present in his Ascension after he was intercepted from his Disciples sight by a Cloud Was he not so present before he opened the Eyes of the two blind Men who sate by the way side Matth. 20. 30. And is he not believed by all Christians to be so present at the right hand of his Father And might none of these worship him because they could not see him If he pretend a difference in the cases because in all them he was the Object of sense either before or after but as he exists in the Sacrament he can be no Object of sense he must grant his presence there to be a matter of pure Revelation and so falls upon the other edge of his distinction that in matters of pure Revelation where the matter proposed to our Faith can be no Object of sense there firm credit is to be given to the divine Revelation and worship also suitable to his presence But to go one step further In case a thing be knowable by evidence of sense May it not also be made known by Divine Revelation And will not God's Revelation ascertain us as well if not much better than our Eyes Who saw the World rise out of nothing No less a Philosopher than Aristotle not to speak of others held it never had any beginning And yet what Christian does not believe it had more firmly upon the account of God's Revelation than if he had been present in some corner of the spatium Imaginarium and beheld the foundation of it with his Eyes Upon the whole then which way soever the Doctor turn himself unless he will maintain what he seems indeed to suppose all along in this discourse that we are to give more credit to our sense then to God's revealed word he must confess that wherever there is a Divine Revelation of Christ's presence which at present he supposes in the Sacrament there is the same if not greater Reason to believe and worship him than if he saw him as clearly as the Wise-men did in the Manger or the Thief upon the Cross And consequently that he was but too too Prodigal in granting that supposing a like Divine Revelâ—â—ion for Christ's presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation as for his being true God yet there would not be the same reason to worship him there as when he dwelt visibly among us All that he could devise to elude the Parallel argument I urged from the Pen of an Arrian Viz. that the Argument he brings to conclude Catholicks to be Idolaters for their adoration of Christ in the Eucharist would be of as much force from the Arrians against the adoration of him as God All I say he could devise to elude this argument with standing to the true state of the Question and supposing as he does a like divine Revelation for both was to say there was not an express command to worship him in the Eucharist which how pitiful an Evasion it is I have shewed above And yet as pitiful as it is it may serve well enough to make an unwary Reader believe he concludes all the Papists in the World Idolaters for worshipping our Lord Christ himself in the Sacrament But why it should do so when nothing less than an express Prohibition could make them Idolaters in the matter of Images I cannot imagin § 6. The Second Proof he brings to show that Supposing a like divine Revelation for Christ's being present in the Sacrament as for his being true God yet there is not the same reason of adoration is p. 112. because the One he saith gives us a sufficient reason of our Worship viz. his Divinity but the other doth not because all that He can believe then present supposing Transubstantiation is the Body of Christ and that is not the Object of our Adoration But this is altogether as weak as the former for however that be all he can believe and more than he does believe God encrease his Faith yet Catholicks believe much more viz. that together with his Body in the Eucharist are present his Soul his Person his Divinity in a word whole Christ and to his Person it is they terminate their worship as hypostatically united with his Body For as the Dr. himself saith very well p. 114. although the humane nature of Christ of it self can yield us no sufficient reason of adoration yet being considered as united to the Divine Nature that cannot hinder the same Divine Worship being given to his Person which belongs to his Divine Nature any more than the Robes of a Prince can take off from the honour due unto him To elude this Answer for now his chiefest hope consists in seeking out ways to escape instead of rejoining to it upon the supposition of Transubstantiation he falls to dispute down-right against Transubstantiation it self where he tells the Reader that this Answer of Christ's Body being hypostatically united with the Divine Nature is indeed a good argument to prove the Body of Christ cannot be there by Transubstantiation And I desire the Reader to be very attentive to the argument as it is propos'd by the Doctor for otherwise perhaps it may cost him the labour of a second reading If the Bread saith he p. 113. be converted into that Body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature then the Conversion is not meerly into the Body but into the Person of Christ and then Christ hath as many Bodies hypostatically united to him as there are Elements consecrated and so all the accidents of the Bread belong to that Body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature Therefore the Body of Christ cannot be in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation This is his argument which he calls a Good One. I am sure I may call it a sublime One and so sublime that there wants only an Adversary of the same humour with Mr. J. S.'s to set it out for a notable piece of new Mystical Divinity For I do verily believe that neither Harphius nor Rusbrochius nor the profound Mother Juliana have any thing in their writings so seemingly un intelligible and contradictory as this discourse of the Doctor 's is really such For beside the hard words of hypostatical union consecrated Elements Conversion into the Person of Christ c. which quite put down Mr. J. S.'s vulgar ones of Potentiality Actuality Actuation supervene subsume c. First He will have it to be the same Body because it is that Body which is hypostatically united with the divine nature Then he will have it not to be the same Body because Christ would have as many Bodies as there are Elements consecrated And then again it must be the same Body because all the Accidents of Bread belong to that Body which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature But this way of refining a discourse into Mystical Divinity is proper only to confute demonstrations and the argument I have to deal with is so far from that
