But to tell us we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ as a Memorial of him when you profess we do no such thing is the most extravagant of all Metaphors and unparallell'd in History That some have eaten their deceased Friends and that others have drank their Ashes I have already hinted but to say eat and drink the Body and Blood of King Charls that is remember that he was Martyr'd would be such an expression as stands single at least as far as I have read from all the Allegories of the most phantastical Poets Why then do you tells us That we indeed eat and drink his Body and Blood and not rather and only say that we break Bread in remembrance that Christ was so broken and pour forth Wine as a Memorial that his Blood was so shed for us Give me leave to return the Answer I fear that whilst you want Faith to believe the truth intended by the words you are ashamed to neglect the words themselves lest you should become a scandal and reproach to all sober Christians who had ever read the Holy Bible or the best of Fathers Deceive not therefore your selves and those poor Souls who depend upon you but either give them in truth the last Sacred Legacy of our most dear and ever Blessed Master or tell them plainly he is departed and hath left them nothing for a Body which is no Body and Blood which is no thing is at least as absur'd and sensless a Proposition as your so often objected Smelling Tasting nourishing Accidents without a Substance The Answerer hath given us a long Beadroll of Objections in p. 32. Et sequent Which he says contradicts right Reason I could have furnisht him with a great many more and much more pertinent from an Ancient Catholic Author call'd The Christians Manna where he would also have found their Answers to which I must recommend him In some of his repugnancies as he calls them he shews himself so ignorant or malicious that he is either way inexcusable So p. 35. In p. 33. he seems neither to understand Catholic Divinity nor common Philosophy but talks so crudely of both that he deserves not a sober Reply What he from Blondel tells us of the Fathers p. 34. I do not rightly understand nor did I think it worth my pains to procure Blondel upon that account but if either of them would make us believe that the Fathers thought it absurd and impossible that God should act beyond and above the Power of Nature the Fathers are much obliged to them for their good Opinion but if he would make them say that naturally a thing cannot exist act or be produc'd contrary to or above Nature he hath made a wise Speech for them which he may keep for his own use In his 36 P. he is come to his Senses but because he hath only a slight touch of them and those the same with our first Discourser I shall consider them as far as I intend at present together The first Objection is that what we tast and smell and see and touch and which nourish our Bodies should be Nothing and as it is reduced to an Objection against Sense it runs thus That what we see in the Sacrament is not Bread but the Body of Christ I have told you that I must defer my more particular Answer to a particular Treatise upon that Subject in which I hope to reconcile all difficulties not only to Sense and Reason but to the words of Consecration to the Canons of the Council of Trent and to the Fathers and the Fathers to themselves quite throughout In the mean time I will give you the general Faith of all Catholics and so conclude The indispensable Faith of all Catholics is this That the Substance of the Bread and Wine after Consecration is converted into the Substance of the Body and Blood of Christ united with his Soul and his Divinity No good Catholics dispute this altho' several Opinions also there are concerning the manner how this is done The great Question is concerning the Accidents which remain and it is the more receiv'd Opinion that they are real tho' not properly call'd substantial things and that as such they may nourish the Body suffer digestion and corruption and are the true Objects of our Senses in which we say all the vertues and qualities of Bread exist This we are told is consistent with Aristotles Philosophy but if you think otherwise dispute your Opinion as long as you please and if you can oblige your Adversaries to find out some more satisfactory Answer for there are some others as I shall shew hereafter The Faith in the mean time remains inviolably among all which their different Opinions pretend not to destroy All believe the Substance is converted but for the Accidents whether they be more or less whether they exist with or without a Subject what that Subject is or whether they may not have Substances of themselves these are Matters of Opinion and Philosophy and we must remember that Christ came not to teach us Philosophy and Logic but Faith and Obedience unto Good Works But I shall enter no further upon this Discourse at present nor shall I here answer our Discoursers four last Questions which depending upon the Doctrine of Accidents shall be consider'd together with them in our designed Treatise I shall only therefore add my hearty Prayers that you would once lay aside your prejudices and affections and many other temporal considerations and sincerely and calmly endeavour with us to find where the truth lies I know no Body intends any harm to you or other good to themselves than that we might be all United under one Head Christ Jesus holding the Unity of Faith in the Bond of Peace It would be a defect of Charity not to be pardon'd should you believe all Catholics to be Knaves or Fools or that they did not see and know or would not know what can be said against them as well as Protestants since your greatest Objections which I have ever read against us are found in our own Authors and their Answers to them of which you are pleased to be silent It were besides a strange Instance of Spiritual Pride to think yourselves the only Children of Light and this grounded upon no other Authority than your own private Opinions and a partial Judgment past upon your selves against the much greater part of the whole Christian World The Glorious Epinikeas and lofty Triumphs which you sing in all your Papers might become the Buskins of a Pagan Conqueror but in me they move only my Compassion to see you so wonderfully pleas'd and insulting in the wrong Alas you mistake the Scâ—â—â— for in our Case the Conquered wins the Prizâ—â— and yet the Victor loseth not his honor What would it profit him says our Saviour If a man should gain the whole World and lose his own Soul It is a serious consideration and deserves a sober thought or two free from passion or prejudice Now whether it be adviseable to venture so great a Treasure upon the single Bottom of every mans private Opinion Whether our Saviour Christ would leave his own Church in a much more dangerous condition than that in which he found the Jewish Church Whether Certainty was to be had among the Jews from the Chair of Moses concerning what they were to believe and do but no Certainty to Christians from the Chair of S. Peter or any other Christian Church upon the face of the Earth Whether Heresie and Schism be terms to affright us and only different names for Knavery and Hypocrisie Or whether a man who truly believes himself to be in the right may not be desperately and dangerously in the wrong and highly punishable for his presumption and disobedience to lawful Authority And Lastly whether you will tell us roundly and plainly That to believe Christ to be the Son of the Living God and to live a moral Life be all that is required of us as some of you have very boldly insinuated These things I recommend to your pious and ingenuous Examination until we meet again FINIS
