the Wine his Blood c. all this is well and very true we are not ignorant that St. Ambrose St. Chrysostome St. Austin St. Cyril of Jerusalem and many other ancient Doctors name it so But how can the Papists shew by the Holy Scripture that Christ is there in the same manner as they affirm by a real presence which is not only spiritual but material and corporal That he is there in the same manner as he was of old in the Virgins womb in the manger of Bethlehem upon Mount Tabor and upon the Cross and nevertheless that he is in the highest Heavens at the right hand of God the Father Where can they find in all the four Evangelists any Text that mentions this prodigious Miracle of the Transubstantiation or transmutation of the bread into the real Body of Jesus Christ and of the wine into his Blood with a destruction of the first and a creation of the latter by the efficacy of four words uttered by a Priest Where is there a Writer of the Greek or of the ancient Latin Church that speaks of this Mystery in the same manner as Thomas Aquinas who maintained a corporal presence multiplied without division accidents sustained without their proper substance a discontinuance of a being without corruption a production of the same effects by a cause that is not an humane and divine substance under the appearance of a Wafer a God made man where nothing of his manhood is to be seen a body without extension a life without motion an infinite number of equal parts proportionable to their totum in a Mathematical point a relation from the same to the same from the first to a second who are but one a situation without space an abiquity without place a general destruction of all Predicaments by this supposed Mystery or Manhu as he calls it a word which expresseth the admiration of the Israelites when they saw the Manna fall amongst them Did ever St. Ambrose St. Chrysostome or any of the four chief Doctors of the Christian Church speak in this manner they did never imagine that so many absurdities could enter into the minds of men I am perswaded that if this Doctor stiled by them the Angelick Doctor because of the rare Inventions of his Wit had lived in the days of St. Austin and had spoken unto him in these terms that Primitive Father would never have understood him although he understood the Predicaments of Aristotle without Tutor doubtless he had taken him for a man faln from the Clouds dwelling in the Globe of the Moon or for one that maintains that there is there another World Where have they seen in Holy Scripture or amongst the ancient Fathers That the Lay-men must not communicate in both kinds that the Mass is a Sacrifice where the Passion of our Saviour is really renewed that Jesus Christ will be there worshipped in a visible manner by an adoration that relates to the substances as God himself if he were to be seen according to the Command of the Council of Trent I have been several years reading and perusing the Holy Scriptures and its Interpreters but I have found nothing there like to these Doctrines unless it be in the Popish Authors for I have met with an hundred passages contrary to this belief I confess we find in Holy Writ that Christ hath said This is my Body but he hath said also I am the Door I am the Stone I am the Vine and the Shepherd of the Sheep c. If we are to take all these expressions in a literal sonse we must believe that he is a Door a Stone a Vine a Shepherd of Sheep But the Scripture saith that Jesus Christ is ascended up into Heaven and that he sits there at the right hand of God the Father Therefore he is no longer upon Earth for it is not possible that the same Body should be in two distinct places at once If that were likely as the Philosophers tell us the same Body might be in twenty in an hundred in a thousand and in ten thousand places in the same moment From hence we might conclude that it is possible to make one man become a great Army that one man should kill himself a thousand times and yet continue alive that he should be a Saint in one place and a Devil in another damned in one place and saved in another the object of Gods wrath and goodness at the same time these are impossibilities and plain contradictions Christ commands us to do this in Remembrance of Him therefore he is not there really and bodily for we do nothing in remembrance of a man present before us in a corporal manner The Papists instance the Manna which was kept by God's command in the Ark in remembrance of that which God sent down from Heaven which was both the remembrance and the thing remembred the representation and the thing represented This is one of the most plausible Examples of the Papists but it is to little purpose for besides other Reasons that may be alledged against it I think they are mightily mistaken to compare a totum integrans with an individual one and the same may be divided and the parts carried into several distinct places where they may be look'd upon in divers manners but the other is altogether repugnant