that it carries not the show of a Probability For if the Bread be converted into that Body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the divine nature and not meerly into that but into the Person of Christ does it follow that he hath as many Bodies hypostatically united to him as there are Elements consecrated No more than because the Bread the Flesh the Fish which he eat upon Earth were converted into the substance of his Body and hypostatically united to him it follows that he had as many bodies hypostatically united to him as there were several meats eaten by him Before Digestion or Conversion they were distinct by Conversion they were made the same body But if this will not serve the turn he wants not a false supposition to blind his Reader with Viz. that we make the Elements i.e. the Accidents of Bread for we we will have nothing else remain after Consecration in spight he says of all the reason and sense of the World the Object of divine worship But the falsity of this supposition I shall make appear in the next Chapter together with his mistake if it be no more of the meaning of the Council of Trent CHAP. II. The true State of the Controversy laid open together with the Doctor 's Endeavours to misrepresent it His manner of arguing against the Adoration of Christ in the Eucharist equally destructive to the adoration of Him as God § 1. IN pursuance of his former design my Adversary will now undertake p. ii4 to prove yet further that upon the Principles of the Roman Church no Man can be assured that he doth not commit Idolatry every time he gives adoration to the Host And this he hopes will abundantly add to the discoâ—ering of the disparity between the worship given to the Person of Christ and that which is given to the Eucharist upon supposition of Transubstantiation But before he can come to this he must needs mistake or rather mis-state the Controversy which he does in most ample manner when after a great many Preambles for three whole Pages together no more to the purpose than the Flourishes of a great Text-letter are to the force of a Bond he tells the Reader at length that the state of the Controversy between us is whether proper divine worship may be given to the Elements i. e. the Accidents on account of Christ's corporal presence under them But whatever Divines dispute concerning the Worship of the Accidents the Object of Catholicks Adoration as Dr. Taylor ingenuously confesses Viz. What is represented to them in their mind their thoughts and purposes in the B. Sacrament is the only true and Eternal God hypostatically joined with his Holy Humanity And consequently the Question between us is Whether supposing our Lord Christ to be really present under the Sacramental signs the same proper divine worship be not to be given to him there which is due to his Person wherever it is present by hypostatical union with his sacred Humanity Let the Doctor do thus and we have no quarrel with him which is an evident sign that the Question between us is not as he says whether the same Adoration ought to be given to the Accidents which we would give to the very Person of Christ But what may not be venture to say who had the confidâ—nce to advance so notorious a calumny as that it is our common answer in this matter to excuse our selves from Idolatry that we believe the Bread to be God I told the Reader what he was like to find neer the bottom of the Sack when he met with such sophistical Ware at the very top But the Doctor pretends he hath something to say here in his defence and it is this that the Council of Trent hath expresly determin'd that there is no manner of doubt left but that all Christians ought to give the same worship to this Holy Sacrament which they give to God himself For it is not therefore less to be worshipped because it was Instituted by Christ our Lord that it might be taken But who tells him that the Council here by the word Sacrament means only the Signs or Accidents of Bread Why may it not mean the Holy Victime which is dispensed from the Altar as St. Austin did when he said that his Mother St. Monica had tied her Soul fast to this Sacrament by the bond of Faith If the Council may be allowed to explicate its own meaning we shall find the sense of the word to be the Body of Christ and with it his Divinity under the Sacramental Veil for the reason it gives in the words immediately following which the Doctor conveniently leaves out of this adoration is because we believe the same God to be present in it of whom the Eternal Father said Let all the Angels of God adore him And this is yet more plain from the 6th Canon where the Anathema is denounced against those who shall say that in the most H. Sacrament of the Eucharist the only begotten of God is not to be adored with the worship of Latria But let the Council say what it will Dr. St. says that by the Sacrament it must understand the Elements or Accidents as the Immediate term of that divine worship or else the latter words that the Sacrament ought not less to be adored because it was instituted to be taken signify nothing at all And why so Do Catholicks understand nothing by the Sacrament but the Accidents Or was nothing instituted to be taken but the bare signs of Bread and Wine Dr. St. is or would be an Author of great Authority and from his own Confession we have it p. 111. that the Holy Sacrament according to Catholicks is the Body of Christ under the Accidents of Bread These are his own words and if he will not believe the Council let him believe himself whether he do so or no 〈◊〉 proceeding upon his supposition that proper divine worship is to be given to the Accidents he affirms p. 118. that this is not denied that he knows of by any who understand the Doctrine or Practise of the Roman Church I leave to the Reader to judg when he shall have heard what Bellarmin an Author not unacquainted with the Doctrin and Practise of the Church says in this matter There is not saith he any one Catholick who teaches that the External Symbols per se that is absolutely and properly are to be adored with the worship of Latria but only to be reverenced with a certain inferiour worship which is due to all Sacraments What we affirm is that Christ is properly and per se to be adored with the worship of Latria and that this adoration belongs also to the Symbols of Bread and Wine under which he is contained as they are apprehended united with him in such manner as those who adored him apparl'd upon Earth did not adore him alone but quodammodo in a certain kind his Garments also For neither
divine ought abstractedly considered to have any true divine honour given it And what will he infer from hence That therefore he cannot be satisfied that he hath sufficient reason for giving true divine honour to the humane nature of Christ considered alone or abstractedly in the Sacrament Much good may it do him But what is this to the purpose Do Catholicks adore the Humanity of Christ alone or abstractedly in the Sacrament Do they separate or abstract in their minds and thoughts his Body from his Person when they adore him there No more than the Wise-men did when they adored him in the Manger or the Apostles when they adored him after his Resurrection Or than he is adored now at the right hand of his Father All those Precisions and Considerations the Doctor speaks of are only in the Heads of the Schoolmen when they are disputing not in the minds of Christians when they are adoring The Object they adore whether in the Sacrament or out of it is the only-begotten Son of God made Man without separating or abstracting one nature from another any more than we do the King's Body from his Soul when we worship him And as Mr. Thorndike very well observes whosoever proposeth not to himself the consideration of the Body and Blood of Christ as it is of it self and in it self a meer Creature which he that doth not on purpose cannot do cannot but conceive it as he believes it to be being a Christian And consequently the primary reason of his adoration is the divinity there present I