used after Consecration doth not so much as Probably prove it was for Adoration-sake because it was as well in use in your lifting up of the Host before Consecration as your objected Missal's of Saint Iames and Basil doe manifest Lastly that where Elevation was practised after Consecration the objected Authors confute your Assertion for in Chrysostome it is read That the Priest did take a portion out of the dish and held it up but a little this is not lifting it over the Head or very high as your reason for Adoration would require And in your objected Saint Denis there is no more but that The sacred celebrated Symbols were brought into light which after Consecration he termeth Vncovered Bread divided of the Priest into many parts Bread we say broken after Consecration which is the break-necke of your whole Defence Your third Objection is the diligent Caution given by Ancient Fathers to take heed Lest that any Crum should fall to the ground and if any little part thereof should fall it should be left to the Priest and the Remainder of the Sacrament after the Masse say you should be burnt to ashes and the ashes laid up So you Pharoah his Butler and â—aker we are sure would have beene loth to miscarry in spilling or letting fall any part of their carriage when they were to present their service unto their King much more carefully ought every Christian in executing his sacred Function to observe the Lawes of Decorum Marke we by the way Master Breerly durst not call the part falling any thing but a Part not A part of Christ's Body that were Impious not a part of Accidents that were absurd what meaneth this childish Fabling trow we but that if they should speake out they should betray their Cause in calling that little part a part of Bread as your objected Dionysius spake And when all is said we heare no proofe of Divine Adoration of the Hoast But we leave you to take your Answer from your Cardinall who hath told you that Casuall spilling of the Cup is no sinne Only we must againe insist in the former Observation to wit the frequent speeches of the Fathers telling us of Crums Fragments little parts of this Sacrament and of Burning them into ashes after the Celebration ended Now answer us in good sadnesse was it ever heard of we say not of ancient Fathers but of any professing Christianity were they Catholikes or Heretikes who would not have judged it most execrable for any to say or thinke that A crum or little part of Christ's body falleth or that by a dash of the Cup the blood of our Lord is spilt or that the Primitive Fathers in the Remainder of the Sacrament Burned their Saviour Yet these must they both have thought and said if as you speake of Eating Swallowing feeding Corporally of Christ's Body the Body of Christ were the proper Subject of these accidentall Events That the Objection taken from any Gesture used in the daies of Antiquity doth not prove a Divine Adoration of the Eucharist SECT III. GEsture is one of the points which you object as more observable than the former but how Because Chrysostome will have the Communicant take it with Inclining hit head downe before the holy Table Cyril by Bowing after the manner of Adoring You will be still like your selves insisting upon Heterogenies and Arguments which conclude not ad idem For first the Examples objected speake not of Bowing downe to the Sacrament but of our Bowing downe our heads to the ground in signification of our Vnworthinesse which may be done in Adoring Christ with a Sursum corda that is Lifting up our hearts to Christ above And this may become every Christian to use and may be done without divine Adoration of the thing before us Nay and that no Gesture either standing sitting or kneeling is necessary for such an Adoration your greatest Advocate doth shew out of Antiquitie and affirmeth this as a Point as he saith agreed on by all adding that Divine Adoration consisteth not in the outward Gesture but in the Intention of the minde For indeed there is no one kinde of outward Gesture which as you have confessed is not also communicable to man so that although that were true which is set downe in the Rubricke of Chrysostomes Liturgie that the Ministers did use to Incline their Bodies to the Altar yet none can be so simple to thinke that they did yeeld divine honour unto an Altar Nay your owne great Master of Ceremonies Durantus hath observed the like Bowing downe of the Priest in the preparation of this Sacrament even Before consecration and one of your Iesuits reporteth your objected Greeke Church at this day to Adore the Bread and Wine unconsecrated albeit they beleeve no Presence of Christ herein This being knowne how can you in any credibility conclude as you have done a Corporall presence of Christ in this Sacrament after Consecration from a Reverence which hath beene yeelded to the same Sacrament before it was consecrated In which consideration your Disputers stand so much the more condemnable because whereas they shew some Examples of a Bodily Inclining to the Sacrament done before Consecration yet after Consecration they have not produced any one But what newes now We blush in your behalfe to repeat the Instance which you have out of your Legends of a Brute Beast prostrating it selfe before the Host and doing Reverence unto it We would have concealed this but that you seeme to glory herein as being for your Instruction like to the reproofe given miraculously to Balaam by his Asse Well might this Legend have become that latter time of darknesse wherein it was first hatched but not these cleare daies wherein your mysteries of Delusions have beene so often revealed and when all Christians almost in all Countries have taken knowledge of an Horse taught by Art to kneele to any person at his Masters command and once in France when by the Suggestion and Instigation of Romish Priests his Master was called into question for Sorcery he for vindication of his credit with them commanded his horse to kneele before a Crucifix and thereby freed himselfe from suspition of Diabolicall familiarity according to the Principles of their owne superstition And for any one to conclude this to have been God's miraculous worke in that Horse as the other was in that Asse would seeme to be the Reason of an unreasonable man because all Miracles alwaies exceed all power both of Art and Nature else were they no Miracles at all Thus to your fourth Objection from outward Acts we passe on to Examples That no Example of Invocation objected out of Antiquity can infer the Divine Honour of the Sacrament as is pretended SECT IV. YOur Instances are Three the principall in Gorgonia the Sister of Gregory Nazianzen in whose Oration at her funerall we finde that She having beene
of their owne so distinct and different Nations For the which cause they can finde no better entertainment with your Iesuites than to admonish you that You are not to be moued with the example of such barbarous people O Iesuiticall superciliousnes to contemne them as Barbarous in an example of praying in a knowne tongue the contrarie whereunto as namely praying in an vnknowne tongue the Apostle condemneth as Barbarousnes it â—elfe With the same modestie might you scoffe at and reproach other more ancient Nations and Christians commended by primitiue Fathers for celebrating their Oblations Prayers and Psalmes in their Nationall tongues so that one repeating the words first the whole people with ioynt voyce and heart accorded in â—inging Among whom are recorded the converted Iewes the Syrians and All as well Greekes as Romanes praying in their owne tongue and with â—armonicall consent singing of Psalmes in the publike worship as also the Grecians Egyptians Thebaeans Palestinians Arabians Phoenicians and Syrians This from the Testimonies of holy Fathers Whether therefore the tongue we pray in be barbarous or learned it is not respected of God but whether it be knowne or vnknowne is the point In which respect wee may vsurpe the Similitude which St. Augustine hath What availeth a golden Key if it cannot open that which should be opened or what hurâ—eth a wooden Key if it be able to open seeing that wee desire nothing but that the thing shut may be opened By this time you see your Noveltie in your Romish practice Behold in the next place the Iniquitie and prophanenesse thereof and how after the death of Pope Gregory the first which was abouâ— 608. yeares after Christ your Romane Church degenerated as much from the then Romane truth in this point as shee did from her Romane tongue and Language it selfe Wee are here constrained to pleade the whole cause for the defence of a necessity of a knowne worship in respect of God of Man and of Both. A SECOND CHALLENGE Shewing the Iniquitie of Seruice in an vnknowne tongue And first of the Iniury done by the fore-said Romane Decree vnto the soules of Men. THe former Decree of your Councell for vnknowne Seruice how iniurious it is unto man we may learne by the Confessions of Iesuites and others granting that The Apostles in their times required a knowne Language Greeke in the Greeke Churches and Latine in the Latine Churches because that first this made for the Edification and Consolation of Christians Secondly that Man gaineth more both in mind and affection who knoweth what he prayeth As for him that is Ignorant you say He is not edified in asmuch as he knoweth not in particular although in generall he doth vnderstand Thirdly that the Apostle commandeth that all things be done to edification Fourthly that the knowne Service is fitter for Deuotion and thereupon some of you haue furthermore Concluded that It were better that the Service were used in a Language knowne both to the Clergie and People And againe that People profit no whit by praying in a strange language So your owne Writers as you may obserue in the Marginals Now what more extreame and intolerable Iniurie could you doe to the soules of Gods people than by imposing a strange language upon them thereby according to your owne Confessions to depriue them and that wittingly of Edification Consolation and Devotion the three chiefe Benefits that man's soule is capable off in the seruice of God Thus in respect of your Iniurie against Man A THIRD CHALLENGE Touching the Iniurie done by the same Decree against God himselfe YEt all this notwithstanding you are bent to cozen Christian people with palpable Sophistry by your Cardinall who confesseth that the Psalmes in the dayes of the Primitiue-Church were sung ioyntly of the people Because they were ordayned for instruction consolation of the people as the chiefe end But as for the Diuine Service The Principall end of it saith hee is not the instruction and consolation of the people but the worship of God So hee Whom when we aske why the people then did all ioyne together both in Singing of Psalmes and Answering the Minister in Diuine Service and Prayer Hee saith it was because of the Pauscitie of people and rarenesse of the Assembly Whereby it seemeth he meant to maintaine Your Degenerate Romish Worship with Paradoxes First As if Psalmes publiquely sung in the Church to Gods glorie were not Divine duties and service Secondly As if the Primitive Church using both Psalmes and other Prayers in a knowne tongue as he confesseth did not bold a necessitie of the Common knowledge of both for Instruction and Consolation Thirdly As if the Assemblies of Christians were of such a Paucitie in the dayes of Tertullian when those Psalmes ordained for Instruction and Consolation were in use And fourthly as if People now adayes had not asmuch need of Instruction and Consolation as they that lived in Primitive-times yea and more especially such People who being led blind-fold by an Implicite Faith have reason to crave Instruction and having their Consciences tortured and perplexed with multiplicities of Ceremoniall Lawes have as just cause also to desire Consolation As for your obiecting the Worship of God by vnknowne prayers that may be sufficient which your owne Catechisme authorized by the Councel of Trent teacheth you where answering to that question why God although hee know our wants before wee pray yet will be sollicited by our prayers it saith that hee doth this to the end that Praying more confidently wee may be more inflamed with love towards God and so being possessed with more joy may bee exercised to a â—ervent worship of God So your publike and generall Romane Catechisme The case then is plaine From more Edification there ariseth more Consolation from more Consolation there issueth more Devotion from all these proceeds more filiall Loue and dutifull Worship of God Which was long since shadowed as Philo Iudaeus allegorizeth witnessing your Iesuite by Moses and Miriam singing unto the Lord Moses signifying the understanding part and Miriam betokening the Affection both notifying that we are to sing Hymnes both affectionately and understandingly unto God Therefore if you be men of Conscience recant that your now objected Barbarous Paradoxe Which contrarie to all anciently-professed Divinity and expresse Scripture saying I will pray with my spirit I will pray with my understanding also doth thrust man's Vnderstanding out of God's worship to the vtter abolishing of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is his Reasonable worshipping of God by making man as Saint Augustine noteth no better than Oâ—zells Parrots Ravens and Mag-pies all which learne to prate they know not what THE FOVRTH CHALLENGE Against the said Romish Decree as ioyntly injurious both to God and Man from the Text of the Apostle 1. Cor. 14. IN the fourth place VVee are to speake of the Iniquitie of your vnknowne language
Eucharist you know is called by Saint Paul The supper of the Lord and by ancient Fathers an holy Banquet The second kind of Romish Pretences is of such which might have beene common to other Churches The other Causes above-mentioned were common to the primitive Church of Christ wherein the use of both kinds was notwithstanding preserved and continued except that you will say no Northerne Nations were Christians in those times and that no stomacks of Christians were disaffected to wine in loathing it c. But two other Pretences you have which you thinke to be of more speciall force to forbid the use of this Sacrament in both kinds One is Because saith your Cardinall Such is the now-received and approved custome of Nations and People So hee But first to argue that your Church did therefore forbid the use of both kinds because shee had approued the contrary Custome is a meere Nugacitie and Tautologie and as much as to say Shee would forbid it because shee would forbid it Secondly saying that the Vse of but One kinde had indefinitely the Consent of Nations and People is a flat falsity because as hath beene confessed The Greeke Church not to mention Aethiopians Aegyptians Armenians and Others have alwayes held the Contrarie Custome Lastly to justifie your Churches Innouation in consenting to the humour of People of later times what can you censure it lesse than a grosse and absurd Indulgence The other Motive which the Cardinall calleth a Vehement presumption and which all your Obiectors most earnestly urge is the Cause of Irreverence lest the blood might be split especially in such a multitude of faithfull Communicants and also least any particle of the Hoast fall to the ground saith Master Brereley We have but foure Answeres to this mightie Obiection First that this was not held a Reason to Christ or his Apostles or to the Church of Christ for many ages when notwithstanding the multitudes of Communicants were innumerable Secondly that The Casuall spilling of the Cup saith your Salmeron is no sinne else would not Christ have instituted the use of the Cup nor would the Apostles or primitive Church aswell in the West as in the East in their communicating nor yet the Priest in consecrating have vsed it So hee Wee might adde by the same reason should people be forbid the other part also left as your Priest said any particle thereof should fall to the ground Furthermore for the avoiding of Spilling you as your Cardinall Alan relateth have provided Pipes of silver which are used by Popes Cardinals Monks and some other Illustrious lay-Personages Surely there being no respect of persons with God as said S. Peter we thinke that he who will be S. Peter's Successor should have taken out with S. Peter that lesson of Christ of loving the whole flocke of Christ aswell Lambes as Sheepe not to provide Pipes or Tunnels for himselfe alone his Grandes for receiuing this part of the Sacrament and to neglect all other Christians albeit never so true members of Christ For this wee all know that Our Lord Christ prepared his table aswell for the poore as the Rich according to the Apostles Doctrine by your owne construction answerable to the Doctrine of ancient Fathers And that the pretence of Reverence cannot be a sufficient Reason of altering the ordinance of Christ wee may learne from ancient Histories which euidently declare that the opinion of Reverence hath often beene the Damme and Nource of manifold Superstitions As for example The Heretikes called Discalceati in pretence of more humilitie thought that they ought to goe bare-foote The Encratitae in pretence of more sanctitity abhorred marriage The Aquarij in pretence of more sobriety used water in this Sacrament The Manichees wanted not their pretence of not drinking wine in the Eucharist because they thought it was created by an evill Spirit And yet were these iudged by Pope Gelasius to be Sacrilegious Yea and what greater defence had the Pharisees for all their Superstitions than that of Reverence whom notwithstanding Christ did pierce thorow with so many Vae's for annulling of the Precepts of God by their Traditions vnder