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ແ see that you are to eat, or to drink this blood "which they shall shed, who crucify me; but "I have recommended a sacrament to you, "which being spiritually understood, shall 66 quicken you; and though it be necessary that "it be celebrated visibly, yet it must be un"derstood invisibly." In like manner, Facundus says, "The sacrament of baptism may be "called baptism, as the sacrament of his body "and blood, which is in the consecrated bread "and cup is called his body and blood: Not "that the bread is properly his body, or the cup

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properly his blood, but because they contain "in them the mystery of his body and blood." Primasius, too, compares the sacrament to a pledge which a dying man leaves to any one whom he loved.

A still more decisive testimony remains, derived from the book of the Sacraments, which passes under the name of St. Ambrose. The author quotes the prayer of consecration, as it was used in his time in the public offices, which being the voice of the Church, declare its doctrine more clearly than any private doctor. But further, the prayer thus quoted is nearly the same as that now in the canon of the mass, with one variation, however, which is of considerable importance. St. Ambrose's prayer is,

2 See Def. Conc. Chalced. 1 9. b See Comm. in 1. Ep. ad Cor. C See de Sac. 1. 4. c. 5.

"Fac nobis hanc oblationem, ascriptam, ra ❝tionabilem, acceptabilem, quod est figura corporis et sanguinis Domini Jesu Christi, qui

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pridie quam pateretur, &c." That in the canon of the mass is "Quam oblationem tu "Deus in omnibus quæsumus benedictam, as"criptam, ratam, rationabilem acceptabilemque "facere digneris; ut nobis corpus et sanguis "fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Jesu "Christi." The latter is evidently derived from the former, yet in the one the sacrament is called the figure of the body and blood of Christ, whereas in the other it is prayed that " it may become the body and blood of Christ." The corporal presence, therefore, could not have been received at the time St. Ambrose's prayer was used, and must have been introduced when that prayer was changed.

Lastly, the seventh general council at Constantinople, A. D. 754, when it had condemned the worship of images, added "that the sacra"ment was the only image we might lawfully "have of Christ, and that he had appointed us

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to offer this image of his body, viz. the sub"stance of the bread." Notwithstanding this decree, the Council of Nice, with the greatest effrontery, positively declared that the sacrament is the true body of Christ, and was never called the image of Christ; an assertion contradicted by all the Greek liturgies, and the works of

the Fathers, in which the phrase constantly occurs.b

In opposition to the proofs thus adduced of the novelty of this opinion, it is said, that it is impossible a doctrine of this nature could have been introduced into the Church, if those who lived in the age that first admitted it, had not known that it had been the doctrine of the preceding age, and so on to the time of the Apostles. In answer to this, we shall explain the causes which led to the easy reception of this doctrine. The early writers, it must be confessed, speak of the Eucharist in very high terms; they apprehended only the profanation of it from the unworthiness of those who received it, and being therefore anxious to excite a due reverence for it, they urge all the topics that sublime figures or pompous expressions could present to them. And in the passages we have quoted from the writings against the Eutychians, it is evident that, though they asserted that the substance of the bread and wine remained after consecration, yet there was an union of the body and blood of Christ to them, like the hypostatic union of the divine and

a This assertion was so evidently false, that in the edition of the Councils, made under the direction of Paul V. and published at Rome A. D. 1612: the editors inserted the following note in the margin: "Græci patres jam sanctificata non rarò vocant antitypa.”— See Conc. Gen. tom. 3. p. 601.

human natures. This style of writing was the foundation of the superstructure afterwards raised upon it. Besides, it is necessary to consider the state of corruption into which the world fell in the fifth century. In the West, the Goths, succeeded by the Vandals, the Franks, the Lombards, and other nations, and in the East, the Saracens and Turks made havoc of all that was polite or learned; by which the best writings of the primitive times were lost, and many spurious productions substituted in their place. These were received with blind submission by the mass of the people, as an instance of which the decretal Epistles of the early Popes may be mentioned, a gross and ill-designed forgery of the eighth century. The corruptions of the fourth and fifth centuries are stated by the writers of those times to have been excessive, and the scandalous inconstancy of the councils that were then held confirms these statements. In the succeeding ages, these corruptions increased; the Popes are represented, even by their own writers, as men of the most depraved characters, and the wickedness of the other orders of the clergy is fully evinced by the circumstance, that in the office of consecrating bishops, examinations are ordered concerning crimes, the mere mention of which is horrible; " de coitu cum masculo et cum quadrupedibus." But the cause which contributed most to

the successful introduction of this doctrine, arose from the anxiety both of the Pope and the clergy to subject the temporal to the spiritual power; so that every opinion which tended to render the persons of the latter sacred, and to exalt their character, was received with the greatest encouragement. Nothing was more calculated to have this effect than the investing the priest with a power, by a few words, of creating God. It was therefore received with avidity by the clergy, and their numbers being then great, and their contrivances well suited to the credulity and superstition of the times, it was easily infused into the minds of the multitude by means of visions and wonders confidently related.

But besides these general considerations arising from the circumstances of the times, there are also some advantages attending this doctrine in particular, which rendered its introduction more practicable. It had never been condemned in any former age, for errors are never condemned by anticipation; in outward sound it seemed to agree with the words of the institution, and with the phrases generally used of the elements being changed into the body and blood of Christ, and as no alteration was at first made in the external form of worship, which the people are ever more inclined to notice than mere speculative opinions, it was not difficult to persuade them that the doctrine thus imposed upon them

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