The Novelty of Popery Opposed to the Antiquity of True Christianity

CHAP. XVI. That the Fathers believed not that the body of Christ is really present under the element of Bread, but that he is in heaven only, not in earth.

WE have shown by a multitude of allegations of the Fathers, that they speak of three sorts of the body of Christ; His natural body, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and crucified for us; his mystical body, which is the Church; and his Sacramental body, which is made by the mouth of Priests, which is broken in pieces, which feeds our bodies, which is made up of many grains, which is the Sacrament of the natural body of Christ, in which God's virtue is working, so that by participating the Sacrament with faith, Christ dwelleth in us, and we in him. Of the presence of that body in the Eucharist none doubteth, and the Fathers speak of it often.

But as for the Lord's natural body, as the Fathers teach, that we do not eat it with our mouth, and that the wicked cannot eat it; so they hold that it is in heaven, not in earth; and that being ascended to heaven, he will return to us no more, but on the day of judgment; and that the way to take him, is not to lay hold on him with our hand, or to receive him into our mouth, but apprehend him by faith.

Austin in the 50. Treatise upon John The Lord said, You shall have always the poor with you, but me you shall not have always. Let the godly understand this, and not be troubled, for he spake of the presence of his body. For according to his Majesty, according to his providence, according to his unspeakable and invisible grace, is fulfilled that which he said, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. But according to the flesh, which the Word hath assumed, according as he was born from the Virgin, according as he was taken by the Jews, &c. he saith, Me you have not always with you.

In the same Treatise, he speaks thus to them that ask how they may take and hold Christ: They answer, Whom shall I hold? Him that is absent? How shall I put my hand in heaven, that I may hold him that sits there? Send up thy faith thither, and thou hast laid hold of him. Thy Fathers held him in the flesh, but thou holdst him with thy heart. He hath carried up his body into heaven, but he hath not removed his Majesty from the world. And in the same place, We have Christ always according to the presence of his Majesty; but according to the presence of his flesh, it was well said to his Disciples, Me you have not always.

And in the first Treatise upon the first Epistle of John, We can no more hold him with our hand now that he is sitting in heaven; but we may touch him with our Faith.

This Father by the Cardinals Doctrine was not well taught; for to them that are in the Church, and ask, How shall I take Christ? Must I stretch my hand as far as heaven, where he is, seeing that he is no more on earth? A Romish Doctor would answer, What needest thou to go seek him so far, seeing that he is near thee, on the altar, and in the Priests hands? Instead of that, Austin answereth, Lay hold on Christ by faith, receive him in thy heart, and imagine not that thou canst lay hold on him with thy hand. No other way doth he give, as indeed there is no other way. Austin was not content to have said that Christ is with us no more, and is no more present with us, as for his natural body, but he added besides, that to hold him we must not stretch our hand, but take hold on him by faith at the right hand of God. It seems that by saying, We can hold him no more with our hand, he speaks to the Priests of the Roman Church, who boast that they have Christ in their hand every day: So that if one may believe them, they make the body of Christ, and have him in their power.

The same in the 57. Epistle to Dardanus speaks thus. According to this form [of manhood] we must not think that Christ is diffused everywhere; for great heed must be taken that we do not so establish the Godhead of this man, as to abolish the truth of his flesh. It followeth not that anything that is in God is everywhere, as God is everywhere.

About this matter the 11th. ch. of the 20th. Book against Faustus Manichean is implied: Where disputing against Faustus, who put Christ's body in infinite places at the same time; he saith that Christ according to his spiritual presence could not suffer these things [that is, to be crucified:] But that according to his corporal presence he could not be at the same time in the Sun, and in the Moon, and in the Cross.

And in the 78. Treatise upon John The Lord Jesus said, I go and return to you again, but he did not depart as God from those whom he left as man. The same Christ is both God and man. Then he went as he was man, and remained as he was God. He went in as much as he was in one place, but he stayed in as much as he is everywhere, that is, in his Godhead. How doth this agree with the Roman Church? Austin saith, that Christ ascending to heaven went from us as man, but the Roman Church saith, that he staid with us as man, and according to his human nature; yea that Christ as man is far more present with us then he was in the time of his living among men; for then he was present but in one place, but now they make him present in an hundred millions of places, in altars, in boxes, in stomachs, yea (if it happens) in the bellies of Mice. Austin saith, that Christ as man is but in one place: Whereas the Roman Church puts him in many millions of places in the same moment. It is very observable, that if Austin had believed transubstantiation, he would not have said that Christ is gone and retired from us as for his human nature, but remaineth present as for the Divine; but he would have said that he ceased indeed to be present with a visible presence, but that his body remaineth invisibly present. This good Doctor did not know and never spake of any other way whereby God supplieth the want of the visible and bodily presence of Christ, but the presence of his Godhead. Besides it is an extravagant nonsense, to say that the body of Christ is gone, but that it remained invisibly present. As if one said that Philip is gone out of Paris, but that he is in Paris still invisibly present; because, though he be gone, he lieth hid in Paris; Or that he hath no soul, because his soul is invisible.

The same Father in the 30. Treatise upon John, The Lord is above, but also the Lord who is the truth is here below. For the body of Christ, in which he rose again from the dead, must be in one place only, but his truth is diffused everywhere. I have translated uno loco, one place only, as the French Bibles of our Adversaries translate Unus Dominus, una fides, unum Baptisma, unus Deus, Eph 4.5. & unius uxoris virum, 1 Tim. 3.2. thus, There is but one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism: And the Bishop must be the husband of one wife only. For also the word unus in Latin imports unity; and the opposition which Austin makes requires it, That the truth of the Lord is everywhere, but his body is in one place only.

The corruptors of the new Editions, have wickedly falsified this place. For instead of corpus Domini in uno loco esse oportet, that the body of the Lord must be in one place only, they have put in uno loco esse potest, it may be in one place. But all the old Editions have oportet. And that text is thus alleged by Gratian in the 2. Distinction of the Consecration in the Canon Prima. And by Yuo Carnutensis in the second part of his Decree, 18. ch. And by Lombard in the 4. Book of the Sentences 10. Dist. A. And by Thomas in the 3. part of the Sum qu. 75. Art. 1. But though all the Copies and Editions had potest, yet reason and the sense of the sentence show that it must be read oportet: For it is altogether unreasonable to say that Christ's body can be in one place. As if one said, that the Sun may be in some place; Possibility is not mentioned, where there is necessity. If in this clause you read that the Lord's body may be in one place, you must read in the following clause, but his truth may be diffused everywhere, to keep the Laws of the opposition. The same Text is suspect of another falsification; for instead of veritas, it is like there should be virtus.

The same Austin in the 60. Sermon de Verbis Domini, Christ is always with us in his Godhead; but had he not gone away bodily from us, we should always see him carnally, and should never believe him spiritually. No doubt but that our Adversaries reading this, could with all their heart fall out with Austin. For he saith, that if Christ's body were not gone, we should see him always. Whereas the Church of Rome saith, that Christ went from us bodily, and yet that he stayed behind bodily, but that we see him not.

In the 140. Sermon de Tempore, The Lord absented himself in body from all the Church, and ascended into heaven, that thy faith might be edified. I would know whether when one hath the body of Christ really in his mouth▪ or in his stomach, it may be said without lying, or without jesting, that Christ hath absented himself from him. For by the same reason one might say, that the brains or liver of Philip is absent from him, or remote from him, because he doth not see it, and because the inward parts of his body are invisible to him. He had said a little before, The fraction of bread comforteth thee: The absence of the Lord is not absent: Have faith, and he whom thou seest not is with thee. Showing that he is not with them that have not faith.

Cyrillus of Alexandria in the 9th. book upon John speaks to the same purpose. The faithful people must believe, though he be absent in body from us, that yet all things, and ourselves are governed by his virtue. And in the 11. Book 3. ch. Though he be absent in body, appearing for us before his Father, and sitting at his right hand, he dwells nevertheless in his Saints by his Spirit.

This Father here followeth the command of Christ himself, who in the 14. and 15. of John having foretold his Apostles that he would shortly go from them, and leave them, to go to his Father, giveth them not that comfort that he would go away only as for his visible presence, but that he would remain invisibly present under the element of bread. Only he promiseth to send them the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, to supply his absence.

The Eutychians who forged unto Christ a body that was everywhere, gave occasion to the Fathers of the 5. Age to maintain that the body of Christ is no more on earth, and that he is nowhere present, but in one place only, where he is sitting at the right hand of God. Vigilius writ five Books against Eutyches in which he insisteth much upon that. In the 1. Book he speaks thus, The son of God according to his manhood departed from us, but according to his Godhead he tells us, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Had the Fathers believed the real presence under the elements of bread and wine, the Eutychians might have stopped their mouth, saying, that Christ even according to his manhood is always with us, unto the end of the world, since he is always bodily present under the accidents of bread.

Vigilius addeth, According to the form of servant which he carried from among us into heaven, he is absent from us. According to the form of God which retireth not from us, he is present unto us in earth. But his words are express, especially in the 4. Book. If the Word and the Flesh have but one nature (as the Eutychians say) how comes it to pass that the Word being everywhere, his flesh also is not found everywhere? For when it was on earth it was not in heaven; And now because it is in heaven it is not on earth.

To say that Vigilius understands that the flesh of Christ is no more in earth visibly, but invisibly, is to make Vigilius an Eutychian; for such was the belief of the Eutychians, against whom he disputeth. Besides, Vigilius saying, that when the flesh of Christ was on earth, it was not in heaven, understands that it was neither visibly nor invisibly in heaven. Whence it followeth, that when he saith, that being now in heaven, it is no more on earth, he understands also that it is neither visibly or invisibly in earth anymore.

For the question between Vigilius and the Eutychians was not of the visibility, but of the real presence, which the Entychians affirmed, and against which Vigilius disputeth with all his might.

CHAP. XVII. That the Fathers acknowledge the same participation of the body and blood of the Lord in Baptism, and in the preaching of the Word, as in the Lord's Supper.

THe ancient Doctors show enough how far they were from believing a real manducation of the natural body of Christ with the mouth, in that they acknowledge the same manducation and participation of the Lord's body in Baptism and in the preaching of the Word, as in the Lord's Supper.

Thus Austin, None must make any doubt that then every believer is made participant of the body and blood of the Lord, when he is made a member of Christ by Baptism. And that he is not alienated from the communion of that bread and that cup, although before he eat that bread and drink that cup, he go out of this world, being in the unity of the body of Christ. This same passage is found in Fulgentius towards the end of the Book concerning the Baptism of the Ethiopian dying.

Jerome to Hedibia in the 2. question. All we that are baptized in Christ, put on Christ, and eat the bread of Angels.

Theodoret upon Eph. 5. By Baptism we are buried with Christ, and rise again with him, and eat his body, and drink his blood.

Chrysostom in the 16th. Homily upon the Epistle to the Hebrews: Water and blood show here the same thing; for his Baptism is his passion.

We heard before Leo the 1. in the 14. Sermon, saying, that in Baptism, corpus regenerati fit caro crucifixi, The body of the baptized person becomes the flesh of [Christ] crucified.

Of the Word, Jerome speaks thus upon Eccles. 3. This only good we have in this present world, if we eat his bread, and drink his blood, not only in the Sacrament, but also in the reading of Scripture: For the true meat, and the true drink which is taken, from the word of God, is the Science of the Scriptures.

The same upon the 144. Psalm, if that Book be his, When the Lord saith, He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, although it may be also understood in mystery; yet to speak more truly, the body of Christ, and his blood, is the word of the Scriptures, and the divine doctrine.

And a little after, When we hear the word of God; and the word of God, and the flesh of Christ, and his blood is poured into our ears, &c.

Clemens Alexandrinus in the 1. Book of the Pedagogue 6. ch. by the flesh of the Lord, which we eat, understands Faith, and the promises of the Gospel, saying, That the Lord hath represented by Allegory the evidence of faith, and the drink of the Gospel.

Origen in the 16th. Homily upon Numbers. We are said to drink the blood, not only in the Ceremony of the Sacraments, but also when we receive his words.

As Ambrose in the Book of those that are initiated in mysteries, brings examples of miracles to show how the bread is made the body of Christ; he brings some also to prove the change, which happens in the water of Baptism. As Moses (saith he) cast wood into that fountain, so the Priest casts into this fountain [of Baptism] the preaching of the Cross of the Lord, and the water is made sweet for grace.

These considerations moved Cardinal Tolet to say in his Comment upon Joh. 6. that Infants in Baptism participate in some sort the body of Christ, to wit, according to the thing signified, and they may be said to eat the flesh of Christ, and to drink his blood.

If then the Fathers find in Baptism, and in the preaching of the word the fulfilling of these words, that he that eats the flesh of Christ hath eternal life, where nevertheless no transubstantion is made; why shall we not say also, that in the Lord's Supper we eat the flesh of Christ without any transubstantiation of the bread?

CHAP. XVIII. After what manner the Christian Church of the first Ages celebrated the Lord's Supper. How the ancient customs show evidently, that they believed not the real presence, nor transubstantiation.

IT will conduce much to the clearing of this matter, to view the ancient customs, and the form of administering the Lord's Supper in the ancient Church; for thereby we shall see how far the Roman Church is gone from the ancient customs. And of these customs the most part will serve for proofs of the belief of the ancient Christians upon this controversy.

In Sacred places where the people met for the preaching of the word, and for the administration of Sacraments, there was a wooden Table in the midst, which was moveable, and might be removed. They called it a Table in the first Ages: But by little and little the custom crept in to call it an Altar.

In every Temple or Church there was but one Table or Altar; for then so many little Altars were not seen in several corners of the Church. Tha • custom of having many altars in a Temple was set up when they began to sing private Masses, that is solitary Masses, without either communicants or assistants.

Upon that Table before they began the celebration of the Eucharist, the Deacons brought the offerings of the people, that is, bread and wine, and sometimes divers fruits; Which offerings they called gifts, and presents, and sacrifices. And the Pastor of the Church prayed in a tongue understood by all, that God would accept of these gifts and offerings.

Of those offerings of bread and wine, the Pastor, and the Deacons that assisted him, set a part as much as needed for all the brethren present to communicate with the two kinds. For then round Hosts, and those thin wafers, baked between two Irons, and stamped with a Crucifix, were not in fashion. But they had ordinary bread and wine upon the Table, as much as would serve for that holy action. The remnant of the offerings which were not used in the holy Communion, was kept for the Agapes, or Love-Feasts, and for the subvention of the poor.