the pretence of religious Reverence and sanctity In briefe It was the opinion of Reverence that made S. Peter to contradict our Lords command when he said Thou shalt never wash my feete yet how dangerous it had beene for Peter to have persisted in opposition the Replie of our Saviour doth declare If I wash not thy feete saith Christ thou hast no part with me c. Vpon which Text S. Chrysost readeth vnto you this Lecture Let us therefore learne saith he to honour and reverence Christ as he would and not as we thinke meete And sure wee are that he would that same which he commanded saying Doe this Therefore our next Difference betweene our defence and yours is no other than obedient Reverence and reverent or rather irreligious Disobedience As for your Pretence of manifesting hereby a Greater dignity of Priests than of Laicks it is too phantasticall for the singularity too harsh for the noveltie and too gracelesse for the impietie thereof seeing that Christ who gave his Bodie and Blood an equall price of Redemption for all sorts would have the Sacrament of his Body and Blood equally administred to People as Priests as you have heard the Fathers themselves professe The three Romish Pretences which are more peculiar to their owne Church in two points First because Heretikes saith Bellarmine and meaning Protestants doe not believe Concomitancie that is to say that the blood of Christ is received under the forme of bread but for this Concomitancie the Church was moved to prescribe the vse of the Eucharist in one kinde So he And this point of Concomitancie is that which M. Fisher and M. Breerly most laboured for or rather laboured vpon And albeit your Romane Catechisme iudgeth this the principall Cause of inducing your Church to preferre one kinde yet wee whom you call Heretikes beleeve that the deuout Communicant receiving Christ spiritually by faith is thereby possessed of whole Christ crucified in the inward act of the Soule and onely deny that the whole is received Sacramentally in this outward act vnder one onely part of this Sacrament which is the present question And in this wee say no more than your Bishop Iansenius iudged reasonable who hath rightly argued saying It doth not easily appeare how the outward receiving of Christ under the forme of Bread should be called Drinking but onely Eating being received after the manner of meates as that is called Drinking onely which is received after the manner of Drinke Drinking therefore and Eating are distinguished by Christ in the outward Act. So hee even as your owne Durand before him had truely concluded with whom M. Breerly will beare a part Therefore your Concomitancie if wee respect the Sacramentall manner of Receiving
teach others their Grammer should be so far over-taken as to need to be put in mind of their Accidence if ever they learned it which telleth them that The neuter gender will agree with any thing that hath no life whether seene or not seene In which respect there might be a difference betweene Hoc de Patre and Hoc de Pane for although Priscian would cry out if hee heard one saying Hoc lana or Hoc lapis wherein Hoc is taken adiectively yet if a Question being raised concerning the lightnes and heavines of Wool and of Stone one shewing the Wool in his hand should say Hoc est leve the other pointing at the Stone should say Hoc est grave will any thinke that Priscian would be offended for Hoc in Latine more then others would be for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to trouble you with that in your Summa Angelica wherein Hoc neutrally taken is made to agree with Cibus And although Protestants be so inexpert in the rudiments of learning yet will you not thinke that they whom you call Catholiques could be so deceived who as your Iesuite witnesseth were Many that taught that Hoc in the words of Christ put substantively may without any Inconvenience agree with Panis in This meaning This which I give you Are you not yet ashamed of your Rashnesse then must we now put you unto it In your owne vulgar Latin Translation it is said of Evah the the wife of Adam Hoc est os Gen. 2. what Insobriety then is this in your Disputers so eagerly to reach that blow unto the Protestants wherewith they must as necessarily buffe◠their owne Mother-Church by which the same Translation is made Authentique and wound their owne Consciences being themselves bound by Oath to defend it in all their disputations Away then with these Puerilities especially now being busied in a matter of so great importance wherein consisteth the foundation of all the maine Controversies concerning the Roman Masse For if the Pronoune This have Relation to Bread there needs no further dispute about the figurative sence of Christ's speech Wee returne to the Schoole of Christ the holy Scripture to consult about Christ's meaning with his Disciple Saint Paul where he professeth to deliver nothing concerning Christ his Institution of this Sacrament but that which hee had Received of the Lord. Him we desire to expound vnto vs the words of Christ delivered by Three Evangelists and to tell what hee gave unto them and what he called his Body and he telleth vs plainly saying The bread which we breake is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ alluding to those words of the Evangelists He brake it and that was Bread And that you may know that this was Catholique Doctrine in the dayes of Antiquity wee adioyne the next Proposition That it was Bread and Wine which Christ called his Body and Blood in the Iudgement of Ancient Fathers SECT VI. FOr proofe hereof behold a Torrent of Ancient Fathers pressing upon you Iraeneus Tertullian Origen Hierome Ambrose Augustine Cyrill of Hiernsalem Cyrill of Alexandria Theodoret Gaudentius Cyprian Clemens of Alexandria and Isidore Thirteene to the dozen whose sayings we may best know by their owne Idiome and Tenure of speech The first noting Christ to haue confessed bread to have beene his Body The second Christ to have called bread his Body The third that Christ's speech was spoken of bread The fourth that That which hee broke was bread The fift that It was bread which he brake The sixt that It was bread of the Lord and not bread the Lord. The seventh that the words My Body were spoken of the bread The eight that Christ saith of the bread This is my Body And the same Father as if he had studied to take away all Scales of doubtfulnesse from the eyes of your mindes illustrateth the matter thus So saith hee did Christ call his Body Bread as else-where hee calleth his flesh a Graine of Wheate Except the Graine of Wheate die it bringeth forth no fruit The ninth that Christ gave to the bread the name of his Body The tenth that Christ said of the Consecrated bread This is my Body The eleuenth that It was Wine which hee called his blood The twelfth that He blessed Wine when he said drinke And the last The bread strengthening man's body was therefore called the body of Christ All these so Learned and Ancient Fathers sufficient Grammarians we trow teaching the Pronoune This to demonstrate Bread doe as absolutely confute your Romish Exposition to prove the speech Figurative as any Protestant in the world could doe if hee were permitted to plead his owne Cause CHALLENGE VVE will try what a Syllogisme will doe that after your Posall in Grammar we may encounter you with Logique The Maior No Bread can possibly be called a Body of flesh without a figure This Proposition hath had the Vniversall consent of all Schooles by virtue of that Maxime of Maximes Disparatum de Disparato c. The Minor But in these words This is my Body the Pronoune This doth demonstrate Bread This hath beene the generall Exposition of Fathers The Conclusion Therefore the words of Christ This is my Body are to be taken figuratively Except you will contradict both the Generall confession of your owne Schooles and Vniversall consent of Ancient Fathers That it was Bread which Christ called his Body is proved manifestly from your owne Romish Positions and Principles SECT VII YOur first Position is this The word This must either point out Bread or the Body of Christ or that Third common Substance which you call Individuum vagum But to referre the word This unto the Body of Christ is as hath beene confessed Absurde And that the word This should signifie your Individuum vagum is an Exposition fall of Absurdities as hath beene also acknowledged It remaineth therefore that the Pronoune This pointeth out precisely Bread A second Principle you have to wit That these words This is my Body are wordes of Consecration and Operative so that by This is meant that which is Consecrated and as your Councell of Trent speaketh changed into the Body of Christ. But by the Decree of the same Councell not the Body of Christ nor any Third thing but Bread onely was then consecrated and changed into the Body of Christ Ergo the Pronoune THIS hath onely Relation to the Bread CHALLENGE A New Syllogisme would be had to put the matter out of question Maior No Sence which is Impossible can be given properly to the wordes of Christ This is my Body This needeth no proofe Minor But to call Bread Christ's Body properly is a Sence Impossible This hath beene your owne constant profession Conclusion Therefore cannot this Sence be given properly to the Body of Christ.
having power sensibly to perceive which betokening Bread or the Accidents of bread as you see it doth confirmeth unto us the Tropicall speech of Christ in calling Bread his Body and consequently overthroweth your whole Cause Fourthly the Similitude of Epiphanius must stand thus That which is said to be after the Image of God is such which hath a substantiall being yet so that it be like but not the same in nature And so is Bread having a Sacramentall Analogie to Christ's Body the first as the substantiall meate of man's Body and the other as the supersubstantiall food of Man's Soule Which Conclusion namely that Bread as the signe of Christ's Body is not the same in nature with Christ's Body doth dash out the braines of the Monster Transubstantiation by the which Bread as your Tridentine Faith teacheth is wholly changed into the substantiall nature of Christ's Body As if you would have Epiphanius to have said The Image of God in man is God in nature Thus doe you find the Testimony of Epiphanius to be Convincent indeed but against your Romish Doctrine of Errour and against your Cardinall of a foule falsity who saith that Epiphanius will have us to believe something herein although it be repugnant to our Sences which word no man of Sence can find in Epiphanius He saith indeed that every man is bound upon his Salvation to believe the Truth of Christ his Speech which say wee none but an Infidell can deny because Christ being Truth it selfe therefore all the words of Christ whether spoken Literally or Tropically they are still the Truth of Christ That the same Greeke Fathers have expresly vnfolded their meanings touching a Figurative Sence SECT VIII THe Iudgement of a whole Councell of Greeke Fathers may well suffice for the manifestation of the Iudgement of that Church They in Constantinople at Trullo alluding to these words of Christ This is my Body saying Let nothing be offered but the Body and Blood of Christ that is say They Bread and Wine c. If we had not told you that this had been the speech of Greeke Fathers in a Councell you would have conceived they had beene uttered by some Heretique as your Charity useth to cal us Protestants Neither may the Authority of this Councell be rejected by you as unlawfull in the point of the Sacrament both because it is objected by your selves to prove it an vnbloody Sacrifice whereunto you are answered as also for that your Binius in opposing against some things in this Councell yet neuer tooke any Exception against this Canon We may not let passe another Testimony used by the Antient Father Theodoret namely That Christ called the Bread his Body as he called his Body Bread Matth. 12. saying thereof Except the grane of wheat die c. insomuch that Interchangeably in the one place He gave to the Signe the name of his Body and in the other He gave to his Body the name of the Signe So hee As Protestantly as either Calvin or Beza could speake And you cannot deny but that when Christ called his Body Bread it was an improper and figurative speech And therefore if you will believe Theodoret you are compellable to confesse that Christ in calling Bread his Body meant it not in a proper and literall sence Hitherto of the Greeke Fathers That the same Figurative sence of Christ's words is avouched by the Latine Fathers SECT IX SOme of the Latine Fathers we confesse seeme in some places to deny all Figurative sence but this they doe even by a figure called Hyperbole that is onely in the excesse of Speech thereby to abstract the minds of sensuall men from fixing their thoughts upon externall Rites and to rayse them up to a Sacramentall and Spirituall Contemplation of the Body and Blood of Christ But as for the direct and perspicuous Sentences of these Fathers they cleerely and exactly teach a figurative sence in the words of Christ to wit Tertullian This is my Body That is a figure thereof Cyprian Things signifying and signified are called by the same word Hierom. Wine the type of Christ his Blood Gelasius Bread the image of his Body Ambrose After consecration Christ his Body is signified Saint Augustine in many places may be unto Vs instar multorum To eate the flesh of Christ saith he is a figurative speech Againe In the banquet Christ gave to his Disciples the signe of his Body And yet againe Christ doubted not to say This is my Body when he gave a signe of his Body Lastly unanswerably proving other Sacraments to agree with this in this point and that herein the Eucharist hath no Prerogative above the rest Sacraments saith he for the very Similitude and likenesse which they have with the things whereof they are Sacraments doe often take the names of those things which they doe signifie as when the Sacrament of Christ's Body saith he is after a certaine manner called the Body of Christ But how Hee addeth as if hee had meant to stop the mouthes of all Opposites As it is said by the Apostle of Baptisme we are buried by Baptisme into the death of Christ He saith not wee signifie his buriall but absolutely saith Wee are buried therefore hath he called the Sacrament or Signe of so great a Thing by the name of the Thing signified thereby So he even the same He who will be found like himselfe in the following passages of this Booke especially when we shall handle the manner of Eating of Christ's body which Augustine will Challenge to be figuratively meant We shall take our farewell of the Latine Fathers in the Testimony of Bishop Isidore who will give you his owne Reason why Christ called Bread his Body Bread saith he because it strengtheneth the body is therefore called the body of Christ and Wine because it maketh Blood is therefore referred to Christ's Blood but these two being sanctified by the Holy Ghost are changed into a Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ So he and so say we Accordingly Tertullian but least any may Cavill as some doe at his sentence above-cited wee adde his other sentence wherein he sheweth that Christ called Bread his Body in saying This is my body as the Prophet Ieremy called his Body Bread in saying Let us put wood upon his Bread meaning his Body So Tertullian shewing them both to be spoken equally in a figurative Sence CHALLENGE THese Sentences of these holy Fathers are so fully Consonant to the Doctrine of Protestans as that if the names of these Fathers had beene concealed our Reader might thinke that hee heard Bucer Calvin or Beza speake Goe you now and proclaime that all Ancient Fathers teach your Litterall sence of Christ his words and perswade your selves if you can that any man of Conscience and Iudgement can be seduced to believe you They say indeed that Bread is the Body of Christ
