I will mention but one Testimony more of this Father,
but so clear a one as it is impossible any man in his
wits that had believed Transubstantiation could have
utter'd. It is in his Treatise de Doctrina Christiana;
where laying down several Rules for the right understanding
of Scripture, he gives this for one. If (says
he) the speech be a precept forbidding some heinous wickedness
or crime, or commanding us to do good, it is not
figurative; but if it seem to command any heinous wickedness
or crime, or to forbid that which is profitable and
beneficial to others, it is figurative. For example, Except
ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud,
ye have no life in you: This seems to command a heinous
wickedness and crime, therefore it is a figure; commanding
us to communicate of the passion of our Lord, and
with delight and advantage to lay up in our memory that
his flesh was crucified and wounded for us. So that, according
to St. Austin's best skill in interpreting Scripture,
the literal eating of the flesh of Christ and drinking
his bloud would have been a great impiety; and
therefore the expression is to be understood figuratively;
not as Cardinal Perron would have it, onely in
opposition to the eating of his flesh and bloud in the
gross appearance of flesh and bloud, but to the real
eating of his natural body and bloud under any appearance
whatsoever: For St. Austin doth not say, this is
a Figurative speech wherein we are commanded really
to feed upon the natural body and bloud of Christ under
the species of bread and wine, as the Cardinal
would understand him; for then the speech would be
literal and not figurative: But he says, this is a figurative

C2

speech wherein we are commanded Spiritually
to feed upon the remembrance of his Passion.
To these I will add but three or four Testimonies
more in the two following Ages.
The first shall be of Theodoret, who speaking of that
Prophecy of Jacob concerning our Saviour, he washed
his garments in Wine and his clothes in the bloud of
grapes,
hath these words, as we call the mystical fruit
of the Vine (that is, the Wine in the Sacrament) after
consecration the bloud of the Lord, so he (viz. Jacob)
calls the bloud of the true Vine (viz. of Christ) the
bloud of the grape: but the bloud of Christ is not literally
and properly but onely figuratively the bloud of
the grape, in the same sense as he is said to be the true
Vine; and therefore the Wine in the Sacrament after
consecration is in like manner not literally and properly
but figuratively the bloud of Christ. And he explains
this afterwards, saying, that our Saviour changed
the names, and gave to his Body the name of the Symbol
or Sign, and to the Symbol or Sign the name of his Body;
thus when he had call'd himself the Vine, he call'd the
Symbol or Sign his bloud; so that in the same sense that
he call'd himself the Vine, he call'd the Wine, which
is the Symbol of his bloud, his bloud: For, says he,
he would have those who partake of the divine mysteries
not to attend to the nature of the things which are seen,
but by the change of names to believe the change which is
made by grace; for he who call'd that which by nature is
a body wheat and bread, and again likewise call'd himself
the Vine, he honour'd the Symbols with the name of his
body and bloud: not changing nature but adding grace to
nature. Where you see he says expresly, that when he
call'd the Symbols or Elements of the Sacrament, viz.
bread and Wine, his Body and Bloud, he made no change
in the nature of the things, onely added grace to nature,

that is, by the Divine grace and blessing he raised
them to a Spiritual and Supernatural vertue and
efficacy.
The Second is of the same Theodoret in his second Dialogue
between a Catholique under the name of Orthodoxus,
and an Heretique under the name of Eranistes;
who maintaining that the Humanity of Christ was
chang'd into the substance of the Divinity (which was
the Heresie of Eutyches) he illustrates the matter by
this Similitude, As, says he, the Symbols of the Lord's
body and bloud are one thing before the invocation of the
Priest, but after the invocation are changed and become
another thing; So the body of our Lord after his ascension
is changed into the divine substance. But what says the
Catholique Orthodoxus to this? why, he talks just like
one of Cardinal Perron's Heretiques, Thou art, says he,
caught in thy own net: because the mystical Symbols after
consecration do not pass out of their own nature; for they
remain in their former substance, figure and appearance
and may be seen and handled even as before. He does
not onely deny the outward figure and appearance of
the Symbols to be chang'd, but the nature and substance
of them, even in the proper and strictest sense
of the word substance; and it was necessary so to do,
otherwise he had not given a pertinent answer to the
similitude urg'd against him.
The next is one of their own Popes, Gelasius, who
brings the same Instance against the Eutychians; surely,
says he, the Sacraments which we receive of the body
and bloud of our Lord are a divine thing, so that by
them we are made partakers of a divine nature, and yet
it ceaseth not to be the substance or nature of bread and
Wine; and certainly the image and resemblance of Christ's
body and bloud are celebrated in the action of the mysteries,
that is, in the Sacrament. To make this Instance

