that the Assistance of Christ doth especially concurre with his owne Ordinance and therefore much rather where the forme of a Sacrament ordained and instituted by himselfe is observed then where it is as of you so notoriously perverted and contemned Yet because you may thinke we rest upon either our owne or yet of other your Doctors Iudgement in this Defence we shall produce to this purpose the consonant Doctrine of ancient Fathers Our third proofe is taken from the manifold Reasons of ancient Fathers for Confirmation of the Necessity of the Communicating in both kinds SECT IX FOr the proofe of the necessary vse of both kindes in the solemne and publique dispensation of this Sacrament the particular Testimonies of many ancient Fathers might be produced but your owne Authours will ease us of that labour by relating and confessing as much in effect as we did intend to prove viz. That the ancient Fathers were induced to the Continuance of the Custome in both kinds First by the Example and Institution of Christ Secondly by some particular Grace which they held to be signified by the Cup. Thirdly for the Representation that it had to the Passion of Christ distinctly and respectively to his Bodie and Blood Fourthly to resemble the Redemption which man hath in his Body by Christ's Body and by his Blood in the soule Fifâ—ly To expresse by these Symbols the perfect spirituall Nourishments wee have by his Body and Blood Sixtly To understand that this Sacrament doth equally belong to People as well as to Priests Seventhly that the Cup of the Eucharist doth animate soules to receive the Cup of bloody Martyrdome when the time should be Whereunto may be added the Constant profession of the Greeke Church in obeying the Canon of Christ and holding it necessarily to be observed of the people also by receiving in both kindes and that otherwise wee transgresse against the Institution of Christ All these Testimonies of primitive Fathers under the Confession of your owne Doctors are so many Arguments of the Consonant Doctrine of Antiquity for proofe of an obligation of precept upon the Churches of Christ whatsoever for the preservation of the perfect forme of Christ's Ordinance in the administring of the Sacrament in both kindes Vpon this Evidence may you justly call your fellow-Priest Master Brereley to account for his bold Assumption saying that No Doctor speaking of ancient Fathers can be produced either expressely or else by necessary Consequence affirming the necessity of the Laicks receiving under both kinds Your selves perceiving now not only One but many ancient Doctors to have expressed not only One but many Necessities inferring the same And then you may furthermore question him for his next as lavish Assertion affirming in his fift Answere that The Authorities obiected for the necessity of both kinds speake not of a Sacramentall but only of a spirituall Receiving with the mouth of their hearts When shall we find conscionable dealing at this man's hands Having thus finished our Assumption we shall more expeditely satisfie such your Reasons or rather Pretences which you bring to disguize your sacrilegious Abuse The Romish Pretences for their Innovation and Alteration of Christ his Institution by the publique vse of but One kind SECT X. VVE heare the Councell of Trent pretending as they say Iust reasons of altering the primitive Custome and vse of both kinds but naming none which we may well thinke was because they deserved not the mention surely such they were that your Iesuite had rather that you should belieue them then try and examine them It being your part as hee saith Rather to thinke them inst than to discusse them But wee are not bound to your Rules of blinde Obedience God will have us to use the sight which he hath given us least If the blinde leading the blinde both fall into the Ditch And whether the Reasons which are given by your Doctors be not blinde Seducements wee are now to try Some of your Reasons are taken from extraordinary Cases some Instances are common to all other Churches Christian and some are made as being peculiar to the Church of Rome The first kind of Romish Pretences from extraordinary Cases The first Pretence is thus alleaged Many Northerne Countries are destitute of Wine and therefore one kinde is to be used for Concord and Vniformity-sake Will you be answered from your selves Aquinas making the same Obiection of want of Wine and Wheate in forreine Countries Resolveth that Notwithstanding Wheate and Wine may be transported easily to all parts Accordingly doth he resolve of the want of Balsame used in your Consecration and yet it is farre more scarce then Wine or Wheate Yet what Northerne Countrie almost can you name that hath not abundance of Wine for many persons even unto râ—ot and can they not as well have it in moderate measure for a sacred Rite But what talke you of Vniformity and Concord in this Case of Alteration which are your two next Pretences wherein notwithstanding the Church of Rome is dissenting from the Greeke and all other Christian Churches in the World Or if this were a necessary Cause why did not your Church allow the use of both kinds to the Church of Bohemia but twice raised a fierce warre against them for which your Iesuite Salmeron seemeth to be full sorrie marrie it was because that warre had not his wished successe Is their Concord in Hostilitie Againe because you thirdly pretend Vniformity also why then doe your consecrating Priests only receive both kinds sacramentally and all the other Priests in Communicating participate but in one or how is it that you allow a â—…priuiledge to Popes Cardinals Monkes and noble Personages to receive in both kinds and deny this liberty to others Is there likewise Vniformity in Disparity Your fourth Pretence is because divers are Abstemious and have an Antipathy against Wine and some sickly persons also can hardly receive without Irreverent casting it up againe If the particular reason which Aquinas giveth saying That Wine moderately taken of such can doe no hurt may not satisfie yet this being also a Cause accidentall and extraordinary you ought to be regulated by this generall Rule That extraordinary Cases ought not to iustle out ordinary Lawes and Customes For that Command of Christ to his Apostles Goe preach to every Creature of man stood good in the generall albeit many men happened to be deafe Saint Peter requireth of every Christian of fit yeares that he be prepared to give an answere of his faith to everyone that asketh which precept was not therefore alterable because of multitudes of many that were dumbe Finally to close vp with you hee that by the rule of Hospitality is to cheere up his Guests doth not prescribe that because some mens stomackes are queasie and not able to endure Wine or else some meates therefore all others should be kept from fasting from all meates and Drinkes and the
Eucharist you know is called by Saint Paul The supper of the Lord and by ancient Fathers an holy Banquet The second kind of Romish Pretences is of such which might have beene common to other Churches The other Causes above-mentioned were common to the primitive Church of Christ wherein the use of both kinds was notwithstanding preserved and continued except that you will say no Northerne Nations were Christians in those times and that no stomacks of Christians were disaffected to wine in loathing it c. But two other Pretences you have which you thinke to be of more speciall force to forbid the use of this Sacrament in both kinds One is Because saith your Cardinall Such is the now-received and approved custome of Nations and People So hee But first to argue that your Church did therefore forbid the use of both kinds because shee had approued the contrary Custome is a meere Nugacitie and Tautologie and as much as to say Shee would forbid it because shee would forbid it Secondly saying that the Vse of but One kinde had indefinitely the Consent of Nations and People is a flat falsity because as hath beene confessed The Greeke Church not to mention Aethiopians Aegyptians Armenians and Others have alwayes held the Contrarie Custome Lastly to justifie your Churches Innouation in consenting to the humour of People of later times what can you censure it lesse than a grosse and absurd Indulgence The other Motive which the Cardinall calleth a Vehement presumption and which all your Obiectors most earnestly urge is the Cause of Irreverence lest the blood might be split especially in such a multitude of faithfull Communicants and also least any particle of the Hoast fall to the ground saith Master Brereley We have but foure Answeres to this mightie Obiection First that this was not held a Reason to Christ or his Apostles or to the Church of Christ for many ages when notwithstanding the multitudes of Communicants were innumerable Secondly that The Casuall spilling of the Cup saith your Salmeron is no sinne else would not Christ have instituted the use of the Cup nor would the Apostles or primitive Church aswell in the West as in the East in their communicating nor yet the Priest in consecrating have vsed it So hee Wee might adde by the same reason should people be forbid the other part also left as your Priest said any particle thereof should fall to the ground Furthermore for the avoiding of Spilling you as your Cardinall Alan relateth have provided Pipes of silver which are used by Popes Cardinals Monks and some other Illustrious lay-Personages Surely there being no respect of persons with God as said S. Peter we thinke that he who will be S. Peter's Successor should have taken out with S. Peter that lesson of Christ of loving the whole flocke of Christ aswell Lambes as Sheepe not to provide Pipes or Tunnels for himselfe alone his Grandes for receiuing this part of the Sacrament and to neglect all other Christians albeit never so true members of Christ For this wee all know that Our Lord Christ prepared his table aswell for the poore as the Rich according to the Apostles Doctrine by your owne construction answerable to the Doctrine of ancient Fathers And that the pretence of Reverence cannot be a sufficient Reason of altering the ordinance of Christ wee may learne from ancient Histories which euidently declare that the opinion of Reverence hath often beene the Damme and Nource of manifold Superstitions As for example The Heretikes called Discalceati in pretence of more humilitie thought that they ought to goe bare-foote The Encratitae in pretence of more sanctitity abhorred marriage The Aquarij in pretence of more sobriety used water in this Sacrament The Manichees wanted not their pretence of not drinking wine in the Eucharist because they thought it was created by an evill Spirit And yet were these iudged by Pope Gelasius to be Sacrilegious Yea and what greater defence had the Pharisees for all their Superstitions than that of Reverence whom notwithstanding Christ did pierce thorow with so many Vae's for annulling of the Precepts of God by their Traditions vnder the pretence of religious Reverence and sanctity In briefe It was the opinion of Reverence that made S. Peter to contradict our Lords command when he said Thou shalt never wash my feete yet how dangerous it had beene for Peter to have persisted in opposition the Replie of our Saviour doth declare If I wash not thy feete saith Christ thou hast no part with me c. Vpon which Text S. Chrysost readeth vnto you this Lecture Let us therefore learne saith he to honour and reverence Christ as he would and not as we thinke meete And sure wee are that he would that same which he commanded saying Doe this Therefore our next Difference betweene our defence and yours is no other than obedient Reverence and reverent or rather irreligious Disobedience As for your Pretence of manifesting hereby a Greater dignity of Priests than of Laicks it is too phantasticall for the singularity too harsh for the noveltie and too gracelesse for the impietie thereof seeing that Christ who gave his Bodie and Blood an equall price of Redemption for all sorts would have the Sacrament of his Body and Blood equally administred to People as Priests as you have heard the Fathers themselves professe The three Romish Pretences which are more peculiar to their owne Church in two points First because Heretikes saith Bellarmine and meaning Protestants doe not believe Concomitancie that is to say that the blood of Christ is received under the forme of bread but for this Concomitancie the Church was moved to prescribe the vse of the Eucharist in one kinde So he And this point of Concomitancie is that which M. Fisher and M. Breerly most laboured for or rather laboured vpon And albeit your Romane Catechisme iudgeth this the principall Cause of inducing your Church to preferre one kinde yet wee whom you call Heretikes beleeve that the deuout Communicant receiving Christ spiritually by faith is thereby possessed of whole Christ crucified in the inward act of the Soule and onely deny that the whole is received Sacramentally in this outward act vnder one onely part of this Sacrament which is the present question And in this wee say no more than your Bishop Iansenius iudged reasonable who hath rightly argued saying It doth not easily appeare how the outward receiving of Christ under the forme of Bread should be called Drinking but onely Eating being received after the manner of meates as that is called Drinking onely which is received after the manner of Drinke Drinking therefore and Eating are distinguished by Christ in the outward Act. So hee even as your owne Durand before him had truely concluded with whom M. Breerly will beare a part Therefore your Concomitancie if wee respect the Sacramentall manner of Receiving
herein both of them correcting the Vulgar Translation in the word Pledge and one of them giving an Absitâ—l against this Sence of it The Reason of both is because he that giveth a Pledge taketh it againe when the Thing for which it was pledged is received But he that giveth an Earnest will have it continue with him to whom it was given And so God assuring his Chosen by his Spirit doth for their greater Confidence give it as an Earnest and not as a Pledge So they Thereby advancing Gods gracious love towards man and man's faith in God's love Here will be no corner of Pretence that this being an Errour of Print and not of Doctrine may be rejected by you without Prejudice to your Oath no for Errour of Print ariseth from some affinity of words as where these words This is a sound reason being delivered to the print was returned from the Presse thus This is a fond reason But betweene Pignus and Arrhabo there is no more Symphony than betweene an Horse and a Saddle Nor will it availe you to say that the Originall Greeke was corrupted for it is the same Greeke word which Hierome himselfe who as you know used the perfectest Greeke Text doth here avow to be True II. Overture of Perjury in your Disputers is in swearing to the Romish Expositions of Scripture THe Tenour of the Oath in this respect is I admit the sacred Scriptures in that Sense which the Mother Church hath held and doth hold By Mother Church understanding the Church of Rome as without which there is no salvation which is expressed in the same Oath as another Article therein and which else-where we have proved to be a GRAND IMPOSTVRE in a full Tractate from the Doctrine of the Apostles of Generall Councells of severall Catholique Churches and from such Primitive Fathers whose memories are at this day registred in the Romish Calender of Saints How then can the Oath for this point be taken without danger of Perjury But to come to the Article concerning the Expositions of Scriptures According to the sence of the Church of Rome which would thereby be thought to Hold no Sence of Scripture now which she had not Held in more Antient Times We for Triall hereof shall for this present seeke after no other Instances than such as in this Treatise have been discussed and for brevity-sake single out of many but only Three A first is in that Scripture Ioh. 6. Except you eat the flesh of the Sonne of man you cannot have life The word Except was extended unto Infants in the dayes of Pope Innocent the First continuing as hath beene confessed six hundred yeares together when the Church of Rome thereupon Held it necessary for Infants to receive the Eucharist Contrarily the now Romane Church Holdeth it Inexpedient to administer the Eucharist unto Infants as you have heard Secondly Luc. 22. Take Eat c. Your Church of Rome in the dayes of Pope Nicolas in a Councell at Rome Held that by the word Eate was meant an Eating by Tearing the Body of Christ sensually with men's teeth in a Literall sence Which your now Romane Church if we may beleeve your Iesuites doth not Hold as hath appeared Thirdly the Tenour of the Institution of Christ concerning the Cup was Held in the dayes of Pope Gelasius to be peremptory for the administration thereof to prove that the Eucharist