That bread and wine being thus laid upon the Table, were covered with a cloth. And in many Churches there was a double curtain spread before the Table, which hindered the people from seeing that which was set upon the sacred Table. Of which the consecration was made by prayer, not by speaking to the bread. And that prayer, as also the whole service, was done in a tongue which the people understood.

But when the hour of admitting the people to the Communion was come, the Deacon cried with a loud voice, that the Catechumens and Penitents, and all that did not communicate, should go forth. So there remained none but the Communicants: then they drew the curtains, and took off the linen cloth, and the Sacred signs were uncovered and exposed to the people's sight.

In some places the Bishop taking with both his hands the dish where the Sacred signs were, lifted it up a little to make it seen better; And did all this with his face turned towards the people. For then they spake not of lifting up God, and elevating the Host. The manner of these days for the Priest to turn his back unto the people, and lift up the Host above his head, and at the ringing of a little Bell to make the people adore that Host with the Sovereign Service due unto God alone; All this I say would have been found strange and prodigious by the Ancients, and no trace of it is found in Antiquity.

That being done, the Communicants gave the kiss of peace among themselves, and kissed one another in sign of concord. The Priest washed his hands, and cried out, Sancta Sanctis, that is, Holy things for holy persons. After that the Clergy and the people went to the Communion. In some Churches the Deacons brought the holy Communion in the two kinds to everyone in his place, and presenting the holy Sacrament to each Communicant, said in a known tongue, Lift up your hearts, and the Communicants answered, We have them unto the Lord.

The Communicants both men and women received with their hand the Sacrament, and with their hand put it in their mouth. Some men and women wrapped it in a handkerchief, and carried it to their homes, and laid it up in some chest or cupboard. But as scruples will multiply, and every Age brings always some new thing; in the seventh Age it was permitted to men only to take the Sacrament with their bare hand, but women took it with a white linen over their hands.

From the Table in the time of the Communion, the Sacrament was sent to the absent, sick, and prisoners, and such as could not come to the Congregation. And many times it was carried to them by some widow, or some little boy.

Satyrus brother to Ambrose, being in danger of Shipwrack, demanded the holy Sacrament, although he was not yet baptized. Which having taken he ate it not, but hanged it at his neck, and threw himself into the Sea to swim for his life.

But because commonly there was more consecrated bread upon the Table then needed for all the Communicants, the remnant of that bread, which was called the hody of Christ, was burnt, or given to little School boys to eat it, or was carried to the Priests house to eat it at home.

They made then a great scruple of conscience to let any part of the consecrated bread to fall to the ground, but the cautelae Missae were not yet extant, whereby a Priest vomiting the Host is commanded to eat it up again, unless he can find one to do so much for him; or to burn that vomiting, and put the ashes among the relics. Or if it happen that the chalice be spilled on the floor, these cautelae Missae command that the floor be scraped, and that the scraping be mingled with other consecrated wine, or put among the relics.

In old time, when the Sacrament fell to the ground, or if it happened to be stolen away, the Christians were not so stupid as to say that God was fallen, or that Christ was stolen.

Of God's Feast, and of carrying God in procession, there was no speech then; nor of kneeling in the street when the Host past by, nor of worshipping the Priests box with no Host in, when the Priest returns from giving the Sacrament to a sick person.

Of high and low Masses, or running, or dry, or private Masses; of Masses in white, in green, and in violet; Masses of St. Antony, or Masses of the holy Ghost, there was no speech in those days.

That old form of administering the holy Communion was very different from the Mass of our days, as much as singing Mass differs from celebrating the Lord's Supper. So much doth the belief of the Modern Roman Church differ from that of the ancient Church. And most part of the customs which I have represented, are so many proofs, that then they belived neither real presence, nor transubstantiation.

For had the Ancients believed that the Sacrament is really the body of Christ, they would never have put it in the hands of the people, there being always divers among the multitude, whose bodies and consciences are foully defiled, and many Hypocrites. They would never have suffered that a woman should take Christ's body in her hand, lap it up in a handkerchief, and thrusting it into her pocket, or some other place about her, carry it home, and shut it up in a Trunk or Drawer. Had such a thing been done in a place where the Pope reigneth absolutely, no pain could be found severe enough for the persons guilty of such an horrible profanation. They would say that this was the Prodigy foretold by the last Comet: Or if after that a ranging plague, or famine consumed the people of the Land, those disasters would be taken for expiations of such an abominable crime.

If the ancient Church had believed Transubstantiation, they would never have given the consecrated bread to unbaptized persons; Neither would they have suffered an unbaptized man to hang it at his neck, and cast it with himself into the Sea. Much less would they have burnt Christ, or given the Lord's body to a company of boys coming from School, who commonly have more waggery then devotion. Cyprian relates, that a little Girle carried in the arms, vomited the Chalice which a Deacon had poured into her mouth: for then they received Infants to the communion: That wine spilled was not taken up again; and the chalice had never been exposed to that danger, if the Church had believed that it was the true body of Christ. That example also showeth, that the Deacons carried to everyone the Sacrament.

When the Eucharist was carried to them that were absent, the people that saw it carried by, would have worshipped it, had they believed that it was Christ's body. And how could the people have worshipped it in the street, since they did not worship it in the Church?

Observe also how the custom is changed. In old time the sight of the Sacrament was forbidden to the Catechumens and Penitents; whereas now the Host is carried in procession through the streets in the sight of Pagans, Jews and Turks, if there be any present, and of public harlots; and with all these sorts of people Rome, Venice, Milan, &c. do abound.

For the proof of all this, I will bestow the following chapter.

CHAP. XIX. Proofs of the customs represented in the Chapter before.

I Said that in the first ages the sacred table was commonly made of wood. This we learn of Athanasius, who complaineth that the Arians his enemies, had burnt before the Church-porch the seats, the chair, and the table which was of wood, and the vails of the great Church of Alexandria.

Austin in the 50. Epistle makes the like complaint of the Donatists. By the way, these vails wherewith the Churches were hung, were white linen: whence it is evident, that then they had no Images in Churches. Of which custom a trace remains in the Roman Church in Lent, for then Images are hid with white linen.

Optatus Milevitanus in the beginning of the first book against Parmenian. Which of the faithful ones knows not that in the celebration of the mysteries the very wood is covered with linen? In the celebration of the Sacraments the Tablecloth might be touched, not the wood. There also he speaks of removing the Altars from their place. The book of questions of the Old and New Testament ascribed to Austin, saith it was the Deacons office to carry the Altar.

It is true, that even in the time of Constantine the Great, under whom the Christians began to build magnificent Temples, in some principal Churches they began to erect Altars of stone.

There was then but one Altar in every Temple, not a multitude of petty Altars in several corners of the Church, as it is seen now among the Romanists. Ignatius in the Epistle to the Philadelphians, The whole Church hath but one Altar. Jerome upon the third of Amos, Not the only Altar which the Church hath, but the Altars of the heretics which are many. And Chrysostom in the 18. Homily upon the 2. Epistle to the Corinthians, There is one only Baptism, and one only Table. Alvarez in the Ethiopic history ch. 3. saith that the Ethiopic Churches have but one Altar. That custom of having many Altars hath a relish of Paganism. Virgil speaking of the Goddess Venus, saith that

Prudentius in the first book against Symmachus obraideth the Pagans, that in their Temples every god had his little Altar before him. And God obraideth the Israelites with the like Idolatry, Hos. 8.11. saying, that Israel had made many Altars to sin.

Upon the Sacred Table the Deacons brought not a round Host, but a quantity of bread and wine, as much as would serve all the assistants to communicate under the two kinds. For that there is an ancient order of the Roman Church attributed to Clement the first in these words, Let so many sacrifices be presented upon the Altar as may suffice the people. Let not the remnant be kept for the morrow, but with the fear and care of the Clerks let it be consumed, that is eaten. For although these Decretals be supposititious, yet they show, that when they were forged, the round Wafers and the Masses where the Priest alone receiveth, were not yet in fashion. Also the custom of burning the remnant of the Lord's body, or giving it to little school-boys to eat, of which we shall speak hereafter, is a very clear proof that there was a quantity of bread upon the Table, some part whereof always remained after all the people had communicated. I have seen the representations of the Eucharist set out by the Jesuit Richeome, where Christ is pictured sitting at the Table with his Disciples, everyone having his round Wafer upon his Trencher. There wanted no more but a Crucifix stamped upon these Hosts.

For the linen clothes we have produced the testimony of Optatus. And as for the double curtains spread before the table, which were drawn at the hour of the Communion, Chrysostom in the third Homily upon the Epistle to the Ephesians speaks thus of them, When thou seest the double curtains drawn, think that heaven opens itself.

Of the custom of giving the Sacred bread in every Communicants hand, we have proofs without number. Cyprian in the Sermon de Lapsis, Returning from the Altars of Devils, they come unto the Holy of the Lord, with their hands defiled and infected, &c. they lay hold on the Lord's body. Eusebius He had stretched forth his hands to apprehend this holy food. Ambrose rebuking the Emperor Theodosius for the massacre committed at Thessalonica, said to him, How shalt thou stretch thy hands yet stilling with the blood of that unjust murder? How shalt thou with such hands receive the Lord's Sacred body? And not only men, but also women received the Sacrament with their hand, some put it up in a linen cloth, and carried it home.

Cyprian in the Treatise of the Tombs, sect. 21. speaks of a woman that had carried home the bread of the Eucharist, and had shut it up in a Trunk. We alleged before the example of Gorgonia, of whom her brother Gregory Nazianzen saith, that she would lay up some part of the signs of the venerable body and blood of the Lord, and mingle it with her tears.

And Jerome, or rather Pelagius upon 1 Cor. 11. will have good care taken that the linen where the Sacrament is put up, be not soul, &c. Yea Basil in the Epistle to Cesaria Patritia speaks thus, One may in case of necessity, in time of persecution, there being neither Priest nor Minister present, take the Communion with his own hand. It is superfluous to show that there is no inconvenience in it, seeing that long custom hath approved it by effect. And he addeth, that in Alexandria and Egypt every Lay-man hath very often the Communion in his own house, and takes of it himself when he listeth. M. du Perron proveth by Jerome, that the Romans took the Communion in their houses when they thought good. In the sixth Universal Council assembled again in the Palace of Constantinople, there is an express Canon (the 102.) forbidding to receive the Eucharist in a vessel, and enjoining that it be received with the hand.

As for sending the Sacrament to an absent person by a boy or by a woman, we have seen before how Eusebius in the sixth book of his history, ch. 38. relates that Seraphion being on his death-bed desired the Eucharist, and that the Priest sent it him by a little boy. Ambrose in the book of widows, tells us, that in his time widows were employed to carry the Sacrament of Christ's body, saying, She (meaning the widow) must be without the allurements of divers pleasures, that she may minister the body and blood of Christ.

Now as scruples will grow, and with the decay of piety, gestures and outward observations will increase, in the sixth and seventh age, the custom was introduced that men should receive the Sacrament with their bare hand, but the women with a linen cloth over their hand, for fear of touching the Sacrament. The 42. Canon of the Council of Auxerre held in the year 590. hath these words, Unaquaeque mulier quando communicate, suum Dominicale habeat. Let every woman when she communicates have her Dominical. Maximus of Constantinople, who writ about the year 650. hath these words, Let all men that will communicate, wash their hands first, that with a pure spirit and a clean conscience they may receive Christ's Sacraments. Likewise let women present clean linen, where they may receive the body of Christ with a pure mind and a clean conscience.

As for the remnant of the Sacrament, the customs were diverse. Hesychius in the second book upon Leviticus ch. 8. hath these words, Moses commandeth that the remnant of flesh and bread be burnt in the fire, Which also we see now sensibly done in the Church, and that all things which remain not consumed (that is, not eaten) are cast into the fire.

This custom of the Latin Church was altered, when the Priests began to reserve the Sacrament. For then it was constituted that the Sacrament should not be burnt, but when it began to grow mouldy. Yuo 's Decree alledgeth the fifth Canon of the Council of Arles, constituting, that every sacrifice spoiled with foul old age be burnt in the fire, and the ashes buried by the Altar. And Burchards Decree alledgeth the fourth Canon of a Council of Orleans, Let the oblations which are offered upon the Altar be always renewed from one Saturday to another (for the show-bread which was set upon the Lord's table, was changed from one Saturday to another, lest that being long kept they should grow mouldy) And as it is the opinion of some, they ought to be burnt with fire.

Out of all these it appears how far they were from believing Transubstantiation. For it would have been a profane mad part to have cast the natural body of Christ into the fire. Let our adversaries tell us, what the Fathers of that Council of Arles understood by mouldy sacrifices. Can one say without blasphemy, that Christ's body is mouldy? No more can it be said, that by mouldy sacrifices, the accidents of bread are understood, for these accidents are not the Sacrifice; and length, whiteness and roundness are things which grow not mouldy.

Other Churches had other customs. That of Constantinople of giving the remnant of the Communion bread to little School-boys, we see in Evagrius in the fourth book of his History, ch. 36. The whole Greek text we brought in before. They would not have done so, if they had believed it to be Christ's natural body.

In Balsamon there is a constitution of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria, which showeth, that in Egypt they had another custom. For it enjoins, that the remnant of the Sacrifices be eaten by the Clerks and other faithful brethren that were not Catechumens. The like is found in Clements Constitutions. After all have communicated, let the Deacons take the residue and carry it to the Pastophores, that is, to the houses of the Court about the Church where the Priests dwelt.

All these customs show three things evidently. The one, that the old Christians did not put around wafer upon the table, but a quantity of bread and wine for the whole assembly to communicate. The second, that they believed not then that the Sacrament was the natural body of Christ, for they would not have burnt it, or given it to little boys; and it would have been against common sense to speak of pieces and residue of the body of Christ. The third, that they did not reserve the Sacrament, since it was a constitution, that the remnant of the consecrated bread should be eaten: And this was practiced even in the Apostles time, as Jerome or Pelagius testify (which of the two is doubted) upon 1 Cor. 11. After the Communion (saith he) they that are the Supper together in the Church, made an end together there of that which remained of the Sacrifices. There Jerome speaks of the custom of the Corinthians, whom the Apostle rebuketh, not for the abuse which they committed in the Agapes as the Cardinal holds, but for the profanation of the Lord's Supper. For St. Paul tells them, This is not to eat the Lord's Supper, declaring that by their abuse of the Lord's Supper they corrupted and altered the nature of the same.

