Effiqies. D. Joannis Corin Episcopi: Dunelmensis &c  
THE HISTORY OF POPISH Transubstantiation.  
To which is Premised and opposed The CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE, The Ancient Fathers and the Reformed Churches, About the Sacred Elements, and Presence of CHRIST in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  
Written Nineteen years ago in Latin By the Right Reverend Father in GOD, JOHN, Late Lord Bishop of DURHAM, And allowed by him to be published a little before his Death, at the earnest request of his Friends.  
LONDON, Printed by Andrew Clark for Henry Brome at the Gun at the West end of St. Paul's, 1676.   

To the Right Honourable, HENEAGE Lord FINCH, Baron of Daventry, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.  
My Lord,  
THe Excellency of this Book answers the greatness of its Author, and perhaps the badness of the Version is also proportioned to the meanness of the Translator. But the English being for those that could not understand the Original that they also might be instructed by so instructive a Discourse, I hope with them my good intent will excuse my fault; only my fear is, I shall want a good Plea wherewith to sue out my pardon for having entitled a person of the highest honour to so poor a labour as is this of mine. My Lord, these were the inducements which set me upon this attempt, it being the subject of the Book, to clear and assert an important truth, which is as a Criterion whereby to know the Sons of the Church of England from her Adversaries on both hands, those that adore, and those that profane the blessed Sacrament; these that destroy the visible Sign, and those that deny the invisible Grace: I thought I might justly offer it to so pious and so great a Son of this Church, who owned her in her most calamitous condition, and defends her in her happy and most envied restauration. I was also persuaded that the Translation, bearing your illustrious name, would be thereby much recommended to many, and so become the more generally useful. And I confided much in your goodness and affability, who being by birth and merits raised to a high eminency, yet doth willingly condescend to things and persons of low estate.  
My Lord, I have only this one thing more to allege for myself: That besides the attestation of public fame which I hear of a long time speaking loud for you, I have these many years lived in a Family where your Virtues being particularly known are particularly admired and honoured; so that I could not but have an extraordinary respect and veneration for your Lordship, and be glad to have any occasion to express it. If these cannot clear me I must remain guilty of having taken this opportunity of declaring myself  
Your Lordship's Most humble and most obedient Servant Luke de Beaulieu.   

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.  
IT is now nineteen years since this Historical Treatise was made by the Right Reverend Father in God John Cousin, when (in the time of the late accursed Rebellion) he was an Exile in Paris for his Loyalty and Religion's sake; for being then commanded to remain in that City by his gracious Majesty that now is, (who was departing into Germany by reason of a League newly made by the French King with our wicked Rebels) he was also ordered by him, as he had been before by his blessed Father, Charles' the First, a Prince never enough to be commended, to perform Divine Offices in the Royal Chapel, and to endeavour to keep and confirm in the Protestant Religion, professed by the Church of Englang, his fellow-Exiles, both of the Royal Family and others his Countrymen who then lived in that place. Now the occasion of his writing this Piece was this: when his Gracious Majesty had chosen Colen for the place of his residence, being solemnly invited, he visited a neighbouring Potent Prince of the Empire, of the Roman Persuasion; where it fell out, as it doth usually where Persons of different Religions do meet; some Jesuits began to discourse of Controversies with those Noblemen and Worthies, (who never forsook their Prince in his greatest straits, but were his constant Attendants, and Imitators of his ever constant Profession of the Reformed Religion) charging the Church of England with Heresy, especially in what concerns the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper. They would have it, that our Church holds no real, but only a kind of imaginary presence of the Body and Blood of Christ; but that the Church of Rome retained still the very same faith concerning this sacred Mystery, which the Catholic Church constantly maintained in all Ages; to wit, that the whole substance of the Bread and wine is changed into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, and rightwell called Transubstantiation by the Council of Trent. This, and much more to the same purpose was pronounced by the Jesuits, in presence of His Majesty and the Germane Prince, with as much positiveness and confidence, as if it had been a clear and self-evident truth owned by all the Learned.  
His Sacred Majesty, and his Noble Attendants knew well enough that the Jesuits did shamelessly belie the Church of England, and that their brags about Roman Transubstantiation were equally false and vain: But the Germane Prince having recommended to the perusal of those Honourable Persons that followed the King a Manuscript wherein (as he said) was proved by Authentic Authors all that had been advanced by the Jesuits. They thought it fit to acquaint the Reverend Dr. Cousin with the whole business, and entreat him that he would vindicate the Church of England from the Calumny, and plainly declare what is her avowed Doctrine and belief about the true and real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Hereupon our worthy Doctor, who was ever ready and zealous to do good, especially when it might benefit the Church of God, fell presently to work, and writ this excellent Treatise as an Answer to the Prince's Manuscript, that if those worthy Persons pleased they might repay his Highness' kindness in kind: Yet notwithstanding the solicitations of those that occasioned it, and of others that had perused it, he would not yield to have it made public while a few months before he died; because having composed it for particular Friends, he thought it sufficient, that it had been useful to them. But the Controversy about the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, being of late years resumed with much vigour, and even now famous by the learned and eloquent Disputes of Monsieur Claude, Minister of the Reformed Church in Paris, and Monsieur Arnold Doctor of Sorbon, and others, who moved by their example, have entered the Lists. The reiterated and more earnest importunities of his friends obtained at last his consent for the publication of this Work; and the rather, because he thought that the Error constantly maintained by the famous Doctor of Sorbon was by a lucky anticipation clearly and strongly confuted throughout this Book, for whatever the Fathers have said about the true and real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament, that stout Roman Champion applies to his Transubstantiation, and then crows over his Adversaries supposing that he hath utterly overthrown the Protestants cause; whereas there is such a wide difference, as may be called a great Gulf fixed betwixt the true or real Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, and the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into his Body and Blood. This last is such a Prodigy as is neither taught by Scripture, nor possible to be apprehended by faith; it is repugnant to right reason, and contrary to sense; and is no where to be found in Ancient Writers: But the other is agreeable to Scripture, and to the Analogy of faith; it is not against Reason, although being spiritual it cannot be perceived by our bodily senses, and it is backed by the constant and unanimous Doctrine of the holy Fathers. For it makes nothing against it, that sometimes the same Fathers do speak of the Bread and Wine of the holy Eucharist as of the very Body and Blood of Christ, it being a manner of speech very proper and usual in speaking of Sacraments to give to the sign the name of the thing signified: And however they explain themselves in other places, when they frequently enough call the Sacramental Bread and Wine Types, Symbols, Figures, and Signs of the Body and Blood of Christ; thereby declaring openly for us against the Maintainers of Transubstantiation. For we may safely, without any prejudice to our Tenet use those Expressions of the Ancients which the Papists think to be most favourable to them, taking them in a Sacramental sense, as they ought to be; whereas, the last mentioned, that are against them, none can use, but by so doing he necessarily destroys the whole contrivance of Transubstantiation, it being altogether inconsistent to say, the Bread is substantially changed into the Body of Christ, and the Bread is a Figure, a Sign, and a Representation of the Body of Christ. For, what hath lost its being can in no wise signify, or represent any other thing: Neither was ever any thing said to represent and be the Figure and Sign of itself. But this is more at large treated of in the Book itself.  
Now having given an account of the occasion of writing and publishing this Discourse, perhaps the Reader will expect that I should say something of its excellent Author: But should I now undertake to speak but of the most memorable things that concern this great Man, my thoughts would be overwhelmed with their multitude, and I must be injurious both to him and my Readers, being confined within the narrow limits of a Preface. But what cannot be done here may be done somewhere else, God willing. This only I would not have the Reader to be ignorant of, That this Learned man and (as appears by this) constant Professor and defender of the Protestant Religion was one of those who was most vehemently accused of Popery by the Presbyterians before the late Wars, and for that reason bitterly persecuted by them, and forced to forsake his Country; whereby he secured himself from the violence of their Hands, but not of their Tongues; for still the good men kept up the noise of their clamorous Accusation even while he was writing this most substantial Treatise against Transubstantiation.  
John Durel.   

CHAP. I.  
1. The Real, that is, true and not imaginary Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is proved by Scripture. 2 and 3. Yet this favours not the Tenet of Transubstantiation, being it is not to be understood grossly and carnally, but spiritually and Sacramentally. 4. The nature and use of the Sacraments. 5. By means of the Elements of Bread and Wine, Christ himself is spiritually eaten by the Faithful in the Sacrament. 6. The eating and presence being spiritual are not destructive of the truth and substance of the thing. 7. The manner of Presence is unsearchable, and ought not to be presumptuously defined.  
1. THose words which our blessed Saviour used in the institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, This is my 
Mat. 6. 26. Luk. 22. 1●.  body which is given for you; This is my blood which is shed for you, for the remission of sins, are held and acknowledged by the Universal Church to be most true and infallible: And if any one dares oppose them, or call in question Christ's Veracity, or the truth of his words, or refuse to yield his sincere assent to them, except he be allowed to make a mere figment or a bare figure of them, 
* As G. Cali●tus writes in some place of his learned Exercitations; and before him M. Chemnitius, in Exam. Con. Trid. atque in l●●is T●●ol.  we cannot, and ought not, either excuse or suffer him in our Churches: for we must embrace and hold for an undoubted truth whatever is taught by Divine Scripture. And therefore we can as little doubt of what Christ saith, Joh. 6. 55 My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed; which, according to St. Paul, are both given to us by the consecrated Elements: For he calls the Bread, the Communion of Christ's Body, and the Cup, the 
1 Cor. 10. 16.  Communion of his blood.  
2. Hence it is most evident that the Bread and Wine (which according to St. Paul are the Elements of the holy Eucharist) are neither changed as to their substance, nor vanished, nor reduced to nothing; but are solemnly consecrated by the words of Christ, that by them his blessed body and blood may be communicated to us.  
3. And further it appears from the same words, that the expression of Christ and the Apostle, is to be understood in a Sacramental and mystic sense; and that no gross and carnal presence of body and blood can be maintained by them.  
4. And though the word Sacrament be no where used in Scripture to signify the blessed Eucharist, yet the Christian Church, ever since its Primitive ages, hath given it that name, and always called the presence of Christ's body and blood therein, Mystick and Sacramental. Now a Sacramental expression doth, without any inconvenience, give to the sign the name of 
Exod. 12. 21. 1 Cor. 10. 3, 4.  the thing signified: And such is as well the usual way of speaking, as the nature of Sacraments, that not only the names, but even the properties and effects of what they represent and exhibit, are given to the outward Elements. Hence (as I said before) the Bread is as clearly as positively called by the Apostle, the Communion of the body of Christ.  
5. This also seems very plain, that our Blessed Saviour's design was not so much to teach, what the Elements of Bread and Wine are by nature and substance, as what is their use and office and signification in this Mystery: For the body and blood of our Saviour are not only fitly represented by the Elements, but also, by virtue of his institution really offered to all, by them, and so eaten by the faithful Mystically and Sacramentally; whence it is, that he truly is and abides in us, and we 
Joh. 6. 56.  in him.  
6. This is the spiritual (and yet no less true and undoubted than if it were corporal) eating of Christ's flesh, not indeed simply as it is flesh, without any other respect (for so it is not given, neither would it profit us) but as it is crucified and given for the redemption of the 
Mat. 20. 26.  world; neither doth it hinder the truth and substance of the thing, that this eating of Christ's body is spiritual, and that by it the souls of the Faithful, and not their stomaches, are fed by the operation of the Holy Ghost: For this none can deny, but they who being strangers to the Spirit and the divine virtue, can savour only carnal things, and to whom, what is Spiritual and Sacramental, is the same as if a mere nothing.  
7. As to the manner of the presence of the body and blood of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we that are Protestant and Reformed according to the ancient Catholic Church, do not search into the manner of it with perplexing inquiries; but, after the example of the primitive and purest Church of Christ, we leave it to the power and wisdom of our Lord, yielding a full and unfeigned assent to his words: Had the Romish maintainers of Transubstantiation done the same, they would not have determined and decreed, and then imposed as an Article of faith absolutely necessary to Salvation, a manner of presence, newly by them invented, under pain of the most direful Curse, and there would have been in the Church less wrangling, and more peace and unity than now is.   

