a Power which has Dominion over universal Nature The Son of God has no more difficulty to render his Body present in the Eucharist by saying This is my Body than to Cure a Woman of her Infirmity Luc. 13.12 by saying Woman thou art freed from thy Infirmity or to preserve the Life of a young Man by saying to his Father John 4.50 Thy Son liveth or to forgive the Sins of the Man sick of the Palsy Mat. 9.2 by saying to him Thy Sins are forgiven thee So that not troubling our selves how he will execute what he has said we rest precisely upon his words He who does what he will by speaking does what he pleases and it was more easy for the Son of God to force the Laws of Nature to verify his word than it is for us to accommodate our Understandings to these kind of violent Interpretations which break the Laws of common Discourse These Laws of Discourse teach us that a sign which represents a thing naturally receives often the name of the thing represented being as it were its nature to bring the Idea of the thing into the Mind The same also happens tho with some restriction to instituted Signs when they are received and Persons accustomed to them But that in establishing a Sign which has no relation to the thing as for example a Morsel of Bread to signify the Body of a Man the name of the thing signified should be given to it with out any Explication and before any agreement as JESVS CHRIST has done in his last Supper is a thing unheard of and of which we find no example in holy Writ not to say in any Language Neither do the Gentlemen of the Pretended Reform'd Religion so fix themselves to the figurative Sense which they would give to these words of JESVS CHRIST but that they do at the same time acknowledge he had intention in pronouncing them to give us in reality his Body and Blood SECT XI Explication of these Words Do this in remembrance of me AFter having proposed the Sentiments of the Church touching these words This is my Body we must explicate what she thinks of those others which JESVS CHRIST added Do this in remembrance of me It is manifest the intention of the Son of God is to oblige us by these words Luc. 22.19 to remember the Death which he has endured for our Salvation 1 Cor. 1â— 24 and St. Paul concludes from these same words that we declare the Death of our Saviour in this Mystery But they must not perswade themselves 2 Cor. 11.26 that remembrance of our Saviours Death excludes the real Presence of his Body on the contrary if they consider what we have lately explicated they will clearly understand this Commemoration to be grounded upon the real Presence For as the Jews in eating of the Peace-Offerings remembred they had been immolated for them in the same manner in eating of the flesh of JESVS CHRIST our Victim we ought to remember he died for us This very flesh then eaten by the Faithful not only renews in us the memory of his immolation but confirms also to us the reality of it And we are so far from having reason to say that this solemn Commemoration which JESVS CHRIST ordains us to make excludes the Presence of his Body that on the contrary we see this tender remembrance which he would have us to make at the Holy Table of him as immolated for us is grounded upon this that this very flesh ought to be there taken really seeing in effect it is not possible for us to forget it was for us he gave his Body in Sacrifice when we see he daily gives us the same Victime to eat Must Christians under pretence of celebrating in the Lords Supper the memory of the Passion of our Saviour deprive this Pious Commemoration of what it has most efficacious and tender in it Ought they not to consider that JESVS CHRIST does not command them only to remember him but to remember him in eating of his Flesh and Blood Consider the Connexion and the force of his words He does not say simply as those of the Pretended Reformation seem to understand him That the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist should be to us a Memorial of his Body and Blood but he advertises us that in doing what he has prescribed that is in receiving his Body and Blood we should remember him What is there in reality more powerful to make us remember him And if Children do so tenderly remember their Parents and their Bounties towards them when they approach the Tombs where their Bodies are interred how ought our Remembrance and our Love to be excited when we possess under these sacred Vails under this mystical Sepulchre this living and Life-giving Flesh and this Blood yet flowing with his Love and full of Spirit and Grace But if our Adversaries continue to tell us That he who commands us to remember him does not give us his proper Substance we must in fine desire them to agree amongst themselves They profess not to deny the real Communication of the proper substance of the Son of God in the Eucharist If their words are serious if their Doctrine be not an illusion they must necessarily say with us the remembrance does not exclude all kinds of Presence but only that which strikes the Senses Their Answer shall be ours seeing that tho we affirm JESVS CHRIST to be present yet we acknowledg at the same time that he is not present after a sensible manner And if it should be demanded how it comes to pass that believing as we do the Senses to have nothing to do in this Mystery we should not believe it sufficient that JESVS CHRIST should be present by Faith It is easie to answer and to clear this Equivocal Objection It is one thing to say the Son of God is present to us by Faith and another thing to say we know by Faith that he is present The first manner of speaking imports only a moral presence but the second signifies to us a very real one because our Faith is most real and this real Presence known by Faith Habac. 2.4 is sufficient to work all the forementioned Effects in the Just Man who lives by Faith SECT XII Exposition of the Calvanists Doctrine concerning the real Presence BUT to remove all the Equivocations which Calvinists make use of in this matter and show at the same time how near they have approached to us it will be convenient to add here the exposition of their Sentiments tho I only undertook to explicate the Doctrine of the Church Their Doctrine has two parts the one speaks of nothing but the Figure and the other of nothing but the Reality of the Body and Blood We shall see each of these parts in order They tell us first This great Miracle of the real Presence which we admit is useless that it is enough for our Salvation JESVS