Besides the customs here represented of eating or burning the residue of the Sacrament, we have seen before the Constitution, which our adversaries attribute unto Clement the first, that so many Sacrifices be laid upon the Altar as are needful to suffice the people, and that the residue be not kept till the next day. To which add Origen's testimony in his fifth Homily upon Leviticus, The Lord did not put off his Disciples to eat afterwards the bread which he gave them, neither did he command that it should be kept for the next day. Which Gabriel Biel freely acknowledgeth in the 36. Lesson upon the Canon of the Mass, saying, Christ gave not this Sacrament to his Disciples to keep it honourably in store, but to put it in use, saying, Take eat.

In vain the Cardinal brings many authorities of the Fathers which approve the reservation of the Sacrament for the time to come. For those places speak of the reservation which private persons made of the bread they had received in the Church, not of the reservation made by Bishops and Priests of the residue of the sacred bread after the Communion. And though it were otherwise, the customs of some private persons ought not to be balanced against public Constitutions.

Something also must be said of the uncovering and elevation of the Sacrament. In the ancient Church the bread and wine laid upon the table were covered with a linen cloth until the hour of the Communion: then they took off the linen to show the Sacrament unto the people. This Basil calls the demonstration or exhibition, saying, Which of the Saints have left us in writing the words of the Invocation, when the bread of the Eucharist is shown? For M. du Perron shall not persuade us that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in this place signifieth consecration. So there should be a vain repetition in these words. For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 invocatio, signifieth the consecration. The Cardinal then makes Basil to say, Which of the Saints have left us in writing the words of the consecration when the bread is consecrated? Pachymetes who hath commented upon Dionysius, whom they say to be the Areopagite, speaks thus, After prayers the holy gifts are uncovered which had remained covered until the time of the participation. This is that which Dionysius, whom he expoundeth, calls 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , bring to evidence.

As for the elevation, as Christ made no elevation of the sacred bread and wine, so we find not in the ancient Church that ever the Priest lift up a wafer over his head (which is that they call lifting up God) to make the people worship it. Only I find that in the sixth age the Bishop or Priest taking the dish, where the sacred bread was, with both his hands did raise it a little from the table, to let the people see it better. Anastasius Sinaita who writ in the year 550. (if the books be his which bear his name) saith that after he hath sanctified that dread sacrifice, he lift up the bread of life and shown it unto all. Yet that elevation was of the bread only, not of the chalice. As it may be gathered out of German Patriarch of Constantinople in the contemplation of Ecclesiastical things. The elevation (saith he) of the venerable body represents the elevation in the Cross and resurrection itself. And that the divine bread alone is lifted up, showeth that he is the King and Lord, and himself is the head according to the Apostle. This passage is alleged and set down in Greek in the Cardinals margent, but he falsifieth it in the interpretation, translating 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the elevation on high, adding these words on high, which are not in the Greek, to make the Reader believe that the elevation was done very high, and above the Priests head. This fraud appears evidently in that in the same line there is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the elevation in Cross, where the Cardinal translates the elevation, without on high: but he commits a greater falsification in translating 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to elevate the bread alone a part, which words a part are his own, and are not in the Greek.

In the Liturgies falsely attributed to S. James and to S. Chrysostom, mention is made of the elevation of the gift. But besides that these Liturgies are false and sowed up with diverse pieces made in several ages, it is certain, that the elevation mentioned in these Liturgies, is not that of the wafer above the Priests head while the Priest turns his back to the people, but the elevation of the dish where the bread was, which the Bishop or the Priest made with his face turned towards the people.

Cardinal du Perron having found nothing in all the ancient Church until the time of the fourth Universal Council, brings these Liturgies, and some new obscure Authors, as one Nicolaus Pectoratus, and a piece of a Liturgy, whose words he produceth, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and expounds them thus, for he elevates not then the holy bread. He was so raw in Greek that he esteemed that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signified then, whereas it signifieth altogether, or wholly. Sometimes 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifieth lately but very seldom, and that signification hath nothing common with the sense of, this place.

Francis Alvarez a Portughez Monk, who lived six years in Ethiopia and Damian Goes, upon the relation of an Ethiopian Ambassador, say that the Ethiopian Churches make no elevation of the Host. I will relate the very words of Alvarez in the third chapter of his Ethiopian History. Having said, that in the Mass or Liturgy of the Ethiopians, they make a great cake of fine flower, and that the loaf is somewhat big and substantial because all communicate. Also that all communicate in the two kinds; He addeth, The Priest uncovereth the cake which he held covered like a Sacrament; Then he takes it in his hands, and lifting up his right hand leaveth it upon the left, printing upon it with his thumb five or six marks; One above, another in the midst, the third at the foot (so he speaks) the others on the sides. Then he consecrates in his language, after our manner, in proper sense, and with the same propriety of words; only he doth not elevate the Sacrament. He saith also, that after that the Priest hath taken the Sacrament of the blood, the Deacon doth administer it in spoons. That another Priest giveth water to drink, to them that have participated the cup, who wash their mouth with it and then swallow it; And that the Priest drinks a draught of water after he hath celebrated the Mass; for that Monk calls that Mass, although the Ethiopians call it otherwise. He adds that the Office of the Mass is very short, and that it is hardly begun, but it is ended presently after. For these Churches have not the Introits, nor the Graduals; Only they read the institution of the Sacrament set down in the Gospel, adding to it a little singing and some blessings.

Out of all this it appears how far the Abyssine Church (that contains seventeen great Provinces which are so many Kingdoms) differs from the belief of the Roman Church. There they make no elevation, and by consequent no adoration. There every Communicant participates the two kinds. There the Service is in a known tongue. And the water, which the Priest and the Communicants drink after the Service is done, showeth that they believe not Transubstantiation. This mingling of water with the body and blood of Christ newly taken (to speak after the style and belief of the Romanifts) would be held an unwarrantable mixture. Neither do they speak of the Pope in that Country, nor of obedience to the Roman Church. Neither can one say that they have shaken off the yoke of the Pope: for they never were subject to him. Neither did ever the Pope complain, that they had departed from his obedience, or ever laid any claim of domination over them, although these Churches have subsisted now aboe a thousand years.

CHAP. XX. Of the adoration of the Sacrament: weakness of the Cardinals proofs: how he falsifieth Scripture. Examination of his allegations.

THE form after which the Lord Jesus celebrated his holy Supper among his Disciples, showeth evidently, that the Apostles did not worship the Sacrament; for they were sitting [or rather leaning] at the table, and did not rise from the table till the whole action of the Sacrament was done. For in all the narratives of the institution of the Sacrament, there is no command for worshipping the Sacrament, nor any trace of adoration, no more then of that elevation whereby the people is invited to worship.

The Cardinal answereth, that one may adore sitting; That the Virgin Mary holding Christ in her bosom, did nevertheless worship him. That Numa had commanded that adoration should be performed sitting. That Pibrac said in his Moral verses, Adore sitting as the Grecian prescribes.

To this I answer, that if the Virgin Mary holding the Lord Jesus in her bosom, adored him, she did it with her heart and thought, not with the gesture of her body, or with an outward adoration, the adoration which is here in question. For in the sacrifices they were bound to prostrate their bodies; how much more then in a sacrifice where the body of the eternal Son of God was sacrificed? That which he saith of Numa and Pibrac, is a boyish conceit; For the Apostles were Jews, and were not ruled by Numa 's Constitutions, nor by Pibrac 's moral verses. Their custom in the adoration was to kneel down, yea many times to prostrate their whole body.

The Cardinal makes a doubt whether the Apostles received the Eucharist sitting. For (saith he) the gesture and posture of the Communicants is not expressed; as likewise it is not expressed whether they stood up to eat the Passover according to the institution of the Law. Had this Prelat read attentively the text of the Gospel, he would not have doubted of a thing so clearly expressed in it. For in the 13. ch. of S. Johns Gospel, ver. 4. it is said, that Jesus arose from Supper to wash his Apostles feet; and after he had washed their feet, we read in verse 12. that he sat down again. In the same chapter S: John speaks of a Disciple, which is S. John himself, who sitting at the table, was in the bosom of Jesus, that is, he laid his head on his lap, which he could not have done if Jesus had stood up. The tables of the Grecians and Romans were so disposed, that they were half sitting, half lying down: and that he that was in the second place sitting lower, could rest his head on him that was sitting above him. This Cardinal ignorant in the good letters, knew nothing of these things, or if he knew them, he purposely dissembled them. That custom of sitting at the Lord's Supper was yet in fashion in the Apostles time. This appeareth by the Church of the Corinthians, which celebrated the Lord's Supper in the form of a feast, where excesses were committed. To which the word of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and Coena are suitable, which all the ancient Churches used to express Christ's action celebrating this Sacrament with his Disciples. For the word Coena signifieth a common supper, not an oblation importing adoration.

Others say, and the Cardinal after them, that the Apostles did not worship the body of Christ in the Eucharist, because they had Christ every day with them; wherein they deceive themselves purposely; for they know, that before that action the Apostles had never eaten Christ, and never been present at the sacrifice of his body; and that such a manducation had deserved an extraordinary devotion; and that there was never a sacrifice in the Church without adoration. Much less then should the sacrifice of the natural body of the Son of God have wanted adoration, especially the first institution of that sacrifice, which must be a perpetual pattern and rule.

Upon our question to our adversaries, where they can show us, that ever God commanded us to worship the Sacrament, and to yield to it a service of latria (as they speak, which is the adoration due to God alone) we cannot fetch any answer from them, nor one word to the purpose. M. du Perron laboreth hard about that, and is put to his shifts: he saith, that no more have we any command to worship the Holy Ghost. I answer, that whosoever worshippeth God, worshippeth the Holy Ghost, since the Holy Ghost is God, for so he is called Act. 5.3. The Apostle 1 Cor. 6.19. saith that our bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost: now Temples must be consecrated to none but God. And Jesus commanded that we should be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Now we are not baptized in the name of the creature.

If the body of Christ which is given in the Eucharist were the natural body of Christ, as our adversaries will have it, not the Sacramental body as we affirm, the Apostles would have worshipped it. Especially in the first celebration of this Sacrament, which must be a rule unto the Church; the command of worshipping the Sacrament should have been clearly expressed, or at least the practice.

He adds, that when the Father saith, This is my son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him; he saith not Worship ye him; but in that indicative proposition, This is my Son, this imperative proposition, Worship ye him, was virtually and implicitly contained. Likewise he will have these words, This is my body, to contain implicitly the command of worshipping him.

I answer, that those words, This is my Son, are proper, not Sacramental or typical words, like these, This is my body, as we have proved it. Now from simple words one may draw consequences, but from Sacramental words no consequence can be drawn, till they be reduced to simple and not typical words. Besides, these words, This is my Son, contain indeed a command to worship Christ, but not to worship him in such a place or in such an action. Whereas from these words, This is my body, they will infer a consequence, that this body must be worshipped under the species of bread, which is an inconsequent consequence and without any color.

The Cardinal adds, Though the bread of the Eucharist should remain truly bread in its inward and invisible substance, was there not a far greater distance between the Ark and God, the Ark being but the simple legal and ceremonial sign of his presence, then between the Eucharist and Christ? which Ark nevertheless Joshua and all the people of Israel worshipped; And David in his Psalms exhorts everyone to worship it.

I answer, that it is false that ever Joshua or the people of Israel worshipped the Ark. We find indeed, Josh. 7.6. That Joshua rent his garments and fell on his face to the ground before the Ark of the Lord. And that not only according to the Hebrew, but according to the Vulgate version authorized by the Council of Trent. The words in that version are these, Josue pronus cecidit in terram coram Arca Domini usque ad vesperam, tam ipse quam seniores Israel. The versions of Sanctes Pagninus and of Arias Montanus say the same. The licenciousness of forgery is notorious in this Cardinal.

With the like depravation of Scripture, he saith in the same place, that David in his Psalms exhorteth everyone to worship the Ark, and he alledgeth, without quoting, a text of the 98. Ps. which in the Hebrew Bible is the 99. where David saith, Exalt ye the Lord our God and worship at his footstool. But the vulgar version saith, Worship his footstool. Here the Cardinal will play the Grammarian, but acteth that part but poorly. All the good versions of our adversaries translate as we do, that of Pagninus a Monk of Luca, and that of Arias Montanus a Spaniard. So doth also the Chaldean Paraphrast. The Septuagint translate 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . But this removeth all doubt, that in the same Psalm after 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Adorate ad scabellum, it is added 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Adorate ad montem. If in the first, we must translate Adore the footstool, we must translate in the second, Adore the mountain, which the Cardinal would not like; for it would be a mad idolatry to worship a mountain. It is not credible that David worshipped before the Ark otherwise then Joshua; Now it is expressly said of Joshua, that he fell to the earth upon his face before the Ark of the Lord, not that he worshipped the Ark. Who will believe that God, who in his Law did so expressly prohibit worshipping any other but God, would allow the worshipping of a wooden chest? I confess, that worshipping God, and worshipping before God, are the same thing. But when it is question of inanimate things, worshipping before the Temple, and worshipping the Temple, are things far different.

Two things deserve to be observed by the way. First, these words of the Cardinal, Though the bread should remain in his inward and invisible substance, &c. This is saying tacitly, that there is an outward substance, and putting two substances in the bread, the one inward and invisible, the other outward and visible, which is a mere abuse. By affecting subtility he betrayeth his ignorance.

Secondly, observe to what excess Idolatry is grown in the Roman Church, in which they worship not only the body of Christ which they affirm to be covered with the species, but also the species, that is the signs and accidents.

Bellarmine teacheth that doctrine, saying that the adoration belongeth to the signs of bread and wine, in as much as they are considered as the same thing with Christ whom they contain; as when they worshipped, they worshipped his garment also. So then Christians are brought to worship the color and the figure of bread, and a whole object is worshipped, of which Christ makes but the one half. Wherefore the Council of Trent commandeth that the Sacrament be worshipped. Now the Sacrament of Christ is not Christ.

CHAP. XXI. That in the first ages of the Christian Church the Sacrament was not worshipped. The Cardinals allegations and proofs are examined.

THE custom of sitting at the table when the Eucharist was celebrated, did not continue long after the Apostles. For soon after their death another custom was brought in, that the Deacons should bring the Sacrament to every communicant, or that every communicant should come to the Pastor of the Church to receive the communion in the two elements.

