Saint and yet not the benefits or effects As if Christs flesh and blood could be in a mans body without his benefit When he hath promised that he that eateth him shall live by him Yet see the measures of their faith and Church Saith Aquinas 3. q. 80. a. 3. ad 2. Vnless perhaps an Infidel intend to Receive that which the Church giveth though he have not true faith about other Articles or about this Sacrament then he may receive sacramentally CHAP. VI. The fourth Argument This Miraculous Transubstantiation is expresly contrary to the Word of God in Scripture Arg. 4. THe Papists say that there is no bread after the words of Consecration Gods word saith There is Bread after the Consecration Therefore the Papists speak contrary to the Word of God I. In 1 Cor. 11. It is called expresly BREAD after consecration no less than three times in three verses together 26 27 28. For as oft as ye eat this Bread and Drink this cup ye shew the Lords death till he come Wherefore whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the Body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup Here they that call for express words of Scripture for our doctrine without our consequences may see their own faith expresly contradicted and our opposition justified The Holy Ghost here expresly calleth it Bread And yet no expresness nor evidence will satisfie them P. By Bread is meant that which was Bread before or else that which nourisheth the soul as Bread doth the body And so it is metonymically only called Bread as Christs Flesh is called Bread in Joh. 6. R. Why then do you call for express texts of Scripture as our proof when that expresness signifieth nothing with you but you can say It is a metonymie or a metaphor at your pleasure But you say so against notorious Evidence The Apostle calleth it Bread so often over and over as if he had foreseen your inhumane heresie He calleth it The Bread which is to be Eaten joyned with Drinking the Cup never once calling either of them the Flesh or Blood of Christ but as he reciteth Christs words which he expoundeth Yea he telleth us that eating this bread and drinking this cup is to shew the Lords death till he come where he calleth us to look back at Christs death as past in our Commemoration and to look forward to his personal coming as future but never telleth us that we must kill Christ and eat him our selves when we have made him nor that his body is there present under the accidents of Bread and Wine But the rest of the Scriptures as expresly justifie our doctrine 1 Cor. 10.15 The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion or Communication of the blood of Christ And the Bread which we break is it not the communion or participation of the body of Christ Here it is the Cup and the Bread after Consecration if the Holy Ghost may be believed And in the next words the Apostle repeateth it in his reason For we being Many are One Bread and One Body For we all partake of one Bread or Loaf Is not here express proof So Act. 20.7 When we came together to break Bread And v. 11. He ascending and breaking bread and eating c. Here it is twice more called Bread after the Consecration which ever went before the Breaking So Act. 2.42 46. It is twice more called Breaking of Bread And what else can the recitation of Christs institution mean 1 Cor. 11.23 24. Panem accepisse fregisse to have taken Bread and having given thanks to have broken What is it that he brake It s non-sence if it have no accusative case that it respects And plain Grammatical construction tells us then that it must be that before mentioned What he Took he blessed and brake and gave But he took Bread and the Cup The same is in Mat. 26 26 27. and the other Evangelists II. The Scriptures expresly Act. 2 c. make the Killing of Christ and drawing his blood to be the heynous sin of the Jews for which some Repented and others were cast off Therefore it is not to be believed that Christ did first kill or tear himself and shed his own blood or that his disciples did kill him or tear his flesh and shed his blood before the Jews did it And if they tore his flesh and drank his blood and yet killed him not the event altered not the fact The Jews did but break his flesh and shed his blood If you fly to a good intention Paul will come in for some further excuse for his persecution III. 1 Cor. 10.21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of Devils Ye cannot be partakers of the Lords table and of the table of Devils Here note 1. That the same phrase is used of the Participation of the Lords mysteries and the Devils But it was not the flesh and blood or the substance of Devils which the Idolaters ever intended to partake of but only their sacrifices 2. It is here called only the Table and the Cup and not the flesh and the blood 3. It is said that They could not partake of both whereas according to the Papists doctrine if a man should partake of the Idols sacrifice in the morning and of the Lords Table in the evening without repentance he should really partake of Christs own flesh and blood which the Text saith cannot be done P. It meaneth only You cannot Lawfully or you ought not to partake of both but not that it is impossible or never done R. No doubt but it meaneth that They ought not or cannot Lawfully but that 's not all The text plainly meaneth You cannot have communion with both You may take the bread and wine at your peril but you cannot partake of it as a sacramental feast which God prepareth you and so partake of Christ therein And the same is said expounding this 2 Cor. 6.15 What concord hath Christ with Belial and what agreement hath the temple of God with Idols Intimating that Communion with God and Idols Christ and Belial are so far inconsistent But by the Papists doctrine an Idolater and Son of Belial may partake of the very substance of Christs body and blood into his body as verily as he partaketh of his meat and drink IV. The Scripture teacheth us expresly to judge of sensible things by sense Luk. 24.39 Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have And when he had thus spoken he shewed them his hands and his feet And v. 43 he did eat before them to confirm their faith But they could have no more sensible evidence of any of this than we have of the being of Bread and Wine or some
order of nature Thou blindest the providence of God himself as if he had made mens lying and deceitful senses to be the Lords in understanding honouring dispensing and enjoying all his works Is not the whole Condition of man subadministred by these And after We may not call those senses into question lest Christ himself must deliberate of their certainty or must distrust them Lest it may be said that he falsly saw Satan cast down from Heaven or falsly heard the voyce of his Father testifying of him or was deceived when he touched Peters Wives Mother or perceived not a true taste of the Wine which he Consecrated in the memorial of his blood Many such places are in Tertullian 4. Origen is large and plain to the same purpose in Matth. 25. calling it Bread and a Typical and Symbolical Body which profiteth none but the worthy receivers and that according to the proportion of their faith and which no wicked man doth eat c. Many more such places Albertinus vindicateth 5. Cyprians Epistle to Magnus is too large this way to be recited As Even the Sacrifices of the Lord declare the Christian Vnanimity connexed by firm and inseparable love For when the Lord calleth Bread his body or his body bread made up of many united grains c. And when he calleth the Wine his Blood c. So Epist ad Caecil 6. Eusebius Caesar demonstr Evang. l. 1. c. 10. Celebrating daily the memorial of the body and blood of Christ Seeing then we receive the memorial of this Sacrifice to be perfected on the Table by the symbols of his body and most precious blood And l. 8. He delivered to us to use Bread as the symbol of his own body 7. Athanasius's words are recited by Albertinus l. 2. p. 400 401 c. 8. Basil de Spir. Sanct. saith Which of the Saints hath left us in Writing the words of invocation when the Bread of the Eucharist and the Cup of blessing are shewed 9. Ephrem in Biblioth Photii p. 415. Edit August saith The body of Christ which believers receive loseth not his sensible substance and is not separated from the intelligible grace And ad eos qui filii Dei c. Take notice diligently how taking Bread in his hands he blessed it and brake it for a figure of his immaculate body and he blessed the Cup and gave it to his Disciples as a figure of his pretious blood 10. Cyrillus vel Johan Hierosol Catech. Mystag calls the bread indeed Christs body but fully expounds himself de Chrysmate Cat. 3. pag. 235. For as the Bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is no more Common Bread but is the Body of Christ So also this Holy Oyntment is no more meer Oyntment nor if any one had rather so speak common now it is consecrated but it is a Gift or Grace which causeth the presence of Christ and the Holy Ghost that is of his Divinity As the Oyntment is Grace or the Holy Ghost just so the Bread is the body of Christ as he saith after Cat. 4. It is not only what we see Bread and Wine but more 11. Hierom cont Jovinian l. 2. The Lord as a type or figure of his blood offered not water but wine 12. Ambrose de Sacram. l. 4. c. 4. This therefore we assert How that which is Bread can yet be the body of Christ And If Christs speech had so much force that it made that begin to be which was not how much more is it operative that the things that were both Be and be changed into something else And As thou hast drunk the similitude of death so thou drinkest the similitude of pretious blood 13. Theodoret in Dialog Immutab dealeth with an Eutychian Heretick who defended his Error by pleading that the bread in the Eucharist was changed into the body of Christ To whom saith Theodoret The Lord who hath called that meat and bread which is naturally his Body and who again called himself a Vine did honour the visible signs with the appellation of his body and blood not having changed their Nature but added Grace to Nature And in Dialog 2. In confus he saith The divine Mysteries are signs of the true body And again answering the Eutychians pretence of a change he saith By the net which thou hast made art thou taken ☞ For even after the Consecration the Mystical signs change not their nature For they remain in all their first SVBSTANCE figure and form and are Visible and to be Handled as before But they are understood to be the things which they were made and are believed and venerated as made that which they are believed to be Would you have plainer words 14. Gelasius cont Nest Eutych saith Verily the Sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we take is a Divine thing for which and by which we are made partakers of the divine nature ☞ And yet it ceaseth not to be the Substance and Nature of Bread and Wine And certainly the Image and similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the action of the Mysteries What can be plainer 15. Cyril Alexandr in John 4. cap. 14. saith He gave to his believing disciples fragments of Bread saying Take Eat This is my body 16. Facundus lib. 9. cap. 5. pag. 404. as cited by P. Molin de Novitate Papismi We call that the body and blood of Christ which is the Sacrament of his body in the consecrated Bread and Cup. ☞ Not that the Bread is properly his body and the Cup his blood but because they contain the Mysterie of his body and blood But I am so weary of these needless Transcriptions that I will trouble my self and the Reader with no more Albertinus will give him enow more who desireth them And no doubt but with a wet finger they can blot out all these and teach us to deny the sense of words as well as our senses D. But you said also that the Present Church and its Tradition is against Transubstantiation as well as the Antient How prove you that R. Just as I prove that the Protestants are against it By the present Church I mean the far greater part of all the Christians in the world The Greeks with the Muscovites the Armenians the Syrians the Copties the Abassines and the Protestants and all the rest who make up about twice or thrice as many as the Papists That they hold that there is true Bread and Wine after Consecration all impartial Historians testifie both Papists and Protestants and their own several Countreymen and also Travellers who have been among them And their Liturgies even those that are in the Bibliotheca Patrum put out by themselves do testifie for those Countreys where they are used Though as Bishop Vsher hath detected by one words addition they have shamelesly endeavoured to corrupt the Ethiopick Liturgy about the Real presence But I need no more proof of that which
