therefore, since neither their new religion, nor their new advocates will do their business; since it is in vain that they either misrepresent their own doctrine, or our author's in favour of it; may they once please either honestly to avow and defend their faith, or honestly to confess that they cannot do it. Such shuffling as this does but more convince us of the weakness of their cause; and instead of defending their religion by these practices, they only increase in us our ill opinion of that, and lessen that good one which we willingly would, but shall not always be able to conserve of those who, by such indirect means as these, endeavour to support it.

BOOK V.

THE POPISH DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE SACRAMENTS

CONFUTED

AS TO THE ADORATION OF THE HOST!

A DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

THE ADORATION OF THE HOST,

AS IT IS TAUGHT AND PRACTISED IN THE CHURCH OF ROME;

WHEREIN

An Answer is given to T. G. on that subject, and to Monsieur Boileau's late book De Adoratione Eucharistiæ.

1685.

Paris,

IDOLATRY is so great a blot in any Church, whatever other glorious marks it may pretend to, that it is not to be wondered that the Church of Rome is very angry to be charged with it, as it has always been by all the Reformed; who have given this among many others, as a just and necessary reason of their Reformation, and it must be confessed to be so, if it be fully and clearly made good against it; and if it be not, it must be owned to be great uncharitableness on the other side, which is no good note of a Church neither; a grievous slander and most uncharitable calumny, which will fall especially upon all the clergy of the Church of England, who, by their consent and subscription to its Articles, and to the doctrine of its Homilies, and to the book of Common Prayer, do expressly join in it. For it is not the private opinion only of some particular and forward men in their zeal and heat against Popery, thus to accuse it of idolatry; but it is the deliberate, and sober, and downright charge of the Church of England, of which no honest man can be a member, and a minister, who does not make and believe it. I might give several instances to shew this; but shall only mention one, wherein I have undertaken to defend our Church in its charge of idolatry upon the Papists in their Adoration of the Host, which is in its declaration about

kneeling at the sacrament, after the office of the communion, in which are these remarkable words: "It is hereby declared, that no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, or unto any corporeal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood; for the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their natural substances, and therefore may not be adored, for that were idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians." Here it most plainly declares its mind against that which is the ground and foundation of their worshipping the host, that the elements do not remain in their natural substances after consecration; if they do remain, as we and all Protestants hold, even the Lutherans, then in worshipping the consecrated elements, they worship mere creatures and are by their own confession guilty of idolatry, as I shall shew by and by; and if Christ's natural flesh and blood be not corporeally present there, neither with the substance, nor signs of the elements, then the adoring what is there, must be the adoring of some things else than Christ's body; and if bread only be there, and they adore that which is there, they must surely adore the bread itself, in the opinion of our Church; but I shall afterwards state the controversy more exactly between us. Our Church has here taken notice of the true issue of it, and declared that to be false, and that it is both unfit and idolatrous too, to worship the elements upon any account after consecration; and it continued of the same mind, and expressed it as particularly and directly in the Canons of 1640, where it says, *"That for the cause of the idolatry committed in the mass, all Popish altars were demolished;" so that none can more fully charge them with idolatry in this point, than our Church has done.

It recommends at the same time, but with temper and moderation, the religious gesture of bowing towards the altar, both before and out of the time of celebration of the holy eucharist, and in it, and in neither,† upon any opinion of a corporeal presence of Christ on the holy table, or in the mystical elements; but only to give outward and bodily, as well as inward worship to the Divine Majesty; and it commands all persons to receive the sacrament kneeling,‡ in a posture of adoration, as the Primitive Church used to do, with

* Canon 7, 1640, about placing the Communion Table, under this head, A Declaration about some Rites and Ceremonies..

+ Ib. Can. 7. 1640.

