Heresy and Schism is 11. The fifth Prop further explained by Mounsieur Maimbourg in two Propositions 12. An Answer to the two Propositions 1. I HAVE I hope by this time sufficiently proposed and confirmed both the Truth and Usefulness of the distinction of the Body and Blood of Christ which occurs in the Primitive Fathers into Natural and Spiritual or Divine From whence it may plainly appear to any pious and uprejudiced Reader that the Inference of a Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the Real Body and Blood of Christ from a Real Presence of them in the Lord's Supper is very weak and invalid Which Monsieur Maimbourg as well as the Bishop of Meaux formerly Bishop of Condom though he take special notice of in his Peaceable Method viz. that this Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper is generally acknowledged by the Protestants Chap. 3. whom he will have to hold That the Sacrament is not a Figure or empty Sign without Efficacy but they do maintain saith he that it does communicate unto us in a most real and effectual Manner the Body of Jesus Christ to be the Food of our Souls And he will have Monsieur Claud himself acknowledge that before this Novelty of Transubstantiation was introduced every one believed that Iesus Christ is present in the Sacrament that his Body and Blood are there truly received by the faithful yet he is so wise and cautious as not to trust to the strength of this Engine for the pulling us back into a belief and profession of that incredible Hypothesis but according to the Fineness of his wit has spread a more large Net to catch us in and carry us captive not only into this gross Errour of Transubstantiation but into all other Errours which the Church of Rome has broached or may hereafter broach and propose as Articles of Faith And therefore it is a point worth our closest consideration 2. His general Maxim is this That that Church in which are found two Parties concerned has ever had the power to determine all differences and to declare that as matter of Faith which before there was no obligation to believe and that we are bound to acquiesce in her Decisions under Penalty of being Schismaticks By the Church her declaring as matter of Faith which seems to sound so harshly he does not mean That the Church has Authority to frame New Articles of Faith pag. 17. but that She is to act according to a Rule which is Holy Scripture and Tradition truly and purely Apostolical from which we have also received the Holy Scripture it self And page 18. The Church never did make and undoubtedly never will make any New Articles of Faith since it is not in her power to define any thing but according to the Word of God which she is always to consult with as with her Oracle and the Rule she is bound to follow His meaning therefore must be this That besides those plain and Universally known Articles of the Christian Faith and acknowledged from the very beginning of Christianity such as are comprised in the Apostles Creed there have been and may be other Articles of Faith more obscurely and uncertainly delivered in Scripture which until the Church in a lawful Synod or Council has determined the sense of those places of Scripture that appertain to the Controversie men have no obligation to believe but go for the present for but uncertain and indifferent Opinions But when once the true Church in which the Parties differing in Opinion are and her lawful Representative assisted by the Holy Ghost as is affirmed Chap. 2. pag. 28. a Canonical Assembly which alone has full Power and Sovereign Authority to say juridically Chap. 4. pag. 27. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us has given definitive Sentence touching the Controversie that which before was but an indifferent Opinion becomes now Matter of Faith and is to be received as an Article of Faith by the Dissenting Party upon penalty of being Schismaticks and Hereticks This I conceive to be his precise meaning But the great Artifice of all is That he will have this meaning of his to be the general Opinion also of the Protestant Churches Who can says he page 27. question but the Protestant Churches of England France Germany and Switzerland and the Low Countries do hold as a Fundamental Maxim that in such Controversies as do arise concerning Doctrine in Matters of Religion the true Church of which the Dissenting Parties are Members has full and sovereign power to declare according to the Word of God what is of Faith and that there is an Obligation of standing to her Decrees under pain of being Schismaticks And page 35. I demand saith he nothing more for the present I will content my self with what themselves do grant That that Church of which the Parties contesting are Members be she fallible or infallible has full power to decide Differences and her Decrees do oblige under the Penalty of being Schismaticks 3. Now from this general Maxim granted as he conceives on both sides and which he does chiefly endeavour to prove from the carriage of the Synod of Dort toward the Arminians all which things to repeat here would be too moliminous and inconsistent with the Brevity I intend a full Answer to Monsieur Maimbourg's Method requiring some more able Pen he declining I say all dispute touching the Merit of the Cause the point of Transubstantiation he would hence draw us in to the imbracing that Doctrine merely because we were once of that Church that has Synodically determined for it and consequently reconcile us to all the rest of the Errours of the Church of Rome But that we may not so easily be taken in this Net or pulled in by