but says the Doctor when I worship Christ as in the Sacrament I must worship him there upon the account of his bodily presence for I have no other reason to worship him in the Sacrament but because his Body is present in it And what may this mean Have the Niceties and Precisions of the Schools so perplex'd his understanding that he hath lost the very first Notions of Christianity Is it not Christ's Body Are they not the very words of Christ This is my Body And is not Christ true God How comes it to pass then that he hath no other reason to worship him in the Sacrament but because his Body is present in it This indeed is the reason why his Divinity as hypostatically united to his Humane Nature is present in the Sacrament but the reason of his being adored there is his Divinity and not his Body Philosophy tells us that it is one thing that makes a Man to be in a place and another that makes him to be worshipped in that place and yet he would not be worshipped there for this latter unless he were present by vertue of the former The speculation may not seem so clear to such as are not vers'd in the Schools but an example will make it plain There is a Preacher in the World much admired and honoured by his Party in the Pulpit That which makes him to be present there or is the reason of his presence there is his Quantity or Bodily Dimensions but what he is admired for and honoured is his Wit his Eloquence his Zeal against Papists c. These are the Qualities for which I hear he is applauded and I easily believe it But if my Adversaries discourse be good whom I take to have as much Eloquence and to be of as subtil a wit and of as flaming a Zeal as the other I must tell his Admirers they are in a very great Errour as to the reason of their admiration and I doubt not but to make it appear upon his own Principles For I find it generally agreed by all the old Philosophers and by the Doctors also at present of both Universities that Quantity or corporal dimension considered alone ought not to have civil worship given to it and I find it very uncertain whether the Body it self though united to the Soul ought abstractedly considered to have any true civil honour given it But I am most certain that the only reason why he is present in the Pulpit is his Quantity or Bodily dimensions Therefore if they will honour or admire him in the Pulpit it must be upon the account of his bodily presence or corporal dimensions and not for those other great parts and abilities for which they have hitherto admired him in that place for if they consider well they have no other reason to honour him as in the Pulpit but because his Body is present in it And I am of Opinion that if any thing can cure them of their Error it will be the Parallel Argument he brings against the worship of Christ in the Sacrament Viz. that because worship must be given him there upon the account of his bodily presence as the condition why his divinity as united with his humane Nature is there present Therefore his Bodily Presence and not his Divinity united to it must be the reason of adoration As for what he adds p. 127. That supposing Transubstantiation his Divinity should be there in a particular manner present to no End I suppose he means by that particular manner the hypostatical union with his humane nature wherever it is And doth it not well become a Master in Israel to affirm that such a presence of the Divinity would be to no end when and where himself supposes the Body of Christ to be really and substantially present There wants but one step more to deny that the hypostatical union of the Divine Nature to the Humane was necessary at all either for Christ's offering himself upon the Cross or now at the right hand of his Father for although the Ceremony of offering him upon the Altar be performed by the Priest yet Christ himself is there also both Offerer and Oblation Priest and Victim as the Fathers teach S. Greg. Niss Orat. 1. de Resurr S. Ambr. in Ps 31. 1. Chrysost Ho. 24. in 1. ad Cor. Well but the Divinity of Christ makes not the least manifestation of it self in the Sacrament to our carnal senses And must this hinder us from giving him the worship due to his Person Is it not enough that we know Him to be there by divine Revelation as the Doctor at present supposes we do What other manifestation had the Divinity of Christ made of it self to the Baptist when before the appearing of the Holy Ghost he refused to Baptize him An evident sign that he reverenc'd him as the Son of God Matth. 3. 13 14. Did not our Saviour himself when St. Peter confessed him to be Christ the Son of the living God declare that Flesh and Blood had not revealed this to him but his Father which is in Heaven And upon that very account pronounce Him Blessed Matt. 16. 17. But it seems the Blessing is now revers'd and instead of Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed Jo. 20. 29. We must now say Blessed are they who will not believe unless they see Dr. St. p. 561. n. 5. And what will
doth sanctifie a place to so high a degree that we may lawfully testifie our reverence towards it and yet that presence or union is not equal to that of the Divine Nature of Christ with his Humane It is not onely Union but Representation also that may occasion Worship and so we see the King is worshipped by his Picture as representing him though it have not so close an union with his Soul as his Body hath But what sticks in the Doctors mind if I mistake not is how Christ God and Man can be worshipped by an Image which represents him onely according to his Humane Nature To this I have spoken already in the fifth Chapter and himself may satisfie his Reader in the point by telling him how the King who consists of Soul and Body can be worshipped by a Picture which represents him onely according to the Lineaments of his Body § 7. In the fourth place his Constantinopolitan-Fathers urge that If the Humane Nature of Christ be represented in the Image of Christ to be worshipped as separate from the Divine this would be plain Nestorianism And what says Epiphanius to this That never any man well in his wits when he saw the Picture of a man thought that the Painter by drawing him had divided his Soul from his Body that is that he had not onely drawn the man but hang'd and quarter'd him too Was ever time so fondly mispent as in proposing and refuting such pitiful kind of Sophistry as this of the Doctors Constantinopolitan-Fathers And yet He says the Good Nicen Fathers where he means by Good what he meant before by Wise not knowing what to answer deny the Conclusion and cry They Nestorians No. They lie in their Teeth Thus He. But what the Nicen Fathers answered like Good men and True was this that though the Images of Christ like other Images represent onely the external Lineaments of his Humane Nature yet when they look upon them they understand nothing but what is signified by them For example When he is represented as born of the Virgin which is I suppose what the Doctor means by the Birth of the Virgin p. 81. what they conceive in their Minds is not his Humane Nature as separated from the Divine but one Emmanuel true God and Man and therefore were far enough from bâ—ing guilty of Nestorianism in the use of Images Here the Doctor cries out Alas for them that they should ever be charged with the Worship of Images