1. THE next words to be considered, are 'Est corpus,' 'This is my body;' and here begins the first tropical expression; 'est,' that is, 'significat' or 'reprsesentat, et exhibet corpus meum,1 say some. 'This is my body,' it is to all real effects the same to your particulars, which my body is to all the church: it signifies, the breaking of my body, the effusion of my blood for you, and applies my passion to you, and conveys to you all the benefits; as this nourishes your bodies, so my body nourishes your souls to life eternal, and consigns your bodies to immortality. Others make the trope in 'corpus;' so that 'est' shall signify properly, but 'corpus' is taken in a spiritual sense, sacramental and mysterious; not a natural and presential; whether the figure be in 'est' or in 'corpus,' is but a question of rhetoric, and of no effect. That the proposition is tropical and figurative, is the thing, and that Christ's natural body is now in heaven definitively, and no where else; and that he is in the sacrament as he can be in a sacrament, in the hearts of faithful receivers, as he hath promised to be there; that is, in the sacrament mystically, operatively, as in a moral and divine instrument, in the hearts of receivers by faith and blessing; this is the truth and the faith of which we are to give a reason and account to them that disagree. But this, which is to all the purpose, which any one pretends can be in the sumption of Christ's body naturally, yet will not please the Romanists, unless 'est,' 'is,' signify properly without trope or metonymy, and 'corpus' be 'corpus naturale.' Here then I join issue; it is not Christ's body properly, or naturally: for though it signifies a real effect, yet it signifies the body figuratively, or the effects and real benefits.

2. Now concerning this, there are very many inducements to infer the figurative or tropical interpretation. 1. In the language which our blessed Lord spake, there is no word that can express 'significat,' but they use the word 'is;' the Hebrews and the Syrians always join the names of the signs with the things signified: and since the very essence of a sign is to signify, it is not an improper elegancy, in those languages, to use 'est' for 'significat.' 2. It is usual in the Old Testament, as may appear, to understand, 'est,' when the meaning is for the present, and not to express it: but when it signifies the future, then to express it; "the seven fat cows, seven years; the seven withered ears shall be seven years of famine." [Gen. xli. 26. 27. xl. 12. 18. xvii. 10. Exod. xii. 11.] 3. The Greek interpreters of the Bible supply the word 'est,' in the present tense, which is omitted in the Hebrew, as in the places above quoted: but although their language can very well express 'signifies,' yet they follow the Hebrew idiom. 4. In the New Testament the same manner of speaking is retained to declare, that the nature and being of signs, is to signify they have no other 'esse' but 'significare,' and therefore they use 'est' for 'significat.'--"The seed is the word: the field is the world: the reapers are the angels: the harvest is the end of the world: the rock is Christ; I am the door: I am the vine: my Father is the husbandman: I am the way, the truth, and the life: Sarah and Agar are the two Testaments: the stars are the angels of the churches: the candlesticks are the churches:" and many more of this kind; we have therefore great and fair and frequent precedents for expounding this 'est' by 'significat;' for it is the style of both the Testaments, to speak in signs and representments, where one disparate speaks of another, as it does here: the body of Christ, of the bread, which is the sacrament; especially since the very institution of it is representative, significative, and commemorative: for so said our blessed Saviour, "Do this in memorial of me;" [Nemo recordatur nisi quod in præsentia non est positum: St. August, in Psal. xxxv ii.] and "This doing, ye shew forth the Lord's death till he come," saith St. Paul.

