Light of Reason that can be so that it ought to be set aside and disbelieved as False Then that Doctrine does therein overthrow both its own Credit and the belief of a Revelation in general and even of a Deity And consequently it is as I said an Impossible Case and a perfect Inconsistency for at once it supposes the belief of a Divine Revelation and yet destroys the belief of any such thing The Gentlemen of the Port Royal in their Logick or Art of Thinking have advanced this Rule of Cartes to the state and degree of an Axiome or undoubted Principle For in Part 4. Chap. 7. they make this together with two other Axiomes which usher it in to be the Foundation of Faith. I shall consider them all three AXIOME VIII A Man ought not to deny that which is clear and evident for not being able to comprehend that which is obscure This is but a lame Axiome for tho it be Truth yet it is not the whole Truth in this matter For a Man ought not to deny that which is clear and evident upon any account whatsoever He ought not to go against known Truth for that is the English of what is clear and evident for the sake of any thing either known or unknown AXIOME IX It is of the nature of a Finite mind not to be able to comprehend that which is Infinite This is an undoubted Truth and no man can gainsay it only it has the misfortune to be found here in bad company and to be applied to false purposes as we shall see by and by AXIOME X. The Testimony of a Person infinitely powerful infinitely wise infinitely good and infinitely true ought to have more force to persuade our Minds than the most convincing Reasons But I ask again Have we any more than the most convincing Reasons to persuade us that there is any such Person thus qualified Or that this Infinitely Credible and Adorable Being has given any Testimony at all If not Then I say that this Axiome is an Inconsistency it supplants it self and undermines the very ground on which it stands That must needs be a very tottering and ruinous foundation of Faith which is established upon a contrariety and opposition to the Most Convincing Reasons But an absurd Religion may be glad of such Axiomes as it can get and must be content to be served with an absurd Logic. The Messieurs promise us here to say somewhat more of Faith afterwards which accordingly they do Chap. 11. and therefore thither we will follow them and see how they apply these Axiomes to establish Transubstantiation Where first they inculcate their former Axiome in those words Il est certain c. It is certain that Divine Faith ought to have more power over our Minds than our own Reason And this is certain even by Reason it self which shews us that we ought always to prefer that which is more certain before that which is less certain and that it is more certain that what God says is true than what our Reason persuades us because God is more uncapable of Deceiving us than our Reason of being Deceived Now if what Reason persuades us be not certain when for instance it persuades us that there is a God then there is no possible certainty of a Revelation which shall stand in competition with Reason and be preferred before it And therefore this is the the old Enchantment over again which perfectly turns the Reason of Mankind into a Stone so that it cannot move one step either forward or backward For if the most clear and evident light of Reason that can be as Cartes's word is if the most convincing Reasons as the Port-Royal word is may be false Then it is impossible for us to know any thing Nay it is impossible for us so much as to know that we know nothing But in the very next words they relent and tell us quite another story Neanmoins a considerer c. Nevertheless to consider things exactly that which we evidently perceive both by Reason or by the faithful report of our Senses is never contrary to that which Divine Faith teaches us But that which makes us believe so is that we take no heed where it is that the evidence of our Reason and of our Senses ought to stop and to go no further Methinks men should consider things exactly before they lay down Axiomes and first Principles and not after For now it seems that Revelation is never contrary to the evidence of Reason or the faithful report of our Senses for if they are never contrary to that then that is never contrary to them and therefore the opposition which was supposed to be betwixt them and the renouncing of Reason and cleaving to Faith which followed thereupon proves to be wholly a mistake So that they have plainly given up their 10th Axiome for Nonsense and now they are upon a new question which is concerning the just bounds and full extent of Sense and Reason and to shew how short sighted they both are in discerning a bit of Bread. Their next words are these Par exemple c. For Example Our Senses shew us clearly in the Sacrament some roundness and whiteness but our Senses do not teach us whether it be the substance of Bread which causes our eyes to perceive this Roundness and Whiteness And thus Faith is not contrary to the evidence of our Senses when it tells us that this is not the substance of Bread which is abolished having been changed into the Body of Jesus Christ by the Mystery