Positive testimonies from St. Chrysostom. 31 OF THIRD Eucharistical sacrifice from these words of St. Chrysostom, ACCOUNT without an answer; and therefore I conclude it with saying, that they are so far from hindering the Eucharist from being a proper sacrifice, that they do not hinder the following passages of that father from proving it to be such: ἡ προσφορὰ ἡ αὐτή ἐστι, κ. τ. λ. " "The oblation is the same, whosoever offers it be it Paul, or be it Peter, it is the same which Christ gave to His disciples, and which the priests now offer (καὶ ὴν νῦν οἱ ἱερεῖς ποιοῦσιν); for this is not inferior to that, because they are not men who consecrate this, but He,” that is Christ, "who consecrated that. For as the words which Christ (ὁ Θεὸς) spoke then are the very same which the priest speaks now, so is the oblation the same." So in his homily, De proditione Judæ°, "saith the priest, This is My body; which words change the gifts set before God. (τὰ προκείμενα.)” I humbly entreat his lordship to consider that phrase in the first passage, "because they are not men who consecrate this, but Christ who consecrated that," and then to tell me, whether he used that expression as a correction of what he had said before, and so hinder our consecration from being a proper consecration; or whether he spoke only emphatically to instruct the people, that Christ was the principal consecrator of the elements by our hands, and we only the instrumental, subordinate, and ministerial consecrators of them under Him, and by His authority? I have been necessitated to write all this upon mentioning the additions which I have made in this edition of my book, to what I had said in the former of the Eucharistical sacrifice; but now I have done for ever with that subject, and with all others that will require such labour and study, as through age and infirmities I am no longer able to endure. If it n Hom. ii. in 2 Tim. cap. i. [§ 4. ἡ προσφορὰ ἡ αὐτή ἐστι, κἂν ὁ τυχὼν προσενέγκῃ· κἂν Παῦλος, κἂν Πέτρος, ἡ αὐτή ἐστιν, ἣν Χριστὸς τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἔδωκε, καὶ ὴν νῦν οἱ ἱερεῖς ποιοῦσιν· οὐδὲν αὕτη ἐλάττων ἐκείνης, ὅτι καὶ ταύτην οὐκ ἄνθρωποι ἁγιάζουσιν, ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὸς ὁ καὶ ἐκείνην ἁγιάσας ὥσπερ γὰρ τὰ ῥήματα, ἅπερ ὁ Θεὸς ἐφθέγξατο, τὰ αὐτά ἐστιν ἅπερ ὁ ἱερεὺς καὶ νῦν λέγει, οὕτω καὶ ἡ προσφορὰ ἡ αὐτή ἐστι· καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα ὅπερ ἔδωκεν.—tom. xi. p. 671, Ε.] • [οὐδὲ γὰρ ἄνθρωπός ἐστιν ὁ ποιῶν τὰ προκείμενα γένεσθαι σῶμα καὶ αἷμα Χριστοῦ· ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὸς ὁ σταυρωθεὶς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν Χριστός· σχῆμα πληρῶν ἔστηκεν ὁ ἱερεὺς, τὰ ῥήματα φθεγγόμενος ἐκεῖνα· ἡ δὲ δύναμις, καὶ ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐστι· τοῦτό μου ἐστι τὸ σῶμά, φησι, (sc. ὁ ἱερεὺς τοῦτο τὸ ῥῆμα μεταῤῥυθμίζει τὰ προκείμενα.—Hom. i. § 6. tom. ii. p. 384, B. and Hom. ii. § 6. p. 394, B.] [Hickes was now nearly 70 years old : he was born in 1642. For some years before his death in 1715, he was OF THIRD EDITION. 32 Additions to the second discourse. ACCOUNT meets with any more opposition, I leave the farther defence of it to those learned younger divines, or students of divinity, who are conversant in the ancient writers of the Church. God of His mercy to it increase the number of them, and thereby supply the great loss of the late Mr. John Hughes, fellow of Jesus college in Cambridge, whose untimely death (if any thing may be so called which God appoints) I can never mention without grief, and scarce with dry eyes. As for the additions I have made in my discourse of the Dignity of the Episcopal office, I need not tell what, and where they are. They are intermixed with the rest; and I have nothing more to say of them, but to desire the learned reader to observe how many testimonies there are in it for the Eucharistical sacrifice, and the sacerdotal power of forgiving sins, as well as for the distinction of the Church from the State, and the independence of that upon this; of which the bishop saith, "all of them, I am persuaded, erroneous in the manner they have been urged, and no way agreeable to the doctrine of the Church of England"." He also insinuates that "the chief promoters of these opinions" are “of the late separations," which is his lordship's mistake, as he may see in the Prefatory Discourse, and in the Appendix, No. 7, and therefore it was not with too much candour or justice that he was pleased to say, "he hoped they should not easily exceedingly afflicted by the stone, 4 [John Hughes was born 1682; he a learned hand." Two interesting letters of his to Mr. Bonwicke, are printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 48. pp. 583, 622, one detailing a very remarkable narrative of an apparition; the other, dated Aug. 14, 1707, speaking of the edition of S. Chrys. de Sacerdotio, which he was then undertaking. The edition came out in 1710. He died Nov. 18. of that year, and was buried in Deptford church, where there is a long inscription to his memory. See Lysons' Environs of London, vol. iv. p. 367.] [Visit. Charge, p. 5. " all which, I am persuaded, are," &c.] s [Ibid. The latter subject had been specially treated of by Leslie in The case of the Regale and Pontificate stated, in a discourse concerning the independency of the Church upon any power on earth, in the exercise of her purely spiritual power and authority. London, 1702. Theological Works, vol. i. p. 582. 1721; by Collier, in A brief essay concerning the independency of Church power, 4to. 1692, without name of author or place of publication; by Dodwell, in The doctrine of the Church of England concerning the independency of the clergy on the lay power, as to those rights of theirs which are purely spiritual. 4to. London. 