otherwise I shall not trouble the Reader with any more of our Divines who lived in the beginning of this Queen's Reign Mr. HOOKER and subscribed the Article before-recited but pass on directly to him whom our Author first mentions Tr. I. cap. 2. §. 10. Pag. 6. the Venerable Mr. Hooker and whose Judgment having been so deservedly esteemed by all sorts of men ought not to be lightly accounted of by us And here I must observe that this Learned Person is drawn in only by a Consequence and that no very clear one neither to favour his Opinion Difference between the Protestant and Socinian Methods in answer to the Protestants Plea for a Socinian pag. 54. The truth is he has dealt with Mr. Hooker just as himself or one of his Friends has been observed to have done on the like occasion with the incomparable Chillingworth has pick'd up a Passage or two that seemed for his purpose but dissembled whole Pages in the same place that were evidently against him For thus Mr. Hooker in the Chapter cited by him interprets the words of Institution If we doubt says he what those admirable words may import let him be our Teacher for the meaning of Christ to whom Christ was himself a School-master Let our Lord's Apostle be his Interpreter content we our selves with his Explication My Body the Communion of my Body My Blood the Communion of my Blood. Is there any thing more expedite clear and easie than that as Christ is termed our Life because through him we obtain Life So the parts of this Sacrament are his Body and Blood because they are Causes instrumental upon the receit whereof the participation of his Body and Blood ensueth The Real Presence of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood is not therefore to be sought for in the Sacrament but in the worthy Receiver of the Sacrament And again p. 310. he thus interprets the same words This Hallow'd Food through the concurrence of Divine Power is in verity and truth unto faithful Receivers instrumentally a Cause of that mystical participation whereby as I make my self wholly theirs so I give them in hand an actual possession of all such saving Grace as my sacrificed Body can yeild and as their Souls do presently need This is to them and in them my Body And this may suffice in Vindication of Mr. Hooker Those who desire a fuller Account may find several Pages to the same purpose in the Chapter which I have quoted Bishop ANDREWS 1 Tract pag. 7. §. xi n. 1. The next our Author mentions is the Learned Bishop Andrews in that much noted passage as he calls it in the Answer to Bellarmine And indeed we need desire no other Passage to judge of his Opinion in this matter in which 1st He utterly excludes all defining any thing as to the manner of Christs Presence in the Eucharist 2. He professes that a Presence we believe and that no less a True one than the Papists 3. He plainly insinuates that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist was much the same as in Baptism the very allusion which the Holy †Habemus Christum praesentem ad Baptismatis Sacramentum habemus eum praesentem ad Altaris Cibum Potum Augustin Stola quae est Ecclesia Christi lavatur in ipsius sanguine vivo i. e. in lavacro regenerationis Origen Statim baptizatus in sanguine agni Vir meruit appellari Hieron Christi sanguine lavaris quando in ejus mortem Baptizaris Leo. P. c. Fathers were wont to make to express his Presence by in this Holy Sacrament which since our Adversaries can neither deny nor yet say is so real as to be Essential or Corporeal they must of necessity allow that there may be a true Presence which is all the Bishop affirms without such a Substantial one as this Author here contends for But to shew that whatever this Bishop understood by the Real presence it could not be that Christs glorified Body is now actually present in this Sacred Mystery will appear demonstratively from this that he declares it is not this Body which we either Represent or partake of there insomuch that he doubts not to say that could there be a Transubstantiation such as the Church of Rome supposes it would not serve our turn nor answer the design of this Sacrament 'T is in his Sermon on 1 Cor. See Sermon vii on the Resurect pag. 454. Serm. Lâ—nd 1641. v. 7 8. We will mark saith he something more That Epulemur doth here refer to Immolatus To Christ not every way consider'd but As when he was Offer'd Christs Body that now is true But not Christs Body as now it is but as then it was when it was offer'd rent and slain and sacrificed for us Not as now he is glorified for so he is not he cannot be Immolatus For as he is he is immortal and impassible But as then he was when he suffer'd death that is passible and mortal Then in his passible State he did institute this of outs to be a memorial of his Passible and Passion both And we are in this Action not only carry'd up to Christ sursum Corda so that Christ it seems is not brought down to us but we are also carry'd back to Christ as he was at the very instant and in the very Act of his offering So and no otherwise doth this Text teach So and no otherwise do we Represent him By the incomprehensible power of his Eternal Spirit not He alone but He as at the very act of his offering is made present to us and we incorporate into his death and invested in the Benefits of it If an Host could be turned into him now glorified as he is it would not serve Christ offer'd is it Thither must we look to the