The Novelty of Popery Opposed to the Antiquity of True Christianity

CHAP. 5. That the Fathers did not believe transubstantiation, but believed that the substance of bread and wine remaineth after the consecration.

THe word of Transubstantiation is a monster which the corruption of the last ages hath hatched, bred, and reared up. It was established by an Article of Council in the year 1215. in the Council of Lateran under Innocent the III. For of the change of the substance of bread into the substance of Christ's natural body, there is no trace in the Fathers of the fitst ages, well understood, and faithfully alleged. For the transmutation of which Justin Martyr speaks in the second Apology, is not the transmutation of bread into the Lord's body, but the transmutation of the symbolical and sacramental body of Christ into our flesh by the disgestion of bread. Wherefore also Irenaeus in the forealleadged place saith not only that our bodies are fed by it, but also that they get increase by the same.

Leo the I. Bishop of Rome, in the twenty third Epistle to the Clergy of Constantinople, speaks of a change which is done in the Lord's Supper; not of the change of bread into the substance of Christ's body, but of the believers into the flesh of Christ. In the mystical distribution of the spiritual meat, this is distributed, this is taken; that we receiving the virtue of the heavenly meat, be changed into the flesh of him that was made our flesh.

In the second Dialogue of Theodoret it is said indeed that the sacred signs are changed by the consecration, and become the body of Christ; but it is an Eutychian heretic that speaks, who by a pretended transmutation of the bread and wine goeth about to establish the transmutation of the human nature of Christ into the divine, as we shall see hereafter.

We have already seen how Justin, Irenaeus and Cyprian call bread and wine and fruits and creatures of God, that which is given and received in the Lord's Supper.

Origen upon Matth. 15. speaking of the Eucharist, That which is sanctified by the word of God, and by prayer, doth not of its nature sanctify him that useth it; for if it were so, it would also sanctify him that useth it unworthily. And a little after. If all that entereth into the mouth, goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught, this meat also which is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer, as for that which is material in it, goes down into the belly and is cast out into the draught. And a little after he makes this conclusion of his discourse. Let this be said of the typical and symbolical body. In this place of Origen, observe that he speaks of the bread consecrated and sanctified by the word of God, that the saith that it sanctifieth not of its nature, and that, as for the matter of it, it goes out into the draught; Things which cannot be attributed unto the true body of Christ, for it sanctifieth of its nature, and is not cast out into the draught. And cannot also be attributed to the accidents of bread, as roundness and whiteness; for these accidents are not the matter of bread, and are not sent into the draught. This can be attributed to nothing but the bread which by Origen is called a symbolical and figurative body.

Of the truth of his testimony none can doubt seeing that it is in the Editions set out by our Adversaries, and that the famous Sixtus Senensis hath inserted it whole in his Bibliotheca Sacra.

Wherefore Cardinal du Perron, after he hath made some show of doubting of the truth of this testimony, yet saith that he will not touch that string, but extends his oratory upon Invectives against Origen, and sets forth h s errors at large, saying that the alleged place, is a particular whimsey of the spirit of Origen, which he forgeth against the common doctrine of the Church. And upon these words of Origen that the bread consecrated by prayer, is cast out into the draught, he crieth out Shut up your ears, Christians; as if these words were read with the ears. I acknowledge indeed that Origen with his many excellent virtues, and his rare doctrine, had many errors. But I may say also that never any man's writings were more narrowly scanned, or past through a more rigid and violent censure then those of Origen suffered, by those that lived after him, especially by Ephiphanius, Jerome, and Theophilus of Alexandria, out of their animosity against Ruffinus and John of Jerusalem, who were Origenists. Wherefore the name of Origen is so far from weakening the authority of that place, that it rather increase • h the strength of it and addeth weight to it. For if Origen writing so, had taught against the belief of the Orthodox Church, so many exact and partial examiners would not have omitted it. Yet none of the Ancients reproved him for speaking so. For not only Austin, a meek and impartial man, and Theodoret, who have made a description of the errors of Origen, but even Epiphanius and Jerome, the enemies of Origen, never put that among his errors that his doctrine about the Eucharist was not sound. The silence of the enemies of Origen's memory is in this point a manifest and public approbation of his doctrine.

Here the Cardinal raiseth his style, and brings forth out of a Paschal Epistle of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria the condemnation of Origen upon the point of the Eucharist. For (saith he) Theophilus condemns him for teaching that the Holy Ghost sets not inanimate things on work, and worketh neither in them, nor by them. And upon that allegeth thus the words of Theophilus Origen considereth not that the mystical waters in the Baptism are consecrated by the coming of the Holy Ghost; And that the bread of the Lord by which [ostenditur] is shown or represented the body of the Savior, and which we break for our sanctification, and the cup, which are set upon the table, these things being inanimate, are sanctified by the invocation and coming of the Holy Ghost. I know not where the Cardinals mind was wandering when he mustered up these useless proofs, yea such as are against him. Theophilus doth not find fault with Origen for denying the Transubstantiation of the bread, nor for saying that the bread of the Lord's Supper, as for the matter, goes to the draught, and sanctifieth not by its nature; nor for calling the consecrated bread a symbolical and figurative body; But for saying that God employeth not inanimate things and sanctifieth them not. May not God sanctify inanimate, things without transubstantiating them? Doth he not sanctify the water of Baptism, though it remain water still? Doth Theophilus reprove Origen for not believing that the water of Baptism is transubstantiated? Certainly the Cardinal takes here his measures amiss. Yea he brings an authority of Theophilus which saith expressly that the bread of the Lord showeth or representeth the body of Christ. But who was that Theophilus? One of the most perverse and corrupt Bishops of all the ancient ages. A man acting sometimes against, sometimes for the Anthropomorphites, a persecutor of Chrysostom, and the cause of his death. A man without faith and without conscience. But let us come to other witnesses.

Theodoret in the first Dialogue entitled the Immutable, disputeth against an Eutychian who maintained that the human nature of the Savior was changed by a substantial change into the divine nature, and defended his error with the example of the pretended transmutation of the bread of the Eucharist into the substance of the Lord's body. Theodoret answereth him thus. The Lord who had called meat and bread that which is naturally his body, and who again called himself a vine, honored the visible signs with the appellation of his body and blood, having not changed their nature, but having added grace unto nature. So many words, so many proofs. It was much said already that God had honored the signs, even the bread and the wine with the name of his body. But he saith more, affi • ming that the Lord hath not changed the nature of these signs, which is fighting directly against transubstantiation. We must remember that the dispute betwixt the heretic and Theodoret was about the change made in the substance, that M. du Perron may not say that by the nature the accidents only are understood.

The heretic did not speak of accidents, but maintained by the example of the change made in the Eucharist, that the substance of the human nature of Christ by virtue of the incarnation had been changed into the substance of the divi • e nature. It had been unreasonable for Theodret to affirm against that heretic that the accidents were not changed, seeing that the question is of the change in the substance.

A little before, he had said, Our Lord hath made an exchange of names, and hath given to his body the name of the sign [namely when he said I am the bread] and to the sign the name of his body, namely when he saith, This is my body. Nothing can be more clear and expre • s.

In the second Dialogue entitled the Inconfounded, The divine mysteries are signs of the true body. By speaking so, he saith clearly enough that the divine mysteries are not the true body.

A little after, the Eutychian having said that as the signs of the body and blood of the Lord are other before the invocation of the Priest, but that after the invocation they are changed, so the Lord's body after the assumption is changed into the divine substance, which is the language of the Roman Church of our days. Theodoret answereth him; Thou art taken by the net which thou hast woven; For even after the consecration, mystical signs change not their own nature; for they remain in all their; first substance figure & form, and are visible and to be handled as before. But they are understood to be the things which they were made, and are believed and venerated as made that which they are believed to be

To these words of Theodoret which are most urgent against the Roman Church, namely that the mystical signs after the consecration do not change nature but remain in their first substance: M. du Perron answereth in a way more to be admired then praised. For arming his wonted ignorance in Greek with boldness, he giveth to the words of Theodoret a new interpretation, rej • cti • g that of Gentianus Hervetus, followed by Bellarmine, by Gregorius of Valentia, and generally by all our adversaries that have written of this question. Theodoret sai • h that the mystical signs after the consecration do not change narure. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is, (as our Adversaries translate) manent enim in priore substantia & figura & forma. But the Cardinal, the worst Grecian of them all, translateth, for they remain in the figure and form of the first substance. Can anything be devised more absurd and more repugnant to the Greek? To translate as he doth, there should be in the Greek, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Besides he contradicteth Theodoret, makes all his reasoning ridiculous, and makes him answer out of purpose. For, as I said, the dispute was about the change in the substance, the heretic proving by the example of the transmutation of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ, the transmutation pretended by the Eutychians of the human nature into the substance of the divine nature. Theodoret to contradict them, saith not that the accidents, the figure and the outward form of bread remain, but that the substance of bread remains after the consecration. It being the question to show that after the incarnation the substance of the flesh of Christ remaineth, Theodoret should speak against reason and against himself, if, to show that, he alleged that the substance of the bread being changed, the accidents and the outward show remain. That would have been pleading directly the Eutychians cause, who said that the substance of Christ's flesh being changed, the accidents and the outward appearance remain. But the Cardinal, that he may have the honor to say some new thing, will have the Reader to believe that he understood the Fathers better then any, and rejecteth the interpretation of all the men of his Church that writ before him.

The same Theodoret in the third Dialogue entitled the Impassibile, disputeth thus against the Eutychians. If the flesh of Christ was transformed into the nature of the Godhead, to what purpose do [Christians] participate to the signs of his body? For the figure is in vain when the truth is abolished.

The same reason Tertullian useth against the Marcionites in ch. 40. book 4. against Marcion. Christ having taken bread and distributed it to his Disciples, made it his body, saying, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body. Now there would have been no figure, had he not been a true body. He means that no figures and no representations are made of things that are not.

Among our Adversaries those that go more roundly to work, blame Theodoret openly. We heard before how he is condemned by the Jesuit Gregory de Valentia, in the Preface of the Roman Edition prefixed before the Dialogues of Theodoret. Our Cardinal also taunts him, and speaks contemptuously of him in these words. Though Theodoret, having some remnant of the leaven of Nestorianism, which he was accused to favor, should speak of the Eucharist (which was one of the chief arguments whereby the doctrine of Nestorius was impugned) less really and reverently then it might be wisht, the wonder were not very great. This is an unjust brand put upon that excellent man. His books purge him of that blame, in which there is not one spot of Nestorianism. So far he is from it, that in the Catalogue which he hath made of Heretics he puts Nestorius, and impugneth Nestorianism with all his power. Yet the Cardinal being prone to have a better opinion of Theodoret, goeth about to excuse him, saying, he spake thus obscurely, because he might not be understood by the Catechumens. This Cardinal always takes things in the contrary sense. In the second Dialogue Theoderet, being asked by the Heretic, How dost thou call the gift which is presented before the Priests invocation? answereth, We must not speak clearly, for perhaps some are here that are not yet initiated, that is, some Catechumens: whereupon the heretic saith, Let then the answer be in enigmatical terms. Wherefore Theodoret, that he may not speak clearly, answereth, that this gift which is offered is meat made up with such seeds, instead of saying It is bread. Thereby it appeareth that he spake obscurely, for fear that saying plainly that it was bread, he should make the meat contemptible which was laid upon the sacred table. But the Cardinal takes this in the quite contrary sense, that Theodoret did not speak of this Sacrament in terms high enough, and would not discover that high mystery of Transubstantiation before Catechumens.

We have a book of Pope Gelasius (for the title saith so much) against Nestorius and Eutyches, where this sentence is found; Truly the Sacraments which we take of the body and blood of Christ, are a divine thing; wherefore also by them we are made consorts of the divine nature, and yet it ceaseth not to be the substance or nature of bread and wine. And indeed the image and the likeness of the body and blood of Christ, are celebrated in the action of mysteries. Our Adversaries receive this authority, and admit it as true and not falsified, and have inserted this book in Bibliotheca Patrum. But they dispute who is this Gelasius, whether it was Pope Gelasius, as the title of the book saith, and as it appeareth by Fulgentius who transcribes many passages out of it in his answer to the questions of Ferrandus Diaconus, especially in the answer to the second question. Or whether it be Gelasius Bishop of Cesarea of whom Jerome speaks in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical writers, as Bellarmine and Gregorius de Valentia are of opinion. Or whether it be Gelasius Cyricenus, as Baronius holds; which are all ancient Authors approved by the Roman Church. Gregorius de Valentia speaks of that Author with contempt, saying, That Gelasius was not an Author famous enough; wherefore such testimonies of some few Authors of that sort, howsoever they may be expounded, can bear us no prejudice, seeing that we have a cloud of other most grave witnesses for the truth of transubstantiation.

Cardinal du Perron hath bestowed upon this only place of Gelasius four and thirty great pages, and upon the three fore-alleged texts of Theodoret threescore and two; making the Readers miserable that seek the truth by those ways. For whereas there are about fifty controversies between us and the Roman Church, upon the only question of the real presence, a thousand places may be alleged out of the Fathers. Upon each of which texts if a great book must be made, when shall we have a decision but of one question? This is the fruit of not being content with Scripture, which decides a question in one word, because it is God that speaks. The worst is, that those thirty four pages are employed about nothing. For after he hath quarrelled with that book of Gelasius about things that concern not the question in hand, in the end he returns to the common answer, that when Gelasius said that the nature and substance of bread and wine remain, by the substance the accidents must be understood, that is, the color, the figure, and the taste of bread, yet without bread. Where is conscience? Yea where is common sense? These men would make beasts of us, or study to be such themselves. For whoever heard that the substance is an accident? A thing far from all reason, especially in this dispute of Gelasius against the Eutychians, who maintained that the substance of Christ's body was changed into the substance of the Godhead. For the question was not about the change of accidents. Had not Gelasius been out of his sense, if he had granted to the Eutychians the transubstantiation of the substance of bread, and affirmed only that the accidents of bread, the color, the figure and the taste remain in the Eucharist? Had he not thereby yielded the bucklers to the Eutychians? who said the same thing of the incarnation, by which they affirmed that the substance of Christ's body is changed into the Godhead, although the outward show of the body remained, using the example of the Eucharist to confirm their error.

Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch speaks thus. The body of Christ which the believers receive, loseth not his sensible substance, and is not separated from the intelligible grace. Baptism also being altogether spiritual only keeps the propriety of this sensible substance which is water, and loseth not that which it was. This is one of the most express places to this purpose. For first it showeth in what sense the Fathers call the bread the body of Christ. Also it saith positively that this body doth not lose its sensible substance, that is, the substance of bread. And to give more light, it brings the example of Baptism, teaching us that as the sanctified water yet remains water, likewise that body which is given in the Sacrament, yet remains bread.

To this join that notable testimony of Facundus which we alleged before, That we call the body and blood of Christ that which is the Sacrament of his body in the consecrated bread and cup. Not that the bread is phoperly his body and the cup his blood, but because they contain the mystery of his body and blood.

Chrysostom is fervent in amplifications and hyperbolical words, so far as to say that we make the Altar red with blood, that we set our teeth in Christ's flesh, that we hug him with our embraces, that spiritual fire floweth from the sacred table; that there we receive fire reached with tongs by a Seraphin. That we are mingled and kneaded with Christ; that we embrace his Cross, and put our fingers in his wounds. That Christ suffereth in the Eucharist. That his bones are broken in it. And that Christ drunk his own blood. Words which being literally taken, should be absurd, even in the judgment of our Adversaries. And the Cardinal who sets forth the testimonies of the Fathers with so much ostentation, could not believe them. But let us hear Chrysostom speak, when he is out of his fits of exstatical oratory. He saith in the 83. Homily upon Matthew, When the Lord gave this Sacrament, he gave wine. And in the Homily upon Psalm 22. Divine wisdom hath prepared this Table for his servants and handmaids in their presence, that every day he might show us bread and wine according to the order of Melchizedek, in the likeness of the body and blood of Christ. And upon the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hom. 17. Do not we offer every day? We offer indeed, but by making the remembrance of his death. And that is one, not many. How is it one and not many? Because it was once only offered within the holiest of holies: And this is a figure of the same. And a little after, We offer not another victim as the High Priest, but we make still the same. Or rather we make the commemoration of this sacrifice.

In the imperfect work upon Matthew ascribed to Chrysostom, these words are found in the II. Homily, where it is spoken of King Balthazar punished for putting the holy vessels to a profane use, If it be so dangerous to transport to private uses sacred vessels, in which the true body of Christ is not, but the mystery of his body is contained, how much more the vessels of our bodies, which God hath prepared for his own habitation? Note that he saith not, the true body of Christ was not, but is not contained in the sacred vessels, that one may not think that he speaks only of the vessels of Balthazar. For upon the example of Balthazar, he takes occasion to give a general rule. In vain they say that this book was corrupted by the Arians, and that some clauses in it favor Arianism. For the Arians never dissented from the Orthodox about the point of the real presence. How much this place is displeasing to our Adversaries, they have shown it in the last Editions, where under color of repurging this book from Arianism, they have clipt this passage, and cut off these words, In quibus non est verum corpus Christi, sed mysterium corporis ejus continetur. In which the true body of Christ is not, but the mystery of his body is contained; In the Edition of Paris, Printed for Odet Petit. in Saint James -street at the Golden Lily, the inscription saith openly, that the work in that Edition is repurged from the corruption of Arians. Among which corruptions these goodly expurgators have put this passage, as savouring of heresy, as if denying transubstantiation were Arianism.

Peter Martyr hath taken out of a Manuscript of the Florentine Library, this passage of an Epistle of John Chrysostom to Cesarius a Monk, which also is found in Bibliotheca Patrum, Printed at Cullen, Anno 1618. in Tome 8. inserted in a book against the Severians. Before the bread be sanctified we call it bread, but the divine grace sanctifying the same by the Priests means, it is indeed delivered from the name of bread, and thought worthy to be called the Lord's body, although the nature of bread remain in it. The Jesuit Gregorius de Valentia in the seventh Chapter of the book of Transubstantiation, saith that this passage is not of John Chrysostom, but of another John of Constantinople; Which he saith after the Jesuit Turrianus. This I say to answer Cardinal du Perron, who by a long discourse labors to evince that this place is not of Chrysostom; for it is all one to us whose it is, since our very Adversaries ascribe it to an ancient Author.

How many testimonies of Fathers could we bring, which call that which is received in the Sacrament, bread, wine, meal, fruits created from the earth? And that not only before, but even after the consecration?

Justine Martyr in the second Apology, They that among us are called Deacons, give to everyone bread, and wine, and water, upon which graces have been said.

Tertullian in the third book against Marcion, chap. 19. He hath called bread his body, that thereby also thou mayst understand that he hath given to bread to be the figure of his body.

Irenaeus in the third book chap. 34. How should they know that the bread over which graces were said, is the Lord's body?

Justin in the Dialogue against Triphon. It appeareth in this Prophecy concerning the bread which our Lord Christ gave us in memory of his Incarnation.

Ignatius in the 76. Epistle to the Philadelphians, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . One bread is broken to all.

Cyprian in the 76. Epistle, The Lord calleth his body the bread made up with the conjunction of many grains.

Dionysius surnamed Areopagite, in the book of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chap. 3. He layeth open that which is celebrated by the signs holily set forth; for having uncovered the bread which was covered and whole, and having broken it in many pieces, and distributed the cup which is one, he doth figuratively multiply the unity.

Basil in the 27. chap. of the book of the Holy Ghost. Which of the Saints hath left us in writing the words of invocation when the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing are shown?

In the first Tome of the Councils we have an Epistle of Julius the first Bishop of Rome, which saith, That Christ in the institution and recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Sacrifice, hath given bread and wine to his Disciples, in which he hath recommended his body and his blood. Observe that he saith, not only that the Lord gave bread and wine to his Disciples, but also that he distinguisheth the bread and wine from the body of Christ.

Ephrem speaks the same language: Consider diligently how the Lord, having taken the bread in his hands, blest it and brake it, for a figure of his immaculate body, and blest the cup for a figure of his precious blood, and gave it to his Disciples.

Thus also Jerome alleging Jovinian in the second book, The Lord to give a figure of his blood, did not offer water but wine. And so Cyprian in the sixty third Epistle, It was wine which the Lord called his blood. And in the same place, The body of Christ is not meal only.

Austin in the third book of the Trinity, ch. 10. Bread made purposely for that, is consumed in receiving the Sacrament.

Fulgentius and Beda allege these words of the same Father, That which you see is bread and a cup, as also your eyes announce him unto you. But the instruction which your faith requireth, is, that bread is the body of Christ. In the same place he declareth what that body of Christ is. If thou wilt (saith he) understand what the body of Christ is, Hear the Apostle saying to the believers: You are the body of Christ and his members. If then you are the body of Christ and his members, your mystery is laid upon the Lord's table. So far was that Father from believing the transubstantiation of the bread into the natural body of Christ.

Cyrillus of Alexandria upon John 4. in the fourteenth chapter, He gave to his believing Disciples pieces of bread, saying, Take, eat, this is my body.

Gaudentius By the element of wine his blood is well expressed; Because where he saith in the Gospel, I am the true vine, he declareth sufficiently that his blood is all the wine which is offered in the figure of his Passion.

Neither do the Fathers only speak so, but even the Canon of the Mass; for it was made when transubstantiation was not yet invented. Whoso will consider what the words of the Priest are after the Consecration, shall easily acknowledge that they are prayers which were good sometimes, when they were said over bread and wine, and other gifts of the people laid upon the table, but that they are become absurd and contrary to the Priests intention ever since they have been pronounced upon an host, which they pretend to be the Lord's body.

After the words of consecration, the Priest offering the host unto God, saith, Over which things be pleased to look with a propitious and serene face as thou wert pleased to accept the presents of Abel thy just child. What doth he mean by these things? Can he understand Christ who is but one? And whoever called Christ these things? And how can they without offering an outrage to the Son of God, beseech God that the sacrifice of his only Son be as acceptable unto him, as once the sacrifice of Abel was, who offered a beast? For observe that he compareth not the devotion of those that offer, with the devotion of Abel, but that which the Priest offereth with the gifts which Abel offered.

The Priest addeth, We beseech thee Almighty God, command that these things be carried up by the hands of thy holy Angel into thy high Altar. This also cannot be applied unto Christ; for Christ needs not the mediation of Angels to be carried up or presented to his Father. The Priest having thus prayed that the Angel should carry up these things, why doth he not stay till the Angel carry them away, but eats them presently after?

The following words especially are considerable. The Priest saith, By Christ our Lord, by whom O Lord thou createst always all these goods unto us, thou sanctifiest, quickenest, and blessest them. Let them tell us what all these goods are. Is it Christ? But what reason to call Christ these goods? yea all these goods, as if there were great many of them. Besides the Priest speaks of goods which God createth always, and which he quickeneth and sanctifieth always. Nothing of that is proper unto Christ. And that which is the strangest of all, the Priest saith that God createth these goods always by Jesus Christ. Doth God create always Jesus Christ by Jesus Christ? Doth God quicken and bless Jesus Christ by Jesus Christ? But if by all these goods the Priest understands bread and wine, how unreasonable is it to demonstrate the bread and wine by saying these goods, when that bread and that wine are no more? and to call those goods that which is brought to nothing? How unreasonable is it to give thanks unto God for creating bread and wine, yea for creating that bread and that wine, which is no more when the host is worshipped, and when they pretend to sacrifice the eternal Son of God? and to speak of offering unto God bread and wine which are not, when the spirits of the people should be bent to glorify God, for redeeming us by the sacrifice of the death of his Son.

The Reader who hath yet some liberty of judgment left, will consider this, and bewail the misery of our age, and the thick darkness which Satan hath cast upon the clarity and simplicity of the Gospel. For when we allege the word of God, which alone ought to rule us, they turn it wholly into figures. So that when Scripture saith that we eat bread, and break bread, and that we drink the fruit of the vine, and that Christ in his humanity is no more in the world, and is gone, we must understand that it is not bread that we eat, that it is not bread that we break, that it is not the fruit of the vine that we drink; and that Christ's body hath not left the world, but remains in it invisibly.

Now to defend these interpretations, they have recourse to the Fathers as infallible Judges: But when those Fathers are produced which say that the substance of the bread remains after the consecration, and affirm with the Apostle, that we eat and break bread, then they will create more figures, and the Fathers must be understood in a contrary sense. For these Doctors by the substance will have us to understand the accidents, and by bread and wine the show of bread and wine; And to distract or overwhelm the spirits that seek for instruction, they will make a great volume upon one only passage of a Father. O miserable age! Why are men's spirits entangled in a labyrinth without issue, instead of resting with simplicity of faith upon Christ's institution, by speaking and doing as he did? For so we might be all agreed.

Here truth is so strong, that it hath fetched many confessions from the prime men among our Adversaries, who acknowledge that there is nothing in Scripture that obliges us to believe Transubstantiation; Which they ground only upon the Authority of the Roman Church. Cardinal Cajetan expounding these words, This is my body, saith, In the Gospel nothing is found that obliges us to believe the conversion of bread into the body of Christ. The other point (saith he) namely the conversion of bread into the body of Christ, is not expounded in the Gospel, but we have expressly received it from the Church. Bellarmine alledgeth Scotus saying, That there is no Text in Scripture so express as to compel us evidently to believe transubstantiation, if we had not the declaration of the Church. To whlch opinion Bellarmine joins his own; for he adds, That which Scotus saith, is not altogether improbable. For although Scripture seem to us clear enough to convince a modest man, yet it may be doubted with good reason whether the thing be so, that most learned and most acute men, of whom Scotus is one, have been of a contrary opinion. In the same place he reproveth Scotus for saying that before the Council of Lateran held in the year 1225. Transubstantiation was not an Article of faith. For he believeth, with others, that the Roman Church can make new Articles of faith. Melchior Cano saith the same as Cajetan and Scotus in the third book of Theological places, chap. 3.

CHAP. VI. What is the signification of the word Sacrament: And in what sense the Fathers call the Eucharist the body of Christ.

THE word Sacrament according to the property of the Latin tongue, signifieth a pawn or money deposited in a Court for the parties pleading, with that condition that the party that is cast, must lose also the money deposited.

Also Sacramentum in the good Latin Authors, is as much as an oath: And thence comes the French word Serment: But more commonly by the word Sacramentum, that oath was understood which a Soldier took unto his General.

When the Latin tongue began to decay, the Old Christians called Sacrament any mystery, any doctrine that was hidden and sacred, and the intelligence thereof was not exposed to every man's sight. In that sense the vulgar version received in the Roman Church, takes the word Sacrament. Thus the incarnation of the Savior. The will of God. The Statue of Nebuchadnezzar. The mystery of the great harlot. The union of Christ with his Church, are in the Greek text of Scripture called Mysteries, and in the vulgar version Sacraments.

But in the end use hath so prevailed, that the word Sacrament signifies a sacred sign of God's Covenant in Christ, instituted by God in his Church; and such are Baptism and the Lord's Supper. In this sense the Latin Fathers, and the Roman Church of this time, and ours take the word Sacrament: For we willingly comply with the usual words, so that the truth of things may remain; understanding no other thing by this word Sacrament, but that which Scripture calls a sign, a seal, and a commemoration.

Austin in the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus, saith, That Signs when they belong to divine things, are called Sacraments. And in the fifth book of the City of God, ch. 5. The visible sacrifice is a sacrament of the invisible sacrifice, that is, a sacred Sign. And against the adversary of the Law and the Prophets in the second book, chap. 9. Sacramenta, id est sacra signa. And Lombard the Master of Sentences, defineth thus a Sacrament, Sacramentum est sacrae rei signum, A Sacrament is a sign of a sacred thing. He saith also that it is a form or outward show of an invisible grace. And Bellarmine in the first book of the Sacraments, chap. 7. The word Sacrament signifies a sign of a sacred thing. Wherefote when the Fathers call the Lord's supper the Sacrament of the body of Christ, by these words they understand that the Lord's Supper is the sacred sign of the body of Christ. It is a great abuse to call the body of Christ a Sacrament; for it is making the body of Christ a sign of himself, and a figure of himself. As if the King were the picture of himself, and the Kings person the picture and image of his person.

Wherefore Austin will have us to lift up our minds from the Sacraments, that is, from the visible signs, to the things signified. These things (saith he) are Sacraments, in which we have regard always, not to that which they are, but to that which they represent; because they are signs of things, which are one thing and signify another.

