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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
blood_n	body_n	bread_n	consecration_n	9,959	5	11.0641	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48813	An answer to the Bishop of Oxford's reasons for abrogating the test impos'd on all members of Parliament anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation of adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Dais, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous / by a person of quality.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1688 (1688)	Wing L2673; ESTC R977	35,814	60

AN ANSWER TO THE Bishop of OXFORD's Reasons FOR ABROGATING THE TEST Impos'd on All Members of Parliament Anno 1678. Octob. 30. In these Words I A. B. do solemnly and sincerely in the Presence of God profess testifie and declare That I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the Consecration thereof by any Person whatsoever And that the Invocation or Adoration of the Uirgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrous By a Person of Quality London Printed in the Year 1688. To the Kingdom in General HIS Majesty having with a Grace exemplary not onely to all his Subjects of this Naiion but to all Christian Princes and States however they may be themselves of the Roman Persuasion design'd it as the avowed Glory and Stability of his Reign to settle such a Liberty that there may be free discourses and debates concerning the Truths of Christian Religion and the Dissents of Christians in them as from the Pulpit so proportionably from the Press as therefore the Ministers and Fautors of that Church which would be known by the Name of Catholick have always and will be while they are always active with their Pens to the utmost in their Sphaer And as we see they have Publick Freedom so is it not to be doubted of the Princely so Vniversal Grace but that he intends a Freedom on the other side to answer that there may be no Inequality in holding the Beam but that it may alike incline to all in this matter specially now that he is making Credence of those his Royal Favours to all His Protestant Subjects who cannot but be deeply concern'd at such a Time as this because of the great Advantages the Interests of the Counter-Scale hope for from a Sovereign of their own Sentiments But in no case is this Liberty more desirable than when an Amphibious-Ambidextrous Bishop who assumes like that Angel of the Revelation to set one Foot on the Sea and the other on the Earth One Foot on the Protestant Church which he calls one as if his self were of it and the other on the Roman In favour of which he so openly appeareth to speak the most honourably of him to conciliate toward it at lest a Cassandrian Temperament which as it will never be yielded by the Protestant so would it not be accepted if it were offer'd by the Papist For he hath published with what intentions is best known to God and his own Conscience a palliation of the most irreconciliable Points of the Popish Religion Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass the Invocation and Adoration of the Virgin Mary swoln to such a Monstrosity in that Religion together with other Saints and all with Images too Points wherein the Wisedom of the Nation thought fit to fix the TEST as the security of Protestancy and that of Images of so great Infamy in Sacred Writ and all these with a Multitude of Rampant Words now rather than a Multitude of such Words should not be answered or a man of lips be justified even the very Stones would speak Such Lies and Sophistry will not suffer Men to hold their peace and while he seems rather to mock than argue should not every one endeavour to make him ashamed For certainly his ways of Discourse are like those of the Whorish Woman in the Proverbs so moveable one cannot know them he comes out in this Time that he esteems a Twilight and with a prostituted Subtilty he treats of Sacred things he is loud and stubborn his feet abide not in the House of his own Church as he his self styles it but now he is in the Streets of the Strange Religion and layeth wait in every Corner with a New sort of Ecclesiastical Polity or in a New Edition and his great Temptation is I have saith ●e● Peace-Offerings with me that carry at the same Time Reconciliableness to Rome and likewise a Blessing himself in a design'd Indulgence to his own Genius and caressing himself in the thoughts of his comfortable Magdalen Importances and though at a high Water of Papacy he would be burnt for a Heretick if he did not speak more out which without doubt he is prepar'd to do on congruous Occasions yet so much at this seeming Return of the Water is enough to beatifie and then Canonize him in that present Kalender where I doubt not he stands markt with a Red Letter and it may be a just Reason to all sincere