nature of Bread and Wine And truly an Image and similitude of the Body and Bloud of Christ is celebrated in the Action of the mysteries I am to suppose it will be replyed for some exception must be conceived against evidences so clear and executive that these testimonies of the Fathers are not to be seen thus in their more corrected editions which I have reason to believe having seen the venerable writings of the most ancient and grave Fathers of the Church both Greek and Latine defaced with large blots wheresoever they were found opposite to the present Tenents and practice of the Roman Church according to the direction of the Roman Expurgatory They pretend that Protestants have inserted into the Books of the Fathers those clauses favouring their own Doctrine But who can believe that so many weighty Volumes making up great Libraries should be newly printed to receive those supplies that so many clear sentences concording with the context should be so artificially conveyed into the very heart and marrow of the Homilies of the Fathers The contrary is the more credible to me I having seen very ancient Libraries which never came under the hands of a Protestant expurged of such clauses and sentences according to the Rule of the Roman Expurgatory Besides this Scot. in 4. dis 11. q. 3. Ocham ib. q. 6. Biel lect 40 in Canon Missae Râ—ffens c. 1. o. 1. controv captiv Balil Scotus Ocham Biel Fisher Bishop of Rochester Bassolis Caietan Melchior Canus and others many eminent Schoolmen have affirmed that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is not expressed in the Canon of the Bible And certainly it was no Article of Faith before the Lateran Council declared it for such 1200. years after Christ as Scotus and others do affirm And even after this declaration several of their chief Teachers continued affirming that Article not to be contained in Scripture Bassolis Caiâ—tan apâ—d Suar. to 3 Disp 46. sec 3. Caâ—us loâ— com l. 3. sun 2. especially â—assolis Caietan Melchior Canus and so they coined it of their own heads for they could not declare it to be revealed if it was not in Scripture Their doctrine of Transubstantiation and Corporal Presence of our Saviour in the Sacrament of the Altar being thus ill grounded consider how desperate is their resolution in giving to the consecrated wafer the Worship of Divinity nay greater than ever they give to the true undoubted God as is well known to such as have seen the sumptuous pomp of Spain and other Popish Countries in adoring the Consecrated Host Even standing to their own principles they can never be absolutely certain of Christ's Corporal Presence under those Forms of Bread That depending as themselves teach from the intention of the Priest consecrating and his due Ordination and this later again depending from the intention of the Bishop that ordained him and his legal Ordination and so upward of endless requisites impossible to be known certainly upon any occasion as Bellarmine Vega and all their Writers commonly do confess Bellar. li. 3. de justif c. 8. What blindness therefore is it to give Divine Worship to a thing they know not certainly to be more than a piece of bread Vega lib. 9. de justif c. 17. Some pressed with this Argument did answer that they were free from Idolatry in their practice herein because they believe that host to be God But upon this account the Egyptians worshipping the Sun for God and the Israelites adoring the Golden Calf believing it was the true God that brought them out of Egypt and the grossest Idolaters that ever were may plead for excuse from Idolatry alledging unwilful mistake To this again some of them reply that they do not barely suppose Christ to be really present under the Form of bread but that they know and believe it upon the same ground and motives upon which they believe that Christ is God and consequently to be adored Whereby certainly they give great advantage to the enemies of Christ's Divinity seeing they make the truth of these two things equal that is Bellar. de Christo l. 1. c. 4. the Divinity of Christ and Transubstantiation And of the untruth of this bold Assertion I will take learned Bellarmine for judge who when he proves the Divinity of Christ goes through nine several classes of Arguments of which six are wholly out of Scripture with uncontrollable strength and admirable clearness But being to prove Transubstantiation out of Scripture his only argument is from those words of our Saviour Matth. De Sacr. Euchar. l. 3. c. 19. 