to division and separation The Manna that was in the Ark I confess was a memorial of that Manna which the Israelites had fed upon in the Wilderness but it was not the same How can they therefore from hence conclude that Christ's body must be in several places under distinct notions Christ informs us That His words are spirit and life and that the flesh profiteth nothing that it is the spirit that quickens It is not possible to speak any thing more contrary than this to the Papists Doctrine for these words assure us that Christ is there really and in truth but spiritually not corporally nor substantially that He is there by his Spirit virtue and efficacy to produce the same effects in us as if he were there in a sensible manner This was taught by the Primitive Fathers and thus the Protestants believe it He commands us also To eat his Flesh and drink his Blood in both kinds St. Paul repeats the words and the Council of Constance which is esteemed by the Papists as highly as a fift Evangil saith that since the Apostles time Communicants did receive in both kinds wherefore did they then take away the Cup why did they establish this Law that forbids Lay-men to drink of the Cup They acknowledge that Jesus Christ hath appointed it to be so that the Apostles did practice and command it and that it had been an universal custom amongst Christians for all men to communicate in both kinds Nevertheless this Council was so insolent to forbid it and command the World to believe that this Prohibition proceeds from the Holy Ghost although it be contrary to Christ's Institution
to the Apostles Doctrine and the Practice of the first Christians we must have a notable Faith to believe this The inconveniencies which they mention to colour their Change are ridiculous They tell us that some men wear long Beards and that a drop of Christ's Blood may chance to drop upon them and that some that are sick may by this means give their Diseases to others c. But how comes it to pass that Jesus Christ did not foresee all these inconveniencies were the Bishops of this Council wiser than Christ himself Did not the men of our Saviour's days and in the Primitive time wear long Beards were they not as subject to spreading Diseases as well as in the time of this Council St. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ hath offered himself up once for all as a Sacrifice but they affirm that he offers himself not only once but every day and a thousand times a day and in a thousand distinct places in every corner where the Mass is sung which is say they a true and real Sacrifice of the Body of Jesus Christ Whom must we believe what the Papists say or what St. Paul But suppose the Mass were a true and real Sacrifice of Jesus Christ a second death and his very Passion as they teach are not their Priests Murderers and Executioners from whence proceeds this effect is it not from a real cause that is in them Whence is this Sacrifice is it not from a true and real Sacrificator Moreover according to their own Doctrine three conditions are chiefly required in every Sacrifice the Offering the Consecration and the Destruction where shall they find the latter in this Sacrifice of the Mass Do they destroy the Body of Jesus Christ if they answer that they destroy the Bread and the Wine they don't answer to the question for it must be the Sacrifice that must be consumed and destroyed for either we must say that only the Bread and the Wine are sacrificed or that the Body of Jesus Christ is there destroyed and consumed Hence we must conclude that he is both dying and immortal dead and risen and worshipped by the Angels and at the same time eaten by Men things altogether inconsistent and impossible But where do they find that we must worship the Bread and the Wine as being united to the Body of Jesus Christ that we must kneel at every time that we see them as before God himself if he were visibly present Doth not Jesus Christ command the contrary when he saith that the time is come that we must worship God in spirit and in truth How in spirit if we worship the Bread and the Wine How in truth if Jesus Christ be not there really present as we have good cause to question it and as it may happen according to their own saying For in case the Priest be not a true Priest in regard of some Canonical impediment or if his intention be elsewhere in celebrating Mass what kind of Mass will it be and what shall the People adore Some young men come to receive Orders very much unprepared whom the Lord Bishop saith that he hath no design to receive and admit to the Priesthood as for example when they send other persons in their stead that are more Learned to be examined for them when they make use of false and supposed Letters when they are mentioned in a Decree or deserve an Excommunication All these persons according to the Popish Doctors are not really Priests they have not the power to make the Body of Jesus Christ although they may pronounce the words of the Sacrament