Protestants to spue him out of their Mouths The observation of his double dealing and appearing more like the Atheist than the Learned and Ingenuous though mispersuaded Papist sowetimes transports my Style beyond its own Intention and Resolution when I first essaid to consider onely the rational part of Discourse in those matters and I am much the bolder because I hear from all his Book hath much disserv'd His Majesties Gratious Purpose and created in all minds a Nausaea specially observing his odd Aspersions on so eminent a Person as Dr. St. who in the thoughts of all the World is incomparably and beyond all possibility of being nam'd together ten thousand times more the Apostolick Bishop If I have offered too largely to a just Indignation here I having the Treatise it self mostly applied my self to the rational part and minded chiefly to possess the Reader with the true sense of things I have therefore wav'd the persuit of his History of Transubstantiation in the several Stages of it leaving it to more learned Persons who I doubt not may observe in their usual walks and dail-y paths through the whole course of Ecclesiastick Times Many of his Erratick motions but however the main point of truth or falshood on that Head or Article rests in this little room whether it is possible to believe such sublime spirituality as our Lord alway breath'd so little of kin to sense to matter to flesh should in his holy dying Institution forsake him so that he should intend to engage his Blessed Body that was so suddenly to become a Spiritual Glorious Body and to Asscend far above all Heavens to so inglorious insipid inefficacious a desscent as onely to dispossess a small Roll os Bread or Wafer of its whole Substance and as by a trick to leave its Accidents still intire to fool and baffle all the sense and reason in the World and yet to so little effect as to suffer the Bodies and the Souls too of the greatest number of the Eaters to be without any Evidences of good as notorious and certain as the miracle is supposed to be stupendous whoever can believe this need not go to visit the dark and too oft impure Cells where so strange a Docrine was conceiv'd and foster'd he hath a Bulimy of Faith without more ado of

a Power as this of Christ's or how can the King of Kings Lord of Lords Prince of the Kings of the Earth be such an Underling Certainly this is is a precarious Power with a witness Surely in this state of things there must be a most profane pawning the Bishop indeed to the Lord or how can ever one Firmament bear two such Suns or the Consciences of Man ever be at rest between them both or serv two such Masters They must adhaere to one and despise the other But since the Bishop must be Reverenced as a man of Sense and Reason certenly it cannot be the Roman Holy Catholic Church that may be thus treated by the Civil Power nor is it any Protestant Civil Prince or State that hath these Powers but only a Caesar or State of the Roman Character Image and Superscription hath this Power and only on Protestant Churches under their dominion And so I pass with the Fatigue of this confounding perplexing Reason and com to the last but longest Reason which I shall yet but in brief consider The fourth Reason for which the Test-Act ought to be repealed is because of the uncertainty and falshood of the matters contained in the Declaration it self as First That there is no Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of our Saviour's Body and Blood. And Secondly That the Invocation of Saints and of the Mother of God is Idolatrie This reason so plainly divided by the Bishop into its two parts that of Transubstantiation and that of Invocation of Saints and of the Mother of God must be distinctly considered But before I proceed upon either of them I must needs object That this Test is not fairly quoted for in so great a concern every word ought to have its due place and no pretence of keeping the substance will justifie the variation of an Iota from the very Letter except my apprehension exceedingly deceive me the Sence is much more injured than the Letter is varied Indeed the Author hath been so fair as to prefix the Text of the Act that his unfair Repetition may be convinced by it but the unwary or unthinking Reader may easily slide into Errour by it one being in the Title-page where it may miss being considered the other in the body of the Book Observ then the difference betwixt the Text of the Test and the Bishop's Quotation the Test runs thus I believe there is no c. The Bishop quotes as a proposition There is no c. It may be a much more uncertain proposition and more liable to falshood to asfirm there is no Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of our Saviour's Body and Blood than so say I do believe There is none and so proportionably I believe is to be supplied to the second