3. Secondly: The second credibility that our blessed Saviour's words are to be understood figuratively, is because it is a sacrament: for mysterious and tropical expressions are very frequently, almost regularly and universally, used in Scripture, in sacraments, and sacramentals. [Hac enim Sacramenta sunt, in quibus non quid sint, sed quid ostendant, semper attenditur, quoniam signa sunt rerum aliud existentia, aliud significantia. August, lib. 3. contr. Max. c. 22. Sacramentum dicitur sacrum signum, sive sacrum secretum. Bern. Serm. de Coen. Dom.] And therefore, it is but a vain discourse of Bellarmine to contend, that this must be a proper speaking, because it is a sacrament. For that were all one as to say, 'He speaks mystically,' therefore he 'speaks properly.' Musthrion is the Greek for a sacrament; and all the Greek that is for it in the New Testament: and when St. Paul tells of a 'man praying in the Spirit,' but so as not to be understood, he expresses it by, 'speaking mysteries.' The mysterious and sacramental speaking is secret and dark. But so it is in the sacrament or covenant of circumcision. Touto esti h diqhkh mou, 'This is my covenant,' and yet it was but "the seal of the covenant," if you believe St. Paul, it was a sacrament and a consignation of it, but it is spoken of it affirmatively; and the same words are used there as in the sacrament of the eucharist; it is diaqhkh in both places. 4. And upon this account two other usual objections (pretending that this being a covenant and a testament, it ought to be expressed without a figure) are dissolved. For here is a covenant and a testament and a sacrament all in one, and yet the expression of them is figurative; and the being a testament is so far from supposing all expression in it to be proper and free from figure, that itself, the very word, 'testament,' in the institution of the holy sacrament, is tropical or figurative: 'est testamentum,' that is, 'est signum testamenti,' 'it is,' that is, 'it signifies.' And why they should say, that a testament must have in it all plain words and no figures or hard sayings, that contend that both the Testaments, New and Old, are very full of hard sayings, and upon that account forbid the people to read them; I confess I cannot understand. Besides this, though it be fit in temporal testaments all should be plain, yet we see all are not plain; and from thence come so many suits of law; yet there is not the same reason in spiritual or divine, and in human testaments; for in human, there is nothing but legacies and express commands, both which it is necessary that we understand plainly; but, in divine testaments, there are mysteries to exercise our industry and our faith, our patience and inquiry, some things for us to hope, some things for us to admire, some things to pry into, some things to act, some things for the present, some things for the future, some things pertaining to this life, some things pertaining to the life to come, some things we are to see in a glass darkly, some things reserved till the vision of God's face. And after all this, in human testaments men ought to speak plainly, because they can speak no more when they are dead. But Christ can, for 'he being dead yet speaketh;' and he can by his Spirit make the church understand as much as he please; and he will as much as is necessary: and it might be remembered, that in Scripture there is extant a record of Jacob's testament, and of Moses, [Lib. non aliter sect. Titius F. de legat. et fidei com.] which we may observe to be an allegory all the way. I have heard also of an Athenian, that had two sons; and being asked on his deathbed, to which of his two sons he would give his goods, to Leon or Pantaleon, which were the names of his two sons; he only said, didwmi pantaleonti, but whether he meant to give 'all panta to Leon,' or to 'Pantaleon,' is not yet known. And in the civil law it is noted, that testaments have figurative expressions very often; and therefore decreed, "Non enim, in causa, testamentorum, ad definitionem (strictam, sive propriam verborum significationem, saith the gloss), utique descendendum est, cum plerumque abusive loquautur, nec propriis vocabulis ac nominibus semper utantur testatoresi." And there are in law certain measures for presumption of the testator's meaning. These therefore are trifling arrests; even a commandment may be given with a figurative expression, and yet be plain enough: such was that of Jesus: "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that he would send men into his harvest;" and that, Jesus commanded "his disciples to prepare the passover;" and some others: and so, "Rend your hearts, and not your garments," &c. And an article of faith may be expressed figuratively; so is that of Christ's sitting at the right hand of his Father. And therefore, much more may there be figurative expressions in the institution of a mystery, and yet be plain enough; "Tropica locutio cum fit ubi fieri solet, sine labore sequitur intellectus," said St. Austin. [Lib. 3. de Doct. Christ, c. 37.] Certain it is, the church understood this well enough for a thousand years together, and yet admitted of figures in the institution: and since these new men had the handling of it, and excluded the figurative sense, they have made it so hard, that themselves cannot understand it, nor tell one another's meaning. But it suffices as to this particular, that in Scripture, doctrines and promises and precepts and prophecies and histories, are expressed sometimes figuratively; 'Dabo tibi claves;' and 'Semen mulieris conteret caput serpentis;' and 'The dragon drew the third part of the stars with his tail;' and 'Fight the good fight of faith, Put on the armour of righteousness;'--and very many more.

