for the Transformation of Bread into Flesh which he speakes of though still it seeme Bread it is plaine hee meanes not that of Transubstantiation for in this Bread ceaseth to be but in that he confesseth it still to remaine and that it is Bread which is eaten by vs in the Mysteries Which yet he more plainly expresseth where hee saith God in mercy condescending to our infirmity preserueth the Species or Nature of Bread and wine but trans-elementeth or changeth it into the vertue of his flesh blood where it is farther to be obserued that hee saith not into flesh and blood but into the vertue thereof intimating a Change not of Substance but of Operation and Efficacy Your next witnesse is Magnetes an author to me vtterly vnknowne saue that Gesner in his Bibliotheca reporteth that he was very ancient and that about thirteene hundred yeares since hee wrote in the Greeke tongue certaine bookes in defence of the Gospell vnto Theosthenes against the Gentiles that flandered it and that he is quoted by Fr. Turrian By which words it seemes that hee never yet saw the Presse and what is alledged out of him is warranted only by Turrians testimony But Turrian is one that deserues no credit at our hands as being a Iesuite and knowne to haue plaid many foule tricks this way Yet if to make your author agree with the rest of the Fathers you will giue the same construction to his words that aboue is giuen vnto Theophilact you may Otherwise his authority is as easily reiected as alledged N. N. St Hilary vseth this kind of argument If the word of God were truly made flesh then doe wee truly receiue his flesh in the Lords supper and thereby he is to bee esteemed to dwell in vs naturally St Cyril proueth not only a Spirituall but also a Naturall and Bodily vnion to be betweene vs and Christ by eating his flesh in the Sacrament I. D. That Hilary speaketh of the Lords Supper or of our Coniunction with Christ by Eating thereof I thinke it will hardly be proved Had he so meant how cometh it to passe that he never alledgeh those words of the Sacrament This is my body which would haue made more for his purpose but ever voucheth the sixt of Iohn which maketh little to the Sacrament Howbeit if you will needs vnderstand him so I will not striue Know then that in those bookes St Hilary disputes against the Arians To them he obiected that saying The Father and the Sonne are one One answered they as wee are with Christ by Will not by Nature wherevnto he replied that wee are even by Nature one with Christ. And this he proues first because both in Christ and vs there is the same Humane nature by the Incarnation of the Sonne of God which hee calls the Sacrament of perfect vnion Secondly because the Faithfull are ioyned vnto him by his Spirit dwelling in them which regenerateth quickneth sanctifieth them and not only conformeth them vnto him but also transformeth them into him And for proofes hereof hee alledgeth divers passages of St Iohns Gospell such as your selues confesse no way to belong vnto the Sacrament Thirdly for that by Baptisme we are ioyned vnto Christ and that not only by consent of will but naturally according to that of Saint Paul As many as are baptized into Christ haue put on Christ. Whereunto lastly if you please you may adde for that also in the Lords Supper wee are vnited vnto him by Eating his Flesh and Drinking his Blood All these waies saith Hilary are wee Naturally ioyned vnto Christ. If so then not only by the Eucharist And if for the establishing of the other meanes there needeth no Transubstantiation at all as of the Sonne of God into Man of Faith into the Spirit of Christ or of Baptismall water into the Bloud of Christ neither is it necessarie for this that bread be Transubstantiated into the Body of Christ. Or if to bring Christ into vs and our mouth you will needs transubstantiate the bread into his body I wonder what Transubstantiation you will devise to bring vs into him and his mouth For Hilary affirmeth that by the same Mysticall coniunction not only is Christ in vs but also wee are Naturally in him The same Answere may serue for Cyril also wherevnto for farther explication of the word Naturally and Naturall so often vsed both by Cyril and Hilary I adde that in them Naturally signifieth Truly Naturall True if wee may beleeue him who best knew their meaning even Cyril himselfe For thus he Not according to naturall vnity that is true vnity By nature wee are the children of wrath where by nature we are to vnderstand truth So that Naturall vnion is true vnion and naturally to be vnited is truly to be vnited which I hope may bee without Transubstantiation N. N. Theodoret doth proue that Christ tooke Flesh of the blessed virgin and ascended vp with the same and holdeth the same there by that he giueth to vs his true flesh in the Sacrament for that otherwise hee could not giue vs his true Flesh to eat if his owne flesh were not true seeing that he gaue the same that he carried vp and retaineth in heauen I. D. I marvell much not one of the Fathers being more expresse against Transubstantiation then Theodoret that yet you durst to praise him in the maintenance thereof Evē for this cause doth the Preface to the Roman Edition goe about to weaken his authority and Gregorie of Valentia flatly condemneth him It is no wonder saith he if one or two or more of the Ancients haue thought or written of this matter not so considerately and rightly Adde herevnto that Theodoret was noted by the Councell of Ephesus for some other errours besides But how much Theodoret maketh against Transubstantiation you shall heare hereafter Now you may be pleased to knowe that in the place by you cited he disputeth against an Eutychian Hereticke who held that the Humanitie of Christ was abolished and absorpted by his Deitie This hee would proue by the Eucharist that as the Symbols before Consecration are one thing but after it are changed and become another even so the Body of Christ after the Assumption thereof is chāged into the Divine Substance Now if Theodoret had beene Transubstantiator hee had beene finely taken for Transubstantiation abolisheth the substance of Bread and turneth it into the substance of Christs Body But hee taketh the Heretike in his owne nets affirming the Mysticall signes after their sanctification doe not depart from their nature and that therefore Christ after the Assumption thereof retaineth his Humanity still Whereby you may see that although it be yeelded that Christ giueth vs his true Flesh in the Sacrament yet in the iudgement of Theodoret he so giueth it that the Mysticall signes retaine their Nature still which vtterly overturnes your Transubstantiation N. N. S. Irenaeus S. Iustin and S.
As the heavenly bread which is the Flesh of Christ after its manner is called the Body of Christ being in truth the Sacramentâ— of Christs Body Marke that which is called Body is not so in truth but only in signe and after a manner Pope Leo Christ being lifted vp into heaven set an end to his Bodily Presence being to abide at the right hand of his Father vntill the times appointed by God for the multiplying of the Sonnes of the Church be accomplished If till then he haue set an end to his Bodily presence then till that time he is no more here Fulgentius the holy Catholike Church throughout the whole world ceaseth not to offer vnto Christ the sacrifice of Bread and Wine in Faith and Charity If a Sacrifice of bread and wine then is it bread and wine after consecration Pope Gelasius certainly the Sacraments of the body and bloud of Christ which wee receiue is a divine thing wherefore by them are wee made partakers of the divine nature and yet the substance or nature of Bread and Wine cease not to bee And verily the image and similitude of the body and bloud of Christ are celebrated in these mysteries And They passe by the worke of the holy Ghost into a divine substance continuing notwithstanding in the propriety of their nature Lo the Substance and Nature of bread remaine and the Sacrament is but an image and Similitude of Christs body What can be more plaine Theodoret Himselfe hath honoured the Visible Symbols with the name of his body and bloud not changing their nature but adding grace vnto nature And againe disputing against an Eutychian Heretike who to overthrow the Humanity of Christ had thus argued that as the signes in the Eucharist are after Consecration changed so the body of our Lord after the assumption thereof was changed into the Divine substance hee bringeth in Orthodaxus thus answering Thou art taken in thine owne nets for the mysticall signes after consecration depart not from their proper nature For they remaine in their former substance and figure and forme and are visible and tangible as formerly they were but are vnderstood to bee thee things they are made and beleeued and are honoured as being the things they are beleeued These passages of Gelasius and Theodoret are the very racke gibbet of you Papists wherevnto the best of you know not what to answere but only that by substance Accident is meant An incredible obstinacy and madnesse and needing rather a Physitian to cure it then a disputer to confute it For with as good reason may you say that by white blacke is meant and by Heaven Hell and any thing by whatsoever Lastly Gregory the Great proueth the truth of Christs body against Eutychius by those words of our Saviour Handle mee and see Can you proue the truth of Christs body in the Sacrament by the same argument Verily if that which is neither felt nor seene be not Flesh Bone neither is the Flesh of Christ in the Sacrament for it is neither felt nor sâ—ene And if bread bee transubstantiated only by vertue of those words This is my body then in the Apostles time there was no Transubstantiation at all For as Gregory saith The manner of the Apostles was only by the Lords prayer to consecrate the host of the Oblation And thus haue you a full grand Iury of the ancient Fathers all of them liuing within sixe hundred yeares after Christ and with joynt consent crossing your new vpstart fiction of the Reall Presence To these I might easily adde a long list of those who succeeded in after times as Bede Rabanus Maurus Walafridus Strabo Bertram Waleram Bishop of Medburg Druthmarus and others not one of them in their times taxed for errour in this point But I will only relate what the Doctrine of the Church of England was about seauen hundred yeares after Christ as appeareth by those Homilies that then were publikely read vnto the people The holy Font water that is called the well-spring of life is like in shape to other waters and is subiect to corruption but the holy Ghosts might cometh to the water through the Priests blessing and it can after wash the body and soule from all sin through Ghostly might Behold now wee see two things in this one creature After true nature that water is corruptible water and after ghostly mystery hath hollowing might So also if wee behold that holy housel after bodily vnderstanding then see wee that it is a creature corruptible and mutable if we acknowledge therein ghostly might then vnderstand wee that life is therein and that it giueth immortality to them that eate it with beleefe Much is betwixt the invisible might of the holy housel the visible shape of his proper nature It is naturally corruptible Bread and corruptible Wine is by might of Gods word truly Christs Body and his bloud not so notwithstanding bodily but Ghostly Much is betwixt the body Christ suffered in and the body that is hallowed to housel The body truly that Christ suffered in was borne of the flesh of Mary with bloud and with bone with skinne and with sinews with humane limmes with a reasonable soule liuing and his Ghostly body which we call the housel is gathered of many cornes without bloud and bone without limme without Soule And therefore nothing is to bee vnderstood therein bodily but all is Ghostly to be vnderstood Thus the Homily and thus much thereof haue I thought good here at large to set downe to the end you may know that our Ancestors in this Iland notwithstanding your loud craks to the contrary haue not alwaies at leastwise in this point beene Papists Besides these testimonies of antiquity wee haue their customes also against you St Hierom reporteth that in the Primitiue times after the holy Communion was ended they were wont to feast together in the Church and to spend the residue of the Eucharist that remained Hesychius saith that it was the custome not to reserue till the morrow as your manner now adaies is but to burne what fragments soeuer remained of the consecrated Elements Evagrius and Nicephorus both doe testifie that the ancient custome of the Church of Constantinople was to send for little children from the schoole such as otherwise were barred from the Communion to giue the remainders of the Sacrament to them Had the Church in those daies verily beleeued that it had been the true and Real body of Christ doe you thinke they would so haue profaned it by feasting vpon it and bestowing it on children Or that they would with such impietie and sacrilege haue burned and consumed it in the fire It is altogether incredible As incredible therefore that they held it to be the Lords Body But of Antiquity enough Fiftly and lastly it implieth in it innumerable contradictions which according to the rule of Logick cannot
