mental Affertion is to prove (as Dr. Cosins recites it) that the Eucharift is not only a Figure of the Body of our Lord, but contains in it the Verity, Nature and Substance; and therefore that these Terms ought not to be exploded, because the Ancients generally used them in their Difcourses upon this Argument.

But Bishop Andrews his Passage, though grown Vular and Tread-bare, by being fo continually quoted, best deserves our Observation, because by that means it is made not only a Declaration of his own Sence, but of all that followed him in it, and that is of almost all the learned Men of the Church of England, that have succeeded from that time. The Passage is in his Answer to Bellarmine in these Words.

The Cardinal is not ignorant, except wilfully, that Chrift hath faid, This is my Body. Now about the Object we are both agreed ; all the Controverfie is about the Modus. We firmly believe that it is the Body of Christ, but after what manner it is made to be so, there is not a Word extant in the Gospel, and therefore we reject it from being a Matter of Faith. We will, if you please, place it among the Decrees of the Schools; but by no means among the Articles of Religion. What Durandus faid of old, we approve of. We hear the Word, feel the Effect, know not the Manner, believe the Presence. And so we believe

the

the Prefence too, and that real no less than your felves; Only we define nothing rafbly of its Modus, neither do we curiously inquire into it; no more than how the Blood of Christ cleanseth us in our Baptifm; no more than how in the Incarnation of Christ the Humane Nature is united to the Divine. We rank it in the Order of Mysteries (and indeed the whole Eucharift it felf is nothing but Mystery) what remains beside, ought to be confumed by Fire, that is as the Fathers elegantly expreß it, to be ador'd by Faith, not examined by Reafon.

This was his State of the Controverfie, that was then perus'd and approv'd of by King James, and ever after retained by the Divines of the Church of England down to the Rebellion and Subversion of Church and State, and then it was carried into Banishment with its Confessors. For whilst his late Majesty resided at Cologn, it was there commonly objected, in his own Presence, by the Roman Divines against the Church of England, That all its Members were mere Zuinglians and Sacramentarians, that believed only an imaginary Presence.

Upon this Dr. Cofins, who was then Dean of the Chapel Royal, by his Majesty's Command writes a Difcourse to vindicate the Church of England from that Calumny, and to give an Account of its Sence concerning the true and real Prefence; in which he declares himself to the fame

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same purpose with all the forementioned Authors, all along vehemently afferting the true reality of the Prefence, and still declaring the Modus to be ineffable, unsearchable, above our Senses, and above our Reason.

So that still all Parties are agreed in the thing it self, were it not for that one mistaken Suppofition, That the Church of Rome hath not only defin'd the Matter, but the Manner, which she is so far from pretending to attempt, that before she proceeded to decree any thing about it, the declar'd that it was so incomprehenfible, that it was not capable of being defin'd, as we fee all Christendom hath done befide.

Now after all this I leave it to the common Sence and Ingenuity of Mankind, whether any thing can be more barbarous and profane than to make the renouncing of a Mystery, so unanimously receiv'd, a State TEST. And that is my present Concernment about it, not as a Point of Divinity, but as turned into a Point of State.

Thus far proceeded the Old Church of England, which as it was banished, so it was restored with the Crown. But by reason of the long Interval of Twenty Years between the Rebellion and Reftitution, there arose a new Generation of Divines that knew not Joseph. These Men underhand deserted and undermined the Old Church, as it stood upon Divine Right, and Catholick

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tholick Principles, and instead of it erected a New Church of their own Contrivance, confifting partly of Independency, partly of Erastianism, with the Independent, leaving no standing Authority in the Christian Church over private Christians, but leaving every Man to the arbitrary Choice of his own Communion; with Eraftus allowing no Jurisdiction to the Chriftian Church, but what is derived from the Civil Magistrate.

These Principles being Pleasing to the Wantonness of the People, these Men soon grew popular, and foon had the Confidence to call themselves the Church of England: But the principal Object of their Zeal was the Deftru&i on of Popery, and the only Measure of Truth, with them, was Oppofition to the Church of Rome. And therefore they assum'd to themselves the Management of that great and glo

rious War.

And as they managed it upon new Principles, or indeed, none at all (never writing for our Church, but only against that Church) fo they advanced new Arguments to represent the Church of Rome as Odious as poffible, to the People. Among these the Two most frightful Topicks, were Transubstantiation and Idolatry. One was a very hard Word, and the other a very ugly one. These Two Words, they made the Two great Kettle-drums to the Proteftant

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testant Guards. They were continually beating
upon them with all their Force, and whenever
they found themselves at any Disadvantage with
an Enemy (as they often were by preffing too
Enemy
far, for they never thought they did enough in
the Cause) by making a Noise upon these Two
loud Engines, they could at pleasure drown the
Dispute.

Now, ever since this alteration of the State of the War between the Two Churches, we hear little or nothing at all of the real Prefence in the Cause, but it is become as great a Stranger to the (i. e. their) Church of England as Transubstantiation it self, but the whole matter is resolved into a meer Sacramental Figure and Representation, and a Participation only of the Benefits of the Body and Blood of Christ by Faith.

I know not any one Writer of that party of Men that hath ever own'd any higher Mystery, but on the contrary they state all the Difputes about the Eucharift upon Sacramentarian Principles, and with them to affert the true reality of the Presence of our Saviour's Body and Blood in the Sacrament, as naturally refolves it self into Tranfubftantiation, as that does into Idolatry.

And the main Argument insisted upon by them, is the natural Impossibility of the thing it self to the Divine Omnipotence, which befide

the