5. Thirdly: And indeed there is no possibility of distinguishing sacramental propositions from common and dogmatical, or from a commandment; but that these are affirmative of a nature, those of mystery; these speak properly, they are figurative: such as this; "Unless a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." The proposition is sacramental, mystical, and figurative: "Go and baptize," that is a precept; therefore the rather is it literal and proper. So it is in the blessed sacrament, the institution is in, "Jesus took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave to his disciples, saying, Take, eat." In these also there is a precept, and in the last words, 'Hoc facite,' 'This do in remembrance of me;'--but the sacramental proposition or the mystical, which explicates the sacrament, is, 'Hoc est corpus meum;' and either this is, or there is no sacramental proposition in this whole affair to explicate the mystery, or the being a sacrament. But this is very usual in sacramental propositions. For so baptism is called 'regeneration,' and it is called a 'burial' by St. Paul, "for we are buried with him in baptism;" then baptism is either 'sepulchrum' or 'sepultura,' the 'grave' or the 'burial;' but either of them is a figure, and it is so much used in sacramental and mystic propositions, that they are all so, or may be so; "ut baptismus sepulchrum, sic hoc est corpus meum," saith St. Austin. [Lib. 20. contr. Faustum Manich. c. 21.] And this is also observed in Gentile rites.

--------feron orkia pista,
Arne duw, kai oinon eufrona-------So Homer: [Il. g. 245.]

The slain 'lambs and the wine' were the sacrament, 'the faithful oaths;' that is, the rite and mystery of their sanction; they were oaths figuratively.

6. Fourthly: But to save the labour of more instances; St. Austin hath made the observation, and himself gives in a list of particulars: "Solet autem res quæ significat, ejus rei nomine quam significat, nuncupari; 'septem spicæ, septem anni sunt;' non enim dixit 'septem annos significant:' et multa hujusmodi. Hinc est quod dictum erat, petra erat Christus, non enim dixit, petra significat Christum, sed tanquam hoc esset quod utique per substantiam non erat, sed per significationem:" [In Levit. p. 57.] "The thing which signifies is wont to be called by that which it signifies: the seven ears of corn are seven years: he did not say they signified seven years, but are; and many like this. Hence it is said, the rock was Christ, for he said not, the rock signifies Christ; but as if the thing were that, not which it were in his own substance, but in signification."--"Pervulgatum est in Scriptura, ut res figurata nomen habeat figuræ," saith Ribera. [In Apoc. c. xv. v. 8.] That this is no usual thing, is confessed on all hands.

So is that of Exodus, 'The lamb is the passover;' and this does so verify St. Austin's words, that in the New Testament the apostles asked our Lord, Where wilt thou that we prepare to eat 'the passover' that is, 'the lamb' which was the remembrance of the passover, as the blessed eucharist is of the death of Christ. To this instance Bellarmine [Lib. l. Euch. c. 11. sect. Quædam citantur.] speaks nothing to purpose; for he denies the lamb to signify the passover, or the passing of the angel over the houses of Israel, because there is no likelihood between the lamb and the pass-over; and, to make the business up, he says, "The lamb was the passover." By some straining, the lamb slain might signify the slaying the Egyptians, and remember their own escape at the time when they first ate the lamb; but by no Straining could the lamb be the 'thing;' especially, if, for the dissimilitude, it could not so much as signify it, how could it be the very same, to which it was so extremely unlike? but he always says something, though it be nothing to the purpose: and yet it may be remembered, that the eating the lamb was as proper an instrument of remembrance of that deliverance, as the eating consecrated bread is of the passion of our blessed Lord. "But it seems the lamb is the very passover, as the very festival-day is called the passover;" so he. And he says true, in the same manner; but that is but by a trope or figure, for 'the feast' is the feast of' the passover;' if you speak properly, it is the passover by a metonymy: and so is the lamb. And this instance is so much the more apposite, because it is the forerunner of the blessed eucharist, which succeeded that, as baptism did circumcision; and there is nothing of sense that hath been, or I think can be, spoken, to evade the force of this instance; nor of the many others before reckoned.