26. Take eat this is my body And finding that proof not clear enough appeals to the Authority of Councils and Fathers concluding the chapter thus Though in the words of the Lord there may be some obscurity or ambiguity that is taken away by the Councils and Fathers of the Church and so passes to that kind of proof But whatsoever be of Scripture for Transubstantiation it is intolerable boldness to say there is the same reason for the adoration of the Host as for Christ's Divinity it self whereas for the one we have a plain command in Scripture and for the other nothing like it St. Paul tells that all the Angels are commanded to worship the Son of God Heb. 1.6 and that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow of things in Heaven Phi. 2.10 in Earth and under the Earth And St. John telleth from his Master's mouth that the Heavenly Father commanded that all men should honour the Son even as they do the Father Jo. 5.23 But where is the least intimation given that we are to worship Christ in the Sacramental Bread supposing him present there If you answer the general command extendeth to him where ever he is present I say you may upon that account as well worship him in the Sun and in the Moon and in any other bread for in all he is present as God I will conclude this Point with answering the argument I saw taken for the most weighty against our Doctrine hitherto declared of taking the Sacrament of the Altar for a commemoration of our Saviour and spiritual partaking of his blessed Body and Bloud for the food of our souls to life everlasting without any real transmutation of the substances That if the Jews did take his words in this sense they could not in reason strive among themselves saying John 5.52 How can this man give us his flesh to eat nor his Disciples say This is an hard saying who can hear it And Christ replying did not reprehend their misunderstanding his words but repeated his former doctrine saying Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man ye have no life in you This argument I once over-valued but considering it better I look upon it as a tacit censure of Christ's reply for non pertinent to satisfie the Objection of his Hearers Shall we pretend to understand their meaning better than Christ
of this Doctrine not willing to defame the Teachers of such infamous Tenents until farther occasion make it necessary to shew how opposite they be to the Law of God and the Doctrine of Christ This kind of defence is a great discredit to their cause Truth needeth not such weapons to be drawn for it David saith Psa 16.2 That God needeth not our goods Deus meus es quoniam bonorum meorum non eges And if he needs not our goods surely he needs not our evil Who useth these means sheweth clearly it is not for God he acts for God refuseth all such ways Job 13.7 Will you speak wickedly for God saith holy Job and talk deceitfully for him Certainly none of his true Followers will do so It is not the way Christ and his Apostles did shew us to propagate their Doctrine Several Persons that pretended to desire my safety were employed to forewarn me I should not speak in prejudice of the Party I forsook in terms which might seem a threatning if I did not take that advice If they require that I should not raise or blazon the faults of particular persons or Societies I am my self totally inclined and fully resolved to observe that rule But if they expect that I should not justifie my departure from the Romish Communion by declaring the exceptions I took against their erroneous â—enents which I could not with approbation of my conscience embrace it is a cruel unjust demand and as much as to say I ought not to defend Iruth and my Credit according to the Law of God and Nature but permit them to strike at both without reply to which I cannot consent And whereas I understand there are malicious glosses made upon my Declaration falsifying the words of it to build cavils upon others substituted by themselves For discovery of that imposture and manifestation of Truth a true Copy of the said Declaration as delivered it in the Church of St John at Cashell is hereto annexed the following Discourse being a fulleâ— explication of what is there said in general And that malice may confide less in its contrivances thinking they will not be discovered and confuted I will let it have here a view of its own weakness declaring one of its attempts by way of the foresaid Declaration Among other tryals made of my constancy in my resolution taken was a Letter written to me in the moneth of June last wherein was advertised that in my Declaration I acknowledged that some years past I did intend and resolve to forsake the Romish Communion and adhere to the Church of England Contrary to which resolution were extant Writings of mine in those times approving and defending the Roman Church I desire the indifferent Reader to peruse carefully the Declaration and see whether in it he finds mention of a Resolution made some years ago of forsaking the Roman Church and he shall onely find that some years ago I doubted of the truth of some Articles of that Church but no word of a Resolution made of separating from it as truly I never made it until the first day of last May and no man living is able to say with truth that he saw any expression of mine by word or writing concerning such a Resolution until that day So this Foundation of that gloss being thus evidently