perswade Unbelievers to acknowledge the true Faith but only professes that by these her members are sanctified For example we say by Baptism as an outward and visible sign is wrought an invisible grace in the soul of the person Baptized Though view the Child as much as you please you can by none of your senses perceive any mutation to be wrought In like manner the Church professes to believe the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God that our Lord Jesus though to outward appearance a mere man was also true God and yet by no sense was the Hypostatical Union of his soul and body to the Second person of the blessed Trinity discernable This was no doubt a great Miracle yea the miracle of miracles wrought amongst us but the end of its working being not by it as a motive to draw the world to Christianity but to constitute a fit person for the working of the salvation of the world it was not necessary it should be the object of our senses The same Lord and Saviour telling us that he was God though we could discern no Characters of Divinity in him by any of our senses he saying that he was God proving by other Miracles to our senses that he was sent from God to teach us nothing but Truth this was sufficient to secure our belief of his Deity In like manner in the mystery of the holy Eucharist this miraculous change being not wrought to allure Strangers to the Christian Faith but to sanctifie Believers and to work all those spiritual effects in them above-mentioned by being received by them and offered up in their presence for them c. it was not requisite this change should be the object of our senses Nay it was necessary it should not be the object of our senses For it being wrought to the intent we should eat and drink our dear Lord his body and blood it was necessary only the substance of bread and wine should be turned into the substance of our Lords flesh and blood the accidents of bread and wine remaining for that otherwise we should have a horror to eat raw flesh and drink true appearing blood As to the confirmation of the Argument that hence it would follow we cannot trust our senses and consequently not be certain of any miracle wrought by our Saviour To this I Answer We may alwaies trust our senses about their own objects and in due circumstances and when we have not positive grounds to think either God Almighty by himself or by an Angel or permissively by a Devil represents things otherwise then they are The three Children in the fiery Furnace might really think themselves in the midst of scorching Flames though they felt them not because they had reason to surmise God Almighty wrought a miracle out of those circumstances they had no reason to believe any thing to be ordinary fire which should not burn as fire Nor must they for this for ever after be in doubt whether they were not environed with Flames of fire or no. Nor must Abram because once in a particular circumstance he mistook three Angels for three men therefore never after believe his eyes whether he saw a man or no unless he first pinched him by the arm and felt that he had flesh and blood as himself Nor must one who in the presence of a Conjurer had taken pibble stones for grapes for ever after be doubtful whether he saw grapes or no till he tasted them Nor does it follow S. Mary Magdalen could not be certain she ever saw our B. Saviour because once her senses were mistaken concerning him taking him for the Gardener And in our present case our B. Saviour telling us that the Holy Eucharist is his body we have all reason to think that by miracle he makes it to be so whatsoever it seems to our senses Nor do Catholicks therefore out of such a circumstance doubt of all the bread they see whether it be not their Lords body or no Though I must tell you even here your senses are not mistaken for they do perceive what they seem to perceive that is the Accidents of bread and wine which remain and affect them in the same manner as when the substance under them was the substance of bread and wine but now is the substance of our Lords body and blood Substances are not discernable by any sense only we conclude by a Physical certitude such a substance is under such a complex of Accidents when we have nor positive grounds that God Almighty works a miracle as here we have he saying expresly of this object before us 'T is his body and 't is his blood But if there be so much to be said for this great mystery how comes it to pass so many have so great difficulty to believe it It is not because the mystery is not highly credible but it is partly from Nature and partly from Education and partly from want of a serious and frequent consideration of those Arguments which strongly evince the credibility of it and partly for want of strange desires of the happiness of the other life and of a heart void of inordinate affections to the things of this life Pleasures Riches and Honors 'T is partly from Nature I say For 't is not more difficult to our senses to practice Sobriety Temperance Chastity and Fasting then it is to our understanding to assent to Truths which seem to shock our reason and senses though proposed by never so great Authority Should you have seen our B. Saviour sucking his Mothers Breast in the Stable of Bethlehem whosoever should have told you the little Infant there was God Almighty the maker of Heaven and Earth Nature would have found a great difficulty to believe so strange an assertion and no less then it does now to believe that a little Wafer in the hands of a Priest is the same Christ both God and man veiled under the appearance of the common accidents of bread But had it been moreover from your infancy continually noysed in your ears by such as you reverenced for their learning and skill in divine matters that it was impossible for God to become man this would strangely have encreased your difficulty to believe a little Infant in nothing different as to outward appearance from other Children should be God But if to all this you should add never or very seldom and slightly to consider the positive Arguments for the belief of that mystery of the Incarnation but were ever still poring upon the difficulty and unlikeliness and seeming impossibility of any such thing 't is not possible you should ever come to the belief of it though the mystery be never so true in it self nor the Arguments to prove it never so evident and cogent But this is the case of us generally in England as to the mystery of the B. Sacrament and therefore no vvonder if generally it be not believed by us but we
they were almost all able to dispute of Dogms To whom when their gathering together in one seemed to add a confidence of daring and decreeing something from themselves yet notwithstanding they would presume nothing arrogate nothing at all to themselves but took all possible heed lest they should deliver to their Posterity what themselves had not received from their Fathers and not only well disposed the matter for the present but also gave example to them that were to come after them to wit that they should reverence the dogms of sacred Antiquity and condemn Adinventa the additional inventions of profane Novelty This then was not an Age wherein to introduce new doctrins into the Church nor any other before S. Vincent For he tells us chap. 9. Mos iste c. That custome has always flourished in the Church and by how much any one hath been more Religious the more readily has he opposed new inventions We have hereof plenty of examples every where The same S. Vincent witnesses that in the third Age the Assertors of Rebaptization wanted neither wit nor eloquence nor number nor verisimilitude of Truth nor Oracles of the divine Law but understood in a bad and new manner chap. 9 and 10. How came they then to lose their cause S. Stephen and his Collegues reclamed Nihil novandum c. Nothing is to be