dispute with the R.Cs. when we prove the Holy Eucharist to be Bread and not Flesh and for all the Maxims which he gravely lays down against it Substances do truly though not immediately affect the Organs of Sense which are competent Judges of the Essential difference of Bodies by their proper Sensible Qualities And all this he confesseth as soon as his Passion is a little spent Again AElfric teacheth us Ratram's true sense of Christ's Spiritual Body and shews it to be vastly wide of what the Romanists fancy For he meant not thereby Christ's Natural Body subsisting after the manner of a Spirit that is without being Visible or Local and without its proper Dimensions under the Visible forms of Bread and Wine but on the contrary by Christ's Spiritual Body he understands the Viible Sacrament or consecrated Bread which he calls the Holy Housel and stles it a Spiritual Body in (t) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen in Matth. Tom. I. pag. 254. Edit Huetianae Origen's sense when he calls it a Typical or Symbolical Body or as the Apostle calls the Rock in the Wilderness a Spiritual Rock (u) I Cor. 10.4 i.e. a Typical Rock To make out this I need only produce his bare words where distinguishing his Body wherein he Suffered from that in the Sacrament he proves them to be quite different things because the former was born of the Flesh of Mary with Blood Bones Skin Sinews distinct Limbs and animated with a Rational Soul whereas (w) Saxon Hom. fol. 34 35. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of manegum cornum gegaderod Et Ratramnus n. 72 At vero caro Spiritualis quae Populum credentem Spiritualiter pascit secundum speciem quam gerit exterius frumenti granis manu artificis consistit c. his SPIRITUAL BODY which we call the HOUSEL is made up of many Corns without Blood Bone Limb or Soul c. Therefore not as the Trent Fathers teach us the entire Person of Christ Body Soul and Divinity It is obvious also to remark the same thing fairly intimated by him in another place where expounding these words of our Saviour He that eareth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath everlasting Life He glosseth thus after St. Austine (x) Liflica hlaf fol. 69. gastlice husel fol. 71. He did not command them to eat that Body in which he was apprehended nor to drink that Blood which he shed for us but he meant the holy HOUSEL by those words which is SPIRITUALLY his Body and Blood and proceeds immediately after Fulgentius and Ratram to compare the Legal Sacrifices with this Eucharistical one and makes the difference principally to consist herein that the Legal Sacrifices did PREFIGURE Christ TO BE given us and the Holy Eucharist was a commemorative Type or Memorial of Christ ALREADY given to Die for our Sins And in Elfrics latter Epistle he saith that the Consecrated Bread (y) On lichamlican ðinge ac on gastlecum and gyte fol. 69. which he calls Living Bread that it is not Christ's Body in Corporal Substance or Reality but in a Spiritual i. e. Sacramental or Mystical Sense I could add many more Observations from this Homily and other Monuments of our Saxon Ancestors which shew that the Transubstantiators and not we are departed from the Faith of our Ancestors 700 years ago As his speaking of (a) ðeah sume men gesceote laes se dael ne biþ sƿa mare miht on ðam maran daele ðonne on þam laessan fol. 37. pieces of Christ's Body and (b) Fol. 62. 65. its growing black hoary or rotten whereas no such division or ill-favoured Accidents can happen to Christ's true Body and how new Accidents can be generated without a Subject or be subjected in the remaining Accidents of Bread and Wine is a Phaenomenon that transcends all Philosophical Solution For Consecration can have no effect on Accidents not existing and which have no relation at all to the Holy Mystery and consequently cannot be presumed to exempt them from the common Law of Accidents which necessarily require a Subject to subsist in whereas these are not subjected in Christ's Body and how they should be subjected in other Accidents Aristotle himself would not be
a Spiritual Efficacy and Nutritive Virtue which Spiritually feeds the Soul as the Material Bread and Wine nourish the Body This Mr. Boileau (m) Remarques p. 226. flatly denieth but upon very slender Reasons For saith he were this the Authors sense he could not say as he doth that Christ's Body is there and that it is a Crime so much as to imagine the contrary That there is in the Sacrament a change of one thing into another or that the Corporal appearances of Bread and Wine and Christ's Body have not two several Existences But all this is meer Smoak and Amusement For Ratram doth not say it is a Crime to think that the Consecrated Elements are not Christs NATURAL Body he saith it himself twenty times over and tells us that they are Christs SPIRITUAL Body and the Sense of the word Spiritual I have already shewn Neither doth he affirm the Sacramental change to be of one thing into another those words are added by way of Paraphrase by Mr. Dean of Sens as I shall shew in its proper place He fairly intimates the contrary where he tells us That it is a change for the beter (n) Nec hoc esse potuisse nisi facta in melius commutatione neque ista commutatio Corporaliter sed Spiritualiter Facta sit necesse est jam ut Figurate c. n. 16. having before proved it to be no Physical change for such an advancement may be made without any Substantial change by raising the Elements to a Dignity above the condition of their Nature and separating them from common to sacred Uses As for what he adds that the Corporal appearances and Christs Body have not two distinct Existences I shall when I come to consider how he abuseth the word Species shew that the Bodily Appearances he speaks of are meer Fiction never dream'd of by our Author In the mean time I shall give the Authors true sense which is this That there are not two Consubstantiate Beings in the Sacrament as in a Man there is a Soul and Body but that one and the same thing viz. The Elements consider'd with respect to their Natural Substance are Bread and Wine but consider'd as Consecrated they are Sacraments of Christ's Body and Blood. This is easily illustrated by a familiar Example The King is not two Persons as he is a Man and a Prince but one who considered in his Natural Capacity is a Man and in his Civil Capacity is a Prince The same Inference may be also made from Ratram's Parallel of the Holy Eucharist with Manna and the Rock Water which he saith were Spiritually turned into Christ's Body and Blood and were eaten and drunk by the Faithful Israelites in the Wilderness His scope is plainly this to prove that the change made by Consecration is not Substantial but Figurative like that of the Manna which could not be properly Transubstantiated into Christ's Body before his Incarnation before he had a Body prepared him And yet a wanton Wit