Fathers of the Council believed the Reality of the New substantial Presence under the Old Accidents yet they had more Temper and Discretion than to Authorise it by conciliar Determination and therefore use only the Word Species and no other Word is used by Nicolas II Gregory VII and Innocent III that are thought the Three great Innovators in the Argument of the Real Presence that properly signifies Appearance but nothing of Physical or Natural Reality so that tho the Presence under the Species be real yet as the Council hath defined it it is not Natural but Sacramental which Sacramental Real Presence they express by the Word Transubstantiation and recommend the Propriety of the Word to the Acceptance of Christendom This is the short History of the Real Presence in the Church of Rome where as far as I can discern the thing it self hath been owned in all Ages of the Church the Modus of it never defined but in the Schools and tho they have fansied Thousand Definitions to themselves their Metaphysicks were never admitted into the Church And so I proceed to give an Account of it as it hath been defin'd in the Protestant Churches where we shall find much the same Harmony of Faith and Discord of Philosophy as in the Church of Rome And first we must begin with the famous Confession of Ausburg that was drawn up by Melancthon and in the Year 1530 presented to Charles the Fifth by several Princes of Germany as a Declaration of the Faith of the first Reformers and as the only true standard of the Ancient Protestant Religion The Confesion consists of Two parts I. What Doctrines themselves taught II. What Abuses they desired to be reformed As to the later the Emperor undertook to procure a General Council As to the former particularly this Article of the Presence in the Sacrament they have published it in two several forms In the Latin Edition it is worded thus Concerning the Lords Supper we teach That the Body and Blood of Christ are there present indeed and are distributed to the Receivers at the Lords Supper and condemn those that teach otherwise In the German Edition it is worded thus Concerning the Lords Supper we teach That the true Body and Blood of Christ are truly present in the Supper under the species of Bread and Wine and are there distributed and received And in an Apology written by the same hand and published the Year following it is thus expressed We believe That in the Supper of our Lord the Body and Blood of Christ are really and substantially present and are Exhibited indeed with those things that are seen the Bread and Wine This belief our Divines constantly maintain and we find not only the Church of Rome hath asserted the Corporeal Presence but that the Greek Church hath anciently as well as at this time asserted the same as appears by their Canon Missae The same Author Explains himself more at large in his Epistle to Fredericus Myconius I send you says he the passages out of the Ancients concerning the Lord's Supper to prove that they held the same with us namely That the Body and Blood of our Lord are there present indeed And after divers Citations he concludes That seeing this is the express Doctrine of the Scriptures and constant Tradition of the Church I cannot conceive how by the name of the Body of Christ should only be understood the sign of an absent Body for though the Word of God frequently makes use of Metaphors yet there is a great difference to be made between Historical Relations and Divine Institutions In the first matters transacted among Men and visible to the Sence are related and here we are allow'd and often forced to speak figuratively But if in Divine Precepts or Revelations concerning the Nature or the Will of God we should take the same liberty wise Men cannot but fore-see the Mischiefs that would unavoidably follow There would be no certainty of any Article of Faith. And he gives an instance in the Precept of Circumcision to Abraham That upon those Terms the good Patriarch might have argued with himself That God never intended to impose a thing so seemingly absurd as the words sound and that therefore the Precept is to be understood only of a Figurative or Metaphorical Circumcision the Circumcision of our Lusts. So far this Learned Reformer Now the Authority of Melancthon weighs more with us of the Church of England as the learned Dr. St. very well observes that in the settlement of our Reformation there was no such regard had to Luther or Calvin as to Erasmus and Melancthon whose Learning and Moderation were in greater Esteem here than the fiery spirits of the other and yet few Writers have asserted the Substantial and Corporeal Presence in higher terms than this moderate Reformer and though he may sometimes have varied in Forms of Speech he continued constant and immovable in the substance of the same Doctrine For in the Confession of the Saxon Churches at the Compiling of which he was chief Assistant drawn up in the Year 1551 to have been presented to the Council of Trent a true and substantial Presence is asserted during the time of Ministration We teach say they That Sacraments are Divine Institutions and that the things themselves out of the use desing'd are no Sacraments but in the use Christ is verily and substantially present and the Body and Blood of Christ are indeed taken by the Receivers There seems to have been one singular Notion in this Confession That the Real and Substantial Presence lasts no longer than the Ministration but that is nothing to our Argument as long as a substantial Presence is asserted In the Year 1536 an Assembly of the Divines of the Ausburg Confession on one side and the Divines of Vpper Germany on the other conven'd at Wirtemberg by the procurement and mediation of Bucer who undertook to moderate between both parties where they agreed in this form of Confession We believe according to the words of Irenaeus That the Eucharist consists of two things one Earthly the other Heavenly and therefore believe and teach That the Body and Blood of Christ are truly and substantially exhibited and received with the Bread and Wine This is subscribed by the chief Divines of both Parties and approved by the Helvetian Ministers themselves The Bohemian Waldenses in their Confession of Faith presented to Ferdinand King of the Romans and Bohemia declare expressly That the Bread and Wine are the very Body and Blood of Christ and that Christ is in the Sacrament with his Natural Body but by another way of Existence than at the Right-hand of God. In the Greek Form of Consecration this Prayer was used Make this Bread the precious Body of thy Christ and that which is in this Cup the precious Blood of thy Christ changing them by thy Holy Spirit which words are taken out of the Liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil. And Ieremias