For that reason the same Father denieth that the Sacrament of the body of Christ is the body of Christ but after some manner, and according as the signs by reason of the resemblance are called with the name of the things signified, If the Sacraments (saith he) had not some resemblance with those things whereof they are Sacraments, they should not be Sacraments at all. Now because of that resemblance they take more often the names of the things themselves. As then the Sacrament of the body of Christ is after some manner the body of Christ; and the Sacrament of the blood of Christ is the blood of Christ; so the Sacrament of faith (meaning Baptism) is faith. And in the same place upon that the Apostle calls Baptism a burial, Rom. 6. he saith that Saint Paul could not express the Sacrament of so great a thing, but by the name of the same thing. Where it is clear that by the Sacrament he meaneth the sacred sign.

Wherefore every time that it is spoken in Austin's books of the Sacrament of the body of Christ, the true interpretation is to translate the sacred sign of the body of Christ.

CHAP. VII. That the Fathers not only call that which we receive in the Eucharist, sign, figure, symbol, type, and antitype, and commemoration; but also teach that the words of the Lord are sacramental, that is, that in these words the name of the thing signified is given to the sign.

THere is nothing more frequent in the books of the Fathers then to call the Eucharist a sign, a figure, and a type of Christ's body. Austin in the third book, cap. 4. Paul could by signifying preach the Lord Jesus Christ, otherwise by his tongue, otherwise by his letters, otherwise by the sacred sign of his body and of his blood.

And in the twenty sixth Treatise upon John, speaking of the body of Christ; The sacred sign of this thing, (even the unity of the body and blood of the Lord) is prepared, &c. And is taken at the table by some to life, and by some to perdition. But the thing itself, of which it is a sacred sign, turns unto life to every man that is partaker of the same, and to none unto perdition.

And upon Psal. 98. he personates Christ speaking thus, Understand spiritually that which I said unto you: You shall not eat this body which you see, and shall not drink the blood, which they that crucify me, shall spil. I have recommended a sacred sign unto you, which being spiritually understood, shall quicken you.

And in the eleventh Sermon of the words of the Lord, Did the wicked Judas, the seller and betrayer of his Master, abide in Christ, and Christ in him? although he eat and drunk the first sacred sign of his flesh and blood done by his hands, with other Disciples.

And in the twenty sixth Treatise upon John, He that abideth not in Christ, and in whom Christ abideth not, doubtless neither eateth his flesh, nor drinks his blood spiritually, although he press the sacred sign of the body and blood of Christ carnally and visibly with his teeth.

Tertullian in the third book against Marcion chap. 19. Christ hath called bread his body, that thereby thou mayest understand that he hath given to bread the figure of his body. Pamelius in his notes upon Tertullian, is much vexed with this sentence, and saith that perhaps these words were added by some other. Yet he acknowledgeth that he found it in the Manuscript of the Vatican, and that it is found in all Editions.

The same Tertullian in the fourth book, chap. 40. Christ having taken bread and distributed it to his Disciples, made it his body, saying, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body. Now it had not been a figure, if he (that is Christ) had not been the body of truth [or the true body.] An empty thing as a ghost [or illusion of the fancy] could not be capable of a figure. He disputeth against the Marcionites who denied that Christ was a true body, and made of him an illusion of the fancy, a mere ghost. Tertullian proveth that Christ hath a true body, because he was figured by the ceremonies of the Law, and by the figure of the Lord's Supper, when he said, This is my body: that is, the figure of my body. For a thing which is not truly, cannot be represented by figure. Which is the same reason that Origen and Theodoret used against those that denied the truth of Christ's body, as we shall see hereafter.

Here the Cardinal is struggling and sweating. And to avoid the strength of these words so express, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body, he finds in Tertullian's words an Hyperbaton, that is, a transposition of words out of their due order: Confessing thereby that these words make for us, unless they be put out of order. Then he would have this clause thus mended, This is my body, that is (if we must believe him) this, namely the figure of my body, is my body. Is not that abusing God and men? Should he have thus turned the words of Tertullian upside down to make him say things which even the Roman Church believeth not? For the Roman Church believeth not that the figure of Christ's body is Christ's body. Wherefore that exposition needs another exposition. So after he had changed and overturned Tertullian's words by an extravagant exposition, he doth afterwards change his own exposition into another. Tertullian (saith he) meaneth that the bread which in the Law was the figure of our Lord's body, is in the Gospel the body of Christ. To that second exposition he should have added a third; for this second exposition as well as the third, speaks against the belief of the Roman Church, which believeth not that the bread is the body of Christ: nor that the bread which under the Law was a figure, is under the Gospel the true body of Christ. If in Tertullian one Hyperbatick passage be found, a thousand may be found that are not so. And how unlike is it that in these words, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body, there is an Hyperbaton? Can any man speak more clear and more natural words? Besides, by putting thus Tertullian upon the rack, he takes away the strength of Tertullian's argument, who because this bread is the figure of Christ's body, proveth that Christ hath a true body; since figures are images of things that are truly. And if Tertullian in the same chapter speaking of the figures of the Law, saith that the bread under the Old Testament was a figure of Christ's body, it followeth not that it is no more a figure of Christ's body under the New Testament. The word fuisset regards the time in which Christ instituted his holy Supper. For Tertullian writ about one hundred and seventy years after: As if he said, Christ would not have instituted the figure of his body, if he had not a true body.

Theodoret in the first Dialogue, The Lord gave to the fign the name of his body. There is in the Greek, that the Lord hath given to the symbol, the name of his body. G • ntian Hervet translateth. He hath given to his body, the name of the symbol and the sign, and to the symbol the name of his body.

Maximus in his Greek Notes upon Dionysius expounds this word symbol, saying that it is some sensible thing taken for an intelligible thing, as bread and wine for the immaterial and divine food and gladness.

The same Maximus speaking of the Eucharist, opposeth the symbols to the truth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , These things are signs, not the truth. It is the style of the Greek Fathers as Bellarmine acknowledgeth, saying, Dionysius in the first chapter of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and other Greek Fathers call Sacraments Symbols, that is signs,

Thus Eusebius in the eighth book of the Demonstration, having said, that Christ gave to his Disciples the symbols of his dispensation, addeth commanding to celebrate the image or figure of his own body. All this ought to have kept Cardinal du Perron from his cold Criticisme upon the word Symbol.

The same Theodoret in the same place, The Lord hath honored the visible signs with the name of his body and blood, having not changed their nature, but added grace unto nature.

And a little after, Tell me truly, of what dost thou think the sacred meat to be a sign and figure? The answer is, It is a sign of the body and blood of the Lord.

And in the second Dialogue, Tell me then the mystical signs which are offered unto God by the Priests, of what are they signs? The heretic whose name is Eranistes answereth, Of the body and blood of the Lord. Observe by the way that Eranistes in the Dialogues of Theodoret, signifieth a contributor, as one that payeth his shot, not a beggar, as our Cardinal thinks. It is a Conference where the heretic contributes what he can. It is true that Eranist sometimes signifieth a beggar, as the same Theodoret saith in the beginning of his Dialogues. But in the same place he declareth that in these Dialogues, he takes that word for a contributor.

Theodoret addeth, If then the divine mysteries are signs or images of the true body, &c. There is in the Greek antitypes, calling those things antitypes which he had called a little before symbols or signs.

And in the same place, The mystical signs do not change nature; no not after the consecration, for they remain in their first substance, figure and shape. And a little after, to show that the change is not in the thing, but in the word, he makes Eranistes to say The mystical sign changeth name, &c.

Clement in the fifth book of Apostolical Constitutions, chap. 16. Having given us the mysteries figurative of his precious body and blood, &c. he went up into the Mount of Olives. And such was the thanksgiving that used to be said in his time in the participation of the Lord's Supper. We give thee thanks, our Father, for the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for us; and for the precious body, of which we do these signs by his command to announce his death.

Origen in the third Dialogue against the Marcionites; If Christ was without flesh, and without blood, as these men contend: of what flesh, of what body, and of what did he administer the signs and images, even the bread and the cup, and commanded his disciples to renew by them his remembrance? It is the same reason that Tertullian useth in the fourth book against Marcion chap. 40.

Dionysius surnamed the Areopagite, in the third chapter of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, calleth six times that which is upon the sacred table, and given to the communicants, signs or symbols.

Ephrem. Consider carefully how the Lord taking the bread in his hands, blest it and broke it, for a figure of his immaculate body, and gave and distributed to his Disciples the cup for a figure of his blood.

Ambrose in the fourth book of the Sacraments, chap. 5. affirmeth, that in his time this clause was in the public service. Make this oblation to be set to our account, acceptable and reasonable, which is the figure of the body and blood of the Lord. Which words were said indeed before the consecration; but they ask of God, that the thing to be consecrated, be received as an acceptable offering. For our Adversaries themselves acknowledge, that the bread not consecrated cannot be the oblation which is put to our account, and is accepted before God for our sins.

The same Father upon 1 Cor. 11. Because we have been redeemed by his death, we remembering that, in eating and drinking signify the flesh and blood which are offered for us. And in the same place, The blood is a witness of the divine benefit; For the figure of which, we receive the mystical cup of blood for the preservation of the body and soul.

Macarius in the twenty seventh Homily, In the Church bread and wine are offered to be antitypes or figures of his flesh and blood, and they that participate to the bread which appeareth, eat spiritually the flesh of the Lord.

Eusebius in the first book of the Demonstration, chap. 8. We celebrate the memory of this sacrifice upon the table, by the signs of his salutary body and blood, according to the Laws of the New Covenant.

And in the same place, He gave to his Disciples the signs of the divine dispensation, commanding to celebrate the figure of his own body, otherwise to make the image of his own body. A place where the word symbol is expounded to be a figure or image.

And in the fifth book of the Demonstration; ch. 3. First our Savior and Lord, then all the Priests that have followed him in all Nations, celebrating the holy spiritual service according to the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, signify unto us by the bread and wine, the mysteries of his body and blood.

Gregory Nazianzen praising his Sister Gorgonia, commends her devotion for reserving in her hand some part of the signs of the precious body of the Lord. If sometimes her hand had treasured up some of the antitypes or signs of the precious body or blood of the Lord, she mingled it with her tears.

That custom of giving leave to women to carry away in their hands some of the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, and to keep it, was a proof that they believed not Transubstantiation in those days. For in those days it would be thought an horrible profanation to suffer a woman to touch the Host: Wherefore Gregory calls that which his sister carried away, the antitypes or signs of the body and blood of Christ. And that which is more remarkable, is, that Gregory saith, that she received Baptism a little before her death. Which is a proof that she carried away the Sacrament without eating of it.

The same Gregory in the second Oration of the Passover, speaks thus of the Eucharist, We shall participate of the Passover; which indeed is yet in figure, although more evidently then in the ancient Passover: for the Legal Passover (I make bold to say so) was a more obscure figure of a figure. He saith that the Passover was a figure of the Lord's Supper, as a less clear figure is a figure of another more express figure.

Gaudentius in the second Treatise upon Exodus, With good reason his blood is expressed by the element of wine. Again In the bread, the figure of Christ's body is reasonably understood.

Jerome upon 1 Cor. 11. When he blessed, even going to suffer, he recommended to us the last commemoration or remembrance. As if one going on a journey should leave some token to him whom he loveth, that whensoever he seeth it, he may remember his benefit and love. Should Christ have left himself for a token and a remembrance of himself?

The same Jerome against Jovinian, The Lord did not offer water but wine for a type of his blood.

Chrysostom upon Matthew in the eighty third Homily, If Jesus died not, of what is this celebration a symbol and sign? Seest thou how careful he was that we should always remember that he died for us?

Procopius Gazaeus upon Gen. 49. He gave to his Disciples, the image, or likeness, or type of his body, receiving no more the bloody sacrifices of the Law.

Soudas upon the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The Church makes an offering of the signs of the body and blood of Christ.

Austin is beyond all the Fathers in evidence upon this subject. To him therefore I reserve a chapter by himself.

CHAP. VIII. Some passages of Austin, wherein he teacheth that Christ's words, This is my body, and Except you eat my flesh, &c. are figurative. The Cardinals answers are examined.

AUstin in the third book of Christian doctrine, ch. 15. having said that the precepts of God's Word which command to do a good work, or forbid to do a wicked work, must not be figuratively understood; And those precepts which seem to command an evil work, or forbid a good work, are figures, and that the words must be figuratively understood; brings for example the commandment of eating the Lord's flesh and drinking his blood: these are his own words; Except you eat (saith Christ) the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He seems to command a crime or a wicked act. It is then a figure, commanding to communicate to the Lord's passion, and to lay in our memory sweetly and profitably that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us.

The Cardinal made a great book purposely upon the testimonies which we allege out of Austin, where he spends forty eight long pages about the exposition of this last passage. Before he enters upon the matter; he makes a little pedantical exord out of Virgil, Nunc animis opus Aenea, nunc pectore firmo, as having a hard combat to achieve.

His discourse is both long and intricate, and needs an Oedipus to unriddle it. But in that long discourse he answers not the two things wherein lieth the whole strength of that place. The one is that Austin expounding these words, Except you eat my flesh, &c. saith not only that these words are typical, but also declareth very expressly that in that text by eating the flesh of the Lord and drinking his blood we must understand communicating unto the death of Christ, remembering with pleasure and profit that Christ was crucified for us. An exposition which neither he nor the Roman Church approveth. For when we say to our adversaries, Since Austin tells us that these words are figurative, expound us that figure, and express it in plain words; their answer is that the figure lieth in that the flesh of Christ is not eaten grossly and visibly by bits, like flesh of the shambles, but that it is taken whole in a miraculous way under the species of bread. But that is not Austin's exposition, who will have the figure to consist in this, that eating the flesh of Christ signifieth a man's meditating in his memory the Lord's death and passion. If Austin spake ill by speaking so, why doth the Cardinal trouble himself to excuse him? and if he spake well, why are we blamed for speaking as he did?

The other thing that we observe in Austin's words is that the exposition which our adversaries give to it, tends to establish the real manducation which is done with the mouth in the Sacrament. But Austin in this passage would take us off from all oral manducation, and keeps us altogether to that which is done with the heart and by the memory and meditation of his death.

To which add that Austin holds that these words, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, you have no life in you, taken literally, enjoin a wicked act. Now there is no less wickedness in swallowing a whole man's flesh then in eating it bit after bit. For either way, it is devouring Jesus Christ; which thought Austin would put far from us, putting instead of it, not the sacramental manducation, but the serious and profitable meditation of our Savior's passion.