But as for the adoration, it is certain, that as they did not elevate the Sacrament, so they did not worship it; and for that our adversaries bring no proof that can serve their turn, nor any example, or testimony of ancient writers of the time that M. du Perron set for his limit, that is, till the fourth universal Council, which was in the year of Christ 451. But in the 23. Canon of the third Council of Carthage we have this constitution, Ut cum altari assistitur, semper ad Patrem dirigatur oratio. That when the Priest assists before the Altar, the prayer be always directed unto God the Father. If it was then unlawful to make the address of prayers unto Christ in the Eucharist, it was also unlawful to worship his body; for in Christian Religion all adoration imports invocation: yea the word adoratio comes from oratio, which signifieth prayer.

For the adoration of the Sacrament they allege Dionysius in ch. 3. of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, saying, O holy and Divine ceremony, removing the vails of the riddles wherewith thou art symbolically environed, show they self clearly to us and fill our eyes with thine only and unshadowed light. The Cardinal translateth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a Sacrament, and by the Sacrament he understands Christ. A willful abuse, to call Christ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is a mystery or mystical ceremony. So did Faber Stapulensis translate it. O divinum penitus sanctumque mysterium! Who sees not that this is an Apostrophe, a Rhetorical compellation, whereby many times things inanimate are spoken to as if they understood, and persons absent as if they were present? It was so that Ambrose spake to the element of water; O water which hast washed the globe of the earth stained with human blood, &c. O water that hast merited (that is obtained) to be a Sacrament of Christ, &c. It was so, that the Prophets spake many times to heaven and earth. But what? That book is not of Dionysius Areopagita, but was made many ages since, as we might easily prove.

The Cardinal saith, this Author is not the true Dionysius Areopagita, but that it is enough that he is a Catholic Author above thirteen hundred years old, that is, about three hundred years after Christ. And he proveth it, because the Council of Constantinople in Trullo, held in the year 681. and Gregory who writ about the year of Christ 595. cite that Author. An ingenious proof, That a book was written about the year 300. of Christ, because some Authors have spoken of him about 700. years after Christ's birth! It is false that Gregorius Nazianzenus did ever allege that book, as Budeus suspecteth. And if Nicolas the Colossian saith that he saw the Comments of Dionysius of Alexandria upon that book, he is no credible witness. For who will believe that these Comments were hid eight or nine hundred years, and that this Nicolas was the first that saw them after so many ages? which I say, not to despise the book of the Hierarchy ascribed to Dionysius Areopagita; a very useful book, and altogether contrary to Transubstantiation, to Purgatory, and to the Popes primacy. Only I say it cannot be of that Dionysius, and that it was written by some Christian Platonician about 350. or 400. years after Christ's birth, in the time that Monks began to spread, when the Churches were flourishing, and the time quiet.

Read all the Fathers of the first ages; not one word shall be found in them of adoring the Sacrament, and deferring a divine worship unto it; no trace of that is extant in Justin Martyr, nor in Ignatius, nor in Clemens Alexandrinus, nor in Tertullian, nor in Origen, nor in Cyprian, nor in that book of the Lord's Supper which is falsely fathered upon him, as we have proved; nor in Arnobius, nor in Lactantius, nor in Athanasius, nor in Eusebius, nor in Basilius, nor in Gregorius Nyssenus, nor in Gregorius Nazianzenus. Neither do the Liturgies of S. James and Basilius, though falsified and disguised with many additions, speak a word of them.

The ancientest Author alleged by the Cardinal, that seems to speak of the adoration of the Sacrament, is Cyrillus of Jerusalem, who writ about the year of Christ 380. he speaks thus in the fifth mystagogical Catechesis, After the Communion of Christ's body, I draw near to the chalice of the blood, not stretching forth my hands, but bowing in a form of adoration and veneration. But these mystagogical Catecheses are a supposititious book; for they are quite of another style, more concise then the precedent eighten Catecheses, which ought also to be called Mystagogical, because they serve also for introductions to mysteries. But the diversity of the Author, is the cause of the diversity both of the title and style. That this work is spurious, it appeareth not only by the diversity of the style, but also because in the first Mystagogical Catecheses the Author chideth his hearers for frequenting the hippodrom, that is, the place appointed for horse races, and for freqenting the Amphitheater, where Gladiatours were fighting against Tigers and Lions; and labors to dehort them from such spectacles. Such admonitions could not be done at Jerusalem, where there was neither Hippodrom, nor Amphitheater.

No Cities had those ornaments and spectacles, but the capital Cities of the Empire, as Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, where the ordinary residence of the Emperor was, or of his Lieutenants, in Asia and Egypt, and some few towns where the Roman Legions wintered, as Nemansus in Gauls, and some Towns in the East upon the borders of Persia. But as for Jerusalem, it was subject to Cesarea the Metropolitan of Palestine, and was one of the least Towns of the Empire as for the civil order. Herod the great had built an Amphitheater at Cesarea, as Josephus testifieth. But in the time of Cyrillus it was no more frequented. Gesner in his Library, saith, that these Catecheses are found in the Library of Auspurg under the name of one John of Jerusalem.

As for the other eighteen Catecheses, although I think that most of them are of Cyrillus, yet some of them are none of his, as the eighteenth. For that Catechesis being made a few days before Easter, yet the Author speaks as if they had been then in the depth of winter. Now (saith he) is the time of winter, and the trees stand now as dead. Whereas in Jerusalem at Easter, the corn begins to be in the ear. A fortnight after Easter, at the latest, they offered in the Temple the new fruits and the new sheaves. It is like that these Catecheses were pronounced at Constantinople where winters are often hard and long, by reason of the neighbourhood of Pontus Euxinus.

The same eighteenth Catechesis makes us clearly see that the Mystagogical which follow, are not of the same Author. For towards the end of that eighteenth Catechesis, the Author promiseth more Catecheses to follow. And saith, that the first shall begin by these words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which are not found in the first Mystagogical, and it begins otherwise.

Yet let us suppose that these Catecheses are of Cyrillus. What do they say for the adoration of the Sacrament? The alleged passage saith only, that we must come to the Communion of the Sacrament with the gesture and countenance of a man that worshippeth God and Christ sitting at the right hand of God; for of worshipping the Sacrament he saith never a word.

Thus Gregorius Nazianzenus in the oration upon his sister Gorgonia, saith, that at midnight she came and prostrated herself before the altar, and with a loud cry called upon him that is honored upon the altar. It cannot be said that she worshipped the Sacrament, seeing that the holy Eucharist was not celebrated at midnight, and that she was alone in the Church.

The same I say of the passage of Ambrose in the third book of the Holy Ghost, ch. 12. where expounding that footstool mentioned in the Psalm, he saith, By the footstool the earth is understood, and by the earth the flesh of Christ, which now we worship in mysteries, and which the Apostles worshipped in our Lord Jesus. And of the passage of Austin upon Psalm 98. He walked in the flesh, and gave us his flesh unto salvation. Now nobody eats that flesh unless he hath first worshipped it. These passages speak not of worshipping the flesh of Christ under the species of bread, but only of worshipping the flesh of Christ in the fraction of the Sacrament. It is one thing to worship Christ in the Lord's Supper, and another thing to worship the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Thus in the Eucharist we worship the Father, yet we worship him not under the elements, as if that Sacrament were God the Father. The ancient Christians worshipped in the Eucharist the body of Christ sitting at the right hand of God; and to that end were warned, that while they received the holy bread, they should lift up their hearts on high; Sursum corda. Austin's words are most considerable, That none eats the flesh of the Lord, unless he hath worshipped it before. None can deny, that he speaks of the true and serious worship, which is done as well with the heart as with the body. Whence it appeareth, that he speaks not of a manducation with the mouth; for many eat the Sacrament with the mouth, without such a serious worship of Christ. Judas (as Austin saith often) ate the Sacrament of Christ's body, yet without worshipping Christ's body. And so Austin's saying should be found false, That none eats the flesh of the Lord except he hath worshipped it before. But this Father speaks most true, because he speaks of the spiritual manducation by faith, which cannot be but in them that fear Christ and worship him.

Jerome upon the same Psalm, The Apostles shown that the flesh of Christ must be worshipped, when he ascending to heaven, they worshipping returned to Jerusalem. But these things must be referred to the Cross of the Lord, and to his holy soul; not then to the adoration of the Sacrament.

In the same manner must we understand the expressions of Chrysostom in the 7. Homily upon Matthew, and in the 24. Homily upon the first Epistle to the Corinthians, where he exhorteth his hearers by the example of the Magi that came out of Persia, who worshipped Christ in the manger, to worship him also in the sacred mysteries; They are Rhetorical declamations, in which he exhorteth the people to worship Christ in the Eucharist, not to worship the Eucharist.

I cannot wonder enough how the Cardinal durst allege Theodoret, who in the first Dialogue having said, that Christ gave to the sign the name of his body, and that he honored the visible signs with the name of his body, having not changed their nature, but adding grace unto nature, in the second Dialogue speaks the same language, saying, After the consecration the mystical signs depart not from their proper nature, for they remain in their former substance, figure and form, and are visible, and to be handled as they were before.

Theodoret addeth according to the Cardinals version, The signs are understood to be the things which they are made, and are believed and worshipped, as being that which they are believed to be. But there is according to the Greek, and according to Theodorets intention, The signs are understood to be the things that they were, and are believed and venerated, as being that which they are believed to be. Theodoret saith that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the signs are venerated, or as the Cardinal translates, the signs are worshipped. Upon which we give the choice to our adversaries, whether they will have Theodorets meaning to be, that the signs are worshipped with the sovereign • orship due unto God alone, or whether they will have 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 according to the custom of the Grecians to signify only venerating and reverencing. If they will have Theodorets meaning to be, that the signs or figures of Christ are worshipped with a sovereign adoration, they make Theodoret guilty of horrible idolatry, as deferring unto the signs or figures of Christ a worship equal to the adoration due to the sovereign God; for the signs are not God. Or if they will, that Theodoret by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 understands only venerating or reverencing, then they make him speak as we do; for we honor and venerate these signs. But in that sense, this testimony of Theodoret will avail nothing for the sovereign adoration deferred unto the Sacrament.

But though the Cardinals version were receivable, yet it is a weak proof in the mouth of the Romanists; for they make two sorts of religious adoration, the one sovereign, the other inferior; and by consequent when they hear Theodoret, saying, that the signs of Christ's body are worshipped, reason obligeth them to take that of the inferior adoration which they defer unto Saints, to bones, and to relics. When Tertullian against Hermogenes saith, I adore the plenitude of Scripture, he understood not that the Scriptures were God, or that they were to be worshipped like God, but only that he did reverence them.

In the Liturgy attributed to Chrysostom these words are found: The Deacon having said Amen, and worshipped or venerated with reverence the Holy Gospel, comes out by the Sacred doors. None, I think, is so grossly idolatrous, as to gather hence that the book of the Gospel must be worshipped with adoration of latria. In our days they worship the holy tear of Christ, and the wood of the Cross, and the representation of our Savior's face on a linen cloth; and yet no man of good sense would worship these things with the same adoration as he worshippeth God; although Thomas, Cajetan, Biel, Azor, Vasquez, and a multitude of Doctors stiffly maintain that the wood of the Cross must be worshipped with adoration of latria.

Here I cannot pass by the ignorance or fraud of Cardinal du Perron, who defends this adoration in the Mass with the example of Aaron and Moses, who spake by God's command unto the stone whence the waters flowed: as though Moses and Aaron by speaking to that stone had worshipped it. The words which they spake to the stone, were not words of adoration, but of command.

Such was the word of Christ speaking to Lazarus lying in the sepulcher, Lazarus come forth. Such shall God's command be, when in the last day he shall command the earth and the sea to give up the dead.

Theodoret then meant, not that the inanimate signs of Christ's body and blood must be worshipped with the adoration due to God, but that they must be venerated, respected and honored as sacred things, and as the mystical and sacramental body of Christ ought to be venerated. So speaks Austin 118. Epistle; Neither of them dishonoreth the Lord's body and blood, if they strive with emulation to honor the most salutary sacred sign, &c. The one out of respect dareth not take him every day, the other out of respect dareth not let one day pass without taking it. Only this meat will not be loathed as Manna was once. Wherefore also the Apostle saith, that it is received unworthily by those that do not discern it from other meats by a veneration especially due. When it is question of the dignity of the Sacrament, always this good Doctor speaks of honoring and venerating, never of adoring the Sacrament.

The same Father in book 3. of Christian doctrine, ch. 9. He that maketh or venerateth the sign divinely instituted, whose virtue and signification he understands, doth not venerate that which is seen and is transitory, but that rather to which all such things ought to be referred.

And in the 164. Epistle, We venerate everywhere the Baptism of Christ. Which is done without adoration.

But above all, the authority before alleged of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria is pregnant, with the exposition which Jerome brings to it. This Theophilus in the first Paschal Epistle disputing against Origen, had said, Origen considers not that the mystical waters of Baptism are consecrated by the coming of the Holy Ghost, and that the bread of the Lord, whereby the body of our Savior is shown [or represented] and which we break for our sanctification, and the sacred chalice which are set upon the table, and which are indeed inanimate things, are sanctified by the invocation and coming of the Holy Ghost. Excellent words, especially where Theophilus saith that we break the bread of the Lord, whereby the body of the Lord is shown; and that the water of Baptism is sanctified by the invocation and coming of the Holy Ghost. Showing thereby, that this sanctification is done by invocation or prayer, not by pronouncing these words, This is my body. And that as this sanctification or consecration doth not transubstantiate the water of of Baptism, also the consecration of the bread doth not transubstaniate it into the body of the Lord. For he acknowledgeth but one kind of consecration for Baptism and for the Eucharist.

