shadow 9: neither durst Bellarmine afterwards be at all positive on that head. But yet both of them were minded to contrive some verbal evasion, whereby to make a show of maintaining what in reality they had yielded up. They pretended I know not what Divine movement, raising or enabling the elements to produce the effect: which was somewhat like the subtilty of those who not knowing how to ascribe thought to matter, as such, either added motion to matter, or had recourse to Divine omnipotence, to salve the hypothesis. Only there is this difference between the two cases, that thought is a communicable attribute, which a creature may have; but a grace-giving power is incommunicable, and can reside only in a Divine Being. Gerard Vossius has well observed, that the evasion before mentioned was a mere evasion: and indeed it amounts only to so many unmeaning words, artfully thrown together as a fine-spun covering, to hide the flaws of a false hypothesis. Be the Divine movement what it will, it can never shake God's attributes from his essence, or his incommunicable powers from his nature, so as to transfer or impart them to a foreign subject. God may cooperate with the elements, so as to affect the soul, while they affect the body: but his operations and powers, though

¶ Noli putare id Patres dicere, quasi sit aliqua permanens qualitas a Deo infusa Sacramento, aut ejus materiæ, cum ea qualitas neque spiritualis, neque corporalis esse possit. Nam si corporalis esset, nihil adjuvaret ad spiritualem effectum magis quam ipsa natura aquæ: et spiritualis qualitas non potest inesse in corpore tanquam in subjecto. Sed id volunt, hanc esse virtutem Sacramentorum, ordinari, moveri, applicari, elevari a Deo ad effectum spiritualem.Christus accipiendo lutum aut salivam, non impressit illis, multo minus umbræ Petri, aliquam qualitatem medicam; sed utendo, ac applicando, elevavit eas, &c. Alanus de Euchar. p. 130. Compare my Review, vol. vii. p. 308, 309.

* Non esse controversiam de modo quo Sacramenta sunt causæ, an physice, &c.—et rursum si physice, an per aliquam qualitatem inhærentem, an per solam Dei motionem. Bellarm. lib. ii. cap. 1. p. 30.

• Commentum hoc de effectu ab actionis vi orto, nec tamen a vi interna ejus, cujus actio est, profecto merum xgnoQúysr«» est, eademque facilitate, qua citra probationem ullam affertur, etiam rejici debet. Vossius de Sacram. Vi et Efficacia, p. 253.

assistant or concurrent, are not inherent or intermingled, but are entirely distinct; and are as truly extrinsic to the elements, as the Deity is to the creature. When and where the elements are duly administered and received, God does then and there work the effect, pursuant to his promise and covenant. The elements are the occasional causes, as it were, and he the efficient: this is the whole of that matter.

If what hath been said may be thought sufficient to vindicate the received doctrine of this Sacrament, as a sacrament, then the other notion of it, together with the breadsacrifice built upon it, must fall of course: and we may reasonably rest contented with what our excellent Church has all along taught us, both of the sacrament and sacrifice which in truth is no other doctrine but what the New Testament, and the Fathers of the Church from the beginning, and downwards for six whole centuries, have delivered here fix we, and abide. And that the reasonableness of our so abiding may yet more clearly and more succinctly appear, I beg leave here to throw in a few pertinent considerations, for a kind of recapitulation of what I have before said.

:

1. Let it be considered what pains have been taken some way or other to enrich and ennoble a bread-sacrifice, in order to make it bear, or to suit it to a Gospel state, and yet none of the ways will answer upon a strict trial; unless we could be content to rest in words which have no consistent or no determined ideas. Shall we fill the ele

Effectum non attingunt proprie, sed operari dicuntur, quia ubi sunt, Deus juxta promissionem suam operatur, et concurrit ad productionem effectus supernaturalis. Albertinus, p. 503.

Res ipsa quæ unitur nobiscum in conjunctione spirituali, nequaquam cum illis signis unitur: alioqui sacramentalis etiam hæc unio [unio pacti] esset dicenda spiritualis; quæ ipsa quoque signa vivificaret; et signa ipsa sacramentalia non amplius essent instrumenta, sed ipsa forent causa efficiens et formalis: quod est diyor, et naturæ Sacramentorum, atque Spiritus Sancti energiæ, fideique proprietati omnino repugnans. Gasp. Laurent. Index. Error, Greg, de Valent, in Opp. Sadeel. p. 380.

ments with Divinity, like as our Lord's personal body is filled? A vain thought! But supposing it were fact, yet shall we sacrifice the Divine essence, or any of the Divine persons? God forbid. Yet Harchius, in his way, was forced to admit of that absurdity, in order to make out his pure and unbloody, and propitiatory sacrifice: and so must all they who build upon the same general principles, if they mean to be consistent with themselves.

Or shall we, to avoid the former absurdity, endeavour only to enrich the elements with grace-giving, or life-giving powers? That would be sacrificing the Divine attributes, as before, only with the additional absurdity of abstracting them from the essence, and placing them in a creature, an inanimate creature.

Or shall we call it only the sacrificing of grace and pardon, first lodged in the elements, and next transferred from them to us? But how shall we make sense of ity: and if we could, how would it answer the purposes intended by

■ The similitudes made use of for magnifying the consecrated elements, (chiefly since the seventh century,) are these five.

