the corporeal presence of the body of Christ in the sacrament, was first brought in to support the stupid worship of images: and indeed it could never have come in upon a more proper occasion, nor have been applied to a fitter purpose.

"And here, I cannot but take notice, how well this agrees with Bellarmine's observation,* 'that none of the ancients who wrote of heresies, hath put this error, (viz. of denying transubstantiation,) in his catalogue; nor did any of the ancients dispute against this error for the first 600 years.' Which is very true, because there could be no occasion then to dispute against those who denied transubstantiation, since, as I have shewn, this doctrine was not in being, unless among the Eutychian heretics, for the first 600 years and more. But Bellarmine,† goes on and tells us, that 'the first who called in question the truth of the body of the Lord in the eucharist, were the Exovouax, (the opposers of images,) after the year 700, in the council of Constantinople; for these said there was one image of Christ, instituted by Christ himself, viz. the bread and wine in the eucharist, which represents the body and blood of Christ. Wherefore, from that time, the Greek writers often admonish us that the eucharist is not the figure or image of the body of the Lord, but his true body, as appears from the VII Synod;' which agrees most exactly with the account which I have given of the † Ibid.

*De Euchar: Lib. 1 ch. 2.

first rise of this doctrine, which began with the corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament, and afterwards proceeded to transubstantiation.

"And as this was the first occasion of introducing this doctrine among the Greeks, so in the Latin or Roman church, Paschasius Radbertus, first a monk, and afterwards abbot of Corbey, was the first broacher of it in the year 818.

"And for this, besides the evidence of history, we have the acknowledgment of two very eminent persons in the church of Rome, Bellarmine and Sirmondus, who do in effect confess that this Paschasius was the

first who wrote to purpose upon this argument. Bellarmine* in these words, 'this author was the first who hath seriously and copiously written concerning the truth of Christ's body and blood in the eucharist.' And Sirmondus,† in these, 'he so first explained the genuine sense of the Catholic church, that he opened the way to the rest who afterwards, in great numbers, wrote upon the same argument.' But though Sirmondus is pleased to say, that he only first explained the sense of the Catholic church in this point, yet it is very plain, from the records of that age, which are left to us, that this was the first time that this doctrine was broached in the Latin church; and it met with great opposition in that age, as I shall have occasion hereafter to shew. For Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, about the year 847, reciting

*De Scriptor: Eccles. In vita Paschasii.

the very words of Paschasius, wherein he had delivered this doctrine, hath this remarkable passage concerning the novelty of it. "Some,' says he, "of late, not having a right opinion concerning the sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord, have said that this is the body and blood of our Lord which was born of the Virgin Mary, and in which our Lord suffered upon the cross, and rose from the dead: which error,' says he, 'we have opposed with all our might.' From whence it is plain by the testimony of one of the greatest and most learned bishops of that age, and of eminent reputation for piety, that what is now the very doctrine of the church of Rome concerning the sacrament, was then esteemed an error, broached by some particular persons, but was far from being the generally received doctrine of that age. Can any one think it possible that so eminent a person in the church, both for piety and learning, could have condemned this doctrine as an error and a novelty, had it been the general doctrine of the Christian church, not only in that, but in former ages: and no censure passed upon him for that which is now the great burning article in the church of Rome, and esteemed by them, one of the greatest and most pernicious heresies?

"Afterwards, in the year 1059, when Berengarius in France and Germany had raised a fresh opposition against this doctrine, he was compelled to recant, by

Pope Nicholas and the council at Rome," in a particular form of words which were prescribed by them.

"About twenty years after, in the year 1079, Pope Gregory the VII, became dissatisfied with the form of recantation which Nicholas and his council had prescribed; and, therefore, in another council at Rome, made Berengarius recant in the use of another form of words, viz:* 'That the bread and wine which are placed upon the altar, are substantially changed into the true, and proper, and quickening flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and after consecration, are the true body of Christ, which was born of the Virgin, and which being offered for the salvation of the world, did hang upon the cross, and sits at the right hand of the Father.'

"So that from the first starting of this doctrine in the second council of Nice, in the year 787, till the council under Pope Gregory the VII, in the year 1079, it was almost three hundred years that this doctrine was contested, and before it was reduced to that form in which it is now settled and established in the church of Rome. Here, then, is a plain account of the first rise of this doctrine, and of the several steps whereby it was advanced by the church of Rome into an article of faith."

The authorities cited will be sufficient, it is believed, to satisfy the reader, that the doctrine of transubstantiation, however confidently it may be maintain

*Waldens. Tom. i. c. 13.

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ed, and however zealously propagated by the emissaries of a church which claims to be infallible, can derive no efficient support from the pages of holy writ, or from the writings of the earliest and purest ages of the Christian church.

It is deemed unnecessary to shew that it is equally unsupported by reason and the senses; for its most zealous advocates will hardly presume to claim their testimony in its favour. We may, therefore, bring this section to a close, by another quotation from the distinguished author, to whose labours we are already so largely indebted. "It is a most evident falsehood; and there is no doctrine or proposition in the world that is of itself more evidently true, than transubstantiation is evidently false: and yet, if it were possible to be true, it would be the most ill-natured and pernicious truth in the world, because it would suffer nothing else to be true. It is like the Roman Catholic church, which will needs be the whole Christian church, and will allow no other society of Christians to be any part of it: so transubstantiation, if it be true at all, it is all truth, and nothing else is true; for it cannot be true, unless our senses and the senses of all mankind be deceived about their proper objects; and if this be true and certain, then nothing else can be so; for if we be not certain of what we see, we can be certain of nothing."

*Discourse against transubstantiation, by Archbishop Tillotson.