TO JOACHIM WESTPHAL, Who, If He Heeds It Not, Must Hencefokth Be Treated In The Way Which Paul Prescribes For Obstinate Heretics; Herein Also Are Refuted The Censures By Which Those Of Magdeburg And Elsewhere Have Tried To Overturn Heaven And Earth. JOACHIM WESTPHAL has published a letter, written to one of his friends, whose name shame makes him conceal. Having there promised that he is going to answer the charges of John Calvin, he mournfully deplores that I have treated him more harshly than the Anabaptists, Libertines, and Papists. Were I to grant this, (though he here shamefully exposes his vanity,) wily does he not sit down calmly and consider with himself, what he has deserved both by his atrocious attacks on sound doctrine, and his barbarous cruelty towards pious and unoffending individuals? He asks if he deserves no mercy, while others are more mildly treated, as if one who has violated all the rights of humanity, and been seen, of set purpose, making war on equity and modesty, had not precluded himself from all title to expostulate. Why does he not rather attend to the declaration of our heavenly Master, “ With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again?” As if he had been brought up in the Roman court during his whole life, and learned nothing but anathema, he surpasses all the scribes and clerks of the Pope, by fulminating against us in almost every sentence.

When argument fails him, he overwhelms the best cause, by damnatory sentences and reproaches. Nay, as in comedies wicked slaves, driven to despair, throw every thing into confusion, so he by his clamor mingles light and darkness.

Why should I not give this insanity its proper name? Nay, as I had to do with a hard and stubborn head, why should I not be permitted to use a hard wedge for a bad knot? Unless, indeed, he can show that he is protected by some new privilege, which entitles him petulantly to employ his bad tongue on others, without hearing a harsh word in reply.

This, no doubt, is the reason why both those censors pronounce my book full of sting and virulence. I am not surprised at the former epithet, nor am I sorry that men so stupid have, at least, felt some pricks. As to virulence, they will find more of it in themselves than in the book. Still, whatever contumely Westphal may deserve, I ought not, it seems, to toss him about so violently. Accordingly, he exclaims, that all covering, gloss, and pretext are removed, and my temper stands disclosed by this one book: nay, he pretends that I have hitherto gone about personating a different character from my own. The character which God gave me, I, by his grace, so bear, that the sincerity of my faith is abundantly manifest. I wish the integrity of Westphal and his fellows were half as well proved by similar fruit. I do not envy others, though they should surpass me an hundredfold, but it is intolerable to hear lazy drones crying down the industry which they cannot imitate.

To prove that I am devoid of all fear of God, modesty, humility, patience — that, in short, I have nothing becoming a servant of Christ, he alleges, that unmoved by the dreadful denunciation of Christ, “Whoso shall say to his brother, Thou fool, shall be liable to hell fire,” I have filled numerous sheets with more than six hundred reproaches. One would say; that we have here Julian the apostate, while he cruelly rages against the whole Christian name, discoursing in mockery about bearing the cross. He who has hitherto allowed himself a thousand times to vociferate, without measure or restraint, against the faithful servants of Christ, ever and anon calling them heretical, impious, blasphemous, crafty, forgers, plagues, and devils, cannot bear to have one word of condemnation uttered against his presumption. If, in rebuking the Galatians for fickleness and thoughtlessness in being too easy and ,credulous, Paul did not hesitate to employ the term madness, with what vehemence should not the presumption of one who, with frenzied impetus, attacks the doctrine of Christ and his true worshippers, be repressed? The only wish I have is, that the rebuke had so touched the mind of Joachim as not to leave him guilty before that heavenly tribunal, the terror of which he holds out to others.

But the precept of Christ is, to love our enemies, and bless those that curse us. Why, then, has he of his own accord made a hostile assault on his friends, and those who were desirous to cultivate fraternal goodwill with him? Why did he pronounce maledictions on those who were quiet, and had never harmed him by a single word? He denies both charges. Let his writings be read, that one especially in which he attacks our Agreement.

Till that time I had never touched him or one of his faction, but had rather humbly begged, that if any thing in our doctrine did not please, it might not be deemed too troublesome to correct it by placid admonition. And, indeed, as experience afterwards showed, some then justly derided me for being so simple as to hope that those who had previously forgotten the rights of humanity, and vehemently flamed out against us, would be calmed down. Why did Joachim, when so mildly requested, choose to cry out heresy, rather than to point out the error, if any there was? Thus unworthily treated, not in the heat of passion, as he falsely imagines, but to curb the excessive ferocity in which he was indulging, I applied the remedy somewhat more sharply than I could desire. I wish the pain had stung him to repentance. But since he is so much exasperated, and has, ill no degree, laid aside his perverse conduct, I console myself with another good result, viz., that others will understand how insipidly he has defended his error against the clear light of sound doctrine. Meanwhile, if from blind hatred he is. unable to perceive my intention, Christ the common Judge recognises it, and, in his own time, will make it manifest that I am not so given to avenge private injuries, as not to be ready, when any hope of cure appears, to lay aside all remembrance of them, and try all methods of brotherly pacification.

When he says in another place that I have anxiously labored not to omit any kind of insult, how much he is mistaken will best appear from the fact. Many can bear me witness that the book was hastily written. What the case required, and occurred spontaneously at the time, I dictated without any lengthened meditation, and with a feeling so remote from gall, (with which, he says, I am thoroughly infected,) that I afterwards wondered how harsher terms had fallen from me while I had no bitterness in my heart. But, perhaps, the unworthy conduct of the man, while indulging his proud moroseness, required that he should be made to feel that the defenders of the truth were not without sharp weapons. It is easy for Joachim to attribute to me the black salt of absurd scurrility and sycophantish mendacity; but it is equally easy for me in one word to dispose of the calumny, by defying him to find any thing that can justify his hateful charge. Though I should be silent, the candid reader will alike detest his impudence and deride his folly. With the same modesty he alleges, that I hunt in words and syllables for absurd and insipid squibs, while it is plain that so far from being on the watch for bitter terms, I have purposely omitted those which spontaneously presented themselves. In short, if the reader will consider to what derision Westphal has exposed himself, and how much subject for irony his stupidity affords, none will be so unjust or prejudiced as not to say, that in this matter I have spared him and used restraint. If I am a dealer in reproaches, because I have held up the mirror to Joachim, who was winking too much at his faults, and made him at last begin to feel ashamed of his conduct, he must also bestow the same epithet on the Prophets, and the Apostles, and Christ himself, whose practice it was to administer severe reproof to the enemies of sound doctrine, those of them especially whom they saw to be proud and obstinate. Nay, laying hold of commonplace, without modification and selection, as if it were unlawful to charge the wicked defenders of error as they deserve, he avowedly undertakes the defense of all false prophets, seeking to augment their licentiousness by impunity.

