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A34077
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The plausible arguments of a Romish priest answered by an English Protestant seasonable and useful for all Protestant families.
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Comber, Thomas, 1645-1699.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing C5481; ESTC R16555
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28,548
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65
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No doubtless not where your Church expresly contradicts God and his holy Apostle The Spirit of God by S. Paul commands Men to pray with understanding and forbids any to use an unknown Tongue in Christian Assemblies enjoyning the Priest so to make his Prayers and Praises that the most unlearned may joyn in them be edified by them and say Amen to them 1 Cor. xiv 14 15 16 17. and 26. and your Church bids men pray without understanding and prescribes an unknown Tongue for the Priest to Pray and Praise God in wherein the People cannot joyn and whereby they are not edified yea to which they cannot with understanding say Amen In such a case to obey the Church is to disobey God and a great Impiety Po. You must know Latin was the Language of the ancient Christians at Rome and we have not altered our Prayers but only kept them in that Tongue in which they were made at first by the Apostles who planted our Church Prot. Now you have yielded the Cause for if the Apostles who were Jews did not set up the Hebrew Prayers at Rome but Latin because that was the Language which the People then understood if you were of their Spirit or followed their steps you ought now to turn them into other Languages because the People do not understand Latin and because it is necessary they should pray with understanding Is this your Apostolical Church which acts contrary to the Writings and Example of the Apostles or could the Apostles leave you any Tradition to contradict their own Commands and Practice Po. May not the People think of God and good things and so be very devout at these Prayers though they do not understand the words Prot. They may think of God and good things at home and so need not come to the Publick Service at all if this be sufficient We think Publick Prayers were designed for the People to come and unite their particular and hearty desires to the Petitions made by the Priest and this praying with one accord Acts i. 14. makes them more prevalent than private Prayer S. Math. xviii 20. But your People are thinking of one thing when the Priest is saying another and cannot desire the particular things asked by the Priest because they do not know them So that this turns the publick Prayers into private and the Priest might as well pray without a Congregation Po. It is to God we speak in Prayer and since he understands us it is no marter whether the People understand them or no. Prot. By this Argument you need not Pray at all because God knows your necessities before you ask Yet he bids us ask that by the words of our Prayers we may stir up our Desires exercise our Devotion and excite our Faith not that we may instruct him Wherefore your People are robbed of all that comfort and benefit which ours find so sensibly in our English Prayers meerly because your Church scorns to reform any thing and you can never expect that those who by Experience have found the sweetness and advantage of our pious and plain Liturgy will endure your dry unprofitable Latin Prayers Po. Well but some of your People think Sermons the main thing in Publick Worship and we hope to gain them however because we Preach in English Prot. Possibly some of these may be catcht by this Bait but all wise Protestants will ask you why there is not as much reason for the People to know what they are to speak to God as what the Priest is to speak to them and will also desire to know why you should read the Psalms and Lessons and other parts of Scripture in Latin which God writ for our Learning and Instruction 1 Cor. x. 11. and so make it as impossible the People should learn any thing from it or be instructed by it as for Boys in Horn-Books to be made any wiser by reading a Latin Author to them Po. I have told you before This is lest the People should wrest the Scriptures if they were in a Language they understood Prot. Why then do you preach in English May they not wrest your Sermons as well as Holy Scripture Is there more danger now than in the Apostles times Or is your Church wiser than they Did not they write it in a Language generally understood And was it not soon after turned into Latin because the Romans best understood that Language Did they not deliver it to all and command all to read it and search it to meditate on it and teach it to their Children Though some are Gluttons and Drunkards we must not deny all Men the use of Meat and Drink nor would you thus keep the Scriptures from the People but only for fear that such plain Men as I should discover your Corruptions Po. Methinks you should discover your own Corruptions there For what is more plainly expressed in Scripture than these words concerning the Sacrament of the Altar This is my Body Luke xxii 19. and yet you will not own the real Flesh of Christ to be there Is not this to deny Christ's words and disbelieve the Scripture Prot. We may as well charge you with denying Christs words and disbelieving Scripture since you affirm his real Blood to be there though he tells us This Cup is the new Testament in my Blood Luk. xxii 20. 1 Cor. xi 25. You must confess there is a Figure in this Expression or else you must affirm the Wine is Transubstantiated into the New Testament and if there be a Figure in one Verse why may there not be one also in the other in regard this substantial Change which you pretend is either in both parts or in neither Po. However we have much the advantage of you because we take the Literal sense which is both the more common and the more easie sense whilst you are forced to fly to Tropes and Figures Prot. You must consider this Sacrament is a Mystery and in discoursing of Mysteries it is more common in Scripture to speak Figuratively than Literally yea what is more usual there than to call the Sign by the name of the thing signified and the thing signified by the name of the Sign So the Rock is said to be Christ 1 Cor. x. 4. and Christ is said to be Bread John vi 48. yet none are so absurd to say the Rock is substantially changed into Christ or Christ into Bread And when the Church is called The Body of Christ Colos i. 24. your selves do not affirm that there is any change made of the Church into Christs Flesh and Blood though there be more said of this than of the Sacramental Bread viz That we are Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones Ephes v. 30. So when Christ is called a Vine a Door a Way a Branch c. it is very certain the Expressions are Figurative and there are a thousand places in the Holy Bible which cannot be otherwise understood
