§. 69.
Can you have a greater assurance hereof, then the express Words of Christ literally understood by the Constant Tra∣dition of all Churches in all ages?
Such an assurance truly would to me be sufficient.
Then, since we are not met here to mannage a formal Dis∣pute, give me leave to desire you seriously to peruse what has passed very lately in Writings on this Argument between Monsieur Arnauld a Doctor of Sorbon, and the most subtle of the Huguenot Ministers called Monsieur Claude. There, besides Testimonies of Antiquity, you will find our Catholic Doctrine acknowledged by the Prime Bi∣shops of Greece, Muscovy, Armenia, and many other Oriental Sects, who by their Attestations, subscribed with their Names before Wit∣nesses, have professed that the Doctrine touching the Real Presence and Change of the Visible Elements into the very Body and Blood of Christ, is the constant Doctrine of all their respective Congregations, and that it has been so delivered to them by their Ancestors from the beginning.
Truly Sir, if this appear to me, I shall not trouble my self with Doubts or Objections from School Philosophy; nor examine the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] How such a change is made: which Examination hath been long since condemned by St. Cyrill of Alexandria, but humbly sub∣mit my judgment and assent to what God has revealed, as I do also in the Mysteries of the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, &c. For in∣deed I find that the Doctrine touching the Holy Eucharist has from the beginning been delivered as a Mystery also incomprehensible by na∣tural Reason.