might in Mr. Boileau's way as handsomely elude all Arguments against Ratram's belief of a substantial change of the Manna and Water into Christ's Body as he doth our Arguments against the Corporal Presence from Bertram If he object that Bertram speaks of the substance of Manna and tne Water it is easily answered that the word Substantia even by the confession of Mr. Boileau (o) Remarques p. 246 247. is not always taken in the strict Philosophical Notion but sometimes more largely for the Sensible Qualities of things If he urge that Bertram calls them Corporal Things it may be answered that by (p) Remarques p. 222. Mr. B's confession that may signifie no more than the External appearance of a Body and the sensible Accidents If he further press the Impossibility of the Thing that Manna should be substantially converted into a body not Existing It may be plausibly replied That Bertram saith (q) N. 25. We must not exercise our Reason but our Faith in this matter It is a Miracle a Mystery Incomprehensible a Work of God's Omnipotence which is not to be limited by the pretence of Impossibilities and Absurdities In fine when he comes to determine the first Question and make his Inference from all the Arguments and Authorities which he had before alledged he concludes thus (r) N. 49. Figurae sunt secundum Speciem Visibilem at vero secundum Invisibilem Substantiam id est Divini Potentiam Verbi vere Corpus Sanguis Christi Existunt The Body and Blood of Christ orally received by the Faithful may be considered either as Visible Creatures and so they are Figures and feed the Body or according to their Invisible Substance which is as he explains himself The Power of the Divine Word and so they are truly Christ's Body and Blood feeding and sanctifying the Souls of the Faithful From which Passage it is plain not only that Ratram proves a Figure in the Sacrament but that this Figure is more than the outward appearance of Bread and Wine that it is the Substance for what he meant by the visible Species he after explains by calling them the (Å¿) Visibilis Species is Expounded by Visibilis Creatura Visible Creature and affirming that it feeds the Body and though he oppose hereunto the Invisible Substance the words that follow direct us to take Substance in an improper sense For he delivers himself with great Caution as if it were on purpose to prevent any such Mistake according to the Invisible Substance (t) Invisibilem Substantiam by potentioris Virtutem Substantiae that is saith he the Power of the Divine Word and again The virtue of a more Powerful Substance which is the Grace annexed to the Sacrament by virtue of the Institution For that he should hereby mean Christ's Natural Body no Body will believe who considers that he affirmed (u) Inerat corporeis illis Substantiis SPIRITUALIS VERBI POTESTAS quae mentes potius quam Corpora credentiâ—m pasceret atque potaret n. 22. a Spiritual Power of the Word to have been in Corporeal Substances of Manna and Water in which no R. C. ever pretended that Christ was present in verity of Substance In the second Part it is as evident that he encounters not that Fictitious Error Mr. Boileau would have him viz. That the outward Species and Sensible Accidents of Bread and Wine are Christ's Flesh and Blood born of the Virgin c. For first The subject of the Question is as hath been already shewn the Consecrated Elements the whole Eucharist as Orally received and not their meer Accidents For he saith (w) Nam secundum Creaturarum Substantiam quod fuerant ante Consecrationem hoc postea consistunt Panis Vinum prius extitere c. N. 54. The substance of the Creatures remains after Consecration what they were before that is Bread and Wine Indeed if the Subject were only the outward Species or Accidents of Bread and
Water or Oil or an Ordinary House without denying Water Oyl or the Building to exist my longer And in this sense (p) Cyril Catech. Mystag 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. St. Cyril of Jerusalem saith As the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist are not meer or common Bread and Wine so after the Invocation of the Holy Ghost the Chrism is not common Oyl And in like manner Catech. 1. He compares the Sacramental Bread and Wine with Meats offered to Idols teaching That as the former by the Invocation of the Holy Trinity of common Bread and Wine are made the Body and Blood of Christ so the Meats offered to Idols are in their nature common Meat i. e. Lawful but by Invocation of Devils they are rendred profane or unlawful Which infers no destruction of the Old Substance but only the introducing of a new Quality or relation to the impure Daemons which rendred the Meat prophane or unclean So that to be made what a thing was not before infers not necessarily that it ceaseth to be what it was before it is sufficient that it receiveth some new perfection or additional Dignity Again N. LVI Intellige quod (q) Les choses qui y tombent sous le sens ne sont pas le Corps le sang de J. C. dans leur espece ou apparence visible mais qu'ils y sont par la Vertu du Verbe non in Specie sed in Virtute Corpus Sanguis Christi existant quae cernuntur Know assuredly that the things which fall under the Senses are not Christs Body and Blood in their Species or Visible Appearance but that they viz. Christs Body and Blood are there by the Vertue of the Word Ratram saith That the Visible Elements are Christ's Body and Blood not in Nature but in Virtue which is a distinction understood by every Freshman but Mr. Boileau makes him to say That which destroyeth the Antithesis which insinuates an unheard of distinction of Appearance and Virtue and which is not a proper Answer to the Objection started upon the Authority of St. Ambrose Mark you say Ratram's Adversaries This Father teacheth (r) Hic jam surgit Auditor dicit Corpus Christi esse quod cernitur Sanguinem qui bibitur c. that what is seen on the Lords Table and orally received is the Body and Blood of Christ To this Ratram answers by a distinction and sheweth in what sense the Holy Elements are Christ's Body and Blood and in what sense they are not so viz. In their Species or Nature they are not Christ's Body and Blood but in their Virtue and Efficacy It was not his business to affirm the presence of Christs Body and Blood but to give an account in what sense St. Ambrose affirmed the Consecrated Elements to be Christs Body and Blood. Again N. LXXVII (s) Car si ce Corps est celuy de J.C. s' il est ainsi appellè veritablement parce qu'il est le Corps du J. C. il est le Corps de J. C. dans la Verite c'est a dire de la maniere dont il se comporte dont il paroist a nos yeux c. Si enim Corpus Christi est hoc dicitur vere quia Corpus Christi est in Veritate Corpus Christi est si in veritate Corpus Christi est c. If this Body which is celebrated in the Church be Christ's and it be so called truly because it is the Body of