Serpent lift up thither we must repair even ad Cadaver We must Hoc facere do that is then done So and no otherwise is this Epulare to be conceived And so I think none will say they do or can turn him Whatsoever Real presence then this Bishop believed it must be of his crucified Body and as in the State of his death and that I think cannot be otherwise present than in one of those two ways mentioned above by Arch-Bishop Cranmer and both of which we willingly acknowledge either Figuratively in the Elements or Spiritually in the Souls of those who worthily receive them And from this Account of Bishop Andrews Opinion we may conclude what it was that Casaubon and King James understood by the Real Presence ASAVBON KING JAMES A. Bishop of Spalato who insist upon that Bishops words to express their own Notion and meaning of it Nor can we make any other judgment of the Arch Bishop of Spalato See the 1. Tra. who in the next § xi note 2. pag. 7. * Vol. 3. de Rep. Eccles. lib. 7. cap. 11. pag. 200. 201. to that cited by our Adversary is
particular Sacrament had been a whole composed of the External Species whatever they are as the Sign and the Body and Blood of Christ as the inward part or thing signified Thus I am sure the Catechism of the Council of Trent instructs us First for the name it tells us Catech. ad Parach part 2. de Sacram. n. iii. v. p. 92. that The Latin Doctors have thought that certain Signs subjected to the Senses which declare and as it were set before the Eyes the Grace which they effect may fitly be called Sacraments And for the nature of them thus it defines a Sacrament from S. Austin It is the sign of a holy thing or more fully as I before said a visible sign of an invisible Grace instituted for our Justification So that neither then Symbols alone nor the invisible part or Grace alone can with any manner of propriety be called a Sacrament but the Sign referr'd to the Grace and as it is the Symbol instituted by Christ for the conferring of it This therefore can with no good reason be called a Catholick Assertion being neither general nor true But however since he seems content to allow it to be an impropriety of Speech and that I confess the * Catec Conc. Trid. part 2. de Euch. §. viii nota p. 144. Catechism of the Council of Trent does lead him into it let us see what use he can make of it †Pag. 15. §. xi And as Protestants much press so Catholicks Roman Catholicks willingly acknowledg a great difference between these two The worshipping of the Sacrament as this word is taken for the Symbols and the worshipping of Christ's Body in the Sacrament There is no doubt a great difference between these two but then they who tell us the Sacrament is to be Adored if they will speak rationally must mean neither the one nor other of these but the Host that is as Card. Pallavicini expounds it The whole of which Christ's Body is a part in the language of the Council of Trent the Sacrament IN WHICH they believe Christ to be present and for that Cause adore it as the Cardinal again argues * See above pag. 91 92. that To make a Whole Adorable it is sufficient that one part be so and therefore since the Body of Christ is adorable the Sacrament for its sake is to be worshipped It is therefore a meer shift to tell us that the Sacrament is to be adored i. e. Christ's Body in the Sacrament Nor will the remark of our Author help us out that tho the Chapter indeed calls it the Sacrament IN WHICH is Christ's Body Pag. 16 §. xiii yet the Canon speaks more precisely and calls it Christ in the Sacrament unless he supposes the Council to have been infallible in the Canons only and not in the Chapters as some have thought that they may be out in their Proofs but cannot be in their Conclusions But however since he so much desires it for my part I shall be content to allow them this too for I should be glad by any means to see them sensible of their Errors But yet so as that it be esteem'd only a private Opinion this not a Catholick Assertion Thirdly Catholicks he means the Papists still P. 21. §. xvii ground their Adoration not upon Transubstantiation as if Transubstantiation defeated Adoration is so too but on a Real Presence with the Symbols which in general is agreed on by the Lutherans together with them By which Assertion if he means only to make this Discovery That Christ's Real Presence together with the Substance of the Bread and Wine is in his Opinion as good a ground for Adoration as if he were there only with the Species of the Bread the Substance being changed into his Body I have no more to say to it But if he would hereby make us believe that 't is all one whether Christ be adored as supposed here by the Lutherans in this Holy Eucharist and as imagined there by the Papists I must then deny his Assertion and desire him to keep home to his own manner of Real Presence and which I shall presently convince him will leave them in a much worse condition than their Neighbours whom he would draw into the same Snare with them And therefore whereas he concludes Fourthly P. 22. §. xviii That supposing Transubstantiation to be an Error yet if the Tenent of Corporal or Real Presence as held by the Lutherans or others be true Catholicks he would say Papists plead their Adoration is no way frustrated but still warrantable I must tell him that the Adoration of those among the Lutherans who worship Christ in this Sacrament upon the account of his Real Presence