8. Fifthly: And as it is usual in all sacraments, so particularly it must be here, in which there is such a heap of tropes and figurative speeches, that almost in every word there is plainly a trope. For, 1. Here is the cup taken for the thing contained in it. 2. Testament, for the legacy given by it. 3. This, is not 'in recto,' but 'in obliquo,' This, that is, 'not this which you see, but this which you do not see.' This which is under the species, is my body. 4. 'My body,' but not 'bodily;' 'my body,' without the forms and figure of my body; that is, 'my body,' not as it is in 'nature,' not as it is in 'glory,' but as it is in 'sacrament;' that is, 'my body sacramentally.'--5. 'Drink ye;' that is also improper; for his blood is not drunk property, for blood hath the same manner of existing in the chalice as it hath in the paten, that is, under the form of wine as it is under the form of bread; and therefore it is in the veins, not separate, say they [See Brerely. Liturg. tract. 4. sect. 8. Glossa in c. si per negligentiam, dist. 2. de consecrat. in hæc verba [de sanguine] ait de sanguine, i. e. de sacramento sanguinis. Sanguis enim Christi a corpore Christi sepaiari non valet, ergo nec stillare nec fluere potest.] and yet it is in the bread, as it is in the chalice, and in both, as upon the cross, that is, poured out, so Christ said expressly; for else it were so far from being his blood, that it were not so much as the sacrament of what he gave; so that the wine in the chalice is not drunk, because it is not separate from the body; and in the bread it cannot be drunk, because there it is not in the veins; or if it were, yet it is made as a consistent thing by the continent, but is not potable: now that which follows from hence is, that it is not drunk at all properly, but figuratively: and so Mr. Brerely [See Brerely. Liturg. tract. 4. sect. 8.] confesses sometimes, and Jansenius. [Concord, in eum locum.] There is also an impropriety in the word 'given,' for 'shall be given;' 'is poured out,' for 'shall be poured out;' [Salmer. in 1 Cor. xi. Gregor. de Valent. lib. 1. de Missa, c. 3. sect, igitur. om. 3. disp. 47. sect. 4, sect. exempla tertiæ. Ruard Tapper in art. 13.] in 'broken,' for then it was not broken when Christ spake it, and it cannot be properly spoken since his glorification. Salmeron allows an enallage in the former, and Suarez a metaphor in the latter: "Frangi cum dicitur, est metapliorica locutio." And this is their excuse, why, in the Roman missal, they leave out the words "which is broken for you;" for they do what they please, they put in some words which Christ used not, and leave out something that he did use;--and yet they are all the words of institution! And upon the same account there is another trope in 'eat;' and yet with a strange confidence, these men wonder at us for saying, the sacramental words are tropical or figurative, [Dico quod figura corporis Christi est ibi, sod figura corporis Christi non est ibi figura corporis Christi. Holcot. in 4. sent. quæst. 3.] when even, by their own confession [Anselm, Lombard, Thomas, Lyran, Gorran, Cajetan, Dion. Carth. Catharinus, Salmeron, Bened. Justinian, Sà in 1 Cor. xi. et innumeri alii.] and proper grounds, there is scarce any word in the whole institution but admits an impropriety. And then concerning the main predication; 'This is my body,'--as Christ called 'bread his body,' so he called 'his body bread;' and both these affirmatives are destructive of transubstantiation; for if, of bread, Christ affirmed, it is his body,--by the rule of disparates it is figurative; and if, of his body, he affirmed it to be bread, it is certain also and confessed to be a figure. Now concerning this, besides that our blessed Saviour affirmed himself to be 'the bread that came down from heaven,' calling himself 'bread,' and, in the institution, calling 'bread' his 'body;' we have the express words of Theodoret [Dial. l. c. 8.]: "Christ gave to his body the name of the symbol, and to the symbol the name of his body;" and St. Cyprian speaks expressly to this purpose, as you may see above, sect. 5. n. 9.

9. Sixthly: The strange inconveniences and impossibilities, the scandals and errors, the fancy of the Capernaites, and the temptations to faith, arising from the literal sense of these words, have been, in other cases, thought sufficient by all men to expound words of Scripture by tropes and allegories. The heresy of the Anthropomorphites and the Euchitae, and the doctrine of the Chiliasts, and Origen gelding himself, proceeded from the literal sense of some texts of Scripture, against which there is not the hundredth part of so much presumption as I shall in the sequel make to appear to lie against this. And yet no man puts out his right eye literally, or cuts off his right hand, to prevent a scandal. Certain it is, there hath been much greater inconvenience by following the letter of these words of Institution, than of any other in Scripture: by so much as the danger Of id0iatrv and actual tyranny, and uncharitable damning others and schism, are worse than any temporal inconvenience, Or an error in a matter of speculation.

