The language in which fome of the popish priests have boasted of the power which this doctrine of tranfubftantiation gives them, would excite the greatest ridicule, if there was not a mixture of impiety with the absurdity of it. “On "our altars," say fome of them, " Jefus Chrift "obeys all the world. He obeys the priest, let "him be where he will, at every hour, at his

fimple word. They carry him whither they "please. He goes into the mouth of the wicked "as well as of the righteous. He makes no re"fistance, he does not hesitate one moment*." Some priests boasted that they had even more power than the blessed virgin, because they could create their creator whenever they pleased; whereas fhe had conceived him but once t.

So much is made to depend on the power and will of the priest, with respect to the eucharist, and the facraments in general, in the church of Rome, as, I fhould think, must occafion a good deal of anxiety on the part of those who receive them. For they believe that the efficacy of all the facraments depends upon the intention of him that administers them. This is expressly determined in a decree of pope Eugenius; and at the council of Trent an anathema was pronounced on those who denied it. This is even carried fo far, that

Bafnage, vol, i. p. 26.

+ Ib. vol. i. P. 423.

in

in one of the rubrics of the Miffal, it is given as a rule, that if the priest who goes to confecrate twelve hosts, should have a general intention to leave out one of them it will affect them all *. Luther mentions fome priests at Rome, who acknowledged that instead of pronouncing the proper words of confecration, only faid to themselves, Bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain†.

All the difputes about the nature of the eucharistical elements were not confined to the western church, in this period; for at the beginning of the thirteeth century the Greeks were much agitated about this fubject; fome affirming that the myfteries, as they called them, were incorruptible, while others maintained that they were not: when Zonaras, a Greek friar, happily found out a middle way, which fhewed no lefs ingenuity than had been displayed on the same subject by many of the monks or schoolmen in the Weft. The confecrated bread, he said, was the flesh of Christ, as dead, and therefore corruptible; but that after it was eaten, and thereby gone, as it were, into the fepulchre it became incorruptible; because the body of our Lord did not remain long dead and buried, but rofe again t.

The doctrine of tranfubftantiation was the eaufe of a great variety of new ceremonies and in

• Burnet on the Articles, p. 370. ↑ Bafnage, vol. iii. p. 687. Larroche, p. 494. stitutions

ftitutions in the church of Rome. Hence, among other things, thofe rich and fplendid receptacles which were formed for the refidence of God, under this new shape, and the lamps and other precious ornaments that were defigned to beautify this habitation of the Deity; and hence the custom of carrying about this divine bread in folemn pomp, through the public ftreets, when it is to be administered to fick and dying perfons, with many other ceremonies of the like nature. But what crowns the whole was the feftival of the holy fa

crament.

This was an inftitution of Urban IV. in 1264, on the pretended revelation of one Juliana, a woman of Liege, who faid that it was shewed her from heaven, that this particular festival day of the holy eucharist, had always been in the councils of the fovereign Trinity; but that now the time of revealing it to men was come. In the decree of Urban it is faid, "this feftival "day properly belongs to the facrament, because "there is no faint but what has his proper fefti"val; that this is intended to confound the un"belief and extravagance of the heretics, and to "repair all the faults that men might be guilty of " in other maffes*." This feftival is attended with a proceffion in which the hoft is carried in great pomp and magnificence. No less a perfon

Larroche, p. 581.

than

than Thomas Aquinas compofed the office for this great folemnity.

Notwithstanding all this pomp and fplendor, which feldom fail to have charms for the bulk of mankind, this decree of Urban was not univerfally observed; and therefore it was confirmed by another bull of Clement V. But when the minds of men were a little enlightened after the reformation by Luther, this folemnity became the topic of much ridicule. On this account Catharine of Medicis wrote to the pope in 1561, as Thuanus informs us, to request the abolition of this feftival, because it was the occafion of much scandal, and was not at all neceffary. It may not be amifs to give a more particular account of fome of the other new fuperftitions mentioned above.

It was towards the end of the fixth century that the elevation of the boft was first practifed in the eastern church; but then it was intended to represent the elevation of Christ upon the cross, and was made immediately before the communion; and there is no mention of this ceremony in the western church before the eleventh century. But then it immediately followed the confecration, though no adoration is faid to have been intended by this ceremony till the thirteenth century, when it was exprefsly appointed in the conftitutions of Honorius III.

and Gregory the IX. the latter of whom in 1227, ordered the ringing of a bell, to warn the people to fall down on their knees, and adore the confecrated hoft. This, however, feems to have been done before by Guy Paré, the pope's legate in Germany; who, when he was at Cologne, in 1201, ordered, that when the hoft was elevated in the celebration of the mafs, the people fhould proftrate themselves in the church at the found of a bell †.

The ceremony of carrying the host in proceffion to communicate the fick, seems to have been first used in this country. For, at the end of the twelfth century, Hubert archbishop of Canterbury, and legate of pope Celestine, held a fynod at York, in which, among other things, he commanded that when any fick perfons were to receive the communion, the priest himself should carry the hoft, cloathed with his proper habits, and with lights borne before it, fuitable to fo great a facrament ‡. We are alfo informed that, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, Odo, bishop of Paris, in one of his fynods, made several conftitutions relating to the facrament; as about the manner of carrying it to the fick, of the adoration of the perfons who should meet it, of keeping it in the best part of the

Larroche, p. 102.

+ Hiftoire des papes, vol. iii. p. 131.

1 Ib. p. 483.

altar,