19

of any force against the Eutychians, who held
that the body of Christ upon his ascension ceas'd and
was chang'd into the substance of his Divinity, it was
necessary to deny that there was any substantial
change in the Sacrament of the bread and wine into
the body and bloud of Christ. So that here is an infallible
authority, one of their own Popes expresly against
Transubstantiation.
The last Testimony I shall produce is of Facundus an
African Bishop, who lived in the 6th. Century. Upon
occasion of justifying an expression of one who had
said that Christ also received the adoption of Sons, he
reasons thus. Christ vouchsafed to receive the Sacrament
of adoption both when he was circumcised and baptized:
And the Sacrament of Adoption may be called
adoption, as the Sacrament of his body and bloud, which
is in the consecrated bread and cup, is by us called his body
and bloud: not that the bread, says he, is properly
his body and the cup his bloud, but because they contain
in them the mysteries of his body and bloud; hence also
our Lord himself called the blessed bread and cup which
he gave to his Disciples his body and bloud. Can any
man after this believe, that it was then, and had ever
been, the universal and received Doctrine of the
Christian Church, that the bread and wine in the Sacrament
are substantially changed into the proper and
natural body and bloud of Christ?
By these plain Testimonies which I have produced,
and I might have brought a great many more to the
same purpose, it is I think evident beyond all denial
that Transubstantiation hath not been the perpetual belief
of the Christian Church. And this likewise is acknowledged
by many great and learned men of the
Roman Church. Scotus acknowledgeth, that this
Doctrine was not always thought necessary to be believed,

but that the necessity of believing it was consequent
to that Declaration of the Church made in the
Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent the III. And
Durandus freely discovers his inclination to have
believed the contrary, if the Church had not by that determination
obliged men to believe it. Tonstal Bishop
of Durham also yields, that before the Lateran
Council men were at liberty as to the manner of Christ's
presence in the Sacrament. And Erasmus, who lived
and died in the communion of the Roman Church,
and than whom no man was better read in the ancient
Fathers, doth confess that it was late before the Church
defined Transubstantiation, unknown to the Ancients both
name and thing. And Alphonsus a Castro says plainly,
that concerning the Transubstantiation of the bread
into the body of Christ, there is seldom any mention in
the ancient Writers. And who can imagine that these
learned men would have granted the ancient Church
and Fathers to have been so much Strangers to this
Doctrine, had they thought it to have been the perpetual
belief of the Church? I shall now in the
Second place, give an account of the particular time
and occasion of the coming in of this Doctrine, and by what
steps and degrees it grew up and was advanced into
an Article of Faith in the Romish Church. The Doctrine
of the corporal presence of Christ was first started upon
occasion of the Dispute about the Worship of Images,
in opposition whereto the Synod of Constantinople about
the year DCCL did argue thus, That our Lord having
left us no other image of himself but the Sacrament,
in which the substance of bread is the image of
his body, we ought to make no other image of our
Lord. In answer to this Argument the second Council
of Nice in the year DCCLXXXVII did declare, that
the Sacrament after Consecration is not the image and

