Eucharist, ought to be understood literally or carnally: while the Anglican, with the members The whole passage exhibits so curious a specimen of the most approved Duacensic system of explaining and managing and correcting and garbling a troublesome old author, that I shall borrow it from the citation of Bishop Cosin. Liber ille Bertrami, quum jam sæpe recusus sit et lectus a plurimis, ac per interdictum nomen omnibus innotuerit, EMENDATUS tolerari queat. Fuit enim Bertramus catholicus Presbyter ac monachus Corbeiensis Coenobii, Carolo Calvo carus ac venerabilis. Et, quum in Catholicis veteribus aliis plurimos feramus errores, EXTENUEMUS, EXCUSEMUS, EXCOGITATO COMMENT. PERSÆPE NEGEMUS, ET COMMODUM SENSUM EIS AFFIN GAMUS, dum opponuntur in disputationibus aut in conflictationibus cum adversariis: non videmus, cur non eandem æquitatem et diligentem recognitionem non mereatur Bertramus; ne hæretici ogganiant, nos Antiquitatem pro ipsis facientem exurere et prohibere: quia et illud metuimus, ne liber iste, non solum ab hæreticis, verum immorigeris quoque Catholicis, ob interdictum avidius legatur, odiosius allegetur, et plus vetitus quam permissus noceat. Ind. Expurg. Belg. p. 54. 1. The Bishop subjoins sundry specimens of their emendations or convenient explications. One of them I shall give. Bertram had unluckily written: So far as respects the SUBSTANCE of the creatures, whatever they were BEFORE consecration, they are the same also AFTER consecration. A plain man would deem this sufficiently explicit: but Douay Doctors are not easily discouraged. They tell us, that Bertram's word Substance must be understood only of the external appearances or accidents of the bread and wine: though they unguardedly confess, that good honest Bertram had never, in the course of his whole life, heard of such a portent, as the existence of accidents without substance. Dr. Trevern, I remember, copying his predecessors in convenient explications, would have us believe, that, when Theo of various other reformed Churches, maintains, that they ought to be understood figuratively or doret, in the yet earlier fifth century, spake of substance, he meant nothing more than accidents. This decisive passage from Theodoret will presently appear in its due place. 2. Another specimen of popish management, which splendidly exemplifies the Duacensic Maxim, Excogitato commento persæpe negemus, occurs in the remarkable case of Elfric's epistle to Wulfstane written about the close of the tenth century. The original Saxon, happily preserved in the Library of Exeter Cathedral M. 3, contains the following passage, which strikingly exemplifies the theology of our ancestors previous to the Norman conquest. Nevertheless, this sacrifice is NOT the same body of his wherein he suffered for us, NOR the same blood of his which he shed for us but SPIRITUALLY it is made his body and blood; as was that manna which rained from heaven, and as was that water which did flow out of the rock. But, in the latin translation of the epistle preserved in the Library of Worcester Cathedral, the above passage has been carefully erased, doubtless by the zealous hand of some transubstantialising Romanist. That operation being performed, henceforth a latin disputant might stoutly deny the existence of any passage distinctly hostile to the doctrine of Transubstantiation throughout the whole epistle. Excogitato commento, sæpe negemus. For my knowledge of this fact, I am indebted to Mr. Soames and Dr. Stewart. See Soames's Hist. of the Reform. vol. iii. p. 165, 166, and Stewart's Protestant Layman, p. 322—324. Elfric had evidently studied Augustine: for the above passage, though heretical in the eyes of a Romanist, is built upon a closely parallel passage in August. Enarr. in Psalm xcviii. Oper. vol. viii. p. 397. It will presently be produced. See below, § III. 6. spiritually. I shall now, therefore, produce a series of passages, in which the ancient theologians, either directly pronounce that Christ's phraseology ought to be explained spiritually, or unequivocally assert that the bread and wine are not properly his body and blood, or expressly determine that his substantial body and blood are not literally present in the Eucharist. 