This is a new undertaking, which the impetuousness of our adversaries, setting up tradition for the ground of their faith, hath brought me to. But besides the shewing that really they have not tradition on their side, I have endeavoured to trace the several steps, and to set down the times and occasions of introducing those points which have caused that unhappy breach in the Christian world, whose sad effects we daily see and lament, but have little hopes to see remedied, till these new points be discarded, and scripture, interpreted by truly catholic tradition, be made the standard of Christian communion.

I do not pretend that all these points came in at one time, or in the same manner; for some errors and corruptions came in far more early; some had the favour of the church of Rome in a higher degree; some were more generally received in the practice of the church in latter times than others; and some were merely school points before the council of Trent, but as far as the Thomists and Scotists could be made to agree there against the reformers, these passed for articles of faith. For this was one of the great arts of that council, to draw up their decrees in such terms as should leave room enough for eternal wranglings among themselves, provided they agreed in doing the business effectually against the heretics, as they were pleased to call them. I therefore forbear to urge these as points of faith, which have been freely debated among themselves since the council of Trent without any censure. have enough in the plain decrees and canons of that council, without meddling with any school points. And so I cannot be charged with misrepresenting.

We

The great debate of late hath been about the true exposition of the points there defined; and for my part, I am content to yield to any just and reasonable methods of giving the true sense of them. And such I conceive these to be:

I. Where the council of Trent makes use of words in a strict and limited sense, there it is unreasonable to understand them in a large and improper sense. As for instance, sess, 6. c. 26, it decrees that justified persons do vere promerere, truly merit eternal life; and can. 32. there is an anathema against him who denies "true merit in the good works of justified persons, both as to increase of grace and eternal life." There is no one

conversant in ancient writers, but knows that there was a large and improper sense of the word merit; but how is it possible to apply that sense, where such care is taken that it may be understood in a strict and limited sense? If the council had left the word in its general sense, there might have been reason to have given the fairest interpretation to it; but when it is certainly known that there had been a difference of opinions in the church of Rome about true and proper merit, and that which was not, (however it were called,) and the council declares for the former, no man of understanding can believe that only the improper sense was meant by it. As in the point of the eucharist, when the council declares that the words of Christ, This is my body, are truly and properly to be understood; would it not be thought strange for any one to say that the council, notwithstanding, might mean that Christ's words may be figuratively understood? And we must take the true notion of merit, not from any large expressions of the ancients, but from the conditions of true and proper merit among themselves. But of this at large afterwards. So as to the notion of sacraments, every one knows how largely that word was taken in ancient writers; but it would be absurd to understand the council of Trent in that sense, when sess. 6. can. 1. de Sacramentis, it denounces an anathema, not merely against him that denies seven sacraments; but against him "that doth not hold every one of them to be truly and properly a sacrament." And in the Creed of Pius IV. one article is, that there are "seven true and proper sacraments." How vain a thing then were it for any to expound these sacraments in a large and improper sense!

II. Where the council of Trent hath not declared itself, but it is fully done in the Catechism made by its appointment, we ought to look on that as the true sense of the council. As in the case of the sacraments; the council never declares what it means by "true and proper sacraments;" but the Catechism b makes large and full amends for this defect. For after it hath mentioned the use of the word in profane and sacred writers, it sets down the sense of it, according to their divines, for "a sensible sign which conveys the grace which it signifies." And after a large explication of the nature of signs, it gives this de

b Catechism. Rom, part 2.

scription of a true and proper sacrament, "that it is a sensible thing, which by Divine institution not only hath the force of signifying, but of causing grace.' And to shew the authority of this Catechism for explicating the doctrine of the sacraments, we need only to look into sess. 24. c. 7. de Reform. where it is required that the people be instructed in the sacraments according to it. It is supposed, that the Catechism was appointed to be made in the 18th session at the instigation of Carolus Borromæus, (since canonized,) but it was not finished while the council sat, and therefore, sess. 25, "it was referred to the judgment and authority of the pope." I confess therefore it hath not a conciliar authority stamped upon it, but it hath a sort of transfused infallibility, as far as they could convey it; and as much as a council hath, when it borrows it from the pope's confirmation. It was near two years hammering at Trent, viz. from 26th of Feb. 1562, to Dec. 1563, when the council rose; afterwards, it was preparing at Rome three years longer, and then presented to the pope to be approved, and published by his authority, after it had been carefully reviewed by cardinal Sirlet, Borromeo, and others; and hath since been universally received in the Roman church; so that we can have no more authentic exposition of the sense of the council of Trent, than what is contained in that Catechism.