Westphal’s complaint, that, I have treated him more unmercifully than Papists, Libertines, and Anabaptists, the reader will perceive from my writings to be most false. To render their pernicious errors by which all religion is corrupted detestable to all the pious, I depict them in their true colors. In this matter, Westphal does not. disapprove of my severity by censuring it; but as soon as he himself is touched, he cries out that all charity is disregarded. That bitter reproaches and scurrilous witticisms are unbecoming in Christians, both sides agree. But as the Prophets did not refrain from derision, and our Savior himself speaks in cutting terms of perverse and deceitful teachers, and the Holy Spirit everywhere inveighs with full freedom against this class of men, it is thoughtless and foolish to raise the question, whether it be lawful gravely and sternly to rebuke those who expose themselves to shame and disgrace; for this is to bring a charge against the servants of God, whom holy zeal often impelled to harsh and bitter speeches. No doubt every individual is always bound to look well to the cause for which he either takes fire or speaks keenly.

After our Agreement was published, and Westphal had full liberty to correct any thing that was faulty, calumniously searching in all quarters for an appearance of repugnance, he in savage mood lashed the living and the dead. I, in repelling this savage attack, refrained from giving his name, in order that if he was of a temper that admitted of cure his ignominy might be buried. Repudiating this by a violent, not to say cyclopical production, he attempted not only to confound heaven and earth, but to stir up Acheron. Considering that this obstinate intemperance was not to be cured by gentle remedies, I took the liberty to sharpen my pen. What could I do?

I must either by silence betray the truth, or by soft and placid pleading, give signs of timidity and diffidence. As if he had wrested all the thunder out of the hand of God to hurl it fearfully at our heads, he endeavored by the sound of words to strike us with dismay. A graver refutation having dissipated the terrors of his ridiculous anathemas, he has vented all his petulance and fury against us, pretending it to be very sweetness, and then alleges that I have forgotten all humanity and modesty. Since his ferocity has proved intractable, it is easy to see the frivolousness and puerility of all his declamation. As if lions and bears, after rushing madly at every one in their way, should complain that they do not meet with soothing treatment, this delicate little man, after atrociously attacking the doctrine of Christ and his ministers, regards it as a great crime that he is not treated like a brother.

The whole question turns upon this — Did I attempt to avenge a private injury, or was it in the defense of a public cause that I strenuously opposed Westphal? Any private injury he did me I was bound patiently to bear. But if the whole aim of my vehemence was to prevent a good cause, even the sacred truth of Christ, from being overwhelmed by the loud clam ours of Westphal, why should it be imputed to me as a fault? I wish this perverse censor could have any slight idea of what is meant; by the words, “The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me.” Had he any such idea, he would not so preposterously, as if in mockery, wrest the holy admonition of Peter to his own purpose. Peter exhorts us, by the example of Christ, to submit calmly to all kinds of contumely and reproach. Westphal therefore insists that such silence as Christ kept when unjustly accused, should be observed by his ministers whenever the truth is assailed: as if instead of the injunction to all to cry aloud, the Apostle were there imposing a law of perfidious tolerance on the preachers of the gospel. Wherefore, until Westphal show that I retaliated private wrongs, and was more devoted to my own cause than to the defense of doctrine, the reader will understand that it is the veriest trifling for him to talk of patience and silence.

He also accuses me of not having studied to gain my enemy. At first I followed the method best fitted to remove offenses, and now if he wishes reconciliation, though he has so often injured me, I decline not. I appeal to Christ’s Judge, and call all angels to witness, that the moment Westphal shall turn from his perverseness there will be no delay in me in maintaining brotherly good-will with him. Nay, if he can now put on the mind of a brotherly I in my turn am prepared to embrace him as a brother. But the iniquitous condition is imposed, that I shall renounce the confession of true and holy doctrine — a price for which I would not purchase the peace even of the whole world. And not to go on debating to weariness and without any profit, let the reader attend to one leading point on which the whole controversy turns. Joachim insists that any thing is lawful to him against us, because, as he says, he is defending true doctrine against impious error. When once he shall have proved this, I acknowledge that we must be quiet. But if I teach and show that what he falsely arrogates to himself truly belongs to me — that I am the faithful defender of pure and holy doctrine, and faithfully exert myself not only in refuting impious error, but in wiping off atrocious calumnies, why should not I have the same liberty he claims? Let judgment then be first given on the cause, that neither he nor I may keep beating the air. What prevents the reader from drawing a sure distinction between holy zeal and licentious invective, but just the attempt of Westphal to darken the clear light, by clamoring that my book is stuffed with bitter words?

Here it is worth while in passing to notice the combined stupidity and impudence of the man. In my former writings, wishing to bring Mm back to a moderate discussion of the subject, I said it was base and absurd to attack us with so much pride and petulance. He fiercely replied, that it was necessary to fight; with the utmost keenness against heretics, and that, therefore, a composed or sedate style was not to be used — that the more ardor any man felt in such a contest the better he proved himself a zealous soldier of Christ. In short, he used all the coloring he could to excuse not only the vehemence but the fury of passion. What does he now do? Paul, he says, wished not that the disobedient should be regarded as enemies, but be corrected as brethren, he also quotes recommendations of meekness from Ambrose and Gregory Nazianzen. Whoever will compare these two passages together, will not only say that this man, who so varies and differs from himself, has lost his memory and his senses, but, will easily see that possessing no ingenuousness, he sophistically catches now at this defense, now at that, and endeavors by empty froth to convert virtues into vices.

Tell me, Joachim, if you ever were in earnest when you said that severity was by no means to be spared in condemning error, or whether by now singing a disgraceful palinode, you would condemn the rigor which you lauded as holy zeal, in order to be able to throw obloquy on me Meanwhile, this worthy assertor and teacher of charity, who denies that it is to be violated by the smallest word, cries out that all persons whatsoever who are found to favor us ought to be driven from the face of the earth, boasts of having written that we ought to be refuted by the sword of the magistrate rather than by the pen, and advises the magistrates to pronounce interdict from fire and water, not only against the professors but even the approvers of our doctrine. Westphal’s definition of charity therefore is, that he is to rage at will with fire and sword against us, and then to pronounce that we have fallen from Christianity, if we use any freedom in speaking of him. To omit other things, what gave him this great confidence, this atrocious censorship, worthy of Phalaris, to be ever and anon styling us heretics, a name which start up not only in every page but almost in every sentence, but just our refraining hitherto to use invective in reply? Assuredly, it was nothing but our mildness that added so much to his ferocity. What say you to this, good teacher of modesty? While it is perfectly clear that you abuse our patience in venting your anathemas, what ground can you have for charging us with treating you with harshness and austerity?