Jerome translator of these Epistles writes to the author of them Theophilus, and speaks thus with a reflection to this passage: We have admired in thy book the profit which all the Churches receive by it; that the ignorant being instructed by the testimonies of holy letters, may learn with what veneration they must receive holy things, and serve to the ministry of Christ's altar; and that they may not think that the sacred chalices, and the holy vails, and other things belonging to the service of Christ's passion, are deprived of holiness as inanimate and senseless, but that they may know, that because they accompany the body and blood of the Lord, they ought to be venerated with the same Majesty as his body and blood. These words ought to be well weighed. Jerome saith, that the chalices and linen clothes, and other appurtenances of the outward service of the Sacrament ought to be venerated with the same Majesty and reverence as the body and blood of Christ. Now it is clear, that linen clothes and chalices ought not to be worshipped with the sovereign adoration due unto God alone. Whence it appears, that the body and blood of Christ, of which Jerome speaks here, must not be worshipped with sovereign adoration, and that the Lord's body of which he speaks, is the mystical and Sacramental body of Christ, not the natural. For would Jerome have been so profane or so ignorant, as to prescribe that linen clothes and chalices should be worshipped with a worship equal unto that which is due unto Christ himself? Wherefore also he saith not that the body and blood, or the chalices and vails must be worshipped, but only that they must be venerated. And this is the same thing that Jerome told us before (that we may return to our beginning) that there are two sorts of body and blood of Christ. It was from him that the Canon Dupliciter was taken in the second distinction of the Consecration, which saith, The flesh of Christ is understood two ways. It is either that spiritual and divine flesh, of which himself saith, My flesh is meat indeed; or that flesh which was crucified, and that blood which was shed by the soldiers spear. And the Canon De hac, in the same distinction, It is indeed lawful to eat of that victim, which is done wonderfully in the commemoration of Christ. But it is lawful to none to eat that victim in itself which was offered in the altar of the Cross. Note these words in itself: It is not lawful to eat in itself the Lord's flesh offered in the Cross: For thereby he declareth, that it is lawful to eat it in Sacrament, or in mystery, not in itself, so that it enter into our mouth or stomach. We heard also Austin saying upon Ps. 98. as personating Christ, You shall not eat this body which you see, and shall not drink the blood which they that crucify me shall spill. Then another sort of Christ's body is eaten, even the mystical and sacramental.

This distinction of the two sorts of body of Christ being the key of the intelligence of the Fathers in this matter, it is no wonder that the Cardinal is always wandering from his matter and accumulates texts of the Fathers to no purpose, because he did not observe this distinction, and speaks not a word of it in all his book of the Eucharist.

CHAP. XXII. The Cardinals allegations out of the Fathers are examined, beginning at his allegations out of the Catecheses of Gregory of Nyssa.

TO darken the clear evidence of this truth, the Cardinal poureth a thick mist of allegations of Fathers, some false, some wrested, some to no purpose.

Among the last sort I put those which he brings from new Authors, or such as lived long after the fourth universal Council, which is the limit which he had set to himself. Such is Alger the Schoolman, who writ about the year of Christ 1130. Such is Theophilactus, who writ about the year 1075. Damascenus, who writ about the year 750. And Euthymius, who is of the year 1120. Although the Cardinal make all these men to speak against their intention; yet it would be superfluous, and out of the limits of this dispute to examine them.

In ch. 8. of which I have answered the most part, he brings a great list of the most specious testimonies which he could gather out of all Christian Antiquity. He sets in the front the Catechetical Oration of Gregorius Nyssenus, and fills a page with it, forgeting his own verdict in the same chapter, and in many other places, That one must not seek the belief of the Fathers in the books in which they speak before the Catechumens, because before them they durst not say plainly what they believed, nor speak according to their sense; and that whosoever published openly some part of the doctrine of the Church in the point of the Eucharist before the Catechumens or Infidels, was accounted anathema. Now this Catechetical Oration was made purposely for the Catechumens, as the title shows it.

I could say also, that in this matter Gregorius Nyssenus had a particular belief, which the Roman Church approveth not. For in the first Oration of the resurrection of Christ, to find the three days and three nights, the time which holy Scripture saith that Christ was in the womb of the earth, that is in the Sepulcher, he begins those three days at the hour of the institution of the Eucharist; and holds, that then Christ sacrificed himself, and that his body became inanimate. For (saith he) the body of the victime had not been fit to be eaten if it had been animated. And that he addeth, that from that time his soul was in the heart of the earth. We should not wonder then, if a man that had such a strange opinion as to believe that the body of the Lord Jesus was dead already, when he was at the table with his Disciples, had also in this matter some unwarrantable tenet.

I could say also, that in the same Catechesis there are some errors that extenuate the authority of the same; As when he saith in ch. 36. that faith is in the power of our free-will: Whereas Paul, Eph. 2.8. saith, You are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; Not of works, lest any man should boast, teaching us, that neither salvation nor faith comes from us, but that both are the gift of God. The same Gregory in the same book, ch. 35. teacheth that such as die without baptism, whose affections were hardened, and that are dead without purgation of their sins, without mystical water, without prayer, without amendment of repentance, must necessarily be purged from their sins by a convenient means, namely by the fire of the furnace that they may be preserved pure for many ages. Then he adds, Because that in the fire and in the water there is an abstersive virtue, they that were washed from the filth of sin by the mystical water, have no need of the other kind of purgation. But they that were not initiated by this purgation [of baptism] by necessity are purged by fire: I pass by the exposition which he brings of Eph. 3.18. That you might comprehend with all Saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, understanding by these four dimensions the four ends of the Cross .

But passing by these things and many more which are found in that oration, Let us consider this book and this passage with some care. This Catechetical oration is not found in the ancient Editions, as in that of Basil. The Edition of Paris of the year 1573. added that piece translated into Latin, as Bellarmine observeth. Soudas and Nicephorus in book 11. ch. 19. name several books of Gregorius Nyssenus, but speak not of that Catechetical oration. But Theodoret ancienter then they, in the second Dialogue intitulded the Inconfounded, alledgeth four or five passages of that Oration, yet with such diversity of words from our Editions, that it is easy to see that the book past since through diverse hands, which have fowlly disfigured it. In the end of that oration, mention is made of one Severus an heretic, that impugned the two natures of Christ. But that Severus lived long after Gregorius Nyssenus, that is, under the Emperor Anastasius about the year of the Lord 512. Of whose perverseness Evagrius speaks in book 3. ch. 33. and Liberatus Diaconus ch. 19. Which showeth plainly, that to that Catechetical oration other pieces were added written in diverse ages. For that Severus was of the Sect of the Acephali Eutychians, which is the heresy taxed in the end of the oration.

As for that passage, it is easy to know that it is none of Gregorius Nyssenus, but thrust in by some Eutychian; for there Eutychianism is plainly taught. We have seen before and proved by Theodoret, that the Eutychians had two errors, the one serving to maintain the other. They confounded the two natures of Christ by a mixture of the human nature with a divine, teaching that the human nature by the union with the divine was deified or changed into God. To defend that error, they taught the Transubstantiation of bread into the body of Christ in the Eucharist, saying, that as after the consecration the bread is turned into the substance of the body of Christ, so by the incarnation the body of Christ was converted into the substance of the Godhead. This is the language of the Eutychian heretic in the second Dialogue of Theodoret. In the same manner as the signs of the body and blood of the Lord are others before the invocation of the Priest, but after the invocation they are changed and made others. Likewise the Lord's body after the assumption, was changed into the divine substance.

This is the very doctrine contained in ch. 37. which the Cardinal alledgeth, and in divers other places of this Catechetical oration, where it is said divers times, that a mixture or commutation was made of human nature with the Godhead. As in ch. 11. The Godhead is blended or mingled with the manhood. In the same place he speaks, of the manner of the mixture or contemperature of the Godhead with the manhood. And in ch. 16. He hath mingled the intellectual nature with the sensible. The same he saith in the 26, and 32. chapters, using the grossest terms that he is able to find to express that mixture of the natures. And in ch. 37. whence this passage is taken, he saith, that by that union, human nature 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , was changed into the excellency of the Godhead, and as he saith a little after, it was condeified, made God, which is rank Eutychianism. And he makes that mingling of natures to prove the Eutychian Transubstantiation. And thus he buildeth his discourse. The proper food of man's body is bread, so that a man's body is in some sort made of bread, and bread before it be eaten is man's body in potentia. Christ while he had his conversation in earth, ate bread, and his body was in some sort made of bread, because the bread which he ate was changed into Christ's body, and that body mingled with the Godhead and deified, entering into our bodies by the Eucharist, changeth our bodies into his nature, and quickeneth them; and thence cometh resurrection. And as the bread which Christ ate was changed into his body, so the bread of the Eucharist is changed into the body of Christ mingled with his Godhead: These are his own words: We asked how the body of Christ which is in him quickeneth the whole nature of men in whom faith is, being distributed to all without suffering any diminution. Perhaps we are not far from the probable reason; for if the subsistence of each body is compounded with food which is meat and drink, and that meat is bread, and that drink is water tempered with wine; the Word of God according as it was defined before, which is God and Word, is mingled with human nature; And when it was in our body, it did not innovate some other constitution of human nature, but gave subsistence to his body by the things that are usual and convenient, sustaining his subsistence with meat and drink, and that meat was bread. As then in us (as I said often) he that seeth bread, seeth the human body in some sort, because when it is within the body it becomes the body; So in this place the body [of Christ] which received God, having received the food of bread, was in some sort the same thing as bread, the food (as it was said) passing into the nature of the body. For that which is proper to all, is also without question in that flesh, namely, that this body is contained in the bread. Now the body by the inhabitation of the Word God, was changed into the dignity of God. Wherefore also now I believe with just reason, that the bread sanctified by the Word of God, is changed into the body of God the Word: for that bread was this body in potentia, &c. With such wild conceits and intricate words the Author of ch. 37. of that Oration goeth about to prove, that as the bread which Christ ate was changed into the body of Christ, and as Christ's human nature was changed into the divine nature, also the bread of the Lord's Supper is Transubstantiated into the flesh of Christ. Shall we be so unjust to Gregorius Nyssenus, a man so famous in his time, as to father upon him such a galimaufry of absurdities and doctrines contrary to the faith? Wherefore the result of this examination is, that either this Oration is none of that Gregory 's works, or rather that this Catechetical Oration was corrupted by the Eutychians, and that though it were his, yet Cardinal du Perron can make no use of it, since he will not have us to believe the writings of the Fathers wherein they speak to the Catechumens, before whom they dissembled their sense, and disguised the belief of the Church.

CHAP. XXIII. Answer to the other allegations of the same Chapter.

TO Gregorius Nyssenus the Cardinal joins Ambrose, who in the book of those that are initiated in mysteries, inquireth how it is possible that the Eucharist should be the body of Christ, and answereth, that it is done by the change of the bread into the body of Christ. To which I have already answered, that Ambrose 's belief was, that the bread is so changed into the body of Christ, that nevertheless it remains bread always. To show that, he employeth ch. 4. of book 4. of the Sacraments, where he declareth, that this end is to prove that bread is the body of Christ: Let us demonstrate this (saith he) how that which is bread, can be the body of Christ. And upon that he brings some works of God, whereby God made that which is not to be. Whence he inferreth, that much more God can make things that have been to be again, and to be changed into other things. If (saith he) there is such virtue in the word of the Lord Jesus, that things that were not, begun to be; how much more shall he make things that were, to be, and to be changed into other things? This passage is found thus set down in all the ancient Editions, and in the Roman Decree, and in the Decree of Yuo Carnutensis. And for that which the Cardinal beats over so often, that Ambrose saith, that this is done by the Almighty power of God, and that to make the bread to be only the sign and figure of the body of Christ, there was no need to make the Almighty power of God to intervene; I have said already, that Ambrose believed no more then we do, that bread was only the sign of Christ's body. He believed that the bread remaining bread becomes so the mystical body of Christ, that by the manducation of that bread, through the unspeakable virtue of God Christ is made ours, and remains in us, and we in him. Yet the same Ambrose celebrating the Eucharist, said, Make this offering to be accounted unto us reasonable, acceptable, which is the figure of the body and blood of the Lord. Words which cannot be applied unto bread not consecrated; for bread not consecrated cannot be the acceptable offering, and cannot be laid to our account before God for our sins.

The same Ambrose was saying, Before the blessing of the heavenly words, another kind is named. After the blessing, the body is signified. Again, This bread is not that which entereth into the body. Again, Thou drinkest the likeness of his blood.

The Cardinal alledgeth Cyprian next. Who seeth not (saith he) that when Cyprian saith [The bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples, changed, not in shape, but in nature, by the Almighty power of the Word, is made flesh] he cannot understand any change there by the change of nature, but the change of substance? In the beginning of the same chapter the Cardinal had spoken of that very book as doubting whether it was of Cyprian; Now he speaks of it with an absolute certainty as believing that it is Cyprians. We have shown before by many evident proofs that the book is spurious, none of Cyprians but of a late Author, whose barbarous style and doctrine are very far from the elegance and solidity of Cyprian.

Yet let us see what use the Cardinal makes of that allegation. Cyprian (saith he) cannot by the change of nature understand but the change of substance. For Aristotle teacheth us that the word nature signifieth nothing but either the substance or the accidents which originally stick to the substance, that is the natural and original proprieties and conditions. Wherefore no change intervening in the outward nature of bread, it must needs be that the change is made in the substance.

I could answer, that besides the outward nature and substance, there are inward proprieties in which the change can be made. But I choose rather to beat the Cardinal with his own weapons. The Reader may remember how the Cardinal to scape from the hands of Theodoret (who saith in the first Dialogue, that in the Lord's Supper Christ had altered the nature of the signs, And in the second that the sacred signs after the consecration change not their own nature ) will have nature in those passages to signify the accidents, not the substance. But in this place, which he saith to be Cyprians, where it is said, that the bread changeth nature, the Cardinal maintains that nature signifieth substance, and can signify nothing else. And he proveth it by Aristotle, whom he makes to say (without quoting the place) that nature signifieth nothing but either the substance or the proprieties. He proveth a false doctrine by a false passage. That of Aristotle of which he had heard, is in the first chapter of the second book of his Physicks, where he thus defineth nature, Nature is the principle and the cause of motion and of rest, which principle is in the thing first, and of itself, and not by accident. And a little after he addeth, that all things that have that nature or inward principle of motion, are substances. Aristotle saith not that nature is a substance, but that the things that have this nature, are substances.

The Cardinal alledgeth next the fourth Mystagogical Catechesis of Cyrillus of Jerusalem; A place which we need not examine for that book is spurious, and of another Author then the 18. precedent Catecheses, as we proved before by evident and undoubted proofs. No kind of books is more subject to be supposititious and to have false titles then Catecheses. For, because every Bishop made Catecheses in his own Bishopric, nothing was more easy, among such a multitude of Catecheses of uncertain Authors, then to put an old title to a new book.

Again he returneth to Ambrose, which I have answered.