innovated besides what has been delivered to us Agrippinus Bishop of Carthage holding Rebaptization against the rule of the Universal Church against the sense of all his fellow Priests against the custom and institutions of his Ancestors and hereby as S. Vincent observes giving a form of Sacriledge to all Hereticks this overthrew him Had now the doctrin of the Real presence been an Idolatrous Novelty its manifest no Introducer of it could have perswaded it to a Christian Church thus principled as the Doctors of these times were They would all unanimously have reclamed Nothing must be innovated besides what has been delivered to us by our Ancestors Moreover that the Christian doctrin remained pure and incorrupt for some Centuries of years after its first planting is further evinced by considering the state of the Christian Church for the first 300. years to wit that it was severely persecuted all the world over Now can any reasonable man imagin that they who were continually exposing their lives for their Religion would if they could agree together so notoriously to change it as to make themselves most gross Idolaters by adoring bread and wine as the true body and blood of their Creator and God Nor can it be imagin'd when the Centuries of the persecuted state of the Church were ended that the Christians now in a full liberty of professing and practising their Faith would all on the sudden so notoriously change that Faith which had been delivered them by their Fore-fathers who had seal'd it with their blood And this none can doubt of who reflects how tenacious all man kind is of that Religion they were bred up in In so much as let any one consult the whole world and he shall never find so much as one Nation or Country to have changed their Religion without a great deal of â—oise and difficulty and a considerable length of time and so as Posterity could for many Ages give an account of such a change how and by what means it happened so as to satisfie any rational demander of an account of such a change without flying to imperceptible mutations by little and little but when or by whom no account is to be given The usual refuge of our Adversaries when we demand of them how not one Country but all the Christian Countrys in the world came to believe so universally this strange doctrin of the change of Bread and Wine into our B. Saviours body and blood The whole world formerly in a manner Pagan except a handful of Jews is now become Christians we give an account of it Twelve men dividing the world amongst them by stupendious Miracles a holy life and glorious death converted great numbers of several Nations to the Christian Faith and these taught it their Children under sharp persecutions for some three hundred years and after that through the favour of Emperors and Kings Converted to be Christians it made that spread we now see Arrianism over-ran a great part of the Christian world and we are able to give an account how and by what means without recurring to imperceptible growing by little and little Arrius first broach'd that Heresie and by the favour of Emperors it got a great footing in Christendom In like manner had the strange doctrin of Transubstantiation been a Novel Invention 't is not possible but at first teaching it must needs have been opposed and could not have so over-spread the Christian world in the nineth Century as its evident to any one versed in Ecclesiastical History it did without great preaching of its first Abettors and strange favour of Christian Princes That the whole Christian world for the first six hundred years should be wholly ignorant of this strange mysterious doctrin and so hard to be believed and that in the nineth Century it should be generally believed and not as a new doctrin neither which was pretended by that Age to have been found out by vertue of greater light by reading the Holy Scriptures c. but as a doctrin they had been taught from their Fore-fathers by an immemorable Tradition is harder to believe than the mystery it self to any judicious considerer how difficultly as I hinted above we are perswaded to leave the doctrins we have been taught by our Parents from our Child-hood In confirmation of this let but any one consider the state of our own Country About the year 1500 we generally believed and adored the bread and wine in the H. Eucharist as our B. Saviours true body and blood Now 't is confess'd we a hundred for one believe the contrary But how was this new Faith bred in us By stopping the mouthes of all the Preachers of the antient mysterious doctrin and by persecuting with severe Laws all Professors of that antient Faith And yet you see even all this diligence has not been able to root out the antient belief universally neither Much-less was what has been done been effected so without noise but all our Chronicles mention how our new belief was wrought And can any one think that not one Kingdom but all the Kingdoms of the Christian world could be brought so universally to change their Faith without any mention in any History how and by whom this strange change was wrought Especially if he reflect how hardly human nature does believe strange things which neither sense nor reason can give any evidence of And on the contrary how easily and gladly we relinquish Beliefs which have been imposed upon us when we have as we think the evidence both of sense and reason for our change All which notwithstanding you see how that after a 150
A RATIONAL DISCOURSE CONCERNING TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN A Letter to a Person of Honor from a Master of Arts of the University of CAMBRIDGE Printed in the Year MDCLXXVI A RATIONAL DISCOURSE CONCERNING TRANSUBSTANTIATION SIR HAving lately had the honor of your Company you were pleased to signifie a particular difficulty which you had to believe the great mystery of Love and grand stumbling block of more ingenious Protestants the mystery of Transubstantiation in which if I could give you satisfaction to my best remembrance you promised me to reconcile your self to the Church of Rome Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco My own sad misfortune to have been Educated in the misbelief of this sublime Article of our Christian Faith till the five and twentieth year of my Age makes me very tenderly compassionate both to your self and all others whom I see to be involved in the same misery The all good and all powerful God who has so firmly made me to believe this strange miracle of Love that had I a thousand Lives I would most willingly through God's assistance lay them all down to Seal it with my blood give your Honor and all Mis-believers the like satisfaction to your and their Eternal comfort What satisfies me I shall in the best manner I am able Candidly propose to your mature and impartial consideration Sir My sentiment concerning the adorable Eucharist is that it is neither less nor more than the Sacred Body and Blood of God neither less nor more than whole Christ. God and Man Soul Body and Divinity though for the love and service of us Sinners veiled under the vile accidents and appearances of common Bread and ordinary Wine Concerning which mystery my first Assertion shall be Assertion 1. It is possible to the Omnipotent power of God to change the substance of Bread and Wine into the substance of our blessed Saviours Body and Blood And this our Adversaries generally grant Whence by the way take notice that all such Arguments and most of them are such as pretend to prove Transubstantiation impossible even in the judgment of our Adversaries are Sophisms and do not prove their Proposers inintent Else they must confess that two Contradictories may be true and that they can and do believe them both To wit that Transubstantiation is both possible and impossible and they can and do believe as much 'T is possible that they grant and 't is