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A53955
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A fourth letter to a person of quality, being an historical account of the doctrine of the Sacrament, from the primitive times to the Council of Trent shewing the novelty of transubstantiation.
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Pelling, Edward, d. 1718.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing P1081; ESTC R274
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51,690
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83
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loose and that prediction fulfilled Apocal. 20. that after the expiation of a thousand years Satan should be loosed out of his Prison and should go about to deceive the Nations which are in the four quarters of the Earth Such commotions and convulsions then hapned in the world especially in the Papacy of this Gregory as if the Prince were come a broad with stormes and tempsts to mingle Heaven and Earth together This was the Pope of whom such Horrid yet true Characters were given by some of the very Romish Communion that it would weary one to transcribe but the half part The Pope who decreed that the Bishop of Rome alone is to be called Universal that He alone can depose all Bishops that Vidr Registir Gregor 7. lib. 2. He only can use the Imperial Arms that all Princes are to kiss his feet that 't is Lawful for him to depose Emperors that an unlimited power of Ordination is in him that no Synod may be called a general Council without his command that no Chapter nor Book is to be acounted canonical without his Authority that there is no appeal from his Sentence that he can be judged by none that the Roman Church never did never can Err that by his leave Subjects may call their Princes to account that be can absolve Subjects from their Allegiance and the like Notwithstanding all these terrible usurpations many were Thunder-proof still One Synod at Worms condemn'd the Pope another at Pavia excommunicated him a third at Brescia deposed him Setting aside those Flatterers at the Court of Rome who did not stick to prostitute their Consciences to their Interest and Ambition men of all ranks orders and degrees made the world ring with their out-cries Princes began now to resist the Pope being too late sensible that what power their excessive zeal had given him he armed himself with against his over kind Benefactors so that there was no such Enemy to Crowns as the Tripple Diadem the Bishops finding themselves robb'd of their just authority by one Usurper opposed him to his Face The whole considerate world Groan'd and Wept for the abominations in Babylon complain'd of the Errours and Corruption which had crept into the Church longed for a Redress of abuses and would fain have had a Reformation but could not obtain it being hindred by a potent Faction who should have Cured the Common Disease but were themselves the greatest Plague Among other Innovations the New Doctrine of the Sacrament was still opposed For to go on Tho' Berengarius died about nine years after the Synod at Rome yet the Truth expired not with him I confess in the Twelfth Century the word Transubstantiation was used by Stephen who was Bishop of Autun in Burgundy about Anno 1120 and as far as I can yet find the First that used it And it is no wonder if the Doctrine which went along with it found entertainment when it was sent abroad by those whose Favour some were willing to expect and whose displeasure all had Reason to be afraid of Nevertheless it made not such a progress but that divers Men of Note had the Heart and Honesty to oppose it still I mean in the Western Churches for to other Countries it was as yet perfectly a stranger whatever some have vainly pretended to the contrary Several of Our Writers have so critically observed the variety of Opinions about the Sacrament in this Age that I cannot hope to discover any thing New to Men of such sort of Learning nor indeed do they need it For your sake therefore who may not be so well acquainted with the state of those times I shall content my self in giving you a Concise account of it as a Collector for the most part or rather as an Abbreviator of what has been already Noted by others whose Books have not been yet answer'd that I know of Heriger Abbot of Lobes in Germany who dyed in the beginning of this Twelfth Century gather'd together many things which had been written by Catholick Fathers Sigebert de Script Excles of the body and blood of Christ against Paschasius Ratbertus Thuanus in his Epistle Dedicatory to Hen. the Fourth tells him that Bruno Archbishop of Treves expelled several Berengarians out of Liege Antwerp and other places thereabouts and that this was Anno 1106. for so Bishop Usher and Abbertine say it should be read because Bruno was not Archbishop there till after Usher de success Stat. c. 7. Abbert de Euchar. p. 959. the year 1106 Rupertus Abbot of Deutsch in Germany about Anno 1110 is acknowledg'd by several Romanists themselves to have been for the mystical Union I spake of before against Transubstantiation and the Corporal Presence and the thing is clear out of divers places in his Writings Honorius of Augustodunum about Anno 1120 is charged by Thomas Waldensis under the Character of the Author de Officiis for a Favourer of Berengarius his Doctrine and one of Rabanus his Sive gemma animoe ext in BB. PP Bread Eaters Algerus who Flourisht Anno 1130 a Man so cryed up by the Romanists for Writing against Berengarius and for Transubstantiation reckons up as Prolog ad Libr de Sacram. I Noted before Six several Opinions about the Sacrament that were common in his time besides that which he held himself And as I observed too Zacharias Chrysopolitanus who was towards the year 1160. tells us that there were some perhaps many who then held Berengarius his Opinion though they blamed him for his Vnscriptural and Vncommon way of expressing himself * Si autem quaeritur qualis sit illa conversio An formalis an Substantialis an alterius generis Definire non sufficio P. Lombard Sententiar lib 4. dist 11. Peter Lombard about the same time having reckon'd up various Doctrines about this matter and among the rest that against Transubstantiation in particular though he himself held the Corporal Presence yet as to the question about the Change of the Symbols he plainly confest as Gregory the Seventh had done that he could not tell whether it be Substantial or a change of another Nature But that which convinceth me more that the Opposers of the New Opinion were very numerous and formidable at this time is because the Court of Rome began presently after this to use Terrible and Outragious Methods against them and for many years together carried on these Methods with a very quick Hand Which as it shews plainly that other Arguments failed them now and that they had no security left them but downright Violence and Oppression so it shews too what great Fears they were under least the Old Opinion should prevail again notwithstanding all their endeavours hitherto Witness their proceedings against the Albigenses of whom I may hereafter give you a saithful Account but at present it shall be sufficient for me to tell you from some of the Romanists themselves that they were such a sort of people as