Conversion Mutation and the like I. D. Had you attentiuely read my Answer you would never haue said I excepted to two or three Passages only For I excepted to all the passages of Ignatius Cyril of Hierusalem in his Catechismes Ambrose de Sacramentis and Mysterijs initiandis Eusebius Emissenus Cyprian de caena Domini the Canon of the Nicen counsell and Magnetes as suspected by your owne Rabbies not to be the men whose names they beare Againe of Damascen Theophylact Euthymius Nicephorus and Rupertus as being Punies and too young to be Fathers besides those many Passages which are miserably either curtald or rackt or falsely alleaged Neither are their words so plain for you as you pretend For I haue made it to appeare that some of them say nothing at all for you some speak rather against you then for you and to those that seeme to say any thing I haue opposed a whole grand Iury speaking farre more plainely on our side For what words can be more plaine then these This is my body that is the figure of my Body that Christ said This bread is my body which your owne men grant cannot bee true vnlesse figuratiuely vnderstood that Bread and Wine still are what they were that the Nature of bread continues that the nature of bread and wine cease not to be but continue in the propriety of their nature that the signes after consecration depart not from their proper nature but remaine in their former substance figure and forme and suchlike many But perhaps your Fathers speake as plainely Let vs try that They say that the Body flesh and bloud of Christ is truly in the Sacrament Ergo a Reall Presence Who denies it Transubstantiation is that which you should proue which Reall Presence inferres not This you say you vnderstand not The more is your dulnesse For Really and Corporally are not all one and that which is Spiritually present is Really present vnlesse you will say that a spirit is Nothing Is not the Bloud of Christ really present in Baptisme to the washing away of sinne Is hee not Really also present to the Faith of every true beleever even out of the Sacrament Doubtlesse he is and none will deny it but he that never felt the vertue and efficacy thereof What should let then but the Flesh of Christ may bee present in the Eucharist Really and yet not after the Corporall manner Nay what if I should yeeld you a corporall presence Would that necessarily inferre a Transubstantiation Nothing lesse For it may be by consubstantiation the flesh being there together with the Bread without turning the Bread into Flesh. Neither may you deny this to be possible vnlesse you will deny the Omnipotency of God and your Transubstantiation withall for therevpon doe you build it Transubstantiation therefore and the Reall presence are not all one Yea but the Fathers vse the tearmes of Conversion Mutation What then Ergo Transubstantiation A pittifull consequence For this is to argue from the Generall to Speciall as if you should say It is a colour therefore it is blacke there being many colours besides blacke Learne then that Change is a generall word and there are divers kindes thereof of Substance by Generation and corruption of Quality by Alteration of Quantity by Augmentation and Diminution of Place by Lation Now he that affirmeth a Change doth not presently affirme Change of Substance for it may be some other either of Quality or Quantity or Quantity or Place The Fathers therefore speaking of a Change in the Sacrament may as well meane a Change of Alteration in the Vse and Uertue of the Elements as of Substance by way of Transubstantiation And so for ought the Fathers say Transubstantiation may still be a brat of the Lateran Councells disputed of perhaps before but neuer beleeved as an Article of Faith till then N. N. I allow no authority after 600. yeares Ergo I acknowledge the next 1000. to be contrary in this and all other controversies betwixt vs. I. D. To speake plainely I allow no Authority at all as Infallible but only that of Christ and his Apostles Those that afterwards succeeded were all of them subiect vnto errour and cannot be the ground of our Faith as I haue elsewhere answerably demonstrated Howbeit those of the first 600 yeares wee reverence more and rather admit then those of the 1000 following because they were freer from errour as liuing neerer the Apostles times and before the first discouery of Antichrist which was about the yeare 607. when Boniface the third purchased of that bloudy tyrant Phocas the title of Vniversall Bishop and with it the supremacy over all Churches Whereof his predecessor Gregory the great seemed to prophecy when writing against Iohn B. of Constantinople for vsurping that title he gathereth from thence that the times of Antichrist are at hand After which discouery although errours every day crept in apace yet wee yeeld you not that all your opinions instantly and at once leapt into the Church For as Rome it selfe was not built in a day so neither was that huge heape of Romanish impieties raised in one age It was a good while after this before Transubstantiation began to appeare Damascen in the East not contenting himselfe with the old language of the Church fell a coyning of new Phrases yet reached not home to Transubstantiation A hundred yeares after Amalarius in the west maintained in plaine tearms that the simple nature of Bread and wine is turned into a reasonable nature to wit of the body and bloud of Christ. And herein was he seconded by Paschasius Radbertus and others Yet could they not carry it so clearly but that they were mightily opposed by the most famous writers in their times whose names you haue in mine Answer But specially by Bertram vnder Carolus Calvus of whom Turrian the Iesuit thus to cite Bertram what is it other then to say the heresie of Calvin is not new And a good time afterwards againe by Berengarius on whose side many disputed both by word and writing and those not of one nation only but English French and Italians as Mathew of Westminster saith But all these Antichrist who was now in his height bare downe and at length anno 1215. vnder Innocent the third in the Lateran Councel was the Idol set vpon its base and adored So lately with so much adoe was your doctrine of Transubstantiation brought in and established N. N. For 900. yeares was no outward face of a Church in England but the Catholike In which it were vncharitable to say that none knewe the meaning of Scriptures and Fathers as well as we or all liued in ignorance till the true light came in with Luther Yet in this last age England hath yeelded many learned men among others an vnkle of yours and Master of Arts who left all his hopes for his conscience and would not bee perswaded to returne to his great possibilities which
deserueth with no other then equal disdaine and contempt For it hath abundantly beene manifested to the world that as in the goodnesse of our cause wee are every way superiour vnto you so in all kinde of learning both Humane and Divine wee are no way inferiour to the best of you Howbeit seeing I am put in good hope by some of your best friends that you carry a minde prepared to imbrace the truth if at any time it shall bee discouered vnto you and your selfe haue freely professed vnto mee that your meaning is not any way to contest with me but only to be instructed by me I am content laying aside all advantages whatsoever to enter the lists with you by framing vp a short yet full answere to endeauour your best satisfaction God grant that as it is intended so it may redound first to his glory and then to the reducing of your straying soule from the servitude of Babylon into the liberty of Ierusalem which is from aboue and the right Mother of all true Beleeuers N. N. Catholike grounds for the Article of the Real Presence I. D. This title prefixed vnto your Writing intimateth that you craue resolution in the article as you terme it of the Real Presence and the Grounds thereof For the better performance whereof and to cleare the way of all rubs before vs you may be pleased to know that we denie not either the Presence or the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament Not the Presence For seeing therein his Body is delivered receaued eaten as the Scriptures testifie and that can no way be deliuered receaued eaten which is every way absent we cannot but beleeue with the heart confesse with the mouth that Christ is present Nor the Reall presence For seeing Eating betokeneth our Vnion and Incorporation with Christ whereby we are so closely joyned and joynted vnto him that wee are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones certainely vnlesse wee will question either the power of Faith or whether God be able to worke such an effect we cannot well doubt but that the Presence is True and Real not Imaginarie and Fained According herevnto S. Chrysostome Christ offereth himselfe vnto vs in these Mysteries not onely to bee seene but also to be touched and felt And S. Augustin We cannot with our hand feele Christ sitting in heauen but by Faith we may touch him Agreeing therefore in the Thing that there is a Real Presence wherein lies the difference betwixt vs It lies partly in the Manner of Presence and partly in the kinde of Change whereby the Presence is wrought As touching the Manner of Presence wee acknowledge it to bee double the one Sacramentall the other Spirituall The sacramentall is a Relatiue Presence of the thing signified vnto the signes partly for that they are significatiue represent Christ vnto vs even as the word spoken vnto the eare represents the thing signified thereby vnto the minde and partly because they are Exhibitiue God in them offering vs his Sonne vpon condition of Faith And in regard hereof it may also well be called a Pactionall presence The spirituall is a presence of Christ vnto the Faith of the Receauer or which is all one vnto the Receauer by Faith whereby we seeke him not here on earth in with or vnder the Accidents of bread but aloft in heauen where hee sitteth at the right hand of his father For where the carcase is thither saith Christ will the Eagles resort Whence S. Chrysostome He must climbe vp on high whosoeuer commeth to this Body And S. Augustine How shall I convay my hand into heauen that I may hold him sitting there Send thy faith thither and thou holdest him Now if any farther demand how this sacramentall and spirituall presence is wrought I answere it is done by a Change in the Elements of Bread and Wine By a change I say yet not of their Nature and Substance but of their Vse and Vertue For they are now no longer common but consecrated Bread and Wine ordained by Christ to bee effectuall symbols and Pledges of our Vnion and Communion with his Flesh and Bloud So saith Theodoret The visible symbols hath hee honoured with the name of his Body and Bloud not changing their nature but adding grace vnto nature And so the rest of the Fathers But all this little contents you except withall we yeeld you a Corporall and Locall Presence of Christ vnder the Accidents of Bread and Wine and that by way of Transubstantiation Transubstantiation a terme as lately devised so also inconvenient Lately deuised for it is but foure hundred yeares old or thereabouts bâ—ing forged in the Lateran councell vnder Innocent the third Inconvenient for properly it imports a Productiue kinde of Conversion by which one Substance is produced out of another or whereby one Substance is turned into another such as was the turning of Water into Wine by the power of Christ at Cana in Galilee But you vnderstand thereby an Adductiue kinde of Conversion by which as Bellarmine defineth it the Body of Christ which before was only in heaven is now also vnder the Accidents of Bread So that more fitly it might haue beene tearmed Cession or Succession or Substitution or Translocation or some such like rather then Transubstantiation the meaning you giue vnto it being no other then a succeeding of Christs Body into the roome of Bread vpon the abolishing of the Substance thereof Yet is it not so much the Newnesse and Inconvenience of the terme as the Impietie of the Doctrine intended thereby which we condemne For it crosseth the truth of Scripture ouerturneth the Articles of Faith destroyeth the Nature of a Sacrament gainesayeth the perpetuall consent of antiquity and implieth in it innumerable contradictions all which God willing shall in due place be demonstrated In the meane season hauing thus briefly stated the Question I come now to examine the particulars of your Writing and whether the passages you quote in such abundance reach home to that Corporall and Locall Presence which you hold or passe no farther then that Sacramentall and Spirituall Presence which we maintaine N. N. The first ground that Catholike men haue for these and all their mysteries of Christian Faith that are aboue the reach of common sense and reason is the Authority of the Catholike Church by which they were taught the same as Points of Faith revealed from God I. D. If by the first Ground you vnderstand the first introduction vnto Faith I grant the Authority of the Catholike Church to be the first ground that by it wee are taught the same But if thereby you meane as vndoubtedly you doe that highest Principle into which all the Mysteries of Faith are finally resolued and by which the Mind is staied and freed from farther doubting I deny the Catholike Church so to be the first ground For as Bellarmine truly writeth Faith beginneth from
