"Churches entertain a doubt." In pages 10 and 11 he cites the passage adduced above of Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and also asserts that Bishop Poinet one of his successors clearly shews in his Dialecticon, that the Eucharist is not merely the figure of our Lords' body, but also contains its true and real nature and substance, he then quotes these words of Antonius de Dominis "I have no doubt "that all, who believe the gospel will acknowledge "that in the holy communion we receive the true réal "and substantial nature of Christ." Cosin adduces also the testimony of the Saxon confession and of the Synod of Sandomir, and even that of Bucer, who said that "the true body and true blood of "Christ are exhibited and received together with the ❝ visible signs of bread and wine."

Read also again the little Catechism that your Church requires to be learnt by those whom she is preparing for confirmation: when asked; "What

is the inward part or thing signified ?" it is replied: "The body and blood of Christ, which ડર are verily and indeed taken and received by the "faithful in the Lord's Supper."

Not to mention the learned Jeremy Collier, who lost his situation for refusing to take the test oath and who published his reason for his refusal: nor Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford, who would have procured the abrogation of the test act if the people of his time could have understood and tasted the truth that he developed with as much strength as erudition: the two bishops whose learning and

'Cosin Hist. Trans. cap. II. par. 1. p. 6. London, 1675.— *Anton. de Dom. De Rep. Eccles. L. V. cap. V1. No. 169.

reputation procured for them the honour of being consulted by the Duchess of York before her conversion, gave her clearly enough to understand that they themselves recognised the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. In fine, Sir, after all the proofs I have just laid before you in this letter, what ought to surprise you is, not the reckoning amongst your able theologians zealous defenders of the real presence, but the finding that there are afterwards to be discovered so many others who have rejected and combated a mystery, so positively and so certainly revealed in the scriptures, and against which there cannot be reasonably brought a single passage of the sacred books. You are now in a condition to judge of it by our answers to their difficulties, and the pooofs that will be eternally established in favour of the real presence, both by the words of the promise and of the institution.

Transubstantiation.

We have shewn, against the reformed Zuinglians, Calvinists or Anglicans, that a figurative sense cannot be given to the words, this is my body. We are now going to shew against the Lutherans, that the literal sense that must there be admitted, and which they admit with us, necessarily conducts to the dogma of transubstantiation. This word, which is not in scripture, but which the Church has adopted to give its doctrine with more precision, expresses the change of the substance of bread into the substance of the body of Jesus Christ. Now

'See the Declaration of the Duchess of York,

the literal sense most necessarily supposes this change. In fact, what our Saviour blesses and distributes to his apostles, he assures them, when giving it to them, that it is his body. Before, it was visibly bread and nothing else: actually, after his assertion, it is his body. There has, therefore, a change taken place; for no substance whatever can at one and the same time remain what it is, and become another, because then it would be and would not be itself at the same time: it would be itself, having remained what it was: it would not be itself, having become something else, which is evidently absurd.

Will it be said, with Luther, that the bread having undergone no change, the body is come to be joined, or united to it? In that case, the words of our Saviour are changed; and his proposition amounts to one or other of these two, this is at once bread and my body, or this bread is also my body. The literal sense of the words is manifestly abandoned by explaining them in this manner, or rather the words are not explained at all, but others are substituted in their place. Who in fact does not see that, this is my body, and this bread is also my body, are two different propositions? Moreover this latter is in every respect opposed to the grammatical expression of the phrase. Our Saviour did not say, this bread, but this, employing an indefinite term, a demonstrative neuter pronoun, which interpreters render by hoc. Now the neuter pronoun cannot refer to bread, which is of another gender; it must then refer to the body, or be taken in general to denote indistinctly the object that our Saviour was holding in his hand: and then the literal sense is, this, that is to say what I hold in my hand, is my body, but in no wise this

bread is my body. The rules of grammar could not permit it, neither does good sense admit of it: for bread, remaining such, cannot be the body: it is one or other, but not both one and the other at once: there is therefore necessarily a change of the bread into the body, that these words, this is my body, may be found true to the letter. Again, the words of institution are explicit on the subject: "He took bread, says St. Paul,' and giving thanks broke and said:

Take ye and eat, this is my body, which shall be "delivered for you; and St. Matthew; "Drink ye "all of this, for this is my blood of the new Testa"ment which shall be shed for you."s Jesus Christ gives to his apostles the body which was going to be delivered, the blood, which was going to be shed: and most certainly there was no mixture of bread in the body that was going to be delivered.

The Calvinists have perceived this as well as ourselves. They have felt the necessity of a change in the bread: but this change, according to them, is not real, it is only moral. For them, from ordinary aliment, the bread becomes the figure of the body,

1I. Corinth. ch. XI. v. 21.-2Ch. XXVI. v. 26, 27.

"These words addressed exclusively to the apostles and their successors, could never establish for all the faithful the divine precept of communion under both kinds. It might be collected more speciously from the V1.chapter of St. John. But 1° when we have proved that Jesus Christ is entirely under each kind, we receive him entirely under that of bread: and then it is true to say; "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall not have "life eternal in you:" for in eating the body, we drink also the blood. 2o Jesus Christ seems to inform us of this in this very discourse. He says, verse 52: "If any man eat of this bread, he "shall live for ever;" and verse 59," he that eateth this bread shall "live for ever;" where we see the promise of eternal life attached to the manducation of bread alone, that is of the body.

and the words signify, this is the figure of my body. This opinion is absolutely inadmissible, as we have proved in the first part, and the Lutherans join with us in shewing them that they must absolutely adhere to the literal sense. In their turn the Calvinists here unite with us against the Lutherans, and demonstrate to them that their defending the literal sense must lead them to transubstantiation, and to acknowledge that dogma of the Catholic Church. As they borrow from her the arguments they employ against the Lutherans on this question, I will press them into my service for the purpose of laying those arguments before you. Our proofs may perhaps appear stronger to you when coming from their mouths. At least, by bringing them on the stage one after another, you will find it more singular and striking to hear the Calvinists prove to the Lutherans the Catholic dogma.

Let us produce first the great enemy of the real presence. Zuinglius speaks out plainly upon this point in his reply to Billicanus: "Certainly "(says he)' if we take the word is in its literal

66

signification, those who follow the Pope are right, "and we must believe that the bread is flesh." That is to say, according to Zuinglius, the simple and literal sense of these words, this is my body, necessarily includes transubstantiation. He has recourse to the same argument in his treatise on the Lord's Supper, "If we explain without figure the "word is, in the sentence this is my body, it is im"possible that the substance of bread should not be changed into the substance of the body of Jesus "Christ, and that, thus, what before was bread is no

'Fol. 261. Fol. 275.