body and that the eaten body turned into the substance of his eating body And yet all was but one XI It was a Miracle that Christs Eaten body being not dead but living with a humane soul should be broken and eaten by him and his disciples and yet feel no pain by it XII It was a Miracle that his whole body was on the Cross and yet part of it in the disciples bellies at that time or at least before that eaten by them XIII It was a Miracle or contradiction that Christs eaten body now nourisheth not the flesh of any man and yet did nourish the flesh of the disciples before his death Or if it did not nourish them it was a Miracle that what they eat and drank then did not nourish them or Christ what he eat and drank XIV It was a Miracle that the whole body of Christ should arise and live and ascend to Heaven when the disciples had eaten it XV. It is a Miracle that every Receiver eateth the whole body of Christ and not a part and yet that he hath but one body or that they eat each a part without dividing him XVI It is a Miracle that as soon as the species of Bread and Wine perish or cease in the Eater Christs body and blood ceaseth to be in him and this without his detriment XVII It is a Miracle that there is such a local distance between the consecrated bread and wine all over the world and yet no such distance between the parts of Christs body and yet that bread to be his body XVIII It is a Miracle that bread and wine is Annihilated or cease every Mass and yet that the quantity of corporeal matter in the whole world is no whit diminished or else that those four words can so annihilate and diminish the matter of the world XIX It is a Miracle that Christs body and blood increase not when so many millions of parcells of bread and wine are turned into it XX. It is a Miracle that Christs body and blood is not diminished when by the Corruption of the species of bread and wine it vanisheth away XXI It is a Miracle that Christs body and blood should be so received into the bowels of a wicked man and yet not be any way defiled by his sin nor by his bodily uncleanness XXII It is a Miracle that a Baker dispositively and a Priest effectually can make his own God and eat him when they have done XXIII It is a Miracle that when Worms are bred of that which was bread and wine these worms are really generated of nothing or created or if as some say the bread and wine do substantially return again and breed them that is another a double miracle XXIV And it is a Miracle that the Corporeal matter of the world should by these Worms be daily increased out of nothing or out of meer accidents that have no substance XXV It is a Miracle that men may be poysoned by the Sacramental Elements as ingredients in the mixture and yet that they are no substance XXVI It is a Miracle or Contradiction that when flesh and blood formally such enter not into the Kingdom of God but Glorified bodies are all spiritual bodies though not Spirits and therefore not flesh and blood Yet Christs body in the Sacrament should be truly and properly flesh and blood and yet the same with his glorified body which is not flesh and blood which is the Papists doctrine and the bread turned into such flesh XXVII It is a Miracle that the same Body which in Heaven is brighter in Glory than the Sun and exalted above Angels should yet shew no signs of Glory on the Altar in the Cup in the hand mouth or belly of him that taketh it but all its Glory be so hid XXVIII It is a Miracle or Contradiction that Christs Humiliation should be past and his whole Body Glorified and yet that to be torn with the teeth of a wicked man to be eaten by Mice Rats or Dogs to go into the filthy guts to be trodden in the dirt should be neither painful nor any diminution of the Glory of that same body Indeed his body on the Cross might be broken and his blood spilt and trodden on because he was a sacrifice for sin and it was the time of his Voluntary Humiliation But now for the suffering of death he is crowned with Glory and Honour Heb. 2.9 7. XXIX It is a Miracle that the Living Body of our Glorified Redeemer should give no evidence or sign of life neither stir nor speak nor have breath pulse warmth or other property of life appearing XXX It is a Miracle at least that flesh should have none of the common notes or properties of flesh not to be made of food of blood and chyme not to consist of the fibrae which flesh consisteth of not to have the colour taste odour or other such accidents of flesh And that Blood should have none of these notifying accidents of blood XXXI It is a Miracle or Contradiction that Christs Flesh was Broken before it was broken sacrificed before it was sacrificed I mean really broken and sacrificed at his Supper when yet he was whole and not really sacrificed till he was nailed to the Cross And so that his blood was really and properly shed in his Supper and yet no skin broken nor his blood really shed till his side was pierced on the Cross And that he that was but once offered and sacrificed should yet be offered and sacrificed once on one day and another time on another day Here are one and thirty Miracles or Contradictions Let us hear some of the Aggravations of them as worthy to be considered I. It is a Miracle of these Miracles that there should be as many Miracle workers as Priests in the world How many thousand are they in France alone And so in many other Countreys Whereas in Christs own time they were comparatively but few II. That the Pope or any Prelate can make a Miracle worker when he please yea a thousand as if the Holy Ghost were at his will III. It is a Miracle of these Miracles that a Simonist who buyeth the Priesthood with money doth buy the Holy Ghost to work Miracles for that money which Simon Magus was condemned for thinking possible For the Papists hold that the Consecration of a Simoniacal Priest transubstantiateth IV. It is a Miracle that all this power of Miracles should be given to flagitious wicked men Adulterers Murderers Drunkards c. V. It is a Miracle that all these men can work Miracles at their own will and pleasure at any hour whereas the Apostles had not the Spirit at command and could not do it when they would VI. It is a Miracle that Miracles should be as common as Masses or the Eucharistical worshipping of God not only on every Lords Day in all Church-assemblies but any day or hour else in the Week And so Miracles be as ordinary almost as to
blood which is shed for you 1 Cor. 11.25 This Cup is the new Testament in my blood And here no man denyeth a double Trope at least no man expoundeth it that the Cup or the Wine was the New Testament it self And yet it is as expresly said as it is that the Bread is the Body it self How then will they prove that one is spoken properly and the other figuratively III. There is no more found in these words to assert the Bread to be Christs Body than is found in a multitude of such phrases in Scripture asserting things which all men expound otherwise As in Joh. 15.1 I am the Vine and my Father is the husbandman Joh. 10.7 9. I am the door Joh. 10.14 I am the good Shepherd and know my Sheep Psal 22.6 I am a worm and no man which being a prophesie of Christ a Heretick imitating you might deny Christs humanity 1 Cor. 10.4 That Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 12.27 Ye are the body of Christ Mat. 5.13 14. Ye are the Salt of the earth Ye are the lights of the World Joh. 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are Life Abundance such are in the Scripture as All flesh is grass Christ is the Lamb of God the Lyon of the Tribe of Juda the bright Morning Star the head Corner Stone c. And it is yet more fully satisfactory that the Hebrew constantly putteth is for signifieth as you may find in all the old Testament having no other word so fit to express signifying by And as Christ spake after that manner so the New Testament ordinarily imitateth As Daniel and the Revelation agree in saying of the Visions This is such or such a thing instead of this signifieth it So Christ Matth. 13.21 22 23 37 38 39. He that soweth is the Son of man the field is the world the good seed are the Children of the Kingdom the tares are the children of the wicked one the enemy is the Devil the Harvest is the end The reapers are the Angels And thus ordinarily IV. Yea the same kind of phrase used before in the Passeover teacheth us how to expound this Exod. 12.11 Ye shall eat it in haste It is the Lords Passeover vers 27. It is the sacrifice of the Lords Passeover V. Yea the ordinary way and phrase of Christs teaching may yet farther put us out of doubt For he usually taught by Parables and expresseth his sense by such assertions As Matth. 13.3 Behold a sower went out to sow c. Luk. 15.11 12. A certain man had two sons and the younger said c. Luk. 12.16 The ground of a certain Rich man c. Luk. 16.19 There was a certain Rich man c. Mat. 21.28 A certain man had two sons c. Vers 33. There was a certain housholder which planted a Vineyard c. The Gospel aboundeth with such instances which teach us how to interpret these words of Christ VI. But most certainly all those forementioned texts teach it us which expresly call it Bread after the Consecration If we will not believe the Holy Ghost himself who so frequently calleth it bread it is in vain to alledge any text of Scripture in the Controversie Now to feign a course of ordinary Miracles Greater and more than Christs and this to every Priest how ignorant and impious soever to pretend that every Pope and Bishop can for money sell the Holy Ghost or the Gift of Miracles in Ordination and all this when no eye seeth the Miracles when it is confessed that Angels cannot naturally see it yea when all mens senses perceive the contrary and all this because that Christ said This is my Body while abundance such sayings in Scripture yea the words about the Cup it self are confessed to be tropical and when the Scripture expresly telleth us that there is Bread Judge whether it be possible for Satan to have put a greater scorn upon the Christian faith or a greater scandal before the enemies of it or a greater hinderance to the Worlds Conversion than to tell them you must renounce not only your Humanity but all common sense if you will be Christians and be saved or suffered to enjoy your estates and lives VII Lastly It is ordinary with their subtilest Schoolmen to confess that this their doctrine of Transubstantiation cannot be proved from Scripture and that they believe it only because their Church saith it which must be believed and because that by the same spirit which wrote the Scripture the Church is taught thus to expound it So that all their faith of this is by them resolved into a phanatick pretence of Inspiration As I have elsewhere shewed out of Durandus Paludanus Scotus Ockam Quodl 6. li. 5. q. 31. Rada vol. 4. Cont. 7. a. 1. pag. 164 165. And no General Council ever determined it till that at Rome under Innoc. 3. Where saith Matth. Paris many decrees were proposed or brought in by the Pope which some liked and some disliked And this was 1215 years after Christs birth And Stephanus Aeduensis is the first in whom the name of Transubstantiation is found about the year 1100. CHAP. VIII Arg. 6. From the Nature of a Sacrament Arg. 6. THat Doctrine which by consequence denyeth the Lords Supper to be a true Sacrament is false The Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation by consequence denyeth the Lords Supper to be a true Sacrament Therefore the Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation is false The Major I know no man that will deny that we have now to deal with The Minor needeth no other proof than the common definition of a Sacrament and Christs own description of this Sacrament in the Scripture I. Aquinas concludeth 3. q. 60. a. 1. that a Sacrament is a sign and a. 2. that it is a sign of a thing sacred as it sanctifieth men and a. 3. that it is a Rememorative sign of Christs passion a demonstrative sign of Gods Grace and a prognosticating sign of future Glory And a. 4. that it must be Res sensibilis a sensible thing it being natural to man to come to the knowledge of things intelligible by things sensible and the Sacrament signifieth to man spiritual and intelligible Goods and a. 5. that they must be things of Divine determination c. But 1. If the Bread and Wine be gone there is nothing left to be a sign a Real sensible sign to lead us to the knowledge of spiritual and intelligible things If they say that the species of Bread and Wine is the sensible sign what mean they by that cheating word species Not the specifying form or matter but only the outward appearance And is it a true or a false appearance If True then there is Bread and Wine If false it is a false sign And what is that false appearance which God maketh a Sacrament of It is plainly nothing but the Accidents of Bread and Wine without the substance But 1. When they take the Cup from the