also impossible for that their Arguments attempt to prove Further. I prove Transubstantiation possible thus What you and I can do and every day actually do in four and twenty hours surely God Almighty can do in a moment But you and I in four and twenty hours turn Bread and Wine into the substance of our bodies by eating drinking and digesting of them Therefore our B. Saviour in a moment without eating and drinking by a mere Fiat or will that the substance of bread and wine be turned into the substance of his Body and Blood can effect it But then you will say the substance of the bread and wine must be transferred into Heaven that it may be changed into the substance of our Lord's body there But why so Is it not sufficient that the substance of our-Lord's body in Heaven be made to be under the accidents of bread and wine here But how can the substance of our Saviours body be in Heaven under such a measure of quantity and such accidents there and at the same time be here on Earth under a different quantity and accidents Why how is the substance of the same Air condens'd under a lesser quantity to day which rarified yesterday was under a greater quantity For the antient and commonly received definition of Rarefaction is a little matter under a great quantity and of Condensation is a great deal of matter under a little quantity For example In a Weather-glass the same air rarified fills twice as much space as did the same air condens'd as is evident to your eye So that the same substance of air when it is rarified fills the spaces A. and B. which when it was condens'd fill'd only the space A. and this without any addition of any new substance of air only the same substance by vertue of Rarefaction is under a greater quantity than it was before And will you pawn your soul the Omnipotent God cannot by Consecration make his own body be present to the spaces A and B which before Consecration was only present to the space A. Now who would ever have imagin'd such Doctrin as this concerning Rarefaction and Condensation should have been taught by an Aristotle to explicate Nature and not rather have been invented by some Christian Philosopher to declare the supernaturality of Transubstantiation so aptly does it agree with that hidden and holy mystery 2. None make difficulty of a spirits being in different places at once The soul is generally acknowledged to be all in the head and all in the foot as Almighty God is all in France and all in England not one part of him here and another there not one God in France and another in England We indeed because we never saw the same thing in two places but always different things in different places are apt to imagine it impossible for the same thing at the same time to be in two different places Hence it follows whatsoever involves not a contradiction being possible to God Almighty let our phansie say what it will we must follow our reason and acknowledge Almighty God can make not only a spiritual substance but even a material one be in two places at once unless we can shew it includes a contradiction To be here and not to be here is indeed a contradiction but to be here and there at the same time is no contradiction else neither our soul nor God Almighty himself could be all here and all in another place at the same time Now will any one who is forced by his Faith and Reason to acknowledge a spiritual substance is actually in two places at once pawn his eternal salvation as he does who purely for this difficulty continues Protestant that God Almighty cannot by all his Omnipotency make a corporeal substance be here and in Heaven at the same time Now that the bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist should affect our senses in the same manner as they did before their change into our B. Saviours body and blood this ought to seem no impossible wonder to a Christian who believes so many miracles in our Lords Incarnation Conception and Nativity of a Virgin Such a Miracle as this our Lord wrought when he appeared to S. Mary Magdalen in the shape of a Gardner His face no doubt was his own true face but it wrought upon S. Mary Magdalens eyes as if it had been the face of the Gardiner And here I had thought to have inserted the different ways which different Schools of Catholick Divines take to explicate how this
was not begun in the seventh or other Century but was alwaies believed since the Apostles seeing that in the nineth Century Christians universally believed that in the holy Eucharist the bread and wine were changed into the body and blood of our Saviour and as such adored them and embraced this doctrine of the real presence not as a doctrine newly found out by themselves or their immediate Fore-fathers by reading the holy Scriptures or other means but as taught them by their Fore-fathers uninterruptedly from the Apostles and seeing likewise this has ever been the way of the Catholick Church to teach and pretend to teach Posterity not new Doctrines of her own but what she had learnt from her Ancestors Hence S. Vincent Lerinensis twelve hundred years ago in his Golden Treatise against the profane Innovations of Heresies upon those words of S. Paul Siquis c. If any one Evangelize to you besides what you have received let him be Anathema Sed forsitan c. But perhaps those things were commanded the Galatians only Then those things also which follow in the same Epistle were commanded the Galatians only Be not desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Or perhaps was it then commanded if anyone announce besides what has been announced let him be Anathemaâ—ized but now it is not commanded Therefore and that also which he there saies But I say walk in the Spirit and do not perfect the desires of the Flesh was then only commanded but is not now commanded But if it be impious and pernicious to believe so it necessarily follows that as these things are to be observed by all Ages so those things also which are established concerning not changing the Faith are commanded to all Ages Wherefore it was never lawful it is not now lawful nor ever shall be lawful to Christian Catholicks to announce any thing besides what they have received Let him cry and cry again and to all and alwaies and every where let him cry by his Epistle that Vessel of Election that Master of the Gentils that Trumpet of the Apostles that Preacher of the World Conscious to the secrets of Heaven let him cry if any one preach a new Doctrine let him be Anathematiz'd And on the contrary side let certain Froggs and Cynifes and Flies that are to perish such as are the Pelagians reclame and this to Gatholiks We say they being Authors we being Heads we being Expositors Condemn what ye did hold hold what ye did Condemn reject the ancient Faith the institutions of your Fathers the depositions of your Ancestors and receive but what I have a horror to mention them for they are such proud things c. But may not general Councils at least presume to reach new Doctrines Hear the same S. Vincent chap. 32. Hoc semper neque quicquam praeterea c. The Catholick Church excited by the Novelties of Hereticks by the decrees of her Councils even did this and not thing more than this what she had received by Tradition only this she consigned to Posterity by writing comprehending a great sum of things in a few letters and for the most part for the light of understanding signing the not new sense of Faith with the propriety of a new name Take notice that the Christian Church using this means to preserve the Faith first received its impossible she should ever lose or change it For if Fathers from the beginning had resolved to teach their Children what they had learnt or even thought they had learnt from their Parents as to the point of the Real prefence or other doctrine its impossible they should teach another doctrine For should they teach another doctrine it