who plead for nothing now but a Help to their profound Meditations by them And may not I much better say Alas for him who if they Worshipped the same which they conceived in their Minds could not see their Worship which is an Act of the Will must be as free from Nestorianism as their Understanding But he had had nothing to reply if he had not thrust in those Words of his own to be Worshipped as separate from the Divine Nature For they are not in the Objection as it stands Recorded in the Council However they signifie little to his purpose because the Will is carried to the Prototype as it is conceived in the Understanding nor doth it give to the Image tâ—e Worship due to the Principal because the Image is not Worshipped at all for its own sake but for the Principal 's § 8. The Fifth Argument which he makes his Constantinopolitan Fathers produce is from the Institution of the Eucharist which they call Christs Image because instituted in Commemoration of him And whereas he said Do this in remembrance of Me He did as it were tell them That no other Figure or Representation under Heaven was chosen by Him as able to represent His being in the Flesh This they say was an HONOURABLE Image of his Quickning BODY made by Himself which he would not have of the shape of a Man to prevent Idolatry And as the Body of Christ was really sanctified by the Divine Nature so this Holy Image is by Adoption Deified or made Divine through sanctification of Grace This is the sense of the Argument to which Epiphanius answers that from the Fury they were possess'd with against the making of Images they were driven into another madness of calling the Eucharist an Image contrary to the Scriptures and Fathers And the Doctor knows that it is a sufficient Answer to an absurd Objection to shew that the Objector was driven to run into an Absurdity to maintain his Cause What the Constantinopolitans would have inferr'd from thence was that because Christ as They asserted made the Eucharist an Image of his Body therefore no other Image might be made or Worshipped But this They did not but left it perhaps as too hard a Task for Themselves to be undertaken by so Great an Admirer of Them and their Doctrine as my Adversary and at his Door it lies Onely he is desired to bear in mind against a fit season that the Eucharist with Them is an HONOURABLE IMAGE made by Christ Himself and therefore if he will not desert his Leaders he must give honour to it nay Divine Honour because although his Beloved Constantinopolitans call the EUCHARISTICAL BREAD an IMAGE yet they confess it in the same place to be NO FALSE IMAGE of Christs Natural Flesh but by virtue of the Priestly Consecration it is made his Divine Body § 9. In the sixth and last place he jumbles together no less than Eight Arguments or rather Bare Assertions of his Constantinopolitan Fathers all which Epiphanius denies and refutes as frivolous and false as any one may see who either considers the Objections in themselves or will take the pains to read the Answers to them at large in the sixth Action of the Council of Nice Which though my Adversary call weak and trivial yet it is no sign he thought them so when he omitted to set them down CHAP. VIII The Doctors Objection from the Council of Frankford examined and shewn to be no Advantage to his Cause § 1. AFter the matter of the Veneration due to Holy Images had been discussed and defined as you have seen in the second General Council of Nice the Doctor fearing that his Irony of that Wise Synod would not stick fast enough unless backed with a greater Authority than his own tells his Reader that it was condemned by the Council at Francford called together by Charles the Great Anno 794. He should have added By the Command of the Apostolick See as it is in Hinâ—marus but that had been an apparent disadvantage to his Cause and therefore better left out Nevertheless the fact it self he looks upon as an apparent advantage to it And thereupon he endeavours to show by many Conjectures that the Fathers at Francford did expresly reject the Council of Nice and that not out of misunderstanding its Doctrine as some rashly he saith imagine but that really they intended to condemn the Doctrine it self there defined His proofs are p. 84. Because the Acts of that Council
means else his first Proof p. 111. that there is a plain command in Scripture for adoring Christ himself but not the least intimation given that we are to worship Him in the Elements supposing Him present there And again what means his 2d Proof p. 112. that the one gives us a sufficient reason of our worship viz. that he is the Eternal Son of God but the other doth not supposing the Bread to be really converted into the Body of Christ Who sees not here that the supposition is of the real and undoubted presence of Christ by the change of the Bread into his Body and that he does but endeavour to take back by parcels what he unwarily gave away in the lump when he raises doubts and scruples about the certainty of the change of this or that particular Bread But let him contradict himself never so much it makes nothing for us We must be guilty of Idolatry every time we hear Mass unless we can be sure that there is a change made of the bread into the Body of Christ in that very particular Host which is to be worshipped And by what means can we be sure of that For the Church saith he p. 124. having declared that it is necessary that he that consecrates be a Priest and that he have an intention of consecrating if either the Consecrator should chance to be no Priest because not rightly baptized which is no unheard of thing or not have an intention to consecrate they who worship the Host must be guilty of Idolatry every time he celebrates This is the mighty scruple which torments his mind and although the absurdness of the Assertion that another Man's defect or wickedness should make me incur the crime of Idolatry whether I will or no might suffice to make any reasonable Man to depose so chimaerical a scruple yet because he will not or cannot do it I would ask him what kind of certainty it is he would have If no less than certainty of Faith or evidence of sense will serve his turn I would ask again what like certainty hath a Child or a Husband that those Persons whom they take the one for his Father the other for his Wife are so in very deed I cannot believe him so rigid a Casuist as neither to permit a child to do his duty to his Mother's Husband till he have a Divine Revelation that he is his true Father nor a Husband to pay the conjugal debt unless he first have as much evidence as sense can give him that Lia is not put in the place of Rachel and when that is done perhaps a Divine Revelation may be necessary to know whether she be not married before to another Man for this also is no unheard of thing Who might not say here as the Disciples did on another occasion Matth. 19. 