ART.

XXVIII.

Dial. ft. and 2d. cont. Eu

tych.

Lib. de dua

bus nat.

Chrift.

Theodoret fays, Chrift does honour the fymbols with the name of his body and blood; not changing the nature, but adding grace to nature. In another place, purfuing the fame argument, he fays, The mystical fymbols after the fanctification do not depart from their own nature: for they continue in their former fubftance, figure and form, and are visible and palpable as they were before: but they are understood to be that which they are made.

Pope Gelafius fays, The facraments of the body and blood of Chrift are a divine thing; for which reafon we become by them partakers of the divine nature: and yet the fubftance of bread and wine does not cease to exift: and the image and likeness of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in holy mysteries. Upon all thefe places being compared with the defign with which they were written, which was to prove that Christ's human nature did ftill fubfift, unchanged, and not swallowed up by its union with the Divinity, fome reflections are very obvious: First, if the corporal prefence of Chrift in the facrament had been then received in the Church, the natural and unavoidable argument in this matter, which must put an end to it, with all that believed fuch corporal prefence, was this: Chrift has certainly a natural body ftill, because the bread and the wine are turned to it; and they cannot be turned to that which is not. In their writings they argued against a poffibility of a substantial change of a human nature into the divine; but that could not have been urged by men who believed a substantial mutation to be made in the facrament: for then the Eutychians might have retorted the argument with great advantage upon

them.

The Eutychians did make use of fome expreffions, that were ufed by fome in the Church, which feemed to import that they did argue from the facrament, as Theodoret represents their objections. But to that he answers as we have seen, denying that any fuch fubftantial change was made. The defign of those Fathers was to prove that things might be united together, and continue fo united, without a change of their fubftances, and that this was true in the two natures in the perfon of Chrift: and to make this more fenfible, they bring in the matter of the Sacrament, as a thing known and confeffed: for in their arguing upon it they do fuppofe it as a thing out of difpute.

Now, according to the Roman doctrine, this had been a very odd fort of an argument, to prove that Chrift's human nature was not swallowed up of the divine; because the mysteries or elements in the facrament are changed into the fubftance of Chrift's body, only they retain the outward appearances of bread and wine.

Το

XXVIII.

To this an Eutychian might readily have anfwered, that then ART. the human nature might be believed to be deftroyed: and though Christ had appeared in that likeness, he retained only the accidents of human nature; but that the human nature itself was deftroyed, as the bread and the wine were deftroyed in the eucharift.

This had been a very abfurd way of arguing in the Fathers, and had indeed delivered up the caufe to the Eutychians: whereas thofe Fathers make it an argument against them, to prove, that notwithstanding an union of two beings, and fuch an union as did communicate a fanctification from the one to the other, yet the two natures might remain ftill diftinguished; and that it was fo in the eucharift: therefore it might be fo in the perfon of Chrift. This feems to be fo evident an indication. of the doctrine of the whole Church in the fourth and fifth centuries, when fo many of the most eminent writers of thofe ages do urge it fo home as an argument in fo great a point, that we can scarce think it poffible for any man to confider it fully without being determined by it. And fo far we have confidered the authorities from the Fathers, to fhew that they believed that the substance of bread and wine did still remain in the facrament.

Another head of proof is, that they affirm, that our bodies are nourished by the facrament; which fhews very plainly that they had no notion of a change of substance made in it.

Juftin Martyr calls the eucharift, That food by which our flesh Apol. 2. and blood through its tranfmutation into them are nourished.

Irenæus makes this an argument for the refurrection of Lib. v. adv. our bodies, that they are fed by the body and blood of Chrift: Hief. c. 2. When the cup and the bread receives the word of God, it becomes the eucharift of the body and blood of Christ, by which the fubftance of our flesh is increafed and fubfifts: and he adds, that the flesh is nourished by the body and blood of Chrift, and is made

his member.

Tertullian fays, The flesh is fed with the body and blood of De Refur Chrift.

rect. c. 8. In Matt. c.

