water and the Holy Ghost Why was it not that he had not a mind to avow that Baptism has a force to justifie and that it is necessarie for the salvation also of Children as you may clearly see in these following passages of S. Paul and S. Peter You were given to lust drink covetous but yow are washed but you are sanctified to wit by that washing or Baptism but you are justified in the spirit of God 1 Cor. 6. v. 11. S. Cyprian lib. 2. ad Donat confesses what he was afore Baptism and what he presentlie became after Baptism and what Christianity gave to him calling Christianismus his Christning Mors criminum vita Virtutum The death of Crimes and life of Virtues And Peter 1 Cap. 3. v. 21. Quod nos nunc similis formae salvos facit Baptisma The like figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us as if he should say As the Waters of the deluge raising the Ark and with it Noë and his people did not only declare but saved them really from death so Baptism saves us makes us just and holy and does not only declare us to be such as Luther with other Hereticks would have it understood Also ad Ephes 5. v. 26. He loved his Church Purifying her with the Laver of water and in the word of life Wher you see the word of Life added to the matter viz. of waeter sanctifies and purifies the Church from sin Obj. 6. The flesh of which Christ speaks when he sayes My flesh is meat indeed is a spiritual food but the Body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a spiritual food but only his body on the Cross then he meant of his Body on the Cross and not his Body in the Eucharist when he said My flesh is meat indeed Answer I deny the minor proposition and say that the flesh or bodie of Christ in the Eucharist is a spiritual food called so without a figure because producing by a supernatural operation which force it hath from its union with the divine nature grace or sanctification in us it is realy food and meat indeed to the soul without a figure So that FOOD is Genus to corporal and spiritual food To strenghten or increase Life is Genus or the more universal term to strenghten by changing into the thing strenghtened and to strenghten not by changing but by Producing grace by which we are strenghtened are the two differences or the less universal terms The first makes Corperal food the second Spiritual The bare sign is no meat because not it but the act of Faith only btings forth Sanctification as Protestants hold in them Moreover I say that Christ's Flesh broken and his blood shed on the Crosse was not spiritual food indeed because they were never to coëxist actually with our spiritual feeding as Christ's flesh in the Eucharist does and therefore is meat indeed The food to be food indeed to one and the feeding must be joined together but when we now believe Christ's death it is not present but past and therefore is not food to the believer but when we believe and take by the mouth of our Body Christ's flesh it is there joyned with our spiritual eating producing Grace strenghtning and encreasing our spiritual life and therefore is meat indeed Obj. 7. That doctrine which opposes sense and reason and seems to imply contradictions is to be rejected if a more suitable and rational sense can be found out for those passages which seem to prove it I Answer 1. What if the Sabellians not conceiving how the Paternity should not be communicated to God the Son as well as the Divine Essence since the Paternitie and the Divine Essence are one and the same thing should have said it's a more suitable and rational sense of passages which seeme in scripture to say there are three distinct persons in the Divine nature that there is only one persone having three different functions called Father as he creats Son as he redeems and Holy Ghost as he sanctifies Would this prettie doctrine please Mr. de Rodon No neither can his conceit in the matter of the Eucharist be applauded by Romanists Answer 2. Our doctrine in the Eucharist neither opposes sense nor reason as I have shewn Chap. 1. Sect. 1. Nor seems so much to imply contradiction as the Mystery of the B. Trinitie which will be seen better in the next chapter Nor is the way he and other Protestants have found out rational to explane the passages we bring for our Doctrine as I hope will appear to the impartial and serious considerer of our proofs in the first Chapter To end this Chapter remember again that Christ by the occasion of the Jews seeking him more for bread to eat then for his miracles Io. 6. v. 26. by which miracles he laboured to perswade them to believe in him or that he was the Son of God called himself bread that doth not perish and spoke first of spiritual eating by faith that he might advance his hearers by litle and litle to this mysterie of a Real eating of his Flesh teaching them first what they ought to do to merite this true and heavenly Bread saying Work or seek earnestly not the food that perishes but which remains to eternall life c. Adding This is the work of God that ye believe as if he should say This is the work of God That ye believe that I am come from Heaven and that I am the Son of God which if you once believe you will not stumble at what I shall say to you here-after concerning the real eating of my flesh and drinking of my Blood nor be at all amased as appeared in the Apostles when actually viz. at the last supper I shall give it you CHAPTER III. Of Transubstantiation SECTION I. Transubstantiation is proved IS it not prettie to hear Mr. Rodon with some other Protestants speak of one of the darkest mysteries of our faith as of a natural thing and when their weak reason looking only to nature cannot reach it conclude as it were with triumph in the Eucharist there 's no transubstantiation Would that man be thought a good Christan who because it thwarts his grosse understanding to conceive a father to beget a son by speaking should conclude that the divine word is not the son of the eternal Father or a good divine who because it 's true to say in the B. Trinity that the essence is communicated to the son and the peternitie is not communicated to the Son should conclude that the essence and the paternitie are not the same thing Here I remark in passing that Mr. Rodon's Philosophy unwarilie touches the mysterie of the most B. Trinity in his 4. chap. where numb 12. for an example of a plurality of things really different he assignes the three Divine persones and concludes from thence that a real difference of things does not infer Division But he should have taken notice that the