10. Seventhly: I argue out of St. Austin's [Tract. 26. in S. Johan.] grounds thus: As the fathers did eat Christ's body, so do we under a diverse sacrament, and different symbols, but in all the same reality; whatsoever we eat, the same they did eat; for the difference is this only, they received Christ by faith in him that was to come, and we by faith in him that is come already; but they had the same real benefit, Christ as really as we, for they had salvation as well as we. But the fathers could not eat Christ's flesh in a natural manner, for it was not yet assumed: and though it were as good an argument against our eating of it naturally, that it is gone from us into heaven: yet that which I now insist upon is, that it was 'cibus spiritualis,' which they ate under the sacrament of manna; therefore we, under the sacrament of bread and wine eating the same meat, eat only Christ in a spiritual sense, that is, our spiritual meat. And this is also true in the other sacraments of the rock and the cloud: "Our fathers ate of the same spiritual meat, and drank of the same spiritual drink, that is, Christ;" so he afterward expounds it. Now if they did eat and drink Christ, that is, were by him in sacrament, and, to all reality of effect, nourished up to life eternal, why cannot the same spiritual meat do the same thing for us, we receiving it also in sacrament and mystery? 2. To which I add, that all they, that do communicate spiritually, do receive all the blessing of the sacrament, which could not be, unless the mystery were only sacramental, mysterious, and spiritual. Maldonate, [In S. Johan. 6. 49.] speaking of something of this from the authority of St. Austin, is of opinion that if St. Austin were now alive, in very spite to the Calvinists, he would have expounded that of manna otherwise than he did: it seems he lived in a good time, when malice and the spirit of contradiction were not so much in fashion in the interpretations of the Scripture.

11. Now let it be considered, whether all that I have said, be not abundantly sufficient to outweigh their confidence of the literal sense of these sacramental words. They find the words spoken,--they say, they are literally to be understood: they bring nothing considerable for it; there is no scripture that so expounds it; there is no reason in the circumstances of the words; but there is all the reason of the world against it (as I have and shall shew), and such, for the meanest of which very many other places of Scripture are drawn from the literal sense, and rest in a tropical and spiritual. Now, in all such cases, when we find an inconvenience press the literal expression of a text, instantly we find another, that is figurative; and why it is not so done in this, the interest and secular advantages, which are consequent to this opinion of the church of Rome, may give sufficient account. In the meantime, 1. we have reason not to admit of the literal sense of these words, not only by the analogy of other sacramental expressions in both Testaments (I mean that of circumcision and the passover in the Old, and baptism, as Christ discoursed it to Nicodemus, in the New Testament); but also, 2. Because the literal sense of the like words, in this very article, introduced the heresy of the Capernaites; and, 3. Because the subject and the predicate, in the words of institution, are diverse and disparate, and cannot possibly be spoken of each other properly. 4. The words, in the natural and proper sense, seem to command an unnatural thing, the eating of flesh. 5. They rush upon infinite impossibilities; they contradict sense and reason, the principles and discourses of all mankind, and of all philosophy. 6. Our blessed Saviour tells us that the "flesh profiteth nothing," and (as themselves pretend) even in this mystery, that his words were "spirit and life." 7. The literal sense cannot be explicated by themselves, nor by any body for them. 8. It is against the analogy of other scriptures. 9. It is to no purpose. 10. Upon the literal sense of the words, the church could not confute the Marcionites, [Vide infra, sect, 12. n. 22. 32. &c. et sect. 10. n, 6.] Eutychians, Nestorians, the Aquarii. 11. It is against antiquity. 12. The whole form of words, in every of the members, is confessed to be figurative by the opposite party. 13. It is not pretended to be verifiable without an infinite company of miracles, all which being more than needs, and none of them visible, but contestations against art and the notices of two or three sciences, cannot be supposed to be done by God, who does nothing superfluously. 14. It seems to contradict an article of faith, viz. of Christ's sitting in heaven in a determinate place, and being contained there till his second coming. Upon these considerations, and upon the account of all the particular arguments, which I have and shall bring against it, it is not unreasonable, neither can it seem so, that we decline the letter, and adhere to the spirit in the sense of these words. But I have divers things more to say in this particular from the consideration of other words of the institution, and the whole nature of the thing.

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