Christ then it is the Body of Christ in Truth that is as it sheweth it self to the Eye if so c. It was cunningly done to make Non-sense of an Argument which truly translated would have quite spoiled the whole design of M. Boileau's Version and Remarks He could not be ignorant that dicitur vere quia c. ought to have been rendred if it be truly i. e. properly affirmed that it is Christ's Body And that he argueth that it is not in propriety of Speech affirmed to be Christ's Body because it is not so in Truth of Nature in regard Christ's Natural Body is Incorruptible Impassible and Eternal whereas the Sacrament is undeniably corrupted being broken in pieces chewed small by the Teeth digested and turned into the Substance of the Receivers Body But to trouble my self and the Reader with no more particulars of his false dealings I shall give you an entire Paragraph exactly translated from his French which I desire may be compared with the Authors Latin. N. LVII Quam diligenter quam prudenter facta distinctio De carne Christi quae crucifixa est quae sepulta est id est secundum (t) C'est a dire dans l'apparence sensible de la quelle J. C. a eie crucifie enseveli quam Christus crucifixus est sepultus ait Vera itaque Caro Christi de illa quae sumitur in Sacramento Vere ergo carnis illius Sacramentum est Distinguens Sacramentum Carnis a Veritate Carnis Quatenus in Veritate Carnis quam sumpserat de Virgine diceret eum crucifixum sepultum quod vero nunc agitur in Ecclesia Mysterium verae illius carnis in qua crucifixus est diceret esse Sacramentum Patenter Fideles instituens quod illa Caro secundum quam crucifixus est Christus Sepultus non sit Mysterium sed Veritas Naturae haec vero Caro quae nunc similitudinem illius in Mysterio continet non fit Specie Caro sed Sacramento Siquidem in Specie Panis est in Sacramento verum Christi Corpus sicut ipse clamat Dominus Jesus Hoc est Corpus meum Now observe with what prudence St. Ambrose establisheth this distinction He saith of the Flesh which was crucified and buried that is according to which Christ was crucified and buried (t) C'est a dire dans l'apparence sensible de la quelle J. C. a eie crucifie enseveli that is to say in the sensible appearance whereof Jesus Christ was crucified and buried It is the True Flesh of Jesus Christ But of that receivd in the Sacrament he saith it is truly the Sacrament of that Flesh distinguishing of his Flesh from the Sensible Verity of his Flesh meaning that according to the Sensible Verity of his Flesh Christ was crucified and buried and that the Mystery celebrated in the Church is the Sacrament of that True and Sensible Flesh in which he was crucified And thereby plainly teaching the Faithful that this Sensible in and according to which Christ was Crucified and Buried is no Mystery but the (u) Mais la verite de la nature avec toutes ses dimensions au lieu que cette chair qui en contient l'Image dans le Myst cre n' est pas la chair selon l'apparence selon ce qui tombe sous le sens mais dans le Sacrament Puis que selon les apparences sensibles ce que
l'on voit est du Pain c. Verity of Nature with all its dimensions whereas that Flesh which contains the Image hereof in the Mystery is not Flesh according to Sensible Appearance but in the Sacrament For according to the Sensible Appearance that which we behold is Bread and that in the Sacrament it is the True Body of Christ as he himself declareth in these words This is my Body This is a remarkable Specimen of Fidelity in Translating and may suffice to let the Reader see how far he is to rely on the Translators exactness and sincerity or to give credit to the Testimony of his Brethren of the Sorbon who have under their hands declared this Version of M. Boileau and his Notes to be conformable in every thing to the Text of this Ancient Author I shall now in the last place endeavour to shew that the Sense which he imposeth on the Technical Terms by which we are to learn the Author 's true Sentiments is generally forced and often absurd that it is not agreeable to the scope of the Author neither are those Terms so used by Ecclesiastical Writers of the same or elder Times I shall begin with the word Veritas which is one of the Terms of the first Question and often occurs in this Tract Now when Ratram denieth that which is orally received in the Sacrament to be Christ's Body and Blood in Verity or his True Body and Blood we understand him to deny the Holy Eucharist to be his Body and Blood in Reality or Truth of Nature or which is all one his Natural Body And in case we (w) Si cette pretention avoit ete autorisée de quelque bonne preuve il n'y auroit pas lieu de doubter qui n' eust ete l'Inventeur de l'Heresie du Calvin p. 27. Pref. be in the right M. Boileau confesseth that he must yield the Point in dispute and abandon poor Ratram as the Author of Calvin's Heresie so he is pleased to style the Doctrine of the Ancient Church for the nine or ten first Centuries He therefore tells us that of (x) Pref. p. 31. Two and forty places in which those Terms Verum and Veritas are found in this Book there are not above seven or eight of which the Protestants can make no advantage in which they signifie Real or Reality and in the other Three and thirty so curious hath Mr. Dean been in his Observations it imports only the Manifestation or Sensible Appearance of Christ's Body That in this sense Ratram opposeth Verity to a Figure and denieth the Holy Eucharist to be Christ's true Body and Blood from which nothing can be concluded against the Real Presence which is as he explains it the Proper Substance and Humane Nature of Jesus Christ. Now on this Point we will joyn Issue and I will first examine the Proofs he brings for his sense of the word and afterwards I shall shew that sense to be false absurd and contrary to the use of that Term in other Ecclesiastical Writers of the same and elder Times To make out his Notion of the Word two things are offer'd by M. Boileau 1. He saith That Ratram himself expounds Verity by Manifestation 2. That the Writers of the middle Ages use it to signifie the Depositions of Witnesses and the Proof of things To the former of these somewhat hath already been said in the (y) Pag. 66. Dissertation before this Tract and in this Appendix which I desire the Reader to consult and I shall further add what I conceive will take off the force of this Argument I admit that Ratram doth so expound Verity and defines it to be the manifest Demonstration of a thing but he no where expounds Manifestation to be the Sensible Appearance I have already shewn that the Verity which he defines is Propriety and Plainness of Speech in opposition to Figurative Speech and in that Notion of this word divers things are manifested which have no Sensible Appearances These sayings that the Father is God the Soul is a Spirit that Angels are Creatures are in Ratram's sense the naked Manifestation of