Sacred Science teaches us that tho there be three different Persones in God there are not three different things because A different thing signifies a different essence Hence S. Aug. lib. de Fide ad petrum chap. 1. sayes Una est patris Filii Spiritus Sti. essentia in qua non est aliud Pater aliud Filius aliud Spiritus Sanctus quamvis personaliter sit alius Pater alius Filius alius Spiritus Sanctus The essence of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is one in which the Father is not one thing the Son another and the H. Ghost another altho as to Person the Father be one the Son another and the Holy Ghost another If he was rash in touching the B. Trinity we must not wonder to see him stray also in this Mystery following only the strain of his human Philosophy Mr. Rodon then was not content meerly to believe but would see that he might believe tho S. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 13. v. 12. That such a sight is reserved for the next Life and that now we see only through a Glass darkly But I desire him who is so earnest to have a clear accompt of Divine Mysteries to clear me first in some natural things How is it possible to cover the whole Heavens with the Wing of a Fly Yet this can be done if it be divided in as many parts as God can divide it For after every division the least part will still have its three dimentions length breadth and thickness by all which it may be still divided Now if he deny this saying the Wing is composed of Indivisibles he runs himself into as great difficulties as to avow that a snail makes as much way in an hour as the sleetest Race-Horse for the Race-Horse cannot make an Indivisible of space or way without some part of time and that cannot be less then an Indivisible of time and in the same Indivisible of time the Snail moving cannot make less then an Indivisible of space and so go along with the Race-Horse the rest of the Indivsiibles of the hour and consequently the Snail will have made as much way as the Race-Horse at the hours end which is absurd Neither tell me the Horse can run over a hundred points or parts of space in an instant for his motion is also divisible in points one part must begin afore the other and so comes in again my argument As for the sweld points maintained by some they confound a Body with a Spirit and therefore are to be rejected How is it possible that since three Men cannot get in at once at a narrow Door the pictures or species which are not Spirits but material things of a whole Army should all at once enter without confusion into the apple of the Eye of a Man who from an eminence regards it If all Philosophers Wits are drowned in a drop of water not being able to fell with satisfaction what is the matter or the Form of it and whither it be compounded of divisible or indivisible parts must we claim to a full satisfaction of our reason afore we will believe this Mysterious Transubstantiation and thus banish Faith out of the Church of Christ Let us not soare to high nor dive to deep in this matter since a searcher of the Divine Majesty will be oppressed by Glory Having premitted this discourse to raise Men above their senses when they come to consider mysteries of Faith I now prove the mystery of Transubstantiation thus As God can create so he can Transubstantiate And as he hath revealed Genes 1. That he hath created Heaven and Earth so he hath revealed Math. 26. v. 27. That he hath made a Transubstantiation of Bread into his Body in the Eucharist If you wonder at the strange things that follow from this Transubstantiation consider that creation made something of nothing which seemed so strange to the ancient Philosophers that they tell us flatly Ex nihilo nihil fit of nothing nothing is made Had they had Faith they would have acknowledged Creation submit you your Judgment to Faith and you 'l acknowledge in the Eucharist Transubstantiation SECTION II. Mr. Rodon's objections answered Object IN every substantial conversion that thing into which another thing is converted is alwise newly produced as when Christ turned the Water into Wine was the Wine was newly produced But the Body and Blood of Christ cannot be newly produced in the Eucharist Therefore the Bread and Wine are not substantially converted into the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist Answer 1. I distinguish the Major In every substantial conversion that thing c. Is alwise newly produced Entitatively or modally I grant alwise Entitatively I deny that is in every substantial conversion there is alwise the production at least of a new manner of being So the Body of Christ in the Eucharist has a new manner of being viz. a Sacramental being which it has not out of the Eucharist But there is not alwise in every substantial conversion a production of a new substance Answer 2. I dislinguish the Major again Naturally be it so Supernaturally and when