or changed her first belief And if you 〈◊〉 make use of a Book to guide you in your Faith as the Catholick Church also does you must resolve to interpret it if you will be sure not to mistake as she does that is in that sense in which it was understood by your Fathers and not in that sense it shall seem to bear to you if contrary to the sense it seemed to bear to your Ancestors Pardon Sir this long digression I hope it will conduce to your more full satisfaction And take notice that wheresoever Transubstantiation is believed the believers of it profess to have been so taught by their Fore-fathers uninterruptedly from the Apostles wheresoever this mystery is denied the deniers of it do not profess to have been taught to deny it by their Fathers uninterruptedly from the Apostles but only by their Ancestors for about a hundred and fifty years and that their Ancestors about the year fifteen hundred had more light than their Progenitors for about a thousand years who were all in darkness and had left the right Faith taught by the Apostles and for the first fix hundred years of Christianity An evident conviction this that the denial of Transubstantiation is a Novelty and the asserting of it the antient verity For had Transubstantiation been a new Doctrin and never heard of before the seventh or eighth Age the Assertors of it must have been forced to plead for it after the manner its Opposers plead against it by saying their Fore fathers only for so long for example for eight hundred years had believed it but in the year eight hundred their Ancestors had more light than their Fore-fathers and they by reading the Holy Scriptures and Fathers of the first Century came to understand that our Saviours true body was in the Holy Eucharist and that their immediate Progenitors for five or six hundred years had left the first Apostolical doctrin as to this mystery If you remember I supposed from the confession of our Adversaries that the Christian Doctrin remained pure and incorrupt for some Centuries of years after its first planting which I now shall endeavor to prove And indeed whosoever maturely considers the genius and temper of the Christian Doctors and Bishops for the first Centuries after our Saviour will find it impossible for all the power of Hell to impose a Novelty upon them especially such an one as would make them all Idolaters For they were not like the seeming Zelots of our Age pretenders to new lights but their profession was not to correct Antiquity not to deliver to Posterity doctrine of their own devising but carefully to keep what they had received from their Fore-fathers and faithfully to teach their Children what they had been taught by their Fathers And their great Answer to Introducers of new Doctrirs or Practices was Nihil nouandum nisi quod traditum est We must innovate nothing but stick close to what has been delivered to us by our Fore-fathers As for pretenders to discover new Truths by reading of the holy Scriptures it s easily conceivable how such persons may be imposed upon by subtil Sophisters and made to believe erroneous doctrins to wit by bad and new Interpretations of good and antient Scriptures But on the other fide how shall a Teacher of Novelties deceive a Christian Country which is resolved to hold fast whatsoever doctrin was taught them by their immedate Progenitors who received the same doctrin by an uninterrupted delivery from Father to Son from the Apostles Let him pretend Scriptures and bring a thousand places out of the Law Psalms Prophets and Apostles what will the Reply be The Scriptures you alledge we reverence and have ever been taught to reverence them as divine but we have been taught to interpret and understand them in another manner and sense than you alledge them Let him pretend Authority of Doctors as Learned as Origen as Holy as Cyprian nay if he will of a whole Provincial Council as numerous as that in Africa which determin'd Rebaptization of persons Baptized by Hereticks they Reply we must not Innovate we must hold to what was taught us by our Ancestors What means then to make persons thus disposed to leave their anâ—ient Faith and admit of a Novelty You must prove to them that you and they and other Christians in several Countrys have been taught so to believe by your immediate Predecessors and uninterruptedly From Father to Son from the Apostles but then you cease to be a Teacher of Novelties contrary to the supposition Now that such was the disposition of the Primitive Centuries of Christianity hear S. Vincent Lerinensis who lived in the fifth Age who testifies that often asking of very many his Contemporaries famous for their Sanctity and Learning how he might be able to discern the truth of the Catholick Paith from the falsity of Heretical prayity he always received this Answer in a manner from them all That if he desired to remain sound in his Faith he must fortifie it first with the Authority of the divine Law and then with the Tradition of the Catholick Church That is as he explicates himself afterwards he must examin what has always all over the Christian Church and by all Christian Doctors or in a manner by all been believed and hold to that Against all Novelty though defended by private Doctors never so Holy or never so Learned or producing never so many Scriptures for themselves if