the Truth or the plain or manifest Demonstration of the things which have no Sensible Appearance at all that is the words in their native signification import that which they are used to express whereas in the Figurative and Mystical Forms of Speech the words are used to express quite another thing than what they really and naturally import So that the one is a covert and obscure the other a plain proper and natural way of speaking and this Bertram calls the clear light of Manifestation the plain or simple Verity and our Saxon Homilist as I have shewn useth a word (z) geƿissum ðing Fol 29. of the same importance whereas had he understood Bertram in that sense M. Boileau doth he must have expressed Manifestation by another word which is afterwards used for the (a) sume sƿutelunge be ðam halgan husel Fol. 38. Sensible Demonstration of a thing Now as this Term when applied to Forms of Speech imports Propriety of Speech so when applied to Things it signifieth Propriety of Nature or the Very thing it self without any Mystical Signification of or Respect unto another thing And thus it stands opposed to a Pledg an Image or Figure instituted to represent one thing whilst it is in Substance in Reality and Truth of Nature another When it s urged to prove that Ratram useth the word Manifestation to signifie the Reality That he must use it in the same sense it was used by his Adversaries who must either thereby understand the Reality or else believe the Holy Eucharist to be our Saviour's Body in humane Form which none pretends they did Mr. Dean briskly denies the Consequence and like a Doctor of great Authority adds (b) P. 35. Je Soutiens qu'ils se persuadoient seulement de voir le Corps le Sang'de J. C. affectez des qualitez du pain vin c. I maintain that they only believed it to be Christ's Body affected with the Qualities of Bread. Now I appeal to any Man of common sense whether any thing can be more absurd than some Passages of this Book are if so expounded For Example in that Prayer (c) N. 85. Quod in imagine contingimus Sacramenti manifesta participatione sumamus wherein the Church begs of God to grant the manifest Participation of that which is received in a Sacramental Image the meaning must be that they might partake of our Saviour's Flesh under the Sensible Appearance of Bread. And again where (d) N. 97. Nec in eo vel aliqua figura vel significatio sed ipsa rei Manifestatio he saith the Body which suffer'd and rose again is our Saviour's Proper Body and in it there is no Figure or Signification but the Manifestation of the thing it self he must mean if M. Boileau hath hit upon the true Notion of Ratram's Adversaries
exegeticè usurpatur that TRULY and REALLY are Terms equivalent and here the former is expounded by the latter I have been the more prolix on this Term because M. Boileau layeth the stress of the whole Controversie upon its true Sense in which I persuade my self that any impartial Reader must needs perceive him to have been grosly misled by Prejudice I shall now proceed to shew how gross an Errour he is guilty of in expounding another Term of no less moment in this Controversie which is the word SPECIES which he makes to signifie the (b) I l signifie apparence non pas la Substance la Nature des choses comme les Philosophes le prennent ordinairement Praef. p. 41. Remarq p. 220 p. 250. I l n'entend pas la Verite de la Nature mais seulement ce que l'on appellè les Accidents qui tombent sous le sens p. 253 254. Appearance and not the Substance and Nature of things in which Exposition if I prove him deceived he must for ever renounce his confident claim of Ratram for a Patron of Transubstantiation Let us then before we offer any thing to evince the contrary see what Proof M. Boileau brings to make out his Assertion that by Species in this Tract must be understood the Sensible Apearance or Accidents and not the Nature or Substance of things Now for Proof hereof he sends the Reader to his Remarks and upon a careful perusal of the places to which he refers I protest I cannot observe the least Shew or Appearance either of Reason or Authority to countenance the sense which he imposeth on the Term and the Truth is I have always had more trouble to find out his Arguments than to Answer them The former of the two places to which he refers is a Remark on these words (c) Rem p. 220. on n. xii Quoniam secundum veritatem Species creaturae quae fuerat ante permansisse cognoscitur It is well known that the Species of the Creature remains in Truth what it was before This Passage I confess deserved a Remark and unless our Translator make out his sense of Species very clearly it will stand in direct Opposition to the Trent Doctrine That the Substance of Bread and Wine remain not after Consecration To clear this Passage he therefore cites another by which it may be expounded in which Ratram saith (d) Non enim secundum quod videtur vel carnis Species in illo pane cognoscitur vel in illo vino Cruoris unda monstratur num x. That we see not the Form or Appearance of Flesh and Blood in this Mystery How honestly that Passage is thus rendred by him hath been already shewn but how he proves Species in that place to signifie Appearance I am still to learn for as I noted before unda cruoris imports the Liquid Substance of Blood and gives us fair ground to conclude that Species Carnis signifieth the Substance and not the meer Accidents of Flesh He further addeth (e) Rem p. 220. That Ratram learnt this use of the word from the Books of the Sacraments ascribed to St. Ambrose whence he cites this Passage following for an Example of it (f) Spiritus enim Sanctus in Specie Columbae non in Veritate columbae descendit de Coelo lib. 1. cap. 3. The Holy Ghost descended from Heaven in the Species or likeness of a Dove not in the Verity or Real Substance of a Dove I freely grant the word in this place imports the Likeness or Appearance in opposition to Truth of Nature but then withal I deny that it signifieth any thing like what they make Species of Bread and Wine in the Holy Eucharist to be It doth not import all the Sensible Qualities of a True Dove which was miraculously converted into the Holy Ghost nor yet doth it imply the Sensible Accidents of a Dove existing without a Subject For though the generality of the Fathers are express in denying the Holy Spirit to have assumed the Nature or Real Body of a Dove yet some of them (g) Surgenti manifesta Dei praesentia claret Scinditur auricolor coeli septemplicis aethra Corporeamque gerens Speciem descendit ab alto Spiritus aeream simulans in nube columbam Jnvencus Evang. Hist l. 1. inter Poet. Vet. Eccles Basil 1564. in Quarto Non tamen de avibus sumpsisse columbam sed ex aere minime dubitatur l. 3. de mirabil Script c 5. apud August Tom. 3. make him to have assumed a Body like a Dove formed of Air condensed of which matter it is ordinarily believed the Bodies assumed by