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truth must needs be older than doctrinal falsehood: and I note, with no small satisfaction, that he adduces the very passages which I have adduced, and that he understands them precisely as any man of plain common sense must understand them'.

as he well argues, is plainly inconsistent with the very notion of a mystery or sacrament.

II. There is yet another matter, to which the inquirer may profitably direct his attention.

The second Council of Nice, in the year 787, with equal ignorance and folly, had proscribed and anathematised the word IMAGE as employed to describe the nature of the consecrated elements, on the strange blundering plea that it had been so employed by no one of the ancients.

Yet, as we learn from Bertram, this identical word IMAGE actually continued, about the year 860, still to be used in the old post-communion prayer of the Latin Church. The circumstance, in short, was so familiar, as of course it must have been where a public Liturgy was concerned, that he absolutely employs it in the way of a clear and decisive argument against the novelty of Transubstantiation.

1 With the now adduced mass of evidence staring him in the face, for I can scarcely believe him to have been ignorant of its existence, Bossuet actually asserts, as a decisive argument in favour of the apostolicity of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, that, both in the East and in the West, it was unanimously adopted from the words of our Lord, without experiencing the least opposition: and he adds, that those, who believed it, were never marked by the Church as innovators! Hist. des Variat. livr. ii. § 36.

If the inquirer be curious to know, how he rids himself of such controversies as those between Paschase and Bertram, let him learn, that, in the summary decision of the Bishop of Meaux, these two champions with their respective followers

V. The retention of a descriptive word through long custom or habit, when that word is evidently

were all alike staunch Transubstantialists, though they unluckily differed as to the best mode of expressing their favourite doctrine.

Catholic doctors, he gravely tells us, agree at the bottom and dispute only about the manner. C'est ainsi, que les docteurs catholiques, d'accord dans le fonds, disputoient des manières. Hist. des. Variat. livr. iv. § 32.

Truly Raban and Bertram adopted a most original method of explaining the doctrine of Transubstantiation, when they clearly established it through the unexpected medium of denying any change in the substance of the consecrated elements.

If the difference consisted only in the mode of expression, as the jesuitism of Bossuet would persuade us, why did the infallible Tridentine Fathers place the Work of our zealous Transubstantialist Bertram in their list of prohibited books, while no such black mark was set upon the Work of the equally zealous Transubstantialist Paschase?

Bossuet, I suppose, would tell us, that they preferred the mode of Paschase to the mode of Bertram.

In that case, why did these simulated sticklers for antiquity prefer the newer mode of expression to the older mode: for, that the mode of Paschase was the innovation, is indisputable, both from the express testimony of Raban and from the whole tenor of the controversy?

I have perused the entire Work of Bertram: and therefore I can fearlessly assert, that it affords not even the slightest warrant for the evasion of Bossuet. In truth, his gloss can be viewed only, as a brilliant exemplification of the Duacensic System of the Excogitato commento persæpe negemus et commodum sensum eis affingamus. In this wholesome practice, some modern romish theologians, whom I could mention, may well be said to emulate even Bossuet himself and the whole College of Douay Doctors to boot.

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incongruous with a theological system now prevalent, both indicates the comparative novelty of such theological system, and aids us in the ascertaining of the more ancient theological system which it has supplanted.

1. Of this description is the word UNBLOODY, as applied to what the Romanists call the sacrifice of the Mass.

In that sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, say the Fathers of the Council of Trent, the selfsame Christ is contained and is UNBLOODILY immolated, who once upon the altar of the cross offered himself bloodily'.

Now such language is palpably inconsistent with the doctrine of Transubstantiation.

If the substance of the wine, as the same Tridentine Fathers assure us, be changed, through the prayer of consecration, into the substance of Christ's blood; and if, in the sacrifice of the Mass, the self-same Christ be immolated who offered himself as a piacular oblation upon the altar of the cross it is clear, that the sacrifice of the Mass, according to the latin notions of it, is not an UNBLOODY Sacrifice; for, by the hypothesis, the wine having been transubstantiated into literal material blood, most undoubtedly, by the same

In divino hoc sacrificio, quod in Missa peragitur, idem ille Christus continetur, et INCRUENTE immolatur, qui in ara crucis semel seipsum cruente obtulit. Concil. Trident, sess. xxii. c. 2. p. 239.

hypothesis, literal material blood cannot but form a part of the sacrifice.

Hence we gather, in strict conformity with the evidence already adduced, that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is a self-convicted novelty: and hence we collect, that the phraseology, still through long custom retained when it has ceased to be appropriate, manifestly indicates the prevalence of a totally different scheme of doctrine when such phraseology was originally adopted.

In an earlier stage of the present discussion, I have stated that the ONLY sacrifice and oblation, recognised in the Eucharist by the primitive Church, were, the spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and the material oblation of the bread and wine upon the Lord's table under the aspect of an offering of the first-fruits of God's creatures anterior to and in order to their consecration'. If there be any evidence, that the Christians of the first ages considered the elements of bread and wine as a sacrifice after their consecration; which notion is plainly essential to, though (as we shall soon find) not exclusively inherent in, the latin doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass: I can only say, that I have unintentionally, not dishonestly, overlooked it. Certain it is, that neither Mr. Berington nor the Bishop of Strasbourg has brought forward any testimony to this effect: and, as I have no particular reason to doubt their

1

See above, book i. chap. 4. §. iii. 1. (3.) iv. 2.

diligence; so, with respect to myself, I am not aware that any such testimony is in existence'.

It is obvious, that sacrifices of the description recognised by the primitive Church were truly and properly UNBLOODY sacrifices. Accordingly, while Clement of Alexandria, like Justin Martyr, tells us, that perpetual prayers and praises and

1 Dr. Trevern and Mr. Berington allege our protestant Dr. Grabe, as stating, on the authority of Ireneus, that all the contemporaries of the Apostles or their immediate successors, whose writings are still extant, considered the blessed Eucharist to be the sacrifice of the New Law, and thence offered bread and wine on the altar as sacred oblations to God the Father. Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 77, 78. Faith of Cathol. p. 256.

Grabe spoke very truly, though not in the sense which our two latin divines are pleased to impose upon him. His very author Ireneus, whom he edited and upon whom his statement is in fact an annotation, sufficiently explains the doctrine of the primitive Christians, which resembled any thing rather than that of the modern Romanists.

The earliest believers held the prayers and praises, which accompanied the celebration of the Lord's Supper, to be, as indeed the very name Eucharist imports, a spiritual sacrifice of thanksgiving: and they held the presentation of bread and wine upon the table, before and in order to their consecration, to be a material oblation of the first fruits of God's creatures.

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No other sacrifice, except these, did the primitive Christians of the age of Justin and Irenèus acknowledge in the sacrament of the Eucharist and to no other sacrifice, except these, does Dr. Grabe refer. The notion, that the consecrated elements were themselves an unbloody commemorative and symbolical sacrifice, was much later than the age of Justin and Irenèus. Accordingly, in their writings, no such notion can be discovered.

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