Laity and deny them half the Sacrament sure there are then no Accidents of Wine Is there either Quantity Colour Smell Taste c. of Wine They will not say it So that here is no sensible sign as to one half 2. And herein they deal far more inhumanely with us than the Infidels themselves For when they plead against Christ and Scripture they grant that the common principles and Notitiae which all mankind acknowledge are the certain unquestionable light of Nature But the Papists deny not only the Notitias communes but common sense It is nothing with them to damn all the world that will not believe contradictions They say that the Quantity of Nothing endued with the Qualities the Actions the Passion the Relations the quando ubi situs of nothing is the Sacramental sign Inhumane contradiction 1. Gassendus and others say truly that an Accident is not properly Res but Modus Rei vel Qualitas as he calleth it 2. Quantity doth not Really differ a re quanta and to say The Length Breadth Profundity of Nothing is a notorious contradiction And so it is of the other Accidents There is no Real sensible sign and therefore no Sacrament where there is nothing but the quantity colour taste smell c. of Nothing 3. And they cannot they dare not say that Christs Real Flesh and Blood is the Sacramental sign For 1. It is not sensible 2. It should be then the sign of it self The sign and the thing signified cannot be the same II. The very substantiality or corporeity of the Bread and Wine as such is part of the sign As Christ saith Behold and handle me a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see me have So he taketh Corporeal bread and wine in their sight and breaketh it and poureth it out and giveth it them to see to feel to taste to eat that they may know it is true bread and wine the signs of his True Body and Blood So that to deny the Corporeity is to deny Christs Corporeity in its signs and tendeth to the old Heresie of them that held that Christ had but a phantastical body or was not indeed Crucified but seemed so to be They teach Hereticks to argue The sign was no Real substance Therefore neither the thing signified III. The nutritive use of the bread and wine was another part of the sign as all confess As bread and wine are the Nutriment of the body and life of man so is Christ crucified meritoriously and Christ glorified efficiently the life of the soul And he that denyeth the Nutritive sign denyeth the Sacrament But it is not the false appearance or phantasm or accidents of bread and wine that are the natural nourishers of man Therefore he that denyeth the nourishing substance denyeth the Real sensible Sacramental sign Saith Bellarmin de Euchar. l. 3. c. 23. In the Eucharist we receive not corporal food that the flesh may be thence nourished and made fat but only to signifie inward refection So that he acknowledged this to be part of the Sacramental sign So Gregor Valent. saith that The chief and essential signification of this Sacrament is that which by external nourishment is signified the internal spiritual refection of the soul by the body of Christ So that denying the nourishing sign is destroying the essence of the Sacrament IV. The breaking of the Bread and pouring out the Wine is confessedly another part of the Sacramental sensible sign But 1. When there is no Wine there is no pouring it out 2. And if there be no Bread neither there is no breaking it Can that be broken which is not They that deny as the Papists do that the Bread is broken saying that only the Quantity of Nothing is broken deny the sensible Sacramental sign And here I may note that we do not well to contend with them for denying the Cup only to the Laity and granting them only the Bread when indeed they grant neither but deny them both There is say they no more Bread than Wine but only a false appearance of it V. Lastly The Apostle 1 Cor. 10.16 17. sheweth that one Sacramental use of the Bread was to signifie the Vnity of Christians who are one Bread and one Body as one Loaf is made of many Corns But that cannot be One which is Nothing Ens Vnum Verum convertuntur To say with Greg. Valent. and Bellarmine that because it was Once bread and one bread therefore the accidents of it remaining now signifie that we are one bread is but to say that There was once a fit sign but then there wanted the form Now after Consecration there is no Sacramental sign but yet there is a Sacramental form And in what Matter is that form Doubtless it can be no where but in the Brain or Mind of man That is man can Remember that once he saw Bread This is the species of bread in his Intellect This species is the sign And so we have found out another sense of the species of bread than many think on viz. It is that which is called The species intentionalis or the Idea or conception of bread in a mans fantasie and mind And so indeed the Sacrament is with them an invisible thing for it is only in mens minds There is no Sacrament on the Altar but in the thoughts And so who hath a Sacrament and who not we know not And a man may by thinking make a Sacrament when he will CHAP. IX Of the Novelty of Transubstantiation R. I Once thought to have next proved out of the Current of Antiquity the Novelty of this inhumane doctrine of the Papists and that the Antients commonly confessed that there was true Bread and Wine remaining in the Sacrament after Consecration But 1. I should but tempt and weary ordinary Readers who neither need any such arguments having Sense and Scripture to give them satisfaction nor are able to try them For it is an indirect kind of dealing to expect that the unlearned or those that are strangers to the Writings of the Antients should believe this or that to be their mind and sayings meerly because I tell them so And if they read the plainest words they know not whether I rightly recite them but by believing me And it is as unreasonable on the other side that the Papists should expect either by their Citations or their general Affirmations that the Readers should believe them that the Antients were for Transubstantiation Till men can both read the Authors themselves and try the Copies they can have no sure historical notice what the Father 's held except by the common consent of credible Reporters or Historians Not while one side saith they say this and the other side saith they say the contrary and yet their Books are to be seen by all We may bid them believe us and the Papists may bid them believe them and a Priest may cheat them by saying that his word is the Churches But
natures which their ill opinions cannot make fierce and sanguinary nor overcome And none of them I think shall be more loving kind and peaceable to me than I will be to him And I confess I have a greater respect and honour for those whose Ancestors have transmitted Popery to them under the name of the True Catholick faith and who live according to what they know though perhaps in blind zeal they hate me and such others for the Interest of their way than I have for those that seemed once Protestants and by filthy debauched lives have made it seem needful or convenient for them to turn Papists that they may have a seeming Religion and Priests pardons to quiet or deceive their Consciences or than I have for those Papists who live in drunkenness lust and common lying and prophane swearing while yet they seem to be Religious and regardful of God and their souls or than I have for those Priests who befriend such mens wickedness for the increase and interest of their Church Yea I truly profess that if I know a truly Godly conscionable charitable Papist I must I will love and honour him far more than an ungodly unconscionable uncharitable Protestant And as far as I can discern both Ministers and private Christians but especially Ministers whom I most converse with are of the same mind D. But is there no way possible to bring them fairly off in this gross business of Transubstantiation without putting them upon the disclaiming of the Popes and General Councils Infallibility R. I am not bound to devise accommodations to strengthen them in their other errours if I could But yet I would cure any errour in any though they intend their own cure to an evil end I cannot be perswaded but their understanding men are sorry at the heart that the Laterane Council hath drawn them into such a snare by making Transubstantiation an Article of their faith and that they are very angry at them and wish that it had never been done but being done they must take on them to believe it lest they pull down with their foundation all their fabrick I doubt not but they are troubled and ashamed to read the Schoolmens disputes of Transubstantiation exposing Christianity to the Infidels scorn which this Council hath most occasioned I know not how to bring them off unless they will hearken to what Dr. Taylor in his Disswasive from Popery and Dr. Heylin and Dr. Pierson and Dr. Gunning in the Dispute have said against the Validity of that Laterane Council could they but spare the Canon for deposing Temporal Lords and dispossessing them of their Dominions and absolving all their Papists subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and exterminating the rest Yea it would be more serviceable to them at last with Princes to retract that also than to keep it Their best way is to take the help of these pretences and condemn the contrary Reasons of Mr. Terret and his fellow Disputant against the foresaid Doctors and expunge that Council out of Binnius Surius and the rest who number it with the approved Councils and because Matth. Paris and others say that some at the Council thought the Canons burdensom and they were brought in by the Pope and hastily read c. therefore say that They were not passed at least Conciliariter which you know is a word that serveth their turn against another Council which they dislike D. But what shall they do with following Councils especially that at Trent which say the same R. The best shifts that I know are 1. To do as they do about the condemning of Pope Honoririus as a Heretick They say that a General Council and Pope too may err in a matter of fact and so they did in judging of Honorius his meaning So they may say that the Council of Trent did decree this as an Article of faith only because they thought that the Church so held it which was because they thought that the General approved Council of Laterane had so decreed it But now finding that it was not so decreed there the error in matter of fact ceasing which was the supposition the doctrinal error proveth to be no Article of faith or Conciliariter decretum 2. Or if this will not do they are best yet stretch the words of Rome and Trent to a more tolerable signification and say That it is not the ceasing of the substance of Bread and Wine which is meant but the changing it into a Relative new form And so as the Whole substance of a man is changed from being a meer Common man into a King a Bishop a Doctor without any cessation of his Humanity but only quia forma ultima denominat he is not any more to be called meerly A Man but A King A Bishop c. Or as the whole substance of a piece of Gold is changed into Currant Coin by the Kings Stamp c. So the whole substance of Bread is turned into the Representative Body of Christ and the whole substance of Wine into his Representative blood which change they call Transubstantiation But why should I give counsel to men that will not thank me for it and that obstinately refuse much better D. But why speak you nothing of their denying the people the Cup I thought you would principally have fastned on that R. Because it is no part of this present Controversie which I was first to handle though it concern the same Sacrament But it is such an instance as serveth to tell those of the world that will understand what horrid unreasonable audacious arrogance and Vsurpation and Treason against God and the true Head of the Church this pretended Monarch of the world and his pretended Catholick Church the Popish Sect are guilty of considering 1. That it is as essential a part of the Sacracrament as the Bread is For Christ hath made no difference 2. It hath the same Institution and express Command He that said Take Eat said also Drink ye all of this He hath said Do this in remembrance of me of One as well as of the Other 3. Therefore to take away an Essential part is to take away the Sacrament and make it another thing As it is not a humane body that hath not both Head and Heart So here 4. Therefore by the same authority they might have continued the Cup and taken away the Bread or have taken away both 5. And on the same reason they might have taken away Baptism and all Christs positive Institutions And for ought I know the Ministry it self as instituted 6. But then Gersons question de auferabilitate Papae would be next to be debated For were he of Christs own Institution as he is not it is no more than the Cup in the Lords Supper Could he but prove an Institution of his Papacy as evidently who would not be his Subject If you say But who should take him down if it might be done I answer Kings in their own Kingdoms
