A DISCOURSE AGAINST Transubstantiation LONDON Printed by M. Flesher for Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill And William Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1684. A DISCOURSE AGAINST Transubstantiation COncerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper one of the two great positive Institutions of the Christian Religion there are two main Points of difference between Vs and the Church of Rome One about the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in which they think but are not certain that they have the Scripture and the words of our Saviour on their side The other about the administration of this Sacrament to the People in both kinds in which we are sure that we have the Scripture and our Saviour's Institution on our side and that so plainly that our Adversaries themselves do not deny it Of the first of these I shall now treat and endeavour to shew against the Church of Rome That in this Sacrament there is no substantial change made of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Bloud of Christ that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered upon the Cross for so they explain that hard word Transubstantiation Before I engage in this Argument I cannot but observe what an unreasonable task we are put upon by the bold confidence of our Adversaries to dispute a matter of Sense which is one of those things about which Aristotle hath long since pronounc'd there ought to be no dispute It might well seem strange if any man should write a Book to prove that an Egg is not an Elephant and that a Musket-Bullet is not a Pike It is every whit as hard a case to be put to maintain by a long Discourse that what we see and handle and taste to be Bread is Bread and not the Body of a man and what we see and taste to be Wine is Wine and not Bloud And if this evidence may not pass for sufficient without any farther proof I do not see why any man that hath confidence enough to do so may not deny any thing to be what all the World sees it is or affirm any thing to be what all the World sees it is not and this without all possibility of being farther confuted So that the business of Transubstantiation is not a controversie of Scripture against Scripture or of Reason against Reason but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of Scripture and all the Sense and Reason of Mankind It is a most Self-evident Falsehood and there is no Doctrine or Proposition in the World that is of it self more evidently true than Transubstantiation is evidently false And yet if it were possible to be true it would be the most ill-natur'd and pernicious truth in the World because it would suffer nothing else to be true it is like the Roman-Catholique Church which will needs be the whole Christian Church and will allow no other Society of Christians to be any part of it So Transubstantiation if it be true at all it is all truth for it cannot be true unless our Senses and the Senses of all mankind be deceived about their proper objects and if this be true and certain then nothing else can be so for if we be not certain of what we see we can be certain of nothing And yet notwithstanding all this there is a Company of men in the World so abandon'd and given up by God to the efficacy of delusion as in good earnest to believe this gross and palpable Errour and to impose the belief of it upon the Christian World under no less penalties than of temporal death and Eternal damnation And therefore to undeceive if possible these deluded Souls it will be necessary to examine the pretended grounds of so false a Doctrine and to lay open the monstrous absurdity of it And in the handling of this Argument I shall proceed in this plain method I. I shall consider the pretended grounds and reasons of the Church of Rome for this Doctrine II. I shall produce our Objections against it And if I can shew that there is no tolerable ground for it and that there are invincible Objections against it then every man is not onely in reason excused from believing this Doctrine but hath great cause to believe the contrary FIRST I will consider the pretended grounds and reasons of the Church of Rome for this Doctrine Which must be one or more of these five Either 1 st The Authority of Scripture Or 2 ly The perpetual belief of this Doctrine in the Christian Church as an evidence that they always understood and interpreted our Saviour's words This is my body in this sense Or 3 ly The authority of the present Church to make and declare new Articles of Faith Or 4 ly The absolute necessity of such a change as this in the Sacrament to the comfort and benefit of those who receive this Sacrament Or 5 ly To magnify the power of the Priest in being able to work so great a Miracle 1 st They pretend for this Doctrine the Authority of Scripture in those words of our Saviour This is my body Now to shew the insufficiency of this pretence I shall endeavour to make good these two things 1. That there is no necessity of understanding those words of our Saviour in the sense of Transubstantiation 2. That there is a great deal of reason to understand them otherwise First That there is no necessity to understand those words of our Saviour in the sense of Transubstantiation If there be any it must be from one of these two reasons Either because there are no figurative expressions in Scripture which I think no man ever yet said or else because a Sacrament admits of no figures which would be very absurd for any man to say since it is of the very nature of a Sacrament to represent and exhibite some invisible grace and benefit by an outward sign and figure And especially since it cannot be denied but that in the institution of this very Sacrament our Saviour useth figurative expressions and several words which cannot be taken strictly and literally When he gave the Cup he said This Cup is the new Testament in my bloud which is shed for you and for many for the remission of Sins Where first the Cup is put for Wine contained in the Cup or else if the words be literally taken so as to signify a substantial change it is not of the Wine but of the Cup and that not into the bloud of Christ but into the new Testament or new Covenant in his bloud Besides that his bloud is said then to be shed and his body to be broken which was not till his Passion which followed the Institution and first celebration of this Sacrament But that there is no necessity to understand our Saviour's words in the sense of Transubstantiation I will take the plain concession of a great number of the most