10. If the case of a Man with his Wife be so it is not expedient to marry But as I said before I cannot believe the Doctor will be so rigid in this Point But why then must we be tyed up from giving worship to Christ as present in this or that particular Host unless we be certain either by evidence of sense or by Divine Revelation that it is truly consecrated If the want of such a certainty ought to make us suspend our Worship I am sure the want of the like for true disposition ought to make the Communicant forbear receiving But if he speak of such a certainty as is usually found in the aforesaid humane Actions and others of the like nature why may not this suffice as well to secure Christians from sinning in their adoration as those other Persons in paying their respective duties Doth it happen oftner that a Person supposed to be a Priest is no Priest because not rightly baptized than that a Person supposed to be a Father is not the Man Or doth it happen oftner that a Priest cheats the People by having no intention to consecrate than that a light Hous-wife wheadles a second Man to marry her while her Husband unknown to him is yet alive It is not in the nature of Man to sin so frequently out of pure malice as it is upon the account of some profit or pleasure thence resulting Why then must we be more guilty of Idolatry though the Host through defect or Malice on the Priest's side should happen not to be truly consecrated than such a Person is of Adultery or a Child of undutifulness for having their own good Intentions abus'd by the malice of others Wantonness may make a Wife forget her duty but doth not make a Child criminal in doing his to him whom he believes to be his Father And the wickedness of a Priest as there was one Judas among the Twelve may make him a Devil but that cannot make me an Idolater For whilst my Adoration is directed not to the Bread which I suppose not to be there but to the Person of Jesus Christ true God whom I firmly believe to be in every Host duly consecrated and have not the least reasonable cause to suspect other at present the Action on my part hath all that is requisite to make it good and lawful and is so far from being Idolatry that it is a real honouring of Christ and will be so accepted When Hephaestion was honoured by a mistake for Alexander that great Prince was so far from condemning the Person as a Traytor that he took the honour as done to himself And in case those Gentiles who were so desirous to see our Saviour Jo. 12. 21. had either for want of a Guide to direct them to the Person or by the treacherous malice of a Judas prostrated themselves at the Feet of some other what reasonable Man would have condemned them for Idolaters And yet we poor unfortunate Roman Catholicks if it should chance at any time to happen that either the Priest be no true one or have no intention to consecrate though our Intentions be never so sincere to adore only our Lord Jesus Christ must stand condemned of downright Idolatry for so the Doctor calls it p. 124. and that without any Proof at all but the old Ipse dixit that without the Intention of the Priest in consecrating it can be nothing else § 2. The second Medium he takes p. 125 to prove that upon the Principles of the Roman Church no Man can be assured that he doth not commit Idolatry every time he gives adoration to the Host is that no Man can be satisfied that he hath sufficient reason for giving this worship to it And the substance of the reason he gives is because if I worship Christ saith he in the Sacrament it is upon account of his corporal presence and he finds it generally agreed by the Doctors of the Roman Church that the humane Nature of Christ considered alone ought not to have divine honour given to it and hotly disputed among them whether Christ's humane nature though united to the
the end of this be but the banishing Faith and Christianity out of the World § 3. After all these endeavours to wrest out of our hands the supposition he so freely granted p. 110. of the same Revelation for Christ's Presence in the Eucharist as for his Divinity he would bring the business at last to a Composition if we will beg of him to yield that the Body of Christ being present his Divinity is there present too And I am not so nice if it will come no cheaper way as not to begg it of him for Christianity's sake but then he adds that even upon this supposition that Christ's Divinity is present with his Body in the Sacrament p. 127. his mind must still unavoidably rest unsatisfied as to the Adoration of the Host For supposing the divine Nature present in any thing gives no ground upon that account to give the same worship to the thing wherein he is present as I do to Christ himself But here again he relapses into his former mistake of the Controversy which in spight of the practise of Catholicks which is to adore Christ under the Accidents in like manner as he was worshipped in his Apparel he will have to be that proper divine worship is to be given to the Accidents For this is what he means here by the Host Let him state the Question as it ought to be that is Whether Christ may not be worshipped under the Accidents as well as in his Garments Or if he will needs mix the Questions of the Schools with those of Faith Whether the Accidents may not be worshipped together with Christ in like manner as his Garments were worshipped together with Him And the Controversy will quickly be at an End But not to tire the Reader with following him in his Repetitions his scruple if I mistake not at present is why supposing the divine nature present in any thing gives no ground to worship every thing in which he is present yet his presence in the Eucharist should be a sufficient reason to worship the Accidents together with him And to this I give Bellarmin 's answer which I take also to be the sense of Greg. de Valentia in the place cited by the Doctor Longe aliter Christus est in Eucharistia c. That Christ is in the Eucharist in a far different manner than God is in other things For in the Eucharist there is but one only Suppositum and that divine All other things there present belong to that and in a certain manner make one with that though not in the same manner mark that Hence it is that the whole is rightly worshipped together as we said before of Christ apparell'd But although God be in all other things yet not so that he is one Suppositum with them nor is there such an Union between God and the Creature in which he is that they can be said to be in a manner One. By this it appears that as Greg. de Valentia deservedly calls this presence of Christ to the Accidents an admirable Conjuction so the Doctor unjustly imposes upon Bellarmin that he grants as great an hypostatical union between Christ and the Accidents as between the divine and humane Nature for although Bellarmin say that all things there present in a certain manner make One with the Suppositum yet he declares expresly that it is not in the same manner But here the Doctor complains of un-intelligible terms and notions used in this matter And might he not do the same with as much reason of the terms and Notions used by the School-men in explicating the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation How un-intelligible soever the School-terms appear to him yet it is very easy to understand that neither Greg. de Valentia nor Bellarmin mean to give divine honour to the Accidents for themselves and yet much easier to understand what Christian People mean when they profess the Object of their Adoration in the Eucharist to be the only begotten Son of God under the Accidents of Bread and Wine As for what he alledges out of Vasquez that supposing the presence of Christ to be the Ground of Adoration it follows in his Opinion that God may very lawfully