Sacraments and to know your Maker from a Bit of Bread. Who have the Advantage of reading God's pure Word without either Romish Comments or Rhemish Annotations which overthrow the Text. Who are allowed to see with your own Eyes That if Scripture should be so forced and wrested as the Papists have used it in this Case then we must all be Anthropomorphites and either Believe that God is of Human Shape or else give him the Lye I know not how oft For the Right Hand of God and many other Bodily parts of him are ten times oftner asserted in Scripture than This is my Body If the Papists say That the Scripture in affirming that God is a Spirit does sufficiently rectifie all such blockish Mistakes I say so too And withal that our Saviour has done abundantly more to prevent and foreclose the no less blameable mistake concerning Transubstantiation For after he had called the Cup his Blood he afterwards again called it the Fruit of the Vine and after his Resurrection it self he gave his Disciples this Test to judg and discern his Body and to know it by Luke 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 From whence we are bound to conclude That where we cannot see Hands and Feet where we cannot see and feel Flesh and Bones where we cannot handle and see Christ's Body there it is not he himself Well may there be some Sign or Token or Memorial of his Body but it cannot be he himself I shall not stand to enquire whether this be the Criterion to know Human Bodies from those Bodies which Angels heretofore assumed but we are sure that these are Infallible Marks to know our Saviour's Body by and that is all our present Business But as for the Noise they have lately made about our Saviour's surprizing the Disciples and entring into the room when the Doors were shut there never was any thing more precarious than the sense which the Papists have put upon that place as if our Saviour had passed through the Doors For there were Two Things as appears by the Scripture which disturbed the Disciples First That a Person should come into the Room without knocking or giving them any warning when they had made all fast and kept themselves close for sear of the Jews And the Second was That he entred in such a manner as made them apprehend him to be a Spirit Now how did ever Angels or Spirits enter into a Room or St. Peter come out of Prison under the conduct of an Angel but by the Doors opening before them of their own accord and shutting again after them As in the case of all the Apostles where the Officers found the Prison shut with all safety Acts 5.23 And I never yet heard or read of Angel or Spirit which entred a Room through Crannies or Key-holes or through Inch-boards But let that be as it will if our Saviour had entred in any such manner it had absolutely overthrown the Criterion which he gave them at the same time to judg of his Body and to Demonstrate that he was not a Spirit For common sense would have taught the Disciples to reply It is true indeed whatever you are Man or Spirit that you have now a gross Human Body and we cannot deny it but that it seems is only when you please for you had not such a one a while ago when you were pleased to come in at the Key-hole whereas there was nothing at all of this but they knew and owned him and were glad to see the Lord. But to conclude Is not this a very pertinent proof of Transubstantiation when the Doctrine of Transubstantiation asserts a thing quite contrary to the Passing through Doors For it asserts that our Saviour's Body is Present in a Room not by being Translated or by Passing out of one Place into another but by being produced in all fresh Places and by being Within Doors and Without Doors at the same Time. In short O my Protestant Countrymen You are Happy if you know your own Happiness and are not weary of it While you have the Light Rejoice in it and walk worthy of it and then God will continue it to you and to your Posterity So be it FINIS Books lately Printed for W. Rogers THE Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome truly Represented in Answer to a Book intituled A Papist Misrepresented and Represented c. Quarto An Answer to a Discourse intituled Papists protesting against Protestant Popery being a Vindication of Papists not Misrepresented by Protestants And containing a particular Examination of Monsieur de Meaux late Bishop of Condom his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in the Articles of Invocation of Saints Worship of Images occasioned by that Discourse Quarto An Answer to the Amicable Accommodation of the Differences between the Representer and the Answerer Quarto A View of the whole Controversie between the Representer and the Answerer with an Answer to the Representer's last Reply in which are laid open some of the Methods by which Protestants are Misrepresented by Papists Quarto The Doctrine of the Trinity and Transubstantiation compared as to Scripture Reason and Tradition in a new Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist the First Part Wherein an Answer is given to the late Proofs of the Antiquity of Transubstantiation in the Books called Consensus Veterum and Nubes Testium c. Quarto The Doctrine of the Trinity and Transubstantiation compared as to Scripture Reason and Tradition in a new Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist the Second