in or with the Bread tho it be an Error yet is infinitely more excusable than theirs who suppose the Bread to be turned into Christ's Body and because it may not be thought that I speak this out of any prejudice against them I will here offer my Reasons for it 1st They that adore Christ as really present together with the Bread do no violence to their Senses They confess that what they see and taste and feel and smell is really Bread and Wine Whilst the Papist in denying the Bread and Wine to remain or that what he sees and feels and smells and tastes is what all the World perceives and knows it is contradicts his Senses and in them the Law of Nature that Means which God has given us to direct and lead us into the search of Truth and by Consequence errs against infinitely greater Means of Conviction and so is more inexcusable than the Other 2dly They who worship Christ as supposing Him to be together with the Bread in this Holy Eucharist are erroneous indeed in this that they take Christ's Body to be where really it is not but yet their Object is undoubtedly right and in that they are not mistaken But now for the Papist he adores 't is confess'd what he thinks to be Christ's Body and would not otherwise adore it But yet still 't is the Host that he adores the Substance that is under those Species which he sees and which if it be not Christ but meer Substance of Bread the Case is vastly alter'd between the Lutheran and Him. The former adores Christ only as in a place where he is not the latter not only do's this but moreover adores a Substance for Christ which is not his Body and Blood but a meer Creature of Bread and Wine Monsieur Daille therefore might rightly enough say of a Lutheran that his Adoration is mistaken P. 23. §. xix not in this that it addresseth it self to an Object not adorable but only that by Error it seeks and thinks to enjoy it in a place where it is not and so becomes only vain and unprofitable And yet our Author has no manner of Reason from thence to pretend that a Papist who terminates his Adoration
to the Spirit i. e. the Godhead of Christ become both one Sacramentally by being both one with the Spirit or Godhead of Christ to the conveying of God's Spirit to a Christian And thus have I consider'd the several Divines produced for this new Conceit concerning the Real Presence and shewn the greatest part of his Authors to be evidently against it some not to have spoken so clearly that we can determine any thing concerning them but not one that favours what they were alledged for viz. to shew that they believed Christ's Natural Body to be both in Heaven and in the Sacrament only after another manner than the Papists It were an easie matter to shew how constant our Church has been to the Doctrine of the true real spiritual Presence which it still asserts and which it derived from its first Reformers whose words have been before set down by a cloud of other Witnesses as may be seen by the short Specimen I have put together in the * Reformatio legum Eccles ex Authorit Henr. 8. Edw. 6. Lond. 1641. Tit. de Sacram. cap. 4. pag. 29. Morton de Euch. part 2. Class 4. cap. 1. §. 2. pag. 224. Lat. 1640. 4 to Fr. White against Fisher pag. 407. Lond. 1624. Fol. A. B Vster's Answer to a Challenge c of the Real Presence p. 44 45. Lond. 1625. Id. Serm before the House of Commons pag 16 1â— c Dr. Hownand Pract. Catech. part ult Answer to this Question the Importance of these wâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 the Bâ—dâ— and 〈◊〉 of Christ are verily and indeed taken and receivâ—â— p. 132. 〈◊〉 Lond Fol. 1634. Dr. Jachson's Works Tom. 3. pag. 300 302. Lond. 1673 Dr. Jo. Wâ—â—â—â—â—'s Way to the True Church Lond. 1624. §. 51. N. 1â— pag. 2â—9 Cosens Hist Transubst p. 3 4 12 c. Edit London 1675 8vo Margent But I have insisted too long already on this matter and shall therefore pass on to the Third thing I proposed to consider viz. Thirdly That the Alterations which have been made in our Rubrick were not upon the account of our Divines changing their Opinions as is vainly and fasly suggested To give a rational Account of this Affair we must carefully consider the Circumstances of the Times the Tempers and Dispositions of the Persons that lived in them and what the Designs of the Governing Parties were with reference to them and then we shall presently see both a great deal of Wisdom and Piety in the making of these Alterations allowing the Opinions of those who did it to have continued as we have seen in all of them the same When first this Rubrick was put into King Edward's Liturgy the Church of England was but just rising up out of the Errors and Superstitions with which it had been over-run by the prevalency of Popery upon it It had the happiness to be reformed not as most others were by private persons and in many places contrary to the desires of the Civil Power but by a Unanimous Concurrence of the Highest Authority both Civil and Ecclesiastical of Church and State. Hence it came to pass that Convocations being assembled Deliberations had of the greatest and wisest Persons for the proceeding in it nothing was done out of a Spirit of Peevisnness or Opposition the Holy Scriptures and Antiquity were carefully consulted and all things examined according to the exactest measures that could be taken from them and a diligent distinction made of what was Popery and what true and Catholick Christianity that so the One only