CHAP. II.  
1, 2, and 3, etc. The unanimous consent of all Protestants with the Church of England, in maintaining a real, that is, true, but not a carnal presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, proved by public Confessions and the best of Authorities.  
1. SO then, none of the Protestant Churches doubt of the real (that is, true and not imaginary) Presence of Christ's body and blood in the Sacrament; and there appears no reason why any man should suspect their common Confession, of either fraud or error, as though in this particular they had in the least departed from the Catholic faith.  
2. For it is easy to produce the consent of Reformed Churches and Authors, whereby it will clearly appear (to them that are not wilfully blind) that they all zealously maintain and profess this truth, without forsaking in any wise the true Catholic Faith in this matter.  
3. I begin with the Church of England; wherein they that are in holy Orders are bound by a Law and Canon, Never to teach 
In the Book of Canons published by authority, anno 1571. ch. of preach.  any thing to the people to be by them believed in matters of Religion, but what agrees with the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and what the Catholic Fathers and Ancient Prelates have gathered and inferred out of it: Under pain of Excommunication if they transgress, troubling the people with contrary Doctrine. It teacheth therefore, that in the Blessed Sacrament, the body of Christ is given, taken and eaten; so that to the worthy Receivers, the consecrated and broken bread is the communication 
Artic. of Relig. 1562.  of the body of Christ, and likewise the consecrated Cup the communication of his blood: But that the wicked, and they that approach unworthily the Sacrament of so sacred a thing, eat and drink their own damnation, in that they become guilty of the body and blood of Christ. And the same Church in a solemn Prayer, before the consecration prays thus; Grant us, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear SonJesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean 
Comm. Service.  by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. The Priest also, blessing or consecrating the Bread and Wine saith thus, Hear us O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee, and grant that we receiving these thy Creatures of Bread and Wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his Death and Passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood: Who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread, and when he 
Ibid.  had given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to his Disciples, saying, take, eat, this is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me. Likewise after Supper he took the Cup, and when he had given thinks he gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of this, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many for the remission of sins: Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me. The same, when he gives the Sacrament to the people kneeling, giving the bread, saith; The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Likewise when he gives the Cup, he saith, The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul to everlasting life. Afterwards, when the Communion is done, follows a thanksgiving; Almighty and ever living God, we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy Mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ; With the Hymn, Glory be to God on high, etc. Also in the public Authorized Catechism of our Church, appointed to be learned of all, it is answered to the question concerning the inward part of the Sacrament, that it is the body 
Church Catech.  and blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lord's Supper. And in the Apology for this Church, writ by that worthy and Reverend Prelate Jewel Bishop of Salisbury, it is expressly affirmed, That to the faithful, is truly given in the Sacrament, the body and blood of our Lord, the lifegiving flesh of the Son of God which quickens our souls, the bread that came from heaven, the food of immortality, grace and truth, and life: And that it is the Communion of the body and blood of Christ, that we may abide in him, and he in us; and that we may be ascertained that the flesh and blood of Christ is the food of our souls, as bread and wine is of our bodies.  
4. A while before the writing of this Apology, came forth the Dialectic of the famous Dr. Poinet Bishop of Winchester; concerning the truth, nature, and substance of the body and blood of Christ in the blessed Sacrament, writ on purpose to explain and manifest the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of England in that point. In the first place it shows, that the holy Eucharist is not only the figure, but also contains in itself the truth, nature, and substance of the body of our blessed Saviour; and that those words, nature and substance ought not to be rejected, because the Fathers used them in speaking of that Mystery. Secondly, He inquires whether those expressions, truth, nature, and substance were used in this Mystery by the Ancients, in their common acceptation, or in a sense more particular and proper to the Sacraments? Because we must not only observe what words they used, but also what they meant to signify and to teach by them. And though with the Fathers he acknowledged a difference, betwixt the body of Christ in its natural form of a humane body, and that Mystic body present in the Sacrament, yet he chose rather to put that difference in the manner of presence and exhibition, than in the subject itself, that is, the real body and blood of our Saviour; being it is most certain, that no other body is given to the faithful in the Sacrament than that which was by Christ given to death for their Redemption. Lastly, he affirms, according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, that this matter must be understood in a spiritual sense, banishing all grosser and more carnal thoughts.  
5. To Bishop Poinet succeeded in the same See the right Reverend Doctors T. Bilson and L. Andrews, Prelates both of them, throughly learned, and great defenders of the Primitive Faith, who made it most evident by their Printed Writings, that the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of England is in all things agreeable to the holy Scriptures, and the Divinity of the Ancient Fathers. And as to what regards this Mystery, the 
a Bills. resp. ad Card. Alan. l. 4.  first treats of it, in his Answer to the Apology of Cardinal Alan, and the 
b Andr. resp. ad Apol Bel. c. 11. p. 11  last in his Answer to the Apology of Cardinal Bellarmine, where you may find things worthy to be read and noted as follows. Christ said, this is my body; in this, the object, we are agreed with you, the manner only is controverted. We hold by a firm belief that it is the body of Christ, of the manner how it comes to be so there is not a word in the Gospel; and because the Scripture is silent in this, we justly disown it to be a matter of Faith: We may indeed rank it among Tenets of the School, but by no means, among the Articles of our Christian Belief. We like well of what Durandus is reported to have said, [We hear the Word, and feel the motion, we know not the manner, and yet believe the Presence:] For we believe a Real Presence no less than you do. We dare not be so bold as presumptuously to define any thing concerning the manner of a true Presence, or rather, we do not so much as trouble ourselves with being inquisitive about it; no more than in Baptism, how the blood of Christ washeth us; or in the Incarnation of our Redeemer, how the Divine and Humane Nature were united together. We put it in the number of sacred things or Sacrifices, (the Eucharist itself being a Sacred Mystery) whereof the remnants ought to be consumed with fire, that is, (as the Fathers elegantly have it) adored by faith, but not searched by reason.  
6. To the same sense speaks Is. Causabon, 
Caus. Ep. to Card. Perron.  in the Epistle he wrote by order from King James to Cardinal Perron; so doth also Hooker in his Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 5. 
Ep. Ross. Praef. ad ●●ct. Montac. in Antid. Art. 13.  §. 67. John Bishop of Rochester in his Book, of the Power of the Pope; R. Montague Bishop of Norwich against Bullinger; James Primate of Armach in his Answer to the Irish Jesuit; Francis Bishop of Eli, and William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury, in their Answer to Fisher; 
c In a Manuscript shortly to be Printed.  John Overall Bishop of Norwich, and many others in the Church of England, who never departed from the Faith and Doctrine of the ancient Catholic Fathers, which is by Law established, and with great care and veneration received and preserved in our Church.  
7. To these also we may justly add that famous Prelate Antonius de Domino Archbishop of Spalleto, a man well versed in the Sacred Writings, and the Records of Antiquity; who having left Italy (when he could no longer remain in it, either with quiet or safety) by the advice of his intimate Friend Paulus Venetus, took Sanctuary under the protection of King James of blessed memory, in the bosom of the Church of England, which he did faithfully follow in all Points and Articles of Religion: But being daily vexed with many affronts and injuries, and wearied by the unjust persecutions of some sour and overrigid men, who bitterly declaimed every where against his life and actions, he at last resolved to return into Italy with a safe conduct. Before he departed, he was, by order from the King, questioned by some Commissionated Bishops what he thought of the Religion and Church of England, which for so many years he had owned and obeyed, and what he would say of it in the Roman Court: to this Query he gave in writing this memorable answer, I am resolved, even with the danger of my life, to profess before the Pope himself, that the Church of England is a true and Orthodox Church of Christ. This he not only promised but faithfully performed, for though, soon after his departure, there came a Book out of the Low Countries, falsely bearing his name, by whose title many were deceived even among the English, and thereby moved to tax him with Apostasy, and of being another Eubolius; yet when he came to Rome (where he was most kindly entertained in the Palace of Pope Gregory the Fifteenth, who formerly had been his Fellow-student) he could never be persuaded by the Jesuits and others who daily thronged upon him, neither to subscribe the new-devised-Tenets of the Council of Trent, or to retract those Orthodox Books which he had Printed in England and Germany, or to renounce the Communion of the Church of England, in whose defence he constantly persisted to the very last. But presently after the decease of Pope Gregory, he was imprisoned by the Jesuits and Inquisitors in Castle St. Angelo, where, by being barbarously used, and almost starved, he soon got a mortal sickness, and died in a few days, though not without suspicion of being poisoned. The day following his Corpse was, by the sentence of the Inquisition, tied to an infamous stake, and there burnt to ashes; for no other reason, but that he refused to make abjuration of the Religion of the Church of England, and subscribe some of the lately-made-Decrees of Trent, which were pressed upon him as Canons of the Catholic Faith. ay have taken occasion to insert this narration, perhaps not known to many; to make it appear, that this Reverend Prelate, who did great service to the Church of God, may justly (as I said before) be reckoned amongst the Writers of the Church of England.  
Let us hear therefore what he taught and writ, when he was in England, in his Books the Rep●b. Eccl. Lib. 5. Cap. 6. Num. 20. For a thousand years together (saith he) the holy Catholic Church content with a sober knowledge of Divine Mysteries, believed soberly, and safely did teach, that in the Sacrament duly Consecrated, the Faithful did own receive, and eat the Body and Blood of Christ, which by the Sacred Bread and Wine are given to them, but as to the particular manner how that precious Body and Blood is offered and given by that Mysterious Sacrament, the Church did humbly and religiously acknowledge her ignorance: The real thing with its effects she joyfully owned and received, but meekly and devoutly abstained from enquiring into the manner. Item (Numb. 73.) the true and real Body of Christ is most certainly and undoubtedly given in the holy Sacrament, yet not carnally, but Spiritually. Again (Numb. 169.) I doubt not, but all they that believe the Gospel, will acknowledge that in the holy Communion we receive the true nature of the flesh of Christ, real and substantial. We all teach that the body of Christ is present as to its reality and nature, but a carnal and corporal manner of presence we reject with St. Bernard, and all the Fathers. And in Appen. ad Ambrosium, Numb. 7. I know and acknowledge that with the Bread still remaining bread, the true and real body of Christ is given, yet not corporally: I assent in the thing, but not in the manner. Therefore though there is a change in the Bread, when it brings into the Souls of worthy Communicants, the true body of Christ which is the substance of the Sacrament: Yet it doth not follow that the Bread loseth its own, to become the substance of the body of Christ, etc. These, and much more to the same purpose, agreeable to the Religion and Church of England, and all other Protestant Churches, you may find in the same Chapter, and in a Treatise annexed to the sixth Book, against the famous Jesuit, Suarez, who had writ against King James, and the Errors (as he calls them) of the Church of England: In the second Chapter our Prelate proves clearly, according to its title, That those Points which the Papists maintain against the Protestants belong not in any wise to the Catholic Faith, (as Transubstantiation, etc.)  
8. As for the opinion and belief of the Germane Protestants, It will be known chiefly by the Augustan Confession, presented to Charles the Fifth by the Princes of 
The Augustan Confession of Ger● Churches  the Empire and other great Persons. For they teach, That not only the Bread and Wine, but the Body and Blood of Christ is truly given to the Receivers; or, as it is in another Edition, That the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present, and distributed to the Communicants in the Lord's Supper, and refute those that teach otherwise. They also declare, That we must so use the Sacraments, as to believe and embrace by Faith those things promised which the Sacraments offer and convey to us. Yet we may observe here, that Faith makes not those things present which are promised; for Faith (as it is well known) is more properly said to take and apprehend, than to promise or perform: But the Word and Promise of God, on which our Faith is grounded (and not Faith itself) make that present which is promised; as it was agreed at a Conference 
Collat. S. Ger●▪ 1561.  at St. German betwixt some Protestants and Papists: And therefore it is unjustly laid to our charge by some in the Church of Rome, as if we should believe, that the presence and participation of Christ, in the Sacrament, is effected merely by the power of Faith.  
9 The Saxon Confession, approved by other Churches, seems to be a repetition 
The Saxon Confession.  of the Augustan: Therein we are taught, That Sacraments are actions divinely instituted, and that although the same things or actions in common use have nothing of the nature 
Art. 15.  of Sacraments, yet when used according to the divine institution, Christ is truly and substantially present in the Communion, and his Body and Blood truly given to the Receivers; so that he testifies that he is in them; as St. Hillary saith, These things taken and received make 
Hil. Trin. l. 8.  us to be in Christ, and Christ to be in us.  
10. The Confession of Wittenberg, which in the year 1552 was propounded to 
The Confession of Wittemb.  the Council of Trent, is like unto this: For it teacheth, That the true Body and Blood of Christ are given in the holy Communion, and refutes those that say, That the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are only 
In the Preface.  signs of the absent Body and Blood of Christ.  
11. The Bohemian Confession also, that 
Confess. Bohem.  is of them who by contempt, and out of ignorance, are called by some Picards and Waldenses, presented to King Ferdinand by the Barons and Nobles of Bohemia, and approved by Luther, and Melancthon, and the Famous University of Wittenberg, teacheth, that we caught from the heart to believe, and to profess by 
Art. 13.  words, that the Bread of the Lords Supper is the true Body of Christ which was given for us, and the Wine, his true Blood that was shed for us: And that it is not lawful for any person to bring or add any thing of his own to the words of Christ, or in the least to take any thing from them. And when this their Confession was defamed and abused by some of their Adversaries, they answered, That they would ever be ready to refute the Calumniators, and to make it appear by strong Arguments, and a stronger Faith, that they never were, and by God's grace, never would be what their Adversaries represented them.  
12. In the same manner, The Conciliation 
Consensus Poloni●us.  of the Articles of the Lords Supper, and the mutual agreement betwixt the Churches of the greater and lesser Polonia in the Synod of Sendomiris, We hold 
Near the beginning.  together (say they) the belief of the words of Christ, as they have been rightly understood by the Fathers; or to speak more plain, We believe and confess, that the substantial Presence of Christ is not only signified in the Lord's Supper, but also that the Body and Blood of our Lord is truly offered and granted to worthy Receivers, together with those sacred signs which convey to us the thing signified, according to the nature of Sacraments, and lest the different ways of speaking should breed any contention, we mutually consent to subscribe that Article concerning the Lord's Supper which is in the Confession of the Churches of Saxony, which they sent to the Council of Trent; and we hold and acknowledge it to be sound and pious. Then they repeat the whole Article, mentioned and set down a little before.  
13. Luther was once of opinion that the 
Confessio Theol. Argent. & Basil.  Divines of Basil and Strasbourg did acknowledge nothing in the Lord's Supper besides Bread and Wine. To him Bucerus, in the name of all the rest, did freely answer, That they all unanimously did condemn that error; that neither they, nor the Swissers ever believed or taught any such thing; that none could expressly be charged with that Error, except the Anabaptists: And that he also had once been persuaded, that Luther in his Writings attributed too much to the outward Symbols, and maintained a grosser Union of Christ with the Bread than the Scriptures did allow; as though Christ had been corporally present with it, united into a natural substance with the Bread; so that the wicked as well as the faithful were made partakers of grace by receiving the Element: But that their own Doctrine and belief concerning that Sacrament was, that the true Body and Blood of Christ was truly presented, given, and received together with the visible signs of Bread and Wine, by the operation of our Lord, and by virtue of his institution, according to the plain sound and sense of his words; and that not only Zuinglius and Oecolampadius had so taught, but they also, in the public Confessions of the Churches of the Upper Germany, and other Writings, confessed it; so that the Controversy was rather about the manner of the presence or absence, than about the presence or absence itself; All which Bucer's Associates confirm after him. He also adds, That the Magistrates in their Churches had denounced very severe punishments to any that should deny the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Bucerus did also maintain this Doctrine of the blessed Sacrament in presence of the Landgrave of Hesse and Melancthon, confessing, That together with the Sacrament we truly and substantially receive the body of Christ. Also, That the Bread and Wine are conferring signs, giving what they represent, so that together with them the Body of Christ is given and received. And to these he adds, That the Body and Bread are not united in the mixture of their substance, but in that the Sacrament gives what it promiseth, that is, the one is never without the other; and so they agreeing on both parts, that the Bread and Wine are not changed, he holds such a Sacramental Union, Luther having heard this, declared also his opinion thus, That he did not locally include the Body and Blood of Christ with the Bread and Wine, and unite them together by any natural connexion; and that he did not make proper to the Sacraments that virtue whereby they brought Salvation to the Receivers; but that he maintained only a Sacramental Union betwixt the Body of Christ and the Bread, and betwixt his Blood and the Wine; and did teach, that the power of confirming our Faith, which he attributed to the Sacraments, was not naturally inherent in the outward signs, but proceeded from the operation of Christ, and was given by his Spirit, by his Words, and by the Elements. And finally, in this manner he spoke to all that were present; If you believe and teach that in the Lord's Supper the true Body and Blood of Christ is given and received, and not the Bread and Wine only; and that this giving and receiving is real and not imaginary, we are agreed, and we own you for dear Brethren in the Lord. All this is set down at large in the twentieth Tome of Luther's Works, and in the English Works of Bucer.  
14. The next will be the Gallican Confession, 
The French Confess.  made at Paris in a National Synod, and presented to King Charles IX. at the Conference of Poissy. Which speaks of the Sacrament on this wise: Although Christ be in heaven, where he is to remain until he come to judge the World, yet we believe that by the secret and incomprehensible virtue of his Spirit, he feeds and vivifies us by the substance of his Body and Blood received by Faith: now we say that this is done in a spiritual 
Art. 36.  manner; not that we believe it to be a fancy and imagination, instead of a truth and real effect, but rather because that Mystery of our Union with Christ is of so sublime a nature, that it is as much above the capacity of our senses, as it is above the order of nature. Item, We believe that in the Lord's Supper God gives us really, that is, truly, and efficaciously, whatever is represented by the Sacrament, with the signs we join the true Possession and fruition of the thing by them offered to us: And so, that Bread and Wine which are given to us, become our spiritual nourishment, in that they make it in some manner visible to us that the Flesh of Christ is our food, and his Blood our drink. Therefore those fanatics that reject these Signs and Symbols are by us rejected, our blessed Saviour having said, This is my body, and this Cup is my blood. This Confession hath been subscribed by the Church of Geneva.  
15. The Envoyes from the French Churches to Worms made a declaration 
Lezat. Eccl Gall. conf. 1555  concerning that Mystery, much after the same manner: We confess (say they) that in the Lord's Supper, besides the benefits of Christ, the substance also of the Son of man, his true body, with his blood shed for us, are not only figuratively signified by Types and Symbols, as memorials of things absent; but also, truly and certainly presented, given, and offered to be applied, by signs that are not bare and destitute, but (on God's part, in regard of his offer and promise) always undoubtedly accompanied with what they signify, whether they be offered to good or bad Christians.  
16. Now follows the Belgic Confession, 
Belg. Conf. Art. 35.  which professeth it to be most certain, that Christ doth really effect in us what is figured by the signs, although it be above the capacity of our reason to understand which way; the operations of the Holy Ghost being always occult and incomprehensible.  
17. The more ancient Confession of the Swissers, made by common consent at 
Helvet. Confess. prior.  Basil, and approved by all the Helvetick-Protestant Churches, hath it, That while 
Ch. 21.  the Faithful eat the bread, and drink the cup of the Lord, they, by the operation of Christ working by the Holy Spirit, receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, and thereby are fed unto Eternal life. But notwithstanding that, they affirm, that this food is spiritual, yet they afterwards conclude; That by spiritual food they understand not imaginary, but the very body of Christ which was given for us.  
18. And the latter Confession of the 
Helvet. Conf. posterior.  Swissers, writ and Printed in 1566. affirms as expressly the true presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist, thus: Outwardly the bread is offered by the Minister, and the words of Christ heard, Take, eat, this is my Body, drink ye all of this, this is my Blood. Therefore the Faithful receive what Christ's Minister gives, and drink of the Lords Cup: And at the same time, by the power of Christ working by the Holy Ghost, are fed by the flesh and blood of our Lord unto eternal life, etc. Again, Christ is not absent from his Church celebrating his holy Supper. The Sun in heaven, being distant from us, is nevertheless present by his efficacy; how much more shall Christ the Sun of righteousness, who is bodily in heaven, absent from us, be spiritually present to us by his lifegiving virtue, and as he declared in his last Supper he would be present, Joh. 14. 15, 16. Whence it follows that we have no Communion without Christ. Now to this Confession, not only the Reformed Swissers did subscribe, but also the Churches of Hungary, Pannonia, or Transilvania, Poland, and Lithuania, which follow neither the Augustan nor Bohemian Confessions: It was subscribed also by the Churches of Scotland and Geneva.  
19 Lastly, Let us hear the renowned Declaration of the Reformed Churches of Poland, made in the Assembly of Thoran, 
Conf. Thorun.  whereby they profess, that as to what concerns the Sacrament of the Eucharist, they assent to that opinion which in the Augustan Confession, in the Bohemian, and that of Sendom. is confirmed by Scripture. Then afterwards in another Declaration they explain their own Mind, thus saying: 1. That the Sacrament consisteth of earthly things, as Bread and Wine; and things heavenly, as the Body and Blood of our Lord; both of which, though in a different manner, yet most truly and really, are given together at the same time; earthly things, in an earthly, corporal, and natural way; heavenly things, in a mystic, spiritual, and heavenly manner. 2. Hence they in fer, That the Bread and Wine are, and are said to be, with truth, the very Body and Blood of Christ; not substantially indeed, that is, not corporally, but Sacramentally and Mystically, by virtue of the Sacramental Union; which consisteth not in a bare signification or obligation only, but also in a real exhibition and communication of both parts, earthly and heavenly, together at once, though in a different manner. 3. In that sense they affirm with the Ancients, That the Bread and Wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, not in nature and substance, but in use and efficacy; in which respect the sacred Elements are not called what they are to sense, but what they are believed and received by faith grounded on the Promise. 4. They deny to believe the signs to be bare, inefficacious, and empty, but rather such as truly give what they seal and signify, being efficacious instruments and most certain means whereby the Body and Blood of Christ, and so, Christ himself with all his benefits, is set forth and offered to all Communicants, but conferred and given to true Believers, and by them received as the saving and vivifying food of their Souls. 5. They deny not the true presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper, but only the Corporal manner of his Presence. They believe a Mystical Union betwixt Christ and us, and that, not imaginary, but most true, real, and efficacious. 6. Thence they conclude, That not only the virtue, efficacy, operation, or benefits of Christ are communicated to us, but more especially the very substance of his Body and Blood, so that, he abides in us, and we in him.  
20. Now because great is the fame of Calvin (who subscribed the Augustan Confession, and that of the Swissers) let us hear what he writ and believed concerning this sacred Mystery: His words in his Institutions and elsewhere are such, so conformable to the stile and mind of the Ancient Fathers, that no Catholic Protestant would wish to use any other. I understand (saith he) what is to be understood by 
Comm. on 1 Cor.  the words of Christ; that he doth not only offer us the benefits of his Death and Resurrection, but his very body, wherein he died and rose again. I assert that the body of Christ is really (as the usual expression is) that is, truly given to us in the Sacrament, to be the saving food of our souls. Also in another place, Item, That word cannot lie, neither can it 
Instit. Book 4. Ch. 17.  mock us; and except one presumes to call God a deceiver be will never dare to say, that the Symbols are empty, and that Christ is not in them. Therefore if by the breaking of the bread our Saviour doth represent the participation of his body, it is not to be doubted but that he truly gives and confers it. If it be true that the visible sign is given us, to seal the gift of an invisible thing, we must firmly believe, that receiving the signs of the body, we also certainly receive the body itself. Setting aside all absurdities, I do willingly admit all those terms that can most strongly express the true and substantial Communication of the Body and Blood of Christ, granted to the Faithful with the Symbols of the Lords Supper; and that, not as if they received only by the force of their imagination, or an act of their minds, but really, so as to be fed thereby unto Eternal life. Again, 
Treat. of the Lords Supper.  We must therefore confess that the inward substance of the Sacrament is joined with the visible sign, so that, as the Bread is put into our hand, the Body of Christ is also given to us. This certainly, if there were nothing else, should abundantly satisfy us, that we understand, that Christ, in his Holy Supper, gives us the true and proper substance of his Body and Blood, that it being wholly ours, we may be made partakers of all his benefits and graces. Again, The Son of God offers daily to us in the holy Sacrament, the same body which he once offered in sacrifice to his Father, that it may be our spiritual food. In these he asserts, as clearly as any one can, the true, Real, and substantial Presence and Communication of the Body of Christ, but how, he undertakes not to determine. If any one 
Inst. ●. 4. Ch. 17. Num. 32.  (saith he) ask me concerning the manner, I will not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too high for my reason to comprehend, or my tongue to express; or to speak more properly, I rather feel than understand it: Therefore without disputing I embrace the truth of God, and confidently repose on it. He declares that his Flesh is the food, and his Blood the drink of my Soul: And my Soul I offer to him to be fed by such nourishment. He bids me take, eat, and drink his Body and Blood, which in his holy Supper he offers me under the Symbols of Bread and Wine: I make no scruple, but he doth reach them to me, and I receive them. All these are Calvins own words.  
21. I was the more willing to be long in transcribing these things at large, out of public Confessions of Churches, and the best of Authors; that it might the better appear, how injuriously Protestant Divines are calumniated by others unacquainted with their opinions, as though by these words, Spiritually and Sacramentally, they did not acknowledge a true and well-understood- real Presence and Communication of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; whereas on the contrary, they do professedly own it, in terms as express as any can be used.   

CHAP. III.  
1. What the Papists do understand by Christ being spiritually present in the Sacrament. 2. What St. Bernard understood by it. 3. What the Protestants. 4. Faith doth not cause, but suppose the presence of Christ. 5. The Union betwixt the Body of Christ and the Bread is Sacramental.  
1. HAving now, by what I have said, put it out of doubt, that the Protestants believe a spiritual and true presence of Christ in the Sacrament, which is the reason, that according to the example of the Fathers, they use so frequently the term spiritual in this subject; it may not be amiss to consider in the next place, how the Roman Church understands that same word. Now they make it to signify, That Christ is not present in the Sacrament, 
Bell. de Euch l▪ ●. c ●. §. 3. Reg. & s●qu.  either after that manner which is natural to corporal things, or that wherein his own body subsists in heaven, but according to the manner of Existence proper to Spirits, whole and entire in each part of the Host: And though by himself he be neither seen, touched, nor moved, yet in respect of the Species or accidents joined with him, he may be said to be seen, touched, and moved: And so the accidents being moved, the body of 
Ibid. Part. 1.  Christ is truly moved accidentally, as the Soul truly changeth place with the Body; so that we truly and properly say that the body of Christ is removed, lifted up, and set down, put on the Patent, or on the Altar, and carried from hand to mouth, and from the mouth to the stomach; as Berengarius was forced to acknowledge in 
Ibid. § 5. Reg.  the Roman Council under Pope Nicholas, that the Body of Christ was sensually touched by the hands, and broken and chewed by the teeth of the Priest. But all this, and much more to the same effect, was never delivered to us, either by holy Scripture, or the ancient Fathers. And if Souls or Spirits could be present, as here Bellarmine teacheth, yet it would be absurd to say that bodies could be so likewise, it being inconsistent with their nature.  
2. Indeed Bellarmine confesseth with St. Bernard, That Christ in the Sacrament is 
St B●rn. Serm de S. Martin.  not given to us carnally, but spiritually; and would to God he had rested here, and not outgone the holy Scriptures, and the Doctrine of the Fathers. For endeavouring, with Pope Innocent III. and the Council of Trent, to determine the manner of the presence and Manducation of Christ's body, with more nicety than was fitting, he thereby foolishly overthrew all that he had wisely said before, denied what he had affirmed, and opposed his own Opinion. His fear was lest his Adversaries should apply that word spiritually, not so much to express the manner of presence, as to exclude the very substance of the Body and Blood of Christ; therefore (saith he) upon that account it is not safe to use too muc● that of St. Bernard, The body of Christ is not Corporally in the Sacrament, without adding presently the abovementioned explanation. How much do we comply with humane pride, and curiosity, which would seem to understand all things▪ Where is the danger? And what doth he fear, as long as all they that believe the Gospel, own the true nature, & the real and substantial presence of the body of Christ in the Sacrament, using that Explication of St. Bernard concerning the manner, which he himself, for the too great evidence of truth, durst not but admit? And why doth he own that the manner is spiritual, not carnal, and then require a carnal presence, as to the manner itself? As for us, we all openly profess with St. Bernard, that the presence of the body of Christ in the Sacrament, is spiritual, and therefore true and real; and with the same Bernard, and all the Ancients, we deny that the Body of Christ is carnally either present or given. The thing we willingly admit, but humbly and religiously forbear to inquire into the manner.  
3. We believe a Presence and Union of Christ with our soul and body, which we know not how to call better than Sacramental, that is, effected by eating; that while we eat and drink the consecrated Bread and Wine, we eat and drink therewithal the Body and Blood of Christ, not in a corporal manner, but some other way, incomprehensible, known only to God, which we call spiritual; for if with St. Bernard and the Fathers a man goes no further, we do not find fault with a general explication of the manner, but with the presumption and self-conceitedness of those who boldly and curiously inquire what is a spiritual presence, as presuming that they can understand the manner of acting of God's holy Spirit. We chose confess with the Fathers, that this manner of presence is unaccountable, and past finding out, not to be searched and pried into by Reason, but believed by Faith. And if it seems impossible that the flesh of Christ should descend, and come to be our food, through so great a distance; we must remember how much the power of the holy Spirit exceeds our sense and our apprehensions, and how absurd it would be to undertake to measure his Immensity by our weakness and narrow capacity; and so make our Faith to conceive and believe what our Reason cannot comprehend.  
4. Yet our Faith doth not cause or make that Presence, but apprehends it as most truly and really effected by the word of Christ: And the Faith whereby we are said to eat the flesh of Christ, is not that only whereby we believe that he died for our sins (for this Faith is required and supposed to precede the Sacramental Manducation) but more properly, that whereby we believe those words of Christ, This is my Body; which was St. Augustine's 
Aug. super 〈…〉. Tract. 25.  meaning when he said, Why dost thou prepare thy stomach and thy teeth? Believe and thou hast eaten. For in this Mystical eating by the wonderful power of the Holy Ghost, we do invisibly receive the substance of Christ's Body and Blood, as much as if we should eat and drink both visibly.  
5. The result of all this is, That the Body and Blood of Christ are Sacramentally united to the Bread and Wine, so that Christ is truly given to the Faithful; and yet is not to be here considered with sense or worldly reason, but by Faith, resting on the words of the Gospel. Now it is said, that the Body and Blood of Christ are joined to the Bread and Wine, because, that in the celebration of the holy Eucharist, the Flesh is given together with the Bread, and the Blood together with the Wine. All that remains is, That we should with faith and humility admire this high and sacred Mystery, which our tongue cannot sufficiently explain, nor our heart conceive.   