the question is about the almighty Power of God I deny it and say that it is sufficient that the whole substance of Bread be destroyed and the Bodie of Christ put in its place something remaining common to both viz. the accidents of Bread which now by the consecration become the accidents of the Body of Christ morally in as much as they shew to all the faithfull the consecration being made that the Body of Christ is now there and receives a new being not as to the substance which it had already but as to the manner of being a sacramental being under the form of Bread If you ask how the Body of Christ can begin to be there without leaving the place where it was before I answer when a child grows by the nutrition or feeding does the reasonable soul leave the rest of the Childs body to come to the added part of matter or is there a new reasonable Soul produced in it If not but the same Soul acquires only a new presence of relation to the added part of matter reason the same way concerning the Body of Christ in the Eucharist Ob. 2. In every substantial conversion that thing which is converted into another is destroyed but the Bread is not destroyed in the Eucharist because after Consecration it is said to be Broken Divided c. therefore it is not destroyed Answer I distinguish the Minor The Bread is not destroyed as to the substance which is only required I deny as to the accidents I grant and say that by reason of these remaining the Host is said to be broken divided c. and is still called Bread Per distractionem as we speak in Philosophy So our Saviour said to the Disciples of Iohn Math. 11. v. 5. The blind see because they who then did see were afore blind They
water and the Holy Ghost Why was it not that he had not a mind to avow that Baptism has a force to justifie and that it is necessarie for the salvation also of Children as you may clearly see in these following passages of S. Paul and S. Peter You were given to lust drink covetous but yow are washed but you are sanctified to wit by that washing or Baptism but you are justified in the spirit of God 1 Cor. 6. v. 11. S. Cyprian lib. 2. ad Donat confesses what he was afore Baptism and what he presentlie became after Baptism and what Christianity gave to him calling Christianismus his Christning Mors criminum vita Virtutum The death of Crimes and life of Virtues And Peter 1 Cap. 3. v. 21. Quod nos nunc similis formae salvos facit Baptisma The like figure whereunto even Baptism doth also now save us as if he should say As the Waters of the deluge raising the Ark and with it Noë and his people did not only declare but saved them really from death so Baptism saves us makes us just and holy and does not only declare us to be such as Luther with other Hereticks would have it understood Also ad Ephes 5. v. 26. He loved his Church Purifying her with the Laver of water and in the word of life Wher you see the word of Life added to the matter viz. of waeter sanctifies and purifies the Church from sin Obj. 6. The flesh of which Christ speaks when he sayes My flesh is meat indeed is a spiritual food but the Body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a spiritual food but only his body on the Cross then he meant of his Body on the Cross and not his Body in the Eucharist when he said My flesh is meat indeed Answer I deny the minor proposition and say that the flesh or bodie of Christ in the Eucharist is a spiritual food called so without a figure because producing by a supernatural operation which force it hath from its union with the divine nature grace or sanctification in us it is realy food and meat indeed to the soul without a figure So that FOOD is Genus to corporal and spiritual food To strenghten or increase Life is Genus or the more universal term to strenghten by changing into the thing strenghtened and to strenghten not by changing but by Producing grace by which we are strenghtened are the two differences or the less universal terms The first makes Corperal food the second Spiritual The bare sign is no meat because not it but the act of Faith only btings forth Sanctification as Protestants hold in them Moreover I say that Christ's Flesh broken and his blood shed on the Crosse was not spiritual food indeed because they were never to coëxist actually with our spiritual feeding as Christ's flesh in the Eucharist does and therefore is meat indeed The food to be food indeed to one and the feeding must be joined together but when we now believe Christ's death it is not present but past and therefore is not food to the believer but when we believe and take by the mouth of our Body Christ's flesh it is there joyned with our spiritual eating producing Grace strenghtning and encreasing our spiritual life and therefore is meat indeed Obj. 7. That doctrine which opposes sense and reason and seems to imply contradictions is to be rejected if a more suitable and