were still called Blind by that way of speaking If yow ask me what he invited them to drink when he said to his Disciples Math. 26. Drink ye all of this I answer be invited them to drink a cup of Blood for the Wine was converted into Blood afore they drunk the cup for the cup's being the cup of his blood was the reason he brought to move them to drink it now we do not bring the reason to move a man to do a thing after he has done it but before Also the demonstrative particle This as it does not demonstrate a thing that is not yet neither does it demonstrate a thing that is past but joyned to a verb of the present tence with a full sense it demonstrates a thing present If Chrict had meant of what they had drunk afore he would have said That was and not Tkis is so you may suppose he did not give them the Cup afore he had ended his speach But why does S. Mark chap. 14. Set the consecration after the drinking Answer it 's a figurative speach we call Histerologia when we relate first that which was done last As when S. Math. in the 27 chap. relates the Resurrection of the bodies of the Saints afore the Resurrection of Christ who nevertheless rose first Again by the same figure S. Math. Chap. 11. from the 2 verse to the 20 relates concerning Iohn Bap. the things that fell out afore the mission of the Apostles which mission he had related before in the 10. Chap. Nay I hope Mr. Rodon will not have our Saviour to have consecrated or blissed the wine by saying this is my blood when it was in the disciples stomacks Mr. Ro. urges When a thing is converted into another wee cannot see the property of the thing converted but only that into which it is converted Answer In a natural conversion which is not a Sacrament I grant in a supernatural which makes a Sacrament I deny for the Eucharist being a signe of our spiritual nourishment it is such by the species of Bread which nourishes the body Also the property of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist which is to nourish the soul by Grace being an object of saith is seen by the understanding but not by the eye of the Body so Abraham saw by faith that those who appeared to him Gen. 18. like men were Angels For brevities sake to his saying In everie substanstial conversion c. Answer in every substantial conversion which is not of the whole substance there must be a subject to passe from on substance to another I grant if it be of the whole as Transubstantiation I deny for God's almighty power is able to change the matter as well as the form of a thing when it pleases him Neither is it a Creation because the accidents are something common to both and the Body of Christ was before existent To his saying that Transubstantiation destroyes the nature of Accidents this I deny because the nature of an accident is not to inhere actually but to have an exigency or an innate appetite of inhering which a substance hath not because naturally a human nature demandes a human subsistance would Mr. Rodon have said that there is a human person in Christ To his saying that Transubstantiation destroyes the nature of Sacraments that I also deny and shew the contrary Because the Body of Christ as it is united to the species of Bread is the Sacrament which hath not only an absolute being but also a relative Sacramental and significative being as Mr Ro. requires for as the species of Bread represent and signify to us bread which nourishes the Body so do the same species by the Consecration of the Host represent to us the Body of Christ which nourishes the soul by the grace it produces in it Thus you see 1. In the species an Analogie or relation to the thing signified viz. Nourishment 2. A double being of the Sacrament the absolute being in the Bodie of Christ and the Relative being in the Species And so you see that Transubstantiation does not any wise destroy the being of a Sacrament ar Sign Note that the substances of Bread alone or Wine alone are not signs for substances do not fall under or affect our senses but by their accidents so the whole force of signifying is in the species which move our senses and consequently 't is not required that the formal signs be such that they may nourish our Bodies to save the likeness between the Sacrament and nourishment signified by it It 's enough that the species signifie nourishment in the Eucharist as they did afore in the Bread in the Bread nourishment of the Body by Bread in the Eucharist nourishment of the Soul by the Body of Christ If you say the Body of Christ under the species cannot nourish the Soul I answer Materially and corporally I grant Effectively and Spiritually producing grace in it I deny To Mr. Ro. saying The Council of Trent commands the adoration of the Eucharist And therefore the accidents of Bread and Wine are not the Sacrament of the Eucharist Answer The accidents are not a part of the Sacrament I deny they are not the whole Sacrament I grant The Sacrament is said to be adored when the cheif part of it the Body of Christ united to the Divinity is adored for the species they are only adored per accidens as the garment of Christ by him who adored his person To his saying a Sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace But in the Eucharist the Body and Blood of Christ are not visible Therefore in the Eucharist they are not the Sacrament Answer I distinguish the minoâ— They are not a visible sign alone I grant joyned to the species I deny Neither do we say That the Body and Blood alone are the Sacrament nor the species alone but the Body and Blood joyned to the species are the Sacrament and that whole is a visible sign To his saying that nothing can be both the sign and thing signified Answer Nothing can be the sign and the thing signified in the same manner in which it is the sign I grant in an other manner I deny Did not the Angel give the sheepheards for a sign of our Saviour Born that they should find a Child in a manger who was the Saviour himself He in the qualitie of a Child in a manger is a sign of himself as the Born Saviour So Christ in the Eucharist may be a sign of himself on the Cross Also a loafe of Bread exposed in a window is a sign of it self to be sold But to give you more the Body united to the accidents of Bread is a visible sign not of Christ's Body but of the invisible grace which this Sacrament produces in the Soul so the sign and the thing signified are different CHAPTER IV. Against the real presence of Christ's Body in the Host or consecrated Wafer SECTION I. A