1697.] OF THIRD let us make more divisions among them, nor be forward to ACCOUNT entertain what we urge," (as his phrase is,) "purely because it seems to magnify our office." I think myself to have a particular share in the honour of this reflection, for which I have given no just cause. And therefore to shew his lordship that what he hath said of two of those three doctrines, and the honour and dignity of the sacerdotal office, which he thinks I magnify too much, is not right and just, I have added several tracts to the Appendix, which will justify me against his lordship's reflections, by shewing that I have spoken soberly, and not above measure, of the Church's independency of the State, and the dignity of the priesthood, and that I have not delivered any other doctrines on that subject than learned men before me have done, in as high if not in higher terms. Two of these tracts are of the Church's independency, whereof one is a preface of Du Pin" before a dissertation, in which he shews that the Church hath no authority, direct or indirect, to depose kings, or discharge their subjects from their allegiance. The other is a tract of Isaac Casaubon, De Libertate Ecclesiastica, translated by the same learned hand into English, which translated the answer to M. de Fontenelle's History of Oracles, and the continuation of it in answer to Le Clercx, [viz. the Rev. Mr. Hilkiah Bedford, A.M. 1] ["I hope we shall not easily let them make divisions amongst us, nor be forward to entertain what they urge, purely because it seems to magnify our office, before we have thoroughly considered it."-Ibid., pp. 5, 6.] u [Præloquium before the 7th Dissertation of his work "De Antiqua Ecclesiæ Disciplina." Paris. 1686.] Appendix, No. 5. x [An Answer to M. de Fontenelle's History of Oracles, translated from the French by a priest of the Church of England. London, 1709. A Continuation of the Answer to the History of Oracles, translated from the French. London, 1710. Fontenelle, following Van Dale, attempted to shew, 1. that oracles were not delivered by devils; 2. that they did not cease at the birth of Christ. About twenty years after, (in 1707,) Baltus, the Jesuit, wrote his "Answer" to con fute these two positions. Le Clerc [The words in brackets are from copy. Hilkiah Bedford, formerly a EDITION. ACCOUNT OF THIRD 34 Casaubon' De Libertate Ecclesiastica;' This treatise never came to my knowledge till it was lately EDITION. published with the author's epistles in Holland'. And both in this and the other treatise, the bishop will find some high things on the argument, which I declined to say lest I should give offence. In particular it must be observed of Isaac Casaubon, that he could not have any temptation to write on purpose "purely to magnify the priestly office," or transgress the "proper bounds" of his subject, or say any thing upon it, that should "give the State any just apprehensions of the Church and clergy," as his lordship suggests we have done; for as he was one of the greatest men that ever lived, so he was bred if not born in Geneva, lived and died a layman, and wrote this treatise of the true estate of the Church against the papal supremacy and usurpations of the Church, as perverted by the court of Rome. Nothing but the pure evidence of truth, as he found it in the ancient Church writers, could have made him write so impartially of the true and false, or real and pretended, liberty of the Church, as he hath done in the treatise; and as his lordship may rectify his own wrong notions by his right ones, and particularly see to how little purpose in his Appendix he hath brought so many examples from Christian emperors employing their imperial power for the good and service of the Church', to prove that it is not independent of the State. In short, I think his lordship may find a satisfactory answer to all that he hath written, both in his Charge and in his Appendix, against the independency of the Church, if he will read it without prejudice, and not doubting but he will con conversion of Constantine, several Other additions; of magnifying the sacerdotal office; 35 sider it well, I must refer him to it for his conviction and satisfaction, and hope it will convince him, that wherein I am so unhappy as to have him differ from me, he is in the wrong, and that I am in the right. ACCOUNT OF THIRD EDITION. And then because he is pleased to write as if I had magnified the priestly office too much, I have added what two great men, Dr. George Downame afterwards bishop of Londonderry and Dr. Jacksond have said on that subject, [and I think it very proper and pertinent to add the tract of St. Ephraim Syrus de Sacerdotio, as I find it in the Latin translation of his works by Gerardus Vossius Tungrensis, which I had not met with before. St. Ephraim, as he was a most holy, so he was a most learned man, and the wonder not only of St. Basil the Great, but of the Greek and Syrian Churches in the fourth century,] and to those additions I also humbly refer his lordship for second thoughts, and my own justification, and I hope when he reads them he will be more candid towards me, unless he can also think that what they have written on that subject, they "urge purely because it magnifies the priestly office." But what I have said on the independent power, the right to offer sacrifice, and the commission to forgive sins, I have urged, as he speaks, to magnify the sacerdotal office: have I not abundantly shewed that the most holy fathers have done the same? Did not St. Paul magnify the apostolic office [2 Cor. 5. 20.1 from the Apostles being Christ's ambassadors and stewards of the mysteries of God, and challenge the esteem and obe- I.] dience of the people upon that account? And would it not look more like the speech of a deist, than of a true and faithful Christian, to say, "that we should not be forward to entertain, what he urged purely to magnify our office, C Appendix, No. 4. [An extract from a sermon upon 1 Tim. iii. 1, 2. Of the dignity and duty of the ministry, preached by George Downame, D.D., and published at London, 1608.] d Appendix, No. 9. [An extract from his second book of Comments upon the Apostles' Creed, n. 5. c. 4.] [Added from Supplement, 1715, No. 2. p. 7. This tract is contained in the works of St. Ephraem. (Gr. et Lat.) tom. iii. p. 1. Rome, 1732. The trans lation of Ger. Vossius was published at (1 Cor. 4. |