be adored by us in any created Beeing wherein he is intimately present I have spoken to it in the 5th Chapt. of the 1. Part And as Vasquez himself acknowledges the danger of that Doctrine if it should be commonly and publickly put in practise by the People for possibly there may be another consideration for Philosophical and Contemplative Men in their private Devotions as St. Leo there cited seems to grant so if the Doctrine be Good what follows from thence is that Christ being supposed to be really present in the Sacrament and in a particular manner by Transubstantiation may most certainly be adored in it Vasquez was a Man of great learning and of a searching wit but it is noted of him as of Lactantius that he was more subtil in oppugning the Opinions of others than solid in establishing his own CHAP. IV. Dr. St.'s Fundamental Principle of judging of matters proposed to our Belief by Sense and Reason shown to be absurd in it self and destructive to Christianity § 1. WE come now to the Doctor 's Second Proposition that there are not the same Motives and Grounds to believe the Doctrine of Transubstantiation that there are to believe that Christ is God which he saith I affirm without any appearance of reason And he would gladly know what excellent Motives and Reasons those are which so advantageously recommend so absurd a doctrine as Transubstantiation is as to make any Man think he hath reason to believe it He is sure he saith it gives the greatest advantage to the Enemies of Christ's Divinity to see these two put together upon equal terms as though no Man could have reason to believe Christ to be the Eternal Son of God that did not at the same time swallow the greatest Contradictions to sense and reason imaginable This is a Topick in which the Doctor wonderfully delights himself as all others have done before him who have deserted the Faith of the Church We have it over and over at every turn as if the whole System of Christian Faith and every particular Article of it were to be measured by the Standard of Sense and Reason so that if any thing seem absurd and contradictory to them no grounds or motives can recommend it so advantageously as to make any Man think he hath reason to believe it This is what lies at the bottom of his Discourse and himself lays it down for the only Principle oâ— Criterium by which we are to judge of the Truth of Divine Revelation when in his second Câ—asse of Principles he affirms There can be no other means imagined whereby we are to judg of the Truth of divine Revelation but a Faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters propos'd to our Belief
his Service although he forbad them to make the likeness of any of those things he had created to worship them for Gods yet he commanded Moses Exod. 25. 10 17 18. to place in the Temple where they were to worship him a representation of his Footstool and Throne the Ark and the Propitiatory with two Cherubins of beaten Gold attending on each side of the Seat to raise their thoughts to a more venerable apprehension of his Majesty and Greatness Lastly the fulness of time being come in which he would shew the excess of his mercy towards Mankind he was pleased as S. Paul saith Phil. 2. 7. to take upon him the form of a Servant and be made in the likeness of Man that is to become indeed true Man not onely to work our Redemption by shedding his most precious Blood but also by that visible form as the Church sings upon the day of his Nativity to carry or rather ravish our hearts to the contemplation of his Invisible Deity Ut dum visibiliter Deum cognoscimus per hunc ad invisibilia rapiamur And if this were the means made choice of by God himself as most efficacious because most connatural to conduct us to the knowledge and love of Him then certainly the Pictures or Images of his Nativity Passion Resurrection c. which serve to put us in mind of what he did and suffered for us in that form of a Servant cannot but conduce very much to work the like effects in us And after all this can any man not to use his own phrase in his Senses but who is serious ask What can such an Image do to the heightning of Devotion or raising Affections S. Gregory Nissen says of himself Orat. de Deitate Filii Spiritus Sancti That he often beheld but never without Tears the Picture of Abraham ready to sacrifice his Son Isaac though but a repâ—esentation onely of a Type of the Son of God upon the Altar of the Cross And can any man whose heart is not of Stone behold attentively the Image of his dying Saviour himself with his Hands and Feet Nailed to the Cross and not be touched with a sense of Devotion towards Him Surely he must have lost the notion of Humane Nature who can soberly affirm that the making such an Image with respect to His Worship tends highly to the dishonour of the Deity and suggests mean thoughts to us of the God we are to worship unless to remember that he dyed for us be to think meanly and dishonourably of him But whither will not a Resolution to maintain an Errour once espoused hurry the subtillest Wit The Doctor 's eagerness to make us Idolaters had made him fancy that where God forbids to give his Worship to Idols he forbad to make any Image with respect to his own Worship and this forced him for I cannot believe he did it without force to his own thoughts to assert that an Image can do nothing to the heightning of Devotion or raising Affections If he think I strain his words too far though no farther than what his discourse gives me cause to do let him vindicate himself by professing candidly that the Images of Christ according to his Humane Nature may serve to raise our Affections and heighten our Devotion to him as God But then he must renounce the patronage of his Constantinopolitan Fathers and retract or answer his own Reason that if this be done by calling to our mind the Being we are to worship there must be supposed some Likeness or Analogy or Union between the Object represented and the Image every one of which tends highly to the dishonour of the Deity and suggests mean thoughts to us of the God we are to worship and particularly that among Christians nothing can tend more effectually to it than the bringing down the representations of him to the figure and lineaments of a man drawn upon a Table or carved upon an Image But what ought we not to do to free our selves from Mistake much more from Errour The Mistake at present if I may give it so gentle a name lies in this That he considers not that if one thing hath connexion with or analogy to another although Invisible when the former is represented to a Person that understands the analogy or connexion there is between them it is apt to bring to his remembrance the later Hence it is that although the Soul of man cannot be drawn in colours yet when the Body to which it is united is represented in Picture the Representation serves as a means to bring to our minds the Perfections or Graces of the Soul which informs it and not to bring them down as against Nature and Experience he aâ—firms to the figure and lineaments of a Body drawn upon a Table or carved in an Image Had the rest of Mortals been imbued with this Principle they had never caused either their Pictures or Images to be made lest they might be occasion to their Friends from whom they expected Love and Honour to entertain too lâ—w