Imatges de pàgina
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Word made flesh (seeing He is the Word and the bread of life), it should not have been written, Whosoever eateth this bread shall live for ever." The like difference doth St. Augustine also, upon the same ground, make betwixt the eating of Christ's body sacramentally and really. For, having affirmed, that wicked men "may" not be said to eat the body of Christ, because they are not to be counted among the members of Christ," he afterward addeth; "Christ himself saying, He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, remaineth in me and I in him, sheweth what it is, not sacramentally but indeed, to eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood: for this is, to remain in Christ, that Christ likewise may remain in him. For he said this, as if he should have said: He that remaineth not in me, and in whom I do not remain, let not him say, or think, that he eateth my flesh or drinketh my blood." And in another place, expounding those words of Christ here alleged, he thereupon inferreth thus: "This is therefore to eat that meat, and drink that drink to remain in Christ, and to have Christ remaining in him. And by this he that remaineth not in Christ, and in whom Christ abideth not, without doubt doth neither spiritually eat his flesh, nor drink his blood: although he do carnally and visibly press with his teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ; and so rather eateth and drinketh the sacrament of so great a thing for judgment to himself, because that, being unclean, he did presume to come unto the sacraments of Christ."

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u Nec isti dicendi sunt manducare corpus Christi; quoniam nec in membris computandi sunt Christi. Augustin. de civit. Dei, lib. 21. cap. 25. op. tom. 7. pag. 646.

Denique ipse dicens, Qui manducat carnem meam, et bibit sanguinem meum, in me manet, et ego in eo, ostendit quid sit, non sacramento tenus sed revera, manducare corpus Christi, et ejus sanguinem bibere: hoc est enim in Christo manere, ut in illo maneat et Christus. Sic enim hoc dixit, tanquam diceret : Qui non in me manet, et in quo ego non maneo, non se dicat aut existimet manducare corpus meum, aut bibere sanguinem meum. Id. ibid.

y Hoc est ergo manducare illam escam, et illum bibere potum; in Christo manere, et illum manentem in se habere. Ac per hoc, qui non manet in Christo,

Hence it is that we find so often in him, and in other of the fathers, that the body and blood of Christ is communicated only unto those that shall live, and not unto those that shall die for ever. "He is the bread of life. He therefore, that eateth life, cannot die. For how should he die whose meat is life? How should he fail, who hath a vital substance?" saith St. Ambrose. And it is a good note of Macarius, that, as men use to give one kind of meat to their servants, and another to their children, so Christ, who "created" all things, nourisheth indeed evil and ungrateful persons: but the sons which he begat of his own seed, and whom he made partakers of his grace, in whom the Lord is formed, he nourisheth with a peculiar refection and food, and meat and drink, beyond other men; giving himself unto them that have their conversation with his Father: as the Lord himself saith: he that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, remaineth in me, and I in him, and shall not see death." Among the sentences collected by Prosper out of St. Augustine, this also is one." He receiveth the meat of life, and drinketh the cup of eternity, who remaineth in Christ, and whose

et in quo non manet Christus, proculdubio nec manducat spiritualiter carnem ejus, nec bibit ejus sanguinem, licet carnaliter et visibiliter premat dentibus sacramentum corporis et sanguinis Christi: sed magis tantæ rei sacramenmanducat et bibit, quia immundus præsumpsit ad Christi accedere sacramenta. tum ad judicium sibi Augustin. in evangel. Johan. tract. 26. op. tom. 3. pag. 501.

* Hic est panis vitæ. Qui ergo vitam manducat, mori non potest. Quomodo enim morietur, cui cibus vita est? Quomodo deficiet, qui habuerit vitalem substantiam? Ambros. in Psal. 118. octonar. 18. op. tom. 1. pag. 1203.

Παντὰ αὐτὸς ἔκτισε, και τρέφει τοὺς πονηροὺς καὶ ἀχαρίστους, τὰ δὲ τέκνα ἢ ἐγέννησεν ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτοῦ καὶ οἷς μετέδωκεν ἐκ τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ, ἐν οἷς ἐμορφώθη ὁ κύριος, ἰδίαν ἀνάπαυσιν, καὶ τροφὴν, καὶ βρῶσιν, καὶ πόσιν, παρὰ τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐκτρέφει, καὶ δίδωσιν ἑαυτὸν αὐτοῖς ἀναστρεφομένοις μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ· ὡς φησὶν ὁ Κύριος, Ο τρώγων μου τὴν σάρκα, καὶ πίνων μου τὸ αἷμα, ἐν ἐμοὶ μένει, καγὼ ἐν αὐτῷ, καὶ θάνατον οὐ μὴ θεωρήσει. Macar. Egypt. homil. 14.

b Escam vitæ accipit, et æternitatis poculum bibit, qui in Christo manet, et cujus Christus habitator est. Nam qui discordat a Christo nec carnem ejus manducat, nec sanguinem bibit: etiamsi tantæ rei sacramentum ad judicium suæ præsumptionis quotidie indifferenter accipiat. Prosp. sentent. 339.

inhabiter is Christ. For he, that is at discord with Christ, doth neither eat his flesh, nor drink his blood: although to the judgment of his presumption, he indifferently doth receive every day the sacrament of so great a thing." Which distinction between the sacrament and the thing whereof it is a sacrament, and consequently between the sacramental and the real eating of the body of Christ, is thus briefly and most excellently expressed by St. Augustine himself, in his exposition upon the sixth of John. "The sacrament of this thing is taken from the Lord's table; by some unto life, by some unto destruction: but the thing itself, whereof it is a sacrament, is received by every man unto life, and by none unto destruction, that is made partaker thereof." Our conclusion therefore is this:

The body and blood of Christ is received by all
unto life, and by none unto condemnation.
But that substance, which is outwardly delivered
in the sacrament, is not received by all unto
life, but by many unto condemnation.
Therefore that substance, which is outwardly de-
livered in the sacrament, is not really the body
and blood of Christ.