by Protestants which is Sacramentall And by the Papists defined to be Trans-substantiall SECT I. First of the Sacramentall THere lieth a Charge upon every Soule that shall communicate and participate of this Sacrament that herein he Discerne the Lord's Body which Office of Discerning according to the iudgement of Protestants is not onely in the use but also in the Nature to distinguish the Obiect of Faith from the Obiect of Sense The First Obiect of Christian Faith is the Divine Alteration and Change of naturall Bread into a Sacrament of Christ's body This we call a Divine Change because none but the same Omnipotent power that made the Creature and Element of Bread can Change it into a Sacrament The Second Obiect of Faith is the Body of Christ it selfe Sacramentally represented and verily exhibited to the Faithfull Communicants There are then three Obiects in all to be distinguished The First is before Consecration the Bread meerely Naturall Secondly After Consecration Bread Sacramentall Thirdly Christ's owne Body which is the Spirituall and Super-substantiall Bread truly exhibited by this Sacramentall to the nourishment of the soules of the Faithfull Secondly of the Romish Change which you call Transubstantiation SECT II. BVt your Change in the Councell of Trent is thus defined Transubstantiation is a Change of the whole Substance of Bread into the whole Substance of the Body of Christ and of Wine into his Blood Which by the Bull of Pius the Fourth then Pope is made an Article of Faith without which a man cannot be saved Which Article of your Faith Protestans beleeve to be a new and impious Figment and Heresie The Case thus standing it will concerne every Christian to build his Resolution upon a sound Foundation As for the Church of England she professeth in her 28. Article saying of this Transubstantiation that It cannot be proved by holy Writ but is repugnant to the plaine words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion unto MANY SVPERSTIONS CHAP. II. The Question is to be examined by these ground viz. I. Scripture II. Antiquity III. Divine Reason IN all which wee shall make bold to borrow your owne Assertions and Confessions for the Confirmation of Truth The Romish Depravation of the Sence of Christ his words This is my Body for proofe of Transubstantiation SECT I. YOu pretend and that with no small Confidence as a Truth avouched by the Councell of Trent that Transubstantiation is collected from the sole true and proper Signification of these words This is my Body So you CHALLENGE VVHerein you shew your selves to be men of great Faith or rather Credulity but of little Conscience teaching that to be undoubtedly True whereof notwithstanding you your-selves render many Causes of Doubting For first you grant that besides Cardinall Cajetane and some other Ancient Schoolemen Scotus and Cameracensis men most Learned and Acute held that There is no one place of Scripture so expresse which without the Declaration of the Church can evidently compell any man to admit of Transubstantiation So they Which your Cardinall and our greatest Adversary saith Is not altogether improbable and whereunto your Bishop Roffensis giveth his consent Secondly which is also confessed some other Doctors of your Church because they could not find so full Evidence for proofe of your Transubstantiation out of the words of Christ were driven to so hard shifts as to Change the Verbe Substantive Est into a Verbe Passive or Transitive Fit or Transit that is in stead of Is to say It 's Made or It passeth into the Body of Christ A Sence which your Iesuite Suarez cannot allow because as hee truly saith It is a Corrupting of the Text. Albeit indeed this word Transubstantiation importeth no more than the Fieri seu Transire of Making or Passing of one Substance into another So that still you see Transubstantiation cannot be extracted out of the Text without violence to the words of Christ Wee might in the third place adde hereunto that the true Sence of the words of Christ is Figurative as by Scriptures Fathers and by your owne confessed Grounds hath beene already plentifully * proved as an Infallible Truth So groundlesse is this chiefe Article of your Romish Faith whereof more will be said in the sixt Section following But yet by the way wee take leave to prevent your Obiection You have told us that the words of Christ are Operative and worke that which they signifie so that upon the pronuntiation of the words This is my Body it must infallibly follow that Bread is changed into Christs Body which wee shall believe assoone as you shall be able to prove that upon the pronuntiation of the other words of Christ This Cup is the new Testament in my Blood Luc. 22. 20. the Cup is changed into the Testament of Christ's Blood or else into his Blood it selfe The Novelty of Transubstantiation examined as well for the Name as for the Nature thereof SECT II. The Title and Name of Transubstantiation proved to be of a latter date YOu have imposed the very Title of Transubstantiation upon the Faith of Christians albeit the word Transubstantiation as you grant was not used of any Ancient Fathers and that your Romish Change had not it's Christendome or name among Christians to be called Transubstantiation as your Cardinall Alan witnesseth before the Councell of Laterane which was 1215. yeares after Christ nor can you produce One Father Greeke or Latine for a Thousand yeares attributing any word equivalent in strict Sence unto the same word Transubstantiation untill the yeare 1100. which is beyond the Compasse of due Antiquitie At what time you finde note and â—rge Theophylact who saith of the Bread that It is Trans-elementated into the Body of Christ Which Phrase in what Sence hee vsed it you might best have learned from himselfe who in the very same place saith that Christ in a manner is Trans-elementated into the Communicant which how unchristian a Paradoxe it were being taken in strict and proper Sence we permit to your owne iudgements to determine Neither yet may you for the countenancing of the Noveltie of this word obiect the like use of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as though it had beene in use before the Arian Controversie began because the Fathers of the Councell of Nice iudged the Obiection of the Novelty of that word Calumnious for that the use of it had beene Antient before their times as your Cardinall Bellarmine himselfe witnesseth You furthermore to prevent our Obiection demanding why the Antient Fathers never called your fancied Romish Change Transubstantiation if they had beene of your Romish Faith concerning the Substantiall Change of Bread into the Body of Christ haue shaped us this Answere namely that Although they used not the very word Transubstantiation yet have they words of the same signification to wit Conversion Transmutation Transition
when he was in the midst betweene them was not in Christ's Body but in their eyes because they were closed that they could not see Apply wee this unto the Eucharist Dare any Papist say that the Cause why any of you cannot see Christ in this Sacrament is not in his Bodie which you beleeve to be in it selfe invisible but in your Eyes as being shut vp when notwithstanding you will be knowne that these are open enough for discerning Colours and formes of Bread and Wine Our Fourth Proofe that the Substance of Bread remaineth after Consecration is taken from the Confessed Sensible Effects SECT X. THe Effects which you your selves have discerned to be sometimes in this Sacrament are these First That the Cup doth inebriate or make drunke Secondly The Hoast taken in great Quantity doth nourish Thirdly That it being poysoned it poysoneth Fourthly That having beene long reserved It engendreth wormes which are bred out of it and are also fed of the same Fiftly That their matter of Generation and nourishment is Substantiall and that the Contrary Opinion is false and Incredible Sixtly That this matter whereof wormes are bred and fed is the same Bread which was taken before Consecration So your owne prime Schoole-men Historians and Iesuites respectively If then the Bread now ingendring wormes be the Same that was taken to be Consecrated How say you that being Consecrated it is not still the same our Senses giving Testimony thereunto THE FIRST CHALLENGE HEre you have nothing to answer but that the Bread whereof new wormes are Bred whether it be the same that was or not yet being Bread it is wrought either by a Miraculous Conversion or by a New Creation What you who every where teach that none are to conceipt of any Miracle in this Sacrament without necessary Cause can you possibly be perswaded that there is or can be any necessary Cause why God should worke a Miracle either of Conversion into or of New Creation of Bread for Breeding or Feeding of wormes or of Wine for making such men Drunke as should tast too largely of the Cup yea or els to poyson our Enemy were hee Emperour or Pope Nay can it be lesse than Blasphemy to say that God worketh Miracles for the accomplishment of vaine wicked and mischievous effects But farre be it from vs to imagine that the Blessed Body of our Lord Christ who by his Touch cured so many diseases in the time of his mortality should now being glorified miraculously poyson his Guests whosoeuer they be Beleeve if you can that if God wrought as you say a Miracle to convert Accidents into Bread to engender or nourish vile wormes that hee would not much rather worke a miracle if any such miracle were herein to be expected to hinder the poysoning of his faithfull Communicants In all this wee appeale againe to true Antiquity and require of you to shew we say not some expresse Testimony of Primitive Fathers but so much as any intimation or insinuation were it but by way of a Dreame of a Miraculous Conversion of the Consecrated Host when it beginneth to putrifie by being changed againe into Bread or of Mice eating the Body of Christ or that being putrified it should breed wormes seeing it were rather a miracle they should not be so bred or any such kinde of Romish Fancies and delusions or otherwise to confesse your Obiectours to be miserable Proctours of a vile and desperate Cause Yet lest any of your may thinke that One comming into a Cellar full of new Wine and made drunke with the smell thereof therefore meere Accidents doe Inebriate your Iesuite will deny this and tell you that it is the Ayre infected with the odour which maketh man Drunke A SECOND CHALLENGE with a Caution YOur Common and most plausible Obiection to dementate vulgar people is to perswade them that you cannot attribute Credit to your Senses in this case without much derogation from Faith Therfore for Caution-sake be it knowne vnto you that we have not pleaded for the Truth of Senses as holding nothing Credible but that which may be proved by the Testimony of Senses This we vtterly abhorre as the Gulfe of Infidelity proper to the Athean Sect for wee accord to that saying of an holy Father Fides non habet meritum vbi Ratio aut Sensus habet experimentum and also to that other of Iustine In which respect we condemne the Incredulity of Thomas in that he would not beleeve except he should See yet notwithstanding we with our Saviour approve in Thomas that by Seeing he did beleeve For this is a true Tenet in Divinity Faith may be Supra above right reason or sence but never Contra against either It was never read that God required of any man a beleefe of any Sensible thing which was Contrary to the exact iudgement of his Senses And therefore your opposition in this Case as it is Sensles so it is indeed Faithlesse as we have already learned from Scripture and Fathers by whom the Iudgement of Sense hath beene acknowledged to be in Sensible Obiects a notable Ground of Faith Our Fift Proofe that Bread remaineth Bread in Substance after Consecration in this Sacrament is by the Iudgement of Ancient Fathers First from due Inferences SECT II. TEstimonies of Ancient Fathers inferre a necessary Consequence for proofe of the Existence of Bread and Wine in this Sacrament as might be proved partly by the repetition of many Arguments premised and partly by intimation of other Arguments afterwards expressed But wee shall be content with those few which doe more properly appertaine to this present Dispute concerning the nature of a Body First Irenaeus speaking of the Eucharist after Consecration as being not now common Bread said that It consisteth of an earthly part and an heavenly how even as the Bodies of the Communicants saith hee are no more corruptible having an hope of the Resurrection to come Scan these words by the Law of Similitude and it must infallibly follow that as our Bodies albeit substantially Earthly are notwithstanding called Incorruptible in respect of the Glory and Immortality in which through hope it hath an Interest Even so the Earthly Substance of this Sacrament being Bread is neverthelesse indued with a sacred and Divine property of a Sacramentall Representation of Christ's Body Which Sacrament Origen calling Sanctified meate saith that the Materiall part thereof goeth into the Draught or seege which no sanctified heart can conceive of Christ's Body whereof the Fathers often pronounce that It goeth not into the Draught But what is meant by Materiall in this place thinke you M. Breerly namely Magnitude and other Sensible Accidents which in regard of their Significations are materialls So hee Very learnedly answered forsooth If Magnitudo that is Greatnes be a Materiall thing be you so good as tell us what is the matter thereof for whatsoever is Materiall hath that appellation from it's
Subiect matter Is it the Body of Christ then must you grant which wee with holy Fathers abhorre to thinke that the Body of Christ passeth into the Draught or is it Bread Then farewell Transubstantiation Nay will you say but they were Accidents And we Answer that it was never heard no not in your owne Schooles that meere Accidents were called which are Origen's words in this place either Meates or Materialls Yea and Origen that hee might bee knowne to understand Materiall Bread furthermore calleth it now after Consecration Matter of Bread S. Ambrose his Comparison is of like Consequence As one Baptized had beene an old Creature and was made a new one euen so speaking of the Bread and Wine after Consecration they being changed into another thing remaine that which they were before But hee you know that was baptized remaineth after Baptisme in Substance the same man although in respect of Spirituall Graces hee suffereth a Change Of which Testimone more hereafter Cyprian is a Father much alleadged and urged by you in defence of Transubstantiation but is now at hand to controll you Our Lord gave in this Banquet saith he Bread and Wine with his owne hands when hee pertaked thereof with his Apostles but on the Crosse hee delivered vp his Body to the Souldiers to be pierced with wounds to the end that sincere verity and true sincerity having an inward impression in the Apostles hee by them might manifest to the Gentiles how that Bread and wine is his Body and Blood and by what meanes there may be agreement betweene Causes and Effects and how different names and formes might be reduced to one Essence that things signifying and things signified might be called by the same names So hee A Catholique Father as all know whom if you aske what Consecrated thing it was which Christ had in his hands and gave to his Disciples hee answereth it was Bread and Wine and not absolutely that which hee gave up to be Crucified on the Crosse by Soldiers namely his Body and Blood If againe you demand of Cyprian why Christ called the Bread which hee had in his hand his Body he readily answereth saying The things signifying or Signes are called by the same names whereby the things signifyed are termed A Protestant of admirable learning unfolded unto you the Iudgement of Antiquity from the Testimonies of divers Fathers in saying of this Sacrament after Consecration that The bread by being divided is diminished that It is delivered by fragments that these are so little that they are to be called rather Bitts then Parts Thus they spake expressly of Bread Consecrated but to say that you eate bitts and Fragments of whitenes of Roundnes and other Accidents who is so absurd among your selves And to affirme the same of Christs body who is so impious Somewhat more of this when we shall appeale to the Canon of that famous Councell of Nice Another Inference we may take from Antiquity in her calling this Sacrament Pignus a Pledge so Hierome and Gaudentius of the Presence of Christ now departed from us A Perfect Argument of the Bodily Absence of Christ by virtue of the Relation betweene the Person and his Pledge The third and last Classis of Fathers may be viewed in the Section following A Confirmation of the same Iudgement of the Fathers acknowledging in expresse tearmes Bread to remaine after Consecration in Substance the same The First Father is THEODORET SECT XII THeodoret maketh a Dialogue or Conference betweene two Parties being in Controversie about the humane and bodily nature of Christ the one is named Eramstes upon whom is imposed the person of an Heretike for Defence of the Sect of the Eutychians who falsly held That the Body of Christ after his Ascension being glorified was swallowed up of his Deity and continued no more the same humane and Bodily Essence as before his Resurrectiit had beene The other Party and Disputer is named Orthodoxus signifying the Defender of the Truth of the Catholique Doctrine which Person Theodoret himselfe did sustaine in behalfe of the Catholique Church In this Dispute the Heretike is brought in for Defence of his Heresie arguing thus Even as Signes in the Eucharist after the words of Invocation or Consecration are not the same but are changed into the Body of Christ Even so after his Ascension was his Body changed into a Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning Substance of a Divine Essence Which both your Romanists and Protestants confesse to have beene the Doctrine of these Heretikes This was that Heretike his Obiection The Orthodoxe or Catholique which was Theodoret himselfe commeth to answer promising to catch the Heretique as he saith in his owne Snare by retorting his Argument of Similitude against him thus Nay But as the mysticall Signes in the Eucharist after Sanctification depart not from their former nature but continue in their former Figure Forme and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Substance So the Body of Christ after the Resurrection remaineth in its former Figure Forme Circumscription and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Substance which it had before You may perceive that the Assertion set downe in the name of a grand Heretike is absolutely your Romish Profession for Transubstantiation at this day to wit Bread is changed after Consecration into the Substance of Christ's Body and that also the Assertion of Theodoret in the person of the Catholique Professor being flat contradictory is as absolutely the Doctrine of Protestants defending that Bread after Consecration remaineth in Substance the same Wherefore if ever it now concerneth your Disputers to free your Romish Article from Heresie which divers have undertaken to doe by their Answeres but alas so absurdly that any reasonable man must needs laugh at and so false as which any man of conscience must as necessarily detest them The Principall Answere is that which your Cardinall giveth that Theodoret in saying that Bread remayneth the same in Figure Forme and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meant not Substance properly understood but the essence of Accidents So hee An Answere by your leave notoriously ridiculously and heretically False First Notoriously false because the Argument of Theodoret being taken from a Similitude and every Similitude consisting of two Propositions the first called Protasis and the other Apodosis it is necessary by the Rule of Logique as you know that the words and termes betokening the same Similitude be used in the same signification in both Propositions But in the Apodosis of Theodoret which is this So the Body of Christ after the Resurrection remaineth the same in Figure Forme and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was meant properly Substance because this was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the maine point in Question betweene Theodoret and the Heretique viz. whether the Substance of Christ's Body continued the same which it had beene in time