Part Wherein the Doctrine of the Trinity is shewed to be agreeable to Scripture and Reason and Transubstantiation repugnant to both Quarto An Answer to the Eighth Chapter of the Representer's Second Part in the first Dialogue between him and his Lay-Friend Of the Authority of Councils and the Rule of Faith. By a Person of Quality With an Answer to the Eight Theses laid down for the Tryal of the English Reformation in a Book that came lately from Oxford Sermons and Discourses some of which never before Printed The Third Volume By the Reverend Dr. Tillotson Dean of Canterbury 8vo A Manual for a Christian Soldier Written by Erasmus and Translated into English Twelves A new and easie Method to learn to Sing by Book whereby one who hath a good Voice and Ear may without other help learn to Sing true by Notes Design'd chiefly for and applied to the promoting of Psalmody and furnished with Variety of Psalm-Tunes in Parts with Directions for that kind of Singing A Book of Cyphers or Letters Reverst being a Work very pleasant and useful as well for Gentlemen as all sorts of Artificers Engravers Painters Carvers Chacers Embroiderers c. Where you may find a Cypher for any Name whatsoever curiously composed after the newest Mode By Jeremiah Marlow Price Bound 5 s. A Perswasive to frequent Communion in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper By John Tillotson Dean of Canterbury In Octavo Price 3 d A Discourse against Transubstantiation In Octavo Price 3 d. The State of the Church of Rome when the Reformation began as it appears by the Advices given to Paul III. and Julius III. by Creatures of their Own. With a Preface leading to the matter of the Book 40. A Letter to a Friend Reflecting on some Passages in a Letter to the D. of P. in Answer to the Arguing Part of his first Letter to Mr. G. The Reflecter's Defence of his Letter to a Friend against the Furious Assaults of Mr. I S. in his second Catholic Letter In four Dialogues 40. A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of the Reverend Benj. Calamy D.D. and late Minister of St. Lawrence Jury Lond. Jan. 7th 1686. By W. Sherlock D. D. Master of the Temple A Vindication of some Protestant Principles of Church-Unity and Catholick-Communion from the Charge of Agreement with the Church of Rome In Answer to a late Pamphlet Intituled An Agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome evinced from the Concertation of some of her Sons with their Brethren the Dissenters By William Sherlock D. D. Master of the Temple A Discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry in which a late Author's true and only Notion of Idolatry is Considered and Confuted 40. The Protestant Resolv'd or a Discourse shewing the Vnreasonableness of his Tarning Roman Catholick for Salvation The 2d Edition A Discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry In which the Bishop of Oxford's True and Only Notion of Idolatry is Considered and Confuted 40. A Preservative against Popery Being some Plain Directions to Unlearned Protestants how to Dispute with Romish Priests The First Part. By William Sherlock D. D. The 4th Edition
Axiomes which were purposely erected as Strongholds to cover and shelter the absurd Doctrines of the Church of Rome and especially that of Transubstantiation by feigning that Revelation and Reason are at variance and that in that Case Reason is to be abandoned It may justly be admired that Cartes a Man of clear Sense should begin such Rules but it is to be remembred That he was to make some amends for the bold Truths he had elsewhere delivered and likewise That he was able to complement the Church of Rome as well as he did particular Persons without being a Slave to his Complement for when he was pressed with what he had said upon such Occasions and with his own very words he used to tell them Urbanitas Styli Gallici te fefellit you did not understand a French Complement I doubt not but the Learned Men of the Port Royal did very well understand it but it is their Craft to make silver Shrines for Diana and all the Commendation we can give them is to say that they are very able Workmen and Masters of their Trade such a one as it is To conclude Reason is that whereby we chuse our Religion and judg whether it be a Revelation which came from God and whereby we distinguish betwixt the Bible and the Alchoran And as Cartes says Presp ad 2. Obj. Art. 5. If a Turk or a Heathen being induced by some False Reasonings should embrace Christianity and did not know that it came from God he would not thereupon be a Christian but rather he would be guilty of a Sin in not using his Reason aright Reason is that whereby we interpret a Revelation or else a man can give no reason why he interprets it in that manner rather than in another And as St. Paul speaks in another Case Do ye not know that the Saints shall judg the World c. Do ye not know that Reason must judg of the Sum of Religion And if the whole must be judged by it Is it unworthy to judg in the smallest Matters such as a Phrase or a Figure Shall it not judge in so plain and so easie a Case as this That Christ's Body on which the Woman poured her Alabaster Box of Ointment Matth. 26.12 was his living Natural Body And the Body which Joseph of Arimathea begged and buried Matth. 