member of the Declaration viz. And I believe that the Invocation or Adoration of c. Now although I make no doubt that every Christian ought to be fully assured of the propositions themselves to be declared in the Test yet plain and down-right Doctrinal Propositions are not the proper subjects of solemn sincere Profession Testification and Declaration in the presence of God. But such solemn sincere Professions Testifications and Declarations properly fall upon the belief of a man's mind which he knows and hath judgment of as a rational man becaus they are within him for the Apostle tells us The spirit of a man knows the things that are within him So that a man's belief that is within him may be wel declared and testified even as all matters of sence and of trust and becaus they are within him known onely to himself There are therefore many just occasions to declare and testifie it to others Of which the denial of lawful Authority as a Qualification for Places of Trust and Power are justly to be accounted among the principal And this very observation as it is plain and grounded on undeniable evidence by a compute of the words of the Test set down by the Bishop himself in the Title-page and Fourth Reason page 9. does indeed make vain frivolous and of no possible avail or so much as significancie All that follows as to the Test which is the thing in quaestion and under debate and brings it into this narrow compass Whether persons so devoted to the Faith of the Church of Rome may for the ends of Peace and the Interest of a Protestant Common-wealth be secluded from Power and trust by the consent of the major part of their own particular Bodies and of each other Body or Estate of the Nation and the Supreme Prince assenting in so considerable and solemn an Act as an Act of Parliament must needs be which hath been already discours'd For which soever side of the Propositions should be true yet stil what a man within himself believes he truly knows and truly may declare and testifie And the business of the Test is not to determine as hath been said which part of either of the Proposions is true but what belief each person admitted to Trust and Power is of that so the Nation as Protestant may consult its own safety against the growth of Popery into a National strength and interest and further confirms all that hath been said That it is no Ecclesiastic Act but a pure perfect Magistratic Act as the Administring an Oath in all other cases concerning the Trust of matters of Faith is So that the affirming that those two Propositions are by this Law to be solemnly and sincerely in the Praesence of God Protested Testified and Declared is a down-right unfaithfulness not to say out of reverence to the Author Falshood in the very sight of the Sun in the sight if I may so speak of the Frontispiece of the Book which Title-Page gives of necessity the Lye to this Ninth page and is enough to discredit and to call into just suspicion the badness of the whole Cause that is so insincerely handled by a person of such a Character of Dignity and Sacredness of Office as a Christian Bishop who ought to do so much otherwise But this is not all the unfaithfulness of the Episcopal Author in recounting the Test he is arguing against for whereas the Declaration in the Act runs thus I believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ c. The Bishop represents his Proposition thus That there is no Transubstantiation in the Sacraments of our Saviour's Body and Blood. Now it is easie for every person that does but in the lest apply his mind to it to perceive that the Test leaves it free to every person to frame any Mystical Spiritual Analogical Figurative sense in his own thoughts concerning Transubstantiation and which may sufficiently satisfie and exhaust the sense of more than most words of the Greek Fathers import for it is observabl they have no word strictly Greek for Transubstantion And onely foreprize's

that so monstrous contradiction to all our Faculties is the Transubstantiation of the Elements into the Body and Blood of Christ. And whereas the Test runs thus And that the Invocation and Adoration of the Virgin Marie or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrouus The Bishop thus That the Invocation of the Mother of God and of Saints is Idolatrous Leaving out Adoration and as in the Church of Rome and for Superstitious and Idolatrous putting in the word is Idolatrous But although greater exactness in this Proposition had been more becoming yet I must confess in my own sense the Amount is the same These things being thus adjusted how empty of sound Sense and Reason must that Tragical Harangue that follows be in of the Monstrousness and Inhumaneness of the Barbarity that could never have entred into the Thoughts of any Man but the Infamous Author to oblige the whole Nobility of