Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/271

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he that doeth it worthily, receives his absolution and justification; that is, he that discerns, and then receives the Lord's Body as torn, and His Blood as shed for the redemption of the world. But that Christ (as the Papists affirm) should give His Flesh and Blood to be received with the mouth, and ground with the teeth,…… this our words and hearts do utterly deny.

So then, (to sum up this controversy by applying it to all that hath been said,) it is not questioned whether the Body of Christ be absent from the Sacrament duly administered according to His institution, which we Protestants neither affirm nor believe; for it being given and received in the Communion, it must needs be that it is present, though in some manner veiled under the Sacrament, so that of itself it cannot be seen. Neither is it doubted or disputed whether the Bread and Wine, by the power of God and a supernatural virtue, be set apart and fitted for a much nobler use, and raised to a higher dignity than their nature bears; for we confess the necessity of a supernatural and heavenly change, and that the signs cannot become Sacraments but by the infinite power of God, whose proper right it is to institute Sacraments in His Church, being able alone to endue them with virtue and efficacy. Finally, we do not say that our Blessed Saviour gave only the figure and sign of His body; neither do we deny a Sacramental Union of the Body and Blood of Christ with the sacred Bread and Wine, so that both are really and substantially received together: but (that we may avoid all ambiguity) we deny that after the words and prayer of Consecration, the Bread should remain bread no longer, but should be changed into the substance of the Body of Christ, nothing of the bread, but only the accidents continuing to be what they were before; and so the whole question is concerning the Transubstantiation of the outward Elements; whether the substance of the Bread be turned into the substance of Christ's Body, and the substance of the Wine into the substance of His Blood; or, as the Romish Doctors describe their Transubstantiation, whether the substance of bread and wine doth utterly perish, and the substance of Christ's Body and Blood succeed in their place, which are both denied by Protestants.

The Church of Rome sings on Corpus Christi day, This is not bread, but God and Man my Saviour. And the Council of Trent doth thus define it; "Because Christ our Redeemer said truly, that that was His body, which He gave in the appearance of