ted enough from the ancient Fathers to refute the rash assertions of the two modern Bishops.

True it is that Paschasius Radbert, an Abbot of the ninth century, writing a treatise on the Eucharist, for the instruction of his novices, maintains the real corporal presence of Christ in it: but so far from teaching a novelty, he professes to say nothing but what all the world believes and professes. (1) The truth of this appeared when Berengarius, in the eleventh century, amongst other errors, denied the Real Presence; for then the whole Church rose up against him: he was attacked by a whole host of eminent writers, and among others by our Archbishop Lanfranc; all of whom, in their respective works, appeal to the belief of all nations, and Berenga rius was condemned in no less than eleven Councils. I have elsewhere shown the absolute impossibility, that the Christians of all the Nations in the World should be persuaded into a belief that the Sacrament, which they were in the habit of receiving, was the living Christ, if they had before held it to be nothing but an inanimate memorial of him: even though, by another impossibility, all the clergy of the nations were to combine together for effecting this. On the other hand, it is incontestible, and has been carried to the highest degree of moral evidence, (2) that all the Christians of all the nations of the world, Greeks as well as Latins, Africans as well as Europeans, except Protestants, and a handful of Vaudois peasants, have, in all ages, believed and still believe in the Real Presence and Transubstantiation,

I am now, Dear Sir, about to produce evidence of a different nature, I mean Protestant evidence,

(1) Quod totus orbis credit et confitetur.' See Perpétuité de la Toi. (2) See in particular the last-named victorious work, which has proved the conversion of many Protestants, and among the rest of a distinguished Churchman now living.

for the main point under consideration, the Real Presence. My first witness is no other than the father of the pretended Reformation, Martin Luther himself. He tells us how very desirous he was, and how much he laboured in his mind to overthrow this doctrine, because,' says he, (observe his motive,) I clearly saw how much I should thereby injure Popery: but I found 'myself caught without any way of escaping; for "the text of the gospel was too plain for this purpose.' (1) Hence he continued till his death to condemn those Protestants who denied the corporal Presence, employing, for this purpose, sometimes the shafts of his coarse ridicule, (2) and sometimes the thunder of his vehement declamation and anathemas. (3) To speak now of former eminent Bishops and Divines of the Establishment in this country. It is evident from their works that many of them believed firmly in the Real Presence; such as the Bishops Andrews, Bilson, Morton, Laud, Montague, Sheldon, Gunning, Forbes, Bramhall, and Cosin, to whom I shall add the justly esteemed Divine, Hooker: the testimonies of whom, for the Real Presence, are as explicit as Catholics themselves can wish them to be. I will transcribe in the margin a few words from each of the three lastnamed authors. (4)-The near, or rather close

(1) Epist. ad Argenten. tom. iv. fol. 502, Ed. Witten.

(2) In one place he says, that the Devil seems to have mocked those to whom he has suggested a heresy so ridiculous and contrary to 'Scripture as that of the Zuinglians,' who explained away the words of the Institution in a figurative way. He elsewhere compares the glosses with the following translation of the first words of ScriptureIn principio Deus creavit cælum et terram.--In the beginning the cuckoo eat the sparrow and his feathers. Defens. Verb. Dom.

(3) On one ocension he calls those who deny the Real and Corporal Presence, A damned sect, lying heretics, bread-breakers, wine-drink'ers, and soul-destroyers.' In Parv. Catech. On other occasions he says, They are indevilized and superdevilized. Finally, he devotes them to everlasting flames, and builds his o en hopes of finding mercy at the tribunal of Christ on his having, with all his soul, condemned Carlostad, Zuinglius, and other believers in the symbolical presence. (4) Bishop Bramhall writes thus: No genuine son of the Church (of

approach of these and other eminent Protestant Divines, to the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church, on this principal subject of modern controversy, is evidently to be ascribed to the perspicuity and force of the declaration of Holy Scripture concerning it. As to the Holy Fathers, they received this, with her other doctrines, from the Apostles, independently of Scripture: for, before even St. Matthew's Gospel was promulgated, the sacrifice of the mass was celebrated, and the body and blood of Christ distributed to the faithful throughout a great part of the known world.

