the Bread VVhether a Body may be Transubstantiated into a Spirit and which is most strange whether a Creature might be Transubstantiated into the Deity Then the Schoolmen began to wrangle what manner of change this was whether a materiall change or a formal 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 several lesser Parties speaking as different language as the builders of Babel pestering and perplexing one another with inextricable difficulties It cannot be a new Production saith one because the Body of Christ wherinto 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 only by Adduction then it is not a Transubstantiation but a Transubiation not a change of Natures but a local succession Then the Priest is not the Maker of his Maker as they use to brag but only 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 Beâ—…larmine yet of all Conversions or Changes it hath least affinity with Transubstantiation Suppose the water had not been turned into wine at Cana of Galile 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 only 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 farr from Transubstantiation that it 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 individual thing cannot be Conserved by two total distinct Conservations but if this were a Conservative conversion the Body of Christ should be conserved by two total distinct Conservations the one in Heaven the other in Earth Yea by ten thousand distinct total Conservations upon Earth even as many as there are consecrated Hosts 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 four Faith So here we have a Transubstantiation without Transubstantiation A production of a Modus or maner ofbeing for a production of a Substance An Annihilation suppoâ—…ed yet no Annihilation confessed An Adduction without any Adduction A terminus ad quem without a terminus à quo who shall reconcile us to ouâ—… selves But the End is not yet Then grew up the Qâ—…tion what is the proper Adequate Body which is contained under the species or Accidents whether a material Body or a substantial Body or a living Body ora n organical 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 mortal man whether it can act or suffer any thing whether it be movable 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 Sacramental body must have suffered the same things with the Natural Body As supposing that an Host consecrated at Christ's 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 that were imprinted by the Whips in his naturall body might and should have been found in his sacramental body without flagellation Likewise what Blood of Christ is in the Sacrament whether that blood only 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 Paradoxical Questions to be first agitated in thâ—… Schools whether the same inividual 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 spiritually and indivisibly And whether it be not the same as to this purpose whether a Body be locally or spiritually present in more places than one Bellarmine seemes to encline to the affirmative Though to be any where sâ—…cramentally doth not imply the taking up of a place yet it implies a true and real presence and if it be in more Hosts or Altars than one it seems no lesse 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 that it is not possible for one body to be in more places than one locally no not by Miracle because it implies 〈◊〉 Contradiction And consider upon what toâ—…ering 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 〈◊〉 Contradiction asmuch for the Body oâ—… Christ to be Sacramentally in morâ—… Hosts than one at the same time as to be locally saith Bellarmine The Inference is plain and obvious And many such strange questions are moved as whether it be possible the thing contained should be a thousand times greater than the thing containing whether a definitive being in 〈◊〉 place do not imply a not being out oâ—… 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 subsiâ—… after a spirituall manner so as to take up no place at all but to be whollv in the whole and wholly in every part
Sacrament as appeareth by that ignorant and Capernaiticall Retractation and Abjuration which they imposed upon Berengarius Peâ—…ned by Vmbertus a Cardinal approved by Pope Nicholas and a Councill Ego Berengarius c. I Berengarius do consent to the Holy Roman Apostolick See and professe with my Mouth and my 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 only 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 Blood of Christ then they remain bread and wine stiâ—…l If the bread be not only the Sacrament but also the thing of the Sacrament if it be both the signe and the thing signified how is it now to be made nothing It follows in the Retractation That the body and blood of Christ is sensibly not only in the sacrament but in truth handled and brokâ—…n by the hand 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 swear 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 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 favorable of the School-men do confess that these words are not properly and literaly true but figuratively and metanimically understanding the thing containing by the thing contained 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 becoms fusty and sowr as often as the Species of Bread and Wine before their corruption become fusty and sowr But the retractation of Berengarius can admit no such figurative sense that the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament are divided and bruised