naturally form in the minds of the Faithful give us nothing but the Ideas of his real presence Therefore it was necessary our adversaries should find out some expressions the sound of which might at least give us a confused Idea of this reality When a Man fixes himself either entirely upon Faith as Catholicks do or entirely upon humane Reason as Infidels do it is easie for him to establish a connected and uniform model of Doctrine But when a man goes about to make a composition of one and the other he always says something which he would not say and afterwards falls into opinions the sole contrarieties of which shew the manifest falsity of them This is what has hapned to these Gentlemen of the pretended reform'd Religion and God has so permitted it to facilitate their return to Catholic unity For whereas their proper experience shows them they must necessarily express themselves as we do to speak the language of Truth ought they not to judge it necessary to think as we do to understand it right If they observe in their own belief many expressions which have no sence but according to our tenets is it not sufficient to convince them that Truth is not in its full perfection but amongst us And those unconnected parts of Catholick Doctrine which are scatered here and there in their Catechisms but which as I may say require to be united to the whole ought they not to excite them to search in the Communion of the Church a full and entire explication of the Mystery of the Eucharist They would no doubt of it be brought to it did not humane Reflections trouble and perplex their Faith which has too much dependance upon Sence But having shown what Fruit they ought to reap from the Exposition of their Doctrine let us finish the explication of our own SECT XIII Of Transubstantiation and Adoration and in what sence the Eucharist is said to be a Sign IT having been convenient as it was said before that the Senses should not perceive any thing in this Mystery of Faith it was necessary nothing should be changed in respect of them in the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist Upon which account being we see the same Species and feel the same Effects as before in this Sacrament we must not wonder if the same name be given to them sometimes and in some certain Sense Yet notwithstanding Faith being attentive to his word who performs what pleases him in Heaven and on Earth acknowledges here no other Substance but what is designed by the same word that is to say the proper Body and Blood of JESVS CHRIST into which the Bread and Wine are changed this is what we call Transubstantiation However That real verity which is interiorly contained in the Eucharist hinders not the exterior and sensible part from being a sign but a sign of such a Nature that it is so far from excluding the reality of the thing signified it bears it necessarily along with it seeing that in effect these words This is my Body pronounc'd upon that matter which JESVS CHRIST himself made choice of is to us a certain sign that his Body is present and though the Symbols appear always the same to our Senses yet our Mind judges otherwise of them and not according to Sense because a Superior Authority interposes So that whereas certain Species and a certain sequel of natural impressions on our Senses have been accustomed to design to us the substance of Bread and Wine the Authority of Him in whom we believe causes these same Species to begin to shew us another substance For we give ear to him who said that this which we receive and eat is his Body and such is the force of these words they hinder us from referring those exteriour appearances to the Substance of Bread and induced us to refer them to the Body of JESVS CHRIST there present Insomuch that the presence of such an adorable Object being rendered certain to us by this sign we are not afraid to pay it our adorations I will not dwell upon the point of Adoration because the most learned and the most intelligent of our Adversaries have long since granted us those who are perswaded of the real Presence of JESVS CHRIST in the Eucharist ought to pay him in it their Adorations In fine being once convinced the all-powerful words of the Son of God operate whatever they declare we believe that in the last Supper they had their effect as soon as they were pronounced by him and by a necessary Consequence we acknowledg the real Presence of his Body before our receiving of it SECT XIV Sacrifice of the Mass THese things being supposed there remains no particular difficulty about the Sacrifice which we acknowledg in the Eucharist We have observed two actions in this Mystery which cease not to be distinct the one of them has a Relation to the other The first is the consecration by which the Bread and Wine are changed into the Body and Blood and the second is the receiving by which we partake of them In the Consecration the Body and the Blood are mystically seperated because JESVS CHRIST said separately This is my Body this is my Blood which includes a lively and efficacious Representation of the violent Death he suffered So that the Son of God is placed upon the Holy Table in vertue of these words cloathed with those signs which represent his Death this is effected by consecration and this Religious action carries with it an acknowledgment of Gods Soveraignty in as much as JESVS CHRIST there present renews and perpetuates in some sort the remembrance of his being obedient even to the Death of the Cross So that there is nothing wanting to render this a true Sacrifice We cannot doubt but this Action as distinct from that of Communicating is of it self acceptable to God and makes him look upon us with a more propitious Eye because it represents to him that voluntary Death which his beloved Son has suffered for us Sinners or rather places before his Eyes that very Son of his under the signs of this Death by which his Wrath had been appeased All Christians will confess the sole Presence of JESVS CHRIST to be a most Powerful Intercession before God for all mankind according to the saying of the Apostle That JESVS CHRIST presents himself and appears for us before the Face of God Heb. 9.24 So that we believe that JESVS CHRIST being present upon the Holy Table under this Figure of Death intercedes for us and represents continually to his Father that Death which he has suffered for his Church It is in this Sense we say JESVS CHRIST offers up himself to God for us in the Eucharist it is after this manner we conceive this Oblation renders God more propitious to us and therefore we call this a Propitiatory Sacrifice When we consider what it is JESVS CHRIST operates in this Mystery and that we see him
