To the Sacred Records we may add the judgment of the Primitive Church. For those orthodox and holy Doctors of our holier religion, those great lights of the Catholic Church, do all clearly, constantly, and unanimously conspire in this, that the presence of the Body of CHRIST in the Sacrament is only mystic and spiritual. As for the entire annihilation of the substance of the Bread and the Wine, or that new and strange tenet of Transubstantiation, they did not so much as hear or speak any thing of it; nay, the constant stream of their doctrine doth clearly run against it, how great soever are the brags and pretences of the Papists to the contrary. And if you will hear them one by one, I shall bring some of their most noted passages only, that our labour may not be endless by rehearsing all that they have said to our purpose on this subject.

I shall begin with that holy and ancient Doctor, Justin Martyr, who is one of the first after the Apostles' times, whose undoubted writings are come to us. (A.D. 144.) What was believed at Rome and elsewhere in his time, concerning this holy mystery, may well be understood out of these his words: "After that the Bishop hath prayed and blessed, and the people said Amen, those whom we call Deacons or Ministers give to every one of them that are present a portion of the Bread and Wine; and that food we call the Eucharist, for we do not receive it as ordinary bread and wine." They received it as bread, yet not as common bread. And a little after: " By this food digested, our flesh and blood are fed, and we are taught that it is the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST." Therefore the substance of the bread remains, and remains corruptible food, even after the Consecration, which can in no wise be said of the immortal Body of CHRIST; for the Flesh of CHRIST is not turned into our flesh, neither doth it nourish it, as doth that food which is sacramentally called the Flesh of CHRIST. But the Flesh of CHRIST feeds our souls unto eternal life.

After the same manner, it is written by that holy Martyr Irenæus, Bishop much about the same time. (A.D. 160.) "The bread which is from the earth is no more common bread, after the invocation of God upon it, but is become the Eucharist, consisting of two parts, the one earthly, and the other heavenly." There would be nothing earthly if the substance of the bread were removed. Again: "As the grain of wheat falling in the ground, and dying, riseth again much increased, and then receiving the word of

GOD becomes the Eucharist; (which is the body and blood of CHRIST;) So likewise our bodies, nourished by it, laid in the ground and dissolved, shall rise again in their time." Again: "We are fed by the creature, but it is He himself that gives it. He hath ordained and appointed that Cup which is a creature, and His blood also, and that Bread which is a creature, and also His Body. And so when the Bread and the Cup are blessed by God's word, they become the Eucharist of the Body and Blood of CHRIST, and from them our bodies receive nourishment and increase." Now that our flesh is fed and increased by the natural Body of CHRIST, cannot be said without great impiety by themselves that hold Transubstantiation. For naturally nothing nourisheth our bodies but what is made flesh and blood by the last digestion, which it would be blasphemous to say of the incorruptible Body of CHRIST. Yet the sacred Elements, which in some manner are, and are said to be the Body and Blood of CHRIST, yield nourishment and increase to our bodies by their earthly nature, in such sort, that by virtue also of the heavenly and spiritual food which the faithful receive by means of the material, our bodies are fitted for a blessed Resurrection to immortal glory.

Tertullian, who flourished about the two hundredth year after CHRIST, when as yet he was Catholic, and acted by a pious zeal, wrote against Marcion the Heretic, who, amongst his other impious opinions, taught that CHRIST had not taken of the Virgin Mary the very nature and substance of a human body, but only the outward forms and appearances; out of which fountain the Romish Transubstantiators seem to have drawn their doctrine of accidents abstracted from their subject hanging in the air, that is, subsisting on nothing. Tertullian, disputing against this wicked heresy, draws an argument from the Sacrament of the Eucharist, to prove that CHRIST had not a phantastic and imaginary, but a true and natural body, thus: the figure of the Body of CHRIST proves it to be natural, for there can be no figure of a ghost or a phantasm. "But," saith he, "CHRIST having taken the Bread, and given it to his Disciples, made it his Body by saying, This is my Body, that is, the figure of my Body.' Now, it could not have been a figure except the Body was real, for a mere appearance, an imaginary phantasm, is not capable of a figure.” Each part of this argument is true, and contains a necessary con

clusion. For, 1. The bread must remain Bread, otherwise Marcion would have returned the argument against Tertullian, saying as the Transubstantiators, it was not bread, but merely the accidents of bread, which seemed to be bread. 2. The Body of CHRIST is proved to be true by the figure of it, which is said to be bread, for the bread is fit to represent that Divine Body, because of its nourishing virtue, which in the bread is earthly, but in the Body is heavenly. Lastly, the reality of the Body is proved by that of its figure; and so if you deny the substance of the Bread, (as the Papists do,) you thereby destroy the truth and reality of the Body of CHRIST in the Sacrament.