the Learned Patriarch of Constantinople in his Declaration of the Faith of the Greek Church in Answer to the Lutheran Divines affirms That the Catholick Church believes that after the Consecration the Bread is changed into the very Body of Christ and the Wine into the very Blood by the Holy Spirit In the Year 1570. was held a Council in Poland of the Divines of the Ausburg the Helvetian and the Bohemian Confessions in which they agreed in this Declaration As to that unhappy Controversie of the Supper of our Lord We agree in the Sence of the Words as they are rightly understood by the Fathers particularly by Irenaeus who affirms that the Mystery consists of two things one Earthly and another Heavenly Neither do we affirm that the Elements and Signs are meer naked and empty Things signified to Believers But to speak more clearly and distinctly we agree that we believe and confess the substantial Presence of Christ is not only signified to Believers but is really held forth distributed and exhibited the Symbols being joined with the thing it self and not meerly naked according to the nature of Sacraments This Confession was confirmed at several times by several following Synods in the same Kingdom at Cracow 1573. at Peterkaw 1578. at Walhoff 1583. The First Man that opposed the real and substantial Presence was Carolostadius Archdeacon of Wirtenberg of whom the candid and ingenious Melancthon gives this Character That he was a furious Man void both of Wit Learning and common Sence not capable of any Act of Civility or good Manners so far from any appearances of Piety that there are most manifest Footsteps of his Wickedness He condemns all the Civil Laws of the heathen Nations as Unlawful and would now have all Nations governed by the judicial Law of Moses and embrac'd the whole Doctrine of the Anabaptists He sets up the Controversie about the Sacraments against Luther meerly out of Envy and Emulation not out of any Sence of Religion and much more to the same Purpose The Truth of all which he says a great part of Germany both can and will attest Tho the greatest Proof of his Levity is his own Writing when all that Disorder and Schism that he made in the Church of which he profess'd himself a Member was founded upon no better Bottom than this slender Nicety That when our Saviour said this is my Body he pointed not to the Bread but to himself But in this he is vehemently opposed by his Master Luther in behalf of a true Corporeal Presence especially in his Book Contra Coelestes Prophetas seu Fanaticos wherein he lays down this Assertion That by the Demonstrative Pronoun hoc Christ is declared to be Truly and carnally present with his Body in the Supper and that the Communication of the Body of Christ of which St. Paul speaks is to eat the Body of Christ in the Bread neither is that Communication Spiritual only but Corporeal as it is in the personal Vnion of Christ So we are to conceive of the Sacrament in which the Bread and the Body make up one thing and after an incomprehensible manner which no Reason can Fathom become one Essence or Mass from whence as Man becomes God so the Bread becomes the Body And in a Sermon preached by him the same Year at Wirtemberg against the Sacramentarian Hereticks as he calls them The Devil opposes us by his Fanatick Emissaries in the Blaspheming the Supper of our Lord that dream the Bread and Wine are there only given as a Sign or Symbol of our Christian Profession nor will allow that the Body and Blood of Christ are there present themselves tho the Words are express and perspicuous Take eat this is my Body In this Controversie he was engaged all his Life against Carolostadius and other Apostates from the Ausburg Confession giving them no better Titles than of Fanaticks Hereticks Betrayers of Christ Blasphemers of the Holy Ghost and Seducers of the World. And in his last Book against the Divines of Lovain in the Year 1545 the Year before his Death he makes this solemn Declaration We seriously believe the Zuinglians and all Sacramentarians that deny the Body and Blood of Christ to be received Ore carnali in the Blessed Sacrament to be Hereticks and no Members of the Church of Christ So that hitherto it is evident That the whole Body of the true Old Protestants both in their publick Confessions and private Writings unanimously asserted the Corporeal and Substantial Presence as they use the Words promiscuously As for the Calvinian Churches Grotius hath observed very truly That the Calvinists express themselves in a quite different Language in their Confessions from what they do in their Disputations where they declare themselves more frankly In their Confessions they tell you That the Body and Blood of Christ are taken Really Substantially Essentially but when you come to Discourse'em closer the whole Business is Spiritual without Substance only with a signifying Mystery and all the reality is turned into a receiving by Faith which says he is a perfect contradiction to the Doctrine of the whole Catholick Church So they declare in the Conference at Presburg with the Lutherans That in the Sacrament Christ indeed gives the Substance of his Body and Blood by the working of the Holy Ghost And when Luther signify'd to Bucer his Jealously of the Divines of Strasburgh and Bazil as if they believed nothing to be present in the Sacrament but the Bread and Wine Bucer returns this Answer in the name and with the consent of all his Brethren This is their Faith and Doctrine concerning the Sacrament That in it by the Institution and Power of our Lord his true Body and his true Blood are indeed exhibited given and taken together with the visible Signs of Bread and Wine as his own Words declare This is the Doctrine not only of Zuinglius and Oecolampadius but the Divines of Upper Germany have declared the same in their publick Confessions and Writings So that the Difference is rather about the manner of the Absence and Presence than about the Presence or Absence themselves And the Reformed French Church in the year 1557. declare themselves much after the same manner to a Synod of Reform'd German Divines held at Wormes We confess that in the Supper of our Lord not only all the Benefits of Christ but the very Substance of the Son of Man the very Flesh and the very Blood that he shed for us to be there not meerly signify'd or Symbolically Typically or Figuratively as a Memorial of a thing absent but truly held forth exhibited and offered to be received together with the Symbols that are by no means to be thought naked which by virtue of God's Promise always have the thing it self truly and certainly conjoin'd with them whether they are given to the good or to the bad But what need of more Witnesses when Calvin himself the very Vrim and Thummim of the Calvinian
Notion singular to himself from all the other Philosophers of Greece viz. That every substance was compounded of matter and form and that these two were really distinct from one another and then that the quantity of every Body was really distinct from the substance of it and so distinct as to be separable from it And lastly That all other Qualities Accidents and Predicaments were founded not in the Substance but in the Quantity and therefore in all change of Affairs ever fol'owed its Fortunes Now the Catholick Church having in all Ages asserted the real and substantial Presence Oh say they to shew their deep new Learning That is to be understood in the Aristotelian way by separating the Form of the Bread from the Matter but chiefly by separating the inward Substance of Bread from its outward Quantity and its retinue of Qualities This was the Rise of Philosophick or Scholastick Transubstantiation that the Quantity and Accidents of the Bread are pared off from all the Substance and shaped and moulded a-new so as to cover an humane Body And after this they run into an infinite Variety of Disputes and Hypotheses among themselves so that till the Last Age it hath been the chief entertainment of all pretenders to Philosophy in Christendom Rupertus Abbot of Dentsch a Village upon the Rhine lying on the other side of the River against the City of Cologne a Man of great reputation for Learning in that Age makes out the Philosophy of the Thing by the Vnion of the Word or Divine Nature that is Omnipresent with