Protestants examining the Scriptures now but what would have held as well against the Command of our Saviour here to the Jews unless they can shew us a positive Institution of an Infallible Guide but all the Arguments from Reason and the imperfection of our Understanding are perfectly the same in both Cases The truth is all our Saviour's Preaching did suppose this for it had been a vain thing to Preach to People who had not abilities to understand And if we go further to the Preaching of the Apostles we shall find that they endeavoured to prove the truth of what they said out of the Scriptures by which they appealed to the Understanding of their Hearers and made them proper Judges of what they said as far as their own Salvation was concerned in it We see in Acts 17.11 The Bereans were commended as more noble than those of Thessalonica because they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether the things the Apostles preached were so or not The Apostle St. John commands Christians to try the Spirits that is to examine the pretences that any should make to the Spirit of God which supposes that their Understanding how fallible soever was sufficient to judge in these Matters In a word the Writers and Emissaries of the Church of Rome do themselves when they don't think of it in effect confess this for when they bring Scripture and other Arguments to persuade us to come over to their Church I would ask them are we proper Judges of these things or are we not Will our Faith be a true Faith that is founded upon these Scriptures or these Reasons that you here bring If it be so then we may understand for our selves and there is no necessity in order to true Faith of an Infallible Judge but if it be not so there ought to be then an end of Disputes for it 's in vain to Dispute where it 's supposed that we cannot understand or judge and all offering of Scripture or Reason to prove the truth of their Opinions is only affront and mockery But it may be it will be said Don't we see People differ about the Interpretation of Scripture some go one way and some another and yet all are consident of their own how can we be sure that we are in the right any more than they who are as confident in what they say as we are Now this Objection is founded upon this that we cannot have certainty of what is once Disputed which is contrary to the Common Opinion of Mankind who would have done Disputing if they thought they could not be certain when once Men differed from them This does indeed overthrow all Reason and Religion Some have ventured to Dispute the Being of God and many more the Truth of the Christian Religion and yet I hope we may be very certain of the Truth of both these But I would only urge at present this one Consideration Are all the World agreed about their Infallible Judge If not how can they be certain of that But to press this Matter a little more plainly they say for instance that we can't from Scripture be certain of the Divinity of our Saviour because the Socinian's a small number of Men dispute that Matter But the same Socinians deny their Infallible Judge and therefore that must at least be as uncertain as the other And not only the Socinians but all Protestants deny it which must make it still more uncertain and not only all the Protestants but the Greek Armenian Aethiopian Churches a vast Body of Men which must still add to the uncertainty and not only all these but all that in any Age or Nation have ever differed from the Church of Rome for whoever differs from them must deny their Infallibility and consequently this must have been Disputed not only as much as any one Point but as much as all the rest together This I think is a demonstrative Answer to this whole way of Arguing and shews the manifest Absurdity of it for it makes things uncertain because they are Disputed and yet makes the most Disputed thing in all the World the Foundation of all the certainty they have I have been the longer in examining this Point of the Infallibility of your Church as being that which is the great support of all your other Errors I now proceed to speak something to the particulars I promised and first I shall begin with Transubstantiation which is the first thing Renounced in the Test The Sense of the Church of England in this Matter seems to be this That tho' Believers in the faithful and due receiving of this Holy Sacrament are made Partakers of the Benefits of the Death of Christ that is of the breaking of his Body and the shedding his Blood and so may be properly enough said to be partakers of his Body and Blood yet that which they take into their Mouths is really but Bread and Wine but Bread and Wine set apart for a holy Use to represent the breaking of the Body and the shedding of the Blood of our Blessed Saviour and therefore in a Sacramental sense may be called his Body and Blood tho' in truth and reality they are but Bread and Wine Both Sides do in some Sense own a real Presence of Christ in this Sacrament but this one thing if observed will sufficiently shew the difference That Protestants say that in the devout and holy Use of this Sacrament Christ will be present with his Grace and Assistance to the Souls of good People but that the Things which appear before us which we eat and drink are not Christ but Bread and Wine Those of the Church of Rome on the other side say That the Thing which lies before them which they put into their Mouths tho' before Consecration they are Bread and Wine yet upon pronouncing those Words This is my Body and this is my Blood they lose their own Nature and Substance of Bread and Wine and become very Christ the very same Christ that was Born of the Virgin Mary and that suffered upon the Cross And therefore pay them the same Divine Honour and Worship as if God or Christ did truly and openly appear before them Now the whole ground of this Dispute lies in the Words of the Institution This is my Body and this is my Blood They say that the Words ought to be understood in the plain literal Sense we say they ought to be understood as used by Christ in his Instituting a Sacrament that is appointing one thing to be a representation and a memorial of another and which because it does represent may very well be called by the Name of that Thing which is represented by it which we think to be a very natural easy way of speaking and agreeable as to that present occasion so to other terms of Speech of the same nature which had been in use among those People to whom our Saviour spoke But in particular the time in which
