ordinary nature by diminution; but if it have the nature of the thing, then to say, it is not common, denies the ordinary nature by addition and eminency; the first says it is not so at all, the second says it is more than so; and this is taught to every man by common reason, and he could have observed it if he had pleased; for it is plain, Justin said this of that, which, before the consecration, was known to be natural bread, and therefore, now to say it was not common bread, is to say it is bread and something more. 2. The second reason from the words of Justin to prove it to be natural food still, is, because it is that, by which our blood and our flesh are nourished by change. Bellarmine says, that these words, by which our flesh and blood are nourished, mean by which they use to be nourished; not meaning, that they are nourished by this bread, when it is eucharistical. But besides that this is gratis dictum' without any colour or pretence from the words of Justin, but by a presumption taken from his own opinion, as if it were impossible, that Justin should mean any thing against his doctrine: besides this, I say the interpretation is insolent, nutriuntur,' i. e. ' solent nutriri ;' as also because both the verbs are of the present tense, Toέφονται σάρκες et σῶμα ἐδιδάχθημεν εἶναι, “ the flesh and blood are nourished by bread," and " it is the body of Christ ;" that is, both in conjunction; so that he says not, as Bellarmine would have him, "Cibus ille, ex quo carnes nostræ ali solent, cum prece mysticâ consecratur, efficitur corpus Christi;" but, Cibus ille, quo carnes nostræ aluntur, est corpus Christi." The difference is material, and the matter is apparent: but upon this alone I rely not. To the same purpose are the words of Irenæus : " Dominus accipiens panem, suum corpus esse confitebatur, et temperamentum calicis, suum sanguinem confirmavit:" " Our Lord taking bread confessed it to be his body, and the mixture of the cup he firmed to be his blood." Here Irenæus affirms to be true what Bellarmine' says non potest fieri,'' cannot be done;' that in the same proposition bread should be the subject, and body should be the predicate; Irenæus says, that Christ said it to be so, and him we follow. But most plainly in his fifth book: "Quando ergo et mixtus calix, et fractus panis percipit verbum Dei, fit eucharistia sanguinis et corporis Christi; 66 q Lib. 4. c. 57. r De Euch. l. 3. c. 19. con ex quibus augetur et consistit carnis nostræ substantia: Quomodo carnem negant capacem esse donationis Dei qui est vita æterna, quæ sanguine et corpore Christi nutritur ?” and, a little after, he affirms that we are "flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones; and that this is not understood of the spiritual man, but of the natural disposition or temper; quæ de calice, qui est sanguis ejus, nutritur, et de pane, qui est corpus ejus, augetur:" and again; "Eum calicem qui est creatura, suum sanguinem qui effusus est, ex quo auget nostrum sanguinem, et eum panem, &c. qui est creatura, suum corpus confirmavit, ex quo nostra auget corpora;" "It is made the eucharist of the bread, and the body of Christ out of that, of which the substance of our flesh consists and is increased; by the bread which he confirmed to be his body, he increases our bodies; by the blood which was poured out, he increases our blood;" that is the sense of Irenæus so often repeated. And to the same purpose is that of Origen: 'Eorì δὲ καὶ σύμβολον ἡμῖν τῆς πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν εὐχαριστίας ἄρτος εὐχαριστία καλούμενος. "The bread, which is called the eucharist, is to us the symbol of thanksgiving or eucharist to God." So also Tertulliant: "Acceptum panem et distributum discipulis suis corpus suum fecit:" "He made the bread, which he took and distributed to his disciples, to be his body." But more plainly in his book de Corona Militis :' "Calicis aut panis nostri aliquid decuti in terram anxiè patimur;" "We cannot endure that any of the cup or any thing of the bread be thrown to the ground."-The eucharist he plainly calls bread;' and that he speaks of the eucharist is certain, and Bellarmine" quotes the words to the purpose of shewing, how reverently the eucharist was handled and regarded. The like is in St. Cyprian*: "Dominus corpus suum panem vocat, et sanguinem suum vinum appellat:" "Our Lord calls bread his body, and wine his blood." So John Maxentius, in the time of Pope Hormisda: "The bread which the whole church receives in memory of the passion, is the body of Christ." And St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, is earnest in this affair: "Since our Lord hath declared and said to us of bread, 'This is my body,' who shall dare to doubt it?" s Lib. 8. adv. Celsum. t Tertul. adv. Marcion. lib. 4. c. 40. u Bellar. lib. 4. Euch. c. 14. sect. si rursus objicias. * Cyprian. ep. 76. Dial. 2. contr. Nestor. y Catech. Mystag. 4. which words I the rather note, because Cardinal Perron brings them, as if they made for his cause, which they most evidently destroy. For if, of bread, Christ made this affirmation, that it is his body, then it is both bread and Christ's body too, and that is it which we contend for. In the dialogues against the Marcionites, collected out of Maximus, Origen is brought in proving the reality of Christ's flesh and blood in his incarnation, by this argument :-If, as these men say, he be without flesh and blood, ή τίνος σώματος ή ποίου αἵματος εἰκόνας διδοὺς ἄρτόν τε καὶ ποτήριον ἐνετέλλετο, &c. "of what body and of what blood did he command the images or figures, giving the bread and cup to his disciples, that by these a remembrance of him should be made?" But Acacius, the successor of Eusebius in his bishopric, calls it' bread' and 'wine,' even in the very use and sanctification of us : " Panis vinumque ex hâc materiâ vescentes sanctificat," "The bread and wine sanctify them that are fed with this matter."