the Bread and Wine and it is that Vnity he says that makes it one Body with that in Heaven And withal that it is as easie for our Saviour to assume or unite himself to one as the other and when that is done they are both one body because they are both his Body This was fine and curious but not Aristotelian enough for that Age in which that Philosophy was set up as the Standard of humane Wisdom by the Beaux Esprits Among these Petrus Abelardus gain'd a mighty Name and Reputation for his skill in these new found Philosophick Curiosities tho' otherwise a Man versed much beyond the Genius of that Age in Polite Learning but being of a proud and assuming Nature he soon drew upon himself the Envy of the less Learned Monks which cost him a long scene of Troubles as he hath elegantly described them in his Book of his own Persecutions But among many other singularities to maintain the separation of the matter from the form and the substance from the accidents in the Sacrament of the Altar he is forced to make use of this shift That upon the Separation of the Substance the Accidents that cannot subsist of themselves are supported by the Air. But then comes Peter Lombard Anno 1140. Grand Master of the Sentences and Father of the next race of School-men who indeed proves the real and substantial Presence out of the Ancients particularly St. Austin and St. Ambrose but when he comes to explain the manner of it whether it be a formal or material change whether the substance of the Bread and Wine be reduced into its first matter or into nothing and the like his conclusion is definire non sufficio I presume not to determine and therefore quitting these uncertain things this I certainly know from Authorities viz. That the substance of the Bread and Wine are converted into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ but as for the manner of the Conversion we are not ashamed to confess our Ignorance But if you inquire in what subject the Accidents subsist he answers problematically mihi videtur that they subsist without any subject at all But it was agreed in all Schools That whatever became of the Substance the Accidents remained And that all outward Operations terminated there and that only they were broken and eaten But as for the substance of the Bread and Wine some were for its permanency with the Substance of the Body and Blood some for its Annihilation some for physical Conversion But then these Curiosites were kept in the Schools where witty Men for want of more useful Imployment entertained and amused themselves with these fine subtleties of thought But then they were confined within the Schools and never admitted so much as to ask the Authority of the Church In the next Age comes that young and active Pope Innocent the Third who succeeded to the See Anno 1198. in the Thirty seventh Year of of his Age having been made Cardinal in the Twenty ninth In the Eighteenth Year of his Reign he summoned the famous Fourth or great Council of Lateran at which were present above 400 Bishops Metropolitans and Patriarchs besides Embassadors from all Princes in Christendom for recovery of the Holy Land Extirpation of Heresies and for Reformation of the Church In this Council the Word Transubstantiate is first used in a Decree of the Church to express the real or substantial Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament under the species of Bread and Wine Where in the Decree against the heresie of the Albigenses who denied the Real Presence it is Enacted That the Body and Blood of Christ are really contained under the species of Bread and Wine The Bread being Transubstantiated into the Body and the Wine into the Blood by the Power of God. But though the Council used the word to Express the Mystery they did not so much as define its signification much less the nature of the thing It was a word that at that time it seems was in fashion having been made use of by some of the more Polite Writers of the Age. Some give the honour of the Invention to Paschasius Radbertus some to Petrus Blesensis and some to others but being a word in Vogue among learned Men the Council made use of it as a Term of Art instead of the old word Transelementation that had hitherto kept its possession among both Greeks and Latins It is pity the Greek Copy of this Canon is lost whereas all the rest are preserved For if we had the Greek word that answered to the Latin it might have given us some more light into the thing However this was all that was defined by Innocent the Third or by the Council of Lateran for it is much disputed by learned Men who was the Author of those Canons many contending that they were drawn up after the Council because they often quote and appeal to its Decrees This is the chief Argument of the Learned and the Loyal William Barclay and others against them But if these learned Men had considered a little further and looked back to the Third Council of Lateran they would have found all the Canons cited in this extant in that So that only some Canons of the Third Council are revived and ratified in this Fourth And after the clearing of this Objection I can see no other material
Exception against them But to proceed this word having gain'd the Authority of so great a Council and being put into the Decretals of the Church by Gregory the Ninth in honor of his Uncle Innocent the Third it soon gained universal usage among the Latins and was adopted into the Catalogue of School Terms and was there hammer'd into a Thousand shapes and forms by those Masters of Subtlety And upon it St. Thomas of Aquin erects a new Kingdom of his own against the old Lombardian Empire but long he had not Reigned when Scotus our subtle Country-man set up against him And whatever St. Thomas of Aquin asserted for that reason only he contradicted him so that they two became the very Caesar and Pompey of the Schools almost all the great Masters of Disputation from that time fighting under one of their commands and what intelligible Philosophy both parties vented about the Substantial o◠Transubstantial Presence upon supposition of the real difference between Matter and Form Substance and Accidents would be both too nice and too tedious to recite only in general the Thomists maintain the Transmutation of the Elements the Scotists the Annihilation and they proceed to abstract so long till they could not only separate the Matter and Form and Accidents of the Bread from one another but the Paneity or Breadishness it self from them all and founded a new Vtopian World of Metaphysick and Specifick Entities and Abstracts Thus far I have as briefly as I can represented the Scholastick History of this Argument in which the Authority of the Church is not at all concerned having gone no farther than to assign or appropriate a Word to signifie such a thing but all along declaring the Thing it self to be beyond the compass of a Definition I know 't is commonly said that the Council of Trent hath presumed to define the Modus and learned Men I know not by what fatal over-sight take it up on trust one from another and the Definition is generally given in these Terms That Transubstantiation is wrought by the Annihilation of the substance of the Bread and Wine the Accidents remaining To the which Annihilation succeeds the Body and Blood of Christ under the Accidents of Bread and Wine So the Bishops of Durham and Winchester represent it so Mr. Alix and the Writers of his Church and not only so but contrary to the sence of all other Churches they confound the Real Presence with Transubstantiation