this Engine we will first examine the Supposals that support the strength of it or of which it does consist The first and chiefest whereof is That such Synods to whose definitive sentence he would have us stand are assisted by the Holy Ghost The second That whether they be or be not we are to stand to their determination The third Whatever Matters of Opinion as they are for the present but such are decided by such a Synod pass into Articles of Faith The fourth That those that will not close with these Decisions be they what they will they are guilty of Schism as being bound to assent The fifth That these decisive Synods or Assemblies are to decide according to the Rule of the Word of God The sixth and last That both the Protestants and Papists are agreed in all these 4. Now before I examine these Particulars these Supposals Parts or Props of his general Maxim by which he would draw the Protestants again into the Church of Rome and make them embrace Transubstantiation and all other Superstitions and Errours which they have Synodically decided for matters of Faith I will following the very method of this shrewd Writer
Imprimatur Guil. Needham R mo in Christo Patri ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cantuar. à sacr Domest Ex Aedib Lambeth Iul. 2. 1686. A BRIEF DISCOURSE OF THE Real Presence OF THE Body and Blood of CHRIST In the Celebration of the HOLY EUCHARIST WHEREIN The Witty Artifices of the Bishop of Meaux and of Monsieur Maimbourg are obviated whereby they would draw in the Protestants to imbrace the Doctrine of Transubstantiation John 6. v. 54 63. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Calvin Instit. lib. 4. cap. 17. In sacra sua coena jubet me Christus sub Symbolis panis ac vini corpus ac sanguinem suum sumere manducare ac bibere Nihil dubito quin ipse verè porrigat ego recipiam Tantum absurda rejicio quae aut coelesti illius Majestate indigna aut ab humanae ejus naturae veritate aliena esse apparet LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S t Paul's Church-Yard 1686. A BRIEF DISCOURSE OF THE Real Presence CHAP. I. 1. The occasion of writing this Treatise 2. The sence of the Church of England touching Transubstantiation 3. Three Passages in her Articles Liturgie and Homilies that seem to imply a Real Presence 4. A yielding at least for the present that the Church of England is for a Real Presence but of that Flesh and Blood of Christ which he discourses of in the sixth Chapter of St. John's Gospel though she be for a Real Absence of that which hung on the Cross. 5. That our Saviour himself distinguishes betwixt that Flesh and Blood he bore about with him and that he there so earnestly discourses of 6. That this Divine Food there discoursed of the Flesh and Blood of Christ is most copiously to be fed upon in the Holy Eucharist and that our Communion-Service alludes to the same nor does by such a Real Presence imply any Transubstantiation 1. THE occasion of writing this short Treatise was this I observing the Papers here in England published in behalf of the Church of Rome and for the drawing off People from the Orthodox Faith of the Church of England which holds with the ancient pure Apostolick Church in the Primitive Times before that general Degeneracy of the Church came in to drive at nothing more earnestly than the maintaining their grand Error touching the Eucharist viz. their Doctrine of Transubstantiation Into which they would bring back the Reformed Churches by taking hold of some Intimations or more open Professions of theirs of a Real Presence though they absolutely deny the Roman Doctrine of Transubstantiation and thus entangling and ensnaring them in those free professions touching that Mystery of the Eucharist would by hard pulling hale them into that rightfully relinquish'd Errour for which and several others they justly left the Communion of the Church of Rome I thought it my duty so far as my Age and Infirmness of my Body will permit to endeavour to extricate the Reformation and especially our Church of England from these Entanglements with which these witty and cunning Writers would entangle Her in Her Concessions touching that mysterious Theory and to shew there is no clashing betwixt her declaring against Transubstantiation and those Passages which seem to imply a Real Presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ at the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist 2. Concerning which that we may the more clearly judge we will bring into view what She says touching them both And as touching the former Article 28. her words are these Transubstantiation or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions And in the latter part of the Rubrick at the end of the Communion-Service She says That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural Substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Bloud of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the Truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one This is sufficiently express against Transubstantiation 3. Now those passages that seem to imply a Real Presence in the Eucharist are these In the above-named Article 28. The Body of Christ saith our Church is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an Heavenly and Spiritual manner And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith Against which our Adversaries suggest that no Faith can make us actually receive and eat that which is God knows how far distant from us and that therefore we imply that the Body of Christ is really present in the Eucharist Another Passage occurs in