Po. Well but the Literal sense is not to be left unless where the words cannot be taken otherwise than Figuratively which is not the case here Prot. Yes that is the very case here for the Literal sense is impossible and full of Contradictions but the Figurative is natural plain and easie For if we take these words Literally Christ's Body was whole and sitting at the Table and broken into pieces on the Table at the same time it must be entire now in Heaven and yet all of it in ten thousand different and distant places on the Earth We must believe the substance of Flesh hath none of its proper Accidents and that the Accidents of Bread can subsist without their proper substance We must think that to be real Flesh and Blood which we see smell taste and feel to be real Bread and Wine We must believe there is a Miracle when all our Senses which are witnesses to all other Miracles give Evidence there is no Miracle at all here In short we must contradict our Reason and deny our Senses without any need unless it be to uphold an unintelligible Literal sense when the Figurative is far more plain Po. 'T is strange how Prejudice may blind Men surely you cannot be in earnest when you say a Figurative Speech is plainer than a Speech without a Figure This only shews how desperate your Cause is which drives you to these Absurdities Prot. I will prove it is no Absurdity to maintain that in this case the Figurative sense is easier For that is the easiest sense of any words which the Mind first apprehends when we hear them For Example if one point to an House and Land and say This is my Estate there the plain sense is the Literal sense But if one hold a Writing sealed in his Hand and say This is my Estate the easiest and plainest sense then is This is that which conveys my Estate and all the benefits of it to me So if Christ had pointed to himself sitting at Table and said This is my Body the Apostles would and we must have taken it Literally but since he points to Bread and saith This is my Body the first and most natural sense of the words is This is that which signifies my Body and communicates all the benefits of my Incarnation and Passion to you and thus S. Paul expresly doth expound it when he saith it is the Communion of his Body and Blood 1 Cor. x. 16. Po. What then do you believe that Christ is in this Sacrament no otherwise but in a bare figure and empty sign Prot. We believe that Christ is here verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful and really present as to all the effects and benefits of his Passion but this presence though it be real yet is spiritual and apprehended by Faith not corporal and substantial because then it must be discerned by sense Po. From one absurdity granted many will follow and your absurd exposition forces you to hold this ridiculous assertion That a Spiritual Presence is a real Presence Prot. Dare you seriously deny this which you call a ridiculous assertion Is not Christ really with his Church to the end of the World by his Spiritual Presence Is not the Holy Ghost really with every Regenerate Man by his Spiritual Presence The effects and benefits of Christ's Death which we seek in this Sacrament are Spiritual such as Pardon Peace Grace and hopes of Glory yet they are very real and therefore we think it fittest to expect them in a Spiritual manner especially since our Lord hath told us It is the Spirit that quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing John vi 63. And the Aposte saith Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Heb. xi 1. That is It makes things invisible and Spiritual to be very real to the true Believer Po. I find you delight much in calling this Spiritual Meat and Drink but would gladly understand how you dare do so without any Authority of Scripture yea when the Scripture saith Christ will give us his Flesh to Eat John vi 53. Prot. We have good Authority of Scripture for this viz 1 Cor. x. 3 4 Where it is said that the Israelites had the priviledge by certain signs to Eat and Drink into Christ as well as we in a mystical way For they did all Eat of the same Spiritual Meat and did all Drink of the same Spiritual Drink For they Drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ We see it was Spiritual Meat and Drink which they had yet it was the same with ours and therefore ours must be Spiritual Meat and Drink too Again we are not said All to Drink into one Blood but into one Spirit 1 Cor. xii 13. Nor can we understand how St. Paul could call that which is the Communion of Christs Body by the Name of Bread after Consecration 1 Cor. xi 26 27 28. If the outward part did not remain unchanged in substance though its use be changed and our Souls are certainly fed here yet these are not capable of feeding either on Bread or Flesh Yea our Lord himself teaches us to Expound those Words in St. John of a Spiritual Communication of his Body for he saith The words he speaks to us are Spirit and Life John vi 63. Po. You do but prevaricate when you pretend to believe Christ is really present in the Sacrament for if you truly believed this you would give Divine Worship to the Host as we do Prot. We bend our Knees address our Prayers and give Divine Worship to Christ who is really present to our Faith in this Sacrament But since we are sure that the outward part is not changed in nature but only in use and signification and doth still remain Bread we dare not give Divine Worship to that which is a Creature since it would be Idolatry so to do Po. Well I will inform you of one very ill consequence of your denying Christs Flesh and Blood to be substantially in this Sacrament that is you make it to be only a Commemoration of the Sacrifice on the Cross but we give it far more honour believing it to be a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the sins of quick and dead Prot. Neither you nor we ought to make the Sacrament what we please we must take our Notions of it from Scripture and from Christ who instituted it and he bids us Do this in Remembrance of Him Luk. xxii 19. And S. Paul doth not say it is the Lords Death but the shewing forth of his Death 1 Cor. xi 26. Yea he makes this the main difference between the legal Sacrifices and that of Christ on the Cross that they were often Offered but he was only to be Offered once and by that one Offering hath perfectly satisfied for the Sins of the whole World Hebr. ix 25 26. And Chap. x. 14. So that this Sacrament is certainly a