of Christ though not to Grace or Justification And this is common in the Schools as Ferera shews that followeth it And for this Opinion Scotus is cited But I think he holdeth that explicite belief of Christ or the Gospel is not of necessity of means as to Grace or Glory as 4. d. 3. q. 4. What is plainer than that now men may be saved without the explicite belief of Christ And I plainly think its Scotus's and the common opinion which Vega followeth and Faber 4. d. 3. and Petigianis very well and of the Thomists Bannes 2.2 q. 2. a. 8. Canus and others Yea the Trent Council seemeth to favour it Sess 6. c. 4. p. 114. So Corduba Medina Bradwardine ☞ And such as have no explicite faith in Christ are not formally without the Church This way go Victoria in 4. Relect. 4. tit Richard de Villa med 3.25 a. 3. q. 1 c. Well saith Petigianis 2. d. 35. q. 1. a. 9. that if there were a simple old woman to whom some false Opinion were preached by a false Prophet e. g. that the substance of Bread remaineth with the body of Christ in the Sacrament and she believe it Doth she sin by this No. p. 119. Yea if she so err through piety thinking that the Church so believeth perhaps she should merit p. 120. For my part I think that the Vulgar committing themselves to the instruction of the Pastors trusting of their knowledge and goodness if they be deceived it will be taken for invincible ignorance or at least probable as Herera which excuseth from faultiness Yea some Doctors give so much to the Instruction of Pastors that have the care of the Sheep that if they should teach that ☞ hic nunc God would be hated the rude Parishioner were bound to believe him which yet I think false p. 123. It seemeth at this day to be the common judgement of the Schools and Divines that the Laity erring with their Doctors or Pastors are altogether excused from all fault ☞ Yea oft times so materially erring do merit for the act of Christian obedience which they owe their Pastors as you may see in Valent. To. 3. disp 1. q. 2. p. 5. and others So Angles 2. d. 22. q. 2. dub 7. Vasqu p. 2. disp 121. In case they never doubted of the Veracity of their Prelates Much more saith Sancta Clara there to prove that the ignorant Protestants here may be saved citing further to his end Zanchez in Decal l. 2. c. 1. n. 8. Alph. a Castro Simanca Argon Tanner Faber Emanâ—sa Rozell And out of Argon tells us when Faith is sufficiently proposed viz. When faith is so confirmed by Reasons holiness of life the confutation of the contrary errors and by some signs as that Reason it self beginneth prudently to prescribe that the matters of faith heard are to be believed and the contrary Sect is false p. 125. And probl 16. p. 127. Whether men may be blamelesly ignorant of the Law of Nature and the Decalogue The common opinion is that they may not of the first principles but 1. Of the easie conclusions for some time and of the remoter conclusions for a longer time Such are the Commandments of the Decalogue as to the substance of the act as in some lying theft fornication manslaughter in Will at least c. R. Qu. II. But do you think that men may not as invincibly and inculpably be unacquainted with the Authority of the Pope and Roman Councils or Church as you say they may be ignorant of Christ and the Law of Nature I instance in the millions of the Abassme Christians who for above a thousand years never heard from the Pope or his emissaries P. That cannot be denyed For they have not the necessary means R. How then do you make your Churches proposal to be the necessary point to be Explicitely believed of all P. We do not mean it of all that Will be saved For you hear that some may be saved without any explicite belief of Christ But we mean it of all that will be in the Church and be saved there R. But do you not hold and say that out of the Church there is no salvation P. Some say so and some say that It is rare out of the Church R. But are the Ethiopian Christians out of the Church P. They are out of the true Church being Schismaticks R. Why said your Author before that Infidels were not formally out of the Church who are invincibly ignorant P. But other Doctors are of another opinion R. But Christ is the Saviour of his body Are not those of the Church who are saved or in a state of salvation What hold you of that P. Some say They are all of the Church and others that Christ saveth more than his Church And some say that They are of the Church Regenerate but not of the Church Congregate But few own this because it is your distinction as of a visible and invisible Church R. Qu. III. But above all I would know of you what you mean by the Catholick Church whose proposal is necessary to the being of faith P. We mean the Roman Catholick Church that is the Pope and his Subjects R. Do you mean the Pope without a General Council or a General Council without the Pope or only both agreeing and conjunct R. You take advantage of our differences but those do but shew that this is no point of faith Some hold that the Pope alone may serve and some that the Pope in a Provincial Council and some that a General Council without him But you heard Veron taketh in the Council and it is no true Council without the Pope And therefore the surest opinion saith that it must be both in Concord R. But what is the Vniversal Church whose Practice is made sufficient instead of or without a General Council P. It is the whole Roman Church real distinct from the Representative R. Is it the Clergy only or the Laity only or must it be both P. Both but not equally but in their several places R. Must it be All the Church without any excepted Or only the greater part P. These are points not agreed of and therefore not of faith Some say that it must be so many as that the dissenters be not considerable But how many are considerable or inconsiderable is undetermined Others say It may be the minor part that practise so be it the rest do not contradict it or do contrarily R. I will trouble you with no more such questions though I have a multitude which should be here resolved for I perceive that we must expect nothing but a Maze of uncertainties and confusion We are next in order to Agree upon our common principles which must be supposed in our following Dispute For they that Agree in nothing are uncapable of disputing of any thing seeing all conclusions of which we doubt must be drawn from more evident truths of which we
But they must be so many as are suited to every ones capacity and means during his life And no man living can know that he understandeth and believeth as much as his capacity and means were in their kind sufficient to Nay there is no man that hath not been culpably ignorant of somewhat which he might have known 2. Mens Sacramental receptions and comforts depend on the Intention of the Priest which no man knoweth 3. Almost all Godly men must expect the fire of Purgatory and consequently none of them can be rationally willing to dye Because this life is better than Purgatory and no man will desire to go from hence into the fire And so by making all men unwilling to dye it destroyeth a heavenly mind and killeth faith and hope and love and holy joy and tempteth men to be worldlings and to love this life better than the next Yea it tempteth men to be afraid of Martyrdom lest dying in Venial sins as all do they go to a Purgatory fire more terrible than Martyrdom XXIII Reason Their Doctrine is not only contrary to many express Texts of Holy Scripture but also contrary to it self One Pope and one Council having decreed one thing and another the clean contrary XXIV Reason All this evil is made more pernicious by that professed Impenitence which is included in the conceit of their Churches Infallibility For they that hold themselves Infallible do profess never to Repent of any thing in which they suppose themselves to be so And as Repentance is the great evidence of the pardon of sin so Impenitency is that mortal sign of an unpardoned soul without which no sin doth qualifie the sinner to be Excommunicated by man or damned by God And a sin materially less is more Mortal unrepented of than a greater truly lamented and forsaken XXV Reason Every honest godly Protestant may be as sure that Popery is false as he is that he is himself sincere and Loveth God and is truly willing to obey him And no man can turn Papist without self-contradiction who is a true Christian and an honest man For by turning Papist he confesseth himself to be before a false-hearted hypocrite who neither Loved God nor sincerely desired to obey him nor was true to his Baptismal Covenant For it is a part of Popery to believe that none are in a state of salvation but the Subjects of the Pope or members of the Papal Church And consequently that no others have true Faith Repentance or Love to God Or else that God is false in promising salvation to all that have true Faith Repentance and Love to God All therefore that know their own hearts to be truly devoted to God are safe from Popery And seeing it is agreed on both sides that none can or ought to turn Papists but ungodly hypocrites or Knaves no wonder if such are deluded by the most palpable deceits and forsaken of God whom they perfidiously forsook I will name you no more If I make these or any one of these good as I undertake to prove them all you will see that I refuse not my self to be a Papist without sufficient cause And yet by this charge you will see that I am none of their extream adversaries I pass by abundance of Doctrinal differences wherein by many they are most deeply charged Not as Justifying them against all or most so charged on them but 1. As giving you those Reasons which most move my self and which I am most able to make good and leaving every one to his proper work 2. And as one that have certainly found out that in many doctrinals seeming to be the matter of our widest difference we are thought by many to differ much more than we do 1. The difference lying most in Words and Logical Notions and various wayes of mens expressing their conceptions 2. And the animosity of men engaged in Parties and Interests against each other causing most to take all in the worst sense and to make each other seem far more erroneous than they are and to turn differing names into damnable heresies And 3. Few men having Will and Skill to state controversies aright and cut off mistaken seeming differences 4. And few having honesty and self-denyal enough to incurr the censure of the ignorant Zealots of their own party by seeming but impartial and just to their adversaries I mean in such points as 1. The Nature of Divine faith Whether it be a perswasion that I am pardoned c. 2. Of Certainty of salvation 3. And Certainty of perseverance 4. Of Sanctification 5. Of Justification 6. Of Good works 7. Of Merit 8. Of Predestination 9. Of Providence and the Cause of Sin 10. Of Free-will 11. Of Grace 12. Of Imputation of Righteousness 13. Of Universal Redemption 14. Of Original Sin and divers others In all which I cannot justifie them but am sure that the difference is made commonly to seem to be that which indeed it is not In the true impartial stating whereof Lud. Le Blanck hath begun to do the Christian Churches most excellent service worthy our great thanks and his bearing all the Censures of the ignorant PART IV. The First Charge made good against Transubstantiation In which Popery is proved to be the Shame of Humane Nature Contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTURE and TRADITION or the judgement of the Antient and Present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels CHAP. I. The First Reason to prove Transubstantiation false R. THe Papists Belief of Transubstantiation is that There is a change made of the whole substance of the Bread into the body of Christ and of the whole substance of Wine into his blood Their opinion called their faith hath two parts The first is that There is no more true Proper Bread and Wine after the words of Consecration Hoc est Corpus meum The second is that There is the true proper Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ under the species as they call them of Bread and Wine It is the first that I shall now prove false And you must not forget the state of the Question which is not Whether Christs Body and Blood be present But Whether there remain any Bread and Wine Arg. I. If there remain no Bread and Wine after the Consecration then all the senses of all the sound men in the world are deceived or all mens perception of these sensible things deceived though there be due magnitude site distance of the object a due abode and a due medium and no depravation of the sense or intellect But this Consequent is notoriously false as shall be proved Therefore Popery is false 1. That all mens senses perceive Bread and Wine or all mens Intellects by their senses will not be denyed Not only Protestants but Greeks Mahometans Heathens Papists all persons perception by sense is here the same Therefore it is sound senses or else there are none sound in the world 2. It is not one
