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g

prayers the body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament."— And St. Austin calls the sacrament" prece mysticâ consecratum." But concerning this, I have largely discoursed in another place. But the effect of the consideration, in order to the present question, is this; that since the change, that is made, is made not naturally, or by a certain number of syllables in the manner of a charm, but solemnly, sacredly, morally, and by prayer, it becomes also the body of our Lord to moral effects, as a consequent of a moral instru

ment.

8. Sixthly: And it is considerable, that since the ministries of the church are but imitations of Christ's priesthood, which he officiates in heaven,-since he effects all the purposes of his graces and our redemption by intercession, and representing, in the way of prayer, the sacrifice, which he offered on the cross; it follows, that the ministries of the church must be of the same kind, operating in the way of prayer morally, and therefore, wholly to moral purposes; to which the instrument is made proportionable. And if these words, which are called the words of consecration, be exegetical, and enunciative of the change, that is made by prayers, and other mystical words; it cannot be possibly inferred from these words, that there is any other change made than what refers to the whole mystery and action: and therefore, 'Take,' Eat,' and 'This do,' are as necessary to the sacrament as 'Hoc est corpus ;' and declare that it is Christ's body only in the use and administration: and therefore not natural' but spiritual.' And yet this is yet more plain by the words in the Hebrew text of St. Matthew; "Take, eat this which is my body," plainly supposing the thing to be done already, not by the exegetical words, but by the precedents, the mystic prayer, and the words of institution and use and to this I never saw any thing pretended in answer. But the force of the argument, upon supposition of the premises, is acknowledged to be convincing by an archbishop of their own; "Si Christus dando consecravit," &c. "If Christ giving the eucharist did consecrate (as Scotus affirmed), then the Lutherans will carry the victory, who maintain, that the body of Christ is in the eucharist only, while it is used, while it was

The Divine Institution of the Office Ministerial, sect. 7.

Archiep. Cæsar. Tractat. varii disp. de Neces. Correct. Theol. Schol.

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taken and eaten. And yet on the other side, if it was consecrated, when Christ said, Take, eat,' then he commanded them to take bread, and to eat bread, which is to destroy the article of transubstantiation."-So that, in effect, whe ther it was consecrated by those words or not by those words, their new doctrine is destroyed. If it was not consecrated when Christ said, "Take eat," then Christ bid them take bread, and eat bread, and they did so: but if it was consecrated by those words, "Take, eat," then the words of consecration refer wholly to use, and it is Christ's body only in the 'taking and eating,' which is the thing we contend for.— And into the concession of this, Bellarmine is thrust by the force of our argument. For, to avoid Christ's giving the apostles, that which he took, and brake, and blessed,' that is, bread,' the same case being governed by all these words; he answers, "Dominum accepisse, et benedixisse panem, sed dedisse panem non vulgarem, sed benedictum et benedictione mutatum :" "The Lord took bread, and blessed it; but he gave not common bread, but bread blessed and changed by blessing;"—and yet it is certain, he gave it them before the words, which he calls the words of consecration. To which I add this consideration; that all words, spoken in the person of another, are only declarative and exegetical, not operative and practical; for in particular if these words, 'Hoc est corpus meum,' were otherwise, then the priest should turn it into his own, not into the body of Christ; neither will it be easy to have an answer, not only because the Greeks and Latins are divided in the ground of their argument concerning the mystical instrument of consecration: but the Latins themselves have seven several opinions, as the Archbishop of Cæsarea de capite Fontium,' hath enumerated them in his nuncupatory epistle to Pope Sixtus Quintus before his book of Divers Treatises; and that the consecration is made by This is my body,' though it be now the prevailing opinion, yet that by them Christ did not consecrate the elements, was the express sentence of Pope Innocent III. and Innocent IV. and of many ancient fathers, as the same Archbishop of Cæsarea testifies in the book now quoted; and the scholastics are hugely divided upon this point, viz. Whether these words are to be taken materially or significatively;

i De Euch. lib. 1. c. 11.

k Tractat. Varii.

the expression is barbarous and rude, but they mean, whether they be consecratively or declarative. Aquinas makes them consecratory, and his authority brought that opinion into credit; and yet Scotus and his followers are against it: and they that affirm them to be taken significatively, that is, to be consecratory, are divided into so many opinions, that they are not easy to be reckoned; only' Guido Brianson reckons nine, and his own makes the tenth. This I take upon the credit of one of their own archbishops.

9. But I proceed to follow them in their own way; whether 'Hoc est corpus meum' do effect or signify the change; yet the change is not natural and proper, but figurative, sacramental, and spiritual; exhibiting what it signifies, being real to all intents and purposes of the Spirit: and this I shall first shew by discussing the words of institution; first those which they suppose to be the consecratory words, and then the other.

