66

i

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, whether 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

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; only1 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 Εσδρας 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

1 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.

SECTION V.

0

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 rouro TòÒ TOTÝρLOV, 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 -ǹv σáρka σłтov wvóμare; so St. Cyril of Alexandria"; "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:”—Touro 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

n Lib. adv. Judæos.

9 Dial. 1. c. 8.

VOL. IX.

r

Ep. ad Hebidiam.

In John, xii. r Lib. 1. de Euch. chap. 10. sect. porro. 4.

2 H

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 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 rouro, '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."

1 Pet. ii. 19.

t Exod. viii. 19.

u In c. 15. Matt.

-So careless are these opiniators of what they say, that rather than their own fond opinions should be confuted, they care not to impute nonsense to the eternal Wisdom of the Father. And yet that Christ did say this of bread so ordered and to be used, 'Hoc est corpus meum,' besides that the thing is notorious, I shall prove most evidently.

3. First: That which Christ broke, which he gave to his disciples, which he bid them eat, that he affirmed was 'his body.' What gave he, but what he broke? What did he break, but that which he took? What did he take? "Accepit panem," saith the Scripture, "He took bread ;" and therefore, of bread it was that he affirmed, it was his body.' Now the Roman doctors will, by no means, endure this; for if of bread he affirmed it to be his body, then we have cleared the question; for it is bread and Christ's body too; that is, it is 'bread naturally,' and 'Christ's body spiritually;' for that it cannot be both naturally, they unanimously affirm. And we are sure upon this article: for 'disparatum de disparato non predicatur proprie;' it is a rule of nature and essential reason, If it be bread, it is not a stone; -if it be a mouse, it is not a mule ;-and therefore, when there is any predication made of one diverse thing by another, the proposition must needs be improper and figurative. And the gloss of Gratian* disputes it well: " If bread be the body of Christ (viz. properly and naturally), then something that is not born of the Virgin Mary, is the body of Christ; and the body of Christ should be both alive and dead." Now that 'hoc,' 'this,' points to bread, besides the notoriousness of the thing in the story of the Gospels, in the matter of fact, and St. Paul calling it 'bread' so often (as I shall shew in the sequel), it ought to be certain to the Roman doctors, and confessed, because by their doctrines when Christ said, 'Hoc,' 'This' and awhile after, it was bread; because it was not consecrated till the last syllable was spoken. To avoid this therefore, they turn themselves into all the opinions and disguises that can be devised. Stapleton says, that 'hoc,' this,' does only signify the predicate, and is referred to the

x De Consecrat. dist. 2. c. Quia.

y

y Ejusdem sententiæ sunt, Ocham, Petrus de Aliacho, Cameracensis, Antisiodorensis in 4. 1. sent. dist. 13. Roffensis, cap. 4. contra Captiv. Babyl. Maldonat. Barradius in Evangel.