a Nation to swear to the Truth of such abstruse and uncertain Propositions which they neither Do nor Can nor Ought to understand and this upon the Penalty of forfeiting the Priviledges of their Birth-right Of the same Nature is That which comes after for what immediately follows I will be as uncertain in as the Argument it self is as also in the two Famous Burgesses of Oxon. But those Words viz. what is meant by Transubstantiation is altogether unknown to the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation being onely the Wars between School-men who have quarrelled about nothing more than the Notion of Transubstantiation And that therefore it is more uncapable to impose upon the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation to Abjure a thing that is morally impossibl for them to understand and therefore it must be a profane Affront to Almighty God in whose Presence they Swear and shews men will Swear to any thing before the Searcher of Hearts rather than lose any Worldly interest are to be cast into the main Heap Together with all this an Appeal is subjoyn'd to the Honourable Members of both Houses whether they have any distinct Idea or Notion in their minds about what they Renounce and that if every man gave his own account of Transubstantiation it would be a Babel This is what is declaim'd with relation to the first Proposition on which Fallacie the Historical Account of Transubstantiation design'd certainly on purpose to amuse for it doth not add one Cubit to the Stature of the Argument above and beyond what is here summ'd up Taking therefore the words of the Test as they stand in the Test it self I will sum up the Answer in these two Heads I. That all the Abstruseness Darkness and difficultie in the Notion of Transubstantiation and this Bishop's amusing Historie of it doth not in the lest prejudice the reasonableness of the Test but make it more reasonable II. That the very Point of Transubstantiation is the most reasonabl of all others to settle the Test upon and the more reasonable because of the difficultie of that Notion 1. Let the first be consider'd with Relation to the most Unknowing and Uninquiring Men of all who can be suppos'd to be concern'd in the taking the Test. And after the word made common English to them which very ordinary use does to most Men in the Nation much more to any likely to be concern'd whether they can sound the Word or hammer the Notion or not is not material For still what is more easy then to declare their Belief according to their Senses and that the Bread and Wine that they see before the Words of Consecration and in which they are agreedly not mistaken are the same Bread and Wine after Consecration Who would be afraid to Declare and Profess they Believe it so and that it is unchang'd Vntransubstantiated into the Flesh and Bloud of a Human Body Let a Man be Unprejudic'd Unprepossess'd and what the least Shade of Doubt could fall upon him in this Matter Call in Thousands together to observe the Progress from the beginning to the end of the Celebration And would they not consent upon Oath that they fully believed there was no such Transubstantiation Let but their minds be free undisturb'd unperplex'd and the whole world of Touch of Taste of Sight of Smell of Hearing so far as hearing can have interest in the trial would be at perfect agreement concerning it their minds and understandings judging by the senses alike in all Let such persons hear there are many Disputes and much variety of Opinions concerning it and how little would it affect them except with wonder at the folly and madness of any difference And let them know some of the wisest and most learned men in the World are of their Opinion or rather of their Knowledge by their senses although there are others of a contrary Opinion men of Name too for Knowledg and Learning and it is easie to know whose minds they would be of viz. of theirs whose Learning and Senses go together Thus let the thing be brought within the Verge of Scripture-judgment and upon that so very controverted This is my body and discussed before the most plain and inartificial apprehensions and let the general manner of Scripture expressing it self oft in familiar Figures be laid before them They would easily conclude on the side of their Senses and that Scripture intended no violence on their Faith against their Senses on the side of so incredible a change of the Elements into a Humane Body Nothing but the charms or inchantments rather of a false Religion and the Sorcery of it which are the things to be discover'd by the Test the slavery of an implicit Faith except under the terror of a severe Persecution for a contrary Perswasion can endanger any mans falling into such an unaccountable wilful professed blindness The Test therefore requires not onely the easiest most unperplexed Assent