e

cùm dicitur, est metaphorica locutio." And this is their excuse, why, in the Roman missal, they leave out the words "which is broken for you;" for they do what they please, they put in some words which Christ used not, and leave out something that he did use ;-and yet they are all the words of institution! And upon the same account there is another trope in 'eat;' and yet with a strange confidence, these men wonder at us for saying, the sacramental words are tropical or figurative, when even, by their own confession and proper grounds, there is scarce any word in the whole institution but admits an impropriety. And then concerning the main predication; 'This is my body,'-as Christ called 'bread his body,' so he called 'his body bread;' and both these affirmatives are destructive of transubstantiation; for if, of bread, Christ affirmed, it is his body,—by the rule of disparates it is figurative; and if, of his body, he affirmed it to be bread, it is certain also and confessed to be a figure. Now concerning this, besides that our blessed Saviour affirmed himself to be the bread that came down from heaven,' calling himself 'bread,' and, in the institution, calling 'bread' his body;' we have the express words of Theodoret: Τῷ μὲν σώματι τὸ τοῦ συμβόλου τέθεικεν ὄνομα, τῷ δὲ συμβόλῳ τὸ τοῦ σώματος ; Christ gave to his body the name of the symbol, and to the symbol the name of his body;" and St. Cyprian speaks expressly to this purpose, as you may see above, sect. 5. n. 9.

9. Sixthly: The strange inconveniences and impossibilities, the scandals and errors, the fancy of the Capernaites, and the temptations to faith, arising from the literal sense of these words, have been, in other cases, thought sufficient by all men to expound words of Scripture by tropes and allegories. The heresy of the Anthropomorphites and the Euchita, and the doctrine of the Chiliasts, and Origen gelding himself, proceeded from the literal sense of some texts of Scripture, against which there is not the hundredth part of so much presumption as I shall in the sequel make to appear to lie against this. And yet no man puts out his right eye literally, or cuts off his right hand, to prevent a scandal. Cer

d Dico quòd figura corporis Christi est ibi, sed figura corporis Christi non est ibi figura corporis Christi. Holcot. in 4. sent. quæst. 3.

e Anselm, Lombard, Thomas, Lyran, Gorran, Cajetan, Dion. Carth. Catharinus, Salmeron, Bened. Justinian, Sà in 1 Cor. xi. et innumeri alii.

f Dial. 1. c. 8.

tain it is, there hath been much greater inconvenience by following the letter of these words of institution, than of any other in Scripture: by so much as the danger of idolatry, and actual tyranny, and uncharitable damning others, and schism, are worse than any temporal inconvenience, or an error in a matter of speculation.

10. Seventhly I argue out of St. Austin's grounds thus: As the fathers did eat Christ's body, so do we under a diverse sacrament, and different symbols, but in all the same reality; whatsoever we eat, the same they did eat; for the difference is this only, they received Christ by faith in him that was to come, and we by faith in him that is come already; but they had the same real benefit, Christ as really as we, for they had salvation as well as we. But the fathers could not eat Christ's flesh in a natural manner, for it was not yet assumed: and though it were as good an argument against our eating of it naturally, that it is gone from us into heaven; yet that which I now insist upon is, that it was 'cibus spiritualis,' which they ate under the sacrament of manna; therefore we, under the sacrament of bread and wine eating the same meat, eat only Christ in a spiritual sense, that is, our spiritual meat. And this is also true in the other sacraments of the rock and the cloud: "Our fathers ate of the same spiritual meat, and drank of the same spiritual drink, that is, Christ;" so he afterward expounds it. Now if they did eat and drink Christ, that is, were by him in sacrament, and, to all reality of effect, nourished up to life eternal, why cannot the same spiritual meat do the same thing for us, we receiving it also in sacrament and mystery? 2. To which I add, that all they, that do communicate spiritually, do receive all the blessing of the sacrament, which could not be, unless the mystery were only sacramental, mysterious, and spiritual. Maldonate 1, speaking of something of this from the authority of St. Austin, is of opinion that if St. Austin were now alive, in very spite to the Calvinists, he would have expounded that of manna otherwise than he did it seems he lived in a good time, when malice and the spirit of contradiction were not so much in fashion in the interpretations of the Scripture.

11. Now let it be considered, whether all that I have said, be not abundantly sufficient to outweigh their confi

g Tract. 26. in S. Johan.

h In S. Johan, 6. 49.