sensibly not only in the Sacrament that is the Species but also in truth A most ignorant Capernaitical assertion For the Body of Christ being not in the Sacrament modo quant itativo according to their own Tenet but indivisibly after a spiritual manner without extrinficall extension of Parts cannot in it self or in Truth be either divided or bruised Therefore others of the Schoolmen go more roundly and ingenuously to work and confess that it is an abusive and excessive expression not to be held or defended and that it happened to Berengarius they should have said to Pope Nicholas and Cardinal Umbertus as it doth with those who out of a detestation of one error encline to another Neither wil it avail them any thing at all that the Fathers have sometimes used such expressions of seeing Christ of touching Christ in the Sacrament of fastening our teeth in his Flesh and making our toungsred 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 dreamt of in their daies 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 signes but principally 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 farre from being an old Article of Faith that it was not well digested nor 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 daies of Innocent the Third after the year 1200. Ante Lateranense Concilium Transubstantiatio non fuit dogma fidei And what the fruit of it was let Vasques beare witnes Audito nomine Transubstantiationis c. The very name of Transubstantiation being but heard so great a Controversie did arise among the later Schoolmen concerning the Nature thereof that the more they endeavoured to wind themselves out the more they wrapped themselves in greater difficulties whereby the Mystery of Faith became more difficult both to be explaned 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 fatal Sentence given but as if Pandora's Box had been newly set wide open whole Swarms of noysom Questions and Debates did fill the Schools Thâ—…n 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 But your judicious Arch-Bishop of Caesaria since the Councill of Trent in a book dedicated to Sixtus the Fifth produceth great reason 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 contained under these Species or this individum vagum or lastly which seemes 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 sacramental existence of the Body and Blood of Christ do depend upon its natural Existence whether the whole Host were Transubstantiated or only 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 Whether the 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
which the Holy Spirit hath caused Piety and Charity to spring flourish and fructifie in Believers From whence it follows by the same reason that the true and lawful Reformation which all good men of the Church desire in the Church doth depend no otherwise than upon the understanding and practice of these same Truths by the duty to which they address all Believers in the different vocations whereto God calls them In all which the end which is proposed them is no other than to live united among them and with Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Ghost to serve God under the obedience of the Government which he hath put into the hands of the Bishops which feed the Flock with an unanimous consent under the Authority of the espeâ—…ial Chair of St. Peter established at Rome by two Principals of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul from which whosoever separates himself is a Schismatick and out of the Communion of the Church Upon this Sir I am imboldened to speak for this last time to your Majestie that as you may if you will by the way which I propose to you lay the Foundation of this work by your Conversion and entrance into the Catholick Church You will find also that the success shall be in the hand of God the indubitable way of re-establishing you in your Throne Certainly all will agree with me that this work is upon such conditions that if it had receiv'd its accomplishment in Paris with the Ministers and People separated from the Church there 's no place in all France wherein they would refuse to do the like And if once the love of the Peace and re-union of the Church had thus gained the heart of our separated Brethren which are in this Kingdome acknowledging in this manner that the onely safe and necessary Reformation ought to be this which by the truth of the definitions of the Faith of the Church in her Doctrine in her Service and in her Government shall re-establish a Christian life among Christians the other People and Pastors and the Pastors for the love and by the very motion of the People which are in the same Communion in other parts of Europe will without doubt do the same thing Think you Sir that if your Subjects of Scotland and those which are in England and Ireland faithful and affectionate to your Crown and Person seeing the success of this project hapned in France to which your Conversion shall have given the beginning and motion they will resist the call of the same grace and that they can be able to find in their hearts in their mouths and in their hands either reason or means for to hinder themselves to follow that which all those of their Communion shall have done here And after this will you doubt that the blessing of God who is never wanting to his promises will not accomplish in you fully that which he hath promised to those that believe in him by the mouth of his own Son when he tels them Search the Kingdome of God and his righteousness and all things shall