Origen explains this very largely on those words of Chrift, 15. It is not that which enters within a man that defiles the man: he fays, if every thing that goes into the belly, is caft into the draught, then that food which is fanctified by the word of God, and by prayer, goes alfo into the belly, as to that which is material in it, and goes from thence into the draught. And a little after he adds, It is not the matter of the bread, but the word that is pronounced over it, which profits him that eats it, in fuch a way as is not unworthy of the Lord.

The Bishops of Spain, in a council that fat at Toledo in the Con. Tul. feventh century, condemned thofe that began to confecrate round 15. Can. 6.

E e 2

wafers,

ART. wafers, and did not offer one entire loaf in the eucharift, and XXVIII. appointed that for fo much of the bread as remained after the

communion, that either it should be put in fome bag, or if it was needful to eat it up, that it might not opprefs the belly of him that took it with an overcharging burden, and that it might not into the digeftion; they fancying that a leffer quantity made no digeftion, and produced no excrement.

go

In the ninth century both Rabanus Maurus and Heribald believed, that the facrament was fo digefted, that fome part of it turned to excrement; which was alfo held by divers writers of the Greek Church, whom their adverfaries called by way of reproach Stercoranifts. Others indeed of the ancients did think that no part of the facrament became excrement, but that it was spread through the whole fubftance of the communicant, Cyril. Ca- for the good of body and foul. Both Cyril of Jerufalem, St. tech. Meft. Chryfoftom, and John Damafcene, fell into this conceit; but foft. Hom. ftill they thought that it was changed into the substance of our bodies, and fo nourifhed them without any excrement coming from any part of it.

5. Chry

in Euch.

To. v. Da

maf. lib. iv.

de Ortho.

The Fathers do call the confecrated elements the figures, the fide, c. 14. figns, the fymbols, the types and antitypes, the commemoration, the reprefentation, the myfteries, and the facraments of the body and blood, which does evidently demonftrate that they could not think, that they were the very fubftance of his body and blood. Lib. iv. adv. Tertullian, when he is proving that Chrift had a true body, and

Marcion.

c. 40.

Comm. in
Pal. iii.

was not a phantafm, argues thus, He made bread to be his body; faying, This is my body; that is, the figure of my body: from which he argues, that fince his body had that for its figure, it was a true body; for an empty thing, fuch as a phantafm is, cannot have a figure. It is from hence clear that it was not then believed that Chrift's body was literally in the facrament; for otherwise the argument would have been much clearer and fhorter: Chrift has a true body, because we believe that the sacrament is truly his body; than to go and prove it so far about, as to fay a phantafm has no figure: but the Sacrament is the figure of Chrift's body, therefore it is no phantafm.

St. Auftin fays, He commended and gave to his Difciples the figure of his body and blood. And when the Manicheans objected to him, that blood is called in the Old Teftament the life or foul, contrary to what is faid in the New; he answers, that blood was not the foul or life, but only the fign of it; and that the fign fometimes bears the name of that of which it is Lib. cont. the fign: fo fays he, Chrift did not doubt to fay, This is my body, when he was giving the fign of his body. Now that had been a very bad argument, if the bread was truly the body of Chrift, it had proved that the fign must be one with the thing fignified.

Adimant.

C. 12.

The

Chalced. 1.

9.