called his bloud What words can bee more plaine And yet againe the Bloud of Christ cannot seeme to be in the cup when wine is wanting to the cup whereby the bloud of Christ is declared Athanasius He distinguished the spirit from the flesh that wee might learne that the things hee spake are not carnall but Spirituall For how many men would his Body haue sufficed that it might be the food of the whole world But therefore hee made mention of his ascension into heaven that hee might draw them from corporall vnderstanding and then might vnderstand his flesh whereof he spake to be meate from aboue the Heavenly and spirituall food which he would giue Here expresly he reiecteth the Corporall eating of Christs Body and acknowledgeth none other but that which is spirituall Eusebius Bishop of Cesaâ—ia Our Saviour and Lord first and then all the Priests that haue followed in all nations celebrating the spirituall divine service according to the ordinances of the Church signifie vnto vs by the Bread and Wine the mysteries of his body and bloud If they signify them they are not the same Macarius They knew not that in the Church Bread and Wine was to be offered as the anti-type of his flesh and bloud and that those who partake of the visible bread spiritually eat the flesh of the Lord. A knot of arguments Bread Wine are offered they are Anti-types of Christs Flesh and Bloud they are receiued of vs and the eating of Christs flesh is spirituall Your Cyril of Hierusalem As the Bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is no more common bread but the body of Christ so this holy ointment is no more bare and common ointment after it is consecrated but the gift of Christ. Not common bread saith hee yet bread and the body as the Ointment is the Grace of Christ. But Grace it is not by conversion into it for it remaineth ointment still but by accession of Grace vnto it Ambrose speaking of the miracles of the Prophets who changed the Nature of things and comparing therewith that which is done in the Sacrament as being nothing lesse at length concludeth It is no lesse to giue new natures vnto things then to change their natures plainely intimating that in the Sacrament Nature is not changed but some thing is added aboue Neture Wherefore else where hee saith in expresse tearmes If there bee so great force in the word of the Lord that they should beginne to bee what they were not how much more operatiue are they that they bee what they were and yet be changed into another thing Lo bread and Wine are changed yet remaine what they were changed therefore not in substance but in vse and signification Saint Basil in his Liturgy for him you make the author thereof He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of thy Maiesty on high who shall also come to render vnto every one according to his workes But hee hath left these Memorialls or monuments of his healthfull passion which wee set forth according to his commandement Hee is gone and hath left vs Memorialls of himselfe Ergo himselfe is not here For remembrance is of things past not present Gregory Nazianzen Now we shall bee partakers of the Passeouer but as yet in a figure though more cleare then in the old Law for the passeouer of the Law I will not be a fraid to say it was but a more obscure figure of a figure The Passeouer therefore in proper speech is not a figure of the Lords Supper but both of them are Figures of the death of Christ. Gregory Nyssen declaring the change of Water in Baptisme expresseth it by three similitudes of an Altar which being dedicated vnto Gods Worship of a common stone is made a holy table of Bread in the Eucharist which by Consecration is no longer common bread but the Body of Christ and of a Priest who of a vulgar and ordinary man is by the blessing made a teacher Prelate of divine mysteries Bread therefore is no more transubstantiated then Water in Baptisme the stone of the Altar or the Priest Cyril of Alexandria Doest thou say that our Sacrament is the eating of a man and doest thou Vrge our minde vnto the grosse thoughts that beleeued so and doest thou attempt with humane thoughts to handle those things which cannot bee receiued but only with a pure and exquisite faith The Flesh of Christ therefore is not eaten with the mouth for that were to eate a man but only with a pure Faith Epiphanius After he had given thankes he said This of mee is that and wee see that it is not equall nor like neither to the incarnate image nor the invisible Deity nor to the lineaments of his members For this is oblong or of roule fashion senselesse as concerning power If it bee vnequall to Christ and void of Sence then is it not Christ. Saint Chrysostome before consecration wee call it bread but Divine grace through the ministry of the Priest sanctifying it it is freed from the name of bread and counted worthy of the appellation of the Lords body although the nature of bread continue in it Behold the nature of bread remaineth after Consecration and yet it is called the Body of Christ. And againe If therefore it be dangerous to convert vnto private vses these sanctified vessels in which the true body of Christ is not but the mystery of Christs body is contained how much more the vessels of our body which God hath prepared to be an habitation for himselfe ought wee not to giue way vnto the Divell to doe in theÌ„ what he pleaseth Not the Body but the mysteries are contained in the vessels if so what becomes of your Reall presence Hierom The wicked nor eate the flesh of Iesus nor drinke his bloud But they eat and drinke the Eucharist Ergo it is not the Flesh and Bloud of Christ. Againe Wee may eate of that Sacrifice which is wonderfully made in commemoration of Christ but of that which Christ offered vpon the Altar of the Crosse no man may eate The Sacrifice then of the Sacrament is not that of the Crosse and the Body offered on the Crosse is not eaten in the Sacrament Saint Augustine The Apostles ate the Bread the Lord Iudas the bread of the Lord against the Lord. Againe He that disagreeth from Christ neither eateth the Flesh of Christ nor drinketh his Bloud although he daily receiue the Sacrament of so great a thing to iudgement Obserue the Bread of the Lord not that which is the Lord and the Sacrament of Christs Flesh and Bloud not his Flesh and Bloud So againe you shall not eate this body which you see nor drinke that bloud which my crucifiers shall shed I haue commended vnto you a Sacrament which spiritually vnderstood shall quicken you And yet againe
vntill Q. Elizabeth of blessed memory being advanced to the Crowne hee returned into England where hee was according to his worth soone after preferred to the Bishoprick of Salisbury Now if so obscure a man as your vnkle liuing but as a serving Priest beyond seas doe so much strengthen you I hope the example of so profound a Clarke and so reverend a Bishop and Confessour as my vnkle may much more confirme and settle me But it is high time to heare the reasons why you cannot beleeue the Fathers meaning to be as I say N. N. Your first reason some of our writers giue the same sense to the Fathers that you doe as Mason Perkins Field Covel Sir Edwin Sands Midleton Morton the now Archbishop of Canterbury I. D. Suppose all this were true yet seeing the sense I giue I haue by sundry plaine arguments demonstrated to bee the right sense the bare saying of others cannot be a sufficient reason why you should forbeare assent But what Doe all these indeed interpret the Fathers as you doe A vast vntruth vtterly incredible saue only to those whom the Romish Circe hath turned out of their wits For would any man thinke that they who so confidently alleage the Fathers against Transubstantiation should notwithstanding in their writings acknowledge that their meaning is cleane contrary to that they alleage thē for Were it not that you haue bound your Faith absolutely to beleeue what every Popish shaueling tell◠you how vnlikely soeuer it be and never to beleeue vs with what strength of reason soever we speake so absurd a thought as this could never haue entred into your mind Let vs yet examine the Particulars N. N. Mason is forced to these Words St Ambrose testifieth that imposition of hands is certaine mysticall words whereby he that is elected into the Priesthood is confirmed receiving authority his conscience bearing him witnesse that he may be bold to offer sacrifice to God in the Lords steed S. Chrysostome saith in many places there is offered not many Christs but one Christ every where being full and perfect S. Augustine saith that Christ commanded the Leper to offer sacrifice according to the law of Moses because this sacrifice the holy of holies which is his Body was not yet instituted And elsewhere what can be offered or accepted more gratefully then the Body of our Priest being made the flesh of our sacrifice And Cyril Leo Fulgentius and other Fathers haue commonly the like I. D. First these words are altogether impertinent to the matter of Transubstantiation being vouched for the Sacrifice of the Masse and therefore no way opening the meaning of the Fathers for you in that point Secondly these are not the words of Mason but the Obiection of a Papist For you are to knowe that this booke of Mason is written Dialogue-wise as a conference betweene Philodoxus the Papist and Orthodoxus the Protestant Now these words are by Mason put into the mouth of Philodoxus and are indeed obiected to vs by Bellarmin whom he calling himselfe Orthodoxus vndertaketh in that place to answere Whereby you may easily perceaue what credit is to be giuen vnto such cheating companions as your Author is who beare you in hand that the Objection of a Papist is the resolution of a Protestant Which that it may yet more plainely appeare take Masons Answer also S. Ambrose elsewhere expoundeth himselfe saying What therefore doe we Doe we not offer daily Truly we offer but so that wee make a remembrance of his death And againe We offer him alwaies or rather we worke a remembrance of his sacrifice S. Chrysostome expoundeth himselfe in the same place We offer him or rather we work a remembrance of the sacrifice What S. Augustines meaning was let himself declare Was not Christ once offered or sacrificed in himselfe And yet he is offered in a Sacrament not only at all the solemnities at Easter but every day to the people Neither doth he lye that being asked doth answere that he is offered For if Sacraments haue not a certaine resemblance of those things whereof they are Sacraments they should not be sacraments at all And for this resemblance they take the names commonly of the things themselues Therefore as after a certaine manner the sacrament of the body of Christ is the body of Christ the sacrament of the bloud of Christ is the bloud of Christ so the sacrament of Faith is Faith And else-where The flesh and bloud of the sacrifice of Christ was promised by sacrifices of resemblance before he came was performed intruth and indeed when he suffered is celebrated by a sacrament of remembrance since he ascended Thus he Whereof nothing maketh for your sense but every thing rather for the contrarie N. N. Mr Perkins writeth thus the ancients when they speak of the supper haue many formes of speech which shew a conversion S. Ambrose vseth the name of conversion and mutation S. Cyprian saith it is changed not in shape but in nature Origen saith that bread is made the body Gaudentius saith Christs body is made of bread and his bloud of wine Eusebius Emissenus that the Priest by secret power changeth the visible creatures into the substance of Christs body and bloud and that the bread doth passe into the nature of our Lords body I. D. Here Mr Perkins only reporteth the words of the Fathers but declareth not the sense of them That hee doth by and by in the words following The ancient Doctors saith he when they speake of the conversion and changing of bread vnderstand the change of vse and condition not substance In the reading of them therefore the Sacramentall change in signification and obsignation is to bee distinguished from substantiall And we are to know that for 800 yeares at least they knew not Transubstantiation but condemned it rather And all this he proues by the sayings of Cyprian Ambrose Theodoret Gelasius and others which I forbeare here to set downe because you haue them already in my answere Now if your meaning accord with this of M. Perkins I am the gladder If not it was too great boldnesse to say he vnderstood the Fathers in the same sense you doe N. N. D. Morton the Centuriators and others are plentifull in such citations and so manifest for the verity that D. Field writeth thus that the Primitiue Church thought the sanctified and consecrated Elements to bee the body of Christ. D Covel saith the Omnipotency of God maketh it his Body I. D. Quote the sayings of the Fathers they may and that plentifully But Transubstantiation or your sence they doe not nor cannot find in them for they never dreamed of it The words of Dr Field are these The manner of the Primitiue Church was as Rhenanus testifieth if any parts of the consecrated Elements remained so long as to bee musty and vnfit for vse to consume them with fire which I thinke they would not haue done to the