ought to be administred in both kindes to all Communicants and judging the dismembring of them a Grand Sacrilege as you have heard whereas now your Romish Church Holdeth it not only lawfull but also religious to withhold the Cup from all but only consecrating Priests Vpon these omitting other Scriptures which you your selves may observe at your best leasure we conclude You therefore in taking that Oath swearing to admit all Interpretations of Scripture both which the Church of Rome once Held and now Holdeth the Proverbe must needs be verified upon you viz. You hold a Wolfe by the eare which howsoever you Hold you are sure to be Oath-bit either in Holding TENVIT by TENET or in Holding TENET by TENVIT III. Overture of Perjury in your Disputers is in swearing to the pretended Consent of Fathers in their Expositions of Scriptures HEare your Oath Neither will I ever interpret any Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of Fathers Here the word Fathers cannot betoken Bishops and Fathers assembled in a Councell where the major part of voices conclude the lesse for Councell never writ Commentaries upon Scriptures but from Scriptures collect their Conclusions And although the word Vnanimous doth literally signifie the universall Consent which would inferre an Impossibility because that all Fathers have not expounded any one Scripture and very few All yet that you may know we presse not too violently upon you we shall be content to take this word Morally with this Diminution For the most part and hereupon make bold to averre that your Iuror by this Oath is sworne to a flat Falsity because you cannot deny but that the Fathers in their Expositions dissent among themselves sometimes a Greater part from the lesse insomuch that you your selves are at difference among your selves which part to side with With the greater saith Valentia nay but sometime with the Lesser saith Canus Can you dreame of an Vnanimity in Disparity Sometime there is a Non-Constat what is the Iudgement of the Fathers in some points which you call matter of Faith What then Then saith your Iesuite the Authority of the Pope is to take place who being guided by other rules may propound what is the Sence Behold here the very ground of that which we call Popery which is devising and obtruding upon the Church of Christ new Articles of Faith unknowen for ought you know to Ancient Fathers And is it possible to finde an Vnanimity of Consent in an Individuall Vnity or rather a Nullity for what else is an ignorance what the Sence of the Fathers is whether so or so Next that it may appeare that this Article touching the Vnanimous Consent of Fathers is a meere Ostentation and gullery and no better than that Challenge made by the wise man of Athens of all the Ships that entred into the Road to be his owne as if you should say All the Fathers doe patronize your Romish Cause We shall give you one or two Examples among your Iesuites as patternes of the Disposition of others in neglecting sleighting and rejecting the more Generall Consent of Fathers in their Expositions of Scriptures One Instance may be given in your Cardinall who in his Commentaries upon the Psalmes dedicated to the then Pope professeth himselfe to have composed them Rather by his owne meditation than by reading of many bookes whereas he that will seeke for Vnanimous Consent of Fathers must have a perusall of them all In the second place hearken unto the Accents of your Iesuite Maldonate in his
Reason saith hee is onely probable but not euident for although they affirme a dayly celebration of the Masse yet doe they not denie a daily Communion Afterwards he seeketh the Originall and beginning of priuate Masse out of priuate Monasteries yet not able to satisfie himselfe there he commeth at length to debate a Controversie wherewith many were then perplexed to wit how it could bee said by a Priest being alone The Lord be with you or Answere be made to and by the said Priest being then alone And with thy Spirit To this end he propoundeth many Answeres which I referre to your Choice whether you will beleeue with Gratian that the words Dominus vobiscum The Lord be with you spoken by the Priest being alone may be thought to haue beene spoken to Angels or with Cameracensis vnto Stones or with the Heremites in their Celles vnto formes and Stooles or else with the Deane of the Cardinals teaching any Heremite being alone to say The Lord be with you as spoken to himselfe All which imaginarie fooleries are so vnworthy the Conceptions of but reasonable men that we may feare to be held inconsiderate if we should indeavor to confute them Only we can say no lesse than that if the Apostle did condemne them who speake with strange languages in the publike assemblie although they that spake vnderstood themselues because that in such a Case If saith hee there be none to interpret and there come in an Ignorant or Infidel obseruing this will hee not say you are madde how much more extreame Madnes must wee iudge this to be where men either talke to themselues or els as if they were metamorphosed into the things whereunto they speake vnto formes stones stooles and the like For Conclusion heare the said Deane of the Romane Cardinals from whom a Greeke Archbishop shall not dissent speake reason and withall tell you that the Correspondencie of speech vsed betwixt Priest and People was to vnite the hearts of both Priest and People together Wee say with him to vnite them not as you doe to separate People from Priest by your solitarie Masses and yet to confound their speech by your Dominus vobiscum And if this may not preuaile with you yet me thinkes the authoritie of Pope Gregorie sirnamed the Great may command your beleefe He vpon the forme of the Romane service by an interchangeable speech betweene Priest and People concludeth that Therefore the Priest should not celebrate Masse alone And yet behold a Greater Pope than hee euen Soter more ancient by 400. yeares and also a Martyr decreeing as most conuenient for Answere vnto the Priest's Vobiscum and Orate that there be two at least besides the Priest An Anonymus not long since would needs perswade his Reader that by Vobiscum was meant the Clerke of the Parish But why was it then not said Dominus tecum The Lord be with thee O this forsooth was spoken to the Clerke in civility according to the ordinary Custome of intitling singular persons in the plurall number and this Answere hee called Saluing of a doubt But any may replie that if it were good manners in the Priest to call vpon the Clerke with Vobiscum in the plurall number for Civility-sake it must then be rusticitie in your Church to teach your Clerke to answere your Priest Et cum Spiritu tuo And with thy Spirit And againe the Answere is impertinent for where the Priest is found thus parling with the Clerke he cannot be said to be Alone And so the Answere of this man must be indeed not Saluing but as the rest of his manner of answering a Quack-saluing rather and a meere Delusion A THIRD CHALLENGE Against the same Custome A Custome Commendable say your Fathers of Trent Condemnable say wee euen from your owne Consciences because you were neuer hitherto able to produce either any Commendable yea or Tollerable example expresly recorded within the many Volumes of Antiquitie of any celebration of the Eucharist without a Communion no not in that only obiected place of Chrysostome whose Speech is not a Grant that absolutely All were absent from his administration of the Eucharist but certainly it is a vehement Invective against all wilfull Absents So farre was he from allowing much more from Commending Communicating alone who else-where against such as neglected to Communicate with the poore taking his Argument from the example of Christ That Supper saith he was common to All. The very Argument of Saint Hierome saying yet more obligatorily The Lord's Supper ought to bee common to All. Such Reverencers were the Primitive Fathers of the Ordinances of Christ And as touching Nemo No man in the testimonie of Chrysostome it is knowne to be taken restrainedly for Few and so acknowledged by your selves in the place objected The fourth Romish Transgression of the Canon of Christ his Masse contradicting the sence of the next words SAID VNTO THEM SECT VI. IN the aforesaid Canon of Christ his Masse it followeth And he said vnto Them Christ Saying or speaking to his Disciples by commanding them to Take c. did doubtlesse so speake that they might heare his Command to wit in an audible voice Which done he further commanded concerning this same Circumstance ioyntly with the rest saying Doe this The contrarie Canon of the Romane Masse But your late Councell of Trent pronounceth him Anathema who shall condemne her Custome of the Priest uttering the words of Consecration in a lowe voice Whereby saith your Iesuite it forbiddeth the words of Consecration to be deliuered in a lowd and audible voice So they CHALLENGE DOe you see what your Church doth professe See also wee pray you notwithstanding what your owne Doctours are brought to confesse namely first that The Example of Christ and his Apostles is against this uttering those words in a lowe and inaudible voice Secondly that The same Custome was controlled by the practice of the whole Church of Christ both in the East part thereof from the testimonies of ancient Liturgies and Fathers and in the ancient Romane Church by the witnessing of two Popes in whose time the People hearing the words of Consecration pronounced did answere thereunto AMEN Thirdly that the same Innovation was much misliked by the Emperour Iustinian who severely commanded by his Edict as you know that The Priest should pronounce the words with a cleare voice that they may be heard of the people Whose authority you peremptorily contemne as though it did not belong to an Emperour to make Lawes in this kind But forasmuch as the King of Kings and the High Priest of Priests the Sonne of God hath said of this as of the other such Circumstances Doe this who are you that you should dare to contradict this Injunction by the practice of any Priest saying and speaking yet not as Christ did vnto Them but only to himselfe without so much as any pretence of
giue consent to the publique Prayer in saying Amen And therefore requireth the Minister Verse 7. as the Harper to yeild in particular a Distinction of tunes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Verse 8. as a Trumpetter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to give a certaine knowne sound that which your owne Doctors have also confessed A third Instance is taken out of Bellarmine who saith that The Apostle reprehendeth not an vnknowne Prayer but preferreth a knowne Prayer before the other saying Verse 7. Thou indeed prayest well but another is not edified Flatly contradictorie to the whole scope of the Apostle throughout the Chapter as your owne Iesuite is forced to proclaime The Apostle saith he would have the people to be edified because then all things ought to have beene done to the Edification and Consolation of the Assembly and therefore he would not have any Publike Prayer vsed among the Hebrewes but in the Hebrew-language nor among the Grecians but in Greeke nor yet among the Latines but in the Latine tongue The meaning then is Thou indeed namely who art the Minister and knowest the prayer so far doâ—t well but in respect of others which cannot understand Not well because They are not edified His fourth Obiection he wresteth out of the fourth Verse If I pray with my tongue my spirit prayeth but my vnderstanding is without fruit So he As though that strange Tongue here spoken off were not vnderstood by him that prayed Which contradicteth the Apostle Verse 4. He that speaketh with the tongue doth edifie himselfe for never did any denie that he who had the miraculous gift of Speech in a strange tongue did understand himselfe although sometimes he wanted the gift of interpreting it for the vnderstanding of all others Therefore saith the Apostle Verse 13. He that speaketh with the tongue let him pray that he may interprete it Fiftly by the word Spirit your Cardinall would have understood the Affection as if Affection without understanding did profit him that prayeth which is fully contrarie to the Apostles Doctrine as witnesseth your Salmeron in plaine termes shewing that the word Spirit thorow-out this whole Chapter signifieth not the Affection but the miraculous Spirituall gift of speaking in Strange tongues as also the Fathers expound it In the next place the afore-said Anonymus contendeth by Reason but such as others reached unto him Fathers say saith hee the words of Consecration should be kept secret True to them that were not capable of this Sacrament but never to the licenced Communicants because that Christ and his Apostles yea and the Vniversall Church primitive consecrated in an audible voice and knowne language as hath beene confessed Yet furthermore The Church saith he used the said Hebrew word Allelujah unknowne to the people What then know you not that in all Churches of whatsoeuer language is used also the Hebrew word Amen and if people doe not learne one or two words of a strange tongue it is not for that they are witlesse but because they are wilfull and carelesse Their last Reason Some languages as for example that in Italie were Romane and corupted by invasion of Enemies of divers languages and in the end became Italian c. yet the publike Service was not altered but continued Romane as before This Argument is à facto ad jus all one with that Reasoning à Baculo ad angulum Like as if some should Conclude that because Stewes are allowed at Rome they are therefore justly licenced But wee demand are men made for languages or rather languages for men if the first then all men were bound to learne all languages If the latter then is that language to be used which is knowne to serve best for the Edification and Consolation of God's people in his worship A SIXT CHALLENGE Out of the Doctrine of Antiquitie ALthough it were preposterous to exact of vs a proofe from Antiquitie of condemning the Service in a strange tongue seeing as hath beene confessed the Primitive practice is wholly for vs and therefore no Abuse in those times could occasion any such Reproofe yet shall we for your better illumination offer unto you some more expresse Suffrages of the ancient Fathers after that wee shall have satisfied your Obiections pretended to make for your Defence Saint Augustine saith of the People that their Safetie consisteth not in the vigour of their understanding but in their simplicitie of believing So indeed doth Augustine forewarne the people who although they knew the single words of the prayers of Heretickes yet might possibly be deluded with the obscuritie of their Hereticall Sences The Difference is extreme For Saint Augustine's people vnderstood the language of those prayers in the obscure and inuolued Sence whereof they were vnwillingly ignoâ—ant But your Popish people are wilfully ignorant both of the Words and Sence The oddes therefore is no lesse than this they were simply yours are sottishly ignorant and Augustine wisheth that their Simplicitie were corrected you hold your Peoples blindnesse worthy to be commended Secondly Origen saith that when Christians are exercised in reading of holy Scripture albeit some words be not vnderstood yet is that reading profitable This Sentence also is alleaged for countenancing of Prayer in an unknowne tongue notwithstanding that in a man's Reading of Scripture God is said to speake unto man but in Praying man is said to speake unto God So that it may be both lawfull and profitable to the Reader to find some particular Scriptures which God would have to excell the Capacitie of the most learned to humble them to the admiration of his excellent wisdome as the Fathers teach Whereas contrarily an unknowne Prayer wittingly used is both vnprofitable and vnlawfull as hath beene copiously confessed by your owne Divines from the Doctrine of the Apostle More Obiections out of the Fathers you have not We will trie whether we can recompence your Nominalities that wee may so call your impertinent Obiections with Realities and soliâ— Proofs Cast but your eyes vpon the Marginals consisting partly of the Relation of your owne Cassander and partly of our Collections and you shall finde among the Fathers Ambrose denying that He who is the person ignorant of the Prayer can give consent vnto it by saying Amen and thereupon inferreth that only Such things should be spoken in the publike Congregation which the Hearers vnderstand Chrysostome noting a Man Ignorant of the Prayer to be no better then a Barbarian to himselfe not in respect of the nature of the voyce but of his owne ignorance and declaring Prayers in an vnknowne tongue to be contrary to the Apostles Doctrine who requireth that All things be done to edification Isiodore peremptorily affirming an Oportet and duety that All may be able to Pray in publike places of prayer Theophylact noting that The giuing of thankes to God is unprofitable where the edification of the people is neglected
