P. 28. fore to God himself? Doth this Doctrine any where clearly appear, (especi- * ally as it is now ufed,) to have been either Prefcribed or Practifed in the Primitive Ages? Did the Communicants in thofe days receive the Confecrated Bread in their Hands, or was it put into their Mouths, or laid upon their Tongues, as the Latins do? Or were both Elements put in together by three little Sips out of one fingle Spoonfull, as the Greeks now ferve their Laicks? Was the Confecrated Bread kept, & agro@ogía, Pixide, a Box, by it to Communicate the Sick, or those who could not come to the Publick Of fice? I believe thofe words of our Saviour, (If any Man fhall fay unto you, Mat. 24. 23. Lo, here is Chrift, or there, believe it not, and the reft,) were chiefly fpo- 26. ken of Living, pretended, falfe Chrifts which should foon arife; but it is faid allo, they were not to feek him, is Tois: Tauelos, which we in English Tranflate, in fecret Chambers; yet the words more properly fignify, in Graineries, Stare-rooms, and Cupboards; furely if they were not then to feek a Living visible Chrift, in fuch private places; I think we are now much more obliged not to feek the Invisible, Glorified: Chrift himfelt, in Boxes with the Latins, much less with the Greeks to feek him hang'd by the Wall in a miferable musty Bag. I cannot believe that it was thus in the Primitive days, though I know fome People kept Pieces, or Relicks of the Confecrated Bread, only as Memorials of Chrift's Paffion; and they were fometimes abufed by mifguided Zealors to Superftitious ends, as I have noted of Gorgonia and others. p. 29. All thefe notorious Changes have been actually made in things of very great Moment and Importance; why then was it more Impoffible for that abfurd Notion, of a Bodily Prefence, to have been by degrees brought in, then it was for thefe, or then it was for the Greeks Holy Fire, which they pretend Miraculously to fall upon Chrift's Sepulcher, at Jerufalem, on every Easter Eve? The precife time, or the firft Authors or Manners of bringing these and the like into the Church, when, by whom, or how it was done, may be a Controverfy (as it now is) to the end of the World; but it is plain that it bath been done. As we commonly fay, Rome was not built in a day, fo there was long time, and various Arts and Methods fucceffively required to improve them, and from their firft Seeds to cultivate them to Perfection. But of this laft Point the Bodily Prefence, I fhall again touch by and by. Therefore not fearching at prefent farther into thefe and numerous other fuch Deeds of Spiritual Darkness, I fhall content my felf with only fome few words out of that very Learned and in many things moft Ingenuous Author, Joannes Morinus; who treating of the Latins Ordination, (which is confeft by them to be a perfect and principal Sacrament,) faith to this purpose. The Schoolmen were ut- Pralim. * 4. terly ignorant of the Greeks manner of Ordinations, and they understood not any thing of their Language; and that it never came into their Minds to enquire ⚫ what their Ordinations were, how many, or of what fort they were. For my part I doubt not but the Greeks were all that time as Ignorant of the Latin Tongue, and knew as little what the Schoolmen did in toffing, and turning and triming the several Articles, propofed by their grand Master of the Sentences; fo that the Latins might eafily trump up daily new Notions, to Change, new Model and deform, the primitive Sacraments and folemn Rites; and the careless barbarous Greeks all the time knew nothing of the matter. Hence we may plainly fee not only a Poffibility, but the highest Probability imaginable that the Latins made these foul Changes and Innovations whilft the Greeks flept. My Author justly approves Ibid. ** c. that Maxim of the Schools, That the Matters and Forms of Sacraments ought ⚫ to be perpetual and never to be Changed; I will here my felf add this reason of this maxim, they own the Matters and Forms to be the very Effentials of the Sacraments, if any one therefore changes thofe, he must neceffarily deftroy thefe. But my Author tells us plain Truth, that all the antient Fathers, both Ibid, ** a, b. Greek and Latin, are perfectly filent as to the Matters and Forms of Ordina⚫tion, which the Latins of latter times have made the only fubftantials of it. And