declares that the change is of substances, he told it for no other than as a mere opinion: if he did, let him answer for that, not I; for that he could not determine it, himself expressly said it, in the beginning of the eleventh distinction. And therefore these gentlemen would better have consulted with truth and modesty, if they had let this alone, and not have made such an outcry against a manifest truth. Now let me observe one thing, which will be of great use in this whole affair, and demonstrate the change of this doctrine. These three opinions were all held by Catholics, and the opinions are recorded not only by Pope Innocentius III." but in the gloss of the canon law itself. For this opinion was not fixed and settled, nor as yet well understood, but still disputed, as we see in Lombard and Scotus: and although they all agreed in this (as Salmeron° observes of these three opinions, as he cites them out of Scotus), " that the true body of Christ is there, because to deny this were against the faith;" and therefore, this was then enough to cause them to be esteemed Catholics, because they denied nothing, which was then against the faith, but all agreed in that, yet now the case is otherwise; for whereas one of the opinions was, that the substance of bread remains, and another opinion, that the substance of bread is annihilated, but is not converted into the body of Christ; now both of these opinions are made heresy; and the contrary to them, which is the third opinion, passed into an article of faith: "Quod vero ibi substantia panis non remanet, jam etiam ut articulus fidei definitum est, et conversionis sive transubstantiationis nomen evictum :" so Salmeron P. Now in Peter Lombard's time, if they who believed Christ's real presence, were good Catholics, though they believed no transubstantiation or consubstantiation, that is, did not descend into consideration of the manner, why may they not be so now? Is there any new revelation now of the manner? Or why is the way to heaven now made the narrower than in Lombard's time? For the church of England believes according to one of these opinions; and therefore is as good a catholic church as Rome was then, which had not determined the manner. Nay, if we use to value an article the more, by how much the more ancient it is, certainly it is more

honourable that we should reform to the ancient model, rather than conform to the new. However, this is also plainly consequent to this discourse of Salmeron: "The abettors of those three opinions, some of them do deny something that is of faith; therefore the faith of the church of Rome now is not the same it was in the days of Peter Lombard." Lastly, this also is to be remarked, that to prove any ancient author to hold the doctrine of transubstantiation, as it is at this day an article of faith at Rome, it is not enough to say, that Peter Lombard, or Durand, or Scotus, &c. did say, that where bread was before, there is Christ's body now; for they may say that and more, and yet not come home to the present article; and therefore E. W. does argue weakly, when he denies Lombard to say one thing, viz. that he could not define whether there was a substantial change or no' (which indeed he spake plainly), because he brings him saying something, as if he were resolved the change were substantial, which yet he speaks but obscurely. And the truth is, this question of transubstantiation is so intricate and involved amongst them, seems so contrary to sense and reason, and does so much violence to all the powers of the soul, that it is no wonder, if, at first, the doctors could not make any thing distinctly of it. However, whatever they did make of it, certain it is they more agreed with the present church of England, than with the present church of Rome; for we say as they said, Christ's body is truly there, and there is a conversion of the elements into Christ's body; for what before the consecration in all senses was bread, is, after consecration, in some sense, Christ's body: but they did not all of them say, that the substance of bread was destroyed; and some of them denied the conversion of the bread into the flesh of Christ; which whosoever shall now do, will be esteemed no Roman Catholic. And therefore it is a vain procedure to think they have proved their doctrine of transubstantiation out of the fathers also; " If the fathers tell us, that bread is changed out of his nature into the body of Christ: that by holy invocation it is no more common bread: that as water in Cana of Galilee was changed into wine; so in the evangelist, wine is changed into blood: that bread is only bread before the sacramental words, but after consecration is made

E. W. p. 37.

the body of Christ." For though I very much doubt, all these things in equal and full measures cannot be proved out of the fathers, supposing they were, yet all this comes not up to the Roman article of transubstantiation: all those words are true in a very good sense, and they are in that sense believed in the church of England; but that the bread is no more bread in the natural sense, and that it is naturally nothing, but the natural body of Christ; that the substance of one is passed into the substance of the other, this is not affirmed by the fathers; neither can it be inferred from the former propositions, if they had been truly alleged: and therefore all that is for nothing, and must be intended only to cosen and amuse the reader that understands not all the windings of this labyrinth.