interpreted after a new manner But saies the same S. Vincent chap 2. Here perhaps some body may ask seeing the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect and is it self sufficient and more than sufficient for all things what need is there to add to it the Authority of the Ecclesiastical or Churches understanding of it Because the Holy Scripture by reason of its depth is not by all taken in one and the same sense For Photinus expounds it one way Sabellius another Donatus another Arrius another And ch 41. He tells us how the third general Council held in his days at Ephesus proceeding according to this rule condemn'd Nestorius For the Fathers of that Christian Synod in number about 200 having consulted the Sentiment of their Predecessors the eminent Doctors of the Oriental and Western Churches S. Peter of Alexandria S. Athanâ—sius S. Theophilus S. Gregory Nazianzen S. Basil S. Gregory Nâ—ssen S. Felix S. Julius S. Cyprian concerning their controversie in debate they resolved to hold their doctrin to follow their Counsel to believe their testimony to obey their Judgment Quae tandem c What were at length saies S. Vincent the Voices and Votes of them all but that what was antiently delivered should be kept what was of late invented should be exploded After which we admired and proclamed the great humility and sanctity of that Council In which so many Priests in a manner as to the greater part were so many Metropolitans and of so great Erudition and Learning as
Doctors to whom we appeal then judged concerning this our cause when no body could say they had favor or ill will for either party They had neither friendship nor enmity with you or us We did not as yet appeal with you to them as Judges and our cause was decided by them Neither you nor we were known to them and we recite their sentence given for us against you We did not yet contest with you and they pronouncing sentences for us we have overcome you Or will my Calvinist have the impudence to accuse as some do thâ—se grave Doctors of blindness A multitude of blind men forsooth avails nothing to find out the Truth and these were the errors and mistakes of those learned Prelates What an Age are we fal'n into Truth must be called error and error truth light darkness and darkness light S. Augustin S. Ambrose S. Crysostom S. Hierom are blind but Calvin and Stillingfleet see These Doctors I have called a Council of were persons of such Learning and Sanctity that if a Synod of Bishops were gathered out of the whole world it would be much if so many and such Doctors could be found to sit in it Neither indeed were these all at one time but God Almighty as pleases him and as he judges to be expedient scatters a few more excellent and faithful dispensers of his mysteries in several Ages and distances of places By such Planters Waterers Builders Pastors nursing Fathers after the Apostles the holy Church has encreased Now what an imprudence and what an impudence must it be for any to presume to accuse of the horrible crime of Idolatry so many holy egregious and memorable Doctors of the Catholick Verity and moreover together with them the whole Church of Christ to which divine Family they faithfully Ministring spiritual Food flourished with great glory in our Lord. Nay further they who dare to oppose the manifest Sentiment not of so many Platonical Aristotelieal or Zenonical Doctors but of so many Saints and illustrious Prelates in the Church of God and these some of them singularly endowed with human litterature and all of them eminently learned in the Sacred Letters have reason not so much to fear them as him who made them profitable Vessels to himself These Judges by how much the more desirable they ought to be unto thee if thou didst hold the Catholick Faith by so much thou hast more reason to fear them because thou opposest the Catholick Faith which they ministred to little and great and manifestly and stoutly defended against its Enemies yea against you then not as yet born For not only when they lived did they by their words but also by their writings which they left to Posterity did they strenuously defend the Catholick Faith that they might break in pieces your Arguments Hitherto S. Augustin l. 1. et 2. Contra Julianum I thought fit to adjoyn this Reflexion of S. Augustin though superabundant to the force of my Argument it being sufficient for my purpose to prove that the doctrin of the Real presence was generally believed in the Primitive Centuries of Christianity and so much evidently follows from the Authorities above cited For though some may be so self-conceited as to confess that S. Ambrose S. Crysostom and the rest of the holy Fathers Greek and Latin believed the doctrin of the Real presence but they with humble submission deemed it to be an Idolatrous and damnable doctrin yet few I think but have so much regard for thâ—se Primitive Doctors as to allow them so much iudgement as to know what was the belief of their several Churches in their daies and so much fidelity as to write the Truth as to this particular which is sufficient for the purport of my discourse Unless you can think that these holy Fathers were of one Faith and their several Flocks who reverenced them as Saints of another An Answer to an Objection But you will say if there be such a miraculous change