CHAP. IU.  
1. Of the change of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, which the Papists call Transubstantiation. 2. Of God's Omnipotency. 3. Of the Accidents of the Bread. 4. The Sacramental Union of the thing signified with the sign. 5 and 6. The question is stated Negatively and Affirmatively. 7. The definition of the Council of Trent. The Bull of Pope Pius IU. and the form of the Oath by him appointed. The Decretal of Innocent III. The Assertions of the Jesuits. 8. Transubstantiation a very monstrous thing.  
1. IT is an Article of faith in the Church of Rome, that in the Blessed Eucharist the substance of the Bread and Wine is reduced to nothing, and that in its place succeeds the Body and Blood of Christ, as we shall see more at large § 6, and 7. The Protestants are much of another mind; and yet none of them denies altogether but that there is a conversion of the Bread into the Body (and consequently of the Wine into the Blood) of Christ: For they know and acknowledge that in the Sacrament, by virtue of the words and blessing of Christ, the condition, use, and office of the Bread is wholly changed, that is, of common and ordinary, it becomes our Mystical and Sacramental food; whereby, as they affirm and believe, the true Body of Christ is not only shadowed and figured, but also given indeed, and by worthy Communicants truly received. Yet they believe not that the bread loseth its own, to become the substance of the Body of Christ; for the holy Scripture, and the ancient Interpreters thereof for many ages, never taught such an Essential change and conversion, as that the very substance, the matter and form of the Bread should be wholly taken away, but only a mysterious and Sacramental one, whereby our Ordinary is changed into Mystic bread, and thereby designed and appointed to another use, end, and office than before: This change, whereby supernatural effects are wrought by things natural, while their Essence is preserved entire, doth best agree with the grace and power of God.  
2. There is no reason why we should dispute concerning God's Omnipotency, whether it can do this or that, presuming to measure an infinite power by our poor ability which is but weakness. We may grant that he is able to do beyond what we can think or apprehend, and resolve his most wonderful acts into his absolute will and power, but we may not charge him with working contradictions. And though God's Almightiness were able in this Mystery to destroy the substance of Bread and Wine, and essentially to change it into the Body and Blood of Christ, while the accidents of Bread and Wine subsist of themselves without a subject, yet we desire to have it proved that God will have it so, and that it is so indeed. For, that God doth it because he can, is no Argument; and that he wills it, we have no other proof but the confident Assertion of our Adversaries. Tertullian against Praxias declared, That we should not conclude God doth things because he is able, but that we should inquire what he hath done; For God will never own that praise of his Omnipotency, whereby his unchangeableness and his truth are impaired, and those things overthrown and destroyed, which, in his word, he affirms to be; for, take away the Bread and Wine, and there remains no Sacrament.  
3. They that say, that the matter and form of the Bread are wholly abolished, yet will have the accidents to remain: But if the substance of the Bread be changed into the substance of Christ's Body, by virtue of his words, what hinders that the accidents of the Bread are not also changed into the accidents of Christ's Body? They that urge the express Letter, should show that Christ said, This is the substance of my Body without its accidents. But he did not say, That he gave his Disciples a Fantastic Body, such a visionary figment as Martion believed, but that very Body which was given for us, without being deprived of that extension and other accidents of humane bodies without which it could not have been crucified, since the Maintainers of Transubstantiation grant that the Body of Christ keeps its quantity in Heaven, and say it is without the same in the Sacrament; they must either acknowledge their contradiction in the matter, or give over their opinion.  
4. Protestants dare not be so curious, or presume to know more than is delivered by Scripture and Antiquity, they firmly believing the words of Christ, make the form of this Sacrament to consist in the Union of the thing signified with the sign, that is, the exhibition of the Body of Christ with the consecrated bread, still remaining bread; by divine appointment these two are made one; and though this Union be not natural, substantial, personal, or local by their being one within another, yet it is so strait and so true, that in eating the blessed Bread, the true body of Christ is given to us, and the names of the sign and thing signified are reciprocally changed, what is proper to the body is attributed to the bread, and what belongs only to the bread, is affirmed of the body, and both are united in time, though not in place. For the presence of Christ in this Mystery is not opposed to distance but to absence, which only could deprive us of the benefit and fruition of the object.  
5. From what hath been said it appears, that this whole controversy may be reduced to four Heads; 1. Concerning the Signs; 2. Concerning the thing signified; 3. Concerning the Union of both; and 4. Concerning their participation; As for the first, The Protestants differ from the Papists in this, that according to the nature of Sacraments, and the Doctrine of holy Scripture we make the substance of Bread and Wine, and they accidents only to be signs. In the second, they not understanding our opinion do misrepresent it, for we do not hold (as they say we do) that only the merits of the Death of Christ are represented by the blessed Elements, but also that his very Body which was crucified, and his Blood which was shed for us, are truly signified and offered, that our Souls may receive and possess Christ, as truly and certainly as the material and visible signs are by us seen and received. And so in the third place, because the thing signified is offered and given to us, as truly as the sign itself, in this respect we own the Union betwixt the Body and blood of Christ, and the Elements, whose use and office we hold to be changed from what it was before. But we deny what the Papists affirm, that the substance of Bread and Wine are quite abolished, and changed into the Body and Blood of our Lord in such sort, that the bare accidents of the Elements do alone remain united with Christ's Body and Blood. And we also deny that the Elements still retain the nature of Sacraments when not used according to divine institution, that is, given by Christ's Ministers, and received by his People; so that Christ in the consecrated bread ought not, cannot be kept and preserved to be carried about, because he is present only to the Communicants. As for the fourth and last point, we do not say, that in the Lord's Supper we receive only the benefits of Christ's Death and Passion, but we join the ground with its fruits, that is, Christ with those advantages we receive from him, affirming with St. Paul, That the bread which we break 
1 Cor. 10. 16.  is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Communion of the body of Christ, and the Cup which we bless, the Communion of his blood; of that very substance which he took of the blessed Virgin, and afterwards carried into heaven; differing from those of Rome only in this, that they will have our Union with Christ to be corporal, and our eating of him likewise, and we on the contrary maintain it to be, indeed as true, but not carnal or natural. And as he that receives unworthily, (that is, with the mouth only, but not with a faithful heart) eats and drinks his own damnation, so he that doth it worthily, receives his Absolution and Justification; that is, he that discerns, and then receives the Lord's Body as torn, and his Blood as shed for the redemption of the world. But that Christ (as the Papists affirm) should give his flesh and blood to be received with the mouth, and ground with the teeth, so that not only the most wicked and Infidels, but even Rats and Mice should swallow him down, this our words and our hearts do utterly deny.  
6. So then, (to sum up this Controversy by applying to it all that hath been said) It is not questioned whether the Body of Christ be absent from the Sacrament duly administered according to his Institution, which we Protestants neither affirm nor believe: For it being given and received in the Communion, it must needs be that it is present, though in some manner veiled under the Sacrament, so that of itself it cannot be seen. Neither is it doubted or disputed whether the Bread and Wine, by the power of God and a supernatural virtue, be set apart and fitted for a much nobler use, and raised to a higher dignity than their nature bears; for we confess the necessity of a supernatural and heavenly change, and that the signs cannot become Sacraments but by the infinite power of God, whose proper right it is to institute Sacraments in his Church, being able alone to endue them with virtue and efficacy. Finally, we do not say that our blessed Saviour gave only the figure and sign of his body; neither do we deny a Sacramental Union of the Body and Blood of Christ with the sacred Bread and Wine, so that both are really and substantially received together: But (that we may avoid all ambiguity) we deny that after the words and prayer of Consecration, the bread should remain bread no longer, but should be changed into the substance of the Body of Christ, nothing of the Bread but only the accidents continuing to be what they were before: And so the whole question is concerning the Transubstantiation of the outward Elements; whether the substance of the Bread be turned into the substance of Christ's Body, and the substance of the Wine into the substance of his Blood; or as the Romish Doctors describe their Transubstantiation, whether the substance of Bread and Wine doth utterly perish, and the substance of Christ's Body and Blood succeed in their place, which are both denied by Protestants.  
7. The Church of Rome sings on Corpus Christi-day, This is not bread, but God and man my Saviour. And the Council of Trent doth thus define it, Because Christ our Redeemer 
Conc. Trident. Sess. 13. c. 4.  said truly, that that was his Body, which he gave in the appearance of bread; therefore it was ever believed by the Church of God, and is now declared by this sacred Synod, that by the power of Consecration the whole substance of the bread is changed into the substance of Christ's Body, and the whole substance of the Wine into the substance of his Blood, which change is fitly and properly called Transubstantiation by the holy Catholic (Roman) Church. Therefore 
Ibid. Can. 2.  if any one shall say, That the substance of Bread and Wine remains with the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the Bread and Wine into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, the only appearance and outward form of the Bread and Wine remaining, which conversion the Catholic (Roman) Church doth fitly call Transubstantiation, let him be accursed. The Pope confirming this Council, defines it after 
Bulla Pii Papae 4. Consir. Conc. Trident.  the same manner, imposeth an Oath and Declaration to the same purpose, and so makes it one of the new Articles of the Roman Faith, in the form, and under the penalty following: I. N. do profess and firmly believe all and every the singulars contained in the Confession of Faith allowed by the holy Church of Rome; viz. I believe in one God, etc. I also profess that the Body and Blood with the Soul and Godhead of our Saviour Jesus Christ are truly, really, and substantially in the Mass, and in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and that there is a conversion of the whole substance of the Bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the Wine into the Blood of Christ, which conversion the Roman Catholic Church calls Transubstantiation. I fully embrace all things defined, declared, and delivered by the holy Council of Trent, and withal I do reject, condemn, and accurse all things by it accursed, condemned, or rejected. I do confidently believe that this Faith, which I now willingly profess, is the true Catholic Faith without the which it is impossible to be saved; and I do promise, vow, and swear, that I will constantly keep it whole and undefiled to my very last breath: So help me God and these Holy Gospels. Afterwards he bravely concludes this Decree with this Commination: Let no man therefore dare to attempt the breaking of this our Deed and Injunction, or be so desperate as to oppose it. And if any one presumes upon such an attempt, let him know that he thereby incurs the wrath of Almighty God, and of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome in St. Peter's Church the Thirteenth of November in the year of our Lord 1564. the fifth of our Pontificat. Which is as much as to say, That he had received this his Roman Faith from Pope Innocent the Third, who first decided and imposed this Doctrine of the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, and made it an Article of Faith, adding this new-devised Thirteenth to the ancient Twelve Articles, for so we find it published in his Decretal propounded to the Assembly at Lateran in 1215. and proclaimed afterwards by his Nephew Pope Gregory the Ninth. Thus: We firmly believe and simply acknowledge that there is one only true God, etc. 
Decret. de sum. Trin. & fide Cathol. Tit. 1.  and that in the Sacrament of the Altar the Body and Blood of Christ are truly contained under the accidents of Bread and Wine, which are transubstantiated, the Bread into the Body, and the Wine into the Blood. To these definitions of Popes I will add only the Tenets of three Jesuits, which are highly approved by the late followers of the new Roman Faith. First, Of Alphonsus Salmeron, We must of necessity (saith he) hold Transubstantiation, that the substance of Bread 
Tom. 9 Tract. 16.  and Wine, which Luther and some others admit, may be excluded; that the words of Christ (which yet are most true without that) may be verified; that how few of these many are pertinent to their purpose will be seen hereafter; many Testimonies of the Fathers, concerning Conversion, Mutation, Consecration, Benediction, Transformation, Sanctification (for by all these names almost, they have called Transubstantiation) may stand firm, and not be vain and insignificant; and lastly, that we may maintain a solid presence of the Body and Blood of Christ. Item, as David 
Tom. 16. disp. 3. in Ep. 9 Petri.  changed his Countenance before Abimelech, and then received the Show bread, that was a certain Type of the Eucharist, so Christ in the Sacrament seigns himself to be bread, and yet is not bread, though he seems so to be most visibly. Secondly, Of Cardinal Francis Tolet; The words of Consecration are efficacious 
Instr. Sacerd. l. ●. c. 2●.  instruments whereby to Transubstantiate the substance of the Bread into the true Body of Christ; so that after they are spoken, there remains in the Host none of the substance of the Bread, but only the accidents of it, which are called the properties of the Bread, under which the true Body of Christ is present. Thirdly, and lastly, Of Cardinal Bellarmine, The Catholic 
Lib. 3. ●● Euchar. cap. 11.  Church ever taught, that by the conversion of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ (which conversion hath been in after times called Transubstantiation) it comes to pass, that the Body and Blood of our Lord are truly and really present in the Sacrament. It would be to no purpose to bring the Testimonies of others of the Latin or Roman Church who give to the Pope an absolute power of defining what he pleaseth, for they are but the same stuff as these: but if any one hath a mind let him consult Gretserus 
Grets'. def Beliar. l. 2. c ●. Syl. Prior. sub initio.  his defence of Bellarmine, or his Dialogue who first writ against Luther, who both reduce the whole matter to the judgement and decree of the Pope.  
8. Now we leave enquiring what God is able to do, for we should first know his will in this matter, before we examine his power: Yet thus much we say, that this Roman Transubstantiation is so strange and monstrous, that it exceeds the nature of all Miracles. And though God by his Almightiness be able to turn the substance of bread into some other substance, yet none will believe that he doth it, as long as it appears to our senses, that the substance of the Bread doth still remain whole and entire. Certain it is, that hitherto we read of no such thing done in the Old or New Testament, and therefore this Tenet, being as unknown to the Ancients as it is ungrounded in Scripture, appears as yet to be very incredible, and there is no reason we should believe such an unauthorised figment, newly invented by men, and now imposed as an Article of Christian Religion. For it is in vain that they bring Scripture to defend this their stupendious Doctrine; and it is not true, what they so often and so confidently affirm, that the Universal Church hath always constantly owned it, being it was not so much as heard of in the Church for many Ages, and hath been but lately approved by the Pope's Authority in the Councils of Lateran and Trent, as I shall prove in the following Chapters.   