He again entangles himself, by denying that he was warned. After he had raged like a bacchanalian against the living and the dead, and not hesitated to form a catalogue of heretics out of our names, and I, suppressing his name, had showed my indignation, so little did I succeed, that he proceeded much more violently to fulminate at us with all kinds of curses and execrations. And yet the worthy man thinks that the time had not yet arrived for severe rebuke. When he again returns to his vulgar song, that he was not yet convicted of error, whereas he had, by solid reasons and arguments drawn from sacred Scripture, proved our heresy to be damnable, of what use is it to pollute our sheets with the odor of such falsehoods? To remove all ambiguity, let my book be brought forward and vindicate itself from the haughty charge. Assuredly, if I get it to be read, it will soon appear how he upbraids me with being more a buffoon than a divine, and how far from candor he is in asserting that it is filled with nothing but empty invective. I would not object here to give a short summary of it did not its brevity spare both the reader and myself this trouble. Westphal has produced no argument which was not there solidly refuted. I also adduced arguments which neither he not his whole band, do what they may, will ever be able to shake off. This, too, I venture to assert, that all endued with any moderate degree of impartiality will at once, on reading the book, admit that a doctrine so tolerable could not without the greatest injustice be so invidiously traduced.

But however some may embrace the doctrine of my book, and others at least think it deserving of excuse, it would seem I am not to gain any thing by it. For Westphal has fallen upon a witty device to elude me, and sit quiet while he calls in others to bear the brunt of the battle. In order to prove that we overturn the Confession of Augsburg, he introduces as our opponent Philip Melancthon, its most distinguished author — a man alike admirable for piety and learning. In another writing he brings us into controversy with the ancient Church under the name of Augustine. And lastly, he draws a dense phalanx from different places in the neighborhood of Saxony. By this splendid array he hopes to dazzle the eyes of the simple. As I have to deal with a man of no modesty, but of the greatest loquacity, I must ask my readers, first, to put aside all circumlocution, and look at the bare facts; and second]y, to use prudence and impartiality in judging.

As the Confession of Augsburg has obtained favor with the pious, Joachim, with his faction, began long ago to do as is common with men destitute of argument, to obtrude it upon us as a shield of authority. If he could show that we are opposed to the general consent given to it, he thought that he would in a manner becloud the sky, or at least bring a thick mist over the eyes of the simple, so as to prevent one ray of light from appearing even at noon-day. To free ourselves from the prejudice thus craftily sought to be excited, I appealed, I admit, to the author of the Confession, and I do not repent having done so. What does Westphal do?

With his gross barbarism he represents me as making the victory to depend upon Philip’s subscribing to us. Let not my readers wait till he himself becomes ashamed of this falsehood; there is too much brass in his brow: let them only judge what such vile talk deserves.

My words are: in regard to the Confession of Augsburg my answer is, that (as it was published at Ratisbon) it does not contain a word contrary to our doctrine. If there is any ambiguity in its meaning, there cannot be a more competent interpreter than its author, to whom, as his due, all pious and learned men will readily pay this honor. To him I boldly appeal; and thus Westphal with his vile garrulity lies prostrate.

Let him extract from these words, if he can, that I made the victory, to depend on the subscription of any single man. No less sordid is the vanity which makes him wonder exceedingly that such a stigma was; fastened on his master, though, from Philip’s answer, he has learned the fact of our agreement more clearly than I ventured to declare it. But what need is there of words? If Joachim wishes once for all to rid himself of all trouble and put an end to the controversy, let him extract one word in his favor from Philip’s lips. The means of access are open, and the journey is not so very laborious, to visit one whose consent he boasts so loftily, and with whom he may thus have familiar intercourse. If I shall be found to have used Philip’s name rashly, there is no stamp of ignominy to which I am not willing to submit.

The passage which Westphal quotes it is not mine to refute, nor do I regard what, during the first conflict, before the matter was clearly and lucidly explained, the importunity of some may have extorted from one who was then too backward in giving a denial. It were too harsh to lay it down as a law on literary men, that after they have given a specimen of their talent and learning, they are never after to go beyond it in the course of their lives. Assuredly, whosoever shall say that Philip has added nothing by the labor of forty years, does great wrong to him individually, and to the whole Church. The only thing I said, and, if need be, a hundred times repeat, is, that in this matter Philip can no more be torn from me than he can from his own bowels. But although fearing the thunder which threatened to burst from violent men, (those who know the boisterous blasts of Luther understand what I mean,) he did not always speak out so openly as I could have wished, there is no reason why Westphal, while pretending differently, should indirectly charge him with having begun to incline to us only after Luther was dead. For when more than seventeen years ago we conferred together on this point of doctrine, at our first meeting not a syllable required to be changed. Nor should I omit to mention Gaspar Cruciger, who, from his excellent talents and learning, stood next after Philip highest in Luther’s estimation, and far beyond all others. He so cordially embraced what Westphal now impugns, that nothing can be imagined more perfectly accordant than our opinions. But if there is still any doubt as to Philip, do I not make a sufficient offer when I wait silent and confident for his answer, assured that it will make manifest the dishonesty which has falsely sheltered itself under the venerable name of that most excellent man?

I come to Augustine, whom, though all his writings proclaim him to be wholly ours, Westphal, not content with wresting from us, obtrudes as an adversary, not hesitating to claim him for himself with the same audacity with which he uniformly turns light into darkness. What view James Bording, to whom he dedicates his farrago, now takes, I know not; certainly if he has not greatly changed his mind, he would rather that an office fraught with dishonor had not been conferred on him. At the time when I knew him he was distinguished not less by ingenuous modesty than by learning. It is now only worth while briefly to advert to what the Letter contains, not that I am going to expose all its loquacity, but to enable my readers to form an estimate of the temper of the man, as it will be easy to do from a few heads. First, he maintains:, that to prevent the contagion from spreading, sectaries and heretics are to be banished or otherwise subjected to punishment. As we are both agreed on that matter, all he had to do was to subscribe to us. It would certainly have been more honest to have quoted our books, from which he borrows any arguments he adduces, than, while pretending to make war upon us, to fight with our own weapons. In this way he would not have given a disgraceful specimen of stupidity, which the man’s unreasonable conduct compels me to notice.

