A systeme or body of divinity consisting of ten books : wherein the fundamentals and main grounds of religion are opened, the contrary errours refuted, most of the controversies between us, the papists, Arminians, and Socinians discussed and handled, several Scriptures explained and vindicated from corrupt glosses : a work seasonable for these times, wherein so many articles of our faith are questioned, and so many gross errours daily published / by Edward Leigh.

Of the Consecration of the Elements.

Christs actions in the administration of the Sacrament were four:

First, He took bread into his hand, and so likewise wine, which signifies the purpose of God decreeing to give Jesus Christ in the flesh to work out our Re∣demption.

Secondly, Christ blessed it, and gave thanks, and sanctified it to that use by his own prayer to God, which as it is effective to make the elements now fit for a spi∣ritual use, so it is significative representing the action of God, wherein he fitted Christs manhood in the fulnesse of his Spirit and power, to work out our Re∣demption.

Thirdly, He brake the bread, which signifies the action of God satisfying his justice in Christs manhood for the sins of all the Elect by breaking him in the Gar∣den, and on the Crosse especially, besides other sufferings throughout his life, and by rending his soul and body asunder.

Fourthly, Christ gave it to every one, signifying that God doth offer parti∣cularly to every one, and give to the Elect the body and bloud of Christ, with the merit of. it, and power of the same to blot out their sins, and free them more and more from the same.

The Text saith of the Bread, He blessed it, and of the Cup, When he had given thanks. By the which word Blessing he implieth a consecration of this Sacrament. The Papists attribute it to the repetition of these words, Hoc est enim corpus meum, For this is my body, For this is my bloud. Hence they call them Verba operatoria, and say, there is such a power and operation in them, that by them the bread is turned into the body of Christ. The Elements of which the Sacrament is com∣posed are natural, the things having nothing of themselves whereby they may be Sacraments, and therefore an institution is necessary, whereby they may be made what they are not. Now we say this is done by reciting the institution of Christ, and by prayer.

The Papists order that the Priest should reade all the other words with a loud voice, yet when he comes to this, For this is my body, he speaks it secretly, so that none can hear him, and this is one of their reasons, because Christ prayed alone, what is this to the consecration? did he so at the Sacrament time?

2. The Minister or Priest speaks it secretly, because if he speak aloud, he can∣not be so intent to what is said; why then do they command such loud noise by their Organs in singing? How can they be attentive then?

3. Least that form of words should be vilified, Why not then in Baptism?

It is most expedient,

• 1. For the receiver to receive the Bread and Cup into his hand: This custome (saith Vossius) was long in the ancient Church. It is unseemly to have the Bread put, or the Wine poured into the mouth by the Minister; this custom came from a su∣perstitious worshipping of the signs.
• 2. The receiver must eat the Bread and drink the wine, which signifies the par∣ticular applying of Jesus Christ with all the benefits of his mediation to ones own soul.

Whether Christ be corporally present with the symboles in the Eu∣charist?

Corpore de Christi lis est, de sanguine lis est. Lis est de modo, non habitura modum.

Christ is ascended into heaven, and he is contained there, Acts 3. 21. till he come to Judgement, therefore he is not there under the shape of bread and wine. See Matth. 26. 11. Iohn 16. 7. Acts 3. 21.

2. All the circumstances about the first Institution of the Sacrament do declare that Christ was not bodily there, especially Christ eating and drinking of it himself, which Cloppenburg a, Peter du Moulin b and D. Featley c hold, urging Matth. 26. 29. & Mark 14. 25. for that purpose. Those words (say they) necessarily im∣ply, that before he uttered them he had drunk of the Cup which he gave to them. Aquinas d also holds this, and the Fathers likewise, saith Peter du Moulin.

The nature of the action (saith Peter du Moulin in the place last quoted) requi∣red that Christ should communicate to shew the Communion he had with us, as also he did partake of our Baptism, Matth. 3. 16. from whence cometh the cu∣stome of the Church, that the Pastor first communicates, and the people af∣terwards.

When the publick Authority of this Land were for the Papists, subscription was not urged upon such violent and bloudy terms unto any Articles of their Religion, as unto that of the real presence. D. Iack. Epist. to the Read.

For the same Christ was not visibly at the Table and spake, and yet invisibly un∣der the bread and wine, he did not eat and drink himself.

The end of the Sacrament is a remembrance of Christs death, Do this in remem∣brance of me, and You shew forth his death till he come. Now how can there be any remembring of him when he is present.

His corporal presence and eating is made unprofitable, Iohn▪ 6. though Christ said, his flesh was meat indeed, yet he did not mean that it should be eaten and and drunk corporally: the flesh profiteth nothing, but his words are Spirit and Life.