if you make Gods own ordinary Natural Revelations or significations to be false how will you be able to disprove the Infidel about the rest 3. And then note that our Case is yet lower and plainer than all this For if the very Being of the Creatures which is the Matter of these Signs be uncertain to us and all our senses and minds deceived about it then we have no place for enquiry Whether this Creature be any sign of the mind of God As if the hearing of all men was deceived that thought they heard that voice This is my Beloved Son or Pauls that thought he heard Christ speak to him Saul Saul c. or if their Eyes and Intellects were deceived that thought they saw Christ and his miracles or that think now that they read the Bible and indeed there be no such thing as a Bible no such words c. then there is no room to enquire what they signifie For nothing hath no signification Truth and Goodness are affections or modes of Being And if we cannot by all our sound senses know the Being of things we can much less know that they are True or Good Therefore all knowledge and all faith and all Religion is overthrown by your denyal of the truth of our Senses and Intellects perception of things sensible Reason IV. And by this means you are not capable of being disputed with nor any Controversie between you and any others in the world of being decided while you deny sense For then you agree not with mankind in any one common principle And they that agree in nothing can dispute of nothing For this is the first principle Est vel non est is first to be agreed on before we can dispute any farther of a substance What will you do to confute an adversary but drive him to deny a certain principle And can you drive him to deny a lower fundamental Principle than the Being of a substance perceived by sense yea by all the sound senses of all men in the world Reason V. Yea it is specially to be noted that our difference is not only about the species of a sensible substance but about the very substance it self in genere Whether all our senses perceive any substance at all or not Suppose the question were Whether it be water or not which all mens senses see in Rivers If a Papist would deny it to be water doubtless he denyed the agreeing judgement of all mens Intellect by sense But if he should also say It is no substance which we call water or earth This were to deny the first Principle and most fundamental perception in nature Now that this is your case is undenyable For 1. You profess that Christs Body and Blood are not sensible there That it is not the quantity shape number colour smell weight c. of Christs Body and Blood which we perceive and that these Accidents are not the Accidents of Christ 2. And you believe that the Bread and Wine is gone that is changed into the body and blood of Christ so that no part of their substance matter or form is left And you put no third substance under these Accidents in the stead So that you maintain that it is the quantity of nothing the figure of nothing the colour the weight the scituation the smell the number c. of nothing which all mens Intellects by sense perceive So that the Controversie is Whether it be any substance at all which by those accidents we perceive And when we see handle taste smell it you believe or say you believe that it is none neither Bread or Wine or any other Now if by sense we cannot be sure of the very Being of a substance we can be sure of nothing in the world Reason VI. Yea it is to be noted that though Brutes have no Intellects yet their Sense and Imagination herein wholly agreeth with the common perception of man A Dog or a Mouse will eat the bread as common bread and a Swine will drink the Wine as common Wine and therefore have the same perception of it as of common bread and wine And so their senses must be all deceived as well as mans And Brutes have as accurate perfect senses as men have and some much more And meer natural operations are more certain and constant as we see by the worlds experience than meer Reason and Argumentation Birds and Beasts are constant in their perceptions and course of action being not left to the power of Mutable free-will Reason VII You hereby quite overthrow your own foundation which is fetcht from the Concord of all your party which you call all the Church You think that a General Council could not agree to any thing aâ— an Article of faith if it were not such when it is buâ— the Major Vote that agree You say that Traditioâ— is Infallible because All the Church agreeth in iâ— when it is perhaps but your Sect which is a Minoâ— part But do you not overthrow all this when yoâ— profess that All the senses of all the sound men in thâ— world and all the simple perceptions of their Intellectâ— by sense do agree that there is substance yea dâ— specie Bread and Wine after the Consecration No onâ— mans perception by sense disagreed in this from thâ— institution of the Sacrament to this day that can be proved or the least probability of it given And iâ— this Concord be no proof much less is yours For 1. The Intellect in Reasoning is more fallible than iâ— its Immediate perception of things sensed or perceived by sense 2. Yours is but the Consent of some men but ours is the Consent of all mankind Yours among your selves hath oft in Councils a Minor part of dissenters who must be overvoted by the rest But our Case hath never one dissenting sense or perception Reason VIII By this denyal of sense you overthrow the foundations of Humane Converse How can men make any sure Contracts or perform any duty on a sure ground if the Concordant senses of all the world be false Parents cannot be sure which are their own Children nor Children which are their own Parents Husbands cannot certainly know their own Wives from their neighbours No Subjects can certainly know their own Prince No man can be sure whether he buy or sell receive money or pay it c. No man can be sure that there is a Pope or Priest or man in the world Reason IX You seem to me to Blaspheme God and to make him the greatest Deceiver of mankind even in his holy Worship Whereas God cannot lye It is impossible And the Devil is the Father of lyes And you make God to tell all the world as plainly as if words told them even by demonstration to their sight smell feeling taste that here is Bread and Wine when there is none yea that it is at least some substance which they perceive when it is none at all Reason X. You thus fain
you to be hoped for For how is it possible to bring any thing to a more satisfying issue than when the senses of all the world do as clearly perceive it as any sensible thing can be perceived If our difference were whether this be Paper and these be Letters or whether this be a Pen a Table yea or a substance and I should appeal to the sense of all the World and yet this will not serve to decide the Controversie what end or hope of ending can there be I will sooner look for concord with a mad man than with men that deny the senses of all the World CHAP. III. The second Argument against Transubstantiation The Contradictions of it R. Arg. 2. GOd owneth not Contradictions nor can do The Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation or nullification of the whole substance of Bread and Wine is contradictious Therefore it is not owned by God The Major I know no man that denyeth The Contradictions are these I. You feign many Accidents of no substance which is a gross contradiction For to be an Accident is essentially Relative to a subject or substance And ejus esse est inesse To be a Father without a Son or a Son without a Father a Husband without a Wife or a Wife without a Husband c. are contradictions And so it is to be an Accident of nothing or without a subject Particularly 1. The quantity of nothing is a contradiction We can measure the Bread and Wine To be an inch in longitude latitude or profundity and yet to be no substance is a contradiction To be as the Wine is a quart a gallon of Nothing is a contradiction 2. So for number we can number the wafers or pieces of Bread and the Cups of Wine And to be twenty forty an hundred nothings is a contradiction 3. So for the Weight To be an ounce a pound or ten pound of nothing is a contradiction 4. So for the figure or shape It is a contradiction to be a round nothing a square nothing c. 5. So is it to be a sweet nothing a sharp nothing an austere nothing c. as the Wine is fancied by you 6. Or to be an odoriferous nothing A rough or a smooth nothing c. 7. Or to be a white nothing or a red nothing or any coloured nothing The same I may say of site and of a multitude of Relations c. II. It is a contradiction for Nothing to have all those Real notable effects which it is certain that the consecrated Bread and Wine have As 1. That when a man or a beast is really nourished by the Bread and Wine and flesh and blood and spirits are made of it as they may live by it many months that these should be the effects of nothing or made out of no substance by way of Nutrition without a proper Creation 2. When the Consecrated Bread and Wine do partly turn to Excrements Vrine Dung and Spittle that all the Excrements are nothings or made of nothing without a new Creation is a contradiction 3. When the Wine shall as it may do make a man or a swine drunk that he is made drunk by nothing or no substance when as that drunkenness is essentially the operation of the spirits of the Wine upon the spirits of him that drinks it this also is a contradiction And God maketh not contradictions true P. It is the plea of an Infidel to say that God cannot do this or that Will you limit the power of the Almighty Will you say that God cannot make Quantity quality site c. without substance because we cannot It is blasphemy to say God cannot R. God can do All things that are works of Power God can do nothing which is a work of Impotency defectiveness naughtiness or folly or which are contradictions in themselves And when we say God cannot we do but say either that God is Perfect and Almighty or that the thing is Nothing but a false name and not capable of being any ones work God cannot lye because he is perfect and Almighty and not because he wanteth power God cannot make you to be a man and no man a substance and no substance in the same sence at the same time because it is a contradiction But if this Argument did not hold and it were no contradiction for God to overturn his setled course of Nature I shall shew you next that we have other reasons enough to judge that he doth it not If he Can make darkness to give Light and a clod to be to the World instead of the Sun without changing it or a stone to understand and speak without changing it yet that God doth none of this both reason and experience prove CHAP. IV. The Third Argument against Transubstantiation from the certain falshood of their assertion of multitudes of Miracles in it R. THat doctrine which asserteth a multitude of false or feigned Miracles is false and not of God But such is the doctrine of Transubstantiation Ergo I will 1. Shew you what Miracles it asserteth and 2. Prove that they are feigned or false I. It is a Miracle for Bread and Wine to be turned into no Bread and Wine yea into nothing and this by the speaking of four words II. It is a Miracle or Contradiction for the Bread and Wine to be turned into Christs Body and Blood and yet neither the matter nor form of it to become any of the matter of Christs body and blood III. It is a Miracle or a contradiction rather as aforesaid for the Accidents to be the Accidents of Nothing or no substance to be the quantity of Nothing the shape the number of nothing the colour savour smell of nothing and so of all the rest IV. It is a Miracle to have all the sound senses of all sorts of men in the world so deceived herein as to perceive bread wine and substance if there be none V. It is a Miracle to have the senses of Mice and Rats and Dogs and other Brutes also deceived when they eat and drink it VI. It is a Miracle or contradiction to have nothing without a Creation to become excrements or else those excrements to be nothing also And the Accidents of all those excrements to be the Accidents of Nothing VII It is a Miracle to be nourished by Nothing For you say that it is not Christs body and blood that nourisheth the flesh To have flesh and blood made of nothing is a creation VIII It is a Miracle to be drunk with nothing when the Wine is annihilated or gone and seemeth to be it that causeth the effect Yea for Beast or man to be so drunk IX It is a Miracle or contradiction for Christ to eat his own body as the Papists hold he did and yet it was his Whole Body which did eat his body and yet he had but one body X. It was a Miracle or contradiction for Christs entire body to be nourished by that eaten
