I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Ver. 51. If any man eat, &c.] Hic edere est credere, Here to eat is to believe, saith Augustine; faith being the soul's hand, mouth, stomach, &c. The Fathers commonly expounded this part of our Saviour's sermon as spoken of the sacrament of the Lord's supper; and so fell into that error, that none but communicants could be saved; wherefore also they gave the sacrament to infants, and put it into the mouths of dead men, &c. We are not to think that either our Saviour spake here properly, and ex professo, from the declaration of the sacramental eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood; or that this discourse pertains nothing at all thereunto. The Papists have expunged a great part of Origen's commentary upon this chapter, as directly making against their monster of transubstantiation. And Cardinal Campeius affirmed against Luther, that faith is not necessary to him that receiveth the sacrament. As for Bellarmine, although we believe, saith he, that all virtues are found in the Church, yet that any man may be absolutely said to be a member of the true Church, we do not think that any inward virtue is required, but only an external profession of the faith, and such communion of the sacraments, as is received by the outward man. a This mark very well agrees to the Church of Rome, wherein if any be truly virtuous, it is by mere accident, as Cicero wittily said of the epicures, that if any one of them were good, he was merely overcome by the goodness of his nature; for they taught a licentious looseness, Si quando viri boni sint, vinci bonitate naturae.
a Bell. iii. 2, de Eccles. milit.