be added unto you Will you doubt that in thus searching of his Kingdome you shall not find also your own And that Heaven will not likewise render unto you upon the Earth this temporal recompence for a token of that you shall have sought and which you shall receive in Heaven for eternity Yes Sir the Word of God deceives no man it is more firm and immovable than the Heaven and the Earth for the one and the other shall vanish away but one sole Iota of the Word uttered from the mouth of the Son of God shall not pass away When I tell you these things founded upon the Truth which he hath spoken unto us believe that this is he himself that addresses them to you by my mouth It is he himself that calls you It is he himself that stretcheth forth his hand towards you It is he himself that by his hand hath conducted you for this end to the place where you are Recollect again your self upon all the thoughts of your heart since the time your Majestie parted from hence to the time your Majestie returned back Think upon all that you have been willing to do and upon all that which it hath pleased God to do with you For he hath done all the things both what you see and what you suffer upon your Person and upon your Estate He hath put you into the Estate you are to make you understand his voyce and for to oblige you to say to him Lord what wilt thou that I do You have thought to be able to reascend upon your Throne by the means of those of your Subjects who appear'd to retain for you and for your Crown that fidelity to which a more antient Bond held them obliged more straitly than all others God would not have it so They had a design to bind your Conscience to the Lawes of their Reformation by an oath to observe the conditions of their Covenant and by abjuring your opinions that drew more near the Catholick Religion They hoped by this means that in conserving upon your head some Form at least apparent of the Royal Government under which they had so happily obeyed your Fathers for so many Ages they should avoyd the falling under the slavage of the Tyrannie which is called Cromwel's Commonwealth And that they should defend by this way the factiousness of their Religion from giving place to his Independency What is it come to God hath destroyed all their Counsels He hath routed all their Armies by the Arm of this False-prophet by whose mouth he convinces and confounds in the face of their Ministers by mouth and by writing the rules of their Covenant by the proper Maxims of their Reformation God hath delivered them into his hands and imposed upon them the yoke of his absolute domination They must now submit to the Lawes of his Independency and of his Common-wealth the name whereof serves for a Masque to his Tyrannie But God hath delivered you Sir and by a conduct of his Providence full of trembling and admiration he hath withdrawn your Sacred Person from a thousand dangers which threatned it from the fury and cruelty of this Monster who spared neither the force of Iron nor the value of Gold to find the means of violently taking away your life You have seen Sir the anger of God to descend upon your head who according to the terms of the Scripture hath loosned the Belts of Kings and bound their Reins with Cords You have seen his Arm armed with his rage to defeat your Armies Combating at their head you have done bravely with your hand and with your courage all that the generosity of a valiant and magnanimous Prince could do to associate Victory to the justice of your Arms. You have there shed your Blood and seen that of your faithful Subjects to stream through the fields covered with their bodies
grace the Kingdome of Jesus Christ. To these prayers which all the Angels and Saints which are in the Church in Heaven and in Earth make to God for your Majestie I joyn Sir my vows and supplications with this testimony of my devotion to your most humble service in a Subject which I have esteemed the most important and most worthy to gain me the honour of the good favour of your Majestie and that to stile my self SIR Of your Majestie the most humble most faithfull and most obedient Servant La Militiere AN ANSWER TO Monsieur 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 Fpistle to the King of Great-Brittain wherein he inviteth His Majesty to forsake the Church of England and to embrace the Roman Chatholick 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 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 teach you what it is to sound a Triumph before you have gain'd the Victory He was no fool that desired no other Epitaph on his Tomb than this Here lies the Author of this sentence Prurigo disput andi scabies Ecclesiae 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 Real Presence which no genuine Son of the Church of England did ever deny no nor your Adversary himself Christ sayd This is my Body what he sayd we do stedfastly believe he said not after this or that manner neque con neque suh 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 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 The Simonians and Menandrians and some other such Imps of Sathan unworthy the name of Christians did wholly 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 real but imaginary and phant astical 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 Darknes which evill God they sayd did make someCreatures of the Dreg or more feculent parts of the Matter which were evil and impure and among these Evil Creatuâ—…es they esteemed VVine which they called the Gaul of the Dragon For this cause not upon any other scruple they wholly abstained from the Cup or used water in the place of wine which Epiphanius recordeth among the Errors of the Ebionites and Tacians And St Augustine of the Aquarians Still we do 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 Neque ullus veterum disputat contra hunc errorem primis sexcentis Annis The first that are supposed by Bellarmine to have broached any Error in the Church about the Real presence were the Ichonomachi after 700 years Primi qui veritatem corporis Domini in Eucharistia in quaestionem vocarunt fuerint Ichonomachi post Annum Domini 700. 