If the exposition which our adversaries give to that figure be considered, it will be found that they acknowledge no figure at all; for to eat Christ in the Host, according to their belief, is a real, not a typical manducation.

Let the pious Reader sadly consider what will become in the end of Christian Religion, seeing that the Word of God is removed from the people, and the people sent back to the reading of the Fathers where they understand nothing; and that they which probably might get some intelligence in them, are kept back from it, being discouraged and confounded by the infinite length and labor, since upon one only place of a Father a whole book is made. If the decision of our differences lieth upon that issue, when shall we have done examining some twenty thousand passages of the Fathers alleged on both sides? And if we stand to the Cardinals expositions, they shall be found a hundred times more obscure then the text of the Fathers which he takes in hand to expound. Oh wretched men that cast themselves purposely into a darkness without end, and into a maze of uncertainty, to avoid the clarity, certainty, and brevity of the Word of God!

Fulbertus Carnutensis in his Sermon against the Jews, takes a shorter way, and makes this place of Austin advantageous to the Roman Church, by the addition of two words, alleging thus St. Austin; Except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; It is then a figure [will the heretic say] commanding, &c. Our Cardinal made conscience to follow him in that depravation. But he followed his example in the following passage.

Austin in the 12. ch. of the book against Adimantus speaks thus, The Lord made no difficulty to say, This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body. Other Advocates of Transubstantiation answer, that the Roman Church denieth not that in the Eucharist we receive the sign of the Lord's body; but they say that it is a sign joined with the truth. But that answer cannot subsist: For Austin saith not only that Christ gave the sign of his body, but teacheth also how these words, This is my body, must be understood. Austin declareth that the Lord by his body understood the sign of his body. An Exposition esteemed heretical by the Roman Church, and for that we sustain so much hatred.

Cardinal du Perron not able to bear the strength of that reason, hath recourse to his boldness in depraving, and doth like Fulbert in the forealledged place. For he puts in these words of his own according to you, which turn this clause into a contrary sense, making Austin to say, The Lord made no difficulty to say this is my body, when he gave, according to you, the sign of his body; as if Austin spake according to the sense of the Manicheans.

Had we used the fourth part of that license, we should be called Forgers, Atheists, Ungodly, impudent; for these are the flowers of their ordinary oratory. But for my part, that I may spare this Prelates memory, I will impute this fault to extremity of grief and despondency to see his game go against him.

I maintain that it is most false that Austin spake according to the sense of the Manicheans, and affirm that the sense which he puts upon Austin's words, is contrary to his intention, which I must open to the Reader.

The Manicheans affirmed that there was two God's, the one good, the other evil; and said that the evil god was author of the Law, and the good, author of the Gospel. To make good their opinion, they labored to make the Law to justle against the Gospel, and to find contrariety between them. Among other contrarieties they marked this, that the Law said that the soul is in the blood, and therefore forbade eating of blood, saying Deut. 12.23. Be sure that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is the life. To this they opposed this sentence of the Gospel, Matth. 10.28. that none is able to kill the soul, although it be certain that men can shed and disperse the blood. Austin answereth two things to that objection. That either when the Law saith that the blood is the soul, it speaks only of the blood of beasts, or that it is a typical locution, which according to the custom of Scripture, attributes unto the sign the name of the thing signified; in the same manner as Christ said This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body. And in the same manner as the Apostle said that the stone was Christ, because it was a sign or figure of Christ. These are the very words of Austin, As for that which is written that the blood of the beasts is the soul of the same; besides what I said already, that I care not what becomes of the soul of a beast, I may also expound that this command [which forbids eating of blood, because the blood is the soul] is put in sign; [that is, because the blood is the sign of the soul] For the Lord also made no difficulty to say, This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body. And to confirm that exposition, he adds in the same chapter that other example, The stone was Christ, of which words he saith that the sense is, The stone signified Christ. St. Austin will have these locutions, The blood is the soul, and This is my body, and The stone was Christ, to be alike; and he teacheth that the name of things signified in these expresses is given unto the signs. For he addeth in the same chapter, That which the Law saith that the blood must not be spilled, but eaten because the blood is the soul, we say that it is put as many other things; and almost all the Sacraments of these Scriptures are full of signs and figures of the future preaching which now is declared by our Lord Jesus. For so is blood the soul, as the stone was Christ, as the Apostle saith, They drunk of the spiritual stone that followed them, and the stone was Christ. Now it is known that the children of Israel, the stone being smitten, drunk water in the wilderness; of whom the Apostle spake when he said these things: and yet he said not the stone signified Christ, but this stone was Christ.

Let us apply these last words to the subject in hand, since Austin joineth these examples; and let us say that the Lord saith not This signifieth my body, but, This is my body; in the same manner as the Apostle said not This stone signifieth Christ, but This stone is Christ; For (saith Austin) the Scriptures are full of such figures. Will the Cardinal have that to be the language of the Manicheans? And since Austin saith that in these words, the stone was Christ, the sign is named with the name of the thing signified; why shall we not say the same of these words, This is my body, since these two examples are set together by Austin, and that the one serveth to clear the other?

To make the abuse extreme, the Cardinal by this addition, according to you, chargeth Austin of calumny. For it was not the belief of the Manicheans that the bread of the Eucharist was the sign of the body of Christ. The Cardinal himself saith so much unwittingly, when he saith that the Manicheans believed that Christ had no true body. For how could those that deny the truth of Christ's body, believe that bread in the Eucharist was a sign of a thing that is not? And if Austin spake according to the opinion of the Manicheans when he expounded Christ's words This is my body, by these, This is the sign of my body; we must say also that the stone was Christ, because according to the opinion of the Manicheans, not according to truth, it signified Christ. For Austin sets these two texts together as much alike.

To this notable text we join another more express yet, out of the 23. Epistle to Boniface. Austin labors to show to Boniface that Baptism may be called saith, because it is the Sacrament or sacred sign of faith, according as the signs use to take the name of things signified. Among other examples he brings the Lord's Supper which is called the sacrifice of Christ, although it was but the sign and commemoration of the same, It being certain that Christ was never sacrificed but once. In the same manner as the Lord's day is called the day of the Lord's resurrection, as if he did rise again every Lord's day, because upon that day the memory of Christ's resurrection is celebrated; and in the same manner as the sign of the sacred body of Christ is in some respect the body of Christ, being so called because of the resemblance or representation. These are then the very words of that good Doctor, whereby he proveth that Baptism may be called Faith, because it is the Sacrament or Sacred sign of Faith.

We often speak in this manner; When Easter draweth nigh, we say that to morrow or the next day is the Lord's passion, whereas he suffered many years before. Thus upon the Lord's day we say, this day the Lord rose again, although so many years past since he rose again. Why is none so silly as to tax us of untruth when we speak so, but because we call these days after the likeness of those days in which these things were done? so that this day is said to be the same day which is not the same, but the like by revolution of time; and by reason of the celebration of the Sacrament that thing is said to be done that day which was not done that day, but was done a long time before? Was not Christ once sacrificed in himself? and yet he is sacrifice in the Sacrament, not only in all the Easter-solemnities unto the people, but every day. Neither doth that man lie, who, being asked, answereth that he is sacrificed. For if Sacraments had not some resemblance with those things of which they are Sacraments, they should not be Sacraments at all. And from that likeness commonly they receive the name of the things themselves. As then the Sacrament of the body of Christ is in some sort the body of Christ, and the Sacrament of the blood of Christ the blood of Christ, likewise the Sacrament of faith (that is baptism) is faith.

We have seen before that Austin told us in many places that this word Sacrament is as much as a Sacred sign; so that the true exposition of these words, Sacramenta plerunque ex hac similitudine ipsarum rerum nomina accipiunt, is this, The sacred signs m • re often by reason of that resemblance take the name of the things themselves. And these words, secundum quendam modum Sacramentum corporis Christi corpus Christi est, must be thus translated, The sacred sign of the body of Christ is in some sort the body of Christ. Now to make us understand in what sort the Sacrament of Christ's body is the body of Christ, he giveth many examples, namely that it is as every year two days before Easter they say, This day is the passion of the Lord; and as every Lord's day is the day of Christ's resurrection; And as the Baptism is Faith. In which expresses he saith that the Sacraments are named with the name of the thing signified.

The Cardinal in a long perplexed discourse saith very little. This is the summary, That the Sacrament hath two relations with the body of Christ. The one as he is dead under the formal object of immolation. The other as he is glorious under the formal object of manducation. And that in the first respect the Sacrament is not that which it representeth, but only in the second; and that Austin speaks in the alleged place, of the Sacrament in the first respect only.

By these words the Cardinal manifesteth his opinion which he declared in the Convocation of the Clergy held in the Convent of the Dominicans of Paris, in a full audience: namely that Christ is not really sacrificed in the Eucharist. He tells us then that these words Christ is sacrificed in the Mass, signify nothing else, but that the sacrifice of Christ is represented in the same; and that the sign (as Austin saith here) takes the name of the thing signified. But as for the real presence of the body of Christ, and the manducation, he denieth that Austin's sentence can be applied to it: But Austin holds him too fast to let him scape thus: For he saith not only that in the Sacrament the body of Christ is in some sort immolated or sacrificed; But he saith that the Sacrament of Christ's body is in some sort the body of Christ, namely in as much as the signs take the names of things signified. And the examples which Austin brings, exclude altogether the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament; For Christ dieth not every year two days before Easter, and riseth not really from the dead every Lord's day, but only in sign and commemoration; And Baptism is not really Faith, but is the sign of Faith.

In all these examples Austin showeth how the signs are named with the name of things signified, which are not present, and are not really done. Had not St. Austin been out of his right sense, if having said that infants which have no Faith, yet have it in some sort because they have received the sign of Faith, which sign according to the custom of Scripture may be called with the name of the thing signified; if I say, having said that, he had proved it with a clean contrary example, namely by the example of the Eucharist where Christ is really present, according to the opinion of our adversaries? Would he have brought that example, the Sacrament is the body of Christ, for an instance of a figure like to this, Baptism is Faith, if the Sacrament were the body of Christ truly and without figure? This then remaineth firm by Austin's words, that the sign of Faith is Faith, as the Sacrament of Christ's body is called Christ's body.

I pass by the Cardinals error, how he believeth that the body of Christ in the Eucharist is set forth as living and glorious: For the Apostle will have us to eat this bread, and drink this cup, to announce the Lord's death till he come, 1 Cor. 11.26. And Christ giving the bread and the cup, said, This is my body which is broken for you, and this cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you. He would then have us to receive his body as broken and as dying for us, and his blood as shed. Is it not non-sense to say, that in the Mass Christ is sacrificed as dead, and yet eaten as glorious and risen again, seeing that he was not yet glorious when he gave the Sacrament to his Disciples to eat?

All these reasons serve also to confute those who by the Sacrament of Christ's body understood the species or accidents. For these examples of Baptism, of the Lord's day, and of the day of his passion, exclude the presence of things signified. Neither did Austin know accidents without a subject. It is a new doctrine of which we shall speak hereafter.

We must not leave out what the same Father saith upon the third Psalm, So great was the patience of our Lord and so admirable, that he suffered Judas so long as a good man, although he was not ignorant of his thoughts when he admitted him to the banquet in which he recommended and delivered unto his Disciples the figure of his body and blood. Had Austin believed Transubstantiation, he would have said rather that Christ had received Judas to the banquet in which he really gave his own body. For the end of Austin in this sentence is to praise the Lord's goodness and patience, which he would have far more exalted if he could have said that he had given to Judas his own body, then by saying that he had given him the figure of his body.

The Roman decree in the second distinction of the Consecration in the Canon Hoc est brings a sentence, as from Austin, which we alleged before. We will but observe now how the Cardinal abuseth it. The sentence is this, As then the heavenly bread which is the flesh of Christ, is, in its manner, called the body of Christ, whereas indeed it is the sacred sign of the body of Christ, which being visible, palpable and mortal, was set on the Cross; and that immolation which is done by the hands of the Priest is called the passion, death, and crucifying of Christ, not according to the truth of the thing but by a signifying mystery. Our Cardinal hath beheaded that text, taking away the first word as, that the connection and dependence of the text may not be known, and that it may not be seen how the Author saith of the Sacrament of the body of Christ, that it is not the body of Christ according to the truth of the thing, but in signifying mystery, as the sacrifice of the Eucharist is not the sacrifice of Christ in truth but in signification.

Let the Cardinal wrest and clip that notable passage as much as he will, yet all his Glosses shall never have that authority in the Roman Church which those Doctors have which were the Glossaries of the decree, who put this Gloss in the margent, The heavenly Sacrament which truly represents the flesh of Christ, is called the body of Christ, but improperly; wherefore it is said suo modo, in its manner, not according to the truth of the thing, but by a significant mystery. So that the sense of these words is, It is called the body of Christ, that is, it is signified. To this Gloss the Cardinal answers nothing: Only he labors to make the place suspected, contradicting the Roman decree and the Doctors that Glossed it, and Lombard and all the Schoolmen who attribute this text to Austin.

To end his Chapter gallantly he shuts it up with these verses of Virgil of the second of the Aeneids,

Which he translateth much to this purpose,

This Prelat ignorant in the good letters, did not know that crimen in this place of Virgil signifies not a crime, but a wicked man. Which appears by the adjective masculin which Virgil addeth; Et crimine ab uno disce omnes. As in the Andria of Terence, Ubi est iste scelus qui me perdidit. But let us return to Austin.

Beda upon 1 Cor. 10. alledgeth this testimony of Austin taken out of the Sermon to the newly baptized. This then which you have seen, is bread and a cup, as also your eyes relate it unto you. But that which your faith (which must be instructed) demands, the bread is the body of Christ, and cup his blood. Then he declareth how the bread is the body of Christ. How is (saith he) the bread his body and the cup or that which is in the cup his blood? These things (my brethren) are therefore called sacred signs, because in them we see one thing, and understand another. That which we see, hath a bodily likeness or show; but that which we understand, hath a spiritual fruit. If then thou wilt understand what the body of Christ is, hear the Apostle saying to the believers, You are the body of Christ and his members.

