Hocus Pocus and Cheat of this Doctrine for so he is pleas'd to call Transubstantiation p. 34. I name not Luther among the great Reformers as to this Point for he agrees with Catholics as to the Real Presence tho' he differs in the Modus and with his whole heart Anathematizes and Curses the Doctrine of our Discourser under the name of Zuinglius and all his Adherents Epist contr Art Iovan Thes 27. Tom. 2. in these words We censure in earnest the Zuinglians and all the Sacramentaries for Hereticks and alienated from the Church of God And again Cursed be the Charity and Concord of the Sacramentaries for ever and ever to all Eternity Tom. Wittemb fol. 381. Now upon the best enquiry I could make concerning the Establishment of this Doctrine I found but Four tolerable good Reasons how it came to get so great credit among Christians The First is because our Blessed Saviour who is the Fountain of Wisdom and Truth did institute this Sacrament in such plain words as This is my Body That no Proposition upon Earth can be made to us in more express and positive Terms Secondly Because the Apostles did believe our Saviour spake in earnest and really meant as he said at least if we will believe the aforenam'd Justin Martyr who tells us That the Apostles in the Commentaries written by them have recorded that Jesus so commanded Thirdly Because all the Ancient Fathers who have written of the Holy Eucharist have exprest themselves so fully concerning their firm Belief of the Real Presence in a literal Sense That I defie Zuinglius and all his Works allowing me some Sense or preserving that little which I have to understand them totally in a figurative Sense And Lastly Because General Councils taking notice that some vain-glorious self-conceited Men had impudently presum'd to interpret those words of our Saviour contrary to the sense of the Apostles and Primitive Fathers and practice of the whole Christian Church had authoritatively decreed That the Judgment of the blessed Apostles and holy Fathers should be follow'd in this Matter that is That the Substance of Bread and Wine after Consecration was converted into the Substance of the Body and Blood of Christ and that the Heresie of these new Upstarts should be condemned and themselves excommunicated Now these Reasons methinks might be sufficient to shew that a Doctrine thus instituted and recommended to us might very probably be generally received among Men who own the Authority of the Institutor and Fidelity of those who being Witnesses of the Action have assured us of its meaning Nor can I perswade my self there is any Man so prejudiced and uncharitable upon Earth except those whose Charity Luther curst as to believe That so many Learned Men in such August and Sacred Assemblies should solemnly wittingly and willingly impose upon the World so pernicious and damnable a Doctrine if they themselves knew or could believe that this Doctrine was false Except some vast and wonderful temporal Interest should prevail with these Fathers and Doctors whose reputations have been high in the World thus dangerously to expose their own Souls and the Souls of all who belonged to them or depended upon them for the obtaining this supposed worldly Satisfaction A learned Protestant in his Answer to some Queries seems to have a great respect for General Councils but tells us p. 3. That Men are liable to hopes and fears and therefore we cannot depend upon them Now hopes and fears in this place relate only to Temporal Concerns which we will suppose Interest in its largest acceptation But in the name of God what Interest is this for which so much is thus desperately engaged Why truly our Answerer says nothing to it But our Discourser who hath left no Stone unturn'd but flies at all tells us at last p. 30. That it is to magnifie the power of the Priest in being able to work so great a Miracle I have already hinted how much these Fathers have been all along mistaken if this was their design But Secondly from the disproportion between the poorness of the reward and inestimable price that is paid even eternal Silvation I might most convincingly argue the impossibility of the design and fix it only in the mean and unworthy thoughts of our trifling Discourser But that I may clear these holy Fathers and Councils beyond all further doubt or dispute I do affirm this little design to have been so far from their thoughts that they have constantly declar'd this wonderful transmutation to proceed not from any power of the Priest but by the sole Omnipotency of Almighty God And because our Discourser seems to have some value for St. Augustin I shall produce his Testimony as it is cited be Consecratione Dist 2. c. 72. His words are these In the Mystery of the Body of Christ performed within the holy Church there is nothing more done by a good Priest and nothing less by a wicked one because what is wrought there is not by the Merit of him who Consecrates but by the word of our Creator and the power of the Holy Ghost for if it were by the merit of the Priest 