XXVIII. judice. Julian must have known it; and if he had known it, AR T. his judgment was too true, and his malice to the Chriftian religion too quick, to overlook or neglect the advantages which this part of their doctrine gave him. Nor can this be carried off by saying, that the eating of human flesh and the Thyeftean fuppers, which were objected to the Chriftians, relate to this: when the Fathers answer that, they tell the Heathens that it was a downright calumny and lye; and do not offer any explanations or diftinctions taken from their doctrine of the Sacrament, to clear them from the mistake and malice of this calumny. The truth is, the execrable practices of the Gnofticks, who were called Chriftians, gave the rife to those as well as to many other calumnies: but they were not at all founded on the doctrine of the Eucharift, which is never once mentioned as the occafion of this accufation. Another prefumption from which we conclude that the ancients knew nothing of this doctrine, is, that we find herefies and difputes arifing concerning all the other points of religion: there were very few of the doctrines of the Chriftian religion, and not any of the myfteries of the faith, that did not fall under great objections: but there was not any one herefy raised upon this head: men were never fo meek and tame as easily to believe things, when there appeared ftrong evidence, or at least great prefumptions, against them In these laft eight or nine centuries, fince this doctrine was received, there has been a perpetual oppofition made to it, even in dark and unlearned ages; in which implicit faith and blind obedience have carried a great fway. And though the fecular arm has been employed with great and unrelenting severities to extirpate all that have opposed it; yet all the while many have stood out against it, and have fuffered much and long for their rejecting it. Now it is not to be imagined that fuch an oppofition fhould have been made to this doctrine, during the nine hundred years laft paft, and that for the former eight hundred years there fhould have been no difputes at all concerning it and that while all other things were fo much questioned, that several Fathers writ, and councils were called to fettle the belief of them, yet that for about eight hundred years, this was the fingle point that went down so easily, that no treatise was all that while writ to prove it, nor council held to establish it. Certainly the reafon of this will appear to be much rather, that fince there have been contefts upon this point these laft nine ages, and that there were none the firft 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 strong prefumption that in all that time, this doctrine was not thought of. The laft of thofe confiderations that I fhall offer, which are of ART. of the nature of prefumptive proofs, is, that there are a great XXVIII. 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 since this doctrine was received. Such are the elevation, adoration, and proceflions, together with the doctrine of concomitance, and a vaft number of rites and rubricks; the first occafions and beginnings of which are well known. Thefe did all arife from this doctrine; it being natural, especially in the ages of ignorance and fuperftition, for men upon the fuppofition of Christ'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, that 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 Jeru falem, 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 cataplafins of it, the mixing the wine with ink, to fign the condemnation of hereticks, 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, ali the old forms and rituals have been altered, and the adoring the facrament is now become the main act of devotion and of religious worship among them. One ancient form is indeed ftill continued, which is of the strongest kind of presumptions that this doctrine came in much later than fome other superstitions 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 ano ther, agree, and not XXVIII. ther, we have all poffible reason to prefume at leaft, that at firft ART. it came in under that opinion with which it will under another which cannot confift with it. Our opinion is, that the facrament is a federal act of our Chriftianity, 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 still 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 first 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 just 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 confecration. Juftin Martyr calls them bread and wine, and a nourish- Apolog. 2. ment which nourished: he indeed fays it is not common bread and wine; which fhews that he thought it was still so in substance: 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, lofe their proper fubftance, when they become the flesh and blood of Chrift. hær. c. 341 Iræneus calls it that bread over which thanks are given, Lib. iv. de and fays, it is no more common bread, but the Eucharift confifting Lib.i. adver. of two things, an earthly and a heavenly. Marcion. ii. adver. Tertullian, arguing against the Marcionites, who held c. 14. Lib. two Gods, and that the Creator of this earth was the bad God; Marcion. but that Chrift was contrary to him; argues against them this, c. 19. that Chrift made ufe of the creatures: and fays, he did not reject bread by which he reprefents his own body: and in another place he says, Chrift calls bread his body, that from thence you may understand, that he gave the figure of his body to the bread. ART. Origen fays, we eat of the loaves that are fet before us: XXVIII. Which by prayer are become a certain holy body, that fanclifies Lib viii.con- those who use them with a found purpose. tra Celfum. Ep. 76. Ep. 63. In Ancho reto. In orat, de De Benedict. € 9. St. Cyprian fays, Chrift calls the bread that was compounded of many grains, his body: and the wine that is prefed out of many grapes, his blood, to fhew the union of his people. And in another place, writing against those who used only water, but no wine, in the Eucharift, he fays, we cannot fee the blood by which we are redeemed, when wine is not in the chalice; by which the blood of Chrift is fhewed. Epiphanius being to prove that man may be faid to be made after the image of God, though he is not like him, urges this, That the bread is not like Chrift, neither in his invifible Deity, nor in his incarnate likeness, for it is round and without feeling as to its virtue. Gregory Nyffen fays, the bread in the beginning is common; but after the mystery has confecrated it, it is faid to be, and is the body of Chrift: to this he compares the fanctification of the myftical oil, of the water in baptifm, and the ftones of an altar or church dedicated to God. St. Ambrofe calls it still bread; and fays this bread is made. the food of the Saints. St. Chryfoftom on these words, the bread that we break, fays, Ep. ad Cor. What is the bread? The body of Chrift: What are they made to be who take it? The body of Chrift. Which fhews that he confidered the bread as being fo the body of Christ, as the worthy receivers became his body; which is done, not by a change of fubftance, but by a fanctification of their natures. Comm. in St. Matt. C. 26. Cit. apud Aug. Ep. 23 St. Jerom fays, Chrift took bread, that as Melchifedeck had in the figure offered bread and wine, he might also represent the truth (that is in oppofition to the figure) of his body and blood. St. Auguftin does very largely compare the facraments being called the body and blood of Chrift, with those other places in which the Church is called his body, and all Chriftians are his members which fhews that he 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 these call the Eucharist bread and wine in exprefs words but when they call it Chrift'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 facrament of ad Bonifac. the body of Chrift is his body, and the facrament of his blood is Serm. 2. in the blood of Chrift; he carried himself in his own hands in fome Pfal. 33. fort, when he faid, This is my body. St. St. Chryfoftom fays, the bread is thought worthy to be called AR T. the body of our Lord: and in another place, reckoning up the XXVIII. improper fenfes of the word flesh, he fays, the Scriptures ufe to call the myfteries (that is, the facrament) by the name of ad Cæfar. & Chryf. Ep. flesh, and fometimes the whole Church is faid to be the body of in Comin. Chrift. in Ep. ad Gal. c. 5. So Tertullian fays, Chrift calls the bread his body, and names Tertul. Lib. the bread by his body. iv. adv. The Fathers do not only call the confecrated elements bread Marc. c. 40. 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 pasfages, 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 swallowed up by the divine, if not while he was here on earth, yet at leaft after his afcenfion to heaven. This error was confuted by several writers who lived very wide from one 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 thofe 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 those who came after St. Chryfo- Epift. ad ftom took from him: fo that though both Theodoret and Ge- Cefarium. lafius's words are much fuller, yet because the argument is the fame with that which St. Chryfoftom had urged against Apollinaris, I fhall firft fet down his words. He brings an illuftration from the doctrine of the Sacrament, to fhew that the human nature was not destroyed 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 has 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 thefe make one Son and one Perfon. Ephrem of Antioch fays, The body of Chrift received by In Photi. the faithful, loes not depart from its fenfible fubftance: fo bap- Bibli. Cod. tifm, fays he, does not lose its own fenfible substance, and does not 229. lofe that which it was before. E e Theo |