AN ANSWER TO Monseiur de la Militiere his impertinent Dedication of his Imaginary Triumph To the KING of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman Catholick Religion By John Bramhall D. D. and Lord Bishop of Derry HAGUE Printed in the Year 1653. An Answer to Monseiur de la Militiere his Epistle to the King of great Britain wherein he inviteth his Majesty to forsake the Church of England and to embrace the Roman Catholick Religion SIR YOu might long have disputed your Question of Transubstantiation with your learned Adversary and proclamed your own Triumph on a silver Trumpet to the world before any Member of the Church of England had interposed in this present Exigence of our Affairs I know no necessity that Christians must be like Cocks Plut. that when one Crows all the rest must Crow for Company Monseiur Aubertine will not want a surviving friend to teach you what it is to sound a Triumph before you have gained the victory He was no fool that desired no other Epitaph on his Tomb than this Here lyes the Author of this sentence Prurigo Disputandi scabies Ecclesiae Sir Henry Wotton the itch of disputing is the scab of the Church Having viewed all your strength with a single eye I find not one of your Arguments that comes home to Transubstantiation but only to a true reall presence which no genuine Son of the Church of England did ever deny no nor your Adversary himself Christ said This is my Body what he said we do stedfastly believe he said not after this or that manner neque con neque sub neque trans And therefore we place it among the Opinions of the Schools not among the Articles of our Faith The holy Eucharist which is the Sacrament of peace and unity rences in the Church directly about the Sacrament for the first 800. years ought not to be made the matter of strife and contention There wanted not abuses in the Administration of this Sacrament in the most pure and Primitive times as prophaness and uncharitableness among the Corinthians 1 Cor. 11. The Simonians and Menandrians and some other such Imps of Sathan unworthy the name of Christians Theod. ex Ignatio did wholy forbear the use of the Eucharist but it was not for any difference about the Sacrament it self but about the naturall Body of Christ They held that his flesh and Blood and Passion were not true and reall but imaginary and phantasticall things The Maniches did forbear the Cup but it was not for any difference about the Sacrament it self They made two Gods a good God whom they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or light and an evill God whom they tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or darkness which evill God they said did make some creatures of the Dreg or more feculent parts of the matter which were evill and impure And among these evill creatures they esteemed Wine which they called the Gall of the Dragon for this cause not upon any other scruple they either wholy absteined from the Cup Leo. Ser. 4. de quad Epiph. haer 30. 46. or used Water in the place of wine which Epiphanius recordeth among the errors of the Ebionites Aug. li. de Haeres c. 64 and Tacians And St. Austine of the Aquarians Still we doe not find any clashing either in word or writing directly about this Sacrament in the universall Church of Christ much less about the presence of Christ in the Sacrament Bel. l. 1. de Sac. Euch. c. 1. Neque ullus veterum disputat contra hunc errorem primis sex centis Annis The first that are supposed by Bellarmine to have broached any error in the Church about the reall presence were the Iconomachi after 700. years Primi qui veritatem corporis Domini in Eucharistia in quaestionem vecarunt fuerint Iconomachi post Annum Domini 700. Bel ibid. Syn Nic. 2 Act 6. only because they called the Bread and Wine the Image of Christs body This is as great a mistake as the former Their difference was meerly about Images not at all about the Eucharist so much Vasques confesseth Disp 179. c. 1. that In his â—udgement they are not to be numbred with those who deny the presence of Christ in the Eucharist We may well find different observations in those dayes Yet different observations as one Church consecrating leavened Bread another unleavened One Church making use of pure Wine another of Wine mixed with Water One Church admitting Infants to the Communion another not admitting them but without controversies or censures or animosity one against another we find no debates or disputes concerning the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament and much less concerning the manner of his presence for the first eight hundred years And different expressions Yet all the time we find as different expressions among those Primitive Fathers as among our modern writers at this day some calling the Sacrament the sign of Christs Body the figure of his Body the Symbol of his Body the mystery of his Body the exemplar type and representation of his Body saying that the Elements do not recede from their first nature others naming it the true Body and Blood of Christ changed not in shape but in nature yea doubting not to say that in this Sacrament we see Christ we touch Christ we eat Christ that we fasten our teeth in his very flesh and make our Tongues red in his Bloud Yet notwithansting there were no questions no quarrels no contentions amongst them there needed no Councils to order