make a thing ioyntly to be and not to be This is a Contradiction and were not Omnipotencie but Impotencie not an effect but a defect To conclude Every thing either is or is not take away this Principle say you and farewell all learning and knowledge So you and that without contradiction most truely As your Doctors have taught the truth in Thesi and Doctrine so will they manifest the same in Hypothesi by examples of Impossibilities because of Contradiction namely that it is Impossible for God to be contained in one place Secondly for a Spirit to be divided into parts Thirdly for Bread to be the Body of Christ at the same instant when it is Bread Fourthly for the same thing to be present together at divers times Fiftly for one thing to be twice produced in divers places at once Sixtly for a Body having quantity not to be able to possesse a place Seaventhly It is impossible for Christ his Body as it is in the Sacrament to come from one place into another Eighthly Impossible it is to vndoe that which is once done because this were to make that which is true to be false So your Iesuites with others III. That the Doctrine of Calvin who is most traduced in this point accordeth to the former Iudgement of ancient Fathers SECT IV. IT is no new Calumny which you have against Calvin as if he had impugned the Omnipotencie of God in this Question of the Sacrament which Calvin himselfe did refute in his life-time professing that he is farre from subiecting the power of God to man's reason or to the order of nature and beleeving that even in this Sacrament it exceedeth all naturall principles that Christ doth feed men's soules with his Blood But his only exception is against them who will impose upon God a power of Contradiction which is no better than infirmity it selfe Wee saith hee are not so addicted to naturall reason as to attribute nothing to the power of God which exceedeth the order of nature for we confesse that our soules are fed with the flesh of Christ spiritually above all Physicall or naturall vnderstanding but that one should be in divers places at once and not contained in any is no lesse absurdity then to call light darknesse God indeed can when hee will turne light into darknes but to say light is darknesse is a perverting of the order of Gods wisedome So Calvin and Beza accordingly with him And so say we that it is possible for Christ as God if he were so pleased to make of Bread an humane body as easily as of stones to raise up Children to Abraham for there is involved no Contradiction in this But to make Bread to be flesh while it is Bread is a Contradiction in it selfe and as much as to say Bread is no Bread and therefore to the honour of the Omnipotencie of Christ wee iudge this saying properly taken to be Impossible CHAP. IV. That the Romish Doctrine of the Corporall Presence of Christ in the Sacrament doth against that which Christ called CORPVS MEVM MY BODY imply sixe Contradictions The first Romish Contradiction in making it Borne and not borne of a Virgin SECT I. THe Catholique Faith hath alwayes taught concerning the Body of Christ That it was borne of the Virgin Mary Secondly that this so borne was and is but One Thirdly that this one is Finite Fourthly that this finite is Organicall and consisting of distinct parts Fiftly that this Organicall is now Perfect and endued with all Absolutenesse that ever any humane body can be capable of Sixtly that this Perfect is now also Glorious and no more subiect to vilification or indignity here on earth But your now Romish Doctrine touching Corporall Presence in this Sacrament doth imply Contradictions touching each of these as now we are to manifest beginning at the first Our Apostolicall Article concerning the Body of Christ is expresly this Hee was borne of the Virgin Mary which is the ancientest Article of Faith concerning Christ that is read of in the Booke of God The seed of the woman c. Gen. 3. to shew that it was by propagation But your Romane Article of bringing the Body of Christ into this Sacrament is that The substance of Bread is changed into the substance of Christ's Body which inferreth a Body made of the substance of Bread as we have already proved and as all substantiall Conversions doe shew whether they be naturall or miraculous When the substance of Ayre is naturally changed into the substance of Water this water is made of Ayre when the substance of Water was miraculously changed into Wine the substance of the Wine was produced out of the substance of water when the Body of Lots Wife was turned into a pillar of salt the substance of that salt was made of the substance of her Bodily flesh CHALLENGE DOe you then beleeve your Doctrine of Transubstantiation that it is the substantiall Change by the operative wordes of Consecration of Bread into a Body which you call the Bodie of Christ then is this Body not borne but made nor by Propagation from the Blessed Virgin but by Production and Transubstantiation from Bread which differences Borne of the Virgin Mary and not borne of the Virgin Mary are plainly contradictory which was the cause that Augustine as Bertram sheweth distinguished betweene the Body borne of the Virgin and that which is on the Altar as betweene Aliud and Aliud one and another thing And this Argument hath beene fortified before and is furthermore confirmed by Saint Augustine afterwards The second Romish Contradiction to the ouerthrowing of that which Christ called MY BODY by making one Body of Christ not one but many SECT II. YOur Profession standeth thus The Body of Christ albeit now in Heaven yet is say you substantially in many places here on earth even wheresoever the Hoast is consecrated So you Next your Master Brerely laboureth earnestly to draw Calvin to professe a Possibility of Christ's Bodily presence in divers places at once contrary to Master Caluins plaine and expresse profession in the same Chapter where he directly confuteth this Romish Doctrine of Madnesse saying thus To seeke that Christ his Bodie should be in many places at once is no lesse madnesse than to require that God should make his body to be flesh and not to be flesh at one time whereas not Aristotle but the Spirit of God saith he hath taught us that this his body is to be contained in Heaven untill the last day Afterwards Calvin inveigheth against the folly of your Church which will not acknowledge any presence of Christ in this Sacrament except it be locall on earth As if saith he she would pull Christ out of his Sanctuary of Heaven And at last after that he had said Christ his Body is united to the soule of the Communicant he so explaineth himselfe that hee meant a spirituall Vnion so
that it doth fully appeare that Master Brerely in this point as usually in many others alleageth Calvins testimony against Calvins sence and his owne conscience It is irkesome to see the fury wherewith your Disputers are carried against Protestants amongst whom wee see againe your Master Brerely imposing upon Beza the same opinion of the presence of Christ's Body in Heaven and in Earth at one time Although notwithstanding your Iesuite Salmeron as bitterly taxeth Beza for contrarily holding it Impossible for one Body to be in two places at once whom therefore he calleth an Apostata and whom another tearmeth for the same cause Blasphemous as if this were indeed to deny the Omnipotencie of God Whereas according to our former Proposition it is rather to defend it because God is the God of Truth which is but one and Truth is without that Contradiction which is necessarily implyed in your Doctrine of the Locall presence of any one Body in many places at once as in the next place is to be evinced That the same Second Romish Contradiction holding the Presence of one Body in many places at once is proved by the nature of Being in distinct places at one time to be a making One not One. SECT III. IN the first place hearken to your Aquinas the chiefest Doctor that ever professed in the Romish Schoole It is not possible by any Miracle that the Body of Christ be locally in many places at once because it includeth a Contradiction by making it not one for one is that which is not divided from it selfe So he together with others whom you call Catholikes who conclude it Impossible for the Body of Christ to be corporally in divers places at once Which although he speake concerning the locall manner of being yet his Reason as your Cardinall confesseth doth as well concerne your Sacramentall manner of being on earth And Aquinas his reason being this Vnum One saith he is that which is not divided from it selfe but to be in divers places at once doth divide one from it selfe and consequently maketh it not to be One which being a Contradiction doth inferre an Impossibility So he Earnestly have we sought for some Answere to this insoluble Argument as we thinke And your greatest Doctor hath nothing to say but that the Being in a place is not the essentiall property of a thing and therefore can be no more said to divide the body from it selfe then it can be said to divide God who is every where or the soule of man which is one in every part or member of the Body So he We throughout this whole Tractate wherein we dispute of the existence of a Body in a place doe not tie our selves every where to the precise Acception of place as it is defined to be Superficies c. but as it signifieth one space or distinct vbi from another which wee call here and there we returne to your Cardinals Answere CHALLENGE AN answere you have heard from your Cardinall unworthy any man of Iudgement because of a Triple falsity therein First in the Antecedent and Assertion saying that Being in a place or space is not inseparable from a Body Secondly in the ground of that because Place is not of the essence of a Body Thirdly in his Instances which he insisteth upon for example sake which are both Heterogenies Contrary to this Assertion we have already proved the necessity of the locall being of a Body wheresoever it is and now wee confirme it by the Assertion of One then whom the latter Age of the World hath not acknowledged any more accurate and accomplished with Philosophicall learning even Iulius Scaliger by name who hath concluded as a principle infallible that Continuity being an immediate affection and property of Vnity One body can not be said to be in two places as here and there without dividing it selfe from it selfe So hee Certainly because Place being the Terminus to wit that which doth confine the Body that is in it it is no more possible for the Body to be in many places at once than it is for an Vnity to be a multitude or many Which truth if that you should need any further proofe may seeme to be confirmed in this that your Disputers are driven to so miserable straits as that they are not able to instance in any one thing in the world to exemplifie a Possibility of the being of a Body in divers places at once but only Man's soule which is a spirit and God himselfe the Spirit of Spirits of both which hereafter Onely you are to observe that the Cardinals Argument in proving Space to be separable from a Body because it is not of the Essence of a Body is in it selfe a Non sequitur as may appeare in the Adiunct of Time which although it be not of the Essence of any thing yet is it impossible for any thing to be without time or yet to be in two different times together The same second Romish Contradiction manifested in Scripture by an Argument Angelicall SECT IV. MAth 28. 6. The Angell speaking to the woman that sought Christ in the grave said He is not here for he is risen and gone into Galilee which is as much as to have said hee could not be in both places at once an Argument Angelicall But you answere that it was spoken Morally How wee beseech you as if one should say saith your Cardinall Such a man sitteth not at table for he hath supped what fond trifling is this and wilfull perverting the Truth of God for this your Argument A man sitteth not at table for hee hath supped is scarce a probable Consequence that a man is risen from the table as soone as he hath supped Contrarily the Angel's Logicke is not by a Peradventure but necessary not imaginary but historicall not coniecturall but dogmatiticall and demonstrative For better explanation whereof we may turne the Causall word FOR into an Illative THEREFORE because it is all one as you know to say hee is not here in the Grave For he is risen out of the Grave And to say Hee is risen out of the grave Therefore he is not heere in the Grave Vnderstand then first that the matter subiect of this Argument being no morall arbitrary Act of man's will but the omnipotent Resurrection of Christ from the dead which is a fundamentall Article of Christian Faith yea and as it were the foundation of all other Articles without which as the Apostle saith Our Faith were vaine the Angell must necessarily be thought to have concluded dogmatically which is the reason that he is so instant and urgent saying to the woman Come and see the place where the Lord was laid Which he addeth saith your Iesuite for confirmation of that which he had said He is not heere And as much as if he had said saith Anselme If you beleeve not my word give credit to the empty
space wherein the Body is If therefore you will not Heretically teach a Mathematicall or Phantasticall body of Christ you must deny the Article of Trent untill you can beleeve and make good that a part of a divisible Body longer or shorter broader or narrower can be and that equally in one indivisible point This is confirmed by the Essence of Christ his glorified Bodie as you confesse it to be now in Heaven possessing a Reall place in the said proportion of Spaces of length and breadth as it had here upon earth which it doth by the naturall Magnitude or Quantity thereof But the said naturall magnitude or quantity of the said Body of Christ is according to your owne generall Doctrine in this Sacrament Therefore must it have the same Commensuration of Space Wee should be loath to trouble your wits with these speculations if that the necessity of the Cause by reason of the Absurdities of your Romish profession did not inforce us hereunto Therefore must you suffer us a little to sport at your trifling seriousnesse who writing of this divine Sacrament and seeing it to be round solid broken moulded in the one kind and liquid frozen and sowring in the other doe attribute all these to Quantities and Qualities and Accidents without any other subiect at all So then by the Romish Faith we shall be constrained to beleeve in effect that the Cup is filled with Mathematicall lines the Mouse eating the Hoast is fed with colours and formes that it is Coldnesse that freezeth and Roundnesse which weigheth downe and falleth to the ground as if you should describe a Romish Communicant to be a creature clothed with Shadowes armed with Idaea's fed with Abstracts augmented with Fancies second Intentions and Individuall Vagues and consisting wholly of Chimaera's That your Romish Doctrine is contrary to the Iudgement of Ancient Fathers SECT VI. IF this your profession had beene a Catholike Doctrine doubtlesse Saint Augustine who is so devout in his fervent Meditations upon this holy mystery would not have oppugned it as he did when unto that Question of Volusianus whether the Body of Christ before his birth did fill the Body of the blessed Virgin he answered That every body be it greater or lesse wheresoever it is must needs fill that space wherein it is so that the same Body cannot be the whole in any part thereof So hee which is directly Contradictory to your Article of Trent for here is expresse mention of Relation to place and space And whereas for usuall colour of a Possibility that the whole Body of Christ is in every part of the Hoast you have obiected the Example of Man's Soule which is said to be whole in every member and part of the Body S. Augustine as if hee had fore-seene your mystery of Errour pre-occupateth saying The nature of a Soule is farre different from the nature of a Body And againe the same holy Father seeking to finde out some Similitude whereby wholly to resemble the Existence of God in respect of place in the end saith that Quality hath a prerogative to make some Similitude hereof and hee doth instance in Wisedome which saith hee is as great in a little man as in a great man but denyeth that Quantity hath any such Priviledge for speaking of Quantity and Magnitude In all such Quantity or magnitude saith hee there is lesse in the part then there is in the whole And by this same Maxime concerning whole in respect of Place hee distinguisheth the God-head from the Man-hood by which you haue confounded them And yet againe else-where as though hee thought this your delusion could never be sufficiently contradicted or rather