Body of Christ. This sheweth they thought the Sanctified Elements to be Christs Body no longer then they might serue for the comfortable instruction of the faithfull by partaking in them Here wee haue a plaine argument against Reservation and that the Fathers thought not the Elements properly to bee Christs body For had they so thought they would never haue burnt them He intimateth indeed that they thought the Elements to be the Body neither doth any deny it For as I haue shewed in my Answer they all vnderstood Christ as if he had said This bread is my Body But Bread in proper sense is not Christs Body nor cannot be as your owne Bellarmine confesseth How then Tropically only as Circumcision is the Covenant and Water in Baptisme Regeneration And so as St Augustine saith the Sacrament of Christs body is after a manner Christs body to wit Sacramentally the outward signe putting on the name of the thing Signified And whereas Dr Covel addeth that Gods Omnipotency maketh it his Body neither doth this import Transubstantiation For as you might haue learned out of my Answere no power is able to make a Sacrament and by earthly Creatures to convay vnto vs heavenly graces saue only that which is Omnipotent and Divine N. N. Sir Edwin Sands With Rome the Greeke Churches concurre in the opinion of Transubstantiation and generally in the Service and whole body of the Masse in offering of sacrifice and prayer for the dead their liturgies be the same that in the old time namely S. Basils S. Chrysostoms S. Gregories translated And another among all these nations Greece Asia Africa Ethiopia Armenia c. all places are full of Masses there be seaven Sacraments c. I. D. Ergo what That the Knight vnderstands the Fathers as you doe Ridiculous For the now Grecians are not the ancient Fathers Or thus therefore you are in the right Absurd for they are in your opinion but Schismaticks and Hereticks Yet saith the Knight they hold Transubstantiation He saith so indeed but by his leaue I much doubt thereof For the Patriarch Ieremy expresly saith that when our Saviour said take eat this is my body and my bloud the flesh of the Lord which he carried about him was not given to the Apostles to eat nor his bloud to drinke nor is now in the divine celebration of those mysteries What then Surely an extraordinary bread which yet is his Body but how saith hee a thousand tongues are not sufficient to vtter As farre as I can conceaue this they hold that the matter of the Bread still remaineth and the Body of Christ still continueth in Heaven but yet the forme or hidden qualities and properties of his body are after an vnspeakable manner derived to the Bread And because as the same Patriarch saith the better things haue the preeminence therefore is it not from thence Bread but Body And even as Iron vnited with fire becometh fire and yet the matter of Iron remaineth and Christs Body vnited with vs changeth vs into it not it into vs our nature still continuing so the secret properties of Christs flesh being imparted to the Bread by putting on this new forme it becometh Flesh and yet still retaineth the matter of Bread This in my shallow vnderstanding is the meaning of the Greeke Church in this point which as you see no way sutes with Transubstantiation But to put the matter out of all doubt the Councell of Florence held some two hundred yeares after that of Lateran plainely declareth that that Church flatly refused to yeeld vnto them therein And if so then neither doe they admit of your Sacrifice which hath no other ground then Transubstantiation Prayer also for the reliefe of soules tormented in Purgatory how can they hold not beleeuing that there is a Purgatory The rest that followeth is little to the purpose and your other author is so misnamed both in your text and margent that I cannot imagine whom you should meane Transeat Ergo. N. N. Midleton witnesseth that the Dead were prayed for in the publike Liturgies of Basil Chrysostome and Epiphanius that the Sacrifice of the Altar and vnbloudy Sacrifice were vsed in the Primitiue Church that to pray make doles and offer Sacrifice at the Altar for the Dead was a tradition of the Apostles and Fathers I. D. Still you wander out of the way For how doth it appeare from hence that Protestants vnderstand the Fathers in point of Transubstantiation as you doe But as you lead so must I follow There are two Liturgies that passe vnder the name of St Basil the one in Greeke the other lately translated out of Syriake by Andreas Masius Betweene which there is such difference that they seeme not both to haue had one Father Of these the Greeke is the prolixer and as the said Masius censureth neither doth Possevin the Iesuite mentioning it disproue thereof hath suffered much change by many alterations and additions and those superstitious too so that whosoeuer be the Author it is not now the same it was at first That which goes vnder the name of St Choysostome either is supposititious or in processe of time much corrupted In it Prayers are made for Pope Nicholas and the Emperour Alexius whereof the one liued almost fiue hundred the other about seaven hundred yeares after Chrysostome And that many things are added your Claudius Espencaeus freely doth confesse So that these Liturgies cannot be of any great authority For as for Epiphanius I cannot yet find that ever he composed any But what saith Midleton of them That the Dead were praied for in them What dead Patriarks Prophets Apostles Evangelists Confessors Bishops Anachorits and the blessed Virgin Mother And for what Not to releeue them but to glorifie God in his Servants and to profit the Church by commemoration of their vertues Thus hee which I trow is not according to your meaning He saith farther the sacrifice of the Altar and vnbloudy sacrifice were vsed in the Primitive Church Suppose so yet hee saith withall that the sacrifice of the Altar hurts vs no more then the Sacrifice of the Table doth you and the Vnbloudy sacrifice hurts you more then vs. For in your Sacrifice Bloud is offered and there is no more reason why you should call it Vnbloudy then Vnfleshy If you say because Bloud is not shed therein I say neither is Flesh broken therein Lastly he saith that Prayers Doles and Sacrifices at the altar for the Dead is a tradition of the Apostles and ancient Fathers But here your author overlasheth for he saith expresly from the Fathers not from the Apostles And addeth yet notwithstanding prayer was then made not after the Popish fashion to ease the dead of the paines and torments of Purgatory but to perswade the liuing that they are not vanished into nothing but liue and haue their being with the Lord which knocks out the braines of Purgatory And by and by This
the word Father be oftentimes vnderstood Essentially that is for the whole Godhead subsisting in all the Persons as namely when it hath reference vnto men or Angells or the rest of the creatures yet here being referred vnto the Sonne or the second Person it must needs be vnderstood Personally for the Father of that Sonne that is the first person in the Trinity True it is the Person of Christ consisteth of two natures his Deity his Humanity this humanity is a Creature as well as that of other men Yet notwithstanding seeing the Person is but one the Humane nature subsisteth not of it selfe but only in the Son of God by his Subsistance it is the first Person in the Trinity and he alone who is the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. Howbeit the Natures being not one and the same but differing he is Sonne vnto his Father not by one only but by a double Filiation As he is the Word by way of Naturall Generation begotten from all Eternity of the Substance of his Father Of his Substance whereby he is Consubstantiall and Coessentiall with him God of God Light of Light very God of very God as it is in the Nicene Creed From all Eternitie for as the Sunne cannot be without his Beame so neither could the Father ever be without his Word but as himselfe is Eternall so is his Sonne Cöeternall with him also Lastly Begotten not made as Athanasius saith but how and after what manner is incomprehensible and vnspeakable It is enough for vs to know saith Gregory Nazianzen that the Father hath begotten to himselfe a Sonne as for the rest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let it be adored with silence And seeing as Ambrose saith neither Archangells know it nor Angells haue heard it nor the world comprehended it nor the Prophets vnderstood it nor the Apostles inquired after it nor Christ taught it but said no man knoweth the Sonne but the Father nor the Father but the Sunne and he to whom the Sonne will reveale it it is our duty to surcease from further searching into this deepe mistery It is sufficient for vs by Faith simply to beleeue that the Manner whereof Reason cannot reach vnto As touching the Manhood of Christ he is in regard thereof the Sonne of the Father also yet not by way of Naturall generation or else of Adoption as all the Saints of God are but by Grace of Personall Vnion whereby being prevented from hauing any Subsistance in it selfe it hath the very Subsistance of the Word or Second Person communicated vnto it So that although as Man he be not Generatus filius the Sonne begotten yet is he Natus filius Dei borne the Sonne of God according to that of the Angell Gabriell That holy thing that shall bee borne of thee shall be called the sonne of God Now the Sonne prayeth vnto his Father first to testify that his eternall Procession and Filiation is from him and that of him he hath receiued both that individuall Vnion by which his Humane Nature is hypostatically assumpted and vnited vnto his Divine that oile of gladnesse or pretious Vnction of the Spirit wherewith hee is Habitually graced and annointed farre aboue all his fellowes Secondly to manifest his Dispensatiue and voluntary subiection vnto his Father in the forme of a Seruant wherein though he were the Sonne and cöequall with the Father yet he learned obedience as the Apostle to the Hebrewes witnesseth Lastly to giue vs an example of imitation both to whom and to whom alone we are to addresse our Prayers namely to God our Father to none other Not to pray vnto him is meere Atheisme and profanenes to pray to any besides him is Idolatry and Superstition First therefore as Christ to his so are wee to pray to our Father Our Father is the holy and blessed Trinity both by Creation and Adoption For being extrinsecall actions they are vndivided and common to them all and so not the Father only but the Sonne and the Holy Ghost together with him created and adopted vs. To the holy Trinity therefore not excluding any of the Persons are wee to pray And to this our Saviour as by his example so by his Precept also directs vs when he commands vs thus to pray Our Father which art in Heaven Shall I spend time to proue that we are to pray vnto God our Father This were but to light a candle at noone day Search the Scriptures and you shall finde it every where commanded Hath he not made all doth he not sustaine all doe we not depend vpon his goodnesse for all whatsoever either wee are or haue If the eyes of all things looke vp vnto him expecting a supply of all their needs from him should not our eyes much more be fixed vpon him The very light of reason dictates the same vnto all and requires this duty at the hands of all Even Gentiles and meere naturalists haue ever duly practised it in all their needs invoking him whom they supposed to be God yea some of the learned among them as Plato and Aristotle and others also as Proclus saith haue written bookes of this argument and in them giuen excellent precepts and directions how to pray A Giant therefore was hee and we read of no more but hee who commanded that for the space of thirty daies together no man should presume to aske any thing of any God or man saue only of him selfe Atheists and prophane wretches are all those who in their heart denying either the Being or the Providence of God refuse to pray vnto him Such as among the Gentiles were the Epicure Philosophers and among Christians some few furious Hereticks Godles and irreligious also are they who beleeuing and acknowledging both yet never privately and but seldome publikely and then very slightly perfunctorily performe this duty Hence is it that the prophet David makes the not calling vpon God the speciall character of a foolish Atheist who if not with his mouth yet in his heart denies God and despises all religion No marvaile if they want the true wisdome seeing they aske it not of him who is the only donor thereof or if they aske it that yet they haue it not because they aske it overly with the lips and not sincerely from the heart But let vs my beloued brethren follow the president of our blessed saviour and as he so let vs ever addresse our prayers vnto him that is our Father Nothing can be denied vs that wee aske of him in the name of his sonne And if evill Fathers giue not insteed of bread a stone or insteed of a fish a serpent or insteed of an egge a scorpion vnto their children how much more will our Heavenly father giue vs his spirit and together with it all good thinges if we aske them of him As to our Father so to our Father only must we pray if wee will keepe our selues to the