AN EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE Catholic Church IN MATTERS OF Controversie By the Right Reverend JAMES BENIGNE BOSSUET Counsellor to the King Bishop of Meaux formerly of Condom and Preceptor to the Dauphin First Almoner to the Dauphiness Done into English from the Fifth Edition in French LONDON Printed in the Year 1685. The Approbation of the Right Reverend the Archbishops and Bishops WE have read the Treatise intituled An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversie Composed by the Right Reverend James Benignus Bossuet Bishop and Lord of Condom Preceptor to his Royal Highness the Dauphin And we declare That after having examined it with as much application as the importance of the matter required we have found the Doctrine contained in it to be conformable to the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Faith And therefore we think our selves obliged to propose it as such to those whom God has committed to our charge We are certain the Faithful will be edified by it and we hope those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion who will read this Work with attention will receive from it so right an understanding as may conduce to put them into the way of Salvation CHARLES MAURICE LE TELLIER Archbishop and Duke of Reims CH. de ROSMADEC Bishop of Tours FELIX Bishop and Earl of Chalons De GRIGNAN Bishop of Usez D. DE LIGNY Bishop of Meaux NICHOLAS Bishop of Auxerre GABRIEL Bishop of Autun MARC Bishop of Tarbe ARMAND JOHN Bishop of Beziers STEPHEN Bishop and Prince of Grenoble JULIUS Bishop of Tule A Table of Articles contained in this Treatise I. DEsign of this Treatise Pag. 1 II. Those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion acknowledg That the Catholic Church embraces all the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion Pag. 2 III. Religious Worship is terminated only in God Pag. 4 IV. Invocation of Saints Pag. 6 V. Images and Reliques Pag. 9 VI. Justification Pag. 12 VII Merits of Good Works Pag. 13 VIII Satisfactions Purgatory and Indulgences Pag. 16 IX Sacraments Pag. 19 Baptism Pag. 20 Confirmation Ibid. Pennance and Sacramental Confession Ibid. Exream Vnction Pag. 21 Marriage Ibid. Holy Orders Pag. 22 X. Doctrine of the Church touching the real Presence of the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST in the Eucharist and how the Church understands these Words This is my Body Ibid. XI Explication of these Words Do this in remembrance of me Pag. 25 XII Explication of the Doctrine of the Calvinists concerning the real Presence Pag. 27 XIII Of Transubstantiation and Adoration and in what sense the Eucharist is a Sign Pag. 33 XIV Sacrifice of the Mass Pag. 34 XV. Epistle to the Hebrews Pag. 37 XVI Reflections upon the precedent Doctrine Pag. 39 XVII Communion under both Species Pag. 41 XVIII The Written and unwritten Word Pag. 43 XIX The Authority of the Church Pag. 44 XX. The Opinions of the Pretended Reform'd upon the Authority of of the Church Pag. 46 XXI Authority of the Holy See and of Episcopacy Pag. 50 XXII Conclusion of this Treatise Ibid. An Advertisement upon Account of this Present Edition ONE would have thought those of the pretended Reformed Religion in reading this Treatise should at least have granted that the Doctrine of the Church was faithfully Expounded in it The least they could have allowed a Bishop was to have understood his own Religion and to have spoke without disguise in a matter where to dissemble would be a crime But nevertheless it has fallen out otherwise This Treatise whilst a Manuscript was made use of to instruct several particular persons and many Copies of it were dispersed Upon which the sincerer part of the pretendedly Reform'd were almost every where heard to say That if it were approved it would in reality take away great difficulties But that the Author durst never publish it and if he should he would not escape the censure of all those of his Communion not particularly of Rome which would not frame it self to his Maxims After some time nevertheless this Book thus condemned to a perpetual obscurity appeared ushered in with the Approbation of several Bishops And the Author who knew very well he had only expressed in it the mind of the Council of Trent apprehended not those censures threatned by the Reformers It was not certainly probable that the Catholick Faith should be betrayed instead of being expounded by a Bishop who after having preached the Gospel all his life time without the least suspicion of his Doctrine had been newly called to instruct a Prince whom the greatest King in the World and the most zealous Defender of the Religion of his Ancestors causes to be Educated in such a manner that he may be one day one of its principal supports But these Gentlemen of the pretended Reformation ceased not to persevere in their first Opinion They expected every moment when Catholicks should oppose this Book and Rome it self condemn it The occasion of this their imagination was that the major part who know nothing of our Doctrine but as represented to them by their Ministers under the most hideous Ideas know it not again when shewn in its natural dress So that it was no hard task to represent to them the Author of the Exposition as one who mollified the Sentiments of his Religion and sought out proper and qualifying moderations to content all Parties There has appeared two Answers to this Treatise The Author of the first would not discover his name M. Claude de Langle Daille Alix and till he himself be pleased to declare it we will not reveal the secret It is enough to us that this work was approved by the Ministers of Charenton and sent to the Author of the Exposition by the late M. Conrart one endowed with all that Catholicks could desire in a Man An. p. 3. 112 113 124.137 c. excepting a better Religion The other Answer was written by M. Noguier a Minister who is amongst them of great repute and has the esteem of an able Divine Nog p. 63 94 95 109 110. An. p. 10. Nog p. 40. Nog p. 20 27. They both pretended the Exposition was contrary to the decisions of the Council of Trent They both affirm the very design it self of expounding the Doctrine of the Council to be prohibited by the Pope And they both take care to say that M. de Condom does only mince and extenuate the Doctrine of his Religion As they represent him one would think that he relents An. Avert p. 24. that he is coming over to them that he abandons the Sentiments of his own Church Rep. p. 3. An. p. 137. Nog p. 94. An Avert p. 25 26 27 28 29. and embraces those of the Pretended Reform'd In fine his Treatise agrees not with that Profession of Faith which the Roman Church proposes to all those who are of her Communion and they represent him at defiance with every Article If we believe the Anonymus this