as this learned Man hath done through his whole Disputation upon it using the very words promiscuously as indeed all the modern Followers of Calvin do and charging the same absurdities upon both and imputing the first Invention of the Real Presence to Nicolas the Second and Gregory the Seventh in their Decrees against Berengarius But I cannot but wonder how so many learned Men should with so much assurance fansie to themselves such a Definition in the Trent Council of the Modus of Transubstantiation by the Annihilation of the Substance and the Permanency of the Accidents when the Fathers of that Council were so far from any such Design That they design'd nothing more carefully than to avoid all Scholastick Definitions The subtil Disputes about the Modus existendi as they termed it between the Dominicans and Franciscans in that Council are described at large by Father Paolo himself in the Fourth Book of his History But withal he says they were extreamly Displeasing and Offensive to the Fathers but most of all to the NUNCIO himself and therefore it was resolved in a General Congregation to determine the Matter in as few and general Terms as possible to offend neither Party and avoid Contentions and when notwithstanding this Decree they fell into new Disputes they are check'd by the Famous Bishop of Bitunto who was one of the chief Compilers of the Canons telling them they came thither to condemn Heresies not to define Scholastick Niceties And accordingly in the very First Chapter of the 13th Session in which this Article was defined when they determined the Real Presence they at the same time declare the Existendi Ratio to be ineffable and in the 4th Chapter where Transubstantiation is decreed the Canon runs thus That By the Consecration of the Bread and Wine there is a Conversion of the whole Substance of the Bread into the Substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole Substance of the Wine into the Substance of his Blood which Conversion is fitly and properly called by the Holy Catholick Church Transubstantiation In all which the Council only appropriates the Word Transubstantiation to express the Real Presence which it had before determined in the First Chapter not to be after a natural way of Existence as Christ sits at the right Hand of God but Sacramental after an ineffable manner Tho here some peevishly object the Inconsistence of the Council with it self when it declares that the thing is inexpressible and yet appropriates a word to express it Whereas all Christendom knows that the Procession of the Eternal Word from the Father is Ineffable and yet is expressed by the Word Generation and that the Vnion of the divine and humane Nature is ineffable and yet is called the Hypostatical Vnion and that the Vnity in the Trinity is ineffable and yet is expressed by the Word Consubstantial So that this Council seems to have defin'd no more than the Council of Nice did in the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity in expressing the Unity of the Three Persons by the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Distinction by the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which amounted to no more than this That as it is certain from the Holy Scriptures that in the Unity of the God-head there is a Trinity so the Holy Fathers to avoid the Niceties of contentious Men such as Arius was determine that for the Time to come the Mystery shall be expressed by the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as for any Philosophical Notion of the Mystery the Church never presum'd to define it and this is the Definition of the Council of Trent of the Real Presence that there is a Conversion of the Substances under the Species or Appearances of Bread and Wine which the Church hath thought convenient to express by the Word Transubstantiation And yet tho the Council approve the Word yet it does not impose it it only declares it to be convenient but no where says 't is necessary And as for the Term Conversion it is much older than the Word Transubstantiation familiarly used by the Ancient Fathers and so is the Word Species I know indeed it is usual with School-men and Protestant Writers to translate the Words under Species of Bread and Wine by these Words under the Accidents of Bread and Wine as particularly the late Bishops of Durham and Winchester have done But this is to impose Philosophick Niceties upon the Decrees of the Church And tho perhaps all the
Churches declares his Sence in these express Words I affirm that Christ is indeed given by the Symbols of Bread and Wine and by consequence his Body and Blood in which he fulfilled all Righteousness for our Iustification and as by that we were ingrafted into his Body so by this are we made Partakers of his Substance by Virtue of it we feel the Communication of all good Things to our selves But as to the Modus if any Man inquire of me I am not ashamed to confess that the Mystery is too sublime for my Wit to comprehend or to express and to speak freely I rather feel than understand it and therefore here without Controversie I embrace the Truth of God in which I am sure I may safely acquisce He affirms that his Flesh is the Food of my Soul and his Blood the Drink It is to these Aliments that I offer my Soul to be nourished He commands me in his Holy Supper under the Symbols of Bread and Wine to take eat and drink his Body and Blood and therefore I doubt not but he gives it Here besides the express Words themselves if there be so much Mystery in the thing as he affirms there is much more than meer Figure And in another Passage he thus expresses himself That God doth not trifle in vain Signs but does in good earnest perform what is represented by the Symbols viz. the Communication of his Body and Blood and that the Figure conjoined with the Reality is represented by the Bread and the Body of Christ is offered and exhibited with it the true Substance is given us the Reality conjoined with the Sign so that we are made Partakers of the Substance of the Body and Blood. This is express enough But yet in his Book de Coena Domini he declares his Sence much more fully If notwithstanding saith he it be enquired whether the Bread be the Body and the Wine the Blood of Christ I answer that the Bread and Wine are the visible Signs that represent the Body and Blood and that the Name of the Body and Blood is given to them because they are the Instruments by which our Lord Iesus Christ is given to us This form of Speech is very agreeable to the thing it self for seeing the Communion that we have in the Body of Christ is not to be seen with our Eyes nor comprehended by our Vnderstandings yet 't is there manifestly exposed to our Eye-sight of which we have a very proper Example in the same case When it pleased God that the Holy Ghost should appear at the Baptism of Christ he was pleased to represent it under the appearance of a Dove and John the Baptist giving an Account of the Transaction only relates that he saw the Holy Ghost descending so that if we consider rightly we shall find that he saw nothing but the Dove for the Essence of the Holy Ghost is invisible But he knowing the Vision not to be a vain Apparition but a certain Sign of the Presence of the Holy Ghost represented to him in that manner that he was able to bear the Representation The same thing is to be said in the Communion of our Saviour's Body and Blood That it is a Spiritual Mystery neither to be beheld with Eyes nor comprehended with humane Understanding and therefore is represented by