Among many things considerable in this passage, three are especially so; The one that Austin will have us to believe the relation of our eyes which show that it is bread. The second that he is so far from believing transubstantiation that he chooseth rather in these words, This is my body, to understand by the body of Christ the believers, that is the Church, then to imagine any transubstantiation of bread into the Lord's body. The third, that to the corporal show he opposeth not the body of Christ invisibly present, but the Spiritual grace. According to our adversaries he ought to have said, That which is seen is the species of bread; but that which is invisible and hid under the species, is the body of Christ really present.

The Cardinal deals here prudently; for because this passage is a fragment remaining of a lost Sermon; It will be time enough (saith he) to answer when our adversaries have recovered the book where Austin speaks that language. And he gives this reason for it; Because (saith he) all the strength they can raise out of this, depends from the immediate connection of periods. And he saith that Beda doth not always exactly relate Austin's words. But Fulgentius a Disciple of Austin, hath preserved that Sermon to posterity. For it is found whole in the Treatise of Fulgentius of the Baptism of an Ethiopian dying. Which book the Cardinal having not seen, he is excusable that he would not trust Beda.

Such was the belief of this good Doctor, with whom, all things being considered, none of the Fathers whose writings we have, is to be compared. A man whose learning was joined with a singular holiness of life, and sweetness of conversation. It seemeth that this good servant of God foresaw the abuse which the posterior ages brought forth, and to which the Hyperbolical Allegories of some Doctors of his time tending to elevate the people's devotion, hath given occasion contrary to their mind. This is known in that Austin speaks more often and more clearly of this matter then any before him. Also in that whereas he bestowed two long Treatises to expound our Savior's words, Joh. 6. where it is spoken of the manducation of Christ's flesh, in those two Treatises there is not one word of the real manducation of Christ's flesh with the mouth, but he referreth all to the spiritual manducation by faith, and to the union of the faithful in one body. The same may be known in that having said in the first Sermon upon the 33. Ps. that in the Lord's Supper, Christ bore himself in his own hands, least that any should abuse that expression to gross thoughts, he saith in the following Sermon, That Christ carried himself in some sort in his hands when he said, This is my body. Which relates to the forealledged words of the same Austin, who speaking of the bread of the Lord's Supper, said, that it is the body of Christ in its manner, although indeed it is the sacred sign of his body. These words, in some sort, are never employed but to bring some exception and distinction, when a thing being affirmed absolutely and without restriction, should be false. So we say that a man is learned in some sort, when he is not universally learned. And that the nature of the Son of God was mortal in some sort, that is, the human nature only, not the divine. But when it is question of the whole and real presence of a body, that restriction hath no place. It cannot be said that the brains of a living man is in his head in some sort. One cannot tell that the body of Christ crucified was in the Cross in some sort, or that it is now in heaven in some sort. But if Christ crucified is represented in a picture, it may be said that he is crucified there in some sort. Thus in the Eucharist he is present in some sort, that is Sacramentally, and according as signs take the names of things signified. But if he was present in it really and whole, it were absurdly spoken to say that he is present in it in some sort. And whosoever saith that the Lord's body is really present in the Eucharist in some sort, saith also by consequent that it is absent from it in some sort.

CHAP. IX. Examination of Cardinal du Perrons answer, whereby he endeavors to give reasons why the Fathers call the Bread and Wine of the Lord's Supper signs, figures, types, and symbols of the body and blood of Christ, even after the Consecration.

THE Cardinal finding himself bepelted with a hail of testimonies of Fathers which call that which is received in the Sacrament, signs, and figures, and types, even after the Consecration, seeks to take shelter under a dark distinction which he hath borrowed from others. These are his words: There are (saith he) two sorts of signs; some instituted to supply the defect of presence, as the Paschal lamb, Manna, the stone of the desert, the show-bread, the brazen serpent; Some instituted to supply the defect of appearance, and to be forms and visible clothings for things which by their own essence could appear and make themselves visible, as the species of the flame in the bush, and of the dove in Christ's Baptism, the serpent tempted Eve in the earthly Paradise, the human forms which Angels put on. Now the signs instituted to supply the defect of appearance are not exclusive, but on the contrary inclusive and connotative of the reality. In another place to prove that, he alledgeth Pope Hilary, and Alger, and Eutychius, who say that the body of Christ which is taken upon the Altar, is both truth and figure. For want of ancient authors he brings new ones, and such as are not receivable; for the ancients do not speak so.

I do freely acknowledge those two sorts of signs, and know that there are signs which signify a present thing: But in such signs two things shall be found; the one that they are true signs, not false shows; the other that they are signs of things of an invisible nature. For to give a false show for a sign, and to be a sign of a thing present and of a visible nature, it is a mere illusion and a superlative absurdity. This is seen by the examples which the Cardinal brings; For the flame in the bush was a true flame, and a sign of God's presence which is invisible: 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 And the dove which he speaks of, was a true dove, and was the sign of a thing of an invisible nature, which was the Holy Ghost. But in the Eucharist the Cardinal forgeth imaginary things, bread which seems to be bread and is not, and yet is sign of a thing present and of a visible nature. All signs serve to signify, and are helps to know. But here they forge us signs, even the accidents of bread and wine, which hinder to see that which they signify; which signify Christ, and hide the sight of Christ. They are not then helps but hindrances to knowledge: As if a chest where a thief hath hidden stolen money, were called a sign or a figure of that money.

But the chief consideration is that the strength of those places of Fathers that call that which is received in the Eucharist signs and figures even after the consecration, lieth not in that they call those things signs and figures, but in that they will have the word my body to be interpreted the sign of my body; an interpretation which the Roman Church abhorreth. Also in that they oppose the sign to the truth, and from their being signs gather that they are not really the Lord's body. For we have alleged multitude of passages of the Fathers which affirm that the Lord saying, This is my body, gave to the sign the name of his body, and honored the visible signs with the name of his body. And that these words Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, &c. are typical words, which signify that we must ruminate in our memory, and profitably meditate that Christ died for us; and that these things are signs, and not the truth: That the Lord saying This is my body, gave the sign of his body; that we eat not the body which was crucified for us, but that it is a Sacred sign which is recommended to us; That the Sacrament of Christ's body is Christ's body, according as the Sacraments are named by the name of that they signify; in the same manner as every Lord's day is the day of Christ's resurrection, and baptism is called faith because it is the sign of faith. And that the Sacrament is called the Lord's body after its manner, but that to speak truly it is the Sacred sign of Christ's body which was crucified. All that is full of weight and clarity; and to all that no answer is given.

And though the Fathers said no more but that the thing received in the Sacrament is a sign or figure, is not that a sufficient proof against the real presence of the Lord's body under the accidents of bread? For how many passages did we produce wherein they speak of the signs of Christ's body without speaking at all of the presence of the natural body of Christ under these signs? When the Fathers exalt the excellency of the Eucharist, is it credible that they speak only of that which is less worthy in the Eucharist, namely of the signs of Christ's body, and leave out that wherein our adversaries place the excellency of the Eucharist, namely the real presence of the Lord's body? Would they have given thanks to God in the public service for establishing in his Church the signs and antitypes of Christ's body without speaking of the real presence of Christ's body under these signs? Had not that been an ungrateful thanksgiving, and rather a forgetfulness then a remembrance? As if one having received the gift of a horse or a sword, gave thanks for the bridle or the scabbard, not for the horse or the sword. Certainly whosoever will commend the excellency of a thing, will fix upon that which is most commendable and most excellent.

I add that whosoever speaks of the Sacrament of Christ's body, saith manifestly that the Sacrament is not Christ's body. And who so affirmeth that in these words, This is my body, the name of the thing signified is given to the sign, saith not that the sign is with the body, but will have it understood, that This is my body, signifieth, This is the sign of my body.

The premises afford an answer to that which the Cardinal addeth; Could not David (saith he) after he had attained to the Crown, represent upon a stage, and in a disguised habit and face, the combat which he had performed against Goliath, and be by that means, though in diverse respects, both the sign and the signified thing? May not then Christ who is the Evangelical David, represent in the Eucharist under the commemorative species of his passion the combat which he had on the Cross against the allegorical Giant of the Christians?

This Prelat ought to have reserved his eloquence for another Subject that had some show of reason. In one point he deserveth to be applauded, for comparing that which is done in the Mass unto a play acted by a disguised man; and I would not be he that should contradict him. But he is short of reason when he thinks that David acting thus his combat upon a stage, should be a sign of himself. Only his present action should be a sign and a representation of his past action. And David acting thus should be a true person; But they give us here for a sign bread in show, which is no bread indeed. Neither is it Christ that doth in the Mass that action which the Cardinal compares unto a play; It is the Priest that moveth, and makes the whole representation.

CHAP. X. Some passages of the Councils upon this subject.

THE Councils speak the same language as we heard the Fathers speak. The Council of Nice in the 5. Canon speaking of the Eucharist, saith, That all bitterness of spirit being taken away, the gift which is presented unto God may be pure. It is evident that this Council believed that sometimes an impure gift is presented unto God in the Eucharist, and that the offering becomes impure and defiled when it is presented with hatred and animosity. They did not then believe that the gift was the natural body of Christ. For it is always pure and cannot be defiled by the vice of the person that offereth it.

The Council of Ancyra in the 2. Canon commands the Deacons who have sacrificed unto Idols to abstain from the Sacred service, and forbids them to present either the bread or the cup. For the Deacons in those days carried to the Communicants in the Church the bread and the cup: Which was not done but after the consecration. Yet that which they presented is called bread by the Council; Let the Deacons that have sacrificed abstain from all divine service, and present no more neither the bread nor the cup.

The Council of Neocesarea in the 13. Canon, The Country Priest cannot offer in the principal Church of the Town when the Bishop or the Priests of the Town are present, nor give the bread in the prayer, nor the cup.

The third Council of Carthage in the 24. Canon prescribeth, That in the sacred service nothing be offered but the body and blood of the Lord (as also the Lord commanded it) that is, the bread and wine mingled with water. See here above two hundred Bishops, of whom Austin was one; and that man so famous, Aurelius Bishop of Carthage, expounding these words the body and blood of Christ, as signifying bread and wine mingled with water. When the Fathers call that which is received in the holy Communion, bread and wine, our adversaries will have them to speak figuratively, and that by bread and wine they understand the body and blood of Christ under the species of bread and wine. But here is a Council that teacheth the clean contrary, that when they called that which is offered in the holy Communion the body and blood of Christ, by that body and blood they meant bread and wine mingled with water. Can any of our adversaries boast that he understands the Fathers better then the Fathers understood themselves? or who will take upon him the authority of correcting the interpretation which themselves give unto their words?

Because this Canon grieveth the Roman Church, it was corrupted and clipt in the Latim Tomes of the Councils published by our adversaries, where there is only, That in the Sacraments of the body and blood of the Lord nothing be offered but what the Lord hath commanded, even bread and wine mingled with water. But God permitted that this falsification should be clearly convinced. For in the sixth Council of Constantinople gathered again in the palace of Trull to make Canons, this same Canon of the third Council of Carthage is repeated word by word, as we alleged it; The holy Fathers assembled at Carthage did expressly call it to remembrance, that in the sacred service nothing should be offered but the Lord's body and blood, as also the Lord hath commanded it, that is, bread and wine mingled with water. And it is found so, not only in the Greek Copies, but also in the same Latin Tomes. The corrupters of the Canon of the Council of Carthage having corrupted it in one place, forgot to corrupt it in another.

In Balsamon Patriarch of Antioch who hath reduced the Canons of the Councils into a body and made comments upon them, this Canon is found as we alleged it; as also in Zonaras, and in the Canons published by du Tillet, yea in all the Greek Copies published by our adversaries. The words of Balsamons Comment upon this Canon, are considerable, The two and thirtieth Canon of the Synod of Trull giveth an ordinance at large, that the unbloody sacrifice be made with bread and wine mingled with water, because bread is the figure of the Lord's body, and the wine a figure of his blood. Zonaras saith the same upon the same Canon.

It is to be noted that the growth of the adoration of images and that of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, were contemporanean and kept pace together. Damascenus (whom we may call the Peter Lombard of the Grecians) in the eight age, maintained the adoration of Images, and writ also for the defense of the other abuse. And the same man was the first that imagined some change in the substance of the bread. Thus the enemy of our salvation, Satan, labored to plant these two sorts of idolatry at the same time.

The seventh Council of Constantinople in the year 754. was assembled purposely to oppose the adoration of Images; by the order of that Council Images were pulled down in all the East. As for Transubstantiation, which was not believed in the Greek Churches, and is not yet to this day, the same Council knowing that private men were secretly sowing that darnel, by a singular prudence and dexterity made one plaster to serve to heal two sores, and confounded two errors by one true doctrine, teaching that the true Images are those which Christ hath established in his Church, even the Sacraments; saying, That the holy Sacrament was chosen by Christ, as no other form or figure under heaven being able to represent his incarnation. They add That he gave to his Ministers this sign and most evident commemoration. Again The Lord hath commanded us to offer the substance of bread, which is not made in human form, lest that idolatry should creep in. In the same place the bread is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , The holy image of Christ. And the true image of his natural body, to oppose it to the false images in stone or picture. And the image of his flesh given by God.

In that Council there were 338. Bishops; so the seeds of idolatry were weeded out for that time.

But God irritated by the wickedness of men, suffered that a monster of impiety should reign at Constantinople, the execrable woman Irene, who put out the eyes of her own son, and deprived him of the Empire. This woman to strengthen her usurpation by the faction of the Image-worshippers which was powerful, set up Images again over all the East, and assembled a Synod at Nice (An. 787.) in which she caused the Council of Constantinople to be condemned. That abominable Council established the adoration of Images, so far as to pronounce anathema to all that would go so far as to venerate them, and no further. In the records of that Council these goodly sentences are extant, That Imago est melior oratione. That images are of equal value with the holy Gospel. That Angels are corporal, having an aiery or a fiery body. And as for that the Council of Constantinople had pronounced about the holy Sacrament, namely that the bread is the image and figure of Christ's body. This is the judgment which that goodly Council pronounced about that; All that language seems abominable to us, &c. And which of the Saints and Apostles (who are trumpets of the Holy Ghost) did ever call our unbloody sacrifice an image of the Lord's body?

We may well think that the Council of Constantinople was approved of God, since it was so disapproved by such a detestable assembly. To be condemned by such a rout, was a commendation, and an argument of goodness. Wherefore Charlemayne, who at that time held the Empire of the West, caused that Council of Nice to be condemned by a contrary Council which he assembled at Franckford.

