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 went 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?

St. Chrysostom (A.D. 390) doth also clearly discard and reject this carnal Transubstantiation and eating of CHRIST's Body, without eating the Bread. "Sacraments," 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 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 Cæsarius; 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 with the name of the Flesh of CHRIST, by the consecration of the Priest, yet the Flesh retains the properties 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 LORD'S 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. Chrysostom's; but both he and Possevin do vainly contend that it is not extant among the works of Chrysostom. For besides that at Florence and elsewhere 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.

*

Which also hath been said by St. Austin (A. D. 400) above a thousand times; but 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 which you see, nor drink this Blood which My crucifiers shall shed; I have left you a Sacrament which, spiritually understood, will vivify you." Thus St. Austin, rehearsing the words of CHRIST again; "If Sacraments. had not some 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 the Arian. “We mind in the Sacraments, not what they are, but what they show ; for they are signs, which are one thing, and signifies another." And in another place, speaking of the Bread and Wine, "Let no man look to 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."

by venerable Bede, our countryman, who lived in the eighth cen

tury, in his Sermon upon the Epiphany; of whom we also take these two testimonies following: "In the room of 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 gave to His Disciples the figure of His holy Body and Blood." These utterly destroy Transubstantiation.

In the same century, Charles the Great wrote an Epistle to our Alcuinus, wherein we find these words. "CHRIST at 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.

But now, about the beginning of the ninth century, started up Paschasius, a Monk of Corbie, who first, (as some say whose judgment I follow not,) among the Latines, taught that CHRIST was consubstantiated, or rather inclosed in the Bread, and 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; Walfridus Strabo, a German 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 Paschasius, 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 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 Eucha

rist, 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 has 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 Sacrament 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."

As for the opinion of Bertram, otherwise called Ratramnus, or Ratramus, perhaps 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 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 something 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 believeth, and not what the eyes see; for this meat and drink are spiritual, feed the soul spiritually, and entertain that life whose fulness is eternal." 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.

For

All this the Fathers of Trent, and the Romish Inquisitors could not brook, and therefore they utterly condemned Bertram, and put his book in the catalogue of those that are forbidden.

CHAPTER VI.

Romish objections considered, as drawn from the writings of the Fathers.

...

Let us see what props these new builders pretend to borrow from Antiquity to uphold their castle in the air, Transubstantia