The history of Popish transubstantiation to which is premised and opposed, the Catholick doctrin of Holy Scripture, the ancient fathers and the Reformed churches, about the sacred elements, and presence of Christ in the blessed sacrament of the eucharist / written nineteen years ago in Latine, by the Right Reverend Father in God, John, late Lord Bishop of Durham, and allowed by him to be published a little before his death, at the earnest request of his friends.

CHAP. I. (Book 1)

1. The Real, that is, true and not imaginary Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is proved by Scripture. 2 and 3. Yet this favours not the Tenet of Transubstantiation, being it is not to be understood grosly and carnally, but spiritually and Sacramentally. 4. The nature and use of the Sacraments. 5. By means of the Elements of Bread and Wine, Christ himself is spiritually eaten by the Faithful in the Sacrament. 6. The eating and presence being spiritual are not destructive of the truth and substance of the thing. 7. The manner of Presence is unsearchable, and ought not to be presumptuously defined.

1. THose words which our blessed Saviour used in the instituti∣on of the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, This is my * 1.1 body which is given for you; This is my bloud which is shed for you, for the remission of sins,

are held and acknowledged by the Uni∣versal Church to be most true and infalli∣ble: And if any one dares oppose them, or call in question Christs Veracity, or the truth of his words, or refuse to yield his sincere assent to them, except he be allowed to make a meer figment or a bare figure of them, * 1.2 we cannot, and ought not, either excuse or suffer him in our Churches: for we must embrace and hold for an undoubted truth whatever is taught by Divine Scripture. And therefore we can as little doubt of what Christ saith, Joh. 6. 55 My flesh is meat indeed, and my bloud is drink indeed; which, according to St. Paul, are both given to us by the consecrated Ele∣ments: For he calls the Bread, the Com∣munion of Christs Body, and the Cup, the * 1.3 Communion of his bloud.

2. Hence it is most evident that the Bread and Wine (which according to St. Paul are the Elements of the holy Eu∣charist) are neither changed as to their substance, nor vanisht, nor reduc'd to no∣thing; but are solemnly consecrated by the words of Christ, that by them his blessed body and bloud may be communi∣cated to us.

3. And further it appears from the same words, that the expression of Christ and the Apostle, is to be understood in a Sacramental and mystick sense; and that no gross and carnal presence of body and bloud can be maintained by them.

4. And though the word Sacrament be no where used in Scripture to signifie the bles∣sed Eucharist, yet the Christian Church, ever since its Primitive ages, hath given it that name, and always called the pre∣sence of Christs body and bloud therein, Mystick and Sacramental. Now a Sacra∣mental expression doth, without any in∣convenience, give to the sign the name of * 1.4 the thing signified: And such is as well the usual way of speaking, as the nature of Sacraments, that not only the names, but even the properties and effects of what they represent and exhibite, are gi∣ven to the outward Elements. Hence (as I said before) the Bread is as clearly as positively called by the Apostle, the Com∣munion of the body of Christ.

5. This also seems very plain, that our Blessed Saviour's design was not so much to teach, what the Elements of Bread and Wine are by nature and substance, as what is their use and office and signifi∣cation in this Mystery: For the body and

bloud of our Saviour are not only fitly represented by the Elements, but also, by vertue of his institution really offered to all, by them, and so eaten by the faith∣ful Mystically and Sacramentally; whence it is, that he truly is and abides in us, and we * 1.5 in him.

6. This is the spiritual (and yet no less true and undoubted than if it were corporal) eating of Christ's flesh, not indeed simply as it is flesh, without any other respect (for so it is not given, neither would it profit us) but as it is crucified and given for the redemption of the * 1.6 world; neither doth it hinder the truth and substance of the thing, that this eating of Christ's body is spiritual, and that by it the souls of the Faithful, and not their stomachs, are fed by the opera∣tion of the Holy Ghost: For this none can deny, but they who being strangers to the Spirit and the divine vertue, can savour only carnal things, and to whom, what is Spiritual and Sacramental, is the same as if a meer nothing.

7. As to the manner of the presence of the body and bloud of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we that are Protestant and Reformed according to the ancient Catholick Church, do not search into

the manner of it with perplexing inqui∣ries; but, after the example of the primi∣tive and purest Church of Christ, we leave it to the power and wisdom of our Lord, yielding a full and unfeined assent to his words: Had the Romish main∣tainers of Transubstantiation done the same, they would not have determined and decreed, and then imposed as an Ar∣ticle of faith absolutely necessary to Sal∣vation, a manner of presence, newly by them invented, under pain of the most direful Curse, and there would have been in the Church less wrangling, and more peace and unity than now is.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Mat. 6. 26. Luk. 22. 1••.
• * 1.2

  As G. Cali••tus writes in some place of his learned Ex∣ercitations; and be∣fore him M. Chem∣nitius, in Exam. Con. Trid. atque in l••••is T••••ol.
• * 1.3

  1 Cor. 10. 16.
• * 1.4

  Exod. 12. 21. 1 Cor. 10. 3, 4.
• * 1.5

  Joh. 6. 56.
• * 1.6

  Mat. 20. 26.