might be rejected the other duly retained Now by this means it was that the Ancient Government of the Church became preserved amongst us a just and wise Liturgy collected out of the Publick Rituals Whatever Ceremonies were requisite for Order or Decency were retain'd and among the rest that of receiving the Communion kneeling for One which has accordingly ever since been the manner establish'd amongst us But that no Occasion of Scandal might hereby be given whether to our Neighbour-Churches abroad or to any particular Members of our own at home That those who were yet weak in the Faith might not either continue or fall back into Error and by our retaining the same Ceremony in the Communion that they had been used to in the Mass fancy that they were to adore the Bread as they did before For all these great Ends this Caution was inserted that the true Intent of this Ceremony was only for Decency and Order not that any Adoration was thereby intended or ought to be done unto any Real or Essential Presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Blood which were not there but in Heaven it being against the Truth of Christ's Natural Body to be at One time in more places than One. And this is sufficiently intimated in the words of the Rubrick to have been the first Cause and Design of it Thus it continued the remainder of King Edward's time But now Queen Elizabeth being come to the Crown there were other Circumstances to be consider'd Those of the Reformed Religion abroad were sufficiently satisfied both by this publick Declaration which had stood so many years in the Liturgy of our Church and by the Conversation and Acquaintance of our Divines forced by the dispersion in the foregoing Reign to seek forrefuge among their Brethren in other Countries of our Orthodox Faith as to this Point Our own Members at home had heard too much of this matter in the publick Writings and Disputations and in the constant Sufferings of their Martyrs not to know that the Popish Real Presence was a meer Figment an Idolum as Bishop Taylor justly stiles it and their Mass to be abhorred rather than adored There was then no longer need of this Rubrick upon any of those Accounts for which it was first establish'd and there was a very just reason now to lay it aside That great Queen desired if possible to compose the Minds of her Subjects and make up those Divisions which the differences of Religion and the late unhappy Consequences of them had occasion'd For this she made it her business to render the publick Acts of the Church of England as agreeable to all Parties as Truth would permit The Clause of the Real Presence inserted in the Articles of her first Convocation and subscribed by all the Members of it to shew that their belief was still the same it had ever been as to this matter was nevertheless as we have seen struck out for this end their next Session The Title of Head of the Church which her Father had first taken her Brother continued and was from both derived to her so qualified and explained as might prevent any Occasion of quarrelling at it by the most captious persons That Petition in the Litany inserted by King Henry viii From the Tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable Enormities Good Lord c. struck out And in conformity to what was done in the Articles as to this Point this Rubrick
whilst so present which is during the Action of the Lord's Supper i. e. says he as I conceive them from the Consecration till the end of the Communion are to be Adored I answer First As to the former part it is confess'd that the Lutherans do indeed suppose Christ to be present not only to the worthy Communicants but also to the Consecrated Symbols But now secondly for the other part that during the Action of the Lord's Supper He is to be Adored there this is not so certain For 1. I do not find any thing establish'd amongst them as to this matter neither in the Confession of Auxpourg nor in any other publick Acts of their Church 2. I find several of their Divines utterly denying that Christ's Body is to be Adored in the Holy Sacrament and our * See below Disc 2. p. 16. Author himself confesses it Tho now 3. †Conrad Schlusselburgius Catal. Haeret l. 3. arg 45. p. 205. Item Arg. 103. p. 280. It. arg 174. p. 327. Francof 1605. And Hospinian quotes it of Luther himself that it was his Opinion Concord discor p. 358. n. 16. Genev. 1678. I will not deny but that some others of them do allow if not that Christ's Body yet that Christ himself is to be Adored after a peculiar manner in the Action of the Lord's Supper and as far as I conceive do by the Action mean as our Author here represents it from the Consecration to the end of the Communion So that then with this Limitation his Proposition I presume may be admitted That the Lutherans do acknowledg that Christ is present during the Action of the Lord's Supper and therefore it is by several of them supposed that he ought to be adored in it As to the sixth and last Concession §. vi p. 10 11. which he draws from Monsieur Daille's Apologiâ—â— That tho we do not our selves belive the Real Presence of Christ ' s Body in the Signs yet neither do we esteem the belief of it so criminal as to oblige us to break off Communion with all those that hold it and therefore that had the Roman Church no other Error but this that it would not have given us any sufficient cause of separation from it we are ready to admit it