must happen either because they were ignorant what was taught them by their Parents which is impossible not only to whole Nations but even to the Inhabitants of one small Town or else because though they knew what was taught by their Parents yet they would teach otherwise than they had been taught but then they must forsake their first resolution of teaching their Children what they thought they had learnt from their Fathers contrary to the Supposition But on the other side let us suppose a book fully written as to all points to be believed by Christians by the first teachers of Christianity Let them together with this Book give charge to their 〈◊〉 Converts neither to add to it nor to diminish it and to believe as in their Consciences they shall think that Book shall teach them Though Generation after Generation be never so faithful to such a charge yet they may in after Ages come to lose or change their Faith because the Book may seem to one Generation to bear one sense and to another Generation to bear another Especially if the mysteries to be believed be very sublime and the Book obscure in many places and admit of divers senses when it speaks of those mysterieâ— For example these words This is my Body may seem to one Age to bear this sense This is a sign of my body and â—o another This is really and truly my body But no ten Families who have been taught by their Parents either to believe our Saviours body is in the Euecharist or that it is not there can possibly mistake what their immediate Fathers taught them and frequently inculcated to them as to this point both by themselves and choice persons ordained on purpose for this end to teach what they learnt from their immediate Masters and Fathers Nothing can make a change here but a resolution to go contrary to what they know was taught them by their Parents Wherefore seeing God Almighty is resolved not to teach every Age by immediate infallible Missionants from himself but to send inspired Ambassadors to one particular Generation only and to leave that Generation to teach their Children successively till the day of Judgment what they learnt from the immediate infallible Messengers of Heaven And seeing also a Book with a charge not to change or alter it and with a charge also to follow what should seem to every Generation to be the sense of it and supposing every Generation faithful to such a charge would not have been a sufficient means to keep the first divine Faith from Corruption we may safely conclude the Almighty has not taken that way to teach the world But seeing Oral teaching by inspired Pastors at first with a charge to every Generation to follow what they thought was taught them by their immediate Parents and Teachers provided every Generation were true to this charge would have kept the first Faith inviolate we may also conclude the Almighty has taken this way Especially finding a Congregation of so vast a spread in being who pretends to have made use of this means to preserve her first Faith taught her Ancestors many hundred years ago nor can she be evinced by any History or Tradition or any thing but mere sayings and ungrouâ—â—â—d surmises to have lost
years labour neither eloquence of false Teachers nor force of civil powers has been able so wholly to pervert our Nation as to the belief of that high mystery of the real presence but even still there remain a considerable number retainers of the antient belief And can you think that not in a much greater space of time to wit betwixt the sixth and nineth Century all the Christian world could be perswaded to admit so strange a doctrin to nature and reason and yet no man by vertue of History or Tradition should be able to give any account what Orators prevailed with the world to relinquish the belief of their Ancestors or what power of civil Magistrates forced them to it Especially seeing there have not wanted Ecclesiastical Historigraphers who have made mention of matters of far less note than such a change of Faith must needs have made But what place will there remain for doubting that this high mystery was always believed if not only all writers be silent as to any change but also the seventh and eighth Age yea the most Primitive times do positively attest this very mystery by the pens of the chiefest Champions of the Christian Church who have left us any memorials of their learning and piety in their deservedly admired works I shall faithfully recount their words be your own judge what their sentiment was In the first place then glorious Saint and great Doctor S. Augustin tell us your Faith concerning the Holy Eucharist Is it Bakers bread or the body of our Lord and God I remember saies the holy Doctor in his 28. Ser. de verbis Domini when I treated of the Sacraments I told you that before the words of Christ that which is offered up is called Bread but when the words of Christ shall have been pronounced now it is no longer called bread but the body of Christ. And explicating those words of the Royal Prophet Psal. 98. v. 5. Exalt ye our Lord God and adore his foot-stool for it is holy Now what is this Foot-stool of God why saies this great Doctor The Earth is his Foot-stool But how is the Earth holy and to be adored by us The Saint goes on and tells us how Our Lord took Earth of the Earth because Flesh is of the Earth and he took Flesh of the Flesh of Mary And because he walked here in Flesh and gave to us that very Flesh to be eaten by us to our Salvation but no body eats that Flesh unless he shall first have adored it And indeed what could we expect that S. Austin should teach and believe concerning this divine Sacrament but what he had been taught by his Father and Instructor in Christ the glorious St. Ambrose And what was that Hear his words lib. 4. De Sacramentis Thou wilt perhaps say nnto me my Bread is ordinary Bread but that bread is bread before the Sacramental words but when Consecration has been made of bread it is made the Flesh of Christ. But how can bread be the body of Christ By Consecration Consecration by what and whose words is it perfected By the words of our Lord Jesus For all other things which are said Praise is given to God By prayer supplication is made for the people for Kings for the rest When the time is come that the Venerable Sacrament is to be made now the Priest does not use his own words but the words of Christ therefore the word of Christ makes this Sacrament But what word of Christ That word by which all things were made Our Lord commanded and Heaven was made our Lord commanded and the Earth was made Our Lord commanded and the Seas were made Our Lord commanded and every Creature was produced Doest thou see then how operative the word of Christ is If then there be so great force in the word of our Lord Jesus that it could make things which were not begin to be how much rather is it operative that those things which were should be and be charged into another thing Heaven was not the Sea was not the Earth was not but hear him saying He said the word and they were made he commanded and they were Created That therefore I may Answer thee the body of Christ was not before Consecration bâ— after Consecration I say unto thee that now the Body of Christ is He said it and it was made He commanded and it was Created And in chap. 5. of the same Book Before the words of Christ the Chalice is full of Wine and Water but when the words of Christ have bad their operation then it is made the blood which Redeemed the people See then in how many kinds of things the word of Christ is able to change all things Moreover our Lord Jesus himself testifies unto us that we receive his body and blood ought we then to doubt of his testification Add to S. Austin and S. Ambrose the Learned S. Hierom in his Epistle ad Heliodorum Far be it from me saies the Saint that I should speak amiss of those who succeeding the Apostles