't would not at all belong to Christ c. If St. Augustin could have prophesied that a malicious Discourser Twelve Hundred years after his death should have propos'd such a foolish Cause to have produc'd so absur'd a Doctrine in the Language of our Discourser I know not how he would have answer'd him more pertinently I shall not trouble you therefore with the Authorities of Justin Martyr Apol. 2. St. Ambr. l. de his qui mist init and several other Fathers together with General Councils particularly that of Florence de Sacram. Euch. to the same purpose but conclude that the Apostles Fathers and Councils having no design or prospect of any valuable consideration for so great a risque as their Eternal Salvation must have impos'd this Doctrine upon mankind either through gross Ignorance or meer wilful and devilish premeditated Malice But having no manner of reason to believe the first and from my heart detesting so cursed a thought as the last we will next consider what inducements they might have had from the consideration of Spiritual advantages arising from thence to the Christian World to have prest this Doctrine believing it to be true with the greater earnestness And indeed the advantages are very many and very great As First That the Eucharist is a pledge of our Salvation Secondly That we are not only by Faith but even Corporally united with Christ Thirdly That in regard of this Union the Eucharist is a Seal to us of our Resurrection Fourthly That through it we are made partakers of the Divine Nature Fifthly That by being thus truly and really united with Christ we cannot be altogether divided from such influences as proceed from Christ Sixthly That our Faith is encreased proportionable to the difficulties which encompass this Doctrine Seventhly That our Hope is raised hereby
booty with you for if this be a confutation of what was before alledged from Beza I profess I shall never quarrel with him about it nor desire any other hand than Beza's even in this very passage to express my Belief of the Real Presence of Christ's Natural Body in the Sacrament What a strange Answerer is this sure he thinks because Catholics submit their Sense and Reason in some things to Divine Revelation and the Authority of the Church therefore they have not Reason enough to judge in other Cases that three and one make four as well as two and two Next he brings in Cranmer and Ridley when he was among his Geneva Brethren I suppose and he might as well have nam'd himself and his Eminent Discourser against Transubstantiation And what if these two first were of the same opinion concerning the Real Presence with these two last It only proves that one at London contradicted himself at Geneva and the other Men ten times more learned than himself Our Answerer that he may take breath before he comes to our English Divines above-named for I perceive he finds that he is like to have a tough piece of work on 't charges the Oxford Author with disingenuity chiefly in favour of Doctor Burnets History of the Reformation Alas I am apt to believe tho' I know neither the Discourser nor this Answerer not so much as by Name but only by their Works I am apt I say to believe that this Discourser is much better acquainted with Church History than the Doctor and applies it with much more Sincerity and Truth than he hath done I confess were I worthy to advise I should counsel this Answerer to flesh himself first upon some Authors of a lower Classis for I doubt he is here over-match'd and hath got as we say a Bear by the Tooth What the Learned Historian means by the Wisdom of that time P. 58. in leaving a liberty for different speculations as to the manner of the Presence I cannot understand except that they did in that time generally believe the Real Presence as hath been before exprest but would not certainly determine the manner that is as Bishop Andrews hath said before whether it was per or in or cum or sub or trans but if there be no such Real Presence in any manner I know not what this Liberty of Speculations signifies as to the manner when the thing is not really after any manner and if not as our Answerer seems all along to affirm this then might indeed be great Wisdom or humane Policy not too rudely to choke the tender Ears of their late establisht Reformation But how it can consist with true Piety and a Church pretending to reform Errors we shall best find by this consideration If Men had liberty to believe that Christ was really present after any manner it follows necessarily that Christ was adorable there where he was so present But if the Church in its Wisdom did certainly know that Christ was not really present after any Manner then the Church in its Wisdom gave Men liberty to be Idolaters for our Answerer hath been pleas'd to deliver us his Opinion from Doctor Taylor p. 69. who there says That to give Divine worship to a Non Ens must needs be Idolatry For Idolum nihil est in mundo saith St. Paul and Christ as present by his Humane Nature in the Sacrament is a Non Ens for it