Belief and Declaration but that which all Mankind with violence runs into if not bewitcht with Superstition upon the lest motive of apprehension about the matter 2. If sense goes thus far with the plainest and most unthinking men how much more doth Reason and rational Faith assure the thinking and intelligent who not onely by Sense determine the Bread is Bread and the Wine Wine but know it can be no other and the whole circle of Absurds that crowd in upon the change into the Body and Blood of Christ that have been so often arang'd against such a Figment encompass them that with highest reason and assurance they can declare their Belief as the Law of the Test requires them to do Whatever then may be the various shapes this Proteus or Camelion of Transubstantiation hath put on throughout the long Historie of the Metamorphos'd Notion whatever dress of Representation the Eloquence of the Fathers the Canon of the Ecclesiastics or the Difficiles Nugae or the vain curiosities and subtilties of the School-men have

Attyr'd it in the sincere honest mind and the intelligent Christian leaving all the cramping Difficulties of Transubstantiation to its Slaves can declare freely with the Test There is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper into the Body and Blood of Christ. Whatever spiritual Communion there may be between Christ in his Death and the true Believer is most humbly in the mean time owned and prayed for which is the first thing that was to be shewn The second Head is That the very point of Transubstantiation is of all others the most reasonable to settle the Test upon and the more reasonable in all regards because of the so exceeding difficulty of the Notion 1. What can a civil Power have greater indignation against or be more willing to settle upon as an exclusive Test of all from places of Honour Trust and Power than the being Vassals to such an Imposture as destroys all the Truth and Certainty that is in the World Who can be believ'd upon Oath which the Apostle says is the end of all strife if there be no more credit to sense then that Bread may be a Humane Body and Wine Blood though it hath all the evidences to sense possible it is what it judges it to be and that is Bread And what more heed can be given to Reason if its main Foundations can be thus overturn'd so that all the principles of Government and humane Converse are overthrown What may not such Bigots be screwed into who leave themselves naked of the defences of Sense and Reason at the Command of a tyrannic Church and Pope and become meer Tools in such Hands Who can concredit to them the Interest of their Country who couch down like Asses under such a Burden and especially for a Notion so dark and slippery that no one knows where to have it And what would become of humane Commerce if such Things multiplied 2. Upon Transubstantiation the Test-Act doth most deservedly fall because when the foundations of general Reason and common Sense are laid Religion and the Reason and Honour of that as it is National comes next to be consider'd that it may bear up it self and invite both the People of the Nation and even the Nations round about to a just veneration of it But Transubstantiation being made the great and most tremendous Mystery of the Roman Religion yet carrieth in the very judgment of sense the Countenance mean and appearance of the most notorious Cheat and Juggle that the Name of Religion ever offered to the World for there being a most contemptible poor and low outside onely without the least of Power or Puissance or any the thinnest resemblance of a Miracle demands a Belief of the Highest and most constant Miracle daily to be performed by the most Profligate oftentimes and most Ignorant of Mankind and depending upon their Intention too which may defeat the Miracle All this dishonours the very Name of Christian Religion and is so heavy and intollerable a Gabel Excise and Tax upon the Religious Sense of Mankind as must needs eat out the whole Life Power and Reverence of it And therefore it is worthy the Notice Prevention and Correction of so grand an Assembly as the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of the Nation met in Parliament and the Seclusion of all Persons from so sage and awful a Convention who are under so great a Slavery as not to renounce it For as Moses testifies The wife Laws of a Nation in Religion give it an Estimation of a Wise Great and Honourable Nation If therefore a Parliament secures the Rights and Properties of the Nation from any Impositions upon their Estates but with their own Consent How justly may it doe the same against any Illegal Impositions upon their Faith And whereas this Transubstantitaion is attempted to be brought into Parallel and placed in the Rank of other great Mysteries of the Christian Religion as of the Blessed Father Son and