a true and real tho' Mystical Manner the very Person of our Lord himself whole perfect and entire Next we offer the Testimony of Bishop Ridley quoted by Arch-Bishop Laud set down in Fox p. 1598. You says he the Transubstantialists and I agree in this That in the Sacrament is the very true and Natural Body and Blood of Jesus Christ even that which was born of the Virgin Mary which ascended into Heaven which sits on the right hand of God the Father c. only we differ in Modo in the way and manner of being there Dr. Taylor who hath written one of the last on this Subject is very clear and particular concerning this Real Presence Sect. 1. N. 11. p. 18. It is enquired says he whether when we say we believe Christs Body to be really in the Sacrament we mean that Body that Flesh that was born of the Virgin Mary that was Crucified Dead and Buried I answer I know none else that he had or hath there is but one Body of Christ Natural and Glorified But he that faith that Body is Glorified which was Crucified says it is the same Body but not after the same manner and so it is in the Sacrament we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ that was broken and poured forth for there is no other Body no other Blood of Christ But tho' it is the same we eat and drink yet it is in another manner And therefore when any of the Protestant Divines or any of the Fathers deny that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary that was Crucified to be eaten in the Sacrament As Bertram as St. Heirom as Clemens Alexand. expresly affirm The meaning is easie They intend that it is not eaten in a natural sense c. That Body which was Crucified is not that Body that is eaten in the Sacrament is true if the intention of the Proposition be to speak of the eating it in the same manner of being But that Body which was Crucified the same Body we do eat is also true if the intention be to speak of the same thing in several Manners of being and Operating Some also may turn all this into a meer figurative sense excluding the Corpus Domini or Real Presence of Christs Natural Body in the Sacrament and it may be they may think that this Doctor himself from some other of his expressions may have given them just reason so to do I shall then only observe these two things First that concerning this Real Presence a Catholic could not have written more justly nor more plainly than the Doctor hath done in what hath been above recited And Secondly That if after all this the Doctor should mean no more than a Spiritual efficacy or virtue excluding the Corpus Domini or Substantial Presence of Christs Natural Body tho' indeed after a Spiritual manner as we confess then doth the Doctors Opinion seem as contradictory to it self and as incomprehensible to me as the great Mystery of Transubstantiation it self or as if he had written in Characters totally unintelligible But let us now hear Bishop Forbes de Eucharist L. 2. c. 2. Sect. 9. The sober Protestants doubt not but that Christ is to be ador'd in the Sacrament for in the taking of the Eucharist Christ is to be ador'd with Divine Worship because his Living and Glorious Body is present by an unexpressible Miracle to the Worthy Receiver and this Adoration is not due or performed to the Bread or Wine or the taking or eating but to the very Body of Christ immediately exhibited to us in the taking of the Eucharist And again L. 3. c. 1. Sect. 10. The holy Fathers often tell us That the very Body of Christ is Offer'd and Sacrificed in the Eucharist as appears by almost innumerable passages but not that all the properties of a Sacrifice are properly and really observ'd but it is done by a Commemoration and Representation of that which being once offer'd in that only Sacrifice of the Cross Christ our High Priest did thereby consummate all other Sacrifices and by pious Supplications by which the Ministers of the Church for the sake of the perpetual Oblation of that one Sacrifice assisting in Heaven at the right hand of the Father and present after an unexpressible manner on the holy Table most humbly pray God the Father that he would please to grant that the Vertue and Grace of this perpetual Victim may become profitable and efficacious to his Church for helping all the necessities both of the body and Soul The Archbishop of Spalato says much the same thing in his Rep. Eccles L. 7. c. 11. Only he will not admit the Body of Christ to be corporally in the Bread or under the Bread but to be taken with the Bread Sumitur cum Pane Christi Corpus reale illi communioni realiter praesens Mr. Thorndyke in his Epilogue to the Tragedy L. 3. c. 3. Says thus That which I have already said is enough to Evidence the Mystical and Spiritual Presence of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Elements as the Sacrament of the Same before any Man can suppose that Spiritual Presence of them to his Soul which the eating and drinking Christs Flesh and Blood spiritually by living Faith importeth And ibid. c. 2. where it follows He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords Body Unless a man discern the Lords Body where it is not of necessity it must there be where it is discerned to be And l. 3. c. 5. Having maintained that the Elements are really changed from ordinary Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ mystically present as in a Sacrament and that in vertue of the Consecration not by the Faith of him that receives I am to admit and maintain whatsoever appears duly consequent to this Truth namely that the Elements so consecrated are truly the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross in as much as the Body and Blood of Christ are contained in them c. And then p. 46. he further collecteth thus And the Sacrifice of the Cross being necessarily propitiatory and impetratory both it cannot be denied that the Sacrament of the Eucharist in as much as it is the same Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross is also both propitiatory and impetratory You may consult Archbishop Laud Bishop Montague Bishop Bilson and many other Learned Protestants too long to be here recited for further satisfaction in this Matter Now worthy Fathers what would you advise me to do in this Case would you have me follow the Judgments of these Learned and Pious Men who wrote not only their private Opinions but some of them in the Name of the King and whole Church of England Or would you have me believe our Discourser and some others of our late Sacramentary Pamphleters If the first then Transubstantiation will not appear so absurd ridiculous senseless and foolish a Doctrine as he