we have spoken come not from any defect in the payment but from a certain order which he has established to retain us in a saving discipline by just apprehensions But if they also tell us we believe we can of our own selves satisfy for some part of the pain due to our sins we can with confidence assure them the contrary appears by the maxims we have established Which maxims make it clearly appear that our Salvation is no other but a work of Mercy and Grace that what we do by the Grace of God is no less his work then what he dos alone by his absolute power and lastly that what we give to him appertains no less to him that what he gives to us To which we must add that what we call Satisfaction following the Example of the primitive Church is after all nothing but the application of the infinite satisfaction of JESVS CHRIST This very consideration ought to appease those who are offended when we tell them that God is so well pleased with fraternal charity and the communion of Saints that he frequently also accepts of those Satisfactions which we offer up one for another It seems these men do not conceive how much all we are belongs to God nor how all the favours which his Goodness makes him have for the faithful the members of JESVS CHRIST are necessarily referred to this divine head But certainly those who have read and considered how God himself inspires his servants with a desire to afflict themselves with fasting hair-cloth and ashes not only for their own sins but also for the sins of all the people will not be astonished if we say that being touched with the delight he has to gratify his friends he mercifully accepts of the humble sacrifice of their voluntary mortifications in abatement of those chastisements which he prepared for his people which shows that being satisfied by these he renders himself more mild towards the others by this means honouring his Son JESVS CHRIST in the communion of his members and in the holy society of his mystical body SECT IX The Sacraments THE Order of Doctrine requires that we now speak of the Sacraments by which the merits of JESVS CHRIST are applyed to us Seeing the disputes we have concerning them if we except the Eucharist are not so hot as the others we will in the first place clear in short the cheifest difficuties which are raised concerning the other and reserve the Eucharist which is the most important of all the rest till the last The Sacraments of the new Covenant are not sacred signs only which represent Grace nor seals which confirm it to us but the Instruments of the Holy Ghost which serve to apply it to us and which confer it upon us by vertue of the words which are pronounced and the exteriour action which is performed upon condition that we put not not any Impediment by our not being rightly disposed Whilst God annexes so great Grace to exteriour signs which have not of their own nature any proportion with so admirable an effect he shows us clearly that besides all we can do interiourly of our solves by our good dispositions there must necessarily intervene before we can be justified a special operation of the Holy Ghost and a peculiar application of the merit of our Saviour which is exhibited to us by the Sacraments So that this Doctrine cannot be rejected without injuring the merits of JESVS CHRIST and the operation of his divine power in our regeneration We acknowledg seven sacred signs or Ceremonies established by JESVS CHRIST as the ordinary means for the Sanctification and perfection of the new man Their divine institution appears in the holy Scripture either by the express words of JESVS CHRIST who established them or by the Grace which according to the same Scripture is annexed to them and necessarily shows a divine institution Baptism Seeing little Children cannot supply the want of Baptism by acts of Faith Hope and Charity nor by the vow to receive this Sacrament we believe that if they do not really receive it they do not in any manner partake of the Grace of redemption and therefore dying in Adam they have not any part in JESVS CHRIST It is good to observe here that the Lutherans believe with the Catholic Church the absolute necessity of Baptism and are astonished with her that such a truth should be denied which never any one before Calvin durst openly call in question it was so firmly rooted in the minds of all the faithful Nevertheless the Pretended Reform'd are not apprehensive voluntarily to let their Children dye like the Children of Infidels without bearing any mark of Christianity and without receiving any grace if their deaths should chance to prevent the day of their assembly Confirmation The Imposition of hands practised by the Holy Apostles to confirm the Faithful against Persecutions having its principal effect in the interiour descent of the Holy Ghost Act. 8.15.17 and the infusion of his gifts it ought not to have been rejected by our adversaries under pretence that the Holy Ghost descends now no more visibly upon us Thus all Christian Churches since the Apostles times have religiously retained it making use also of Holy Chrism to shew the vertue of this Sacrament by a more express representation of the interiour unction of the Holy Ghost Penance and Sacramental Confession We believe that JESVS CHRIST has been pleased those who have submitted themselves to the Authority of the Church by Baptism and who have since violated the laws of the Gospel should come and submit themselves to the Judgment of the same Church in the Tribunal of Penance Math. 18.18 John 20.23 where she exercises the power which is given her of remitting and retaining sins The terms of that commission which is given to the Ministers of the Church to absolve from sin are so general they cannot without temerity be restrained to publick sins and seeing when they pronounce that absolution in the name of JESVS CHRIST they only follow the express terms of this Commission the sentence is looked upon as rendred by JESVS CHRIST himself by whom they are established Judges It is this invisible High Priest who interiourly absolves the Penitent whilst the Priest exteriourly exercises the function This Penitential Court of Judicature being so necessary a curb to liberty a source so fruitful of wise admonitions so sensible a consolation for souls afflicted for their Sins when their absolution is not only declared in general terms as it is practised by the Ministers but when they are in reality absolved by the authority of JESVS CHRIST after a particular examination and knowledg of the Case we cannot believe that our adversaries can look upon so many benefits without regretting their loss and without being somewhat ashamed of a Reformation which has cast off so saving and so holy a practise Extream Vnction The Holy Ghost having according to the testimony of St. James