derided hee will further have you not to be so Childish as not to know that The little finger is lesse than the whole hand and one finger is lesse than two and that one finger is one where and the other another where Vpon which where and where being notes of distinct places we may aske where are your Disputers now Nay yet furthermore passing from grosser Bodies hee saith as much of Ayre yea and of the most subtil of subtils the light of the Sunne one part whereof saith hee commeth in at one Window another at another window yet so that the lesse passeth through the lesse and the greater through the greater Moreover if Saint Gregory once Bishop of Rome had beleeved that Christ his Body is whole in every least indivisible part of the Hoast he would never haue condemned the Eutychian Heretique for beleeving The Body of Christ to have beene brought into such a subtilty that is cannot be felt But a greater subtilty there cannot be than for a divisible Body to be enclosed in every the least indivisible point Shew vs this Doctrine taught by any Catholike Doctor in the Church within the compasse of the twelve hundred years after Christ and then shall we conceive better of your Cause And lest you may talke as you vse of one body penetrating another wee say unto you as Damascen said vnto his Reader that This is impossible but that either the one or the other must be divided asunder That the Romish Obiections against our former Tenet are feeble and vaine SECT VII IT is ordinarily in the mouthes of every one of you to obiect the Miraculous entrance of Christ into the house the dores being shut his comming out of the grave when it was covered with a stone his birth from his mother her wombe being shut besides the miraculous passing of a Camell through the Eye of a needle spoken of by Christ all Miraculous indeed as we with many holy Fathers doe willingly Confesse What therefore Therefore say you the Body of Christ did passe through the substantiall dimensions of the Body of the Doores Stone and wombe and consequently confuteth all this which hath beene spoken of the Organicall proportions of a body in respect of space or place So you Wee grant unto you as much as these Fathers speake in noting each of these to have beene the Acts and workes of Omnipotencie but yet without any penetration of Dimensions at all or yet Alteration of the iust proportion of Christs body Which penetration of Dimensions seemed to your Durand as incredible as unto us The principall Testimony which is insisted upon concerning the passing of Christ through the Doores is the saying of Chrysostome viz. Christ's Body was thinne or small changed from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is it 's Thicknes impalpable unto mortall mans hand but onely by divine permission and dispensation So hee And this is alleadged for proofe of a Possibility of his now Corporall Presence in the Sacrament voyd of Palpabilitie never considering the Ordinary and confessed Hyperbole's wherewith Chrysostome embellisheth his Sermons insomuch that we may oppose Chrysostome against Chrysostome even in the point in question who else-where speaking of this Sacrament saith that Christ herein Giveth his Body both to
now happen unto him but sine laesione that is without any hurt Wee answer that if hee should suffer nothing in his humanity passively to the Laesio corporis that is hurt of the Body yet should there be thereby in the opinion of men laesio dignitatis that is a lessening and obscuring of that his dignity which is set forth in Scripture and which our Article of faith concerning his Bodily sitting at the Right hand of God in Heaven teacheth us to be in all Celestiall glory and Maiestie This your Aquinas well saw when in regard of Indignity he iudged it An hainous wickednesse for any to thinke Christ should be inclosed in a Boxe appearing in his proper forme And what greater difference can it be for a Body to be Boxed under another forme more than when that one and the same Person is imprisoned whether open faced or covered whether in the day or in the night it mattereth not much for still the same person is shut up in Prison Againe if that these Circumstances now spoken of were not Arguments of Indignity why doe your Iesuites in a point of Opinion deny that Christ's Body is Transubstantiated into the flesh of the Communicant because of the Indignity against his Maiestie Come we to the point of Practice Let this be our lesson when there is Reverence in the use of a thing then there may be Irreverence and Indignity in the abuse thereof But your Church hath provided that the Priests be shaven and the Laicks abstaine from the Cup in a pretence of Reverence The first least some part of the Hoast which you beleeve to be the body of Christ should hang on the Priest's Beard the second least any whit of Christs Blood in the Cup should be split But how much more indignity must it needs be to be devoured of Mice Wormes and sometimes as your owne stories have related kept close in a Dunghill One word more If these seeme not sufficiently indigne because there is not Laesio corporis Hurt of the Body this being your onely Evasion what will you say of your framing a Christ unto your selves who as he is in this Sacrament Is you say without power of motion of sense and of understanding Why my Masters can there be Lamenesse Blindnesse Deafenesse and Impotencie it selfe without Hurt of the same partie so maymed c. This is worse than your dirty imagination of placing him in a Dunghill THE GENERALL CHALLENGE THese above specified Sixe Contradictions so plainly and plentifully proved by such forceable Arguments as the light of Divine Scripture hath authorized the profession of Primitive Fathers testified Confessions of Romish Doctors acknowledged and the Principles of your owne Romish learning in most points confirmed your Abrenunciation of your so many Grosse Errours may be as necessary as your persisting therein will be damnable Before we can end we are to consult with the Fathers of the Councell of Nice especially seeing that aswell Romanists as Protestants will be knowne to appeale to that Councell CHAP. X. Of the Canon of the Councell of Nice obiected for proofe of a Corporall Prescnce of Christ in the Eucharist SECT I. THis as it is delivered by your Cardinall taken out as he saith of the Vatican Library standeth thus Let us not here in this divine Table be in humblenesse intent unto the Bread and Cup which is set before us but lifting up our minds let us understand by faith the Lambe of God set upon that Table The Lambe of God which taketh away the sinnes of the World offered unbloodily of the Priest And we receiving truly his Body and Blood let us thinke these to be the Symbols of our Resurrection For this Cause doe we receive not much but little that wee may understand this is not to satisfie but to sanctifie So the Canon The Generall approbation of this Canon by Both sides SECT II. SCarce is there any one Romish Author handling this Controversie who doth not fasten upon this Canon of Nice for the countenancing of your Romish Masse Contrarily Protestants as they are set downe by our Zanchy and your Bellarmine in great numbers among whom are Luther and Calvin with ioynt consent approve of this Canon one of them Bucer by name subscribing unto it with his owne hand in these words So I thinke in the Lord and I wish to appeare in this minde before the Tribunall Seat of God So they The right Explication of this Canon will be worthy our paines The state of the Difference concerning this Canon SECT III. THis as is propounded by your Cardinall standeth thus All saith he by the Lambe understand Christ as he is distinguished from the Symbols and Signes upon the Altar Next But the Protestants thinke saith he that the Councell admonisheth not to seeke Christ on the Altar but to ascend up unto him in Heaven by faith as sitting at the right hand of God But we all say saith he that the Councell would have us to attend unto the holy Table meaning the Altar below yet so that we see in it not so much the outward Symbols and Signes as that which lyeth hid under them viz. The Body and Blood of Christ So hee The difference then betweene him and us is no lesse than the distance betweene Aloft and Vnder that is betweene Heaven above and Earth below Let us set forward in our progresse but with easie and even paces to the end you may better understand the strength of our Proofes and rottennesse of your Obiections That the Nicene Councell is marvellously preiudiciall to your Romish Defence proved by five Observations Three here SECT IV. FIve points are chiefly observable in this Canon First is the nomination of Bread Secondly the mention of two Tables Thirdly the admonition to lift up our minds Fourthly the expression of the Reason thereof Fiftly the Confirmation of the same Reason First That which the Councell would that men be not too intent unto they call Bread after Consecration for the Errour which they would have avoyded was either the too much abasing of this Sacrament according to your Cardinals Glosse and then was it after Consecration because they needed not to have perswaded any to have too meane an estimation of the Bread unconsecrated which you your selves hold to be a common and prophane thing or else the Errour must have beene as indeed it was too high a valuation of the outward Element of Bread which must needs be so because it was consecrated and notwithstanding it being so consecrated in the Canon it is called Bread which your Fathers of the Councell of Trent would not have endured especially seeing that we find that your Latine Church was offended with the late Greeke Church for calling the parts of the Eucharist by the termes of Bread and Wine after the pronunciation of these words This is my Body by you called the words of Consecration Besides they so call them Bread
and Wine as they name them Symbols and Signes which properly they could not be untill after Consecration Secondly the Canon expresly noteth and distinguisheth two Tables in respect of place the one as Here being as much as to say This Table and the other opposed hereunto is instiled That Table And of this Table Here the Councell forbiddeth Christians to looke Too attentively to the thing set before us But contrarily concerning That other Table they command men to Lift up their minds aloft And not thus onely but they also distinguish them in respect of their different Obiects The Obiect of the First Table Here they name Bread and the Cup the obiects of sense And the other obiect opposed to this is that on the other Table expressed to be the Lambe of God the obiect of our mindes Thirdly the Admonition or Caution which the Councell giveth concerning the Bread is not to be too intent to it but touching the Lambe of Christ they command us to lift up our mindes aloft for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie not to be used we thinke for an inward looking into the sublimity of the mystery of the matter before us as your Cardinall fancieth but for looking vp aloft unto the Lambe of God in Heaven according to the Catholike fence of those words SVRSVM CORDA The next two proofes out of the same Canon of Nice to manifest our Protestant profession touching the question in hand OVr next two proofes out of the Canon are these First is their Reason of the former Caution the Second the Confirmation of that Reason both are expresly set downe in the Canon it selfe Why then did those holy Fathers admonish us not to be too intent to the Bread and Wine set before us It followeth Because they are not ordained to satisfie our naturall man namely by a full eating and Drinking but for a Sacramentall participation of the Body and Blood of Christ to the sanctifying of our soules whereas your Church doth attribute to that which you eate in this Sacrament a power of sanctifying the Body by it's Bodily touch But much more will the next proofe vndermine your defence To confirme their Reason why the Sacrament was not ordained for the satisfying of the naturall man they adde saying For this cause we receive not much but little which one Clause most evidently proveth it to be spoken of Bread and Wine and not of the Body and Blood of Christ As your generall Romane Catechisme if you have not already learned it will now teach you to beleeve saying that Christ is not great or small in this Sacrament And indeed none ever said of the Eucharist that he eat a little of Christ's Body or a little Christ but yet the Sacrament eaten is sometimes more sometime lesse Nor this onely but the Canon furthermore speaketh of taking a little of that whereof if much were taken saith it it might satiate the naturall man So the Canon But that the outward Sacrament can truly satisfie the naturall man you your selves will testifie in your Booke-Cases and Missals acknowledging men Drunke with the Sacrament even unto vomiting with the one part thereof and also making mention of Men and Mice being fed and nourished with the other So then the naturall man may be satiated with this Sacrament but with what therein The Body and Blood of Christ you abhorre to thinke that with Accidents You may be ashamed to affirme it as from the Iudgement of Antiquity seeing you were never able hitherto iustly to produce one Father for proofe of the Existence of Accidents without their Subiects or of nourishing a substance by meere Accidents Wherefore untill you can prove some one of all these give us leave to beleeve that all were of the mind of that one Father who held it Impossible for an Incorporeall or not-bodily thing to be food to a bodily substance And so much the rather because the Fathers have manifoldly acknowledged in this Sacrament after Consecration the substance of Bread Wherefore the Reasoning of the Councell touching the Eucharist was like as if one should say of Baptisme We take not too much but little lest it might be thought to have beene ordained not for a Sacramentall meanes of sanctifying the Soule but for the clensing of the Flesh None is so stupid as not to understand by Much and Little the substance of water And if you shall need a further Explication of the same sentence of the Fathers of Nice you may fetch it from the Fathers in another Councell held at Toledo in Spaine Anno 693. who shew this Reason why they Take little portions of the Hoast namely say they least otherwise the belly of him that taketh this Sacrament may be stuffed and over-charged and least it may passe into the Draught but that it may be nourishment for the soule Hereby plainly teaching concerning the consecrated matter that were it so much as could burthen the belly it would through the superfluitie thereof goe into the Draught whereas if Lesse it would serve as well or better for a Sacramentall use to the replenishing of our soules in the spiritually receiving of the Body of Christ But you are not so farre bereft of your wits as to imagine that Much which stuffeth and after passeth into the Draught to be Christ's Bodie and you may sweare that the Fathers meant not meere Accidents For mere Accidents have not the property of Substance through the Muchnesse thereof either to satiate the naturall appetite in feeding or to over-charge the Belly by weight in pressing it downe to the Draught Never did any Father father such an Imagination What can be if this be not true reasoning and consequently a full confuration of your Romane Faith Therefore this one Canon of Nice being thus undoubtedly gained concerning the not seeking Christ Here on this Table is sufficient of it selfe to batter downe your Assertion by a five-fold force First by proofe of no Transubstantiation of Bread Secondly no Corporall Presence of Christ's Bodie Thirdly no Corporall Coniunction with the Bodies of the Communicants and consequently Fourthly no proper Sacrifice thereof And lastly no Divine Adoration due unto it Therefore ought you to bid all these your Romish Doctrines and Delusions avant Your Obiections from the former Canon answered SECT V. FIrst you Obiect that The Lambe is said to be placed on the Table mistaking what Table is meant for the Canon specifying two Tables one Here which is of the Eucharist and another That Table namely in Heaven saith that Christ is placed on That Table according to our Faith of his sitting at the right hand of God in Heaven Secondly hee is said say you to be sacrificed by the hands of the Priest which cannot be done as hee is in Heaven The words of the Canon truly resolved doe cashiere this Obiection as thus The Lambe of God set at that Table namely in Heaven is