hath styled it which I hope to prove hereafter If the second then to use the Argument and Words of our Discourser p. 30. Christanity would become a most uncertain and endless thing for if we may thus change our Faith in such high and fundamental Doctrines as these are I know not what security we have that we shall not in time change our Faith in other necessaries and at length lose it all But to pin up the Basket as we say I shall conclude with the Testimonies of Calvin and Beza men to whom the Church of England is obliged for a great part of her Reformation Calvin upon 1 Cor. 11.24 Take eat this is my Body says thus Nor doth Christ only offer to us the benefits of his Death and Resurrection but that Body it self in which he suffered and rose again And again Instit l. 4. c. 17. Being made partakers of his Substance we perceive also the vertue of it in the Communication of all good things I know no other Substance he had spiritual or corporal but that which was born of the Blessed Virgin And of the Lutherans he says If they so explain their meaning that whilst the Bread is delivered there is annext to it the exhibition of his Body because the Truth is inseparable from its Sign I should not much oppose them And to strengthen this Assertion of Calvin I shall add the Confession of Beza and others of the same Sect related by Hospinian Hist Sacram. parte altera p. 251. We confess that in the Cup of our Lord not only all the Benefits of Christ but the very substance of the Son of man I say that very Flesh and that very Blood which he poured out for us not only significatively symbolically typically or figuratively as a remembrance of one absent but truly and certainly represented exhibited and offer'd not as naked Symbols but as having from God himself promising and offering the very thing it self truly and certainly joyned to them Now the manner by which the thing it self i.e. the very Body and the very Blood of our Lord is joyned with the Symbols we say it is Symbolical or Sacramental But we call it a Sacramental manner not that it is only Figurative but that it truly and certainly represents under the Species of visible Things that which God exhibits and offers with the Symbols that is as I said before the very Body and Blood of Christ And then he tells us That he differs with others concerning the manner of the Presence only but for the very Thing and Presence it self he retains and defends it And now Reverend Fathers I must acquaint you that whilst I was transcribing this very last Paragraph I was inform'd that there was an Answer lately publisht to Two Discourses printed at Oxford which contained in them the Testimonies of these Learned Protestants before mentioned I stopt my Pen bought the Book and read it over with great care I shall not at present speak any thing more of it in particular than what relates to this very Subject but in general give me leave to tell you that me thoughts this Answerer might very well have spar'd his Apology at last p. 125. for not having insisted more largely upon some points since I have not seen Twenty two Sheets written with so much magisterial Confidence and in my judgment with so little Substance even among all the Pamphlets that have come out on both sides from the Death of the late King to this present day but I leave the further examination to the Conclusion of this Discourse First we thank him for his plainness in delivering his opinion concerning the Real Presence which is the subject Matter in Debate and by which he tells us is meant no more than invisible Power and Grace in exclusion of the Real Presence of Christs Natural Body even after a spiritual manner Whether the Church of England will thank him for it I know not I am sure I was otherwise instructed and believed otherwise whilst in your Communion But let us hear what he says to these Testimonies He endeavours to elude their most plain indubitable sense and grammatical construction even according to the common Reason and Understanding of all Mankind these several ways First he tell us that Becanus says the Calvinists deny the Body and Blood of Christ to be truly really and substantially present in the Eucharist Not I hope according to that sense which our Answerer would make Calvin and others give of those and such like expressions But sure our Answerer might have collected among his other Protestant Relics an account of a rigider sort of Calvinists who reform'd even upon Calvin himself and yet retain'd the name of Calvinists But what doth Calvin himself say as this Answerer recites out of Hospinian Why that Christ is our Food because by the incomprehensible Vertue of the holy Spirit he inspires his Life into us that he may communicate it to us no less than the Vital Juice is diffused from the Root into all the Branches of the Tree c. No less than so then sure it is as substantial a Communication of Christ's Natural Body after a spiritual manner as the Oxford Discourser in that place pretends to for if Calvin and this Answerer do not believe that the Vital Juice of a Tree is a Substance tho' whilst a Juice more spiritual and that the very Substance of the Tree is substantially nourished and increased thereby I fear they will both prove as bad Philosophers as Divines But before I proceed any further I must inform or mind our Answerer that tho' Catholics believe Christ's Natural Body to be in the Sacrament yet they deny it to be there bodily i.e. Modo Corporeo and tho' his Flesh be there yet not Fleshly nor yet doth his Natural Body leave the highest Heavens These premised because we shall have occasion to make these distinctions I come to next to Beza His words as recited by the Answerer are these We do not say that in the Eucharist there is only a Commemoration of the Death of our Lord Jesus Christ nor do we say that in it we are made partakers only of the Fruits of his Death and Passion but we joyn the Ground with the Fruits affirming with St. Paul that the Bread which by God's appointment we break is the participation of the Body of Christ crucified for us the Cup which we drink the Communion of the true Blood that was shed for us and that in the very same Substance which he received in the Womb of the Virgin and which he carried up with him into the Heavens And afterwards For this honor we allow to God that tho' the Body of Jesus Christ be now in Heaven and not elsewhere and we on Earth and not elsewhere yet are we made partakers of his Body and Blood after a spiritual manner i.e. modo spirituali and by the means of Faith P. 50. I am afraid Fathers this Answerer plays