dence of the literal sense of these sacramental words. They find the words spoken,-they say they are literally to be understood; they bring nothing considerable for it; there is no scripture that so expounds it; there is no reason in the circumstances of the words; but there is all the reason of the world against it (as I have and shall shew), and such, for the meanest of which very many other places of Scripture are drawn from the literal sense, and rest in a tropical and spiritual. Now, in all such cases, when we find an inconvenience press the literal expression of a text, instantly we find another, that is figurative; and why it is not so done in this, the interest and secular advantages, which are consequent to this opinion of the church of Rome, may give sufficient account. In the meantime, 1. we have reason not to admit of the literal sense of these words, not only by the analogy of other sacramental expressions in both Testaments (I mean that of circumcision and the passover in the Old, and baptism, as Christ discoursed it to Nicodemus, in the New Testament); but also, 2. Because the literal sense of the like words, in this very article, introduced the heresy of the Capernaites; and, 3. Because the subject and the predicate, in the words of institution, are diverse and disparate, and cannot possibly be spoken of each other properly. 4. The words, in the natural and proper sense, seem to command an unnatural thing, the eating of flesh. 5. They rush upon infinite impossibilities; they contradict sense and reason, the principles and discourses of all mankind, and of all philosophy. 6. Our blessed Saviour tells us, that the “flesh profiteth nothing," and (as themselves pretend) even in this mystery, that his words were "spirit and life." 7. The literal sense cannot be explicated by themselves, nor by any body for them. 8. It is against the analogy of other scriptures. 9. It is to no purpose. 10. Upon the literal sense of the words, the church could not confute the Marcionites', Eutychians, Nestorians, the Aquarii. 11. It is against antiquity. 12. The whole form of words, in every of the members, is confessed to be figurative by the opposite party. 13. It is not pretended to be verifiable without an infinite company of miracles, all which being more than needs, and none of them visible, but contestations against art and the notices of two or three sciences, cannot be sup

*

i Vide infra, sect. 12. n. 22. 32. &c. et sect. 10. n. 6.

posed to be done by God, who does nothing superfluously. 14. It seems to contradict an article of faith, viz. of Christ's sitting in heaven in a determinate place, and being contained there till his second coming. Upon these considerations, and upon the account of all the particular arguments, which I have and shall bring against it, it is not unreasonable, neither can it seem so, that we decline the letter, and adhere to the spirit in the sense of these words. But I have divers things more to say in this particular from the consideration of other words of the institution, and the whole nature of the thing.

SECTION VII.

Considerations of the Manner and Circumstances and Annexes of the Institution.

1. THE blessed sacrament is the same thing now, as it was in the institution of it: but Christ did not really give his natural body in the natural sense, when he ate his last supper; therefore, neither does he now. The first proposition is beyond all dispute, certain, evident, and confessed; "Hoc facite" convinces it: "This do;" what Christ did, his disciples are to do. I assume,-Christ did not give his natural body properly in the last supper, therefore neither does he now; the assumption I prove by divers arguments.

2. First: If then he gave his natural body, then it was naturally broken, and his blood was actually poured forth before the passion ; for he gave τὸ σῶμα κλώμενον, τὸ ποτήριον, οι αἷμα ἐκχυνόμενον, “ his body was delivered broken, his blood was shed :' now those words were spoken either properly and naturally; and then they were not true, because his body was yet whole, his blood still in the proper channels; or else it was spoken in a figurative and sacramental sense, and so it was true (as were all the words which our blessed Saviour spake): for that, which he then ministered, was the sacrament of his passion.

3. Secondly If Christ gave his body in the natural sense at the last supper, then it was either a sacrifice propitiatory, or it was not; if it was not, then it is not now, and then their dream of the mass is vanished: if it was propitiatory at the last supper, then God was reconciled to all the

world, and mankind was redeemed before the passion of our blessed Saviour: which, therefore, would have been needless and ineffective: so fearful are the consequents of this strange doctrine.

4. Thirdly If Christ gave his body properly in the last supper, and not only figuratively and in sacrament, then it could not be a representment or sacrament of his passion, but a real exhibition of it: but that it was a sacrament only, appears by considering that it was then alive; that the passion was future, that the thing was really to be performed upon the cross, that then he was to be delivered for the life of the world. In the last supper, all this was in type and sacrament, because it was before, and the substance was to follow after.

5. Fourthly: If the natural body of Christ was in the last supper under the accidents of bread, then his body, at the same time, was visible and invisible in the whole substance, visible in his person, invisible under the accidents of bread and then it would be inquired, what it was which the apostles received, what benefits they could have by receiving the body naturally; or whether it be imaginable, that the apostles understood it in the literal sense, when they saw his body stand by, unbroken, alive, integral, hypostatical.

6. Fifthly: If Christ's body were naturally in the sacrament, I demand, whether it be as it was in the last supper,or as upon the cross,—or as it is now in heaven? Not as in the last supper;'-for then it was frangible, but not broken; but typically, by design, in figure and in sacrament, as it is evident in matter of fact. 2. Not as on the cross;' -for there the body was frangible and broken too, and the blood spilled; and if it were so now in the sacrament, besides that it were to make Christ's glorified body passible, and to crucify the Lord of life again: it also were not the same body, which Christ hath now; for his body that he hath now, is spiritual and incorruptible, and cannot be otherwise; much less can it be so and not so at the same time properly, and yet be the same body. 3. Not as in heaven,'-where it is neither corruptible nor broken; for then in the sacrament there were given to us Christ's glorified body; and then, neither were the sacrament a remembrance of Christ's death, neither were the words of institution verified, " This