us to Christ. They suppose Christ not to be present, unless he descends to us; as though we cannot equally enjoy his presence, if he elevates us to himself. The only question between us, therefore, respects the manner of this presence; because they place Christ in the bread, and we think it unlawful for us to bring him down from heaven. Let the readers judge on which side the truth lies. Only let us hear no more of that calumny, that Christ is excluded from the sacrament, unless he be concealed under the bread. For as this is a heavenly mystery, there is no necessity to bring Christ down to the earth, in order to be united to us.

XXXII. If any one inquire of me respecting the manner, I shall not be ashamed to acknowledge, that it is a mystery too sublime for me to be able to express, or even to comprehend; and, to be still more explicit, I rather experience it, than understand it. Here, therefore, without any controversy, I embrace the truth of God, on which I can safely rely. He pronounces his flesh to be the food, and his blood the drink, of my soul. I offer him my soul, to be nourished with such aliment. In his sacred supper, he commands me, under the symbols of bread and wine, to take, and eat, and drink, his body and blood. I doubt not that he truly presents, and that I receive them. Only I reject the absurdities which appear to be either degrading to his majesty, or inconsistent with the reality of his human nature, and are at the same time repugnant to the word of God, which informs us that Christ has been received into the glory of the celestial kingdom, where he is exalted above every condition of the world, and which is equally careful to attribute to his human nature the properties of real humanity. Nor ought this to seem incredible or unreasonable, because, as the kingdom of Christ is wholly spiritual, so his communications with his Church are not at all to be regulated by the order of the present world; or, to use the words of Augustine, "This mystery, as well as others, is celebrated by man, but in a Divine manner; it is administered on earth, but in a heavenly manner." The presence of Christ's body, I say, is such as the nature of the sacrament requires; where we affirm that it appears with so much virtue and efficacy, as not only to afford our minds an undoubted confidence of eternal life, but also to give us an assurance of the resurrection and immortality of our bodies. For they are vivified by his immortal flesh, and in some degree participate his immortality. Those who go beyond this in their hyperbolical representations, merely obscure the simple and obvious truth by such intricacies. If any person be not yet satisfied, I would request him to consider, that we are now treating of a sacrament, every part of which ought to be referred to faith. Now, we feed our faith

by this participation of the body of Christ which we have mentioned, as fully as they do, who bring him down from heaven. At the same time, I candidly confess, that I reject that mixture of the flesh of Christ with our souls, or that transfusion of it into us, which they teach; because it is sufficient for us that Christ inspires life into our souls from the substance of his flesh, and even infuses his own life into us, though his flesh never actually enters into us. I may also remark, that the analogy of faith, to which Paul directs us to conform every interpretation of the Scripture, is in this case, beyond all doubt, eminently in our favour. Let the adversaries of so clear a truth examine by what rule of faith they regulate themselves. "He that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God." (v) Such persons, though they may conceal it, or may not observe it, do, in effect, deny the reality of his flesh.

XXXIII. The same judgment is to be formed of our participation, which they suppose not to be enjoyed at all, unless the flesh of Christ be swallowed in the bread. But we do no small injury to the Holy Spirit, unless we believe that our communion with the flesh and blood of Christ is the effect of his incomprehensible influence. Even if the virtue of this mystery, such as we have represented it, and as it was understood by the ancient Church, had received the consideration justly due to it, for four hundred years past, there would have been quite enough to satisfy us, and the door would have been shut against many pernicious errors, which have kindled dreadful dissensions, by which the Church has been miserably agitated in the present, as well as past ages. But sophistical men insist on a hyperbolical kind of presence, which is never taught in the Scripture; and they contend as eagerly for this foolish. and absurd imagination, as if the whole of religion consisted in the enclosure of Christ in the bread. It principally concerns us to know how the body of Christ, which was once delivered for us, is made ours, and how we are made partakers of his blood which was shed; for the entire possession of Christ crucified consists in an enjoyment of all his benefits. Now, leaving these things, which are of such great importance, and even neglecting and forgetting them, these sophists take no pleasure but in this thorny question; how the body of Christ is concealed under the bread, or under the form of the bread. They falsely pretend that all that we teach respecting a spiritual participation, is contrary to what they call the true and real participation; because we regard nothing but the manner, which, in their opinion, is corporeal, as they enclose Christ in the bread, but in ours is spiritual, because the secret influence

(v) 1 John iv. 3.

of the Spirit is the bond which unites us to Christ. Nor is there any more truth in their other objection, that we attend to nothing but the fruit or effect which believers experience from feeding on the flesh of Christ. For we have already said, that Christ himself is the matter or substance of the sacred supper, and that it is in consequence of this, that we are absolved from our sins by the sacrifice of his death, are washed in his blood, and by his resurrection are raised to the hope of the heavenly life. But the foolish imagination, of which Lombard was the author, has perverted their minds, while they have supposed the sacrament to consist in eating the flesh of Christ. For these are his words: "The sacrament, without the thing, consists in the forms of bread and wine; the sacrament and the thing are the flesh and blood of Christ; the thing, without the sacrament, is his mystical flesh." Again, a little after: "The thing signified and contained is the proper flesh of Christ; the thing signified and not contained, is his mystical body." With his distinction. between the flesh of Christ, and the power which it has to nourish, I fully agree; but his notion, of what is a sacrament, and as contained under the bread, is an error not to be endured. Hence proceeded a false idea of sacramental eating, because they supposed the body of Christ to be eaten by impious and profane persons, notwithstanding they were strangers to him. But the flesh of Christ itself, in the mystery of the supper, is as much a spiritual thing, as our eternal salvation. Whence we conclude, that persons who are destitute of the Spirit of Christ, can no more eat the flesh of Christ, than drink wine which has no taste. It is certainly offering an insult, and doing violence to Christ, to attribute to him a body all feeble and dead, which is promiscuously distributed to unbelievers; and it is expressly contradicted by his own words: "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."(x) They reply, that the discourse from which this text is quoted does not treat of sacramental eating; and this I concede to them; only let them not be perpetually striking on the same rock, that the flesh of Christ may be eaten without any benefit. But I would wish them to inform me how long they retain it after they have eaten it. Here I believe they will find it impossible to escape. But they object, that the truth of the promises of God can sustain no diminution or failure from the ingratitude of men. This I admit; and I also maintain, that the virtue of this mystery remains unimpaired, notwithstanding wicked men exert their utmost efforts to destroy it. It is one thing, however, for the body of Christ to

