But others go as far on the other hand, and affirm that "in the blessed sacrament we receive the body and blood of Christ; we chew His flesh, we drink His blood; for 'His flesh is meat indeed, and His blood is drink indeed;' and this is the manna which came down from heaven; our bodies are nourished, our souls united to Christ; and the sacrament is the infallible instrument of pardon to all persons that do not maliciously hinder it; and it produces all its effects by virtue of the sacrament itself so appointed; and that the dispositions of the communicants are only for removing obstacles and impediments, but effect nothing; the sumption of the mysteries does all in a capable subject; as in infants who do nothing, in penitents who take away what can hinder; for it is nothing but Christ himself; the body that died upon the cross is broken in the hand of him that ministers, and by the teeth of him that communicates; and when God gives us His Son in this divine and glorious manner, with heaps of miracles to verify heaps of blessings, how shall not He with Him give us all things else ?" They who teach this doctrine call the holy sacrament, the host,' 'the unbloody sacrifice,' 'the flesh of God,' 'the body of Christ,' 'God himself," the mass,' the sacrament of the altar. I cannot say that this is too much; but, that these things are not true: and although all that is here said that is of any material benefit and real blessing is true; yet the blessing is not so conferred, it is not so produced.

A third sort of Christians speak indefinitely and gloriously of this divine mystery; they speak enough, but they cannot tell what; they publish great and glorious effects; but such which they gather by similitude and analogy, such which they desire but cannot prove; which indeed they feel, but know not whence they do derive them : they are blessings which come in company of the sacraments, but are not always to be imputed to them; they confound spiritual senses with mystical expressions, and expound mysteries to natural significations: that is, they mean well but do not always understand that part of christian philosophy which explicates the secret nature of this divine sacrament: and the effect of it is this; that they sometimes put too great confidence in the mystery, and look for impresses which they find not, and are sometimes troubled that their experience does not answer to their sermons; and meet with scruples instead of comforts, and doubts instead of rest, and anxiety of mind in the place of a serene and peaceful conscience. But these men both in their right and in their wrong enumerate many glories of the holy sacrament, which they usually signify in these excellent appellatives, calling it

'the supper of the Lord; the bread of elect souls' and the wine of angels,' 'the Lord's body,' 'the New testament' and the calice of benediction,' 'spiritual food,' 'the great supper,' 'the divinest and archi-symbolical feast;' 'the banquet of the church,'

δῶρον ἐξιτήριον, δῶρον ἐξίτηλον, ἐφόδιον,

μύησις,

δοχή,

λατρεία,

εὐλογία,

εὐχαριστία,

τελετὴ τελετῶν, hostia hostia

rum,

teriorum, μυσταγωγία, dominicum.

'the celestial dinner,' 'the spiritual, the sacred, the mystical, the formidable, the rational table,' 'the supersubstantial bread,' 'the bread of God,' the bread of life;' 'the Lord's mystery,' 'the great mystery of salvation,' 'the Lord's sacrament,' the sacrament of piety,' 'the sign of unity,'' the contesseration of the christian communion,' 'the divine grace,' 'the divine-making grace,' 'the holy thing,' 'the desirmysterium mys- able,' 'the communication of good,' the perfection and consummation of a Christian,' the holy particles,' 'the gracious symbols,' 'the holy gifts,' 'the sacrifice of commemoration,' the intellectual and mystical good,''the hereditary donative of the New testament,' 'the sacrament of the Lord's body,' the sacrament of the calice,' 'the paschal oblation,' 'the christian passport,' the mystery of perfection,' the great oblation,' the worship of God,' the life of souls,' 'the sacrament of our price and our redemption,' and some few others much to the same purposes: all which are of great and useful signification, and if the explications and consequent propositions were as justifiable as the titles themselves are sober and useful, they would be apt only for edification and to minister to the spirit of devotion. That therefore is to be the design of the present meditations, to represent the true and proper and mysterious nature of this divine nutriment of our souls; to account what are the blessings God reacheth forth to us in the mysteries, and what returns of duty He expects from all to whom He gives His most holy Son.

6

I shall only here add the names and appellatives which the scripture gives to these mysteries, and place it as a part of the foundation of the following doctrines. It is by the Spirit of God called, the bread that is broken,' and 'the cup of blessing,' 'the breaking of bread;' the body and blood of the Lord; the communication of His body' and 'the communication of His blood;' 'the feast of charity or loved;' 'the Lord's table,' and 'the supper of the Lord.' Whatsoever is consequent to these titles we can safely own, and our faith may dwell securely, and our devotion, like a pure flame, with these may feed as with the spices and gums upon the altar of incense.

SECTION II.