annexed an express promise of remission of sins 1 Jac. 14.55 and comfort of the sick to Extream Unction nothing is wanting to make this sacred ceremony a true Sacrament It is only to be remaked that according to the Doctrine of the Council of Trent Sess 14. c 2. de Sac. Extr. unc the sick are more relieved in respect of the soul than of the body and that as the spiritual profit is always the principal object of the new law so it is that also which we ought absolutely to expect from this holy unction if we be rightly disposed for it whereas the ease in sickness is only granted with a respect to our eternal salvation according to the secret dispositions of the divine Providence and the different degrees of preparation and faith which is found in the Faithful Marriage When we consider that JESVS CHRIST has given a new form to Marriage Math. 19.5 reducing this holy society to two persons immutably and indissolubly united and when we see this inseparable union Eph. 5.32 the sign of his eternal union with his Church we shall not have my difficulty to comprehend that the mariage of the Faithful is accompanied by the Holy Ghost and by Grace and we shall praise the divine bounty for having been thus pleased to consecrate the origin of our birth Orders The Imposition of Hands which the Administrators of sacred things receive 1 Tim. 4. 2 Tim. 2. being accompained with so apparent a vertue of the Holy Ghost and so full an infusion of his Grace it ought to be placed amongst the number of the Sacraments And indeed we must acknowledg our adversaries do not absolutely exclude the consecration of Ministers Conf. de Foy Art 35. but that they only exclude it from the number of the Sacraments which are common to the whole Church SECT X. Doctrine of the Church touching the real presence of the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST in the Eucharist and the manner how the Church understand these words This is my Body VVE are come you see at the last to the Question of the Eucharist where it will be necessary that we explicate our Doctrine more fully however without exceeding too much the bounds we have prescribed our selves The real presence of the Body and Blood of our Saviour is solidly established by the words of the Institution which we understand literally and there is no more reason to ask us why we fix our selves to the proper and literal sense then there is to ask a Traveller why he follows the high Road. It is their parts who have recourse to the figurative sense and who take by-paths to give a reason for what they do As for us who find nothing in the words which JESVS CHRIST makes use of for the institution of this mystery obliging us to take them in a figurative sense we think that to be a sufficient reason to determine us to the literal But we are yet more powerfully engaged when we come to consider in this Mystery the intention of the Son of God which I will explicate after the plainest manner I am able and that by Principles which I think our adversaries themselves cannot deny I say then These words of our Saviour Take eat Math. 16. Luc. 22. this is my body given for you show us that as the antient Jews did not in Spirit only unite themselves to the Immolation of the Victim which was offered for them but that in reality they eat the sacrifised flesh which was to them a mark of their partaking of that oblation So JESVS CHRIST becoming himself our Victim would have us really eat of the flesh of his Sacrifice to the end the actual communication of this adorable flesh might be a perpetual testimony to every one of us in particular that it was for us he took it and for us he immolated it God had forbidden the Jews to eat of the sin-offering to teach them the true expiation of their crimes was not to be accomplished in the Law nor by the blood of Beasts all the people lay Levit. 6.30 as it were under an interdiction by this prohibition without being able to have any actual participation of the remission of Sins By a contrary reason it was necessary the Body of our Blessed Saviour the true Host immolated for sin should be eaten by the Faithful to show them by this eating that the remission of sin was accomplished in the new Testament God also forbid the Children of Israel to eat Blood Levit. 17.11 and one of the reasons for this Prohibition was because the Blood was given us for the Expiation of our Souls But on the contrary our Blessed Saviour gives us his Blood to drink Math. 26.28 because it is shed for the remission of Sins So that the eating of the Body and Blood of the Son of God is as real at the Holy Table as the Grace the expiation of Sins and the participation of the Sacrifice of JESVS CHRIST is actual and real in the new Covenant Nevertheless seeing he desired to exercise our Faith in this Mystery and at the same time to free us from the horror of eating flesh and drinking Blood in their proper Species it was convenient he should give us them cloathed under another Species But if these Considerations have obliged him to make us partake of the flesh of our Victim after another manner than the Jews he was not for that obliged to deprive us in the least of the reality of his Substance It appears then to accomplish the antient Figures and to put us in actual Possession of the Victim offered for our Sins that JESVS CHRIST had intention to give us really his Body and Blood Which is so evident that our Adversaries themselves would have us to believe they are in this of the same opinion with us perpetually repeating how they deny not the actual Presence nor the real Participation of the Body and Blood in the Eucharist This we will examine hereafter where we think it necessary to represent their Sentiments after we have finished the Explication of those of the Church But in the mean time we will conclude that if the plainness of our Saviours words has forced them to acknowledg his express Intention was to give us in reality his Flesh when he said This is my Body they ought not to be astonished if we cannot consent to understand these words only in Figure In reality the Son of God who was so careful to explicate to his Apostles what he taught them under Parables and Figures having said nothing here to explicate himself it appears he left these words in their natural Signification I know these Gentlemen pretend the Nature of the thing explains it self sufficiently because we see very well say they what he presents us is nothing but Bread and Wine but this reason vanishes when we consider he who speaks has an Authority which over-rules the Senses and
