have a tacit acknowledgment, an acknowledgment, however, which speaks volumes, that the Bible itself is profoundly silent.

Let the points, in the abstract, be true; or let them be false from whatever quarter they may have been learned by the tridentine theologians, assuredly and confessedly they have not been learned from Scripture.

3. It may not be altogether useless to state, that, in the substance at least of the preceding remark, no member of a Reformed Church can claim the praise of novel originality: the most able of the latin divines have themselves freely advanced the self-same ominous observation.

The great schoolmen Johannes Scotus, Biel, Occam, Peter ab Alliaco Cardinal Archbishop of Cambray, Cardinal Cajetan, and Cardinal Fisher Bishop of Rochester, have all fairly confessed: that The doctrine of Transubstantiation is incapable of proof from Scripture; that The doctrine of the substantial remanence of the bread and wine is less repugnant to Scripture, than the doctrine of their substantial conversion into the body and blood of Christ; and, consequently, that The doctrine of Transubstantiation cannot be demonstrated from the institutive words of Christ, unless to such words the authoritative declaration of the Roman Church be superadded1.

1 Non exstat locus ullus Scripturæ tam expressus, ut, sine Ecclesiæ declaratione, evidenter cogat Transubstantiationem admittere. Johan. Scot. in 4 sent. dist. xi. q. 3.

With these divines, Cardinal Bellarmine, at least nearly, agrees: for he says, that, although he thinks he can scripturally prove the doctrine to a not refractory person like himself; yet it may well be doubted, whether any such proof can really be accomplished, since men the most learned and acute, among whom Scotus stands out preeminent, are of a contrary opinion '.

Neutiquam invenitur in Canone Bibliorum. Biel. in Can. Miss. lect. 40.

Substantiam panis manere, rationabilius et facilius est ad tenendum: imo minoribus incommodis obnoxium est; et Sacris Scripturis minus repugnat. Occam. Centil. lib. iv. q. 6. et in 4 sent. dist. xi. q. 6.

Transubstantiatio non potest probari ex Sacris Literis. Petr. ab All. Camerac. in 4 sent. dist. xi. q. 6. art. 1, 2.

Non apparet ex Evangelio coactivum aliquod ad intelligendum hæc verba proprie, nempe, Hoc est corpus meum :—imo præsentia illa in sacramento, quam tenet Ecclesia, ex his verbis Christi non potest demonstrari, nisi etiam accesserit Ecclesiæ declaratio. Cajet. in Th. p. 3. q. lxxv. art. 1. Ibid. q. xlv. art. 14.

Nullum in Scriptura verbum positum est, quo probetur in Missa hanc substantiæ transmutationem fieri. Fish. Roffens. Lib. cont. Luther. de capt. Babylon. c. 1.

For these citations I am indebted to Bishop Cosin. See Cosin. Hist. Transub. Papal. c. v. § III. p. 54, 55. It might seem, from the judgment of these great latin divines, that Dr. Trevern and Mr. Berington have grievously wasted their valuable time in their confessedly bootless attempt to establish Transubstantiation from the Bible. Wherever that doctrine is to be found, at all events it is quite lost labour to seek it in God's written word. So, at least, we are assured by no fewer than six grave roman theologians.

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1 Quamvis Scripturam adduxerim, quæ mihi satis clara ad

On such remarkable concessions, not indeed remarkable in themselves, but certainly remarkable in regard to the quarter whence they come, our own Bishop Cosin well observes: that Protestants ask nothing more, than a permission to agree in sentiment with these most learned and most acute men of the Roman Communion 1.

IV. Quitting Scripture, then, in despair, whence confessedly the doctrine of Transubstantiation is incapable of being demonstrated; we now come to the evidence, adduced from the Fathers of the three first centuries for the purpose of establishing the alleged FACT: that The primitive Church, from the very beginning, entertained the self-same opinions respecting the Eucharist, as those which by the Council of Trent have since been authoritatively promulgated2.

In perusing this evidence, the cautious inquirer

probandam Transubstantiationem videatur homini non protervo: tamen, an ita sit, merito dubitari potest, quum homines doctissimi atque acutissimi, qualis cum primis Scotus fuit, contrarium sentiant. Bellarm. de Euchar. lib. iii. c. 23. apud Cosin. Ibid. p. 55.

1 Cosin. Ibid. p. 55.

2 I do not mean to say, that Dr. Trevern and Mr. Berington have pledged themselves, totidem verbis, to establish this alleged fact: but I conclude, that such must be their purpose; for, otherwise, they do nothing. If, however, they wish to avoid making themselves responsible for any particular portions of the tridentine definition; they have my full consent: only, in that case, they of course give up the doctrinal infallibility of Ecumenical Councils ratified by the Pope.

is immediately struck with the circumstance, that, respecting the following points, the witnesses adduced are completely silent: both respecting any conversion of the entire substance of the elements, jointly and severally, into the entire living Christ, viewed under the aspect of the essential Deity and a human soul united to material flesh and blood; respecting any conversion of each separate particle and each separate drop of the elements into the entire Christ; and respecting any adoration paid to the elements after consecration, on the avowed ground, that those elements, jointly and severally, unitedly and distributedly, have now become the Supreme Being himself. These various matters are, indeed, defined by the Council of Trent, with abundant distinctness. But we read nothing of them, either in Scripture, or in the writings of the primitive Church: and the Tridentine Synod, when unsupported by the voice of Antiquity biblical and ecclesiastical, comes too late, even though papally ratified, by about some fifteen centuries.

The early Fathers, then, being altogether silent respecting such matters, we have merely to examine, according to the evidence produced by Mr. Berington and the Bishop of Strasbourg: whether the witnesses of the three first centuries will vouch for the simple doctrine of Transubstantiation as less curiously laid down in the year 1215 by the fourth Council of Lateran, that is to say, for the doctrine of the simple conversion of the

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substance of the elements into the substance of the body and blood of Christ; and whether they will yet additionally vouch for the doctrine, that the sacrament of the Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice daily offered up by the priest both for the quick and for the dead.

1. That the witnesses of the three first centuries, cited by Dr. Trevern and Mr. Berington, repeatedly assert the consecrated bread and wine to be the body and blood of Christ, is undeniable: but, in using such language, they, in truth, say nothing more than what Christ himself had said before them.

To bring forward, therefore, specimens of such phraseology, by way of demonstrating the transubstantialisation of the primitive Church, is precisely the same begging of the question, as the adduction of Christ's own words for the same purpose.

What the Romish doctors ought to have shewn, would they argue at all relevantly, is not what the early Fathers say, but what the early Fathers mean: and it is obvious, that the bare production of their unexplained phraseology can never substantiate the alleged FACT; that The primitive Church, from the very beginning, held the doctrine of Transubstantiation.

Like the language of our Lord himself, which language in reality they simply adopt, their language, in the abstract, may be understood either literally or figuratively: and, before it was ad