CHAP. V.  
That neither the word nor name of Transubstantiation, nor the Doctrine or the thing itself is taught or contained in holy Scripture, or in the Writings of the ancient Doctors of the Church, but rather is contrary to them; and therefore not of Faith.  
1. THe word Transubstantiation is so far from being found either in the sacred Records, or in the Monuments of the ancient Fathers, that the maintainers of it do themselves acknowledge that it was not so much as heard of before the twelfth Century. For though one Stephanus, Bishop of Autun, be said to have once used it, yet it is without proof that some Modern Writers make him one of the tenth Century; nor yet doth he say, that the bread is Transubstantiated, but as it were Transubstantiated, which 
* See ch. 1. art. 6. c. 3 art. 4. c. 4. art. 5, and this ch. art. 5.  well understood might be admitted.  
2. Nay, that the thing itself without the word, that the Doctrine without the expression cannot be found in Scripture, is ingeniously acknowledged by the most learned Schoolmen Scotus, Durandus, Biel, Cameracensis, Cajetan, and many more, who finding it not, brought in by the Pope's Authority, and received in the Roman Church, till 1200 years after Christ, yet endeavoured to defend it by other Arguments.  
3. Scotus Confessed, That there is not any 
Scot in 4. Scent d. 11. q. 3.  place in Scripture so express as to compel a man to admit of Transubstantiation, were it not that the Church hath declared for it, (that is, Pope Innocent III, in his Lateran Council.) Durandus said, That the word is found, but 
Durand. ut suprae.  that by it, the manner they contend for cannot be proved. Biel affirms, That it is no where 
Biel in Can. missae sect. 40. Occam. Cent l. ●. q. 6. & in 4. Scent d. 11. q. 6. Cam. in 4. d 11. q. 6. L contra Luth de Capt Babil. c. 1.  found in Canonical Scriptures. Occam declared, That it is easier, more reasonable, less inconvenient, and better agreeing with Scripture, to hold that the substance of the Bread remains. After him Cardinal Cameracensis doth also confess, That Transubstantiation cannot be proved out of the Scriptures. Nay, the Bishop of Rochester saith himself, That there is no expression in Scripture whereby that conversion of substance in the Mass can be made good. Cardinal Cajetan likewise, There is not any 
Cajetan in Tho. p 3. q. 75. art. 1  thing of force enough in the Gospel to make us understand in a proper sense these words, This is my body: Nay, that presence which the Church (of Rome) believes in the Sacrament 
Ibid. q. 45. art. 14.  cannot be proved by the words of Christ without the declaration of the (Roman) Church. Lastly, Bellarmine himself doth say, That 
Bell. de Euch. l. 3. c. 23.  though he might bring Scripture clear enough, to his thinking, to prove Transubstantiation by, to an easy man, yet still it would be doubtful whether he had done it to purpose, because some very acute and learned men, as Scotus, hold that it cannot be proved by Scripture. Now in this, Protestants desire no more but to be of the opinion of those learned and acute men.  
4. And indeed, the words of institution would plainly make it appear to any man that would prefer truth to wrangling, that it is with the Bread, that the Lords Body is given, (as his Blood with the Wine) for Christ; having taken, blessed, and broken the bread, said, This is my body; and St. Paul, than whom none could better understand the meaning of Christ, explains it thus, The bread which we break is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Communion or communication of the body of Christ, that whereby his body is given, and the Faithful are made partakers of it. That it was bread which he reached to them, there was no need of any proof, the receiver's senses sufficiently convinced them of it; but that therewith his body was given, none could have known, had it not been declared by him who is the truth itself. And though, by the divine institution and the explication of the Apostle every faithful Communicant may be as certainly assured that he receives the Lord's Body, as if he knew that the Bread is substantially turned into it, yet it doth not therefore follow, that the Bread is so changed, that its substance is quite done away, so that there remains nothing present, but the very natural Body of Christ, made of bread: For certain it is, that the bread is not the Body of Christ any otherwise than as the Cup is the New Testament, and two different consequences cannot be drawn from those two not different expressions. Therefore as the Cup cannot be the New Testament but by a Sacramental figure, no more can the Bread be the Body of Christ, but in the same sense.  
5. As to what Bellarmine and others say, That it is not possible the words of Christ can be true, but by that conversion, which the Church of Rome calls Transubstantiation, that is so far from being so, that if it were admitted, it would first deny the Divine Omnipotency, as though God were not able to make the Body of Christ present, and truly to give it in the Sacrament, whilst the substance of the Bread remains. 2. It would be inconsistent with the Divine Benediction which preserves things in their proper being. 3. It would be contrary to the true nature of a Sacrament, which always consisteth of two parts. And lastly, It would in some manner destroy the true substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, which cannot be said to be made of Bread and Wine by a Priest, without a most high presumption. But the truth of the words of Christ remains constant, and can be defended, without overthrowing so many other great truths. Suppose a Testator puts Deeds and Titles in the hand of his Heir, with these words, Take the House which I bequeath thee; There is no man will think that those Writings and Parchments are that very House which is made of Wood or Stones, and yet no man will say that the Testator spoke falsely or obscurely. Likewise our blessed Saviour, having sanctified the Elements by his words and prayers, gave them to his Disciples as Seals of the New Testament, whereby they were as certainly secured of those rich and precious Legacies which he left to them, as Children are of their Father's Lands and Inheritance, by Deeds and Instruments signed and delivered for that purpose.  
6. To the Sacred Records we may add the judgement of the Primitive Church. For those Orthodox and holy Doctors of our holier Religion, those great Lights of the Catholic Church, do all clearly, constantly, and unanimously conspire in this, That the presence of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament is only mystic and spiritual. As for the entire annihilation of the substance of the Bread and the Wine, or that new and strange Tenet of Transubstantiation, they did not so much as hear or speak any thing of it: Nay, the constant stream of their Doctrine doth clearly run against it, how great soever are the brags and pretences of the Papists to the contrary. And if you will hear them one by one, I shall bring some of their most noted passages only, that our labour may not be endless by rehearsing all that they have said to our purpose on this subject.  
7. I shall begin with that holy and ancient Doctor, Justin Martyr, who is one 
Just. Mart. An. Dom. 144.  of the first after the Apostles times; whose undoubted Writings are come to us. What was believed at Rome and elsewhere in his time, concerning this holy mystery, may well be understood out of these his words: After that the Bishop hath prayed, and blessed, and the people said Amen, those whom we call Deacons or Ministers give to every one of them that are present a portion of the 
Apol. 2. ad Anton. 〈…〉 one 〈…〉.  Bread and Wine; and that food we call the Eucharist, for we do not receive it as ordinary Bread and Wine. They received it as bread, yet not as common bread. And a little after, By this food digested, our flesh and blood are fed, and we are taught that it is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore the substance of the Bread remains, and remains corruptible food, even after the Consecration, which can in no wise be said of the immortal Body of Christ: For the flesh of Christ is not turned into our flesh, neither doth it nourish it, as doth that food which is Sacramentally called the Flesh of Christ. But the Flesh of Christ feeds our souls unto eternal life.  
8. After the same manner, it is written by that holy Martyr Irenaeus Bishop much about the same time. The bread 
St. Iren. A. D. 160.  which is from the earth is no more common bread, after the invocation of God upon it, but is become the Eucharist consisting of two parts, 
Lib. 4. Cont. Haeres. c. 34.  the one earthly, and the other heavenly. There would be nothing earthly if the substance of the bread were removed. Again, As the grain of wheat falling in the ground, and dying, riseth again much increased, and then receiving the word of God becomes the 
Lib 5. c. 12.  Eucharist (which is the Body and Blood of Christ;) So likewise our bodies nourished by it, laid in the ground and dissolved, shall rise again in their time. Again, We are fed by the Creature, 
Ibid.  but it is he himself that gives it, he hath ordained and appointed that Cup which is a Creature, and his Blood also, and that Bread which is a Creature, and also his Body. And so when the Bread and the Cup are blessed by God's Word, they become the Eucharist of the Body and Blood of Christ, and from them our bodies receive nourishment and increase. Now that our flesh is fed and increased by the natural body of Christ cannot be said without great impiety by themselves that hold Transubstantiation. For naturally nothing nourisheth our bodies but what is made flesh and blood by the last digestion, which it would be blasphemous to say of the incorruptible body of Christ. Yet the sacred Elements which in some manner are, and are said to be the body and blood of Christ, yield nourishment and increase to our bodies by their earthly nature, in such sort, that by virtue also of the heavenly and spiritual food which the faithful receive by means of the material, our bodies are fitted for a blessed Resurrection to immortal glory.  
9 Tertullian, who flourished about the two hundredth year after Christ, when 
Tertul. A. D. 200.  as yet he was Catholic, and acted by a pious zeal, wrote against Martion the Heretic, who amongst his other impious opinions taught that Christ had not taken of the Virgin Mary the very nature and substance of a humane body, but only the outward forms and appearances; out of which Fountain the Romish Transubstantiators seem to have drawn their Doctrine of accidents abstracted from their subject hanging in the air, that is, subsisting on nothing. Tertullian, disputing against this wicked Heresy, draws an Argument 
Contra Martion l 4. c. 40.  from the Sacrament of the Eucharist to prove that Christ had not a Fantastic and imaginary, but a true and natural body, thus. The figure of the Body of Christ proves it to be natural, for there can be no figure of a Ghost or a Phantasm. But (saith he) Christ having taken the Bread, and given it to his Disciples made it his Body by saying, This is my Body, that is, the figure of my Body. Now, it could not have been a figure except the body were real, for a mere appearance, an imaginary Phantasm is not capable of a figure. Each part of this Argument is true, and contains a necessary Conclusion. For 1. The bread must remain bread, otherwise Martion would have returned the Argument against Tertullian, saying as the Transubstantiators; It was not bread, but merely the accidents of bread, which seemed to be bread. 2. The Body of Christ is proved to be true by the figure of it, which is said to be bread: For the bread is fit to represent that divine Body, because of its nourishing virtue, which in the bread is earthly, but in the body is heavenly. Lastly, The realty of the Body is proved by that of its figure, and so if you deny the substance of the bread (as the Papists do) you thereby destroy the truth and realty of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament.  
10. Origen also, about the same time 
Origen. A D. 2●0. Dial. 3. de Hom. Christo contra Martion.  with Tertullian, speaks much after the same manner, If Christ (saith he) as these men (the Marcionites) falsely hold, had neither Flesh nor Blood, of what manner of Flesh, of what Body, of what Blood did he give the Signs and Images when he gave the Bread and Wine? If they be the signs and representations of the Body and Blood of Christ, though they prove the truth of his Body and Blood, yet they being signs, cannot be what they signify, and they not being what they represent, the groundless contrivance of Transubstantiation is overthrown. Also upon Leviticus he doth expressly oppose it thus: Acknowledge ye that 
Homil. 7. in Leu.  they are figures, and therefore spiritual, not carnal, examine and understand what is said, otherwise if you receive as things carnal, they will hurt, but not nourish you. For in the Gospel there is the Letter, which kills him that understands not spiritually what is said; for if you understand this saying according to the Letter, Except you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood, the Letter will kill you. Therefore as much as these words belong to the eating and drinking of Christ's Body and Blood, they are to be understood mystically and spiritually. Again, writing on St. Matthew, 
Mat. 15.  he doth manifestly put a difference betwixt the true and immortal, and the Typick and Mystical Body of Christ: For the Sacrament consisteth of both. That food (saith he) which is sanctified by the 
Origen is unjustly numbered by reason of these words among the Heretics called Stercoranistae.  Word of God and Prayer, as far as it is material, descends into the belly and is cast out into the draught; this he saith of the Typick, which is the figure of the true Body. God forbid we should have any such thoughts of the true and heavenly Body of Christ; as they must that understand his natural body by what Origen calls his material and Sacramental body, which no man in his wits can understand of mere accidents.  
11. St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, a 
S. Cyprian A. D. 250.  glorious Martyr of Christ, wrote a famous Epistle to Coecilius concerning the sacred Chalice in the Lord's Supper, whereof this is the sum: Let that Cup 
L. 2. Ep. 3. sive 63. Edit. Pamel.  which is offered to the people in commemoration of Christ be mixed with Wine (against the opinion of the Aquarii who were for water only) for it cannot represent the Blood of Christ when there is no Wine in the Cup, because the Blood of Christ is expressed by the Wine, as the Faithful are understood by the water. But the Patrons of Transubstantiation have neither Wine nor Water in the Chalice they offer; and yet without them (especially the Wine appointed by our blessed Saviour, and whereof Cyprian chiefly speaks) the Blood of Christ is not so much as Sacramentally present; So far was the Primitive Church from any thing of believing a corporal presence of the Blood, the Wine being reduced to nothing (that is to a mere accident without a substance) for then they must have said, that the Water was changed into the People, as well as the Wine into the Blood. But there is no need that I should bring many testimonies of that Father, when all his Writings do plainly declare that the true substance of the Bread and Wine is given in the Eucharist, that, that spiritual and quickening food which the Faithful get from the Body and Blood of Christ, and the mutual Union of the whole People joined into one body may answer their Type, the Sacrament which represents them.  
12. Those words of the Council of Nice are well known, whereby the Faithful 
Con. Nice. A. D. 325.  are called from the consideration of the outward visible Elements of Bread and Wine, to attend the inward and spiritual act of the mind, whereby Christ is seen and apprehended. Let not our thoughts dwell low, on that Bread and that Cup which are 
In acts ibid. a Gel. Cyciz. conscript.  set before us, but lifting up our minds by faith let us consider, that on this sacred Table is laid the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.— And receiving truly his precious Body and Blood, let us believe these things to be the Pledges and Emblems of our Resurrection: for we do not take much, but only a little (of the Elements) that we may be mindful, we do it not for Satiety, but for Sanctification. Now, who is there, even among the Maintainers of Transubstantiation, that will understand this, not much, but a little, of the Body of Christ? Or who can believe that the Nicene Fathers would call his Body and Blood Symbols in a proper sense? When nothing can be an Image or a sign of itself. And therefore though we are not to rest in the Elements, minding nothing else (for we should consider what is chiefest in the Sacrament, that we have our hearts lifted up unto the Lord, who is given together with the signs) yet Elements they are, and the earthly part of the Sacrament, both the Bread and the Wine, which destroys Transubstantiation.  
13. St. Athanasius, famous in the time, 
St. Athan. A. D. 330.  and present in the Assembly of the Nicene Council, a stout Champion of the Catholic Faith, acknowledgeth none other but a spiritual Manducation of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament. Our Lord (saith he) made a difference 
In illud Evangelii 3 Quicunque dixerit verbum, etc. & in c. 6. St. Joh. qui mandus cat caernem means, etc.  betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit, that we might understand that what he said, was not carnal, but spiritual. For how many men could his body have fed, that the whole world should be nourished by it? But therefore he mentioned his ascension into heaven, that they might not take what he said in a corporal sense, but might understand that his Flesh whereof he spoke is a spiritual and 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  heavenly food given by himself from on high; for the words that I spoke unto you they are spirit, and they are life, as if he should say, My Body which is shown and given for the world, shall be given in food, that it may be distributed spiritually to every one, and preserve them all 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  to the Resurrection to eternal life. Cardinal Perron having nothing to answer to these 
De Euch. 〈…〉. ar. ●0.  words of this holy Father, in a kind of despair, rejects the whole Tractate, and denies it to be Athanasius', which no body ever did before him, there being no reason for it.  
14. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalam, of the 
St. Cyril of Hier. A D. 550.  same Age with St. Athanasius, treating of the Chrism, wherewith they then anointed those that were Baptised, speaks thus: Take heed thou dost not think that this is a mere Ointment only. For as the Broad of 
Chatech. myst. 3.  the Eucharist after the Invocation of the Holy Ghost is no longer ordinary Bread, but is the Body of Christ; so this holy Ointment is no longer a bare common Ointment after it is consecrated, but is the gift or grace of Christ, which, by his Divine Nature, and the coming of the Holy Ghost, is made efficacious; so that the Body is anointed with the Ointment, but the soul is sanctified by the holy and vivifying Spirit. Can any thing more clear be said? Either the Ointment is transubstantiated by consecration into the spirit and grace of Christ, or the Bread and Wine are not transubstantiated by Consecration into the Body and Blood of Christ. Therefore as the Ointment retains still its substance, and yet is not called a mere or common ointment, but the Charisme or grace of Christ: So the Bread and Wine remaining so, as to their substance, yet are not said to be only Bread and Wine common and ordinary, but also the Body and Blood of Christ. Under the Type of Bread 
Chatech. Mist. 4. Thy bodily Palate (saith he) tasteth one thing there, and thy faith another.  (saith he) the Body is given thee, and the Blood under the type of the Wine. This Grodecius doth captiously and unfaithfully interpret, under the appearances of Bread and Wine; for those mere appearances or accidents subsisting without a subject never so much as entered into the mind of any of the Ancients.  
15. Much to the same purpose we have in the Anaphora or Liturgy attributed to St. Basil, We have set before you the Type of 
St. Basil. A. D. 360.  the Body and Blood of Christ, which he calls the Bread of the Eucharist after the Consecration. 
Lib. de Spir. Sanc.  If it be the Type of the Body, then certainly it cannot be the Body and nothing else: For (as we said before) nothing can be the figure of itself, no more than a man can be his own Son or Father. There be also Prayers in that Liturgy, That the Bread may become the Body of Christ for the remission of sins, and life eternal to the receivers. Now true it is, that to the faithful the Element becomes a vivifying Body, because they are truly partakers of the heavenly bread, the Body of Christ: but to others, who either receive not, or are not believers, to them the Bread may be the Antitype, but is not, neither doth become the Body of Christ, for without Faith Christ is never eaten, as is gathered from the same Father. 
Lib de Bapt. Saint Greg Nyss A. D. 370.   
16. St. Gregory Nyssene, his Brother, doth clearly declare what change is wrought in the Bread and Wine by Consecration, saying, As the Altar naturally is but common stone, but being consecrated becomes an holy Table, a spotless Altar; so the bread of the Eucharist is at first ordinary, but being mysteriously 
Orat. de S. Baptis.  sacrificed, it is, and is called the Body of Christ, and is efficacious to great purposes; and as the Priest (yesterday a Layman) by the Blessing of Ordination, becomes a Doctor of Piety, and a Steward of Mysteries, and though not changed in body or shape, yet is transformed and made better as to his soul, by an invisible power and grace; so also by the same consequence, water, being nothing but water of itself, yet blest by a heavenly grace, renews the man, working a spiritual regeneration in him. Now let the Assertors of Transubstantiation maintain that a Stone is substantially changed into an Altar, a man into a Priest, the water in Baptism into an invisible grace, or else that the Bread is not so changed into the Body of Christ: For according to this Father there is the same consequence in them all.  
17 Likewise St. Ambrose explaining 
St Ambr. A D. 380.  what manner of alteration is in the bread, when in the Eucharist it becomes the Body of Christ, saith: Thou hadst indeed a 
Lib de Sacram. 4. cap. 4.  being, but wert an old creature, but being now Baptised or consecrated, thou art become a new creature. The same change that happens to man in Baptism, happens to the Bread in the Sacrament: If the nature of man is not substantially altered by the new Birth, no more is the bread by Consecration. Man becomes by Baptism, not what Nature made him, but what Grace new-makes him; and the Bread becomes by 
Ibid. de init. mist. cap. 9  Consecration, not what it was by Nature, but what the Blessing consecrates it to be. For Nature made only a mere man, and made only common bread; but Regeneration, of a mere man, makes a holy man, in whom Christ dwells spiritually: And likewise the Consecration of common bread makes Mystic and Sacramental bread. Yet this change doth not destroy Nature, but to Nature adds Grace: As is yet more plainly expressed by that holy Father in the forecited place. Perhaps thou wilt say (saith he) this my bread is common bread; it is bread 
De Sacr. l. 4. c. 4.  indeed before the blessing of the Sacrament, but when it is consecrated it becomes the Body of Christ. This we are therefore to declare, how can that which is bread be also the body of Christ? By Consecration. And Consecration is made by the words of our Lord, that the venerable Sacrament may be perfected. You see how efficacious is the word of Christ. If there be then so great a power in the word of Christ to make the Bread and Wine to be what they were not, how much greater is that power, which still preserves them to be what they were, and yet makes them to be what they were not? Therefore, that I may answer thee, it was not the Body of Christ before the Consecration, but now after the Consecration, it is the Body of Christ; he said the word and it was done; thou thyself wert before, but wert an old Creature; after thou hast been consecrated in Baptism thou art become a new creature. By these words St. Ambrose teacheth how we are to understand that the Bread is the Body of Christ, to wit, by such a change that the Bread and Wine do not cease to be what they were as to their substance (for then they should not be what they were) and yet by the Blessing become what before they were not For so they are said to remain (as indeed they do 〈◊〉 what they were by nature, that yet they are changed by grace, that is, they become assured Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ, and by that means certain pledges of our Justification and Redemption. What is there, can refute more expressly the dream of Transubstantiation?  
18. St. chrysostom doth also clearly 
St Chrys. A. D. 390.  discard and reject this carnal Transubstantiation and eating of Christ's Body, without eating the bread. Sacraments 
Hom. 15. in St. Joh.  (saith he) ought not to be contemplated and considered carnally, but with the eyes of our souls, that is spiritually; for such is the nature of mysteries: where observe the opposition betwixt carnally and spiritually which admits of no plea or reply again. As in Baptism the spiritual 
Ibid.  power of Regeneration is given to the material water; so also the immaterial gift of the Body and Blood of Christ is not received by any sensible corporal action, but by the spiritual discernment of our faith, and of our hearts and minds. Which is no more than this, that sensible things are called by the name of those spiritual things which they seal and signify. But he speaks more plainly in his Epistle to Caesarius; where he teacheth that in this Mystery, there is not in the bread a substantial, but a Sacramental change, according to the which, the outward Elements take the name of what they represent, and are changed in such a sort, that they still retain their former natural substance. The bread (saith he) is made worthy to be honoured 
In Ep. ad Caesar▪ contra haeres. Apol.  with the name of the Flesh of Christ, by the consecration of the Priest, yet the Flesh retains the proprieties of its incorruptible nature, as the bread doth its natural substance. Before the bread be sanctified we call it bread; but when it is consecrated by the divine grace, it deserves to be called the Lords Body, though the substance of the bread still remains. When Bellarmine could not answer this testimony of that Great Doctor, he thought it enough to deny, that this Epistle is St. Chrysostoms' 
a L. de Euch. 2. c 22.  but both he and 
b In appar Chrys.  Possevin do vainly contend that it is not extant among the works of Chrysostom. For besides that at Florence 
c Steph. Gard. Ep. Wi●t cont Pet M●rt. lib. ●. de Euchar.  and else where it was to be found among them, it is cited in the Collections against the Severians which are in the version of Turrianus the Jesuit, in the fourth Tome of Antiq. lectionum of Henry Canisius, and in the end of the book of Joh. Damascenus against the Acephali. I bring another Testimony out of the imperfect work on St. Matthew, written either by St. chrysostom, or some other ancient Author; a Book in this at least very Orthodox, and not corrupted by the Arrians. In these sanctified vessels, (saith he) the true body of Christ is not contained, but the Mystery of his Body.  
19 Which also hath been said by St. Austin above a thousand times; but 
S. Austin. A. D. 100L.  out of so many almost numberless places I shall choose only three, which are as the sum of all the rest. You are not to eat this Body 
In Psal. 93.  which you see, nor drink this Blood which my Crucifiers shall shed, I have left you a Sacrament which, spiritually understood, will vivisie you. Thus St. Austin rehearsing the words of Christ again; If Sacraments had not some 
Epist. 23. ad Bonif.  resemblance with those things whereof they are Sacraments, they could not be Sacraments at all. From this resemblance they often take the names of what they represent. Therefore as the Sacrament of Christ's body is in some sort his body; so the Sacrament of Faith, is faith also. To the same sense is what he writes against Maximinus 
Cont Max. l. 3. c. 22.  the Arrian. We mind in the Sacraments, not what they are, but what they show; for they are signs, which are one thing, and signify another. And in another place speaking of the Bread and Wine. Let no man look to 
De Doctr. Christ. cap. 7.  what they are, but to what they signify, for our Lord was pleased to say, this is my Body, when he gave the sign of his body. This passage of St. Austin is so clear, that it admits of no evasion nor no denial. For if the Sacraments are one thing, and signify another, than they are not so changed into what they signify, as that after that change they should be no more what they were. The water is changed in baptism as the Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper, but all that is changed is not presently abolished or Transubstantiated. For as the water remains entire in Baptism, so do the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist.  
20. St. Prosper, Orthodox in all things, 
St. Prosp. A. D. 430.  who lived almost in the time of Austin, teacheth, That the Eucharist consisteth of two things, the visible appearance of the Elements, and the invisible Flesh and Blood of our 
Sent. Pros. dist. 2. de cors: cap. hoc est.  Saviour Christ, (that is, the Sacrament, and the grace of the Sacrament) as the person of Christ is both God and Man. Who but the infamous Heretic Eutyches would say that Christ, as God, was substantially changed into man, or as man, into God?  
21. Upon this subject, nothing can be more clear than this of Theodor. whence we 
B. Theodoret 7.  learn what the Primitive Church believes in this matter. Our Saviour, in the Institution 
Dial. 1.  of the Eucharist, changed the names of things, giving to his body the name of its Sacrament, and to the Sacrament the name of his Body. Now this was done for this reason, as he saith, that they that are partakers of the 
Ibid.  Divine Mysteries, might not mind the nature of what they see, but by the change of names, might believe that change which is wrought by Grace. For he that called what by nature is his body, Wheat and Bread; he also honoured the Elements and Signs with the names of his Body and Blood, not changing what is natural, but adding Grace to it. He therefore teacheth that such an alteration is wrought in the Elements, that still their nature and substance continues, as he explains more plainly afterwards. For when the Heretic that stands for Eutichius, had said, As the Sacrament of the Lords Body and Blood are 
Dial. 2.  one thing before the Prayer of the Priest, and afterwards being changed, become another; so also the Body of our Lord after his ascension is changed into the divine substance and nature (according to the Tenet of the Transubstantiator this Eutychian Argument is irrefragable, but) Catholic Antiquity answers it thus: Thou are entangled in the nets of thine own knitting; for the Elements or Mystic signs depart not from their nature after Consecration, but remain in their former substance, form, and kind, and can be seen and touched as much as before: and yet withal we understand also what they become now they are changed. Compare therefore the Copy with the Original, and thou shalt see their likeness. For a figure must answer to the truth. That body hath the same form, and fills the same space as before, and in a word is the same substance; but after its resurrection, it is become immortal, etc. All this and much more is taught by Theodoret, who assisted at the universal Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. It is an idle exception which is made by some in the Church of Rome, as though by the nature and substance of the Elements, which are said to remain, Theodoret had understood the nature and substance of the accidents, 
L 2. de Euch. c. 27  (as Cardinal Bellarmine is pleased to speak most absurdly:) but the whole context doth strongly refute this gloss, for Theodoret joins together nature, substance, form, and figure, and indeed, what Answer could they have given to the Eutychian Argument, if the substance of the bread being annihilated after the Consecration, the accidents only remain? Or did Christ say concerning the accidents of the Bread and Wine, these accidents are, or this accident is my body? But (though we have not that liberty, yet) the Inventors of Transubstantiation may when they please make a Creator of a Creature, substances of accidents, accidents of substances, and any thing out of any thing. But sure they are too immodest and uncharitable, who, to elude the authority of so famous and so worthy a Father as Theodoret, allege that he was accused of some errors in the Council of Ephesus, though he repented afterwards, as they themselves are forced to confess. Fain would they if they could get out at this door, when they cannot deny that he affirmed, that the Elements remain in their natural substance, as he wrote in the Dialogues which he composed against the Eutychian Heretics, with the applause and approbation of the Catholic Church. And indeed the evidence of this truth hath compelled some of our Adversaries to yield that Theodoret is of our side. For in the Epistle before the Dialogues of Theodoret in the Roman Edition, set forth by Stephan Nicolinus, the Pope's Printer, in the year 1547, it is plainly set down. That 
Praes. in Dial. Theod.  in what concerned Transubstantiation his opinion was not very sound, but that he was to be excused, because the Church (of Rome) had made no decree about it.  
22. With Theodoret we may join Gelasius, 
St Gelas. A. 470, or 490. plus minus.  who (whether he were Bishop of Rome or no as Bellarmine confesseth, was of the same age and opinion as he, and therefore a witness ancient and credible enough. He wrote against Eutyches and Nestorius, concerning the two natures in Christ, in this manner. Doubtless, the Sacrament of the Body and 
De duabus in Christo nature, in Biblioth. patrum. Tom. 4.  Blood of Christ which we receive, is a very divine thing, whereby, we are made partakers of the divine nature; and yet it doth not cease to be Bread and Wine, by substance and nature. And indeed, the image and resemblance of the Body and Blood of Christ is celebrated in this mysterious action. By this therefore we see manifestly enough, that we must believe that to be in Christ, which we believe to be in his Sacrament, that, as by the perfecting virtue of the Holy Ghost, it becomes a divine substance, and yet remains in the propriety of its nature; so this great Mystery the Incarnation, of whose power and efficacy this is a lively image doth demonstrate that there is one entire and true Christ, consisting of two natures, which yet properly remain unchanged. It doth plainly appear out of these words, that the change wrought in the Sacrament is not substantial, for first, the sanctified Elements are so made the Body and Blood of Christ, that still they continue to be, by nature, Bread and Wine. Secondly, The Bread and Wine retain their natural properties, as also the two natures in Christ. Lastly, The Elements are said to become a divine substance, because while we receive them, we are made partakers of the Divine Nature, by the Body and Blood of Christ, which are given to us. These things being so, their blindness is to be deplored who see not that they bring again into the Church of Rome the same Error which Antiquity piously and learnedly condemned in the Eutychians. And as for their threadbare objection to this, That by the substance of 
Bell loco Citat Baron. A. D. 96. nota Marg. ad verba Gelasii in B. B. Patrum.  Bread and wine, the true substance itself is not to be understood, but only the nature and essence of the accidents, it is a very strange and very poor shift. There is a great deal more of commendation due to the ingenuity of Cardinal 
In Colloq. Ratisb. A. 1541.  Contarenus, who yielding to the evidence of truth, answered nothing to this plain Testimony of Gelasius. 
St Cyril of Alex. The Council of Calc. Circa. An. ●50. Inter Ep. Cyr. in Con. Eph. Con. Chal. Art. 5.   
23. Now I add Cyril of Alexandria, who said, That the Body and Blood of Christ. in the Sacrament are received only by a pure faith, as we read in that Epistle against Nestorius, which six hundred Fathers approved and confirmed in the Council of Chalcedon. I omit to mention the other Fathers of this Age, though many things in their Writings be as contrary to Transubstantiation and the independency of accidents as any I have hitherto cited.  
24. I come now to the Sixth Century, 
Ephrem. Ant. 540.  about the middle whereof Ephrem, Patriarch of Antioch, wrote a Book, which was read and commended by Photius, concerning sacred Constitutions and Ceremonies 
Phot. in Bibl. n. 229.  against the Eutychians; therein, that he might prove the Hypostatical Union, that in Christ there is no confusion of natures, but that each retains its own substance and properties, he brings the comparison of the Sacramental Union, and denies that there should be any conversion of one substance into another in the Sacrament. No man (saith he) that hath any reason will say that the nature of 
Ibid.  the palpable, and impalpable, and the nature of the visible and invisible is the same. For so the Body of Christ which is received by the faithful, remains in its own substance, and yet withal is united to a spiritual grace; and so Baptism, though it becomes wholly spiritual, yet it loseth not the sensible property of its substance (that's water) neither doth it cease to be what it was made by grace.  
25. It is not very long since the works of Facundus, an African Bishop, were Printed 
Facund. Episc. A. D. 550.  at Paris, but he lived in the same Century. Now what his Doctrine was against Transubstantiation, as also of the Church in his time, is plainly to be seen by those words of his, which I here transcribe. The Sacrament of Adoption may be called 
Lib 9 c. 5.  Adoption, as the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, consecrated in the Bread and Wine is said to be his Body and Blood; not that his Body be Bread, or his Blood Wine, but because the Bread and Wine are the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, and therefore so called by Christ, when he gave them to his Disciples. Sirmondus the Jesuit hath writ Annotations on Facundus; but when he came to this place he had nothing to say, but that the Bread is no Bread, but only the likeness and appearance of Bread: An opinion so unlike that of Facundus that it should not have been Fathered upon him, by a learned and ingenuous man, as Sirmondus would be thought to be. For he cannot so much as produce any one of the ancient Fathers that ever made mention of accidents subsisting without a subject, (called by him the appearances of Bread.) And as for his thinking, That some would take the expressions of Facundus to be somewhat uncouth and obscure, how unjust and injurious it is to that learned Father may easily be observed by any.  
26. Isidore, Bishop of Hispal, about the 
Isid. Hisp. A. D 630.  beginning of the Seventh Century, wrote thus concerning the Sacrament, Because 
Lib 1. de Off. Eccl. cap. 18.  the bread strengthens our body, therefore it is called the Body of Christ, and because the Wine is made blood, therefore the Blood of Christ is expressed by it. Now these two are visible, but yet being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, they become the Sacraments of the Lords Body. For the Bread which we break is the Body of Christ, who said, I am the Bread of life; and the Wine is his Blood, as it is written, I am the true Vine. Behold, saith he, they become a Sacrament, not the substance of the Lords Body; for the Bread and Wine which feed our Flesh cannot be substantially, nor be said to be the Body and Blood of Christ, but Sacramentally, they are so as certainly, as that they are so called. But this he declares yet more clearly, Lib. 6. Etymol. cap. 19 For as the visible substance of Bread and Wine nourish the outward man; so the Word of Christ, who is the bread of Life, refresheth the souls of the faithful being received by Faith. These words were recorded and preserved by Bertram the Priest, when as in the Editions of Isidore, they are now left out.  
27. And the same kind of expressions as those of Isidorus were also used by Venerable 
Venus Bede A. D. 720.  Bede our Countryman, who lived in the Eighth Century, In his Sermon upon 
Serm. de Epiph.  the Epiphany; of whom we also take these two testimonies following: In the room of 
Com. in Luk. 22.  the flesh and blood of the Lamb Christ substituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, in the figure of Bread and Wine. Also, At Supper he 
Com. in Psal. 3.  gave to his Disciples the figure of his holy Body and Blood. These utterly destroy Transubstantiation.  
28. In the same Century, Charles the 
Car. Mag. A. D. 778.  Great wrote an Epistle to our Alcuinus, wherein we find these words. Christ, at 
Ep. ad Alcu. de ratione Sept.  Supper broke the bread to his Disciples, and likewise gave them the Cup, in figure of his Body and Blood, and so left to us this great Sacrament for our benefit. If it was the figure of his body, it could not be the Body itself: Indeed, the Body of Christ is given in the Eucharist, but to the faithful only, and that by means of the Sacrament of the Consecrated bread.  
29. But now, about the beginning of the Ninth Century, started up Paschafius, 
Pasch. A. D. 818.  a Monk of Corbie, who first (as some say, whose Judgement I follow not) among the Latins, taught that Christ was Consubstantiated, 
Lib. de corp. & sang Christi.  or rather enclosed in the Bread & corporally united to it in the Sacrament; for as yet there was no thoughts of the Transubstantiation of Bread. But these new sorts of expressions not agreeing with the Catholic Doctrine, and the Writings of the ancient Fathers, had few or no Abettors before the Eleventh Century. And in the Ninth, whereof we now treat, there were not wanting learned men (as Amalarius, Archdeacon of Triars; Rabanus, at first Abbot of Fulda, and afterwards Archbishop of Ments; John Erigena, an English Divine; Walafridus Strabo, a Germane Abbot; Ratramus or Bertramus, first Priest of Corbie, afterwards Abbot of Orbec in France; and many more) who by their Writings opposed this new Opinion of Pascasius, or of some others rather, and delivered to Posterity the Doctrine of the Ancient Church. Yet we have something more to say concerning Paschasius, whom Bellarmine and 
Fell de Scrip Eccles. verbo Pasch. Siem. in vita Paesc. Praef. Editione Pa risiensi.  Sirmondus esteemed so highly, that they were not ashamed to say, that he was the first that had writ to the purpose concerning the Eucharist, and that he had so explained the meaning of the Church, that he had shown and opened the way to all them who treated of that subject after him. Yet in that whole Book of Paschasius, there is nothing that favours the Transubstantiation of the Bread, or its destruction or removal. Indeed, he asserts the truth of the Body and Blood of Christ's being in the Eucharist, which Protestants deny not; he denies that the Consecrated Bread is a bare figure, a representation void of truth, which Protestants assert not. But he hath many things repugnant to Transubstantiation, which (as I have said) the Church of Rome itself had not yet quite found out. I shall mention a few of them. Christ (saith he) left us this Sacrament, a visible figure and character of his Body and Blood, that by them our Spirit might the better embrace spiritual and invisible things, and be more fully fed by Faith. Again, We must receive our spiritual Sacraments with the mouth of the Soul, and the taste of Faith. Item. Whilst therein we savour nothing carnal, but we being spiritual, and understanding the whole spiritually, we remain in Christ. And a little after, The flesh and blood of Christ are received spiritually. And again, To savour according to the flesh, is death; and yet to receive spiritually the true Flesh of Christ, is life eternal. Lastly, The Flesh and blood of Christ are not received carnally, but spiritually. In these he teacheth, that the Mystery of the Lords Supper is not, and ought not to be understood carnally but spiritually, and that this dream of corporal and oral Transubstantiation was unknown to the Ancient Church. As for what hath been added to this Book, by the craft (without doubt) of some superstitious forger, (as Erasmus complains that it too frequently happens to the Writing of the Ancients,) it is Fabulous, as the visible appearing of the Body of Christ in the form of an Infant with fingers of raw flesh; such stuff is unworthy to be Fathered on Paschasius, who professed that he delivered no other Doctrine concerning the Sacrament, than that which he had learned out of the Ancient Fathers, and not from idle and uncertain stories of Miracles.  
30. Now it may be requisite to produce the testimony of those Writers before mentioned to have written in this Century. In all that I write (saith Amalarius) 
Amal. An. 320.  I am swayed by the Judgement of holy men and pious Fathers; yet I say what I think myself. Those things that are done in the Celebration of Divine Service, are done in the Sacrament 
Praef. in libr de Eccl. ●ffi●.  of the Passion of our Lord as he himself commanded. Therefore the Priest offering the Bread, with the Wine and Water in the Sacrament, doth it in the stead of Christ, and the Bread, Wine, and Water in the Sacrament represent the Flesh and Blood of Christ. For Sacraments are somewhat to resemble those things whereof they are Sacraments. Therefore let the Priest be like unto Christ, as the Bread and Liquors are like the Body and Blood of Christ. Such is in some manner the immolation of the Priest on the Altar, as was that of Christ on the Cross. Again, The Sacrament of the Body of Christ, is in some manner the Body of Christ: For Sacraments should not be Sacraments, if in some things they had not the likeness of that whereof they are Sacraments: Now by reason of this mutual likeness, they oftentimes are called by what they represent. Lastly, Sacraments have the virtue to bring us to those things whereof they are Sacraments. These things writ Amalarius according to the Expressions of St. Austin, and the Doctrine of the purest Church.  
31. Rabanus Maurus, a great Doctor of 
Raban. A. D. 825. Trithem. de Script. Eccl. Rabanus Maur. de Inst. Cler. l. 1. c. 31.  this Age, who could hardly be matched either in Italy or in Germany, published this his open Confession: Our blessed Saviour would have the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, to be received by the mouth of the Faithful, and to become their nourishment, that by the visible body, the effects of the invisible might be known: For as the material Food feeds the body outwardly, and makes it to grow, so the Word of God doth inwardly nourish and strengthen the soul. Also, He would have the Sacramental Elements to be made of the fruits of the earth, that as he, who is God invisible, appeared visible, in our Flesh, and mortal to save us mortals, so he might by a thing visible fitly represent to us a thing invisible. Some receive the Sacred Sign at the Lords Table to their Salvation, and some to their Ruin; but the thing signified is life to every man, and death to none, whoever receives it is united as a member to Christ the head in the Kingdom of Heaven; for the Sacrament is one thing, and the efficacy of it another: For the Sacrament is received with the mouth, but the grace thereof feeds the inward man. And as the first is turned into our substance when we eat it and drink it, so are we made the Body of Christ when we live piously and obediently.— Therefore the Faithful do well and truly receive the body of Christ, if they neglect not to be his members, and they are made the Body of Christ if they will live of his Spirit. All these agree not in the least with the new Doctrine of Rome, and as little with that opinion they attribute to Paschasius, and therefore he is rejected as erroneous by some Romish Authors, who 
G. Malm. A. 200. and Tho. Wall. A. 1400.  writ four and six hundred years after him: But they should have considered that they condemned not only Rabanus, but together with him all the Doctors of the Primitive Church.  
32. Johannes Erigena our Countryman, 
Job. Erig. A. 860.  (whom King Alfred took to be his, and his children's Tutor, and to credit the new founded University of Oxford) while he lived in France, where he was in great esteem with Charles the Bald, wrote 
a That Book was afterwards condemned under Leo IX. two hundred years after by the maintainers of Transubstantiation.  a Book concerning the Body and Blood of our Lord, to the same purpose as Rabanus, and backed it with clear Testimonies of Scripture and of the Holy Fathers. But entering himself into the Monastery of Malmsbury, as he was interpreting the Book of Dyonisius about the heavenly Hierarchy, (which he translated into Latin) and withal censuring the newly-hatcht Doctrine of the Carnal Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, he was stabbed 
b Anton. tit c. 2. § 3. Vincent. l 24 c 4●. & aln.  with Pen knives by some unworthy Scholars of his, set on by certain Monks; though not long after, he was by some 
c Maims. de gestis Reg. angl. l 2. Wal Stra. ●●●▪ De rebus 〈◊〉 ●. ●●.  others numbered among Holy Martyrs.  
33. Walasridus Strabo, about the same time wrote on this manner. Therefore in that Last Supper whereat Christ was with his Disciples before he was betrayed; after the solemnities of the ancient Passeover, he gave to his Disciples the Sacrament of his Body and Blood in the substance of Bread and Wine,— and instructed us to pass from carnal to spiritual things, from earthly to heavenly things, and from shadows to the substance.  
34. As for the opinion of Bertram, otherwise called Ratramnus, or Ratramus, perhaps 
Bertram Priest and Abbot, A. 860.  not rightly, it is known enough by that Book which the Emperor Charles the Bald (who loved and honoured him, as all good men did, for his great learning and piety) commanded him to write concerning the Body and Blood of our Lord. For when men began to be disturbed at the Book of Paschasius, some saying one thing, and some another, the Emperor being moved by their disputes propounded himself two questions to Bertram. 1. Whether, what the Faithful eat in the Church, be made the Body and Blood of Christ in Figure and in Mystery? 2. Or whether that natural body which was born of the Virgin Mary, which suffered, died, and was buried, and now sitteth on the right hand of God the Father, be itself daily received by the mouth of the Faithful in the Mystery of the Sacrament? The first of these Bertram resolved Affirmatively, the second Negatively, and said, that there was as great a difference betwixt those two bodies, as betwixt the earnest and that whereof it is the earnest. It is evident (saith he) that that Bread 
Lib. de corp. & Sang Dom part. 1. Ibid. Part. 2.  and Wine are figuratively the Body and Blood of Christ.— According to the substance of the Elements, they are after the Consecration what they were before.— For the Bread is not Christ substantially.— If this mystery be not done in a figure, it cannot well be called a Mystery.— The Wine also which is made the Sacrament of the Blood of Christ by the Consecration of the Priest, shows one thing by its outward appearance and contains another inwardly. For what is there visible in its outside but only the substance of the Wine? These things are changed, but not according to the material part, and by this change they are not what they truly appear to be, but are some thing else besides what is their proper being: For they are made spiritually the Body and Blood of Christ; not that the Elements be two different things, but in one respect they are, as they appear, Bread and Wine, and in another the Body and Blood of Christ.— Hence, according to the visible Creature they feed the body, but according to the virtue of a more excellent substance they nourish and sanctify the souls of the Faithful. Then having brought many Testimonies of holy Scripture and the ancient Fathers to confirm this, he at last prevents that Calumny which the followers of Paschasius did then lay on the Orthodox, as though they had taught that bare signs, figures, and shadows, and not the Body and Blood of Christ were given in the Sacrament, Let it not be thought (saith he) because we say this, that therefore the Body and Blood of Christ are not received in the Mystery of the Sacrament, where Faith apprehends what it believes, and not what the eyes see; for this meat and drink are spiritual, feed the soul spiritually, and entertain that life whose fullness is eternal. For the question is not simply about the real truth, or the thing signified being present, without which it could not be a Mystery, but about the false reality of things subsisting in imaginary appearances, and about the Carnal Presence.  
35. All this the Fathers of Trent, and 
Index lib. prob. in sine Council Trid. Author. Pape editus in Lit. B.  the Romish Inquisitors could not brook, and therefore they utterly condemned Bertram, and put his Book in the Catalogue of those that are forbidden. But the Professors of Douai judging this proceeding much too violent, and therefore more like to hurt than to advance the Roman Cause, went another and more cunning way to work, and had the approbation of the Licencers of Books, and the Authors of the Belgic Index expurgatorius. 
Index expur. B●lg. jussu & author. Phillip 2. Hisp. Reg. atque Albani ducis concilio concinn. p. 54. v. Bert.  That Book of Bertram (say they) having been already Printed several times, read by many, and known to all by its being forbidden, may be suffered and used after it is corrected; for Bertram was a Catholic Priest and a Monk in the Monastery of Corbie, esteemed and beloved by Charles the Bald. And being we bear with many errors in Ancient Catholic Authors, and lessen, and excuse them, and by some cunning device (behold the good men's fidelity!) often deny them, and give a more commodious sense, when they are objected to us in our disputes with our Adversaries; we do not see why Bertram should not also be amended and used with the same Equity, lest Heretics cast us in the teeth, that we burn and suppress those Records of Antiquity that make for them: And, as we also fear, lest, not only Heretics, but also stubborn Catholics read the Book with the more greediness, and cite it with the more confidence because it is forbidden, and so it doth more harm by being prohibited than if it was left free. What patch then will they sow to amend this in Bertram? Those things that differ are not the same; that Body of Christ which died and rose again, and is become immortal, dies no more, being eternal and impassable: But that which is celebrated in the Church, is temporal, not eternal; is corruptible, and not incorruptible. To this last mentioned passage, they give a very commodious sense, namely, that it should be understood of the corruptible species of the Sacrament, or of the Sacrament itself, and the use of it, which will last no longer than this world. If this will not do, it may not be amiss to leave it all out; to blot out visibly, and write invisibly. And this, What the Creatures were in substance before the Consecration, they are still the same after it, must be understood, according to the outward appearance, that is, the accidents of the Bread and Wine. Though they confess that then Bertram knew nothing of those accidents subsisting without 〈◊〉 substance, and many other things which thi● latter age hath added out of the Scriptures wit● as great truth as subtlety. How much easier had it been at one stroke to blot out the whole Book? And so make short work with it, as the Spanish Inquisitors did i● their Index expurgat. Let the whole Epistle 
Index expur. Hisp. D. Gasp. Quirogae, Card & Inquis. gener. in fine.  (say they) of Udalricus, Bishop of Ausburg be blotted out, cencerning the single life of the Clergy; and let the whole Book of Bertram the Priest, about the Body and Blood of the Lord, be suppressed. What is this, but, as Arnobius said against the Heathen, to intercept public Records, and fear the Testimoy 
Arnob. l 3.  of the Truth? For, as for that which Sixtus Senensis, and Possevin affirm, That 
Sixt. Sen. praef. in Bibl. Sanc. Possev. Prol. in Appa. Sac.  that Book of the Body and Blood of the Lord was writ by Oecolampadius under the name of Bertram, it is so great an untruth, that a greater cannot be found.  
36. We are now come to the tenth Century, wherein, besides those many Sentences of Catholic Fathers against Innovaters in what concerns the Body and Blood of Christ, collected by Herigerus 
Herig. Ab. A. D. 9●0.  Abbas Lobiensis, we have also an ancient Easter Homily in Saxon English, which 
Hom. Pasc. Angl. Sax. A. D. 990. impressae Lond & MS. in publs. Cant. Acad. Bib.  then used to be read publicly in our Churches: out of which we may gather what was then the Doctrine received amongst us, touching this Point of Religion; but chiefly out of that part wherein are shown many differences betwixt the natural Body of Christ and the Consecrated Host. For thus it teacheth the people, There is a great difference betwixt that body wherein Christ suffered and that wherein the Host is consecrated. That Body, wherein Christ suffered was born of the Virgin Mary, consisting of blood and bones, skin and nerves, humane members, and a rational soul: But his spiritual body which we call the Host, is made of many united grains of corn, and hath neither blood nor bones, neither members nor soul. Afterwards, The Body of Christ, which once died and rose again, shall die no more, but remains eternal and impassable; but this Host is temporal and corruptible, divided into parts broken with the teeth, and swallowed down into the stomach. Lastly, this Mystery is a pledge and a figure: The body of Christ is that very truth. What is seen is bread, but what is spiritually understood is life. There is also another Sermon of Bishop Wulfinus to the Clergy, bearing the title of a Synod of Priests wherein the same opinion and Doctrine is explained in this manner: That Host is the Body of Christ, not corporally, but spiritually; 
Homil. Sacerd Synod. impr. Lond. cum Homil. Paschali.  not that Body wherein he suffered, but that Body whereof he spoke, when he consecrate● the Bread and Wine into an Host. Which to this day, in the Church of England we hold to be a Catholic truth.  
37. And so hitherto we have produced the agreeing Testimonies of Ancient Fathers for a thousand years after Christ, and have transcribed them more at large, to make it appear to every one that is not blind, that the true Apostolic Doctrine of this Mystery, hath been universally maintained for so long by all men; some few excepted, who more than eight hundred years after Christ presumed to dispute against the ancient Orthodox Doctrine, of the manner of Christ's Presence, and of his being received in the Sacrament, though they durst not positively determine any thing against it. Now, what more concerns this Point we refer to the next Chapter, lest this should be too long.   