CHRIST died for us that his Sacrifice is sufficiently applied to us by Faith and that this application is sufficiently certified to us by the Word of God They add That if this Word must be clothed with sensible Signs it is enough to give simple Symbols such as the Water of Baptism without any necessity of fetching the Body and Blood of JESVS CHRIST from Heaven There seems to be nothing more easie than this manner of explicating the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Nevertheless our Adversaries themselves do not think it ought to suffice them They know such kind of Imaginations made the Socinians deny the great Miracle of the Incarnation God might have saved us say these Hereticks without so much difficulty he had nothing to do but to pardon out faults and might have instructed us sufficiently as well in Faith as in Manners by the Preaching and Examples of a Man full of the Holy-Ghost without any need of making him a God But the Calvinists as well as we see the weakness of this Argument which appears first from it s not appertaining to us to deny or affirm Mysteries according as they appear to us useful or unprofitable to our Salvation God alone knows the Secret and it is our business to render them useful and saving to us in believing them as he proposes them and in receiving his Graces after the manner he bestows them upon us Secondly not to enter into the question whether it was possible for God to save us by any other means than the Incarnation and Death of his Son and not to meddle with that unnecessary dispute which the Pretended Reform'd Religion treats of so at length in the Schools it suffices we have learnt from the Scriptures that the Son of God has been pleased to testifie his Love to us by incomprehensible Effects This Love has been the Cause of this so real an Union by which he was made Man This Love moved him to immolate the same Body for us as really as he united himself to it All these designs are consecutive and this Love maintains it self in all things with the same vigour So that when it shall please him to make each of his Children experience the goodness which he has testified to all in general by giving himself to them in particular he will find out a method to accomplish his Desires by no less efficacious means than those by which he had already accomplished our Salvation Upon which account we must not be hereafter astonished if he give to each of us the proper Substance of his Body and Blood He does it that he may imprint this in our Hearts that it was for us he took them and for us he offered them up in Sacrifice That which preceded makes all that follows credible to us the order of his Mysteries dispose us to believe all this and his express word permits us not to doubt of it Our Adversaries saw very well that simple figures and signs of his Body and Blood would not content Christians who are accustomed to the Bounties of a God who gives himself to us so really Wherefore they will not suffer us to accuse them of denying a real and substantial participation of JESVS CHRIST in their Supper They affirm Cat. Dim 53. as well as we that he makes us there Partakers of his proper Substance they tell us that he nourishes and quickens us with the substance of his Body and Blood Conf. of Faith art 36. and judging that it would not be enough to shew us by some sign that we are partakers of his Sacrifice Cat. Dim 52. they say expresly that the Body of our Saviour which is given us in the last Supper assures us of it words very remarkable which we will examine by and by Behold then the Body and Blood of JESVS CHRIST present in our Mysteries by the acknowledgment of the Calvinists for what is communicated according to its proper substance must be really present It is true they explicate this Communication by saying it is in Spirit and by Faith but it is true also they will have it real And because it is impossible to make it intelligible how a Body that is communicated to us only in Spirit and by Faith can be communicated to us really and in its proper substance therefore they have not been able to continue firm in the two parts of a Doctrine so contradictory and they have been obliged to acknowledg two things which cannot be true but by supposing what the Catholic Church teacheth The first is That JESVS CHRIST is given to us in the Eucharist after a manner whch neither agrees with that of Baptism nor the Preaching of the Gospel but is peculiar to this Mystery We shall see by and by the Consequence of this Principle but let us first see how it is granted us by those of the Pretended Reformation I will not here alledge the Authority of any particular Author but the proper words of their Catechism where it explicates what concerns the last Supper It does not only tell us in express terms that JESVS CHRIST is given us in the Supper in reality and according to his proper Substance but that Dim 53. tho he be truly communicated to us both by Baptism and the Gospel yet nevertheless it is only in part and not fully From whence it follows that he is given us in the Lords Supper fully and not in part There is a vast difference betwixt receiving in part and receiving fully If then we receive JESVS CHRIST every where else in part and it be only in the Lords Supper we receive him fully it follows by the consent of our Adversaries that we must look out for a participation in the last Supper which is proper only to this Mystery and which does not agree with Baptism and Preaching but at the same time it follows also that this participation is not annexed to Faith because Faith being generally dispersed through all the Actions of a Christian is found in Preaching and in Baptism as well as in the Lords Supper In reality it is remarkable that what desire soever the Pretended Reformers had to render Baptism and Preaching equal to the last Supper because JESVS CHRIST is there truly communicated to us they durst never affirm in their Catechisms that JESVS CHRIST is given us in his proper Substance by Baptism and Preaching as they say he is given in the Eucharist They saw then they could not avoid attributing to the Eucharist a manner of possessing JESVS CHRIST peculiar only to this Sacrament and that Faith which is common to all the Actions of a Christian could not be this particular manner But this peculiar manner of possessing JESVS CHRIST in the last Supper ought also to be real seeing it gives to the Faithful the proper substance of the Body and Blood of JESVS CHRIST So that we must conclude from what they grant us there is in the Eucharist a real manner of