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 that In his judgment they art not to be numbred with those who deny the presence of Christ in the Eucharist We may well find different observations in those daies 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 the other 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 800 years 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 Blood Yet notwithstanding there were no Questions no Quarrells 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 on 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 presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament seems to have been mooved 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 grosse 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 Corporeal or Local presence and afterwards fell into another extreme of impanation on the other side the Pope and the Councill made no differrence between Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation they understood nothing of the spiritual or indivisible being of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the
Moreover whether the whole Body Blood of Christ be in every particle of the Bread and of the Cup and if it be then whether only 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 retain 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 â—…ines 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 partienlarly whether the quantity doth remain whether the other Accidents â—…o inâ—…ere in the quantity as their subject thâ—…t is whether an Accident can have an Aâ—…cident whether the Quantity of Christ's Body be there and whether it be thero after a quantitative manner with extension of Parts either extrinsecal or intrinsecal and whether the quantity of the Body of Christ be distinct anâ—… 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 pâ—…ace 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 doth the body of Christ continue Whosoever is but moderatly versed in your great Doctors must needs know that these questions are not the private doubts or debates of single Schoolmen but the common Garboils and general engâ—…gements of your whoâ—…e Schools Wherfore 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 oâ—…her differences First the detention of the Cup from the Laity meerâ—…y upon presumption of Concomitance first decreed in the Councill of Constance after the year 1400. Let what will become of Concomitance whiâ—…est we keep our selves to the Institution of Christ and the universal practice of the Primitive Church It was not for nothing that our Saviour did distinguish his Body from his blood 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 In one place he saith The Providence of God is marveilous in holy Scripture for Sâ—… Luke hath put these words do you this afâ—…er 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 dâ—…stributed 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 determin the contrary upon the ground of Concomitance that the Bread may be taken away if the Cup be given but both cannot be taken away together Can that be taken away which Christ â—…ath 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 eâ—… 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 ordained 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 belecve 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 Sâ—…crament 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 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 eternal 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 somthing But you pretend no such things The highest that you dare go is this As they that adored Christ when he 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 piâ—…ces Thus Faith is mincâ—…d into shreds and sâ—…un up into â—…icities more subtil than the Webs of Spiders Fidem minutis dissâ—…ant ambagibus 〈◊〉 quisque est lingua â—…quior Because curious wits cannot content themselves to touch hot Coals with Tongs but they must take them up with their naked Fingers nor to uâ—…prehend 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 nor by imagination The more inexcusable is their presumption to Anatomise Mysteries and to determine supernatural not reveled Truths upon their own heads which if they were revealed were not possible to be comprehended by mortal man As vain an attempt as if a Child should think to lade out all the water out of the Sea with a Cockleshell Secret things belong to the Lord our God but things revealed unto us and our Children for ever This is the reason why we rest in the words of Christ this is my body leaving the manner to him that made the sacrament we know it is sacramental and therefore esficacious because God was never wanting to his own Ordinances where man did not set a Barr against himself But to determine whether it be corporeally or spiritually I mean not only after the maner of a spirit but in a spirituall sense whether it be in the soul only