our Catechism where it is told us That the inward part of the Sacrament or thing signified is the Body and Bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper Where verily and indeed seems to imply a Real Presence and Participation of the Body and Bloud of Christ. The last place shall be that in the Homily of worthy receiving and reverend esteeming of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ. The words are these But thus much we must be sure to hold that in the Supper of the Lord there is no vain Ceremony no bare Sign no untrue Figure of a thing absent But as the Scripture saith the Table of the Lord the Bread and Cup of the Lord the Memory of Christ the Annunciation of his Death yea the Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord in a marvellous Incorporation which by the Operation of the Holy Ghost the very bond of our conjunction with Christ is through Faith wrought in the Souls of the faithful Whereby not only their Souls live to Eternal Life but they surely trust to win their Bodies a Resurrection to Immortality And immediately there is added The true understanding of this Fruition and Union which is betwixt the Body and the Head betwixt the true Believers and Christ the ancient Catholick Fathers both perceiving themselves and commending to their people were not afraid to call this Supper some of them the Salve of Immortality and sovereign Preservative against Death others the Deifick Communion others the sweet Dainties of our Saviour the Pledge of Eternal Health the Defence of Faith the Hope of the Resurrection Others the Food of Immortality the Healthful Grace and the Conservatory to Everlasting Life There are so many high Expressions in these passages that our Adversaries who would by this Hook pluck us back again into the Errour of Transubstantiation will unavoidably imagine and alledge from hence that if we will stand to the Assertions of our own Church we must acknowledge the Real Presence of the Body and Bloud of our Saviour
that great Benefit of the Remission of our Sins in the Blood of Christ and thereby of our Reconciliation to God so in the Answer mentioned before is contained that singular Benefit of perfecting our Sanctification by the nourishing and corroborating our inward man by eating or partaking of the Spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of our Saviour which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper Verily that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly in counterdistinction to Typically or Symbolically the Bread and Wine being but Types or Symbols of this Touching which in the Answer to the Question What are the Benefits whereof we are made partakers thereby it is said The strengthening and refreshing our Souls by the Body and Blood of Christ as our Bodies are by the Bread and Wine viz. which are but Types of the true spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of Christ but they have a very handsome Analogy the one to the other But we proceed to the following words And indeed that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reverâ or really not as one scoptically would make us to profess that this real participation of the Body and Blood of Christ has no reality any where but in our phancy which we call Faith To which sense the Translator of the peaceable method for the re-uniting Protestants and Catholicks speaks in his Preface to his Translation To which exception this Notion of the Primitive Fathers according to which our Communion-Service is framed and our Homilies allude to and we so much insist upon is not lyable By the Faithful and that only by them which Body and Blood the Faithful do not receive by champing it with their Teeth and swallowing it down their Throat But by a fervid and living devotional Faith more than ordinarily kindled at the Celebrating the Holy Eucharist they draw this Divine and Celestial Food the true Manna from Heaven into their Hearts whereby their inward Man is fed and strengthened and nourished up to Eternal Life and so the New Birth getting growth daily arrives at last to the due measure of the stature of Christ. 6. This is the Priviledge of the faithful Receiver But for those that are devoid of this true and living Faith though the Divine Body and Blood of Christ is every where present to the faithful yet they who are unregenerate and consequently devoid of the Divine Life are capable of no union therewith nor of any growth or strength therefrom But it is like the light shining into a dead man's eye of which there is no vital effect But for those who are regenerate and consequently have a real hunger and thirst after the Righteousness of God though the great Feast upon this Heavenly Food is more especially and copiosely injoyed in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist yet they may in some good measure draw it in day by day by Faith and Devotion as without the Presence of the Bread and Wine we may at any time devotionally think of the Sacrifice of the Death of our Saviour But certainly this solemn Institution of Celebrating his last Supper being particularly and earnestly injoyn'd us by Christ if we conscientiously observe the same it will have a more than ordinary efficacy in us for the ends it was appointed 7. Sixthly and lastly as those words of the Catechism the Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received c. have considered in themselves a very easie and natural sense so explained as we have according to the Analogy of the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers and our Church's Homilies that allude to them