they were only manuscript and knowne but to a few learned men Since which time they haue beene published in print and perhaps to winne more authority vnto them mis-fathered vpon Cyril of Hierusalem For if wee may beleeue Gesner or Simler or your owne Gretzer a Iesuit sundry written copies entitle them to Iohn Bishop of Hierusalem one who liued well neere eight hundred yeares after Christ even then when the quarrell about Images and relicks was on foot Whence happily proceeded that overlashing speech that the wood of the Crosse was so multiplied as the whole world was now full of it Howsoever seeing they are come to our hands from no better places then Trent the Popes Vatican and Cardinal Perrons Library you cannot blame vs if we vehemently suspect that they haue passed through Purgatory and suffered much addition and substraction For wee are not ignorant of your Pious fraudes and holy couznages in purging of bookes not permitting them to speake what their Authors wrote but what maketh most for your owne advantage But let it be supposed for the present that your author is the right Cyril of Hierusalem and free from all corruption and if you will also that he wrote his Catechismes in his elder yeares what then is the testimonie that begiueth for Transubstantiation Forsooth that which seemeth to be Bread is not Bread but Christs body though the tast iudge it Bread And againe Vnder the shew of bread and Wine the Body and Bloud of Christ is giuen Wherevnto I answer and first to the former that the common Latine Translation reads it otherwise thus This bread which wee see is not bread so denying it to be Bread that yet hee affirmeth we see Bread Which seeming contradiction is easily accorded by Cyril himselfe where hee saith it is not simple or naked or common bread as if hee should say Bread it is yet not only bread but something else besides Even as when we deny Christ to be meere man we meane not that he is no man but that he is Man and besides that God also It is not then bread that is Prophane or Vnsanctified bread but the Body of Christ that is bread sanctified to bee a Type or Sacrament of Christs Body And although our tast iudge it to bee no more then bread yet Faith teacheth vs not to stay on bread but to mount higher even vnto the Body of Christ. I beseech you when Pachymeres saith The holy oyle is no longer called oyle for the oyle is Christ doth he meane it hath lost its nature and is transubstantiated into Christ I trow no. In like manner might Cyril say The bread we see is not bread but Christs body and yet neuer dreame of your Real Presence For in his opinion there is the like reason of both Even as saith he the bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the holy Ghost is no more common bread but the body of Christ so also this holy ointment is no more bare or common ointment after it is now consecrated but a grace which worketh the Presence of Christ and the holy Ghost To the second passage I answere that your Author whosoeuer hee bee hath rendred it captiously vnder the forme or shew or shape of Bread and Wine as if hee had meant your Accidents without substance whereas indeed Cyrils owne words are in the Type or Figure of Bread and Wine And this wee acknowledge to bee most true For in the receauing of the Bread and Wine which typically are the body and bloud of Christ wee truly and really after a spirituall manner receaue his very body and bloud also In regard whereof as he calleth bread winetypes so he maketh the body bloud of Christ their Anti-types They are commanded saith he to tast not of bread and wine but of the Anti-type the body and bloud of Christ. The body therefore and the bloud is in the bread and in the wine as the Anti-type is the type or the thing figured in the figure which I hope may be done without any Transubstantiation Certainely if wheresoeuer you read of Formes shewes or shapes you by and by conceaue of nothing but Accidents without substance it cannot be avoided but you must needs fall into dangerous errours When Saint Paul saith that Christ being in the forme of God counted it no rapine to be equall with God Neverthelesse emptied himselfe taking the forme of a servant made after the similitude of men and being found in figure as a man humbled himselfe c. What will you conclude hence that Christ is onely shew without substance and neither true God nor true Man I knowe you will not And seeing you dare not doe it in this I would advise you to beware how you coÌ„clude so in the like As for the testimonie of S. Chrysostome I answere vnto it breefly We must not beleeue our senses saith he True for they discerne nothing else but bare bread and Wine and are not capable of the mystery signified and exhibited by them To apprehend that belongeth vnto Faith and not sense Yet is not sense every way to bee discredited for we beleeue it is Whitenesse which we see and sauour which we tast yea we may safely beleeue it is bread which we take and eat Wherein then may we not beleeue sense That it is meere bread For it perceaueth not that it is sanctified and sacramentall bread But of this more hereafter Againe We must saith he simply and without all ambiguity beleeue the words of Christ saying This is my body Questionlesse we must and hee that beleeueth them not is an infidell But seeing as your selues confesse bread in proper signification is not the body of Christ neither was it Christs meaning we should beleeue it to be so To beleeue Christs words then is to beleeue them in Christs meaning which because it is not literall as we haue said it must needs be Figuratiue thus This bread sacramentally is my body But of this also more hereafter Lastly saith he He giueth himselfe not only to bee seene but also to bee touched handled and eaten This is sufficiently answered already whether to avoid tautologie I referre my selfe Only I adde that if properly we see touch tast Christ theÌ„ may we beleeue our senses contrary to that which Chrysostome saith But if we may not beleeue them then neither doe we see nor touch nor tast him properly but as himselfe interpreteth himselfe after a manner that is in a sacrament spiritually and by Faith which importeth not your Real Presence N. N. Nor only doe the Fathers affirme so asseverantly that it is the true naturall Body of Christ though it appeare to bee Bread in forme and shape and that we must not beleeue our Senâ—es herein but doe deny expresly that it is Bread after the words of Consecration as appeareth out of S. Ambrose in his booke de Sacramentis Imetandis Before the words of consecration
the worthy receauer Neither are the Fathers alwaies literally to be vnderstood when they vse the names of the Body and Bloud of Christ. For it is the common practise of them all writing of the Sacraments specially of the Lords Supper to call the signe by the name of the thing signified following therein the custome of Scripture and the example of our Saviour who as Theodoret saith changed the names and called the signe by the name of his Body So that when they say the Body is on the altar the Bloud is in the Chalice and so of the rest the meaning by this rule is the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud is there or the Body and Bloud is there Sacramentally But in vouching Irenaeus what is the reason you curtal one place and adde vnto another Meant you to play the Giant Procrustes and to shorten the one because it was too long for your bed and to stretch out the other because it was too short For whereas to those words the Eucharist of the Bloud and Body of Christ is made Irenaeus addeth immediatly by which the substance of our flesh is augmented and consisteth this you thought good to omit because it maketh directly against you For it is not the naturall Flesh and Bloud of Christ whereby our Bodies are nourished and increased Yet in the Sacrament by his Body Bloud they waxe and grow Ergo by his Symbolicall Body and Bloud the Bread and Wine still remaining Againe whereas Irenaeus saith The Eucharist consisteth of two things one earthly another heavenly you adde the earthly thing is the old forme of bread the heauenly is the body of Christ newly made vnder that forme But this is your owne Glosse and no part of the Text and such a Glosse as corrupteth the Text. For Irenaeus neuer dreamt of your Formes and Accidents without substance and his plaine meaning is that whereas before Consecration there was but one thing and that earthly namely Bread now it is made the Eucharist consisting of two things the one Earthly namely Bread the other Heauenly to wit the Body of Christ. N. N. For we doe not take these as common Bread Wine but like as Iesus Christ our Saviour incarnated by the word of God had Flesh and Bloud for our salvation eveÌ„ so we be taught that the food wherewith our Flesh and Bloud be nourished by alteration when it is consecrated by the prayer of his word to bee the Flesh and Bloud of the same Iesus Christ incarnated I. D. It is not common bread saith Iustin. What of that For hee that denies it to be common bread doth not deny it to be bread nay he confesseth it to be so though not only so by vertue of the addition of Grace vnto it If every thing that ceaseth to be common loose its nature and cease to be what it was then whosoever comes to Rome must not beleeue his eyes but thinke he is in Fairy land where things are not what they seeme to bee For there doubtlesse all things are hallowed nothing Common Iustin saith farther As the word became flesh so is bread made the body What after the same manner Then farewell Transubstantiation For the Word became Flesh by vniting it vnto himselfe hypostatically not by Transubstantiating himselfe into it In like manner therefore is bread made Body not by a substantiall change of Bread into body but by a Sacramentall vnion of the body with bread Nay saith hee but the same powerfull Word that wrought the one worketh also the other Yet this enforceth no Transubstantiation For no power is able to make a Sacrament by earthly creatures to convay vnto vs heavenly Graces saue only that which is Divine But would you see a prety tricke of legerdemaine and how your author juggles with you The words of Iustin runne not in the same order as they are set downe but thus Even so are wee taught that the food blessed by the prayer of the word of God whereby our flesh by conversion is changed c. Then which nothing maketh more against that which you intend For the consecrated Food as Iustin saies nourisheth our Flesh and Blood But the Body of Christ nourisheth them not neither to that end is converted into our substance Wherefore of necessity it must bee Bread and if bread after Consecration what is become of your new found Transubstantiation N. N. Neither hath Moyses giuen vs the true Bread but our Lord Iesus Christ himselfe the Feaster and the Feast himselfe the Eater and hee that is eaten I. D. Christ indeede is the Feast and is eaten but eaten as he is the Feast not of the Body but the Soule eaten therefore is he by the mouth of the Soule not of the body For a Spirituall meat must spiritually be receiued And more then this Saint Hierom vnderstands not For as for that he saith Manna was not the true bread it cannot be denied For our Saviour affirmeth it and in it selfe it was no more then the food of the belly Yet was it made a Sacrament both Significatiue and Exhibitiue of Christ though generally to the Iewes it was fruitlesse because they considered it carnally and vnderstood not the mystery thereof So all the Fathers Heare one Augusâ—â—â— for them all The ancients saith he while as yet the true sacrifice which the faithfull know was foreshewed in Figures did celebrate the figures of the thing figured some of them with knowledge but more ignorantly And againe Your Fathers did eat Manna in the Wildernesse and are dead for they vnderstood not that which they did eat Therefore not vnderstanding they receiued nothing else but corporall meat And yet againe The same meat the same drinke but to them that vnderstand and beleeue but to those that vnderstand not only Manna only water Neither can wee conceiue of this otherwise vnlesse wee will leaue Christ and Saint Paul at variance the one denying that Moyses giuing Manna gaue the true bread the other affirmâ—â—g that they all ate the same spirituall meat Which being so it seemes strange to mee how you can hammer your Reall Presence from hence For to reason thus is very ridiculous Moyses gaue not the body of Christ Ergo bread in the Eucharist is transubstantiated into Christs body Yet this is all I can see and vntill you shew mee better reason farther answere you may not looke from mee N. N. If you aske how it is made it is enough for thee to heare that it is made by the Holy Ghost even as our Lord made for himselfe a Body out of the Virgin mother of God and wee know no more but that the word of God is true strengthfull and almighty And againe Not as the Body of Christ came downe from heaven but because the Bread and Wine is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. I. D. This Damascen lived vpward of seauen hundred years after Christ and hath not yeares