Rubric at Communion.

the greatest expression of reverence and humility, Tρón προσκυνήσεως καὶ σεβάσματος, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem speaks,* and as I shall shew, is the meaning of the greatest. authorities they produce out of the ancients for adoration not to, but at the sacrament; so far are we from any unbecoming or irreverent usage of that mystery, as Bellarmine,† when he is angry with those who will not worship it, tells them out of Optatus, that the Donatists gave it to dogs; and out of Victor Uticensis, that the Arians trod it under their feet; that we should abhor any such disrespect shewn to the sacred symbols of our Saviour's body, as is used by them, in throwing it into the flames to quench a fire, or into the air or water to. stop a tempest or inundation, or keep themselves from drowning, or any the like mischief (to prevent which, they will throw away even the God they worship), or the putting it to any the like indecent superstitions. It is out of the great honour and respect that we bear to the sacrament, that we are against the carrying it up and down as a show, and the exposing and prostituting it to so shameful an abuse, and so gross an idolatry. We give very great respect. and reverence to all things that relate to God, and are set apart to his worship and service; to the temple where God is said himself to dwell, and to be more immediately present; to the altar whereon the mysteries of Christ's body and blood are solemnly celebrated; to the holy vessels that are always used in those administrations; to the Holy Bible, which is the word of God, and the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as the Sacrament is his body, and the New Testament in his blood; to the font, which is the laver of regeneration, wherein we put on Christ, as well as we eat him in the eucharist; and if we would strain things, and pick out of the ancient and devout Christians what is said of all these, it would go as far, and look as like to adoring them, as what with all their care they collect and produce for adoring the sacrament, as I shall afterwards make appear, in answer to what the latest defender of the adoration of the eucharist, has culled, or rather raked together out of the Fathers.

It seems from that declaration of our Church, that some were either so silly, or so spiteful, as to suppose that by our kneeling at the sacrament, we gave worship to the elements

*Cyril. Hierosolym. Catech. Mystag. 5. [p. 332. Venet. 1763.] + Controv. de Eucharist.

Jacob. Boileau Paris. De Adoratione Eucharistiæ. Paris. 1685,

and that learned man is willing to have it believed, that we do thereby, externe eucharistiam colere,* outwardly worship the sacrament, and he blames us for not doing it inwardly in our minds, as well as outwardly with our bodies; so willing are these men to join with our wildest Dissenters in their unreasonable charges against our Church, and use any crutches that may help their own weak cause, or be made use of to strike at us; but it may as well be said, that the Dissenters worship their cushions, or their seats, when they kneel before them; the roof of the church, or the crowns of their hats, when they fix their eyes upon them, at the same time they are at prayers upon their knees; or that the Papists worship the priest himself, before whom they kneel in their confession; or that on Ash-Wednesday they adore the holy ashes as they call them, and on Palm-Sunday the holy boughs, which they do not pretend to do, because they kneel when they are given them; as well as that we worship the eucharist, or the mystical elements, when we receive them kneeling, and disavow any such thing, and declare it to be "idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians."

But is it idolatry to worship Christ? Or to worship the body of Christ, though not for itself, yet for the sake of the Divine nature, to which it is always hypostatically united? No, by no means; I know no heretics, though they denied Christ's divinity, but yet were for worshipping him; the old Arians, and the late Socinians; but how justifiably, when they believe him but a mere man, or only a more excellent creature; they and the Church of Rome are both concerned to defend, and to clear it, if they can, of idolatry. As to the worship of the flesh, though Nestorius could not do this according to his principles, as St. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus argue against him; nor could the Ebionites, nor dokŋrai of old; yet I know none but some of their Schoolmen dispute now of adoring the flesh or human nature of Christ, which however it be in our minds, is never in truth abstracted from his divinity. But we will not at all trouble ourselves with those parts of the science of controversy, nor shall we stand upon any of those things. Well then, why may not Christ and his body be adored in the sacrament, if they are proper objects of adoration? No doubt but they may be adored in this sacrament, in the sacrament of baptism too, and in all the offices of the Christian religion, wherein we pray to Christ, and kneel before * Boil. [ibid.] p. 145.