explained them so do they not at all clash with those words of the Rubrick affixed at the end of the Communion-Service where it is affirmed That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remains still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's Natural Body to be at one time in more places than one There is I say in this no contradiction to what occcurs in the Catechism which affirms that there is a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lord's Supper though here a Real Presence is denyed of the natural Body of Christ. But it is to be considered that this Affirmation and Negation is not of the same Body of Christ and therefore can be no contradiction and further to be observed how the very Rubrick suggests to us this distinction of the Natural Body of Christ which is appropriated to his particular Soul and which hung on the Cross and was Crucified and his Divine or Spiritual Body the Body of the Essential Life or Spirit of the Eternal Logos and therefore rightly termed the Body of the Logos incarnate or of Christ. And therefore when passages of the Ancient Fathers in the Primitive Times before the degeneracy of the Church came in may some of them favour a Real Absence other a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ according as different places of the Scripture might occur to their minds touching this matter the controversy might well be composed by distinguishing betwixt the Natural Body of Christ and his Divine or Spiritual Body According to the former whereof is the Real Absence according to the latter the Real Presence of Christ's Body and Blood to be received by the Faithful in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist CHAP. VIII 1. Monsieur Maimbourg so cunning and cautious as not to attempt to bring the Protestants to Transubstantiation by their common consent in the Real Presence but by a more general Maxime which he says we are all agreed in 2. The aforesaid Maxime with the Explication thereof 3. Six Supposals surmiz'd for the strengthening this Engine for the pulling the Protestants into the belief of Transubstantiation 4. A Counter-Engine consisting of sixteen common Notions in which not only the Romanists and we but all mankind are agreed in 5. An Examination of the strength of Monsieur Maimbourg's Engine by recurring upon occasion to these Common Notions The first Prop examined viz. the Churches Infallibility by assistance of the Spirit and discovered to be weak from the Dissention of Churches in matters of Faith in his sense 6. From the promise of the Spirit being conditional 7. And from the Predictions in the Prophetical Writings of a general Degeneracy of the Church 8. The Examination of the second Prop that would have Transubstantiation believed upon the Synodical decision of a fallible Church 9. The Examination of the third Prop that would have the Synodical decision pass into an Article of Faith 10. The fourth Prop examined by defining truly what
consecrated Wafer into two viz. A. and B. this A. and B. are the same intire Individual Body of Christ according to this Doctrine which contradicts the seventh Common Notion Seventhly If the said Doctrine be true one and the same Body may be a Cube and a Globe at once have the figure of an Humane Body and of a Pyramid and Cylinder at the same time according as they shall mould the Consecrated Bread which is repugnant to the eighth Common Notion Eighthly Transubstantiation if it be any truth at all it is a Revealed Truth but no Revelation the Revealing whereof or the manner of Revealing is repugnant to the Divine Attributes can be from God by Common Notion the ninth but if this Doctrine of Transubstantiation were a Truth it seems not to sute with the Wisdom of God to reveal a Truth that seems so palpably to overthrow and thwart all the innate Principles of humane Understanding and the assurance of the rightly circumstantiated Senses to both which Christ himself appeals and without which we have no certainty of the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles And he hence exposes his Church to be befool'd by all the lucriferous fictions of a fallacious Priesthood And besides this the circumstances or manner of its first Revelation at the Lord's Supper as they would have it shows it cannot be for the Consecrated Bread retaining still the shape and all other sensible qualities of Bread without any change and that by a miraculous supporting them now not inherent in their proper subject Bread which is transubstantiated into that very Body that holds it in his hands or seems so to do I say as I have also intimated before to be thus at the expence of so vast a Miracle here at his last Supper and to repeat the same Miracle upon all the Consecrations of the Bread by the Priest which is the most effectual means to make all men Infidels as to the belief of Transubstantiation and to occasion thence such cruel and bloody Persecutions is apparently contrary to the Divine Wisdom and Goodness and therefore neither pretended Tradition nor fresh Interpretation of the inspired Text can make so gross a falshood true by the tenth and eleventh Common Notions Ninthly If Transubstantiation be true one and the same Body may be many thousand times bigger or less than it self at the same time forasmuch as the least Atom or particle of his Body or Transubstantiated Bread is his whole Body as well as the bigger lump according to this Doctrine which contradicts the twelfth Common Notion Tenthly If this Doctrine be true The same Individual Body still existing and having existed many Years may notwithstanding be made