Figures and Sings that as the weakness of our Nature requires fall under our Senses so as 't is not a bare and simple Figure but conjoin'd with its Reality and Substance Therefore the Bread is properly called the Body when it doth not only represent it but also brings it to us And therefore we will readily grant That the Name of the Body of Christ may be transferr'd to the Bread because it is the Sacrament and Emblem of it but then we must add that the Sacrament is by no means to be separated from the Substance and Reality And that they might not be confounded it is not only convenient but altogether necessary to distinguish between them but intolerably absurd to divide one from the other Wherefore when we see the visible Sign what it represents we ought to reflect from whom it is given us for the Bread is given as a Representation of the Body of Christ and we are commanded to eat it It is given I say by God who is infallible Truth and then if God cannot deceive nor lye it follows that He in reality gives whatever is there represented And therefore it is necessary that we really receive the Body and Blood of Christ seeing the Communion of both is represented to us For to what purpose should he command us to eat the Bread and drink the Wine as signifying his Body and Blood if without some spiritual Reality we only received the Bread and Wine Would he not vainly and absurdly have instituted this Mystery and as we Frenchmen say by false Representations Therefore we must acknowledge that if God gives us a true Representation in the Supper that the invisible Substance of the Sacrament is joined with the visible Signs and as the Bread is distributed by hand so the Body of Christ is communicated to us to be Partakers of it This certainly if there were nothing else ought abundantly to satisfy us when by it we understand that in the Supper of our Lord Christ gives us the true and proper Substance of his Body and Blood. Thus far Calvin And I think it is as high a Declaration of the real and substantial Presence as I have met with in any Author whatsoever And if in any other Passages the great Dictator may have been pleased to contradict himself that is the old Dictatorian Prerogative of that Sect as well as the old Romans That whatever Decrees they made however inconsistent they were always Authentick Neither doth Beza at all fall short of his adored Master in the Point of substantial Presence In his Book against Westfalus a Sacramentarian de Coena Domini He declares freely that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or grammatical Sence of our Saviour's Words This is my Body cannot be preserved without Transubstantiation and that there is no Medium between Transubstantiantion and a meer Figure And yet the whole Design of the Book is to prove the real Presence in the Sacrament in opposition to the Figurative And in the Year 1561 The Protestant Churches of France held a Synod at Rochel and the Year following at Nimes in both which Beza sat as President where the substantial Presence was maintain'd and defin'd with great Vehemence against the Innovators as they were then esteemed for when Morellus mov'd to have the Word Substance taken out of their Confession of Faith Beza and the Synod not without some Indignation decree against them This Decree Beza declares in his Epistle to the Ministers of Zurick dated May the 17th 1572 to extend to the Protestants of France only least they who were Zuinglians should take Offence at it as a Censure particularly
two grand singularities of his History and the main things that gave it popular Vogue and Reputation with his Party and were these two blind Stories and the Reasons depending upon them retrench'd it would be like the shaving of Samson's Hair and destroy all the strength peculiar to the History The Design was apparently laid before the Work was undertaken that industriously warps all things into Irenical and Erastian Principles and the vain Man seems to have been flattered by his Patrons into all that Pains to give Reputation to their Errors And here lay the Fondness for the Stillingsteetian Manuscript that it so frankly and openly asserted Erastian and Sacramentarian Principles as the Bottom of the Reformation But if such an unprov'd and unwarrantable piece of Paper without any certain Conveyance or Tradition without any Notice of so publick a Transaction in any contemporary Writer without any other Evidence of its being genuine than that it was put providentially into the Hands of Dr. St. when he wrote his Irenicum must be set up for undoubted Record against all the Records of the Churches our great Historian would be well advis'd to employ his Pains in writing Lampoons upon the present Princes of Christendom especially his own which he delights in most because it is the worst thing that himself can do than collecting the Records of former times For the First will require Time and Postage to pursue his Malice but the Second is easily trac'd in the Chimney Corner And therefore I would desire these Gentlemen either to give a better Account of the Descent and Genealogy of the Paper than that it came to Dr. St. by Miracle or else to give it less Authority But to proceed a new Office for the Communion-Service was drawn up in the same Year by the Bishops in compiling of which Cranmer had the chief hand and by his great Power over-ruled the rest at Pleasure in this Service he retains the old Form of Words used in the ancient Missals when there was no Zuinglianism or Doctrine of figurative Presence in the Christian World and the real Presence was universally believed as appears by the very Words of Distribution The Body of our Lord Iesus Christ which was given for thée preserve thy Body and Soul unto everlasting Life And the Blood of our Lord Iesus Christ which was shed for thée c. This was the Form prescribed in the First Liturgy of Edward the 6th and agreeable to this are the King 's own Injunctions published at the same time where the Eucharist is call'd the Communion of the very Body and Blood of Christ by which Form of Words they then expressed the real Presence as oppos'd to Zuinglianism This Liturgy being thus established and withal abetted by Act of Parliament for some time kept up its Authority in the Church against all Opposition though it was soon encountred with Enemies enough both at Home and abroad out of the Calvinian Quarters At the end of the Year ensuing Peter Martyr a rank Sacramentarian came over and after much Conversation with Cranmer he was plac'd Regius Professor in Oxford where he soon raised Tumults about the Zuinglian and Sacramentarian Doctrines But Bucer that prudent and moderate Reformer came not till some time after though invited at the same time And so either came too late or departed too soon for as he came over in Iune so he dy'd in Ianuary so that tho he were a great Assertor of the real Presence as our Church-Historian himself often observes he had not a Season to sow his Doctrine and Martyr reigning alone and being a furious Bigott in his Principles it is no wonder if Zuinglianism spread with so much Authority But the most fatal Blow to the Reformation of the Church of England was given by Calvin's Correspondence with the Protector and afterwards with Dudley taking upon him to censure expunge reform impose at his own Pleasure the Malignity of whose Influence first discovered it self in the Ceremonial War against a Cap and a Tippet but soon wrought into the Vitals of the Reformation especially as to the Liturgy and the Eucharist both which must be