* Since Christ himself affirms thus of the bread, This is my body; who is so daring as to doubt of it? And since he affirms, This is my blood; who will deny that it is his blood? At Cana of Galilee, he, by an act of his will, turned water into wine, which resembles blood; and is he not then to be credited when he changes wine into blood? Therefore, full of certainty, let is receive the body and blood of Christ : for, under the form of bread, is given to thee his body, and, under the from of wine, his blood."* St. Ambrose thus argues with his spiritual chil dien, "Perhaps you will say, Why do you tell me that I receive the body of Christ, when I see quite another thing? We have this point therefore to prove. How many examples do we produce to show you, that this is not what nature made it, but what the benediction has consecrated it; and that the benediction is of greater force than nature, because, by the benediction, nature itself is changed Moses cast his rod on the ground, and it became a serpent; he caught hold of the serpent's tail, and it recovered the nature of a rod. The rivers of Egypt, &c. Thou hast read of the creation of the world: If Christ, by his word, was able to make something out of nothing, shall he not be thought able to change one thing into another ?"t But I have quoted enough from the ancient fathers to refute the rash assertions of the two modern bishops.

True it is that Pascasius Radbert, an abbot of the ninth cenury, writing a treatise on the eucharist, for the instruction of his novices, maintains the real corporal presence of Christ in it, out so far from teaching a novelty, he professes to say nothing out what all the world believes and professes. The truth of this appeared, when Berengarius, in the eleventh century, among other errors, denied the real presence; for then the whole church rose up against him: he was attacked by a whole host of eminent writers, and among others by our archbishop Lanfranc; all of whom, in their respective works, appeal to the belief of all nations; and Berengarius was condemned in no less than eleven councils. I have elsewhere shown the absolute impossibility of the Christians of all the nations in the world being persuaded iro a belief, of that sacrament which they were in the habit of receiving, being the living Christ, if they had before held it to be nothing but an inanimate memorial of him; though, even by another impossibility, all the clergy of the nations were to com bine together for effecting this. On the other hand it is incon testible, and has been carried to the highest degree of moral evi

Catech. Mystagog. 4. + De his qui Myst. Init. c. 9 "Quod totus orbis credit et confitetur." See Perpetuité de la Foi.

dence," that all the Christians of all the nations of the world Greeks as well as Latins, Africans as well as Europeans, except Frotestants and a handful of Vaudois peasants have, in all ages, believed and still believe in the real presence and transubstanti

ation.

I am now, dear sir, about to produce evidence of a different nature, I mean Protestant evidence, for the main point under consideration, the real presence. My first witness is no other than the father of the pretended Reformation, Martin Luther himself. He tells us how very desirous he was, and how much he laboured in his mind to overthrow this doctrine, because, says he, (observe his motive,) "I clearly saw how much I should thereby injure Popery; but I found myself caught, without any way of escaping for the text of the Gospel was too plain for this purpose." Hence he continued, till his death, to condemr those Protestants who denied the corporal presence, employing for this purpose sometimes the shafts of his coarse ridicule,‡ and sometimes the thunder of his vehement declamation and anachemas. To speak now of former eminent bishops and divines of the establishment in this country; it is evident from their works that many of them believe firmly in the real presence such as the bishops Andrews, Bilson, Morton, Laud, Montague, Sheldon, Gunning, Forbes, Bramhall and Cosin, to whom I shal add the justly esteemed divine, Hooker, the testimonies of whom, for the real presence, are as explicit as Catholics themselves can wish them to be. I will transcribe in the margin a few words from each of the three last named authors. The near, or rather

See in particular the last named victorious work, which has proved the conversion of many Protestants, and among the rest of a distinguished churchman now living.

+ Epist. ad Argenten. tom. 4. fol. 502. Ed. Witten.

In one place he says, that "The Devil seems to have mocked those, to whom he has suggested a heresy so ridiculous and contrary to Scripture, as that of the Zuinglians," who explained away the words of the institution in a figurative way. He elsewhere compares these glosses with the following translation of the first words of Scripture: In principio Deus creavil sælum et terram:- In the beginning the cuckoo at the sparrow and his feathers. Def. Verb. Dom.

§ On one occasion he calls those who deny the real and corporal preence; "A damned sect, lying heretics, bread-breakers, wine-drinkers, and soul-destroyers." In Parv. Catech. On other occasions he says: "They are indevilized and superdevilized." Finally he devotes them to everlasting flames, and builds his own hopes of finding mercy at the tribu nal of Christ on his having, with all his soul, condemned Carlostad, Zuinglius, and other believers in the symbolical presence.

Bishop Bramhall writes thus: "No genuine son of the church (of Eng land) did ever deny a true, real presence. Christ said: This is my body.

close approach of these and other eminent Protestant divines to the constant doctrine of the Catholic church, on this principal subject of modern controversy, is evidently to be ascribed to the perspicuity and force of the declaration of Holy Scripture concerning it. As to the holy fathers, they received this, with her other doctrines, from the apostles, independently of Scripture: for, before even St. Matthew's Gospel was promulgated, the sac rifice of the mass was celebrated, and the body and blood of Christ distributed to the faithful throughout a great part of the known world.