whiles it already exists which contradicts the thirteenth Common Notion Eleventhly If Transubstantiation be true one and the same Body may be present with it self and many thousands of miles absent from it self at once be shut up in a Box and free to walk in the Field and to ascend into Heaven at the same time contrary to the fourteenth and fifteenth Common Notions And lastly If this Doctrine be true a man may swallow his own Body whole Head Feet Back Belly Arms and Thighs and Stomach it self through his Mouth down his Throat into his Stomach that is to say every whit of himself into one knows not what of himself less than a Mathematical Point or nothing This Christ might have done and actually did if he did eat the Consecrated Bread with his Disciples which contradicts the sixteenth Common Notion Wherefore since in vertue of one single Maxim Monsieur Maimbourg supposing the Protestants as well as the Paepists agreeing therein though in that as I have show'd he is mistaken would draw in the Protestants to imbrace the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and other Ertors of the Roman Church I appeal to him how much more reasonable it is that he and as many as are of his perswasion should relinquish that Doctrine it contradicting so many Common Notions which not only all Papists and Protestants but indeed all the whole World are agreed in And hence clearly discerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church upon which this and other erroneous Doctrines are built such as Invocation of Saints Worshiping of Images and the like plainly to fail that they should bethink themselves what need there is to reform their Church from such gross errours and to pray to God to put it into the mind of their Governours so to do which would be a peaceable method indeed for the reuniting Protestants and Catholicks in matters of Faith and principally in the subject of the Holy Eucharist as the Title of his Method has it But to require an Union things standing as they are is to expect of us that we cease to be men to become Christians of a novel Mode unknown to the Primitive Church and under pretence of Faith to abjure the indeleble Principles of sound Reason those immutable Common Notions which the Eternal Logos has essentially ingrafted in our Souls and without which neither Certainty of Faith can consist nor any assured sense of either the Holy Scriptures or any Writing else be found out or understood Soli Deo Gloria
for Mark 16. 2. it is said of the two above said parties That very early in the morning the first day of the Week they came unto the Sepulcher at the rising of the Sun and they said among themselves Who shall roll us away the Stone from the door of the Sepulcher and when they looked they saw the Stone was rolled away c. And it is expresly said in Luke That they found the Stone rolled away from the Sepulcher And the like is recorded in St. John ch 20. so that it is a plain case the Stone was rolled away before their going to the Sepulcher What time therefore can we imagine more likely of this rolling away the Stone and terrible Earthquake than at the very Resurrection of Christ who rose in this awful terrour to the Keepers the Earth quaking and the too Glorious Angels officiously opening the stony door of the Sepulcher that the King of Glory might pass out without any further needless or useless Miracle such as he ever declined in his life time before his Death and Resurrection Wherefore this third Instance it is plain cannot with any shew be accommodated to the present case it being raised out of a mere mistake of the Story 5. The fourth and last Instance is Christ's entring amongst his Disciples the doors being shut recorded John 20. 19 and 26. there the Disciples are said to be gathered together privately or secretly for fear of the Jews for which cause they lockt or bolted the doors with-inside that no man might suddenly come upon them But while they were in this privacy or closeness Christ notwithstanding suddenly presented himself in the midst of them for all this closeness or secrecy and not without a Miracle supposing himself or some ministring Angel to unlock or unbolt the door suddenly and softly sine strepitu which upon this account would be more likely in that if he had come in the doors being still shut that might have seemed as great an Argument to Thomas that he was a Spirit as the feeling his Hands and Side that he was no Spirit Wherefore I conceive it is no sufficiently firm Hypothesis that Christ entred among his Disciples the doors in the mean time at his very entrance remaining shut But suppose they were so this will not prove his Body devoid of Extension to be independent of Place and whole in every part more than his passing the wicket of the Womb like light through Crystal did argue the same in the second Instance But the truth of the business will then be this That he being then in his Resurrection-body even that wherewith he was to ascend into Heaven which yet he kept in its Terrestrial Modification and Organization for those services it was to do amongst his Disciples while he conversed with them after his Resurrection upon Earth as he made use of it in a particular manner to S t Thomas he had a Power to modifie it into what Consistencies he pleased Aerial Aetherial or Coelestial it remaining still that Individual Body that was crucified This therefore might easily pass through the very Pores of the door and much more easily betwixt the door and the side-posts there without any inconvenience more than to other Spiritual Bodies For the Resurrection-body is an Heavenly and Spiritual Body as S t Paul himself expresly declares But yet as truly a Body as any body else that is it hath impenetrable Trinal Dimension is not without Place or Ubiety nor whole in every part This very Story demonstrates all this That his Body is not without Place For it stood in the midst of the Room amongst his Disciples Nor the whole in every part For here is distinct mention of Christ's Hand and his Side as elsewhere of his Flesh and Bones Luke 24. 