sacrament of the halter. From arguments and invectives against the corporal presence, all Bishop Gardiner's care and severity had not sufficed even to keep his own diocese free. Before the end of King Henry's reign a clergyman, named Hancock, had preached there from the Epistle to the Hebrews', that the single sacrifice offered by Christ upon the cross was a sufficient atonement for the whole sum of human iniquity. This doctrine, though strictly scriptural, was considered as inculcated with a view to disparage the mass, and Hancock was suspended from the exercise of his ministerial functions. This suspension was, however, removed soon after King Edward's accession, by Cranmer's means, and the zealous preacher now impugned unreservedly the corporal presence, in various parts of the southern, and western counties. Other clergymen adopted the same line of conduct, and thus the popular mind was retained in a state of constant ferment, as to what were deemed the vitals of religion, not only by means of vulgar ribaldry, but also by the force of serious argument. These attacks upon the mass did not, however, receive any direct encouragement from persons in authority. The coarseness, indeed, with which this Romish service was assailed, disgusted all serious minds, and

Life of Bishop Ridley, 216. These indecencies were far from new; but they were now brought forward with unwonted boldness.

Heb. ix. 12. 25, 26.

'Strype, Mem. Cranm. 247.

Bishop Ridley, in a sermon preached, this autumn, at St. Paul's Cross, reprobated these excesses with such severity, that he was afterwards said to have maintained the corporal presence upon that occasion".

An incident, which occurred in October, shewed, that the prevailing disposition to pour contempt upon the mass had made some progress in the University of Cambridge. When the members of St. John's College there assembled one morning in their chapel, the strings by which the pix was ordinarily suspended were found to be cut, and that venerated vessel was lying upon the pavement. As there was little probability, that this ignominious fall resulted from accident, an enquiry was immediately set on foot to discover the author of the outrage. The offender proved to be a young Frenchman of Protestant principles, who was a sizar of the house. His act occasioned great uneasiness in the collegiate body, being thought likely to give offence at the seat of government, and, accordingly, it was determined to lay all the circumstances, without delay, before Archbishop Cranmer. By him, in consideration of the youthful delinquent's irreproachable morals, and studious habits, no particular severity was recommended, and the affair was hushed up. a Life of Bp. Ridley, 216.

Strype, Mem. Cranm. 231.

CHAPTER II.

AN

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT

OF

TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

Ancient opinions respecting the Sacramental presence-Rise of a belief in transubstantiation-Ratramn-Contemporary sentiments of other eminent divines-Lanfranc-Berenger-Progress and establishment of a belief in transubstantiation-Artolatry—The Eucharist represented as a propitiatory sacrifice— Zuingle's attacks upon transubstantiation-Ecolampadius— Elfric-The Anglo-Saxon homily-Anglo-Saxon epistles against transubstantiation-Anglo-Norman arrangements for the reception of that doctrine-Abandonment of it by Ridley and Cranmer.

AMONG the peculiar tenets engrafted under papal influence upon the Catholic faith, that which gives life and energy to the whole system of Romanism, is transubstantiation. This doctrine teaches, that the words of Eucharistic consecration having been pronounced by a priest duly ordained, and intending to produce the effect an

b

ticipated, the sensible qualities only of the bread and wine remain, their substances being changed into those of Christ's natural body and blood.

• At the council of Florence, which began its sessions in 1439, and ended them in 1442, it was determined, that the priest's intention was necessary to confer validity upon a sacrament. At the council of Trent, in 1547, it was found difficult to define exactly in what this intention consists, but it was considered to consist in doing as the Church enjoins, in particular cases; that is, to baptise an infant when one is brought for that purpose, to consecrate the elements at a mass. In the end, the Trentine fathers affirmed the decision of their predecessors at Florence as to the necessity of ministerial intentions. F. Paul. 240, 264.

▸ As their taste, smell, colour, extension and the like. These properties are technically termed Accidents. "An accident is such a mode as is not necessary to the being of a thing, for the subject may be without it, and yet remain of the same nature that it was before; or it is that mode which may be separated, or abolished from its subject; so smoothness or roughness, blackness or whiteness, motion or rest, are the accidents of a bowl; for these may all be changed, and yet the body remain a bowl still." Watts's Logic. Lond. 1733. p. 18.

C

"The Papists say that in the Supper of the Lord, after the words of consecration, as they call it, there is none other substance remaining but the substance of Christ's flesh and blood, so that there remaineth neither bread to be eaten, nor wine to be drunken. And although there be the colour of bread and wine, the savour, the smell, the bigness, the fashion, and all other, as they call them, accidents, or qualities and quantities of bread and wine, yet, say they, there is no very bread nor wine, but they be turned into the flesh and blood of Christ. And this conversion they call transubstantiation, that is to say, turning of one substance into another substance. And although all the accidents, both of the bread and wine, remain still, yet say they, the same accidents be in no manner of thing; but hang alone in the air, without any thing to stay them upon.. For in the hody and blood of Christ, sav they, these accidents cannot be, nor

Romish ecclesiastics, therefore, claim the power of presenting at all times to the senses of their congregations an incarnation of the Deity, and of exhibiting the naked qualities of things, after those things themselves have wholly disappeared". Few facts in the intellectual history of man are more remarkable, than the extensive credence attained by these pretensions. It is, however, obvious, that such pretensions are well adapted to captivate ordinary minds. Men unused to serious thought, and unacquainted with God's recorded Word, would readily allow themselves to

yet in the air; for the body and blood of Christ, and the air, be neither of that bigness, fashion, smell, nor colour, that the bread and wine be. Nor in the bread and wine, say they, these accidents cannot be; for the substance of bread and wine, as they affirm, be clean gone. And so there remaineth whiteness, but nothing is white; there remaineth colours, but nothing is coloured therewith; there remaineth roundness, but nothing is round; and there is bigness, and yet nothing is big; there is sweetness, without any sweet thing; softness, without any soft thing; breaking, without any thing broken; division, without any thing divided; and so other qualities and quantities, without any thing to receive them. And this doctrine they teach as a necessary article of our faith." Abp. Cranmer's Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament, 36.

"Neque aliud forte sunt omnia accidentia, quam qualificationes seu modificationes substantiæ. Quod haud ægre faterentur plerique omnes, nisi propter Eucharistiam contrarium dicendum putaverint Papistæ, ut existere possint accidentia a subjecto suo separata. Sic Jesuita Suarez, in Metaphys. Dis. 7. Sect. 2. Numb. 10. Per mysterium, inquit, Eucharistiæ, certius nobis constat quantitatem esse rem distinctam a materia, quam per rognitionem naturalem constare potuisset." Institut. Logic. per J. Wallis, S. T. D. Oxon. 1729. p. 28.