either private or illegitimate or false respectively Hitherto of the Primitive Custome Notwithstanding all this will your Romane Church boast of her contrary Custome of after-times telling vs in her Councels that her Custome of administring the Eucharist but in one kinde is rightly observed as a Custome which hath beene Diutissimè observata that is of most long continuance Many yeares by passed saith your Villalpandius But most precisely your Iesuite Salmeron It is certaine saith he that the Church for these three or two hundred yeares hath used to communicate to the Laity vnder one kinde So they CHALLENGE NOw after that wee have proved out of your owne Confessions the length of the Custome of both kinds to have beene in the Continuance above a thousand yeares after the first Institution of this Sacrament and for largenes thereof in an universall consent thereunto without any exception by any example ordinary publique and legitimate and that you have heard also even the Fathers of your Church opposing against it a contrary custome not above the Compasse of three hundred yeeres and yet to call it Diutissima A Custome of long continuance What Tergiversation could be more shameles But enough of this point In the next place because the same your Councell hath told us that your Contrary Custome was brought in Rationabilitèr with good Reason wee are forth-with to discusse the Reasons thereof Our sixt Comparison is of Reasons for the Vse of both kindes collated with Reasons obiected to the contrary SECT VI. A Sacrament according to the common definition is a Visible signe of an invisible Grace and so farre is a Signe true and perfect as it doth fully represent the things that are ordained to be signified thereby Signification being the very proper nature and end of a signe as well in sacred as in prophane Rites Come now and let vs industriously and calmly debate this matter which wee have in hand both in respect of the thing signified which is the Sacrament or spirituall Obiect as of the party Communicating who is the Subiect thereof Our first Reason is taken from the due Perfection of this Sacrament which must necessarily be in both kindes The things Spirituall as all Christians professe are the Body and Blood of Christ which are signified in the Sacrament of Bread and wine These two then are not two Sacraments but one Sacrament as you know which therfore ought to be performed in both or els the Act will be a Sacrilegious dismembring of the Sacrament of Christ This shall we easily prove from the Principles and Confessions of your owne Schooles Your Church professeth to celebrate the Eucharist both as it is a Sacrifice and as it is a Sacrament As you hold it to be a Sacrifice you generaly teach that both kinds are necessarily to be received of the Priest because they both belong to the Essence thereof So your Cardinall Consult with your Aquinas your Iesuites Valentia and Vasques and they will say as much in behalfe of the Eucharist as it is a Sacrament their reason is Because both kindes making but one Sacrament ought to be celebrated perfectly and therefore is the Priest bound to consecrate this Sacrament in both kindes by that command of Christ saying Do this nor can this be omitted without Sacrilege So they If such be the necessity of consecrating in both kindes vnder the hand of the Priest then lieth the same obligation vpon the Church likewise for distributing it in both kindes vnto the people to whom it is to be administred in token of Christ his Passion for them applicatorily both in his Body and Blood but the Bread only can no more represent the Blood of Christ in the mouthes of people in the eating thereof then it can by Consecrating it in the hands of the Priest and consequently the dismembring thereof as you do must necessarily condemne both Priest and People A Consequence which your figment of Concomitancie cannot possibly auoid A Corroboration of the same Reason against the Sacrilegious dismembring of this Sacrament by the Testimony of Pope Gelasius and a Vindication of Dr. Morton from the Traducement of other your Priests and Iesuites SECT VII THe Haereticall Manichees forbare the vse of the Cup in this Sacrament in an opinion that wine was not created by God but by some evill spirit whom Pope Gelasius did therfore condemne by his publique Decree which hereticall opinion as once I said cannot iustly be imputed unto the Church of Rome in her manner of abstaining from the Cup in the Eucharist This saying M. Fisher the Iesuite of late thought good to pervert to his owne use thus The Crime wherewith some Protestants charge us that our receiving under the sole forme of Bread is to iump in the opinion of the Manichees we may as D. Morton confesseth reiect as iniurious saying with him that it was not the Manichees abstinence from wine but the reason of their forbearance that was iudged hereticall So hee But this mans march is but slow M. Breerly a Romish Priest one well esteemed among you for his exceeding labour and pains in defending the Romish Cause to his power by his many Books almost in every particular commeth on more roundly as followeth D. Morton himselfe saith he shall plead in our behalfe who saith that the Manichees did heretically celebrate the Eucharist only in one kind in an opinion that wine was not created by God but by some evill spirit and were therfore anciently condemned for Heretiques but the Romanists are not to be accused of this Heresie of the Manichees in their not distributing of both elements of bread wine And to obiect this against that Church were an accusation iniurious for it was not the Manichees abstinence from wine but their reason thereof which made them hereticall said he So your Priest yet what of all this So clearly doth D. Morton saith he cleere vs from the foule and false imputation urged against us by D. Whitaker who noted the Administration but in one kind now used by the Romish Church to have had it's originall from the Manichees and so clearly doth he contradict both M. Whitaker himselfe in one place accusing us in another excusing us in one and the same Respect of which foule fault of Contradiction in so great a Rabbin when hee cleereth himselfe in stead of being Bishop of Litch field he shall be unto me euer Magnus Apollo Thus far M. Breerly Alas what wil become of the Doctor being as you see thus fiercely assaulted by two at once one a Iesuite the other a Romish Priest both conspiring together to make the Doctor ridiculous CHALLENGE IT is now about twenty yeares since the said Doctor in Confutation of a Booke of Master Brereleys intituled an Apologie published a Treatise called the Protestants Appeale wherein were discovered many hundred of Master Brereleyes Ignorances Falsities and Absurdities who ever since hath had Master Parson 's
ceased to be Water And so must Bread cease to be Bread This being the State of the Question we undertake to give Good Proofes of the Existence and Continuance of Bread in the Eucharist the same in Substance after Consecration Our First Proofe is from Scripture 1. Cor. 10. Saint Paul calling it Bread SECT IV. IN the Apostle his Comment that I may so call his two Chapters to the Corinthians upon the Institution of Christ we reade of Eating the Bread and Drinking the Cup thrice all which by the consent of all sides are spoken of Eating Drinking after Consecration and yet hath he called the outward Element Bread You will say with some It was so called onely because it was made of Bread as Aarons Rod turned into a Serpent was notwithstanding called a Rod. But this Answere is not answerable unto the Similitude For first of the Bread the Apostle saith demonstratively This Bread and of the other This Cup But of Aaron's Rod turned into Serpent none could say This Rod. And secondly it is contrary to Christian Faith which will abhorre to say in a proper sence that Christ's Body was ever Bread Or else you will answere with others It is yet called Bread because it hath the Similitude of Bread as the Brazen Serpent was called a Serpent But neither this nor any other of your Imaginations can satisfie for we shall prove that the Apostle would never have called it Bread after Consecration but because it was Substantially still Bread Our Reason is He had now to deale against the Prophaners of this Sacrament in reproving such as used it as Common Bread Not discerning therein Sacramentally exhibited the Lord's Body It had therefore concerned him to have honoured the Sacrament with Divine Titles agreeable to the Body of Christ hypostatically united to his God-head and to have denied it absolutely to have beene Bread considering that by the name of Bread the glory of the same Body might seeme to be abased and Ecclipsed if in Truth and Veritie hee had not beleeved it to have beene then Bread This Reason we guesse you are bound to approve off who in your opinion of the Corporall Presence of Christ his Body and Absence of Bread would never suffer any of your Professors to call it after Consecration by the name of Bread Whereupon it was that the Greeke Archbishop Cabasila complained of the Romish Professors for reprehending the Greeke Liturgies why Because saith he after the words of Christ This is my Body wee call the Symbols and Signes Bread and Wine So hee Which bewrayeth that the very naming of the Sacrament Bread and Wine is in the iudgement of the Church of Rome preiudiciall to their Transubstantiation and that if Saint Paul himselfe should deliuer the same words he did at this day hee should by your Romish Inquisitors be taught to use his Termes in another stile What need many words except in the words of Christ the word Body be properly predicated and affirmed of Bread farewell Transubstantiation of Bread into Christ's Body But that it is Impossible the Body of Christ should be properly predicated upon Bread hath beene the Generall Confession of your owne Doctours and the Conclusion of our second Booke Our Second Proofe of the Continuance of the Substance of Bread is from the speech of Christ touching the Continuance of Wine after Consecration Matth. 26. 29. by the Interpretation of Antiquity SECT V. THe same is as fully verified by our Lord and Master Christ himselfe in thesecond Element of Wine calling it This fruit of the Vine that is Wine after Consecration where the Pronoune This hath relation to the Wine in the Cup. For the proof of this our Exposition of the words of Christ we have the Consent of these and thus many holy Fathers Origen Cyprian Chrysostome Augustine Hierome Epiphanius Euthymius Theophylact and Bede as witnesseth your Iesuite Maldonate no one Father produced by him to the contrary Then answering But I saith hee cannot be thus perswaded So he Marke this you great Boasters of Accordance with Antiquity and yet this manner of answering the Fathers is most familiar with this Iesuite But he proceedeth telling you that The Fathers notwithstanding did not call it Wine as thinking it to be Wine but even as Christ did when hee called his flesh Bread Iohn 6. Then he addeth They that will follow the Exposition of These Fathers are thus to interpret them And gives his Reason of this his Aduertisement Lest the other Exposition saith he may seeme to agree with the opinion of the Calvinists So he For which his Answere Calvinists are as much beholding to him as are the Ancient Fathers with whom he hath made bold not only to reiect their Authority but also to pervert the plaine and evident meaning of their Testimonies who declare that they understood Naturall and Substantiall Wine as the Marginals doe manifest so plainly as to affirme that It was Wine which then Christ dranke and that hereby the practices of the Heretiques Aquarij are confuted who would drinke nothing but Water in the Eucharist It was the Wine saith Augustine which was used in the mysteries of our Redemption Even that Wine which was blessed saith Clemens Alexandrinus and your owne Bishop Iansenius doth confesse that these words of Christ had reference to the Cup in the Eucharist and not as some say to the Cup of the Passeover Marke you furthermore the Errour of the Aquarij and the Confutation thereof they used only Water in the Eucharist in pretence of Sobriety which Cyprian confuted only upon this ground viz. that this Practice was not warranted by the Institution of Christ wherein Christ ordained Wine and not Onely Water and now tell us if that your Doctrine of Transubstantiation had beene an Article of Faith in those dayes whether it had not concerned Cyprian to have stood exactly upon it for the more just condemnation of those Aquarij to let them know that if they would needs use only Water than according to your Doctrine their Consecration should be void and consequently their Adoration if it had beene then in use should have beene like wise Idolatrous The former Proofe confirmed by Analogie betweene Bread and Christ's Body both Naturall and Mysticall SECT VI. IN 1. Cor. 10. 16 17. The Bread which we breake saith the Apostle is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ for we being many are one Bread and one Body in as much as wee all partake of one Bread In this Sentence the word Bread hath a double Relation the First to Christ his Body Naturall Thus the joynt Participation of the Bread is called the Communion of the Body of Christ. The Analogie in this respect is excellently expressed by Isidore Bread saith hee because it strengtheneth the Body is therefore called Christ's Body and Wine because it turneth into Blood is therefore called Christ's Blood These two are
visibles but being sanctified by the holy Spirit are turned into a Sacrament of Christ's Body So hee This is indeed a true Analogie not to be performed by Accidents Could any of them whom you call Calvinists have spoken more significantly either in contradicting your Exposition of Christ's words for he saith that Christ called Bread his Body or in declaring the true proper Sence of the Sacramentall Conversion for he saith Bread is Changed into a Sacrament of Christ's Bodie or else in giving the Reason why Bread and Wine were chosen to be Sacraments and Signes of Christ's Body and Blood by which we are spiritually fed for hee sheweth that it is because of their Naturall Effects Bread substantially and therefore not Accidentally strengtheneth Man's Body Wine turneth in Blood Which overthroweth your third Figment of onely Accidents as if the Substance of Bread and Wine were not necessary in this Sacrament Say then doth the Accident of Roundnesse and Figure of Bread strengthen mans Body or doth the Accident Colour of Wine turne into Blood As well might you affirme the only Accident of Water in Baptisme to be sufficient to purge and cleanse the Body by the colour and coldnesse without the substantiall matter thereof The Second part of the Analogie is discerned in the Mysticall Body of Christ which is the Congregation of the Faithfull Communicants We are all one Body in as much as we are partakers of one Bread It standeth thus As many Granes of Corne make one Loafe of Bread and many Grapes make one measure of Wine in the Cup So many Christians partaking faithfully of this Sacrament become One mysticall Body of Christ by the Vnion of Faith and Love This Exposition as it is yeilded unto by your Cardinall Cajetan and authorized by your Romane and Tridentine Catechisme so is it also confessed to be used of Almost all holy Doctours Hee was held a most expert and artificiall Painter in Plinie that could paint Grapes so to life as to deceive Birds which came to feed on them But they are the only Sophisticall Doctors that offer in the Eucharist only Accidents as painted Colours in stead of naturall because where there is not a Reall Analogie there is no Sacrament You may not say that the Analogie consisteth in the matter before Consecration because every Sacramentall Analogie is betweene the Sacrament and the Thing Signified but it is no Sacrament before it be Consecrated CHALLENGE SAy now what Better Authour is there than Christ What better Disciple and Scholler than the Apostle of Christ or what better Commentary upon the words of Christ and his Apostle than the Sentences of Ancient Fathers calling the one part Wine the other Bread after Consecration as you have heard Our Third Proofe that the Substance of Bread remayneth after Consecration in the Sacrament is taken from the Iudgement of Sense necessarily First by the Authority of Scripture SECT VII ALthough man's Sense may be deceived thorow the inconvenient Diposition of the Medium thorow which he seeth as it hapneth in judging a straight Staffe to be Crooked which standeth in the Water and in thinking a White Obiect to be Greene in it selfe which is seene through a Greene glasse or Secondly by the unequall Distance of place as by conceiving the Sunne to be but two feet in breadth or the Rainbow to be a Colour and not Light or Thirdly by some defect in the Organ or Instrument of seeing which is the Eye whereby it commeth to passe that wee take One to be Two or mistake a Shadow for a Substance yet notwithstanding when our Eyes that see are of good Constitution and Temper the Medium whereby we see is perfectly disposed the Distance of the Obiect which we see is indifferent then say we the iudgement of Sense being free is True and the Concurrence and ioynt Consent of divers Senses in one arbitrement is infallible This Reason taken from Sence you peradventure will judge to be but Naturall and Carnall as those Termes are opposed to a true and Christian manner of Reasoning Wee defend the Contrary being warranted by the Argument which Christ himselfe used to his Disciples Luc. 24. 