To him he addeth Gaudentius who was his contemporanean, and speaks thus, The Lord and Creator of natures, who out of earth made bread, out of bread again, (because he both can do it and promised it) makes his own body. And in the same work; He said, This is my body, This is my blood, Let us believe him whom we have believed. Truth knows not untruth. And again, Let us believe all things as they were delivered unto us, not breaking this most solid bone. This is my body.

The works of this Gaudentius are found in Bibliotheca Patrum, in the second Tome. This Bibliotheca Patrum is a collection of false pieces for the most part, and of small Authors whom our adversaries hide in the crowd, fetched out of the Popes Library, or some Manuscripts of Monasteries. In that collection they put whatsoever they list, and have fair opportunity for that.

But what is in those passages, that we say not? Do we not say, that by the consecration the bread is made the body of Christ? and that the bread is the body of Christ? But the question is, whether the consecrated bread is naturally or sacramentally the body of Christ; or whether Gaudentius meaneth the sacramental body of Christ or no; or whether he believed that the bread was Transubstantiated: of these nothing appeareth by his expressions. Besides Gaudentius in this matter delighteth to use Allegorical terms: as when he saith in the same Treatise, For this cause we are enjoined to eat the head of his Godhead, with the feet of his incarnation, and with the inward mysteries, that we may equally believe all things as they were said to us, not breaking that most solid bone, This is my body. And if anything of it remain in every man's sense, which he hath not comprehended by this exposition, let it be burnt and consumed by faith.

Chrysostom comes next, who in the 83. Homily saith, These things are no work of human virtue. He that did them in that Supper, doth them still. We only hold the place of Ministers; but he that sanctifieth them and changeth them, is the same. This passage concludes nothing, and is to no purpose; Chrysostom speaks of change, not of Transubstantiation. There is a change in the use, in the end, in the efficacy, without change of substance.

Finally he alledgeth Eusebius, ill entitled Emesinus in a Paschal Homily, but saith not how the book should be entitled. In the margent he puts Eucherius and Bertramus as Authors to whom these Homilies are attributed by some. Bellarmine saith, that the Homilies fathered upon Eusebius Emesinus, were set out under a false name because the true Author was not known. And as for Eucherius to whom our Cardinal seems to ascribe these Homilies, Bellarmine observeth that among the writings fathered upon Eucherius, there are some in which Gregory the first is alleged, who writ in the year 595. And it is like enough that he lived many ages after Gregory. It is abusing the Reader to muster up passages of unknown, new and uncertain Authors, whom we have only from the hands of our adversaries, who published them such as they would have them, and had an especial interest to corrupt them.

CHAP. XXIV. Answer to the authorities and reasons brought by Cardinal du Perron in the 14, 15, and 16. chapters.

WHoso will take the pains to read a multitude of allegations to no purpose, let him read the fourteenth chapter of M. du Perron 's treatise of the real presence: There he collecteth great number of passages of Fathers that speak of eating God's head, and the feet of the incarnation, and of boiling the flesh before the doors of the Tabernacle, and of burning with the fire of the Spirit the remnant of things not to be eaten, &c. things quite besides the question, which do him no good, and do us no harm.

In ch. 15. with a million of intricate words according to his custom he saith very little. The summary is, That when the Greek Fathers speak of eating spiritually the Lord's body in the Eucharist, they mean not to exclude the corporeity (for so he speaks) neither of the thing received nor of the organ: that is, that they intend not to deny that the Lord's body is really received with the mouth of the body, but they mean, that it is by the spirit of God that the body of Christ is miraculously under the species, and that it is by the Spirit only that we perceive the body of Christ which is set before us. He saith that Scripture calls those things spiritual which are corporal, when they are done by the miraculous operation of God's Spirit, as when S. Paul saith to the Galatians that Isaac was born according to the Spirit.

I answer, that by that doctrine the creation of the world may be called spiritual; for it was done by the incomprehensible virtue of the Spirit of God, and is a thing which we comprehend not but by the Spirit and by Faith, as the Apostle to the Hebrews saith, Heb. 11.3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. As for Isaac, S. Paul saith indeed that he was born according to the Spirit, but saith not therefore that Isaac was spiritual, or that his birth was spiritual. But by being born according to the Spirit, his birth according to God's promise is understood, as the Apostle himself declareth it; for that which he saith Gal. 4.29. that he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, is the same thing which he had said ver. 23. that he who was born of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.

Now that which the Cardinal saith, that the Fathers when they speak of eating the flesh of Christ spiritually in the Eucharist, intend not to exclude the corporeity, that is, the real manducation of the body with the mouth, is confuted by the passages of the Fathers, wherein comparing the oral manducation which is done in the Sacrament with the spiritual manducation, they say that the only true manducation is the spiritual; and that the wicked eating the Sacrament, eat not truly the body of Christ, though they eat the sacred sign thereof. As Austin saith in book 21. of the City of God, ch. 25. The Lord showeth what it is to eat the body of Christ, not only in Sacrament, but also in truth. And in the same place, They have eaten the Lord's body, not only in Sacrament, but also in truth. And in the second Sermon of the words of the Apostle. If that which is taken visibly in the Sacrament, is eaten spiritually in the very truth, and drunk spiritually. For we have heard the Lord himself saying, It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing, &c. And in the book of Sentences collected by Prosper. Whosoever is in discord with Christ, eats not his flesh, and drinks not his blood; although he take the sacred sign of such a great thing indifferently every day to the condemnation of his presumption.

This also serveth for an answer to that the Cardinal addeth, that the spiritual participation is not real; for (saith he) all the actions brought forth out of the soul by the faculties are not real, because the actions of the soul come not out of the body, &c. Thus towards the end of the 16. chap. he saith, that the manducation of which the Fathers say, that in the Eucharist we eat the body of Christ's, is not a bare mental manducation, and by faith; but is a true, real, oral, and corporal manducation. For as for the manducation by faith, he calls, it an intellectual thought and meditation, as if it were a mere imagination.

The sum of all his Discourse overburdened with superfluous words, is this, that the spiritual manducation is not real nor effectual, because, it is an action which is done out of the soul, but that the manducation with the mouth is the only real and effectual.

To which I answer, that the Cardinal commits here four notable faults: The first is his ignorance, that the Fathers hold that there is no other real and true manducation of the body of Christ but the spiritual. They say not only that the corporal or Sacramental manducation availeth nothing without the spiritual: but they say also, that the spiritual manducation; and by faith, is the only real and true, as we have lately proved.

Secondly, the Cardinal saying, that the spiritual manducation is an action of the soul, brought forth out of the soul, shows that he never understood nor felt, nor comprehended anything in this spiritual manducation, nor in the grace of God. For this word manducation is a Metaphorical word, which signifieth not only apprehending Christ, or thinking of him, but also fetching life and spiritual food from him. To say that this spiritual life and food is a thing out of the soul, is to have no taste of piety, no experience of God's grace in himself, and it is extenuating the work of God in the hearts of the godly to a bare imagination, seeking spiritual life, and sanctification, and the spiritual joy of the faithful soul out of the soul, so that the soul may have no sense of it, and receive no comfort by it. This Prelate hath shown before his insensibility in that point, when treating of the mark and seal of the Spirit wherewith God marks his elect, he said, that this mark was in God, and in his eternal thought, not in the hearts of the faithful.

Thirdly, the Cardinal speaking thus, trespasseth not only against the doctrine of the soul, but even against common sense. For both teach, that all the mental actions are in the soul, and in the understanding, not without. The Science and intelligence of the Stars or Geometry is in the understanding, not without. And although the object which is known, be out of the soul, yet the knowledge is in the soul, not without. It is the same of the senses, which receive the images or operations of the objects that are within us, but act not without us. It is this Prelates custom to sublimate his wit to bring forth high conceits, and big words, which being thoroughly examined are found to want common sense. Yet such things read by ignorant persons, are admired as things beyond the reach of human wit. Of that strain is his saying in the 8. chapter, that this word money is the name of a thing, not real but intentional, and consisting in the institution of the intellect. Yet in my opinion he that payeth ready money, payeth really; and that money is real, not intentional. He that is so paid, believeth that he is really paid, not in thought or intention only.

To these faults the Cardinal joins a fourth, that he opposeth intentional things to real things; and by intentional things understands those that are done in the understanding, as if the habits and operations of the mind were not real, or as if nothing were real that hath not a body. Who doubts that the Sciences and virtues that are in men's minds are real and effectual? and how much more the infused graces of God, and the effects of his Spirit? Which yet are so real, that all other things vanish, and are but vanity in comparison, seeing that they abide forever, and are a beginning of eternal life which we shall enjoy in heaven. All that is acting really, is real and in effect: Now the virtues of the soul act really, and bring forth effects; then they are real. Wherefore also the Saints are really rewarded for real good things.

So it is in vain that the Cardinal heaps up many passages of Fathers, to prove that the true and real manducation of Christ's body is something done within us, not without us; for that we believe and maintain. And as for the passages which he alledgeth out of Chrysostom, God showeth us that which is most • xcellent in heaven, seated upon earth: Also, That Angels worshipped Christ seeing him in a manger, and that we see him on the altar; they are sallies of oratory, to ravish the hearers minds with Hyperbolical expressions. For the Romanists themselves believe not these words literally taken. They believe not that Christ's body in the Eucharist hath any situation, or that we see him upon the altar; but they hold that he is there without situation, and without being in any place; that he is there invisibly, and that no eye perceiveth him there. And when Cyrillus saith, that we take Christ bodily, he understands that we take bodily the Sacramental body of Christ: Or by bodily he meaneth really, and so that the body of Christ is ours. Whoso will examine all the passages that the Cardinal alledgeth in the 15. and 16. ch. shall find that without offering any violence to them, they may be so understood.

Had the Cardinal rightly conceived how, and in what manner Christ is apprehended by the faith of the believer in the Lord's Supper, he had not insisted so much upon an Argument which he frameth in the 16. chap. and upon which he bestoweth six pages. If (saith he) the Fathers had understood that the manducation of Christ's body, which is done in the Eucharist, had been a bare manducation by faith, why should they have excluded the Godhead from the object of that manducation, and said that the Godhead cannot be eaten, but only the body of Christ, seeing that of the spiritual and analogical manducation which is done by faith, the Godhead is the chief object; the body of Christ being not the object of our faith, but because it is joined with the Godhead?

Besides that, the Cardinal makes us speak against our belief, making us say that in the Eucharist we eat Christ only spiritually and by faith, whereas we teach that he is also eaten Sacramentally and in mystery; he shows by that discourse that he never comprehended how the body of Christ is apprehended by the faith of the believer in the Lord's Supper; for had he known that, he had known also why the Fathers speaking of the manducation of Christ's body in the Eucharist, speak only of eating the body of Christ, not of eating his Godhead. We say then that Christ is presented to us in the Lord's Supper as dead for us, and that faith apprehends him as bruised for us in the Cross, bearing the curse which we had deserved. Now it is in his human nature only, that he suffered death and passion. The Fathers then considering Christ in the Lord's Supper, as dead for us, do wisely apply their words to the nature of the Lord's Supper, when they speak not of eating the Godhead, but only of eating (that is) apprehending by faith, Christ dead and crucified for our sins. That Christ is so considered and apprehended in the holy Communion, the institution showeth it, where Christ saith, This is my body which is broken for you: This cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you. To which the Apostle addeth, As oft as you eat this bread and drink this cup, ye show the Lord's death. Which if the Cardinal had well understood, he would not have spent so much ink to amplify that argument.

In vain then he alledgeth Cyrillus, saying, We eat not, consuming the Godhead; away with that ill thought or will; but the very flesh of the word made quickening. Wherein Cyrillus saith true; for by the spiritual manducation we apprehend the true flesh of Christ. I know not who was the Cardinals Interpreter for this Greek passage, but he did not do his part. Cyrillus saith, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The Cardinal translates, We swallow the Godhead itself. Away with that impiety. The word it self, is not in the Geeek; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifies not swallowing, but consuming: And 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifieth ill counsel, or ill thought, not impiety.

He shuts up this proof in these words, Whence it followeth, since personally separating the Godhead of Christ is making the Eucharist an Anthropophagia, that in the Eucharist the flesh of Christ is truly, really and corporally eaten, that is, with the organ of the body. I seek in this argument some spark of reason, and find none, neither is it possible to form an Argument with that reasoning. This is the conceit.

Whoso separates the Godhead of Christ from the Manhood, makes of the Eucharist an Anthropophagia.

Now Nestorius separated the Godhead from the Manhood.

Ergo the flesh of Christ is truly and corporally eaten in the Eucharist.

A gallant argument, and well brancht! What remote Pilgrimage was this Prelates wit gone to? By the same reason one might prove the virtue of blessed beads, or the Popes Primacy. In every good argument the two parts of the conclusion are found in the two Propositions, which is not to be found in this argument.

Finally, he alledgeth a testimony of Cyrillus, which is found in the defense of the eleventh Anathematismus of Cyrillus against the reprehensions of Theodoret. These are the words, as they are found in the first Tome of the Councils published by our Adversaries; Dost thou pronounce that in our Sacrament we eat a man? and dost thou irreligiously press the understanding of those that have believed into gross thoughts? and dost thou attempt to treat with human thoughts those things which are received with the only, and not far fetched faith? Note these words, that the things which are received in the Eucharist (for of these Cyrillus speaks) are not taken but by faith only. The Cardinal towards the end of the last chapter alledgeth this text, and puts the Greek words in the Margent, which he corrupteth in his traduction; for he translateth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 deceitful reasonings. But 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is not a reasoning but a thought. And 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifieth not deceitful, but vain and easily blotted out. Then he translateth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a faith not inquisitive, whereas it signifieth a faith not far-fetched. And the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in the page before, he translateth, are presupposed, borrowed for a ground, whereas it signifieth are taken; for that is the true sense. As Act. 27.33. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , having taken nothing, that is, eaten nothing: And ver. 36. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , they took meat. And so Acts 16.33. The connection of the text, and that which followeth, requires it also. For faith presupposeth not the things presented to the believer in the Lord's Supper, but takes them and receiveth them with confidence. With passages thus corrupted his whole book is stuffed.

