Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/284

 but are something else besides what is their proper being; for they are made spiritually the Body and Blood of ; not that the Elements be two different things, but in one respect they are, as they appear, Bread and Wine, and in another the Body and Blood of. Hence, according to the visible creature they feed the body; but according to the virtue of a more excellent substance they nourish and sanctify the souls of the faithful." Then having brought many testimonies of holy Scripture and the ancient Fathers to confirm this, he at last prevents that calumny which the followers of Paschasius did then lay on the orthodox, as though they had taught that bare signs, figures, and shadows, and not the Body and Blood of were given in the Sacrament. "Let it not be thought," saith he, "because we say this, that therefore the Body and Blood of  are not received in the mystery of the Sacrament, where faith apprehends what it believeth, and not what the eyes see; for this meat and drink are spiritual, feed the soul spiritually, and entertain that life whose fulness is eternal." For the question is not simply about the real truth, or the thing signified being present, without which it could not be a mystery, but about the false reality of things subsisting in imaginary appearances, and about the carnal presence.

All this the Fathers of Trent, and the Romish Inquisitors could not brook, and therefore they utterly condemned Bertram, and put his book in the Catalogue of those that are forbidden.

… us see what props these new builders pretend to borrow from Antiquity to uphold their castle in the air, Transubstantiation. They use indeed to scrape together many testimonies of the Fathers of the first and middle age, whereby they would fain prove, that those Fathers believed and taught the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Blood of, just as the Roman Church, at this day, doth teach and believe.