As in the twenty-fourth Psalm, the Vulgate Version has improperly rendered, “ Lift up your doors, ye Princes,” instead of “Lift up your heads, O ye doors,” a certain learned man, who has deserved well of the Church, from lapse of memory, as often happens, wishing to exhort princes to defend piety, had used this passage. The error might be tolerated. Westphal, quoting exactly “Lift up your heads, O ye doors,” says, the passage enjoins magistrates to open the doors to the Lord, and shut them against false prophets. From this the reader may infer what reverence these men show in handling Scripture, which they so impurely and presumptuously lacerate. Yet the worthy man, in his eagerness to throw obloquy on me, was not ashamed to insert in the farrago, to which he gives; the name of Confessions, the letter of some follower of Servetus, in which I am called an incendiary for having taught that heretics are justly punished. Let the letter be read. It brings no other charge against me than that. I teach that rulers are armed with the sword not less to punish impiety than other crimes. The only difference between me and Westphal is, that I say there is no room for severity unless the case has been previously discussed. Nay, as it is usual with the Papists in the present day to inflict cruelties on the innocent without any investigation, I justly condemn the barbarity, and recommend that no severe measure be ever adopted until after due cognizance; and I carefully warn them against being too credulous, lest they may defile their hands by indiscriminate slaughter.

I then complain and lament that the world has been reduced to such slavery that no discussion takes place, and those who domineer under the name of prelates will not hear a word at variance with their decrees; nay, will not even allow doubt or inquiry. I say that it is barbarity not to be tolerated, when without cognizance mere possession, unsupported by right or reason, is maintained by the sword. Certainly as, according to an ancient saying, ignorance is audacious, so in this preposterous zeal cruelty is added to audacity. I therefore enjoin the true worshippers of God to take heed not rashly to undertake the defense of an unknown cause, nor be hurried by intemperance into severity; for as, in earthly causes, a judge who, himself in ignorance of the whole matter, lazily passes sentence on the opinion of others, is justly condemned; so, how much more deserving are judges of condemnation when, in the cause of piety, they, from disdain, omit to investigate?

And I have not taught in word any thing that I have not confirmed by act.

For when Servetus was, by nefarious blasphemies, overthrowing whatever piety exists in the world, I, nevertheless, called him to discussion; and not only came prepared to give an account of my own doctrine, but chose rather to swallow the reproaches of that vilest of men, than furnish a bad example, by enabling any one afterwards to object that he was crushed without being heard. Westphal deems it enough for magistrates to oppose the sword in place of discussion; and it is no wonder that a man, whose only hope of victory is placed in darkness, should tyrannically rage while suppressing the light of truth.

He is not ashamed to, employ the name of Augustine, as if he had any thing in common with that mild spirit. It is strange, however, that; while he professes in his book to speak almost in the very words of Augustine, he so securely differs from him at the very outset, both in words and meaning. Augustine’s words, in the forty-eighth Letter to Vincentius, are, “If they are frightened, and not taught, it will seem wicked tyranny.” And yet he is speaking of heretics, who, impelled only by proud moroseness, had made a schism from the Church. He therefore wishes, in order to make the fear useful, that salutary doctrine be added. Again, he says, (Epist. ad Fest. 167,) “ Perverseness in heretics ought not to be driven out by terror merely, but their mind and intellect should be instructed by the authority of the word of God. And, indeed, as the Church seeks the confession of her faith at the mouth of God, so, in order not to act preposterously, she tempers her zeal according to the same rule.” Westphal, however, that he might not seem to have nothing to say, shuts us out from all access to a lawful judgment, by declaring that we have been convicted! Very differently does Augustine, who was always prepared to refute error, before calling in the aid of the magistrate. When any one rose against the purity of the faith, he did not call him to the bar of the judge without a previous fair investigation before the people. Accordingly, his recorded discussions testify, that he never acted more willingly than when he entered the field of contest armed with the sword of the word. Nor was he ever so tired out by conflict as not to be ready to refute all the most pestilential heretics, while the Church stood witness and judge.

What does Westphal do? To shake himself free of all annoyance by a single word, he puts a black mark on any of his colleagues that he chooses, and forthwith contends that they are to be driven into exile. If they request to be heard, he says, that the unseasonable application is not to he listened to, because they are already more than convicted. If he did not distrust his cause, would not some sense of shame force him even against his will into discussion? For however specious he deems it to pretend that we have been convicted, it is a miserable and shabby cowardice to admit no investigation. But how, pray, does he prove that we were convicted? The consent of many churches ought, he says, to suffice for condemnation.

Why, then, does not he in his turn acquiesce in the judgment of our churches, by which he is condemned? Is it because he is near to the frozen ocean, and while he beholds its shore, considers it the utmost limit of the globe, that he regards all other churches wherever dispersed as nonentities?

Let him learn, if he would not make himself ridiculous, to give a place to churches of some note, whose suffrages approve our doctrine.

He adds, that a council was held at Smalcald, in which we were condemned. What was done at Smalcald I dispute not, nor do I think that Westphal knows. The only thing certain is, that a convention of princes was there held for the purpose of entering into a League, and that nothing was decreed on the subject of Religion, unless that all who then professed the Confession of Augsburg bound themselves to mutual defense. A few learned men were present, among others, Bucer, whom, though dead, Westphal assigns to our party. If these men had the chief authority, as Westphal declares, certainly he among them, who was ours to the day of his death, did not pass a censure upon us. Melancthon, second to none, still survives, and will not acknowledge that he passed so grave a sentence against us. Nor will Westphal by all his furious uproar cause the Church of Wittemberg to pronounce against us so harshly. Meanwhile, I wonder that the Synod of Marpurg is passed over, in which Luther and the opposite party did not hesitate to acknowledge us as brethren, though the controversy was not so fully and lucidly explained as in the present day.

When Westphal knows this, and conceals it, what can he gain with prudent and sober readers by babbling about fictitious synods?

But he is driven much further by his desperate impudence, when he is not ashamed to invite the patronage of Nicolas II. and Gregory VII. Though I should not say one word as to this, I cannot doubt that all good men would detest his blind rage. So far am I from being annoyed, that in a Roman Council, over which Nicolas II. presided, and in that of Vercelli, which was assembled under the auspices of Gregory VII., the doctrine which I follow was condemned, that I consider it a ground of the highest congratulation, as showing that our doctrine was always hated by the manifest enemies of God and by Antichrists. Certainly, in my eyes, their approbation would throw some suspicion on it. But who is not horrified at the monstrous blindness of Westphal, who seeks a color for his doctrine from suffrages which might rather cover the sun with darkness? Since he has chosen this vile pig-stye for his school, let him regale himself on the husks which are fit for him: only let the reader remember the proof he gives of his shameful poverty when he is forced to bring his judges from the lowest dregs of the Papacy.