receiving the Body and Blood of our Saviour which is not performed by Faith and this is what the Catholic Church teaches The second thing granted by the Pretended Reformers is taken out of that Article which immediately follows that which I have already cited out of their Catechism Dim 52. which is That the Body of our Lord JESUS for as much as it was once offered up in Sacrifice to reconcile us to God is now given to assure us we have a part in that Reconciliation If there be any Sense in these Words if they be not an useless found and a vain amusement we ought to understand by them that JESVS CHRIST does not give us a Symbol only but his proper Body to assure us we partake of his Sacrifice and of the Reconciliation of Mankind But if the reception of the Body of our Lord assures us of our participation of the Fruits of his Death this participation of the Fruits must necessarily be distinguished from the reception of the Body seeing one is the pledg of the other From whence to proceed I say If our adversaries are forced to distinguish in the last Supper the participation of the body of our Blessed Saviour from the participation of the fruits of his Grace in his Sacrifice they must also necessarily make a distinction between the participation of this Divine Body and all kinds of Spiritual participation by Faith This latter participation will never furnish them with two distinct Actions by one of which they receive the Body of our Saviour and by the other the benefit of this Sacrifice no man being able to conceive what difference there is betwixt partaking by Faith of the Body of our Saviour and partaking by Faith of the Fruit of his Death They must therefore acknowledg that besides the Communion by which we spiritually partake of the Body of our Saviour and also of his Spirit by receiving the fruit of his Death there is also a Real Communion of the Body of the same Saviour which is to us a certain Pledg of the others being assured to us if we put no impediment to such a Grace by an evil Disposition This is necessarily included in the Principles they admit and they will never be able to explicate this Truth with the least shadow of Solidity if they return not to the Sentiments of the Church Who will not here admire the force of Truth All the consequences which follow from the acknowledged Principles of our adversaries are perfectly understood in the sentiment of the Church Catholicks the meanliest instructed without difficulty conceive that in the Eucharist there is a Communion which JESVS CHRIST which is not to be found any where else It is no difficulty for them to understand his Body is given us to assure us we partake of his Sacrifice and of his Death They distinguish clearly betwixt these two necessary manners of uniting or selves to JESVS CHRIST the one in receiving his proper flesh the other in receiving his Spirit the first of which is granted us as a certain pledge of the second But seeing these things are inexplicable in the sentiments of our adversaries tho on the other hand they cannot deny them we must necessarily conclude that errour has thrown them into a manifest contradiction I have been often astonished they did not explicate their Doctrine after a more plain manner Why did they not always without so many formalities persevere to say that JESVS CHRIST having shed his Blood for us represented to us this effusion by giving us two distinct signs of his Body and Blood that he was pleased indeed to give to these signs the name of the thing it self that these sacred signs were pledges to assure us of our partaking of the fruit of his Death and that we were spiritually nourished by the vertue of his Body and Blood After so many endeavours to prove that signs often receive the names of the things signified and that for this reason the sign of the Body might be called the Body all this connection of Doctrine obliges them naturally to fix there To render these signs efficacious it sufficed the Grace of Redemption was annexed to them or rather according to their Principles that it was in them confirmed to us They needed not have tormented themselves as they have done to make us understand we receive the proper Body of our Saviour to assure us we partake of the Grace of his Death They were well enough satisfied to have the water of Baptism a sign of the Blood which washeth us and it never entred into their fancies to say we there received the proper substance of the Blood of our Blessed Saviour to assure us his vertue is there diffused upon us If they had argued after the same manner as to the Eucharist their Doctrine would have been less embroyled But those who invent and innovate cannot express all they have a mind to They find certain truths and maxims established which incommode them and force a violence upon their imaginations The Arians would gladly have resused our Blessed Saviour the name of God or the only Son of God The Nestorians did not admit but with reluctance that kind of I know not what unity of person in JESVS CHRIST which we find in their writing The Pelagians who denied Original sin would also willingly have denyed that Baptism was given to little children for the remission of sins for by that means they would have been freed from the argument which Catholicks drew from this practice to prove that original defect But as I just now said those who find some truths firmly established have not the boldness or rather impudence to overthrow all Let the Calvinists ingenuously confess the truth they would have been well pleased to acknowledge in the Eucharist the Body of our Blessed Saviour only figuratively and the sole participation of his Spirit in effect laying aside those great words of Participation of his proper substance and the many others which import a real presence and serve only to perplex them It would have been more to their humour to have acknowledged in the Lords Supper no other communion with JESVS CHRIST but what is also common to Preaching and to Baptism without telling us as they have done that in the Lords Supper he is received in plentitude and every where else only in part But however this was their inclination yet the very force of the terms opposed them our Blessed Saviour having said so precisely of the Eucharist This is my body This is my Blood which he never did of any other thing nor upon any other occasion what likelihood was there of rendring that common to all the Actions of a Christian which his express word had annexed to one particular Sacrament And farther the whole order of divine providence the connexion of Doctrine and Holy Mysteries the intention of JESVS CHRIST in his last Supper the words themselves which he uttered and the impression which they