eat and drink VII It is a Miracle that every wicked Priest should do so many Miracles in one and so many more in number than Christ himself did in the same proportion of time as far as the History of the Gospel telleth us Christ is quite exceeded by them all VIII It is a Miracle that every wicked Priest can work all these Miracles so easily as with the careless saying over four words When the Apostles could not cast out some Devils or work some Miracles and some could not be done but by fasting and prayer IX It is a Miracle that every Priest can work all these Miracles upon an unbeliever or a wicked man For to such they say it is the real flesh and blood of Christ and no bread or wine And the senses of all these wicked men are deceived Whereas Christ himself could not do any great miraculous work among some where he came because of their unbelief X. It is a Miracle that God and the Priest should do these foresaid Miracles on Mice and Rats and other Beasts by deceiving their senses which we find not that Christ ever did or that God should feed them with the miraculous accidents aforesaid XI It is a Miracle of these Miracles that the Priest can thus easily work Miracles not only on other creatures but on the glorified body of Christ himself by the foresaid changes c. XII It is a Miracle that when Christ wrought his Miracles usually before a far smaller number these Priests work Miracles thus before or on the senses of all the men in the world that will be present at the Mass for all their senses are deceived XIII It is a Miracle that the Abassines Armenians Greeks Protestants yea any that they call Schismaticks and Hereticks who do not intend to work any Miracle nor believe Transubstantiation do yet work Miracles in each Sacramental administration of the Eucharist not only without their knowledge but contrary to their belief and against their wills For they say that even such mens consecration is effectual XIV Either their Priests consecration worketh all these Miracles when they intend it not as if they speak the words in jeast or scorn or in Infidelity or only when they intend it If the first be said it is a Miracle of Miracles that any Priest can work so many and great Miracles by a jeast or scorn If not then all the business is come to nothing and no one but the Priest knoweth whether there be any such Miracle at all and whether ever he eat the flesh of Christ And so it will be in the power of the Priest to deceive and damn all the people according to the Papists exposition of Christs words Joh. 6. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you XV. Either a malicious intention to a wrong end will be effectual in Consecration or not If not none but the Priest knoweth that there is any body and blood of Christ or that ever he received any Because none knoweth though the Priest intend Consecration whether he intend it to a right end But if a wicked end will serve as I think most of them hold the Miracle may be great and sad For any Roguish drunken malicious Priest may undo a Baker or Vintner at his pleasure and by four words deprive him of all his Bread and Wine Yea he might nullifie all the Bread and Wine in the City and so either make a famine at his pleasure or else make whole Families and Cities live still and be nourished without any substance by bare Accidents which would be a Miracle indeed If the Priest can by consecration change only a convenient quantity of bread and wine then all that is overmuch is bread and wine after consecration If otherwise why may he not change all the bread and wine in the Shop or Cellar where he cometh intending consecration to an ill end If he can do it only on the Altar then want of an Altar would frustrate the effect which they hold not But if he can do it without an Altar he may do it in the Shop and Cellar If he can do it only on the bread and wine present how near must it be Then the words will work at so many yards distance and not at so many Or if he cannot do it out of sight a blind Priest cannot do it But if he can do it on that which is absent we may fear lest in an anger he may take away all the bread and wine in the Land at least in a frolick to try his power XVI And it is some aggravaion of these manifold Miracles that a Degraded Priest can do them Because they follow the indelible Character And so he that hath once made a Miracle-worker cannot take away his power again nor his sin lose his power Is not this a marvellous power of Miracles which becometh like a nature to them as the power of speaking is XVII Yet is this Miracle-working-power more miraculous in that a mans own unwillingness or Repentance of his Calling cannot hinder the Miracle if he do but speak four words Consent it self is not necessary to it Let a man Repent that ever he was a Priest and profess that he continueth in that Calling against his will yea let him write as I now do against Transubstantiation yet all this will not hinder his next Consecration from working all the foresaid Miracles XVIII It is miraculous that if you keep a consecrated Wafer never so long if you use it never so coursly if you as he did who occasioned the conversion of Mr. Anthony Egan a late Irish Priest pawn it at an Ale-house for thirty shillings if you lay it down for a stake at Cards or Dice c. it will not cease to be Christs flesh and so by his blood nor ever becomes bread or any other substance till it corrupt And yet in a mans stomach it ceaseth to be Christs body as natural heat corrupteth it by concoction And yet it is not Christs flesh that is concocted XIX It is a Miracle of this Miracle which Aquinas and others assert that the Bread and Wine are not Annihilated but wholly turned into Christs body and blood and yet as Vasquez saith It is not that the matter of bread begins to be under the form of Christs body as Durandus held Saith Veron Reg. fid cap. 5. This Transubstantiation is neither a change nor a production of any thing but it is a Relation of order between the substance that doth desist to be and that into which it doth desist And yet saith the Concil Trident. There is a change made of the whole substance into c. XX. Lastly It is a Miracle that all these Miracles should be done so as not to appear to the senses of any man living either to Convert Unbelievers or Confirm the faithful So that millions of these Miracles are seen and not
Resurrection his turning water into Wine and his feeding thousands with a little food But he that will examine Transubstantiation as afore-described shall find it to have more that is contrary to nature than all these by far The substance of the dead body of Christ or Lazarus did not vanish but remained to be the organized Recipient matter of the re-entring soul There were no Accidents without substances or other such things as are mentioned before The multiplying of food could at the most be but a new Creation But it was real food and none of the contradictions or absurdities before recited The turning of Water into Wine was likest this in the Papists opinion but indeed little like it For the matter of the water there remained with the form of Wine and so became the Matter of Wine and did not vanish And here was real Wine and real substance and not Accidents without substances deceiving all the senses or Intellectual perceptions The same may be said of the miracles of the Apostles compared with Transubstantiation 2. And as to the Number though Christs and his Apostles Miracles were very many yet there is no Scripture-evidence that they were for number comparable for so much time to every Priests Christs miracles are set down in the sacred history in such order and the Evangelists so much agree in reciting the same miracles that though St. John say the world could not contain the Books that should be written yet we find no probability that they were neer so common as Masses are when in several places where Christ came they that looked after Miracles and Signs were denyed them and had none but were put off to the sign of the Prophet Jonah c. Yea Herod and Pilate were in this denyed their desired satisfaction and they that call to him for a miracle on the Cross And so of the Apostles But every Priest doth his miracles as oft as there is a Mass though every day 3. And as to the Facility I said before that in his own Country among his own kindred he could do no mighty work save that he layed his hands on a few sick folk and healed them and he marvelled at their unbelief Mark 6.4 5 6. And he some time groaned in spirit and wept as for Lazarus And the Disciples could not cast out a Devil Mar. 9.18 28. Luk. 9.40 It was not to be done but by fasting and prayer It s like Paul would have cured Trophimus if he could when he left him sick And as holy men spake not when nor as they pleased but when and as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost so did they work miracles not arbitrarily but at such times and in such manner as the spirit moved them But any the most wicked Priest can do it at his pleasure any hour of the day and that but by reciting Hoc est corpus meum Many other disparities appear in what is said before IV. The End of the Gift of Miracles confuteth the feigned Miracles of Transubstantiation The End of Christs gift was to prove him to be of God as is aforeshewed and to prove his Apostles to be of God and to confirm the Gospel which they Preached Mar. 16.17 18 19 20. Heb. 2.4 As the gift of Tongues so other wonders were to convince unbelievers 1 Cor. 14. Act. 2. 4.30 5.12 7.36 8.13 14.3 2 Cor. 12.12 But the miracles of Transubstantiation are known to no unbeliever nor to any one in the world by any sense and have no such End but a contrary effect The Apostles who were to convert the world and next Christ to do the greatest good were therefore to do the greatest miracles And it was their argument for Christ Joh. 7.31 When Christ cometh will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done Yet now every ignorant Priest pretendeth to far more who doth but tempt Infidels to deride Christianity by the pretence as we do Mahometanism for Mahomets sport pretended with the Moon and other such delirations V. God is not to be said to work Miracles and cross the established course of nature without proof But these pretended Miracles have no proof No man living perceiveth them by sense And that God telleth us of no such things by supernatural Revelation shall be further shewed anon In the mean time it may satisfie us that they bring us no proof but their own affirmation which they require us to believe VI. The Matter of these pretended Miracles is expresly contradicted by the Word of God as shall be proved in the next Chapter VII Ad hominem Do not the Papists forget themselves here and contradict their other suppositions 1. They make Miracles to be one evidence of sanctity and therefore Canonize men when they think that they have proof that they wrought Miracles And yet maintain that a Whoremonger Drunkard or Heretick may do many more 2. They make Miracles a proof that they are the true Church and say that among us there are no Miracles and yet they confess that every Priest among us and all others whom they account Schismaticks and Hereticks do more Miracles than Christ did if they consecrate frequently 3. They burn men to ashes for working miracles even for making God if so be they do it not in the Roman fashion 4. They confess that the other Sacraments are not thus made up of Miracles no not Baptism which is our Christening and washeth us from our sins And yet this Sacrament alone must by a multitude of Miracles differ from the rest 4. Whether the Doctrine of their St. Thomas and his followers and others that the formal words of this Sacrament have a created effective virtue by which they instrumentally make the change 3. q. 78. a. 4. c. be not an absurdity rather than a proper miracle For words Physically move but the air first and the terminus of the aires motion e.g. the ear next and next that if it be an intellectual or other animal recipient the sense and fantasie next and so on But the Bread and Wine have no sense nor fantasie nor Intellect And to say that the moved aire is the means of turning them into the body and blood of Christ is still to multiply miracles 5. Do they not too much magnifie the common work and consequently the office of a Priest above the work of a Pope or Prelate who seldom consecrate when the Priest worketh so many Miracles more than they 6. They conclude that a sinner that hath Voluntatem peccandi receiveth Baptism in vain as to its ends of pardoning him and therefore should not receive it Concil Rom. Epist Gregor 7. Aquin. 3. q. 68. a. 4. c. c. And yet be the sinner never such an hypocrite or Infidel he eateth Christs real flesh nevertheless yea against his will if he do but the outward act 7. Is it not strange that an Infidel receiveth as verily the real flesh and blood of Christ as a