Angels do consist And if so the Accidents which affect the Senses have a Real and Corporeal as the Colours and Features of a well-made Effigies subsist in a Real Subject though not in the Very Person whom it resembles So that this Citation is no Authority for the sense he imposeth on the Term and upon examination of these Books whence he makes Bertram to have learn'd this use of the word Species many undeniable Examples of its being used for the Substance and Specifick Nature will appear This is all the Proof he offers unless the ipse dixit of a Sorbon Doctor must pass for a Demonstration (h) Ad num 54. the other Remark to which he sends us contains neither Argument nor Authority to bear out his Exposition of that Term. I shall therefore now take leave to enquire into the true sense thereof and in a short Digression give a probable Account how it came into use with Ecclesiastick Authors And had M. Boileau taken the same method to search out the true meaning of Species which he took to justifie his forced Interpretation of Veritas that is had been pleased to consult the Learned M. du Cange I might have spared my pains From him he might have learn'd that it is (i) Species Vox J. C. notissima quibus idem sonat quod veteribus fruges c. Glossar Tom. 3. col 918. a Term wherewith the Lawyers are well acquainted and signifieth all that the Ancient Latin Writers include in the Notion of Fruges Wine Oyl Corn Pulse c. And the Glossary at the end of the Theodosian Code published by Gothofred extende its Signification (k) Species sunt res seu corpora quaecunque quorum usus est aliquis in humana conversatione quidem quae tributi annonarumque nomine Fisco penduntur Glossar Nomic tit Species to all Necessaries of Life Tributes Publick Stores of Provisions and not only for the Belly but the Back also Rich Cloaths and Houshold-stuff Jewels as also Materials for Building Timber and Iron passing by that Name in both the Theodosian and Justinian Codes in the Writers of the Imperial History Vegetius Cassiodorus c. In the Theodosian Code there are many Laws concerning the publick Species (l) Tributa in ipsis Speciebus inferri Non sunt pretia
in the difference between the Being the Essence the Substance and the Signification to which they stand opposed This I shall make very plain from two or three Authorities of St. Austin (x) Quoniam signa sunt rerum aliud EXISTENTIA aliud SIGNIFICANTIA Aug. contra Maximin l. 3. c. 22. speaking of Sacraments he saith That they are signs of Things which signs ARE one thing and signifie another There Existence or Being and signifying are opposed Again (y) Hinc est quod dictum est Petra erat Christus non enim dixit Petra significat Christum sed tanquam hoc esset quod utique per SVBSTANTIAM hoc non erat sed per SIGNIFICATIONEM Aug. Quaest super Levit. 57. Therefore it is said that Rock WAS Christ he did not say it SIGNIFIED Christ as though it had been what indeed it was not in SUBSTANCE but in SIGNIFICATION what Ratram called Species St. Augustin calleth Substance And if any doubt it I hope to satisfie him by a third Authority where affirming that the Fathers and We had the same Spiritual Meat and Drink he explains himself in what sense he called it the same (z) Idem itaque in Mysterio cibus potus illorum qui noster sed SIGNIFICATIONE idem non SPECIE Aug. in Ps 77. Aliud illi aliud nos sed Specie visibili quod tamen hoc idem significaret virtute Spirituali n. 78. ex Tract 26. in Joan. viz. The same in SIGNIFICATION not in SPECIE or Substance And to these I might add the Testimony cited by Ratram N. 78. where he states the difference in the same Terms Now by this we may understand what he means when above N. 54. (a) Panis Vinum prius extitere in qua etiam Specie jam consecrata permanere videntur n. 54. he saith That Bread and Wine continue in the same Species that is Specifick Nature after Consecration which they had before though that place is clear enough without borrowing Light hence for what is here called Species is in the sentence immediately preceding called (b) Nam secundum creaturarum substantiam quod fuerunt ante Consecrationem hoc postea consistunt c. the Substance of the Creatures so that Species here is what Ratram in a place before cited out of another Work of his (c) In substantiae suae specie Ratr. de Praed lib. 2. calleth the Species of its Substance And as in this Tract by the (d) Corpus in quo semel passus est Christus non aliam Speciem praeferebat quam in qua consistebat n. 69. id est quam eam Speciem in qua consistebat quae est natura specifica Species in which Christ's Natural Body consisted he meant a REAL Humane Body so in this place N. 54. where he saith the Consecrated Elements were Bread and Wine before and consist or remain in the same Species after Consecration he must necessarily mean that they continue REAL Bread and Wine There are other Passages where the (e) Intelliges quod non in SPECIE sed in VIRTVTE Corpus Sanguis Christi existunt quae cernuntur n. 56. Species and Virtue and the Corporeal (f) N. 93 94. Speciem corporalem Fructum spiritualem Species and Spiritual Fruit stand opposed which would illustrate this Matter which I pass over that I be not tedious to the Reader And shall only add That if in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries Species had born M. Boileau's sense and our Saxon Ancestors had believed nothing but the Appearances of Bread and Wine to remain it had been of great moment carefully to have expressed it in those very Terms in Translating the 72 Paragraph of Bertram where he saith the Spiritual Body of Christ as to the Species it outwardly bears is made of several Grains of Wheat by the Bakers hand c. Whereas Aelfric in rendring that place omits the words (g) See the Saxon Hom. Fol. 35 36. Secundum speciem quam gerit exterius and saith without any such restriction or limiting Exposition That Christ's Spiritual Body which we call the Housel is gathered of many Corns (h) Buton blode without Blood c. Where by the way also observe that our Saxon Ancestors held not the Doctrin of that Concomitance which was devised since to justifie the Sacrilegious Practice of depriving the People of the Cup. I shall now consider in what sense the word Species is used by other Ecclesiastical Writers I will begin with Tertullian the most Antient of the Latin Fathers who expounds the word Species by Res and Veritas For Instance (i) Per fidem incedentes non per Speciem id est spe non Re Tertul. Deâ—Res Carn c. 43. Walking by Faith and not by Species that is saith he in Hope and not in Fruition of the thing And elsewhere having occasion to quote Numb 12.8 in which place God expresseth his extraordinary favour to Moses and promiseth to admit him to more familiar Conversation with himself than he would other Prophets he thus glosseth upon the words (k) Os ad os loquar illi in Specie id est in Veritate non in aenigmate id est non in