regard to the Eucharist; for he represents their doctrine, concerning the ministration of a popish priest at the altar, as one which left the people without any sacrifice of the most high and true God; that is to say (for thus the whole context imports), as one which left the people without any daily sacrifice of the Mass.

In truth, the very phraseology which the blundering Abbot puts into their mouths, absurd and incongruous as it is, so utterly destroys the fancy of their being Manichèans, that Bossuet, more prudently than equitably, has not, any more than their fourth and fifth points of doctrine, ventured to adduce it.

According to Peter de Clugny, they were wont to say to the people: Be not deceived by the priests, who would persuade you that they can make the body of Christ upon the altar; whereas the body of Christ was made once only, by Christ himself, at the last supper *.

What they really said, was; that The body of

* Verba vestra, quæ ad nos pervenire potuerunt, ista sunt. Nolite, O populi, Episcopis, Presbyteris, seu Clero vos seducenti, credere: qui, sicut in multis, sic et in altaris officio, vos decipiunt ; ubi, corpus Christi se conficere, et vobis ad vestrarum animarum salutem se tradere, mentiuntur. Mentiuntur planè. Corpus enim Christi semel tantum, ab ipso Christo, in cœna ante passionem, factum est: et semel, hoc est, tunc tantum, discipulis datum est. Exinde, neque confectum ab aliquo, Petr. Clun. cont. Petrobrus. p. 228.

neque alicui datum, est.

Christ was once for all offered up on the cross: whence they argued; that A priest could not make the altar, in order that it might be repeatedly a sacrifice for sin.

it

upon

Their own language to the people, indeed, even as reported by the Abbot, is incompatible with the notion of their being Manichèans: for, in that very language, they are made professedly to acknowledge the true substantial existence of the human body of Christ.

V. That the entire matter may be still further cleared, I shall give the Abbot's own construction of the five doctrinal points ascribed to the Petrobrusians; together with a sixth point, in itself of secondary importance, and to the main question of no importance whatsoever.

Ye say: that neither baptism without concomitant faith, nor faith without concomitant baptism, is of any avail; for neither can save without the other*.

Ye preach that churches are vainly built; since the Church of God consists, not in a mass of coherent stones, but in the unity of the congregated faithful.

Ye say that the cross of the Lord is not to be honoured or adored; for the instrument of Christ's torment and death ought to be rejected, not vene

* Dixistis: Nec baptismus, sine propria fide; nec propria fides, sine baptismo: aliquid potuit. Petr. Clun. cont. Petrobrus. p. 217.

rated; ought to be burned, not (mere insensible matter as it is) to be invocated by silly prayers.

Ye assert: that the Church possesses not the body of the Lord, in the sacrament of the altar ; and that, whatsoever is there done by the priests, is idle and without true effect, since Christ gave his body, not to future Christians, but once alone to his then present disciples.

Ye affirm that it is in vain to pray or to do any good deed for the defunct; because the good deeds of the living cannot profit those, who, when they departed hence, took with them their whole stock of merit, to which nothing can be contributed by another.

Ye add that by ecclesiastical chaunts, God is only mocked; since he, who is delighted with holy affections alone can neither be propitiated by loud voices, nor soothed by the artificial modulations of scientific music*.

* Prædicatis enim templa superfluo fabricari: cum Ecclesia Dei non constet multitudine sibi cohærentium lapidum, sed unitate congregatorum fidelium.

Dicitis, crucem Domini honorandam vel adorandam non esse: quoniam species, quæ dominicorum cruciatuum et mortis instrumentum fuit, abjicienda, non veneranda; ignibus concremanda, non stultis supplicationibus res insensibilis invocanda est.

Asseritis, corpus Domini, in sacramento altaris, Ecclesiam non habere, et quicquid in eo a sacerdotibus fit, inane prorsus et absque aliquo veritatis effectu quoniam Christus, non futuris Christianis semper, sed præsentibus tantum discipulis, illud semel dederit.

From this statement, we may easily gather: that the true reason, why the Petrobrusians objected to the miserably superstitious worship of the cross, was the palpable circumstance of its being a piece of mere insensible matter; and that the real ground of their objection, to the vain and impious mummeries of the Mass, was the scriptural verity of the one sacrifice of Christ, once offered on the cross for the sins of all mankind, not repeatedly offered under the aspect of a sacrifice both for quick and for dead as often as a priest celebrates the Eucharist.

On the whole, if we allow for some small misapprehension or misconstruction in the statement which readily corrects itself, I can here discern, nothing indeed of Manichèism, but much of very sound Protestantism. Hence, with such evidence before him, I marvel not, however discrepant from Bossuet, at the very natural conclusion of the chronologist Genebrard : that The theological parents of the Calvinists, or the members of the French Reformed Churches, were the Petrobrusians

Affirmatis, vanum esse orare, vel quicquam boni facere, pro defunctis: quia eos vivorum bona juvare non possunt, qui totum meritum suum, cui nihil addi possit, secum, quando hinc transiere, tulerunt.

Additis, irrideri Deum cantibus ecclesiasticis: quoniam, qui solis affectibus sanctis delectatur, nec altis vocibus advocari, nec musicis modulis, potest, mulceri. Petr. Cluniac. cont. Petrobrus. p. 219.

and the Henricians and the Albigenses*. In truth, the Petrobrusians and the Henricians, as Bossuet himself well knows or rather insists, were but the Albigenses under different names. Consequently, when their doctrinal system is ascertained, that of the Albigenses is ascertained also†.

VI. At a later period, as I have already stated, the disciple Henry either died in confinement or encountered the same fate as his sainted master Bruis. Let us hope, that the former was the case. It has been said, however, that, after a

* Genebrard. Chronol. apud Allix on the Albig. chap. xviii. p. 196.

+ From the language of the Abbot Peter, we may gather, that, at this time, even some good Catholics, most probably from their converse with the heretical Albigenses, entertained doubts in no wise satisfactory to their ghostly teachers, respecting both the worship of the cross and the efficacy of any good deeds of the living to profit the dead.

Cum ergo, irrefragabili auctoritate et invicta ratione, honoranda, collaudanda, glorificanda, crux Christi a Christianis esse probetur: quod et adorari debeat, sicut a quibusdam hæreticis negatur; sic, utrum fieri debeat,, a quibusdam Catholicis quæritur. Petr. Clun. cont. Petrobrus. p. 226.

Quod bona vivorum mortuis prodesse valeant, et hi hæretici negant, et quidam etiam Catholici dubitare videntur. Ibid. p. 240. These acknowledgments are very curious. Notwithstanding

Peter's logical arguments in favour of idolatry and human meritoriousness, with which he himself at least is evidently quite satisfied, the leaven continued to ferment through all the middle ages until the mass was sufficiently prepared for the glorious Reformation of the sixteenth century.