do make the body of Christ with their sacred mouth And in his 85. Epistle to Enagrius By whose prayers the body and blood of Christ is made Take notice that these three Holy Fathers lived not four hundred years after our B. Saviours death S. Cyprian yet nearer the Apostles age does no less clearly nor fully attest the same verity in his Serm. de Caena Domini That bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being changed not in shape but in its nature by the Omnipotency of the Word was made Flesh. And in his Book de Lapsis reprehending such as were angry with the Priests of God who refused to admit them to the holy Communion of the B. Sacrament after they had polluted themselves with the profane Sacrifices of Heathen Idolaters expresses their sin in these words He that has fall'n from his Faith threatens them that have stood firm Sacrilegious wâ—etch he is angry with the Priests of God that he is not prosently admitted with defiled hands to receive the Body of our Lord or to drink his blood with his defiled mouth And this was the very doctrin of his learned Master Tertullian who yet nearer approached the holy Apostles lib. de Resur cur The Flesh is fed with the body and blood of Christ that the soul may be made fat with God And in his Book de Idololatria he complains of the prosaneness of some Christians who made no scruple to day to be working in their Shops making Idolatrous Statues for the Heathens and yet to morrow would presume to come into the Christian Congregations and receive the Sacred mysteries of our Lords body and blood and communicate them to others His words are these To touch the body of our Lord with those hands which give bodies to Devils Nor is this all their Crime would be less did they only receive from the hands of others what they contaminate and pollute
Doctors to whom we appeal then judged concerning this our cause when no body could say they had favor or ill will for either party They had neither friendship nor enmity with you or us We did not as yet appeal with you to them as Judges and our cause was decided by them Neither you nor we were known to them and we recite their sentence given for us against you We did not yet contest with you and they pronouncing sentences for us we have overcome you Or will my Calvinist have the impudence to accuse as some do thâ—se grave Doctors of blindness A multitude of blind men forsooth avails nothing to find out the Truth and these were the errors and mistakes of those learned Prelates What an Age are we fal'n into Truth must be called error and error truth light darkness and darkness light S. Augustin S. Ambrose S. Crysostom S. Hierom are blind but Calvin and Stillingfleet see These Doctors I have called a Council of were persons of such Learning and Sanctity that if a Synod of Bishops were gathered out of the whole world it would be much if so many and such Doctors could be found to sit in it Neither indeed were these all at one time but God Almighty as pleases him and as he judges to be expedient scatters a few more excellent and faithful dispensers of his mysteries in several Ages and distances of places By such Planters Waterers Builders Pastors nursing Fathers after the Apostles the holy Church has encreased Now what an imprudence and what an impudence must it be for any to presume to accuse of the horrible crime of Idolatry so many holy egregious and memorable Doctors of the Catholick Verity and moreover together with them the whole Church of Christ to which divine Family they faithfully Ministring spiritual Food flourished with great glory in our Lord. Nay further they who dare to oppose the manifest Sentiment not of so many Platonical Aristotelieal or Zenonical Doctors but of so many Saints and illustrious Prelates in the Church of God and these some of them singularly endowed with human litterature and all of them eminently learned in the Sacred Letters have reason not so much to fear them as him who made them profitable Vessels to himself These Judges by how much the more desirable they ought to be unto thee if thou didst hold the Catholick Faith by so much thou hast more reason to fear them because thou opposest the Catholick Faith which they ministred to little and great and manifestly and stoutly defended against its Enemies yea against you then not as yet born For not only when they lived did they by their words but also by their writings which they left to Posterity did they strenuously defend the Catholick Faith that they might break in pieces your Arguments Hitherto S. Augustin l. 1. et 2. Contra Julianum I thought fit to adjoyn this Reflexion of S. Augustin though superabundant to the force of my Argument it being sufficient for my purpose to prove that the doctrin of the Real presence was generally believed in the Primitive Centuries of Christianity and so much evidently follows from the Authorities above cited For though some may be so self-conceited as to confess that S. Ambrose S. Crysostom and the rest of the holy Fathers Greek and Latin believed the doctrin of the Real presence but they with humble submission deemed it to be an Idolatrous and damnable doctrin yet few I think but have so much regard for thâ—se Primitive Doctors as to allow them so much iudgement as to know what was the belief of their several Churches in their daies and so much fidelity as to write the Truth as to this particular which is sufficient for the purport of my discourse Unless you can think that these holy Fathers were of one Faith and their several Flocks who reverenced them as Saints of another An Answer to an Objection But you will say if there be such a miraculous change wrought in the bread and wine in the holy Eucharist why does it not appear to our senses as well as other miraculous works of our Lord Jesus did When he turn'd water into wine it appeared such to the sight and tast of the Guests at the Marriage-Feast He did not barely tell them the water was turn'd into wine and exact their belief of his word contrary to the evidence of all their senses but convinced them that it was so by their very senses Why then in our present case if he turn wine into his blood does it not appear to our fight to be blood But barely to tell us that it is his blood and yet to let it tast and appear as it did how is this credible How is it not contrary to one but to all the Miracles that ever he wrought And this Argument is further strengthned for that it would hence follow we might call in question the whole mystery of Christianity For we therefore believing in our Lord Jesus as one indeed sent from God to teach us nothing but Truth because of his Miracles and we having no assurance of his Miracles but from our senses if our senses may be mistaken how can we tell but those who were eye-witnesses of his wonders were illuded and water for example was not turned by him into wine but only seemed wine to the tast and sight of those which were present and indeed remained water as before For why may not water remain water and yet seem to my tast wine as well as wine be changed into blood and yet seem to my tast and sight to remain wine For Answer to this Objection we must distinguish two sorts of Miracles with the ends for which they are wrought Some Miracles are wrought by Almighty God to draw the world to the Christian Faith and these must necessarily be the object of our senses else it could not reasonably be expected they should work their intended effect in them for whose sakes they are wrought For example If any one will by Miracle prove he is sent from God by raising a dead man to life or by turning water into wine he must make it evident to my senses that the man who was dead is alive and the water now wine and not barely tell me so Else he will be derided as an Impostor and impudent Lyer instead of being admired and received as a Messenger from Heaven and Oracle of Truth There are other Miracles which are wrought by the Almighty not as a motive to induce us to receive the true Faith but to sanctifie us when we have received it or for the necessity of working the salvation of the world Such are the Miracles of the Incarnation of the Son of God and all the spiritual effects wrought in the souls of Christians by any of the Sacraments Now these miraculous effects are not the object of our senses nor is there any reason they should be For the Church of Christ does not urge these to