of Transubstantiation and that we see nothing more than the species and appearances of Bread which still remain although the substance be abolished and be no more When the Papists are disposed to make themselves merry with the follies of us poor Hereticks there is no such happy subject of their Drollery as this That we pretend to see Substances and have such exquisite Senses as will penetrate farther and deeper than all other mens Now on the other hand we can tell them very seriously that we never saw Roundness or Whiteness in our lives nor can any of our Senses shew us any such rarities We cannot deny but that we have seen Round and White Substances or Bodies or pieces of Matter call them what you will but as for Roundness and Whiteness we believe them to be objects so dazling that they would certainly blind us The roundness and whiteness and sweetness which they see and tast in the Sacrament without a Subject are the round and white and sweet nothings which we never yet saw nor tasted tho we sometimes promise them to our Children for Fairings But Substances we continually see and cannot look beside them For every thing which is seen heard smelt tasted or felt is a Substance and which is more it is a gross material Substance or else it could not affect and make an impression upon such gross material organs of Sense as ours are
What is it that so feelingly moves our Senses and resists our Touch but a Body or Material Substance For Ten thousand Roundnesses and Whitenesses will not make up One object of Sense And as for the instance which lies before us of a piece of Bread it is a Substance the most familiar and the best-known to us of all others We can see and taste and feel and smell it and know it blindfold And not only we but most of the Creatures about us can see and taste and smell the Substance of Bread as well as we and know it very distinctly and will single it out from twenty other Round and White Substances whatsoever And their Senses were certainly given them to discern Substances and not Accidents for otherwise a round and white Stone or a round and white Chip would serve their turn as well but Figure and Colour are not their business but a Substance which will nourish them and which will be altered and assimilated into the substance of Flesh and Blood. And therefore whether the substance of a Wafer be Bread or whether it be a Human Body I will refer it wholly to all the Animals in the World which love Bread and will not seize upon a living Man for they are competent and indifferent judges in this matter Always excepting those Animals which are the Masters of The School of the Eucharist for they are all Parties and Bigots and especially the Dog of Lisbon In short I challenge all the World to tell me what there is belonging to the substance of Bread which we do not see and discern by our senses and which is not faithfully reported to us by them And therefore when our senses evidently shew us that a Wafer is the substance of Bread and on the other hand the Popish Faith teaches us that it is not the substance of Bread but the substance of a Human Body That Faith is plainly contrary to the evidence of our Senses which because the Messieurs said before Divine Faith Never is it leaves their Faith under a different character from that which is Divine They proceed in the following words Nostre raison de mesme c. Our Reason in like manner shews us that one single Body is not at the same time in divers places nor two Bodies in one and the same place but this ought to be understood of the natural condition of Bodies because it would be a defect of Reason for a Man to imagine that our Mind being Finite is able to comprehend how far the Infinite Power of God reaches And therefore when Hereticks in order to destroy the Mysteries of Faith as the Trinity Incarnation and Eucharist do object those Pretended Impossibilities which they draw from Reason in this very thing they themselves do visibly depart from Reason in pretending to be able to Comprehend in their Finite Mind the Infinite extent of the Power of God. In this short passage there are many things liable to exception For 1st Our Reason does not only shew us that one single Body is not at the same time in divers Places but it shews us also that it cannot be in divers Places at once for this reason because in that case one single Body would be divers Bodies which is a Contradiction And therefore 2ly The Limitation which follows is false That this ought to be understood of the Natural Condition of Bodies and restrained only to that For whether Bodies be in a Natural condition or Supernatural one single Body cannot be divers Bodies at the same time for then it is no longer one single Body No Supernatural case or condition can make a Contradiction to be true For instance St. John Baptist told the Jews that God was able of those Stones which lay upon the Banks of Jordan to raise up Children unto Abraham In their Natural condition they were Stones but in this Supernatural condition they would have been Men but in no condition was it possible for them to be both Stones and Men at the same time because it is a Repugnancy For to say a Stone is a Man is to say a Stone is