Our Union and Conjunction with Christ is inward and spiritual, which consists in Faith and Love; it is true we are united to his body, but not after a bodily manner.

It is against reason and sense:

We believe Christ to be present spiritually in the hearts of the Communicants, sacramentally in the Elements, but not corporally.

Real is,

• 1. Opposed to that which is imaginary, and importeth as much as truely.
• 2. To that which is meerly figurative and barely representative, and importeth as much as effectually.
• 3. To that which is spiritual, and importeth as much as corporally or mate∣rially.

The presence of Christ in the Sacrament is reall in the two former acceptions of real, but not in the last, for he is truly there present and effectually, though not carnally or locally. Doctor Featleys Transubstantiation Exploded.

Really and corporally are not all one, that which is spiritually present is really present, unlesse we will say that a Spirit is nothing. The bloud of Christ is really present in Baptism to the washing away of sinne. Christ is really present to the faith of every true believer, even out of the Sacrament. Downs Defence against the Reply of M. N.

We deny that Christ is so present in the Sacrament under the forms of bread

and wine, as that whosoever receive the Sacrament, do truely receive Christ himself.

The Papists say, Christs natural body is present; we, that the merit and vertue of his body broken upon the Cross and of his bloud shed upon the Cross is present to the believing soul in the Sacrament. The body of the Sun is in heaven in its sphere local∣ly and circumscriptively, but the beams are on the earth. And when the Sun beams shine into our house, we say, here's the Sun, though it be the beams not the body of the Sun. So the Scripture saith of the Sacrament, This is my body, Christ ascended up into Heaven: as for that exception, he is visibly in heaven, but invisibly here, it an∣swereth not those testimonies which prove he is so there that he is not here, Mat. 28. 6. q. d. he could not be in both places at once, an angelical argument. Aqui∣nas saith, It is not possible by any miracle, that the body of Christ should be lo∣cally in many places at once, because it includeth a contradiction by making it not one, for one is that which is not divided from it self. It is impossible (say the Pa∣pists) according to the course of nature, but not absolutely impossible, by divine miracle it may be.

Consubstantiation overthroweth the grounds,

• 1. Of reason, the body of one and the same man cannot be present in many places all together, but must needs remain in some definite and certain place.
• 2. Religion, because Christ was taken up into heaven, there to abide till the end of the world.

It was above a hundred years before Transubstantiation.

They did adore Christ as co-existent with the bread which perhaps gave occasion to Averroes to say, That Christians did adore their God and then eat him. Aver∣roes his resolution was, Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt, sit anima mea cum Philosophis.

The quarrel between Luther and Zuinglius was about Christs presence in the Sacrament, which Luther held to be by way of Consubstantiation, which how it could be unlesse the body of Christ were every where, Zuinglius and others could not conceive. Luther being pressed therewith, he and his followers not being able▪ to avoid it, maintained that also. But how? By reason of the hypostatical Union and Conjunction thereof with the word. For the word being every where, and the humane nature being no where severed from it, How can it be, say they, but every where? The humanity of Christ according to its Essence or natural Being is contained in one place, but according to its subsistence or personal being may right∣ly be said to be every where. Zanch. Misc. Iud. de Dissid. Coen. Dom. and D. Field, lib. 3. c 35. of the Church.

The Papists constant Doctrine is, That in worshipping the Sacrament they should give unto it, Latriae cultum qui vero Deo debetur, as the Councell of Trent hath determined, that kinde of service which is due to the true God, de∣termining their worship in that very thing which the Priest doth hold betwixt his hands.

This is artolatry, an idolatrous worship of the bread, because they ado••e the host even as the very person of the Sonne of God. It is true, they conceive it not bread, but the body of Christ, yet that doth not free them from bread-worship, for then if the Heathen did take his stone to be a God it did free him from idola∣try. Hence, saith a Jesuite, If the bread be not turned into the body of Christ, we are the greatest and worst idolaters that ever were, as upon my soul, saith he, it is not.

Adoration is not commanded in the institution of it.

2. Nothing is to be worshipt with Divine Worship but God.

Notes

• Matth. 26 26.
• Consecratio vo∣cabulum est so∣lenne significans id quod fit, ut haec signa visibi∣lia quae per se profana sunt, & aliena à mysteri∣is religiosis, sint Sacramenta cor∣poris & sangui∣nis Christi, sive sint corpus & sanguis Christi. Consecrationem distinguimus à forma Sacra∣menti, ut totum à parte, consecrati∣onem dicimus esse in tota Chri∣sti institutione. Ut quicquid ille fecerit ad eum pertinens, nosque jusserit facere, eo ipso consecrari credamus Sacra∣mentum, ne ex∣clusis quidem Ecclesiae preci∣bus, quibus id ip∣sum à Deo po∣stulatur fieri, quod ea institu∣tione continetur. Chamier. de Sac. l. 1. c. 5.
• Si quis nega∣verit in sanctis∣sima Euchari∣stia contineri verè, realiter, substantialiter corpus & san∣guinem Christi Anathema sit. Concil. Trid. Sess. 23. Can. 1. Nos dicimus Dominura Chri∣stum corporali∣ter sub specie p••nis contineri. Greg. de Valent. Tom. 4. Disput. 6. Quaest. 3.
• a