WHAT IT IS WHICH WE RECEIVE IN THE HOLY SACRAMENT.

Ir is strange that Christians should pertinaciously insist upon carnal significations and natural effects in sacraments and mysteries, d'Aydπŋ, 2 Pet. ii. 13; 1 Cor. xi. 20, 29; x. 16; Jude 12; Acts xvi. 2. [? xx. 7.]

when our blessed Lord hath given us a sufficient light to conduct and secure us from such misapprehensions. "The flesh profiteth nothing; the words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life;" that is, the flesh is corruption, and its senses are ministers of death and this one word alone was perpetually sufficient for Christ's disciples. For when upon occasion of the gross understanding of their Master's words by the men of Capernaum, they had been once clearly taught that the meaning of all these words was wholly spiritual, they rested there and enquired no further: insomuch that when Christ at the institution of the supper affirmed of the bread and wine that they were His body and His blood, they were not at all offended, as being sufficiently before instructed in the nature of that mystery. And besides this, they saw enough to tell them that what they eat was not the natural body of their Lord: this was the body which Himself did or might eat with His body: one body did eat, and the other was eaten; both of them were His body, but after a diverse manner. For the case is briefly this;—

1. We have two lives, a natural and a spiritual, and both must have bread for their support and maintenance in proportion to their needs and to their capacities: and as it would be an intolerable charity to give nothing but spiritual nutriment to a hungry body, and pour diagrams and wise propositions into an empty stomach; so it would be as useless and impertinent to feed the soul with wheat or flesh, unless that were the conveyance of a spiritual delicacy.

In the holy sacrament of the eucharist the body of Christ, according to the proper signification of a human body, is not at all, but in a sense differing from the proper and natural body, that is, in a sense more agreeing to sacraments; so S. Hierome expressly, "Of this sacrifice which is wonderfully done in the commemoration of Christ we may eat, but of that sacrifice which Christ offered on the altar of the cross, by itself (or, in its own nature) no man may eat." For "it is His flesh which is under the form of bread, and His blood which is in the form and taste of wine: for the flesh is the sacrament of flesh, and blood is the sacrament of blood: for by flesh and blood that is invisible, spiritual, intelligible, the visible and tangible body of our Lord Jesus Christ is consigned", full of the grace of all virtues, and of divine majesty';" so S. Augustin'; for therefore "ye are not

• Duplex vita duplicem poscit panem. S. Aug. [? Damascen. ut infra.]

Oportuit autem non solum primitias nostræ naturæ in participationem venire melioris, sed omnes quotquot velint homines et secunda nativitate nasci, et nutriri cibo novo, et huic nativitati accommodato, atque ita prævenire mensuram perfectionis.-Damasc. de fide orthod., lib. iv. cap. 14. [al. 13. tom. i. p. 267 C.] -Et quoniam spiritualis est Adam, oportuit et nativitatem spiritualem esse, simi

to eat that body which ye see, nor to drink that blood which My crucifiers shall pour out: it is the same, and not the same, the same invisibly, but not the same visibly."-" For until the world be finished, the Lord is above, but the truth of the Lord is with us. The body in which He rose again must be in one place, but the truth of it is every where diffused." For there is one truth of the body in the mystery, and another truth simply and without mystery. It is truly Christ's body both in the sacrament and out of it: but in the sacrament it is not the natural truth, but the spiritual and the mystical.

"And therefore it was that our blessed Saviour to them who apprehended Him to promise His natural body and blood for our meat and drink, spake of His ascension into heaven, that we might learn to look from heaven to receive the food of our souls, heavenly and spiritual nourishment;" said S. Athanasius". "For this is the letter which in the New testament kills him who understands not spiritually what is spoken to him under the signification of meat and flesh, and blood and drink;" so Origen". "For this bread does not go into the body" (for to how many might His body suffice for meat?) "but the bread of eternal life supports the substance of our spirit:" and therefore "it is not touched by the body, nor seen with the eyes, but by faith it is seen and touched;" so S. Ambroseo. "And all this whole mystery hath in it neither carnal sense nor carnal P consequence," saith S. Chrysostom. "But to believe in Christ is to eat the bread, and therefore why do you prepare your teeth and stomach? Believe Him and you have eaten Him;" they are the words of S. Austin'. For faith is that 'intellectual mouth,' as S. Basil calls it,' which is within the man, by which he takes in nourishment.'