them no conferences to reconcile them because they contented themselves to believe what Christ had said This is my Body without presuming upon their own heads to determine the manner how it is his Body neither weighing all their own words so exactly before any controversie was raised nor expounding the sayings of other men contrary to the analogy of Faith The first doubt about the The first difference abouâ— the presence of Christ in the Sacrament presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament seems to have been moved not long before the year 900. in the dayes of Bertram and Paschasius but the controversie was not well formed nor this new Article of Transubstantiation sufficiently concocted in the dayes of Berengarius after the year 1050. as appeareth by the gross mistaking and mistating of the question on both sides First Berengarius if we may trust his adversaries knew no mean between a naked figure or empty sign of Christs presence and a corporeall or Locall presence and afterwards fell into another extreme of impanation on the other side the Pope and the Councill made no difference between Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation they understood nothing of the spirituall or indivisible being of the flesh and blood of Christ in the Sacrament as appeareth by that ignorant and Capernaiticall retractation and abjuration which they imposed upon Berengarius Penned by
Deity did assume the Bread or the Species thereof by a new Hypostaticall Union called Impanation either absolutely or respectively Mediante Corpore Whether the body and blood of Christ might be present in the Sacrament without Transubstantiation with the bread or without the bread whether a body may be transubstantiated into a Spirit Vasq disp 184. c. 8. and which is most strange whether a Creature might be transubstantiated into the Deity Then the School-men began to wrangle what manner of change this was whether a material change or a formall change or a change of the whole substance both matter and form And if it were a Conversion of the whole substance then whether it was by way of Production or by Adduction or by Conservation each of which greater Squadrons are subdivided into severall lesser parties speaking as different Language as the builders of Babel pestering and perplexing one another with mextricable difficulties It cannot be a new Production saith one because the body of Christ whereinto the Elements are supposed to be converted did pre-exist before the change neither can that body which is made of bread be the same body with that which was born of a Virgin If it be not by Production say others but onely by Adduction then it is not a Transubstantiation but a Tran-subiation not a change of natures but a locall succession Then the Priest is not the Maker of his Maker as they use to brag but onely puts him into a new positure or presence under the Species of Bread and Wine Howbeit this way by Adduction be the more common and the safer way if we may trust Bellarmine yet of all Conversions or changes it hath least affinity with Transubstantiation Suppose the Water had not been turned into Wine at Cana of Gallilee by our Saviour but poured out or utterly destroyed and Wine new created or adduced by Miracle into the water-pots in such a manner that the introduction of the Wine should be the expulsion of the Water not onely Comitanter but Causaliter in such case it had been no Transubstantiation Moses his Rod was truly changed into a Serpent but it was by Production if his Rod had been conveyed away invisibly by Legerdemain and a Serpent had been adduced into the place of it what Transubstantiation had this been None at all no though the adduction of the Serpent had been the means of the expulsion and destruction of the Rod. It is so far from Transubstantiation that is no Conversion at all The substance of the Elements is not converted for that is supposed to be destroyed The Accidents are not converted but remain the same they were It is no Adduction at all when the body of Christ which is the thing supposed to be adduced remains still in Heaven where it was before It cannot be a Conservative conversion say others for the same individuall thing cannot be conserved by two totall distinct Conservations but if this were a conservative conversion the body of Christ should be conserved by two totall distinct conservations the one in Heaven the other in Earth Yea by ten thousand distinct totall Conservations upon Eatth even as many as there are consecrated Hosts Vasq T. 3. q. 75. d. 181 c. 4. Which seems to be ridiculous and without any necessity administers great occasion to the Adversaries of Christian Religion of jeasting and deriding the mysteries of our faith So here we have a Transubstantiation without transubstantiation A production of a Modus or manner of Being for a production of a substance An Annihilation supposed yet no Annihilation confessed an Adduction without any Adduction a Terminus ad Quem without a Terminus à quo who shall reconcile us to our selves But the end is not yet Then grew up the Question What is the proper Adequate body which is conteined under the Species or accidents Whether a materiall body or a substantiall body or a living body or an Organicall body or an humane body Whether it have weight or not and why it is not perceived Whether it can be seen by