the greatest that ever had been since the Apostles and therein it was determined by near 1300 Fathers that according to the Doctrine of the most Ancient and Holy Fathers Tradition of the Church and former Councils the Conversion of the Substance of Bread and Wine after Consecration into the Substance of the Natural Body and Blood of Jesus Christ the Accidents of Bread and Wine only remaining should thenceforward be call'd Transubstantiation which had been sufficiently before exprest and explain'd by that wonderful Transmutation and Transelementation asserted by the Fathers This our Discourser believes with Scotus to have been the necessary consequence of the Council of Lateran p. 21. and so do I too Tho' in truth this explicative Term was I think more particularly establisht as here exprest in the Council of Trent Now to me the Church seems so far from being worthy of blame for decreeing what appears almost the necessary consequence of the real Presence I mean Transubstantiation that as the Case and Circumstances then stood the Church had been very negligent if she had not so decreed For it being always believ'd which I think is also fully proved That the Elements of Bread and Wine after Consecration were most wonderfully and by the Omnipotence of God converted into the Body and Blood of Christ It is clear then that either the Accidents or the Substance of Bread and Wine must be changed into the Substance of the Body of Christ But the Accidents are not so changed therefore the Substance Besides the Substance of the Body of Christ is in the Blessed Sacrament either with the Substance of Bread or without the Substance of Bread If the first then Catholics and our Discourser are in the wrong If the last then Luther and our Discourser are in the wrong So which way our Discourser should happen to be in the right I cannot comprehend except Zuinglius should have been more than Athanasius and our Discourser the Disciple of Zuinglius greater than St. Andrew the Apostle of our Lord. Now besides that the choice is easie in this Case even from the Authority of one side greater than of the other yet whosoever shall endeavour to reconcile the Real Presence with the Doctrine of Consubstantiation or Impanation will find harder difficulties in these than of that of Transubstantiation so much condemn'd The Authorities therefore which he brings from Durandus Erasmus Tonstal and some others to shew that before this Council of Lateran Men were at liberty concerning the modus or manner of Christ's Real Presence in the Sacrament might have been some kind of Argument for a Lutheran But how our Discourser becomes concerned in it I see not since quite through his Discourse and more particularly in p. 35. he hath with scorn excluded Both. Our Discourser hath yet one Argument relating to the time when he supposeth this Doctrine of Transubstantiation to have come into the World which is very remarkable He tells us That the Iconomachi or opposers of Images were very zealous against the Reverence due to them in the Synod of Constantinople about the year 750 arguing That our Lord having left us no other Image of himself but the Sacrament in which the Substance of the Bread is the Image of his Body we ought to make no other Image of our Lord But in the year 787. in the Second Council of Nice these scrupulous Greeks in thirty seven years time were grown so hardy in their Faith and so extreamly fond of this new Doctrine concerning the Corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament that they swallow'd it immediately and from that time were very solicitous and careful to admonish us that the Eucharist is not the Figure or Image of the Body of our Lord but his true Body as appears from the seventh Synod and he brings Bellarmin to vouch for him p. 21 22. Here we see these nice Greeks who were so very exact and curious in smaller Matters were contented to make so great a passage in one Council as from the Figure of Christ in the Sacrament to admit of his Substance nay and were so pleased with it that from thence and that time they took care to admonish us concerning it But the squeamish Latins notwithstanding the Greeks had advanc'd so far in one single Council were little less than three hundred years according to our Discoursers computation licking this mishapen Monster of Transubstantiation such is the Elegancy of his Style into that Form in which it is now setled in the Church of Rome Indeed he hath been over generous to the Latins in allowing them so considerable a time to relish and digest only the Mode of a thing when the easse Greeks at one sitting had dispatcht the thing it self in which according to our Discoursers Opinion the great Barbarousness and Impiety consists For says he The Impiety and Barbarousness of the thing is not in truth extenuated but only the appearance of it by being done under the Species of Bread and Wine for the thing they acknowledge is really done and they believe that they verily eat and drink the Natural Flesh and Blood of Christ In truth the Latins are obliged to him in confessing them to have been so extream cautious about the lesser part but how he will come off with the Greeks for being so rash and inconsiderate about the greater and principal part must be his care if he pleaseth I am perswaded had Bellarmin said this to have proved that the Greeks did then and not till then receive the Doctrine of the Real Presence Our Discourser could he make any advantage of it with good Reason would have cast it out as the most improbable and ridiculous conjecture in the World And yet here because he thinks it may help to favour his false account he produceth it with as much gravity as if he knew Catholics had less sense to see a blot than himself rashness to make one I come now to his fourth pretended Ground of this Doctrine that is The necessity of such a Change in the Sacrament to the Comfort and Benefit of those who receive it p. 30. To this my Answer at present is very short If I be satisfied that our Saviour commanded the thing I am convinc'd there was a good Reason for it without over-curiously examining what or why in this Case more than why he cured not those who touched the Hem of his Garment without that Ceremony or the blind with out clay and spittle And yet the Fathers and many late Authors will furnish those who are more inquisitive with many very good Reasons why this Change in the Sacrament is more advantageous to the worthy Receiver than the Figure would be and I shall say somewhat of it my self hereafter The last pretended Ground of this Doctrine is as he tells us to magnifie the Power of the Priest in being able to work so great a Miracle Indeed if the great Council of Lateran did make this a Ground of