(x) John vi. 56.

be offered, and another for it to be received. Christ presents this spiritual meat and spiritual drink to all; some receive them with avidity, others fastidiously reject them; shall their rejection cause the meat and drink to lose their nature? They will plead, that their sentiment is supported by this similitudethat the flesh of Christ, though it be not relished by unbelievers, nevertheless still continues to be flesh. But I deny that it can

ever be eaten without the taste of faith; or, if the language of Augustine be preferred, I deny that men carry away from the sacrament any more than they collect in the vessel of faith. Thus, nothing is taken from the sacrament, but its truth and efficacy remain unimpaired, notwithstanding the wicked depart empty from its external participation. If our adversaries object again, that it derogates from these words, "This is my body," if the wicked receive corruptible bread, and nothing more, the answer is easy-That God will have his veracity discovered, not in the reception itself, but in the constancy of his goodness, since he is ready to impart to the unworthy, and even liberally offers to them, that which they reject. And this is the perfection of the sacrament, which the whole world cannot violate, that the flesh and blood of Christ are as truly given to the unworthy, as to the elect and faithful people of God; but it is likewise true, that as rain, falling upon a hard rock, runs off from it without penetrating into the stone, thus the wicked, by their obduracy, repel the grace of God, so that it does not enter into their hearts. Besides, a reception of Christ, without faith, is as great an absurdity, as for seed to germinate in the fire. Their inquiry, how Christ came for condemnation to some, unless they receive him unworthily, is a groundless cavil; for we nowhere read that the perdition of man is owing to an unworthy reception of Christ, but rather to a rejection of him. Nor can they derive any assistance from the parable in which Christ speaks of some seed springing up among thorns, and being afterwards choked and destroyed; for he is there showing what value belongs to that temporary faith, which our adversaries suppose to be unnecessary to a participation of the flesh and blood of Christ, placing Judas, in this respect, on an equality with Peter. Their error is rather refuted by another part of the same parable, in which Christ speaks of some seed as having fallen by the way-side, and some on stony ground, neither of which took any root. (y) Whence it follows, that the obduracy of unbelievers is such an obstacle, that Christ does not reach them. Whoever desires our salvation to be promoted by this mystery, will find nothing more proper than that believers, conducted to the fountain,

(y) Matt. xiii. 4—7.

should derive life from the Son of God. But the dignity of it is sufficiently magnified, when we remember, that it is a medium by which we are incorporated into Christ; or by which, after our incorporation into him, the connection is more and more strengthened, till he perfectly unites us with himself, in the heavenly life. They object, that Paul ought not to have made unbelievers "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." (z) unless they had been partakers of them. But I answer, that they are not condemned for having eaten and drunk his body and blood, but only for having profaned the mystery, by trampling under foot the pledge of our holy union with God, which ought to have been received by them with

reverence.

XXXIV. Now, because Augustine is the principal among the ancient fathers who has asserted this point of doctrine, that the sacraments sustain no diminution, and that the grace which they represent is not frustrated by the unbelief or wickedness of men, it will be useful to adduce his own words, which will clearly prove that those who expose the body of Christ to be eaten by dogs, (a) are chargeable with an injudicious and culpable perversion of his meaning, in applying it to the present argument. Sacramental eating, according to them, is that by which the wicked receive the body and blood of Christ without any influence of his Spirit, or any effect of his grace. Augustine, on the contrary, carefully examining these words, "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life," (b) says, "This is the virtue of the sacrament, not the mere visible sacrament; and that internally, not externally; he who eats with his heart, and not with his teeth;" from which he concludes that the sacrament of the union which we have with the body and blood of Christ, is presented in the sacred supper, to some to life, to others to perdition; but that the thing signified by the sacrament is only given to life to all who partake of it, and in no case to perdition. To preclude any cavil here, that the thing signified is not the body, but the grace of the Spirit, which may be separated from the body, he obviates such misrepresentations by the. use of the contrasted epithets of visible and invisible; for the body of Christ cannot be comprehended under the former. Hence it follows, that unbelievers receive nothing but the visible symbol. And, for the more complete removal of every doubt, after having said that this bread requires the hunger of the inner man, he adds, "Moses, and Aaron, and Phinehas, and many others who ate the manna, were acceptable to God. Why? Because they spiritually understood the visible food, they spiritually hungered,

(z) 1 Cor. xi. 27.

(a) Matt. vii. 6.

(b) John vi. 54.