rational sense can be found out for those passages which seem to prove it I Answer 1. What if the Sabellians not conceiving how the Paternity should not be communicated to God the Son as well as the Divine Essence since the Paternitie and the Divine Essence are one and the same thing should have said it's a more suitable and rational sense of passages which seeme in scripture to say there are three distinct persons in the Divine nature that there is only one persone having three different functions called Father as he creats Son as he redeems and Holy Ghost as he sanctifies Would this prettie doctrine please Mr. de Rodon No neither can his conceit in the matter of the Eucharist be applauded by Romanists Answer 2. Our doctrine in the Eucharist neither opposes sense nor reason as I have shewn Chap. 1. Sect. 1. Nor seems so much to imply contradiction as the Mystery of the B. Trinitie which will be seen better in the next chapter Nor is the way he and other Protestants have found out rational to explane the passages we bring for our Doctrine as I hope will appear to the impartial and serious considerer of our proofs in the first Chapter To end this Chapter remember again that Christ by the occasion of the Jews seeking him more for bread to eat then for his miracles Io. 6. v. 26. by which miracles he laboured to perswade them to believe in him or that he was the Son of God called himself bread that doth not perish and spoke first of spiritual eating by faith that he might advance his hearers by litle and litle to this mysterie of a Real eating of his Flesh teaching them first what they ought to do to merite this true and heavenly Bread saying Work or seek earnestly not the food that perishes but which remains to eternall life c. Adding This is the work of God that ye believe as if he should say This is the work of God That ye believe that I am come from Heaven and that I am the Son of God which if you once believe you will not stumble at what I shall say to you here-after concerning the real eating of my flesh and drinking of my Blood nor be at all amased as appeared in the Apostles when actually viz. at the last supper I shall give it you CHAPTER III. Of Transubstantiation SECTION I. Transubstantiation is proved IS it not prettie to hear Mr. Rodon with some other Protestants speak of one of the darkest mysteries of our faith as of a natural thing and when their weak reason looking only to nature cannot reach it conclude as it were with triumph in the Eucharist there 's no transubstantiation Would that man be thought a good Christan who because it thwarts his grosse understanding to conceive a father to beget a son by speaking should conclude that the divine word is not the son of the eternal Father or a good divine who because it 's true to say in the B. Trinity that the essence is communicated to the son and the peternitie is not communicated to the Son should conclude that the essence and the paternitie are not the same thing Here I remark in passing that Mr. Rodon's Philosophy unwarilie touches the mysterie of the most B. Trinity in his 4. chap. where numb 12. for an example of a plurality of things really different he assignes the three Divine persones and concludes from thence that a real difference of things does not infer Division But he should have taken notice that the
to doubt if such a man were my Father for no other reason but because many have thought him to be their Father who really was not To Mr. Rodon's saying That Heathens might have retorted the Catholick arguments made against them by S. Chrysos c. If the Church had then believed that Christ's Body was in the Eucharist As when S. Chrisos said they bring their gods into base Images of Wood and Stone and shut them up there as in Prison And Arnobius Lib. 6. Your Gods dwells in Plaister c. and they suffer themselves to be shut up and remain hid and detained in an obscure Prison Answer 1. No they might not because our mysteries were not known then to them as they are now to Protestants Nay they were keep secret from the very Catechumens Hence that famous saying in primitive times speaking of his Mystery norunt Fideles The Faithful know to wit what we believe there Quaeres Why was this Mystery concealed from the cathecumens or those who ware not yet Baptized Answer Because they had not yet the Eye of Faith by which they might see it Hence don't wonder if you find some Fathers to have wrot some what obscurely of this Mystery in the Birth of the Church Answer 2. No the Heathens might not equally retort c. because 1. Christ is in the H Host and was in his Mothers Womb so that his God-head is and was else where 2. We do not say That Christ leaves Heaven to come to the H. Host as the false Gods one place to come to another 3. Their Consecration was the meer word of Man ours the words of Christ commanding Do this and speaking by the mouth of the Preist This is