sacrificed by the hands of the Priest Here to wit on the Table below representatively as hereafter the Catholique Fathers themselves will shew And these two may easily consist without any necessity of the Priest reaching his hands as farre as the highest Heavens as your Cardinall pleasantly obiecteth Thirdly you alleage Wee are said to partake truly of the Body of Christ As though there were not a Truth in a Sacramentall that is Figurative Receiving and more especially which hath beene both proved and confessed a Reall and true participation of Christ's Body and Blood spiritually without any Corporall Coniunction But it is added saith he that These namely the Body and Blood of Christ are Symbols of our Resurrection which is by reason that our Bodies are ioyned with the Body of Christ otherwise if our Coniunction were onely of our soules onely the Resurrection of our soules should be signified thereby So hee that 's to say as successesly as in the former For the word HAEC These which are called Symbols of our Resurrection may be referred either to the Body and Blood of Christ immediatly spoken of and placed on the Table in Heaven which we Commemorate also in the Celebration of this Sacrament and in that respect may be called Symbols of the Resurrection of our Bodies because If Christ be risen then must they that are Christs also rise againe Or else the word These may have relation to the more remote after the manner of the Greekes to wit Bread and Cup on the first Table because as immediately followeth they are these whereof not much but little is taken as you have heard Which other Fathers will shew to be indeed Symbols of our Resurrection without any Consequence of Christ's Bodily Coniunction with our Bodies more than there is by the Sacrament of Baptisme which they call the Earnest of our Resurrection as doth also your Iesuite Coster call it The Pledge of our Resurrection But this our Coniunction with Christ is the subiect matter of the Fift Booke Lastly how the Eucharist was called of the Fathers a Sacrifice is plentifully resolved in the Sixt Booke THE FIFTH BOOKE Treating of the third Romish Doctrinall Consequence arising from your depraved Sence of the Words of Christs Institution THIS IS MY BODY concerning the manner of the present Vnion of his Body with the bodies of the Receivers by Eating c. CHAP. I. The state of the Question SECT I. A Christian man consisting of two men the Outward or bodily and the Inward which is Spirituall this Sacrament accordingly consisteth of two parts Earthly and Heavenly as Irenaeus spake of the bodily Elements of Bread and Wine as the visible Signes and Obiects of Sense and of the Body and Blood of Christ which is the Spirituall part Answerable to both these is the double nourishment and Vnion of a Christian the one Sacramentall by communicating of the outward Elements of Bread and Wine united to man's body in his Taking Eating digesting till at length it be transubstantiated into him by being substantially incorporated in his flesh The other which is the Spirituall and Soules food is the Body and Blood of the Lord therefore called Spirituall because it is the Obiect of Faith by an Vnion wrought by God's Spirit and man's faith which as hath beene professed by Protestants is most Reall and Ineffable But your Church of Rome teacheth such a Reall Vnion of Christ his Body and Blood with the Bodies of the Communicants as is Corporall which you call Per contactum by Bodily touch so long as the formes of Bread and Wine remaine uncorrupt in the bodies of the Receivers Our Method requireth that we first manifest our Protestant Defence of Vnion to be an Orthodoxe truth Secondly to impugne your Romish Vnion as Capernaiticall that is Hereticall And thirdly to determine the Point by comparing them both together Our Orthodoxe Truth will be found in the Preparations following That Protestants prosesse not only a Figurative and Sacramentall Participation and Communion with Christ's Body but also a spiritually Reall SECT II. ALl the Bookes of the Adversaries to Protestants are most especially vehement violent and virulent in traducing them in the name of Sacramentaries as though we professed no other manner of feeding and Vnion with Christ's body than only Sacramentall and Figurative For Confutation of which Calumny it will be most requisite to oppose the Apologie of Him who hath beene most opposed and traduced by your Disputers in this Cause to shew first what he held not and then what he held If you shall aske Calvin what he liked not he will answere you I doe abhorre your grosse Doctrine of Corporall Presence And I have an hundred times disclaimed the receiuing only of a Figure in this Sacrament What then did hee hold Our Catechisme teacheth saith hee not only a signification of the Benefits of Christ to be had herein but also a participation of the substance of Christ's flesh in our soules And with Swinckfeldius maintayning only a Figurative perception we have nothing to doe If you further demand what is the Feeding whereby we are united to Christ's body in this Sacrament hee tels you that it is IV. Not carnall but Spirituall and Reall and so Reall that the soule is as truly replenished with the lively virtue of his flesh by the powerfull worke of the Spirit of God as the body is nourished with the corporall Element of Bread in this Sacrament If you exact an Expression of this spirituall Vnion to know the manner hee acknowledgeth it to be above Reason If further you desire to understand whether he were not Singular in this opinion he hath avouched the iudgement of other Protestants professing not to dissent one Syllable from the Augustane Confession as agreeing with him in iudgement herein Accordingly our Church of England in the 28. Article saith that To such as worthily and with faith receive this Sacrament The Bread which we breake is a partaking of the Body of Christ which Body is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after a spirituall and heavenly manner the meane whereby is Faith That the Body of Christ by this Sacrament was ordained only for food to the Christian man's Soule SECT III. VVHat need wee seeke into the Testimonies of ancient Fathers which are many in this point of Dispute having before us the Iudgement of your Fathers of the Councell of Trent and of your Romane Catechisme authorized by the same Councell both which affirme that Christ ordained this Sacrament to be the spirituall food of man's soule In which respect the Body of Christ is called Spirituall in your Popes Decree That the Spirituall feeding and Vnion with Christs Body is more excellent and Reall than the Corporall Coniunction can be SECT IV. THe soule of man being the most essentiall and substantiall part of man because a Spirit immortall and the flesh
Fathers have declared what could these holy Fathers have thought of your Barbarous or rather Brutish faith that teacheth such a Corporall Vnion by a bodily Touch and Eating whereby according to your owne Doctrine Rats Wormes and Dogges and whatsoever vile beast may be as reall partakers of the bodie of Christ as Peter or Iohn or whosoever the essentiall member of Christ Wherefore you must suffer us to reason aswell against your Corporall Coniunction by bodily Touch as Many of your Divines have done against bodily Vnion by coniunction and commixture but why even Because the Sacrament was not ordained for a bodily but for a spirituall Coniunction So they So that wee need say no more but fore-seeing what you will obiect we adde the Propositions following CHAP. III. That wicked Communicants albeit they eate not bodily Christ's Bodie yet are they Guilty of the Lords Bodie for not receiving it spiritually namely thorow their Contempt for not receiving the Blessing offered thereby SECT I. THe Apostle 1. Cor. 11. 27. Whosoever saith hee Eateth this Bread and Drinketh this Cup unworthily he shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord And Vers 29. eateth and drinketh Damnation to himselfe not discerning the Lord's Bodie Your Rhemish Professors men not the least zealous for your Romish Cause obiecting this against the Protestants call upon you saying first Hereupon marke well that ill men receive the Body and Blood of Christ be they Infidels or ill livers for else they could not be guilty of that which they receive not Secondly That it could not be so hainous an offence for any to receive a piece of bread or a cup of wine though they were a true Sacrament for it is a deadly sinne for any to receive any Sacrament with will and intention to continue in sinne or without repentance of former sinnes but yet by the unworthy receiving of no other Sacrament is man made guilty of Christ's Bodie and Blood but here where the unworthy Receiver as Saint Chrysostome saith doth villany to Christ's owne person as the Iewes and Gentiles did that crucified him Which invincibly proveth against the Heretikes that Christ is herein really present And guilty is he for not discerning the Lord's Body that is because hee putteth no difference betweene this high meate and others So your Rhemists Your Cardinall also as though he had found herein something for his purpose fastneth upon the sentence of Cyprian who accounted them that after their deniall of Christ presented themselves to this Communion without repentance to offer more iniurie to Christ by their polluted handes and mouthes than they did in denying Christ and besides he recordeth Examples of God's miraculous vengeance upon those who violated the body of Christ in this Sacrament So hee All these points are reducible unto three heads One is that ill men might not be held guiltie of the Body of Christ except they did receive it as being materially present in this Sacrament Next is the Guilt of prophaning this Sacrament which being more hainous than the abuse of any other Sacrament therefore the iniury is to be iudged more personall The last that the Examples of God's vindicative Iudgements for Contempt hereof have beene more extraordinary which may seeme to be a Confirmation of both the former Before we handle these points in order take our next Position for a Directory to that which shall be answered in the VI. Section That some Fathers understood the Apostles words 1. Cor. 10. spiritually namely as signifying the Eating of Christ's Flesh and drinking his Blood both in the Old Testament and in the Newe SECT II. VPon those words of the Apostle 1. Cor. 10. v. 4. They ate of the same spirituall meate c. The Iewes received the same spirituall meate saith S. Augustine Yea saith your Cardinall the Iewes received the same among themselves but not the same with us Christians So hee Albeit the words of Augustine are plainly thus The same which we eat so plainly that divers of your own side doe so directly and truely acknowledge it that your Iesuite Maldonate not able to gain-say this Trueth pleaseth himselfe notwithstanding in fancying that If August were alive in this Age he would think otherwise especially perceiving Hereticall Calvinists and Calvin himselfe to be of his opinion So hee Was it not great pitty that Augustine was not brought up in the Schoole of the Iesuites surely they would have taught him the Article of Transubstantiation of the Corporall presence of Christ in the Sacrament and Corporall Vnion against all which there could not be a greater Adversarie than was Augustine whom Maldonate here noteth to have beene the Greatest Enemie to all Heretickes whom Bertram followed in the same Exposition and by your leave so did your Aquinas also The same saith he which wee eate Thus much by the way Wee goe on to our Answeres That the wicked Receivers are called Guiltie of Christ's Bodie not for Eating of his Body unworthily but for unworthily Eating the Sacrament thereof SECT III. THe Distinction used by St. Augustine hath bene alwayes as generally acknowledged as knowne wherein hee will have us to discerne in the Eucharist the Sacrament from the thing represented and exhibited thereby Of the Sacrament hee saith that It is received of some to life and of some to destruction but the thing it selfe saith hee is received of None but to Salvation So hee No Protestant could speake more directly or conclusively for proofe First That in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Body of Christ is as well tendred to the wicked as to the Godly Secondly that the wicked for want of a living Faith have no hand to receiue it Thirdly that their not preparing themselves to a due receiving of it is a Contempt of Christ his Body and Blood Fourthly and Consequently that it worketh the iudgement of Guiltines upon them All which both the Evidence of Scripture and consent of Antiquity doe notably confirme For the Text obiected doth clearely confute your Romish Consequence because S. Paul's words are not Hee that eateth the Body of Christ and drinketh his Blood unworthily is guilty of his Body and Blood but Hee that eateth the Bread and drinketh the Cupp of the Lord unworthily c. which we have proved throughout the 2. Booke to signifie Bread and Wine the signes and Sacraments of his Body and Blood after Consecration And to come to Antiquity All the Fathers above cited Ch. 1. § 6. who denyed that the wicked Communicants are partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ albeit knowing as well as you that all such unworthy Receivers are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ have thereby sufficiently confuted your Consequence which was that because the wicked are Guilty of Christ's bodie Ergò his Body is Corporally present in them But we pursue you yet further That a Guiltines of Contempt of Christ's Body and
blood is to be acknowledged in all prophane Neglect by whatsoever person capable of this Blessed Sacrament SECT IV. GVilty of the Lords Body that is Guilty of the Contempt thereof as you well know Now because Contempt of a good thing is as well seene in a wilfull refusing to receive as in a contemptuous manner of receiving the Guiltines by the same Contempt must needs be against the thing offered whether it be Corporall or Spirituall and consequently against the Giver himselfe In which respect Christ compareth the Refusers of the promises of the Gospell of Salvation vnto beastly Hogs which trample under their feet pearles of highest price even because they would not beleeve them Beleeving being our spirituall Receiving From the same guilt of Contempt followeth the Obnoxiousnes to punishment denounced by our Saviour To shake of the dâ—st of their feeâ—â— for a testimonie against them in not receiving the Gospell of peace Therefore is that saying of Hierome common to every Sacrament Contempt of a Sacrament saith he is the contempt of him whose Sacrament it is As also that other of Rupertus saying The not receiving of the Eucharist if it be in contempt doth separate the Contemner from the societie of the members of Christ Hence it was that whereas Chrysostome called man's Indevotion in receiving the Eucharist Dangerous hee named the Contempt of not participating thereof Pestilence and death it selfe But not to presse you further with other such like speeches of the Fathers wee shall referr you to your Divines of Collen who in their Councell censured those who Contemptuously refused to communicate of this Sacrament to be but onely in name Christians worse say they than the Capernaites offering contumely marke we pray you against your Rhemists to the Body and Blood of Christ and are made thereby obnoxious to the terrible iudgement of God A Conclusion whereby is satisfied from your owne Doctors your owne maine Obiection even in Terminis Terminantibus as the Schoole speaketh professing both a guiltines of Christ's Body in not receiuing it and an obnoxiousnes thereupon unto Gods Iudgement As for your obiected speech of St. Cyprian it is of easie disgestion because Comparisons of Magis and Minus as learning teacheth are altered upon all different respects Some in persecution denyed Christ in the extremity of their feare and some in their wilfulnes profaned the Sacrament of the Eucharist instituted by Christ this latter is the greater sinner before God who iudgeth sinne not onely secundùm actum aut effectum according to the wicked deed done but secundum Affectum that is but much more according to the depraved Affection and Disposition of the mind of the Doer In which respect wee may well thinke that Iudas his traiterous and scornefull kisse was more hainous than Peters periury Have you not read what the Apostle hath written against such as Apostate from their Faith and vow of Baptisme saying They crucifie unto themselves the sonne of God which is much more than Cyprian spake of the Guiltie Receiver of the Eucharist yet dare not you conclude that therefore there is a Corporall Presence of Christ in the water of Baptisme And as in the Guilt of sinne so is it in the Guilt of punishment also which followeth sinne as a shadow doth a Body In which consideration Aâ—gâ—stine doth parallell Baptisme and the Eucharist together saying As he that drinketh the Blood of the Lord unworthily drinketh his owne iudgement so doth he who receiveth Baptisme unworthily By these Premisses you will furthermore easily discerne that your other Romish Doctors have beene no lesse ignorant than they were arrogant in concluding it to be an Infallible Consequence that because Christ receiveth an iniurie in his body and blood by the abuse of the Sacrament of the Eucharist therefore his Body and blood is carnally present therein As if they would teach by the like Inference that because the Empresse Eâ—docia was as is confessed reproached by the Citizens of Antiâ—ch in their despight wrought upon her image therefore was she personally present in the same Image You seeme to be zealously bent against all unworthy usage of this holy Sacrament it is well yet were it better that you saw your owne guiltines herein to repentance For inasmuch as every one is an unworthy Receiver in the iudgement of S. Ambrose who doth celebrate it otherwise than was appointed by Christ himselfe your Ten Transgressions of Christ his Institution of this Sacrament discovered in the first Booke convinceth you of a ten-fold Guiltines of the Vnworthy Receiving of this Mistery Your last obiection of Guiltines is taken from the Executions of Gods punishments Wee therefore reioyne That the Examples of Gods vindicative Iustice have appeared against the Contemners of many holy things without respect to the Corporall Presence of Christ therein SECT V. COme wee to the open iudgements and punishments of God upon the Contemners of this Sacrament the visible Testimonies of his Iustice and Arguments of the pretiousnesse and holinesse of this mystery These we beleeve to be true and the Apostle hath made it manifest where speaking of the great plague which fell upon the Corinthians who had prophaned this Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ he pointeth this out as their sinne saying Ob hanc causam For this cause are many sicke among you and many sleepe c. Yet was not this for not Discerning the body of Christ to be corporally in the Eucharist as your Disputers pretend but to use Saint Hierome's words They were guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ because they despised the Sacrament of so great a mystery namely by their prophane behaviour at their receiving thereof as if they had beene at the Heathenish Bacchanals or as Primasius yeeldeth the Cause For that they tooke it as homely as their common bread All can point at the dolefull Example of God's vengeance upon Iudas the first unworthy Receiver and therefore the subiect of the first Document of Gods iudgement notwithstanding that hee received but the Sacrament only and not the very body of Christ as Saint Augustine observed saying Hee received not the bread the Lord but the bread of the Lord. And how iustly may we thinke did God punish certaine Donatists who casting the holy Sacrament to Dogges were themselves devoured of Dogges Neither have these kind of God's iudgements beene proper to the Abuse of this Sacrament only as you have instructed men to beleeve for looke into the sacred story and you shall find the men of Ashdod for medling with the Arke of God Afflicted with Emrods the men of Bethshemesh smitten with a great slaughter for but peeping into God's Arke Also Vzzah no Priest doth but touch the same Arke albeit with a good intent to support it and he is suddainly strucke dead Nadab and Abihu prophaned the Altar of the Lord with offering strange