all the antient Latin Rituals are quite unlike the Modern ones which now Ibid. ** b. p. :.. ⚫ they 16. §. a. 6 6 they ufe; and therefore he justly fufpected that many things, in which most of the Schoolmen place the Sacramental Matters and Forms, were by them added to their Rituals in procefs of time, and both Greeks and Latins, (but especially the latter, far more, and much later, and by little and little, and 'for many years) have been guilty of this crime. But he is fo Juft and Faithfull as to fpeak more freely to this Truth, which fully fatisfies me of the very firft Original and Progrefs of all thefe and fuch other Changes in general. Meer hiftorical Fables, faith he, when once they have feized Meus Minds, are most difficultly rooted out; and they that offer to go about to do it, are counted highly injurious to Religion it felf. And prefently after be faith, most of fuch Fables have been fo Fortunate, as to be started in very Ignorant Ages; and therefore all have fondly embraced them, although there was no apprehenfion of either Reason or Truth in them. His reafon of this immediately follows, an Opinion that hath once poffcft the Minds of the People, if Religion be pretended to be in it, never wants Learned Men to ⚫ defend it, because they purchase thereby to themselves the fame of remarkable Piety, and the Favour of the People. Thefe defenders rummage all their stock of Learning, and jumble together all the Notions which they have gathered ⚫ both Sacred and Prophane, that they may refcue the Opinion which the People have once conceived (or taken up) from all the Arguments of their Adverfaries, and reconcile it with antient History and primitive Practice; and when they are at a lofs (and can go no farther) as it often happens, then, as the Tragick Poets had always a God ready, who rushing out of their Machine might explain the difficult and perplext end of their Play, so these Men from a meer probable Action prefently fly to God's Omnipotency, as if it was bound to be prefcnt (or affiftant) to all the Fictions (or Whimsies) of Men that they may prevail, or currently pass. I folemnly proteft that in my ferious Judgment and fixt Opinion this great Man hath here fully, and perhaps (as it is fometimes his manner) defignedly, dropt a very excellent and true account, how all fuch ftrange Changes have come to pals. First, Some Busy, Hot-headed, proud fpeculator having conceived a wild Mysterious Notion, cannot forbear to give it Birth by venting it to fome of his Confidents; Secondly, Next Novelty, like the Itch or Witchcraft, never fails of Infecting others; and in time, especially in ignorant Ages, it by degrees becomes Epidemical. One Fool, as the faying is, may raife a Devil, which forty wife Men cannot lay again. This happens juft fo in a high-flying Paradox, efpecially when the Author and his airy Profelites are grown moft furiously bent to maintain the Brat, and the People begin once to be fond of it. I could prove this by Inftances enough in the Sectaries of our own days, that a perfectly new, furprizing Opinion can hardly be fo Irrational, but it will foon find fome Sticklers for it and Abetters of it; and the Papifts themselves affirm the fame in their own accounts of the Springing, and of the spreading growth of Herefies. Thirdly, It will Infallibly get its full ftrength if their appears any Advantage or Profit to the Patrons of it. Lastly, When fome difcerning Men fhall judiciously and strictly examine it, and in a manner demonftrate it to be an abominable Impofition, charging it with fuch Innumerable, horrid and manifest Abfurdities as neither common Senfe nor Reafon can allow, the maintainers of it being quite puzzled, confounded, and, as we fay, at their Wits end; they fy to, edv and unxars, the Tragedians contrivance, and shuffle all off with God's Omnipotence. Let us now a little confider the Doctrine of the Bodily Prefence according to these four Remarks of this Worthy Author. For many hundred years after Christ we meet with nothing of it expreffly taught by any of the reputed Fathers either Greek or Latin; but we every where find that the Communicants, out of a deep Senfe of Chrift's Spiritual Prefence, came to the Eucharift with a most fingular Devotion; bewailing their manifold Sins, and acknowledging their unworthiness; but yet profeffing