39. Handle mee and see Your Cardinall although he grant that this Reason of Christ was available to prove that his owne Body was no Spirit or Fancy but a true body even by the onely Argument from the Sence of Touching Yet saith he was it not sufficient in it selfe without other Arguments to confirme it and to prove it to have beene a humane body and the very same which it was So he Which Answere of your Cardinall we wish were but only false and not also greatly irreligious for Christ demonstrated hereby not onely that he had a body as your Cardinall speaketh but also that it was his owne same humane body now risen which before had beene Crucified and wounded to Death and buried according to that of Luke That it is even I. Luc. 24. 39. Now because It is not a Resurrection of a Body except it be the Same body Therefore would Christ have Thomas to thrust his hands into his sides and feele the print of his wounds to manifest the same body as Two of your Iesuites doe also observe the One with an Optimè the Other with a Probatum est Accordingly the Apostle Saint Paul laid this Argument taken from Sence as the foundation of a Fundamentall Article of Faith even the Resurrection of the same Body of Christ from the dead for how often doth he repeate and inculcate this He was seene c. And againe thrice more Hee was seene c. And Saint Iohn argueth to the same purpose from the Concurrence of three Sences That which wee have heard which we have seene and our hands have handled declare wee unto you The validity of this Reason was proved by the Effect as Christ averreth Thomas because thou hast seene that is perceiued both by Eye and hand thou hast beleeved The Validity of the Iudgement of Sense in THOMAS and the other Disciples confirmed in the second place by your owne Doctors SECT VIII PErerius a Iesuite confidently pleadeth for the Sense of Touch I feare not saith hee to say that the Evidence of Sense is so strong an Argument to prove without all doubt an humane Bodie that the Devill himselfe cannot herein delude the touch of man that is of vnderstanding and consideration As for the unbeleeving Disciples Christ his Handle me c. saith your Iesuite Vasquez was as much as if he had said to them Perceive you my true flesh as being a most efficacious Argument to prove the truth of an humane Body So he yea and Tolet another Iesuite did well discerne the case of Thomas to have beene an extreme Infidelity when hee said Except I put my finger into the print of the nailes and thrust my hand into his side I will not beleeve Which
stand you still confuted by your owne domesticall witnesses Wee may adde this Reason why there could be no Resemblances of Truth because all the personall Apparitions are said to be of an Infant and of the Childe Iesus albeit Christ at his ascension out of this world was 34. yeares of age and yet now behold Christ an Infant 34. yeares old as if your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had beheld Christ with the Magi in Bethlehem at the time of his birth and not in Bethaven with his Disciples at the instant of his Ascension Of the Suggesters of such Apparitions and of their Complices SECT V. THe first Apparition of flesh above-mentioned was not before the dayes of the Emperour Arcadius which was about the yeare 395. The second not untill 700. yeares after Christ nor is it read of any like Apparition in all the dayes of Antiquity within the compasse of so long a time excepting that of one Marcus recorded by Irenaeus who faigned to Make the mixed wine in the Cup through his Invocation to seeme redd that it might be thought that grace had infused Blood into the Cup which the same Father noteth to have beene done by Magicke at what time there were dayly Proselytes and new Converts to the Christian Religion and on the other side divers Rankes of Heretiques as namely Valentinians Manichees Marcionites and others who all denyed that Christ had any corporall or Bodily Substance at all Were it not then a strange thing that so many Apparitions should be had in after-times in Churches established in Christian Religion and no such one heard of in these dayes of Antiquity when there seemed to be a farre more necessary use of them both for confirming Proselytes in the faith and reducing Heretiques from their Errour that Apparition onely of Marcus excepted which the Church of Christ did impute to the Diabolicall Art of Magicke As for the Reporters much need not to be said of them Simon Metaphrastes is the first who was of that small Credit with your Cardinall that in Answere to an Obiection from the same Author hee said I am not much moved with what Metaphrastes saith And if the Fore-man of the inquest be of no better esteeme what shall one then thinke of the whole Packe As for the testimony under the name of Amphilochius obiected by your Coccius writing the life of Basil and mentioning the like Apparitions of Flesh we make no more account of it then doe your two Cardinals by whom it is reiected as Supposititious and Bastardly But the Suggesters of these Apparitions what were they a matter observable ordinarily Priests together with either old men weomen and sometimes young Girles who wheresoever superstition raigneth are knowne to be most prone thereunto That we say nothing of the lewde Iugglings of your Priâ—sts who in other kinds have beene often discovered amongst us and in other Countries We conclude A true Miracle for Confirmation of Religion we are sure is Divinum opus the Infidell Magicians being enforced to confesse as much saying Digitus Dei hic est And as sure are we that a fained miracle although it be in behalfe of Religion is impious and blasphemous against God who being the God of Truth neither will nor can be glorified by a lie Hath God need of a Lye saith holy Iob. Wee right willingly acknowledge that diuers Miracles have beene wrought for verifying the Eucharist to be a Divine Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ but to be it selfe the true and substantiall flesh of Christ not one When a Iew that had beene once Baptized by one Bishop betooke himselfe to another Bishop to be againe Baptized of him in hope of profiâ— The Water in the Font presently vanished away S. Augustine telleth of a Physitian who was vexed extreamly with the Gout and at his Baptisme was freed from all paine and so continued all his life long Baronius reporteth another of a Child fallen into a little well prepared for men of age to be Baptized in and after that it was held for drowned in the opinion of all by-standers at the prayer of Damascus it arose from the bottome as whole and sound as it was before These Miracles happened not for the dignifying of the matter which was the water of Baptisme but of the nature of the Sacrament it selfe albeit voyd of the Corporall presence of Christ Not to tell you which your Durantus will have you to know of Miracles wrought by the Booke of the Gospell for the extinguishing of Fiers This first Obstacle being removed out of the way our passage will be so much the more easier in the following Discourse CHAP. III. That the Romish manner of the Corporall Presence of Christ in the Sacrament is manifoldly Impossible SECT I. NO sooner doe you heare Protestants talke of the Impossibility of your manner of Presence which your Church prescribeth but you presently cry out upon them as vpon Blasphemous Detractors from the Omnipotencie of God as if they meant To tie God to the Rules of Nature as your Authors are pleased to suggest Wee hold it necessary therefore to remoue this scandall thus cast in the way for simple people to stumble upon before wee can conveniently proceed to the maine matter and this wee shall endeavor to doe by certaine Propositions That by the Iudgement of ancient Fathers some things by reason of Contradiction in them may be called Impossible without the impeachment of the Omnipotencie of God yea with th great advancement thereof SECT II. THis Proposition accordeth to the Iudgement of Ancient Fathers shewing that God cannot doe something even because he is omnipotent as not die not sinne not lye because such Acts proceed not from power but from impotencie and infirmity So the Fathers It is not long since you have beene taught by an exceeding worthy Scholler that in such Cases as imply Contradiction the ancient Fathers noted the pretence of Gods omnipotencie to have beene anciently The Sanctuary of Heretiques And they give an instance in the Arrians who denying Christ to have beene God eternall beleeved him to have beene created God in time as if it were possible there should be a made God whose property is to be eternall Their onely pretence was Gods Omnipotencie to make false things true wherein they proved themselves the greatest Lyars Take unto you a second Proposition II. That the Doctrine of the same Impossibility by reason of Contradiction doth magnifie the power of God by the universall consent of Romish Doctors and their divers examples of Impossibility concerning a Bodie SECT III. YOur owne Iesuites doe lay this for a ground All Divines affirme say they that God is omnipotent because hee can doe any thing that implyeth not contradiction for that Contradiction both affirmeth and denyeth the same thing making it to be and not to be that it is But God who is Being in himselfe cannot
The Eutychian Heretikes you know confounded the properties of Christs humane nature with his Godhead pretending as you doe the Omnipotencie of Christ for the patronizing of their heresie As thinking thereby thus saith Theodoret out of Amphilochius To magnifie the Lord Christ whereas this was indeed as the same Father saith to accuse God of falshood You may heare the same voice sound out of the Romane Chaire Pope Leo speaking of Eutyches the Authour of that heresie saith that Hee affirmed that thereby hee did more religiously conceive of the Maiestie of Christ by denying his humane nature whom therefore that holy Pope censureth to have beene seduced by the spirit of falsity Therefore it cannot be but that the Fathers in confuting an heresie founded upon a pretence of Omnipotencie did hold that doctrine absolutely impossible which they withstood as will now more lively appeare by the Testimonies of themselves Theodoret against this Heretike argueth thus The Body of Christ being a compounded thing cannot be changed into a divine nature because it hath Circumscription This had beene no good reasoning except his CANNOT had imported an absolute Impossibility Vigilius anciently Bishop of Trent might have read a Lesson to the late Bishops at Trent who against the same Heretique distinguishing the two natures of Christ his humane nature by being Circumscribed in one place the divine by being unlocable doubted not to inferre saying of his Bodily nature It being now in heaven is not at all on earth And least that any might thinke this was but his owne private opinion he averreth saying This is the Catholique profession taught by the Apostles confirmed by Martyrs and hitherto held of the faithfull So Fulgentius upon the same distinction maketh the same Conclusion saying of his Bodily substance that therefore Being on Earth it was absent from Heaven and going to Heaven it left the Earth Damascen had to deale with the fore-named Heretique and professing to deliver the substantiall difference of both natures hee differenceth them by these contrary Charters Created not Created Capable of mortalitie and not capable of mortalitie circumscribed and not circumscribed and Invisible in it selfe and visible which notwithstanding is in the Eucharist by your doctrine not Capable of Circumscription because whole in the whole hoast and in every part thereof and to the very Angels of God Invisible Let vs ascend hither to the more primitive Ages to inquire of Fathers who had conflicts also with Heretiques who gaine-said the Truth of either nature Athanasius urged Christ his Ascention into Heaven to prove that he was truely man as God because his God-head was never out of Heaven being Vndeterminate in place and uncircumscribed even then when it was Hypostatically united with the Body being on earth Therefore it was his Body that ascended into Heaven from Earth His Argument is taken from Circumscription even as Nazianzene also doth Characterize them Augustine falling upon such Heretiques as taught a Bodily presence of Christ in the Sunne and in the Moone at once which you your selves will confesse could not be imagined to be according to the Course of nature giveth them first this Caueat You may not saith hee so defend the Deity of Christ as to defraud the Truth of his humanity then he addeth as if none could faine a presence of a Body without determination in space or place Bodies cannot be without space And againe A Bodie cannot be at one time in places distinct one from another And what els doth that saying of Ambrose imply spoken as to Christ Stephen saith he who saw thee in Heaven sought thee not upon earth Cyrill of Alexandria is a Father whose Patronage your Disputers would bee thought often to rely vpon hee is now about to deliver his Iudgement so freely and plainly as if he had meant to stop the mouthes of all our Opposites in the same Answere which he maketh against certaine Heretiques who held that God's nature is a Substance which can receive division and partition If God saith Cyrill should be divisible as a Bodie then should it be contained in place and then should it have Quantity and having Quantity it could not but be Circumscribed Will you now say which hitherto hath beene your onely Answere to other Fathers that Cyrill meant not that it was absolutely Impossible that Quantity should be without Circumscription but onely according to the Course of nature then might the Heretiques whom Cyrill confuted have made the same Answere and consequently Cyril's Consequence and confutation had beene of no force What shall wee say must still the antient Fathers be made no better than Asses in arguing that your Romish Masters forsooth may be deemed the only Doctors even then when they prepare the same Evasion for Heretiques which they devise for themselves but you must pardon us if wee beleeue that Cyrill seeing hee durst say that God himselfe if hee were a Body must be in a place as a thing having Quantitie and Circumscribed would have abhorred your now Romish Faith of beleeving Christ's Bodie consisting of Quantity albeit not Circumscribed in place CHALLENGE THese so many and manifest proofes of the ancient Fathers concluding an Impossibility of Existence of a Body without Determination in one place may be unto us a full Demonstration that they were Adversaries to your Romish Doctrine of Corporall Presence and that all your Obiections out of them are but so many forged and forced Illusions Wee conclude If Christ himselfe gave a Caveat not to beleeve such Spirits as should say of his Bodily presence in this world after his Resurrection Behold here is Christ and behold there is Christ then doubtlesse much lesse credit is to be given to your Church which teacheth and professeth an Here is Christ and a There is Christ in the same instant as wee shall further more confirme by like verdict of Antiquity when wee shall heare the Fathers proue both that Angels and all created Spirits are finite Creatures and not Gods even because they are contained in one place and also that the holy Ghost is God and no finite Creature because it is in divers places at once But we must handle our matters in order That the Romish Doctors in their Obiections have no solid proofe of the Existence of one Body in divers places at once from the Iudgement of Antiquitie SECT VII IT is a kind of Morosity and Perversnes in our Opposites to obiect those testimonies which have their Answeres as it were tongues in their mouthes ready to confute their Obiections For Chrysostome saith not more plainly that Christ at one and the same time sitting with his Father in Heaven is here handled of Communicants on earth than hee doth say of the Priest and People communicating that They doe not consist or stay on earth but are transported into Heaven And againe a little after the words obiected The Priest saith