I must not omit a place of Hilary which the Cardinal alledgeth often, but giveth a false interpretation to it Hilary saith in the 8. Book of the Trinity, There remaineth no place for doubt of the truth of the flesh and blood [of Christ] for now both by the profession of the Lord himself, and by our faith, it is truly flesh and truly blood: And these things being taken and swallowed, work that effect that we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. The Cardinal in the 6. ch. out of this place, gathereth that the substance of the flesh, and blood of Christ is truly in the Sacrament, because Hilary saith, that we must not doubt of the truth of the flesh of Christ. But that is not Hilary 's intention, but only to say that Christ hath a true flesh, and a true blood, and hath a true human nature, which is true as well out of the Sacrament as in the Sacrament. He saith also, that this true body, and this true blood taken in the Eucharist; make us to be in Christ, and Christ in us. This showeth, that he speaks not of the oral manducation of which the wicked also are partakers, and which makes not the wicked to be in Christ, howsoever any man say that by that manducation Christ is in them. The word haurire, to swallow, which Hilary useth, may as well be applied to the mind as to the body; For the Latin Authors speak so.

CHAP. XXV. How the Cardinal sends the Reader to a larger Book of his of the Eucharist; That the beginning of that Book showeth what one should think of the rest.

THe Cardinal for the conclusion of his Treatise of the real presence sends back the Reader to a larger work, promising to treat in it more fully of the Eucharist. That promised work, is his Book of the Eucharist against Monsieur du Plessis, upon which Book I have already made many observations. That is the Book wherein he translates, Fescennina carmina, Verses to avert witchcraft, whereas he should have translated, lascivious verses. Which appeareth by that which followeth in the passage he alledgeth, where unchaste and profane verses are opposed to Sacred Songs and Angelical praises. But passing by many the like observations, I will but represent the entry of that so long expected Book, that by the Frontispiece the Reader may judge of the body of the building.

M. du Plessis to show that the Roman Church by the doctrine of Transubstantiation makes the Lord's Supper to be no more a Sacrament, saith that every Sacrament is a sign, which is different from the thing signified. But by the Transubstantiation the sign, which is the bread, is abolished, and becomes the thing signified. Upon that M. du Perron triumpheth, and in big words which fill three pages, he rateth M. du Plessis like a poor Scholar. Where is (saith he) the Scholar that knows not that the definition of the gender, is far more lean, scant and hungry then that of the kind? &c. Do not the rudiments of Logic teach us, that from the gender to the kind, one may argue affirmatively, not negatively? But I maintain the contrary, that the rudiments of Logic teach us, that from the gender to the kind the argument is always made negatively, never affirmatively. One may and ought to argue thus, Non est animal, ergo non est homo. Not as the Cardinal will have it, Est animal, ergo est homo. According to the Cardinals Logic one might Argue thus, A frog is an animal, Ergo, it is a man. Is not that want of natural Logic? Should not a School-boy be snibbed over the fingers with the Ferule that should argue so? Where is now that deep learning of our Prelate? Should he have puffed up a discourse of three pages with a high flown style to set up such a gross absurdity? M. du Plessis reasoned thus: Every Sacrament is a sign; The Lord's Supper is a Sacrament: Ergo, the Lord's Supper is a sign; Whence he inferred very well that the Roman Church abolishing the sign by the transubstantiation, abolished the Sacrament. There being no fault to be found in that form of Argument: yet M. du Perron swelleth the sails of his eloquence, and showeth by many examples, that the definition of the gender containeth not all the perfections of the kinds: making the world believe that M. du Plessis affirmed, that the definition of the Sacrament (which is the gender) expresseth the whole nature of the Eucharist, which is a kind of Sacrament. A thing which M. du Plessis neither said nor thought. So that M. du Perron adds calumny to ignorance.

Twelfth Controversy, OF THE SEVENTH BOOK. OF The Communion under one kind. And of the Power which Cardinal Du Perron ascribeth unto the Church, that is to the Pope, to dispense from the Commandment of Christ.

THE last Question which Cardinal du Perron treats in his Book against the King of Great Britain, is the question about the interdiction of the Chalice.

He begins by a remonstrance to his Majesty, saying, His Majesty might have dispensed himself (if it had pleased him) to touch that objection, which brings no obstacle to the re-union of the Church: since the Council of Trent referreth to the Pope that shall sit when some Nation or Kingdom shall demand the use of the Chalice for them that do not celebrate (that is for Lay-people and inferior Clerks) to provide for that.

To which I answer, That the Council indeed referreth to the Popes power to judge of that business, whether it may be expedient to grant the use of the Chalice to some Nation or Kingdom that should require it, but giveth not any hope of it. For the same Council in the 2x. Session, in the 1. and 2. chap. declareth, That although Christ hath constituted and given the Eucharist under the two kinds, yet the Laity and the Clerks that celebrate not, are not thereby obliged to receive the two kinds.

And in the 2. chap. it is declared that the custom of communicating under one kind was approved for just and great causes, and must be held for a Law. Besides, the experience of so many years since, that Council hath made it known, that in vain any change in that point is hoped for from the Pope. And it is a very small comfort to those among the French that desire that the communion of the Chalice be restored unto them, that this Council giveth them hope that some kingdom may one day require that privilege, and that the Pope then shall consider whether the request may be granted. For the Council referreth not the judgment of that point to the Pope, but in case that a Nation or a whole Kingdom demand the restoring of the Chalice, leaving it to the Popes discretion to judge whether it shall be expedient to grant the use of the Cup, not to Christians in general, but only to some people or kingdom, that should be urgent for it: for as for the general of the Christians, they give no hope at all of that restitution. As indeed, if any of the people in our days asked for the privilege of participating the cup, he should become suspect of Heresy, as one that would pick a quarrel, and control the Laws of the Church.

But in that obscure hope given by the Council there is a lurking impiety. For if the Pope had given to some man a permission to have the use of the cup (as it was given to the Bohemians in the Council of Basil ) it would be an impious permission; for thereby he should permit the man to obey God's commandment, and grant him out of grace and special privilege leave to do that which God hath commanded, as if God could not be obeyed without the Popes leave. So that if God get some servants, he shall be obliged for it to his Holiness, which might by an express prohibition hinder him from being obeyed, declaring (as that Council doth) that Christ's institution is not binding, and that Christians are not obliged to subject themselves to it.

The Cardinal goeth on, and saith in sum that participating the two kinds serveth indeed for the integrity of the signification, which is more express and entire when the two kinds are received, btcause (saith he) everyone of them that take the body and blood of Christ under the two kinds, is more expressly and particularly admonished that his body was divided from the blood in the sufferings of the Cross. But he saith, that this serveth not for the integrity of the Communion; because whole Christ is received as well with one kind as with two.

The Reader is desired to observe this with care; for this is a great concession, that in the Roman Church the signification of the Eucharist is diminished, and is not in its integrity. For when a Christian takes the Cup, it represents to him, and assureth him that the blood of Christ was shed for him. And the receiving of the two kinds, represents and signifies to us, that in Christ dead for us our souls find a most entire food. Since then the word Sacrament is as much as a Sacred sign, when the signification of the Sacrament is diminished, the Sacrament also is diminished, and becomes less a Sacrament, since it is less signifying. For the Sacrament as a Sacrament is signifying, and was instituted by Christ to be the remembrance or commemoration of him. So by the Cardinals confession the Sacrament is mutilated, and the integrity of the same diminished in that very thing for which Christ did institute it. And these words of Cardinal du Perron ought to be graven in brass for a memorial to posterity that Christ's institution that we should take the Sacrament distinctly under the two kinds, belongs to the integrity of the signification. A Prelate so famous freely acknowledgeth that Christ hath instituted that we should take the Sacrament distinctly under the two kinds. What can we ask more? For who can dispense us from the command of the Son of God? Why shall not the command of Christ remain firm about the integrity of the signification as well as about the integrity of the Communion, seeing that the integrity of the signification serveth for the integrity of the Spiritual communion by faith, which is the only saving communion? For the instruction of the understanding serveth to strengthen the faith by which Christ is apprehended unto salvation.

Here then the Cardinal puts two commandments of Christ, the one concerning the signification, the other concerning the Communion; and saith, that the first commandment enjoineth all Christians to communicate under the two kinds, but that the second which concerns the Communion, obligeth not all Christians to take the two kinds. Wherefore he saith, that of those two precepts of Christ the one is dispensable, the other indispensable; And that unto the Church to which the dispensation of the mysteries of Christ doth belong, it belongs also to judge which mysteries of Christ are dispensable. Upon which I say first, that it is a fault against common sense to find in these words, Drink ye all of this, two commandments, seeing that it is but one single commandment; one and the same commandment may serve for many ends. If this precept, Thou shalt not kill, serveth to preserve the life of our neighbor, and to maintain human society, and to honor the Image of God shining in our neighbors, it followeth not that therefore they are three precepts.

But that doctrine which giveth unto the Church (that is, to the Pope) the power of dispensing with Christ's commandments, is the highest degree of impiety and of the spirit of pride, which spits against heaven, and attempts to pull Christ down from his Throne. Whosoever hath lawful power and authority to dispense the French from the Kings command, is greater then the King. He that can say unto Christians, Christ hath commanded you that, but I dispense you from it, and make a contrary Law, must be greater and of more authority then Christ.

Is not that Church which the Cardinal speaks of, subject to Christ's commandment? And if she be subject to him, doth it belong to subjects to dispense themselves, or others, from God's commandments? What obedience can a King hope from his Subjects, if the Subjects have power to tell him, Thou hast indeed made us such a commandment, but we are judges of the sense, and of the strength of thy commandments? It belongs to us to judge which of thy commandments are dispensable.

But yet what is that Church but the Pope alone, to whom the Council referreth that power, to constitute what he shall think good concerning that point? And why shall the Roman Church have the power alone of dispensing with God's commandments, rather then the Greek and the Syrian, more ancient then the Roman? These Churches as well as the Ethiopian hold themselves tied by the Commandment of Christ, and give the Communion unto the people under the two kinds. When we ask where, and when, and upon what terms, God gave to the Roman Church the power of dispensing with God's Commandment, and to judge what Commandments of God are dispensable; they bring nothing to the purpose. They allege some text where Christ promiseth to his Apostles, to lead them into all truth; and where it is said to Peter, I have prayed that thy faith fail not: But there it is not spoken of the Pope, nor of the Roman Church, nor of dispensing from God's Commandments.

Hence the Cardinal passeth to the Fathers. He saith that the primitive Church admitted in many cases the Communion under one of the two kinds, namely in them that carried the Eucharist upon the Sea; And in them that kept it at home, or sent it into a foreign Land; a custom condemned by the Council of Laodicea 14. ch. He addeth sick persons: But this Prelate doth according to his custom, which is never to answer directly, and to baulk the question, spending words upon that which is not in dispute. When we dispute of this point by the Fathers, the question is, whether in the Church, or in the Assembly of Christians, the Eucharist was celebrated without administering the Cup to the Christians that are present; Or if ever the Cup was denied to any of the people that asked it, and presented himself to receive it; Or if in the assembly of Christians met together to celebrate the Eucharist, the Priest drunk alone, the people looking on without participating the Cup; Of that the Cardinal brings no example of Antiquity, but some extraordinary actions, made without the celebration of the Eucharist in the Church, which actions the Roman Church hath rejected, and approveth them not; And yet after all, that which he saith is false. For why could they not participate the two kinds in a Ship? Why could not those men and women that carried the Sacrament from the Church to their home, bring wine to their houses as well as bread? The passage of Gregorius Nazianzenus alleged before, showeth it. If she had (saith he) laid up somewhere as a treasure some part of the venerable body and blood, she mingled it with her tears.

That it was the ancient custom everywhere, and without exception to receive the people to the participation of the Cup, it is undeniable. The Apostle, 1 Cor. 1.28. speaking to the people of Corinth, Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat this bread, and drink this cup. And 1 Cor. 10.17. the version of the Roman Church hath these words, We all participate the same bread, and the same cup. Ignatius in the Epistle to the Philadelphians. The same bread was broken to all, and the same cup was distributed to all. Justin Martyr in his second Apologetic; They that among us are called Deacons, distribute to everyone that is present the bread, over which thanks were given, and the wine with water. Cyprian in the 63. Epistle chideth those, Qui in calice Domini sanctificando & plebi ministrando, who in consecrating the cup, and administering it unto the people, do not that which Christ did. The Canon Cum frangitur in the 2. Distinction of the Consecration; When the host is broken, when the blood is poured out of the cup into the mouth of the faithful, &c. And in the Canon Quia passus, Austin speaks thus unto the people, You are at the table, and are with us in the cup; for we take together, we drink together, because we live together. Paschasinus, Drink ye all of this, that is, both the Ministers and other believers. Many testimonies of Fathers to this purpose might be heaped up. I will add but one of Pope Gelasius, who writ in the year 496. of Christ. We have been informed that some having taken some part only of the sacred body, abstain from the cup of the consecrated blood. Who without doubt (because they are said to be retained by some superstition) must either receive the whole Sacraments, or be altogether excluded from them, because the division of the same mystery cannot happen without a great sacrilege. Cardinal Baronius maintains with us that this Ordinance of Pope Gelasius is made as well for the people as for the Clergy, and saith that by this mark the Manicheans were discerned from the Orthodox: For the Manicheans abstained from wine; they fell into the same abuse as the Roman Church of these days, though upon another ground. And truly the word arceantur, which signifieth, let them be put by, showeth that Gelasius speaks of the people that present themselves to the Communion. Had that Ordinance of Gelasius been made only for the Priests, it had been useless: For Antiquity speaks not that ever any Priest made a scruple of drinking the cup. Let our Adversaries shift as much as they can, yet this remains that giving the bread without the cup, is a sacrilege and a division of the Sacrament, and that by the judgment of one of the most famous Popes. Aquinas in the seventh Lesson upon John. 6. makes here a free Confession; According to the custom of the ancient Church, as all communicated to the body, so all did communicate to the blood, which is kept still in some Churches.

Cardinal du Perron himself pleadeth here guilty; for he saith, that the first place where this custom already past into use by the Catholic Church (meaning the Roman) was turned into a Law, was the Council of Constance. Now that Council sat in the year of Christ, 1414. So well nigh 1400. years past before the Roman Church had that Law. Of that Council, the impiety goeth so far as to declare those Heretics that would follow the example of Christ, and confessing that Christ hath instituted that the faithful should receive the Communion in the two kinds, and that the ancient Church did so practice it, yet constituteth that the contrary be held for a Law, and that all that contradict it be punished by the secular arm. These are the words of the Council. That although Christ instituted and administered this venerable Sacrament under the two kinds unto his Disciples, &c. And although in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was received by the faithful people in both the kinds, &c. Yet the Council saith, that in some parts of the world some persons rashly presume that the Christian people ought to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist in the two kinds. And constituteth that the custom of communicating in one kind, brought in with good reason be held for a Law, and that such as maintain the contrary be expelled as heretics, and grievously punished, &c. so far as to call the help of the secular arm. Whether these Fathers were led by the Spirit of God, or by the spirit of blasphemy, and whether they put not Christ in the rank of Heretics, that deserve to be punished, let the Reader judge.