from their Master Jesus as to this point and their Converts their Children till Arrius the Church being till then under Persecution and consequently cannot be supposed all that vvhile so notoriously to have changed their Faith they vvere every day in danger to dye for Now finding the vvhole Christian World in the belief of the Divinity of our Saviour and Worshipping him as God and this immemorially from their Fore-fathers and as they professed from the Apostles So as Arrius never vvent about to evince them that such or such a Doctor in such an Age since the Apostles had brought in the nevv Doctrin of our Lords Divinity and finding him also called God in the Holy Scriptures and vvhole Nations of Christians immemorially understanding them in a proper literal sense and not only in the sense vvhich Kings and Princes are called God notvvithstanding all Arrius his reasons drawn from the Impossibility of the thing or from Scriptures understood by him after a nevv manner I conclude my Saviour vvas true God In like manner no doubt but our B. Saviviour taught his Apostles concerning the holy Eucharist whether it was only a sign of his body or else his true body and consequently to be adored and worshipt by them or no. And no doubt but they taught their first Converts what they had learnt from their Master concerning this mystery and these their Posterity the same for the first 300. years of the Churches Persecution Now finding whole Christian Countrys in the time of Berengarius about the year one thousand und fifty unanimously believing the holy Eucharist to be our Lords true body and adoring it as such and this as they professed immemorially from their Ancesters from the Apostles and Berengarius never undertaking to show when or how this strange belief was wrought in the Christian Church nor finding any beginning of it in any Ecclesiastical History of any one Country and finding it also called so expresly over and over our Lords body and whole Countrys understanding those sacred Texts in a proper sense and not one Christian Province understanding them otherwise for all Berengarius his Arguments drawn as he pretended from the impossibility of the thing or from Scriptures by him interpreted after a new manner the wont of all misbelievers I conclude it is our Lords true body 5. Let us consider impartially the testimony of the present Church in communion with the See of Rome which averrs the Holy Eucharist to be our B. Saviours true body Travel in your thoughts all over Europe Asia Africa and America and view well the vast multitudes of Roman Catholicks in the present Age and by the confession of our Adversaries in the ten last Ages Take notice of their circumstances of Learning Study Vertue Meditation Retiredness from all secular encumbrances as to vast multitudes of them the prodigies of Sanctity we profess to have appeared amongst us in several Ages like the extraordinary Prophets of old amongst the Jews to awaken drowsie souls Our Bennets Bernards Cuthberts Bedes Dominicks Francis's Ignatius's c. The miracles we undoubtedly believe in every Century since the Apostles yea in this very Age wrought amongst us For which we have such Records as you have no way to evade but by saying they are forged without any further proof then your own uncharitable surmise Records of such wonders so publick and notorious as had they been false the Ages wherein they are said to have been wrought could not be ignorant of it und consequently could not unanimously have told their Posterity such notorious Lyes nor have recommended the Books to them wherein they are recounted as true stories Consider moreover how this numerous Congregation professes her self to be the Mistriss of Truth the Light of the World fitly for this end dispersed in all Countrys throughout all Ages with indefatigable Industry scattering the rayes of the Gospel by her Missionants throughout the whole Earth fearing no encounter but challenging the whole world to dispute of what they will and as long as they will of the most strange Articles of her Faith And then think if it could not stand with the providence of the all good God to permit one single person our Lord Jesus for three or four years in one small Country to Alarum the World with stupendious miracles and doctrins of Sanctity unless he had been indeed a true Teacher Consider I say how it can stand with the providence of the same all good God to permit a Congregation made up of so many thousands for so many Ages so universally spread over the Earth accompanied with no less wonders if any credit can be given to such human testimony as never yet fail'd concerning matters of Fact if all this while this Congregation teaches damnable Idolatry and is the greatest Cheat that ever appear'd in the World and yet that the Divine providence should work nothing like miracles or singular and over-topping Sanctity in those who pretend to be raised up by him extraordinarily to discover to the deceived World this grand Imposture How can this stand with the Almightys desire that the World should not mistake the true Religion In confirmation of what I have said above I add these considerations 1. Let but any one take the pains to look into modern or antient Writers of Ecclesiastical History which he may do in a little time and without any great labor by looking in the Index the word Eucharistia or some such head and he shall find that whensoever there has been any dispute concerning this mystery some one or few opposed it and all the rest of the Country stood up in defence of it as of a doctrin they had immemorially been taught by their Ancestors An evident conviction that the antient Faith of that Country was that indeed the Holy Eucharist was our B. Saviours body and blood and the denial of this mystery was a Novelty For example let him consult Ecclesiastical Historiographers what happen'd about the year one thousand and fifty and he shall find that one Berengarius Arch-deacon of the Church of Angiers oppugned this mystery but not as a new doctrin then endeavored by some Bishop or other to be imposed upon the people but as then generally believed a clear sign that his own Opinion was a new Error and the common Faith of the Country was the antient Christian verity Now let him in the whole History of the Catholick Church Greek and Latin find me but one instance in any one Christian Country on the contrary and I 'le yield him the cause That is any one Doctor Bishop or Priest that about such a year of our Lord in such a Country began to Preach the mystery of the real presence upon pretence of clear Scripture for it or other Arguments and that he was opposed by the whole Country as a Teacher of a new strange doctrin they had never heard of before or else that upon such a Doctors appearing they presently yielded to the force