sensible substance after Consecration Joh. 2.9 they tasted the water turned into Wine and were convinced P. But the Body of Christ here is not a sensible thing R. But Bread and Wine are sensible things P. But They are not There and so are no objects of sense R. But all our senses say that They are there and by them we must judge P. Your senses perceive nothing but Accidents and your understanding must believe God and so as you noted out of Aquinas before there is no deceit either of sense or Intellect R. Though this be answered fully before I will again tell you That these two notorious falshoods are all that you have to say against Humanity in this case that 's worth the noting I. It is false that you say that sense perceiveth not substance When I take up a staff or stone in my hand I do not only feel Roughness or Smoothness c. but a substance It is a quantitative and qualitative substance which I feel taste smell see and hear And this I perceive by sensation it self as the medium to the Intellect It is not the sense indeed but the Intellect that giveth it the Logical notion or definition of a substance but it is the sense it self that by sensation perceiveth it and to deny this is to deny all sense And if it were not so How could any such substance be known when it cannot come into the Intellect but by the sense II. ☞ Your great cheat or errour is by confounding the first and natural-necessary perception of a sensibile sensatum or incomplex object by the Intellect with the second conception of the Names of things or of Organical second notions and the third conception of them Artificially by the use of these names and Organical notions and the fourth perception of Consequents from those conceptions To know by Believing is but the third or fourth sort of knowledge and presupposeth the two first If a man had never heard a name or word in his life yet by sensation as soon as he saw smelt tasted heard handled things his Intellect would have had a perception of the Thing it self as it was sensate And this is the Intellects first perception And this is it which falleth under our question Whether the Intellect in this first perception of a substance or Thing as sensate be deceived or not when the Thing hath the Conditions of an object before mentioned 2. Next this we learn or invent Names and organical notions for things And whether these be true or false and whether they be apt or inept is all one This is but an arbitrary work of art 3. Next this we conceive of things by the Means of these Names and second notions and examine the Congruence and so we define them And this is but a work of Artificial Reasoning and presupposeth the first Natural necessary perception Now Faith belongeth partly to this and partly to the fourth which is The raising of Conclusions and the weaving of methods and presupposeth the first yea and the second It is but an assent given by the means of an Extrinsick Testimony of God that this particular Word is True c. Now if the Intellect in its first Perception natural and necessary of the Thing it self as sensate be deceived if faith should be contrary to it 1. It must be such a Faith which is the immediate contrary perception of a sensate object which is no faith nor is any such possible properly called faith 2. And if faith can come after and undeceive the Intellect by saying that God saith otherwise yet this would be no prevention of its deception but a cure presupposing the said deception as the disease to be cured So that to say as Aquinas that faith preventeth the deceit of the Intellect is a falshood contrary to the nature of man and his natural way of acting as he is composed of soul and body I have said this over again lest errour get advantage by the brevity and unobservedness of that which I said before CHAP. VII Argum. 5. All these miracles have not the least proof yea the Scriptures fully direct us to a cross interpretation of the Papists pretended proofs which also are renounced by themselves I Know of no Scripture proof in the World that the Papists pretend to but the words This is my Body and This is my Blood and such like And that these are no proof I shall fully prove to any impartial man I. The very nature of the Sacrament instituted by Christ with his expressed End command our Reason to expound the word is of signification representation or exhibition and the word Body and Blood of a new Relative form only that is of a body and blood Representative which is all one in effect As a piece of Gold Silver or Brass is by the law and stamp turned really into the Kings Current Coine and so hath a new Relative form so that you may truly say that there is a change made of the Gold or Silver into the Kings Coyn and it is no more to be called meer Gold or Silver though it be Gold and Silver still because the form denominateth and the new form is now that in question which must denominate Or as a Prince that is marryed in effigie or by a Representative to a woman is not there personally and yet it is aptly said This is the Prince which is betrothed or marryed to thee Or as we say of Pictures This is Peter or Paul or John Or as when we deliver a man possession of a House by a Key or of Land by a twig and a turf or of a Church by the belrope c. and say Take this is such a House or such a piece of Land or Church c. As this is ordinary intelligible speech among all men so Christ tells them that he would be so understood 1. In that his Real natural body spake this of the Bread and Wine which was not his natural body His real natural body was present visible entire unwounded his blood unspilt and did eat and drink the other as the Papists hold as being the same And can any living man imagine that the Disciples who understood not his Death Resurrection Ascension c. yet understood by these four words when they saw Christs body alive and present that this Bread and Wine was that same Body and Blood without any more questioning 2. In that he bids them Do this in Remembrance of him which plainly speaketh a commemorating sign Who will say at his last farewell when he is parting with his friends I will stay among you or keep me among you in Remembrance of me So for Christ to say Eat me in remembrance of me were strange II. It may put all out of Controversie to find that Christs words of one half of the Sacrament are as they confess figurative therefore the other must be so judged also Luk. 22.20 This Cup is the new Testament in my
number after at Trent had spake the minds of all the Churches 2. You suppose all the members of a Council to be of one mind when as they determine by the Major Vote And oft times the difference is not above two or three and its possible one Voice may turn the scales And perhaps one or two or ten may be absent one day and present another and so the Cry of the Judgement of all the Bishops in the world may signifie no more but that two or three of the other side staid a little too long at dinner that day while the other party carryed it by their absence And I pray you where hath God promised that the faith of an hundred and one shall not fail when the faith of ninety nine of the same company may fail supposing the Council to be two hundred Or why are the one hundred and one the Bishops of all the world and not the ninety nine 3. Do you think we never read the History of the Council of Trent and before them of the Councils of Ariminum Ephes 2 yea Calcedon c. And yet must we suppose that men come thither all of one mind when they have such shameful Contentions Such cunning contrivances to get the majority of Votes Such awe and terror from the power of the Chief and such carnal dependances and respects to their several worldly interests Yea sometimes fighting it out unto blood as Dioscorus and Flavianus case doth shamefully evince 4. And must we suppose mens minds to be changed in their sleep when the awe or the oratory of other men change them Do we not know the Course of the Parliaments of England of later times How much a few men of more than ordinary parts and interest can do with the rest And how oft the major Vote hath gone against the sense of the far greater number of the House 5. And do we not know that ordinarily he that is sent to the Council from a Province is chosen as it pleaseth the Pope the King or the Archbishop or some in greatest power and rarely according to the free-will and sense of the greater part of the Clergy If five hundred to one of the Clergy of a Kingdom be of one mind and the Prince or chief men or powerfullest Prelates be of another they will send a Bishop thither of their own mind 6. Do you think we know not that all the Papists are not past the third or fourth part of the Christian world Why then should their sense be called the sense of all the Christian world 7. Do you think we know not how little reason you have to say that the Council at Laterane spake the sense of all the Church When the Decrees were but proposed by Pope Innocent and recited there without any due Synodical deliberation and some liked them and some disliked them as you may find in Math. Paris in K. John Nauclerus Gener. 41. ad an 1215. Godefridus ad an 1215. Platina in Vita Innoc. 3. And this one of your late false Scriblers in a Book for Toleration also saith Though the Disputers against Dr. Gunning and Dr. Pierson copiously and confidently justifie that Council and indeed with you it passeth for an Approved one 8. And were not your arguing as strong for the Council of Ephes 2. and that at Arim. and Sirmium and divers at Constantinople disallowed and those at Constance and Basil where were many times the number of the Council at Trent Did these Councils all go to bed of one mind and rise of another Or did they not know what their Fathers faith was Why then do you reprobate them and deny that which they decreed as of faith Is it not a shame to talk of the Bishops of all the world and Tradition from their Fathers when your meaning is but that All these may err and do oft err unless one man the Pope approve them But where sense is renounced we must not expect modesty P. But the antient Councils and Fathers are against you as is to be seen R. It is utterly false I will not abuse the Reader so as to carry him into a Wood and lose him among a multitude of old Books when he hath more satisfactory evidence enough at hand But I. As to all your Citations from true antiquity for your forged Authors and corrupted Testimonies we regard not they are answered by this one true observation that when old Writers sometimes say that after consecration it is No more bread and wine but the body and blood of Christ their whole Context plainly sheweth that they mean that it is no more MEER or Common Bread and Wine and usually they so speak Because forma denominat and it is the ultimate form that denominateth all antecedent forms being but the dispositio materiae As if the question be Whether a Shilling be Silver or Money Before the Coining it was but Silver but after it is no more Common Silver but Money Silver is but the matter and not the denominating form Is your Garment to be called Cloth or a Cloak Before the making it was but Cloth but now it is not meer Cloth but a Cloak The same I may say of the Kings Crown and Scepter or of any Relative Representative or Personating form that is added to any matter or man This is the plain meaning of the Antients II. And as to what they say against you I will now only give you a few brief instances 1. Justin Martyr in Dial. cum Tryph. saith The offering of Flower delivered to be offered for them that were cleansed of the Leprosie was a Type of the BREAD of the Eucharist which our Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to make in remembrance of his passion c. And more plainly Apolog. 2. indeed the first When the President hath given thanks and all the people acclaimed those that with us are called Deacons distribute to every one present BREAD and WINE and Water and bring them to those that are absent 2. Irenaeus saith lib. 4. c. 34. For as the Bread which is of the Earth receiving the divine invocation is not now Common Bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things the Terrene and the Celestial c. See more out of him in Albertinus at large 3. Tertullian cont Marcion l. 3. c. 19. Calling Bread his Body that hence you may understand that he gave to Bread the Figure of his body And before l. 1. He reprobated not Bread by which he Representeth his very Body And lib. 4. cap. 40. The Bread which he took and distributed to his Disciples he made his body saying This is my Body that is The figure of my body And what he would have Bread then signifie he sufficiently declared calling Bread his Body And it is a notable passage of Tertullians against the Academicks that questioned sense lib. de anim c. 17. What dost thou O procacious Academick Thou overthrowest the whole state of life Thou disturbest the whole