Transubstantiation For I would ask Supposing a Man should Consecrate with the Words of St. Luke This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood would that change the Wine not to say the Cup into the very Blood of Christ Certainly it would not do it by force of those Words for they intimate no such thing and it is not unlikely but those were the very Words our Saviour spake for not only St. Luke uses them but St. Paul and that upon a solemn occasion when it concerned him much to give a true Representation of this Sacrament as you may see 1 Cor. Chap. 11. The occasion of his mentioning the Institution of this Sacrament was very great Irreverence which some were guilty of in receiving of it indeed such as it was almost impossible for them to be guilty of had they believed what the Church of Rome now believes about it it was therefore very necessary that the Apostle should speak clearly and plainly out in this matter and we see he does solemnly usher in what he says with the Authority of Christ For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you in c. And then he repeats the Words as St. Luke does and not only so but calls the other part of the Sacrament Bread near Ten times in that Chapter 4. The Last Argument I shall make use of upon this Head is this That the Doctrine of the Church of Rome upon another account does not agree with the Words of our Blessed Saviour The Opinion of that Church is That under each Species as they call it whole Christ is contained Body Blood Soul and Divinity so that both are but just the very same Thing in nothing different but in outward appearance which only deceives our Senses And it is upon this Opinion chiefly that they ground the denyal of the Cup to the People because say they should they have the Cup they would have no more but just the very same thing they had in the other Kind And supposing their Opinion true the Argument may for any thing I know have some force in it but then they ought not to deny us leave to Argue the other way That that Opinion must needs be false which makes our Saviour guilty of a great Absurdity in appointing Two Kinds but both really the same thing and one of them perfectly unnecessary But that which I would chiefly take notice of is That this Doctrine of theirs contradicts the Words of our Saviour for what they make but One Thing he plainly makes Two and calls them by Two different Names The one he calls his Body the other he calls his Blood which supposes them to be Two different Things as plain as Words can express them They say indeed That in the Glorified Body of Christ the Body and Blood cannot be separated and therefore were the Words to be taken in such a sense as to consider them separated they would contain a great Absurdity so that wherever the one is the other by concomitancy must be there too But who told them that the Glorified Body of Christ is in the Sacrament The Words of the Institution intimate no such thing but speak of his Body given and his Blood shed which certainly was separate from his Body But however this is arguing from Reason against the Words and is just the very same thing which they condemn as Heretical in us And if this be once allowed they must throw off the whole Doctrine for we can shew them Ten times as many Absurdities in the Doctrine of Transustantiation as they can in supposing the Body and Blood of Christ to subsist separately In short either we must stick to the very Words of our Blessed Saviour or we must not if we must their Opinion must be false which makes what our Saviour calls Two Things to be but One if we must not stick to the very Words but interpret them according to right Reason and other Places of Scripture they then give up their Cause To conclude this Head What Reason can there be imagined why our Saviour should in a solemn manner at different Times and under different Names give the very same thing call the one his Body and the other his Blood when according to the Nature of the Thing he might as well have inverted the Names and have called that his Blood which he calls his Body and so on the other side There cannot I believe be any Reason thought of but only this That the one Kind the Bread was very proper to represent the breaking of his Body the other the Wine to represent the shedding of his Blood which is the very thing that we would have for then there is a sufficient Reason for these Names without any Bodily Presence at all I have been the longer in considering the Sense of the Scripture in this Matter because your Writers commonly boast more of the Scripture being for you in this Case than in any other Controversies betwixt us And I think I have proved more than I need have done in proving that the Sense your Church puts upon the Words of our Saviour cannot be the true Sense of them It being sufficient in a Matter of this Nature which is loaded with so many Absurdities to have shewed that they did fairly admit of another Interpretation But having so fully Confuted this Doctrine out of the Scriptures I am now more at liberty to shew you the gross Absurdities and the monstrous Contradictions that are involved in it tho' in truth it is so full fraught with Contradictions that it 's a hard matter to know where to begin I shall therefore content my self just to repeat some of them which are ready Collected to my hand by a Great Divine of our own Chilligworth p. 165. That there should be Accidents without a Subject that is That there should be length and nothing long breadth and nothing broad thickness and nothing thick whiteness and nothing white roundness and nothing round weight and nothing heavy sweetness and nothing sweet moisture and nothing moist fluidness and nothing flowing many actions and no agent many passions and no patient that is that there should be a long broad thick white round heavy sweet moist flowing active passive nothing That Bread should be turned into the Substance of Christ and yet not any thing of that Bread become any thing of Christ neither the Matter nor the Form nor the Accidents of Bread be made either the Matter or the Form or the Accidents of Christ That Bread should be turned into nothing and at the same time with the same Action be turned into Christ and yet that Christ should not be nothing That the same thing at the same time should have it's just dimensions and just distance of it's Parts one from another and at the same time should not have it but all its Parts together in the felf-same Point That the Body of Christ which is much greater should