removed to give way to the Zuinglian Errors This Alteration was made in the 5th Year of the Kings Reign tho precisely when and by what Persons is utterly unknown only it is remark'd by our Church-Historian to have followed immediately after the Consecration of Hooper When as he observes the Bishops being generally addicted to the Purity of Religion spent most of this Year in preparing Articles which should contain the Doctrine of the Church of England Among which the 29th condemns the real Presence as the new Liturgy to which they are annexed had before almost run it up to the Charge of Idolatry For they were not content to abolish the old Missal Form of Distribution The Body of our Lord Iesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body and Soul unto everlasting Life Take and eat this c. But instead of it appoint this Zuinglian Form Take and eat this without any mention of the Body and Blood of Christ in remembrance that Christ died for thée c. Neither were these Innovators whoever they were satisfied with the Alteration of the old Form but add a fierce Declaration to bar the Doctrine of Real and Essential Presence Whereas it is ordered in this Office of the Administration of the Lord's Supper that the Communicants should receive the same Kneeling which order is well meant for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers and for avoiding such Prophanation and Disorder in the Holy Communion as might otherwise ensue Yet least the same Kneeling should by any Persons either out of Ignorance and Infirmity or out of Malice and Obstinacy be misconstrued and deprav'd it is here declared that no Adoration is intended or ought to be done unto any real or essential Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood for the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural Substances and therefore may not be ador'd for that were Idolatry to be abhorr'd by all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here It being against the Truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one And whereas a body of Articles was composed at the same time it is declared in the 29th Article That since the very being of humane Nature doth require That the Body of one and the same Man cannot be at one and the same time in many places but of necessity must be in some certain and determinate place therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present in many different places at the same time And since as the Holy Scriptures testifie Christ hath been taken up into Heaven and there is to abide till the end of the World it becomes not any of the Faithful to
principal Authors may be seen in the late Bishop of Durham's Historia Transubstantiationis Iohn Poinet Bishop of Winchester who wrote a very learned Book upon the Argument entituled Diallacticon to explain the Sence of the Church of England about it Iohn Iewel Bishop of Salisbury the learned Bishops Andrews and Bilson Isaac Casaubon in the Name and by the Command of King Iames the First in his Answer to Cardinal Perron Mr. Hooker Iohn Bishop of Rochester Montague Bishop of Norwich Iames Primate of Armagh Francis Bishop of Ely Archbishop Laud Bishop Overal and the Archbishop of Spalato To this Catalogue variety of other Writers might be added but either here are Witnesses enough or there never can be Neither need I produce their Testimonies when they are so vugarly known and have been so frequently recited I shall content my self with the Two principal the most learned and reverend Prelates Poinet and Andrews The First wrote his Diallacticon concerning the Truth Nature and Substance of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist A Book much approved and often commended by Grotius tho he knew not the Author as the best Discourse upon the Argument and the most proper Method to restore the Peace of the Christian Church in that Point which he further says was for that purpose translated into French by a reformed Divine by the Advice of his Brethren I have not the Book by me but the Design and fundamental Assertion is to prove as Dr. Cosins recites it that the Eucharist is not only a Figure of the Body of our Lord but contains in it the Verity Nature and Substance and therefore that these Terms ought not to be exploded because the Ancients generally used them in their Discourses upon this Argument But Bishop Andrews his Passage though grown Vulgar and Thread-bare by being so continually quoted best deserves our Observation because by that means it is made not only a Declaration of his own Sence but of all that followed him in it and that is of almost all the learned Men of the Church of England that have succeeded from that time The Passage is in his Answer to Bellarmine in these Words The Cardinal is not ignorant except wilfully that Christ hath said This is my Body Now about the Object we are both agreed all the Controversy is about the Modus We firmly believe that it is the Body of Christ but after what manner it is made to be so there is not a Word extant in the Gospel and therefore we reject it from being a Matter of Faith. We will if you please place it among the Decrees of the Schools but by no means among the Articles of Religion What Durandus said of old we approve of We hear the Word feel the Effect know not the Manner believe the Presence And so we believe the Presence too and that real no less than your selves Only we define nothing rashly of its Modus neither do we curiously inquire into it no more than how the Blood of Christ cleanseth us in our Baptism no more than how in the Incarnation of Christ the Humane Nature is united to the Divine We rank it in the Order of Mysteries and indeed the whole Eucharist it self is nothing but Mystery what remains beside ought to be consumed by Fire that is as the Fathers elegantly express it to be ador'd by Faith not examined by Reason This was his State of the Controversie that was then perus'd and approv'd of by King Iames and ever after retained by the Divines of the Church of England down to the Rebellion and Subversion of Church and State and then it was carried into Banishment with its Confessors For whilst his late Majesty resided at Cologn it was there commonly objected in his own Presence by the Roman Divines against the Church of England That all its Members were meer Zuinglians and Sacramentarians that believed only an imaginary Presence Upon this Dr. Cosins who was then Dean of the Chapel Royal by his Majesties Command writes a Discourse to vindicate the Church of England from that Calumny and to give an Account of its Sence concerning the true and real Presence in which he declares himself to the same purpose with all the forementioned Authors all along vehemently asserting the true reality of the Presence and still declaring the Modus to be ineffable unsearchable above our Senses and above our Reason So that still all Parties are agreed in the thing it self were it not for that one mistaken Supposition That the Church of Rome hath not only defin'd the Matter but the Manner which she is so far from pretending to attempt that before she proceeded to decree any thing about it she declar'd that it was so incomprehensible that it was not capable of being defin'd as we see all Christendom hath done beside Now after all this I leave it to the common Sence and Ingenuity of Mankind whether any thing can be more barbarous and profane than to make the renouncing of a Mystery so unanimously receiv'd a State TEST And that is my present Concernment about it not as a Point of Divinity but as