1. As the Aéyos deified, in a manner, the natural body; so, &c.

2. As the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ's body; so, &c.

3. As the Holy Ghost formed the body in the womb; so, &c.

4. As the Holy Ghost inhabited the man Jesus; so, &c.

5. As the burning bush was a shechinah of God; so, &c.

All of them novel, and foreign; and betraying great forgetfulness of symbolical language, or sacramental phrases.

* Harchius, Patr. Consens. p. 240, 263, 273, 275, 280, 299, 300.

y N. B. Whatever the Fathers may be conceived to have, looking at all that way, is either to be understood of what is concurrent with the elements, not inhering in them; or else, it is to be interpreted of the whole sacramental solemnity, in which God bears his part: and then it is no more than saying, that God is in the Sacraments, as he really is, and operates in both, as he really does. It may be justly said, that the abiding virtue of Baptism, (not the inherent virtue of water, which is none,) operates as long as a man lives. See Review, vol. vii. p. 241. That is, God applies and continues the graces and privileges of that seal, and his work is sure and lasting. And if God operated with the consecrated elements reserved in the Church, or in private houses, for many days or weeks after; it was not because the elements retained any inherent virtues, but because God is true and constant to his own covenants or ordinances.

it? It is very certain, that good Christians are endowed with infused and inherent graces. Now, supposing that the elements have the same, (which however is a wild supposition,) yet that could only make the elements, so far, equal to every good Christian. But still the good Christian, though equal only in that view, will be as much a nobler sacrifice than the elements, as man, the living image of God, is better than a dead loaf. Why then so much earnestness for a dead sacrifice, (were it really any,) in preference to so many better living ones? Or what sense or consistency can there be in proclaiming, that such dead sacrifice, and offered by man, is the most sublime and Divine sacrifice that men or angels can offer; especially considering, that the value of the sacrifice can never rise higher than the value of the sacrificera?

Shall we at length say (which appears to be the last refuge) that the sacred elements are the most perfect and consummate representatives of the natural body and blood, answering to the originals as completely, as exemplified copies do to charters, or to letters patents? Such words are easily thrown out: but what sense do they bear, or what Scripture or Fathers have ever used themb? Or to what purpose can it be, to make use of swelling and magnificent phrases, without any coherent or determinate ideas? Besides that even the original body and blood do not operate efficiently, as the elements are supposed to do, but

Unbloody Sacrifice, part ii. p. 60, 67, 141. Compare my Appendix, p. 188, 189.

a See my Christian Sacrifice explained, p. 176. Pet. Martyr. Comment. ad 1 Cor. p. 48, 65. Zanchius, tom. vi. p. 212, 215. alias ad Ephes. p. 424. Benedict. Aretius, Loc. Comm. p. 394. Pet. du Moulin, Buckler of Faith, p. 416. Anatome Missæ, p. 168. Rivet. Summ. Controv. tom. ii. p. 108. Animadv. ad Cassand. p. 28.

↳ Cardinal Perron made use of that vaunting plea, that affected and foreign similitude, and was thus answered:

Stupenda prorsus est hominis audacia, veteribus tribuentis id de quo ne per somnium quidem cogitarunt. Quis enim illorum unquam observavit, aut tantillum subinnuit, eucharistiam hoc sensu antitypum appellari? Nullus, nemo. Albertin. p. 277. Conf. p. 437, 443, 471.

meritoriously, and that by means of the Divinity which personally resided and resides in them: therefore, unless the elements have the same Divinity personally united with them, they can be no such consummate proxy as hath been pretended. Upon the whole, this account must either at length resolve into a personal union of the elements with the Logos, or amount to nothing. I have endeavoured to turn and try this matter every way, in order to guard the more strongly against a common failing, viz. the resting in a string of unmeaning words, which really carry in them no certain or no consistent ideas. For so it is, that false systems generally have been kept up by such as intend not to deceive others, but are really deceived themselves and it is difficult to persuade them to call over their ideas, or to examine their terms with due care.

2. To what has been said, I shall only add, that it is worth considering, that many true and sound principles of our own Church, and of the ancient churches also, (as may be understood from what has been hinted,) must be given. up, before we could admit the bread-sacrifice; and that when it is brought in, it can never find rest, till it thrusts out the sacrifice of the cross, as I have shown elsewhere d. Some perhaps might modestly resolve to stop in the midway; but they would be the less consistent in doing it: for the natural, necessary, unavoidable consequence of the other principle, regularly pursued, must at length terminate in rejecting the cross-sacrifice. If our Eucharist is a sacrifice of the elements, so was our Lord's also; or else ours and his will not tally: and he must have sacrificed himself at the same time; or else other accounts will not answere. And if such was the case, the sacrifice of the cross was effectually precluded, since our Lord was to make a sacrifice of himself but once. The sacrifice of the

• Agnoscimus carnem vere vivificare, quatenus oblata fuit Deo—tanquam causa meritoria, sed non vivificare corporibus nostris receptam. Rivet. tom. ii. p. 138.

d Appendix, chap. iv. p. 207, &c.

f Ibid. p. 213, 219.

e Ibid. p. 218.