In the next place I am to give an account of what passed in the Lateran council upon this article. For, says E. W. the doctrine of transubstantiation "was ever believed in the church, though more fully and explicitly declared in the Lateran council." But in the Dissuasive' it was said, that it was but pretended to be determined in that council, where many things indeed came then in consultation, yet nothing could be openly decreed.' Nothing, says Platina; that is, says my adversary, 'nothing concerning the holy land, and the aids to be raised for it: but for all this, there might be a decree concerning transubstantiation.' To this I reply, that it is as true that nothing was done in this question, as that nothing was done in the matter of the holy war; for one was as much decreed as the other. For if we admit the acts of the council, that of giving aid to the Holy Land was decreed in the sixty-ninth canon, alias seventy-first. So that this

answer is not true: but the truth is, neither the one nor the other was decreed in that council. For that I may inform this gentleman in a thing, which possibly he never heard of; this council of Lateran was never published, nor any acts of it, till Cochlæus published them A. D. 1538. For three years before this, John Martin published the councils; and then there was no such thing as the acts of the Lateran council to be found. But you will say, How came Cochlæus by them? To this the answer is easy: There were read in the council Letter to a Friend, p. 18. Ad liberandum terram sanctam de manibus impiorum. Extrav. de Judæis et Saracenis. Cum sit.

P. 37.

sixty chapters, which to some did seem easy, to others burdensome; but these were never approved, but the council ended in scorn and mockery ", and nothing was concluded, neither of faith, nor manners, nor war, nor aid for the Holy Land, but only the Pope got money of the prelates to give them leave to depart. But afterward Pope Gregory IX. put these chapters, or some of them, into the decretals; but doth not entitle any of these to the council of Lateran, but only to Pope Innocent in the council, which Cardinal Perron ignorantly or wilfully mistaking, affirms the contrary. But so it is that Platina affirms of the Pope, "Plurima decreta retulit, improbavit Joachimi libellum, damnavit errores Almerici." The Pope recited sixty heads of the decrees in the council, but no man says the council decreed those heads. Now these heads, Cochlæus says, he found in an old book in Germany. And it is no ways probable, that if the council had decreed those heads, that Gregory IX. who published his uncle's decretal epistles, which make up so great a part of the canon law, should omit to publish the decrees of this council; or that there should be no acts of this great council in the Vatican, and that there should be no publication of them till about three hundred years after the council, and that out of a blind corner, and an old unknown manuscript. But the book shews its original, it was taken from the decretals; for it contains just so many heads, viz. seventy-two; and is not any thing of the council, in which only were recited sixty heads, and they have the same beginnings and endings, and the same notes and observations in the middle of the chapters which shews plainly they were a mere force of the decretals. The consequent of all which is plainly this, that there was no decree made in the council, but every thing was left unfinished, and the council was affrighted by the warlike preparations of them of Genoa and Pisa, and all retired, Concerning which affair, the reader that desires it, may receive further satisfaction, if he read the Antiquitates Britannica' in the life of Stephen Langton out of the lesser history of Matthew Paris; as also Sabellicus, and Godfride the monk. But since it is become a question, what was

"Vide præfat. Later. Concil. secundum p. Crab.

:

* Vide Matt. Paris, ad A.D. 1215. et Naacteri generat. 41. ad eundem annum. Et Sabellicum Ennead. 9. lib. 6. et Godfridum Monachum ad A. D. 1215.

or was not determined in this Lateran council, I am content to tell them that the same authority, whether of Pope or council, which made transubstantiation an article of faith, made rebellion and treason to be a duty of subjects; for in the same collection of canons they are both decreed and warranted under the same signature, the one being the first canon, and the other the third.

The use I shall make of all is this; Scotus was observed above to say, that in Scripture there is nothing so express as to compel us to believe transubstantiation, meaning, that without the decree and authority of the church, the Scripture was of itself insufficient. And some others, as Salmeron y notes, affirm, that Scripture and reason are both insufficient to convince a heretic in this article; this is to be proved "ex conciliorum definitione, et patrum traditione," &c. " by the definition of councils, and tradition of the fathers," for it were easy to answer the places of Scripture which are cited, and the reasons. Now then, since Scripture alone is not thought sufficient, nor reasons alone,-if the definitions of councils also shall fail them, they will be strangely to seek for their new article. Now for this, their only castle of defence is the Lateran council. Indeed Bellarmine produces the Roman council under Pope Nicolas the Second, in which Berengarius was forced to recant his error about the sacrament, but he recanted it into a worse error, and such which the church of Rome disavows at this day: and therefore ought not to pretend it as a patron of that doctrine, which she approves not. And for the little council under Gregory VII. it is just so a general council, as the church of Rome is the catholic church, or a particular is a universal. But suppose it so for this once; yet this council meddled not with the 'modus,' viz. transubstantiation, or the ceasing of its being bread, but of the real presence of Christ under the elements, which is no part of our question. Berengarius denied it, but we do not, when it is rightly understood. Pope Nicolas himself did not understand the new article; for it was not fitted for publication until the time of the Lateran council, and how nothing of this was in that council determined, I have already made appear: and therefore, as Scotus said, the Scripture alone could not evict this article; so he also said in his argument made for the doctors that held the first opinion meny Tract. 16. tom. 9. p. 110.