turned into a Point of State. Thus far proceeded the Old Church of England which as it was banished so it was restored with the Crown But by reason of the long Interval of Twenty Years between the Rebellion and Restitution there arose a new Generation of Divines that knew not Joseph These Men underhand deserted and undermined the Old Church as it stood upon Divine Right and Catholick Principles and instead of it crected a New Church of their own Contrivance consisting partly of Independency partly of Erastianism with the Independent leaving no standing Authority in the Christian Church over private Christians but leaving every Man to the arbitrary Choice of his own Communion with Erastus allowing no Jurisdiction to the Christian Church but what is derived from the Civil Magistrate These Principles being Pleasing to the Wantonness of the People these Men soon grew popular and soon had the Confidence to call themselves the Church of England But the principal Object of their Zeal was the Destruction of Popery and the only Measure of Truth with them was Opposition to the Church of Rome And therefore they assum'd to themselves the Management of that great and glorious War. And as they managed it upon new Principles or indeed none at all never writing for our Church but only against that Church so they advanced new Arguments to represent the Church of Rome as Odious as possible to the People Among these the Two most frightful Topicks were Transubstantiation and Idolatry One was a very hard Word and the other a very ugly one These Two Words they made the Two great Kettle-drums to the Protestant Guards They were continually beating upon them with all their Force and whenever they found themselves at any Disadvantage with an Enemy as they often were by pressing too far for they never thought they did
enough in the Cause by making a Noise upon these Two loud Engines they could at pleasure drown the Dispute Now ever since this Alteration of the State of the War between the Two Churches we hear little or nothing at all of the real Presence in the Cause but it is become as great a Stranger to the i.e. their Church of England as Transubstantiation it self but the whole matter is resolved into a meer Sacramental Figure and Representation and a Participation only of the Benefits of the Body and Blood of Christ by Faith. I know not any one Writer of that Party of Men that hath ever own'd any higher Mystery but on the contrary they state all the Disputes about the Eucharist upon Sacramentarian Principles and with them to assert the true reality of the Presence of our Saviour's Body and Blood in the Sacrament as naturally resolves it self into Transubstantiation as that does into Idolatry And the main Argument insisted upon by them is the natural Impossibility of the thing it self to the Divine Omnipotence which beside the prophane Boldness of prescribing Measures to God's Attributes in a Mystery that they do not comprehend 't is as appears by the Premises a Defiance to the Practice of all Churches who have ever acknowledged an incomprehensible Mystery not subject to the Examination of Humane Reason but to be imbraced purely upon the Authority of a Divine Revelation And therefore that ought to be the only matter of Dispute For if it be a Divine Revelation as all Christendom hath hitherto believed that determines the Case without any further Enquiry and if any Man will not be satisfied with that Authority he makes very Bold with his Maker And Men of those Principles would no doubt make admirable Work with the Definitions of Articles of Faith by the Four first general Councils But to let their new way of Arguing pass it is these Men that first set up Sacramentarian Principles in this Church and then blew them into the Parliament House raising there every Session continual Tumults about Religion and it is to their Caballing with the Members that we owe these new and unpresidented TESTS Perhaps to have their own Decrees and Writings established by Law and imposed upon the whole Nation as Gospel In short if they own a real Presence we see from the Premises how little the Controversie is between that and Transubstantiation as it is truly and ingeniously understood by all reformed Churches If they do not they disown the Doctrine both of the Church of England and the Church Catholick and then if they own only a figurative Presence and it is plain they own no other they stand condemned of Heresie by almost all Churches in the Christian World and if this be the thing intended to be set up as it certainly is by the Authors and Contrivers of it by renouncing Transubstantiation then the Result and Bottom of the Law is under this Pretence to bring a new Heresy by Law into the Church of England And yet upon this Foot I find the Controversie stands at this present Day between the Bishop of Rome or the Bishop of Condom on one part and little Iulian in the Back-shop with his Dragoons on the other part The Bishop establishes the Real Presence in Opposition to the Figurative His Answerer turns the whole Mystery into meer Type and Figure by seting up a figurative Interpretation of the Words of Institution and yet confesses it at the same time to be somewhat more than a Figure To this it is reply'd I would gladly know what that is which is not the thing it self but yet is more than a meer Figure of it To this it is answered That the Presence is Spiritual but yet Real but how a Corporeal Substance should have a real Spiritual Presence is a thing that requires more Philosophy to clear it up than Transubstantiation or in the Words of the Author himself We suppose it to be a plain Contradiction that Body should have any Existence but what alone is proper to a Body that is Corporeal This is their last Resolution of this Controversie that a true real Presence is a Contradiction and so I think is a real spiritual Presence of a bodily Substance This Scent the whole Chace follows and unanimously agree in this Cry That there is no Presence but either meerly Figurative and that shuts out all Reality and is universally condemned by all the Reformation or meerly Spiritual i.e. the present Effects and Benefits of the absent Body and Blood of Christ which hath been all along equally cashiered by all other Reformed Churches as the other grand Scandal of Zuinglianism Thus the London Answerer to the Oxford Discourses There can be no real Presence but either Figuratively in the Elements or Spiritually in the Souls of those who worthily receive them So Dr. St. All which the Doctrine of our Church implies by this Phrase is only a real Presence of Christ's invisible Power and Grace so in and with the Elements as by the faithful receiving of them to convey real and spiritual Effects to the Souls of Men. The Oxford Answerer to the Oxford Discourses allows no other real Presence but the virtual Presence that is the meer Effect So the popular Author of the Discourse against Transubstantiation makes no Medium between the meer figurative Presence and Transubstantiation so that all other Presence that is not meerly Figurative comes under the Notion of Transubstantiation Now the gentlest Character he is pleased to give of this Monsieur is this That the Business of Transubstantiation is not a Controversie of Scripture against Scripture or of Reason against Reason but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of the Scripture and all the Sence and Reason of all Mankind But besides the intolerable Rudeness of the Charge against all the Learned Men of the Church of Rome as the worst of Sots and Ideots if there be no middle real Presence between Transubstantiation and the Figure he hath cast all the Protestant Churches into the same Condemnation of Sots and Fools But howsoever rash and preposterous it may be for Presons that believe the real Presence to abjure the Word Transubstantiation ye to determine any part of Divine Worship in the Christian Church to be in its own Nature Idolatry is inhumane and barbarous IDOLATRY is a Stabbing and Cut-throat Word its least Punishment is the greatest that can be both Death and Damnation and good Reason too when the Crime is no less than renouncing the true God that made Heaven and Earth Thus Exod. 22. 20. He that sacrificeth unto any God save unto the Lord or Iehovah only he shall be utterly destroyed Deut. 13. 6. If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or thy Son or thy Daughter or the Wife of thy Bosom or thy Friend which is as thine own Soul entice thee secretly saying Let us go and serve other Gods which thou hast not known thou nor thy Fathers namely