But what need we to draw this water from the lesser cisterns? We see this truth reflected from the spring itself, the fountains of our blessed Saviourt. "I am the bread of life, he that cometh unto Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall not thirst:" and again", "He that eats My flesh hath life abiding in him, and I will raise him up at the last day." The plain consequent of which words is this; that therefore this eating and drinking of Christ's flesh and blood can only be done by the ministries of life and of the Spirit,

Ibid. [scil. apud Gratian. decret. de consecr. dist. ii. cap. 44; e S. August. in Joan., cap. vii. tract. xxx. § 1.—tom. iii. part ii. col. 516 G.-Legitur autem in edd. S. Aug. sic, Quod enim pretiosum sonabat de ore Domini, et propter nos scriptum est, et nobis servatum, et propter nos recitatum, et recitabitur etiam propter posteros nostros, et donec sæculum finiatur. Sursum est Dominus,' &c.]

Vide eund. in Joan. tract. 1. [e. g. § 13. Ubi supra, col. 634.]

In tract. verb. 'Quicunque dixerit verbum in Filium hominis.' [al. in epist. iv. ad Serap. § 19.-tom. i. p. 710 B.]

In Levit., c. x. hom. vii. [vid. § 5. -tom. ii. p. 225.]

De sacram., lib. v. cap. 4. [§ 24. tom. ii. col. 378 C.] et in Luc., lib. vi. cap. 8. [§ 57.-tom. i. col. 1397 A.] * [al. φυσικὴν.]

In Joan. vi. hom. xlvii. [al. xlvi. § 2.-tom. viii. p. 278 A.]

Tract. xxvi. [leg. xxv.] in Joan. [§ 12. tom. iii. part ii. col. 489.]

• Στόμα νοητόν, ἔνδον τοῦ [lege, τοῦ ἔνδον] ἀνθρώπου, S. Basil. in psal. xxxiii. [§ i. tom. i. p. 144 B.]

u

[John vi. 35.]

[ver. 54, 56.]

which is opposed to nature and flesh and death. And when we consider that he who is not a spiritual and a holy person does not feed upon Christ, who brings life eternal to them that feed on Him, it is apparent that our manducation must be spiritual, and therefore so must the food, and consequently it cannot be natural flesh, however altered in circumstance and visibilities, and impossible or incredible changes. For it is not in this spiritual food as it was in manna, of which our fathers did eat and died; but whosoever eats this divine nutriment shall never die. The sacraments indeed and symbols, the exterior part and ministries may be taken unto condemnation, but the food itself never*. For an unworthy person cannot feed on this food, because here to eat Christ's flesh is to do our duty, and to be established in our title to the possession of the eternal promises. For so "Christ disposed the way of salvation, not by flesh, but by the spirit," saith Tertulliany: that is, according to his own exposition, 'Christ is to be desired for life, and to be devoured by hearing, to be chewed by the understanding, and to be digested by faith and all this is the method and economy of heaven, which whosoever uses and abides in it hath life abiding in him.' He that in this world does any other way look for Christ, shall never find Him and therefore 'if men say, Lo here is Christ, or Lo there, He is in the desert, or He is èv Taμeíois, in the cupboards or pantries where bread or flesh is laid, believe it not:' Christ's body is in heaven, and it is not upon earth: the heavens must contain Him till the time of restitution of all things,' and 'so long as we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord.'

:

In the mean time we can taste and see that the Lord is gracious,' that He is sweet: but Christ is so to be tasted as He is to be seen, and no otherwise; but here we walk by faith and not by sight,' and here also we live by faith' and not by' mere or only bread,' but by that word which proceedeth out from God:' that as meat is to the body, so is Christ to the soul a, the food of the soul, by which the souls of the just do live. He is the bread which came down from heaven: the bread which was born at Bethlehem, the house of bread,' was given to us to be the food of our souls for ever.

The meaning of which mysterious and sacramental expressions when they are reduced to easy and intelligible significations, is plainly this. By Christ we live and move and have our' spiritual being'

Res ipsa cujus sacramentum est, omni homini ad vitam, nulli ad exitium, quicunque ejus particeps fuerit. - S. Aug. tract. xvi. [lege xxvi. § 15.] in Joan. [tom. iii. part. 2. col. 500 D.]

De resurrect. carn., c. 37. [p. 347 C. -'ut in spiritum disponeret statum salutis,'-]

Annon ἀνθρωποφαγίαν hoc mysterium pronunciat [Nestorius] et irreligiVIII.

C

ose fidelium mentes in sensus adulterinos detrudit, ac humanis cogitationibus aggreditur quæ sola pura et inexquisita fide accipiuntur.-S. Cyril. [Alex.] lib. ad Euoptium, anathem. xi. [tom. ii. p. 102 F. fol. Par. 1605.]

Quod esca est carni, hoc animæ fides.-S. Cypr. [pseudo-Cypr.] de cœna Dom. [append., p. 41.]