Prophets in a hundred plain Texts I presume not unknown to your selves rather than your word in this Case I profess therefore tho my Reason is not able to cope with yours yet I 'll sooner suffer my self to be knockt down with a true Protestant Flayl than with such a Protestant Answer If you say the Catholic Church fell and was corrupt in Faith and Manners then I answer that Christ fail'd of his Promise and so good night to Christianity If you say the Catholic Church did not fall but kept the Unity of Faith Entire and Vncorrupt then I reply again shew me where and how I may find her And from this reasonable and important Request you shall never beat me whilst I live If you think fit to perswade me that the Church of Rome separated from the Church of England and that the Church of England is and ever hath been a part at least of the Catholic Church which always preserv'd the Faith entire and uncorrupt make it appear to me Fathers and I most heartily promise to become the most humble and obedient Subject that ever liv'd under any Government But I foresee many Difficulties which I fear will prove invincible as first It is evident that you separated from the Church of Rome and that within these few years and to prove that she separated from you will be I doubt no easie Task nor have I yet seen it done Next That you were involved in the same pernicious Errors with her ever since Augustin the Monk above a Thousand years since If my Computation be false blame your own Authors and rectifie my Judgment Now how you should rise a pure Church after having been buried so many Hundred years in a corrupt Church I do not easily understand I have heard indeed of some Rivers that have fallen into the Earth and risen up again many Miles off and of others which for many Miles in the Sea have still retain'd the natural sweetness of their own fresh Waters If these comparisons may hold in Religion yet how will you make them quâ—drate with the constant visibility and Demonstration in one case and the Succession of the Original Stream in the other if you say that that the Catholic Church was invisible or totally fell If you pretend to derive your Authority from the Church of Rome when She was in her Purity and Perfection let me tell you here will be a very long Prescription against you and I know not how your Jus postliminium can take place in this case But if it would you must be restor'd by an Act of the same Supream Authority you own'd her you held of her you reciev'd your Doctrine and your Orders from her Besides as hath been said She could by no means grant away her Authority independent from her shew me that lawful Authority which restor'd you and I submit Shew me your extraordinary Calling by those Marks appointed and practis'd in such Cases both under the Old and New Law even to our own Century I mean undoubted Miracles and I acquiesce If you tell me no time can prescribe against Divine Truth nor is Authority necessary to reform an Error In a general Sense I grant both But the Question here is concerning Truth and Error themselves No body doubts but that a certain Divine Truth is to be reciev'd and a certain Error to be avoided but we are now seeking for that Authority which shall declare this Truth and set forth this Error Error or Sin is the breach of a Law for without the Law Rom. 7. Sin is dead whence St. Paul says That he had not known Lust except the Law had said thou shalt not covet Now as Sin supposes a Law so Law requires an Authority And as the one so the other must be visible And to shew that this Authority is absolutely necessary we find our Saviour giving it to his Apostles and themselves exercising and recommending it to others so S. Paul advises Titus Titus 2.15 To speak exhort and rebuke with Authority But what need Instances of this kind Our Saviour hath left us a Law of Faith which in some of the most necessary Points is not clear and self-Evident whence the Arians of old Men of great Learning denied the Trinity and Divinity of our Saviour and they made a very considerable Body Authority condemn'd them and interpreted the Law in those Cases according to our present Orthodox Faith The Socinians and Antitriniturians rebel against it to this day and are neither unlearned nor inconsiderable Luther tells us That Christ is a Saviour of vile and little worth and wanted himself a Saviour Christus ille vilis In Confes Maj. de caen Dom. nec magni pretij Salvator est immo Ipse quoque Salvatore opus habet And that his Divinity suffer'd for us De consil part 2 pertinacissimè contra me pugnabant quod Divinitas Christi pati non posset Tom. 1. prop. 3. He tells us further That good Works are hurtful to Salvation and that Faith doth not Justifie except it be even without the least good Works Calvin also Bilsons Survey and Beza That Christ suffer'd in his Soul the pains of the damned that he prayed unadvisedly and was disturb'd in his Senses That the Divine Substance is not wholly in three Persons but distinct really and truly from Everlasting into three Persons and that there be three Divinities as there be three Persons Melanct in loco Com. c. de Christo Beza 's Confession p. 1. Anno Dom. 1585. Calvin in Act. Serveti Whence Neuserus a Learned Calvinist and chief Pastor at Heidelburg revolting first to Arianism and thence to Mahometanism writ to Gerlachius a Protestant Preacher from Constantinople July 2. 1574. saying None is known to me in my time made an Arian who was not first a Calvinist and then names several such persons That God is the Author of Sin moving inclining and forcing the Will of man to Sin Calvin Instit l. 1. c. 18. and l. 2. c. 4. Zuingl Bucer and several of our Eminent English Reformers concur with them in most of these blasphemous and heretical Opinions Now Fathers if these Instances with many others which I abhor to mention be not sufficient and weighty enough to require a Supream Judge to determine the right Faith and to condemn and silence the wrong then look nearer at home among your selves and if all cannot prevail with you to believe That the Law wanted a Judge and that therefore Christ was pleased in his Wisdom and Goodness to leave us Judges as long as he intended his Law should be in force Then pray excuse me if my Reason and Piety and the reverent Notion which I have of a Just God and a Merciful Saviour totally force my Judgment and Conscience to dissent from you in this particular and let us proceed If you say the Church of Rome usurpt upon you I answer if such a thing was It was in Discipline only and