enough to be numbred among the ancient Fathers In regard whereof as also because of those many shamefull errors and fabulous narrations every where appearing in his writings hee is one of little or no authority in the Church of God He was the first that removed the bounds of the ancient Doctors in this matter bringing in sundry new strange terms never heard of in former times the misvnderstanding of which by little and little prepared a way to that deformed monster of Transubstantiation Neverthelesse it is certaine that howsoever many of his speeches may seeme harsh and inconvenient and great advantage hath beene taken of them that way yet himselfe was cleane of another mind Let vs therefore heare what hee saith It is made saith hee by the Holy Ghost even as our Lord made for himselfe a body out of the Virgin mother If so then is it not made by Transubstantiation for Christ assuming a body turned not his Deity into it Yet was the worke of the Holy Ghost necessary for he alone is able to sanctify the Naturall element and to invest them with Supernaturall graces The same saith he of Baptisme He hath ioyned the Grace of the Holy Ghost to oile and water and hath made it the washing of Regeneration And Leo yet more fully vsing the selfe-same comparison Christ gave vnto water that which he gaue vnto his mother for the power of the most high and over shaddowing of the holy Ghost which made that Mary brought forth the Saviour hath made water to regenerate the beleeuer Whereby you see that the same power of Gods Spirit by which the blessed Virgin conceived may be emploied in a Sacrament without that change and conversion that you imagine of And that Damascen though hee aknowledged a change of the Bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ yet was not acquainted with your change may appeare by these words Because it is the manner of men to eat bread and to drinke wine with water he hath conioyned his divinity with them and made them his body and blood that by vsuall things and which are according to nature we might be setled in these things that are aboue nature Here you see hee conioyneth the Divinity with bread and wine Now coniunction is only of those things that are and haue a being Bread and Wine therefore still are If they be then are they not abolished And if they be not abolished then is Transubstantiation gone Adde herevnto that Accidents without Substance are not Vsuall things nor according to Nature and therefore not they but true bread and true Wine are the things which in Damascens judgement raise vs vp to those things that are aboue Nature But of him enough N. N. The perishing meat and pleasures of this world please me not I long for Gods Bread the heauenly Bread the bread of life which thing is the flesh of Christ the Sonne of God I. D. That Ignatius wrote an Epistle to the Romans both Eusebius and Hierom testify and that this which now passeth vnder that title may be the right Epistle I deny not Howbeit it is confessed of all that those Epistles which are granted to be his are not come vnto our hands perfect For some passages are cited out of them by some of the ancients as Hierom Theodoret and others which now are not found in them and some are manifestly corrupted and depraved as appeareth So that if Baronius and Bellarmine might challenge them of corruption in those places which make for Saint Pauls marriage and against halfe Communions I hope I haue as much liberty to challenge the place by you alleaged if it made any thing against vs. But it needs not for Ignatius speaketh not there of the Sacrament and therefore it maketh nothing to the purpose Neither doth it follow The bread is flesh Ergo by Transubstantiation N. N. We ought so to communicate with our Lords table that wee doubt nothing of the verity of his Body and Bloud seeing he said Except yee eat the Flesh of the Son of man c. I. D. Leo disputeth in this place against the Eutychians who denied the truth of Christs body and thus he argueth The Eucharist is a symboll of the body of Christ Ergo Christ hath a true body and whosoever will rightly communicate must nothing doubt thereof So reasoneth also Theodoret. For Orthodoxus demanding whether Bread and Wine were Symbols of the true body blood of Christ or no and being answered yea he thus concludes If the divine mysteries be samplars of the true body then the body of the Lord is now also true and not changed into the nature of the Divinity Hence may you see the weaknesse of your Argument Communicants may not doubt that Christ hath a true body or if you will that the true body of Christ is in the Eucharist Ergo bread is transubstantiated into body Ridiculous N. N. As therefore our Baptisme is made by reall washing with water and reall renewing of the Holy Ghost so now in the Supper of Christ it behooueth wee bee really fed with the fruit of the tree of life which is none other thing besides the flesh of Christ. I. D. If we yeelded Euthymius vnto you the matter were not great For he liued vpward of eleven hundred yeares after Christ and your owne Chronologers place him after Gratian and Peter Lombard Yet what saith hee It behooueth that in the supper wee be really fed with the flesh of Christ. Really fed Who doubteth of it But you are to know that Reall doth not necessarily import your Carnall manner For Spirituall is also Reall vnlesse you will say a spirit is no thing N. N. It is a remembrance of Christs death by the presence of the body which died It is the Body and Bloud of Christ covered from our eyes revealed to our Faith feeding presently our body and soule to everlasting life I. D. This Nicephorus also liued eleauen hundred yeares after Christ and therefore is none of the Fathers nor of any great authority Neither doth that which hee saith conclude your purpose For Christs Body may bee and is present Sacramentally and to our faith and presently feed both soules and bodies to everlasting life and yet Bread and Wine remaine still in the Sacrament Else where hee calleth the outward Elements symbolls and signes of the Passion of Christ. If symbolls and signes then not the Body it selfe N. N. They receiue not the fruit of Saluation in the eating of the healthfull sacrifice They eat the healthfull Sacrifice which surely is nothing else but the naturall body of Christ but the frute they receiue not As many men take an healthfull medicine but because their bodies bee evill affected it proueth not healthfull to them I. D. Thus you reason The healthfull Sacrifice is the naturall body of Christ Ergo Bread by Transubstantiation is made the body of Christ. How
these things hang together for my part I cannot see Would to God your selfe had taken the paines to shew it But this is your solemne fault you quote the sayings of the Fathers and leaue mee to gather your Conclusions I may well thinke because you saw no great force or strength in them And whether Gregory did favor Transubstantiation or no let it be tried by these words As the Divinity of the word of God is one which filleth all the world so although that body bee consecrated in many places at innumerable times yet are there not many bodies of Christ nor many cups but one body of Christ and one bloud with that which he tooke in the wombe of the Virgin and which he gaue to the Apostles For the Divinity of the word filleth that which is every where and conioyneth and maketh that as it is one so it bee ioyned to the body of Christ and his body be in truth one Here according to Gregory the body of Christ doth not succeed and fill vp the roome of bread after the substance thereof is abolished but the fulnesse and vertue of the Divinity which filleth the bread maketh it â—o passe into the body of Christ and so to be one body of Christ. Which how it can stand with your Transubstantiation iudge you N. N. These Hereticks admit not the Eucharists and oblations because they will not confesse that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Saviour Iesus Christ which hath suffered for our sins which the Father hath raised vp againe by his goodnesse These words alleaged by Theodoret are reported by him to be the words of St. Ignatius the Apostles scholler written in an Epistle ad Smyrnenses and therefore of greater antiquitie I. D. These words are not found in that Epistle ad Smyrnenses which is now extant Whereby you may perceaue it is true that I said the Epistles of Ignatius are not come perfect to our hands Of this Epistle saith Eusebius Ignatius when he wrote to them of Smyrna vsed words I knowe not whence taken And Hierome If you vse not his testimonies for authoritie at least vse them for antiquity And the Abbot of Spanheâ—m reckons it not among the rest of his Epistles as being doubtfull Yet for all this the credit of this Epistle shall not be questioned by mee I answere therefore the Heretikes which Ignatius meanes were Menander and the Disciples of Simon These denied that Christ was come in the Flesh and consequently that hee had Flesh. Wherevpon they reiected the Eucharist also least thereby they should be constrained to confesse that he had true Flesh. For granting the signe of a body you must also grant a true body Figure and Truth being Correlatiues whose Relation is to figure and to be figured And thus they added aloes vnto wormwood one error vnto another first denying the truth of Christs body and then that the Eucharist was the Sacrament of his body or that it was Sacramentally his body More then this cannot bee meant For I presume Theodoret would not alleage this to crosse himselfe who holdeth that Bread and Wine still remaine and argueth from them for the verity of Christs body because they are symbols of his body as is aboue declared N. N. Doth not the Evangelist Iohn say in the Apocalyps If any man shall adde vnto these things God shall adde vnto him the plagues that are written in this booke and if any man shall minish of these words of the booke of this Prophecie God shall take away his part out of the booke of life and out of the holy City and the things which are written in this booke Is this malediction or curse lesse to be feared here that we diminish not or put any thing to the words of him that said This is my body which shall be delivered for you this is my bloud of the New Testament which shall be shed for many in the remission of sinnes For when he saith This is my body wee shall put to an vnderstanding saying a Figuratiue Body or that it is spoken by a similitude when I say he saith this is my Body we shal say this signifieth my Body is it not much that we put to his words or by an evill change take from them and make a sense which so great an author God man in no place hath spoken nor at any time did ascend into his heart This man especially with many of the rest answereth M. Downe and all Protestants fully I. D. In this Authority I cannot but greatly pitty you to see how miserably you are gulled and beguiled by your Author For what was this Rupertus but a man of yesterday one that liued towards twelue hundred after Christ and a very Heretike in this point of the Sacrament For he maintained that the Eucharisticall Bread is hypostatically assumed by the Word iust after the same manner that the humane nature was assumed by the same Word This he expresseth in words as cleare as the noone day For expounding that of our Saviour The Bread which I will giue is my Flesh he saith That the eternall word by incarnation was made man not destroying or changing but personally assuming the humanitie and after the same manner by consecration of the Eucharist the same word is made Bread not destroying or changing but personally assuming Bread This he declareth elsewhere very largely shewing that Bread is made the Body of Christ not by turning it into his Flesh but because it is assumed by the Word Whence it followeth that Bread is the Body of Christ yet not his Humane or Carnall but Bready Body much differing from that which he tooke of the Virgin That yet these two bodies may be said to be One because the Person is but one or Christ is one who assumed them both so that the same Christ aboue that is in heauen is in the Flesh and beneath that is on the Altar is in Bread This grosse errour Algerus who liued in the same time with Rupertus confuâ—ed calling it as it iustly deserued a new and most absurd heresie What say you now to this good sir Is this the man who especially among the rest fully answereth Mrâ— Downe and all Protestants Doth he not as fully answere you Papists who cleane contrary to his Tenet destroy and change the bread to make it Christs body Yea but we adde vnto the Text vnderstanding it to be a Figuratiue body That is a shamelesse slander for wee place no Figure in the word bodie but litterally interpret it of Christs naturall body At least we say bread signifieth his body So wee say indeed and so say the Fathers also And to giue the true sense vnto a Text is not to adde vnto it Neither can I conceaue why it should be counted addition in vs to say This is my body Sacramentally or by way of signification more then in you to say it is so by way of Transubstantiation or