21

antitype of Christ's body and bloud, but is properly his
body and bloud. So that the corporal presence of Christ
in the Sacrament was first brought in to support the stupid
worship of Images: And indeed it could never have
come in upon a more proper occasion, nor have been
applied to a fitter purpose.
And here I cannot but take notice how well this
agrees with Bellarmine's Observation, that none of the
Ancients who wrote of Heresies, hath put this errour
(viz. of denying Transubstantiation) in his Catalogue;
nor did any of the Ancients dispute against this errour
for the first 600 years. Which is very true, because
there could be no occasion then to dispute against those
who denied Transubstantiation; since, as I have shewn,
this Doctrine was not in being, unless amongst the
Eutychian Heretiques, for the first 600 years and more.
But Bellarmine goes on and tells us, that the first who
call'd in question the truth of the body of the Lord in the
Eucharist were the ICONOMACHI (the opposers of
Images) after the year DCC in the Council of Constantinople;
for these said there was one image of Christ instituted
by Christ himself, viz. the bread and wine in the
Eucharist, which represents the body and bloud of Christ:
Wherefore from that time the Greek Writers often admonish
us that the Eucharist is not the figure or image of
the body of the Lord, but his true body, as appears from
the VIIth. Synod; which agrees most exactly with the
account which I have given of the first rise of this
Doctrine, which began with the corporal presence of
Christ in the Sacrament, and afterwards proceeded to
Transubstantiation.
And as this was the first occasion of introducing
this Doctrine among the Greeks, so in the Latin or
Roman Church Paschasius Radbertus, first a Monk, and
afterwards Abbat of Corbey, was the first broacher of it
in the year DCCCXVIII.

22

And for this, besides the Evidence of History, we
have the acknowledgment of two very Eminent Persons
in the Church of Rome, Bellarmine and Sirmondus,
who do in effect confess that this Paschasius was the first
who wrote to purpose upon this Argument. Bellarmine
in these words, This Authour was the first who
hath seriously and copiously written concerning the truth
of Christ's body and bloud in the Eucharist: And Sirmondus
in these, he so first explained the genuine sense
of the Catholique Church, that he opened the way to the
rest who afterwards in great numbers wrote upon the same
Argument: But though Sirmondus is pleased to say that
he onely first explain'd the sense of the Catholique
Church in this Point, yet it is very plain from the Records
of that Age which are left to us, that this was the
first time that this Doctrine was broached in the Latin
Church; and it met with great opposition in that Age,
as I shall have occasion hereafter to shew. For Rabanus
Maurus Arch-Bishop of Mentz about the year
DCCCXLVII reciting the very words of Paschasius
wherein he had deliver'd this Doctrine, hath this remarkable
passage concerning the novelty of it; Some,
says he, of late, not having a right opinion concerning
the Sacrament of the body and bloud of our Lord, have
said that this is the body and bloud of our Lord which was
born of the Virgin Mary, and in which our Lord suffered
upon the Cross and rose from the dead: which errour,
says he, we have oppos'd with all our might. From
whence it is plain, by the Testimony of one of the
greatest and most learned Bishops of that Age, and of
eminent reputation for Piety, that what is now the
very Doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning the
Sacrament, was then esteem'd an Errour broach'd by
some particular Persons, but was far from being the
generally receiv'd Doctrine of that Age. Can any

D

one think it possible, that so eminent a Person in the
Church both for piety and learning, could have condemn'd
this Doctrine as an Errour and a Novelty, had
it been the general Doctrine of the Christian Church,
not onely in that but in all former Ages; and no censure
pass'd upon him for that which is now the great
burning Article in the Church of Rome, and esteemed by
them one of the greatest and most pernicious Heresies?
Afterwards in the ear MLIX, when Berengarius
in France and Germany had rais'd a fresh opposition against
this Doctrine, he was compell'd to recant it by
Pope Nicholas and the Council at Rome, in these words,
that the bread and wine which are set upon the Altar,
after the consecration are not onely the Sacrament, but
the true body and bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ; and
are sensibly, not onely in the Sacrament but in truth,
handled and broken by the hands of the Priest, and
ground or bruised by the teeth of the faithfull. But it
seems the Pope and his Council were not then skilfull
enough to express themselves rightly in this matter;
for the Gloss upon the Canon Law says expresly, that
unless we understand these words of BERENGARIUS
(that is in truth of the Pope and his Council) in a sound
sense, we shall fall into a greater Heresie than that of
BERENGARIUS; for we do not make parts of the
body of Christ. The meaning of which Gloss I cannot
imagine, unless it be this, that the Body of Christ,
though it be in truth broken, yet it is not broken into
parts (for we do not make parts of the body of Christ,)
but into wholes: Now this new way of breaking a Body,
not into parts but into wholes (which in good earnest is
the Doctrine of the Church of Rome) though to them
that are able to believe Transubstantiation it may for any
thing I know appear to be sound sense, yet to us that
cannot believe so it appears to be solid non-sense.