might find a fit parallel for Mr. Arnauld he takes a long Journey to Vienna the rather I suppose that he might pay his respects to the King of France and his Army as he return'd home again for he tells us That by the like Demonstration as Mr. Arnauld's one might prove that the Turk did not invade Christendom because if he had the most Christian King who had the greatest Army in Christendom in a readiness would certainly have employed it against him Now our Discourser without crossing the Seas might have given as proper an instance even from his own Doors for who could easily imagine that the Real Substantial Presence of Christs Natural Body in the holy Sacrament should have been believ'd and profest by the Church of England in the days of King James the First and yet that in the Reign of King James the Second the figurative Doctrine in exclusion of the Real Presence should be so firmly and peaceably establisht among us as that not so much as one single Church of England Man at least that I have heard of tho highly dignified by honourable and profitable Employments in and by the said Church of England should write one word in Vindication of their ancient Church Nor one small Pamphlet to oppose the Innovation of these usurping Sacramentories But these things worthy Fathers concern you more than me and lest you should quite forget that there ever had been any such Doctrine profest by your Church of England I shall humbly take the liberty by and by to refresh your memories Much more might be said to shew from what loose Conjectures our Discourser would prove the Innovation of the Doctrine of the Real Presence and that it entred not into the Latin Church before the Eighth Century But since I design nothing of Answer more than to satisfie you worthy Fathers and my self that I have not rushly rejected the Authority of so Learned a Person as our Discourser seems to be without good reason and due consideration this which is already said is I suppose sufficient for that purpose I come now to what he calls the Third pretended Ground of this Doctrine of Transubstantiation that is The infallible Authority of the present Church to make and declare new Articles of Faith First there is a great difference between making an Article of Faith and declaring and Article of Faith I know no power upon Earth that can do the first but certainly the second is within the Jurisdiction of the lawful Church Governours or otherwise General Councils would be very insignificant Assemblies Now if Transubstantiation should prove to be no more than the true Faith concerning the blessed Sacrament declar'd or explain'd then our Discourser hath no reason to quarrel with Church Authority or fear any Inconveniences should happen from the Exercise of such a Power First I have sufficiently shewn at least in my Opinion that the Doctrine of the Real Presence that is of the Natural Body of Christ substantially truly and literally existing in the Sacrament tho' not after a Corporal and Natural manner to have been the constant Doctrine of the Catholic Church from the Apostles to the great Council of Lateran when in the presence of the Ambassadors of the Greek and Roman Emperours as also of the Kings of Jerusalem England France Spain and Cyprus this word Transubstantiation was agreed upon by neer Thirteen Hundred Fathers to be a proper Explicative Term of the Apostolical Doctrine and belief of the Real Presence or change of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ of this enough hath been said But because our Discourser is pleas'd to call the Doctrine of the Real Presence barbarous and impious p. 35. I have thought fit to add to the rest the Testimonies of Bishop Andrews and the Learned Casaubon in the name of King James the First and the Church of England and some others of the most Learned Fathers and Professors of the true English Church I will begin with Bishop Andrews Resp ad Apol. Bell. c. 1. p. 11. The Cardinal says he cannot be ignorant except wilfully that Christ said This is my Body but not after this manner This is my Body We agree in the object and differ only in the manner Concerning the Hoc est or this is We firmly believe that it is Concerning the after this manner i.e. by the Bread Transubstantiated into the Body of the manner how it is done as by or in or with or under or through there is not a word concerning it We believe the true Presence no less than your selves but we dare not confidently define any thing concerning the manner of this Presence nor are we over curious to enquire into it c. Again ib. c. 8. p. 194. Speaking of the Conjunction of Christs Body with the Symbols he says There is that Conjunction between the visible Sacrament and the Invisible Thing of the Sacrament as between the Divinity and Humanity of Christ where except you would savour of Eutychianism the Humanity is not transubstantiated into the Divinity And a little further The King hath establisht it that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist and to be truly there ador'd And we with Ambrose adore the Flesh of Christ in the Mysteries Some possibly may be ingenious enough to interpret all this to signifie a meer figurative Presence as they have done many clear passages of the Fathers but they must interpret for themselves not for me But let us hear what Is Casaubon writes to Cardinal Perron by the Kings Command concerning the Real Presence of Christs Body in the Eucharist who saying that the Contest was not about the Truth but only the Manner of the thing returns this reply p. 50. His Majesty wonders since your Eminence confesseth that you do not so solicitously require that Transubstantiation should be believed as that we should not doubt concerning the Truth of the Real Presence That the Church of England should not long since have satisfied you in that particular which hath so often profest to believe it in her public Writings And then for Explication of the Doctrine of the Church of England recites the fore-mention'd words of Bishop Andrews Quod Cardinalem non latet Come we next to Mr. Hooker Eccl. Polit. l. 5. Sect. 67. p. 357. Wherefore should the World continue still distracted and rent with so manifold contentions when there remaineth now no Controversie saving only about the subject where Christ is Nor doth any thing rest doubtful in this but whether when the Sacrament is administred Christ be whole within Man only or else his Body and Blood be also externally seated in the very Consecrated Elements themselves Again p. 360. All three Opinions do thus far accordin one That these holy Mysteries received in due manner do instrumentally both make us partakers of the Grace of that Body and Blood which were given for the Life of the World and besides also impart unto us even in