is not true there is no such thing he is there by his Diviner Power and Blessing c. but for any other presence it is Idolum And that the practice of the Learneder part of the Church of England nay of the whole Church of England it self if we will believe the Articles of Henry the Eighth in the beginning of the Reformation or King James in the strength of the Reformation was accordingly Idolatrous I am most abundantly satisfied until some stronger Pen than our Answerers shall fully confute what is already extant to that purpose In the mean time leaving the Matter of Fact to the Doctors Conscience we will follow our Answerer He is come now to Bishop Jewel who tells us p. 60. That Christs Body and Blood indeed and verily is given unto us that we verily eat it that we verily drink it c. yet we say not either that the substance of Bread and Wine is done away that is Transubstantiation which is not our Dispute or that Christ's Body is let down from Heaven or made really or fleshly present in the Sacrament If by really he means fleshly I subscribe to all this as to the Real Presence He goes on That spiritually i. e. modo spirituali and with the mouth of our Faith we eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood even as verily as his Body was verily broken and his Blood verily shed upon the Cross If the Bishop was not an Eutychian then certainly his Body was verily that is substantially and truly broken upon the Cross Thus far then we punctually agree But the Bishop explains himself The Bread he tells us is an earthly thing and therefore a Figure as Baptism in Water is also a Figure 'T is confest Now lest we should think that by this Figure the Bishop intended to exclude the substance he adds immediately But the Body of Christ that thereby is represented and is there offer'd to our Faith most true is the thing i. e. the Body of Christ it self and not the Figure As much of this as the Answerer pleases we have reason to be thankful to him for it But he now comes to Answer for the venerable Mr. Hooker You have heard what hath been offer'd from the Discourser The Answerer tells us from Mr. Hooker p. 61. That the parts of the Sacrament are the Body and Blood of Christ because they are causes instrumental upon the receipt whereof the participation of his Body and Blood ensueth And that the Real Presence of Christs most blessed Body and Blood is not therefore to be sought for in the Sacrament but in the worthy Receiver of the Sacrament All this is most consistent with the Protestant Notion of the Real Presence here contended for Next Bishop Andrews comes upon the Stage and first the Answerer tells us as from himself only that this Bishop insinuates P. 62. That the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was much the same as in Baptism the very Allusion which the Holy Fathers were wont to make to express his Presence by in this holy Sacrament That the Bishop and the Holy Fathers might mean that Christ is present in the Sacrament as in Baptism Catholics do not deny for they also constantly affirm the same thing as much as either But if our Answerer pretends to perswade us that either the Bishop or Fathers or Catholics mean him only so present as to exclude the presence also of his natural Body in the Sacrament that remains to be prov'd which hath not been done
to a sublimer pitch for by the participation of the Body of our Lord and his Presence in the blessed Eucharist we anticipate as it were the Joys of Heaven even in our mortal Bodies Homil. 24. whence St. Chrysostome tells us that Dum in hac vita sumus ut terra nobis coelum sit facit hoc mysterium Eightly That from the Consideration of our blessed Saviours Love who being touched even in the Bowels of Tenderness towards us left us at his departure his Sacred Body to nourish our Souls and Bodies unto Life Everlasting we also might return the purest Love and Affection toward him and Charity toward one another who are thus substantially united by the Communication of this Spiritual Food according to that of S. Paul 1 Cor. 10. For we being many are one Bread and one Body for we are all partakers of that one Bread And Ninthly That it is a Commemoration of our Lords Passion a Confirmation of his Testament and a propitiatory Sacrifice not only for the living but for the dead These and many more weighty Considerations of this kind together with the Testimony of the Fathers Authority of General Councils and universal practice of all Christians until these two last Centuries will enable us I hope to encounter the supposed absurdities of our Discourser We shall engage therefore this uncircumcised Philistine I mean this Goliah Argument with all its boasting train of sensless Questions And First I know not how Philosophy can be much concern'd on either side for what Philosopher will tell me how the Divine Nature identified in the Person of the Father should be Communicated to the Son without also communicating the Person Or how the Unity or Individuality of Nature should be in a diversity of