themselves and take notice of them when they hear them pronounced by others Courteous Reader if in my Proofs and Solution of Mr. Rodon's greater objections or in my remarks here and there and notes which are the seed of Answers fore-running and short Solutions of difficulties you your self see the Solution of many of his petty instances don't wonder that for brevities sake I pass them when I come to them as equivalently answered already An answer to Monsieur de Rhodon's FVNERAL of the MASSE The first Chapter Concerning the exposition of these words THIS IS MY BODIE WE say these words This is my Body prove clearly the real presence of Christs Body in the Host Because they ought to be taken in their proper sense in which they would prove it clearly by the grant of our adversaries who therfore say they are to be taken figuratively Now that they ought to be taken here in their proper sense I prove 1. positively SECTION I. Positive Proofs 1. WHen in a speach a word is indifferent of it self to be taken in the literal or figurative sense you must look to the words that follow in the same speach if they express the propertie of a figure the word is to be taken figuratively if the propertie of the real thing then the word is to be taken in the literal sense For example when one tells me I have seen the King I know not yet what he means whether his person or picture but when he adds set in a frame of Gold I know he means his picture because 't is the propertie of a picture to be set in a frame If he adds speaking with the Chancellor I know he means the King's person because 't is the propertie of a person to speake with another Just so when Christ sayes Luk. 22. v. 19. This is my Bodie I know not yet what he means whether his Real Body or only a figure of it But when he adds which is given for you I know he means of his true Body because 't is the propertie of a true Bodie to be sacrificed for us 2. I prove again that these words of Christ This is my Body are to be taken in the literal sense by the protestant principle which is this When two passages relate to or speak of the same matter in Scripture the obscurer passage is to be explaned by the clearer But these two passages relating to our Lord's Supper This is my Body and Do this in remembrance of me This latter is the obscurer and that former the clearer then this latter ought to be explaned by that former that is to say to the sense of that former viz. Christ having changed a piece of Bread into his Body by his almightie word sayes there to his disciples Do ye for the food of others souls what ye have seen me do for the food of yours Change ye lykewayes by pronouncing the words I have ordained for that end Bread into my Body but do it with such circumstances that people standing by may be mindful of my death and passion But the clear proposition ought not to be explaned by the obscure one thus This is my Body that is to say this is a figure only or a remembrance of my body because he said after do this in remembrance of me for the thing was now done and he had told them what it was in clear words afore he said Do this in remembrance of me He did not say this is a remembrance of me no but Do this in remembrance of me He did not speake of the substance of the thing but only of the manner of doing it By these words then in remembrance of me he only intimated that they should make at that same time a sensible expression of his passion to the people as is seen done in the sacrifice of the Masse If by This he understood a figure or remembrance then he had said do or make a remembrance of me in remembrance of me or remember me to remember me which is ridiculous Now let any indifferent and judicious man be judge if these words do this in remembrance of me be as clear to prove that in the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper is only a Figure of Christ's Bodie as these words This is my Bodie are clear to prove that the Eucharist is his true Body If you instance that as Christ said This is my Body so he said also I am a vine and consequently as the latter proposition must be taken figuratively so must also the former I answer it doth not follow there being a great disparity For we all protestants as well as Catholicks avow that propositions in the Holy Scripture cannot be taken in the literal sense if so taken they imply or intimate something contrarie to faith as this proposition I am a vine literallie taken would do For protestants as well as Catholicks believe that the Divine word hath assumed no nature but that of man then he hath not assumed that of a Vine and consequently 't is against faith to say in the literal sense Christ is a Vine But these words This is my Body taken in the literal sense imply nothing against faith no more then he who shewing you a knife sayes This is a knife for the terme This and the terme Knife suppose for the same thing and not for different natures so in Christ's proposition This is my Bodie This and Body suppose for the same thing not This for Bread but for The Body of Christ as well as the word Bodie supposes for it tho in a different way of signifieing This obscurely and Body clearly and distinctlie Here I humbly intreat the protestant reader to reflect that in the mysteries of Religion we must captivate our understanding 2. Cor. 10. v. 5. that is to say suspend it from asserting what it might judge had it nothing to rely upon but the sole relation of our senses to obey Christ God will have as an homage due to him and his veracitie this proud faculty of man which is earnest to judge of all submit to his word The assent of my understanding by which I judge a thing to be because I see it with my eyes is an assent of science which is a knowledge quite different from the assent of faith In the mean time we Christians as Christians are called not philosophers the Reasoners but the faithfull fides est as we say credere quod non vides Faith is to believe that which thou doest not see This is the praise of faith sayeth St. Aug. tract 29. in Io. If that which is believed be not seen Blessed are they said Christ Io. 20. v. 29. who have not seen and have beleived Faith is an argument or perswasion saith S. Paul of things not appearing If they appear and I assent that they are because I see them my faith ceases Science coming in with faith's destruction If you say I beleive that the Son of God became Man because