as the other But if he goes on he would hereby make us believe That 't is all one whether Christ be adored as supposed here by the Lutherans in this holy Eucharist and as imagined there by the Papists P. 100. I must then deny his Assertion What ill luck is this but why Truly because the one offers more violence to the Senses than the other I could wish our Answerer would offer less violence to his own and his Readers Senses for what have Senses to do with an equal supposition of Christs Invisible Presence tho after a different manner For Instance Suppose one man should adore Christ under a Veil believing that that which Supported the Veil was the real Natural Body of Christ the other equally ador'd Christ under the some Veil but upon the Supposition that Christs Natural Body was under it or with it but together with some other Substance which totally Supported this Veil would not any Man judge that the first is at least as excusable as the latter But Secondly He tells us That the Lutheran do undoubtedly right in the object and in that he is not mistaken But the Papist altho' he terminates his Adoration upon the same Object Christ as supposed really Present and no otherwise would adore yet he is mistaken so the one only adores Christ as in a place where he is not the other as in a thing in which he is not and this makes the vast difference A difference there is I confess for one adores nothing for Christ the other Christ believed in or under something but both upon the same Supposition of Christs Invisible Presence and this is the State of the Case in Short The question is Whether they be both equally excusable or guilty of Idolatry Here the Answerer passeth Sentence clearly against the Papist but had he writ less and closer he would not surely have so easily forgot what himself from Bishop Taylor was pleas'd to urge in p. 68. Where he lays it down for a Rule and gives reasons for it That to worship Christ where he is not is to worship nothing a Non Ens which must needs be Idolatry Well but still it may be the Bishop says the Answerer does not intend to exclude the Corpus Domini but only the Corporal or Natural manner of that Body Let us therefore hear how he goes on P. 69. for Idolum nihil est in Mundo saith St. Paul and Christ as Present by his Humane Nature in the Sacrament or with the Sacrament is a Non Ens For it is not true there is no such thing What says the Answerer not as Christ there no way as to his Humane Nature No he is saith the Bishop present there by his Divine Power and his Divine Blessing c. But for any other Presence it is Idolum It is nothing in the World It seems then to worship nothing for Christ in the Bishops Judgment produc'd by the Answerer is Idolatry The Question is only concerning Idolatry therefore sure both are equally culpable or equally innocent of that Crime What a deal of Stuff then hath our Answerer heapt up to no other purpose than to snew himself a partial Scribler Let him not be offended then if I most justly apply to himself what he produces in reference to another P. 96. That for a Book which carried a great appearance of Reasoning it hath the least in it of any I ever met with But I leave the Learned Oxford Discourser to manage his own Defence against this Answerer if he shall think it worthy of a thought The last publick Enemy to Transubstantiation that I shall mention is The Defender of the Dublin Letter I must confess he seems to be a Man of Learning and Judgment tho equally unknown to me as the rest but because his Defence depends chiefly upon the Authorities of Fathers whose Sense I humbly conceive he mistakes or misapplies I shall endeavour to reconcile them in the Conclusion to other expressions of the Fathers and all to the Catholic Doctrine of Transubstantiation Thus Reverend Fathers I have made such particular Remarks upon these Authors against Transubstantiation as I thought necessary toward the clearing our way to the right understanding of that great Mystery and if I have said ought which might hitherto offend you or them I know not how to ask your Pardons for as being ignorant of their Persons I can have no malice towards them so when I find Men writing magisterially and pragmatically against Learned Men and Christian Doctrines when as I believe they are themselves in the wrong I thought it a part of my Duty to present the Glass to them that by seeing how ill their Reflections appear they might call to mind that admirable Rule of Justice and Equity Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri ne feceris The CONCLVSION HAving endeavour'd to remove some prejudices against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which every Author had kept as particular Reserves over and above those Vulgar Objections which are common to them all I should now totally apply my self to the reconciling part and I have made some considerable Progress in it but finding that I have already exceeded the limits which I at first proposed to my self and that the weightiness of this Subject together with the variety of Objections against it and of Opinions concerning it will engage me in a larger Discourse than is proper for this time and place I resolv'd to make a Treatise of it by it self and this I am the rather inclin'd to do because we may probably see something of this kind in public done by a better hand which likely may save both you and me a further labor I shall content my self therefore at present to say something in General and for Particulars must refer you to what I further design if need require and God shall enable us The main Objections against Transubstantiation are chiefly these two I. That the natural Body of Christ cannot be in several places at the same time II. That it is against the Evidences of our Senses to believe that what we see and feel and tast and smell and which nourisheth should not be what it seems to be Or that Accidents should exist without a Subject after the manner of a Substance and yet be nothing These and many others which are the consequences of these bating several gross mistakes are obvious in most Protestant Authors To the First The Reasons given why the Natural Body of Christ cannot be in several places at the same time are Because a Body cannot exist after the manner of a Spirit That a Body cannot be invisible and impossible Answ p. 34. Or as it is in the Rubric Because it is against the truth of Christs Natural Body to be at one time in more places than one Now if we can Evidently shew out of Scripture that the Body of Christ here upon Earth did sometimes exist after the manner of a Spirit