repugnant affections belonging to one subiect cannot by the omnipotency of God be together in the same because they destroy one another Aquinas and other Schoolemen denying that the same Body can be said to grieve and not to grieve both at once in respect of divers places of being propoundeth the like Reason Because Griefe being in the same man as he is a man cannot be said to be together with not Grieving in him lest we should make a man not to be himselfe Lastly your Cardinall Alan denying that the same Body in respect of divers places can be said to be Mortall and Immortall Passible and impassible expresseth this reason which hee saith was used of old Because these sayings are most repugnant to the understanding of man Enough enough CHALLENGE VVE have in these your Premises received as true Assertions as sufficient Reasons and as absolute Confessions as can be desired which will be as so many Poniards sticking fast in the bowels of your Romish Cause to give it a deadly wound As first this you teach that Christ as he is in this Sacrament hath no naturall faculty either of motion of sense of Appetite or of Vnderstanding all which notwithstanding hee hath in all perfection in heaven But to understand and not to understand to have and not to have an Appetite you will confesse to be as absolute Qualities and Acts Contradictorie free from respect to place as are those which you have allowed to wit Grieve and not grieve love and not love alive and not alive because man hath an appetite and Desire an Act of understanding in himselfe not as hee is in one place more then in another Seeing therefore you have beene enforced by infallible Principles of sound learning to hold it Impossible for one to love and hate and to have contrary passions together because they are Contradictories and would inferre that one man should be and not be himselfe Therefore are you become necessarily Contradictory to your selves Can there be a stronger Argument than this to perswade Christians that your Doctors are men delivered up to strong delusions to beleeve lies of which kind this of teaching a Body to be in divers places at once is not the least CHAP. V. A Confutation of the first Romish Reason obtruded for proofe of a Possibility of existence of a Body in divers places at once taken from the nature either of a Voice or Colour SECT I. MAster Brerely thus The difficulty may be better conceived rather then directly proved by an example of the same word the which being once uttered is thereupon at one instant in the severall hearing of sundrie persons and that not as a distinct noyse confusedly multiplyed in the â—…re but as one and the same peculiar word distinguished by the selfe-same syllables wherein it was uttered So hee and your Doctor Wright before him CHALLENGE BVt the Doctor was answered that the Example is many thousand miles remote from the Cause for our Question is of the Presence of the same Body in divers places at once We say the same Body but this your Example of Word or Voice which you Both call the same is not individually the same in every mans hearing as is here affirmed but onely the same in kinde by a multiplication of the sounds and words uttered as Philosophy teacheth Like as we see in throwing a stone into the water it maketh at the first a Circle and circle multiplyeth upon circle till the last come to a large Circumference Even so the word by voyce breaking the Ayre doth make in the Aire Circle upon circle till it come to the eares of the hearers every of the parts of the Circle being articulated through the multiplication of the first forme the divers eares doc no more receive the same individuall voice than they doâ— the same individuall Aire whereby the voice is conueyed So that this Example is no more in Effect than to prove the same Body in divers places at once by the sound of a word in many mens â—ares which is not individually the same and serveth for nothing rather than to make the Disputer ridiculous Thus was that Doctor answered when he confessed of the voice of the Preacher in the Pulpit which is received by multitudes of hearers and of his other Example of a colour of a red Cow by multiplication of its formes seene of thousand mens eyes at once that it is not Numerically the same Take unto you a cleare Example and Apposite when in a looking-glasse broken into many peeces you see many faces all of them being but so many multiplied and reflected Images of one face you may see that every Image in every broken peece of the glasse is not individually the same wherefore these kinds of Instances are but Mountebanke trickes devised to delude men that love darknesse better then light It might seeme superstitious diligence to confute such soâ—tishnes with the serious iudgement of any grave Father otherwise Gregory Nazianzen is at hand ready to tell you that there is as great a difference betweene Bodies and Voices and Sights as there is betwixt Bodies and Spirits so that whereas two Bodies cannot be in one place yet voices and sights 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are by an Incorporeall manner apprehended so that the same Eare is capable of many voices and the same sight of many Visibles A Confutation of their second and third Reasons taken from the Similitude of man's Soule or Presence of God devised to demonstrate a no Contradiction of a Bodie 's Being in two places at once SECT II. TWo other Instances you have whereby to maintaine your supposed Bodily Presence in two places at once one is in man's Soule the other in God himselfe First we will enquire into the nature of the soule Our exception against a Bodies being in divers places at once is by reason of the distance betweene place and place for it is farre lesse than imaginable that one Bodie should in one and the same moment be at Toledo in Spaine and at Paris in France and yet not to be in the intermediate Space betweene both which divideth Toledo from Paris But the Condition of the Soule is utterly different for it is in the Bodily members not as a Body in diuers places but as a forme in it's owne matter nor having Quantity and extension the unseperable properties of a Body but by a formall perfection As containing the Body and not contained thereof saith your Aquinas For the Soule is so in the head and foot that it is aswell in the parts and members betweene both and therefore not being possibly severed from them cannot be said to be divided from it selfe Insomuch that if any member of the Body as for example the hand should be cut off and diuided from the Body the Soule being indivisible ceaseth to be therein So utterly dissonant is the Soules being in divers places Nay and your Cardinall
or space wherein the Body is If therefore you will not Heretically teach a Mathematicall or Phantasticall body of Christ you must deny the Article of Trent untill you can beleeve and make good that a part of a divisible Body longer or shorter broader or narrower can be and that equally in one indivisible point This is confirmed by the Essence of Christ his glorified Bodie as you confesse it to be now in Heaven possessing a Reall place in the said proportion of Spaces of length and breadth as it had here upon earth which it doth by the naturall Magnitude or Quantity thereof But the said naturall magnitude or quantity of the said Body of Christ is according to your owne generall Doctrine in this Sacrament Therefore must it have the same Commensuration of Space Wee should be loath to trouble your wits with these speculations if that the necessity of the Cause by reason of the Absurdities of your Romish profession did not inforce us hereunto Therefore must you suffer us a little to sport at your trifling seriousnesse who writing of this divine Sacrament and seeing it to be round solid broken moulded in the one kind and liquid frozen and sowring in the other doe attribute all these to Quantities and Qualities and Accidents without any other subiect at all So then by the Romish Faith we shall be constrained to beleeve in effect that the Cup is filled with Mathematicall lines the Mouse eating the Hoast is fed with colours and formes that it is Coldnesse that freezeth and Roundnesse which weigheth downe and falleth to the ground as if you should describe a Romish Communicant to be a creature clothed with Shadowes armed with Idaea's fed with Abstracts augmented with Fancies second Intentions and Individuall Vagues and consisting wholly of Chimaera's That your Romish Doctrine is contrary to the Iudgement of Ancient Fathers SECT VI. IF this your profession had beene a Catholike Doctrine doubtlesse Saint Augustine who is so devout in his fervent Meditations upon this holy mystery would not have oppugned it as he did when unto that Question of Volusianus whether the Body of Christ before his birth did fill the Body of the blessed Virgin he answered That every body be it greater or lesse wheresoever it is must needs fill that space wherein it is so that the same Body cannot be the whole in any part thereof So hee which is directly Contradictory to your Article of Trent for here is expresse mention of Relation to place and space And whereas for usuall colour of a Possibility that the whole Body of Christ is in every part of the Hoast you have obiected the Example of Man's Soule which is said to be whole in every member and part of the Body S. Augustine as if hee had fore-seene your mystery of Errour pre-occupateth saying The nature of a Soule is farre different from the nature of a Body And againe the same holy Father seeking to finde out some Similitude whereby wholly to resemble the Existence of God in respect of place in the end saith that Quality hath a prerogative to make some Similitude hereof and hee doth instance in Wisedome which saith hee is as great in a little man as in a great man but denyeth that Quantity hath any such Priviledge for speaking of Quantity and Magnitude In all such Quantity or magnitude saith hee there is lesse in the part then there is in the whole And by this same Maxime concerning whole in respect of Place hee distinguisheth the God-head from the Man-hood by which you haue confounded them And yet againe else-where as though hee thought this your delusion could never be sufficiently contradicted or rather derided hee will further have you not to be so Childish as not to know that The little finger is lesse than the whole hand and one finger is lesse than two and that one finger is one where and the other another where Vpon which where and where being notes of distinct places we may aske where are your Disputers now Nay yet furthermore passing from grosser Bodies hee saith as much of Ayre yea and of the most subtil of subtils the light of the Sunne one part whereof saith hee commeth in at one Window another at another window yet so that the lesse passeth through the lesse and the greater through the greater Moreover if Saint Gregory once Bishop of Rome had beleeved that Christ his Body is whole in every least indivisible part of the Hoast he would never haue condemned the Eutychian Heretique for beleeving The Body of Christ to have beene brought into such a subtilty that is cannot be felt But a greater subtilty there cannot be than for a divisible Body to be enclosed in every the least indivisible point Shew vs this Doctrine taught by any Catholike Doctor in the Church within the compasse of the twelve hundred years after Christ and then shall we conceive better of your Cause And lest you may talke as you vse of one body penetrating another wee say unto you as Damascen said vnto his Reader that This is impossible but that either the one or the other must be divided asunder That the Romish Obiections against our former Tenet are feeble and vaine SECT VII IT is ordinarily in the mouthes of every one of you to obiect the Miraculous entrance of Christ into the house the dores being shut his comming out of the grave when it was covered with a stone his birth from his mother her wombe being shut besides the miraculous passing of a Camell through the Eye of a needle spoken of by Christ all Miraculous indeed as we with many holy Fathers doe willingly Confesse What therefore Therefore say you the Body of Christ did passe through the substantiall dimensions of the Body of the Doores Stone and wombe and consequently confuteth all this which hath beene spoken of the Organicall proportions of a body in respect of space or place So you Wee grant unto you as much as these Fathers speake in noting each of these to have beene the Acts and workes of Omnipotencie but yet without any penetration of Dimensions at all or yet Alteration of the iust proportion of Christs body Which penetration of Dimensions seemed to your Durand as incredible as unto us The principall Testimony which is insisted upon concerning the passing of Christ through the Doores is the saying of Chrysostome viz. Christ's Body was thinne or small changed from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is it 's Thicknes impalpable unto mortall mans hand but onely by divine permission and dispensation So hee And this is alleadged for proofe of a Possibility of his now Corporall Presence in the Sacrament voyd of Palpabilitie never considering the Ordinary and confessed Hyperbole's wherewith Chrysostome embellisheth his Sermons insomuch that we may oppose Chrysostome against Chrysostome even in the point in question who else-where speaking of this Sacrament saith that Christ herein Giveth his Body both to
Fathers have declared what could these holy Fathers have thought of your Barbarous or rather Brutish faith that teacheth such a Corporall Vnion by a bodily Touch and Eating whereby according to your owne Doctrine Rats Wormes and Dogges and whatsoever vile beast may be as reall partakers of the bodie of Christ as Peter or Iohn or whosoever the essentiall member of Christ Wherefore you must suffer us to reason aswell against your Corporall Coniunction by bodily Touch as Many of your Divines have done against bodily Vnion by coniunction and commixture but why even Because the Sacrament was not ordained for a bodily but for a spirituall Coniunction So they So that wee need say no more but fore-seeing what you will obiect we adde the Propositions following CHAP. III. That wicked Communicants albeit they eate not bodily Christ's Bodie yet are they Guilty of the Lords Bodie for not receiving it spiritually namely thorow their Contempt for not receiving the Blessing offered thereby SECT I. THe Apostle 1. Cor. 11. 