falsified all the breed of that great pregnaney comes to be that writings of mine are extant wherewith in times past I defended the Roman Church A singular discovery as if my name were not to be seen enrolled several years in the Registry or publick Books of the Vniversity of Salamanca for Professour of Controversies in one of the Colledges Members of that Vniverfity and my Auditors being composed of Spanish French and Irish my Dictates may not be in many hands both in this Countrey and abroad as if I were not one of the most srequent and earnest Disputers in favour of the Romish Church since I came to this Land This being generally known and my self canfessing it with repentance of my unfortunate errour therein what purchase do they pretend to make with this acute discovery of one I may probably assure them that the unpassionate will judge them unworthy of credit in matters less clear when they pretend to blind my self and all the Countrey making us believe that in my Declaration extant in so many hands as here published I did acknowledge that some years past I did intend and resolve to desert the Roman and adhere to the Protestant Church whereas therein is onely said that some years ago I doubted of the truth of some Romish Articles but delayed to give assent against them And any good judgment may see that to doubt of the truth of some Articles may be far enough from concluding upon the untruth of them and even this later may be yet farther from a resolution upon a total breach and separation from a Church Herein we see passion blinded for not to be sensible of shame in telling palpable untruths weakness is no less discovered in pretending to discredit me with telling I did in former years approve and defend the Roman Church With this note St. Paul may be branded for being zealous one time of the Synagogue and opposing the Gospel They should remember that I live now in a Congregation allowed to read Scripture and not ignorant of the gracious Word of God delivered by the Prophet Ezekiel Ezek 22.22 If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful right he shall surely live he shall not dye All his transgressions that he hath committed they shall not be mentioned unto him If the godly people with whom I converse make any mention of my former errours it is to rejoyce at my conversion from them As there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God Luke 15.10 over one sinner that repenteth To this shot by way of menace waâ— adjoyned another from the same hand pointing at my intention For they do not think it a robbery to make themselves equal to God in searching hearts and discerning intentions They object to me that if my intention was to be certified of truth as I do profess I should have consulted my doubts with some of my Brethren about me To which I answer First that I could not judge any of my Brethren living about me more fit to resolve me upon these points than Suarez Bellarmine Becanus Stapleton and others the most learned Defenders of the Roman Church with whom I was always very much conversant I would not judge any of them mentioned so vain as to pretend he could give me more satisfaction than the Writings of those great Doctors could afford Secondly I say that to try their skill I related very often to the best understanders about me my several encounters with Learned Protestants their Objections and my Answers And I never yet met
to whom they spake or is it impossible that the malice of the Jews would not or the simplicity of the Disciples could notunderstand the heighth and mysterious sense of the words of our Lord viz. that the Elements of Bread and Wine consecrated and taken in a Sacramental way in remembrance of his Death and Passion should feed to life everlasting the Faithful taking them with due preparation as Protestants do understand in conformity with the Fathers of the Primitive Church before related but that rather they understood them of a corporal and fleshy eating of his Body as Papists do and so represented Difficulties which reason dictated against the like expression such as we did in the beginning of this Discourse You say he did not correct such understanding but he did apparently replying to the Objection of his Disciples so 6.63 It is the spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life Wherewith he draweth them from an apprehension of a corporal eating to that of spiritual feeding conducing to the everlasting life of their souls His reply to the Jews signifies they understood him as we do of a spiritual eating and miraculous operation which they would not believe and so he repeateth the same doctrine to them with the commination annexed that if they did not eat his flesh they should not have life in them Worship of Images As to the third point of worshiping Images it is clearly prohibited by God in the second precept of the Decalogue Exod. 20.4.5 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image thou shalt not bow down thy self to them This Precept they have put out of their Catechism to give place to their own of worshipping of Images with the same honour due to the persons represented by them and consequently the Image of God and Christ with latria of the Virgin Mary with hyperdulia of Saints with dulia according to the graduation they express This to be the general Tenent with them Azor declareth in these words Constans est Theologorum sententia imagines eodem â—â—nore 〈◊〉 honorari câ—li quo colituâ— id cujus est image Azâ—r instit mor. 