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A03829
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A diduction of the true and catholik meaning of our Sauiour his words this is my bodie, in the institution of his laste Supper through the ages of the Church from Christ to our owne daies. Whereunto is annexed a reply to M. William Reynolds in defence of M. Robert Bruce his arguments in this subiect: and displaying of M. Iohn Hammiltons ignorance and contradictions: with sundry absurdities following vpon the Romane interpretation of these words. Compiled by Alexander Hume Maister of the high schoole of Edinburgh.
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Hume, Alexander, schoolmaster.
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1602
(1602)
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STC 13945; ESTC S118169
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49,590
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134
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beleeuâ— that if GOD had showen so notable a iudgment on Iohn Knoxe in the pulpite and presence of such a frequent assemblie as vseth to be in the Church of Edinburgh the people woulde not haue onely abhorred his doctrine but stoned him selfe out of the towne Or can anye man that hath a mans harte that is reason and vnderstanding beleeue that if Iohn Caluin had vsed that manifest iuglarie which ye are not ashamed to publish in the face of the Sun in the congregation at Geneua that that people who found the moyen in a priuate grudge to banish him their towne for certaine yeares would not on such a notorious cause as that haue either stoned him in the streetes or expelled him at the leaste with shame for euer But this is a note of gods iudgment that hee hath so besotted your senses that you haue not the wittes to caste a probable collour vpon your lyes This was an other cause that made me leaue my purpose to confute your booke For if I had gone fordward I sawe that I was to meete with many slanders which was not worth the hearing nor reading and needed no other to confute them then the mouth that toulde them if the hearer had but halfe a nose to smell alye as whote as a foxe Yet hauing spent many dayes and nights in gathering materialles to that worke I resolued not to lose them but with some trauell contriued them in this forme which you see hoping that the power of reason and truth might not onelie staye such from that erroure as your sectaries had made to doubt but also make you and them to doubt of that which you teach so confidently if you would read as aduisedly as you haue bequeathed your selfe vnconsideratlye to that abhomination And heare I charge you in the bowels and mercies of lesus Christ as you will answere in the great daye of the Lorde if you doubt indeed which is not likely for anye matter that wee can see in your bookes to haue turned you or left the truth for any particular to open your eyes againe to the light and to returne to the grace from which you are fallen I haue heere deduced the truth of this question whereon standeth the foundatioÌ„ of the Romane religion from Christ to our owne times I haue taken this paines partlie for our people partelye for you to whome I wishe the good that a Scholar should to his maister And therefore I praye you as you loue to liue for euer to leaue the way of death euerlasting Otherwayes in the court of conscience where truth will be reuealed the popes indulgence will doe no good I must beare witnesse of your wilfulnes and proude contempt of the reuealed truthe The Lorde giue you a harte to loue him better then men Yours if you be Christes ALEXANDER HVME The diduction from the fountaine OVR Lord and maister Iesus Christe that night that hee was betrayed into the hands of the highe preiste to continue in his Church a solemne remembrance of his blessed passion which hee was shortly to suffer instituted at his last supper with his disciples after that hee had finished the lawe of the pascall Lamb in place there of a newe Sacrament in the Elementes of Breade and Wine In this and with this after an vnspeakable maner be a secret diuine efficacie hee deliuered also to their Faith his precious Bodie and Blood to vnite them and al that should succeede them to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh to nourish their soules vnto eternal life In this mystery there is such a secret coÌ„iunctioÌ„ betweene the elements and his precious flesh that in al ages it hath exercised the hearts and minds of men in the deep contemplation thereof some to life and some to eternall death and condemnation For seeing the glorie and excellencie of our omnipotent God consisteth in the highest perfection of mercie and iustice his infinite wisdome hath tempered his worde and Sacraments to minister