CHAP. VI  
Shows more at large that the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church is inconsistent with Transubstantiation; and Answers the Romish Objections vainly alleged out of Antiquity.  
1. MAny more Proofs out of Ancient 
Authors left out in the foregoing Chapter.  Records might have been added to those we have hitherto brought, for a thousand years, but we, desiring to be brief, have omitted them in each Century; As in the First, After the holy Scriptures, the Works of 
a Constit. Ap l 6. c. 23. & 29.  Clemens Romanus, commended by the Papists themselves, and those of 
b Epist ad Philadel.  St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch and Martyr, are much against Transubstantiation. In the Second likewise, 
c Ad An●●●. l. 2.  St. Theophilus, fourth Bishop of Antioch after Ignatius; 
d Athenag legate. pro Christ.  Athenagoras, and 
e In Diaties.  Tatianus, Scholars to Justin Martyr. In the Third, 
f De Stro l. 1. & de padag. l. 2.  Clemens Alexandrinus, Tutor to Origen, and 
g In Octavio  Minutius Felix, a Christian Orator. In the Fourth, 
h De Dem. Evan. l 1. c. 10. & l. 8. c. 2.  Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, 
i Juv. de Hist. Evang. l. 4.  Juvencus, a Spanish Priest, 
k Mac. Hom. 37.  Macarius Egyptius, 
l In Mat. & de Syn.  St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, 
m Contra Parm l. 3.  Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, 
n Hom de Corp. Chr.  Eusebius Emissenus, 
o Orat. fun. Gorg.  Gregorius Nazianzenus, 
p In Joh. l. 4. c. 1●.  Cyrillus Alexandrinus, 
q In Ancorato  Epiphanius Salaminensis, 
r 1 Contra Jovin. & in Jer. 31. & in Mat. 26.  St. Hierom, 
s Epist. Pasch. 2  Theophilus Alexandrinus, and 
t Gaud. in Exod 2.  Gaudentius, Bishop of Brixia. In the Fifth, 
u In Epist. St Paul.  Sedulius, a Scotch Priest, 
x De Dogm. Eccl. c. 25.  Gennadius Massiliensis, and 
y Homil. 2. in Epith  Faustus, Bishop of Regium. In the Sixth, 
z De fide cap 16. & Epist. ad Ferrand.  Fulgentius Africanus, 
a Com. in Ma●k ●.  Victor Antiochenus, 
b In Epist. ad Cor.  Primasius Bishop, and 
c In Gen. 9  Procopius Gazeus. In the Seventh, 
d In Levit. 1. 6.  Hesychius, Priest in Jerusalem, and 
e In Hierareh Dion.  Maximus, Abbot of Constantinople. In the Eighth, 
f De fide Orthod.  Johannes Damascenus. In the Ninth, 
g De Cherub c. 6.  Nicephorus the Patriarch, and 
h In vita S. Remig.  Hincmarus Archbishop of Rheims. Lastly in the Tenth, 
i Epist. ad Adeodat.  Fulbert Bishop of Chartres. And to complete all; to these single Fathers, we may add whole Councils of them, as that of 
k An. 314. Can. 2.  Ancyra, of 
l A. eodem. Can. 13.  Neocesarea, and besides the first of 
m In Act. l 2. Can. 30.  Nice which I have mentioned, that of 
n A. 364. Can. 25.  Laodicea, of 
o A. 397. Can. 24.  Carthage, of 
p A 541. Can. 4.  Orleans, the fourth of 
q A. 633. Can. 17.  Toledo, that of 
r A. 675. Can. 2.  Bracara, the sixteenth of 
s A. 693. Can. 6.  Toledo, and that of 
t A. 691. Can. 32.  Constantinople in Trullo. Out of all these appears most certain, that the infection of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation was not yet spread over the Christian world; but that the sound Doctrine of the Body and Blood of Christ, and of their true (yet spiritual not carnal) Presence in the Eucharist, with the Elements, still the same in substance after Consecration, was every where owned and maintained. And though the Fathers used both ways of speaking (that is, that the Bread and Wine are the true Body and Blood of Christ, and that their substance still remaining, they are Signs, Types, Resemblances, and Pledges of them; Images, Figures, Similitudes, Representations, and Samplers of them,) yet there was no cantrariety or diversity in the sense For they were not so Faithless as to believe that these are only natural Elements, or bare Signs; and they were not of so gross and so dull an apprehension, as not to distinguish betwixt the Sacramental and Mystic, and the carnal and natural presence of Christ, as it is now maintained by the Patrons of Transubstantiation. For in this they understood no other change than that which is common to all Sacraments, whereby the outward natural part is said to be changed into the inward and divine, only because it represents it truly and efficaciously, and makes all worthy Receivers partakers thereof; and because by the virtue of the Holy Spirit, and of Christ's holy institution, the Elements obtain those divine Excellencies and Prerogatives, which they cannot have of their own nature. And this is it which was taught and believed, for above a thousand years together, by pious and learned Antiquity, concerning this most holy Mystery.  
2. There are also some other things whereby we may understand that the Ancients did not belief Transubstantiation, or that the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ is so inseparably tied to the accidents of Bread and Wine, that Christ must needs be present as long as those accidents retain any resemblance of Bread and Wine, even when they are not put to that use appointed by divine institution. For it is certain, that it was the custom of many of the Ancients to burn 
Hesych. l 2. in Levit. cap. 8. A. D. 600.  what remained of the Bread and Wine after the Comunion was ended. And who can believe that any Christian 
Concil. Angl. Sp●lm. tredicimus inter eos qui Bedaetitulum praeferunt, A D. 7●0. & sub Edgaro Rege 38. Ibid A. D. 97●.  should dare or be willing to burn his Lord and Saviour, in Body and Blood, though it were never so much in his power? Doubtless it would have been as horrid and detestable an action as was that of the perfidious Jews, for Christians, if they believed Transubstantiation, to burn that very natural body which the Jews Crucified, and which was born of the Virgin Mary. Therefore those Christians who used anciently to burn those fragments of the Bread, and remains of the Wine, which were not spent in the celebration of the Sacrament, were far enough from holding the present Faith and Doctrine of Rome. The same appears further by the penalty threatened by the Canon to every Clergyman, by whose neglect a Mouse or any 
Conc. Arelat. 3. Ci tall. à Gratiano de Conseor. dist. ●. A. D. 640.  other Creature should eat the Sacrifice, (that is, the Consecrated Bread.) And who but an Idiot, a man deprived of his reason, could ever believe that the natural Body of Christ can be gnawed and even eaten by Rats, or any brute Creatures? This sorely perplexed the first maintainers of Transubstantiation, who would invent any thing, rather than own it possible; well knowing how abominable it is, and how dishonourable to Christian Religion. Yet this is not inconsistent with the now Roman Faith; nay, it necessarily follows from the Tenet of Transubstantiation that the Body of Christ may be in the belly of a Mouse 
a Alex. Alice. lib. 4. q. 45. m. 1. art. 2. & q. 53. m. 3. Thom. in 3. q. 80. art. 3. & in 4. d, 9 q. 2.  under the accidents of Bread. And the contrary opinion is not only disowned now by the Papists, but under pain of Excommunication forbidden by the 
b Greg. XI. in director. Inquis. p. 1. n. 15. & p ●. q. 10.  Pope ever to be owned; so that they must believe as an Article of Faith 
c Vasq disp. I 95. in 3. c 5. , what is most abhorrent to Faith.  
3. But yet at last, let us see what props these new builders pretend to borrow from Antiquity to uphold their Castle in the air, Transubstantiation. They use indeed to scrape together many Testimonies of the Fathers of the first and middle age, whereby they would fain prove, that those Fathers believed and taught the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Blood of Christ, just as the Roman Church, at this day, doth teach and believe. We will therefore briefly examine them, that it may yet more fully appear that Antiquity and all Fathers did not in the least favour the new Tenet of Transubstantiation; but that, that true Doctrine which I have set down in the beginning of this book, was constantly owned and preserved in the Church of Christ.  
4. Now, almost all that they produce out of the Fathers will be conveniently reduced to certain heads, that we may not be too tedious in answering each testimony by itself.  
5. To the first head belong those 
d Answer to the Allegations out of Iren. Orig. Cyril Hier. Gre. Naz. St. Hier. St. Austia and others.  that call the Eucharist the Body and Blood of Christ. But I answer, those Fathers explain themselves in many places, and interpret those their expressions in such a manner, that they must be understood in a Mystic and spiritual sense, in that Sacraments usually take the names of those things they represent, because of that resemblance which they have with them; 
e De Consecr didst 2. c sicut.  not by the reality of the thing, but by the signification of the Mystery, as we have shown before out of St. Austin and others. For no body can deny, but that the things that are seen are signs and figures, and those that are not seen, the Body and Blood of Christ: And that therefore the nature of this mystery is such, that when we receive the Bread and Wine, we also together with them receive at the same time the body and Blood of Christ, which in the celebration of the holy Eucharist, are as truly given as they are represented. Hence came into the Church this manner of speaking, the Consecrated Bread is Christ's Body.  
6. We put in the second rank those places that say, that the Bishops and 
An Answer to the proofs out of St. Hier. Ep. ad Heliod. 2. & ad Evag. ●●. & ●●▪ Ambr. de iis qui init c. 9 etc.  Priests make the body of Christ with the sacred words of their mouth, as St. Hierom speaks in his Epistle to Heliodorus, and St. Ambrose and others. To this I say, that at the prayer and blessing of the Priest, the common Bread is made Sacramental bread, which, when broken and eaten is the Communion of the body of Christ, and therefore may well be called so, Sacramentally. For the bread (as I have often said before) doth not only represent the body of our Lord, but also being received, we are truly made partakers of that precious body. For so saith S. Hier. The body and blood of Christ is made at the Prayer of the Priest, that is, 
Ep. 85. ad Evag.  the Element is so qualified that being received it becomes the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, which it could not without the preceding Prayers. The Greeks call this, To prepare and to consecrate the 
St. Chryshom. 83. in St. Mat.  Body of the Lord. As S. Chrysostam saith well, These are not the works of man's power, but still the operation of him, who made them in the last Supper; as for us, we are only Ministers, but be it is that sanctifies and changeth them.  
7. In the third place, to what is 
An Answer to what is cited out of St. Cyp. Ambrose, both the Cyrils. Chrys. Gre. Nyss. & aliorum.  brought out of the Fathers, concerning the conversion, change, transmutation, transfiguration, and transelementation of the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist, (wherein the Papists do greatly glory, boasting of the consent of Antiquity with them;) I answer that there is no such consequence, Transubstantiation being another species of change, the enumeration was not full, for it doth not follow, that because there is a conversion, a transmutation, a transelementation, there should be also a Transubstantiation; which the Fathers never so much as mentioned. For because this is a Sacrament, the change must be understood to be Sacramental also, whereby common Bread and Wine become the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, which could not be did not the substance of the Bread and Wine remain, for a Sacrament consisteth of two parts, an earthly and a heavenly. And so because ordinary Bread is changed by consecration into a Bread which is no more of common use, but appointed by divine institution to be a Sacramental sign whereby is represented the Body of Christ, in whom dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and being thereby dignified, having great excellencies superadded, and so made what it was not before, it is therefore said by some of the Fathers to be changed, to be made another thing. And truly that change is great and supernatural, but yet not substantial, not of a substance which substantially ceaseth to be, into another substance which substantially beginneth to be, but it is a change of state and condition which altars not the natural properties of the Element. This is also confirmed by Scripture, which usually describes and represents the conversion of men, and the supernatural change of things, as though it were natural, though it be not so. So those that are renewed by the Word, and Spirit, and Faith of Christ, are said to be 
a Joh. 3. 3. 1 Pet. 1. 3. 1 Cor. 4. 15. Rom. 12. 3. Eph. 4. 22 Gal. 6. 15.  regenerated, converted, and transformed, to put off the old man, and put on the new man, and to be new Creatures; but they are not said to become another substance, to be transubstantiated: For men thus converted have still the same humane body, and the same rational soul as before, though in a far better state and condition, as every Christian will acknowledge. Nay, the Fathers themselves use those words, Transmutation, Transformation, Transelementations, upon other occasions, when they speak of things whose substance is neither lost nor changed. For those words be of so large a signification, that though sometimes a substantial change is to be understood by them, yet for the most part they signify only a moral change, a change of qualities, of condition, of office, of use, and the like. To this sense they are used by the Greek Fathers, (
a Iren. l. 5. c. 10.  Irenaeus, 
b Clem. Alex. l. 4. Strom.  Clemens Alexandrinus, 
c Orig. Serm. 2. in diversos.  origen, 
d Cyril. Hier. Catech. 18.  Cyril of Jerusalem, 
e Basil. exhort. ad Bapt. & S. Chrys. hom. 5. de Poenit.  Basil, 
f Greg. Naz. Orat 40.  Gregory Nazianzen, 
g Greg. Nyss. lib 2. contra Eunom. Hom. 1. de Resur. Ep ad Eustath. Latin. & Ambros.  Gregory Nyssene, 
h Cyril. Alexand. Epist. Pas●h 6, 7. & 14.  Cyril of Alexandria, 
i ●. Chrysost. Hom 23. in Act. Apost. Idem Hom. 33. in 1 Cor.  Chrysostom, 
k Theod. Dial. 2. Theoph. in Joh 6. & Oecum in Pet. 1. & alii.  Theodoret, Theophylact, and Occumenius,) to express the 
a Iren. l. 5. c. 10.  Resurrection of the Body, the efficacy 
b Clem. Alex. l. 4. Strom.  of divine Doctrine, the Sanctification of a 
c Orig. Serm. 2. in diversos.  regenerated person, the immortality 
d Cyril. Hier. Catech. 18.  of the flesh after the Resurrection, the 
e Basil. exhort. ad Bapt. & S. Chrys. hom. 5. de Poenit.  repentance of sinners, the 
f Greg. Naz. Orat 40.  assumption of the humane nature in the Person of Christ, the 
g Greg. Nyss. lib 2. contra Eunom. Hom. 1. de Resur. Ep ad Eustath. Latin. & Ambros.  regeneration of Saints, the 
h Cyril. Alexand. Epist. Pas●h 6, 7. & 14.  virtue of the divine grace, the power of Baptism 
i ●. Chrysost. Hom 23. in Act. Apost. Idem Hom. 33. in 1 Cor. , and the excellency of Charity, and lastly the 
k Theod. Dial. 2. Theoph. in Joh 6. & Oecum in Pet. 1. & alii.  alteration for the better, the greatness, usefulness, power and dignity of many things. Neither are the Latin 
l St. Austin. l. 4. contra Crescon. cap. 54. St. Ambr. de Mist. c. 9 & de Sacr. l. 4. c. 4. Faust. Reg. sive Eus. Emiss. de Pas●h 55. Facund. l 9 c. ult.  Fathers without such kind of expressions, for they do not make the conversion of the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist more essential or substantial, than in Baptism the conversion of man born again to a new life, or (as they speak) whose humane natural condition is changed into a nobler, a heavenly state, which is a moral and mystic change, and not natural or substantial. The Ancientest of them, 
m Contra Marc l. 3. c. 9 24. &. 26.  Tertullian said, That God had promised to man the body and substance of Angels, and that men should be transformed into Angels, as Angels have been transformed into men. Now, who would infer from hence, that Angels have been essentially changed into men; or that humane bodies should be so transformed into an Angelical substance, that they should be no longer men nor humane bodies, but properly and essentially Angels? Which Tertullian himself is expressly against, and saith, That Angels were so 
De Carne Christi. cap 3.  changed into men that still they remained Angels, without quitting their proper substance. As others have spoken of the Bread in the Eucharist, That it so becomes the body of Christ, that still it is what it was, as St. Ambrose; That it looseth not its nature, as Theodoret; 
Superius citati.  that the substance of the Bread remains, as Gelasius affirms. And doubtless the same meant all the Ancients, who according to their way of speaking said any thing of the change of Bread and Wine. For all the Vouchers brought by the Papists speak only of an accidental, mystical, and moral; nothing at all of a substantial change. Transubstantiation is taken by its defenders for a material change of one substance into another; we indeed allow a Transmutation of the Elements; but as for a substantial one we vainly seek for it, it is no where to be found.  
8. To the fourth head I refer what the 
Answer to the Testimonies of S Chry. Cyril. Alex. and others.  Fathers say of our touching and seeing the Body of Christ, and drinking his Blood in the Sacrament, and thereto I answer, That we deny not but that some things Emphatical and even Hyperbolical have been said of the Sacrament by chrysostom, and some others; and that those things may easily lead unwary men into error. That was the ancient Father's care, as it is ours still, to instruct the people not to look barely on the outward Elements, but in them to eye with their minds the Body and Blood of Christ, and with their hearts lift up to feed on that heavenly meat: For all the benefit of a Sacrament is lost, if we look no farther than the Elements. Hence it is that those holy men, the better to teach this Lesson to their hearers, and move their hearts more efficaciously, spoke of the Signs as if they had been the thing signified, and like Orators said many things which will not bear a literal sense, nor a strict examen. Such is this, of an uncertain Author under the name of St. Cyprian, We are 
Serm de Coen. Dom.  close to the Cross, we suck the blood, and we put our tongues in the very wounds of our Redeemer, so that, both outwardly and inwardly we are made red thereby. Such is that of 
a Hom. in Encoen.  St. chrysostom, In the Sacrament the Blood is drawn out of the side of Christ, the 
b Hom. 82. in Mat.  Tongue is made bloody with that wonderful blood. Again, 
c Lib. de Sacerd. 3.  Thou seest thy Lord saecrificed, and the crowding multitude round about sprinkled with his blood; he that sits above with the Father is all the same time in our hands. 
d Hom. 51 & 83. in Mat.  Thou dost see and touch and eat him. 
e Hom. 24. 1 Cor.  For I do not show thee either Angels or Archangels, but the Lord of them himself. Again, 
f Hom. 4. in Jo●. & 83. in Mat.  He incorporates us with himself as if we were but the same thing, he makes us his body indeed, and suffers us not only to see, but even to touch, to eat him, and to put our teeth in his flesh; so that by that food which he gives us, we become his flesh. Such is that of St. Austin, Let us give thanks, not 
Tract. 21. in Joh. Epist. 23.  only that we are made Christians, but also made Christ. Lastly, such is that of B. Leo, In that mystical distribution, it is given us to be made his flesh. Certainly, if any man would wrangle and take advantage of these, he might thereby maintain, as well that we are Transubstantiated into Christ, and Christ's flesh into the Bread, as that the Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated into his Body and Blood. But Protestants who scorn to play the Sophisters, interpret these and the like passages of the Fathers, with candour and ingenuity, (as it is most fitting they should.) For the expressions of Preachers, which often have something of a Paradox, must not be taken according to that harsher sound wherewith they at first strike the Auditors ears; the Fathers spoke not of any Transubstantiated bread, but of the mystical and consecrated, when they used those sorts of expressions; and that for these Reasons: 1. That they might extol and amplify the dignity of this Mystery, which all true Christians acknowledge to be very great and peerless. 2. That Communicants might not rest in the outward Elements, but seriously consider the thing represented, whereof they are most certainly made partakers, if they be worthy Receivers. 3. And lastly, That they might approach so great a Mystery with the more zeal, reverence, and devotion. And that those Hyperbolic expressions are thus to be understood, the Fathers themselves teach clearly enough, when they come to interpret them.  
9 Lastly, Being the same holy Fathers who (as the manner is to discourse of Sacraments) speak sometimes of the Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper, as if they were the very Body and Blood of Christ, do also very often call them Types, Elements, Signs, the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ; from hence it appears most manifestly that they were of the Protestants, and not of the Papists opinion. For we can without prejudice to what we believe of the Sacraments, use those former expressions which the Papists believe, do most favour them, if they be understood, as they ought to be, Sacramentally. But the latter none can use, but he must thereby overthrow the groundless Doctrine of Transubstantiation; these two, the Bread is Transubstantiated into the Body, and the Bread also is the Type, the Sign, the Figure of the body of Christ being wholly inconsistent. For it is impossible that a thing that loseth its being should yet be the sign and representation of another; neither can any thing be the Type and the Sign of itself.  
10. But if without admitting of a Sacramental sense the words be used too rigorously, nothing but this will follow, that the Bread and Wine are really and properly the very Body and Blood of Christ, which they themselves disown, that hold Transubstantiation. Therefore in this change, it is not a newness of substance, but of use and virtue that is produced; which yet the Fathers acknowledged with us, to be wonderful, supernatural, and proper only to God's Omnipotency: For that earthly and corruptible meat cannot become to us a spiritual and heavenly, the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, without God's especial power and operation. And whereas it is far above Philosophy and Humane Reason, that Christ from Heaven (where alone he is locally) should reach down to us the divine virtue of his Flesh, so that we are made one body with him; therefore it is as necessary as it is reasonable, that the Fathers should tell us, that we ought with singleness of heart to believe the Son of God, when he saith, This is my body; and that we ought not to measure this high and holy Mystery by our narrow conceptions, or by the course of nature. For it is more acceptable to God with an humble simplicity of faith to reverence and embrace the words of Christ, than to wrest them violently to a strange and improper sense, and with curiosity and presumption to determine what exceeds the capacity of Men and Angels. Thus much in general may suffice to answer those places of the Fathers, which are usually brought in the behalf of Transubstantiation. He that would have a larger refutation of those objections fetched from Antiquity, may read Hospinianus his History of the Sacrament, and 
Lib. 2. & 4. A Sect. 1. usque ad 13.  Antonius de Dominis in his Fifth Book of the Christian Commonwealth, Chap. 6. and in his detection of the errors of Suarez, Chap. 2.  
11. That place of Ignatius cited by 
Answer to single testimony of Fathers. Dial. 3. ex Ep. 5. Ignat.  Theodoret, out of the Epistle to the Smyrnenses (where now it is not to be found) and objected by some of the Romish Faith, That the Heretics Simonianis and Menandriani would have no Eucharistical Oblations, because they denied the Sacrament to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, makes nothing for Transubstantiation, as Bellarmine himself confesseth. For (saith he) those Heretics 
De Euch. l. 1. c. 1. 8. 3.  did not oppose the Sacrament of the Eucharist, so much as the mystery of the Incarnation; and therefore (as Ignatius shows in that place) they would deny that the Eucharist is the flesh of Christ, that is, (as Theodoret interprets 
Dial. 2.  it) that the divine Mysteries of Bread and Wine should be the signs of a real Body of Christ truly existing, because they would not own that Christ had taken flesh. And so lest they should be forced to acknowledge the reality of the flesh of Christ, they would wholly reject the Signs and Sacraments of it; for the signs of the body being given, the true body is given also, because the substance and the type infer one another, and a Phantasm or Illusion is not capable of a sign or representation.  
12. The words out of Justin Martyr, 
Apol. 2. ad Antony's imp.  whereby they would prove Transubstantiation, do strongly disprove it. For (saith he) as by the word of God, our Saviour was incarnate, so by the Prayers of God's word, the Eucharist is made, whereby our bodies are nourished, the Body and Blood of Christ. Now when Christ took humane flesh, none could say without Heresy that he was Transubstantiated.  
13. Neither is that against the Protestants which is brought out of St. Cyprian, 
Serm. de Coen. Dom.  (though it be none of his) of the bread changed not in appearance, but in nature. For he, whoever it was, took not the word nature in a strict sense, or else he was contrary to Theodoret, Gelasius, and others abovementioned, who expressly deny that the bread should be thus changed: But at large, as nature is taken for use, qualities, and condition. For by the infinite power of the Word the nature of the bread is so changed, that what was before a bare Element, becomes now a divine Sacrament, but without any Transubstantiation; as appears by what follows in the same period, of the Humane and Divine Natures of Christ, where the Manhood is not substantially changed into the Godhead, except we will follow Eutyches the Heretic.  
14. The words of Cyril, as the Roman 
Bell l. 2. de Euch. c. 13. Cyril. Hieros' Catec. mystig 4  Doctors faith, are so clear for them, that they admit of no evasion: For (saith he) he that changed once the Water into Wine, is he not worthy to be believed that he changed the Wine into Blood? Therefore let us with all certainty receive the Body and Blood of Christ, for his Body under the appearance of the Bread, and his Blood under the appearance of the Wine are given to thee. Indeed Protestants do 
Sensu jam saepius dicto.  freely grant, and firmly believe, that the Wine (as hath often been said) is changed into the Blood of Christ, but every change is not a Transubstantiation; neither doth Cyril say that this change is like that of the water, for than it would also appear to our senses; but that he who changed the Water sensibly, can also change the Wine Sacramentally, will not be doubted by any. As for what he calls the Appearances of Bread and Wine, he doth not thereby exclude, but rather include their substance, and mean the Bread and Wine itself: For so he intimates by what there follows; Do not look on them as bare Bread and Wine; as much as to say, it is bread indeed, but yet not bare bread, but something besides. But that this conversion of the Water into Wine makes nothing for Transubstantiation, may be thus made to appear. That God's Omnipotency can change one substance into another, none will deny, and we see it done by Christ in the Town of Cana of Galilee, when he changed the Water into Wine; and it was a true and proper Transubstantiation. But the Papists in the Lord's Supper tell us of quite another change, which, if well considered, cannot so much as be understood. For the substance of the Bread is not changed into another that had no being, but, as they say, the bread is changed into that body of Christ which really existed and had a being these many hundred years, ever since the Incarnation: Whereas that very Wine which Christ made of the Water, was not in being before the change which he wrought. Now it is easy for any to understand, that he who created all things out of nothing, can well make a new Wine of Water, or any other thing; but it is more than absurd, that the body of Christ, or any other substance already in being, perfect and complete, should be made afresh of another substance, when it really subsisted before. Which they well understood who devised an adduction, or bringing of the Body of Christ into the place of the Bread, and that is as much as to deny Transubstantiation; except it can be said that a man is Transubstantiated into another, as often as he comes into his place, which no man in his right wits can fancy.  
15. St. Ambrose said also that the nature is 
Lib. ●. de San●c. 4. & de init, Mist. c. 9  changed, and indeed it is so; for other is the nature of the Element, and other that of the Sacrament; neither do Protestants deny that the Element is changed by the blessing, so that the bread being made sacred, is no more that which nature form, but that which the Blessing consecrated, and by consecrating changed. Mean while St. Ambrose in that place doth not make the words or Blessing of Christ to have any other operation, than to make that which was, still to be, and yet to be changed; therefore the bread is not made the body of Christ by Transubstantiation, but by a Sacramental change. He adds, That Sacrament which thou receivest is made by the word of Christ; and if the word of Elias had so much power as to bring down fire from heaven, shall not the words of Christ be efficacious enough to change the properties of the Elements? Thou hast read of the Creation of all things, that he said the word and it was done; and shall not that word of Christ, which made all out of nothing, change that which is already into that which it was not? Thou thyself wert, but wert the old man, but being baptised, thou art now become a new Creature? Now it is as much to give a new nature, as to change the nature of a thing. By these words he plainly declares his opinion that, by virtue of this change, the Elements of Bread and Wine cease not to be what they are by essence, and yet by the Consecration are made what before they were not. But where did our Transubstantiators learn out of St. Ambrose, or any of the Fathers, that to make the Sacrament is the same as to bring the natural body of Christ, and put it under the accidents of the bread, or in the place of its substance which is vanished away? They say, That the comparison betwixt 
Bell loco ●itato.  the things changed by Christ and the Prophet would be silly, if there be no more than a Sacramental change in the Eucharist; as though the Sacramental change were a thing of nought. For (saith Cardinal Bellarmine) 
Lib. 2. de Euch. c. 9  what power is there required to do nothing? But Protestants answer, that the Greatness, Majesty, Excellency, and Dignity of the Sacrament is such, that they admire no less the Omnipotency of God in sanctifying the Creatures to so high an office, and so holy an use, than in creating the world out of nothing, or changing the nature of things by the Ministry of his Prophets. For it is not by man's power, but by the divine virtue, that things earthly and mean of themselves, are made to us assured Pledges of the Body and Blood of Christ. And if they urge the Letter of those words of St. Ambrose, By the word of Christ the species of the Elements are changed, as Bellarmine and others do, why then, they must confess, that not only the substance, but also the species, or accidents (as they call them) of the Bread and Wine, are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. And so, being St. Ambrose and all the Ancients said indifferently, as well that the species of the Bread and Wine, as that the Bread and Wine themselves are changed, who will not from hence understand that the groundless Fabric of Transubstantiation (whereby they would have the substance of the Elements so abolished in the Sacrament, that their mere accidents or appearances remain without any subject) is strongly battered and utterly ruined?  
16. All other Testimonies of the Fathers, 
The rest of the Fathers.  if they say that the Bread is made the Body of Christ, are willingly owned by Protestants. For they hold that the Element cannot become a Sacrament, nor the Sacrament have a being without the thing which it represents. For the Cardinal himself will not affirm that the Body of 
De Consecr. dist. 2 c. hoc est.  Christ is produced out of the Bread. This is therefore what we say with St. Austin, and endeavour to prove by all means; That the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is made of two things, the visible Element, and the invisible Flesh and Blood of Christ, as the Person of Christ consisteth of the Godhead and Manhood, he being true God and true Man; for every compound retains the nature of that whereof it is made: Now the Sacrament is composed of two things, the Sign, and the thing signified, that is the Body of Christ.  
17. Let the Champions of Transubstantiation strut and vapour now, with their two and thirty stout Seconds, 
a Card. Bellar de Euch l. 3 c. 20. 3. v.  who have stood for them, as they say, before the time of Pope Innocent the Third! For what 
b Extra de Trin. & side Cathol. c. 1  Innocent the Third decreed, and the Council of Trent 
c Sess. 13. ca 4.  defined, (that it was ever the persuasion of the Catholic Church, that the Bread is so changed into the Body of Christ, that the substance of the bread vanishing away, only the flesh of Christ should remain under the accidents of the bread,) is so far from being true, that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, not only as to the name, but as to the thing itself, is wholly destitute of the Patronage of Antiquity, and left to shift for itself. 
d Lib. 8. contr. Haereses Indulg.  Alphonsus à Castro said, that in ancient Writers mention was made very seldom of Transubstantiation; had he said never, it had been more true. For so our Jesuits 
e Discurs. modest. de Jesuit. p. 13. & Wa●s. Quodl. l. 2. art. 4.  in England confessed, That the business of Transubstantiation was not so much as touched by the ancient Fathers; which is very true, as will appear more at large in the following Chapter.   