not a Stone that is to say it is not or it is nothing at all which I hope no Man will say is the work of an Infinite Power And therefore 3ly in saying That One Body cannot be in divers places at once we do not thereby imagine that a Finite Mind can comprehend how far the Infinite Power of God reaches This is both a false charge and a false inference For what has Omnipotency to do with Nothing To effect Nothing is a derogation to all Power much more is it beneath that which is Infinite When therefore we vindicate the Divine Power and assert the Infinity of it and say it is removed at the greatest distance from all defect Is this to say that a Finite mind can comprehend it No God forbid that our heads sâ—t â—ld be filled with such cross Popish Contradictions as to say that every Contradiction is Impossible and yet this Contradiction is Possible That a Finite may hold an Infinite and that the Greater may be contained by the Less We admire and adore the Infinite Power of God and we are sensible of it every Minute for in Him we live and move and have our Being and yet we do not comprehend it neither have we the least thought or imagination of Comprehending it for we know that this is utterly Inconsistent with the necessary Imperfection and Limitation of a Creature state The Infinite Power of God stands like a Great Mountain Now we can see a great Mountain only by parts and cannot view it all round at once much less can we grasp or comprehend it and take it up in our Arms. But yet as we know and see that this incomprehensible Mountain which is an Object too big for our Senses is not a Valley so we are full as sure that Perfection is not Imperfection and that Infinite Power tho we never pretended to measure the extent of it is free from all Impotency and cannot atchieve Impossibilities and Nothings As we know by his Necessary Existence that God cannot cease to Be and by his Infinite Wisdom that he cannot Err and by his Infinite Truth that it is Impossible for God to Lye So we are assured by his Infinite Power that he cannot make a Contradiction a Nothing an Inconsistency which is always unmade again as fast as it is made If God should Create and Annihilate a thing at once he would plainly effect neither and nothing would follow upon such an Impossible Act. 4thly The Messieurs insinuate as if the Impossibilities which are brought against Transubstantiation were of the same sort and as False and Pretended as those which are objected against the Trâ—â—â—ty and the Incarnation of our Saviour but I shall leave that to the judgment of every indifferent Reader after he has weighed and considered the following Discourse And thus I have at least shaken those
the defence of Image worship they were betrayed into it and were driven to take shelter and sanctuary in it to avoid the force of an Argument which they could not otherwise answer Every body knows that when Image-worship was first set up there was a great number of Christians who stoutly opposed it and gathered Councils to condemn it and these went by the name of Image-Breakers On the other side the Image worshippers were furiously bent upon it and gathered Councils to maintain it particularly that famous one of Blessed Memory the second Nicene Council In these Oppositions and Disputes one Argument which the Image-breakers made use of in Reference to the Images of our Saviour was this If our Saviour has left one Image of himself which is of Divine Institution then it is not lawful to erect other Images of him which are of humane invention But he has left one Image of himself namely in the Sacrament which is of Divine Institution Ergo. To make it good That the Sacrament was an Image of our Saviour of his own Appointment they shew that all the Ancient Fathers had called it the Image the Figure the Type the Antitype the Resemblance or Representation of our Saviour This very Argument was used by the preceding Council at Constantinople and is recited by the Nicene Council which was presently after But how does the Nicene Council answer it They could not deny the Major Proposition and therefore they were forced to break through the Minor after this fashion They say that the Sacrament is not the Image Resemblance Figure Type Antitype of our Saviour but his own Body for he himself expresly says Hoc est corpus meum It is not therefore an Image or Figure of him but it is he himself in Person And thus they rescued and disengaged themselves from a very close and distressing Argument and so their show of Image-worship went on This is the first time that the Literal Interpretation as they call it of Hoc est corpus meum is to be met with which it is plain likewise the former Council was not aware of for if they could have foreseen so full and so ready an Answer common sense would never have suffered them to make use of that Argument Now after the Literal Interpretation was thus broached to serve a present turn and they had used it as a man does the next thing that comes to hand to stop a gap it was yet a long time before Transubstantiation was imposed as a Doctrine of Faith It had done good service in solving an Argument and the Image-Breakers were all broken and destroyed themselves and