imagine Adv. Praxeam c. 14. vide etiam Contra Marcion l. 4. c. 22. in Specie utique hominis quam gesturus erat To him will I speak Mouth to Mouth in Specie that is in Truth and not Aenigmatically that is in an Image Likewise Origen or some (l) Hoc liquet ex Hom. 18. ubi haec leguntur In Libro qui apud NOS quidem inter Salomonis volumina haberi solet Ecclesiasticus dici apud GRAECOS vero sapientia Jesu filii Sirach appellatur Latin Writer whose Homilies on the Book of Numbers are found among Origens Works expounding the same place doth at least ten times over make Species to import Truth and Aenigma the Type or Figure Hereof take these Instances (m) Lex Dei jam non in figuris in imaginibus sicut prius sed in ipsa Specie veritatis agnoscitur Et quae prius in aenigmate designabant nunc in Specie Veritate complentur Origen Hom. VII in Numeros Those things which were formerly designed in the way of an Image are now fulfilled in Reality and Truth And again (n) Vides quomodo aenigmata legis Paulus absolvit Species aenigmatum docet Ibid. You see how Paul cleareth the Figures of the Law and teacheth the Things signified by those Figures (o) Antea in aenigmate fuit baptismus in nube in mari nunc autem in Specie regeneratio est in aqua in Spiritu Sancto Ibid. Antiently there was a Figurative Baptism in the Cloud and in the Sea now there is True Regeneration in Water and the Holy Ghost In all the forementioned Instances the word Species doth import the very Thing the Reality the Truth and not the
Appearance In other Authors it implieth the Creature also the kind or sort of Creatures in conformity to the use of the word in the Roman Laws or the Natural Substance Gaudentius (p) Recte etiam Vini Specie tum sanguis ejus exprimitur quia cum ipse in Evangelio dicit Ego sum Vitis Vera satis declarat sanguinem suum esse omne Vinum quod in Figura Passionis ejus offertur Gaudent Brix ad Neophyl Serm. 2. Bibl. Pat. tom 2. Edit Par. 1610. saith Likewise is our Saviour's Blood fitly set forth by the Species or Creature of Wine because that he himself in his Gospel by saying I am the true Vine doth sufficiently declare that all the Wine which is offered in the Figure or Sacrament of his Passion is his Blood. Here Species Vini and Vinum are the same and signifie the Natural substance of Wine and not the meer Appearances and sensible Qualities thereof Salvian (q) Speciem servantes naturam relinquentes lib. 1. de Gub. useth the word Species for the Natural Substance of Water in the place already produced upon another occasion Isidore of Sevil saith (r) Post Speciem Maris Terrae formata duo Luminaria magna legis Isid Hisp de Ordine Creat c. 5. After the Species of Sea and Earth you read that two great Luminaries were Created Species there signifieth the Creatures of Sea and Earth What St. Austin (Å¿) Aug. Serm. ad Infantes apud Fulgent de Bapt. Aethiopis meant by the Visible Species in the Sacrament which he opposeth to the Spiritual Fruit in a Passage cited and expounded by Bertram who addeth that the Visible Species feedeth the Body may be best learn'd from himself in the same Sermon where he hath these words (t) Sicut enim ut sit Species Visibilis panis multa grana in unum consperguntur tanquam illud fiat quod de Fidelibus ait Scriptura Sancta Erat illis anima Cor unum in Deum Sic de vino fratres recolite unde sit unum Grana multa pendent ad botrum sed liquor granorum in unitate confunditur Ita Dominus Jesus Christus NOS significavit NOS ad SE pertinere voluit Mysterium Pacis Vnitatis nostrae in sua mensa consecravit As to the making the Visible Species of Bread many Grains of Corn are moulded into one Mass as it is said of the Faithful in the Holy Scripture that they had one Soul and one Heart so my Brethren consider how the Wine is made one Body Many Grapes hang on the Bunch but the Juice of those Grapes is pressed together into one Body of Liquor Thus our Lord Jesus Christ hath signified US viz. the Body of Believers and would that we should belong to him that is as Members of the Mystical Body whereof he is Head and hath consecrated the Mystery of our Peace and Unity on his own Table There are several things to be Remarked from this Passage 1. That he saith the visible species of Bread is made up of many Corns moulded together and made up into one Lump Now this cannot be said of the Accidents but of the Substance of Bread made up into one Loaf before Consecration For in another place (u) Quod cum per manus hominum ad illam Visibilem Speciem perducitur non Sanctificatur ut sit tam magnum Sacramentum c. de Trin. l. 3. c. 4. he useth the same Expression with relation to Vnconsecrated Bread Which saith he after it is by the hands of Men brought to that Visible Species is not Sanctified and made so great a Sacrament but by the Invisible Operation of God's Spirit 2. When he comes to speak of the Sacramental Wine he doth not call it the Visible Species of Wine but simply Wine which is an Argument that by the visible Species of Bread he meant real Bread. 3. St. Austin makes the visible Species of Bread to be a Figure of the Unity of the Faithful among themselves as also of their Union with Christ their Head. Now the meer Appearances of Bread and Wine have no resemblance of many Members compacted into one Body the Figure Colour or Taste of the Consecrated Elements suggest not the least hint of the Union of the several Members of Christ's Mystical Body whereas their Natural Substances are very apt and lively Representations thereof 4. Bertram (w) N. 94. Exterius quod videtur speciem habet corpoream quae pascit corpus expounding St. Austin ascribeth an effect to the Corporeal Species which cannot be wrought by the Sensible Appearances severed from their Subject he saith They feed the Body which is Nourished only by substantial Food digested and turned into its own Substance Now how meer Accidents can be converted into Chyle and Blood and become substantial Flesh is inconceivable whereas how this may be effected by true Bread and Wine it is very easie to apprehend Caesarius (x) Etiam in hoc ipso quod innumerosis tritici granis confici novimus unitatem constat assignari populorum Sic enim frumentum solita purgantis solicitudine praeparatum in candidam Speciem molarum labore perficitur ac per aquam ignem in unius panis Substantiam congregatur Sic variae gentes diversaeque nationes in unam fidem convenientes unum de se Christi Corpus efficiunt Caesar Arel Hom. 7. de Pasch in Bibl. Patr. Tom. 2. Par. 1610. Bishop of Arles hath a Passage very like this of St. Austin Also in that the Bread is made of innumerable Grains of Wheat its certain that it signifieth the Unity of the People For thus Wheat carefully made clean and prepared is by the Mill brought to a white Species and by Water and Fire united into the substance of one Loaf Thus also various People and divers Nations agreeing in one Faith make up of themselves one Body of Christ Doubtless the Species spoken of by this Father is not the bare Appearance but the Substance of Meal And before where he speaks of the (y) In eadem Homilia Species of Manna he must be understood of the thing it self It is evident that Walafridus Strabo had this place of St. Austin in his eye when having said (z) Post Paschae Veteris solemnia Corporis Sanguinis sui SACRAMENTA in Panis Vini SVBSTANTIA eisdem Discipulis Tradidit Nihil ergo Congruentius his SPECIEBVS ad significandam Capitis atque Membrorum unitatem potuit inveniri Quia videlicet sicut Panis de multis Granis aquae coagulo in unum corpus redigitur Vinum ex multis acinis exprimitur Sic Corpus Christi ex multitudine sanctorum coadunata completur de â—eb Eccles cap. 16. That after the Solemnity of the Old Passeover our Saviour delivered to the same Disciples the SACRAMENT of his Body and Blood in the SVBSTANCE of Bread and Wine and taught them to Celebrate it in remembrance of