retaining the forme of bodily substance by invisible working proueth the Presence of Gods power to be there would you from hence conclude Transubstantiation I knowe you would not No more can you from this And indeed the word species which you translate Forme yea and outward Forme too though the word outward be not in the text doth not signifie shew without substance or Accident without subiect but in the writings of the Fathers vsually it signifieth the truth nature or kinde of a thing So Ambrose I see not speciem the truth of bloud speaking of the Lords Cup but it hath the resemblance which afterward repeating I see the resemblance saith he but I see not veritatē the truth of bloud Again the word of Christ changeth the species of the Elements What is that The Formes or Accidents of the Elements No for they you say remaine What then but the Elements or things thēselues And St Augustin Their meat was the same with ours but the same in signification not in specie that is in kinde So that when your Author saith it keepeth the species of bodily substance it is not necessary to render it by Forme that is Accident or Shew void of substance for you may as well turne it thus it still retaineth the nature or truth of its bodily substance N. N. This graue Father and Martyr doth plainely shew how Mr Downe hath wrested Pope Gelasius For the Popes and the Doctors of the Church did agree alwaies in matters of Faith notwithstanding the great shew M. Downe hath made to the contrary For here S. Cyprian sheweth you that this food of immortality keepeth the outward forme of the Bodily Substance but prouing that there is present a divine power which is confessed by Gelasius And therefore when Gelasius saith the nature of Bread and Wine ceaseth not to be his meaning is the outward forme of the corporall Substance And with this agree many of the Fathers which are also wrested from their true meaning as appeareth manifestly by the manifold plaine places of the Fathers by me here set downe I. D. If to neglect the Premisses and to contradict the Conclusion by the right way of answering arguments then haue you taken the right course and made vp my mouth for ever replying vpon you For whereas M. Downe as you say hath made a great shew to proue that the Fathers disagree among themselues in some points you passing by all the proofes thinke it sufficient to affirme the contrary that the Popes and Doctors of the Church doe agree Wherevpon you farther inferre that M. Downe hath wrested Pope Gelasius For although hee haue proued by the expresse words of Gelasius that the Bread is not transubstantiated because the substance thereof stil remaineth yet is the conclusion false For Popes and Doctors Gelasius and Cyprian must needs agree But questionlesse if Cyprian for for the present wee will suppose him to bee the right Cyprian doe by Forme of bodily substance vnderstand nothing else but shew without Substance it is impossible to make him agree with Gelasius For Gelasius saith The Substance or nature of Bread and wine cease not to be and Substance cannot possibly be shew without substance So to interpret is to expound white by blacke and light by darknesse and would argue extreame either stubbornesse against the truth or brutishnesse But Cyprian by Forme vnderstandeth not as wee haue shewed Accidents miraculously subsisting without Subiect but them together with the Subiect or the verity and truth of the thing And so hee perfectly agrees with Gelasius and the rest of the Fathers and all of them against Transubstantiation For as for those manifold plaine places by you here set downe I hope by this time they appeare not so plaine vnto you but are all of them fully answered and that without wresting any one of them from his true meaning N. N. Therefore though the Fathers doe sometimes call the Sacrament a Figure or Signe Representation or Similitude of Christs Body death passion and bloud they are to bee vnderstood in the like sense as those places of St Paul are wherein Christ is called by him a Figure the substance of the Father and againe an image of God and farther yet appearing in the likenesse of man all which places as they doe not take away from Christ that he was the true substance of his Father or true God or true man indeed though out of every one of those places some heresies haue beene framed by ancient heretiks against his Divinity or Humanity so doe not the foresaid Phrases sometime vsed by the ancient Fathers calling the Sacrament a Signe Figure Representation or Similitude of Christs Body exclude the truth or Reality thereof I. D. That the Sacraments by the Fathers are called Signes Figures Representations Similitudes and the like is so cleare that you cannot deny it and I feare it greeueth you much to read it in them because it maketh so directly against you Wherefore to salue all some pretty shift or colour must be devised those tearms must bee vnderstood as St Paul meaneth when he saith Christ is the Figure of his Father the Image of God and appeared in the likenesse of man For as here they deny not either the Godhead or Man-hood of Christ so neither in the Fathers doe they exclude the Body or Blood of Christ from the Sacrament And doe they not indeed Why then when Cyprian ere while said Retaining the forme of Corporall Substance did you so hastily exclud Substance and fancy to your selfe shewes subsisting of themselues without it But let vs examine this a little farther A Symbole saith Maximus is some sensible thing assumed insteed of that which is intelligible as Bread and Wine for immateriall and divine nourishment and refection And againe These are Symbols not the truth Sacraments saith Augustine are signes of things being one thing and signifying another It were no figure saith Chrysostome if all things incident to the truth were found in it And Saint Augustine againe If Sacraments haue not a resemblance or Similitude of those things whereof they are Sacraments they are not Sacraments These sayings of the Fathers plainely shew that in Sacraments they never conceiued the Figure and the Truth to be one and the same thing but that the signe is one thing and the thing signified cleane another And herevpon in expresse tearms they affirme that they are two not one The Eucharist saith Irenaeus consisteth of two things an earthly and an heauenly And Saint Augustine The sacrifice of the Church is made of two and consisteth of two things the sacrament or sacred signe and the thing of the Sacrament And it is to be noted that they speake generally of all Sacraments so as in the Lords Supper the Figure is no more the same with the Truth then it is in Baptisme And indeed vnlesse you can make Sensible and Insensible Corporall and Spirituall Earthly and
and vnheard of vntill this time and example whereof you cannot find in any writer Neither finally is the body of Christ it For that is the thing signified and by your rule the signe and the thing signified must be two differing and distinct things not the same Which also perfectly agreeth with right reason For seeing nothing is opposite vnto it selfe the signe and the thing signified are opposed one vnto another by way of Relation they being Relatiue tearmes it cannot bee that the thing signified should bee one and the same with the signe and consequently that Christs body should be a signe of it selfe The conclusion of all is that if neither bread nor the Accidents of bread nor the body of Christ be the signe in the Eucharist then there is no signe at all therein and if no signe then is the Nature of the Sacrament destroyed a signe being necessary to the constitution thereof Secondly the signe as you say ought to be visible and sensible which is very true For the Sacrament being a Representation of the Death of Christ it can no more be expressed by Insensible signes then a Picture be drawne with Invisible colours But in the Eucharist there is no sensible signe Not the bread for ceasing to be it ceaseth also to bee visible Not the Accidents of bread for though they be visible yet are they not signes as we haue shewed but only of their proper subiect Nor the body of Christ for that being covered from our sight vnder the Accidents of bread cannot be seene of vs. What Seraphicall and piercing eyes some of your Illuminates may haue I knowne not but sure I am ordinary men see it not and what they see seemes to them rather bread then flesh Your owne men confesse so much and therefore the more shame against their owne rule to make it a signe that I say which is Invisible and cannot be seene so that which is visible and may be seene Thirdly lastly you acknowledge that in every Sacrament there ought to be a Proportion and agreement betweene the signe and the 2 signified 1 thing But in the Eucharist as you order it there is no such Proportion For there is nothing that resembleth vnto vs either the Passion of Christ or the nourishment of our soules by his Flesh and Bloud or our mutuall Vnion and Coniunction in his mysticall body Wherein the Analogie and agreement principally standeth Bread indeed would every way be answerable therevnto if according to Christs institution you would suffer it to bee there For the Breaking of the one resembleth the Suffering of the other and the nourishing of our bodies by the one the nourishment of our Soules by the other and our Participation of one Bread our Vnion and Communion in the same mysticall body But you haue banisht it out of the Sacrament and therefore this Analogie also together with it Besides it there remaineth nothing but Christs body and the Accidents of bread Christs body is one and the same for he assumed not more Bodies And to seeke a similitude in an Identitie or betweene the same thing and it owne selfe is meere phrenzie It resteth therefore to make vp the Proportion that the Accidents be broken that they be composed of divers graines and grapes and that they are able to feed and nourish our Bodies or else neither is Christs passion nor our mysticall coniunction nor the spirituall nourishment of our soules by his body resembled by them But this is a foule heresie in Philosophy and whosoever affirmes it deserues to haue his braine purged with a good quantity of Hellebore For if Accidents nourish then are they turned into our substance and if so then haue wee here a stranger Transubstantiation then of bread into Christs body for that is of one substance into another this of Accidents into substance If your Monks for tryall hereof might for a while be fed with nothing else but Accidents I thinke the swaging of their fat paunches would soone put an end to the controversie and force them to confesse that nothing but substance can keepe them from staruing It may be you will say though the Accidents of bread feed not yet they seeme to feed which is sufficient Wherevnto I answere that God vseth not to mocke his Church with vaine shewes and illusions but as he truly and really feedeth our soules with the body and bloud of his Sonne so hath hee ordained true and reall Symbols and resemblances thereof Thus haue wee learned Christ and no otherwise Fourthly it gainesayeth the perpetuall consent of Antiquity And here to avoide tautology I omit all those passages of the Fathers already quoted wherein is affirmed either that bread is the body of Christ or that it is the Figure of his Body Out of both which as wee haue shewed it necessarily followes that bread remaines and that the words of Institution This is my body are to bee vnderstood not literally but tropically Neither will I alleage such frivolous broken and impertinent sentences as your Author furnished you with for your Reall Presence and Transubstantiation But among many I will select a few choice ones such as shall be pregnant and direct to the purpose For I desire to be breefe and to beare you downe not so much with the number as the weight of them Iustin Martyr affirmeth that by the sanctified foode of the Eucharist our Flesh and bloud is nourished by the change thereof and Irenaeus that the substance of our flesh is nourished and augmented thereby It is bread therefore for the true bread of Cstrist neither nourisheth our bodies nor is converted into them The same Irenaeus saith that the Eucharist consisteth of two things the one earthly the other heavenly Take away bread and there remaineth no Earthly thing therein vnlesse you will say that the Accidents are Earthly Clemens of Alexandria proueth against the Encratites who abhorred wine that our Saviour himselfe dranke it because he dranke of the blessed cup. But the argument followes not if there were only bloud in the cup and no Wine Tertullian What then he would haue bread to signify he sufficiently declared calling bread his body If bread signifies his body then is it not his body Origen That meat which is sanctified by the word of God and Prayer as touching the materiall part thereof goeth into the belly and is cast forth into the draught This cannot possibly be vnderstood of the Accidents for they are not materiall nor of the Body of Christ for that were too vnworthy of bread therefore which in the same place hee calleth the Typicall and Symbolicall Body of Christ distinguishing it from his true Body Cyprian The Lord offered Bread and the cup mixt with Wine That which is offered is Consecrated Ergo after Consecration it is Bread and Wine Againe Wee finde it was a mixt cup which the Lord did offer and that it was wine which he
