eight, this doctrine was not known during those first ages; and that the great filence about it for fo long a time, is a very ftrong presumption, that in all that time this doctrine was not thought of.

The laft of thofe confiderations that I fhall offer, which are of the nature of prefumptive proofs, is, that there are a great many rites and other practices, that have arisen out of this doctrine as its natural confequences, which were not thought of for a great many ages; but that have gone on by a perpetual progrefs, and have increased very fruitfully, ever fince this doctrine was received. Such are the elevation, adoration, and proceffions, together with the doctrine of concomitance, and a vaft number of rites and rubrics; the firft occafions and beginnings of which are well known. These did all arife from this doctrine, it being natural, especially in the ages of ignorance and fuperftition, for men upon the fuppofition of Chrift's being corporally prefent, to run out into all poffible inventions of pomp and magnificence about this facrament; and it is very reasonable to think, fince these things are of fo late and fo certain a date, that the doctrine upon which they are founded is not much ancienter.

The great fimplicity of the primitive forms, not only as they are reported by Juftin Martyr and Tertullian in the ages of the poverty and perfecutions of the Church, but as they are reprefented to us in the fourth and fifth centuries by Cyril of Jerufalem, the Conftitutions, and the pretended Areopagite, have nothing of that air that appears in the latter ages. The facrament was then given in both kinds; it was put in the hands of the faithful; they referved fome portions of it: it was given to children for many ages: the laity and even boys were employed to carry it to dying penitents; what remained of it was burnt in fome places, and confumed by the clergy, and by children in other places; the making cataplafms of it, the mixing the wine with ink, to fign the condemnation of heretics, are very clear prefumptions that this doctrine was not then known.

But above all, their not adoring the facrament, which is not done to this day in the Greek Church, and of which there is no mention made by all those who writ of the offices of the Church in the eighth and ninth centuries fo copioufly; this, I fay, of their not adoring it, is perhaps more than a prefumption, that this doctrine was not then thought on. But fince it was established, all the old forms and rituals have been altered, and the adoring the facrament is now become the main act of devotion and of

religious

ART.

XXVIII.

ART. religious worship among them. One ancient form is in XXVIII. deed ftill continued, which is of the strongest kind of pre

fumptions that this doctrine came in much later than fome other fuperftitions which we condemn in that Church. In the maffes that are appointed on Saints-days, there are fome collects in which it is faid, that the facrifice is offered up in honour to the Saint; and it is prayed, that it may become the more valuable and acceptable, by the merits and interceffions of the Saint. Now when a practice will well agree with one opinion, but not at all with another, we have all poffible reafon to prefume at least, that at first it came in under that opinion with which it will agree, and not under another which cannot confift with it. Our opinion is, that the facrament is a federal act of our Christianity, in which we offer up our highest devotions to God through Chrift, and receive the largest returns from him: it is indeed a fuperftitious conceit to celebrate this to the honour of a Saint; but howfoever upon the fuppofition of Saints hearing our prayers, and interceding for us, there is ftill good fenfe in this: but if it is believed that Chrift is corporally prefent, and that he is offered up in it, it is against all fenfe, and it approaches to blafphemy, to do this to the honour of a Saint, and much more to defire that this, which is of infinite value, and is the foundation of all God's bleffings to us, fhould receive any addition or increase in its value or acceptation from the merits or interceffion of Saints. So this, though a late practice, yet does fully evince, that the doctrine of the corporal prefence was not yet thought on, when it was firft brought into the office.

So far I have gone upon the prefumptions that may be offered to prove that this doctrine was not known to the ancients. They are not only juft and lawful prefumptions, but they are fo ftrong and violent, that when they are well confidered, they force an affent to that which we infer from them. I go next to the more plain and direct proofs that we find of the opinion of the ancients in this matter.

They call the elements bread and wine after the confeApolog. 2. cration. Juftin Martyr calls them bread and wine, and a nourishment which nourifbed: he indeed fays it is not common bread and wine; which fhews that he thought it was ftill fo in fubftance: and he illuftrates the fanctification of the elements by the incarnation of Chrift, in which the human nature did not lofe or change its fubftance by its union with the divine: fo the bread and the wine do not, according to that explanation, lose their proper fubflance, when they become the flesh and blood of Chrift.

Irenæus

Irenæus calls it that bread over which thanks are given, ART. and says, it is no more common bread, but the Eucharift con- XXVIII. fifting of two things, an earthly and a heavenly.

Hær. c. 34

Tertullian, arguing against the Marcionites, who held Lib. iv. de two Gods, and that the Creator of this earth was the bad Lib. i. adGod; but that Chrift was contrary to him; urges against ver. them this, that Chrift made ufe of the creatures and Marcion. C. 14. Lib. fays, he did not reject bread by which he represents his own iii. adver. body and in another place he fays, Chrift calls bread bis Marcion. body, that from thence you may understand, that he gave c. 19. the figure of his body to the bread.

:

Origen fays, we eat of the loaves that are fet before us: Lib. viii. Which by prayer are become a certain boly body, that fan&i- contra Celfies thofe who use them with a found purpose.

fum.

St. Cyprian fays, Chrift calls the bread that was com- Ep. 76. pounded of many grains, his body; and the wine that is preffed out of many grapes, his blood, to fhew the union of bis people. And in another place, writing against those who Ep. 63. ufed only water, but no wine, in the Eucharift, he says, We cannot fee the blood by which we are redeemed, when avine is not in the chalice; by which the blood of Christ is fberved.

Epiphanius being to prove that man may be faid to be In Ancho made after the image of God, though he is not like him, reto. urges this, That the bread is not like Chrift, neither in bis invifible Deity, nor in bis incarnate likeness, for it is round and without feeling as to its virtue.

mon;

Baptif.
Chrifti.