the Doctrine being a Novelty they knew not as yet how to express it warily enough Caution comes by experience and 't is the meeting with objections that puts men upon a necessity of digesting their Notions better therefore it is no wonder that the conceits of these Men were crude because they were not yet throughly consider'd and disputed As time and debates shew'd them their Errour so they became sensible and asham'd of it For tho' Guitmund endeavour'd to desend those raw Expressions and with the coursest and boldest Explications that I ever read yet all he could do could not make the thing palateable the very men of those times that were concern'd for the New Opinion took distaste at the definition as appears by this For at the next Synod at Rome under Gregory the Seventh twenty years after when Berengarius was summon'd again and another Confession was prepared for him to subscribe this foul Notion of sensually handling breaking and grinding the true body of Christ was quite dropt nor was a word of it mention'd but the Doctrine they compell'd him to sign by frightning the poor Old Man with Death was this That the Bread and Wine which are set upon the Altar are substantially converted into the true and proper and quickning Flesh and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and after Consecration are the true Body of Christ which was born of the Virgin and which was offer'd up upon the Cross for the Salvation of the World and which sits at the right hand of the Father c. Here was the Paschasian Opinion improved now at length into Transubstantiation and this they thought was a Correct Confession not liable to so many Objections as they found that was which had been contrived by Pope Nicolas But yet it is observable that before this New Cunfession was drawn up it is acknowledged by the Romanists themselves that there were very warm disputes in this Synod and that not so much about the wording of the Confession as about the Opinion it self many of them believing one thing and some another The greatest part of them affirmed the Bread and Wine after Concil Rom. sub Greg. 7. consecration to be Substantially changed into that Body of our Lord which was born of the Virgin but some endeav oured to maintain that it is a Figure only c. Indeed this party was over power'd by the other nevertheless it plainly appears that neither the Doctrine of Transubstantiation nor that of the Corporal presence prevailed so yet but that there were several in this Synod who believed neither Nay tho some late Romanists have had the confidence to deny it I see no reason we have to discredit those who have positively affirmed that Pope Gregory himself doubted much in this point Engelbert Archbishop of Treves as Severral of our Authors have observed consesseth that this Gregory questioned whether that which is received at the Lords Table be the True body and bloud of Christ Cardinal Benno who wrote the life of this Gregory tells us and the Romanists themselves own the Book to be genuine that he commanded all the Cardinals to keep a strict Fast to beg of God that he would shew by some Signe whether the Church of Rome or Berengarius were in the right opinion touching the body of our Lord in the Sacrament Nay Conradus the Abbot of Ursperg relates how that Synod which began at Mentz and was Vide Concil Brixien Anno 1080. apud Binium removed to Brescia Anno 1080 deposed this Gregory as for many other things so for this in particular because he called in question the Catholick and Apostolick faith concerning the body of our Lord and was an old disciple of the Heretick Berengarius as they were pleas'd to speak To all which the sticklers for Transubstantiation have nothing to say but this that these are lies and calumnies invented by Benno and Conradus which is a sensless shift and the same thing in effect as if they told us they are resolved to contradict matter of fact though it be related by their own party and disown every thing that hurts their cause or but touches the credit of any one of their Popes though he were a very wicked wretch as every one knows this Pope Gregory or Hildebrand was Mr. Allix hath lately given us a passage out of a Manuscript piece of this Hildebrands now in the Liberary at Lambeth which is enough to put the matter out of controversie and to justifie these allegations his Proefat ad determinat Joan. Paris pag. 7. Cum autem Panis Vinum dicantur a cunctis Sanctis a fidelibus creditur transire in Substantiam Corporis Sanguinis Christi quâ fit illa conversio an formalis an Substantialis quere solet Quod autem formalis non fit manifestum est quod forma Panis Vini remanet Utrum vero sit Substantialis perspicuum non est words are these That whereas says he the Bread and Wine are said to pass into the substance of Christs Body and Blood a question is wont to arise how this conversion is made whether it be a Formal or a Substantial change That it is not a formal one is manifest because the form of Bread and Wine remains But whether it be a Substantial one is not manifest I know some subtle notions and seeming inconsistences do follow there which may puzzle a Reader how to understand them But what can any man gather from these words whether it be a Substantial change is not manifest but this that there were in this Pope Gregory's time several questions about the change in the Sacrament and that he himself was not able to resolve them but was inclined to believe that the change is not Substantial That I cannot give you a more perfect and exact account of all the particulars relating to this Synod and this Pope is because some have been very careful to suppress them and have given us no other account of them than what they pleas'd themselves And indeed the Age wherein these things were transacted was so barbarous and the Books I have searched are of that sort that no man would willingly moyl in such a barren study but out of an earnest desire to pick out what matter of Fast he could and to digest it right which is the only business before me now in tracing the doctrine of Transubstantion And upon the whole you cannot but easily disern what shifts the Patrons of it were put to what Arts they were forced to use what perplexities they found in their way what Heats and distractions hapned among them before they could make it be belived in the Roman Church her self tho' in times that were not only scandalous for Ignorance and consequently very Receptive of the grossest Errours but Infamous also for all those many violences and oppressions which commonly attend a blind Zeal Many even of the Church of Rome verily thought that then the Divel was let