-" In typo sanguinis sui non obtulit aquam sed vinum," so St. Jerome, "He offered wine not water in the type [representment or sacrament] of his blood." To the same purpose, but most plain, are the words of Theodoret": Ενγε τῶν μυστηρίων παραδόσει, σῶμα τὸν ἄρτον ἐκάλεσε καὶ αἷμα Tò кρãμα, " In the exhibition of the mysteries he called bread his body, and the mixture in the chalice he called blood.". So also St. Austin, serm. 9. de Diversis: "The eucharist is our daily bread; but we receive it so, that we are not only nourished by the belly, but also by the understanding." And I cannot understand the meaning of plain Latin, if the same thing be not affirmed in the little mass-book, published by Paulus V. for the English priests: "Deus, qui humano generi utramque substantiam præsentium munerum alimento tribuis, quæsumus, ut eorum et corporibus nostris subsidium non desit et mentibus," "The present gifts were appointed for the nourishment both of soul and body."-Who please may see more in Macarius's twenty-seventh homily, and Ammonius in his Evangelical Harmony,' in the Bibliotheca Patrum: and this, though it be decried now-a-days in the Roman schools, yet was the doctrine of Scotus, of Durandus, Ocham, Cameracen z Acacius in Gen. ii. Græc. Caren. in Pentateuch. a Lib. 2. adv. Jovin. d Ibid. q. 1. sis, and Biels, and those men were for consubstantiation; that Christ's natural body was together with natural bread, which although I do not approve, yet the use that I now make of them, cannot be denied me; it was their doctrine, that after consecration bread still remains; after this let what can follow. But that I may leave the ground of this argument secure, I add this, that, in the primitive church, eating the eucharistical bread was esteemed the breaking the fast, which is not imaginable any man can admit, but he that believes bread to remain after consecration, and to be nutritive as before: but so it was, that, in the second age of the church, it was advised, that either they should end their station, or fast, at the communion, or defer the communion to the end of the station; as appears in Tertullian, de Oratione,' cap. 14.: which unanswerably proves, that then it was thought to be bread and nutritive, even then when it was eucharistical: and h Picus Mirandula affirms, that if a Jew or a Christian should eat the sacrament for refection, it breaks his fast. The same also is the doctrine of all those churches who use the liturgies of St. James, St. Mark, and St. Chrysostom, who hold that receiving the holy communion breaks the fast, as appears in the disputation of Cardinal Humbert with Nicetas about six hundred years ago. The sum of all is this; If of bread Christ said, This is my body,' because it cannot be true in a proper natural sense, it implying a contradiction that it should be properly bread, and properly Christ's body; it must follow, that it is Christ's body in a figurative improper sense. But if the bread does not remain bread, but be changed by blessing into our Lord's body; this also is impossible to be in any sense true, but by affirming the change to be only in use, virtue, and condition, with which change the natural being of bread may remain. For he that supposes that by the blessing, the bread ceases so to be, that nothing of it remains, must also necessarily suppose, that the bread being no more, it neither can be the body of Christ, nor any thing else. For it is impossible that what is taken absolutely from all being, should yet abide under a certain difference of being, and that that thing which is not at all, should yet be after a certain manner. Since therefore (as I have proved) the bread remains, and of bread it was affirmed This is my body,' it h Apol. 4. 6. Ibid. q. 6. ar. 1. g Canon. Missæ, leet. 40. H. follows inevitably, that it is figuratively, not properly and naturally spoken of bread, that it is the flesh or body of our Lord. SECTION VI. Est Corpus meum. 1. THE next words to be considered are, Est corpus,' 'This is my body;' and here begins the first tropical expression; 'est,' that is, 'significat' or 'repræsentat, et exhibet corpus meum,' say some. This is my body,' it is to all real effects the same to your particulars, which my body is to all the church: it signifies, the breaking of my body, the effusion of my blood for you, and applies my passion to you, and conveys to you all the benefits; as this nourishes your bodies, so my body nourishes your souls to life eternal, and consigns your bodies to immortality. Others make the trope in corpus ;' so that' est' shall signify properly, but corpus' is taken in a spiritual sense, sacramental and mysterious; not a natural and presential; whether the figure be in 'est' or in corpus,' is but a question of rhetoric, and of no effect. That the proposition is tropical and figurative, is the thing, and that Christ's natural body is now in heaven definitively, and no where else; and that he is in the sacrament as he can be in a sacrament, in the hearts of faithful receivers, as he hath promised to be there; that is, in the sacrament mystically, operatively, as in a moral and divine instrument, in the hearts of receivers by faith and blessing; this is the truth and the faith of which we are to give a reason and account to them that disagree. But this, which is to all the purpose, which any one pretends can be in the sumption of Christ's body naturally, yet will not please the Romanists, unless est,' is,' signify properly without trope or metonymy, and corpus' be corpus naturale.' Here then I join issue; it is not Christ's body properly, or naturally: for though it signifies a real effect, yet it signifies the body figuratively, or the effects and real benefits. 2. Now concerning this, there are very many inducements to infer the figurative or tropical interpretation. 1. In the language which our blessed Lord spake, there is no word that can express significat,' but they use the word 'is;' the |