Our difference then with the Romanists, is not, whether Christ hath instituted that Christians, both Pastors and People, receive the communion in the two kinds, nor whether the ancient Church did so practice it; for our adversaries confess both; But whether the Roman Church might, or ought to have changed Christ's institution; or (to speak with the Cardinal) whether that commandment of Christ be dispensable, and whether the Roman Church can dispense with it, and exempt the Christian people from it. The Cardinal goeth about to prove that the Church hath that power, and proveth it by examples.

He saith that Christ instituted the holy Eucharist after Supper. That Baptism in the beginning was done by immersion and dipping, not by aspersion, and sprinkling. Whence he gathereth that if in those points the Church had the authority to alter Christ's institution; the same Church might also alter his commandment concerning the cup, by not giving it to the people.

I answer, that we have the Lord's commandment, both clear and express, which saith, Drink ye all of it, and that of the Apostle, who speaking to the people of Corinth, will have them to examine themselves, and so to eat that bread and drink that cup. But we have no command for celebrating the Communion after Supper. Christ celebrated the Eucharist after Supper upon occasion, because he did substitute it unto the Passover, which at the same time he ate for the last time. But for the hour of that celebration he gave no command: Had he given any, we should have been bound to obey it, and to tie ourselves to the hour prescribed by him, as Austin saith, Epist. 118. Had Christ given us that order that the Sacrament should be always taken after other meats, I believe that no man would have altered that custom. Herein then the Church hath not changed Christ's institution, because this is not of his institution: By the same reason one might say, that the Church celebrating the holy Communion in a Temple, changed the Lord's institution; for he instituted this holy Sacrament in an upper room.

It is certain that when the Apostle Paul, Act. 20. celebrated the holy communion in an upper room on the third loft: he did it not to follow Christ's institution, nor to conform himself to his example, but because such was the conveniency of the place. The like we may say of the hour; since there is no hour appointed by Christ's institution for this holy celebration; no wonder that the Church used the Liberty of choosing such an hour as was judged most convenient.

Neither is either the hour or the place part of the Sacrament, or essential to it. But the participation of the cup is part, yea the just half of the Sacrament, and of the essence of the same. And by consequence one cannot deprive the people of the cup, without depriving them of the half of the Sacrament, and without diminishing the signification thereof, as the Cardinal himself acknowledgeth.

The same we say of Baptism. No command can be • ound for dipping the whole bodies of baptized persons • o more then for h • • prinkling them. In vain it is alleged that baptizing signifieth dipping, not b • • prinkling; for that word signifieth washing also, as Mark 7.4. it is spoken o • the washing of pots there is in the Greek, the baptizing of pots. And in the sa • e place it is said, that the Pharisees when they come from the Market, e ••• ot, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , except they wash; for it is not credible that every time th • t a Pharisee had past through the Market, or through the crowd of the people, he thought himself obliged to dip himself whole in water before he ate. For this cause baptism is also called washing, Tit. 2.5. And Scripture affords us examples of persons baptized without dipping. For it is more like that the Eunuch of Queen Candace, Act. 8. was baptized by Philip in a brook where he could not be dipt; for in the road where he was travelling, which was from Jerusalem to Gaza, there is no River. The same may be said of St. Paul's baptism, who was baptized by Ananias. It is not credible that Ananias brought him out of the house to the River, or had prepared a Bath to baptize him. In the ancient Church many would receive Baptism on their death-bed; among others, the Emperor Constantine, who being in that case, would not have suffered himself to be dipt whole in water. And hardly can we believe that in cold Countries, as Pontus and Bulgaria, they ever dipt whole children in the Winter time to baptize them.

Observe also, that the Apostle Peter calls the purgation of our sins in Christ's blood an aspersion, alluding to the custom of making an aspersion of water in baptism.

Here the Cardinal must not be pardoned a gross fault: He saith, that St. Paul, Tit. 3. calls Baptism the Bath, or Laver of regeneration: This Prelate confounds 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The first signifieth washing, the other, a laver, or bathing tub: The first signifieth in Latin, Lotio seu ablutio, the other labrum, balneum: St. Paul calls Baptism a washing, not a laver, as the Cardinal thinks.

But although the Church in the Apostles time had made some alteration in the institution made by Christ (which yet we do not grant at all) it would not follow that the Pope and the Roman Church of this time have the like authority. If the ancient Church in the first Ages tied herself as much as she could to the dipping of the whole person, after the example of John the Baptist, who dipt in Jordan those whom he baptized; yet Christ gave no command that bind the Christians to that custom: Which if he had done, that command ought to be kept inviolably. But as for the communion under the two kinds, both for the Pastors and the people, the Cardinal acknowledgeth that Christ hath commanded it; but he maintains that the Church, that is the Pope, can dispense from that command.

To the foresaid reasons the Cardinal adds some inconveniences and difficulties, which moved the Roman Church to make that alteration. Namely, that they feared that the cup should spill: Then the length and difficulty to give the communion to a great multitude in one only cup. And the loathing of drinking after so many persons, especially in the time of contagion. And the difficulty of getting wine in some countries, as at Calecut and Goa, where a Hogs-head of wine costs eight hundred or a thousand crowns. Others add that the cup was taken from the people, because men dipt the hair of their upper lip in the cup; whence it happened that Christ remained whole, hanging on every hairs end of so many beards. Others that this was done to honor the Clergy, and give them a privilege above the people.

To all these I answer, that when Christ and his apostles commanded that the people should drink the cup, they knew all these inconveniences, and had at the least as much foresight as the Roman Church.

If it be a • evil to let the wine fall, it is a worse evil to fall from the obedience due unto Christ's •• mmand. In the time of the four first Councils, when the Christian Church was infin ••• lie populous in great Cities, as Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, the •• ltitude of the people did not hinder them from participating the cup. They di • • ot hold it necessary that there should be but one cup, it being sufficient that the pe •• le should drink of the same wine; for it is not the cup that we participate, but t •• t which is within.

We read, Act. 6. that Deacons • ere created to serve the Tables; if there were many tables, there were many cups. •• r the Agapes were made at the same Tables, upon which the holy Communion was a •• inistred.

As for the loathing, and the contagion, experience showeth the contrary. For in our Churches, where many thousands of persons participate the cup together, we never saw or heard of any inconvenience, no more then in the ancient Church.

As for Countries where there is no wine, it were better to follow the example of the Churches of Ethiopia, who make use of another drink used in that Country, then to want the cup in the Lord's Supper. As in Countries where there is no bread, we doubt not but that the Church might use that which is used for bread. For the essence of the Sacrament consisteth in the relation between the signs and the thing signified. Now the end and essence of the Sacrament is to assure us, that the body and blood of Christ are the whole food of our souls, To signify that the most common food is the most proper.

As for dipping so many beards in the blood of Christ, if there be profanation in it, we must say, that the Church of the Apostles, and that of the first ages was profane; for the people drunk in the cup without shaving their upper lip. They were not so stupid as to think that when the beard was dipt in the cup, the body of Christ remained hanging at every hair. The opinion of the Transubstantiation is employed to breed that vain fear, and one error serveth to propagate another. To which I add that it were better to be without a beard on the upper-lip, then to violate Christ's institution.

But these are not the true reasons that moved the Pope and his Prelates to make that alteration, but the pride of the Clergy to exalt themselves above the people. This appeareth in that the Pope admitteth Kings to the Chalice, and yet obligeth them not to shave their upper lip. For by that means Priests are become Kings fellows. As also the Pope to exalt himself above the Clergy, and above Kings, hath reserved to himself that custom, which in old time was practiced in divers places, to drink out of a covered Chalice, held by a Cardinal Bishop on his knees, sucking part of the drink with a small reed or pipe.

Here then, as in all things, we must return to Christ's commandment, who administering the cup said, Drink ye all of this, and, Do this in remembrance of me, commanding his Disciples to do to others, what he had done unto them, and by consequent to administer the two kinds unto others. It is observable, that Christ said not, Eat ye all of this, but speaks more expressly of the cup, as foreseeing the abuse that should follow. And if these words, Drink ye all of this, are not a command, to the obedience whereof the people be obliged; the same must be said of these words, Take eat. So there will be nothing in the institution of this Sacrament that obliges the people to take either the bread or the cup.

Or if these words, Drink ye all of this, are addrest only unto Pastors, because they to whom Christ spake were Pastors and Apostles, I will say the same of these words, Take eat; for both the Commandments are made to the same persons: yet it is certain, that the Disciples hearing the words of the Lord, and receiving the Sacrament from his hand, did not keep the rank of Pastors, but of sheep, and were to be considered as Disciples.

That which the Cardinal saith, is most false, that Christ did not say, Eat ye all of this; because he gave to each of his Disciples the bread separate and divided. For they being thirteen persons at the table, his arms could not reach to the other end of the table, and it was necessary that the dish where the bread was, should be given from hand to hand.

But we have Paul's express words, who contents not himself to say to the people of Corinth, As often you eat this bread, and drink this cup; but adds a pregnant injunction, Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat this bread, and drink this cup. As the examining of ones self before receiving the Sacrament, so the receiving of the cup is equally commanded to all.

Also we ask the Romanists, whether Christ's speaks of the Eucharist, when he saith, Joh. 6. Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you? If the Eucharist be not meant there, why do they use that text to prove transubstantiation? If the Eucharist is meant in that Text, why do they deprive the people of life, by denying them the cup? The Cardinal answereth, that he that takes the body, drinks his blood, as for the effect, not as for the manner; for tht blood is not severed from the body. This answer, that to take bread is drinking, expresseth either a desperate cause, or an abusive mind. If that be true, the Priest drinks twice in the Mass, once when he takes the Host, another time when he takes the cup: And to speak with this Prelate, once as for the manner, twice as for the effect. Besides drinking is the manner of participating: Christ then saying, Except ye drink, prescribes to us the manner of participating; and thus the Priest transgresseth the commandment of Christ, who by saying, Drink, instituted the manner of the Sacramental Communion.

The Cardinal useth another shift, saying that when Christ said, Except you eat my flesh, and drink my blood, he meant, Except you eat my flesh, Or drink my blood: But that being an alteration of Christ's words, and a depravation of Scripture, deserveth no answer. By the same reason one might abstain from the bread, and participate the cup only.

It is to be noted, that 1 Cor. 10.17. the Vulgar version, the only approved and authorized by the Council of Trent, hath these words, We all are partakers of the same bread, and of the same cup; which words should be false, if the people of Corinth had not participated the cup.

Thirteenth Controversy, OF THE SEVENTH BOOK OF Private Masses.

Fourteenth Controversy, OF THE SEVENTH BOOK. THE ANTIBARBAROUS, OR, Of unknown Language, both in the Prayers of private persons, and in the public Service. Where also the principal Clauses of the Mass are represented, which might offend the people if they understood them. To my dear Nephew Monsieur BOCHART, Pastor of the Church of LAEN.

IF the Church of God receive some benefit by this labor of mine, she may thank you for it; for in my answer to Cardinal Du Perron, having unawares omitted his Chapter about the use of unknown language in God's service, you have given me advice of that defect, and exhorted me to supply it. I have followed your counsel, and made this Treatise, which I here present unto you, beseeching you to receive it as a testimony of my hearty love, and of the joy I receive seeing you serve in the work of the Lord with so much praise. It is no small consolation to me among so many desolations, to see that God is raising lights to shine in the darkness which groweth thicker every day. For since God sends us good laborers, he showeth that he will leave us yet some harvest. Having endowed you with his fear from your infancy, and now set you apart for his service, he will arm you with strength and courage, that you may not sink under the burden. For you are enrolled in this sacred Militia in a time when you shall have need of double provision of zeal and holy magnanimity. It will be a great honor to you to be set upon the breach, and in the hottest conflict, and to be a burning and shining lamp in the dismal night of our Age. In this great work you shall have a blessed experience of the help that God promiseth to them that love him, and hold it a great gain to lose their lives and estates for his service. As he hath given stronger roots unto trees that stand in the top of rocks, because they are more exposed to the impetuosity of winds, he will also proportion your strength to the measure of the combats unto which he will expose you. Indeed the match between us and our Adversaries seems to be very unequal, and the enterprize on our side no less hard and unlikely then if we went about to undermine a rock with pins. But we ought to remember that we fight God's cause, who useth commonly weak Instruments for admirable works, that the glory of his success may not be attributed unto man's virtue. We must also put on this confidence, that the heavenly truth, though it were cast into the deepest bottom of the sea, will rise and come up to the top again: And that the Church stands faster then the world, since the world was made for the Church: To which may be applied that which is written of the City of Jericho, that he that founded it, laid the foundations thereof upon his first born. This same God, who with the sound of Joshua's trumpets made the walls of the enemy to fall, will one day make the wall of Babylon to fall down at the sound of the trumpets of the Gospel. And if God for the ungratefulness of this hard age defers that excellent work unto another time, we that have sowed in earth with little success, shall nevertheless reap a plentiful harvest in heaven. We carry this light like Gideon's soldiers, in earthen vessels, that is, in frail bodies; the breaking whereof shall be happy and honorable, if it may serve to make the light of the Gospel to appear. For should we that preach the cross of Christ be exempted from it? Should not we that bear this Ark enter the first into this Jordan, being patterns to God's people that followeth, not only in doctrine, but also in zeal and all virtue? As for me, having almost ended my race, and aspiring with all my soul to the rest which God hath promised unto them that fear him, I rejoice to leave after me persons endowed with a greater measure of his graces, and especially mine own Nephew, whom I have loved with a fatherly affection; one who treading upon the steps of a virtuous Father, whose memory is blessed in God's Church, will go beyond his predecessors▪ and shall leave an example unto posterity. But while I remain yet in this earthly house, you owe me the help of your prayers, as I for my part beseech God that he strengthen you with his grace to be his faithful servant, to fight the good fight, and to be fruitful to his glory. I rest

A TREATISE OF The use of an unknown Tongue in Prayers and God's Service.