Spirit One God of the Hypostatical Vnion and Incarnation of Jesus Christ besides the Intrinsick difference of the one and of the other There is this vast distance That those Supreme Revelations are Heavenly Divine retir'd in Meditation Holy Rational Discourse and Spiritual Adorations But this of Transubstantiation while it does nothing offers nothing to Sense to Reason or so much as to Faith from Divine Revelation but by Gross Letter a Figurative Spiritual Proposition into condensating pressing and incrassating it pretends to a real Operation or conversion of Bread into the Body without any such thing But yet as if such a thing were seen to be indeed done Mercenary Priests play all the Tricks of Gesture Posture Elevation Geniculation with the whole Train of Attendant Frauds too many to be mention'd upon the Score of a dull coarse Cheat even in Handicraft and Legerdemain in Mechanicks All which Imposture is indeed not onely Morally but Naturally impossible ever to be understood 3. It ought above all other Points in Popery to be the Subject of a Test-Act because it hath above all other Points of Popish Falshood been made the Test of Vassalage and Slavery and as it were that very Mark of the Beast joyn'd with the Idolatrie of Adoration and Image-Worship and of the Receiving his Name and Worshipping his Image which all must receiv or be kill'd and none must buy or sell that the Psuedo Spiritual Excommunication may be pursued with secular Anathema's upon all who will not bear this Cognisance of the Bestian Usurpation In short This hath been the central Point from which and into which have Flowed all the Cruelties Persecutions Massacres deluges of Bloud that have been pour'd out Bloud of Men Women and Children Sacrific'd at this Altar that have made it indeed an Altar of Bloud an Altar where real Flesh and Bloud have been Offered and to say The Bread and Wine have been so Transubstantiated into the Body and Bloud of Martyrs were much nearer Truth Here have been the so-much unheard-of Barbarities and Inhumanities that would make a Historie of Transubstantiation Truth indeed could it be had worth th' having to justifie the Test and such a one that certainly could never upon the Account of so blessed a Religion and of a Sacrifice of such infinite Grace as that of Jesus Christs Offering himself once for all for Mankind have entred into the Heart of any Man were it not that such a very detestable Bestial Power that bears at this very time and hath long born a Citie or False Church in which wil be found the Bloud of Prophets and Apostles and that is Drunk with the Bloud of Saints and of the Martyrs of Jesus is made known unto us in the Revelation Now all this is matter of known Historie and of evident Fact How justly therefore is Power and Trust endeavour'd to be surprized by a Protestant Parliament from such hands that dare not disown Principles so doub le dyed in

Bloud on the account of which such Butcheries and Burnings of Men alive have been committed that the so mis-stil'd Barbaritie and Inhumanitie of the Test-Act compared herewith is not only Mercie andHonor to the Persons concerned but a Monument of greatest Equitie and Philanthropie or Love to Humane Nature to endeavour to extinguish out of the Nation the very Principles of so much Bloud-Guiltiness and Bloud-Thirst of the greater heinousness becaus if the Bishop be to be credited in the Case it was for not believing a Transubstantiation which it was Morally impossible for those Martyrs to know and such abstrusities which they neither did nor could nor indeed ought to understand 4. To press and force a litteral Sense upon the Holy Scriptures Free Familiar Condescension to our Weakness in expressing things of a high Spiritual Nature in such Language as we in Humane Bodies most easily take things into our minds by as in the Sacrament the real Spiritual Union and Communication of the Value Vertue and Efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ Himself and in the Union of and Communion and Communication of his Spirit to us is express'd by eating his Body and drinking his Bloud Now I say to force a litteral Sense upon this is such a piece of Rudeness Barbaritie and Ingratitude that if the same measure were meeted to all other parts of Scripture would even in the Judgment of those very Men who are either Atheists or Bigots in this matter not only turn it into Horrible and Abominable Burlesque but even Martyr and Murther those two Witnesses as some have expounded them To vindicate therefore those Sacred Volumes the Pandects of our most Holy Religion from having to do with so mid-night and Sphingian a Riddle in so plain and merciful an Institution so humble and even Domestic in a spiritual Sense as the Lord's Supper is a Riddle set on work to so much Cruelty and Bloud-shed is worthy the Spirit of a truely Christian and