9

the African or Latin. Of the Greek, the judgment of Hooker is well known, though it must not be taken in the letter: “The heresy of freewill was a millstone about those Pelagians' neck; shall we therefore give sentence of death inevitable against all those Fathers in the Greek Church which, being mispersuaded, died in the error of freewill?”, Bishop Taylor, arguing for an opposite doctrine, bears a like testimony: “Original Sin,” he says, “as it is at this day commonly explicated, was not the doctrine of the primitive Church; but when Pelagius had puddled the stream, St. Austin was so angry that he stamped and disturbed it more. And truly .. I do not think that the gentlemen that urged against me St. Austin's opinion do well consider that I profess myself to follow those Fathers who were before him; and whom St. Austin did forsake, as I do him, in the question.' The same is asserted or allowed by 'Jansenius, Petavius, and Walch,' men of such different schools that we may surely take their agreement as a proof of the fact. A late writer, after going through the testimonies of the Fathers one by one, comes to the conclusion, first, that “the Greek Church in no point favoured Augustine, except in teaching that from Adam's sin came death, and, (after the time of Methodius,) an extraordinary and unnatural sensuality also ;” next, that “the Latin Church affirmed, in addition, that a corrupt and contaminated soul, and that, by generation, was carried on to his posterity;": and, lastly, that neither 8 Of Justification, 26.

Greeks nor Latins held the doctrine
It may be observed, in addition, that, in s
forcible teaching of St. Paul on the subject, the
of Original Sin appears neither in the Apostles'
Nicene Creed.

17.

Onc additional specimen shall be given as a sample of many others :-I betake myself to one of our altars to receive the Blessed Eucharist; I have no doubt whatever on my mind about the Gift which that Sacrament contains; I confess to myself my belief, and I go through the steps on which it is assured to me. “ The Presence of Christ is here, for It follows upon Consecration ; and Consecration is the prerogative of Priests; and Priests are made by Ordination; and Ordination comes in direct line from the Apostles. Whatever be our other misfortunes, every link in our chain is safe; we have the Apostolic Succession, we have a right form of consecration: therefore we are blessed with the great Gift.” IIere the question rises in me, “Who told you about that Gift?" I answer, “I have learned it from the Fathers : I believe the Real Presence because they bear witness to it. St. Ignatius calls it the medicine of immortality :' St. Irenæus says that our flesh becomes incorrupt, and partakes of life, and has the hope of the resurrection,' as 'being nourished from the Lord's Body and Blood;' that the Eucharist 'is made up of two things, an earthly and an heavenly :'3 perhaps Origen and perhaps Magnes, after him, say that It is not a type of our Lord's Body, but His Body: and St. Cyprian uses language as fearful as can be spoken, of those who profane it. I cast lot with them, I believe as they.” Thus I reply, and then the thought comes upon me a second time,” And do not the same ancient Fathers bear witness to another

my

? Are you not as a hypocrite,

will, and deaf when you will s your lot with the Saints, when hem ? For of whether of the more frequently, of the Real

or of the Pope's supremacy? ince, you reject the greater.”

18. MT Trut, vue

Ante-nicene notices may be of the Papal Supremacy, they are both more numerous and more definite than the adducible testimonies in favour of the Real Presence. The testimonies to the latter are confined to a few passages such as those just quoted. On the other hand, of a passage in St. Justin, Bishop Kaye remarks, “Le Nourry infers that Justin maintained the doctrine of Transubstantiation; it might in my opinion be more plausibly urged in furour of Consubstantiation, since Justin calls the consecrated elements Bread and Wine, though not common bread and wine.* ... We may therefore conclude that, when he calls them the Body and Blood of Christ, he speaks figuratively.” “Clement,” observes the same author, “says that the Scripture calls wine a mystic symbol of the holy blood. ... Clement gives various interpretations of Christ's expressions in John vi, respecting His flesh and blood; but in no instance does he interpret them literally. . . . . His notion seems to have been that, by partaking of the bread and wine in the Eucharist, the soul of the believer is united to the Spirit, and that by this union the principle of immortality is imparted to the flesh.": "It has been suggested by some,” says Waterland, “that Tertullian understood John vi. merely of faith, or doctrine, or spiritual actions; and it is strenuously denied by others.” After quoting the passage, 4 Justin Martyr, ch. -1.

he adds, “ All that one can justly gather from this confused passage is that Tertullian interpreted the bread of life in John vi. of the Word, which he sometimes makes to be vocal, and sometimes substantial, blending the ideas in a very perplexed manner; so that he is no clear authority for construing John vi. of doctrines, &c. All that is certain is that he supposes the Word made flesh, the Word incarnate to be the heavenly bread spoken of in that chapter.' Origen's general observation relating to that chapter is, that it must not be literally, but figuratively understood.”. Again, “ It is plain enough that Eusebius followed Origen in this matter, and that both of them favoured the same mystical or allegorical construction; whether constantly and uniformly I need not say.' but add the incidental testimony afforded on a late occasion :-how far the Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist depends on the times before the Nicene Council, how far on the times after it, may be gathered from the circumstance that, when a memorable Sermon was published on the subject, out of about one hundred and forty passages from the Fathers appended in the notes, not in formal proof, but in general illustration, only fifteen were taken from Ante-nicene writers.

With such evidence, the Aute-nicene testimonies which may be cited in behalf of the authority of the Holy See, need not fear a comparison. Faint they may be one by one, but at least we may count seventeen of them, and they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof. Whatever objections may be made to this or that particular fact, and I do not think any valid ones can be raised, still, on the whole, I consider that a cumulative argument rises from them in favour of the ecumenical and 6 Works, vol. vii. p. 118–120.

7 Ibid. p. 121. 8 Ibid. p. 127.

[Dr. Pusey's l'niversity Sermon of 1813.)

9

the doctrinal authority of Rome, stronger than any argument which can be drawn from the same period for the doctrine of the Real Presence. I shall have occasion to enumerate them in the fourth chapter of this Essay.

19. If it be said that the Real Presence appears, by the Liturgies of the fourth or fifth century, to have been the doctrine of the earlier, since those very forms probably existed from the first in Divine worship, this is doubtless an important truth ; but then it is truc also that the writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly allow, that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times, and that because it was the See of St. Peter.

Moreover, if the resistance of St. Cyprian and Firmilian to the Church of Rome, in the question of baptism by heretics. be urged as an argument against her primitive authority, or the earlier resistance of Polycrates of Ephesus, let it be considered, first, whether all authority does not necessarily lead to resistance; next, whether St. Cyprian's own doctrine, which is in favour of Rome, is not more weighty than his act, which is against her; thirdly, whether he was not already in error in the main question under discussion, and Firmilian also; and lastly, which is the chief point here, whether, in like manner, we may not object on the other hand against the Real Presence the words of Tertullian, who explains, “ This is my Body,” by“ a figure of my Body,” and of Origen, who speaks of “our drinking Christ's Blood not only in the rite of the Sacraments, but also when we receive IIis discourses,”! and says that “that Bread which God the Word acknowledges as His Body is the Word which nourishes souls,” :-passages which admit of a Catholic interpretation when the Catholic doctrine is