27. Whosoever saith hee Eateth this Bread and Drinketh this Cup unworthily he shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord And Vers 29. eateth and drinketh Damnation to himselfe not discerning the Lord's Bodie Your Rhemish Professors men not the least zealous for your Romish Cause obiecting this against the Protestants call upon you saying first Hereupon marke well that ill men receive the Body and Blood of Christ be they Infidels or ill livers for else they could not be guilty of that which they receive not Secondly That it could not be so hainous an offence for any to receive a piece of bread or a cup of wine though they were a true Sacrament for it is a deadly sinne for any to receive any Sacrament with will and intention to continue in sinne or without repentance of former sinnes but yet by the unworthy receiving of no other Sacrament is man made guilty of Christ's Bodie and Blood but here where the unworthy Receiver as Saint Chrysostome saith doth villany to Christ's owne person as the Iewes and Gentiles did that crucified him Which invincibly proveth against the Heretikes that Christ is herein really present And guilty is he for not discerning the Lord's Body that is because hee putteth no difference betweene this high meate and others So your Rhemists Your Cardinall also as though he had found herein something for his purpose fastneth upon the sentence of Cyprian who accounted them that after their deniall of Christ presented themselves to this Communion without repentance to offer more iniurie to Christ by their polluted handes and mouthes than they did in denying Christ and besides he recordeth Examples of God's miraculous vengeance upon those who violated the body of Christ in this Sacrament So hee All these points are reducible unto three heads One is that ill men might not be held guiltie of the Body of Christ except they did receive it as being materially present in this Sacrament Next is the Guilt of prophaning this Sacrament which being more hainous than the abuse of any other Sacrament therefore the iniury is to be iudged more personall The last that the Examples of God's vindicative Iudgements for Contempt hereof have beene more extraordinary which may seeme to be a Confirmation of both the former Before we handle these points in order take our next Position for a Directory to that which shall be answered in the VI. Section That some Fathers understood the Apostles words 1. Cor. 10. spiritually namely as signifying the Eating of Christ's Flesh and drinking his Blood both in the Old Testament and in the Newe SECT II. VPon those words of the Apostle 1. Cor. 10. v. 4. They ate of the same spirituall meate c. The Iewes received the same spirituall meate saith S. Augustine Yea saith your Cardinall the Iewes received the same among themselves but not the same with us Christians So hee Albeit the words of Augustine are plainly thus The same which we eat so plainly that divers of your own side doe so directly and truely acknowledge it that your Iesuite Maldonate not able to gain-say this Trueth pleaseth himselfe notwithstanding in fancying that If August were alive in this Age he would think otherwise especially perceiving Hereticall Calvinists and Calvin himselfe to be of his opinion So hee Was it not great pitty that Augustine was not brought up in the Schoole of the Iesuites surely they would have taught him the Article of Transubstantiation of the Corporall presence of Christ in the Sacrament and Corporall Vnion against all which there could not be a greater Adversarie than was Augustine whom Maldonate here noteth to have beene the Greatest Enemie to all Heretickes whom Bertram followed in the same Exposition and by your leave so did your Aquinas also The same saith he which wee eate Thus much by the way Wee goe on to our Answeres That the wicked Receivers are called Guiltie of Christ's Bodie not for Eating of his Body unworthily but for unworthily Eating the Sacrament thereof SECT III. THe Distinction used by St. Augustine hath bene alwayes as generally acknowledged as knowne wherein hee will have us to discerne in the Eucharist the Sacrament from the thing represented and exhibited thereby Of the Sacrament hee saith that It is received of some to life and of some to destruction but the thing it selfe saith hee is received of None but to Salvation So hee No Protestant could speake more directly or conclusively for proofe First That in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Body of Christ is as well tendred to the wicked as to the Godly Secondly that the wicked for want of a living Faith have no hand to receiue it Thirdly that their not preparing themselves to a due receiving of it is a Contempt of Christ his Body and Blood Fourthly and Consequently that it worketh the iudgement of Guiltines upon them All which both the Evidence of Scripture and consent of Antiquity doe notably confirme For the Text obiected doth clearely confute your Romish Consequence because S. Paul's words are not Hee that eateth the Body of Christ and drinketh his Blood unworthily is guilty of his Body and Blood but Hee that eateth the Bread and drinketh the Cupp of the Lord unworthily c. which we have proved throughout the 2. Booke to signifie Bread and Wine the signes and Sacraments of his Body and Blood after Consecration And to come to Antiquity All the Fathers above cited Ch. 1. § 6. who denyed that the wicked Communicants are partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ albeit knowing as well as you that all such unworthy Receivers are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ have thereby sufficiently confuted your Consequence which was that because the wicked are Guilty of Christ's bodie Ergò his Body is Corporally present in them But we pursue you yet further That a Guiltines of Contempt of Christ's Body and
death But the Fathers doe no where call Baptisme a Sacrifice So he Another Cardinall thus Who can so much as suspect that the Fathers spake abusively in calling the Eucharist a Sacrifice seeing this is the only Sacrament which they call a Sacrifice and no other Next take your learned'st Iesuit with you who would be loth to come behind any in vehemency and boldnesse thus Antient Fathers never called Baptisme or the Ministry thereof a Sacrifice albeit they might have so called it Metaphorically which we note saith he because of the Heretikes who pervert the speeches of the Fathers as if they had called the Eucharist a Sacrifice Metaphorically and improperly So they to omit Others Now then if there be any sap or sense in these your Objectors it is as much as if they had reasoned against us thus If you Heretikes for so they call Protestants could sâ—ew that the Antient Fathers did any where name the Sacrament of Baptisme a Sacrifice which we confesse to be only a Representation of Christ's death then should we need no other Reason to perswade us that the Fathers called the Sacrament of the Eucharist a Sacrifice also Improperly only because it representeth the Body and Blood of Christ Sacrificed on the Crossè Thus for the Consequence confessed by your chiefest Advocates The Assumption lyeth upon us to prove to wit that the Fathers called Baptisme a Sacrifice even from the words of the Apostle Heb. 10. 20. where speaking of Baptisme he saith To them that sinne voluntarily there remaineth no Sacrifice for sinne Saint Augustine testifieth of the Doctors of the Church Catholike before his time that They who more diligently handled this Text understood it of the Sacrifice of Christ's Passion which every one then offereth when he is baptized into the faith of Christ So that holy Father who is a Witnesse without all Exception yet if peradventure we should need any testimony out of your owne Schooles the witnesse of your Canus may be sufficient confessing and saving That most of the Fathers by Sacrifice in this place understood Baptisme which they so called Metaphorically because by it the Sacrifice of the â—rosse is applied unto us So he Is not this enough for the understanding of the Dialect and of the speech of Antient Fathers both in calling Baptisme a Sacrifice and of the Reason thereof to wit for Representation sake onely and Consequently that the Body and Blood of Christ are not the representing Subject but the represented Object of his Sacrifice What better satisfaction can the greatest Adversary desire than to be as now your Disputers are answered according to their owne Demands The tenth Demonstration Because the Fathers called the Eucharist a Sacrifice in respect of divers such Acts as are excluded by the Romish Doctors out of the Definition of a Proper Sacrifice SECT XIV THE Acts excluded by your Cardinall out of the number of Proper Sacrifices are Oblations or Offerings of any thing thing that is not Consecrated by the Priest such as is the Offerings of Bread and Wine by the People before it be Consecrated Next All workes of Vertue are unproperly called Sacrifices All workes which consist in Action being transient as bowing singing of Psalmes or the sole Commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Crosse together with all such Acts performed to God which otherwise are yeelded to man as the Gesture of Vncovering the head in Gods service Bowing the knee and all outward signes of Reverence yea and all inward and invisible Acts of man in his will and understanding All these spirituall Acts are esteemed by him to be unproperly called Sacrifices But that all these kindes of Acts so farre forth as they are exercised in the holy worship of God are called Sacrifices by the Ancient Fathers can never be denyed by any that ever was acquainted with their Writings Now our Demonstration is this that most of these Acts which are here confessed to be Vnproper Sacrifices being used in the Celebration of the Supper of our Lord occasioned the Fathers to call the Eucharist it selfe a Sacrifice and therefore they meant thereby no Proper Sacrifice As first by your owne Confession that the Fathers called The oblations of Bread and Wine made by the people before Consecration Sacrifices the Almes and Collections for the poore Sacrifices Our Praises and Thanksgiving to God whereof the Eucharist hath it's name Sacrifice and that many other Circumstantiall Acts are called Sacrifices even the Sole Act of our Commemoration as will appeare in our last Examination concerning the Doctrine of Protestants Our Eleventh Demonstration because the Relatives of Sacrifice which are Altar and Priest objected as properly taken are used Vnproperly of Antient Fathers SECT XV. YOur Cardinall his Objection is this that Priest Altar and Sacrifice are Relatives and have mutuall and unseparable Dependance one of each other So he and truly But you ought to take with you a necessary Caution observed by the same Cardinall that An unproper Sacrifice cannot infer a proper Priest-hood nor an unproper Priest-hood a proper Sacrifice c. otherwise your Iesuit can tell you of a Sacrifice without an Altar and your Bishop can point you out an Altar without a Sacrifice Now to take one of these improperly and the other properly were as wilde Sophistrie as from a woodden leg to infer a Body of Flesh Now what if we shall say of this point of Appellations that It was not so from the beginning Hereunto we claime but your owne common Confessions viz. That the Apostles did willingly abstaine from the words of Sacrifice Priest and Altar So your Cardinall and Durantus the great Advocates for your Romane Masse whereby they have condemned not only other your Romish Disputers who have sought a proofe of a proper Sacrifice in your Masse from the word Altar used by the Apostle Paul Heb. 13. but also themselves who from Saint Luke Act. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concluded a proper Sacrifice As if the Apostles had both abstained and not abstained from the words of Priest and Sacrifice But the Apostles did indeed forbeare such termes in their speeches concerning Christian worship whereof these your forenamed Disputers can give us a Reason Least that say they the Iewish Priest-hood being as yet in force Christians might seeme by using Iewish Termes to innovate Iewish rites Which is enough to shew you are perswaded they abstained from the use of these words for some reason Yet that this could not be the Reason you may be sufficiently instructed in the word Baptisme this being as fully Iewish as was either the word Priest Altar or Temple and yet used of the Apostle without danger of Innovation of Iewish manner of Baptismes yea and if the Apostles had thought the Altar Priest Sacrifices to be essentiall parts of Christian Religion they neither would nor ought to have concealed the words and names least
of our Protestants profession concerning the Celebration of the Eucharist in comparison of your Romish How much more when you shall see discovered the Idolatry thereof which is our next Taske THE SEVENTH BOOKE Concerning the last Romish Consequence derived from the depraved sence of the words of Christ THIS IS MY BODY which is your Divine Adoration of the Sacrament contrary to these other words of Christ IN REMEMBRANCE OF MEE CHAP. I. WEE have hitherto passed thorow many dangerous and pernicious Gulfes of Romish Doctrines which our instant haste will not suffer us to looke backe upon by any repetition of them But now are wee entring upon Asphaltites or Mare mortuum even the Dead Sea of Romish Idolatrie whereinto all their superstitious and sacrilegious Doctrines doe emptie themselves which how detestable it is we had rather prove than prejudge The State of the Question concerning Adoration of the Sacrament SECT I. IN the thirteenth Session of your Councell of Trent wee finde a Decree commanding thus Let the same divine honour that is due to the true God be giuen to this Sacrament After this warning-Peece they shoot of a great Canon of Anathema and Curse against everie one that shall not herein worship Christ namely as corporally present with Divine honour That is to say To adore with an absolute divine worship the whole visible Sacrament of Christ in the formes of bread and wine as your Iesuit expoundeth it A worship saith he far exceeding that which is to be given to the Crucifix Whereupon it is that your Priests are taught in your Romane Missall to elevate the Consecrated Hoast and to propound it to the people to be adored and adoring it themselves in thrice striking their breast to say O Lambe of God that takest away the sinnes of the world have mercy upon us So you But what doe they whom you call Sacramentaries judge of this kinde of worship can you tell All of them saith your Cardinall call it Idolatry But they whom you call Lutherans are they not of the same Iudgement say They call us because of this worship Artolaters that is Bread-worshippers and Idolaters saith your Iesuit As for our Church of England She accordingly saith that The Sacrament of the Lords Supper was not reserved carried about lifted up or worshipped Our Method must now be to treat first of Christs Institution or Masse next of the Profession of Antient Fathers then of your Romish Masse in it selfe and lastly wee shall returne againe to our owne home to demonstrate the happie Securitie which our Church hath in her manner of worship So that these contradictorie Propositions This Sacrament is to be adored with divine worship and Is not to be adored with divine worship being the two different scales of this Controversie the one will preponderate the other according to the weight of Arguments which shall be put into either of them Of the Institution of Christ shewing that there was therein neither Precept for this Adoration of the Sacrament nor Practice thereof SECT II. NO outward Adoration of the Sacrament was practised of the Disciples of Christ say we at the Institution thereof which you confesse with us and take upon you to give a reason thereof to wit that There was no need that the Apostles should use any outward signification of honour to the Sacrament because they had then Christ present and visible before them So your Iesuite which contradicteth your owne Objection of therefore adoring Christ in receiving the Sacrament because then he Commeth under the roofe of your mouthes for the neerer our approach is to any Majestie the greater useth to be our outward humiliation But well no Practice of outward Adoration by the Apostles at that time can appeare much lesse have you any Evidence of any Precept for it If there had beene in the words of Christ or in the volume of the new Testament any syllable thereof your Cardinall would not have roved so farre as to Deuteronomie in the old Testament to fetch his only defence out of these words of God Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God supposing that the Bread which is worshipped is indeed the Sonne of God which is as it were mere Canting being the basest kinde of Reasoning that can be and is therefore called of Logitians A begging of the point in Question We contrarily adhere to the Institution of Christ in all points necessarie and essentiall thereunto and knowing that the Apostle promised to deliver Whatsoever hee had received of the Lord concerning this Sacrament which you hold to be the principall part of your Romish Religion wee are perswaded that he in expressing the other Commands of Christ touching Consecration Administration and Communication of this Sacrament never taught that your Article of divine Adoration whereof hee gave not so much as the least intimation The Apostolicall times faile you We shall try if the next called the Primitive Age can any whit advantage your Cause which is our second Station CHAP. II. Of the Doctrine of Antiquity concerning the Adoration of the Eucharist SECT I. THE Iudgement of Antiquity is objected by you and the same is opposed by us against you Let both be put to the Triall First by answering of your Objections out of the Fathers against us and then by opposing their direct Testimonies against you Your Objections are partly Verball and partly Practicall the Verball are of three kinds two whereof are specified in the next Proposition That neither the objected manner of Invitation to come with feare nor of Association of Angels spoken of by the Fathers imply any Divine Adoration of the Eucharist SECT II. OVt of Chrysostome is objected his Exhortation that Christians in their approach to this Sacrament Doe come with horror feare and reverence Next is their talking of the Angels being present at this Celebration holding downe their heads and not daring to behold the excellency of the splendor c. and to deprecate the Lambe lying on the Altar These seeme to your Cardinall to be such invincible Testimonies to prove the Adoration of Christ as Corporally present that he is bold to say They never hitherto were answered nor yet possibly can be So he taking all Chrysostomes words in a literall sence whom notwithstanding your owne Senensis hath made to be the most Hyperbolizing Preacher of all the Fathers and therefore hath given unto all Divines a speciall Caution against his Rhetoricke in the point of this Sacrament lest we understand him literally Of which kinds you may have some Instances out of the very places Objected where Chrysostome saith indeed That we see that Lambe lying on the Altar And said he not also even in the same Oration We see here Christ lying in the Manger wrapped in his clouts a dreadfull and admirable spectacle So he But say doe you see herein either Cratch or Clothes or can you talke of Christ's