wrought in the bread and wine in the holy Eucharist why does it not appear to our senses as well as other miraculous works of our Lord Jesus did When he turn'd water into wine it appeared such to the sight and tast of the Guests at the Marriage-Feast He did not barely tell them the water was turn'd into wine and exact their belief of his word contrary to the evidence of all their senses but convinced them that it was so by their very senses Why then in our present case if he turn wine into his blood does it not appear to our fight to be blood But barely to tell us that it is his blood and yet to let it tast and appear as it did how is this credible How is it not contrary to one but to all the Miracles that ever he wrought And this Argument is further strengthned for that it would hence follow we might call in question the whole mystery of Christianity For we therefore believing in our Lord Jesus as one indeed sent from God to teach us nothing but Truth because of his Miracles and we having no assurance of his Miracles but from our senses if our senses may be mistaken how can we tell but those who were eye-witnesses of his wonders were illuded and water for example was not turned by him into wine but only seemed wine to the tast and sight of those which were present and indeed remained water as before For why may not water remain water and yet seem to my tast wine as well as wine be changed into blood and yet seem to my tast and sight to remain wine For Answer to this Objection we must distinguish two sorts of Miracles with the ends for which they are wrought Some Miracles are wrought by Almighty God to draw the world to the Christian Faith and these must necessarily be the object of our senses else it could not reasonably be expected they should work their intended effect in them for whose sakes they are wrought For example If any one will by Miracle prove he is sent from God by raising a dead man to life or by turning water into wine he must make it evident to my senses that the man who was dead is alive and the water now wine and not barely tell me so Else he will be derided as an Impostor and impudent Lyer instead of being admired and received as a Messenger from Heaven and Oracle of Truth There are other Miracles which are wrought by the Almighty not as a motive to induce us to receive the true Faith but to sanctifie us when we have received it or for the necessity of working the salvation of the world Such are the Miracles of the Incarnation of the Son of God and all the spiritual effects wrought in the souls of Christians by any of the Sacraments Now these miraculous effects are not the object of our senses nor is there any reason they should be For the Church of Christ does not urge these to
perswade Unbelievers to acknowledge the true Faith but only professes that by these her members are sanctified For example we say by Baptism as an outward and visible sign is wrought an invisible grace in the soul of the person Baptized Though view the Child as much as you please you can by none of your senses perceive any mutation to be wrought In like manner the Church professes to believe the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God that our Lord Jesus though to outward appearance a mere man was also true God and yet by no sense was the Hypostatical Union of his soul and body to the Second person of the blessed Trinity discernable This was no doubt a great Miracle yea the miracle of miracles wrought amongst us but the end of its working being not by it as a motive to draw the world to Christianity but to constitute a fit person for the working of the salvation of the world it was not necessary it should be the object of our senses The same Lord and Saviour telling us that he was God though we could discern no Characters of Divinity in him by any of our senses he saying that he was God proving by other Miracles to our senses that he was sent from God to teach us nothing but Truth this was sufficient to secure our belief of his Deity In like manner in the mystery of the holy Eucharist this miraculous change being not wrought to allure Strangers to the Christian Faith but to sanctifie Believers and to work all those spiritual effects in them above-mentioned by being received by them and offered up in their presence for them c. it was not requisite this change should be the object of our senses Nay it was necessary it should not be the object of our senses For it being wrought to the intent we should eat and drink our dear Lord his body and blood it was necessary only the substance of bread and wine should be turned into the substance of our Lords flesh and blood the accidents of bread and wine remaining for that otherwise we should have a horror to eat raw flesh and drink true appearing blood As to the confirmation of the Argument that hence it would follow we cannot trust our senses and consequently not be certain of any miracle wrought by our Saviour To this I Answer We may alwaies trust our senses about their own objects and in due circumstances and when we have not positive grounds to think either God Almighty by himself or by an Angel or permissively by a Devil represents things otherwise then they are The three Children in the fiery Furnace might really think themselves in the midst of scorching Flames though they felt them