the eye of mortall man whether it can act or suffer any thing whether it be moveable or immovable whether by it self or by Accident or by both whether it can move in one place and rest in another or be moved with two contrary motions as upwards and downwards Southwards and Northwards at the same time Add to these whether the Soul of Christ and the Deity and the whole Trinity do follow the body and blood of Christ under either Species by Concomitance Whether the Sacramentall body must have suffered the same things with the naturall body As supposing that an Host Consecrated at Christs last Supper had been reserved untill after his Passion whether Christ must have died and his blood have been actually shed in the Sacrament Yea whether those wounds which were imprinted by the whips in his naturall body might and should have been found in his Sacramentall body without flagellation Likewise what blood of Christ is in the Sacrament whether that blood onely which was shed or that blood only which remained in the body or both the one and the other And whether that blood which was shed was assumed again by the Humanity in the Resurrection Then began those Paradoxicall Questions to be first agitated in the Schools Whether the same individuall body without division or discontinuation from it self can be locally in ten thousand places yea in Heaven and in Earth at the same time Or if not locally yet whether it can be so spiritually and indivisibly And whether it be not the same as to this purpose whether a body be lolocally or spiritually present in more places than one Bellarmine seems to incline to the affirmative Bell. l. 3. de Euch. c. 3. in fine Though to be any where Sacramentally doth not imply the taking up of a place yet it implies a true and reall presence and if it be in more Hosts or Altars than one it seems no less opposite unto Indivisibility than the filling up of many places Nay he is past seeming positive that without doubt if a body cannot be in two places locally it cannot be Sacramentally in two places Compare this of Bellarmine with that of Aquinas In 4. d. 44. q. 7. art 2. q. 3. that it is not possible for one body to be in more places than one locally no not by Miracle because it implies a contradiction And consider upon what tottering foundations you build Articles of faith It is impossible and implies a Contradiction for the body of Christ to be locally in more Hosts than one at the same time saith Aquinas But it is as impossible and implies a Contradiction asmuch for the body of Christ to be Sacramentally in more Hosts than one at the same time as to be locally saith Bellarmine The Inference is plain and obvious Many more such strange Questions are moved as whether it be possible that the thing conteined should
be a thousand times greater than the thing conteining whether a definitive being in a place do not implie a not being out of that place whether more bodies than one can be in one and the same place whether there can be a penetration of dimensions whether a body can subsist after a spirituall manner so as to take up no place at all but to be wholly in the whole and wholly in every part Moreover whether the whole body and blood of Christ be in every particle of the bread and of the Cup and if it be then whether onely after the division of the Bread and Wine or before division also And in how many parts and in which parts is the whole body and blood of Christ whether in the least parts and if in the least parts then whether in the least in kind or the least in quantity that is so long as the Species may retein the name of Bread and Wine or so long as the matter is divisible and whether the body and blood of Christ be also in the indivisible parts as points and lines and superficies Lastly whether Accidents can subsist without their subjects that is whether they can be both Accidents and no Accidents whether all the Accidents of the Elements do remain and particularly whether the Quantity doth remain whether the other Accidents do inhere in the quantity as their subject that is whether an Accident can have an Accident whether the quantity of Christs body be there and whether it be there after a quantitative manner with extension of parts either extrinsecall or intrinsecall and whether the Quantity of the body of Christ be distinct and figured or indistinct and unfigured whether the Accidents can nourish or make drunken or corrupt and a new body be generated of them And what supplies the place of the matter in such generation whether the Quantity or the body of Christ or the old matter of the Bread and wine restored by miracle or new matter created by God And how long in such corruption the Body of Christ doth continue Whosoever is but moderately versed in your great Doctors must needs know that these questions are not the private doubts or debates of single School-men but the common Garboils and generall engagements of your whole Schools Wherefore it had been a meer vanity to cite every particular Author for each question and would have made the margent swell ten times greater than the Text. From this bold determination of the manner of the presence how have flowed two other differences First the detention of the Cup from the Laity meerly upon presumption of Concomitance first decreed in the Councill of Constance after the year 1400. Let what will become of