always supposing that the belief of it had not been press'd upon us neither as a necessary Article of Communion nor any Anathema pronounced against us for not receiving it And for the other part of it which he subjoyns Ibid. pag. 11. That a Disciple giving Divine Honour upon mistake to another Person much resembling our Saviour Christ would have been no Idolater from whence he would infer That therefore allowing a Consecrated Host to be truly Adorable a Person that should by mistake adore an unconsecrated One would not be guilty of Idolatry We are content to allow it tho what use he can make of it in this Controversy unless against his own Brethren S. Thomas Paludanus and others I do not understand since he knows we utterly deny any Host consecrated or not to be fit to be worshipped And this may serve for his first Foundation of Protestant Concessions which were they every one as certain as his first is that Christ is to be adored I cannot see what his Cause would gain by it and he has not by any Application of them in this Treatise given us the least reason to think that they are of any moment in it But some Men have a peculiar faculty of amusing the World with nothing and I remember I once heard a judicious and modest Man give this Character of an Author much resembling ours with reference to his Guide in Controversy that for a Book which carried a great appearance of Reasoning it had the least in it of any he ever met with But I go on II. 2. Part. Catholick Assertions To his Catholick Assertions And first Catholicks as he calls them affirm in the Eucharist after the Consecration Pag. 13. §. ix a Sign or Symbol to remain still distinct and having a divers Existence from that of the thing signified or from Christ's Body contained in or under it This 't is true the Papists or if you please the Catholicks do affirm because that otherwise they could not call it a Sacrament But now if we enquire what that which they call a Sign or a Symbol in this Holy Sacrament is we shall find it to be neither such as our Blessed Saviour establish'd nor indeed any thing that can in propriety of Speech be so termed For our Saviour Christ 't is evident that the Symbols instituted by him were Bread and Wine They were these that he took and blessed and gave to his Disciples and commanded them also in like manner to take and bless and give to others in remembrance of him and as the Symbols of his Body and Blood in this Holy Eucharist But now for the Papists they destroy the Bread and the Wine they leave only a few aiery empty Species that is appearances of something but which are really nothing have no substance to support them The Symbols establish'd by Christ were Festival Symbols a matter apt for our Corporal Nourishment so signify to us that as by them viz. by Bread and Wine our Bodies are nourished to a Corporal Life so by the Body and Blood of Christ which they both represent and communicate to us our Souls are fed to Life Everlasting But for that which hath no Substance i. e. nothing which can be converted into our Bodily Nourishment how that can be a Symbol of this Spiritual Food I do not very well understand Indeed our Author tells us Pag. 14. §. x. That tho after Consecration the Substance of the Bread and Wine is deny'd to remain yet is Substance here taken in such a sense as that neither the hardness nor the softness nor the frangibility nor the savour nor the odour nor the nutritive virtue of the Bread nor nothing visible or tangible or otherwise perceptible by any Sense is involved in it That is to say that the Symbol or external Sign then in this Eucharist is according to them a hard soft frangible gustible odoriferous nutritive visible tangible perceptible nothing Verily a fit external Species indeed to contain a one manifold visible invisible extended unextended local illocal absent present natural supernatural corporal spiritual Body Secondly Concerning the Adoration of the Sacrament he tells us That this word Sacrament Pag. 14. §. xi is not to be taken always in the same sense but sometimes to be used to signify only the external Sign or Symbols sometimes only the Res Sacramenti or the thing contain'd under them which is the more principal part thereof This indeed is a sort of new Divinity I always thought hitherto that when we talked of a Sacrament properly so called we had meant an outward and visible Sign of an inward and spiritual Grace and that this
consecrated 1. With reference to the Holy Elements to be consecrated If the Bread be not all or at least the greater part of Wheat-flower See all this in the beginning of the Missal de defectibus circa Missam if it be not mix'd with pure Water if the Bread be corrupted or the Wine sour if the Grapes of which the Wine was made were not ripe if any thing be mingled with the Wine but Water or if there be so much Water mix'd with it that that becomes the prevailing Ingredient in all these Cases and many others which I omit there is no Consecration And of all this he who adores either the Bread or Wine can have no security But 2. Be the Elements right yet if the Priest being either ignorant or in haste or unmindful of what he is about should by mistake or otherwise err in pronouncing of the words of Consecration whether by Addition or by Diminution or by any other Alteration there is no Consecration The Bread and Wine continue what they were and of this too he that worships them can never be