CHAP. VII.  
Of the Writers of the Eleventh and Twelfth Century, from whom we may easily deduce and trace the History of Papal Transubstantiation. 1. What manner of Popes they were in those times. 2. The unhappy Age, wherein Divines were divided about the Point of the Eucharist. 3. The opinion of Fulbertus. 4. Followed by his Disciple Berengarius, who is opposed by others. 5, 6. The Doctrine of Berengarius defended. 7. The roaring of Leo the Ninth against Berengarius. 8. The Synod of Tours under Victor the Second, which cleared Berengarius as free from Error. 9 Pope Nicolas the Second, gathers another Synod against Berengarius, who is forced to make a wondrous kind of Recantation. 10. The Authors of the ordinary Gloss censure the Recantation imposed on Berengarius. 11. He saith that he was violently compelled to make it for fear of being put to death. Lanfrancus and Guitmundus write against him. 12. Of Pope Hildebrand, and his Roman Council, wherein Berengarius was again cited and condemned in vain. 13. The Doctrine of St. Bernard approved. 14. The Opinion of Rupertus. 15. Lombard could define nothing of the Transubstantiation of the Bread, and reasons poorly upon the independency of the accidents. 16. Otho Frisingensis and those of his time confessed that the Bread and Wine remain in the Eucharist. 17. P. Blesensis and St. Eduensis were the first that used the word of Transubstantiation. 18. Of the thirteenth Century, wherein Pope Innocent the Third published his Decree of the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. 19, and 20. The wonderful pride of Innocent the Third. The Lateran Council determined nothing concerning that Point. 21. The cruelty of the same Innocent, who by the Rack and the Fire sought to establish his new Doctrine. 22. What Gerson said of the Roman Church in his time. Many more Inventions proceed from Transubstantiation. Inextricable and unheard of questions. 23. New Orders of Monks and of the Schoolmen. 24. Of their fine wrangling and disputing. 25. The Sacrament abused most grossly by the Patrons of Transubstantiation. 26, and 27. Holkot, Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, and other Schoolmen, though sometimes they be not for Transubstantiation, yet they wholly submit to the Judgement of the Pope. 28. Of the Council of Constance. which took the Cup from the Laity. 29. Cardinal Cameracensis denies that Transubstantiation can be proved by holy Scripture. 30. Of the Council of Florence, and the Instruction of the Armenians by Pope Eugenius the Fourth. 31. The Papal Curse in the Council of Trent, not to be feared. The Conclusion of the Book.  
1. WE have proved it before, that the Leprosy of Transubstantiation did not begin to spread over the body of the Church in a thousand years after Christ. But at last the thousand years being expired, and Satan loosed out of his Prison, to go and deceive the Nations, and compass the Camp of the Saints about, then to the great damage of Christian Peace and Religion, they began here and there to dispute against the clear, constant, and universal consent of the Fathers, and to maintain the new-started opinion. It is known to them that understand History, what manner of times were then, and what were those Bishops who then governed the Church of Rome, Sylvester TWO, John XIX, and XX, Sergius IV, Benedictus VIII, John XXI, Benedict IX, Sylvester III, Gregory VI, Damasus TWO, Leo IX, Nicolas TWO, Gregory VII, or Hildebrand; who tore to pieces the Church of Rome with grievous Schisms, cruel Wars, and great Slaughters. For the Roman Pontificat was come to that 
Card. Bar. Tom. ●o. Annal. an. 897. § 4. Gilb. Genebr. Chron. sub init. seculi 10.  pass, that good men being put by, they whose Life and Doctrine was pious being oppressed, none could obtain that dignity, but they that could bribe best, and were most ambitious.  
2. In that unhappy Age the Learned were at odds about the presence of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament; some defending the ancient Doctrine of the Church, and some the new-sprung up opinion.  
3. Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, was Tutor 
Fulbert Bishop of Chartres. An. 1010.  to Berengarius, whom we shall soon have occasion to speak of, and his Doctrine was altogether conformable to that of the Primitive Church, as appears clearly out of his Epistle to Adeodatus, 
Ep. ad Adeod. inter alia ejus opera impressa Paris. An. 1608.  wherein he teacheth, That the Mystery of Faith in the Eucharist, is not to be looked on with our bodily eyes, but with the eyes of our mind. For what appears outwardly Bread and Wine, is made inwardly the Body and Blood of Christ; not that which is tasted with the mouth, but that which is relished by the heart's affection. Therefore (saith he) prepare the palate of thy Faith, open the throat of thy Hope, and enlarge the bowels of thy Charity, and take that Bread of life which is the food of the inward man. Again. The perception of a divine taste proceeds from the faith of the inward man, whilst by receiving the saving Sacrament, Christ is received into the soul. All this is against those who teach in too gross a manner, that Christ in this Mystery enters carnally the mouth and stomach of the Receivers.  
4. Fulbert was followed by Berengarius 
Bereng. Archdeacon of Angers. An. 1030.  his Scholar, Archdeacon of Angers in France, a man of great worth, by the holiness both of his life and doctrine, as Platina, Vincentius Bergomensis, and many more. Witness this Encomium writ soon after his death by Hildebert Bishop of Man's, a most learned man, is thus recorded by our William of Malmsbury. 
Guliel. Malms. de gestis. Regum Anglorum lib. 3.   