Similitudinem Sicut enim mortis similitudinem sumpsisti ita etiam similitudinem preciosi sanguinis bibis de Sacra l. 4. c. 4. I see not the Species of Blood to which he answers but what thou seest hath a Resemblance of it For as thou hast received the similitude of his Death I presume he means in Baptism so thou drinkest the similitude of his Blood. Now the word Species being opposed to Similitude it is doubtless used for the Reality not for the Appearance And so indeed he Expounds himself objecting the same thing in these words (r) Quomodo vera Caro quomodo verus Sanguis Qui similitudinem video non video Sanguinis veritatem de Sacram. l. 6. c. 1. I see only a Similitude I see not the Verity of Blood. As I remember the word Species occurs but once more in these Books and in that (ſ) De Sacram. l. 2. c. 3. place it unquestionably signifieth a Figure or Type in which sense we find it also used in the Book (t) Cap. 9. De Initiandis and by Ratram too But I know not any advantage our Adversaries can make of this Were it necessary I could produce many Instances out of St. Ambrose to prove that Species imports the Nature or Substance As when he saith of the Pillar which directed the Marches of the Israelites (u) Illa autem columna nubis specie quidem praecedebat filio Israel Mysterio autem significabat Dominum Jesum c. Amb. in Psal 118. Oct. 5. The Pillar went before in the Species of a Cloud but it Mystically signified the Lord Jesus c. Who ever doubted it to be a Real Cloud Again speaking of the Water turned into Wine by our Saviour he saith (w) Vt rogatus ad Nuptias aquae Substantiam in Vini Speciem commutaret Ambr. op t. 5. Serm. 15. ex Edit Par. 1632. That our Lord turned the substance of Water into the Species of Wine That is no doubt into the Specifick Nature as well as the sensible Appearance of Wine But I shall trouble you with no more when I have produced one Instance of the use of this Term out of Paschasius Radbertus if he really did alleadg the Miracles which we now read in his Work to prove the Carnal Presence He makes Plegils a Saxon Priest to pray that God would discover to him What the (x) Quae foret Species latitans sub forma Panis Vini Pasc Radb de C. S. D. c. 14. Species was which lay hid under the form of Bread and Wine In which place according to the Romanists themselves Species must import the Natural substance of our Lord's Body and not the sensible Qualities only And I do not remember that Paschase who useth the word Species for the sensible Qualities of Bread doth any where intimate its substance to be destroyed I know in Berengarius his time it was taken for granted that he did But I am of opinion that this Notion was a refining upon the Doctrin of Paschase and the first Author in which I meet the word Species in the Popish sense is Algerus who disputing against Impanation saith (y) Quum in utero sumpserit Speciem vel formam cum substantia In altari vero Speciem vel formam Panis mutata non permanente substantia Alger de Sacr. l. 1. c. 6. That Christ doth not take on him the Species or Form of Bread in the Sacrament as He took the Species or Form of Flesh in the Virgin Womb For there he took the Species or Form together with the Substance but upon the Altar he assumes the Species or Form of Bread the substance not remaining but being changed I am confident the word Species was never used in the sense of the present Roman Church before the Eleventh Century and that not before the Disputes against Berengarius whose Adversaries were the first who advanced the Notion now currant I have the more largely insisted on these two Terms Veritas and Species in regard the Confutation of M. Boileau's Exposition of them doth effectually Rescue Ratram out of his hands and evince that there is no colour of Reason for him to claim the Authority of this Book for the support of Transubstantiation The other Terms remaining in Dispute I shall dispatch more briefly for in Truth I need only relate M. Boileau's Exposition of them to satisfie any Impartial Reader who is tollerably skilled in the Latin Tongue that the sense which he gives them is very unnatural and absurd I took notice elsewhere (z) Dissert Ch. IV. p. 73. how great Variety of Phrases are made use of in this little Tract to express what we call the outward Signs in the Sacrament and by which we understand as in Baptism the Substance of water so in the H. Eucharist the Substance of Bread and Wine But M. Boileau expounds them all of the sensible Qualities of the H. Elements without their Substance 1. The Adjective Visible which is sometimes joyned with Bread sometimes with Species sometimes with Creature Sacrament Food is by our Translatour so rendred as though it did signifie Apparent in opposition to Real The Visible Substance of Bread is by him made to imply so much of Bread as appears to the Eye viz. Figure and Colour The Visible Creature and Visible Sacrament is with him no more of them than falls under our Senses viz. the outward Appearance Now if this be the true Sense of the Word many passages of Ratram and other Authors are egregious Nonsense for Example S. Augustin (a) Citatus à Ratramno n. 78 79. calleth the Manna Visible Food and in a few lines after saith that in the Sacrament we now receive Visible Food which in the next Paragraph he calls the Visible Sacrament If by the Visible Food or Sacrament we must with the Romanists understand only (b) La Substance Visible cèst a dire ce qui paroist aux yeux de ce pain n. 40. Selonla creature visible et qui tombe soüs les sens n. 49. ce que le Sacrament a de visible n. 79. nourriture visible qui tombe sous les sens n. 78. so much as falleth under our senses viz. the sensible Qualities we must then understand by the Visible Food which the Fathers eat and understood Spiritually only the sensible Accidents of the Manna and believe that more than a million of persons for forty years together lived upon roundness whiteness and sweetness and other like Accidents of Manna Quod credat Judaeus Apella At this rate of expounding who knows but Ratram did with Basilides and Saturninus deny that Christ had true Flesh a Real Humane Body for he saith it was visible and palpable by which possibly he might mean that our Saviour's Body had only the Qualities which are proper to affect the Eye or the Touch without the natural Substance of a true Humane Body Should that old Heresie revive its Proselytes might as