24

About XX years after, in the year MLXXIX Pope
Gregory the VIIth began to be sensible of this absurdity;
and therefore in another Council at Rome made Berengarius
to recant in another Form, viz. that the bread and
wine which are placed upon the Altar are substantially
changed into the true and proper and quickning flesh and
bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ, and after consecration
are the true body of Christ, which was born of the Virgin,
and which being offered for the Salvation of the
World did hang upon the Cross, and sits on the right
hand of the Father.
So that from the first starting of this Doctrine in
the second Council of Nice in the year DCCLXXXVII,
till the Council under Pope Gregory the VIIth in the
year MLXXIX, it was almost three hundred years
that this Doctrine was contested, and before this mishapen
Monster of Transubstantiation could be lick'd into
that Form in which it is now setled and establish'd in
the Church of Rome. Here then is a plain account of
the first rise of this Doctrine, and of the several steps
whereby it was advanced by the Church of Rome into
an Article of Faith. I come now in the
Third place, to answer the great pretended Demonstration
of the impossibility that this Doctrine, if it had
been new, should ever have come in, in any Age, and
been received in the Church; and consequently it must of
necessity have been the perpetual belief of the Church in
all Ages: For if it had not always been the Doctrine
of the Church, when ever it had attempted first to
come in there would have been a great stir and bustle
about it, and the whole Christian World would have
rose up in opposition to it. But we can shew no such
time when it first came in, and when any such opposition
was made to it, and therefore it was always the
Doctrine of the Church. This Demonstration Monsieur

D2

Arnauld, a very learned Man in France, pretends to be
unanswerable: whether it be so or not, I shall briefly
examine. And
First, we do assign a punctual and very likely time
of the first rise of this Doctrine, about the beginning
of the ninth Age; though it did not take firm root
nor was fully setled and establish'd till towards the end
of the eleventh. And this was the most likely time
of all other, from the beginning of Christianity, for
so gross an Errour to appear; it being, by the confession
and consent of their own Historians, the most
dark and dismal time that ever happened to the Christian
Church, both for Ignorance, and Superstition, and
Vice. It came in together with Idolatry, and was
made use of to support it: A fit prop and companion
for it. And indeed what tares might not the Enemy
have sown in so dark and long a Night; when so considerable
a part of the Christian World was lull'd asleep
in profound Ignorance and Superstition? And this agrees
very well with the account which our Saviour
himself gives in the Parable of the Tares, of the springing
up of Errours and Corruptions in the Field of the
Church. While the men slept the Enemy did his work
in the Night, so that when they were awake they
wondered how and whence the tares came; but being
sure they were there, and that they were not sown
at first, they concluded the Enemy had done it.
Secondly, I have shewn likewise that there was considerable
opposition made to this Errour at its first coming
in. The general Ignorance and gross Superstition
of that Age rendered the generality of people more
quiet and secure, and disposed them to receive any
thing that came under a pretence of mystery in Religion
and of greater reverence and devotion to the Sacrament,
and that seemed any way to countenance