my Body 4. They adored the Mettal after its dedication as God We do not adore so the species Answer 3. If the Church did then believe that Christ had remained hid and shut up in his Mothers Womb as in an obscure Prison might not the Heathens have retorted what Arnob. Lib. 6. said against their Gods detained in an obscure Prison And for their Retortion in this particular would Mr. Rodon have denyed that Christ remained nine months in his B. Mother's Womb I end this Chapter with this Quaere Wherefore do we adore Christ more particularly in the B. Sacrament then his God-head every where Answer Because God the Father will have God the Son specially honoured by men for his special Love to them in their Redemption of which we are particularly minded by the presence of his Body in the Eucharist 2. Because the humanity of Christ represented to us by the Eucharist is personally united to the Divinity And God the H. Ghost who guides the Church inspired her in her invocations of the three Divine Persons in the begining of the Mass to invoce the first and third Person under the common name of LORD Lord have mercy on us But God the Son under the Name of his Man-hood saying thrice Christ have Mercy on us so honoured will God have and dear to us this Man-hood of Christ the instrument of our Redemption CHAPTER VI. Against the taking away of the Cup or the Communion under one kind SECTION I. The lawfulness of Communicating under one kind is proven 1. THE precept of Communicating or of taking the Body and Blood of Christ is only Io. 6. v. 53. in these words Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no Life in you But with those words stands the lawfulness of Communicating under one kind Therefore 't is lawful to Communicate under one kind I prove the minor 1. Because there is only commanded the sumption or receiving of both Body and Blood as to the substance not the manner of receiving them under both kinds 2. If you think the manner is commanded also giving not granting you that we answer that the Particle And may be taken for Or as in many other places of Scripture for example when Salomon speaking to God sayes mendicitatem divitias ne dederis mihi Poverty and Riches give me not Prov. 30. v. 8. Where And is taken for Or he desiring of God neither to be Rich nor Poor And Act. 3. v. 8. Argentum Aurum non est mihi Silver 2. And Gold I have not for Silver Or Gold I have not If with the Hussits you will not relish this solution then we answer 3. That this command was given by Christ not to every particular man but to the community of Christians by which it is fulfilled some viz. Preists taking it under both kinds to represent announce to the People the death of Christ according to the command layed upon them Math. 26. In these words Do this in remembrance of me there also was the command to the Preists of making the Sacrament for the People So Exod. 12. v. 3. 't is commanded that The whole multitude of the Children of Israel shall Sacrifice viz. the Paschal Lamb. Did every one in particular sacrifice No but only the heads of families in their families Also Genes 9. v. 1. Increase and multiply Doth not oblige every particular man to marry Again when our Saviour said Math. 28. Teach all nations baptising them he laid that command on the Church not on every particular man to teach Now to make appear that this answer is not brought without ground from Scripture take notice that when Christ would signifie that every one or every individual person should be baptised he expressed himself in the singular number Io. 3. v. 5. Nisi quis c. Except a man be born of water nd of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Whereas Io. 6. v. 53. he sayes in the plural number Nisâ— manducaveritis Unless ye eat c. which is fulfilled by the community if some of them receive under both kinds altho all do not And a little after when he turnes his speach into the singular he speaks indifferently of both or one kind He that eates my Flesh and drink my Blood hath life everlasting v. 45. and v. 58. He that eates this Bread shall live for ever Which passages signifie that one kind suffices for if by an impossible supposition Christ could contradict himself yet our opinion would stand since in jure if what is said last contradict what was said afore Iura posteriora corrigunt priora The latter Law corrects the former That the precept of receiving this Sacrament was here Io. 6. v 53. I prove again The command of receiving the Sacrament of Baptism or Baptism Sacramentally was Io. 3. v. 4. For in no other place is mentioned Water which Protestants acknowledge to be necessary in Baptism as well as Catholicks Therefore the command of receiving the Sacrament of Christs Body Blood Sacramentally viz. in a sensible way by the mouth of the Body is here Io. 6. v. 53 I prove the consequence because a like expression to the same people caries a like command