into His Body and Blood. But Protestants who scorn to play the sophisters, interpret these and the like passages of the Fathers, with candour and ingenuity, (as it is most fitting they should.) For the expressions of Preachers, which often have something of a paradox, must not be taken according to that harsher sound wherewith they at first strike the auditor's ears. The Fathers spake not of any transubstantiated bread, but of the mystical and consecrated, when they used those sorts of expressions; and that for these reasons; 1. That they might extol and amplify the dignity of this mystery, which all true Christians acknowledge to be very great and peerless. 2. That communicants might not rest in the outward Elements, but seriously consider the thing represented, whereof they are most certainly made partakers, if they be worthy receivers. 3. And lastly, that they might approach so great a mystery with the more zeal, reverence, and devotion. And that those hyperbolic expressions are thus to be understood, the Fathers themselves teach clearly enough, when they come to interpret them.

5. Lastly, being the same holy Fathers who, (as the manner is to discourse of Sacraments,) speak sometimes of the Bread and Wine in the LORD's Supper, as if they were the very Body and Blood of CHRIST, do also very often call them types, elements, signs, the figure of the Body and Blood of CHRIST; from hence it appears most manifestly, that they were of the Protestants, and not of the Papists' opinion. For we can without prejudice to what we believe of the Sacrament, use those former expressions which the Papists believe, do most favour them, if they be understood, as they ought to be, sacramentally. But the latter none can use, but he must thereby overthrow the groundless doctrine of Transubstantiation; these two, the Bread is transubstantiated into the Body, and the Bread also is the type, the sign, the figure of the Body of CHRIST, being wholly inconsistent. For it is impossible that a thing that loseth its being should yet be the sign and representation of another; neither can any thing be the type and the sign of itself.

But if without admitting of a sacramental sense the words be used too rigorously, nothing but this will follow; that the Bread and Wine are really and properly the very Body and Blood of CHRIST, which they themselves disown, that hold Transubstantiation. Therefore in this change, it is not a newness of sub

stance, but of use and virtue that is produced; which yet the Fathers acknowledged with us, to be wonderful, supernatural, and proper only to GOD's Omnipotency; for that earthly and corruptible meat cannot become to us a spiritual and heavenly, the Communion of the Body and Blood of CHRIST, without GOD'S especial power and operation. And whereas it is far above philosophy and human reason, that CHRIST from Heaven, (where alone He is locally,) should reach down to us the divine virtue of His Flesh, so that we are made one body with Him; therefore it is as necessary as it is reasonable, that the Fathers should tell us, that we ought with singleness of heart to believe the Son of GOD, when He saith, This is My Body; and that we ought not to measure this high and holy mystery by our narrow conceptions, or by the course of nature. For it is more acceptable to GOD with an humble simplicity of faith to reverence and embrace the words of CHRIST, than to wrest them violently to a strange and improper sense, and with curiosity and presumption to determine what exceeds the capacity of men and Angels.

CHAPTER VII.

History of the rise of the Romish Doctrine of Transubstantiation.

WE have proved it before, that the leprosy of Transubstantiation did not begin to spread over the body of the Church in a thousand years after CHRIST. But at last the thousand years being expired, and Satan loosed out of his prison, to go and deceive the nations, and compass the camp of the Saints about, then, to the great damage of Christian peace and religion, they began here and there to dispute against the clear, constant, and universal consent of the Fathers, and to maintain the new-started opinion. It is known to them that understand History, what manner of times were then, and what were those Bishops who then governed the Church of Rome; Sylvester II. John XIX. and XX. Sergius IV. Benedictus VIII. John XXI. Benedict IX. Sylvester III. Gregory VI. Damasus II. Leo IX. Nicholas II.

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Gregory VII. or Hildebrand; who tore to pieces the Church of Rome with grievous schisms, cruel wars, and great slaughters. For the Roman Pontificate was come to that pass, that good men being put by, they whose life and doctrine was pious being oppressed, none could obtain that dignity, but they that could bribe best, and were most ambitious.

In that unhappy age the learned were at odds about the presence of the Body of CHRIST in the Sacrament; some defending the ancient doctrine of the Church, and some the new-sprungup opinion.

Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, (A. D. 1010.) was tutor to Berengarius, whom we shall soon have occasion to speak of, and his doctrine was altogether conformable to that of the Primitive Church, as appears clearly out of his Epistle to Adeodatus, wherein he teacheth, "That the mystery of faith in the Eucharist, is not to be looked on with our bodily eyes, but with the eyes of our mind. For what appears outwardly Bread and Wine, is made inwardly the Body and Blood of CHRIST; not that which is tasted with the mouth, but that which is relished by the heart's affection. "Therefore," saith he, " prepare the palate of thy faith, open the throat of thy hope, and enlarge the bowels of thy charity, and take that Bread of life which is the food of the inward man." Again, "The perception of a divine taste proceeds from the faith of the inward man, whilst by receiving the saving Sacrament, CHRIST is received into the soul." All this is against those who teach in too gross a manner, that CHRIST in this mystery enters carnally the mouth and stomach of the receivers.