27.58 was his dead Natural Body And the Body of Christ which is to be Edified Eph. 4.12 is the Church or Society of all Christian People And the Body of Christ which is to be eaten Matth. 26.26 is the Sign or Sacrament or Memorial of his Body If Reason may not judg in this Case by considering and examining these several Places but is to be set aside or renounced and the Letter of Scripture to determine it Then I am sure that if the Communicant by vertue of those words This is my Body eats the Natural Body of Christ either dead or alive At the same time he also eats up all Christian People by vertue of St. Paul's words who in like manner expresly calls Them the Body of Christ In a word whatsoever is believed or done in Religion must be by Reason or else it is an Irrational Belief and Practice For Reason is the Principle of a Man and whatsoever is not done by it is not done by the Man it is not an Humane Act but the Act of a Brute Whenever therefore I become a Scholar in the School of the Eucharist and renounce the Reason which God has given me to embrace the Romish Doctrine of Transubstantiation I am fully resolved to keep a decorum in it and I will certainly go over to that Church upon all Four. I have not thus much insisted upon Reason because we are destitute of Scripture-proof to shew that Transubstantiation is false for we have not a clearer and fuller evidence from Revelation that our Saviour came into the World than we have that his Body even since his Resurrection is such as cannot possibly be present in form of Bread. As to name no more Luke 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 These are the Scripture-marks of our Saviour's Body which he himself gave on purpose to know it by But can we possibly behold Hands and Feet in a Wafer Can we handle and see Flesh and Bones in it If we cannot Then it is not He himself otherwise these are fallacious Marks of him for roundness and whiteness and no Hands and Feet and no Flesh and Bones might have been the Marks as well But I was hereby willing to shew that as Scripture is against Transubstantiation so the primitive Light of Reason is against it too the Vnwritten as well as the Written Word of God And that as Transubstantiation tends to the destruction of all that is Man or Christian in us So on the other hand Common Sense Reason Christianity and all that is within us does rise up in opposition against so monstrous and mischievous a Doctrine THE ABSOLUTE IMPOSSIBILITY OF Transubstantiation DEMONSTRATED TRansubstantiation is not the Name of one single Absurdity but it signifies as Legion does many Thousands in one For which reason it is very hard to draw them up or put them into any good order which however I shall endeavour to do under these two Heads First Of Intellectual Absurdities And Secondly Of Practical Absurdities 1. The first Head is of Intellectual Absurdities by which I mean such Falshoods as are repugnant to the common Reason and Understanding of Mankind And I purposely wave all those Absurdities of Transubstantiation which contradict our Senses because if a man be bent upon it and will outface me out of all all my senses as I cannot believe him so I cannot disprove him If he says the Sun does not shine when at the same time I am really dazled with the light and brightness of it I can only say as I find and appeal to his own senses and desire him to do me right In case a Romanist should bear me down that the Bible in my hand is not a Book but the living Judg of Controversie Pope Innocent the Eleventh and all the Bishops of the Christian World sitting together in Council I can't help my self especially if he pretend to have chang'd the Book into such and so many living men by saying some powerfully charming words over it and further if in condescension and compliance with the frailty of human sense he likewise acknowledges that it looks like a Printed and Bound Book and is cloath'd with all the Accidents and Properties of a Book and that one part of the Enchantment lies in this that tho in all appearance it is a Book yet it is in reality Pope Innocent the Eleventh and an Assembly of living Bishops in this case I can't use my senses because he has already foreclosed the use and evidence of them But if
Adorable Object of all Religion For supposing it Impossible for a Being of Necessary Existence to Exist which is but supposing a Contradiction and we have immediately lost the Author of all Divine Revelation And not only so but the whole Universe likewise must presently sink into Nothing or rather indeed it could never have been at all But more particularly we shall find the Benefit of the former Demonstrations in the short remainder of our present Discourse for they will add to what we have further to say against Transubstantiation all the force and strength which Demonstration can give Costerus the Jesuit acknowledges and I suppose all Papists with him that If the Bread be not changed into the Body of Christ the worship of the Host is gross Idolatry But we are past all Ifs and And 's and have Demonstrated that there can be no such Change of the Bread into Christ's Body And consequently we have Demonstrated that supposing that Jesuits Concession just the Papists in worshipping of the Host are guilty of gross Idolatry and the Best Friends they have in the world cannot free them from it So likewise it can be no longer a Moot-point or a disputable