again to examine those Articles once so resolved on but are bound humbly to receive her Decisions In this we shall follow the example of St. Paul and Silas who carried this first Sentence of the Apostles to the Faithful and were so far from permitting a new Discussion of what had been decided that on the contrary They went from place to place Acts 16.4 teaching them to observe the Ordinances of the Apostles Thus it is the Children of God acquiess in the Judgment of the Church believing that from her Mouth they hear the Oracle of the Holy Ghost and upon account of this belief it is that after having said in our Creed I believe in the Holy Ghost we add immediately The Holy Catholic Church by which we oblige our selves to acknowledg an infallible and perpetual verity in the universal Church because this very Church which we believe existent in all Ages would cease to be the Church if she ceased to teach the truth revealed by God So that those who apprehend least she should abuse her Power to establish a Lye have no Faith in him by whom she is governed And if our Adversaries would but look upon these things in a more mild and candid manner they would be obliged to acknowledg the Catholic Church is so far from making her self Mistress of her Faith as they have accused her that on the contrary she has done what she could to bind and deprive herself of all the means of Innovation seeing she not only submits herself to the Holy Scriptures but to the end she might for ever banish all arbitrary Interpretations which make Mens Imaginations pass for Scripture she has obliged herself to interpret them in what relates to Faith and Manners Conc. Trid. Sess 14. according to the sence of the Holy Fathers from which she prosesseth never to depart declaring in all her Councils and in all the Professions of Faith she has published that she does not receive any Doctrine which is not conformable to the Tradition of all preceding Ages Moreover if our Adversaries consult their Consciences they will find the name of the Church has more Authority over them than they dare avouch in their disputes and I do not think there is any one Prudent Man amongst them who finding himself the only Person of a Perswasion tho it appeared to him never so Evident but would abhor that Singularity so true it is that Men have need in these matters to be supported in their Tenets by the Authority of some Society that is of the same opinion with them And for this reason God who created us and who knows what is most proper for us hath ordained for our Good that all Particulars should be subject to the Authority of his Church which of all other Authorities is without doubt the best Established In effect it is established not only by that Testimony which God himself gives of it in the Holy Scriptures but also by the marks of his divine Protection which are no less visible in the inviolable and perpetual subsistence of it than in its miraculous Establishment SECT XX. The Sentiments of those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion concerning the Authority of the Church THIS Supream Authority of the Church is so necessary to regulate the differences which arise in matters of Faith and about the Sense of Scripture that our Adversaries themselves after having decryed it as an unsupportable Tyranny have been at last obliged to establish it amongst themselves When those who are called Independents declared openly that each one of the Faithful ought to follow the light of his own Conscience without submitting his Judgment to the Authority of any Body or Ecclesiastical Assembly and upon this Ground refused to submit toany Synods That of Charenton held 1644. censured this Doctrine upon the same Reasons and for the same Inconveniencies for which we reject it This Synod observes in the first place that this Error of the Independents consists in this that they teach Every Church ought to be governed by her proper Laws without a dependance upon any Person in Ecclesiastical Matters and without any Obligation to acknowledg the Authority of Conferences and Synods for her regulation and conduct After which this Synod determines that this Sect is a prejudicial to the State as to the Church that it opens a door to all sorts of Irregularities and Extravagancies that it takes away all the means of applying any remedy to it and that if it took place there might be as many Religions framed as Parishes or particular Assemblies These last words shew it is principally in matters of Faith this Synod would establish a Dependance seeing the greatest Inconvenience into which it observes the faithful would fall by an Independence is that there might chance to be as many Religions formed as Parishes Every Church then according to the Doctrine of this Synod and much more every private Person must necessarily depend in what concerns matters of Faith upon some other superior Authority which resides in some Assembly or in some Body to which Authority all the Faithful submit their Judgments For the Independents do not refuse to submit to the Word of God according as they think it ought to be understood nor to accept the decisions of Synods when after having examined them they judg them reasonable What they refuse to do is to submit their Judgments to that of any Assembly for its sake because our Adversaries have taught them that every Assembly even that of the Universal Church is a Society of men subject to Error and to which by consequence a Christian ought not to submit his Judgment that submission being only due to God From this pretention of the Independents it is those inconveniences follow which the Synod of Charenton so well observed For let a man make what Profession he pleaseth to submit himself to the word of God if every one think he has a right to interpret it according to his own Sense and against the Tenets of the Church declared in her last Sentence this pretention will open a door to all sorts of Extravagancies it will take away all the means of applying a remedy because the decision of the Church is not a remedy to those who think themselves not obliged to submit to it in fine it gives way to the framing as many Religions not only as there are Parishes but also as there are Persons To avoid these inconveniencies from whence the ruin of Christianity would follow the Synod of Charenton finds her self obliged to establish a Dependence in Ecclesiastical matters and that even in Points of Faith but this dependence will never hinder those pernicious consequences which they desired to prevent if they do not with us establish this Maxim that every particular Church and much more every particular person amongst the faithful ought to believe themselves obliged to submit their private judgment to the Authority of the Church Thus we see in the 5th chapter of