Fulbert was followed by Berengarius, his scholar, Archdeacon of Angers in France, a man of great worth, by the holiness both of his life and doctrine.

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Berengarius stood up valiantly in defence of that doctrine which 170 years before, was delivered out of GOD's Word and the holy Fathers, in France, by Bertram, and John Erigena, and by others elsewhere, against those who taught that in the Eucharist neither Bread nor Wine remained after the Consecration. Yet he did not either believe or teach, (as many falsely and shamelessly have imputed to him,) that nothing more is received in the LORD'S Supper, but bare signs only, or mere Bread and Wine; but he

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believed and openly profest, as St. Austin and other faithful Doctors of the Church had taught out of God's Word, that in this mystery, the souls of the faithful are truly fed by the true Body and Blood of CHRIST to life eternal. Nevertheless it was neither his mind nor his doctrine, that the substance of the Bread and Wine is reduced to nothing, or changed into the substance of the natural Body of CHRIST; or, (as some then would have had the Church believe,) that CHRIST Himself comes down carnally from heaven. Entire books he wrote upon this subject, but they have been wholly supprest by his enemies, and now are not to be found. Yet what we have of him in his greatest enemy Lanfrank, I here set down; By the Consecration at the Altar the Bread and Wine are made a Sacrament of Religion; not to cease to be what they were, but to be changed into something else, and to become what they were not ;" agreeable to what St. Ambrose had taught. Again, "There are two parts in the Sacrifice of the Church, (this is according to St. Irenæus,) the visible Sacrament, and the invisible thing of the Sacrament; that is, the Body of CHRIST." Item, "The Bread and Wine which are consecrated, remain in their substance, having a resemblance with that whereof they are a Sacrament, for else they could not be a Sacrament." Lastly, "Sacraments are visible signs of divine things, but in them the invisible things are honoured." All this agrees well with St. Austin, and other Fathers above cited.

He did not therefore by this his doctrine exclude the Body of CHRIST from the Sacrament, but in its right administration hc joined together the thing signified with the sacred sign; and taught that the Body of CHRIST was not eaten with the mouth in a carnal way, but with the mind, and soul, and spirit. Neither did Berengarius alone maintain this orthodox and ancient doctrine; for Sigibert, William of Malmesbury, Matthew Paris, and Matthew of Westminster, make it certain, that almost all the French, Italians, and English of those times were of the same opinion; and that many things were said, writ, and disputed in its defence by many men; amongst whom was Bruno, then Bishop of the same Church of Angers. Now this greatly displeaseth the Papal faction, who took great care that those men's writings should not be delivered to posterity, and now do write, that the doctrine of Berengarius, owned by the Fathers, and maintained by many famous nations, skult only in some dark corner or other.

The first Pope who opposed himself to Berengarius was Leo the Ninth, a plain man indeed, but too much led by Humbert and Hildebrand. For as soon as he was desired, he pronounced sentence of excommunication against Berengarius absent and unheard; and not long after he called a council of Verceil, wherein John Erigena and Berengarius were condemned, upon this account, that they should say, that the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist are only bare signs; which was far from their thoughts, and further yet from their belief. This roaring therefore of the Lion frightened not Berengarius; nay, the Gallican Churches did also oppose the Pope, and his Synod of Verceil, and defend with Berengarius the oppressed truth.

To Leo succeeded Pope Victor the Second, who seeing Berengarius could not be cast down and crushed by the fulminations of his predecessor, sent his legate Hildebrand into France, and called another Council at Tours, where Berengarius being cited, did freely appear, and whence he was freely dismissed, after he had given it under his hand, that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrifice of the Church, are not shadows and empty figures; and that he held none other but the common doctrine of the Church concerning the Sacrament. For he did not alter his judgment, (as modern Papists give out,) but he persisted to teach and maintain the same doctrine as before, as Lanfrank complains of him.

Yet his enemies would not rest satisfied with this, but they urged Pope Nicholas the Second, who, (within a few months that Stephen the Tenth sate,) succeeded Victor without the Emperor's consent, to call a new Council at Rome against Berengarius. For, that sensual manner of presence, by them devised, to the great dishonour of CHRIST, being rejected by Berengarius, and he teaching as he did before, that the Body of CHRIST was not present in such a sort, as that it might be at pleasure brought in and out, taken into the stomach, cast on the ground, trod under foot, and bit or devoured by any beasts, they falsely charged him as if he had denied that it is present at all. An hundred and thirteen Bishops. came to the Council, to obey the Pope's Mandate; Berengarius came also. "And, (as Sigonius and Leo Ostiensis say,) when none present could withstand him, they sent for one Albericus, a Monk of Mount Cassin, made Cardinal by Pope Stephen:" who having asked seven days' time to answer in writing, brought at last his scroll against Berengarius. The reasons and arguments