FAMILIAR CONVERSATIONS ON ROMANISM - EIGHTH CONVERSATION - TRANSUBSTANTIATION

FAMILIAR CONVERSATIONS ON ROMANISM — EIGHTH CONVERSATION — TRANSUBSTANTIATION

N. Good-evening all.

James. Pray sit down, gentlemen.

N. Well, we are here again to pursue our inquiry into the subject we had arrived at, and examine whether the doctrine of the Romish creed can be held to be the truth. I suppose we may at once enter on the point which it was understood we should speak of — transubstantiation. Perhaps the best way, if our friends agree to it, would be to state from unquestionable Roman Catholic authorities, what the doctrine maintained by them is.

Mr. R. We could not pursue a better method. We can then follow out the proofs and testimony on which it is based, though the plain words of Scripture are the strongest, and it seems to me, conclusive.

N. Well, we cannot take better authority than the Council of Trent to begin with. “But since Christ our Redeemer said that that which He offered under the form of bread, was truly His body, it has therefore been ever the persuasion of the church, and this holy Synod now anew declares, that, by the consecration of [the] bread and wine, conversion of the whole substance into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord takes place, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood. Which conversion is conveniently and properly called, by the holy Catholic church, transubstantiation.” (Sess. 12, c. 4.)

That we may complete this account I may add the Canons 1 and 2 of the same Session 12.