The first proposition is plainly proved by the texts, which have been alleged out of the sixth of John. The second is manifest, both by common experience, and by the testimony of the apostle". We may therefore well conclude, that the sixth of John is so far from giving any furtherance to the doctrine of the Romanists in this point, that it utterly overthroweth their fond opinion, who imagine the body and blood of Christ to be in such a sort present, under the visible forms of bread and wine, that whosoever receiveth the one, must of force also really be made partaker of the other.

The like are we now to shew in the words of the insti

c Hujus rei sacramentum, &c. de mensa Dominica sumitur; quibusdam ad vitam, quibusdam ad exitium. Res vero ipsa, cujus sacramentum est, omni homini ad vitam, nulli ad exitium, quicunque ejus particeps fuerit. Augustin. in Johan. tract. 25. op. tom. 3. pag. 500.

1 Cor. chap. 11. ver. 17, 27, 29.

tution. For the better clearing whereof, the reader may be pleased to consider, First, that the words are not, This shall be my body: nor, This is made, or, shall be changed into my body: but, This is my body. Secondly, that the word THIS can have relation to no other substance, but that which was then present, when our Saviour spake that word; which, as we shall make it plainly appear, was bread. Thirdly, that, it being proved that the word THIS doth demonstrate the bread, it must of necessity follow that Christ, affirming that to be his BODY, cannot be conceived to have meant it so to be properly, but relatively and sacramentally.

The first of these is by both sides yielded unto: so likewise is the third. For "this is impossible," saith the Gloss upon Gratian, "that bread should be the body of Christ." And "it cannot be," saith cardinal Bellarmine, "that that proposition should be true, the former part whereof designeth bread, the latter the body of Christ: forasmuch as bread and the Lord's body be things most diverse." And therefore he confidently affirmeth that, if the words, This is my body, did make this sense, This bread is my body, this sentence "must either be taken tropically, that bread may be the body of Christ significatively; or else it is plainly absurd and impossible: for it cannot be," saith he," that bread should be the body of Christ." For it", is the nature of this verb substantive est, or, is, saith Salmeron his fellow-Jesuit, "that, as often as it joineth and coupleth together things of diverse na

e Hoc tamen est impossibile, quod panis sit corpus Christi. De consecrat. dist. 2. cap. 55. Panis est in altari. Gloss.

Non igitur potest fieri, ut vera sit propositio, in qua subjectum supponit pro pane, prædicatum autem pro corpore Christi. Panis enim et corpus Domini res diversissimæ sunt. Bellarm. de eucharist. lib. 3. cap. 19.

Ibidem scripsit Lutherus, verba evangelistæ, Hoc est corpus meum, hunc facere sensum, Hic panis est corpus meum: quæ sententia aut accipi debet tropice, ut panis sit corpus Christi significative; aut est plane absurda et impossibilis. nec enim fieri potest, ut panis sit corpus Christi. Id. lib. 1. de eucharist. cap. 1. h Quarto ducimus argumentum a verbo illo substantivo Est: cujus ingenium et natura est, ut quoties res diversarum naturarum, quæ Latinis dicuntur disparata, unit et copulat, ibi necessario ad figuram et tropum accurramus. Alphons. Salmeron. tom. 9. tractat. 20.

tures, which by the Latins are termed disparata, there we must of necessity run to a figure and trope;" and therefore" should we have been constrained to fly to a trope, if he had said, This bread is my body, This wine is my blood: because this had been a predication of disparates, as they call it." Lastly, doctor Kellison also in like manner doth freely acknowledge, that "if Christ had said, This bread is my body, we must have understood him figuratively and metaphorically." So that the whole matter of difference resteth now upon the second point: whether our Saviour, when he said This is my body, meant any thing to be his body, but that bread which was before him: a matter which easily might be determined, in any indifferent man's judgment, by the words immediately going before, "He' took bread, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave it unto them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me." For what did he demonstrate here, and said was his body, but that which he gave unto his disciples? What did he give unto them but what he brake? What brake he but what he took? and doth not the text expressly say that he took bread? Was it not therefore of the bread he said, This is my body? And could bread possibly be otherwise understood to have been his body, but as a sacrament, and (as he himself with the same breath declared his own meaning) a memorial thereof?

If these words be not of themselves clear enough, but have need of further exposition, can we look for a better than that which St. Paul giveth of them", "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" Did not St. Paul therefore so understand Christ, as if he had said, This bread is my body? And if Christ had said so, doth not Kellison confess, and right reason evince, that he must have been understood figuratively?

i Cogeremur ad tropum confugere, si aliter dixisset, nempe ; Hic panis est corpus meum, Hoc vinum est sanguis meus: quia esset prædicatio disparatorum, ut vocant. Id. ib.

* Matt. Kellison, survey of the new religion, lib. 8. cap. 7. sec. 7. m 1 Cor. chap. 10. ver. 6.

Luke, chap. 22. ver. 19.

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