I wonder how these Fathers of Nice, who affirm that the Apostles never said that the unbloody sacrifice is a figure of Christ's body, did not know, that the Apostles call the Lord's Supper the remembrance of the Lord's death, and the commemoration of Christ, which is as good as calling it a figure, and that they never call it a sacrifice▪

But the Popes being bent to build the mystery of iniquity, undertook with all their power the defense of that Council of Nice. So far that Pope Adrian who lived in the time of that Council, writ a book in the defense thereof, yet without meddling with Transubstantiation, against which Bertram the Priest writ a book (now extant) by the command of King Charles the Bald, for which the said Bertram received no blame or reprehension, because the Roman Church had not yet pronounced any judgment upon that matter.

Yet the enemy of our salvation was preparing the way, to bring in by the same way two sorts of Idolatry. For then he began to forge a multitude of miracles by images, and by the Host, to invite the people to worship them. In the following Ages images began to speak, to sweat, to bow the head, and to make congies; and breasts of flesh grew upon an image of our Lady. At the same time it was reported, that at the Mass in such and such places a pretty little child was seen entering into the mouth of the communicants: That an Host being pricked had bled: That in a chalice blood was found: That an Ass leaving his oats, had kneeled before an Host that past by: That Bees having found an Host left in the fields, had built a Chapel of wax upon it. Stories which I have seen myself painted at Paris in St. Gervas cloister. And of these Surius and St. Austinin are full.

Pope Innocent the third, in the third book of the Mysteries of the Mass, ch. 1. saith, that some Shepherds having learned the words of the Consecration, and singing them in the fields, were smitten by God's hand. Durand in the fourth book of his Rational, chap. 35. addeth, that these Shepherds having pronounced the consecrating words upon the bread of their dinner, did transubstantiate all into flesh. And that to avoid that inconvenience for the future, it was commanded, that these words should be pronounced with a low voice, that the people might not learn them. Bellarmine receiveth that history as true in his first book of the Mass, chap. 12. The reasons which Pope Innocent brings in the fore-alleged place are notable. Because (saith he) Christ hid himself from the multitude. Also because Anna said her prayer with a low voice. And because it is written, that dying flies spoil the ointment of the Apothecary. Ergo, &c. Who so will see a multitude of such miracles, let him read Idocus Coccius in the second Tome of his collection of Fathers. Of such miracles no trace is found in any of the ancient Writers. For St. Basils life, where some such miracles are found attributed to Amphilochius, is a fabulous and supposititious book, as Bellarmine shows it in his book of Ecclesiastical Writers.

In that age the use of Scripture was lost among the people, which then applied themselves altogether unto images, well called the books of ignorant men; And the whole religion began to consist in visiting relics, hearkening after miracles, clothing images, and keeping singing men, whose loud melody might fill the vaults of Temples.

Errors being then in their growth, the Popes Thunders and Interdicts came soon after, and Mendicant Friars, and the Great Pardons, and the fear of Purgatory, and the turning of beads, with prayers in a tongue unknown to him that saith them, and the word of Transubstantiation established by an Article of a Council.

CHAP. XI. That the Fathers did not believe accidents without a subject in the Eucharist.

ONe of the products of Transubstantiation, is, that it puts accidents without a subject. The Roman Church did not only put in the Eucharist an human body, which keeps no place, a body without extent, without length, without diverse situation of parts, as being whole in every crumb of the Host, and having head and feet under the same point. A body which being contained in no place, is nevertheless in a million of several places at the same time, and by consequent is far from itself, and both higher and lower then itself. But they added besides to raise error to the highest enormity, that in the host, the accidents, that is breadth, length, figure, color, and taste, are without subject.

1. So that in the host, there is whiteness, but no white thing; roundness, but no round thing; savor, but nothing savoury; length and breadth, but nothing long or large, as Pope Innocent speaks.

2. The Schoolmen speak much like that, saying that accidentia non accidunt, albentia non albent, and that they are qualities which qualify nothing, and are qualities of nothing.

3. By their doctrine, if the host fall into the mire, then the accidents bear the mire that sticks to it, and are the subject of the substance.

4. If the host or chalice be poisoned, as when Pope Victor the third, and Henry Arch-bishop of York, and the Emperor Henry the VII. were poisoned in the chalice, we must say that lines and colors are poisoned, or that Christ is poisoned.

5. Readers of the lowest capacity may comprehend that which I will say now. That a leg is a substance, but lameness is an accident: The eye is a substance, but the sight is an accident or a quality of the eye: and a sick body is a substance, but the sickness of that body is an accident which happens to that body. These Doctors then with their subtlety forging accidents without a subject, do as if they said that there is halting without a leg, sight without an eye, Sickness without a sick body, a race without a runner, an Ecclipse without Sun and Moon, heat and nothing hot.

6. Truly ruining the definition of a thing is ruining the thing; ruining the reasonable animal, is ruining man; taking away roundness, is taking away the circle or the globe. Now the substance or subject is of the definition of an accident. Accidens est quod accidit subjecto; An accident is that which happens to a subject. Then the accident is no more when the subject is no more; the bread being no more bread, the whiteness of the bread is taken away, and the length of bread, and the taste of bread.

7. The quantity (say the Philosophers) is that whereby things are said to be so many, great or small. Now here they forge us a quantity whereby nothing is great, or long or broad.

8. Also the accidents according to this doctrine, are forms which inform nothing, and qualities which qualify nothing.

9. Then it is evident, that one cannot abolish a relative, without abolishing the other. Where there is no Father, there is no Son. Where there is no right side there, there is no left side. Now the accident and the subject are relative terms; Of which nevertheless these men will abolish the one which is the subject, without abolishing the other; and the substance of the bread being abolished, they will have the taste, the length, and the roundness of the bread to remain.

10. If the chalice be frozen, or the host mouldy, then is their Christ frozen or mouldy. Or if that be displeasing to these Gentlemen, they must admit a Mathematical length and breadth frozen and mouldy, as if one said that the triangles and pentagones of Euclides are frozen and mouldy.

That prodigious doctrine was unknown to the ancient Fathers, and the least trace of it is not found in the whole Antiquity. Had that been the belief of the ancient Church, so many Pagans and heretics who have studied to disgrace Christian Religion, and sought to pick holes in it, would not have omitted that point, which brings such a swarm of absurdities along with it, giving the lie to our eyes and our hands, and overthrowing common sense.

Austin speaks of accidents without a subject, as of an impossible and contradictory thing; and of the union of a body with his proper qualities, as of an inseparable thing. In the Epistle to Dardanus, which is the fifty seventh, Take away the bodies from the qualities of the bodies, the qualities shall not have where to be, and therefore of necessity they shall not be.

And a little after, If the mass of the body be quite taken away, there will be no place left for the qualities: Let us say then after this good Doctor, If the mass or substance of bread be totally taken away, the qualities or accidents of the bread shall be no more.

The same Father in the second book of Soliloquies, Who can grant that which thou hast asked me, that the thing which is in the subject, (that is the accident) can remain, if the subject be abolished? It is a prodigious thing, and far from truth, that a thing which could not be, if it were not in the subject, can subsist when that subject is no more. What can be said more express? If Austin had believed Transubstantiation, would he not have added that exception, that this rule hath no place in the Eucharist? Would he have thus justled against the f • undation of the holy Sacrament by a general rule, and declaimed against it as a monstrous and ridiculous thing?

In the same fore-alleged Epistle to Dardanus, he rejecteth it as an absurdity that a body may have parts not distant the one from the other, and not distinct in situation, saying that The distant parts of a body cannot be together, because each of them keeps the space of a place: the lesser parts holding less, and the greater more place, and cannot be whole in every part. This is directly against the Roman Church, which puts the whole body of Christ in every crumb, and under every point of the Host.

In the same place he saith, If the space of places be taken from bodies, they shall be nowhere, and because they shall be nowhere, they shall not be at all. And Bellarmine, though laboring to bring restrictions and interpretations to that passage of Austin, acknowledgeth nevertheless that Austin speaks of the body of Christ, affirming that Austin saith, That unless a certain space be given to the body of Christ, wherein it be contained after the manner of other bodily substances; the human nature of Christ is destroyed. And in the twentieth book against Faustus the Manichean, chap. 11. Christ according to the substance of his body could not be together in the Sun, and in the Moon, and in the Cross.

And in Epist. 101. to Evodius, No body is so little, but that it fills according to his measure, the space of a place; and there is none that be whole all over the space which it fills, and that be not lesser in the part, then in the whole.

In that, this Father is grounded in good reason. For as our Adversaries writing upon the fourth book of Aristotle's Physicks, proves by many demonstrations, that there can be no empty place, and that such an assertion would imply many contradictions, so they use the same subtlety to prove that a body cannot be without place and without filling some space. For it is no less absurd to imagine a body without a place, then a place without a body.

And whereas Transubstantiation contains more wonders then the creation, if the Author of the books of the wonders of Scripture, which are put among Austin's books, had believed it, he would not have omitted to speak of these wonders. For in those books he searcheth all the wonders that are found in Scripture. Nay, he speaks thus of the Eucharist, These things may be honored as religious, but cannot be admired as miraculous.

In one thing it appeareth that the Fathers neither knew nor believed that in the Eucharist the accidents were without a subject, that they never speak of the species of bread in the plural. They speak indeed of the species of bread and wine in the plural, because by the species they understand the substances, and that bread and wine are two substances. But when they speak of bread by itself, or of wine by itself, they never say the species of bread, or the species of wine in the plural, because bread is one substance, not many. But our Adversaries who by the species understand the accidents, speak of the species of bread in the plural, and say that the Lord's body is broken under the species of bread, as if bread had many species. Wherein they speak against the use of all ages, and against the rules of Philosophy, which never saith the species of a horse, or the species of Antony in the plural, to say his accidents, and calls not the color of a horse his species. Their language in that point, is both new and absurd, as well as their doctrine.

Finally, how could the accidents destitute of substance, under which they say that the Lord's body is enclosed, be signs of the body of Christ, seeing that signs are helps to know? But our Adversaries say that the accidents of bread are are coverings which hinder our senses to perceive Christ. As if a Chest were the sign of Homers Iliad, because that book is hidden within it.

CHAP. XII. That the Fathers not only speak of a spiritual manducation which is not done with the mouth, but also understand Christ's words, John 6. of a spiritual manducation.

THE Fathers are full of expresses which turn our thoughts from the carnal and oral manducation of Christ's body, to the spiritual, which is done by faith, and warn us that Christ's words must be understood in a spiritual sense.

Tertullian in the thirty seventh chapter of the book of the Resurrection of the flesh, expounding these words, The flesh profiteth nothing, We must (saith he) direct the sense of these words according to the subject that he speaks of. For because they esteemed his word hard and intolerable, as if he had determined to give them really his flesh to eat: that he might make the state of salvation spiritual, he said before, It is the Spirit that quickeneth: and then addeth, The flesh profiteth nothing, that is, it profiteth not for quickening.

And in the same place, The word was made flesh, and by consequent that we may have life, it must be desired and devoured by hearing, and ruminated with the understanding, and digested with faith.

And in the same place, For he had declared a little before, thae his flesh was the heavenly bread, urging by all means by an allegory taken from necessary meats, the remembrance of their Fathers, who had preferred the bread and meat of the Aegyptitians to the heavenly calling.

Clemens Alexandrinus is of the same mind; In another place (saith he) even in St. Johns Gospel, the Lord declared it otherwise by signs, saying, Eat my flesh, and drink my blood, propounding by Allegory the evidence of faith, and the drink of promise.

And a little after, He calls the Spirit flesh by Allegory, for the flesh is created by him, and the blood enigmatically signifieth the Word.

Again, He said that the bread which I shall give you, is my flesh. Now the flesh is moistened with blood, and the wine signifieth the blood by Allegory.

Again, He blessed the wine, saying, Take, drink, This is the blood of the vine. The holy liquor of joy (meaning the consecrated wine) signifieth by Allegory, the Word that was poured for many. Note that he expounds the blood of the cup, to be the blood of the vine, that is, wine.

In the end of Clemens the Summaries of Theodotus are added, where these words are found, The bread which I will give you is my flesh, even that whereby our flesh is fed in the Eucharist. Then correcting himself, he addeth, Or rather this flesh is his body, which is the Church, the heavenly bread, the blessed assembly. It is evident that the Fathers chose rather to say any other thing, and to use the most remote and hard interpretations then to believe Transubstantiation.

Cyrillus or Origen upon Leviticus (for the Author is not certainly known) in the seventh book, expounding these words, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? speaks thus, Acknowledge that these things written in the divine volumes are figures. See that thou understand them as spiritual, not as carnal. For if you receive them as carnal, they hurt you instead of nourishing you.

For there is in the New Testament a letter that kills him that observeth not the things which are spiritually spoken. For if thou followest according to the letter, that very thing which is said, Unless you eat my flesh, and drink my blood, that letter killeth.

The same Author upon the Numbers, in the fourteenth chapter, Hom. 16. We are said to drink the blood of Christ, not only in the celebration of the Sacraments, but also when we receive his words in which life consisteth, as himself saith, The words which I spake unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Basil in his Epistle to the Cesareans, which is the one hundred and forty first, . We eat his flesh, and drink his blood, being by the incarnation made partakers of the sensible life of the word, and of the wisdom. For the Lord hath called his mystical conversation, flesh and blood. The hardness of such interpretations showeth how far the Fathers were from believing Transubstantiation, since that rather then to believe that bread and wine are transubstantiated into flesh, they chose by the flesh of the Lord, which we eat, to understand either his word, or his Church, or his conversation among men. Any other exposition seems to them more convenient, and less hard then the doctrine of Transubstantiation.

The same Father upon Psal. 33. There is an intelligible mouth of the inward man, at which he is fed, being partaker of the word of life which is the bread that came down from heaven.

Jerome upon the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, saith that the flesh of Christ is eaten when Scripture is read. We eat his flesh (saith he) and drink his blood, not only in the mystery, but also in the reading of Scripture. For the true meat and the true drink which is received from the word of God, is the knowledge of Scripture.