matter whether it be Criminal to call the Host their Lord God their Maker their Former and their Creator when we have Demonstrated that it cannot be so and that it is only a bit of Bread and to affirm Bread to be a God if it be not Blasphemy it wants a name in our Language In short That can never be a Divine Mystery which is not in a Possibility of being a Divine Truth And consequently the Mystery and Miraculousness of Transubstantiation which has been the old and dark stronghold of Popery is utterly demolished And the Papists having lost that shelter not only all the Absurdities of their Belief concerning it will fall upon them with their whole weight but also all their absurd Practices in reference to it to which I shall now proceed 2. The second General Head is of Practical Absurdities by which I mean such unreasonable and unworthy Actions as are done by the Papists in pursuance of their Doctrine of Transubstantiation And here I can by no means charge them with eating their Maker or eating Man's flesh and drinking Man's blood in the Sacrament For I have shewn it to be impossible for them to do either of these But yet because they intend and profess to do both perhaps the guilt is no less than if they really did them And the Absurdity of their Practice in this behalf is very equally matched with the Absurdity and Contradictiousness of their Belief For as they hold the Sacrament to be the Natural Body of Christ and yet say it is in several Places at once and is made at several times and is in the Form of Bread whereby it appears to be not the Natural Body of Christ but a piece of Bread wherein they say and unsay at once So likewise they worship and serve and pray to that which I have Demonstrated to be a bit of Bread as if it were a God and immediately they undo all that they have done and treat him not at all like a God but eat him up as if he were a bit of Bread. So also they say expresly That the common Nature of Mankind abhors the eating of Man's flesh and drinking of Man's blood and yet they eat and drink that of which they say they have greater Assurance that it is Man's flesh and Man's blood than the Testimony of all their Senses can give them But omitting these things and the great Indignity which is offered to our Blessed Saviour by such like Practices I shall take notice of their Idolatry in worshipping a piece of Bread as if it were God himself And this Practice is unavoidable Idolatry if the Doctrine of Transubstantiation should chance to be false And if it be not false then a thousand Millions of Contradictions must be all of them true So that if the Apostles rent their Clothes when the Lvcaonians said that the Gods were come down in the likeness of Men and were going to give them Divine Honour Acts 14.11 surely they would hardly spare their flesh but rend that too if they should be shewn more than an Hundred God-Almighties together in the Form of Bread and should see Divine Worship paid to them Especially since the Apostles Evangelized men to turn away from Idolatry to the Living God who made Heaven and Earth if moreover the Papists should plead Gospel for their Idolatry and say that they were Evangelized into it I have often thought what St. Paul and Barnabas would have said and done in that Case But what they then cried out and said to the Lycaonians Sirs why do ye these things For we are men of like Passions with you methinks the Host it self says as loud every day to the Papists Sirs why do ye these things For I am no Object of Worship but like another piece of Bread. I have all the Properties and am subject to all the Casualties of any other bit of Bread For either I am presently eaten and swallowed down as any other Bread is or else if I be kept I grow Stale and Mouldy I am put into a Box for fear of Mischances for if the Mouse gets me I am gone Alas I am Bread I am no God. Thus to my Apprehension the Host it self continually cries out and reasons with them And Oh would to God that they would consider to as good purpose as the Lycaonians did I should be content to endure great hardships to see that Happy Day And now O ye Papists I have discharged my Conscience for it has troubled me that I had not long since laid these things plain and open before you And if I knew how to incline you to consider them I would not think much to kneel down at your Feet But if you will not consider them with that evenness of mind which is always necessary to Conviction but rather will consider them with that prejudice and indignation which shall put you upon Contradicting and Objecting and using all your Subtilties and Evasions then I beg of you to do this throughly and spare me not For I have written this Discourse only for the Honour of God and out of love to Truth which never loses any thing by being Tried and Examined but still comes the Brighter out of the Fire It is the Cause of God my Saviour who died for me and I am willing to spend the remainder of my days in it or lay down my life for it even which of the two He shall please And as for you O ye Protestants you have great reason to Bless God that you were Born into the World since the Reformation whereby you enjoy the Benefit of having God's own Book in your own Vulgar Tongue And thereby are taught to know God and his Creatures asunder and have learnt to distinguish our Saviour Christ from his