As to the Council of Ephesus, the answer is not very difficult. Let Westphal produce from its decrees one sentence which is in the least degree adverse to us. If he cannot, let him cease to take out of it indirect charges, which he absurdly hurls at us. The confession there inserted, when duly and impartially weighed, so far from bearing hard upon us, rather discloses the untameable perverseness of Westphal, who, in his malignant temper, fabricates dissensions out of nothing. But as Paul orders us to hear all prophets who are endued with the gift of the Spirit, and patiently examine whatever any of them may have produced, Westphal, to wrest this testimony from us., first strips us of all gifts of the Spirit, and then restricts the liberty which Paul claims for the prophets to the Doctors of Saxony. As it will here be easy for any reader, however little versed in Scripture, to detect the wild raving of the man, I feel at liberty to contemn it. Westphal, forsooth, by whom not one iota of a letter of Scripture was ever properly illustrated, will be deemed a prophet, and we, whose labors are well known to have at least yielded fruit to the Church, shall not be permitted to occupy the lowest seat. Surely, if faith and religious reverence in the interpretation of Scripture, if learning, and judgment, and dexterity show that a man has been divinely called, let not Westphal arrogate to himself an ounce of the prophetical spirit, but leave it in full tale to his betters. When he says that we speak to destruction and not to edification, whether it be so or not, let those who are competent judge.

After this dexterous and happy preface, he begins to draw Auguastine to his party; and that he may obtrude his lies more securely, and with more impunity, he, with much bluster, heralds his ancient lore. Undoubtedly, unskillful or less cautious readers would think that he not only has all that Augustine ever wrote in his memory, but that, by long and familiar use, he has almost imbibed his mind, and all his hidden meanings. For he declares, contemptuously, that most of us either never saw the writings of Augustine, or have only looked at them slightly, and from a distance, as he expresses it. There is no reason for his doleful complaint, that I had presumed to address him as an unlearned man, now that he has completely wiped away the suspicion; for who will dare to think a man unlearned to whom the whole theology of Augustine is as well known as his own fingers? Whether or not I have looked front a distance at the writings of this holy teacher, I presume I have given evidence to all. If Westphal is in doubt, let him ask his master, Philip Melancthon, who assuredly will scarcely refrain from giving a crushing reproof to his petulance. But why do I spend time in superfluous matters? Let the passages which Westphal hurls at us from Augustine be brought forward.

Augustine refutes the gross error of those who took offense at our Savior’s discourse in Capernaum, because they imagined that his flesh was to be eaten and his blood drunk in an earthly manner. Westphal contends that this passage condemns us because we are like the Capernaumires. But there is a well-known refutation by Augustine, “Why do you prepare your teeth and your stomach? Believe, and you have eaten.” This passage clearly teaches that Augustine’s Capernaumires were those who pretend that the body of Christ is chewed by the teeth, and swallowed by the stomach. How can Westphal deny’ that he is of this class while he regards the decree of a Roman Council under Nicolas as a kind of oracle? A little ago he insisted, on the authority of that Council, that we were convicted of heresy! That worthy prelate of Westphal’s, in the recantation which Berengarius was forced to read, gave vent to this decree, “I consent to the Holy Roman Church and the Apostolic See; and I profess that I hold the same faith which my Lord and venerable Pope Nicolas, and this Holy Synod, has affirmed to me, viz., that the Bread and Wine, which are placed on the altar, are, after consecration, not only a Sacrament, but also the true Body and Blood of our Lord; and that sensibly, not only a Sacrament, but the reality is handled and broken by the priests, and chewed by the teeth of the faithful.” — Let Westphal, according to whom the glorified body of Christ is broken, sensibly handled, and chewed by the teeth, now see how he is to disengage himself from the Capernaumires.

He next accumulates all the passages in which the bread of the sacred Supper is called the body of Christ. Any one endued with moderate judgment will not only laugh at the silly garrulity of the man, but also feel indignant that such a show is made out of nothing. So far am I from having to think how to make my escape, that I have rather to fear I may rouse the reader’s indignation by occupying him with a matter so frivolous.

Augustine writes, that the victim which was offered for us, viz., the body of Christ, is dispensed, and his blood is exhibited to us in the holy Supper: as if similar modes of expression were not in use amongst ourselves. And yet Westphal acts inconsiderately in huddling together those passages in which Augustine indiscriminately calls the holy bread, at one time the body of Christ, at another, the Eucharist or Sacrament. I ask what he means by triumphing over us, because in one passage the body of Christ is said to be distributed, and in another, the sacrament of the body and blood to be given?

If Westphal puts his confidence in a single expression, how much greater will the authority of Christ be than that of Augustine? And beyond all controversy, our Lord himself declared of the bread, “This is my body.”

The only question is, Whether he means that the bread is his body properly and without figure, or whether he transfers the name of the tiling signified to the symbol? Westphal, interposing the opinion of Augustine with a view to end the dispute, produces nothing more than that the body of Christ is communicated to us in the Supper. Founding on this, he hesitates not to exclaim, that all are heretical who hold that the bread is called the body, because it is a figure of the body. What does Augustine himself say? “Had not the sacraments,” he says, (Ad Bonif. epist. 23,) “some resemblance to the things of which they are sacraments, they should not be sacraments at all. From this resemblance they generally take the names of the things themselves. As then, after a certain manner, the sacrament of the body of Christ is the body of Christ, and the sacrament of the blood is his blood, so the sacrament of faith is faith.” What does Westphal understand in this passage by a certain manner? What is the resemblance of the sign to the thing signified, because of which the name is transferred? Now, though the name of body should occur an hundred times in Augustine, we understand what the holy man meant by the form of expression. He will assuredly always acknowledge the metonymy which he once asserted, and which he shows to be in daily use in the Church. (Cont. Adimanth. Manich. c. 12.) And it is not strange that this rule is laid down by him, as he distinctly affirms, that when Christ gave the sign of his body, he expressly called it his body.

But Augustine distinctly says, that the body of Christ falls to the earth and enters the mouth. Yes, but in the same sense in which he affirms that it is consumed. Will Westphal acknowledge, that after the celebration of the ordinance is over, the body of Christ is consumed? It is from thoughtlessness he quotes these words from Augustine. I add what immediately follows in the same place. (Lib. 3, de Trinit. c. 10.) After saying, that after the ordinance is over bread is consumed, he adds, Because these things are known to men, because they are done by men, they may receive honor as being religious, they cannot produce astonishment as being miraculous. If we admit Westphal’s fiction, that the body of ,Christ lies hid, and is enclosed under a little bit of bread, who, can deny the existence of a miracle fit to excite astonishment? Let him cease then to dazzle the eyes of the simple., by collecting the ancient passages which say, that Christ i,3 received by the mouth, just as he is believed by the heart, it being sufficiently evident that though they were accustomed to the sacramental mode of expression, they still knew wherein the reality differed from the sign. We are not displeased at the magnificent terms in which the ordinance is extolled, though Westphal, after his usual fashion, charges us with speaking of it contemptuously.