and unworthy thoughts of them Much less ought Princes to permit any Chair of State to be placed in the Presencâ— Chamber for fear of bringing down the representations of them to the uncouth figure of four or five sticks put awkwardly together But this is not all § 3. On this account he saith p. 59. it seems much more reasonable for him to worship God by prostrating himself before the Sun or any of the Heavenly Bodies nay to an Ant or a Fly than to a Picture or an Image And I have more kindness for him if he should do it than to suppose him therefore as he supposes himself p. 70. to be a Heathen Idolater unless he take the Sun for a God Philosophy and Experience having given me so much insight into the nature of humane actions as to know they go whither they are intended and Religion so much Charity as to believe his intent was onely to worship the true God by it But why does it seem much more reasonable for him to worship God by prostrating to the Sun nay to an Ant or a Fly than to a Picture or an Image The reason he says is because in those he sees great evidences of the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of God which may suggest venerable apprehensions of God to his mind so then now it seems that analogy doth not always tend highly to the dishonour of the Deity nor suggest mean thoughts to us of the God we are to worship whereas a Picture or an Image can have nothing worthy admiration unless it be the Skill of the 〈…〉 If this be the reason he ought in my Judgment to have given the precedence to the Ant and the Fly or to the Ape the Ass and the Tyger brought in by him in a former comparison for all these have two degrees of Perfection beyond the Sun viz. Life and Sense If the danger be that he is more like
unparallell'd fondness of this Comparison there needs no more than to appeal to any married man for his Opinion in the case viz. Whether he think it a matter of like Resentment to find his Wife kissing his Picture as it hangs at her Breast as to surprize her in Bed with a Friend of his though never so like him Some things done out of respect are very well taken and cannot in reason be otherwise by the Person for whose sake the respect is given of this kind I take the wearing of her Husbands Picture to be in a Wiâ—e or her being kind though not too kind to his Friend for his sake But others there are which would be very ill taken though pretended to be done with never so much respect And of this kind I suppose it would be to give the Honour of her Husbands Bed to another though never so like him No man surely well in his Senses can look upon these two with an equal Concern And yet if the Doctor will make his Comparison hold good he must prove the whole state of married Mankind do or ought to do so At least to infer any thing against us he must shew it not possible to give any Honour or Respect even inferiour to the Image of Christ for his sake For if this be possible it will follow that as in a Chaste Wife it is a laudable expression of the Honour and Respect she bears her Husband to kiss his Picture or wear it near her Heart So it will be no less in a Christian towards Christ to give an Honourary Respect â—o his Image for his sake God indeed hath declared himself as the Doctor saith particularly jealous of his Honour in this Commandment that he will not give his Glory to another but hath reserved all Divine Worship as peculiar to himself but where hath he declared that we may not â—estifie the giving Him Divine Worship by kissing his Image or the Books of the H. Gospels or other things relating to Him The Object of Jealousie is a Rival or what hath relation to or union with him not what may serve to express Affection and Respect to the Person who ought to be loved And therefore a Jealous Husband will neither permit his Wife to admit his Rival into her Company nor his Picture into her Closet yet never thinks her an Adulteress for carrying his own in her â—osom The Images which the Precept supposeth were as Mr. Thorndike saith the Representations of other Gods which his people were wont to commit Idolatry with And the Doctor though in the Reply I challeng'd him to do it neither hath nor can produce any Prohibition of giving to the Images of Christ and his Saints a relative Respect oâ— Worship for his sake And in case he could yet that I hope would prove it no more to be Idolatry in a Christian to kiss for example the Image of Christ crucified than it would be Adultery in a Wife out of respect to her Husband though he should forbid it to kiss his Picture Disobedience there might be in either case but Idolatry or Adultery in neither § 2. Having prepared his Reader with so just a Comparison and told him by the by of the distinction of Absolutely and Relatively being very subtilly applied in Scotland to saying the Lords Prayer to a Saint which in reality needed no such distinction as signifying no more than saying the Pater Noster to God with an intention directed to such or such a Saint to desire him to become Joynt-Petitioner with us for what we beg in it He wonders in the next place p. 101. very much we stick at any kind of Worship to be done to Images For his part were he of our mind he should as little scruple offering up the Host to an Image as saying his prayers to it and he doubts not to come off with the same distinctions For if I do it saith he to God absolutely and for himself and to the Image onely improperly and relatively wherein am I to blame This is his Discourse and the Reader may observe in it 1. That he hath not read or at least takes no notice that the answer in the ordinary Catholick Catechism to the Question Whether we may pray to Images is a down-right No by no means and that the Council of Trent Sess 25. hath declared that we are not to ask any thing of an Image Let the Reader judge whether this were ignorance or no. 2. That he cannot contain himself any where within bounds of Mediocrity but must always run into extreams which side soever he take He cannot be a Church-of-England-man but with the Presbyterians he must deny Episcopacy to be of Divine Right and any honour to be due to the Eucharist or Altar c. Neither will he be a Papist without offering up the Host and saying his prayers to an Image So that if He become a Proselyte He cannot content Himself with the Common Idolatry of the Papists in kissing or putting off their Hats to the Images of Christ but will needs make Himself twice a greater Idolater than they are How much He would be to blame in so doing He will better understand when He is become a Proselyte In the mean time it may suffice Him to know that the Church of God hath no such custom for however the material action of Sacrifice may be done for several ends and intentions yet when it proceeds from an intention to profess a total submission of our selves to God as the Supream Author of Life and Death which gives it the formality of a Sacrifice it is used and taken by the publick Use and Custom of the Church for an acknowledgement of the absolute Worship due to God and not of Relative to an Image and that more especially in offering up the Host that is the Body and Blood of Christ the true Christian Sacrifice the Nature and Dignity whereof requireth that it be offered to God alone As for the Rule of St. Basil upon which he would ground his Practise and which I quoted very sincerely though he craftily insinuate the contrary to the Reader viz. That the Worship of the Image is carried to the Prototype Mr. Thorndike hath told him very well that what Signs of Honour or Ceremonies the Publick Worship of God may require the Church is at freedom to determin and so onely such expressions of Honour are to be given to Images as the Church allows What therefore I should advise him were I worthy and would he be of our mind should be to lay aside what the Apostle calls languishing about Questions and strife of Words and as a Modern Author phrases it to use Ecclesiastical good manners to the H. Images of Christ and his Saints and say his prayerâ— and offer Sacrifice as other Catholicks do to God alone â—t is Duty and Discretion in things we cannot understand to follow the Apostle's Rule Sapere ad sobrietatem to be wise unto