Concomitance whilst we keep our selves to the Institution of Christ and the universall practise of the Primitive Church It was not for nothing that our Saviour did distinguish his Body from his Bloud not only in the Consecration but also in the distribution of the Sacrament By the way give me leave to represent a Contradiction in Bellarmine which I am not able to reconcile Lib. 4. de Euch. c. 25. In one place he saith The providence of God is merveilous in holy Scripture for St. Luke hath put these words do you this after the Sacrament given under the form of Bread but he repeated it not after the giving of the Cup That we might understand that the Lord commanded that the Sacrament should be distributed unto all under the form of Bread but not under the form of Wine And yet in the next Chapter but one of the same Book he doth positively determine the contrary upon the Ground of Concomitance that the Bread may be taken away Cap. 27. if the Cup be given but both cannot be taken away together Can that be taken away which Christ hath expresly commanded to be given to all A second difference flowing from Transubstantiation is about the Adoration of the Sacrament One of those impediments which hinder our Communication with you in the Celebration of divine Offices We deny not a venerable respect unto the Consecrate Elements not only as love-tokens sent us by our best friend but as the Instruments ordeined by our Saviour to convey to us the merits of his Passion But for the person of Christ God forbid that we should deny him divine worship at any time and especially in the use of this holy Sacrament we beleeve with St. Austine that No man eats of that flesh but first he adores But that which offends us is this That you teach and require all men to adore the very Sacrament with divine Honour To this end you hold it out to the people To this end Corpus Christi day was instituted about 300. years since Conc. Vien Yet we know that even upon your own grounds you cannot without a particular Revelation have any infallible assurance that any Host is consecrated And consequently you have no assurance that you do not commit materiall Idolatry But that which weighs most with us is this That we dare not give divine worship unto any creature no not to the very Humanity of Christ in the Abstract much less to the Host but to the whole person of Christ God and man by reason of the Hypostaticall union between the Child of the blessed Virgin Mary and the eternall Son who is God over all blessed for ever Shew us such an union betwixt the Deity and the Elements or accidents and you say something But you pretend no such things The highest that you dare go is this Bell. l. 4 de Euch. c. 29. quodam modo As they that adored Christ when hee was upon Earth did after a certain kind of manner adore his Garments Is this all This is after a certain kind of manner indeed We have enough There is no more Adoration due to the Sacrament than to the Garments which Christ did wear upon Earth Exact no more Thus the seamless Coat of Christ is torn into pieces Thus faith is minced into shreds and spun up into nicities more subtil than the Webs of Spiders Fidem minutis diffecant ambagibus Ut quisque est lingua nequior Because curious wits cannot content themselves to touch hot coals with tongs but they must take them up with their naked fingers nor to apprehend mysteries of Religion by faith without descanting upon them and determining them by reason whilst themselves confess that they are incomprehensible by humane reason and imperceptible by mans imagination How Christ is present in the Sacrament can neither be perceived by sense Aq. p. 3. 1. 76. Art 7. nor by imagination The more inexcusable is their presumption to anatomise mysteries and to determine supernaturall not revealed truths upon their own heads which if they were revealed were not possible to be comprehended by mortall man As vain an attempt as if a Child should think to lade out all the water of the Sea with a Cockleshell
Umbertus a Cardinall Exact Syn. Rom. sub Nich. 2. approved by Pope Nicholas and a Councill Ego Berengarius c. I Berengarius do consent to the holy Roman Apostolick See and profess with my mouth and heart to hold the same faith of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper with Pope Nicholas and this holy Synod c. And what the faith of Pope Nicholas and this Synod was follows in the next words That the Bread and Wine which are set upon the Altar after Consecration are not onely the Sacrament but the very body and blood of Christ. This seems to favour Consubstantiation rather than Transubstantiation if the Bread and Wine be the body and blood of Christ then they remain Bread and Wine still if the bread be not onely the Sacrament but also the thing of the Sacrament if it be both the Sign and the thing signified how is it now to be made nothing It follows in the Retraction That the body and blood of Christ is sensibly not onely in the Sacrament but in truth handled and broken by the hands of the Priest and bruised by the teeth of the faithfull If it be even so there needs no more but feel and be satisfied To this they made Berengarius sweat By the consubstantiall Trinity and the Holy Gospels and accurse and anathematize all those who held the contrary yet these words did so much scandalize and offend the Glosser upon Gratian that he