〈◊〉 1. l 9 c. 6. It is the constant judgment of Divines that the Image is to be honoured and worshipped with the same honour and worship wherewith that is worshipped whereof it is an Image Nay they will have us believe that God did ordain so much in the first commandment and so contradicted himself prohibiting in the second commandment what he commanded in the first Lau Vaux in his Catechism to to this Question Who breaketh the first commandment of God by irreverence of God giveth this Answer they that do not give due reverence to God and his Saints or their reliques and Images What reverence they pretend due to Images Decissione casuum conscientiae p 1. l. 2. c. 2. sect tâ—nult Vet. dâ—gma Theto 5. l 15. c. 3. s 1â— c. 14 s 8. Jacobus de Graffijs declares fully according to what has been said before But Dionysius Petavius one of their most warrantable Antiquaries telleth us that for the four first Centuries and farther there was little or no use of Images in the Temples or Oratories of Christians and such as was Pope Gregory declareth it was only for Historical use for information of the unlearned not to worship them and so writing to Serenus Bishop of Marsile who brake down the Images that were in his Church Gre. regist li 7. Epâ—s 2â—9 ad Serenum seeing the people worshipping them saith thus We commend you that you have that zeal that nothing made with hands should be worshipped but yet we judge that you should not have broken those Images for Painting is therefore used in Churches that they which are unlearned may yet by sight read these things upon the walls which they cannot read in books therefore your brotherhood ought both to preserve the Images and restrain the people from worshipping them This difference betwixt making an Image and worshipping of it is confirmed by the example of the brazen Serpent Num. 21.9 2 Kin. 18.4 which God himself ordered to be made which when onely made and looked upon was a Medicine but when worshipped it became Poison and was destroyed Learned Vasques acknowledgeth that the worship of God by an Image is clearly prohibited in the second Commandment and not only the worship of an Idol saying that it is plain in Scripture Vasq in 3. p. dis 94. c. 3 that God did not only forbid that in the second Commandment which was unlawful by the Law of Nature as the worship of an Image for God but the worshipping of the true God by any similitude Nic. ph l. 8. c 53 Nicephorus Calixtus relating the Heresie of the Armenians and Jacobits says they made Images of the Father Son and Holy Ghost which he censures as a most absurd thing quod perquam absurdum est yet they do it in the Roman Church But S. Clement of Alexandria of Images in general declareth thus Li. 7. Hom. in paraen We have no Images in the world it is apparently forbidden to us to exercise that deceitful art for it is written thou shalt not make any similitude of any thing in Heaven above c. They confess it is sinful to worship an Image terminativè or in it self but pretend it lawful to worship it relative or for God or the Saints sake who is represented A strange way of serving God! to transgress his Commandment to please him Saul was reprehended and severely punished for this kind of officiousness when being commanded to destroy all that Amalek had he spared sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord. But that fair pretext could not excuse his disobedience and what he thought religious devotion was declared to be no better than Idolatry Samuel intimating to him this fearful Verdict 1 Sam. 15.22 23. Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams for Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubborness is as iniquity and Idolatry This being so when God is so clear and absolute in commanding not to bow down to Images adding to this Precept beyond others special expressions of jealousie and commination of severity against infringers of it how can bowing down to them be justified with colours of devotion or excused from rebellion or stubborness which is censured to be Idolatry Besides the worship of an Image terminativè and not relativè includes a contradiction the very essence of an Image including relation to another whereas nothing can be an Image of it self Wherefore the same precept that prohibits a terminative worship excludes a relative But whatsoever may be intended by these expressions how many of the commonalty take notice of that