their fteady Faith and Hope of God's Mercy and For Forgiveness through his gracious Promises declared in the Gofpel; and by thank- * p. 30. fully remembring that as they were first made Members of Chrift's Mystical Body, the Church, by their Baptifm, fo now by their hearty and real Repentance and firm Refolution of amendment of Life, they may be affured that they are Included and ftill continued in Chrift's glorious Covenant of Grace, which he himself fealed by his bitter Paffion, which they now most folemnly and reverently Commemorate. About seven hundred years after Chrift there arofe fome Doctors, who, leaving the usual Stile and Expreffions of the former Fathers, broached fome new Conceits of their own, amongst which I must reckon, the Dad of the Greek Schoolmen, (as we may juftly call them) John Damafcen. He departing from those Expreffions of the most primitive Fathers, that there was in the Eucharift an Earthly part, the Bread and Wine, and a Heavenly fanctification; by which they were indued with a fupernatural and purely Spiritual Effect upon the Communicants by the divine Operation of the Holy Ghoft; I fay, he leaving this Original explication of Chrift's Inftitution, cither by mistake or a meer new Conceit of his own, made two distinct Subftances in it; true Bread and Wine ftill remaining in the Eucharist, and Chrift's Divine or Glorified Body and Blood united to them, or there Coexiftent with them. For he compares them to the Coal that toucht Efaiah's 1. 6. 6. Lips, and faith, as that was not, úλov Xitoy, plain or common Wood, but.4.Orthod. fid. P. 318. c. 14. Wood united to Fire; fo Bread at the Communion is not, agr Tos, plain Bread but united, JóTTI, to Divinity, (or as he call'd it a little before) to oμa p. 317. Tổ nugis Telewμévor, the Lord's Deified Body. Now faith he, a Body united to Divinity is not one Nature; there is one Nature of the Body and another Nature of the Divinity which is united to it; fo that both thefe together are not one Nature but two. Therefore, according to him, the Bread is Bread fill, but not common by reafon of its union with Chrift's glorified Body. And a little p. 318. after he faith, it is the Body and Blood of Chrift tending to the Conftitution, or Support, both of our Soul and Body, not being confumed or corrupted, nor going into the draught, God forbid; but into our Subftance and Confer- p. 31. vation, being as a (facred Amulet, àμuuThgion, or) Prefervative from all manner of harm, and a purge, (or Cleanfer,) from all Filthiness. He still owns two distinct Substances, Bread proper for our Bodies, and Chrift's corporeal Prefence join'd to it, helpfull both to our Bodies and Souls; as he there illuftrates it, by adulterated Gold when it is purified, the Fire that is in it worketh quite another Effect then the Gold, to which it is united, could of it felf produce. So he elfewhere explains it by red hot Iron, and again. ., c. 17. p. more fully by a red hot Sword, which cuts as it is a Sword, and at the 247. fame time burns by force of the Fire united to it. So I have noted elfe-3. c. 19. p. where, every Creature of God is good, but when (by what we call faving Tim. 4. 4. 5. Grace) it is farther Sanctified by the word of God and Prayer, the fame God, who first made it, can, and does, add to it a new Power of working Effects far above the natural Faculties and Virtues at first given to it at its Creation; thus it fared with Daniel and the three Children with him, who Dan. 1. 12, 13. were plentifully fuftained by only Pulfe and Water with the Bleffing and Afiftance of God. We commonly fay indeed, good Wits may Jump; but we oftner find fuceeding Ages, Reform, Refine, Advance and Improve the Conceits of those who have been before them; and thus it happen'd with the Latins. Damafcen's Notion being by some of them not fo well approved, there was this amazing Fancy propofed and embraced about the next Age; that there were not two diftinct Substances in the Eucharift, but that the very Subftance of the Bread and Wine were changed, and made the very Subftance of the real Body and Blood of Chrift. Whether Pafchafius, (as many topping Papalins themselves do pofitively affert) gave the first hint, or was the first Author of it, I fhall not now concern my self; but all the World may fee how prodigiously the Hot-headed Schoolmen have