of a Corporall Presence of Christ as vehemently as the others of them have done for maintaining of an Vnion properly and really Corporall Notwithstanding the most eminent Cathedrall Doctors in your Romish Schooles to wit Bellarmine Tolet and Suarez doe explode that Corporall Commixture The first Cardinall and Iesuite now mentioned singling out these Fathers who seeme most peremptorily and Emphatically to teach a Corporall nourishing Corporall Augmentation Corporall and naturall mixture and Vnion of Christ's Body with ours such as were Ireneus Hilary Nyssen Cyrill and others as if he had forgot himselfe and meant to answere for us saith The Fathers in so saying are not so to be understood as if the mortall substance of our bodies were nourished thereby for so they should make it meate for the Belly and not of the mind than which nothing can be more absurd The Second Cardinall and Iesuite speaking of Cyrill and Hilarie They say saith hee that our Bodies have a naturall Coniunction and Vnion in this Sacrament wâ—â—â— the Body of Christ but are not so to be vnderstood as if there were a naturall Vnion which were a Doctrine unworthy of them but their meaning is that for the Vnion-sake which is of Faith and Charitie Christ is really and truly within us who is the cause of faith So hee Your Third Iesuite of prime note we have heard already in Confutation of your new Divines who collected from such Testimonies a Proper Corporall Coniunction terming this Doctrine Rash absurd and repugnant to the dignity and Maiestie of the Sacrament That the Obiected Sentences of Fathers make not for the Romish Corporall Vnion proved by their owne Dialect SECT III. THe expresse Testimonies of the obiected Fathers you may read in the Margent as they are marshalled by your owne Iesuite Suarez to wit Irenaeus Chrysostome Cyril Alexand. Grego Nyssen Pope Leo and Hillarie The Summe is The mixture of Christ's Body with ours by a Corporall and naturall Vnion in deede and not onely in faith or Affection Two kind of Semblances are to be observed one in their like Hyperbolicall Phrasing concerning Baptisme and the other touching our Coniunction with Christ Of Baptisme Hilarie the 6. obiected saith Christians by Baptisme which is one are made one not onely in affection but also in nature Leo the 5. obiected saith also that By Baptisme the Body of the Regenerate is made the flesh of Christ crucified And marke what your Cardinall Tolet hath collected from Augustine namely that Infants by being Baptized are made partakers of the Eucharist because they are memberr of the mysticall Body and are so made in a sort partakers of this Sacrament that is to say of the thing signified eating his flesh and drinking his Blood So hee By which your Obiector must be inforced to admit a like Reall coniunction and consequently of a Reall presence of Christ in Baptisme as they have for the Bodily Vnion and Presence of Christ in and by the Eucharist Yea and the Fathers with the like accent and Emphasis of speech say as much of other things Isidore Pleusiota of the word of God that It feedeth mens soules and is in a manner mingled therewith Of the Baptised that by Baptisme They are incorporated into Christ saith Augustine And that thereby They are made bone of Christ's bone and flesh of his flesh saith Chrysost Of the Eucharist It is mingled with our soules so Damascen Of the participation of the bread of Idolaters with the participation of the Sacramentall bread of the Lords Supper That as by the one Christians are made partakers of Christ's flesh so by that other are men made partakers with Divels So Primasius Wherefore your Disputers by comparing these Sentences of the Fathers with the former if they shall take them as spoken properly and not Sacramentally and figuratively shall be compelled to allow proper Commixtures and nourishings of man's Soule by the Word First a proper mingling of God's Spirit with Man Secondly a proper incorporating of Man into Christ and a proper mixture of Man with Divels And againe upon due Comparison of the Testimonies of Fathers obiected by you with these now alleadged by us concerning the Eucharist it selfe it will necessarily follow that by the same reason wherewith you have sought to prove one kind of proper Presence of Christ's bodie and Transubstantiation and Vnion you must allow fower more One of Christs bodie into the bodie of the Communicant a Second of a Christian Communicant into Christs bodie A Third of a Naturall bodily Vnion of Christians among themselves And fourthly which is Damascen's of Christ's bodie into men's soules All which kind of Presences Vnions Mixtures and Transubstantiations taken in a proper sence you cannot but condemne as Atheologicall and sencelesse in your owne iudgement notwithstanding all the former alleaged Phrases of ancient Fathers And what talke you of the Eucharist as being called the Viaticum and food-provision for our iourneying through death by the ancient Fathers as though this were an Argument of Christs Corporall Presence in the Sacrament and Coniunction with them that participate thereof except you meant to make the same Consequence in behalfe of Baptisme wherewith Basil exhorteth both young and old to be provided as of their Spirituall Viaticum That the obiected Testimonies of Ancient Fathers make against the Romish Corporall Vnion of Christ's Bodie with the Bodies of the Communicants SECT IV. YOur Romish Corporall Vnion is distinguished from the Corporall Vnion spoken of the Fathers by two Properties which are universally beleeved in your Church one is the note of the discontinuance of the Bodie of Christ saying that The Body of Christ continueth no longer in the Body of the Communicant than whilest the outward formes of Bread and Wine doâ— remaine uncorrupt The other is the note of Community beleeving that The Corporall Coniunction with the Communicant is equally as common to the prophane and godly Receiver as are the outward Symbols and Signes which they Sacramentally Eate or Drinke Such are these your two Principles concerning Corporall Coniunction both which are notably contradicted by two contrarie notes of Corporall Coniunction spoken of by the Fathers The first is of the Perpetuity of Christian Coniunction with Christ against your Non-residencie thereof The Second is of the Peculiarity of this Vnion namely onely unto pious and faithfull Receivers and both these by the Testimonies of the obiected Fathers yea even in the most of your obiected Testimonies themselves That the Fathers meant by their Corporall Vnion a perpetuall residence in the Receivers their owne Testimonies above-cited doe declare noting that it is the Vnion whereof Christ spake saying He that eateth me remayneth in me and dwelleth in me c. A Truth so apparent that your best reputed Iesuite Suarez is inforced to confesse that The Corporall Vnion spoken of by the holy Fathers is not
Traâ—sient and Passable but permanent and durable which hee proveth both from their expresse words and also by the ground of their Speech which is the Doctrine of Saint Paul 1. Cor. 10. For we being many are one Bread in as much as we are partakers of one bread which are spoken of a permanent Vnion of Christians as they are members of Christ As for the second note of Vnion professed by holy Fathers we have already learned from this their generall Doctrine that the Godly onely are truly Partakers of the flesh of Christ And that our Vnion with Christ by virtue of this Sacrament is proper to the Godly and Faithfull is now further confirmed by the Testimonies obiected Some expressing the Vnion to be such whereby Christ abideth in us and we in him as you have heard and some that whosoever hath it hath spirituall life by it whereas They who eate the Bread of iniquity doe not eate the flesh of Iesus nor drinke his Blood saith Hierome whereas your Popish Vnion is common to both For indeed what is it for Christ his Body to be receiued of the wicked but as it were to have him buried in a grave againe And to feed the ungodly with such precious food is like as if a man should put meate into the mouth of a dead Carkasse The former Assertion being so generally the Doctrine of primitive Fathers it is in it selfe a full and absolute Confutation of the Romish Defence throughout the whole Controversie touching the Corporall Vnion with the Body of Christ as properly so taken Have not then your Disputers in urging the iudgement of holy Fathers spun a faire thred trow yee whereby they have thus evidently strangled their whole Cause A Determination of this point in question I. That the former obiected Sentences of Fathers concerning Corporall Vnion are Sacramentally and Spiritually to be understood as proper to the Godly and Faithfull Receiver SECT V. HOwsoever the sound of their words have seemed unto some of you to teach a proper Corporall Vnion with the Bodies of the Communicants yet the Reasons wherewith the said Sentences are invested doe plainly declare they meant thereby a Spirituall Vnion onely first and principally because they ground their sayings upon that of Saint Iohn He that eateth my flesh abideth in me and hath life and I will raise him up at the last day He dwelleth in me and I in him which many of your owne Doctours have expounded to be taken spiritually as doth also your Bishop Iansenius out of Augustine Secondly because they make the Vnion perpetuall to the Receiver Thirdly because they hold this Vnion proper to the spirituall Communicant excluding the prophane from any reall participation of Christs flesh Fourthly because they taught the same Vnion whereof they speake to be made without this Sacrament even by Baptisme and that Really as your Iesuite Tolet hath said Fiftly because they have compared this Vnion to the continued-Vnion betweene Man and Wife Good and solid Reasons we thinke to perswade any reasonable man that they meant no proper Corporall Vnion Whereby peradventure your Iesuite Tolet was induced to grant that Hilarie and Cyril by the Corporall Vnion of Christ's Bodie with ours meant the Vnion by Faith and Charitie As also whereas Damascene saith That by this Communion wee are made ioynt-bodies with Christ And lastly Cyril of Ierusalem calleth the Communicants by reason of their participation of the Bodie and Blood of Christ Christophers that is being interpreted Carriers of Christ and that hereby we are made partakers of that divine nature a Sentence much urged by your Disputers notwithstanding your Suarez seeth nothing in it but a Spirituall Vâ—ion by Grace and Affection Which two Testimonies we may adde to the former Fathers for proofe that onely the Godly have Vnion with Christ II. That the obiected Ancient Fathers without Contradiction to themselves have both affirmed and denied a Corporall and perpetuall Vnion of Christ's Bodie with the Bodies of the Communicants SECT VI. THree acceptions there may be of the word Corporall Vnion the first Literall and proper which this whole Booke proveth out of the Fathers to be Capernaiticall by Corporall Touching Corporall Tearing with Teeth Corporall Swallowing and Devouring and Corporall mixture with our flesh a sence seeming pernicious to Origen and to Augustine odious and flagitious as hath beene proved The second is a Corporall Coniunction Sacramentall that as they called Bread broken the Bodie of Christ by reason of the Sacramentall Analogie with his Bodie Crucified as hath beene plentifully demonstrated so have they called the Sacrament all Vnion with our Bodies the Corporall Vnion of his Body with ours namely that as the Bread is eaten swallowed disgested by vs and incorporated into our Bodies to the preservation of this life so by the virtue of Christ's humanity dying and rising againe for us our Bodies shall be restored to life in that day In which respect Bread the Sacrament of Christ's Body being so changed into the Substance of our flesh is in us a perpetuall pledge of our Resurrection to glory The last is a Spirituall Vnion that as the Body of Christ is immediately foode of the Soule onely so is the Vnion thereof immediately wrought in the Soule and because in Christian Philosophy the Body followeth the Condition of the Soule according to the tenour of Iudgement used in the last day when as the vngodly Soule shall take unto it selfe it 's owne sinfull Body and carrie it into Hell and the regenerate Soule shall returne to it 's owne Bodie and being united thereunto be ioyntly raised to immortalitie and blisse and all this by our Spirituall and Sacramentall for they are not divided in the Godly Communicating of the Bodie and Blood of Christ This ought not to seeme unto you any novell Doctrine having heard it professed by your Iesuite in your publique Schooles saying The glory of the Bodie depends on the glorie of the soule and the Happinesse of the soule depends on Grace therein neither doth this Sacrament saith he any otherwise conferre immortalitie to the Bodie than by nourishing and preserving grace in the soule So hee In which respect wee concurre with the iudgement of ancient Fathers who call this Sacrament the Symbol and Token of the Resurrection the Medicine of Immortality by which our verie bodies have hope of Immortality So they Yea and which is a further Evidence as your obiected Optatus called the Eucharist The pledge of Salvation and hope of the Resurrection so doth Basil speake of Baptisme tearming it our Strength unto Resurrection being a Sacrament both of his death and Resurrection and the Earnest thereof Nor can wee desire a more pregnant confutation of your Corporall Presence than that the Eucharist is called of the Fathers a Pledge as you have obiected To this purpose wee are to consult with Primasius hee telleth vs that Christ