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Origen also, about the same time with Tertullian, speaks much after the same manner. "If CHRIST," saith he, as these men (the Marcionites falsely hold, had neither Flesh nor Blood, of what manner of Flesh, of what Body, of what Blood did He give the signs and images when He gave the Bread and Wine ?" If they be the signs and representations of the Body and Blood of CHRIST, though they prove the truth of His Body and Blood, yet they being signs, cannot be what they signify; and they not being what they represent, the groundless contrivance of Transubstantiation is overthrown. Also upon Leviticus he doth expressly oppose it thus: " Acknowledge ye that they are figures, and therefore spiritual, not carnal; examine and understand what is said, otherwise if you receive as things carnal, they will hurt, but not nourish you. For in the Gospel there is the Letter, which kills him that understands not spiritually what is said; for if you understand this saying according to the Letter, Except you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood,' the Letter will kill you." Therefore as much as these words belong to the eating and drinking of CHRIST'S Body and Blood, they are to be understood mystically and spiritually.

St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, a glorious martyr of CHRIST, (A.D. 250.) wrote a famous Epistle to Cæcilius concerning the sacred Chalice in the LORD's Supper, whereof this is the sum; "Let that cup which is offered to the people in commemoration of CHRIST be mixt with wine," (against the opinion of the Aquarii, who were for water only,)" for it cannot represent the Blood of CHRIST when there is no wine in the cup, because the Blood of CHRIST is exprest by the Wine, as the faithful are understood

by the Water." But the patrons of Transubstantiation have neither Wine nor Water in the Chalice they offer; and yet without them (especially the wine appointed by our blessed SAVIOUR, and whereof Cyprian chiefly speaks,) the Blood of CHRIST is not so much as sacramentally present. So far was the Primitive Church from any thing of believing a corporal presence of the Blood, the Wine being reduced to nothing, (that is to a mere accident without the substance,) for then they must have said, that the Water was changed into the people, as well as the Wine into the Blood. But there is no need that I should bring many testimonies of that Father, when all his writings do plainly declare that the true substance of the Bread and Wine is given in the Eucharist; that the spiritual and quickening food which the faithful get from the Body and Blood of CHRIST, and the mutual union of the whole people joined into one body may answer their type, the Sacrament which represents them.

Those words of the Council of Nice, (A.D. 325.) are well known, whereby the faithful are called from the consideration of the outward visible Elements of Bread and Wine, to attend the inward and spiritual act of the mind, whereby CHRIST is seen and apprehended. "Let not our thoughts dwell low, on that Bread and that Cup which are set before us, but lifting up our minds by faith, let us consider, that on this sacred Table is laid the Lamb of GOD which taketh away the sins of the world. And receiving truly His precious Body and Blood, let us believe these things to be the pledges and emblems of our resurrection ; for we do not take much, but only a little (of the Elements,) that we may be mindful we do it not for satiety but for sanctification." Now, who is there, even among the maintainers of Transubstantiation, that will understand this not much, but a little, of the Body of CHRIST; or who can believe that the Nicene Fathers would call His Body and Blood symbols in a proper sense, when nothing can be an image or a sign of itself? And, therefore, though we are not to rest in the Elements, minding nothing else (for we should consider what is chiefest in the Sacrament, that we have our hearts lifted unto the LORD, who is given together with the signs,) yet Elements they are, and the earthly part of the Sacrament, both the Bread and the Wine, which destroys Transubstantiation.

St. Athanasius, famous in the time, and present in the Assem

bly of the Nicene Council, a stout Champion of the Catholic faith, acknowledgeth none other but a spiritual manducation of the Body of CHRIST in the Sacrament. "Our LORD," saith he,

"made a difference betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit, that we might understand that what He said was not carnal but spiritual. For how many men could His Body have fed, that the whole world should be nourished by it? But therefore He mentioned His ascension into heaven, that they might not take what He said in a corporal sense, but might understand that His flesh whereof He spake is a spiritual and heavenly food given by Himself from on high; for the words that I spake unto you they are spirit, and they are life, as if He should say, My Body which is shown and given for the world, shall be given in food, that it may be distributed spiritually to every one, and preserve them all to the resurrection to eternal life." Cardinal Perron having nothing to answer to these words of this holy Father, in a kind of despair rejects the whole Tractate, and denies it to be Athanasius's, which nobody ever did before him, there being no reason for it.

Likewise, St. Ambrose (A.D. 380), explaining what manner of alteration is in the Bread, when in the Eucharist it becomes the Body of CHRIST, saith, "Thou hast indeed a being, but wert an old creature, but being now baptized or consecrated, thou art become a new creature." The same change that happens to man in baptism, happens to the Bread in the Sacrament: if the nature of man is not substantially altered by the new birth, no more is the Bread by consecration. Man becomes by baptism, not what nature made him, but what grace new-makes him; and the Bread becomes by consecration, not what it was by nature, but what the blessing consecrates it to be. For nature made only a mere man, and made only common bread; but Regeneration, of a mere man, makes a holy man, in whom CHRIST dwells spiritually; and likewise the Consecration of common Bread makes Mystic and Sacramental bread. Yet this change doth not destroy nature, but to nature adds grace; as is yet more plainly exprest by that holy Father in the fore-cited place. "Perhaps thou wilt say," saith he, "this my bread is common bread; it is bread indeed before the blessing of the Sacrament, but when it is consecrated it becomes the Body of CHRIST. This we are therefore to declare, how