  Compend. Socin. confutat. cap. 10. Vide plura ibid.
• b

  Of the Eucharist, chap. 6. pag. 68, 260. and chap. 11. pag. 141.
• c

  Stricturae in Lyndomastygem concerning the seven Sacraments.
• d

  Parte tertia Quaest. 81. Art. 1.
• Qui transub∣stantiationem damnavit Lu∣therus optimè, tamen induxit consubstantiatio∣nem non benè, & ab hoc non lau∣dabili initio, Brentius ejus Discipulus ad ubiquitatem de∣latus est, pessimè. Anabaptistae in oppositum lapsi extremum, signa sunt imaginati vacua & inania, quasi nudas professionis tesseras Christianis & Infidelibus distinguen••is. Chamierus lib. 10. de Eucharistiae c. 7.
• Hyperbolicum praesentiae mo∣dum exigunt cu∣riosi homines, quem Scriptura misquam osten∣dit. Calvin. In∣stit l 4▪ c. 17. Corpus unum non potest esse in pluribus locis si∣mul, non enim repletivè, at is modus proprius est Deitati quae omnia cum reple∣at, tamen neque spatium occupat, cum sit Spiritus: neque terminis ullis definitur, cum sit infinita: nec definitivè, quia quaecunque sic sunt in uno loco non pos∣sunt esse alibi. Nec tertiò occupativè, quia quicquid ita est in loco est etiam definitivè, ac proinde non potest esse alibi. Cha∣mierus Tom. 2. l. 6 c. 11. Scholastici tametsi contendunt ineptissimè, idem corpus posse esse in uno loco modo suo naturali seu cir∣cumscriptivo, & in multis aliis modo sacramentali: negant tamen posse esse modo naturali vel per divinam potentiam absolu∣tam simul in pluribus locis. Ames. Bellarm. Enerv. Tom 3. c. 12,
• Lutherus prin∣cipio ad Sacra∣menta conversus, videbat non esse septem, putabat tamen adhuc plura esse quam duo; post in cate∣chismo majore, re diligentius expensa, duo tantum statuit. In negotio coenae primo videbatur illi, licet panis inesset, tamen corpus Domini una etiam per Consubstantiationem adesse; sed paulò ante mortem agens cum Philippo Melancthone, fatetur in negotio coenae nimium esse factum. Rainold. de lib. Apoc. Tom. 10. Pralect. 4. Nobis unicum solatium in co Sacramento est praesentia corporis Christi in sacrâ Coenâ. Sed negamus esse id, in, cum, sub pane; nisi ille modus loquendi sic accipiatur, quòd sit in, cum, sub pane ut signo corporis in Coena praesentis: ita enim unionis & pacis studio haud difficulter etiam in cum modum loquendi porrò condescendemus. Vedel. Rationale Theologicum, l. 3. c. 20.
• Proper subsi∣stence of its own, and in it self it hath none, only the subsistence of the Son of God is communica∣ted unto it, which is infi∣nite and unli∣mited.
• Ex hoc loco Cinglio-Cal∣viniani, canes impurissimi, bla∣spheme argumentantur, Corpus Christi in S. Coena ore corporis non accipi, nisi (inquiunt) s••atucre velimus & illud in alvum abire, & (increpet te Dominus Satan) per secessum ejici. Bertram. in Mat. 15.
• Coster. D^r Burgess of kneeling. pag. 113.
• Deux non jussit vel adorari Sa∣cramentum, vel etiam nos adorare coram Sacramento, vel in Sacramento. Nolumus tamen atro carbone notare eos, qui nobiscum alias se••••i∣••••••es, & eandem fidem profitentes, neque Sacramentis divinos honores deferre intendentes, ea flexis genibus accipiu••t, adora∣ti••ne ad institutorem directa, & ad eum qui se nobis communicat. Quia tamen mos ille ab iis profluxit, qui ex Sacramento Deum fecerunt, quod directe adorant, multo magis nobis consuetudo probatur corum, qui quantum possunt abstinent ab ••••s ex quibus vel suspicio, vel occasio idololariae, vel superstitioni, oriri posset. Riveti Instruct. Praepar. ad coenam Domini, c. 13. Vide plura ibid.