"tiall place at all. And, as for his certayne tes

timonyes of the ancient fathers, they will prove "so uncertaine for his purpose, as you shall see "them, most certaynely against him. His third "castle of the definition of a sacrament, will prove "a cottage of no strength at all, for that the true "nature of a sacrament standeth well with transub"stantiation. His fourth head springe about the "heresie of Eutyches, will prove a puddle, and "himselfe puzzeled therin, for that the heresie of

Eutyches confoundinge two distinct natures in "Christ, hath no more coherence with transub"stantiation, then Rochester with Rome. And 'finally, his last ground about the article of Christ's "ascendinge into heaven, hath no ground to rest "on, but is a meere imagination in the ayre, to witt, "that for so much as Christ ascended into heaven, "ergo there is no transubstantiation.”

Bucer did not take a prominent part part in any of the Cambridge disputations which have been mentioned; but another was convened, at which he held the temple + :-propounding the following conclusions, "first, that the canonical books of "scripture alone do sufficiently teach the regenerate "all things necessarily belonging to salvation: "secondly, that there is no church on earth that "erreth not as well in faith as manners: thirdly, "that we are so justified freely of God, that, before our justification, it is sin, and provoketh God's

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Fox, 1262, 1263. Persons's Review, c. i. s. 6. +In media mihi Cæsar erit templumque tenebit.--Virg.

"wrath against us, whatsoever good works we seem "to do: then,-being justified, we do good works."

We have no full information of what passed at these disputations, that can be relied upon:-it should seem from the accounts, which have reached us, that the catholics anxiously but fruitlessly strove to have the question of the real presence settled previously to the discussion of the question of transubstantiation. "If two demands being propounded," says father Persons*,-first, whether in such a vessel, '(where water was known to be before), there be "wine put in ;—and secondly, whether this wine "have turned that water into itself or no? or that "the water and wine do remain together,-to pretermit the first question, whether wine be

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really and truly there or no? and cavil only about "the second, whether the water be turned into "wine, or remain together with the wine, would be preposterous and impertinent wrangling; if the "wrangler did deny expressly, that there was any "wine in the vessel. And so fareth it in our con"troversy of the real presence of Christ's body. "For if the said body be not really and substan

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tially in the sacrament at all, then it is impertinent "to dispute the second question, whether it be there "without bread or with bread.

XX. 8.

Vol. 1. c. 13. s. 7. p. 130.

Religious Persecution during the reign of Edward VI.

* Review, c. i. s. 5,

CHAP. XXI.

Vol. I. c. 14. p. 131.

PRINCIPAL ECCLESIASTICAL OCCURRENCES IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN MARY.

1553.

XXI. 1.

Vol. I. c. 14. s. 1. p. 133.

The return of the English Nation to Communion with the See of Rome.

XXI. 2.

Four Disputations between Catholic and Protestant Divines in the reign of Queen Mary.

In our account of the reign of king Edward VI, we have noticed six disputations between catholics and protestants, on the subject of religion, that were held in the space of one year. Four similar disputations were held in 1553, soon after the accession of queen Mary. The catholics then held the temple, and these disputations were designed for the express purpose of giving satisfaction to protestants.

The first took place on the 18th of October in the year we have mentioned, in the convocation

* Fox, p. 214. Persons's Review of Ten Disputations, s. 7.

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house, in St. Paul's church, London, and continued during six days. "The questions, (says Persons), "were the accustomed, about the real presence, " and transubstantiation. The manner of disputing was not in form, or after any fashion of school, "but rather of proposing doubts and answering the "same for satisfaction of them, that were not re"solved. The prolocutor protested, that the con"ference was held not to call any points of catholic religion into doubt, but to solve such scruples or "doubts, as any man might pretend to have." Philpot, archdeacon of Winchester, took the lead on the protestant side: he denied the real presence in the most explicit terms: "I will speak plain English, quoth he* :-the sacrament of the altar, "which ye reckon to be all one with the mass, is no sacrament at all, neither is Christ anywise present in it."

Three other disputations † were held in three successive days, at Oxford, in April 1554, on the three questions of the real presence, transubstantiation, and the sacrifice of the mass. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer attended, and argued at each of them.

The disputants arrived at no certain conclusion, in any of the ten meetings which have been mentioned. The three last were conducted with most order, and the controversy carried on with the greatest fairness ;-"Yet," says father Persons +, if

* Fox, 1285. Persons's Review, ch. i. s. 7. + Fox, 1299. Persons's Review, c. i. s. 8. Ibid.

Fox relate truly," the manner of arguing was not so "orderly and school-like as might have been*."

The conclusions which Persons himself draws from them for his readers, we shall give in his own words.

"If a man would oppose to these ten public disputations "before recyted, ten learned councells of the catholic church, "that disputed, examined and condemned this heresie of "theirs against the real presence, within the space of these "last six hundred years, since Berengarius first began it, as

namely, those four named by Lanchfranke, to witt, that of "Rome, under Leo the ninth; and another of Versells, under "the same pope; the third at Towars in France, under pope "Victor, successor to Leo, the fourth at Rome againe, under pope Nicholas the second; in all which Berengarius himselfe 66 was present, and in the last, not only abjured, but burnt his "owne booke. And after this, six other councells to the same "effect, the first at Rome, under Gregory the seventh, where

Berengarius againe abjured, as Waldensis testifieth; the "second of Lateran in Rome also, under Innocentius the third; "the general councell of Vienna; the fourth at Rome againe, "under pope John the twenty-second; the fifth at Constance, "and the sixth at Trent. All these councells I say if a man "consider with indifferency of what variety of learned men they "consisted, of what singular piety and sanctity of life, of how many nations, of what dignity in God's church, how great "diligence they used to discuss this matter, what prayer, what

conferringe of scriptures, and other meanes they used, and "with how great consent of both Greek and Latyn church "conforme to all antiquity, they determined and resolved "against the opinion of protestants in our dayes; he will easily discover how much more reason and probability of "security there is, of adventuringe his soule of the one side "then of the other."+

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At the end of this chapter father Persons proceeds to an elaborate discussion of the controversies, on the three articles of the real presence, transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass-all who desire to be acquainted with the nature and bearings of these discussions in the reign of queen Elizabeth, must be highly gratified by the perusal of this part of his work. On the last disputation, see also Collier's Ecc. Hist. vol. 11, p. 354