to countenance the worship of Images for which at that time they were zealously concern'd But notwithstanding the security and passive temper of the People the men most eminent for piety and learning in that Time made great resistance against it I have already named Rabanus Arch-Bishop of Mentz who oppos'd it as an Errour lately sprung up and which had then gained but upon some few persons To whom I may add Heribaldus Bishop of Auxerres in France Io. Scotus Erigena and Ratramnus commonly known by the name of Bertram who at the same time were employed by the Emperour Charles the Bald to oppose this growing Errour and wrote learnedly against it And these were the eminent men for learning in that time And because Monsieur Arnauld will not be satisfied unless there were some stir and bustle about it Bertram in his Preface to his Book tells us that they who according to their several opinions talked differently about the mystery of Christ's body and bloud were divided by no small Schism Thirdly Though for a more clear and satisfactory answer to this pretended Demonstration I have been contented to untie this knot yet I could without all these pains have cut it For suppose this Doctrine had silently come in and without opposition so that we could not assign the particular time and occasion of its first Rise yet if it be evident from the Records of former Ages for above D. years together that this was not the ancient belief of the Church and plain also that this Doctrine was afterwards received in the Roman Church though we could not tell how and when it came in yet it would be the wildest and most extravagant thing in the world to set up a pretended Demonstration of Reason against plain Experience and matter of Fact This is just Zeno's Demonstration of the impossibility of motion against Diogenes walking before his Eyes For this is to undertake to prove that impossible to have been which most certainly was Just thus the Servants in the Parable might have demonstrated that the tares were wheat because they were sure none but good seed was sown at first and no man could give any account of the punctual time when any tares were sown or by whom and if an Enemy had come to do it he must needs have met with great resistance and opposition but no such resistance was made and therefore there could be no tares in the field but that which they call'd tares was certainly good wheat At the same rate a man might demonstrate that our King his Majesty of great Britain is not return'd into England nor restor'd to his Crown because there being so great and powerfull an Army possess'd of his Lands and therefore obliged by interest to keep him out it was impossible He should ever come in without a great deal of fighting and bloudshed but there was no such thing therefore he is not return'd and restor'd to his Crown And by the like kind of Demonstration one might prove that the Turk did not invade Christendom last year and besiege Vienna because if he had the most Christian King who had the greatest Army in Christendom in a readiness would certainly have employed it against him but Monsieur Arnauld certainly knows no such thing was done And therefore according to his way of Demonstration the matter of fact so commonly reported and believed concerning the Turks Invasion of Christendom and besieging Vienna last year was a perfect mistake But a man may demonstrate till his head and heart ake before he shall ever be able to prove that which certainly is or was never to have been For of all sorts of impossibles nothing is more evidently so than to make that which hath been not to have been All the reason in the world is too weak to cope with so tough and obstinate a difficulty And I have often wonder'd how a man of Monsieur Arnauld's great wit and sharp Judgment could prevail with himself to engage in so bad and baffled a Cause or could think to defend it with so wooden a Dagger as his Demonstration of Reason against certain Experience and matter of Fact A thing if it be possible of equal absurdity with what he pretends to demonstrate Transubstantiation it self I proceed to the Third pretended Ground of this Doctrine of Transubstantiation and that is The infallible Authority of the present Church to make and declare new Articles of Faith And this in truth is the ground into which the most of the learned men of their Church did heretofore and many do still resolve their belief of this Doctrine And as I have already shewn do plainly say that they see no sufficient reason either from Scripture or Tradition for the belief of it And that they should have believed the contrary had not the determination of the Church obliged them otherwise But if this Doctrine be obtruded upon the world merely by virtue of the Authority of the Roman Church and the Declaration of the Council under Pope Gregory the VII th or of the Lateran Council under Innocent the III. then it is a plain Innovation in the Christian Doctrine and a new Article of Faith impos'd upon the Christian world And if any Church hath this power the Christian Faith may be enlarged and changed as often as men please and that which is no part of our Saviour's Doctrine nay any thing though never so absurd and unreasonable may become an Article of Faith obliging all Christians to the belief of it whenever the Church of Rome shall think fit to stamp her Authority upon it which would make Christianity a most uncertain and endless thing The Fourth pretended ground of this Doctrine is the necessity of such a change as this in the Sacrament to the comfort and benefit of those who receive it But there is no colour for this if the thing be rightly consider'd Because the comfort and benefit of the Sacrament depends upon the blessing annexed to the Institution And as Water in Baptism without any substantial change made in that Element may be the Divine blessing accompanying the Institution be effectual to the washing away of Sin and Spiritual Regeneration So there can no reason in the world be given why the Elements of Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper may not by the same Divine blessing accompanying this Institution make the worthy receivers partakers of all the Spiritual comfort and benefit designed to us thereby without any substantial change made in those Elements since our Lord hath told us that verily the flesh profiteth nothing So that if we could do so odd and strange a thing as to eat the very natural flesh and drink the bloud of our Lord I do not see of what greater advantage it would be to us than what we may have by partaking of the Symbols of his body and bloud as he hath appointed in remembrance of him For the Spiritual efficacy of the Sacrament doth not depend upon the