The passage which he quotes from the thirty-third Psalm, (his book gives a wrong number, but we presume it is an error of the printer,) is easily disposed of. Augustine says, that when Christ instituted the sacred Supper, he was carried in his own hands. Does Westphal think there is no importance in the correction, which he immediately subjoins, when he inserts the word quodammodo, (in a manner,) which means that the expression is not strictly proper? But just as the hungry dog catches at the shadow instead of the flesh, so Westphal feeds on his own imagination.

Let him not attempt to carry readers of sense along with him in his deception. Christ then, in a manner, carried himself in his own hands, because on holding out the bread, he offered his own body and blood in a mystery or spiritually. And that candid readers may the more thoroughly scorn his vile impudence, let them observe, that Westphal, to draw attention to this sentence, prints it twice over in capital letters, and yet omits the word quodammodo, which removes all ambiguity. For who, on hearing that a figure or similitude is distinctly expressed, can doubt what the writer means?

To pass to another point, I should like Westphal to tell me whether the term oblation, which occurs in Augustine a thousand times, admits of no satisfactory interpretation? or, whether, when the Papists allege that the Mass is truly and properly a sacrifice, a full solution is not given by the passage in which Augustine says, that the only sacrifice of which we now celebrate the remembrance was shown by the old sacraments? (Cont.

Faust. Manich. 1. 6, c. 9.) How much akin to this expression that which follows is, let the reader judge: Of this sacrifice, he says, the flesh and blood, before the advent of Christ, was promised by typical victims; in the passion of Christ, was exhibited by the reality; since the ascension, is celebrated by a sacrament of remembrance. Let Joachim see how he is to reconcile these words with his dogma, that the body which was once exhibited in reality on the cross, is celebrated by itself (nudum ) by a sacrament of remembrance. And to omit this testimony, who sees not that every thing which he has attempted to produce is more than frivolous, and that Augustine, though no body should force him out of his hands, slips from him of his own accord? I may add, that in repeatedly giving out that he was only making a selection, he frees me from all further trouble. For seeing he is so continually versant in his writings, and holds his whole doctrine to a tittle, it is not to be believed that he has omitted any thing.

The substance of the whole passage is, that Christ is given in the Supper.

But it: an expression is contended for, I rejoin that it is repeatedly called the sacrament of the body: hence it follows, that all Westphal’s proof comes to nothing. For when he replies, that it is not less called the body in some passages, than the sacrament of the body in others, I leave children to judge how sillily he argues. Meanwhile, let the reader remember that there is nothing in these words at variance with our doctrine, that the body of Christ is truly exhibited to us in the holy Supper, as the whole dispute relates to the mode.

Thus we refute over and over the silly talk in which Westphal endeavors to throw odium on us by drawing false contrasts, and representing us as holding that the sacred Supper is destitute of its reality. He says that the Supper of the Lord was held in high honor and estimation, and regarded with great reverence, and hence it was that they went to it fasting, some every day, others more seldom, and that great anxiety was showing to prevent the body of the Lord from falling to the ground. As if we were withheld by no reverence from prostituting the Supper; as if we did not study to maintain it in the highest splendor; as if, previous to the celebration of it, we did not employ serious and anxious exhortation to raise the minds of the pious to heaven; as if we did not hold forth the dreadful crime of sacrilege, in order to debar any from approaching rashly; as if, in short, we did not publicly testify that such persons are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, communion in which is here held forth to us. The following words, assuredly not Westphal’s, I willingly borrow from Chrysostom — Christ in laying this table, does not feed us from any other source, but gives himself for food. I think it is now sufficiently plain, that if the mode of communion be properly explained, we agree perfectly with the holy Fathers, but that their words, when adapted to the gross dream of Westphal, are in a manner torn to tatters.

On another ground, Westphal thinks he has a plausible cause, viz., from its being said by Augustine, that the body of Christ is given alike to good and bad. Hence he infers, that the holy teacher makes no distinction between the two, in regard to the thing itself; but places the whole difference in the end, or use, or effect.. How true this is, the reader must judge from Augustine’s own words, as it is not safe to trust to the quotations of a man whose shameless audacity makes him capable of any fiction. That the body of Christ is given indiscriminately to the good and bad, I uniformly teach, because the liberality or faithfulness of Christ depends not on the worthiness of man, but is founded in himself. Whatever, therefore, be the character of him who approaches, because Christ always remains like himself, he truly invites him to partake of his body and blood, he truly fulfils what he figures, he truly exhibits what he promises. The only controversy is as to the receiving, which, if Augustine seems anywhere to assert, let him be his own interpreter, and it will soon appear that he speaks metonymically.

A candid and impartial judge will be freed from all doubt by a single passage, in which he declares that the good and the bad communicate in the signs. (Cont. Faust. 1. 13, c. 16.) If the unworthy received the thing, he would not have omitted altogether to mention what was more appropriate to the subject. In another passage he speaks much more clearly, (De Verbis Apostoli, sec. 33,) Prepare not your palate, but your heart: for that was the Supper recommended. Lo! we believe in Christ when we receive him by faith; in receiving we know what we think: we receive a little, and our heart is filled. It is not therefore what is seen but what is believed that feeds. According to Westphal unbelief also receives, and yet is not fed; whereas Augustine teaches that there is no receiving except by faith. This is the reason why, in numerous passages, as if explaining himself, he says that the sacraments are common to the good and the bad.

He was not unaware ‘that many who are not members of the body of Christ intrude themselves unworthily at the sacred table, nor was he of such perverted intellect as to imagine that those who belong in no way to the body of Christ are partakers of his body. Westphal restricts this to the effect, but how frivolously is manifest from other passages.

Augustine distinguishes between a sacrament and its virtue. (In Joann.

Tract. 26.) If the distinction consisted of three members Westphal might sing his paeans with full throat. His fiction implies that in the holy Supper there is a visible element; there is the body of Christ without fruit; there is the body combined with its use and end. But as Augustine confines himself to two members only, our doctrine needs no other defense. The Fathers, he says, did not die who understood the visible food spiritually, hungered spiritually, tasted spiritually, that they might be spiritually filled. We see how, opposing the intelligence of faith to the external sign, he says, that nothing but the bare sign is taken by unbelievers. If Westphal objects that he is speaking of the manna, this quibble is easily disposed of by the context, for he immediately subjoins, that these sacraments were different in the signs, but alike in the thing signified; and immediately after, repeating what he had said of the virtue of the sacrament and the visible sacrament, he teaches, that believers alone do not die who eat inwardly, not outwardly, who eat with the heart, not chew with the teeth. If nothing is left to unbelievers but the visible sacrament, where is Westphal’s hidden and celestial body?