III. Where the council of Trent declares a thing in general to be lawful and due, but doth not express the manner of it, that is to be understood from the generally received and allowed practices at that time. For otherwise, the council must be charged with great unfaithfulness in not setting down and correcting public and notorious abuses, when it mentioned the things themselves, and some abuses about them. As in the 25th session, concerning purgatory, invocation of saints, worship of images and relics; it goes no further than that "the sound doctrine be taught, that saints are to be invocated, images and relics to be worshipped;" but never defines what that sound doctrine is, what bounds are to be set in the worship of saints, images, and relics, which it is unlawful to exceed. So that in this case, we have no other way to judge of the meaning of the council, but by comparing the public and allowed practices of the church with the general decrees of the council. And we have this further reason for it, that we are

told by the latest expositors of it, that the sense of the church in speculative points is to be taken from public practices. For thus one of them expresses himselfc: "Moreover, even her speculative doctrines are so mixed with practical ceremonies, which represent them to the vulgar, and instruct even the meanest capacities in the abstrusest doctrines, that it seems ever impossible to make an alteration in her doctrine without abrogating her ceremonies, or changing her constant practices.'

IV. Where the decrees of the council are not sufficiently clear, there we must take in the canons, to make the sense more plain. This rule I take from the council itself, which in the sixth session, just before the canons, saith, "that those are added, that all may know, not only what they are to hold and follow, but what they are to shun and avoid." As in the famous instance of transubstantiation: suppose that the words of the decree do not determine expressly the modus; yet it is impossible for any one to doubt of it who looks into the canon which denounces an anathema against him d, not only that denies transubstantiation, but that asserts the substance of bread and wine to remain after consecration. Therefore he that asserts transubstantiation according to the council of Trent must hold it in such a manner, as thereby to understand "that the substance of bread and wine doth not remain." Otherwise he is under an anathema by the express canon of the council.

Therefore it is so far from being a fatal oversight, (as a late author expresses it,) to say that the council of Trent hath determined the modus of the real presence, that no man who is not resolved to oversee it can be of another opinion. And herein the divines of the church of Rome do agree with us, viz. that the particular modus is not only determined by the council, but that it is a matter of faith to all persons of the communion of that church. As not only appears from the second canon, but from the very decree itself, sess. 13. ch. 4:

"The holy synod declares, that by consecration of the bread and wine, there is a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood, which conversion is fitly and properly by the holy catholic church called transubstantiation." In which words the council c Reply to the Defence of the Exposition, &c. p. 134. d Sess. 13. Can. 2.

doth plainly express the modus of the real presence to be, not by a presence of Christ's body together with the substance of the bread, as the Lutherans hold, but by a "conversion of the "whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body," &c. And since there were different manners of understanding this real presence, if the council did not espouse one so as to reject the other as heretical; then it is impossible to make the Lutheran doctrine to be declared to be heretical; i. e. unless the council did determine the modus of the real presence. For if it did not, then, notwithstanding the decrees and canons of the council of Trent, persons are at liberty to believe either transubstantiation or consubstantiation; which I think no Roman catholic will allow.

But it is said, that the meaning of the decree is, "that the real presence is not to be understood after a natural, but a sacramental manner;" but doth it not plainly tell us how that sacramental manner is to be understood, viz. "by a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the whole substance of the body," &c. And if other ways be possible, and all others be rejected, then this particular modus must be determined.

I grant that the council doth not say, "there is an annihilation of the elements;" and I know no necessity of using that term; for that which is supposed to be turned into another thing cannot properly be said to be annihilated (which is the reducing it to nothing); but the council doth assert "a total conversion of one substance into another;" and where that is, that substance must wholly cease to be what it was; and so, there can be no substance of the elements remaining after consecration. For, as Aquinas observes, Quod convertitur in aliquid, facta conversione non manete. If then the substance of the elements doth not remain after consecration, by virtue of this total conversion, then the council of Trent, by its decree, hath plainly determined the modus of the real presence, so as to exclude any such manner as doth suppose the substance to remain, whether it be by impanation or consubstantiation, or any other way.

What if Rupertus thought the bread might become the real body of Christ by an union of the Word to it? All that can be e 3 Q. 75. A. 2.