and seen them in like-manner fall down before him making him rich presents upon the admonition as they said of a miraculous Star which had appeared to them in their own Country such circumstances as these would sure have strangely urged us to the belief of that wonder of wonders And to make use of a homebred example Who would have taken our Gracious Soverain Charles the Second for the King of Great Brittain France and Ireland that should have seen him under the disguise of a Sheepherd Sea-man or other habit he was forced to assume to secure his Royal Person But could you and I have peeped into this private Chamber and seen his small Retinue all bare before him and some one of them upon his knees presenting him with a cup of Beer or wine should we not think you have begun to suspect Surely this Person however and for whatsoever reasons he may disguise himself is of another quality then his outward garb represents him to be Nor do I less perswade my self did you and I see the many thousands all over the world as well of the Grecian as Roman Church who upon their knees with an assured Faith devoutly adore a Consecrated Wafer as their Creator and God if we have any respect to reason and man-kind and do not imagin all the world to be Fools except our selves Such a prospect as this would make us suspect in the secret of our hearts Surely under this disguise of a contemptible Wafer there is veiled some hidden Majesty or other who forces the highest adoration from such vast multitudes of all Nations and many of them so sharp-witted and of such solid judgements and such impartial enquirers after Truth and of so good and holy lives Say then and we have reason to say it heartily and without the least scruple or doubt 'T was the same out Gracious Soverain who lay hid in a common Oak at White-Ladys under the disguise of a Peasants weed who sits now at Westminster in his Princely Throne invested in his Royal Robes And 't is the same Christ Jesus our only Saviour and God who under the humble disguise of common bread and wine is immolated here below every day upon our Christian Altars who in transcendent splendor and glory sits at the right hand of his Eternal Father in the Heavens Sir I have done my part the Almighty do the rest and make you a happy Child of his holy Church But Sir I beseech you give me leave to add A Postscript to my Fellow Collegians My dearest Companions whom with my soul I wish the same happiness with my self both in this Life and the other I beseech you before you be engaged in the world and hindred from an industrious impartial enquiry after Truth by the cares of a Family and fears of wanting a competent subsistance do your selves and your Country that right as to consider with as little passion and prejudice as you can these my scattered thoughts and do not rashly conclude against Transubstantiation until you have fully heard what its Affertors as well as what its Deniers have to say for themselves I was once as you are and many suspicions of the truth of the Roman Catholick Faith came into my mind but still I was hindred from examining of it with this one thought If I turn Papist I must believe Transubstantiation but I know that 's an impossibility and this made me sit down contented with the Religion in which I was educated But afterwards making it my business more in good earnest to save my soul and setting my self impartially to examin what was the belief of the Primitive times concerning this mystery and finding mostclear Testimonies for the Real presence in the most renowned Primitive Christian Doctors I was much amazed having been always taught they were of a contrary Faith I read the citations to a Clergy-man of my Acquaintance I demand of him what he thought their belief was who in those words expressed their Faith He told me no doubt but they believed as the Church of Rome believes I consult the Authors themselves read the context before and after the said citations I am still more and more convinced S. Augustin Chrysostom Cyril c. believed as the Church of Rome now believes Hereupon I resolve not to venture my soul upon a point of Philosophy for example whether God Almighty by all his Omnipotency can make a body be in two places at once or no I believe two mysteries already both which puzzle and shock my reason as much as Transubstantiation to wit the B. Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God why may not I believe a third as well especially when I have the same Arguments for one as the other clear Scriptures the immemorial belief of all Nations ever since the Apostle c. And indeed if God Almighty will oblige me to believe what was taught sixteen hundred years before I was born how should he expect I should come to the knowledge of this but by such books as were written in those times and near those times and by the testimony of all Christian Countrys what has been immemorially believed by them ever since they were Christians Now if it be too long a journey to go over all Christendom to ask of them what is and what alwaies has been their Paith as to Transubstantiation and how they have always understood the holy Scriptures that speak of that mystery go but to the Royal Exchange in London and there you may meet with persons which at least have been in all or most Christian Countrys and ask of them what the belief and practice of Christendom is and you will find they all believe and adore the B. Sacrament and have done so as they say immemorially ever since they were Christians as Roman-Catholicks do in England or else if they do for so me numbers amongst them believe and practice otherwise 't is only since such a time above c. And then reflect how by such an Argument you prove as you think efficaciously against an Antiscripturist that the Books of the Old and New Testament are infallible and you securely believe every particular Story in them though never so strange in like manner the change of Saturday-Sabbath into Sunday against the Sibbatarians and Fasting in Lent as Apostolical with Bishop Gunning against Non-Conformists And indeed it is impossible such an universal effect should ever be without a proportionate universal cause That so many several Christian Countrys should immemorially abstain from certain meats on Fridays every week and in Lent every year or adore a Consecrated piece of Bread as their Creator and God unless they had been either first taught so to do by the first Planters of Christianity or by some Preachers since or had agreed so to do in some General Council by their representatives is impossible Should we ever think you even in the single City of London have fall'n by little and little to have shut
up our shops on the Anniversary of the death of our gracious Soverain Charles the First unless we had been commanded so to do by some Universal Authority Ecclesiastical or Civil Take notice by this Argument is also proved all other points of Catholick practice or Faith as Purgatory prayer for the Dead c. but especially such as nature has a difficulty to believe or do That one man should kill himself is no wonder but that all the Inhabitants of a populous City should kill themselves would be such a wonder as never yet happen'd in Nature Against all that has been said I doubt not but you will be apt to reply We acknowledge for divers Ages our own and other Christian Countrys believed the holy Eucharist to be really and substantially our B. Saviours true body blood adored it as such but yet we cannot believe that either S. Peter and Paul at Rome or S. Joseph of Arimathia in our own Country taught any such doctrin but that imperceptibly by little and little the whole Christian world changed the Faith that was first planted by the Apostles as particular men grow gray and whole Countries change their Languages imperceptibly For Answer to this Reply let us not discourse in generals but consider and devise with our selves how possibly such a thing might practically happen For example let us take the City of Rome into our consideration It s confessed by all that the Inhabitants of that Cultivated City Priests and People universally do believe and have for many generations believed a Consecrated Wafer to be Jesus Christ God and Man veiled with the outward appearance or species of common Bread Now we are to enquire how they came to this strange Faith Say then Rome by little and little began to believe this mystery first one and