We therefore rightly infer, that when Augustine says that unbelievers receive the body of Christ, it ought to be no otherwise understood than as he himself explains, namely, only as a sacrament. That there may be no doubt as to this, it should be known, Westphal himself being witness, that the two things — the body of Christ, and the vivifying food — are synonymous. For in order to prove that the body lurks enclosed under the bread, Westphal adduces the latter expression, arguing, that if the bread were not the body of Christ, it would not be vivifying food. Let him now say whether the bread of the Supper vivifies the wicked. If it does not bestow life, I will immediately infer that they have not the body of Christ.

When among other passages he quotes one from De Civitate Dei, lib. 19:c. 20, I would willingly set it down as art error of the press, did not the wicked cunning of the man betray itself. He quotes the twentieth chapter of the twenty-first book, where Augustine is giving the view of others, not his own. The twenty-fifth chapter, where Augustine answers the objection, he passes in silence. In the words which he has produced, there is so far from any thing adverse to us, that we need go no farther for a sure and clear proof of our doctrine. For what is meant by saying that those who are in the very body of Christ, take the body of Christ not only by sacrament but in reality, unless it be that which plainly appears, that the body of Christ is taken in two ways — sacramentally and in reality. If the reality is taken away, certainly nothing remains but the sign. From this too, we without doubt infer that the wicked do not eat the body of Christ in any other way than in respect of the sign, because they are deprived of the reality.

The explanation which follows in the twenty-fifth chapter is much more clear, where he strenuously maintains that those who are not to be classed among the members of Christ do not eat his body, because they cannot be at the same time the members of Christ and the members of a harlot. And immediately after, Christ himself saying, “ Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him,” he shows what it is to eat the body of Christ and drink his blood not sacramentally but in reality; for this is to dwell in Christ that Christ also may dwell in him. For it is as if he had said, Let not him who dwelleth not in me, and in whom I dwell not, say or think that he eats my body or drinks my blood. If this does not sting Westphal to the quick, he is more impervious than the cattle of his fields.

Out of the first book, against the Letters of Petilian, he quotes a sentence in which we are enjoined to distinguish the visible sacrament from the invisible unction of charity. Augustine is there discussing Baptism. If Christ baptizes not with the Spirit all who are dipped in water, will it immediately follow that Judas ate the body of Christ? But if the discourse were about the Supper, I would say that it gives the strongest support to us, because nothing is conceded to the wicked but the visible sacrament, which Westphal, according to his phantasm, will certainly admit to differ from the invisible flesh of Christ. The passage from the first book against Cresconius Grammaticus (the place is erroneously given, the twenty-third chapter being set down for the twenty-fifth) goes no farther than to say that the wicked corrupt the use of God’s gifts by abusing them. Nay, the whole drift of Augustine in writing against the Donatists, is to show that things which are good do not change their nature by the fault of those who use them improperly, and that therefore baptism is not to be considered null because unbelievers from abusing get no benefit from it. In this way it is not strange for Augustine to say that Judas was a partaker of the body of Christ, provided you restrict this to the visible sign. This he elsewhere states to be his view. Nor can we in any other way understand his distinction, (Tract. in Joann. 59,) that others took the bread the Lord, Judas nothing but the bread of the Lord. Nay, Westphal himself, as if he were changing sides, assists us by mentioning that Peter and Judas ate of the same bread.

Proceeding now as if he had made good his claim to Augustine, he attempts to dispose of the passages, which he says that we have quoted in a perfidious and garbled manner. But I should like to know where is the perfidy or garbling. Is it that any change is made on the words, and so, as Westphal is constantly doing, one thing is substituted for another? Is it that our people, by wresting those passages to their own purpose improperly, give them a meaning’ different from the true one? Westphal will perhaps say, that a syllable has been falsely produced by them. In that respect, therefore, it follows that things which Augustine wished to be understood differently, are improperly and irrelevantly quoted. But, should any one not very appositely adduce Augustine as a witness in his favor, is he to be regarded of course as a perfidious garbler? So, indeed, Westphal chooses to say. This law, however hard it be, I refuse not. Let us bear the charge of perfidy, then, while he only alleges our want of skill.

In this part of the subject the good man uses tergiversation. For what could he do? As a shorter method of disentangling himself, he says, that we overturn the local presence of Christ in the Supper in three ways — either by feigning a figure, or by pretending that the eating is spiritual, or by denying that the body of Christ is immense. We having undertaken to prove these three articles out of Augustine, let us see by what artifice Westphal refutes them. Talking of the figure, he denies that Augustine ever interpreted the words of Christ, This is my body, so as to show that the bread signified body. Is it in this way he is to convict us of perfidy, when we ingenuously come forward provided with expressions that are not in the least degree obscure? Augustine’s words are: The Lord hesitated not to say, This is my body, when he was giving the sign of his body. And with what view does he say so? To prove that Scripture often speaks figuratively. He elsewhere says, that Christ admitted Judas to the first feast, in which he commended and delivered the figure of his body to the disciples. He also says that tinge bread is in a manner the body of Christ, because it is a sacrament of the body. Producing a passage from the Third Book on Christian Doctrine, how dexterously does he escape? He says, Augustine is in a general way admonishing believers not to fasten upon signs, but rather to attend to the things signified. Although I deny not that this was the holy man’s purpose, I would yet have it carefully considered how it may be said to be carnal bondage or servile weakness to take the signs for the thing. If it were not preposterous to confound the signs with the things, there would be no ground for condemning it as superstition.

When Westphal rejoins, that still the reality ought not to be disjoined from the signs, he says nothing that is at all adverse to us. He indeed pretends the contrary, but with little modesty, as it is perfectly notorious that we call the bread a sign of the body of Christ, inasmuch as it is a badge of the communion, and truly exhibits the spiritual food which it figures.

This much remains fixed, that in the words of Christ the mode of speaking is sacramental, and the sign must be distinguished from the reality, if we would not continue servilely grovelling on the earth. Hence, too, it is clearly inferred that Augustine gives his full sanction to that interpretation which Westphal so bitterly assails. As neither the substance nor the principal effects of the Supper are taken away by the word signifying:, let Westphal seek some new color for his quarrel. But by no means contented with this, he clings with desperation to the word essential, maintaining that the bread is truly and properly called the body of Christ. I say that in this he abandons the view of Augustine. He maintains that he does not.