some Servants of the Christian Catechumeni that is such as had not been admitted to the Sacrament and afterwards urged them by violence to tell them some of the secrets of the Christians these Servants having nothing to say that might gratify those who offered violence to them except onely that they had heard from their Masters that the divine Communion was the bloud and body of Christ they thinking that it was really bloud and flesh declar'd as much to those that questioned them The Greeks taking this as if it were really done by the Christians discovered it to others of the Greeks who hereupon put Sanctus and Blandina to the torture to make them confess it To whom Blandina boldly answered How would they endure to do this who by way of exercise or abstinence do not eat that flesh which may lawfully be eaten By which it appears that this which they would have charg'd upon Christians as if they had literally eaten the flesh and bloud of Christ in the Sacrament was a false accusation which these Martyrs denied saying they were so far from that that they for their part did not eat any flesh at all The next is Tertullian who proves against Marcion the Heretique that the Body of our Saviour was not a mere phantasm and appearance but a real Body because the Sacrament is a figure and image of his Body and if there be an image of his body he must have a real body otherwise the Sacrament would be an image of an image His words are these the bread which our Saviour took and distributed to his Disciples he made his own body saying this is my body that is the image or figure of my body But it could not have been the figure of his body if there had not been a true and real body And arguing against the Scepticks who denied the certainty of sense he useth this Argument That if we question our senses we may doubt whether our Blessed Saviour were not deceived in what he heard and saw and touched He might says he be deceived in the voice from heaven in the smell of the ointment with which he was anointed against his burial and in tho taste of the wine which he consecrated in remembrance of his bloud So that it seems we are to trust our senses even in the matter of the Sacrament and if that be true the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is certainly false Origen in his Comment on Matth. 15 speaking of the Sacrament hath this passage That food which is sanctified by the word of God and prayer as to that of it which is material goeth into the belly and is cast out into the draught which none surely will say of the Body of Christ. And afterwards he adds by way of explication it is not the matter of the bread but the word which is spoken over it which profiteth him that worthily eateth the Lord and this he says he had spoken concerning the typical and Symbolical body So that the matter of bread remaineth in the Sacrament and this Origen calls the typical and Symbolical body of Christ and it is not the natural body of Christ which is there eaten for the food eaten in the Sacrament as to that of it which is material goeth into the belly and is cast out into the draught This testimony is so very plain in the Cause that Sextus Senensis suspects this place of Origen was depraved by the Heretiques Cardinal Perron is contented to allow it to be Origen's but rejects his testimony because he was accused of Heresie by some of the Fathers and says he talks like a Heretique in this place So that with much adoe this testimony is yielded to us The same Father in his Homilies upon Leviticus speaks thus There is also in the New Testament a letter which kills him who doth not Spiritually understand those things which are said for if we take according to the Letter that which is said EXCEPT YE EAT MY FLESH AND DRINK MY BLOVD this Letter kills And this also is a killing Testimony and not to be answered but in Cardinal Perron's way by saying he talks like a Heretique St. Cyprian hath a whole Epistle to Cecilius against those who gave the Communion in Water onely without Wine mingled with it and his main argument against them is this that the bloud of Christ with which we are redeemed and quickned cannot seem to be in the Cup when there is no Wine in the Cup by which the Bloud of Christ is represented and afterwards he says that contrary to the Evangelical and Apostolical Doctrine water was in some places offer'd or given in the Lord's Cup which says he alone cannot express or represent the bloud of Christ. And lastly he tells us that by water the people is understood by Wine the bloud of Christ is shewn or represented but when in the Cup water is mingled with Wine the people is united to Christ. So that according to this Argument Wine in the Sacramental Cup is no otherwise chang'd into the bloud of Christ than the Water mixed with it is changed into the People which are said to be united to Christ. I omit many others and pass to St. Austin in the fourth Age after Christ. And I the rather insist upon his Testimony because of his eminent esteem and authority in the Latin Church and he also calls the Elements of the Sacrament the figure and Sign of Christ's body and bloud In his Book against Adimantus the Manichee we have this expression our Lord did not doubt to say this is my Body when he gave the Sign of his Body And in his explication of the third Psalm speaking of Judas whom our Lord admitted to his last Supper in which says he he commended and delivered to his Disciples the figure of his Body Language which would now be censur'd for Heresie in the Church of Rome Indeed he was never accus'd of Heresie as Cardinal Perron says Origen was but he talks as like one as Origen himself And in his Comment on the 98 Psalm speaking of the offence which the Disciples took at that saying of our Saviour except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud c. he brings in our Saviour speaking thus to them ye must understand Spiritually what I have said unto you ye are not to eat this body which ye see and to drink that bloud which shall be shed by those that shall crucifyme I have commended a certain Sacrament to you which being Spiritually understood will give you life What more opposite to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation than that the Disciples were not to eat that Body of Christ which they saw nor to drink that bloud which was shed upon the Cross but that all this was to be understood spiritually and according to the nature of a Sacrament For that body he tells us is not here but in heaven in his Comment upon