and was Invisible I hope the two first Reasons will be taken off by consent And first it is understood I think by all Mat. 17. that the Body of Christ when he was transfigur'd did exist after a Supernatural manner and was freed for the time being from the clog and earthly limitations of common humane Bodies Secondly It is plain that after his Resurrection Jesus made his Body become Invisible The Text tells us That he appear'd in several Forms After that he appear'd in another Form unto two of them Mark 16. v. 12. Which I suppose is somewhat above Nature Also the third time when Jesus shewed himself to his Disciples at the Sea of Tiberias he had changed again his Form for they knew him not John c. 21. Nor was he known the first time by Mary Magdalen but was mistaken by her for the Gardiner But in Luke 24. It is clearly exprest That Jesus appear'd to his Disciples after the manner of a Spirit for it is said in v. 36. And as they thus spake Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said unto them peace be unto you But they were terrified and affrighted and supposed that they seen a spirit Now altho' the Circumstances in this Text sufficiently denote that our Saviour came not to his Disciples progressively after the manner of humane Bodies but that eodem instante he appear'd in the midst of them which was the cause of their fear for they were told before that our Lord was risen Yet the preceding v. 31. of the same Chapter leads so manifestly to this Interpretation that there is no colour left to doubt for it is there written That after our Lord had been ignorantly entertain'd by the two Disciples at Emmaus at last Their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their sight This agrees also with the account which we have from St. John c. 20. v. 19. Where it is said The same day at Evening when the Dores were shut came Jesus and stood in the midst of them The same Circumstance is also repeated in v. 26. In vain do ye therefore so often Object to us Worthy Fathers the necessity of believing our Senses in all things and upon all Occasions since you see how the Apostles themselves were deceived by them even concerning the real visible corporal Presence of Christ upon Earth As for St. Thomas and the Confirmation from the Evidence of his Senses our Saviour reproacht his want of Faith and suffer'd him to put his doubting hand into his Sacred Wounds not so much to shew him that he was meer Man as to convince them that he was God and Man God from his infinite Power in being able to make his Natural Body exist after the manner of a Spirit which they had seen before and were terrified at it And Man in that nevertheless he had the shape and Substance of that very Body in which he suffer'd Nor must we think that these Supernatural changes were done by chance or without the blessed design of the Divine Wisdome for the Disciples who hitherto had doubted concerning the great Article of the Resurrection of the Flesh were not only hereby convinced of this necessary truth but were also taught after what manner their Bodies should be raised from the dead Or as S. Paul says 1 Cor. c. 15. What Bodies they do become S. Paul gives them their Answer v. 36. Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die Then telling us of the several differences between Bodies some more and some less glorified he proceeds v. 42. So also is the Resurrection of the Dead It is sown in Corruption it is raised in Incorruption It is sown in Dishonor it is raised in Glory It is sown in Weakness it is raised in Power It is sown a Natural Body it is raised a Spiritual Body And this our Saviour had before experimentally taught them by the differing and Spiritual manner of the Existence of his own Body confirming also has Divinity by that Power which he exercised upon it according to that of S. Matthew c. 28. v. 18. All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth If then our common Sinful Bodies shall have this Glory Power and Spirituality when they are raised from the Dead and probably be subject then to the Soul as the Soul is now to the Body who will dare to prescribe Laws to the holy and spotless Body of our Lord united to his Divinity However it be the vindication of the Real Presence seems to concern your selves worthy Fathers or at least many other Protestants no less than Catholics and if that be admitted methinks Transubstantiation should not be so rudely refused Entrance For give me leave to ask you from what Authority you pretend to tell us That Christ is really Present in the Sacrament except you mean as in all other pious Duties If you deny this real Presence you stand separate from the whole Christian World Lutherans as well as Catholics which is no very good Argument that you are in the right If you confess it solve these difficulties your selves for it concerns you no less than us But if again you do not confess it then tell me I say what ground you have from Scripture to name those words except as a consequence from these This is my Body and upon the Supposition that at least the Substance of the Bread is become after Consecration the very Body of our Lord You tell us again That we do verily truly and indeed receive the very Body of Christ That born of the Virgin Mary which suffer'd for us and rose from the Dead Let me enquire again what Authority you have to use those words if you do not literally intend the thing Spiritual Graces proceed not from his Humanity but from his Divinity Faith is one of these Spiritual Graces and the immediate Gift of God and signifies only this at least in this place That Christ was the Son of God that he became Man that he died for us and rose again from the dead What hath this to do with eating his Body and drinking his Blood A Commemoration only of his Death it cannot mean nor could the Apostles so understand it except you can shew me some such like Metaphor used to express the memorial of a Man after his death But if neither before our Saviours Passion nor since amongst Jews Heathens or Christians such an Expression was ever used why must we believe that Christ spake or the Apostles understood different from all the expressions of mankind since the Creation of Adam When the Master of the House in Celebrating the Paschal Supper said This is the Bread of affliction which our Fathers eat in Egypt true Bread was really deliver'd and the Memorial was proper When Moses said Behold the Blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath made with you It was very Blood which Moses sprinkled on the People Exod. 24. v. 8.