And in the Comment, upon the Psalms which is attributed to him, upon Psalm 44. I think that the body of Christ is the Gospel, and that Scripture is his doctrine, when he saith, he that eats not my flesh, and drinks not my blood, &c. although this may be understood in mystery, yet to speak more truly, the body and blood of Christ is the word of the Scriptures, and the divine doctrine. And a little after, Caro Christi & sanguis ejus in auribus nostris funditur; The flesh of Christ and his blood is poured into our ears. That indeed is far from eating Christ with the mouth of the body. How far was Jerome from the belief of our Adversaries, since by these words, This is my body, he will have us to understand, this is my Gospel?

In the same place, If when we hear the word of God, and that the word of God, and the flesh of Christ, and his blood is poured into our ears, we think of something else, what danger do we run into?

But the most pregnant of all the Fathers upon this point is Austin, who seems to have made it his task to dissuade us from believing the manducation of Christ with the mouth and teeth. Already we have understood how in the sixth chapter of the third book of Christian doctrine; he was not content to have said that these words of Christ, Except you eat my flesh, &c. are a typical expression, but he declared very expressly how that figure must be understood, namely that eating the flesh of Christ is meditating his death, and printing it with fruit and pleasure in our memory.

We have seen also how in the 21. book of the City of God, 25. ch. he speaks of two manducations of the flesh of Christ; the one done in the Sacrament or sacred sign, the other spiritual, which he calls the only true manducation. The Lord showeth (saith he) what it is to eat the body of Christ, not in Sacrament only, but also in truth.

In the same place, They have eaten the body of Christ not only in Sacrament, but in truth also.

The same upon the 98. Ps. upon that Christ had promised to give his flesh to eat, he personates the Lord speaking thus to his Disciples, Understand spiritually what I said unto you; You shall not eat this body which you see, and shall not drink the blood which they that shall crucify me shall shed. I have recommended unto you a sacred sign, which being spiritually understood shall quicken you.

And in the second Sermon, de verbis Apostoli, If that which is taken visibly in a sacred sign, is eaten spiritually in the truth itself, &c.

But he insisteth most upon that point in the 25, and 26. Treatise upon St. Johns Gospel, where he makes a long Comment upon the 6. ch. of St. John. In the 25. Treatise expounding the Lord's words, This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he hath sent, he saith. This then (that is believing) is eating the meat which perisheth not, but is permanent unto everlasting life. Why preparest thou thy teeth and thy belly? Believe and thou hast eaten.

And in the 26. Treatise, When the Lord would give the Holy Ghost, he said that he was the bread come down from heaven, exhorting us to believe on him. For believing on him is eating the living bread. He that believeth on him, eats him; He is invisibly fattened, because he is invisibly born again.

There also speaking of Moses, Aaron, and Phineas, who ate the Manna in another manner then the incredulous do. They spiritually understood the visible meat, they were spiritually hungry, they tasted spiritually that they might be satiated spiritually. For we also take this day a visible food; but the Sacrament is one thing, and the truth of the Sacrament is another thing. He saith two things; for he speaks of a spiritual manducation proper to the believers, and calls that which we eat in the Sacrament a visible food. Now what is that visible food? Is it the Lord's body? But our adversaries say that it is invisible in the Mass. Is it the accidents? But they are no food, unless they will give us lines, and colors, and figures for meat.

A little after he shows of whom Christ speaks when he saith, He that eateth this bread, shall not die forever. It is he (saith he) that eats inwardly, not outwardly; he that eats in his heart, not he that presseth with his tooth.

We have shown before how in the same place by the bread of life which we must eat, he understands the Church or the society of the believers. Then he addeth, This is then eating this meat, and drinking this cup, even to abide in Christ, and to have him abiding within us. By that reason, he that abideth not in Christ, and in whom Christ abideth not, without doubt eats not his flesh spiritually, and drinks not his blood, though he press with his teeth carnally and visibly the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. Who seeth not that this good Doctor was set on by God to urge this so often and in such pressing words, to prevent the error which Satan was contriving, and which he put forth some ages after?

In the 27. Treatise after he hath said that it was needful that Christ should speak so that he might not be understood by all, he makes this conclusion of his discourse, The Jews thought that he would give them his body, but he tells them that he was to ascend into heaven; in his whole person no doubt. When you shall see the Son of man ascending where he was before, then at least shall you see that he gives not his body in the same manner as you think; then at least shall ye see that his grace is not consumed with biting.

These things are so clear and so express, that Pope Innocent the third, under whom that word of transubstantiation was authorized by the Article of a Council, being overcome with the force of truth, acknowledged, that when Christ spake of giving his flesh to eat, he meant the spiritual manducation, which is done by Faith, not of that which is done by the mouth. The Lord (saith he) speaks of spiritual manducation, saying, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. In this manner the good only eat the body of Christ. Wherefore also he saith, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. For he that abideth in charity, dwelleth in God, and God in him. Why preparest thou thy tooth and thy belly? believe and thou hast eaten.

In effect, if by these words, Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you, Christ binds not the Christian to drink his blood with the mouth of his body, I see not how the Roman Church can be excused for taking from the people the cup of the Sacrament. For it is depriving the people of life, seeing that taking the blood in the host is not drinking. Now Christ saith expressly, Except you drink. If in this point they believed the Ancients and their Pope Innocent, they might know that for the spiritual participation (which Christ recommendeth in this Chapter) eating and drinking are the same thing; and that Christ useth both the Metaphors to signify that our souls find in him a perfect and most complete food.

CHAP. XIII. That the Fathers believed not that the wicked, and unbelievers, or hypocrites could eat the Lord's body.

ACcording to the doctrine of the Roman Church, both good and evil men, true believers and hypocrites eat the body of Christ really with the mouth of the body. So that if Judas was partaker of the Holy Sacrament, as the Ancients hold, we must say that he eat Christ really, and that Christ and the devil entered into Judas at the same time.

This is contradicted by Christ himself, who saith, that whosoever eateth his flesh hath eternal life, and that he that eateth the flesh of the Son of man dwelleth in Christ, and Christ in him. For to eat Christ's flesh unworthily is an impossible thing, since eating signifieth believing, as we have proved, and as both Austin and Pope Innocent acknowledge. For one cannot believe in Christ unworthily, since in that Faith our worthiness consisteth. Wherefore St. Paul saith well, that there are some that eat the bread unworthily, 1 Cor. 11.29. but saith not that any eat the body of the Lord unworthily.

This is also contradicted by the Antient writers. We have heard Austin already saying, that those only eat the flesh of the Lord truly that eat it spiritually. Whence it follows that the hypocrites and unbelievers that participate the Eucharist, eat not the flesh of the Lord in truth and indeed.

Himself in the 26. Treatise upon John, The Sacred sign of this thing, that is of the unity of the body and blood of Christ, in some places every day, in some places by certain intervals of days, is prepared in the table of the Lord, and is taken by some to life, by others to perdition. But the thing itself of which it is a sacred sign, is for life to every man that is partaker of the same, but to none for perdition. And in the same Treatise; He that dwelleth not in Christ and in whom Christ dwelleth not, for certain eats not his flesh, although he press carnally and visibly the sign of Christ's body and blood with his teeth.

And in the book of Austin's sentences by Prosper, Whosoever dissents from Christ, eats not the flesh of Christ, and drinks not his blood, although he take every day indifferently the Sacrament of so great a thing to the judgment [or condemnation] of his presumption.

And in the 5. ch. of the 21. book of the City of God, speaking of ill livers that eat the Sacrament. It must not be said, that a man who is not in the body of Christ, eats the body of Christ. In the same place he personates Christ, saying, He that dwelleth not in me, and in whom I dwell not, let him not say or think that he eats my body or drinks my blood.

In the 59. Treatise upon John, comparing the other Disciples of Christ with Judas, They ate (saith he) the bread which is the Lord, but Judas ate the bread of the Lord against the Lord, declaring that Judas did not ate the Lord.

In the 2. Sermon de verbis Apostoli, Then the body and blood of Christ shall be life to everyone, if that which is taken in the Sacrament visibly is eaten in the very truth spiritually and drunk spiritually.

Origen saith the same upon Matth. 15. Let this be said concerning the typical or symbolical body. Many things also could be said of the Word itself which was made flesh and true meat, which whosoever eateth, liveth eternally, and of which no wicked man can eat.

Jerome upon the last chapter of Isaiah, While they are not holy in body and spirit, they eat not the flesh of Jesus, and drink not his blood; of which himself speaks; He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. He could not speak more expressly.

CHAP. 14, Confutation of two shifts which the Cardinal useth upon all occasions.

CArdinal du Perron pressed with the evidence of these testimonies shifts for himself as well as he can. To that place of Austin upon the 3. Ps. that Christ admitted Judas to the Supper in which he gave to his Disciples the figure of his body and blood, he answers that Austin speaks there of the figure, with a relation, not to the true and proper body of Christ, but to his analogical body and blood; that is, to the body and society of his Church. This Prelat hoped that no reader would have the curiosity to consult the place, to see whether Austin speaks, in that place of the Church, or of the figure of the Church. For he knew well enough that Austin from the beginning of the exposition of the third Psalm unto this place, speaks not at all of the Church nor of the figure of the Church, and that in that assertion of his there is neither color nor shadow of truth.

He adds, that such is the sense in which Austin expoundeth the word of body and blood of Christ, when he speaks of the Eucharist in those places where the Catechumens were present, or the Infidels, as it appears by these words of the 26. Sermon upon John. By this meat and drink he would have the society of the Saints to be understood. It is true, that Austin in many places expounds these words, This is my body, and Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, &c. as if by this body and this flesh the Church was understood. But I could not yet find any place in Austin where this word of blood is so expounded.

As for the Catechumens▪ or not initiated, and the Infidels before whom he saith that the Fathers spoke obscurely of mysteries, and did not discover their intention, nor the belief of the Church, it is a shift which the Cardinal useth upon all occasions. As in the 4. ch. of the 4. book; The Fathers (saith he) call sometimes the Eucharist a figure, whether it be that they may not reveal the secret of the mystery before them that are not initiated; or to keep the analogy that it hath with our senses, to which the Eucharist shows nothing apparently but the figure, not the naked truth of the body: Or in relation to the future state of glory, in which respect the participation which we have here with the body of Christ, is unto us as an earnest and a figure of the participation which we have with the Godhead of Christ. And falling again to the same discourse in the 8. ch. he saith that we must not learn the intention of the Fathers, by the reading of the discourses where they were forbidden to expound their intention, and the belief of the Church in that point, such as were the discourses that were made before the Catechumens or the Infidels, in whose presence it was prohibited to the Catholics to announce openly the belief of the Church about the Eucharist. He brings for example the Treatises of Austin upon John, which were popular Sermons delivered before all sorts of persons, both believers and unbelievers, both initiated and not initiated; and Theodorets Dialogues, where he professeth to speak darkly and reservedly of the mystery of the Eucharist. He will not then have us to look for the doctrine of the Church about the Sacrament in Austin's Treatises upon John, nor in Theodorets Dialogues. But he saith, that we ought for that matter trust the twelve books which Theodoret had writ of the Sacraments if we had them, and Cyprians book of the Lord's Supper, and Chrysostom 's Comments upon Matth. 26. He adds that the examples which the Fathers allege to win and work upon the minds of their adversaries, &c. they wrest and detort to that purpose as much as they can. So he will not have us to stand to the verdict of the Fathers whensoever they speak before the Catechumens, or before Infidels, nor to those writings where they speak incidently; Nor to those where they handle the oblique, collateral, and accessory doctrine of the Eucharist, but to those where they speak of the immediate, direct, and principal doctrine of the Eucharist. He saith also that we must consider the end of the conversion or transmutation of bread of which the Fathers speak, and of the efficient cause which is the Almighty power of God. This is the summary of all the Philosophy of our Cardinal upon the point of the Eucharist. These are the tenter-hooks upon which he hath stretched his wit for the space of five and twenty or thirty years that he hath been sweating and beating his brains upon this matter.

Yet to all that the answer is most easy. For by all that subtlety he labors only to sense himself against the places which call the Eucharist a figure and a sign of Christ's body, not against those testimonies which say that these words, This is my body, must be thus expounded, This is the figure or sign of my body: And that Christ hath given to the sign the name of his body, and honored the visible signs with the name of his body; and that the words which command us to eat the flesh of Christ, are a typical locution, which must be thus interpreted, that we must meditate and call to remembrance that Christ is dead for us. Neither doth he guard himself from those authorities which deny absolutely that we eat the body crucified for us, and say that the Sacrament is the body of Christ, not in truth, but in signifying mystery, and that it is the sign not the truth. And that the substance of bread and wine remains after the consecration: and that the wicked eat not the body of Christ; and that there is no other manducation but the spiritual. The Cardinal passeth by all these, and stayeth only upon those places where the Eucharist is called the figure of Christ's body.

As for his refusing to stand to the writings of the Fathers where they speak before the Catechumens, that is, before the persons not yet baptized, or before the Infidels: It is very true, that sometimes the Fathers spake more soberly of the mystery of the Eucharist before the Catechumens, not to conceal from them the sublimity of the mysteries, but for a clean contrary end; that is, for fear the Sacrament should have been brought to contempt in the people's estimation, if the Pastors had spoken to them in plain and low terms, saying unto them that it was bread and wine that was upon the table, and of the like nature as the ordinary bread. This is clearly seen in the forealledged place of the second Dialogue of Theodoret, where instead of saying bread, he saith a food made up with such seeds, and that because of some persons not baptized which might be present.

Truly if in Sermons or writings which might be heard or read by unbaptized persons there was need of such a reservation; it will follow that they never ought to preach nor write openly and according to their intention, and that they ought continually to disguise their belief, seeing that the Catechumens were present at Sermons, and that a book once published is no more in the Authors power, and is exposed to the sight both of baptized and unbaptized persons, both of believers and unbelievers.

But how superfluous had that circumspection been towards the Infidels, seeing that the revolted Christians, that were become enemies to the Faith might reveal to the Infidels and to the Catechumens that which they had learned when they were ranked among the believers before their revolt?

But how hurtful had that rule been, if it had been perpetual? For how just might have been the complaint and the mistrust of the Catechumens? Would they not have said to their Pastors that instructed them; You deceive us, you disguise your belief; You speak to us against your sense. We desire to know of you the true belief plainly before we be baptized.

The examples of antiquity testify sufficiently that the Fathers tie not themselves to that rule. For we have the Apologeticks of the ancient Christians, of Justin, and of Tertullian, and Origen 's books against Celsus, and Austin's books of the City of God against the Pagans, in which they handle the highest mysteries of Christian Religion.

