p. 119. " figuratively : But if in Divine Precepts, or Re- Now the Authority of Melanthon weighs more with us of the Church of England, (as the learnConference, ed Dr. St. very well observes) that in the settlement of our Reformation, there was no such regard had to Luther or Calvin, as to Erafmus and Melanthon, whose Learning and Moderation were in greater Esteem here, than the fiery spirits of the other; and yet few Writers have afferted the Subftantial and Corporeal Presence in higher terms than this moderate Reformer; and though he may sometimes have varied in Forms of Speech, he continued constant and immoveable in the fubftance of the same Doctrine. For in the Confession of the Saxon Churches (at the Compiling of which he was chief Affistant) drawn up in the Year 1551. to have been pre ! と presented to the Council of Trent; a true and Jubstantial Presence is asserted, during the time of Ministration. "We teach (fay they) That Sa"craments are divine Institutions; and that the “ things themselves out of the use design'd are no “Sacraments; but in the use, Chrift is verily and " substantially present; and the Body and Blood of “Chrift are indeed taken by the Receivers. There seems to have been one fingular Notion in this Confeffion, That the Real and Substantial Presence lasts no longer than the Ministration; but that is nothing to our Argument, as long as a fubftantial Prefence is asserted. In the Year 1536 an Assembly of the Divines of the Ausburg Confession on one fide, and the Divines of Upper Germany on the other, conven'd at Wirtemberg, by the procurement and mediation of Bucer, who undertook to moderate between both parties; where they agreed in this form of Confeffion. "We believe according to the Words of "Irenæus, That the Eucharift confifts of two things, one Earthly, the other Heavenly; and therefore be"lieve and Teach, That the Body and Blood of Chrift " are truly and fubstantially exhibited and received "with the Bread and Wine. This is subscribed by the chief Divines of both perties, and approved by the Helvetian Ministers themselves. The Bohemian Waldenses in their Confession of Faith presented to Ferdinand, King of the E2 Romans Romans and Bohemia, declare exprefly, That the Bread and Wine, are the very Body and B'ood of Christ; and that Christ is in the Sacrament with his Natural Body, but by another way of Existence than at the Right-hand of God. In the Greek Form of Confecration, this Prayer was used: Make this Bread the precious Body of thy Chrift; and that which is in this Cup, the precious Blood of thy Chrift, changing them by thy Holy Spirit; which words are taken out of the Liturgies of St. Chryfoftom and St. Bafil. And Jeremias the Learned Patriarch of Conftantinople, in his Declaration of the Faith of the Greek Church in Answer to the Lutheran Divines, affirms, That the Catholick Church believes, that after the Confecration the Bread is changed into the very Body of Christ, and the Wine into the very Blood, by the Holy Spirit. In the Year 1570, was held a Council in Poland of the Divines of the Ansburg, the Helvetian, and the Bohemian Confeffions, in which they agreed in this Declaration. As to that unhappy Controverfie of the Supper of our Lord, We agree in the Sence of of the the Words, as they are rightly understood by the Fathers, particularly by Irenæus, who affirms, that the Mistery consists of two Things, one Earthly, and another Heavenly. Neither do we affirm, that the Elements : Elements and Signs are meer naked and empty Things fignified to Believers. But to speak more clearly and distinctly, we agree that we believe and confess the substantial Prefence of Christ is not only fignify'd to Believers, but is really held forth, distributed and exhibited, the Symbols being joined with the thing it felf, and not meerly naked, according to the nature of Sacra ments. This Confession was confirmed at several times, by several following Synods in the same Kingdom, at Cracow 1573. Peterkaw 1578. at Walhoff 1583. - The first man that oppofed the real and fubstantial Presence was Carolostadius, Archdeacon of Wirtenberg, of whom the candid and ingenious: Melanthon gives this Character: That he was a furious Man, void both of Wit, Learning and common Sence, not capable of any Act of Civility or good Manners; so far from any appearances of Piety, that there are most manifeft Footsteps of his Wickedness. He condemns all the Civil Laws of the Heathen Nations, as Unlawful, and would now have all Nations governed by the judicial Law of Mofes, and embrac'd the whole Doctrine of the Anabaptists. i He fets up the Controverfie about the Sacra-ments against Luther, meerly out of Envy and Emulation, not out of any fence of Religion, and much more to the same Purpose: The Truth Truth of all which (he says) a great part of Germany both can and will attest. Though the greatest Proof of his Levity is his own Writing, when all that Disorder and Schism that he made in the Church, of which he profess'd himself a Member, was founded upon no better Bottom than this flender Nicety, That when our Savi our faid, This is my Body, he pointed not to the Bread, but to himself. But in this he is vehemently opposed by his Master Luther, in behalf of a true Corporeal Prefence, especially in his Book Contra Cœleftes Prophetas fen Fanaticos; wherein he lays down this Af"sertion, That by the Demonstrative Pronoun hoc, "Chrift is declared to be Truly and carnally pre" fent with his Body in the Supper, and that the "Communication of the Body of Christ, of "which St. Paul speaks, is to eat the Body of "Christ in the Bread, neither is that Communi"cation Spiritual only but Corporeal, as it is " in the perfonal Union of Chrift: So we are "to conceive of the Sacrament, in which the "Eread and the Body make up one thing, and af" ter an incomprehensible manner, which no Rea"fon cau Fathom, become one Effence or Maß, from whence, as Man becomes God, so the Bread becomes "the Body... And in a Sermon preached by him the same Year at Wirtemberg, against the Sacramentarian Hereticks, 1 |