could not forbear to admonish the Reader De Cons dist 2 cap. Ego Ber. that unless he understood those words in a sound sense he would fall into a greater heresie than that of Berengarius Not without reason for the most favourable of the Schoolmen do confess that these words are not properly and literally true but figuratively and metanimically understanding the thing conteining by the thing conteined as to say the body of Christ is broken or bruised because the quantity or Species of bread are broken or bruised they might as well say that the body and blood of Christ becomes fusty and sowr as often as the Species of Bread and Wine before their corruption become fusty and sowr But the Retractation of Berongarius can admit no such figurative sense that the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament are dâ—vided and bruised sensibly not onely in the Sacrament that is in the Specâ—es but also in truth A most ignorant Capernaiticall assertion for the body of Christ being not in the Sacrament modo Quantitativo according to their own Tenet but indivisibly after a Spirituall manner without extrinsecall extension of parts cannot in it self or in truth be either divided or bruised Therefore others of the School-men goe more roundly and ingenuously to work Alex. Gab. Bonav c. and confess that it is an abusive and excessive expression not to be held or defended that it happened to Berengarius they should have said to Pope Nicholas and Cardinall Umbertus as it doth with those who cut of a detestation of one error encline to another Neither will it a vail them any thing at all that the Fathers have sometimes used such expressions of seeing Christ of touching Christ in the Sacrament of fastning our teeth in his flesh and making our tongues red in his blood There is a great difference between a Sermon to the people and a solemn Retractation before a Judge The Fathers do not say that such expressions are true not only Sacramentally or figuratively as they made Berengarius both say and accurse all others that held otherwise but also properly and in the things themselves The Fathers never meant by these forms of speech to determine the manner of the presence which was not dreamed of in their dayes but to raise the devotion of their hearers and readers to advertise the people of God that they should not rest in the externall symbols or signs but principaâ—ly be intent upon the invisible grace which was both lawfull and commendable for them to do Leave us their primitive liberty and we will not refrain from the like expressions I urge this to shew that the new doctrine of Transubstantiation is so far from being an old Article of faith that it was not well digested not rightly understood in any tollerable measure by the greatest Clerks and most concerned above a thousand years after Christ The first definition or determination of this manner of the presence was yet later in the Councill of Lateran in the dayes of Innocent the third Scot. in 4. sent dist 11. q. 3. T. 3 q. 75. d. 81. c. 1. The determination of the manner of the presence opened a floodgate to a deluge of Controversies after the year 1200. Ante Lateranense Concilium Transubstantiatio non fuit dogma fidei And what the fruit of it was let Vasques bear witness Audito nomine Transubstantiationis c. The very name of Transubstantiation being but heard so great a Controversie dâ—d arise among the later School-men concerning the nature thereof that the more they endevoured to wind themselves out the more they wrapped themselves in greater difficulties whereby the mysterie of faith became more difficult both to be explained and to be understood and more exposed to the Cavils of its Adversaries He adds that the name of Conversion and Transubstantiation gave occasion to these Controversies No sooner was this Bell rung out no sooner was this fatall sentence given but as if Pandora's box had been newly set wide open whole swarms of noisome Questions and debates did fill the Schools Then it began to be disputed by what means this change comes whether by the Benediction of the Elements or by the Repetition of these words of Christ This is my body The common current of your Schools is for the later Lib. de Corr. Theol. Schol. But your judicious Arch-Bishops of Caesaria since the Councill of Trent in a Book dedicated to Sixtus the Fifth produceth great reasons to the contrary Then was the Question started what the demonstrative Pronoun Hoc signifies in these words This is my Body whether this thing or this Substance or this Bread or this Body or this Meat or these Accidents or that which is conteined under these Species Gloss de Conâ—… d. 2. cap. timorem or this Individuum vagum or lastly which seems stranger than all the rest this Nothing Then it began to be argued whether the Elements were annihilated whether the matter and form of them being destroyed their essence did yet remain or the essence being Converted the existence remained whether the Sacramentall existence of the body and blood of Christ do depend upon its naturall existence whether the whole Host were Transubstantiated or onely some parts of it that is such parts as should be distributed to worthy Communicants or whether in those parts of the Host which were distributed unto unworthy Communicants the matter of Bread and Wine did not return Guidmend l. 1. de ver Whether the