therefore there was no further occasion for it But in process of time they could not but discover many other advantages in it as amongst the rest That it would deck the Priesthood with the highest honour in the world and advance them above all Thrones and Crowned Heads if it were once believed that they could make their Maker when they pleased And therefore it is no wonder that they were so very sharp upon Berengarius when he set himself to oppose it And from that time forwards they were forming this Doctrine into shape and at last four hundred and odd years after the first invention of it it was made an Article of Faith in the Great Lateran Council and Christened by the name of Transubstantiation This was done by a good Token in King John's time when the Pope made himself Landlord of the Realm of England and put it under a servile Tribute which lasted for several Kings Reigns Thus you see the Rise of Transubstantiation which came not into the world by the Papists sticking close to the Scripture but by their cleaving to the Idolatry of Image-worship whereby they are faln according to David's imprecation from one wickedness to another But what we call an Idol that they say is God's Body which they affirm to be the plain and literal sense of those words This is my Body let us therefore see at last what their Literal Exposition is Now it runs after this manner This which I now give you to eat was lately Bread but I have changed the substance of the Bread into the self-same Body with which I now deliver it to you I tell you the late Bread is I my self it is mine own Body * Catech. Trid. de Euch. Sect. 31. For in that which you now have in your hands assure your selves there is whole Christ I am there Body and Soul yea and my Divinity is there also So that there is contained under the appearance of that bit of Bread my Divine Nature and my whole Humane Nature which consists of my Soul and all the parts of my Body together with my Blood. My true real Natural Body which was born of the Virgin Mary is there together with whatsoever belongs to a true Humane Body as Bones and Sinews You will say that notwithstanding all that I have said it appears to be Bread still That is true for though the substance of the Bread be gone yet the figure colour smell taste and all the other Qualities and Conditions of the Bread remain and †Sect. 44. Ipsa se nulla alia re nisa substentant hang by Geometry * Sect. 46. Nam cum a Communi Hominum naturâ maximè abhorreat Humanae carnis esca c. And this I have most wisely ordered For these Accidents of Bread disguise my Body That it may the better go down and that you may not be filled with horror at the eating of Man's flesh which humane nature detests And then besides what would the Infidel world say if they saw you devouring your Lord and eating him up in his own shape And lastly this way of Receiving of my Body the more remote it is from your senses the better it is for the improvement of your Faith and will make it the more Meritorious But you will wonder especially now I am by in Person and you have an opportunity of comparing this one same Body together how this large Body which you see is at least five Foot and a half long and of a proportionable bulk can be contained at the same time within the compass of a small crumb of Bread without any Alteration at all for it is the self same body within the Sacrament as it is without Now you may soon be satisfied in that Point * Sect. 43 For as I am now sitting at Table I am in the condition of other bodies which are in a place which are always endued with Magnitude but the other same I which am in the Sacrament am not as in a place but I am there as a substance and under that notion I am neither big nor little for that belongs to Quantity which is in another Predicament For the substance of the Bread is turned into my substance not into my Magnitude or Quantity Now no body doubts but a substance may be contained in a
little room as well as in a great For both the substance of Air and its whole Nature must be alike in a small portion of Air as in a greater as also the whole nature of Water no less in a small Pitcher than in a River Seeing therefore that my Body succeeds and comes in the place of the substance of the bread you must acknowledg That my Body is in the Sacrament plainly after the same manner as the substance of the bread was before the Consecration But to say whether the substance of the bread was under a greater bulk or under a less was nothing at all to the thing Now this Exposition of these words This is my Body is an Authentick and Infallible Exposition for it is the very Interpretation of them which the Romish Church delivers to all her Parish Priests in the Trent-Catechism which was written on purpose for their instruction so that I have taken it from the Fountain head and have it at the first hand This they say is the meaning of those words of our Saviour This is my Body and therefore they make our Saviour to say all this which is such a sense of his words as any considerate Christian would sooner die than put it upon them Is this the Literal Sense and proper Meaning of an Organized Human Body That it has no Magnitude and is neither