CHAPTER III.
On the Excellency of the most holy Eucharist above the rest of the Sacraments.
This indeed is common to the most holy Eucharist with the rest of the sacraments, that it is a symbol of a sacred thing, and is a visible form of an invisible grace; but there is found in the Eucharist this excellent and peculiar thing, that the other sacraments have then first the power of sanctifying, when one uses them, whereas in the Eucharist, before the use, there is the Author Himself of sanctity. For the apostles had not as yet received the Eucharist from the hand of the Lord, when, nevertheless, Himself truly affirmed that to be His own body which He presented. And this faith has ever been in the Church of God, that, immediately after the consecration, the very Body of our Lord, and His very Blood, together with His soul and divinity, exist under the species of bread and wine; but the Body indeed under the species of bread, and the Blood under the species of wine, by the force of the words; but the body itself under the species of wine, and the blood under the species of bread, and the soul under each, by the force of that natural connexion and concomitancy by which the parts of Christ our Lord, who hath now risen from the dead, to die no more,[1] are united together; and the divinity, furthermore, on account of that admirable hypostatical union thereof with His body and soul. Wherefore it is most true, that as much is contained under either species as under each; for Christ whole and entire is under the species of bread, and under any part soever of that species; likewise the whole [Christ] is under the species of wine, and under its parts.
CHAPTER IV.
On Transubstantiation.
But because Christ, our Redeemer, declared that which He offered under the species of bread to be verily His own body, therefore has it ever been a firm belief in the Church of God, and this holy Synod doth now declare it anew, that,
- ↑ Rom. vi. 9.