not because they had reason to surmise God Almighty wrought a miracle out of those circumstances they had no reason to believe any thing to be ordinary fire which should not burn as fire Nor must they for this for ever after be in doubt whether they were not environed with Flames of fire or no. Nor must Abram because once in a particular circumstance he mistook three Angels for three men therefore never after believe his eyes whether he saw a man or no unless he first pinched him by the arm and felt that he had flesh and blood as himself Nor must one who in the presence of a Conjurer had taken pibble stones for grapes for ever after be doubtful whether he saw grapes or no till he tasted them Nor does it follow S. Mary Magdalen could not be certain she ever saw our B. Saviour because once her senses were mistaken concerning him taking him for the Gardener And in our present case our B. Saviour telling us that the Holy Eucharist is his body we have all reason to think that by miracle he makes it to be so whatsoever it seems to our senses Nor do Catholicks therefore out of such a circumstance doubt of all the bread they see whether it be not their Lords body or no Though I must tell you even here your senses are not mistaken for they do perceive what they seem to perceive that is the Accidents of bread and wine which remain and affect them in the same manner as when the substance under them was the substance of bread and wine but now is the substance of our Lords body and blood Substances are not discernable by any sense only we conclude by a Physical certitude such a substance is under such a complex of Accidents when we have nor positive grounds that God Almighty works a miracle as here we have he saying expresly of this object before us 'T is his body and 't is his blood But if there be so much to be said for this great mystery how comes it to pass so many have so great difficulty to believe it It is not because the mystery is not highly credible but it is partly from Nature and partly from Education and partly from want of a serious and frequent consideration of those Arguments which strongly evince the credibility of it and partly for want of strange desires of the happiness of the other life and of a heart void of inordinate affections to the things of this life Pleasures Riches and Honors 'T is partly from Nature I say For 't is not more difficult to our senses to practice Sobriety Temperance Chastity and Fasting then it is to our understanding to assent to Truths which seem to shock our reason and senses though proposed by never so great Authority Should you have seen our B. Saviour sucking his Mothers Breast in the Stable of Bethlehem whosoever should have told you the little Infant there was God Almighty the maker of Heaven and Earth Nature would have found a great difficulty to believe so strange an assertion and no less then it does now to believe that a little Wafer in the hands of a Priest is the same Christ both God and man veiled under the appearance of the common accidents of bread But had it been moreover from your infancy continually noysed in your ears by such as you reverenced for their learning and skill in divine matters that it was impossible for God to become man this would strangely have encreased your difficulty to believe a little Infant in nothing different as to outward appearance from other Children should be God But if to all this you should add never or very seldom and slightly to consider the positive Arguments for the belief of that mystery of the Incarnation but were ever still poring upon the difficulty and unlikeliness and seeming impossibility of any such thing 't is not possible you should ever come to the belief of it though the mystery be never so true in it self nor the Arguments to prove it never so evident and cogent But this is the case of us generally in England as to the mystery of the B. Sacrament and therefore no vvonder if generally it be not believed by us but we
and seen them in like-manner fall down before him making him rich presents upon the admonition as they said of a miraculous Star which had appeared to them in their own Country such circumstances as these would sure have strangely urged us to the belief of that wonder of wonders And to make use of a homebred example Who would have taken our Gracious Soverain Charles the Second for the King of Great Brittain France and Ireland that should have seen him under the disguise of a Sheepherd Sea-man or other habit he was forced to assume to secure his Royal Person But could you and I have peeped into this private Chamber and seen his small Retinue all bare before him and some one of them upon his knees presenting him with a cup of Beer or wine should we not think you have begun to suspect Surely this Person however and for whatsoever reasons he may disguise himself is of another quality then his outward garb represents him to be Nor do I less perswade my self did you and I see the many thousands all over the world as well of the Grecian as Roman Church who upon their knees with an assured Faith devoutly adore a Consecrated Wafer as their Creator and God if we have any respect to reason and man-kind and do not imagin all the world to be Fools except our selves Such a prospect as this would make us suspect in the secret of our hearts