XVI. Reflections on this Doctrine

We would beg Protestants to reflect a little on what has been said on the Holy Eucharist. "We have shewn that the doctrine of the Real Presence is the indispensable foundation of it. This groundwork is denied us by the Calvinists. There is nothing, however, in all our controversies of such deep importance, since the Presence of Jesus Christ is the question at issue ; there is nothing our adversaries find more difficult to believe ; and there is nothing in which we are so radically opposed. In most other disputes, when these opponents allow us a fair audience, they find difficulties vanish, and very often the words in which a doctrine is clothed grate more upon their ears than the truth we wish to inculcate does upon their feelings. Here, on the contrary, we agree far better on terms, because we find here and there in their arguments such expressions as the " real partaking," and others ; but the deeper we probe the more obstacles we find, because our adversaries will not allow all the consequences, even of the truths which they admit ; they seem, as it were, startled, and kept back by the opposition their senses and reason meet with.

It is here, then, that in fact we are most at variance, for it is at once the most difficult and most vital difference. And yet it has pleased God to permit the Lutherans to retain their belief in the Real Presence, as well as we ; He has also given the Calvinists light to see that in this doctrine there is no " latent venom ; " that it does not overturn the fundamental doctrines of salvation and Faith ; and that it ought not to sever the communion of brethren. Oh, that those who profess the doctrines of the so-called Protestant religion would only reflect seriously on their souls' health, they could but see in this, the course that Divine Providence lays open to them, to induce them by it, to enter insensibly into the full teaching of the Truth.

Other matters, though subject to some objections, might easily be explained to them, if not entirely set at rest. In this, though we cannot hope to smooth the difficulties we have alluded to so summarily, they have themselves done much towards a unity, by declaring that we teach nothing in it at all contrary to Salvation, or subversive of the fundamentals of Religion.

It is true, the Lutherans, though in the main they agree with us, yet do not admit all the consequences. They believe the Body of Jesus Christ exists with the Bread ; some of them object to the adoration. It would seem they only acknowledge the Presence in the act of receiving ; but no subtlety on the part of their ministers ought to prevail with men of sound sense, who hold the reality of the Presence, by far the most difficult and important part to believe, not to follow out the whole doctrine. Further : this same Providence, Who ever works in secret for our reunion, and who plants branches of peace and reconciliation in the midst of mazes of differences and disputes, has again permitted the Calvinists to confess that if He intended the words, " This is My Body," to be taken in their literal sense, then the Catholics reason with more probability than the Lutherans.

I will not adduce any of the well known passages on this subject, since all those who deal fairly, will grant, that when the Real Presence is established, our doctrine follows out the results most rationally. It is then an established truth that our doctrine on this point consists in the Real Presence being well understood ; but we must not rest there, and we will beg these Reformers to consider, we bring forward no arguments to explain the Sacrifice of the Eucharist but such as are necessarily involved in the Real Presence. If we are asked, after this, how it is the Lutherans, who do admit the Real Presence, reject, nevertheless, this Sacrifice, which according to us is only a consequence of it ; we solve the question in one word, and we put the doctrine among the other results of a belief in the Real Presence which these same Lutherans havo not understood, and say that we have fathomed it c 2[^1] better than they, according to the confession of the Calvinists themselves. If our explanation persuades these latter that our doctrine of the sacrifice is involved in that of the Real Presence, then they ought to see clearly that this violent dispute on the Sacrifice of the Mass, which has filled so many books, and given rise to so many invectives, Ought for the future to be expunged from their controversies. And since, on this head, there remains no further difficulty, and what is more to the purpose, this sacrifice, to which they have shewn so much repugnance, is only a natural consequence of a doctrine which they allow has " no latent venom " in it, let them only examine themselves and see after that, before God, whether they have as good cause as they imagine to retire from our altars, whereon their fathers have fed upon the Bread of Life.