In finishing this letter I must make an important remark on the object or end of the institution of the blessed sacrament: this our divine master tells us was to communicate a new and special grace, or life, as he calls it, to us his disciples of the new law. The bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same shall also live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth this bread shall

live for ever. John vi. 52, 58, 59. He explains, in the same passage, the particular nature of this spiritual life, and shows in what it consists, namely, in an intimate union with him, where he says, He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in him. Ver. 57. Now the servants of God, from the beginning of the world, had striking figures and memorials of the promised Messiah, the participation of which, by faith and devotion, was, in a limited degree, beneficial to their souls ; such were the tree of life, the various sacrifices of the patriarchs and those of the Mosaic Law, but more particularly the Paschal Lamb, the loaves of proposition, and the manna of which Christ here speaks still, these signs, in their very institution, were so many promises, on the part of God, that he would bestow and what he said we steadfastly believe. He said neither CON nor SUB nor TRANS: therefore we place these among the opinions of schools, not among the articles of faith." Answer to Militiaire, p. 74.—Bishop Cosin is not less explicit in favour of the Catholic doctrine. He says: "It is a monstrous error to deny that Christ is to be adored in the eucharist We confess the necessity of a supernatural and heavenly change, and that the signs cannot become sacraments but by the infinite power of God. If any one make a bare figure of the sacrament we ought not to suffer him in our churches." Hist. of Transub. Lastly, the profound Hooker expresses himself thus; "I wish men would give themselves more to meditate, with silence, on what we have in the sacrament, and less to dispute of the inanner how. Sith we all agree that Christ, by the sacrament, doth really and truly perform in us his promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce contentions whether by consubstantiation, or else by transubstan tiation?" Eccles, Polit. B. v. 67

проп his people the thing signified by them; even that incarnate Deity, who is at once our victim and our food, and who gives spiritual life to the worthy communicants, not in a limited measure, but indefinitely, according to each one's preparation. The same tender love which made him shroud the rays of his divinity and take upon himself the form of a servant, and the likeness of man, in his incarnation; and become as a worm and not a man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people, in his immolation on Mount Calvary, has caused him to descend a step lower, and to conceal his human nature also, under the veils of our ordinary nourishment, that thus we may be able to salute him with our mouths and lodge him in our breasts; in order that we may thus, each one of us, ahide in him and he abide in us, for the life of our souls. No wonder that Protestants, who are strangers to these heavenly truths, and who are still immersed in the clouds

types and figures, not pretending to any thing more in their sacrament, than what the Jews possessed in their ordinances, should be comparatively so indifferent, as to the preparation for receiving it, and, indeed, as to the reception of it at all! No wonder that many of them, and among the rest An hony Ulric, duke of Brunswick,* should have reconciled themselves to the Catho lic church, chiefly for the benefit of exchanging the figure for the substance; the bare memorial of Christ, for his adorable body and blood.

REV. SIR,

LETTER XXXVIII.

To the Rev. ROBERT CLAYTON, M. A.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

THOUGH I had not received the letter with which you have honoured me, it was my intention to write to Mr. Brown, by way of answering bishop Porteus's objections against the Catholic doctrine of the blessed eucharist. As you, Rev. sir, have in some manner adopted those objections, I address my answer to you.

You begin with the bishop's arguments from Scripture, and say, that the same divine personage who says, Take, eat, this is my body, elsewhere calls himself a door and a vine: hence you argue, that, as the two latter terms are metaphorical, so the first is also. I grant that Christ makes use of metaphors when he

Lettres d'un Docteur Allemand, par Scheffinacker, vol. i. p 393,

calls himself a door and a vine; but then he explains that they are metaphors, by saying, I am the door of the sheep, by me if any man enter he shall be saved, John x 9; and again, I am the vine, you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. John xv. 5. But, in the institution of the sacrament, though he was then making his last will, and bequeathing that legacy to his children which he had in his promise of it assured them should be meat indeed, and drink indeed; not a word falls from him to signify that his legacy is not to be understood in the plain sense of the terms he makes use of. Hence those incredulous Christians, who insist on allegorizing the texts in question, (professing at the same time to make the plain natural sense of Scripture their only rule of faith,) may allegorize every other part of the Holy Writ, as ridiculously as Luther has translated the first words of Genesis; and thus gain no certain knowledge from any part of it. His lordship adds, that the apostles did not understand this instiution literally, as they asked no questions, nor expressed any urprise concerning it. True, they did not: but then they had been present on a former occasion, at a scene in which the Jews, and even many of the disciples, expressed great surprise at the annunciation of this mystery, and asked, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? On that occasion we know that Christ tried the faith of his apostles, as to this mystery; when they generously answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.

You may quote, after Dr. Porteus, Christ's answer to the murmur of the Jews on this subject: Doth this offend you? If then you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. John vi. 63, 64. To this I answer, that if there were an apparent contradiction between this passage and those others in the same chapter, in which Christ so expressly affirms, that his flesh 18 MEAT INDEED, and his blood DRINK INDEED, it would only prove more clearly the necessity of inquiring into the doctrine of the Catholic church concerning them. But there is no such appearance of contradiction: on the contrary, our controvertists draw an argument from the first part of this passage, in favour of the real presence.* The utmost that can be deduced from the remaining part is, that Christ's inanimate flesh, manducated, like that of animals, according to the gross idea of the Jews, would not confer

Verité de la Relig. Cat. prouvée par l'Ecriture, par M. Des Mahıs, p. 163.