suffred for our Sins an evident sign that all those who held the Flesh of Christ to be true Flesh and not Phantastical believed also the Eucharist to be that very true Flesh This is what Protestants themselves confess of the most eminent Fathers of God's Church in each Age from our Saviours time concerning the Doctrin of Transubstantiation as I find them cited in two Treatises the one called The Protestants Apology for the Roman Church the other The Progeny of Catholicks and Protestants whose Authors I never heard were taxed of insincerity in their quotations And if it be true what Dr. Field saith of Bellarmin that if he could prove that Protestants confess the Roman to be the true Church he needed not to use any other arguments I might supersede any farther proof of this matter and leave the Doctor to join issue with his Fellow-Brethren But the Reader perhaps may desire to see the Testimonies themselves of those Fathers which were so pregnant as to force such learned Men of the Protestant Party to confess that they taught the Doctrin of Transubstantiation And in order to his satisfaction in this Point I shall set down one Testimony of each Father in the same order as they stand cited above and but One to avoid Prolixity TESTIMONIES OF THE FATHERS FOR TRANSUBSTANTIATION IN the beginning of the Eighth Century St. Jo. Damascen li. 4. de fid c. 14. The Bread and Wine and Water are by the Invocation and Coming of the Holy Ghost changed supernaturally into the Body and Blood of Christ And with him agrees Theophylact The Bread is transformed by the Mystical Benediction and the coming of the Holy Ghost into the Flesh of our Lord. At the end of the Fifth and beginning of the Sixth Century St. Gregory Our Creator well knowing our Infirmity by that Power with which he made all things of nothing by the Sanctification of his Spirit converts the Bread and Wine mixed with Water their proper species or figure remaining into his Flesh and Blood In the Fifth Eusebius Emissenus and St. John Chrysostome The former saith Before Consecration there is the Substance of Bread and Wine but after the words of Christ it is the Body and Blood of Christ For what wonder that he who created them with his Word should convert or change them after they were created The latter The things we propose are not done by Humane Power We hold but the place of Ministers but he that sanctifieth and changeth them is Christ himself In the Fourth Century St. Ambrose and because this is the Age I suppose the Doctor pitches upon when he saith he will undertake to instance in an Age since the first three Centuries Wherein if the most learned Fathers and Bishops who lived in it are to be credited Transubstantiation was not believed I shall be somewhat larger in citing the words of St. Ambrose and also add other Testimonies of Fathers of the same time to his that the Reader may see what Issue his Undertaking is like to have in this matter First Then St. Ambrose as if he foresaw my Adversaries objection puts it down in these formal words You will say perhaps How do you prove to me that I receive the Body of Christ when I see another thing And the way he takes to Answer it is by comparing the change made here in the Nature of the Bread with the examples of those miraculous changes which were wrought by Holy Men of Old in the Natures of other things as of Moses's Rodd being turned into a Serpent the Waters of Aegypt into Blood c. From whence he infers that if the Benediction of those who were but pure Men was of such force as to change Nature What must we say of that divine Consecration where the very words of our Lord and Saviour do operate Thou hast read saith he of the works of the Creation how God spake the Word and they were made he commanded and they were created that is produc'd out of nothing The Word therefore of Christ which of nothing could make that to be which was not can it not change those things which are viz. Bread and Wine into that which before they were not viz. his own Body and Blood surely it is not a less matter to give new natures to things out of nothing than to change them after they are made Again You will say perhaps my Bread is usual Bread No saith he this Bread is Bread before the Sacramental words When the Consecration is performed of Bread is made the Flesh of Christ He spake the Word and it was made he commanded and it was created And that we may not doubt he meant it was made his true Flesh he saith As our Lord Jesus Christ is the true Son of God not as Men are by Grace but as the Son of the substance of his Father so it is his very true Flesh as himself hath said which we receive and his very true Blood which we drink This and much more doth St. Ambrose write of this subject so that no Man need to wonder if the Centurists say he wrote not well of Transubstantiation And I have either read or heard it reported of Calvin that he wish'd the Devil had struck the Pen out of St. Ambrose's hand when he wrote those Books of the Sacraments But let us now see what other Fathers of the same Age teach concerning this Point S. Cyril Our Saviour saith he sometime changed Water into Wine and shall we not think him worthy of our belief that he changed Wine into his Blood S. Gregory Nyssen We do rightly believe that the Bread sanctified by the Word of God is changed into the Body of God the Word By vertue of his Benediction he changeth the nature of the things which are seen Bread and Wine into that Viz. his own Body S. Gaudentius The Maker Lord of Natures who produceth Bread out of the Earth doth again of Bread because he can and hath promised to do it make his own Body and He who made Water of Wine maketh of Wine his own Blood These are Fathers who lived in the Age immediately following the three first Centuries to whom I might add St. Chrysostome above cited who flourished in this Century though he dyed in the beginning of the next and others but these may suffice to let the Reader see if this be the Age which the Doctor intends to instance in how unlikely it is he should make good what he asserts that Transubstantiation was not believed in it In the Third Century St. Cyprian saith The Bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being changed not in shape or figure but in nature was by the Omnipotency of the Word made Flesh And Ursinus confesseth There are many sayings in him which seem to affirm Transubstantiation And Tertullian in the same Age saith that our Lord having taken Bread made it his