nobly English Senate and to set the danger of its return into use at the utmost impossibility Humane Providence could attain without the expectation of Miracle For what is meant by Transubstantiation the Bishop himself says is altogether unknown and uncertain especially to the persons chiesly concern'd viz. the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation and which they neither do can nor ought to know What obligation can they then have to believe it except with such a blind Faith as all Religion and Reason abhors However if they have no Faith concerning so fugitive a thing that like a shadow cannot be catch'd or like the Phantom of a Body that hath no flesh and bones to be seen and felt as all Bodies have and as Christ as it were prophetically expos'd his Body to the Experiment of when it was really there that no such Imposture concerning it should be palm'd upon the World I say if the Nobility and Gentry have no Faith of such a thing why may they not profess and declare they do not believe it For the Bishop seems either not to be awake or to dissemble a slumber that his Discourse of mens swearing to any thing his Burlesque on the famous Burgesses of Oxon and his Appeal to the Honourable Members concerning their Idea's of Transubstantiation and the Babel thence arising the whole Notion is indeed a Babalism or pertaining to Babylon the Great had been very good if the Test had requir'd them to declare their belief of such a Transubstantiation But now his Arguments hunt counter and impeach the Roman Tyranny of horrid Murthers upon persons for not believing what they neither do can nor ought to know what they can so hardly pronounce the sound of much less hammer the sturdy sullen Notion it self For who can know what there is no knowledge of But what more innocent than to declare when lawfully requir'd though before the Searcher of Hearts a man does not believe what he cannot nor ought to know nor so much as anvil a Notion of If it were never so true real knowable and worthy to be believed any one might without guilt when justly demanded to do so declare he did not believe it while he knew it not so as to find reason to believe it it were double Hypocrisie to do otherwise and all the Bishop's arguing and storying can never make it otherwise Indeed the whole recoyles upon himself and dashes out the brains of all he hath writ upon it which sure he crasly oversaw or thought all his Readers were such Fools as to be couzen'd with the gloss For if the infidelitie were ever so culpable it were a Dutie when adjur'd by a Law to declare it but how can the infidelitie be blam'd when after the Bishop's hunting down the Notion through the whole Historie of the Controversie He hath prey'd only upon a Ghost miss'd of all comprehension and he pronounces the summ and result of all to be what is meant by that Transubstantiation is a thing altogether uncertain and unknown and there is no one thing in which Christendom more both agrees and differs all Parties agree in the Thing and differ in the manner Now it so happens the Test was so sagaciously compos'd though it might lawfully have done much more that it modestly leaves the Thing free and requires only to declare a Belief of such Manner of Transubstantiation as of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Bodie and Bloud of Christ and requires the Declarers own Belief alone and nothing of censure upon any others Belief in this branch of the Test which surely any man may lawfully make that makes it truly and seeing the whole Issue of the Notion is Scepticism the Bishop himself being Judg and what can the man do that comes after the ishop may not every man then say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do not comprehend it therefore I do not believe it Indeed if there were Revelation for it like what there is concerning the Father Word and Spirit one God concerning the Incarnation and Hypostatic Vnion of the Eternal Word with Humane Nature leaning not on figurative expression but plain assertion wrought into all the discourse and whole Argument of Scripture all Disputes were silenc'd But when there is no pretext of Revelation but such a manner of speaking as if it were press'd alike into a literal sense through the whole Book of God it must overthrow all Theologie To refuse then a Figure there where it is so absolutely necessary that else Christ must eat his own flesh while it remain'd entire before the Apostles and drink his own bloud while it was circulating in his Veins and no amaze nor so much as question upon it is such a setting the Scripture to be broken upon the Wheel such a Barbarity as exceeds a thousandfold all the Barbarities and Inhumanities spoken of throughout the Bishop's whole Book Especially when our Lord declares in a like manner of speaking and doubts upon it His words were spirit and