10. "Hoc est corpus meum:" concerning which form of words we must know, that as the eucharist itself was, in the external and ritual part, an imitation of a custom, and a sacramental, already in use among the Jews, for the 'major domo' to break bread and distribute wine, at the Passover, after supper to the eldest according to his age, to the youngest according to his youth, as is notorious and known in the practice of the Jews:-so also were the very words, which Christ spake in this changed subject, an imitation of the words which were then used; "This is the bread of sorrow which our fathers ate in Egypt; this is the passover:" and this passover was called 'the body of the paschal lamb:' nay, it was called the body of our Saviour, and our Saviour himself; Καὶ εἶπεν Εσδρὸς τῷ λαῷ, τοῦτο πάσχα ὁ Σωτὴρ ἡμῶν, said Justin Martyr Dial. cum Tryph.;' "And Esdras said to the Jews, This passover is our Saviour, and This is the body of our Saviour,"-as it is noted by others. So that here the words were made ready for Christ, and made his by appropriation, by 'meum:' he was 'the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world,' he is the true Passover;' which he then affirming, called that which was the antitype of the Passover, the Lamb of God, 'his body,' the body of the

I In 4. Sentent.

m Scaliger de Emendatione Tempor. lib. 6.

true passover, to wit, in the same sacramental sense, in which the like words were affirmed in the Mosaical passover.

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SECTION V.

1. 'Hoc,' 'This:' that is, 'This bread is my body,' 'This cup,' or the wine in the cup, is my blood:' concerning the chalice, there can be no doubt; it is Toro To Toriptov, hic calix,' this chalice;' and as little of the other. The fathers refer the pronoun demonstrative to 'bread;' saying, that, ' of bread' it was Christ affirmed, "This is my body;' which I shall have, in the sequel, more occasion to prove for the present, these may suffice; "Christus panem corpus suum appellat," saith Tertullian ".-"Nos audiamus panem, quem fregit Dominus, esse corpus salvatoris:" so St. Jerome -Tv σáρка σiтov úvóμare; so St. Cyril of Alexandria P; "called bread his flesh." Theodoret saith that "to the body he gave the name of the symbol, and to the symbol the name of his body :"-roura therefore signifies ، this bread ; and it matters not that bread,' in the Greek, is of the masculine gender; for the substantive being understood, not expressed, by the rule of grammar, the adjective must be the neuter gender, and it is taken substantively. Neither is there any inconvenience in this, as Bellarmine weakly dreams upon as weak suggestions. For when he had said that ' hoc' is either taken adjectively or substantively, he proceeds, 'not adjectively,' for then it must agree with the substantive, which in this case is masculine; 'bread' being so both in Greek and Latin. But if you say it is taken substantively, as we contend it is, he confutes you thus: If it be taken substantively, so that 'hoc' signifies 'this' thing, and so be referred to 'bread,' then it is most absurd,—because it cannot be spoken of any thing seen; that is, of a substantive, unless it agrees with it, and be of the same gender; that is, in plain English, it is neither taken adjectively nor substantively: not adjectively, because it is not of the same gender: not substantively, because it is not of the same gender; that is, because substan

tively is not adjectively. But the reason he adds is as frivolous; because no man, pointing to his brother, will say, 'Hoc est frater meus,'-but 'Hic est frater meus :'-I grant it. But if it be a thing without life, you may affirm it in the neuter gender; because, it being of neither sex, the subject is supplied by thing;' so that you may say, 'Hoc est aqua,' 'This is water;' so in St. Peters, Touro xápis, 'This is grace,' and t δάκτυλος Θεοῦ ἐστι τοῦτο. But of a person present you cannot say so, because he is present, and there is nothing distinct from him, neither' re' nor ratione,' in the 'thing' nor in the 'understanding;' and therefore you must say, 'Hic,' not 'Hoc;' because there is no subject to be supposed distinct from the predicate. But when you see an image or figure of your brother, you may then say, 'Hoc est frater meus,' because here is something to make a subject distinct from the predicate. This thing, or this picture, this figure, or this any thing, that can be understood and not expressed, may make a neuter gender; and every schoolboy knows it: so it is in the blessed sacrament; there is a subject or a thing distinct from 'corpus:' 'This bread,' this which you see ́is my body;' and therefore no impropriety is in 'hoc,' though bread be understood.

2. To which I add this, that though bread be the nearest part of the thing demonstrated, yet it is not bread alone, but sacramental bread; that is, bread so used, broken, given, eaten, as it is in the institution and use: Touro, 'This' is my body; and Touro refers to the whole action about the bread and wine, and so Touro may be easily understood without an impropriety. And indeed it is necessary that routo, ‘this,' should take in the whole action on all sides: because the bread neither is the natural body of Christ, nor yet is it alone a sufficient symbol or representment of it. But the bread “broken, blessed, given, distributed, taken, eaten;" this is Christ's body, viz. as Origen's expression is, "typicum symbolicumque corpus "." By the way give me leave to express some little indignation against those words of Bellarmine, which cannot easily be excused from blasphemy; saying, that if our Lord had said of the bread, which the apostles saw and knew to be bread, 'This is my body," "absurdissima esset locutio," "it had been a most absurd speech."

s 1 Pet. ii. 19.

t Exod. viii. 19.

" In c. 15. Matt.