Surely under this disguise of a contemptible Wafer there is veiled some hidden Majesty or other who forces the highest adoration from such vast multitudes of all Nations and many of them so sharp-witted and of such solid judgements and such impartial enquirers after Truth and of so good and holy lives Say then and we have reason to say it heartily and without the least scruple or doubt 'T was the same out Gracious Soverain who lay hid in a common Oak at White-Ladys under the disguise of a Peasants weed who sits now at Westminster in his Princely Throne invested in his Royal Robes And 't is the same Christ Jesus our only Saviour and God who under the humble disguise of common bread and wine is immolated here below every day upon our Christian Altars who in transcendent splendor and glory sits at the right hand of his Eternal Father in the Heavens Sir I have done my part the Almighty do the rest and make you a happy Child of his holy Church But Sir I beseech you give me leave to add A Postscript to my Fellow Collegians My dearest Companions whom with my soul I wish the same happiness with my self both in this Life and the other I beseech you before you be engaged in the world and hindred from an industrious impartial enquiry after Truth by the cares of a Family and fears of wanting a competent subsistance do your selves and your Country that right as to consider with as little passion and prejudice as you can these my scattered thoughts and do not rashly conclude against Transubstantiation until you have fully heard what its Affertors as well as what its Deniers have to say for themselves I was once as you are and many suspicions of the truth of the Roman Catholick Faith came into my mind but still I was hindred from examining of it with this one thought If I turn Papist I must believe Transubstantiation but I know that 's an impossibility and this made me sit down contented with the Religion in which I was educated But afterwards making it my business more in good earnest to save my soul and setting my self impartially to examin what was the belief of the Primitive times concerning this mystery and finding mostclear Testimonies for the Real presence in the most renowned Primitive Christian Doctors I was much amazed having been always taught they were of a contrary Faith I read the citations to a Clergy-man of my Acquaintance I demand of him what he thought their belief was who in those words expressed their Faith He told me no doubt but they believed as the Church of Rome believes I consult the Authors themselves read the context before and after the said citations I am still more and more convinced S. Augustin Chrysostom Cyril c. believed as the Church of Rome now believes Hereupon I resolve not to venture my soul upon a point of Philosophy for example whether God Almighty by all his Omnipotency can make a body be in two places at once or no I believe two mysteries already both which puzzle and shock my reason as much as Transubstantiation to wit the B. Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God why may not I believe a third as well especially when I have the same Arguments for one as the other clear Scriptures the immemorial belief of all Nations ever since the Apostle c. And indeed if God Almighty will oblige me to believe what was taught sixteen hundred years before I was born how should he expect I should come to the knowledge of this but by such books as were written in those times and near those times and by the testimony of all Christian Countrys what has been immemorially believed by them ever since they were Christians Now if it be too long a journey to go over all Christendom to ask of them what is and what alwaies has been their Paith as to Transubstantiation and how they have always understood the holy Scriptures that speak of that mystery go but to the Royal Exchange in London and there you may meet with persons which at least have been in all or most Christian Countrys and ask of them what the belief and practice of Christendom is and you will find they all believe and adore the B. Sacrament and have done so as they say immemorially ever since they were Christians as Roman-Catholicks do in England or else if they do for so me numbers amongst them believe and practice otherwise 't is only since such a time above c. And then reflect how by such an Argument you prove as you think efficaciously against an Antiscripturist that the Books of the Old and New Testament are infallible and you securely believe every particular Story in them though never so strange in like manner the change of Saturday-Sabbath into Sunday against the Sibbatarians and Fasting in Lent as Apostolical with Bishop Gunning against Non-Conformists And indeed it is impossible such an universal effect should ever be without a proportionate universal cause That so many several Christian Countrys should immemorially abstain from certain meats on Fridays every week and in Lent every year or adore a Consecrated piece of Bread as their Creator and God unless they had been either first taught so to do by the first Planters of Christianity or by some Preachers since or had agreed so to do in some General Council by their representatives is impossible Should we ever think you even in the single City of London have fall'n by little and little to have shut