But how does he evade the passages? Because the words of Christ, This is my body, are not quoted for the express purpose. What matters it, so long as we have Augustine’s authority for the mode of expression, viz., that Christ said, This is my body, when he was giving a sign of his body? Then when Augustine teaches generally that the name of the thing signified is transferred to the sign whenever the names of flesh and blood are applied to the external symbols of the Supper, who can hesitate to follow that rule in seeking for the sense In the epistle to Evedins, when Augustine says, that in the sacraments there is a frequent and trite metonymy, Westphal seeks a frivolous subterfuge, by saying that the Supper is not mentioned, because he could not argue in this way from the genus to the species. Why should the observation of Augustine as to all the signs not be applied to the Supper? A dove is called the Holy Spirit. Augustine tells us that this ought to be understood in etonymically, for it is not new or unusual for signs to take the name of the thing signified. The case of the Supper is exactly the same. Westphal will on no account allow it to be touched. But it is not strange that he cavils so frigidly about that matter, as he is not ashamed with more pertness to elude the words of St. Paul.

St. Paul says that the rock which accompanied the people in the wilderness was Christ;. Westphal admits no interpretation, because Christ was truly and properly a spiritual rock. But it is clear, nay palpable to the very blind, that Paul is there speaking of an external sign, no less than Christ is when he says of the bread, This is my body. No other view would be consistent with the context, in which Paul compares our Baptism and Supper to the, ancient signs, so that it is out of Westphal’s power to deny that the rock is called Christ in the same sense in which the bread is called his body. Here at least he must make room for the term signifying. I do not ask him to make the holy Supper void of its reality.

This is the falsehood by which he so iniquitously attempts to bring us into odium with the simple. I would only have the distinction to be carefully drawn between the thing and the sign, so that a transition may be made from the earthly element to heaven. The bread is put into ,our hands. We know that Christ is true, and will in reality exhibit what he testifies, viz., his body, but only if we rise by faith above the world. As this cannot take place without the help of a figure or sign, what right Westphal has to object I leave sober and candid readers to judge. Though he should protest a hundred times over, we certainly have the support of Augustine in regard to the term signifying. I may add, that if in the discourse of Christ, where he says that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood, the expression is figurative, as Westphal is forced to admit, the same thing must be said of the holy Supper. Nay, a term of significance will be much more adapted to a sacrament than to simple doctrine. Were I to go over his absurdities in detail, there would be no end: nor is there any occasion for it, unless indeed there be so much weight in his words that the reader, after being taught and convinced by so many arguments, should still believe that there is no figure in the expression, This is my body, merely because Westphal so declares.

Spiritual eating is held by us in such a manner as by no means excludes sacramental eating, provided always that Westphal do not by his vague dream dissever things that are conjoined. But the reader ought to understand what the sacramental eating of this good theologian is, namely, that unbelievers without faith, without any sense of piety, gulp down the body of Christ. He dreams that Christ is spiritually eaten when the stomach not only swallows his body, but the soul also receives the secret gift of the Spirit. We maintain that in the sacrament Christ is eaten in no way but spiritually, because that gross gulping down which the Papists devised, and Westphal too greedily drinks in from them, is abhorrent to our sense of piety. The substance of our doctrine is, that the flesh of Christ is vivifying bread, because when we are united to it by faith, it nourishes and feeds our souls. We teach that this is done in a spiritual manner, only because the bond of this sacred union is the secret and incomprehensible virtue of the Holy Spirit. In this way, we say, that our souls are assisted by the sacred symbol of the Supper, to receive nourishment from the flesh of Christ. We even add, that therein is fulfilled and exhibited all that Christ declares in the sixth chapter of John. But although believers have spiritual communion with Christ without the use of the sacrament, still we distinctly declare that Christ, who instituted the Supper, works effectually by its means.

Westphal confines spiritual eating to the fruit merely, regarding it a means by which the salvation obtained by the death of Christ is applied to us, while his sacramental eating, as I have observed, is nothing more than a gulping down of Christ’s flesh. What does Augustine say? He teaches that the body of Christ is eaten sacramentally only when it is not eaten in reality. In two passages this antithesis is distinctly expressed by him.

Hence we surely gather that the sacramental is equivalent merely to the visible or external use, when unbelief precludes access to the reality.

Westphal, therefore, acts calumniously in charging our spiritual eating as a fallacious pretext for destroying the true communion which takes place in the Supper. For if spiritual is to be separated from sacramental eating, what are we to make of the following passage of Augustine? (In Psalm 98.) You are not about to eat the body which you see and to drink the blood which those who are to crucify me will shed. I have committed a sacrament to you: when spiritually understood, it will give you life. Now, if it is clear that in the Supper, when the body is not spiritually eaten, nothing is left but a void and empty sign, and we infer from the words of Christ that spiritual eating takes place when faith corresponds to the mystical and spiritual doctrine, there is no ground for Westphal’s attempt to dissever things which cannot be divided. I admit it to be certain that the same body which Christ offered on the cross is eaten, because we do not imagine that Christ has two bodies, nor is aliment for spiritual life to be sought anywhere else than in that victim. How does Augustine deny it to be the same body, but just in respect that having been received into heaven it inspires life into us by the secret virtue of the Spirit? Therefore a different mode of eating is denoted, viz., that though the body remains entire in heaven, it quickens us by its miraculous and heavenly virtue. In short, Augustine’s only reason for denying that the body on which the disciples were looking is given in the Supper, was to let us know that the mode of communion is not at all carnal, that we become partakers of flesh and blood in a mystery, our teeth not consuming that grace, as he elsewhere expresses it. Thus Westphal gains nothing by his quibbling. He is also detected in a manifest calumny, when he charges us with wresting this passage to mean that the Supper gives us nothing but an empty figure.

But how does Westphal excuse the term spiritually? By reason of faith, he says. If so, how does he pretend that there is an eating without faith? For to prove that there is nothing carnal in his gross fiction, he denies that Christ is carnally eaten, unless he is cut into pieces like a carcass, and palpably chewed by the teeth; and he says, that while the body is offered to be taken invisibly, it is spiritually eaten, because it is received by faith.

The more he attempts to get out of this dilemma the faster it will hold him — the dilemma that profane men, endued only with carnal sense, when they rashly and unworthily intrude themselves at the Lord’s table, eat spiritually without faith, and yet there is no such eating except in respect of faith.

I do not however admit what he stammers out on no authority but his own, viz., that when the flesh of Christ is consumed in the bread the mode of eating is spiritual, because it is invisible. The exception is too weak, that, according to the definition of Augustine, those only taste carnally who think that the body of Christ is to be torn as in the shambles.

Although gross men imagine that Christ intends to prepare a supper of the Cyclops out of his flesh, we must adopt another definition, viz., that he is spiritually eaten, though not taken into the