Persons neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance How in the Mystery of the Incarnation God separateth from the Humanity of Christ his manner of subsistence inserting it in his Divinity How the Son should be Consubstantial and Co-eternal with the Father How something may be made out of nothing and that something reduc'd again to nothing How Eternity which is instans durationis non fluens an instant of duration may be demonstrated to subsist without respect to time past or time to come How God Almighty who is one simple and indivisible Being should be at once substantially present in all places and things A Mystery so inexplicable that it forced St. Augustin to say Miratur hoc Mens humana quia non capit fortasse non credit Nay more how our Soul which is the Light of our Bodies in this our Pilgrimage upon Earth can be totally in the Head and totally in the Feet and totally at the same time in the whole Body and in every part of it Or how the Needle which is our Common Guide through the paths of the deep should point always towards the North or if sometimes it varies whence should proceed its variation When Philosophy hath explain'd all these with many more hitherto invincible Difficulties I make no doubt but She will then free also Transubstantiation from the Calumny of our Discoursers monstrous Absurdities In the mean time that we may the better deal with them we shall divide them into such as seem to appear so First to Reason and Secondly to Sense For the First our Discourser seems to have been modest since of a thousand insinuated he is pleased to name but two First the gross contradiction of the same Body being in so many several places at once And Secondly of our Saviours giving away himself with his own hands and yet keeping himself to himself p. 37. The latter hath received a particular Answer from S. Augustin in his Comment upon Psal 33. as hath been already shewn and I shall not presume to mend it Nor will this Fathers own quodammodo in another place or that of Bedes upon the same Psal 33. help him in the least for all Catholics willingly accept the word and most justly interpret it to be modo Spirituali which manner they all profess and teach But for the First which as much concerns the Real Presence a Doctrine own'd by Bishop Andrews and the Church of England and at present by all Lutherans as Transubstantiation believ'd by Catholics I shall speak of That and the rest of his Questions about Sense which are common Objections in all Protestant Authors against this Subject when I come to the Conclusion to which I hasten Our Discourser hath one Argument more to countenance the Novelty of Transubstantiation which being more particularly urg'd by himself than some others I shall endeavour to give a reasonable Answer to it and so take my leave of him until we meet again in the Conclusion backt with the Objections of some other late Authors which are common to them all He tells us p. 26. That the first-rise of this Doctrine was about the beginning of the Ninth Age tho it did not take firm root until towards the end of the Eleventh And this time he says was the most likely of all others it being by the consent of their own Historians the most dark and dismal time that ever happened to the Christian Church both for Ignorance and Superstition and Vice And then illustrates all this by the Parable of the Tares which he conceives the Enemy might have sown in so dark and long a night The Conjecture is very plausible until it be well consider'd and then I am perswaded his Argument will not only vanish but be turn'd against himself as many others have been with no small advantage to our Cause I readily grant that some part of the time assigned by him for the introducing of this Doctrine was dismal enough upon those three accounts mentioned by him But I also affirm That such a Doctrine could never have met men in Circumstances more contrary and averse to its establishment than to be thus overwhelmed with Ignorance Superstition and Vice And first for Ignorance It is Evident to all Mankind and therefore the more strongly Objected against us by our Discourser and all Protestants That Transubstantiation is a Doctrine which highly contradicts our Common Senses Now as such the abuses of it must needs have been First most notoriously visible to the most Vulgar and illiterate for they seldom looking further into things than the Common appearances would certainly have taken the first and strongest Alarm upon the Proposition only of so new and insupportably senseless a Doctrine as our Discourser calls it if they had not from Age to Age suckt it in with their first nourishment and seen it so universally receiv'd that they no more consider'd the consequences of it than they did those of some other Mysteries of their Religion which they equally alike received as matter of Faith from the Authority and veracity of their Spiritual Guides and Governours But when as Berengarius about the Tenth Century was bold enough to teach and write against it shewing