Little nor Big That it is a Solid Massy Bulk consisting of Flesh and Blood Bones and Sinews and yet can be perceived by no Sense can neither be seen felt nor understood but only Believed That it has a Head Trunk and Four large Limbs which may all be contained in the compass of a Pins-head which according to the Letter will not hold the Fourth part of a Little-finger Nail Methinks these are all strange Figures and the most harsh Abuses of Speech imaginable At this rate the Literal Sense of East is West and the Literal Sense of Noon-day is Midnight The Private Spirit never made such Expositions as these neither would any man alive receive them if he were not first Practis'd upon and his Belief widened for that Purpose We have an Instance of these Preparatory Arts in the 42d Section where the Pastors are charged if they cannot otherwise avoid discoursing of these Matters To remember in the first place that they fore-arm the minds of the Faithful with that saying Luke 1.37 For with God nothing shall be Impossible This is neither better nor worse than one of their Pious Frauds for I am sure they know that this Scripture is very deceitfully applied to the Case of Transubstantiation The Virgin Mary scrupled the Possibility of her being a Mother when she knew not a Man and asked How this thing could be Upon this the Angel told her That the most High would employ his Power in it and bring it to pass in an extraordinary way to whom nothing was Impossible And the Omnipotence of God was a just ground of her Belief upon this occasion who very well knew That as God had made the First Adam so if he pleased he could make the Second without the Concurrence of either Man or Woman and as he had formed Eve of her Husband's Rib so he could make the Messiah of the Substance of his Mother So that tho this was beside the common Course of Nature yet God was not tyed to that for what he had done he might do again But what Argument is this to induce the belief of Transubstantiation which involves manifold Contradictions which the Papists themselves acknowledg do not fall under the Divine Power They themselves know full well that the Scripture says It is Impossible for God to Lye to whom nothing is Impossible and he who can do all things cannot deny himself because these are Contradictions to his own Being And for the like reason they know that he cannot make a Contradiction in any kind because a Contradiction destroys it self it has within it self an utter Repugnance to Being To make a Thing to be and not to be at the same time is such an Inconsistency that one part of it overthrows the other and therefore it is no Act of Possibillty but is an utter Impossibility which is the Contradiction of all Power even of that which is Infinite Methinks St. Austin very well lays open the Reason why an Almighty Power cannot make a Contradiction Contra Faustum l. 26. c. 5. Quisquis dicit si Omnipotens est Deus faciat ut quae facta sunt facta non fuerint non videt hoc se dicere si Omnipotens est faciat ut ea quae vera sunt eo ipso quo vera sunt falsa sint Whosoever says If God be Almighty let him make those things which have been Done never to have been Done does not see that he says this in other words If he be Almighty let him make the things which are True to be False even wherein they are True. So that the Angel does not tell us in this Text That the Doctrine of Transubstantiation shall not be Impossible with God he does not tell us that God can make a Heap of Contradictions No for if all the Angels of Heaven according to St. Austin's Expression should say That a Thing may be False even wherein it is True so may what they say be and consequently there is no believing of them nor indeed of any Being in the World upon those Terms We are able therefore to bring their Expositions of Scripture upon this occasion to this Infallible Test If they concontain in them things Contradictious and Impossible then they are not the True Sense and Meaning of that Revelation which came from God for if he cannot Do an Impossibility neither can he Say it And just such as their Divinity Expositions are so deceitful are their Philosophical Illustrations As particularly when they shew how the whole Body of Christ may be in the least Particle or Crumbling of the Bread by the Two Instances of Air and Water Their words are these Sect. 43. The Substance of Bread is turned into the Substance of Christ not into his Magnitude or Quantity Now no body doubts but a Substance may be contained in a little room as well as in a great For both the Substance of Air and its whole Nature must be alike in a small portion of Air as in a greater as also the whole Nature of Water no less in a small Pitcherful than in a River In these words there are no less than two Egregious Fallacies For 1. Their Instances are of Homogeneous or Similar Bodies that is such Bodies whose Parts are all Alike and which have the same Name and Nature so every Part of Air is Air and every drop of Water is Water and has the whole Nature of Water in it as well as that Aggregate body of it which is in the Ocean But these Instances are very deceitfully applied to an Heterogeneous Dissimilar Organized Body as a Human Body is