26. which would be all confounded if every part were in every part And if there be these distinct parts then certainly his Body hath Extension and this ingeniously excogitated Distinction of the Natural and Supernatural Manner of Existence of a body can by no means cover the gross Repugnancies which are necessarily imply'd in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation 6. A Doctrine raised from the literal sense of those Words This is my Body which literal sense if we were tyed to it would also follow that that which Christ gave to his Disciples was as well Real Bread as his Real Body This plainly referring to what he took what he blessed and what he gave which was Bread and of this he says This is my Body Wherefore adhering to the literal sense it would be both Real Bread and the Real Body of Christ at once But this as being a Repugnancy as was noted above and Contradiction to the known inviolable and immutable Laws of Logick and humane Reason is justly rejected by the Church of Rome for this very Reason that it implies a Contradiction that one and the same Body should be Bread and the Real Body of Christ at once Wherefore Transubstantiation containing as has been proved so many of such Contradictions every jot as repugnant to the inviolable and immutable Laws of Logick or humane Reason that unextinguishable Lamp of the Lord in the Soul of man as this of the same body being Real Bread and the Real Body of Christ at once And there being no Salvo for these harsh Contradictions but the pretence of a Supernatural Manner of Existence of a Body which God is supposed to give to the Bread transubstantiated into the Body of Christ that is into the very Individual Body of Christ they being supposed by Transubstantiation to become one and the same Body I say this neat distinction of a Supernatural Manner of Existing being plainly demonstrated so as it is by the Papist Represented explained not to be a mere Supernatural Manner of Existence with which the being of a Body would yet consist but a Counter-essential Asystatal and Repugnant manner of Existence inconsistent with the being of a Body and none of the Instances that are produced as Pledges of the truth of the Notion or Assertion at all reaching the present case it is manifest that though there be a Real Presence of Christ's Body and Bloud in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist acknowledged as well by the Reformed as the Pontifician Party that it is impossible that Transubstantiation which the Papist represented here declares should be the true mode thereof CHAP. V. 1. The Author's excuse for his civility to the Papist Represented that he shews him that the Road he is in is not the way of Truth touching the mode of the Real Presence 2. That the Bishop of Meaux makes the Real Presence the common Doctrine of all the Churches as well Reformed as Un-reformed and that it is acknowledged to be the Doctrine of the Church of England though she is so wise and so modest as not to define the mode thereof 3. The sincere Piety of our Predecessors in believing the Real Presence and their unfortunateness afterwards
Learned Discourse of the Sacrament quotes out of S t Ambrose who says he speaking of that Body which is received in the Eucharist calls it the spiritual Body of Christ the Body of a Divine Spirit and he does confidently affirm of all the Antients who have either purposely interpreted or occasionally quoted the Words of Christ in the sixth of S t Iohn touching the eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood that they all understand him to speak of a Spiritual Flesh and Blood distinct not only from the Substance of the Holy Elements but also from that natural Body of Christ which he took of the Substance of the Holy Virgin pag. 233. So little Novelty is there in this distinction of the Body and Blood of Christ into natural and Spiritual or Divine CHAP. VII 1. An Apology for being thus operose and copious in inculcating the present point from the usefulness thereof 2. The first usefulness in that it defeats Monsieur de Meaux his Stratagem to reduce us to Transubstantiation as if no Real Presence without it 3. The second usefulness for the rectifying the Notion of Consubstantiation 4. The third for more fully understanding the Mystery of the Eucharist with Applications of it to several Passages in our Communion-Service 5. The fourth for a very easie and natural Interpretation of certain Passages in our Church-Catechism 6. The priviledge of the faithful Receiver and of what great noment the Celebration of the Eucharist is 7. The last usefulness in solidly reconciling the Rubrick at the end of the Communion-Service with that noted Passage in our Church-Catechism 1. THE Reader may haply think I have been over operose and copious in inculcating this Distinction of Gratian's touching the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist But the great usefulness thereof I hope may apologize for this my extraordinary diligence and industry For the Notion being both true and unexceptionable and not at all clashing so far as I can discern with either the Holy Scripture or right Reason