with a prodigious disease after that neither the Art of Physicke nor teares of her Parents nor the publike Prayers of the Church could procure her any health went and cast her selfe downe at the Altar invocating Christ who is honoured on the Altar saying that she would not remove her head from the Altar untill she had received her health when Oh admirable event she was presently freed from her disease This is the Story set downe by Gregory Nazianzene Hence your Cardinall concludeth that Gorgonia invocated the Sacrament as being the very Body and Blood of Christ and calleth this An hor and stinging Argument and so indeed it may be named yet onely in respect of them whose consciences are scorched or stung with their owne guiltinesse of inforcing and injuring the story as will now appeare For first why should we thinke that she invocated the Sacrament Because saith your Cardinall she prostrated her selfe at the Altar before the Sacrament which words Before the Sacrament are of his owne coyning and no part of the Story His next reason Because she is said to have invocated him who is honoured on the Altar As though every Christian praying at the Table of the Lord to Christ may not be justly said to Invocate him who is used to be Honoured by the Priest celebrating the memory of Christ thereon Nay and were it granted that the Sacramentall Symbols had beene then on on the Altar yet would it not follow that she invocated the Sacrament as betokening a Corporall presence of Christ as your Disputers have fancied no more than if the said godly woman upon the same occasion presenting her selfe at the sacred Font wherein she had beene baptized could be thought to have invocated the water therein because shee was said to have invocated him who is honoured in the Administration of Baptisme And furthermore it is certaine that the Remainders of the Sacrament in those daies were kept in their Pastophorium a place severed from the Altar especially at this time of her being there which was in the Night as the Story speaketh O! but she was cured of her disease at the Altar And so were other miraculous Cures wrought also at the Font of Baptisme But for a Conclusion we shall willingly admit of Gregory Nazianzene to be Vmpier betweene us He in relating the Story saith of the Sacrament of the Eucharist See the Margent above that If she had at that time of her invocating held the Antitypes or Symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ in her hands they had beene mingled with her teares So he calling the consecrated Sacrament Antitypes or Signes of Christ's Body thereby signifying that the Sacrament is not the Body and Blood of Christ as hath beene proved unto you at large out of Nazianzene and other Greeke Fathers Whereas if indeed he had meant that the Body and Blood of Christ had beene there corporally present as that which was Invocated then now if ever it had concerned this holy Father to have expresly delivered his supposition thus viz. If the Body and Blood of Christ had beene then held in her hands her teares had beene mingled with them viz. Body and Blood and not as he said with the Antitypes or Signes of his Body and Blood Thus is your hot and stinging Reason become chilly cold and altogether dronish Your second Instance is in Dionysius the Areopagite who writing of the Sacrament said O most divine Sacrament reveale unto us the mystery of thy signes c. which in the eares of your Disputers ringeth a flatt Invocation of the Sacrament Contrariwise we confidently affirme that your Teachers have taken a figure Prosopopoeia for Invocation like men who take Moon-shine for Day-light as we shall manifest by Examples Confessions yea and the very Instance of Dionysius himselfe Prosopopoeia then is a figure when one calleth upon that which hath no sence as if it had sence as when in Scripture the Prophet said Heare ô Heavens and hearken ô Earth Isa 1. In like manner among the Ancient Fathers one called upon his owne Church Anastasia whence he was to depart and saying thus Oh Anastasia which hast restored our Doctrine when it was despised Others of the Element of Baptisme thus Oh water that hath washed our Saviour and deserved to be a Sacrament or thus Oh water which once purged the world or thus Oh divine Lavacre c. Nay you your selves can sing and chant it to the Crosse O Crosse our only hope c. and in expounding the same allow no more than a Prosopopoeia and figurative speech lest that otherwise your Invocation may be judged Idolatrous And whereas in another Romish Anthem it is sung of the Eucharist Oh holy Feast This saying saith another Iesuite agreeth to every Sacrament Thus have you heard both from Fathers and from your selves the like Tenor of Invocation Oh Church Oh Water Oh Crosse Oh Feast nothing differing from Dionysius his Oh Divine Sacrament yet each one without any proper Invocation at all And that you may further understand that this Dionysius his OH is as in voyce so in sence the same which we judge it to be what better Interpreter can you require of this Greek Author Dionysius than was his Greeke Scholiast Pachumeres who hath given his Iudgement of this very speech directly saying that It was spoken as of a thing having life and that fitly as did Nazienzene saith he when he said of the Feast of Easter O great and holy Feast c. And how should this be otherwise seeing Dionysius at the writing hereof was not in any Church or place where the Eucharist was celebrated but privately contemplating in his minde upon this holy Mystery The due consideration of these your former so frivolous and so false Objections provoketh us to cry out saying Oh Sophistry Sophistry when wilt thou cease to delude the soules of men In which manner of speech notwithstanding we doe not Invocate but rather detest and abominate your Romish Sophistry And lest any of you should stumble upon the Attribute which Dionysius giveth to the Eucharist in calling it a Divine Sacrament as if it should imply a Corporall Presence therein read but one Chapter of the same Author and he will teach you to say as much of many other things wherein you will not beleeve any Corporall Existence of Christ we are sure for there he equally nameth the place of Celebration Divine Altar the Sacramentall Signes Divine Symbols the Minister Divine Priest the Communicants Divine People yea and which may muzzell every Opponent the matter of this Sacrament Divine Bread In the third place is objected this saying of Basil When the Bread is shewne what holy Father hath left in writing the words of Invocation Thus that Father whence your Father Bellarmine thus Hence know we the Custome of the ancient Church namely that the Eucharist is shewne to the people after
belonging unto it many of the same Holy Fathers sealing that their Christian Profession with their Blood It is now referred to the Iudgement of every man whether it can fall within his capacity to thinke it Credible that those Fathers if they had beene of the now Romish Faith would not have expresly delivered concerning the due Worship of this Sacrament this one word consisting but of two Syllables viz. Divine for direction to all Posterity to adore the Sacrament with divine honour even as it is taught in the Church of Rome at this day and to have confirmed the same by some Practise not of one or other private man or woman but by their publike forme of Prayer and Invocation in their soleme Masses or else to confesse that Antiquity never fancied any Divine Adoration of the Eucharist Yet two words more You presse the point of the Invocation of the Sacrament more urgently and vehemently than any other and we indeed beleeve that the ancient Fathers if they had held according to the now Romane Church a Corporall presence of Christ would never have celebrated any Masse without an expresse Invocation of him as in your now-Roman Masse we finde it done saying O Lambe of God c. or some other like forme Yet know now that your owne learned Pamelius hath published two large Tomes of all the Masses in the Latine Church from Pope Clemens downe to Pope Gregory containing the compasse of six hundred yeares we say Latine Missals above forty in number in all which upon our once reading we presume to say that there is not one such tenour of Invocation at all This our first Reason taken from so universall a silence of ancient Fathers in a case of so necessary a moment may be we thinke satisfactory in it selfe to any man of ordinary Reason Our second Objection out of the Fathers followeth That the Ancient Fathers gain-said the Corporall presence of Christ in this Sacrament and Adoration thereof by their Preface in their presenting the Host saying Lift up your Hearts SECT II. IT was the generall Preface of Antiquity used in the Celebration of this Sacrament for the Minister to say Lift up your Hearts and the People to Answer We lift them up unto the Lord. This Sursum Cordâ— Calvin hath objected against you and your Cardinall confessing that This Preface was in use in all Liturgies of Antiquity as well Greeke as Latine and continued in the Church of Rome unto this day Then answereth that He that seeketh Christ in the Eucharist and worshippeth him if he thinke of Christ and not of the Cares of earthly things he hath his heart above So he As though the word Above meant as the Object the person of Christ in the Eucharist and not his place of Residence in the highest Heavens contrary to the word in the Greeke Liturgies which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Above wherein the Church alludeth to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Apostle Colos 3. 1. Seeke the things that are above where Christ is at the right hand of God as your owne Durandus the Expositor of the Romish Masse doth acknowledge Saint Augustine saying It is not without Cause that it is said Lift up your heares He sheweth the Cause to be that wee who are here at the Bottome might according to that of the Psalmist Praise God in the highest This one would thinke is plaine enough but that is much more which we have already proved out of the Fathers by their Antithesis and Oppositionâ—etweene â—etweene the Altar on Earth and the other in Heaven where we have heard Chrysostome distinguishing them that fasten their thoughts upon this Below from Them that seeke Christ in Heaven as he doth Choughs from Eagles Ambrose as they that behold the Image from them that contemplate upon the Traâ—h Nazianzene as they that looke upon the Signes from them that see the Things And the Councell of Nice as they that stoope downe from them that looke up aloft And we may not forget the Observation which Athanasius made of Christ in his discourse of Eating his flesh and drinking his Blood purposely making mention of his Ascension into Heaven thereby to draw their thoughts from earthly Imaginations and to consider him as being in Heaven Cyril of Hierusalem is a Father whom you have often solicited to speake for your Cause in other Cases but all in vaine shall we hearken to him in this He interpreting these words Lift up your Hearts will not have it onely to signifie a sequestring of your thoughts from earthly Cares to spirituall and heavenly which you say was the meaning of the Councell of Nice as if that Lifting up their hearts had beene only an exercising of their thoughts upon that in the hands of the Priest or on the Altar beneath No but he saith that it is To have our hearts in Heaven with God the lover of man-kinde even as did also S. Augustine interpret this Admonition to be A lifting up of hearts to Heaven Whom as you have heard leaving our Eucharisticall Sacrifice on this Altar so would hee have us to seeke â—or our Priest in Heaven namely as Origen more expresly said Not on earth but in Heaven accordingly Oecumenius placing the Host and Sacrifice where Christ's Invisible Temple is even in Heaven Will you suffer one whom the world knoweth to have beene as excellently versed in Antiquity as any other to determine this point He will come home unto you In the time of the Ancient Church of Rome saith he the people did not runne hither and thither to behold that which the Priest doth shew buâ— prostrating their Bodies on the ground they lift up their minds to Heaven giving thankes to their Redeemer So he Thus may we justly appeale as in all other Causes of moment so in this from this degenerate Church of Rome to the sincere Church of Rome in the primitive times like as one is reported to have appealed from Cesar sleeping to Cesar waking Our difference then can be no other than was that betweene Mary and Stephen noted by Ambrose Mary because she sought to touch Christ on earth could not but Stephen touched him who sought him in Heaven A third Argument followeth That the Ancient Fathers condemned the Romish worship by their Descriptions of Divine Adoration SECT III. ALL Divine Adoration of a meere Creature is Idolatry hereunto accord these sayings of Antiquity No Catholike Christian doth worship as a Divine Power that which is created of God Orthus I feare to worship Earth lest he condemne me who created both Heaven and Earth Or thus If I should worship a Creature I could not be named a Christian It were a tedious superfluity in a matter so universally confessed by yourselves and all Christians to use Witnesses unnecessarily We adde the Assumption But the Romish Adoration of the Sacrament is an attributing of Divine Honour
SECT V. FOr the necessitie of the Priests due Intention in consecrating your Cardinall alleageth the Authority addeth the consent of your Doctors except Catharinu◠produceth the opinion of Luther and Calvin condemning this Romis◠Doctrine and condemneth their Censure as Hereticall But wee permit it to vour discreet Iudgements whether to yeeld to this ostentative flourish of your Cardinall or to the exact and accurate discourse of your Iesuite Salmeron to the contrarie grounded upon sound Reasons among others this that this Perplexity and doubt whether the Priest hath a Due intention in consecrating worketh to the tormenting of mens Consciences injurie to Gods exceeding bountie and goodnesse contrary to the Iudgement of Antiquity and in speciall against that of S. Augustine Saepèmihi ignotaest Conscientia aliena sed semper certus sum de divina misericordia And lastly because of the Affinity which it hath with the heresie of the Donatists So hee All which turneth to the condemnation of your Doctrine teaching a necessary Priestly Intention of Novelty Impiety and relish of Heresie We adde to this that saying of the Apostle If the word be preached whether of envie and vaine glory or of good will I rejoyce and will rejoyce which proveth that the evill Intention of the Messenger cannot impeach the Benefit of the message of Salvation and embassage of God Now there is the like Reason of the word visible which is the Sacrament as there is of the Audible Take unto you a Similitude in the marginall Testimony of your Iesuite Salmeron of a Notary publique making a true Instrument according to the forme of Court in the time when hee was distracted in his wits neverthelesse the same Instrument is of use and for the benefit of the partie who hath it not through the Intention of the Scribe but by the will of the Ordainer and willingnesse and consent of the Receiver Our fifth Security from your Romish Perplexity touching Ordination SECT VI. TO passe over matters not controverted betweene us whether the Minister that consecrateth this Sacrament ought to be consecrated by Ecclesiasticall Ordination to this Function a matter agreed upon on both sides the only question is if hee that ministreth happen to be an Intruder and no consecrated Minister whether this his Defect doe so nullifie his Consecration of the Eucharist that it becommeth altogether unprofitable to the devout Communicant Your Church in this case sendeth you to inquire after the Godfathers Godmothers Priest or Midwife that baptizeth to know whether he have beene rightly baptized and this not satisfying she will have you seeke forth the Bishop by whom he was ordained and so to the Ordainer of that Bishop and so to spurre further and further untill you come to S. Peter to see whether each of these were rightly consecrated a Priest and then to search into so many Church-bookes to know the Baptisme of each one without which the Act of this Priest now consecrating is frustrate and your Adoration Idolatrous Contrari-wise we in such an indeprehensible Case wherein the Actor or Act hath no apparent Defect are no way scrupulous knowing that things doe worke Ad modum Recipientis as you have heard in the Example of preaching the word of God were it by Iudas or if you will a transformed Devill yet the seed being Gods it may be fruitfull whatsoever the Seed-man be if the ground that receiveth it be capable Therefore here might wee take occasion to compare the Ordination Romish and English and to shew ours so farre