matter to both Therefore betweene his elect whose heartes he illuminates with the light of his spirite and those whome he hath left to the iudgment of their owne fenses and illusions of errour there hath risen out of this cloude greate stormes to exercise his Church that it might not lye sleeping in the sonne of securitie It is fortie yeares and morâ— since the Lordâ— beganne to sowe in this countrie being then ouerwhelmed in the mists of ignorance the seede of his eternall trueth Now seeing our vnthankfulnes hee suffereth the enemie to repaire home againe and to sowe darnel in his haruest He is busie and we are secure Wherefore to meete his practises and to arme the simple against his sophismes I haue chosen this argument of reall presence as of greatest importance to confute all papistrie For if the naturall bodie of our Sauiour is not in the sacrament as they call it of the altare they haue no sacrifice for the quick and deade and wanting that their market of masses this fiue hundreth yeares hath beene a faire of false wares In this disputation I will vse no rethoricall colloures to fill mens eareâ— with wordes but shortely will ayme my arguments to the poynt hoping that in all sounde iudgementes weight of reason will be more effectuall then the ratling sound of emptie words I will deduce the truthe of this poynte out of the well of truth and then will proue the Church to haue receiued it from Christ and his Apostles and notwithstanding the craft and crueltie of the enemie to haue kept it sincere and pure to our times Lord shew to me the the light of thy truth put weight in my wordes and force in may arguments to beare thy truth through the middest of thy enemies and to confounde the wisdome of the wise Our Lord and Sauiour at the institution of this Sacrament tooke breade and after that hee had giuen thankes broke it and gaue it to his disciples saying Thus is my body which is broken for you this doe ye in remembrance of me The wordes this is my bodye the Church of Roome taketh literallie â—ffirming that the breade is turned into the very natural reall body of christ hauing no nature thereof but collour sauour taste and other inseparable accidents Wee on the other side take them figuratiuelie denying that there is anye change of the substance but that the bread remaineth bread representing to our soules the bodie of Christ to feede our soules to eternall life As for the wordes them selues without other inforcements they are capable of both senses we grant that if both scripture nature did not denye they maye be taken literallie Againe that they may be taken figuratiuely if the peruersnesse of the aduersarie will not grant other scripturs in the same forme will easilie conuince He that saide of the bread This is my bodie saide likewise of him selfe I am a vine I am a doore and Paull saith the rock vvas Christe But
this tyme and before this monster grew to a head the Lord raised vp one Ioannes Scotus besome tearmed Erigena paedagoge to the worthye Emperour Charles the great a man of great learning and well red both in Greeke and Latine This man wrote a learned work against this erroure and in the beginning of it began to descry the firste conception and whole genealogie of this moÌ„ster Soone efter followed an other called Bertram a preist or as some thinkes a monke of Corsbie in saxonie where Pascasius also was bred This booke is yet extant wherein hee learnedly cites the fathers mightely vrges the scriptures and providently preuents the whole matter of transubstantiation This worke and the author also Tritemius highlie commendeth both for life and learning It escaped I can not tell bee what diuine prouidence the fyrie purgatorie of verselles in the flames whereof the booke of Ioannes Scotus was quite consumed Yet there was an other prouided for it be the Doctors of Louan be the counsel of Trent called index expurgatorius not to consume all for that would haue beene a discredit to the holye Church but to raze such sentences as were vncureable and where it woulde serue the turne to charge no thing but the affirmatiue into the negatiue substance into accidents temporall into eternall c. That is to saye white into blacke lighte into darkenes and truth into a lye These two bookâ— were then published not in a nooke but in the open light and face of the world the one of theÌ„ at the coÌ„man dement of the Emperour Carolus magnus They continued from aboute the yeare eight hundreth to the troubles of Berengarius which fell out aboute the one thousand and fiftie yeare without condemnation or accusation of heresie which waâ— an argument that the weede had not then ouerrshadowed the corne Bertram maketh mention of 〈◊〉 eate contention theâ— in Fraâ—â—e aboute this matter which argâ—â—s that the right side was yet a partie They who had hard