says, racles which St. Cyprian recounts respecting unworthy communicants, such as that of a guilty woman, who, on opening her box in which she kept the Sacrament, a fire burst forth from it; of a man in the same predicament, in whose hand the consecrated species was turned into ashes and of an infant, who having received wine, polluted with idolatry, could not swallow a drop out of the sacred chalice? I should also like to ask him what the sacramental bread shut up in a box is in his system of theology?-I quoted Origen, who "Manna was formerly given as a figure, but now the flesh and blood of the Son of God are specifically given, and are real food." The Vicar complains that he cannot find the passage quoted,* I will therefore furnish him with another from the same Father, where he says: " When you receive the holy food and that incorruptible banquet, you eat and drink the body and blood of the Lord." What proves that Origen speaks of the Real Body of Christ in the Sacrament, and not of bread, as the figure of it, is his calling it an incorruptible banquet. But, says the Vicar, Origen himself, elsewhere, calls the Sacrament a typical and symbolical body. Without recurring here to my former remark, namely, that Christ's body is both figuratively and really present in the Sacra * I have here to acknowledge a mistake, in having referred to Origen's Chapter vii. on Levit., instead of Chapter vii. on Numbers, Hom. 5. On different places of the Gospel. ment: I answer, that the Rev. Gentleman's criticism only proves how little he is versed in the phraseology of this Father, as it is usual with him to call every thing typical and symbolical, which has any kind of analogy with spiritual matters. Thus, for example, he says, that St. John rested on the breast of Christ symbolically;* that, when Judas went out from the last Supper, "it was night symbolically;"† that the High Priest of the Jews was a Symbolical Priest, and, that Bishops are forbidden to have two wives symbolically.‡ The Vicar's second medium to prove that Origen's language is "the same with that of the Church Catechism," is, that the latter says: material part of the food, which is sanctified by the word of God and prayer, goes into the belly and then into the draught."-But this is true, even on Catholic principles, as far as regards the outward part, or the accidents of the Sacrament.|| But, supposing even, it could be proved that this Father laid the foundation of the odious error of the Stercorani, which certain scholastics maintained in the ninth century, this would only prove, more strongly, that he held the Real corporal Presence and Transubstantiation. * In Joan., tom. xxxii. p. 405. + Ibid, p. 412. In Mat. T. 14. § Reply, p. 162. "The Some of the Saints and other holy personages, who were ready, at all times, to shed their blood for the doctrine of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation, have subsisted for a long time wholly on the Eucharistic species. The Vicar now produces S. Basil, who testifies that "As our Lord is the true bread, and his flesh is the true meat, it is necessary that the delightful pleasure which we receive from that bread should he conveyed to us, by our tasting it spiritually."* But how, in the name of common sense, does this militate against the Real Presence? and what Catholic ever pretended to taste the flesh of Christ in the Sacrament? On the other hand, what proves this Father to have held the doctrine in question, is the striking comparison which he institutes betweeu the violators of the Sacrifice of the New Law and those of the ancient Sacrifices. "If," says he, "such threats were made against those, who rashly approached to the sacred rites, which were sanctified by men, what is to be said of him who is guilty of rashness against such and so great a mystery! For, in the same degree that he, according to the Lord's word, is greater than the temple, in the same it is more grievous and dreadful for any one, defiled with spiritual impurity, rashly to touch the body of Christ, than to approach to rams and bulls."+ The same doctrine runs through the whole of S. Basil's Liturgy of the Mass, which is still used in the Churches of the East. Thus, in the consecration of the elements, the Priest calls: τον μεν αρτον τούτον, αυτο το τιμιον σώμα του Κυρίου και Θεου και σωτηρος ημων, Ιησου χριστου, Το δε πωτηριον τούτον αυτο το τιμιον αιμα, &c. It will not be believed that the brother of the last quoted Father, S. Gregory of Nyssa, or his bosom friend, the renowned Divine, S. Gregory Nazianzen, differed from him, or the universal Church of his time, in this important article. Hear then what the former says: "It is now to be considered how the same body which is distributed to so many thousands of the faithful throughout the world, remains whole and entire in itself in each one of them. Therefore, I justly believe that the bread sanctified by the word of God is transformed into the body of the word of God. This he bestows by the power of his blessing in that transelemented nature of the things that appear to us.”* S. Gregory Nazianzen, exhorting his flock, at the Pascal Solemnity, tells them "To eat the body and drink the blood without hesitation or doubt, and to disregard the objections of their adversaries."+ Again, in his funeral Oration on his sister Gorgonia, he says that, being afflicted with an incurable disorder, she went on a certain night into the Church, and there," falling on her knees, with faith, before the altar, she besought him, with a loud cry, who is worshipped on it," &c. • Catechetical Discourse, c. 36. c. 37. In the last quoted words, the Father employs the word μeTaσTOXELOW, which,as the learned observe is a stronger word for the same thing than Transubstantiation. + Second Orat. for Easter. dead, whose The Vicar next quotes the following words from S. Chrysostom: "If Jesus be not symbols are they that are offered? Since there fore the word says, let us obey and believe, and look upon it with the eyes of the understanding. For what Christ delivered has nothing to do with the senses, but although joined with sensible objects, all is spiritual."* No Catholic Pastor would hesitate to use the same words in his sermon at the present day! they imply nothing more than that Christ is not visible in the Sacrament, and that though there are sensible things, the species or accidents, in it, yet that the real contents of it, which are his body, blood, soul and divinity are only present, through faith, to the eyes of the understanding on the soul. But will the Vicar, in his turn, engage to deliver from his pulpit at Templebodane, or the Castle Chapel, the following explicit testimonies of this illustrious Father, which I have selected from a great many others, no less clear? "Let us in all things believe God, and not contradict him, though what he says may seem contradictory to our sense and apprehension. His words cannot deceive us, but our senses may be easily mistaken. Since therefore he has said THIS IS MY BODY, let us be convinced and believe, and behold it, with the eyes of the understanding." Again : "when thou seest the body * Reply, p. 165. + Hom. 83. On Matt. |