26

the worship of Images, for which at that time they
were zealously concern'd. But notwithstanding the
security and passive temper of the People, the men
most eminent for piety and learning in that Time
made great resistance against it. I have already named
Rabanus Arch-Bishop of Mentz, who oppos'd it
as an Errour lately sprung up and which had then
gained but upon some few persons. To whom I may
add Heribaldus Bishop of Auxerres in France, Io. Scotus
Erigena, and Ratramnus commonly known by the
name of Bertram, who at the same time were employed
by the Emperour Charles the Bald to oppose this
growing Errour, and wrote learnedly against it. And
these were the eminent men for learning in that time.
And because Monsieur Arnauld will not be satisfied unless
there were some stir and bustle about it, Bertram
in his Preface to his Book tells us, that they who according
to their several opinions talked differently about
the mystery of Christ's body and bloud were divided by no
small Schism.
Thirdly, Though for a more clear and satisfactory
answer to this pretended Demonstration I have been
contented to untie this knot, yet I could without all
these pains have cut it. For suppose this Doctrine had
silently come in and without opposition, so that we
could not assign the particular time and occasion of
its first Rise; yet if it be evident from the Records of
former Ages, for above D. years together, that this was
not the ancient belief of the Church; and plain also,
that this Doctrine was afterwards received in the Roman
Church, though we could not tell how and when
it came in, yet it would be the wildest and most extravagant
thing in the world to set up a pretended Demonstration
of Reason against plain Experience and
matter of Fact. This is just Zeno's Demonstration of

27

the impossibility of motion against Diogenes walking
before his Eyes. For this is to undertake to prove
that impossible to have been, which most certainly
was. Just thus the Servants in the Parable might
have demonstrated that the tares were wheat, because
they were sure none but good seed was sown at first,
and no man could give any account of the punctual
time when any tares were sown, or by whom; and
if an Enemy had come to do it; he must needs have
met with great resistance and opposition; but no such
resistance was made, and therefore there could be no
tares in the field, but that which they call'd tares was
certainly good wheat. At the same rate a man might
demonstrate that our King, his Majesty of great Britain,
is not return'd into England, nor restor'd to his Crown;
because there being so great and powerfull an Army
possess'd of his Lands, and therefore obliged by interest
to keep him out, it was impossible He should ever
come in without a great deal of fighting and bloudshed:
but there was no such thing, therefore he is not
return'd and restor'd to his Crown. And by the like
kind of Demonstration one might prove that the
Turk did not invade Christendom last year, and besiege
Vienna; because if he had, the most Christian King,
who had the greatest Army in Christendom in a readiness,
would certainly have employed it against him;
but Monsieur Arnauld certainly knows, no such thing
was done: And therefore according to his way of Demonstration,
the matter of fact, so commonly reported
and believed, concerning the Turks Invasion of
Christendom and besieging Vienna last year, was a
perfect mistake. But a man may demonstrate till his
head and heart ake, before he shall ever be able to
prove that which certainly is, or was, never to have
been. For of all sorts of impossibles nothing is more

28

evidently so, than to make that which hath been not
to have been. All the reason in the world is too weak
to cope with so tough and obstinate a difficulty. And
I have often wonder'd how a man of Monsieur Arnauld's
great wit and sharp Judgment could prevail with himself
to engage in so bad and baffled a Cause; or could
think to defend it with so wooden a Dagger as his Demonstration
of Reason against certain Experience and
matter of Fact: A thing, if it be possible, of equal absurdity
with what he pretends to demonstrate, Transubstantiation
it self. I proceed to the
Third pretended Ground of this Doctrine of Transubstantiation;
and that is, The infallible Authority of
the present Church to make and declare new Articles of
Faith. And this in truth is the ground into which
the most of the learned men of their Church did heretofore,
and many do still resolve their belief of this
Doctrine: And, as I have already shewn, do plainly
say that they see no sufficient reason, either from Scripture
or Tradition, for the belief of it: And that they
should have believed the contrary had not the determination
of the Church obliged them otherwise.
But if this Doctrine be obtruded upon the world
merely by virtue of the Authority of the Roman
Church, and the Declaration of the Council under
Pope Gregory the VIIth or of the Lateran Council under
Innocent the III. then it is a plain Innovation in
the Christian Doctrine, and a new Article of Faith impos'd
upon the Christian world. And if any Church
hath this power, the Christian Faith may be enlarged
and changed as often as men please; and that which is
no part of our Saviour's Doctrine, nay, any thing
though never so absurd and unreasonable, may become
an Article of Faith obliging all Christians to the belief
of it, whenever the Church of Rome shall think fit to

