Facts and Assertions: or a Brief and Plain Exhibition of the Incongruity of the Peculiar Doctrines of the Church of Rome / With Those Both of the Sacred Scriptures and of the Early Writers of the Christian Church Catholic

by George Stanley Faber

II. Here we have no ambiguity. The Church of Rome, we see, speaking through the organ of the Council of Trent, declares: that Her doctrines are revealed in Holy Scripture; and that, Expressly as such, they have always been unanimously taught by the Fathers, and have always been invariably received by the Church Universal. [8g]

III. Now the meanest capacity will at once perceive: that, In making this declaration, the Church of Rome asserts, not merely a point of opinion, but AN ABSOLUTE MATTER OF FACT.

The simple question, therefore, is: Whether the asserted FACT be capable of substantiation by competent EVIDENCE.

1. In submitting this matter to the plain and honest inquirer, it is obvious, that nothing more is necessary: than, first, to state any particular doctrine of the Roman Church; next, to bring forward either the silence or the declarations of Scripture; and, lastly, to adduce the testimony of the Fathers.

2. By the adoption of such a plan, without a grain of any extraordinary learning, and by the mere exercise of common sense, every reader will be enabled fully to judge for himself.

3. Nor can a member even of the Roman Church justly refuse to hear me. For the present is simply A QUESTION OF FACT: and, by Mr. Berington, one of his own Clergy, he is distinctly assured; that It is no article of Catholic Faith, that the Church cannot err in MATTERS OF FACT. [9] Under the express sanction, therefore, of Mr. Berington, the laic gentlemen of the Roman Church will, I hope, be persuaded to indulge me with their company.

CHAPTER II.
TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

I SHALL begin with subjecting, to the test proposed by the Council of Trent itself, the doctrine of Transubstantiation.

I. The following, as defined by the Council of Trent, is the doctrine of the Roman Church with respect to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

1. In the sacrament of the Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is, truly and really and substantially, contained, under the species of those sensible objects: so that, immediately after consecration, the true body and the true blood of our Lord, together with his soul and divinity, exist under the species of bread and wine: for, by the very force of the words themselves, the blood exists under the species of the wine; and the body, under the species of the bread. But, furthermore, by virtue of that natural connection and concomitance, through which the parts of the Lord, after his resurrection from the dead, are mutually joined together, the body exists under the species of the wine, the blood exists under the species of the bread, and the soul exists under the species both of the bread and the wine. The divinity, moreover, on account of its admirable hypostatic union with the body and the soul, similarly exists alike under each species. Wherefore, under each species and under both species, so much as even the whole is contained. For the entire Christ exists both under the species of bread, and under each particle of that species: and the entire Christ exists, both under the species of wine, and under all the particles of that species. Hence, through the consecration of the bread and wine, there takes place a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of our Lord Christ, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood: which conversion is properly and conveniently denominated Transubstantiation.