then another till at length the whole City was of that belief But how without a Teacher and all in the same year or in what length of time That one man or some few in a populous City should of themselves fall to the belief of such a strange mystery contrary to what has been believed by their Ancestors might be granted but that the whole City Learned and Unlearned Priest and People should so change their Faith and that for such a strange one too without a Master or a Teacher that 's wholly incredible Or if some Bishop or Priest of Rome since the Apostles had perswaded the people to believe the strange doctrin of Transubstantiation how comes it to pass seeing the belief of the doctrin is still retained that the Authors name is not retained with singular honor and reverence by the believers of it as the names of Calvin and Luther are by Calvinists and Lutherans and the names of the first Preachers of Christianity by the several Christian Countrys they converted Besides whosoever Priest or Layman should have begun to preach such a strange and incredible doctrin to nature must needs have met with great opposition from all sorts of persons from good men because his doctrin tended to make them all gross Idolaters and Worshippers of a piece of Bread as God from bad men because his doctrin strangely shocked their sense and reason which nature and vitious followers of nature would by no means endure Now if opposition were made at the first introducing of this new Faith how comes it to pass all both Roman and other Histories are silent as to any such thing Should I by way of Prophesie tell you that the great City of London within these 300. years shall as universally as does now the City of Rome believe and adore the Holy Eucharist as Jesus Christ himself and this so imperceptibly that neither they nor neighbouring Citys or Countrys shall perceive it till the whole City be quite changed Nay 300. years hence when they shall be charged with Idolatry and Innovation for such their belief and practice they shall profess that they have always so believed and practised ever since they were Christians And all this though they shall for these 300. years have Priests and Bishops whose Office it shall be to teach the quite contrary doctrin and these Priests shall be such Zealous retainers of the doctrin they now believe that when in the compass of this 300. years to come there shall rise up Teachers of new Doctrins deniers of the Divinity of our Saviour and the eternity of the torments of impenitent Sinners c. and shall alledge strong human Reasons and seeming Scriptures for themselves these Priests shall oppose we must innovate nothing we must stick to the belief our Ancestors were of in the year 1675. Then God Almighty testified from Heaven by evident Miracles the Truth of our Fore-elders Faith and then we had charge not to change our Faith though on Angel from Heaven should accuse us of mistake and therefore you must pardon us if we adhere to this Faith Add. There shall not want frequent Assemblies of the wisest and best Learned in the City and they shall meet on purpose to enquire whether the faith and practice of the year 1675. be kept and yet they shall never take notice of so gross and notorious a change as the believing and adoring a piece of bread as God till the whole City be in such a belief and practice but other mistakes that some particular men were bringing in they shall observe and correct Nay 300. years hence there shall rise up a certain Priest who shall accuse all the Priests and people of the City for believing otherwise thâ—n their Ancestors did in 1675 but yet shall not be able by vertue of any History or Oral Tradition to shew how or by whom they were perswaded to that strange Faith they shall then be of and yet there shall not want Historiographers neither who shall take notice of other notorious changes that shall happen both in Church and State in those 300. years Think now seriously with your selves how impossible it is for any such thing to happen in nature and examin impartially whether the deniers of Transubstantiation be not forced to affirm the like incredible wonder to have happen'd not in one City alone but in many Cities and whole Countrys But the wonder would be yet greater if there were not one Believer of Transubstantiation in the year 1675. in the City of London nor never had been one since the first planting of Christianity neither there nor in any other neighbouring City or Country and yet all this must be solved by deniers of Transubstantiation to be Apostolical doctrin For place your self in what Age of Christianity you please and suppose the known Cities and Countries of Christendom to believe universally concerning the holy Eucharist as the Citizens of London generally do now Take for example the year 500. after our B. Lord though our Adversaries pretend to be willing to be judged by the Doctors of the first 600. Add to 500. a decursion of 300. or 500. years and then see what Faith the Christian world is of and you 'l find they universally believe and adore the Holy Eucharist as Rome does at this present Joyn now your selves with Berengarius in the year one thousand and fifty or thereabouts and see what account you can give how all your fellow Clergy and Laity came so to have changed and 〈…〉 from what it was in the fifth Century For you â—â—â—ll not think the several Councils gathered against that denier of the Real presence the Bishops in them then first began to believe the Real presence and that when they returned to their several Diocesses they taught them a strange new doctrin which they by inspiration had newly learnt when they were Assembled together but they only gave in their Verdicts what immemorially had been believed in their several Countrys they came from as to that mystery As if for example a Synod of all the Bishops in England should meet in the year 1675. to examin concerning the Quakers whether they Preached false and Antichristian doctrin or no in denying Baptism and all other Sacraments and they should conclude against those Innovators would you infer thence the Church of England only in the year 1675. and never before reverenced Baptism or any other Sacrament of Christ And yet this is just our case when our Adversaries will have the belief and adoration of the B. Sacrament to have not been heard of before the Councils that condemned Berengarius As to your instances of a man growing gray and whole Countrys imperceptibly changing their language is it possible think you for any mans whole head by little and little to grow gray and neither he nor any other should take notice of it till he were as white as Snow and this though he and others were charged to take notice of every hair that should grow gray and to pluck it out immediatly and he and others should frequently consult whether any such change were made in his head or no Say the same concerning a whole Countrys changing their Language by little and little Impose a severe penalty against any one that in writing or speech should introduce a new word and appoint Officers to take notice of all such new coyned words and let these Officers have frequent consults to this purpose Add a menace of death both to Overseers and people if any such alteration through their neglect of their duty should happen And then think how it could be possible for a whole Country by little and little imperceptibly to change its Language The like change and menace gave Jesus Christ to the Pastors of his Church not to change their Faith And yet after all this can not one Country but the whole Christian world have so changed their Faith as they became imperceptibly most stupid Idolaters To conclude if you examin the matter well you will find you must either resolve to believe the strange doctrin of Transubstantiation or else something far more incredible Soli Christo Gloria