FATAL TO THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION; ON THE VERY PRINCIPLE OF EXPOSITION, ADOPTED BY THE DIVINES OF THE ROMAN CHURCH, AND SUICIDALLY MAINTAINED BY DR. WISEMAN ASSOCIATED PRINCIPAL DOCTRINES AND PRACTICES OF THE (ROMAN) CATHOLIC CHURCH. BY GEORGE STANLEY FABER, B.D. MASTER OF SHERBURN HOSPITAL, AND PREBENDARY OF SALISBURY. Ἐγὼ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος ὁ ζῶν, ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβὰς. Ἐὰν τις φάγῃ ἐκ τού- PUBLISHED BY R. B. SEELEY AND W. BURNSIDE; FLEET STREET, LONDON. TO THE VERY REV. THOMAS TURTON, D.D. DEAN OF PETERBOROUGH AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. MY DEAR SIR, IN In your admirable Work on The Roman Catholic Doctrine of the Eucharist, you have so completely shewn the fallaciousness of Dr. Wiseman's mode of carrying out his Hermeneutic Principle of Philology in the case of our Lord's Discourse at Capernaum, that the subject may well be deemed altogether exhausted. But there is another aspect, under which the interpretation of that Discourse may be con b ducted, and which I cannot but think highly deserving of attention. I. The very necessity of explaining the phraseology of its earlier part, as it is universally explained both by the Romanist and by the Reformed (even to say nothing of the Catholic Church in all ages), draws after it the inevitable result, that The doctrine of Transubstantiation MUST be erroneous. Now there is no person, who has more strenuously insisted upon the universally received interpretation of the earlier phraseology of the Discourse, than Dr. Wiseman. Consequently, if my estimate of results be not wholly incorrect, that gentleman, in his elaborate Lectures on the Blessed Eucharist, has committed a sort of theological suicide, or, as we are wont familiarly to express it, has freely cut his own throat. |