our Saviour Instituted this Sacrament was when they had been eating the Passover which was a Feast much of the same Nature among the Jews that this is among Christians that was appointed by God in memory of thier Deliverance when the Angel of God destroyed the First-born of all the Egyptians and this in memory of that much greater Blessing to Christians by the Death and Sufferings of Jesus Christ As therefore the Master of the Family when he distributed the Paschal Lamb was to say This is the Lord 's Passover as being Instituted in memory of the Lord 's passing over the Houses of the Israelites so now being to Institute a new Sacrament for his Church of Christians as that was for the Jews he appoints a memorial of the breaking of his Body and the shedding of his Blood and in the very same figure of Speech that the other was This is my Body or this is the Lord's Body could be no strange form of Speech to them who just before had heard him say This is the Lord's Passever and who had been constantly used to that form of Speech And accordingly we do not find that they were in any difficulty or surprize in the Matter which they could not have avoided if the Words are to be understood just as they sound for it was a Matter more than a little amazing especially to those who never had been used to such sort of Mysteries that their Master should take a piece of Bread in his Hand and with speaking a few Words should make it become without any apparent change that very Body which was then standing before them That he should hold his own Body whole and entire in his own Hand that they should put the same one Body whole and entire into each of their Mouths that they should eat him first and drink him afterwards and yet that he should stand by them untouched all the while besides the very uncouthness and horror of the Institution to eat their Master a Person whom they loved and had reason to love and to drink Human Blood these are things one would think should at least surprize them a little and make them ask some Questions about it for they are indeed strange monstrous Absurdities whereas the sense we give to the Words is natural and easy especially to the Persons to whom they were spoken as being used to such expressions and who had heard the like but just before in a like Case I have this one thing more to add in this Matter That as the Jewish Sacraments were Signs and Representations as well as ours and so were commonly called by the Name of what they represented so the inward Blessings conveyed to them was the same that is conveyed by the Christian Sacraments and therefore the Apostle tells us they did all eat of the same spiritual meat and drank of the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10.3,4 Now here is altogether as plain evidence that the Jews did eat and drink Christ before he was Born as the Christians do since But that is a way of Transubstantiation which those of the Church of Rome don't yet acknowledge and we may conclude that if the Apostle had known any thing of that Doctrine among Christians he would have been more wary in his Expressions and not have weakned the credit of it by using the same sort of Words where nothing of the same thing was meant From hence we may give an account of that large Discourse of our Saviour in the Sixth Chapter of St. John My Flesh is Meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed c. For if he were Meat and Drink to the Jews so long before he was born he might in the same manner be Meat and Drink to them still without the portentous way of putting his Body into their Mouths Christ is said to be a Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World and in the same sense was Meat and Drink to all good People from the Foundation of the World that is the benefits of his Death reach backward even to the beginning of the World though he were put to death several Thousand Years after And they are the Benefits of his Death which are the great Food of Souls that which gives and preserves Life in them as the Life of the Body is kept up by Meat and Drink And this suggests another Consideration That we may know what sort of eating this is if we only consider what sort of Life is kept up by it The eating and drinking of a Body is proper to keep up the Life of a Body but it 's only the inward Grace and Assistance of God that keeps up the Life of a Soul and therefore we then eat and drink for that when we do by Faith or any other method take in that Spiritual nourishment In a Word Our Saviour says He gave his flesh for the life of the World and we may then not improperly be said to eat his Flesh when we receive in that Spiritual Life and Nourishment procured by it And that this is the Sense is apparent from several expressions in that Discourse as in v. 35. And Jesus saith unto them I am the Bread of Life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst in which words there are Two things which directly contradict this gross sense of eating his very Body First that he alters here the expression of Eating and so explains himself whosoever comes to me and whosoever believes in me which shews that this Blessing comes by Believing in Christ and not by gross carnal Eating Secondly The Blessing it self is such as does not belong to all that only externally receive the Sacrament but to such only as come to Christ with true Faith as may be seen not only in this Verse but every where through that Discourse thus v. 51. If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever And v. 53. 54. Verily I say unto you except ye eat the Flesh of he Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no life in you whosoever eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day Which words are very true if understood of the feeding our Souls by the Benefits received from the Body and Blood of Christ but cannot be understood of external eating of him in the Sacrament for very wicked Men often do that according to the Opinion of the Romish Church and are only the worse instead of being the better for it This I believe is abundantly sufficient to shew that the Sense we put upon the Sacramental words This is my Body c. is natural and easie agreeable to the design of a Sacrament and other expressions of the same kind in Scripture and if it be so we need not be solicitous to prove any thing