the reuerent Beda or his schollers for the moste parte swaied that waye Heere Maister William Reinolds in his booke against Maister Robert Bruce seemeth to leaue his reader to thinke that these two men are either theirs or neuters They wrote darkely saith hee of the truth of this Sacrament and so doubtfully that the ZuingliaÌ„s vse their authoritie against the Catholickes and the Lutherans againste the Zuinglians In which wordes hee woulde leade the reader to thinke that Scotus and Bertram wrote for transubstantiation but in such obscure tearmes as might bee drawne to â—ny sense so lothe are they that wee haue the shadowe of any antiquitie before the dayes of Berengariâ—s â—t that time because it is written in the Reuelation that after a thousand years the deuill should be let loose he is content to grant that opposition was made to the veritie of Christs bodie in the sacrament and cites for witnes to blot it noâ—withstanding with a note of newne◠〈◊〉 Foxe whome hee tearmeth the Martyrâ—â—ker But to let him goe with his tantes for we must beare worse then that if neede bee if that prophesie be to be referred iuste to that tyme let them see if it maye not better be vnderstoode of the Church of Rome Which at that time began to persue their brethren with fire and fagott and made Lawes to compell all men to beleeue vnder paine of both deaths temporall and eternall that a rounde wafer with the picture of Christe in it was the very essential body of Christ that was borne of the virgine Marye This was more like to haue beene the loose deuill and the lying deuil to which euer since hath raged in these partes then that of Berengarius which was soone bounde againe and vnder paine of burning compelled to fing tongue thou lyed If that was the deuill who is daylye rosted in the eternall flames of the fâ—re of hell hee was fell fleed for a fire that woulde haue beene done in one day But if these books were not plaine with vs I would aske of Maister Reinolds why the pope burned the one the index expurgatorius mangled the other But wee are much beholden to him how-be-it he denieth vs this antiquitie yet hee would faine haue it beleeued that our doctrine was condemned of heresie in the very daies of the Apostles To proue this he quotes Ignatius out of Theodoret who saith that some acknowledged not the eucharist to be the flesh of christ that suffered for our sinnes These some heritiekes he woulde haue taken to bee men of our minde that in those times denyed transubstantiation of the bodie of Christ. Yet if he had marked with advised iudgmente the drift of Theodoret for out of him the meaning of Ignatius is to be gathered hee might haue seene that Ignatius spake of such heritickes as Theodoret alledges him againste or else the allegation of Ignatius had been impertinent But Theodoret alleadged him against Valentinian Marcion and Manes who denied Christ to haue suffered reall paines in a reall bodie Ergo Ignatius spake of heritikes who denied Christ to haue suffered reall paines in a reall bodie For as odious as wee are in Maister Reinolds eies it will be as hard for him to conuince vs of this erroure as to make the place of Ignatius other wayes to bee spoken of vs. This argumeut of Ignatius was common amongst the fathers againste that heresie that if Christ had not a true body and suffered not reall paines for our sinnes the sacrament could not bee a figure thereof As TertulliaÌ„ reasons before because meÌ„ vse not to make figures of phantasies And heare it will be harde for Maister Reinolds to clenge his hart and hands of falshoode and forgerie for alledging Ignatius out of Theodoret against that which Theodoret plainely frequently teacheth that the sacraments are Tou pathous typoi figures of the passion and symbola cai typoâ— ou tees theoteetos allatou sâ—matos cai haimatos Signes and figures not of his deitie but of his bodie bloode But to returne to our storie Wee reade after Bertram aboute the yeare nine hundreth and fiftie that their rose â— greate controuersie likewise in Ingland about this question which is a proofe that a hundreth and fiftie yeares after the debate in France which Bertram maketh mention of that the right side was then also a partie and that the better part For transubstantiatioÌ„ for now that tearme was clecked stoode Odo Archbishope of Canterburie garded with a greate armie of rascall ignorante preists who woone their dayly drink by a disceatfull market of breade for flesh On the other side was the rest better parte of the Clergie The Bishope was so armed with multitude that maior pars picit meliâ—rem the greater part conquered the better with arguments which in those times were growen to a greate hea◠〈◊〉 vniuersalitie and false miracles A hundreth yeares after that aboute the yeare one thousand and fifty Berengarius deacon of