Fathers have so often called it a Sacrifice of Commemoration Representation and Remembrance and that the thing to be represented is his Body crucified and his Blood shed in that Sacrifice of his Passion is a point as questionlesse which accordeth both to the words of Christ his Institution Doe this in remembrance of me and to the Exposition of Saint Paul to be a shewing foâ—th of the Lords death untill he come yea and is also consonant to the last mentioned Doctrine of the Fathers calling it A Sacrifice of Christ or rather a Remembrance thereof The only Question will be how This which you call The same Sacrifice meaning the Body of Christ subjectively in the Eucharist being invisible can be said to represent figure and resemble the same Body as it was the Sacrifice on the Crosse We yeelding unto you a possibility that one thing in some respects may be a Representation of it selfe Your Tridentine Fathers to this purpose say that Christ left this visible Sacrifice to his Church whereby his Body sacrified upon the Crosse should be represented So they From whom it may seeme your Rhemists learned that lesson which they taught Others that Christ's Body once visibly sacrificed upon the Crosse In and By the selfe same Body is immolated and sacrificed under the shapes of Bread Wine and is most perfectly thereby resembled and therefore iâ— most properly Commemorative being called the same Sacrifice by the Ancient Fathers And againe This nearely and lively resembleth that So they But this we utterly deny because although a thing may in some sort be represented by it selfe yet say we there is no Representative quality of any Body and Blood of Christ as it is said by you to be in the Eucharist of his Body and Blood Sacrificed upon the Crosse And upon the Truth or Vntruth of this our Assertion dependeth the gaining or losing of the whole Cause concerning the Question of Sacrifice now controverted betweene us Two of yout Iesuits have undertaken to manifest your Representation by a more fit example than doe your Rhemists thus Even as a King say They having got a Victory should represent himselfe after his warre in a Stage-play in sight c. So they even in earnest which hath beene as earnestly yet easily confuted by us already although indeed the Play deserveth but laughter and that so much the rather because the Representative part as your Councell of Trent hath defined is in your Masse a visible Sacrifice whereby the Bloody Sacrifice of Christ on the Crosse might be represented as you have heard CHALLENGE YOu except you will be Players and not Disputers must tell us where ever it was seene or heard of a King as Conquerour or yet of any other of what condition soever acting himselfe and that visibly perfectly and truly as you have said yea or else any way semblably representing himselfe when as yet the same King or party was to all the Spectators altogether Invisible If you can then shew where this was acted whether it were not in Vtopia and who was the Actor if not 〈◊〉 and of what disposition the Spectators were whether not like the man of Argos who is said daily to have frequented the Theater and Stage alone void of all Actors yet seeming to himselfe to see all Varieties of Actions occasioning him to laugh and applaud at that which he saw represented to himselfe onely in his owne phantasticall braine Now have you nothing else to answer but which you have already said that The Body and Blood in the Eucharist are visible by the visible shapes of Bread and Wine Whereas it had beene much better you had answered indeed nothing at all rather than not only to contradict that which was said by your Fathers of Trent decreeing the Representation to be made By the Sacrifice on the Altar it selfe and more expresly by your Rhemists In and by the same Body in the Eucharist but also to expose your selves to the reproofe of your Adversaries and Scorne of any man of Common sence as if you would perswade him his money is Visible to any that will use his eyes which he hath therefore locked up close in his Coffer least any man might see it But this we have discussed sufficiently in the 2. Booke and 2. Chapter § 6. The sixth Demonstration of the no Proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist because divers Epithets objected as given by Fathers to this Sacrifice are used also by them where there is no Proper Sacrifice SECT VIII IT is objected by your Cardinall that Ancient Fathers gave certaine Epithets and Attributes to the Eucharist 1. Some calling it a Full and pure 2. some terrible Service 3. some termed it in the plurall number Sacrifices and Victimes and 4. some Anunbloody Sacrifice So hee concluding from each of these that they meant thereby a Proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist We encounter all these foure kinde of Instances with like Epithets given by the same Fathers to other Things in your owne judgement improperly called Sacrifices as namely to Prayers Praises giving Thankes and Hymnes instiled True Pure and Cleane and the only perfect Sacrifices by Primitive Fathers Secondly they are as zealous concerning the second point in terming holy Scriptures Terrible the Rules touching Baptisme Terrible words and Horrible Canons and the Christian duly considering the nature of Baptisme One compassed about with Horror and Astonishment Whereof more hereafter And indeed what is there whereby we have any apprehension of Gods Majesty and Divine Attributes which doth not worke a holy Dread in the hearts of the Godly And the third Instance is as idle as any of the rest because the holy Fathers named Prayers Giving of Thankes and other holy Actions Sacrifices and Hoasts in the plurall number And is not there in the Eucharist Prayers Hymnes and Thanksgivings nay but know that in as much as the Fathers have called the Eucharist in the plurall number Hoasts and Sacrifices it proveth that they were not of your Romish Beleefe of Concomitancy to thinke with you that Bread being changed into Christ's Body and Wine into his Blood make but one Sacrifice for there can be no Identity in Plurality The Answer to the fourth Epithete followeth The seventh Demonstration of no Proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist Because the principall Epithet of Vnbloody Sacrifice used by the Fathers and most urgently objected by your Doctors for proofe of a Proper Sacrifice doth evince the Contrary SECT IX IT hath beene some paines unto us to collect the objected Testimonies of Fathers for this point out of your divers Writers which you may peruse now in the Margent with more ease and presently percelve both what maketh not for you and what against you but certainly for you just nothing at all For what can it helpe your cause that the Celebration of the Eucharist is often called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is An unbloody Sacrifice a Reasonable
belonging unto it many of the same Holy Fathers sealing that their Christian Profession with their Blood It is now referred to the Iudgement of every man whether it can fall within his capacity to thinke it Credible that those Fathers if they had beene of the now Romish Faith would not have expresly delivered concerning the due Worship of this Sacrament this one word consisting but of two Syllables viz. Divine for direction to all Posterity to adore the Sacrament with divine honour even as it is taught in the Church of Rome at this day and to have confirmed the same by some Practise not of one or other private man or woman but by their publike forme of Prayer and Invocation in their soleme Masses or else to confesse that Antiquity never fancied any Divine Adoration of the Eucharist Yet two words more You presse the point of the Invocation of the Sacrament more urgently and vehemently than any other and we indeed beleeve that the ancient Fathers if they had held according to the now Romane Church a Corporall presence of Christ would never have celebrated any Masse without an expresse Invocation of him as in your now-Roman Masse we finde it done saying O Lambe of God c. or some other like forme Yet know now that your owne learned Pamelius hath published two large Tomes of all the Masses in the Latine Church from Pope Clemens downe to Pope Gregory containing the compasse of six hundred yeares we say Latine Missals above forty in number in all which upon our once reading we presume to say that there is not one such tenour of Invocation at all This our first Reason taken from so universall a silence of ancient Fathers in a case of so necessary a moment may be we thinke satisfactory in it selfe to any man of ordinary Reason Our second Objection out of the Fathers followeth That the Ancient Fathers gain-said the Corporall presence of Christ in this Sacrament and Adoration thereof by their Preface in their presenting the Host saying Lift up your Hearts SECT II. IT was the generall Preface of Antiquity used in the Celebration of this Sacrament for the Minister to say Lift up your Hearts and the People to Answer We lift them up unto the Lord. This Sursum Cordâ— Calvin hath objected against you and your Cardinall confessing that This Preface was in use in all Liturgies of Antiquity as well Greeke as Latine and continued in the Church of Rome unto this day Then answereth that He that seeketh Christ in the Eucharist and worshippeth him if he thinke of Christ and not of the Cares of earthly things he hath his heart above So he As though the word Above meant as the Object the person of Christ in the Eucharist and not his place of Residence in the highest Heavens contrary to the word in the Greeke Liturgies which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Above wherein the Church alludeth to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Apostle Colos 3. 1. Seeke the things that are above where Christ is at the right hand of God as your owne Durandus the Expositor of the Romish Masse doth acknowledge Saint Augustine saying It is not without Cause that it is said Lift up your heares He sheweth the Cause to be that wee who are here at the Bottome might according to that of the Psalmist Praise God in the highest This one would thinke is plaine enough but that is much more which we have already proved out of the Fathers by their Antithesis and Oppositionâ—etweene â—etweene the Altar on Earth and the other in Heaven where we have heard Chrysostome distinguishing them that fasten their thoughts upon this Below from Them that seeke Christ in Heaven as he doth Choughs from Eagles Ambrose as they that behold the Image from them that contemplate upon the Traâ—h Nazianzene as they that looke upon the Signes from them that see the Things And the Councell of Nice as they that stoope downe from them that looke up aloft And we may not forget the Observation which Athanasius made of Christ in his discourse of Eating his flesh and drinking his Blood purposely making mention of his Ascension into Heaven thereby to draw their thoughts from earthly Imaginations and to consider him as being in Heaven Cyril of Hierusalem is a Father whom you have often solicited to speake for your Cause in other Cases but all in vaine shall we hearken to him in this He interpreting these words Lift up your Hearts will not have it onely to signifie a sequestring of your thoughts from earthly Cares to spirituall and heavenly which you say was the meaning of the Councell of Nice as if that Lifting up their hearts had beene only an exercising of their thoughts upon that in the hands of the Priest or on the Altar beneath No but he saith that it is To have our hearts in Heaven with God the lover of man-kinde even as did also S. Augustine interpret this Admonition to be A lifting up of hearts to Heaven Whom as you have heard leaving our Eucharisticall Sacrifice on this Altar so would hee have us to seeke â—or our Priest in Heaven namely as Origen more expresly said Not on earth but in Heaven accordingly Oecumenius placing the Host and Sacrifice where Christ's Invisible Temple is even in Heaven Will you suffer one whom the world knoweth to have beene as excellently versed in Antiquity as any other to determine this point He will come home unto you In the time of the Ancient Church of Rome saith he the people did not runne hither and thither to behold that which the Priest doth shew buâ— prostrating their Bodies on the ground they lift up their minds to Heaven giving thankes to their Redeemer So he Thus may we justly appeale as in all other Causes of moment so in this from this degenerate Church of Rome to the sincere Church of Rome in the primitive times like as one is reported to have appealed from Cesar sleeping to Cesar waking Our difference then can be no other than was that betweene Mary and Stephen noted by Ambrose Mary because she sought to touch Christ on earth could not but Stephen touched him who sought him in Heaven A third Argument followeth That the Ancient Fathers condemned the Romish worship by their Descriptions of Divine Adoration SECT III. ALL Divine Adoration of a meere Creature is Idolatry hereunto accord these sayings of Antiquity No Catholike Christian doth worship as a Divine Power that which is created of God Orthus I feare to worship Earth lest he condemne me who created both Heaven and Earth Or thus If I should worship a Creature I could not be named a Christian It were a tedious superfluity in a matter so universally confessed by yourselves and all Christians to use Witnesses unnecessarily We adde the Assumption But the Romish Adoration of the Sacrament is an attributing of Divine Honour
are taught both the nature and necessity of Faith in Divine Worship But Morall and Conjecturall Certainty is not Hypostasis which impliâ—th an Infallibility of Truth but an Hypothesis and supposition of that which may be otherwise and hath in it nothing but Vncertainty at all of which more hereafter Thirdly God himselfe commandeth his people by his Prophet saving Thou shalt worship me and in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shalt sweare by my Name Swearing then is an Adoration by Invocating of God and his owne peculiar Prerogative Hearken now By this Law of God none may sweare by any thing as God which he dare not sweare is God But your Romish Professors in your Masse Invocate this Sacrament thus O Lambe of God which takest away the sinnes of the world have mercy upon us And what Romish Professor is there who sweareth not by the Masse meaning the Consecrated Host as by Christ himselfe Notwithstanding no one of your Romish Priests by reason of the manifold Defects incident thereunto as you have heard durst eversweare that this which is now Consecrated by him on the Altar is not substantially Bread or that it is the Body of Christ It must therefore follow that your Adoration having no better Certainty than as you have confessed to adore it with an if it be Christ is a faithlesse profanation of the name of the Sonne of God and of his worship This point concerning Faith in every Worshipper will be confessed afterwards In the last place that we may ruinate the very foundation of your Excuse your Pretence of Morall Certainty commeth to be examined which you have exemplified by one giving an Almes to a poore man who peradventure hath no need and of Iacobs lying ignorantly with her that was not his wife These say we are Cases farre different from this which we have in hand because God's Almoner you know is not bound to enquire of a man whom he seeth to appeare to be miserable and poore whether he be a Counterfeit or no for Charity is not suspicious saith the Apostle Saint Paul Iacob indeed was bound to know onely his owne wife but if he had had any probable or Morall Cause of doubt would that holy Patriarke thinke you have beene so deluded or over-reached a second and a third time to defile his Body by an unchaste Bed But the Causes of your Doubtings are set forth and numbred by Threes Sixes Twenties Hundreds untill you come to a Thousand and as your Iesuite hath said Almost infinite Defects For indeed if there be as appeareth a Thousand hazards in every Masse of any one Priest then in two Priests as many more and so forward so that if one should heare in his time the Masses of Ten and Twenty Priests what multitudes of thousands of Defects would the reckoning make But we need say no more than hath already beene confessed of Almost infinite and consequently as many Doubts of an Idolatrous worship wherein there cannot be so much Morall Certainty as that in any one generation of men from Christ's time each one of that off-spring hath beene chastly borne whereunto what Christian is there that dare be sworne CHALLENGE COnsider we beseech you for God's Cause for we are now in the Cause of God whether our God who will be knowne to be transcendently Iealous of his owne Honour would ever ordaine such a worship of a Sacrament whereby men must needs be still more obnoxious to that which you call a Materiall Idolatry by many hundred-fold than possibly any can be to any materiall Parricide or materiall Murther or materiall Adultery or any other hainous and materiall Transgression that can be named under the Sunne Thus much of your first Pretence for this present untill we come to receive the Confessions of your owne Doctors in this very point That the Second Romish Pretence which is of a Good Intent cannot free your Adoration of the Host from Formall Idolatry SECT III. LET us heare your Cardinall Honour saith he dependeth upon the Intention so that as he who should contemptuously abuse the unconsecrated Bread thinking it to be Conserated should grievously offend Christ contrariwise he who certainly beleeving the Bread to be Christ's Body shall Adore the same doth principally and formally Adore Christ and not the Bread So he even with the same Sophistry from only such a seeming Contrariety wherewith you use to plead for Merits to wit if evill works deserve damnation then good workes deserve eternall life But will you be pleased to heare the same Cardinall speake in earnest from the Principles of true Logicke Although an evill Intention doth vitiate and corrupt an Act otherwise good yet it followeth not that a good intent should justifie an evill Act because no Act is good except all the Causes thereof be good but any Act is evill upon any one Defect So he which his Conclusion is held as universally true in all Schooles whether Christian or Heathen as any point of Morality can be Wherefore it followeth not that because a man doth something to the Contempt of Christ in abusing that which he thinketh to be Christ that therefore the honour which he doth to that which he falsely beleeveth to be Christ should be an Adoration of Christ as all Heathenish Idolatry in worshipping stocks and stones in an opinion of adoring the true God doe witnesse to the world as your owne Confessions will confirme CHALLENGE DOE you not perceive what a patched Cloake of Sophistry your Cardinall cast upon your Good Intent in your Adoration to cover the filthinesse thereof if it might be and how by another Position he rent the same in peeces when he had done Againe you stand thus farre furthermore condemnable in your selves in this point whilest as you seeke to free your Adoration from Idolatry by Pretence of a Good Intent and notwithstanding hold a Good Intention not to be sufficient thereunto except it be qualified and formed with an habituall Condition which is your Third and last Pretence as fond and false as either of the former That the Third Romish Pretence of an Habituall Condition in the Worshipper excuseth him not from formall Idolatry proved first by Scripture SECT IV. HAbituall Condition you have interpreted to stand thus If he that chanceth to worship onely Bread be in that Act so disposed in himselfe that he would not worship the same Bread as Christ if he knew it were but Bread and not Christ and by this you teach that the Act which you call a materiall Idolatry is made not onely excusable but your owne words honest and commendable also So you What execrable Doctrine is this that we heare which cannot be justifiable except you will justifie the Murtherers of the members of Christ and of Christ himselfe First of the members of Christ we reade of one Saul afterwards Paul breathing out threatnings and slanders against them Act. 9. 1. and persecuting the