beat their Brains 256. * p. 31. Brains about this monstrous Point, running (as the vulgar faying is,) an endless wild-goofe chafe after it, all cackling and Skreaking confusedly amongst themselves. In following Ages there were Men of another mould, who unwarily, and varioufly, revived Damafcen's Opinion of two Substances in the Eucharift; but there arofe alfo amongst them an Irreconcileable fquabble about the Ubiquity or Nonubiquity (as they call it,) the actual Bodily Prefence or Abfence of Chrift, in, with, or about the Bread on every Altar, and at every time and place, when, and where, the Eucharift was Celebrated. All this therefore is very fufficient to perfwade me, not only that it was poffible for the Doctrine of Christ's Bodily Prefence at the Eucharift to have been brought into the Church after many Ages which before knew nothing of it; but that it really and actually was fo brought to pass, by taking both its Birth and Growth, from the reftless and prefumptuous Thoughts, of vain and daring Searchers after Mysteries. * p. 320 I have elsewhere noted that all thefe three Queftions, whether only, Chrift's Spiritual Prefence was in the Eucharift? Or whether his Bodily Prefence was there affo with the Elements? Or whether the Bread and Wine were defroy'd, and fo but one Substance remain'd, that is, very Chrift entire in their place? I fay thefe three Points were lookt upon as only difputable Problems in Pet. Lombard's days; and the laft was never made an Article of Faith till the Council of Lateran under P. Innocent the third. Now therefore if we duely examine it according to Morinus's fecond Remark, we need not wonder that by degrees even that crept into fome Mens minds, and at last gain'd fome confuled credit and affent. For first we fee that nothing is more natural to most Men, then, rò' qınómubor. the delight and love of hearing and telling ftrange Stories. From the first fatal curiofity of our Grandame Eve, we all more or less, hunger and thirst after Knowledge, be it good or evil. How eafily and how often do cunning crafty News-mongers amufe and cheat the World in managing their dark defigns, by plaufible Inventions of their own? And is it not as common and easy for fubtle Seminary Priefts to feduce Ignorant, Biggotted, credulous wretches in matters of Religion? How naturally do Men liften to Travailers who relate strange and prodigious wonders, which with most of them will fettle in their Memory though not fully in their Opinion? But as to this Article of Metoufiotism, how many Men of any Learning and Capacity fufficient fully to understand it (who were not themselves, before prejudiced, for it or against it,) have attempted to give us any plain, fincere and impartial account of its being believed in Eastern Countries? As for Merchants, and ordinary carelefs Gentlemen (who only affect the empty name of Men who have been in many Countries) they have other matters or pleasures in their Heads then to trouble themfelves with nice Metaphyfical Speculations about Religion. And fome perhaps may tell you that these and thofe People fay they hold a Corporeal Prefence of Christ in the Eucharift; (for all of them in this point, as in many others, go by meer hear fay,) but there is not one of either of them, or of the more learned. but unanimoufly will tell you of the most shamefull Ignorance and grofs ftupidity of the Laity, and of most of the Clergy, reigning in all places in the East wherever they have been, Therefore the reports of Merchants, and also the accounts of Travailers, concerning the manners and Fashions of Countries; as to Metoufiatifm must be, at most, very Imperfect and Uncertain; but as to the Peoples Ignorance, moft undoubtedly true. Moft pretended Chriftians have in them lome Natural fear for God, and a common fenfe and general Confcience of their Duty. It feems indeed to me morally Impoffible for any one abfolutely to chafe away, this Fear, or quite to extinguish this Light cither in himself or another; But we daily fee that nothing is more feasible and practicable then it is to heighten them, or a little to quicken thefe Embers, and fometimes to blow them up to fome greater warmth, wherever they are. From this very handle all Seminaries firft lay hold of their Profelites, and then by by the fame fecurely lead them on to their farther purposes. It is well known * p. 32. that profound Ignorance had miferably fpread it felf over the face of the Chriftian Church, in those Ages when this Article of Chrift's Bodily Prefence was first moved; Men then went fimply and formally on in the plain path of their Fathers; and both Priefts and People walkt after the common Customs and Rites of the Religion of their own Country; without any over curious Enquiry or nice Confideration of what was done any where elfe. Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, and other antient Languages were in a manner quite loft, and counted meer Barbarifm; and all Polite Learning was utterly neglected. Yet there was every where an outward Pomp, and great Ceremonious State of Religion kept up; and blind Devotion and Superftition, the natural Children of Ignorance, were multiplied exceedingly. Now Men of Parts, of feeming Piety, and some little Learning more then ordinary, must needs appear in thofe days as perfect Saints or new Apostles amongst fuch People; whatever they should dictate would be admired and followed as coming from an Oracle. How many Millions of good Primitive Chriftians, now in Heaven, came for above five hundred years to the Eucharift only as being a folemn Commemoration of Christ's Death for the Remiffion of their Sins, which there they most humbly acknowledged; and for which they as fervently beg'd his Pardon, believing and trusting in his affured Mercies; and folemnly and firmly refolved to forfake them all, with all expreffions of a hearty Devotion, firmly believing that Chrift, according to his most gracious Promife, was certainly there in the midst of them; never in the least dreaming in those days of any of the nice Speculations, and Inventions of Men, which arofe in following Ages, and are now very rife amongst us. Thus it was not impoffible in after times of Ignorance quite to change the very Effentials of Religion, for it hath by degrees been actually done. A plain good Man who for a long time with hearty forrow confeffing to God his unworthinefs, and refolving ftedfaftly to repent, had reverently received the facred Elements only in Memory of Chrift's dying for his Sins, and rufting in his Mercy had given him Thanks from his very Soul; when he heard thefe Metufiots Men in thofe later days earnestly tell him that Christ's very Body and Blood, nay, that Chrift himself was really and entirely there, under only the outward appearance of Bread and Wine, without any farther Confideration, poor Man, he will with Fear and Trembling be elevated into a perfect Extasy; especially when to prove all this they feriously relate unto him, how that many times the Confecrated Bread in fight of all the People hath vanish'd quite away, and a little living Infant hath appear'd in its place; that very often from the Bread hath iffued perfect Blood upon the Patine; and ten thoutand more fuch wonderfull Miracles and Vifions and Apparitions, with which the Metufiots Books are filled both in the Eaft and Weft. I have elsewhere mention'd a fair but little Latin MS. of my own, which formerly belong'd to St. Edmund's Bury Abbey in Suffolk; it is about four hundred years old; amongst about fifty Legends therein contain'd, I will give you this fhort extract out of one of them, it being fo fully to this Point. One Duke Peyter's Wife had Num. 325 ⚫ a grudge against one of her Neighbours. Communicating at Eafter the privatly kept the Hoftia, or Bread, (fo I perceive that in thofe days it was taken in the Hand of the Communicants, and not put into their Mouths) • and putting it at home into a Box, fhe faid to it, I know that you are my Creator in the shape of Bread, you shall revenge me of any Adversary, or I will use you worse then the Jews did. After three or four days finding no revenge made her, the put the Hoftia, (holy Bread) mixt with the loathfome Excrements of Man and Beaft into a hollow place of a Tree in her • Orchard. Next year the Tree flourished prodigiously, bringing forth plenty ' of Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit, all most miraculously fragrant; yet this was not perceived but only by fuch as were firft Confeft. The Lady Dutchess laught, and faid all was a meer Phantom. But being at laft perfwaded by the Archbishop to Confess, the punctually told every thing which she had 4 e 2 :done; * p. 33 |