petual ordinance in my Church to the end of the world; let my death be thus annunciated and shewn forth till I come to judgment. See 1 Cor. 11. 26.

As little foundation hath this doctrine of Transubstantiation in the antient Church, as appears sufficiently from what hath been already said concerning the notion then universally received of the Eucharistical sacrifice. It was then believed to be an avaμnois, or commemoration, by the symbols of bread and wine, of the body and blood of Christ, once offered up to God on the cross for our redemption; it could not therefore be then thought an offering up again to God of the very body and blood of Christ, substantially present under the appearance of bread and wine; for these two notions are inconsistent, and cannot stand together. The ancient doctors, yea, and liturgies of the Church, affirm the Eucharist to be incruentum sacrificium, a sacrifice without blood; which it cannot be said to be, if the very blood of Christ were therein present and offered up to God. In the Clementine liturgy, the bread and wine in the Eucharist are said to be antitypa, correspondent types, figures and images of the precious body and blood of Christ. And divers others of the Fathers speak in the same plain language. Vid. Greg. Naz. Apol. Orat. 1. tom. 1. Cyril. Hierosol. 5. Cat. Myst. Ambros. de Sacrament. lib. 4. cap. 4

We are not ignorant, that the ancient Fathers generally teach, that the bread and wine in the Eucharist, by or upon the consecration of them, do become, and are made the body and blood of Christ.

But we know also, that though they do not all explain themselves in the same way, yet they do all declare their sense to be very dissonant from the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Some of the most ancient doctors of the Church, as Justin Martyr, and Irenæus, seem to have had this notion, that by, or upon the sacerdotal benediction, the spirit of Christ, or a divine virtue from Christ, descends upon the elements, and accompanies them to all worthy communicants, and that therefore they are said to be, and are the body and blood of Christ; the same divinity, which is hypostatically united to the body of Christ in Heaven, being virtually united to the elements of bread and wine on earth. Which also seems to be the meaning of all the ancient liturgies, in which it is prayed, that God would send down his spirit upon the bread and wine in the Eucharist. And this doubtless, is the meaning of Origen in his eighth book against Celsus, p. 399; [where speaking of the holy Encharist he says, that therein " we eat bread by prayer (i. e. by the prayer of consecration for the descent of the divine spirit upon it) made a certain holy body, which also sanctifies those, who with a sound or sincere purpose of heart use it."] but that neither Justin Martyr nor Irenæus, nor Origen ever dreamed of the Transubstantiation of the elements, is most evident. For Justin Martyr, and Irenæus, do both of them plainly affirm, that by eating and drinking the bread and wine in the Eucharist, our badies are nourished, and that the bread and wine are digested and turned into the substance of our bodies;

which to affirm of the glorified body of Christ, were impious and blasphemous, and to affirm the same of the mere accidents of the bread and wine, would be absurd and ridiculous. And Origen expressvery ly saith, "That what we eat in the Eucharist is "bread, but bread sanctified and made holy by prayer, and which by the divine virtue that accompanies it, sanctifieth all those who worthily "receive it." He that would see more of this notion of the ancient Fathers, and particularly those places of Justin Martyr and Irenæus fully cleared and vindicated, from the forced and absurd glosses of the Romanists, may consult my learned friend, Mr. Grabe, in his Notes upon Justin Martyr's first Apology, of his own edition, p. 128, 129, but especially in his large and elaborate Annotation upon Irenæus, iib. 4. cap. 34.

I shall dismiss this article with this one only observation, that after the prodigious doctrine of Transubstantiation was confirmed by the first Lateran Council, there were many in the communion of the Church of Rome, who could not digest it, did not in truth believe it, and wished from their hearts that their Church had never defined it. For this we have the ample testimonies of very eminent writers of that Church. "The conversion of the "bread and wine into Christ's body and blood," saith Cajetan, par. 3. qu. 75. article 1. " all of us do "teach in words, but in deed many deny it, think

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ing nothing less. These are diversely divided one "from another. For some by the conversion that

" is in the Sacrament, understand nothing but identity of place, that is, that the bread is therefore "said to be made the body of Christ, because where "the bread is, the body of Christ becomes present " also. Others understand by the word conversion, "nothing else but the order of succession, that is, "that the body succeedeth and is under the veils of "accidents, under which the bread, which they

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suppose to be annihilated, was before." Occam, Centilogii conclus. cap. 19, saith, "There are three "opinions about Transubstantiation, of which the "first supposeth a conversion of the sacramental "elements; the second the annihilation; the "third affirmeth the bread to be in such manner "transubstantiated into the body of Christ, that it "is no way changed in substance, or substantially "converted into Christ's body, or doth cease to be, "but only that the body of Christ in every part of "it, becomes present in every part of the bread." Waldensis, tom. 2. de Sacram. Eucharista, cap. 19, reports out of Christopolitanus Zacharias his book, entituled Quatuor unum, "That there were some, "perhaps many, but hardly to be discerned and "noted, who thought still as Berengarius did." The same Waldensis, in the same book, cap. 64, saith, "That some supposed the conversion that is "in the Sacrament, to be, in that the bread and "wine are assumed into the unity of Christ's per"son; some thought it to be by way of impanation, " and some by way of figurative and tropical appel"lation. The first and second of these opinions,

"found the better entertainment in some men's "minds, because they grant the essential presence "of Christ's body and yet deny not the presence of "the bread still remaining, to sustain the appearing "accidents. These opinions he reports to have "been very acceptable to many, not without sighs, "wishing the church had decreed that men should "follow one of them."

It cannot be doubted, but that there are at this day, many in the communion of the church of Rome, who are in the same perplexity about this article of Transubstantiation, and have the same wishes, that their church had never made it an article of their faith; for the absurdities of transubstantiation, and the reason of mankind are still the same. Now what a lamentable condition are they in, who are forced to profess (yea, and all ecclesiastics now by the Trent confession in the most solemn manner to swear) that they believe what they cannot for their hearts believe; whose consciences, between the determinations of their church, and the dictates of their own reason, yea, and sense too, are continually ground, as between two millstones! I have been long upon this article, but shall be more brief on the next.

The next article is this: "I confess also, that un"der one kind only, whole and entire Christ, and "the whole sacrament is received." Now this article of the sufficiency of the sacrament of the Eucharist, taken only in one kind, as it refers to, and is designed to justify the practice of the Roman