That Berengarius who was so admired,  
Although his name yet lives, is now expired;  
HE outlives himself, yet a sad fatal day  
Him from the Church and State did snatch away.  
O dreadful day, why didst thou play the Thief?  
And fill the world with ruin and with grief?  
For by his death, the Church, the Laws, and all  
The Clergies glory do receive a fall:  
His sacred wisdom was too great for fame,  
And the whole World's too little for his name;  
Which to its proper Zenith none can raise,  
His merits do so far exceed all praise.  
Then surely thou art blest, nor dost thou less  
Heaven with thy Soul, Earth with thy Body bless.  
When I go hence, O may I dwell with thee,  
In thine appointed place where e'er it be.   
Now this Berengarius was not only Archdeacon 
A. Thevet. Vit illust. Vir. l. 3. ●. 62. Pap. Mass. Annal. Franc. l. 3.  of Angers, but also the Scholasticus, or Master of the Chair, of the same Church (which dignity is ever enyoyed by the Chancellor of the University, for his Office is in great Churches to teach the Clergy, and instruct them in sound doctrine.) All this I have produced more at large to manifest the base and injurious Calumnies, cast upon this worthy and famous man by latter Writers, as 
a Garet. de ver â present. in Epist. nuncup. & Clas. 5. A. 1040.  John Garetius of Louvain, 
b Alan. de Euch. l. 1. c. 21.  William Alan our Countryman, and others; who not only accuse him of being an Heretic, but also a worthless and an unlearned man.  
5. Berengarius stood up valiantly in defence of that Doctrine which 170 years before, was delivered out of God's Word and the holy Fathers, in France by Bertram, and John Erigena, and by others elsewhere, against those who taught that in the Eucharist neither Bread nor Wine remained after the Consecration. Yet he did not either believe or teach (as many falsely and shamelessly have imputed to him) that nothing more is received in the Lord's Supper, but bare Signs only, or mere Bread and Wine; but he believed and openly professed, as St. Austin and other faithful Doctors of the Church had taught out of God's Word, that in this Mystery, the souls of the Faithful are truly fed by the true Body and Blood of Christ to life eternal. Nevertheless it was neither his mind nor his doctrine, that the substance of the Bread and Wine is reduced to nothing, or changed into the substance of the natural Body of Christ, or (as some than would have had the Church believe) that Christ himself comes down carnally from heaven. Entire books he wrote upon this subject, but they have been wholly suppressed by his Enemies, and now are not to be found. Yet what we have of him in his greatest Enemy Lanfrank I here set down; By the 
Extent apud Lan. fr●deverit. corp. Dom. in Euch.  Consecration at the Altar the Bread and Wine are made a Sacrament of Religion; not to cease to be what they were, but to be changed into something else, and to become what they were not; agreeable to what St. Ambrose had taught. Again, There are two parts in the Sacrifice of the Church (this is according to St. Irenaeus) the visible Sacrament, and the invisible thing of the Sacrament, that is, the Body of Christ. Item, The Bread and Wine which are Consecrated, remain in their substance, having a resemblance with that whereof they are a Sacrament, for else they could not be a Sacrament. Lastly, Sacraments are visible Signs of divine things, but in them the invisible things are honoured. All this agrees well with St. Austin and other Fathers above cited.  
6. He did not therefore by this his Doctrine exclude the Body of Christ from the Sacrament, but in its right administration he joined together the thing signified with the sacred Sign; and taught that the Body of Christ was not eaten with the mouth in a carnal way, but with the Mind, and Soul, and Spirit. Neither did Berengarius alone maintain this Orthodox and ancient Doctrine; for 
a Chron. à Miraeo editum.  Sigibert, 
b In Contin Bedae.  William of Malmesbury, 
c In bist. majori ad An 1037.  Matthew Paris, and 
d Ad eundum annum.  Matthew of Westminster make it certain, that almost all the French, Italians, and English of those times were of the same opinion; and that many things were said, writ, and disputed in its defence by 
Baron. ad An. 35. S. 1. 6.  many men; amongst whom was Bruno, than Bishop of the same Church of Angers. Now this greatly displeaseth the Papal faction, who took great care that those men's Writings should not be delivered to Posterity, and now do write, that the Doctrine of Berengarius, owned by the Fathers, and maintained by many famous Nations, sculkt only in some dark corner or other.  
7. The first Pope who opposed himself to Berengarius was Leo the 
e A. ●050. Conc. Ver. sub Leone Papa 9  Ninth, a plain man indeed, but too much led by Humbert and Hildebrand. For as soon as he was desired, 
f Lanfr. in libro citato.  he pronounced sentence of Excommunication against Berengarius absent and unheard; and not long after he called a Council at Verceil, wherein John Erigena and Berengarius 
g But it was about 200 years after the death of this most innocent man.  were condemned, upon this account, that they should say, that the Bread and Wine in the 
h Adelm. in Ep. ad Bereng.  Eucharist are only bare Signs; which was far from their thoughts, and farther yet from their belief. This roaring therefore of the Lion frighted not Berengarius, nay, the 
i These of Ren. Ang Leon, Dole & Maclo. etc.  Gallican Churches did also oppose the Pope, and his Synod of Verceil, and defend with Berengarius the oppressed truth.  
8. To Leo succeeded Pope Victor the Second, 
A. 1055. Conc. Turon. sub Vict. Papa II.  who seeing that Berengarius could not be cast down and crushed by the Fulminations of his Predecessor, sent his Legate Hildebrand into France, and called another Council at Tours, where Berengarius, being cited, did freely appear, and whence he was freely dismissed, after he had given it under his hand, that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrifice of the Church, are not shadows and empty figures; and that he held none other but the common Doctrine of the Church concerning the Sacrament. For he did not alter his judgement (as modern Papists give out) but he persisted to teach and maintain the same Doctrine as before, as Lanfrank complains of him.  
9 Yet his Enemies would not rest satisfied 
An 1058. Con. Rom. sub Nicol. Papa II.  with this, but they urged Pope Nicholas the Second, who (within a few months that Stephen the Tenth sat) succeeded Victor without the Emperor's consent, to call a new Council at Rome against Berengarius. For, that sensual manner of presence, by them devised, to the great dishonour of Christ, being rejected by Berengarius, and he teaching as he did before, That the Body of Christ was not present in such a sort, as that it might be at pleasure brought in and out, taken into the stomach, cast on the ground, trod under foot, and bit or devoured by any beasts, they falsely charged him as if he had denied that it is present at all. An hundred and thirteen Bishops came to the 
An. 1059.  Council, to obey the Pope's Mandate, Berengarius came also; And (as 
k De Regn. Ital l. 9 An. 1059.  Sigonius and 
l In Chro. Cassin. l. 3. c. 33.  Leo Ostiensis say) when none present could withstand him, they sent for one Albericus, a Monk of Mont Cassin, made Cardinal by Pope Stephen, who having asked seven days time, to answer in writing, brought at last his Scroll against Berengarius. The Reasons and Arguments used therein to convince his Antagonist are not now extant, but whatever they were, Berengarius was commanded presently without any delay 
m Baron. ad A 1059 § 18.  to recant, in that form prescribed and appointed by Cardinal Humbert, which was thus: 
n Habetur apud Gratian. de Conse●r. dist. 2. cap. 42.  ay Berengarius, etc. assent to the holy Roman, and Apostolic See, and with my heart and mouth do profess that I hold that Faith concerning the Sacrament of the Lords Table which our Lord and Venerable Pope Nicholas, and this sacred Council, have determined and imposed upon me by their Evangelic and Apostolic Authority; to wit, That the Bread and Wine which are set on the Altar, are not after the Consecration only a Saerament, Sign, and figure, but also the very Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, (thus far it is well enough, but what follows is too horrid, and is disowned by the Papists themselves) and that they (the Body and Blood) are touched and broken with the hands of the Priests, and ground with the teeth of the Faithful, not Sacramentally only, but in truth and sensibly. This is the Prescript of the Recantation imposed on Berengarius, and by him at first rejected, but by imprisonment, and threats, and fear of being put to death, at last extorted from 
o Pap. Mass. Annal. Franc. l. 3.  him.  
10. This form of Recantation is to be found entire in 
a Sub libri quem cont. Bereng. scripsit initium.  Lanfrank, 
b Lib 2.  Algerus, and 
c 15. c Ubi supra.  Gracian; yet the Glosser on Gratian, 
d In C. ego Bereng. de Consecrat. dist. 2.  John Semeca marks it with this note; Except you understand well the words of Berengarius (he should rather have said of Pope Nicholas, and Cardinal Humbertus) you shall fall into a greater Heresy than his was, 
e In C. utrum sub figura. 72.  for he exceeded the truth, and spoke hyperbolically. And so 
f In 4. dist. 9 prin. 1. q. 1.  Richard de Mediavilla; Berengarius being accused, overshot himself in his Justification; but the excess of his words should be ascribed to those who prescribed and forced them upon him. Yet in all this we hear nothing of Transubstantiation.  
11. Berengarius at last escaped out of this danger, and conscious to himself of having denied the truth, took heart again, and refuted in writing his own impious and absurd Recantation, and said, That by force it was exterted from him by the Church of Malignants, the Council of vanity. Lanfrank of Caen, at that time head of a Monastery in France, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and Guitmundus, Aversanus answered him. And though it is not to be doubted but that Berengarius, and those of his Party, writ and replied again and again, yet so well did their Adversaries look to it, that nothing of theirs remains, save some Citations in Lanfrank. But it were to be wished that we had now the entire Works of Berengarius, who was a learned man, and a constant follower of Antiquity, for out of them we might know with more certainty how things went, than we can out of what his professed enemies have said.  
12. This Sacramental debate ceased a 
Concil. Rome sub Hila. Papa ●. 1079.  while because of the tumults of War raised in Apulia and elsewhere by Pope Nicholas the Second; but it began again as soon as Hildebrand, called Gregory the Seventh, came to the Papal Chair. For Berengarius was cited again to a new Council at Rome, where some being of one opinion, and some of another, (as it is in the 
g Excus. cum Lanfran. libro, & apud Binium.  Acts of that Council, writ by those of the Pope's Faction) his cause could not be so entirely oppressed but that some Bishops were still found to uphold it. Nay, the Ring leader himself, Hildebrand, is said to have doubted, 
h Engilb. Arch●ep. Trevir. apud Goldast. Imp. Tom. 1.  Whether what we receive at the Lords Table be indeed the Body of Christ by a substantial conversion. But 
i Bertold. Const. Chron An. 1079.  three months' space having been granted to Berengarius, and a Fast appointed to the Cardinals, 
k Benno Card in vita Hild.  that God would show by some sign from heaven (which yet he did not) who was in the right the Pope or Berengarius concerning the Body of the Lord; at last the business was decided without any Oracle from above, and a new form of retractation imposed on 
l Haebetur ista formula apud Tho Waldens. Tom. c. 42. & in Regest. Greg 7.  Berengarius whereby he was henceforth forward to confess, under pain of the Pope's high displeasure, that the Mystic Bread (first made 
m Brix. Syn. Episc. apud Abb. Usperg in Chron. ad An 1080.  Magical and enchanting by Hildebrana) is substantially turned into 
n Addit formula prescripta in proprictate naturae.  the true and proper Flesh of Christ, which whether he ever did is not certain. For though 
o De Gest. Angl. l. 3. c. 58. Et post eum ab aliis. Vide B●ll. Chronol. An. 1079.  Malmesbury tells us, that he died in that Roman Faith, yet 
p Pogm. Comment. 31. ad 2. part. direct. inquisit.  there are ancienter than he, who 
q Bertol. Const. qui tempore Brengar. vixit ad An. 1033.  say, that he was never converted from his first opinion. And some relate, that after this last condemnation having given over his Studies, and given to the poor all he had, he wrought with his own hands for his 
r Vincent. in Spec. l. 26. c. 40. Baron. ad An. 1088. S. 15, etc.  living. Other things related of him by some slaves of the Roman See, deserve no credit. These things happened, as we have said, in the year 1079. and soon after Berengarius died.  
13. Berengarius being dead the Orthodox and ancient Doctrine of the Lords Supper which he maintained did not die with him (as the 
s Chron. Cassin. l. 3. c. 33. St. Bern. An. 1120.  Chronicus Cassinensis would have it:) For it was still constantly retained by St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, who lived about the beginning of the twelfth Century. In his discourse on 
Se●●●. de Coena Dom. Joh. 6. 56, 63.  the Lord's Supper, he joins together the outward form of the Sacrament, and the spiritual efficacy of it, as the shell and the kernel, the sacred Sign, and the thing signified; the one he takes out of the words of the Institution, and the other, out of Christ's Sermon in the sixth of St. John. And in the same place explaining, that Sacraments are not things absolute in themselves without any relation, but Mysteries, wherein by the gift of a visible sign, an invisible and divine grace with the Body and Blood of Christ is given, he saith, That the visible Sign is as a Ring, which is given not for itself or absolutely, but to invest and give possession of an Estate made over to one. Many things (saith he) are done for their own sake, and many in reference to something else, and then they are called Signs. A Ring is given absolutely as a gift, and then it hath no other meaning; it is also given to make good an Investiture or Contract, and then it is a Sign: So that he that receives it may say, The Ring is not worth much, it is what it signifies, the Inheritance I value. In this manner when the Passion of our Lord drew nigh, he took care that his Disciples might be invested with his grace, that his invisible grace might be assured and given to them by a visible sign. To this end all Sacraments are instituted, and to this the participation of the Eucharist is appointed. Now, as no man can fancy that the Ring is substantially changed into the Inheritance, whether Lands or Houses, none also can say with truth, or without absurdity, that the Bread and Wine are substantially changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. But in his Sermon on the Purification, 
Serm. de Purif. B. Maria.  which none doubts to be his, he speaks yet more plain; The Body of Christ in the Sacrament is the food of the soul, not of the belly, therefore we eat him not corporally; but in the manner that Christ is meat, in the same manner we understand that he is eaten. Also in his Sermon on St. Martin, which undoubtedly 
Serm. de S. Mart.  is his also; To this day (saith he) the same flesh is given to us, but spiritually, therefore not corporally. For the truth of things spiritually present is certain also. As to what he saith in another place, that the Priest holds God in his hands, it is a flourish of Oratory, as is that of St. Chrysostom, In comes the Priest carrying the Holy 
Lib. 3. de Sacerd.  Ghost.  
14. About the same time Rupertus, Abbot 
Rupert. Abb. An. 1125.  of Tuitium, famous by his Writings, did also teach that the Substance of the Bread in the Eucharist is not converted, but remains. These be his words; 
a In Exod. l 2 c. 0.  You must attribute all to the operation of the Holy Ghost, who never spoils or destroys any substance he useth, but to that natural Goodness it had before, adds an invisible excellency which it had not. He hath 
b Ex quâ Consequabatur, Panem esse Corpus Christi, sed Corpus non humanum neque carneum, sed Panaceum.  indeed an unwarrantable opinion of the Union of the Bread and Body of Christ into one Person, but it came (as some others, as absurd in that Age) from too great a curiosity about determining the manner of Christ's Presence, and of the Union of his Body with the Bread, about which that learned man troubled himself too much. However he neither taught nor mentioned Transubstantiation.  
15 Not long after that Algerus, a Monk, and some others had had some disputes about this subject, Pet. Lombard made up his 
Pet. Lombard An. 1140. Sens. l. 4.  Books of Sentences, in the fourth whereof he treats of the Eucharist, and thinks that it is taught by some sayings of the Ancients; That the substance of the Bread 
Dist. 10.  and Wine is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. But soon after he adds; If it be 
Dist. 11.  demanded what manner of change that is, whether formal, or substantial, or of any other kind, that I cannot resolve. Therefore he did not yet hold Transubstantiation as a point of Faith: Nay, he doth not seem constant to himself in making it a probable opinion, but rather to waver, to say and unsay, and to shelter his cause under the Father's name, rather than maintain it himself. Of the accidents remaining without a subject, and of the breaking into parts the body of Christ, (as Berengarius was bid to say by Pope Nicholas) he reason's strangely but very poorly.  
16. Otho, Bishop of Frisingen, as great 
Otho Frisingensis. An. 1145.  by his Piety and Learning as by his Blood, (for he was Nephew to Henry the Fourth, and the Emperor Henry the Fifth married his Sister, he was also Uncle to Frederick, and half Brother to King Conrade) lived about the same time. He believed and writ, 
c Christ. Agric. in Antipist. p. 13. An. 1180.  That the Bread and Wine remain in the Eucharist, as did many more in that Age.  
17. As for the new-coined word Transubstantiation it is hardly to be found before the middle of this Century. For the first that mention it are 
d Ep. 140.  Petrus Blesensis, who lived under Pope Alexander the Third, and Stephen Eduensis 
e De Sacr. Altaris in B. B. Patrum.  a Bishop, whose Age and Writings are very doubtful. And those latter Authors 
f Bell. & Possev de Script. Eccl.  who make it as ancient as the tenth Century, want sufficient Witnesses to prove it by, as I said 
g Chap. 5. Art. 50.  before.  
18. The thirteenth Century now follows; wherein the World growing both older and worse, a great deal of trouble 
An. 1215. Innocen. 3. Papa.  and confusion there was about Religion; the Bishop of Rome exalted himself not only into his lofty Chair, over the Universal Church, but even into a Majestical Throne, over all the Empires and Kingdoms of the world. New Orders of Friars sprung up in this Age, who disputed and clamoured fiercely against many Doctrines of the ancienter and purer Church, and amongst the rest against that of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ: So that now there remained nothing but to confirm the new Tenet of Transubstantiation, and impose it so peremptorily on the Christian world, that none might dare so much as to hiss against it. This Pope Innocent the Third bravely performed. He succeeding Celestin the Third at thirty years of age, and marching stoutly in the footsteps of Hildebrand, called a Council at Rome in St. John Lateran, 
The Lateran Council.  and was the first that ever presumed to make the new-devised-Doctrine of Transubstantiation an Article of Faith necessary to salvation, and that by his own mere authority.  
19 How much he took upon himself, and what was the man's spirit and humour will easily appear to any man by these his words which I here set down. To me it is 
Innocen 3. Serm. 2.  said in the Prophet, I have set thee over Nations, and over Kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, and to build, and to plant. To me also it is said in the person of the Apostle, To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. For I am in a middle state betwixt God and man, below God, but above man; yea, greater than man, being I judge all men, and can be judged by none: 
h Idem Serm. 3.  Am not I the Bridegroom, and each of you 
i Job. 3. 29  the Bridegroom's friend? The Bridegroom I am, because I have the Bride, the noble, rich, lofty, and holy Church of Rome, who is the Mother and Mistress of all the Faithful, who hath brought me a precious and inestimable 
k Addit, multae filiae congregaverunt divitias, hac autem sola supergressa est universas.  portion, to wit, the fullness of things spiritual, and the vastness of temporal, with the greatness and multitude of both— 
l Epist. ad Imper. Constant. Extrà de Majorit. & Obedientia. c. 6.  God made two great Lights in the Firmament of heaven; he hath also made two great Lights in the firmament of the Universal Church, that is, he hath instituted two dignities which are the Papal authority, and the Regal. But that which governs the day, that is, spiritual things, is the greater; and that which governs carnal things the less; so that it ought to be acknowledged that there is the same difference between the (Roman) High Priest and Kings, as between the Sun and Moon. Thus he, when he was become Christ's Vicar, or rather his Rival. These things I rehearse that we may see how things went, and what was the face of the Latin Church, when Pope Innocent the Third propounded and imposed Transubstantiation as an Article of Faith; 
m Extr●. de Transubst.  as is plainly and at large set down by a learned Author George Calixtus who deserves equally to be praised and imitated.  
20. This Innocent therefore, who to increase his Power and Authority wrought great troubles to the Emperor Philip, stripped Otho the Fourth of the Empire, forced John King of England to yield up into his hand this Kingdom, and that of Ireland, and make them Tributary to the See of Rome; who, under pretence of a spiritual Jurisdiction, took to himself both the Supreme Power over things temporal, and the things themselves; who was proud and ambitious beyond all men, covetous to the height of greediness (they are the words of 
n In hist. Johan. Regis Angliae.  Matthew Paris, and ever ready to commit the most wicked villainies so he might be recompensed for it; this (I say) was the man who in his Lateran Council propounded that Transubstantiation should be made an Article of Faith, and when the Council would not 
o Mat. Paris in hist. minori. & Platin. in vita Innocent. 3.  grant it, did it himself by his own Arbitrary Power, against which none durst open his mouth. For those Canons which this day are shown about under the name of the Council, are none of his, but merely the Decrees of Pope Innocent, first writ by him, and read in the 
p Verba Mat. Par. in Hist. Mai. ad An. 1215.  Council, and disliked by many, and afterwards set down in the Book of Decretals under certain titles, by his Nephew Gregory the Ninth.  
21. The same Pope, after he had pronounced 
Extr. de fide & sum. Trin. c firmiter credimus.  them Heretics who for the future should deny that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly contained in the Sacrament of the Altar, under the outward form of Bread and Wine, the Bread being Transubstantiated into the Body, and the Wine into the Blood; delivers them all, of what office or dignity soever, to the Secular Power 
q Ibid.  to receive condign punishment, that is, to be burnt, commands those that are suspected to be tried and examined; and declares them infamous, disabled from making a Will, and incapable of any Office or Inheritance that should favour or entertain them, and sets all other Christians against them. Then he ordains 
r Ibid.  that the Secular Powers shall be compelled by Ecclesiastic Censures publicly to swear that they will defend (This) Faith, and endeavour utterly to destroy all whom the Church (of Rome) should note for Heretics. But (saith he) if the temporal Prince doth neglect this, let him be excommunicated: And if he slights to give satisfaction within a year, let the sovereign Pontif be certified of it, that he may absolve his Subjects from their allegiance, and expose his Territories to be taken and enjoyed without any contradiction by any Catholics (Romans) that destroy the Heretics, etc. (that is, those who do not believe Transubstantiation.) Thus Innocent the Third by Excommunications, and by Arms, by Rebellions, by Tortures, and by burning alive was pleased to establish his new Article of Faith.  
22. And truly had he not used such 
Transubstantiation and the Court of Rome rejected by many.  means, they themselves who did cleave to the Church of Rome would not have embraced this Doctrine. For it did not find such acceptance, but that many notwithstanding did now and then oppose it. Nay, not only Transubstantiation, but even the Church (or rather the Court) of Rome, which, if we believe Chancellor 
s Gers de Council gener.  Gerson, was at this time wholly brutish and carnal, without almost any sense of the things of God, was rejected by many, as it is well known. For certain it is, that Transubstantiation being once established, there was a foundation laid to many Superstitions and Errors, which could neither be suffered nor approved by those that feared God. And among the Subscribers to Transubstantiation there grew a thicket of thorny and monstrous questions, wherewith the Schoolmen were so busy, that it may with great truth be affirmed, that then came so light a Divinity concerning the holy Sacrament, and the Adoration of it, which was not only very new, but very strange also, and never heard of among the Fathers. There grew also out of the same stock Illusions, and false Miracles, deceitful Dreams, feigned Visions, and such like unchristian devices about the Corporal Presence of Christ, as that some did see a Child in the Host, some Flesh, some Blood, any thing that could come into the idle fancies of idle and superstitious men. 
t Thom. Walsing. in hypod. neustr. ad An. 1218.  One at the point of death durst not receive the Body of Christ, because he could keep nothing in; but as he drew nigh to adore it, his Breast bare, and his Arms open, the Host, leaping out of the Priest's hand, having made itself a passage, entered of its own accord into the place where the dying man's heart lay bid, and the hole being made up again without any thing of a scar, the man lay down and then expired. Another 
u Discip. de Temp. Serm. ●●.  being ready to die begged, that, his side being washed, and covered with a clean cloth, the Body of Christ might be set on it: Which being done, the cloth by degrees gave place to the Body of Christ, and soon after when that divine Body touched the man's skin, it penetrated to his very heart in the sight of all the by standers. They also tell the Story, or rather the Fable, How that the Body of Christ (for so they call the Consecrated Bread) being set in a Bushel upon some Oats, an Horse, an Ox, and an Ass bowed their knees, and adored their Lord in the Host. These, and such like Fictions were daily invented without number by the Patrons of Transubstantiation, and the impudence and boldness of coining such Forgeries hath from them past upon their Successors. This was observed by King James in the Writings of 
x Car Ecllarm. Apol. q 132.  Bellarmine himself, who reports of a certain devont Mare that worshipped the Host kneeling, (knowing doubtless that by a due Consecration it was Transubstantiated.) Cesarius the Monk, who lived soon after Innocent the Third, is full of such Miracles; and yet he hath a History which shows that in his time Transubstantiation was utterly unknown to a learned Priest, Canon of a great Church. At Colen (saith he) there was a Canon in full Orders, called Peter, when on a certain day another of the Canons was sick, and about to receive the Sacrament in his presence, the officiating Priest asked the sick man, Dost thou believe that this is the true Body of the Lord which was born of the Virgin? He made answer, I believe it; Peter hearing and observing their words was amazed at them. Afterwards he coming alone to Everhardus the Professor of Divinity, who had been also present at the Communion, he asked him, Did the Priest question the sick man aright? He answered yes, and whoever believes otherwise is an 
y For so it was decreed by Innocent 3  Heretic. Then Peter, weeping, and smiting his breast, cried out, Woe is me wretched Priest! How have I hitherto said Mass? For to this hour I thought that the Bread and Wine after the Consecration were only a Sacrament, that is, the sign and representation of the Lords Body and Blood.  
23. I have already touched it, that, together with the new Doctrine of Transubstantiation, there sprung up new Sects of Friars, which indeed in a short time increased beyond belief. For now to the Order of Dominicans (whom Innocent the Third had made his Inquisitors to kill and burn 
z Meaning those that deny Transubstantiation.  Heretics) was added the Order of begging Franciscans; and the Augustine Eremits, and the Carmelites were set up again. From these came the Schoolmen, as we now call them, whose studies (as studies were in that time) were all employed about Commencing Peter Lombard Master of the Sentences.  
24. These men tired their brains (as we said) about unheard of questions, touching Transubstantiation, such as pious ears would abhor to hear. For they ask, 
Alex. Alens. l. 4. q. 53. m. 4. ●. 1.  1. Whether that be the Body of Christ which sometimes appears in the form of Flesh, or of a Child on the Altar, and answer that they know not; because such Apparitions happen often, and are caused either by men's juggling, or by the operation of the Devil. 2. Whether the Mice (who sometimes 
Idem q. 45. m. 1. a. 2.  feast upon the Hosts when they are not well shut up) eat the Body of Christ itself? Or if a Dog or a Hog should swallow down the Consecrated Host whole, whether the Lords Body should pass into their belly together with the accidents? Some indeed answer (other some being otherwise minded) that, though the Body of Christ enters not into the Brutus' mouth as corporal meat, yet it enters together with the appearances by reason that they are inseparable one from the other, (mere nonsense) for as long as the accidents of the Bread (i. e. the sha●●, and taste, and colour, etc.) remain in their proper 
a Ibid 4. 53. m. 3.  being, so long is the Body of Christ inseparably joined with them; wherefore if the accidents in their nature pass into the belly, or are cast out by vomiting, the Body of Christ itself must of necessity go along with them: and for this cause pious souls (I repeat their own words) do frequently eat again with great reverence the parts of the Host cast out by vomiting. Others answer also; 
b Tho. Aq. Sum. p. 3. q. 80. c. 3.  That a beast eats not the Body of Christ Sacramentally, but accidentally, as a man that should eat a Consecrated Host, not knowing that it was consecrated. 3. They inquire about musty and rotten Hosts, and because the Body of Christ is incorruptible, and not subject to putrefaction, therefore they answer; 
c Alg●r. l. 2. ●. 1.  That the Hosts are never so, and that though they appear as if they were, yet in reality they are not; as Christ appeared as a Gardener though he was no Gardener. 4. They demand concerning indigested Hosts which passing through the belly are cast into the draught, or concerning those that are cast into the worst of sinks, or into the dirt. Whether such Hosts cease to be the Body of Christ? And answer, 
d Thom. in 4. dist. 9 q. 〈…〉▪ Bruli● in 4. ●ist. 13. q. 5.  That whether they be cast into the Sink or the Privy, as long as the appearances remain, the Body of Christ is inseparable from t●●●. And for the contrary opinion, they say that it is not tenable, and that it is not safe for any to hold it, because the Pope 
e G egg. Papa XI.  hath forbid it should be maintained under pain of Excommunication. Therefore the Modern Schoolmen 
f Soto in 4 dist. 12. q. ●. ●. 3. Vasq in 3. disp. 195. c. 5. Direct. Inquis p ●. n. ●5. & p. 2. q. 1●.  add, That if any should hold the contrary after the Pope's determination, he should be condemned by the Church (of Rome that is:) Nay, they hold it to be a Point of Faith which none may doubt of, because the contrary Doctrine hath been condemned by Pope Gregory the Eleventh.  
5. They ask concerning the accidents, whether the Body of Christ be under them when they are abstracted from their subject? This is against Logic. Or whether Worms be gendered, or Mice nourished of accidents? And this against Physic. 6. Whether the Body of Christ can at the very same time move both upwards and downwards, one Priest lifting up the Host, and another setting it down. And I know not how many more such thorny questions have wearied and nonplussed them and all their School, and brought them to such straits and extremities, that they know not what to resolve, nor what shifts to make. And truly it had been very happy for Religion if, as the Ancients never touched or mentioned Transubstantiation, so latter times had never so much as heard of its name. For God made his Sacrament upright (as he did 
g Eccl. 7. 2●.  Man) but about it they have sought out many inventions.  
25. Likewise, this Transubstantiation hath given occasion to some most wicked and impious Wretches to abuse and profane most unworthily what they thought to be the Body of Christ. For instances may be brought of some wicked Priests, who for filthy lucre have sold some Consecrated Hosts to Jews and Sorcerers, who have stabbed and burnt them, and used them for Witchcraft and Enchantments. Nay, we read 
h Leuncl. de rebus Turc. n. 116.  that St. Lewis himself (very ill advised in that) gave once to the Turks and Saracens a consecrated Host as a pledge of his Promise, and an assurance of Peace. Now, can any one, who counts these things abominable, persuade himself that our Blessed Saviour would have appointed, that his most holy Body should be present in his Church in such a manner, as that it should come into the hands of his greatest Enemies, and the worst of Infidels, and be eaten by Dogs and Rats, and be vomited up, burnt, cast into Sinks, and used for Magical Poisons and Witchcraft? I mention these with horror and trembling, and therefore abstain from raking any more in this dunghill.  
26. No wonder therefore if this new Doctrine of Innocent the Third, being liable to such foul absurdities and detestable abuses, few men could be persuaded, in the fourteenth Century, that the Body of Christ is really (or by Transubstantiation) in the Sacrament of the Altar; as it is recorded by our Countryman 
i In 4. q 3. An. 1350.  Robert Holkot, who lived about the middle of that Century. As also 
k 3. q 75. a. 6.  Thomas Aquinas reports of some in his time, who believed that after Consecration, not only the accidents of the Bread, but its substantial form remained. And Albertus Magnus himself, who was Thomas his his' Tutor, and writ not long after Innocent the Third, speaks of Transubstantiation as of a doubtful question only. Nay, that it was absolutely rejected and opposed by many, is generally known; for the Anathema of Trent had not yet backed the Lateran Decree.  
27. As for the rest of the Schoolmen (especially the modern) who are as it were sworn to Pope Innocent's determination, they use to express their belief in this matter with great words, but neither pious nor solid, in this manner; 
l Th. Argent in 4. d. 11. q. 1. art. 2.  The common opinion is to be embraced, not because reason requires it, but because it is determined by the Bishop of Rome. Item, 
m Scot in 4. dist. 11. q. 3.  That aught to be of greatest weight that we must hold with the holy Church of Rome about the Sacraments; now it holds that the Bread is Transubstantiated into the Body, and the Wine into the Blood, as it is clearly said, Extra. De fide & summa Trinitate. Cap. firmiter. Again, 
n Bacon in 4. dist. 8. q. 1. a. 1.  I prove that of necessity the Bread is changed into the Body of Christ, for we must hold that declaration of faith which the Pope declares must be held. Thus among the Papists, if it be the pleasure of an imperious Pope as was Innocent the Third, Doctrines of Faith shall now and then increase in bulk and number, though they be such as are most contrary to holy Scripture, though they were never heard of in the Primitive Church; and though from them such consequences necessarily follow, as are most injurious to Christ and his holy Religion. For after Innocent the Third, the Roman Faith was thus much 
o Ut supra Art. 24.  increased by the determination of Pope Gregory the Eleventh 
p A. 1371. , that if it so happens the Body of Christ in the Consecrated Host may descend into a Rat's belly, or into a Privy, or any such foul place.  
28. In the fifteenth Century the Council 
The Council of Constance. An. 1415.  of Constance (which by a Sacrilegious attempt took away the Sacramental Cup from the People, and from the Priests when they do not officiate) did wrongfully condemn Wiclif, who was already dead, because amongst other things he had taught with the Ancients, That the substance of the Bread and wine remains materially in the Sacrament of the Altar; and that in the same Sacrament, no accidents of Bread and Wine remain without a substance. Which two Assertions are most true.  
29. Cardinal Cameracencis, who lived 
Card. Cameracensis An. 1420.  about the time of the Council of Constance, doth not seem to own the Decree of Pope Innocent as the determination of the Church. For that the Bread should still remain, he confesseth, 
a In 4. q 6. a. 2.  That it is possible: That it is not against reason or the authority of the Bible. But concerning the conversion of the Bread he says, That clearly it cannot be inferred from Scripture, nor yet from the determination of the Church, as he judgeth. Yet because the common opinion was otherwise, he yielding to the times was fain to follow, though with some reluctancy.  
30. The Council of Florence, which was 
The Council of Florence, An. 1439.  not long after, did not at all treat with the Greeks about Transubstantiation, nor the Consecration of the Sacrament, but left them undetermined, with many other Controversies. But that which is called the Armenians instruction (and in this 
Instructio ad Armen.  cause, and almost all Disputes is cited as the Decree of the General Council of Florence, by 
b In 4. dist. 11. q. 1. art. 2.  Soto, 
c De Euch. l. 4. c. 13.  Bellarmine, and the Roman 
d Part. 2. c. 4. num. 18.  Catechism) is no Decree of the Council, as we have demonstrated 
e In the History of the Canon of Scripture, p. 158.  somewhere else; but a false and forged Decree of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, who doth indeed in that Instruction prescribe to the Armenians a form of Doctrine about the Sacrament, saying, That by virtue of the words of Christ, the substance of the Bread is turned into his Body, and the substance of the Wine into his Blood: But that he did it with the approbation of the Council, as he often says in his Decree, is proved to be altogether false, as well by the Acts of the Council, as by the unanswerable Arguments of 
f C de Cap. Font. ac necess. cor. Scholar The. p. 51, 53, & 56.  C. de Capite Fontium, Archbishop of Caesarea, in his Book De necessaria Theologiae Scholasticae correctione, dedicated to Pope Sixtus the Fifth. For how could the Council of Florence approve that Decree which was made more than three months after it was ended? It being certain, that after the Council was 
g Ex Act. Conc. Flor.  done, the Armenians with the Greeks, having each of them signed Letters of Union, (which yet were not approved by all, nor long in force after they were subscribed) departed out of Florence July 22, whereas the Instruction was not given while November 22. Therefore by the mutual consent of both Parties was nothing here done or decreed about Transubstantiation, or the rest of the Articles of the new Roman Faith. But Eugenius, or whoever was the Forger of the Decree, put a cheat upon his Reader. Perhaps he had seen the same done by Innocent the Third, or Gregory the Ninth, in the pretended Decrees of the Council of Lateran, which were the Pope's only, but not the Council's. And certainly it is more likely Eugenius did it rather to please himself, than for any hopes he could have that at his command the Armenians would receive and obey his Instruction sooner than the Greeks. For to this day the 
h Job. Lasic. de Relig. Armeniorum.  Armenians believe that the Elements of Bread and Wine retain their nature in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  
31. By these any considering person may easily see, that Transubstantiation is a mere novelty; not warranted either by Scripture or Antiquity; invented about the middle of the Twelfth Century, out of some misunderstood Sayings of some of the Fathers; confirmed by no Ecclesiastic or Papal Decree before the year 1215. afterwards received only here and there in the Roman Church; debated in the Schools by many disputes; linble to many very bad consequences; rejected (for there was never those wanting that opposed it) by many great and pious men, until it was maintained in the Sacrilegious Council of Constance; and at last in the year 1551. confirmed in the Council of 
i Concil. Trident. Sess. 13.  Trent, by a few Latin Bishops, Slaves to the Roman See; imposed upon all, under pain of an Anathema to be feared by none; and so spread too too far, by the tyrannical and most unjust command of the 
k Bulla Pii 4. de profess. fidei.  Pope. So that we have no reason to embrace it, until it shall be demonstrated, that except the substance of the Bread be changed into the very Body of Christ, his words cannot possibly be true; nor his Body present. Which will never be done.   


