rative speech wherein we are commanded Spiritually to feed upon the remembrance of his Paffion.

To thefe I will add but three or four Teftimonies. more in the two following Ages.

"

The first shall be of Theodoret, who fpeaking of that *Gen.49.11. * Prophecy of Jacob concerning our Saviour, he wafhed his garments in Wine and his clothes in the blond of ↑ Dialog. 1. grapes, hath thefe words, as we call the mystical fruit of the Vine (that is, the Wine in the Sacrament) after confecration the bloud of the Lord, fo be (viz. Facob) calls the bloud of the true Vine (viz. of Chrift) the bloud of the grape: but the bloud of Chrift is not literally and properly but onely figuratively the bloud of the grape, in the fame fenfe as he is faid to be the true Vine; and therefore the Wine in the Sacrament after confecration is in like manner not literally and properly but figuratively the bloud of Chrift. And he explains this afterwards, faying, that our Saviour changed the names, and gave to his Body the name of the Symbol or Sign, and to the Symbol or Sign the name of his Body; thus when he had call'd himself the Vine, be call'd the Symbol or Sign his bloud, fo that in the fame fenfe that he call'd himself the Vine, he call'd the Wine, which is the Symbol of his bloud, his bloud: For, fays he, he would have those who partake of the divine mysteries not to attend to the nature of the things which are feen, but by the change of names to believe the change which is made by grace, for he who called that which by nature is a body wheat and bread, and again likewife call'd himself the Vine, he honour'd the Symbols with the name of body and bloud: not changing nature but adding grace to nature. Where you fee he fays exprefly, that when he call'd the Symbols or Elements of the Sacrament, viz. bread and Wine, his Body and Bloud, he made no change in the nature of the things, onely added grace to na

2

ture,

ture, that is, by the Divine grace and blessing he raifed them to a Spiritual and Supernatural vertue and efficacy.

The Second is of the fame Theodoret in his fecond Di alogue between a Catholique, under the name of Orthodox us, and an Heretique under the name of Eraniftes; who maintaining that the Humanity of Christ was chang'd into the substance of the Divinity (which was the Herefie of Eutyches) he illuftrates the matter by this Similitude, As, fays he, the Symbols of the Lord's body and bloud are one thing before the invocation of the Priest, but after the invocation are changed and become another thing; So the bodyof our Lord after his afcenfion is changed into the divine fubftance. But what fays the Catholique Orthodoxus to this? why, he talks just like one of Cardinal Perron's Heretiques, Thou art, fayshe, caught in thy own net because the mystical Symbols after confecration do not pass out of their own nature; for they Kemain in their former fubftance, figure and appearance and may be seen and handled even as before. He does not onely deny the outward figure and appearance of the Symbols to be chang'd, but the nature and fubstance of them, even in the proper and ftricteft fenfe of the word substance; and it was neceflary so to do, otherwife he had not given a pertinent anfwer to the fimilitude urg'd against him.

* Biblioth.

The next is one of their own Popes, Gelafius, who brings the fame Inftance against the Eutychians; * furely, lays he, the Sacraments which we receive of the body Patr. Tom. 4. and loud of our Lord are a divine thing, fo that by them we are made partakers of a divine nature, and yet it ceafeth not to be the fubftance or nature of bread and Wine; and certainly the image and refemblance of Chrift's body and bloud are celebrated in the action of the mysteries, that is, in the Sacrament. To make this In

ftance

Parif. 1676.

ftance of any force against the Eutychians, who held that the body of Chrift upon his afcenfion ceas'd and was chang'd into the substance of his Divinity, it was neceffary to deny that there was any fubftantial change in the Sacrament of the bread and wine into the body and bloud of Chrift. So that here is an infallible authority, one of their own Popes exprefly a gainst Tranfubftantiation.

The laft Teftimony I fhall produce is of Facundus an African Bishop, who lived in the 6th Century Upon occafion of justifying an expreffion of one who had faid that Chrift alfo received the adoption of Sons, he * Facund. reasons thus. * Chrift vouchfafed to receive the Sacra p. 144. edit. ment of adoption both when he was circumcifed and baptized: And the Sacrament of Adoption may be called adoption, as the Sacrament of his body and bloud, which is in the confecrated bread and cup, is by us called his body and bloud: not that the bread, fays he, is properly his body and the cup his bloud, but because they contain in them the mysteries of his body and bloud, hence alfo our Lord himfelf called the bleffed bread and cup which he gave to his Difciples his body and blond. Can any man after this believe, that it was then, and had ever been the univerfal and received Doctrine of the Christian Church, that the bread and wine in the Sa crament are fubftantially changed into the proper and natural body and bloud of Chrift?