and solid Philosophy to say nothing of the Suffrage of the Primitive Fathers but rather very agreeable and consentaneous to them all and also having as I said its weighty usefulness it was a point I thought that was worth my so seriously insisting upon and as I have hitherto endeavoured faithfully to set out the Truth thereof I shall now though more briefly intimate its Usefulness 2. And the first Usefulness is this Whereas that Reverend Prelate the Bishop of Meaux tugs so hard to pull back again the Reformed Churches to the Communion of the Church of Rome by this Concession or rather Profession of theirs that there is a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ at the Celebration of the Eucharist to be received by the faithful and that therefore they must return to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation as if there were no other Mode of a Real Presence to be conceived but it the force of this Inference is plainly taken away by this Distinction that Gratian one of their own Church hath luckily hit upon or rather taken out of some antient Father and is more fully made out in this Discourse that there is a Spiritual and Divine Body of Christ distinct from that particular Body of his that hung on the Cross which the faithful partake of in the Lord's Supper Whence it is plain there is no need of Transubstantiation which is incumbred with such abundance of Impossibilities and Contradictions 3. Secondly This Notion of ours is hugely serviceable for the rectifying of the Doctrine of Consubstantiation in the Lutheran Church who are for an Ubiquity of the particular Body of Christ that hung on the Cross which assuredly is a grand Mistake But I believe in the Authors thereof there was a kind of Parturiency and more confused Divination of that Truth which we have so much insisted upon and their Mistake consists only in this that they attributed to the particular Body of Christ which belongs to his restrained and circumscribed humane Nature that which truly and only belongs to his Divine Body as he is the Eternal Logos in whom is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Life or Spirit of the Logos to which Spirit of his this Body belongs and therefore is rightly called his Body as appertaining to his Spirit For this Body this Divine and Spiritual Flesh as Gratian calls it is every where present though not to be received as the Food of the Inward man but only by the Faithful and Regenerate so that according to this Notion there may be a Consubstantiation rightly interpreted that is a Compresentiation or rather Compresentiality of both the Real Bread and Wine and the Real Body and Blood of Christ at once so that they both may be really and indeed received by all true Believers And Lutheranism in this point thus candidly interpreted will prove a sound and unexceptionable Doctrine And I charitably believe the first Authors of it if they had fully understood their own meaning meant no more than so And I wish I had as much reason to believe that the Pontificians meant no more by their Transubstantiation but a firm and fast hold of the Real Presence I hope the most ingenuous of them at this time of the day mean no more than so viz. That they are as well assured of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ to be received in the Celebration of the Eucharist as if the very Bread was turned into his Body and the Wine into his Blood by a miraculous Transubstantiation 4. Thirdly It is from this Notion or Distinction of the antient Fathers as I hinted above of the Body and Blood of Christ into Natural and Spiritual or Divine that we have ever been well appointed to give a more full and distinct account of the nature of the Solemnity of the Eucharist as it is celebrated in our Church it plainly comprizing these two things The first the Commemoration of the Death of Christ of the breaking his Body or Flesh viz. the wounding thereof with Nails and Spears The other The partaking of the Divine Body and Blood of Christ by which our Inward Man is nourished to Eternal Life which our eating the Bread and drinking the Wine are Symbols of Both which in our Communion-Service are plainly pointed at The first fully in the Exhortation to Communicants where it is said And above all things you must give most humble and hearty thanks to God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost for the Redemption of the World by the Death and Passion of our Saviour Christ both God and Man who did humble himself even to the Death upon the Cross for us miseable sinners And to the end we should always remember the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us and the innumerable benefits which by his precious Blood-shedding he hath obtained to us he has instituted and ordained Holy