Body And wee are stedfastly to beleeue that the Humane nature was so assumpted by the Deity that although they both constitute but one Person yet they still remaine two distinct Natures and each of them retaineth its Essentiall Properties If then as the Apostle saith Christ be made like vnto vs in all things sinne only excepted and our Bodies cannot bee without Dimension of length breadth and depth together with circumscription proportion and Distinction of parts one from the other and the like then neither can the Manhood of Christ be without them Neverthelesse you fancy vnto Christ in the Eucharist such a Body as is vtterly deprived of them all For thus saith your Angelicall Doctor and what he saith is the generall Tenent of the Church of Rome In the Body of Christ in the Sacrament there is no distance of one part from another as of the eye from the eye or the head from the feete as it is in other organicall bodies For such distance of parts is in the true Body of Christ but not as it is in the Sacrament for so it hath not dimensiue quantity O miserable Christ that art driven into such narrow straits that the whole bulke of thy Body should be emprisond and as it were frapt together in every little crum and point of the hoste And more true and seasonable may the complaint now be then it was of old that the Sonne of man hath not so much as a place wherein to rest his head But seeing as Thomas saith The true body of Christ hath distance of parts and the Body of Christ in the Sacrament hath not distance of parts I marvaile what should let but that I may boldly inferre the conclusion Ergo the Body of Christ in the Sacrament is not his true body Againe it is an Article of the Faith that Christ being ascended into Heauen hath quitted the earth and now sitteth at the right hand of his Father This the Scriptures testifie The poore saith Christ yee shall haue alwaies with you but mee yee shall not alwaies haue And I leuae the world and goe vnto the Father And againe Now am I no more in the world but these are in the world and I come vnto thee Hence saith St Peter The heauens must containe him vntill the time that all things bee restored And then as the Angell said This Iesus that is taken vp from you into Heauen shall so come againe as you haue seene him goe into Heauen The Fathers saith the same Origen According to his divine nature he is not absent from vs but he is absent according to the dispensation of the Body which he tooke As man shall he be absent from vs who is every where in his divine nature For it is not the manhood of Christ that is there wheresoeuer two or three be gathered together in his name neither is it his manhood that is with vs at all times to the end of the world nor is his manhood present in every congregation of the faithfull but the Divine vertue that was in Iesus Tertullian In the very pallace of Heaven to this day sitteth Iesus at the right hand of his Father Man though also God flesh and bloud though purer then ours neverthelesse the same in substance and forme wherein he ascended Ambrose Neither on the earth nor in the earth nor after the flesh are wee to seeke thee if wee will find thee Augustine Mee shall you not alwaies haue He spake this of the presence of his Body For touching his Maiesty providence vnspeakable and invisible grace it is true that he said I am alwaies with you to the end of the world But as for the flesh which the word tooke which was borne of the virgin fastned to the crosse laid in the graue you shall not alwaies haue mee with you And why Because hee is ascended into heauen and is not here there hee sitteth at the right hand of the father Cyril of Alexandria He could not be conversant with his Apostles in the Flesh after hee was once ascended to his Father And Notwitstanding he be absent in the flesh yet by that only meanes the power of his Godhead he is able to saue his Finally Gregory the Great The word incarnate both remaineth and departeth he departeh in Body and remaineth in his divinity Thus the Fathers And hence is it that so often in their writings they exhort vs not to settle our thoughts here on earth but to send vp our Faith into heauen and thither to follow him in heart whither wee beleeue him to be ascenâ—â—d in body Now what you The cleane contrary that the Body of Christ is still present with vs here on earth and as ordinarily as he is aboue in heauen Nay more then so For there he is confined circumscribed to one place as also he was here in the daies of his Flesh when he liued among the Iewes but now by your Doctrine he may be and is in more then a thousand places at once even when and where you will For you haue power to reproduce him as often as you list then to keepe him with you as long as you please at least vntill the mouse devoure him or he begin to corrupt and putrifie But is it impossible will you say for the Manhood of Christ to be present in many places at once Impossible if we may beleeue the Fathers neither can you produce any one of them that saith the contrarie If the argument of the Fathers aboue quoted be good Hee is in heauen Ergo he is not in earth then can hee not at one time bee both here and there too And doth not St Cyril expresly say he could not be coÌ„versant with his disciples in the Flesh after he was once ascended to his Father St Augustine likewise Christ according to his bodily presence could not be at once in the Sunne and in the Moone and on the crosse And againe The Body of Christ in which he rose againe can bee but in one place but his truth is every where diffused Vigilius a blessed Martyr and Bishop of Trent The flesh of Christ when it was in the earth was not in Heaven and now because it is in hauen certainly it is not in earth And by and by Forsomuch as the word is every where and the flesh of Christ is not every where it is cleare that one and the same Christ is of both natures that is every where according to the nature of his divinity and contained in a place according to the nature of his humanity Finally Fulgentius One and the same sonne of God having in â—â—m the truth of the divine and humane nature lost not the properties of the true Godhead and tooke also the properties of the true Manhood one and the selfe same locall by that he tooke of Man aâ—d infinite by that he had of his Father
one and the very same according to his humane substance absent from heauen when he was in earth and forsaking the earth when he ascended to heauen And a little after how could he ascend but as a locall and true man evidently employing that he cannot be a true man who is not Locall and circumscribed in one place And indeed if the Body of Christ be aboue in Heauen and in many places here on earth at one time as at London Paris Rome else-where and not in the severall spaces betweene either it will follow that there are as many distinct bodies of Christ as there are places wherein it is or that his Body is many hundred miles off and separated from it selfe either of which is most vnreasonable and absurd For as Saint Paul saith there is but one Lord and heauen and earth are many miles asunder Besides it would follow that the Body of Christ is out of that which containeth it consequently that that which containeth it containeth it not which is a meere contradiction Nay if that Mathematicall principle be true as vndoubtedly it is that those bodies which touch the same point doe also touch one the other it will necessarily follow that the Priests fingers which touch the Body of Christ in London must needs at the same time touch his fingers who holdeth the same in Rome And so shall not only the Body of Christ be in divers places at once but by vertue thereof those things also that are many hundred leagues a sunder shall actually touch one the other Vnto these and the like absurdities for the saluing of them you haue nothing to oppose saue only the Omnipotence of God to whom nothing is impossible But withall you forget that this hath beene the ordinary refuge of the heretiks who as Tertullian saith faine what they list of God as if he had done it because hee could doe it whereas we should not because hee can doe all things therefore beleeue he hath done it but rather search whether he haue done it or no. True it is God is omnipotent but by doing what he will as Augustine saith not by suffering what he will not Whence also some things he therefore cannot doe because he is omnipotent He cannot deny himselfe saith Saint Paul and it is impossible that he should lye And This impossibility saith Ambrose is not of infirmity but of maiesty because his truth admitteth not a lye nor his power the note of inconstancie So that whatsoever is repugnant to the Nature and Truth of God because he is Almighty he cannot doe And such are all contradictions both the parts whereof cannot possibly be true at once but if the one be true the other must needs be false Hence it is held for an vndoubted Maxime in Schooles that God cannot doe those things that imply contradiction the reason because so he should be false himselfe Now this Doctrine of yours implies in it innumerable contradictions as by and by shall be demonstrated among the rest this that the same Body at the same time shall in heauen haue shape quantity distinction of parts circumscription and all other essentiall properties of a Body and yet in the Sacrament shall be destitute of them all Both of which if vpon presumption of Gods Omnipotence you will needs still beleeue I must plainely tell you that to build on his Power with impeachment of his Truth is not Faith but Infidelity Thirdly it destroyeth the Nature of a Sacrament For proofe whereof I will vse no other grounds then those which your owne men and Bellarmine in particular haue laid for me To the constitution of a Sacrament of the new Testament three things among sundry other saith he are necessarily required First there must be a Signe that is as Saint Augustine defineth it a thing which besides that shape or kinde that it offereth unto our sences of it selfe causeth some other thing to come into our minde Whence it followeth both that the Signe is something knowne and that it is a thing differing from that which it signifieth or whereof it is a signe Secondly that this signe must be sensible or visible For a Sacrament is intrinsecally and essentially a ceremony of Religion and a Ceremony is an externall act Wherefore the Fathers every-where teach that Sacraments are certaine Footsteps or Manuductions vnto things spirituall Invisible Thirdly that the signe must hold due analogie and proportion with the thing signified according to that of S. Augustin If Sacraments had not a certaine similitude of those things whereof they are Sacraments they were altogether no Sacraments And hence is it that the Fathers call them Anti-types that is things of like Forme and liuely expressing that which they present These things being thus granted out of them I frame this argument That which destroyeth the signe in the sacrament by confounding it with the thing signified making it invisible and insensible and holding no analogie or proportion with that whereof it is a signe destroyeth the nature of a Sacrament But your doctrine of the Reall Presence by Transubstantiation doth all this Ergo it also destroyeth the nature of the Sacrament The Major or first Proposition is by you as wee haue now shewed yeelded vnto vs and cannot bee denied The Minor or second Proposition I thus proue in every particular And first that it destroyeth the signe For if any remaine either it is bread or the Accidents of bread or the body of Christ for there is not a fourth But bread it cannot bee for the Element is not a signe vntill it be consecrated and bread is no sooner consecrated but forthwith it ceaseth to be And if it be not then neither is it a signe for of that which is not nothing can be affirmed Againe the Accidents of bread as Colour Savours measure and the like are not it For besides that it is impossible that Accidents should haue any subsistence without their subiect the Being of an Accident being to be in its subiect it is very strange and vnconceauable if they could how the meere Accidents of bread should represent and signifie the body of Christ. The rather because the signe was ordained by Christ to bee a helpe vnto our Faith and to lead vs as it were by the hand vnto the thing signified Whereas the Accidents of bread without the substance thereof are rather lets and hinderances vnto vs and with no more reason can bee called signes of Christs body then a darke cloud that keepeth off the light of the Sunne from our eyes may bee called a signe or Representation of the Sunne Adde herevnto that such a signe is required as is materiall and elementall according to that of S. Augustin The word being added to the element it is made a Sacrament So Hugh so Bellarmin so the rest Now to call Accidents by name of Elements is a new straine of Philologie vncouth