no faithful History doth deny And then I need not prove that Transubstantiation is against the most General or Common Tradition For all these Christians the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. profess to follow the Religion which they have received from their Ancestors as well as the Papists do And if the Papists be to be believed in saying that this is the Religion which they received from their forefathers Why are not the other to be believed in the same case And if the Popish Tradition seem regardable to them Why should not the Tradition of twice or thrice as many Christians be more regardable And if in Councils the Major Vote must carry it Why not in the Judgement and Tradition of the Real body of Christs Church As for their trick of excepting against them as Schismaticks and Hereticks to invalidate their Votes and Judgement we despise it as knowing that so any Usurper that would make himself the sole Judge may say by all the rest of the world But as they judge of others they are justly judged by others themselves CHAP. X. The second part of the Controversie Whether it be Christs very Flesh and Blood into which the Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated R. OUr first Question was Whether there be any Bread and Wine left after Consecration Our second is Whether Christs Real Flesh and Blood be there as that into which the Bread and Wine are changed And herein 1. I do freely grant that the change of Christs Body by Glorification is so great as that it may be called though not a Spirit yet a spiritual body as Paul 1 Cor. 15. saith Ours when Glorified shall be that is A body very like in purity simplicity and activity to a Spirit And the general difference between a spirit and body was not held by many of the Greek Fathers as it is by us And if the second Council of Nice was Infallible no Angel or other Creature is Incorporeal Or as Damasus saith They are Corporeal in respect to God but Incorporeal in respect to gross bodies The perfect knowledge of the difference between Corpus and Spiritus except by the formal Virtues is unknown to mortal men 2. I grant therefore that our senses are no Competent Judges Whether Christs true body be in the Sacrament no more than Whether an Angel be in this room There are bodies which are Invisible 3. I grant that it is unknown to us how far Christs Glorified body may extend Whether the same may be both in Heaven and on earth I am not able nor willing to confute them that say Light is a Body nor them that say It is a spirit nor them that say It is quid medium as a nexus of both I mean Aether or Ignis visible in its Light And it is an incomprehensible wonder if Lumen be a real radiant or Emanant part of the Sun that it should indivisibly fill all the space thence to this earth and how much further little do we know So for the extensions of Christs body let those that understand it dispute for me 4. And I will grant that it is very probable that as in Heaven we shall have both a Soul and Body so the Body is not like to have so near an Intuition and fruition of God as the soul And whether the Glorified Body of Christ will not be there a medium of Gods Communication of Glory to our bodies yea and his glorified soul to our souls as the Sun is now to our eyes I do not well understand only I know that it is his prayer and will that we be with him where he is to behold his Glory and that God and the Lamb will be the Light of the Heavenly Jerusalem 5. And I am fully satisfied that it is not the signs only but the Real Body and Blood of Christ which are given us in the Sacraments both Baptism and the Eucharist But how given us Relatively de jure as a man is Given to a Woman in Marriage or as a house and land are delivered to me to be mine for my use though I touch them not Thus 1. A right to Christ is given us 2. And the fruits or benefits of his Crucified body and shed blood are actually given us that is Pardon and the Spirit merited for us thereby 6. And among the Benefits given us besides the Relative there are some such as we call Real or Physical terminatively and hyperphysical originally ut à Causa which are the spirit of Holiness or the Quickening Illuminating and Sanctifying influence of the spirit of Christ upon our souls And the Sacrament is appointed as a special means of communicating this 7. I have met with some of late who say that Indeed Christs Body and Blood in his humbled state were not really eaten and drunk by the disciples at his last supper For the flesh profiteth not to such a use But that his Glorified Body is spiritual and is extensively communicated and invisibly present under the form of Bread in the Sacrament and that as we have a Body a sensitive life and an Intellectual soul so Christ is the life of all these respectively viz. His Body is made the spiritual nourishment of our Bodies his sensitive soul for which the word Blood is put because it is in the blood in animals is the food or life of our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul of ours And to these uses they assert the Real presence and oral participation of Christs Glorified body To all which I say 1. Whether or how far an invisible spiritual Body is present sense is no judge nor can we know any further than Gods word telleth us 2. That Christ in his Glorified soul and Body is our Intercessour with God through whom we have all things we must not doubt 3. That Christ in his Humane and Divine Nature now in Heaven is that Teacher who hath left us a certain word and that King who hath left us a perfect Law of Life whom we must obey and a promise which we must trust we must not question 4. That the Holy Ghost who is our spiritual Life is given us by from and for Christ our Mediator we must take for certain truth But though in all these respects Faith apprehendeth and liveth upon Christ yet that moreover his Glorified Body in substance either feedeth or by contact purifieth our Bodies and his sensitive soul our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul our Intellectual souls as if in themselves and not in their effects only they were thus communicated to us I understand not either by any just conception of the thing it self or any proof of it from the word of God But if any can help me to see it I shall not refuse instruction Nor can I see why the soul of Christ should be said to be given in the Wine only and not in the Bread Nor why by this kind of Communication he may not as truly be said to be given us in
other Ordinances as in the Eucharist Nor know I what they mean by the Forms of bread and wine under which they say that Christs Body and blood is given But I am past doubt that Bread and Wine are still really in substance there And whereas the same men say that It is Christs humbled flesh and blood as sacrificed on the Cross that is Commemorated but his Glorified Body and soul only which are Communicated and Received I must say 1. That Christ plainly tells us of his Giving us his Sacrificed Body or flesh it self to eat as he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World And he saith Take Eat this is my Body which is broken for you c. so that the same body is Commemorated and Communicated But how Communicated In the effects of his sacrifice His Body was given a sacrifice to God for us and the fruits of that sacrifice given to us And thus he was given a sacrifice for the life of the world And thus we do receive him By our bodily taking and eating the Bread we profess that our souls take him to be our Saviour and Cause of our Life both as Purchasing and Meriting it on Earth and Interceding and Communicating it in and from Heaven 2. And this Doctrine will not serve the Papists turn who tell us that Bread and Wine are ceased and that Christs very flesh and blood is there into which all the substance of the bread and wine are turned and that his natural Body before his death was in the same sort given under the forms of Bread and Wine as now and will not be beholden to this subterfuge And indeed it is strange if the Sacrament at the first Institution should be One thing and ever after another thing and that the Bread should ever since be turned into Christs body upon the Priests Consecration and not be turned into it because not yet glorified upon his own words This is my Body Therefore we must let this go and speak of what they own and hold indeed And as for any other Bodily presence influence or communication of Christs Body or Soul besides that which they call Transubstantiation we have nothing to do with it in this Controversie That the substance of the Bread and Wine is not turned into the substance of the flesh and blood of Christ is proved I. Because the Glorified Body of Christ is not formally and properly Flesh and Blood Though it be the sâ—me Body which was Flesh and Blood The Apostle Paul saith 1 Cor. 15.50 51. Now this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God nor doth corruption inherit incorruption Behold I shew you a mysterie We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed It is not only Dr. Hammond but other of the best expositors who shew that by Flesh and blood and corruption here is not meant sin but flesh and blood formally considered which is ever corruptible And the Papists commonly confess this If therefore it be flesh and blood which the bread and wine are turned into then either Christ hath two bodies or two parts of one which are utterly heterogeneal one flesh and blood and the other not one corruptible and the other incorruptible II. And this feigneth Christ to be often Incarnate even thousands and millions of times And to lay down that Incarnate body again as oft as it corrupteth and to take up a new one as oft as the Priest please and yet all but one Whereas the Church and Scripture have ever told us but of one Incarnation of Jesus Christ III. And it is expresly contrary to his promise Joh. 6.51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever And the bread which I give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world v. 34. Who so eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that Eateth me even he shall live by me He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever These are the express promises of Christ But the Papists say that wicked men and unbelievers eat the flesh of Christ who shall not live for ever nor have eternal life nor dwell in Christ but are more miserable by their hypocrisie I pass by abundance of other arguments because commonly used and these are as many as my ends require and I would make the Reader no more work than needs CHAP. XI The Conclusion of the first Book The Causes of Popery R. I Have now made plain to you 1. What the Protestants Religion is or at least my own and all that I perswade you or any other to embrace 2. And also that it is granted to be all true by the generality of the Papists as is explained and proved 3. And I have told you by an enumeration of some particulars why I am not a Papist and why I do disswade you from it 4. And I have made good my first charge in the point of Transubstantiation if any thing in the world can be proved The second I shall leave till another time viz. To shew you how far their Religion as Popish is from Infallible Certainty and what horrid confusion is among them and how they have done much to promote Infidelity in the world by building Religion upon some notorious untruths and upon a multitude of utter uncertainties Though I doubt not but among them there are many true Christians who practically resolve their faith into the surer evidences of Divine Revelation yet I shall clearly prove to you that all those whose practical faith is no surer or better than the notional opinions of their Divines will allow have no certain faith or Religion at all And what impudency is it to make men believe that there is no certainty of Religion to be had but in their way who build their Religion upon such a multitude of uncertainties and certain falshoods as will amaze you when I come to open them to you viz. that ever so many Learned men and persons of all ranks can be induced so to jest in the matters of their salvation And if I be not by death or other greater work prevented I hope in order to make good all the rest of the Charges before mentioned which are our Reasons against the Popish way of Religion In the mean time tell me what you think of that which is already said D. I know not how to confute what you have said And yet when I hear them on the other side me thinks their tale seems fair and I cannot answer them neither so that between you both we that are unlearned are in a sad case who must thus be tost up and down by the disputations of disagreeing Priests so that we know not