stamp her Authority upon it: which would make
Christianity a most uncertain and endless thing.
The Fourth pretended ground of this Doctrine is,
the necessity of such a change as this in the Sacrament to
the comfort and benefit of those who receive it. But
there is no colour for this, if the thing be rightly consider'd:
Because the comfort and benefit of the Sacrament
depends upon the blessing annexed to the Institution.
And as Water in Baptism, without any substantial
change made in that Element, may by the Divine
blessing accompanying the Institution be effectual to
the washing away of Sin, and Spiritual Regeneration;
So there can no reason in the world be given why the
Elements of Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper may
not, by the same Divine blessing accompanying this
Institution, make the worthy receivers partakers of all
the Spiritual comfort and benefit designed to us thereby,
without any substantial change made in those Elements,
since our Lord hath told us, that verily the
flesh profiteth nothing. So that if we could do so odd
and strange a thing as to eat the very natural flesh and
drink the bloud of our Lord, I do not see of what
greater advantage it would be to us than what we may
have by partaking of the Symbols of his body and
bloud as he hath appointed in remembrance of him.
For the Spiritual efficacy of the Sacrament doth not
depend upon the nature of the thing received, supposing
we receive what our Lord appointed, and receive
it with a right preparation and disposition of mind,
but upon the supernatural blessing that goes along with
it, and makes it effectual to those Spiritual ends for
which it was appointed.
The Fifth and last pretended ground of this Doctrine
is, to magnify the power of the Priest in being able to
work so great a Miracle. And this with great pride and

30

pomp is often urg'd by them as a transcendent instance
of the Divine wisedom, to find out so admirable a way
to raise the power and reverence of the Priest; that
he should be able every day, and as often as he pleases,
by repeating a few words to work so miraculous a
change, and (as they love most absurdly and blasphemously
to speak) to make God himself.
But this is to pretend to a power above that of God
himself, for he did not, nor cannot make himself, nor
do any thing that implies a contradiction, as Transubstantiation
evidently does in their pretending to make
God. For to make that which already is, and to make
that now which always was, is not onely vain and trifling
if it could be done, but impossible because it implies
a contradiction.
And what if after all Transubstantiation, if it were
possible and actually wrought by the Priest, would
yet be no Miracle? For there are two things necessary
to a Miracle, that there be a supernatural effect
wrought, and that this effect be evident to sense. So
that though a supernatural effect be wrought, yet if
it be not evident to sense it is to all the ends and purposes
of a Miracle as if it were not; and can be no
testimony or proof of any thing, because it self stands
in need of another Miracle to give testimony to it and
to prove that it was wrought. And neither in Scripture,
nor in profane Authours, nor in common use of speech,
is any thing call'd a Miracle but what falls under the
notice of our senses: A Miracle being nothing else but
a supernatural effect evident to sense, the great end and
design whereof is to be a sensible proof and conviction
to us of something that we do not see.
And for want of this Condition, Transubstantiation,
if it were true, would be no Miracle. It would indeed
be very supernatural, but for all that it would

E

not be a Sign or Miracle: For a Sign or Miracle is always
a thing sensible, otherwise it could be no Sign.
Now that such a change as is pretended in Transubstantiation
should really be wrought, and yet there
should be no sign and appearance of it, is a thing very
wonderfull, but not to sense; for our senses perceive
no change, the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament to all
our senses remaining just as they were before: And
that a thing should remain to all appearance just as it
was, hath nothing at all of wonder in it: we wonder
indeed when we see a strange thing done, but no man
wonders when he sees nothing done.
/>