The whole ancient liturgies, and all the Greek Fathers do AR T. fo frequently use the words type, antitype, fign, and mystery, XXVIII. that this is not fo much as denied; it is their conftant ftyle. Now it is apparent that a thing cannot be the type and fymbol of itself. And though they had more frequent occafions to fpeak of the eucharift, than either of baptifm, or the chrifin; yet as they called the water and the oil, types and mysteries, so they beftowed the fame defcriptions on the elements in the eucharift; and as they have many ftrong expreffions concerning the water and the oil, that cannot be literally understood; fo upon the fame grounds it will appear reafonable, to give the fame expofition to fome high expreffions, that they fell into concerning this facrament. Facundus has fome very full dif courfes to this purpose: he is proving that Chrift may be called the adopted Son of God, as well as he is truly his Son; and that because he was baptized. The facrament of adoption, that is, Defen. baptifm, may be called baptifm; as the facrament of his body Conc. and blood, which is in the confecrated bread and cup, is called his body and blood: not that the bread is properly his body, or the cup properly his blood; but because they contain in them the mystery of his body and blood. St. Auftin fays, That facraments must have fome resemblance of thofe things of which they are the facraments: fo the facrament of the body of Chrift is after Some manner his body; and the facrament of his blood is after fome manner his blood. And fpeaking of the eucharift as a facrifice of praife, he fays, The flesh and blood of this facri-Ep. 23. fice was promifed before the coming of Chrift, by the facrifices that were the types of it. In the paffion the facrifice was truly offered; and after his afcenfion it is celebrated by the facrament of the remembrance of it. And when he speaks of the murmuring of the Jews, upon our Saviour's speaking of giving his flesh to them to eat it; he adds, They foolishly and carnally thought, that he was to cut off fome parcels of his body, to be con. Fauft. given to them: but he fhews that there was a facrament hidin Pfal. there. And he thus paraphrafes that paffage, The words that xcviii. 5. I have spoken to you, they are fpirit and life: understand spiritually that which I have faid, for it is not this body which you fee, that you are to eat, or to drink this blood which they fhall fhed, who crucify me. But I have recommended a facrament to you, which being fpiritually underflood, fhall quicken you: and though it be neceffary that it be celebrated vifibly, yet it must be understood invifibly.

ad Bonifac.

Lib. xx.

C. 21.

Cor.

Primafius compares the facrament to a pledge which a Comm. in. dying man leaves to any one whom he loved. But that which 1 Ep. ad is more important than the quotation of any of the words of the Fathers, is that the author of the books of the facra- Lib. iv. de ment, which pafs under the name of St. Ambrofe, though it is Sacram.

Ee 3

generally

c. 5.

AR T. generally agreed that those books were writ fome ages after his XXVIII. death, gives us the prayer of confecration, as it was used in his

time: he calls it the heavenly words, and fets it down. The offices of the Church are a clearer evidence of the doctrine of that Church, than all the discourses that can be made by any doctor in it; the one is the language of the whole body, whereas the other are only the private reasonings of particular men and of all the parts of the office the prayer of confecration is that which does moft certainly fet out to us the sense of that Church that used it. But that which makes this remark the more important, is, that the prayer, as fet down by this pretended St. Ambrofe, is very near the fame with that which is now in the canon of the Mafs; only there is one very important variation, which will beft appear by setting both down.

That of St. Ambrofe is, Fac nobis hanc oblationem, afcriptam, rationabilem, acceptabilem, quod eft figura corporis & fanguinis Domini noftri Jefu Chrifti, qui pridie quam pateretur, &c. That in the canon of the Mafs is, Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quæ fumus benedictam, afcriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptabilemque facere digneris: ut nobis corpus & fanguis fiat dilectiffimi filii tui Domini noftri Jefu Chrifti.

We do plainly see so great a refemblance of the latter to the former of these two prayers, that we may well conclude, that the one was begun in the other; but at the fame time we obferve an effential difference. In the former this facrifice is called the figure of the body and blood of Chrift. Whereas in the latter it is prayed, that it may become to us the body and blood of Chrift. As long as the former was the prayer of confecration, it is not poffible for us to imagine, that the doctrine of the corporal prefence could be received; for that which was believed to be the true body and blood of Christ, could not be called, especially in fuch a part of the office, the figure of his body and blood; and therefore the change that was made in this prayer was an evident proof of a change in the doctrine; and if we could tell in what age that was done, we might then upon greater certainty fix the time, in which this change was made, or at least in which the inconfiftency of that prayer with this doctrine was observed.

I have now fet down a great variety of proofs reduced under different heads, from which it appears evidently that the Fathers did not believe this doctrine, but that they did affirm the contrary very exprefsly. This facrament continued to be fo long confidered as the figure or image of Chrift's body, that the feventh General Council, which met at Conftantinople in the year 754, and confifted of above three hundred and thirty Bishops, when it condemned the worship of images, affirmed that this was the only image that we might lawfully have of Christ; and

that