CHAPTER VI.

Shews more at large that the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church is inconsistent with transubstantiation, and answers the Romish objections vainly alleged out of antiquity.

1. MANY more proofs out of ancient records might have been added to those we have hitherto brought, for a thousand years; but we, desiring to be brief, have omitted them in each century. As in the first, after the holy Scriptures, the works of Clemens Romanus, commended by the papists themselves, and those of St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch and martyr, are much against transubstantiation.* In the second likewise, St. Theophilus, fourth bishop of Antioch after Ignatius; Athenagoras and Tatianus, scholars to Justin Martyr. In the third, Clemens Alexandrinus, tutor to Origen; and Minutius Felix, a Christian orator. In the fourth, Eusebius bishop of Cesarea, Juvencus a Spanish priest, Macarius Ægyptius, St. Hilary bishop of Poictiers, Optatus bishop of Milevis, Eusebius Emissenus, Gregorius Na

[* The passages to which reference is made in the commencement of this chapter are, for avoiding confusion, printed in the Appendix.]

zianzenus, Cyrillus Alexandrinus, Epiphanius Salaminensis, St. Hierom, Theophilus Alexandrinus, and Gaudentius bishop of Brixia. In the fifth, Sedulius a Scotch priest, Gennadius Massiliensis, and Faustus bishop of Regium. In the sixth, Fulgentius Africanus, Victor Antiochenus, Primasius bishop, and Procopius Gazeus. In the seventh, Hesychius priest in Jerusalem, and Maximus abbot of Constantinople. In the eighth, Johannes Damascenus. In the ninth, Nicephorus the patriarch, and Hincmarus archbishop of Rheims. Lastly, in the tenth, Fulbert bishop of Chartres. And, to complete all, to these single fathers we may add whole councils of them; as that of Ancyra, of Neocesarea, and besides the first of Nice, which I have mentioned, that of Laodicea, of Carthage, of Orleans, the fourth of Toledo, that of Bracara, the sixteenth of Toledo, and that of Constantinople in Trullo. Out of all these appears most certain, that the infection of the doctrine of transubstantiation was not yet spread over the Christian world; but that the sound doctrine of the body and blood of Christ, and of their true (yet spiritual, not carnal) presence in the eucharist, with the elements, still the same in substance after consecration, was everywhere owned and maintained. And though the fathers used both ways of speaking (that is, that the bread and wine are the true body and blood

of Christ, and that, their substance still remaining, they are signs, types, resemblances, and pledges of them, images, figures, similitudes, representations, and samplers of them), yet there was no contrariety or diversity in the sense. For they were not so faithless as to believe, that these are only natural elements, or bare signs; and they were not of so gross and so dull an apprehension as not to distinguish betwixt the sacramental and mystic, and the carnal and natural presence of Christ, as it is now maintained by the patrons of transubstantiation. For in this they understood no other change than that which is common to all sacraments, whereby the outward natural part is said to be changed into the inward and divine, only because it represents it truly and efficaciously, and makes all worthy receivers partakers thereof; and because, by the virtue of the Holy Spirit, and of Christ's holy institution, the elements obtain those divine excellencies and prerogatives, which they cannot have of their own nature. And this is it which was taught and believed, for above a thousand years together, by pious and learned antiquity concerning this most holy mystery.

2. There are also some other things whereby we may understand that the ancients did not believe transubstantiation, or that the presence of the body and blood of Christ is so inseparably

tied to the accidents of bread and wine, that Christ must needs be present as long as those accidents retain any resemblance of bread and wine, even when they are not put to that use appointed by divine institution. For it is certain that it was the custom of many of the ancients "to burn what remained of the bread and wine after the communion was ended:"* and who can believe that any Christian should dare or be willing to burn his Lord and Saviour, in body and blood, though it were never so much in his power? Doubtless it would have been as horrid and detestable an action as was that of the perfidious Jews, for Christians, if they believed transubstantiation, to burn that very natural body which the Jews crucified, and which was born of the Virgin Mary. Therefore those Christians who used anciently to burn those fragments of the bread, and remains of the wine, which were not spent in the celebration of the sacrament, were far enough from holding the present faith and doctrine of Rome. The same appears further by the penalty threatened

A.D. 600. Hesychius in Levit. ii. 8. [Quod reliquum est de carnibus et panibus in igne incendi præcepit. Quod nunc videmus etiam sensibiliter in ecclesia fieri, ignique tradi quæcumque remanere contigerit inconsumpta. Biblioth. Patrum, tom. vii. p. 35, ed. 1618.] Spelman's Concilia Angl. tredecimus inter eos qui Bedæ titulum præferunt, A.D. 700, et sub Edgaro Rege, [can.] 38. A.D. 970 [p. 452].

by the canon to every clergyman "by whose neglect a mouse or any other creature should eat the sacrifice"* (that is, the consecrated bread). And who but an idiot, a man deprived of his reason, could ever believe that the natural body of Christ can be gnawed and even eaten by rats, or any brute creatures? This sorely perplexed the first maintainers of transubstantiation, who would invent any thing rather than own it possible, well knowing how abominable it is, and how dishonourable to Christian religion. Yet this is not inconsistent with the now Roman faith; nay, it necessarily follows from the tenet of transubstantiation, that the body of Christ may be in the belly of a mouse under the accidents of bread.†

*Conc. Arel. 3. A.D. 640. cit. a Gratiano de Consecr. dist. 2. [Qui bene non custodierit sacrificium, ut mus vel aliud aliquod animal illud comederit, xl. diebus pœniteat.]

+ Alex. de Ales. p. iv. q. 45. m. 1. art. 2. et q. 53. m. 3. [see below, vii. § 24.] Thom. in 3. q. 80. art. 3. [Dicendum quod etiamsi mus vel canis hostiam consecratam manducet, substantia corporis Christi non desinit esse sub speciebus, quamdiu species illæ manent: hoc est quamdiu substantia panis maneret, sicut etiam si projiceretur in lutum. Nec hoc vergit in detrimentum dignitatis corporis Christi, qui voluit a peccatoribus crucifigi absque diminutione suæ dignitatis: præsertim cum mus aut canis non tangat ipsum corpus Christi secundum propriam speciem, sed solum secundum species sacramentales. Quidam autem dixerunt, quod statim cum sacramentum tangitur a mure vel cane, desinit ibi esse corpus Christi. Quod etiam