as it consenteth with yours to be the same and wherein it differeth to be farre more justifiable than yours can be if it were lawfull upon so long travelling to transgresse by wandring into by-paths Our Securitie from the Romish Perplexity of Habituall Condition SECT VII HAbituall or virtuall Condition as it is conceived by your Professours standeth thus I adore this which is in the hands of the Priest as Christ if it be Christ being otherwise not willing so to doe if it be not Christ What my Masters Iffs and And 's in divine worship These can be no better in your Church than leakes in a ship threatning a certaine perishing if they be not stopped which hitherto none of your best Artificers were ever able to doe For as touching your profane Lecturer Suarez labouring to perswade you to Adore Christ in the Eucharist simply without all scrupulizing saying It is not fit to feare where no feare is when as hee himselfe as you have heard hath told us that there are possibly incident Almost Infinite Defects and consequently as many Causes of Doubting which may disannull the whole Act of Consecration there needeth no other Confutation than this of his owne shamelesse Contradiction which as you may see is palpably grosse So impossible it is for any of you to allay the detestable stench of plaine Idolatry Certainly if S. Augustine had heard that a Worship of Latria which he every-where teacheth to be proper to God were performed to Bread and Wine as the matter of Divine Adoration he neither would nor could have said in defence thereof as he did of the Celebation of the Eucharist in his owne time viz. We are farre from your Paganish worshipping of Ceres and Bacchus But as for us Protestants we professe no Divine Worship of God but with a Divine that is an Infallible Faith that it is God whom we worship who will not be worshipped but in spirit and truth What furthermore we have to say against your Romish Masse will be discovered in the Booke following THE EIGHTH BOOKE Of the Additionalls by a Summary Discovery of the many-fold Abhominations of the Romish Masse and of the Iniquities of the Defenders thereof THese may be distinguished into Principals which are Three the Romish Superstitiousnesse Sacrilegiousnesse and Idolatrousnesse of your Masse and Accessaries which are These Obstinacies manifold Overtures of Perjuries Mixture of many ancient Heresies in the Defenders thereof CHAP. I. Of the peremptory Superstitiousnesse of the Romish Masse in a Synopsis SECT I. MAny words shall not need for this first point Superstition is described by the Apostle in this one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Man's will-worship as it is opposite to the worship revealed by the will of God What the will of Christ is concerning the Celebration of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood wee have learned by his last will and Testament expressely charging his Church and saying DOE THIS pointing out thereby such proper Acts which concerned either the Administring or the Participating of the same holy Sacrament But now commeth in Mans's will-worship ordained in the Church of Rome as flatly contradictory to the same Command of Christ by Ten notorious Transgressions as if it had beene in direct Termes countermanded thus Doe not This as hath beene proved notwithstanding the former direct Injunction of Christ or conformable Observation of the holy Apostles or Consent and
whereof more hereafter In the Interim we shall desire each one of you to hearken to the Exhortation of your owne Waldensis saying ATTEND and obserue the Masse OF CHRIST Of the CANON OF CHRIST his MASSE and at what wordes it beginneth SECT IV. CHrist his Masse by your owne confession beginneth at these words of the Gospell concerning Christ's Institution of the Eucharist Math. 26. Luc. 22. And Iesus tooke bread c. which also we doe as absolutely professe What Circumstances by ioynt consent on both sides are to bee exempted out of this Canon of Christ his Masse or the wordes of his Institution It is no lesse Christian wisedome and Charitie to cut off vnnecessary Controversies than it is a serpentine malice to engender them and therefore we exempt those points which are not included within this Canon of Christ beginning at these wordes And Iesus tooke bread c. To know that all other circumstances which at the Institution of Christ his Supper fell out accidentally or but occasionally because of the then Iewish Passeouer which Christ was at that time to finish or else by reason of the custome of Iudaea doe not come within this our dispute touching Christ his Masse whether it be that they concerne Place for it was instituted in a priuate house or Time which was at night or Sexe which were onely men or Gesture which was a kind of lying downe or Vesture which was wee know not what no nor yet whether the Bread were vnleauened or the Wine mixed with water two poynts which as you know Protestants and your selues giant not to be of the essence of the Sacrament but in their owne nature Indifferent and onely so farre to bee observed as the Church wherein the Christian Communicants are shall for Order and Decencie-sake prescribe the use thereof The Points contained within the Canon of Christ his Masse and appertaining to our present Controuersie are of two kindes viz. 1. Practicall 2. Doctrinall SECT V. PRacticall or Active is that part of the Canon which concerneth Administration Participation and Receiuing of the holy Sacrament according to this Tenor Math. 26. 26. And Iesus tooke Bread and blessed it and brake it and gaue it to his Disciples and said Take eate c. And Luc. 22. 19 20. Doe this in remembrance of mee Likewise also after Supper be tooke the Cup and gaue thankes and gaue it to them saying Drinke yee all of this But the points which are especially to bee called Doctrinall are implied in these words of the Euangelists This is my Bodie And This is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for remission of sinnes We begin with the Practicall CHAP. II. That all the proper Active and Practicall points to wit of Blessing Saying Giving Taking c. are strictly commanded by Christ in these words DOE THIS Luc. 22. Matth. 26. 1. Cor. 11. SECT I. THere are but two outward materiall parts of this Sacrament the one concerning the element of Bread the other touching the Cup. The Acts concerning both whether in Administring or Participating thereof are charged by Christ his Canon vpon the Church Catholike vnto the ends of the World The Tenour of his Precept or command for the first part is Doe this and concerning the other likewise saying 1. Cor. 11. 25. This doe yee as often c. Whereof your owne Doctors aswell Iesuites as thers haue rightly determined with a large consent that the wordes DOE THIS haue relation to all the aforesaid Acts euen according to the iâ—dgement of ancient Fathers excepting only the Time of the Celebration which was at Supper and which together with us you say were put in not for example but only by occasion of the Passeouer then commanded to be observed Thus you CHALLENGE THis Command of Christ being thus directly and copiously acknowledged by the best Diuines in the Romane Church must needs challenge on both sides an answerable performance Vpon examination whereof it will appeare vnto euery Conscience of man which Professors namely whether Protestants or Romanists are the true and Catholike Executors and Obseruers of the last will and Testament of our Testator Iesus because that Church must necessarily bee esteemed the more loyall and legitimate Spouse of Christ which doth more precisely obey the Command of the celestiall Bride-groome Wee to this purpose apply our selues to our busines by enquiring what are the Actiue Particulars which Christ hath giuen in charge vnto his Church by these his expresse wordes Doe this All which wee are to discouer and discusse from point to point TEN TRANSGRESSIONS And Preuarications against the Command of Christ DOE THIS practised by the Church of Rome at this day in her Romane Masse SECT II. VVEe list not to quarrell with your Church for lighter matters albeit your owne Cassander forbeareth not to complaine that your Bread is of such extreame thinnesse and lightnesse that it may seeme vnworthy the name of Bread Whereas Christ vsed Solid and tough bread Glutinosus saith your Iesuit which was to be broken with hands or cut with knife Neuerthelesse because there is in yours the substance of Bread therefore we will not contend about Accidents and shadowes but wee insist vpon the words of his Institution The first Transgression of the now Church of Rome in contradicting Christ his Canon is collected out of these words AND HE BLESSED IT which concerne the Consecration of this Sacrament SECT III. FIrst of the Bread the Text saith He blessed it next of the Cup it is said When he had giuen thanks Which words in your owne iudgements are all one as if it should be said Hee blessed it with giuing of thankes By the which word Blessing he doth imply a Consecration of this Sacrament So you The contrary Canon of the now Romane Masse wherein shee in her Exposition hath changed Christ's manner of Consecration The Canon of the Romish Masse attributeth the property and power of Consecration of this Sacrament only vnto the repetition of these words of Christ This is my body and This my blood c. and that from the iudgement as Some say of your Councell of Florence and Trent Moreouer you also alleage for this purpose your publique Catechisme and Romane Missall both which were authorized by the Councell of Trent and command of Pius Quintus then Pope See the Marginals Whereupon it is that you vse to attribute such efficacie to the very words pronounced with a Priestly intention as to change all the Bread in the Bakers shop and wine in the Vintners Cellar into the body and blood of Christ As your Summa Angelica speaketh more largely concerning the Bread CHALLENGE BVt Christopherus your own Arch-bishop of Caesarea in his Booke dedicated to Pope Sixtus Quintus and written professedly vpon this Subject commeth in compassed about with a clowd of witnesses and Reasons to proue that the Consecration
vsed by our Sauiour was performed by that his Blessing by Prayer which preceded the pronouncing of those words Hoc est corpus meum This is my bodie c. To this purpose hee is bold to averre that Thomas Aquinas and all Catholikes before Caietane have confessed that Christ did consecrate in that his Benedixit that is He blessed it And that Saint Iames and Dionyse the Areopagite did not Consecrate only in the other words but by Prayer Then he assureth vs that the Greeke Churches maintained that Consecration consisteth in Benediction by Prayer and not in the only repetition of the words afore-said After this hee produceth your subtilest Schooleman Scotus accompanied with divers others Who Derided those that attributed such a supernaturall vertue to the other forme of words After steppeth in your Lindan who avoucheth Iustin one of the ancientest of Fathers as Denying that the Apostles consecrated the Eucharist in those words Hoc est c. and affirming that Consecration could not be without Prayer Be you but pleased to peruse the Marginals and you shall further find alleadged the Testimonies of Pope Gregorie Hierome Ambrose Bernard and to ascend higher the Liturgies of Clement Basil Chrysostome and of the Romane Church it selfe in gain-saying of the Consecration by the only words of Institution as you pretend And in the end he draweth in two Popes contradicting one the other in this point and hath no other meanes to stint their iarre but whereas the authoritie of both is equall to thinke it iust to yeild rather to the better learned of them both Whosoever requireth more may be satisfied by reading of the Booke itselfe It will not suffice to say that you also vse Prayer in the Romish Liturgie for the question is not meerely of Praying but wherein the forme of Benediction and Consecration properly doth consist Now none can say that he consecrateth by that Prayer which he belieueth is not ordained for Consecration We may furthermore take hold by the way of the Testification of Mr. Brereley a Romish Priest who out of Basil and Chrysostome calling one part Calix benedictione sacratus alloweth Benediction to haue beene the Consecration thereof All this Armie of Witnesses were no better than Meteors or imaginarie figures of battailes in the aire if that the Answere of Bellarmine may goe for warrant to wit that the only Pronuntiation of these words Hoc est corpus meum imply in them as hee saith an Invocation or Prayer Which words as any man may perceiue Christ spake not supplicatorily vnto God but declaratiuely vnto his Apostles accordingly as the Text speaketh Hee said unto them as is also well observed by your fore-said Arch-bishop of Caesarea out of Saint Hierome But none of you we presume will dare to say that Christ did Invocate his Disciples These words therefore are of Declaration and not of Invocation Which now Romish Doctrine of Consecrating by reciting these words This is my bodie c. your Divines of Colen haue iudged to be a Fierce madnesse as being repugnant both to the Easterne and Westerne Churches But we haue heard divers Westerne Authours speake giue leave to an Easterne Archbishop to deliuer his minde No Apostle or Doctor is knowne to affirme saith hee those sole words of Christ to haue beene sufficient for Consecration So he three hundred yeares since satisfying also the Testimonie of Chrysostome obiected to the contrarie As miserable and more intolerable is the Answere of others who said that the Evangelists haue not observed the right order of Christ his actions as if hee had first said This is my bodie by way of Consecration and after commanded them to Take and eat Which Answere your owne Iesuite hath branded with the note of Falsitie yea so false that as it is further avouched all ancient Liturgies aswell Greeke as Latine constantly held that in the order of the tenour of Christ his Institution it was first said Takâ— yee before that he said This is my Bodie Lastly your other lurking-hole is as shameful as the former where when the iudgement of Antiquitie is obiected against you requiring that Consecration be done directly by Prayer vnto God you answere that some Fathers did use such speeches in their Sermons to the people but in their secret instraction of Priests did teach otherwise Which Answere besides the falsitie thereof Wee take to be no better than a reproach against Antiquitie and all one as to say that those venerable Witnesses of Truth would professe one thing in the Cellar and proclaime the contrarie on the house-top It were to be wished that when you frame your Answeres to direct other men's Consciences you would first satisfie your owne especially being occupied in soule's-businesses We conclude Seeing that Forme as all learning teacheth giveth being vnto all things therefore your Church albeit shee vse Prayer yet erring in her iudgement concerning the perfect manner and Forme of Consecration of this Sacrament how shall shee be credited in the Materialls wherein she will be found aswell as in this to haue Transgressed the same Iniunction of Christ DOE THIS Neuerthelesse this our Conclusion is not so bee interpreted as hearken Mr. Brereley to exclude out of the words of this Celebration the Repetition and pronunciation of these words This is my Bodie and This is my Bloud of the new Testament Farre be this from vs because wee hold them to be essentially belonging to the Narration of the Institution of Christ and are vsed in the Liturgie of our Church for although they be not words of Blessing and Consecration because not of Petition but of Repetition yet are they Words of Direction and withall Significations and Testifications of the mysticall effects thereof Your Obiection out of the Fathers is answered The second Romish Transgression of the Canon of Christ his Masse is in their Contradicting the sence of the next words of Institution HE BRAKE IT SECT IV. HE brake it So all the Evangelists doe relate Which Act of Christ plainly noteth that hee Brake the Bread for distributing of the same vnto his Disciples And his Command is manifest in saying as well in behalfe of this as of the rest Doe this Your Priest indeed Breaketh one Hoast into three parts vpon the Consecration thereof but our Question is of Fraction or Breaking for Distribution to the People The Contrarie Canon of the now Romane Masse BEHOLD say you Christ brake it but the Catholike Church meaning the Romane now doth not breake it but giueth it whole And this you pretend to doe for Reverence-sake Lest as your Iesuite saith some crummes of Bread may fall to the ground Neither is there any Direction to your Priest to Breake the Bread either before or after Consecration in your Romane Masse especially that which is distributed to the people CHALLENGE BVt now see wee pray you the absolute Confession of your owne Doctors whereby is