J

By thefe plain Teftimonies which have produced, and I might have brought a great many more to the fame purpose, it is I think evident beyond all denial that Tranfubftantiation hath not been the perpetual be lief of the Chriftian Church. And this likewife is ac knowledged by many great and learned men of the (a) In Sent. Roman Church. (a) Scotus acknowledgeth, that this 1.4. Dift. 11. Doctrine was not always thought neceffary to be be

2.3.

lieved,

lieved, but that the neceffity of believing it was confequent to that Declaration of the Church made in the Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent the III. And (b) Durandus freely discovers his inclination to have (b) In Sent. believed the contrary, if the Church had not by that de- q.1. n. 15. 1.4. dift. 11. termination obliged men to believe it. (c) Tonftal Bi- (c)de Enchar. shop of Durham alfo yields, that before the Lateran ..p. 146. Council men were at liberty as to the manner of Chrift's prefence in the Sacrament. And (d) Erafmus who lived (d) In 1. Z and died in the communion of the Roman Church, finth. c. 7. pift. ad Coand than whom no man was better read in the ancient citante etiam Fathers, doth confefs that it was late before the Church Salmerone, defined Tranfubftantiation, unknown to the Ancients both 16. p. 108. name and thing. And (e) Alphonfus a Caftrofays plain (e) de Haref. ly, that concerning the Tranfubftantiation of the bread 1. 8. into the body of Chrift, there is feldom any mention in the ancient Writers. And who can imagine that these learned men would have granted the ancient Church and Fathers to have been so much Strangers to this Doctrine, had they thought it to have been the perpetual belief of the Church I fhall now in the

Second place, give an account of the particular time and occafion of the coming in of this Delrine, and by what steps and degrees it grew up and was advanced into an Article of Faith in the Romish Church. The Doctrine of the corporal prefence of Christ was first started upon occafion of the Difpute about the Worship of Images, in oppofition whereto the Synod of Conftantinople about the year DCCL did argue thus, That our Lord ha ving left us no other image of himself but the Sacra- › ment, in which the substance of bread is the image of his body, we ought to make no other image of our Lord. In anfwer to this Argument the fecond Council: of Nice in the year DCCLXXXVII did declare, that the Sacrament after Confecration is not the image and

antitype

Tom. 9.Tra&.

+ Ibid.

antitype of Chrift's body and bloud, but is properly his body and bloud. So that the corporal prefence of Chrift in the Sacrament was first brought in to support the ftupid worship of Images: And indeed it could never have come in upon a more proper occafion, nor have been applied to a fitter purpose.

And here I cannot but take notice how well this * de Eucha- agrees with * Bellarmine's Obfervation, that none of the rift. l. 1. c. 1. Ancients who wrote of Herefies, hath put this errour (viz. of denying Tranfubftantiation) in his Catalogue ; nor did any of the Ancients difpute against this errour for the first 600 years. Which is very true, because there could be no occafion then to dispute against those who denied Transubstantiation; since, as I have fhewn, this Doctrine was not in being, unless amongst the Eutychian Heretiques, for the first 600 years and more. But † Bellarmine goes on and tells us, that the first who call'd in question the truth of the body of the Lord in the Eucharift were the ICONOMACHI (the oppofers of Images) after the year DCC in the Council of Conftantinople; for thefe faid there was one image of Chrift inftituted by Chrift himself, viz. the bread and wine in the Eucharift, which represents the body and bloud of Chrift: Wherefore from that time the Greek Writers often admonish us that the Eucharift is not the figure or image of the body of the Lord, but his true body, as appears from the VIIth. Synod; which agrees molt exactly with the account which I have given of the first rise of this Doctrine, which began with the corporal prefence of Chrift in the Sacrament, and afterwards proceeded to Tranfubftantiation.

And as this was the firft occafion of introducing this Doctrine among the Greeks, fo in the Latin or Roman Church Pafchafius Radbertus, first a Monk, and afterwards Abbat of Corbey, was the first broacher of it in rear DCCCXVIII.

And