Gregory Nyffen fays, the bread in the beginning is com- In orat. de but after the mystery bas confecrated it, it is jaid to be, and is, the body of Chrift: to this he compares the fanctification of the myftical oil, of the water in baptism, and the ftones of an altar, or church, dedicated to God.

St. Ambrofe calls it ftill bread; and fays, this bread is De Benemade the food of the Saints.

dict. Patriarch.

St. Chryfoftom on these words, the bread that we break, c. 9. fays, What is the bread? The body of Chrift: What are Hom. 14. in they made to be who take it? The body of Christ. Which Ep. ad Cor. fhews that he confidered the bread as being fo the body of Chrift, as the worthy receivers became his body; which is done, not by a change of fubftance, but by a fanctification of their natures.

St. Matt.

St. Jerome fays, Chrift took bread, that as Melchifedec had Comm. in in the figure offered bread and wine, be might also reprefent c. 26. the truth (that is in opposition to the figure) of bis body and blood.

St. Auguftin does very largely compare the facraments Cit. apud being called the body and blood of Chrift, with thofe Fulgent. de other Baptifmo,

ART. other places in which the Church is called his body, and XXVIII. all Chriftians are his members: which fhews that he

Aug.Ep.23.

ad Bonifac.

thought the one was to be understood myftically as well as the other. He calls the Eucharift frequently our daily bread, and the facrament of bread and wine. All thefe call the Eucharift bread and wine in exprefs words: but when they call it Cbrift's body and blood, they call it fo after a fort, or that it is faid to be, or with fome other mollifying expreffion.

St. Auguftin fays this plainly, after fome fort the facraSerm. 2. in ment of the body of Chrift is bis body, and the facrament of bis blood is the blood of Chrift; be carried himself in his own bands in fome fort, when be faid, This is my body.

Pfal. 33.

Chryf. Ep.

in Comm.

St. Chryfoftom fays, the bread is thought worthy to be ad Cæfar, et called the body of our Lord: and in another place, reckoning up the improper fenfes of the word fleb, he says, the Scriptures ufe to call the myfteries (that is, the facrament) by the name of flesh, and fometimes the whole Church is faid to be the body of Chrift.

in Ep. ad Gal. c. 5.

Tertul. Lib. iv. adv.

Marc. c.40.

So Tertullian fays, Chrift calls the bread bis body, and names the bread by his body.

The Fathers do not only call the confecrated elements bread and wine; they do alfo affirm, that they retain their proper nature and fubftance, and are the fame thing as to their nature, that they were before. And the occafion upon which the paffages, that I go next to mention, are used by them, does prove this matter beyond contradiction.

Apollinaris did broach that herefy which was afterwards put in full form by Eutyches; and that had fo great a party to fupport it, that as they had one General Council (a pretended one at leaft) to favour them, fo they were condemned by another. Their error was, that the human nature of Chrift was fwallowed up by the divine, if not while he was here on earth, yet at least after his afcenfion to heaven. This error was confuted by feveral writers who lived very wide one from another, and at a distance of above a hundred years one from another. St. Chryfoftom at Conftantinople, Theodoret in Afia, Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch, and Gelafius Bishop of Rome. All those write to prove, that the human nature did ftill remain in Chrift, not changed, nor fwallowed up, but only fanctified by the divine nature that was united to it. They do all fall into one argument, which very probably Epift. ad those who came after St. Chryfoftom took from him: fo Cefarium. that though both Theodoret and Gelafius's words are much fuller, yet because the argument is the fame with

that

XXVIII.

that which St. Chryfoftom had urged against Apollinaris, ART. I fhall firft fet down his words. He brings an illustration from the doctrine of the Sacrament, to fhew that the human nature was not deftroyed by its union with the divine; and has upon that these words, As before the bread is fanctified, we call it bread; but when the divine grace bas fanctified it by the means of the Priest, it is freed from the name of bread, and is thought worthy of the name of the Lord's body, though the nature of bread remain in it: and yet it is not faid there are two bodies, but one body of the Son: fo the divine nature being joined to the body, both these make one Son and one Perfon.

Ephrem of Antioch fays, The body of Chrift received by In Photi. the faithful, does not depart from its fenfible fubftance: Jo Bibli. Cod. baptifm, fays he, does not lofe its own fenfible fubftance, and does not lofe that which it was before.

229A

cont. Eu

tych.

Theodoret fays, Chrift does honour the fymbols with the Dial. 1. name of his body and blood; not changing the nature, but add- et 2. ing grace to nature. In another place, purfuing the fame argument, he fays, The myftical fymbols after the fan&tification do not depart from their own nature: for they continue in their former fubftance, figure, and form, and are visible and palpable as they were before: but they are underflood to be that which they are made.

Pope Gelafius fays, The facraments of the body and blood Lib. de of Chrift are a divine thing; for which reafon we become by duabus nat. them partakers of the divine nature: and yet the fubftance of Christ. bread and wine does not ceafe to exift: and the image and likeness of the body and blood of Chrift are celebrated in boly myfteries. Upon all these places being compared with the defign with which they were written, which was to prove that Chrift's human nature did ftill fubfift, unchanged, and not swallowed up by its union with the Divinity, fome reflections are very obvious: Firft, if the corporal prefence of Chrift in the facrament had been then received in the Church, the natural and unavoidable argument in this matter, which muft put an end to it, with all that believed fuch corporal prefence, was this: Chrift has certainly a natural body ftill, because the bread and the wine are turned to it; and they cannot be turned to that which is not. In their writings they argued against the poffibility of a fubftantial change of a human nature into the divine; but that could not have been urged by men who believed a fubftantial mutation to be made in the facrament: for then the Eutychians might have retorted the argument with great advantage upon them.

The