certain 3. Let the words be never so rightly pronounced yet if the Priest had no intention to consecrate if he be a secret Atheist or Jew or Moor If he be a careless negligent Man it may be do's not believe he has any Power to make such a Change as I have shewn that several of their greatest Men in this very Age have doubted of it If he consecrate a number of Wafers for a Communion and in his telling Mistakes intending to consecrate but twenty and there are one and twenty before him in all these Cases for want of a due intention in the Priest there it no Consecration but that which is adored is only a little Bread and Wine 4. Let the Priest have a good Intention See above in the Preface yet if he be no Priest if he were not rightly Baptized or Ordained if he were a Simoniac or Irregular or a Bastard c. Or if there were no defect in his Ordination yet if there was any in his who ordained him or in the Bishops that ordained that Bishop that ordained him and so back to the very Time of the Apostles if in the whole Succession of Priests to this day there has been but any one Invalidity whether by Error or Wilfulness or for want of a due Intention or by Ignorance or by any other means then he that consecrates is no true Priest and by consequence has no Power to consecrate and so all is spoiled and whosoever worships in any of his Masses adores only a piece of Bread instead of our Saviour's Body When therefore so many Defects may interpose upon their own Principles to hinder this Conversion that 't is exceeding probable nay 't is really great odds that not one Host in twenty is consecrated it must certainly be very hazardous to worship that for God which upon their own Principles they can never be sure is so nay which 't is twenty to one is not God but a meer inanimate Creature of Bread and Wine 'T is this has forced their most Learned Men to confess * See Bellarm. de Justif c. 8. that they can never be sure of a Consecration Pag. 23. and our Author himself to declare That they do not worship the Substance that is under the Accidents of Bread and Wine WHATEVER IT BE but VPON SVPPOSITION that it is CHRIST'S BODY Adr. VI. quodlibet Sect. 10. Suppos 2. Which is what Pope Adrian 6th following herein the Authority of the Council of Constance prescribed that they ought always to adore the Host with such a reserve See Gerson Tract de Exam doctr consid 6. The Council of Constance says he excuses those who in their simplicity adore an unconsecrated Host because this condition is tacitly implied if it be rightly consecrated And therefore he advises let them so adore the Host I ADORE THEE IF THOV ART CHRIST But now if as the Apostle tells us in another case Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin and He that doubts is damned if he eats I shall leave it to any sober Christian to say what security there can be in such a Worship which is neither advised encouraged or commanded in Holy Scripture and which they themselves confess they can never be certain is addressed to a right Object and therefore are forced to such Shifts and Reserves as were they once admitted might make any other Creature in the World as warrantably adorable as their Host How much better were it for them to adore their Blessed Saviour in Heaven where his glorified Body most certainly is Where there can therefore be no danger to lift up our Hearts unto him Were his Sacred Body indeed substantially present in this Blessed Sacrament yet still it would be in a manner to us imperceptible in the state of his Death and by consequence of his Humiliation and we might therefore have some cause to doubt whether since we have received no Command concerning it it were our Saviour's Pleasure that his Body should be adored by us in that State So that there could be no Sin in the not doing of it But now amidst so many Doubts not only upon Ours but even upon their own Principles that they dare not themselves worship at a venture that which yet they do worship tho I shall leave them to their own Master to stand or fall at the Great Day yet I must needs profess I think there is very much hazard in it A great Sincerity and great Ignorance may excuse a poor untaught and therefore blindly obedient Multitude but for their Guides who lead them into Error for those to whom God has given Capacities and Opportunities as to those now among us he has done of being better informed I can only say Lord lay not this Sin to their Charge And this may suffice to have been said to the third Thing proposed of their Rational Grounds for this Worship Pag. 37. §. xxxiii For what our Author finally adds That to adore that which the Adorer believes not to be our Lord but Bread would be unlawful to be done by any so long as the Person continues so perswaded But then if we suppose the Church justly requiring such Adoration upon such a true Presence of our Lord neither will the same Person be free from sinning greatly in his following such his Conscience and in his not adoring I Answer It will then be time enough to consider this when either the Church to which we owe an Obedience shall require it of us or they be able to prove that in such a Case the Church would not sin in Commanding and not we in refusing to obey her But blessed be God there is no great danger of either of these Our Church is too well perswaded of the unlawfulness of such a Worship ever to require it of us And for that Church which has so uncharitably