propose not only one Maxime but several Maximes wherein both the Romanists and We and indeed all mankind are agreed in and which therefore I will instead of Maximes call Common Notions in allusion to those of Euclid And the first shall be this I. That which in it self is false no declaring or saying it is true can make it true II. Whatever is plainly repugnant to what is true is certainly false III. Whatever is false can be no due Article of a true Faith or Religion IV. The senses rightly circumstantiated are true Judges of their Object whether such an Object be Earth Air Fire or Water Body or Spirit and the like Besides that this is a Common Notion with all mankind the Incarnate Wisdom himself has given his suffrage for it in his arguing with S t Thomas Iohn 20. v. 27. Then saith he to Thomas Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing What is this but the appealing to the truth of sense by our Saviour himself And Luke 24. v. 29. Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self handle me and see for a spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see I have Here is an appeal both to Sense and Reason at once and that about the very Body of Christ touching which the great Controversie is raised V. An Essence or Being that is one so long as it remains so as it is distinct from others so it is undividable or inseparable from it self VI. The whole is bigger than the part and the part less than the whole VII In every Division though the parts agree with the whole yet they disagree amongst themselves So that the part A. is not the very part B. nor the part B. the very part C. nor can each part be truly and adequately the whole by the foregoing common Notion VIII The same Body cannot be actually a Cube and a Globe at once and there is the same reason of any other different Figures of a Body IX No Revelation the Revealing whereof or the manner of the Revealing whereof is repugnant to the Divine Attributes can be from God X. No Tradition of any such Revelation can be true for as much as the Revelation it self is impossible XI No interpretation of any Divine Revelation that is repugnant to rightly circumstantiated Sense and pure and unprejudiced Reason whether it be from a private or publick hand can be any Inspiration from God XII No Body can be bigger and less than it self at once XIII That Individual Body that is already nor ceaseth to be cannot be made while it is already existing XIV One and the same Body cannot be both present with it self and many thousand miles absent from it self at once XV. One and the same Body cannot be shut up in a Box and free to walk and run in the Fields and to ascend into the very Heavens at the same time XVI And lastly to omit many other such self-evident Truths or Common Notions it is impossible that a man should swallow his whole Body Head Feet Back Belly Arms and Thighs and Stomach it self through his Mouth down his Throat into his Stomach that is every whit of himself into one knows not what of himself less than a Mathematical point or nothing For if all be swallowed what is there left of the man for it to be swallowed into but a mere point or rather nothing 5. Certainly all the World as well Papists as Protestants as soon as they do but conceive the meaning of the Terms will assent to the Truth of these Propositions at the very first sight which therefore has made me call them Common Notions Let us now apply our selves to the use of them in the examining the strength of Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime wherein he will have the Papists and Protestants agreed The first Prop thereof is That the true Church is infallible by the promise made to her of being assisted by the Holy Ghost But here I demand whether this promise be made to the Universal Church or any Particular Church or Churches throughout all Ages That it is not made to the Universal Church throughout all Ages is plain in that the parts thereof have been and are still divided in several matters of Faith That no such promise is made to any Particular Church or Churches is plain from hence that these Churches are not named in any part of the Scripture which omission is incredible if there had been any such entailment of Infallibility upon any Particular Church or Churches But of all Churches I humbly conceive it is impossible it should be the Church of Rome unless it be possible that all those Common Notions which I have set down and in which all the World even the Church of Rome her self if they will speak their Consciences are agreed in be false which they must be if Transubstantiation be true And therefore let any man judge whether is themore likely viz. That Transubstantiation should be false or those Common Notions not true 6. Again How does it appear that this promise of the assistance of the Holy Ghost is not conditional Indeed Christ says Iohn 16. 13. When the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth viz. the same spirit that is promised chap. 14. v. 15 16 17. But the words of this pretended Charter of Infallibility are there set down more fully If you love me keep my commandments And I will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive The promise of the assistance of the Holy Ghost for the infallibly concluding what is true even from the words of this pretended Charter of Infallibility is conditional that is to say if they so love Christ as to keep his commandments and become not worldly and carnal for the World cannot receive this spirit of truth then this spirit which leadeth into all truth shall assist them Wherefore as many as Christ sends this infallible spirit to he first fits them for it by mortifying the spirit of the World in them and making them members of his truly Holy Church for the calling themselves Holy Church makes them never a jot the more Holy if they really be not so by the first common Notion And besides If the Words of this Charter of Infallibility had not been so express yet in common sense and reason this condition would necessarily have been understood Forasmuch as nothing can be more absurd than to imagine the Assistance of the Holy Ghost to be so cheap and trivial a thing as to be procured for the concluding Controversies arising or set on foot in the Church which are needless and frivolous or more for satisfying Curiosity than Edification and which tend to Division and tearing the Church violently into parts which was one before and