In finishing this letter I must make an important remark, on the object or end of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. This, our Divine Master tells us, was to communicate a new and special grace, or life, as he calls it, to us his disciples of the New Law. The bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same shall also live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth this bread shall live for ever. John, vi. 52, 58, 59. He explains, in the same passage, the particular nature of this spiritual life, and shows in what it consists, namely, in an intimate union

'England) did ever deny a true, real presence. Christ said, This is my body, and what he said we steadfastly believe. He said neither CON nor SUB, nor TRANS. therefore we place these among the opinions 'of schools, not among articles of faith. Answer to Militaire, p. 74.

-Bishop Cosin is not less explicit in favour of the Catholic doctrine. He says, "It is a monstrous error to deny that Christ is to be adored in 'the Eucharist. ...... We confess the necessity of a supernatural and 'heavenly change, and that the signs cannot become sacraments but "by the infinite power of God. If any one make a bare figure of the 'Sacrament, we ought not to suffer him in our Churches.' Hist. of Transub. Lastly, the profound Hooker expresses himself thus: 'I wish men would give themselves more to meditate, with silence, on 'what we have in the sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner 'hor. Since we all agree that Christ, by the Sacrament, doth really and truly perform in us his promise, why do we vainly trouble our 'selves with so fierce contentions whether by Consubstantiation, or else 'by Transubstantiation ?'-Eccles. Polit. B. v. 67.

with him; where he says, He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in him. Ver. 57. Now the servants of God from the beginning of the world, had striking figures and memorials of the promised Messiah, the participation of which, by faith and devotion, was in a limited degree beneficial to their souls. Such were.the Tree of Life, the various sacrifices of the Patriarchs and those of the Mosaic Law; but more particularly the Paschal Lamb, the Loaves of Proposition, and the Manna of which Christ here speaks: still, these signs, in their very institution, were so many promises, on the part of God, that he would bestow upon his people the thing signified by them; even his incarnate Son, who is at once our victim and our food, and who gives spiritual life to the worthy communicants, not in a limited measure, but indefinitely, according to each one's preparation. The same tender love which made him shroud the rays of his divinity, and take upon himself the form of a servant, and the likeness of man, in his Incarnation, which made him become as a worm and not a man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people, in his immolation on Mount Calvary, has caused him to descend a step lower, and to conceal his human nature also under the veils of our ordinary nourishment, that thus we may be able to salute him with our mouths and lodge him in our breasts; in in order that we may thus, each one of us, abide in him and he abide in us, for the life of our souls. No wonder the Protestants, who are strangers to these heavenly truths, and who are still immersed in clouds of types and figures, not pretending to any thing more in their sacrament, than what the Jews possessed in their ordinances, should be comparatively so indifferent, as to the preparation for receiving it, and indeed as to the reception of it at all! No wonder that many of them, and among the rest Antony Ulric, Duke of Bruns

wick, (1) should have reconciled themselves to the Catholic Church, chiefly for the benefit of exchanging the figure for the substance; the bare memorial of Christ, for his adorable Body and Blood.

I am, &c.

J. M.

LETTER XXXVIII.

To the Rev. ROBERT CLAYTON, M.A.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

REVEREND SIR,

THOUGH I had not received the letter with which you have honoured me, it was my intention to write to Mr. Brown, by way of answering Bishop Porteus's objections against the Catholic doctrine of the Blessed Eucharist. As you, Rev. Sir, have in some manner adopted those objectons, I address my answer to you.

You begin with the Bishop's arguments from Seripture, and say, that the same Divine personage who says, Take, eat, this is my body, elsewhere calls himself a door and a vine: hence you argue, that, as the two latter terms are metaphorical, so the first is also. I grant that Christ makes use of metaphors, when he calls himself a door and a vine: but then he explains that they are metaphors, by saying, I am the door of the sheep, by me if any man enter he shall be saved, John, x. 9; and again, I am the vine, you the branches; he that abdeth in me, and I in him, beareth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing. John, xv. 5. But, in the institution of the sacrament, though he was then making his last will, and bequeathing that legacy to his children, which, in his promise (1) Lettres d'un Docteur Allemande, par Schefmacker, voi. i. p. 393,