thers explain their own meaning; and, as I have shown, well do they explain it,

But, that I may not affront our antagonists, I will condescend to answer, directly, to one of these expressions, which they have culled out, and called an objection. And observe, it is the one they consider strongest of all. From its weakness, then, you shall judge of the remainder. It is this passage of Tertullian. In his book against the heretic Marcion, c. 40, he says, that "Christ made the bread his body, by saying, this is my body, that is, the figure of my body." Now, my brethren, this is not an objection, but a mistake of our opponents The case was this: Marcion, like other early heretics, maintained, that Christ, when on earth, had not a true body, but the shadow, the appearance, the mere figure of a body. Tertullian, to confute him, shows, that figures belonged to the old law, but realities to the new. And this he shews by the Blessed Sacrament; arguing, that bread, which was a figure in the old law, as in the sacrifice of Melchisedec, &c. is made the real body of Christ in the new. But, in arguing this, he uses a turnof phrase, very common with him, and which grammarians call "hyperbaton," or transposition of words. Thus, he says, in another place: "Christ is dead, that is, anointed;" instead of saying: "Christ, that is, the anointed, is dead." And again: "I will open to a parable my ear, that is, a similitude;" instead of, "I will open to a parable, that is, a similitude, my ear. And this transposition he uses, in order not to interrupt the scripture, which he happens to be quoting. So, the ob

jected passage, if we replace the transposed words, will run thus; "Christ made bread, (that is, the figure of his body,) his body, by saying, this is my body." And this is clear, from what he instantly adds: "figura autem non fuisset, nisi veritatis esset corpus." Which, in English, is: "But it, (the bread,) would not have been (the past time) a figure, (namely, in the old law,) if the body were not (the present time) a reality, namely, in the new law.

What do our opponents now think, of their celebrated objection from Tertullian? But, it is fair that we should let that writer speak for himself. Hear him, then. In his book on the Resurrection of the Flesh, c. 8, he says: "Our flesh eats the body and blood of Christ, that our souls may be fattened with the Godhead." But, after all, suppose Tertullian had called the sacrament a figure of the body, pray, is it not, as I have often said, a figure? not, indeed, of the body absent, but of the body present.

To this their blundering objection from Tertullian, our antagonists add, with equal imbecility of logic, three or four passages from other fathers. In pity to the ignorance, which could adduce these passages; and, because I have a respect for the common sense of my Catholic audience, I shall not go into any detail; but, with one word, as it were, shall make my opponents ashamed of their folly. St. Augustine says, that children, who are baptized, though they do

not receive the eucharist, yet, partake of the body of Christ, because their souls receive his redemption; that is, they communicate spiritually. But, because children communicate spiritually, does it follow, that the rest of the faithful do not communicate corporally, when they receive the blessed sacrament? Oh! what admirable logic!-Again, St. Augustine says, that the unworthy communicant does not receive the body of Christ; that is, he does not receive, in his soul, the benefit of Christ's redempticn. But, what fool will hence conclude, that the sinner does not receive him corporally? For, St. Augustine, in the very same passage says, that the unworthy communicant " presses with his teeth" the body of his Saviour.-What other passage do Protestants adduce? Why; St. Pius the First says, that to eat the body of the Lord, is to believe the word of the Lord; that is, that faith is necessary for a worthy communion. These, my brethren, are the formidable passages, quoted by our silly opponents; and to infer, as they do, that the body of our Redeemer does not really exist at all, in the sacrament, is just as if they argued thus: "St. Paul says, that the unworthy receiver eats and drinks damnation to himself; therefore the sacrament is, not the body of Jesus, but-damnation." What blasphemous folly! For, does not the Apostle add, that the unworthy receiver is "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord?" But, how could he be guilty of them, if they were not really

present, independently of the faith, and of every other disposition of the receiver?

Such, my brethren, are the paltry quibbles, for which Protestants have left the faith of all the great Saints and Fathers of the Church. Oh, what blindness! to differ from all antiquity! For, although I have quoted but a few authors of the first ages, all their contemporaries, and all their successors to the present day, state the same doctrine. And this, not in their individual capacity alone, but when assembled in the general councils of the Church. At Nice, at Ephesus, at Constantinople, the congregated bishops of Christendom declared this saving faith. For brevity' sake, I shall quote one subsequent author, for all, and one council, for all. St. John Damascene, or of Damascus, before the middle of the eighth century, thus delivers the sense of the Church. In his fourth book of the Orthodox Faith, c. 14, he says: "If the word of God is quick and powerful; if God made all things which he pleased; if he said, let the light be made, and it was made; let the firmament be made, and it was made; if by his word the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth: if heaven, earth, water, fire, air, and all their perfections, were the production of his sacred word; if man himself was made by it; if God the Son, when he pleased, was made man, and formed himself a body out of the immaculate blood of the ever-virgin Mary; what can hinder him from being able to make his body from bread, and his blood from wine and water?-Not that his body descends from

heaven; but that bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of God. Neither are bread and wine the figures of the body and blood of Christ, (God forbid !) but the very body of Christ incarnate; since he did not say, this is the sign of my body, but, this is my body; nor, this is the sign of my blood, but, this is my blood. And if some of the fathers," says he, "have called bread and wine (avTITUTα) the figures of the body and blood of our Lord, as St. Basil did; they did not say this of what is offered after consecration, but only before it; yet we call them AVTITUTA, antitypes, or figures of things to come; not that they are not truly the body and blood of Christ; but. because by them we are partakers of Christ's divinity now, of which we expect hereafter a clear sight in the beatific vision. So far St. John Damascene.

The Council I shall quote, is the seventh general one, the second at Nice, of two hundred and fifty bishops, in the year 781, who met to condemn the Iconoclasts, or Image-breakers. These heretics, though they did not deny transubstantiation, yet, to justify their contempt of holy images, had, in their profession of faith, called the Eucharist," the only true image of Christ to be worshipped." The Fathers of the Council reply to them thus: tom. 7, Conc. p. 447, "Never did any of the Apostles, or of the Holy Fathers, call the unbloody sacrifice, (which is made in remembrance of Christ, and of all that he did and suffered,) the image of his body. For, they did not learn that from Christ, but heard him say in the gospel, un