A Table of the places of Scripture cited in this Book.  Exod XII. 11, 21. Chap. I. Art. 4 Eccl. VII. 29. Chap. VII. 24 St. Mat. XXVI. 26. Chap. I. 1 St. Luk. XXII. 19 Ibid.  St. Job. III. 3. Chap. VI 7 St. Job. III. 29. Chap. VII. 19 St. Job. VI 55. Chap. I. 5 Rom. XII. 3. Chap. VI 7 1 Cor. IV. 15. Ibid.  1 Cor. X. 16. Chap. I. ● 1 Cor. X. 3, & 4, Ibid.  Gal. VI 5. Chap. VII. 7 Eph. IV. 22. Ibid.  1 Pet. I. 3. Ibid.  Judas v. 3. In the Preface.   

A Table of the Ancient Fathers.  Century I. CLemens Romanus Chap. VI Art. 1 St. Ignatius Ibid. 10 Century II. Theoph. Antioch. Chap. VI 1 Justinus Martyr. Chap. V. 7  — VI 11 

Athenagoras  
Tatianus   Chap. VI 1 Irenaeus, Chap. V. 8  — VI 5, & 7 Century III. Tertullian. Chap. V. 9  — VI 7 Origenes, Chap V. 10  ▪ VI 5, & 7 Cyprian, Chap. V. 11  — VI 7, 8 & 12 Clem. Alexand. Chap. VI 1, & 7 Minutius Felix, Ibid.  Arnobius, Chap. V. 35 Century IU. Euseb. Caesar. Chap. VI 1 Athanasius, Chap. V. 13 Cyril. Hieros'. Ibid. 14  — VI 5, & 7 

Juvencus,  
Macarius,  
Hilarius,  
Optatus,  
Euseb. Emiss.  
Greg. Naz.  
Cyril. Alex.  
Epiphanius,  
Hieronimus,  
Theoph. Alex.  
Gaudentius,   Chap. VI 1 6, & 7 6 St. Basil. Chap. V. 15  — VI 7 Greg Nyss. Chap. V. 16  — VI 7 Ambrose, Chap. V. 17  — VI 6, 7, 13 Chrysost. Chap. V. Art. 18  — VI 6, 7, 8 Century V. St. Austin, Chap. V. 19 Prosper III. Chap. V. 20 Leo IU.   Theodoret. Chap. V. 21  ▪ VI 10 Gelasius, Chap. V. 22 

Sedulius,  
Gennadius,   Chap. VI 1 Faustus Reg. Ibid. 7 Century VI. Ephrem, Chap. V. 24 Facundus, Ibid. 25 Fulgentius. Chap. VI 1 

Victor Antioch.  
Primasius,  
Procop. Gaz.   Chap. VI 1 Century VII. Isidorus Hispal. Chap. V. 26 Hesychius, Chap. VI 1, & 2 Maximus, Ibid. 1 Century VIII. Vener. Beda, Chap. V. 27 Carol. Magnus, Ibid. 28 Damascenus, Chap. VI 1 Century IX. Paschasius, Chap. V. 29 Amalarius, — 30 Rabanus Maurus, — 31 Joh. Erigena, — 32 Wal. Strabo, — 33 Bertramus — 34 

Niceph. Patria.  
Hincmarus,   Chap. VI Art. 1 Century X. Herigerus, Chap. V. 36 Fulbertus, Chap. VI 1 Century XI. Idem Fulbertus, Chap. VII. 3 Berengarius, Ibid. 4, 5, 6, etc. Hildebertus, Chap. VII. 4 

Theophylact,  
Oecumenius,   Chap. VI 7 Century XII. Bernardus, Chap. VII. 13  — III. 2 Rupertus, Chap. VII. 14  

A Table of the Schoolmen.  Century XIII. LOmbardus, Chap. VII. Art. 15 Alex. Alensis, Ibid. 24  — VI 2 Albertus Magnus, Ibid. 26 Tho. Aquinas, ▪ 2 Rich. de Mediavilla, Chap. VII. 10 Century XIV. 

Scotus,  
Durandus,  
Occamus,   Chap. V. 2 Baconus, Chap. VII. 27 Holcotus, — 26 Th. Argent. — 27 Brulifer, — 24 Century XV. Card. Camer. Chap. V. Art. 3  — VII. 29 Gabriel Biel, Ibid  Century XVI. Cajetan, Ibid.  Dom. Soto. Chap VII. 24  

A Table of the Councils.  NIcene I. Chap. V Art. 12 Calced. Ibid. 23 

Ancyran.  
Neocaesarien.  
Laodiceum,  
Carthagin.  
Aurelian.  
Toletánum IU.  
Brac●arense,  
Toletan. VI  
Constantin. VI   Chap. VI 1 Brixiense, Chap. VII. 12 Anglican. Chap V. 36  — VI 2 Arelatense III. — VI 2 Vercellense, Chap. VII. 7 Turonense, Ibid. 8 Rom. sub Nicol. II. Ibid. 9 Rom. sub Greg. VII. Ibid. 12 Lateran. sub Innoc. III. Ibid. 18 Constantiense, Ibid. 28 Florentinum, Ibid. 30 Tridentinum, Ibid. 31  

A Table of the Popes.  LEO IX. Chap. VII. Art. 7 Victor II. — 8 Nicholas II. — 9 Gregory VII. — 12 Innocent III. — 18, 19, etc. Gregory IX. Chap. VI 7 Gregory XI. Chap. VII. 24, 27  — VI 2 Eugenius IU. Ibid. 30 Plus IV. 〈◊〉 31  〈…〉 7  

A Table of the Historians.  PHotius, Chap. V Art. 24 Trithem. — 31 Malmesbury, — 31, 32  — VII. 4, 6, 12 Antonius, Ibid. 32 Vincentius, — V, & VII. 12 Sigebert, Ibid. 36  — VII. 6 Thevet, Chap. VII. 4 Pap. Mass. Chap. VII. 9 Mat. Paris, — 6, 20 M. Westm. Ibid.  Baronius, — 9, 12 Sigonius, — 9 Chron. Cassin. — 13 Engilb. Trevir. — 12 

Bertold. Const.  
Benno Card.  
Abbas Usperg.   Ibid.  Otho Frising. Ibid. 16 Platina, — 20 

Tho. Walsing.  
Discip. de Temp.  
Caesarius Monach.   Ibid. 2● Leunclavius, — 26 Lasicius, — 30  

A Table of the Confessions of Reformed Churches.  ANglican. Chap. II. Art. 3 Augustan. Ibid. 8 Saxon. — 9 Wittenberg. — Art. 10 Bohem. — 11 Polon. — 12 & 19 Argentin. & Basil. — 13 Gallica, — 14 & 15 Belgica, — 16 Helvet. prior & posterior. Ibid. 17 & 18  

A Table of the Reformed Authors.  I Uther, Chap. II. Art. 13 

Bucerus,  
Zuinglius,  
Occolamp.   Ibid.  Poinetus, — 4 Juellus, — 3 Bilson. — 5 Andrews, —  Jacobus Rex, — 6 

Hooker.  
Joh. Episc. Roffens.  
Montacut.  
Armachan.  
Franc. Episc. aliens.  
Laud.  
Overal.   Ibid.  Anton. de Dom. Ibid. 7 Calvinus, Ibid. 20 Colloq. Ratisb. Chap. V. 22  

A Table of the Papists Authors.  BEllarmin. Chap. III. Art. 1, & 2  — IV. 7  — V. 3, 5, 18, 21, 22  — VI 10, 13, 14, 16  — VII. 17, 22, 30 Salmcron, Chap. IU. 7 Tolet, Chap. IU. 7 Roffens. Chap. V. 3 Perron. Ibid. 13 Possevin. Ibid. 18, 35  — VII. 17 Steph. Gard. Chap. V. 18 Greg. de Valen. Ibid. 21 Praefat. in Theod. Ibid.  Sirmond. — 25 Tho. Walden. — 31  — VII. 12 Index lib. prob. Chap. V. 35 Indices Expurg. Ibid.  Sixt. Senens. Ibid.  Vasquez. Chap. VI 2  — VII. 24 Direct. Inquis. Chap. VI 12  — VII. 24 Alph. à Castro, Chap. VI 16 Discursus de Jesuit. Ibid.  Watson quodlib. Ibid.  Garetius, Chap. VII. 4 Alanus, Ibid.  Lanfrancus Ibid. 5, 7, 10 Guitmundus Ibid. 11 P. Blessens. Ibid. 17 St. Eduens. Ibid.  Gerson, Ibid. 22 Catechis. Trid. Ibid. 30 De Capite Fontium, Ibid.  Algerus, Ibid. 24 Gratiani Glossator, Ibid. 1●  
FINIS.