1. Let us first hear Tertullian. If Christ declares, that The flesh profiteth nothing; the sense must be decided from the matter of the saying. For, because the Jews deemed his discourse hard and intolerable, as if he had truly determined that his flesh was to be eaten by them: in order that he might dispose the state of salvation toward the spirit, he promised; It is the spirit that quickeneth. And thus he subjoined: The flesh profiteth nothing; namely, to quicken. There follows also what he would have us to understand by spirit: The words, which I have spoken unto you, are spirit and life-Appointing, therefore, the word to be the vivifier, because the word is spirit and life; he called the same likewise his own flesh: for, since the Word was made flesh, it was thence to be sought for the purpose of life, and was to be devoured in the hearing, and was to be ruminated upon in the intellect, and was to be digested by faith. Hence he had shortly before pronounced his flesh to be also heavenly bread. 1 Si carnem ait nihil prodesse, ex materia dicti dirigendus est sensus. 2. Let us next hear Cyril of Jerusalem, while instructing his Catechumens in the true import of our Lord's phraseology. Christ, once conversing with the Jews, said: Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have not life in yourselves. They, not having spiritually understood the things which were spoken, being scandalised, went back; fancying, that he exhorts them to flesh-eating-In the new Covenant, heavenly bread and the cup of salvation sanctify the soul and body. As bread corresponds to the body, thus also the word is fitting to the soul-When David says to God; Thou hast prepared a table before me: what means he else, than the mystical and intellectual table, which God hath prepared before us?— On this account also, Solomon, enigmatising this grace, says, in the book of Ecclesiastes: Come, eat thy bread in cheerfulness, namely the spiritual bread; and come (he calls with a saving and beatifying vocation), drink thy wine in a good heart, namely the sermonem ejus, quasi verè carnem suam illis edendam determinasset ut in spiritum disponeret statum salutis, promisit; spiritus est qui vivificat. Atque ita subjunxit: Caro nihil prodest; ad vivificandum, scilicet. Exequitur etiam, quid velit intelligi spiritum: Verba, quæ locutus sum vobis, spiritus sunt, vita sunt-Itaque sermonem constituens vivificatorem, quia spiritus et vita sermo, eundem etiam carnem suam dixit, quia et sermo caro erat factus, proinde in causam vitæ appetendus, et devorandus auditu, et ruminandus intellectu, et fide digerendus. Nam et, paulo ante, carnem suam panem quoque cœlestem pronunciarat. Tertull. de resurr. carn. § xxviii. Oper. p. 69. spiritual wine-Strengthen, then, thy heart, partaking of this bread as spiritual: and make joyful the countenance of thy soul'. 3. Let us next hear the great Athanasius. What When our Lord conversed on the eating of his body, and when he thence beheld many scandalised, he forthwith added: Doth this offend you? if ye shall behold the Son of man ascending where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth : the flesh profiteth nothing. The words, which I speak unto you, are spirit and life. Both these matters, the flesh and the spirit, he said respecting himself: and he distinguished the spirit from the flesh, in order that, believing both the visible and the invisible, they might understand his sayings to be not carnal but spiritual. For to how many persons could his body have sufficed for food: so that it might become the aliment of the whole world? But, that he might divert their minds from carnal cogitations, and that they might learn the flesh which he would give them to be supercelestial and spiritual food: he, on this account, mentioned the ascent of the Son of man to heaven. The words, said he, which I speak unto you, are spirit and life. 1 Ποτὲ Χριστὸς, τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις διαλεγόμενος, ἔλεγεν· Ἐὰν μὴ φάγητέ μου τὴν σάρκα καὶ πίητέ μου τὸ αἷμα, οὐκ ἔχετε ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς. Ἐκεῖνοι, μὴ ἀκηκούτες πνευματικῶς τῶν λεγομένων, σκανδαλισθέντες, ἀπῆλθον εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, νομίζοντες ὅτι ἐπὶ σαρκο φαγίαν αὐτοὺς προτρέπεται—Ἐν τῇ καινῇ διαθήκῃ, ἄρτος οὐρά νιος, καὶ ποτήριον σωτηρίου, ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα ἁγιάζοντα. Ωσπερ ὁ ἄρτος σώματι κατάλληλος· οὕτω καὶ ὁ λόγος τῇ ψυχῇ ἁρμόδιος |