Mystically turned into the Substance of his Body and Blood whence we may learn that it is not properly changed it is a Mystical not a Natural and Substantial change and therefore doth not change the H. Elements from their own Natural Substance into the Proper Substance of our Saviours Flesh and Blood. There may appear some Emphasis in the Adverb Vere in Truth but the Addition of Per Mysterium mystically clears the Authors meaning who useth the Word to import the Sacramental Verity not the Natural For Sacraments give a true Representation and the Real Benefits and Virtue of the thing signified tho they do not Exhibit the very thing it self And this sense of the word True in Opposition to False or Imaginary also to the Natural Sustance is clearly expressed by the Author of the Books (b) De Sacram. l. 6. c. 1. In Similitudine quidem accipis Sacramentum Sed verè Naturae GRATIAM VIRTVTEMQVE consequeris Suspicor legendum verae sed nil ex conjectura statuo de Sacramentis who to an Objection which I have mentioned before I see the Similitude not the Truth of Blood Answers Tho thou receivest the Sacrament in a Similitude yet thou truly obtainest the Grace and Virtue of the Natural Substance which may improperly be stiled the Substance of his Blood. And good Authority I find for this improper use of the word Substance in Sacramental changes in the Old Gallican Missal published first at Rome by Thomasius and after at Paris by F. Mabillon in which we have this Collect. (c) Confirma Domine famulos tuos quos ex Aqua Spiritu sancto propitius redemisti ut veterem hominem cum suis actionibus deponentes in ipsius conversatione vivamus ad cujus SVBSTANTIAM per haec Pasc halia Mysteria TRANSTVLISTI Per. Miss Gallic Miss Paschal Fer vi Confirm O Lord us thy Servants whom thou hast graciously redeemed with water and the Holy Ghost that putting off the Old Man with his works we may live after the Conversation of him into whose SUBSTANCE thou hast by these Paschal Mysteries TRANSLATED us c. This Prayer was made in the name of the New Baptized Persons on the Friday in Easter week And you may observe that it speaks of those Neophytes as turned into the Substance of Christ by the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper received immediately upon it Which cannot be understood of the Natural Substance of his Flesh but of his Mystical Body into which they were Incorporated by the Sacrament of Baptism and made true Members of Christ not in Verity of Nature but in Veritate Mysterii vel Sacramenti deriving true Grace and Spiritual strength from Christ their Head. I shall but in a word shew how vainly he baulks the Adverb Figurement Figuratively in Translating Figurate and constantly renders it in a Figure which I should not have noted but that there is a manifest design to Insinuate that the Accidents are the outward Sign and Figure under which not Bread and Wine but the Natural Substance of Christs Body and Blood do exist And F. Mabillon (d) A.B. Sec. iv p. 2. n. 116. Vno in versu duo sunt facinora Primum quod Sub Figura vertit Figurement uti etiam pag. 2. non enim ait Auctor haec Mysteria in Figura celebrari sed Sub Figura quae Corpus Christi velet non excludat imputes it a great Crime to the Hugonot Translatour that he hath rendred Sub Figura Figuratively whereas to any Man who will consult this Author throughout it will soon appear that the good Father departed from his usual Candour in passing that severe Censure on his Country-man For Ratram doth indifferently use the following Phrases viz. (e) Mysteria Corporis Sanguinis Sub Figura dicit celebrari n. 34. Verba autem St. Augustini ita se habent Figura ergo est n. 33. quibus contraria esse affirmat Ratramnus placita eorum qui docent non in Figura n. 32. Aliud exterius per Figuram ostentans n. 92. Figurate Christi Corpus Sanguis existunt n. 10. Secundum quendam modum Corpus Christi esse cognoscitur modus iste in Figura est n. 84. Vnder a Figure in a Figure by a Figure Figuratively and it is a Figure affirming in all these various ways of Expression that the Holy Eucharist is Christs Body as may be seen by the Instances in the Margin and indeed the words in a Figure do not imply the Holy Eucharist to consist of the Person of our Saviour under the Accidents of Bread and Wine which our Adversaries call the Figure or Vail For St. Austin (f) Petra Christus in Signo Verus Christus in Verbo in Carne n. 78. i. e. Signum Christi non Verus Christus cited by Ratram saith That the Rock was Christ in Signo which imports not that it was Christ personally present under the Appearance of a Rock but that the Rock was a Sign or Type of Christ So in his Exposition of the LIV (g) David in Figura Christus est Tom. 8. in Ps 54. Psalm he saith David was Christ in a Figure that is a Figure of Christ or Figurately stiled the Christ or Anointed of God. 2. He likewise amuseth us as though there were some special Mystery in those Verbs which according to the Tumid Stile of the Middle Ages Ratram useth instead of the Verb Substantive Est And therefore he renders (h) N. 12. Et alibi passim Cognoscitur is sensibly known Cernitur and Videtur appears to our Bodily sense in the like manner Ostenditur and Monstratur Now if there were any Emphasis intended in the use of these words as perhaps sometimes there was though not generally yet the Emphasis is directly contrary to what M. Boileau makes it for the Author doth not use those Terms by way of Reserve and Caution or to express an uncertainty as this Translator very ridiculously makes him rendring Videntur it seems N. 54. For where there is an Emphasis they do vehemently affirm or deny and imply the highest assurance of the Truth of what is said the Evidence of Sense and certain Knowledge being the best grounds upon which we can conclude a thing either to be or not to be So that in the place newly mentioned Ratram doth expresly say That we see the Consecrated Bread and Wine remain in the former Species or Kind and not as our (i) Et depuis il semble qu'elles demeurent dans la meme espece c'est a dire apparences Remarque p. 250. Translator hath it it seems they remain after Consecration in the same Appearance And he useth promiscuously Videtur Ostenditur and Cernitur which last is not capable of that doubtful sense which the first may sometimes bear However I say commonly these Verbs are not Emphatical but used for the Verb Substantive as in the following Instances (k) Non parva