If we must not heed the writings of the Fathers made for the Catechumens; why doth the Cardinal allege to us the Catecheses of Cyrillus and of Gregorius Nyssenus, made purposely for the Catechumens? Why doth he allege Chrysostom's Sermons made before the Catechumens? Note that the number of the Catechumens exceeded by much the number of the believers, because the custom then was to receive baptism very late, and many times to put off baptism until the old age and to the extremity. Yea why doth he allege unto us any book of the Fathers, seeing that there was none of those books but the Catechumens could read? who would have laughed at their Pastors, if when they instructed them, they would have taught them another doctrine then such as they had read in their books. These are then mere Chimera's, and poor shifts, injurious against the Fathers, whom the Cardinal taxeth of hypocrisy, as men writing against their intention, and (as he speaks) wresting and detorting the examples which they allege, which is laying unsincerity and foul dealing to their charge. That the Cardinal makes these vagaries rather to recreate his fine wit, then out of any belief of that he asserteth, he showeth it in some sallies that transport him, riding aloft with his prancing oratory. As when he speaks thus in the 879. p. The Fathers make two sorts of meditations; The one immediate, direct, and principal; which considereth the truth of the thing. The other mediate, collateral, and accessory, which considereth it according to a moral and allegorical acception; being like the Echo and the reflected sound of the literal intelligence, to recreate the spirits of the readers by the sacred mirth and ingenious invention of these allusions and allegorical applications. With such frigasses of puff-paste words this Prelat did tickle his imagination. This the Latins call in lente unguentum; essence of pearls, or aurum potabile, in a mess of turnips. If then the Fathers have said, that, This is my body, signifies, This is the sign or figure of my body, we must find in these words an echo, a reflected sound, a collateral meditation, a sacred mirth, a quintessence of Allegorical wheemsies.

Yet that we may deal more gently with this Prelat, let us grant him what he asketh. Let us suppose that the Fathers in their writings did purposely use dark speeches, and disguise their belief for fear of being understood. For may we not use his weapons against himself, and reject all the authorities which he objecteth against us, saying that the alleged Fathers in those places did not speak according to their sense? That such and such Catecheses were made for the Catechumens? That in such and such Sermons part of the hearers were Catechumens? and so make all their allegations doubtful and uncertain?

Yet let us see what reproaches he hath especially against Austin's Treatises upon St. John. First by calling them Sermons, he gives them a title which the Author gives them not, and we have no certain proof that ever these Treatises were pronounced before the people. Also he calls these Treatises in contempt popular Sermons made before all sorts of persons. If by popular Sermons he meaneth preached before the people, the same may be said of all the Sermons of the Ancients; out of which nevertheless the Cardinal disdains not to bring allegations. But if by popular he understands that they are written in a familiar and low style, the reading of these Treatises shows the contrary. For Austin never made anything so exact and elaborate upon Scripture as these Treatises; Chrysostom's Homilies are far more popular. These Treatises of Austin are ten times shorter then his expositions of the Psalms, and yet there is ten times more substance in them. But that which moveth the Cardinal to speak of these excellent books with contempt, is that he finds in them three or four leaves together, in which he treateth fully of the manducation of the flesh of Christ, without speaking one word of Transubstantiation, or real presence, although among all the writings of the Ancients there be not such a long Treatise of this matter. For it is not incidently that Austin treats in that place of this matter, but he makes it his task, and much ado he hath to come out of it. But although we had granted to the Cardinal that these Treatises of Austin upon John are books out of which the intention of that Doctor cannot be known, and which ought not to be regarded; will he say the same of his books of Christian doctrine, or of the twenty third Epistle to the Bishop Boniface? Were these books of Austin of Christian doctrine written for the Catechumens? Was Boniface a Catechumen? And yet there Austin saith that these words, Except you eat my flesh, are a typical locution which signifieth meditating the Lord's death: and that the Sacrament of Christ's body is in some sort the body of Christ, according as signs take the name of the things signified.

The same I say of the Dialogues of Theodoret, which repeat and beat over this matter, bestowing many pages about it. There the Reader may see with delight an Eutychian Heretic maintaining the transubstantiation of bread into the body of Christ; and an Orthodox Christian contradicting him, and using as express words as he can, saying that after the consecration the visible signs do not change nature, and that their first substance remaineth; and that Christ called the bread his body, honoring the sign with the name of his body, without changing the nature of the sign.

It is evident that the Cardinal abuseth the Reader, and writes against his conscience. For while he calls us away from Austin's Books upon John, and from the Dialogues of Theodoret, he sends us to other Books which are not in being, and appeals to the twelve Books of the same Theodoret of the Sacraments, if we had them; for he acknowledgeth that they are lost. He sends us also to Cyprians Books of the Lord's Supper, of whom he speaks thus: Such is (saith he) the Book of the Lord's Supper of Cyprian, whether it be the Carthaginian or another of the same age; for he addresseth his work to Cornelius Bishop of Rome Contemporanean of Cyprian, and disputeth against the Heretic Novatus of the same time.

This Prelate feigneth to doubt whether this Book of the Lord's Supper be Cyprians, or of some other Author. And yet he could not be ignorant that it is a supposititious Book. Bellarmine in his Book of Ecclesiastical Writers, speaks thus of it, The Sermons of the Cardinal works of Christ (among which is this Treatise of the Lord's Supper) are of a learned and ancient Author, but seem not to be of Cyprian; for first the style is far lower then that of Cyprian, &c.

Cardinal Baronius, An. 60. The Book of the Cardinal works is not of Cyprian. The proofs of that are clear; for in the Preface to Cornelius, the Author saith, that he purposely suppressed his name, whence it appeareth, that the Author is unknown. He stiles Cornelius, Your sublimity: But Cyprian calls always Cornelius brother. In the Sermon of temptation and fasting, he saith, that the Devil fell before man's creation: which is repugnant to Cyprians opinion, in the Book of Zeal and Envy. Besides that Authors style is barbarous and Monachal. His elegancies are, animam Lazari potestative extraxerat. And partiabilis substantia Trinitatis. And Caloris identitas. Him that hath eaten Christ, he calls, Christi bajulum, as if he were a porter. This is of the same kind, Distributus non demembratur, incorporatus non injuriatur. By these it appears that the Book is new, and the title to Cornelius supposed. In the Preface of that Book two passages are found, taken well nigh word by word from the 42. Oration of Gregory Nazianzen, who writ about 125. years after Cyprians death: In the Treatise of Baptism he confuteth the opinion of Cyprian, about the rebaptization of Heretics. The treatise of the words of Christ on the Cross, is found in Bibliotheca Patrum, in the 2. Part of the 12. Tome, which contains the writings of Authors that lived many Ages after Cyprian: whence it is made evident, that these treatises of Cardinal Works are new, and of the dregs of the last Ages. To say that he lived in the same Age as Novatus, because he disputeth against Novatus (as the Cardinal saith) is speaking against common sense. By that reason if one in our days write against Aristotle, he is Aristotle's contemporanean: And Jerome who writ against Origen should be of the same age as Origen.

As for that the Cardinal saith, that the Fathers call that which we receive in the Eucharist the figure of Christ, because it appeareth so to the sense, it is taxing the Fathers either of fraud, or great negligence: For if in this point we must believe neither our senses nor our eyes, why do they speak according to the report of the eyes? Why do they not give us warning that our sight is deceived?

To say that they call the Sacrament a Figure, although the body of Christ be really there, to oppose it to the full participation which we shall have in heaven, is speaking against reason: For the inferior degrees are not figures of the superior; by that reason the lowest rounds of a ladder should be figures of the highest. Besides, the least Priest of the Roman Church (if he may be believed) participates the body of Christ more then all the Saints of Paradise. For there none of the Saints swalloweth Christ, none eats his flesh really; So it will be found that the wicked which participate the Sacrament, yea the Rats that carry the Host away, participate Christ's body more then those prime Romish Saints, Francis and Dominick.

Of the Efficient cause of the change made in the Bread, which Ambrose and the Suppositious book of the Lord's Supper attribute to the Almighty power of God, it was treated before when we spake of Ambrose.

CHAP. XV. Showing how the Fathers say, that the Fathers of the Old Testament ate the same meat which we eat in the Eucharist.

WHosoever saith, that the Fathers that lived before Christ's Birth, ate the same meat which we eat in the Eucharist, saith by consequence that we eat not the flesh of Christ with an Oral Manducation; for they could not really eat with their carnal mouth a body which was not yet. But they might eat him in Sacrament, as the signs are called by the name which they signify.

Such is the doctrine of the Apostle who affirmeth that the Fathers of the Old Testament were all baptized in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate of the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drunk of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.

That it is the Apostles mind to say that these Fathers drunk of the same drink, not only among themselves, but also with us, it appeareth by his declaring that the drink which they drunk was Christ, even the same Christ which we drink, and which we participate: of which participation he speaks soon after. The same appeareth because this text cannot be expounded otherwise without departing from the scope of the Apostle, which is to admonish us that we be no idolaters or fornicators, as some of the Israelites were in Moses his time, who although they had participated Christ in the Sacrament as well as we, were punished nevertheless when they fell into idolatry and fornication.

It is evident also, that the Apostle speaks not of manducation by faith, since he speaks of a manducation which all the Fathers participated, both good and evil, and among others those that were punished for their fornication and idolatry; but he calls Manna and the water flowing from the rock, spiritual meat and drink, because they had a spiritual signification, and because they were to be taken in a spiritual sense.

The old Christians, following the Apostles steps, say that the Fathers before Christ's coming ate the same meat, not only among them, but with us also.

So speaks Austin in the 45. Treatise upon John. The Apostle saith, they drunk the same spiritual drink, but not the same bodily drink. And what did they drink? they drunk of the spiritual rock that followed them; now that rock was Christ. See then how faith remaining, the signs are changed: there the rock was Christ, but to us that which is laid on God's altar, is Christ. And they, for a great Sacrament of the same Christ, drunk the water flowing out of the rock. But the believers know what it is that we drink. If you behold the visible form, it is another thing; If you regard the intelligible signification, they drunk the same spiritual drink. In all this passage it is plain, that Austin compareth not the Israelites among themselves, but with us; and affirmeth that they drunk the same drink as we do. He saith that they drunk indeed another bodily drink, for they drunk the water flowing from the rock, and we drink wine in the Eucharist. It is (saith he) the same faith or doctrine, but the signs are differing. He calls then that which is received in the Lord's Supper, signs of Christ. Note here especially that he joins these two things as like, that the stone in old time was Christ, but now that which is laid on the altar or table of the Lord, is Christ. As then the stone then was not Christ really, but in Sacrament; likewise that which now is set upon the altar is not Christ really, but in Sacrament or signification: Note also, that he saith, that the visible form is another then in old time. Now it is evident that he speaks of the species or form of bread, and of the species or form of wine in the singular, because by the word species he understands the substance of bread, which is one; not the accidents, which are many. When he saith that the signs of the Old Testament are changed into other signs, it is evident, that as by the signs of the Old Testament the substances of Manna and water are understood; So by the signs of the New Testament the substances of bread and wine are understood, and not the accidents and show of bread without bread, and the color and taste of wine without wine.

In vain the Cardinal answereth, that the Sacraments both Old and New, were one and the same thing in figure and signification, but not in truth and reality; For neither in the old nor in the new Sacraments was then or is now the truth and the reality. The truth contained in the Gospel opposed to the figures of the Law, is found in Christ and in his death, not in the bread and wine of the Sacrament. St. John teacheth us so much, John 19.36. where he alledgeth the prohibition made in the Law of breaking any bone of the Paschal Lamb. Of which figure he finds the fulfilling, not in the Lord's Supper, but in the Cross, in which the Soldiers forbore to break the arms and limbs of the Lord. And the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 5.7. saith that Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us, nor with any regard to the Lord's Supper, but speaking of the Lord's death and passion. And if Austin or any other of the Fathers puts the truth in the Sacraments of the New Testament, and the figure in the Sacraments of the Old; by that truth he understands not that Christ is really in the water of baptism, or in the elements of bread and wine, or that the water or the bread is transubstantiated into Christ; but by the truth he understands a more ample and effectual grace then that which was under the Law, as John speaks in the first Chapter, The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth by Jesus Christ. Upon this the words of the same Father, upon the 77. Psalm are very express, Their meat and drink was the same in mystery as ours, but the same in signification, not in kind. For the same Christ which was figured unto them in the rock, was manifested to us in the flesh. Where we clearly see the two foresaid things. The one, that he compareth not the Israelites among them, but with us, and that he declareth that the Fathers are the same meat as we eat. The other, that he placeth the fulfilling of the old Sacraments, not in that which is eaten with the mouth in the Eucharist, but in the incarnation and apparition of Christ.

The same Father in the book of the utility of Penitence, They ate the same spiritual meat. What is the same meat, but that which we also eat? And again, St. Paul saith the same meat. I find not how this word the same can be understood, but that meat which we also eat. And again, All that understood Christ in Manna, ate the same spiritual meat as we do.

There it is clear, that Austin saith not only that the Fathers ate the same meat as we in figure or Sacrament, but also that they ate by faith the same thing signified. For he addeth, They drunk the same drink as we do, but spiritual, which was taken by faith, but was not swallowed by the body.

The Cardinals answer is that which he useth upon all occasions, and his general plaster for all sores; he saith that some unbaptized persons were present, before whom Austin durst not speak according to his belief. A shift which we have shown to be not only vain, but injurious against the Fathers. Besides, when Austin writ this, he writ alone and without witnesses. And if he was afraid that the Catechumens should read his book, he might have had the same fear in all his book, and so never have written according to his belief. The Cardinal addeth, that Austin compareth the Sacraments of the Christian Church with those of the Jewish in the instructive and doctrinal function, not in the operative and exhibitive; meaning that they figured the same thing, but had not the same virtue. In these dark terms, in effect he saith nothing; For though that which he saith be granted, that which I affirm remaineth; that Austin's assertion is, that the Fathers ate the same meat as we do, not only in figure, but also really by faith. It matters not if there was some difference in the efficacy, or in the manner of the operation. Thus in all that he addeth upon that testimony of Austin, he defends himself where we assault him not.

Neither must he tell us, that this manner of eating Christ by faith is a Metaphor, and a Metaphorical expression. For although there be a Metaphor in the word