of the Gods of the People which are round about you nigh unto thee or far off from thee from the one end of the Earth unto the other Thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him Neither shall thine Eye pity him neither shalt thou spare neither shalt thou conceal him But thou shalt surely kill him thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to Death and afterward the Hand of all the People And thou shalt stone him with Stones that he die Because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt from the House of Bondage This was the Crime and this the Punishment of Idolatry and the Sentence was so severely Executed that for the setting up the golden Calf or Symbol of the Sun that the Aegyptians Worship'd as the supreme Deity as will appear in its proper place Three thousand of the Ring-leaders were put to the Sword by the Command of Moses Exod. 32. 27. And for this Reason it pleased God to destroy the Canaanites from off the Face of the Earth i.e. for giving Divine Worship to false and created Deities in Defiance to the Eternal Creator of it So black a Crime as this that is no less than renouncing God is not lightly to be charged upon any Party of Christians not only because of the foulness of the Calumny but the barbarous Consequences that may follow upon it to invite and warrant the Rabble when ever Opportunity favours to destroy the Roman Catholicks and their Images as the Israelites were commanded to destroy the Canaanites and their Idols But before so bloody an Indictment be preferr'd against the greatest part of Christendom the Nature of the thing ought to be very well understood The Charge is too big for a Scolding Word And how inconsistent soever Idolatry may be with Salvation I fear so uncharitable a Calumny if it prove one can be of no less damnable Consequence It is a piece of Inhumanity that out-does the Salvageness of the Canibals themselves and damns at once both Body and Soul. And yet after all we have no other ground for the bold Conceit than the crude and rash Assertions of some popular Divines who have no other Measures of Truth or Zeal but Hatred to Popery and therefore never spare for hard Words against that Church and run up all Objections against it into nothing less than Atheism and Blasphemy of which Idolatry is the greatest Instance But if they would lay aside their indecent Heats and soberly enquire into the Nature and Original of Idolatry they would be as much ashamed of the Ignorance of their Accusations as they ought to be of its Malice And therefore I shall set down a plain and brief Account of that Argument that when we understand the easie obvious and natural Notion of Idolatry it will for ever expose the Vanity of these Men's Fanatique Pretences I pray God there be nothing worse at bottom seeing it has ever been set up as the Standard against Monarchy It is a Subject that hath entertained the most able Pens in the World but I shall not presume or pretend to be so learned but shall confine all my Knowledge to the Word of God chiefly to the Mosaick Writings for there it is fully and clearly stated the Mosaick Law being enacted purely in Opposition to Idolatry Now nothing can be more obvious than that the Notion of it there is neither more nor less than this The Worship of the Heavenly Bodies the Sun the Moon and the Stars or any other visible and corporeal Deity as the Supreme God so as to exclude all Sense and Apprehension of a spiritual and invisible Godhead This evidently appears both by the Almighties several Revelations that he made of himself to the Children of Israel to preserve them from it and from the several Characters and Descriptions that himself hath upon numberless occasions made of it Most learned Men would trace its Original from before the Flood but they follow their Chase without any Scent as generally all Antiquaries do when they pursue into the first Source and Original of things The Iewish Robbies that are of too late a standing to pretend to any Authority in such Antient Matters for as they lived not above Six Ages before us so they had no other Records than what we have the Writings of Moses and the Prophets derive its Original from the Age of Enos but as their Conjecture is founded upon an ambiguous Word so it is contradicted by the State of the World at that time for by reason of the long Lives of the Patriarchs from the Creation to the Flood it is not easie to conceive That the Memory and Tradition of the late Creation of the World should be worn out in so short a time Enos being Adams's Granchild and living in the same Age with him for some Hundred Years But the plain Demonstration that there was no such Impiety before the Flood is that Moses when he reckons up the Causes that provok'd God to bring that Judgment upon the World makes no mention of the Sin of Idolatry of which if they had been Guilty as it is a Sin of the first Magnitude so it would have held the first place in the Indictment Others make Cham the Father of this Monster as they do of all other Crimes but for no other Reason beside his ill Name Others derive it from the Tower of Babel which they will have to have been built for an Altar to the Sun after the Custom of after-times when they Worshiped him upon High Towers for Altars Maimonides and his Followers find deep Footsteps in the time of Abraham who was born in Ur of the Chaldees that is say they the Country of the Antient ZABII the Founders of Idolatry and for that reason he was commanded out of his own Country to the Worship of the True God. But this Dream of the ZABII is so modern and so void of the Authority of any Antient Record that it proves it self a fond Imposture Tho in Abraham's time and that was many Centuries after the Flood we meet with the first Traces of this Apostacy For that extraordinary Discovery that God was pleased to make of himself as Supreme Lord of all things was made to Abraham in Opposition to the Idolatry of his own Country i.e. Chaldea who seemed to have been the first Founders of it and for that reason God commanded him to leave his Country his Kindred and his Fathers House and sojourn in the Land of Canaan where the Tradition of the Knowledge of the True God seems to have been much better preserved So that tho there were some Decays from the true Old Religion yet they were as yet very far from an Universal Apostacy That the Plague was then broke out in Chaldea is evident from the words of Ioshua 24. 2. Your Fathers dwelt on the other side the River in old time even Terah