Others have not a right intention out of negligence or design these cannot cause Jesus Christ to come down under the species of the Bread and the Wine although they pronounce the words of the Consecration I have known a Priest that caused a noble Dame to Receive almost every day at the end of his Mass to hide from her Husband the secret correspondency that was between them and to cover it over with a fair shew of Devotion and for four or five years he never gave unto her a consecrated Wafer for fear of committing Sacriledge by causing her to receive in an evil disposition And about six months ago some Priests of a Town where I have dwelt to satisfie a devout Woman faln into Frenzy that did earnestly desire them to admit her to the Communion resolved amongst themselves to put an unconsecrated Wafer into the Chalice which should be separate from the rest In such a case I desire you the Divines of the Church of Rome to tell me if you believe that Jesus Christ is not present in the Bread and Wine but when the Priest pronounceth his words with an intention to make him come down from Heaven whether the people that assist there and worship the Wafers don't commit a grievous Idolatry Yes you will say they commit a material Idolatry But pray tell whether the Priest and the penitent Woman the Whoremaster and the Whore did not commit a crime in your judgment was not this as great and as formal an Idolatry as ever was seen I shall not mention many other stories of the baseness Sacriledges and Idolatries of the Romish Priests which they are guilty of in this occasion for I intend not to make a satyrical Libel of this serious Discourse I shall only say in general terms that if the Father-Confessors of the Church of Rome would but speak truth and declare what I have heard there is no reasonable man of any perswasion but will say that which we cannot utter without blasphemy that Jesus Christ would be extravagant and mad if he were in the Mass as the Papists believe § Purgatory is another new Article of their Creed which hath no ground nor appearance in Holy Scripture The Papists mention a certain place out of the Maccabees Book 2. ch 12. v. 43. but this Book St. Jerom praefat in Proverb and many more as Cajetan in fine Comment in hist Esther and Cardinal Hugo in Prolog Hier. in lib. Regum declare to be Apocrypha Another passage is cited out of St. Matth. 12. where Jesus Christ saith that there are some Sins that shall not be pardoned neither in this world nor in the world to come From hence the Papists conclude by a Maxim of Right Exceptio firmat regulam in contrarium that there are some Sins that shall be pardoned in another world that is to say according to their meaning in Purgatory But we may easily perceive that they miserably wrest this passage and argue very impertinently to make this conclusion Some Sins shall neither be pardoned in this world nor in the world to come ergo There is a Purgatory A Chymist would sooner extract ten ounces of Oyl out of a Pumice-stone than to gather this conclusion from the premisses But there is nothing impossible to the Popish Divines they can make a fire with any wood when they are to warm
their Lives for Christ's Cause where so many Saints have observed the Rules of the Gospel and made such a glorious profession of all Christian Virtues a Religion where so many pious Souls do yet live a very exemplary and a holy life having forsaken the World to confine themselves to a Convent Who dares deny such a Religion to be the best the securest and the holiest of all In this manner I did argue and many judicious Persons suffer themselves to be thus deceived with a false appearance But such as will as I have done look more narrowly to this particular and weigh every thing in the Scales of the Sanctuary shall find by experience that the Church of Rome hath no cause to glory so much in them There are many Martyrs reckoned in the Church of Rome I confess but this is no infallible proof of its excellency There have been many also in the Churches of Jerusalem of Antioch of the Georgians Muscovites Greeks c. yet the Papists esteem them not the more But they say that many Saints in this Profession have and do yet perform notable Miracles I have cause to question the truth of this Assertion for many false ones are published but when they should be real they are no infallible signs of the Truth of their Faith for the Magicians of Egypt by Gods permission did also work Miracles Exod. chap. 7. God whose Secrets and Judgments are not to be searched out may suffer the Devil to keep men in ignorance by this means But the Papists say that amongst them many Religious Persons are to be seen that lead a most holy life I answer that they are for the most part but whited Sepulchres and that this is the Devils cunning to deceive Souls I shall say something more in this Chapter But what advantage do they expect from this Argument There are men of honesty every where amongst the Heathens and Hereticks as well as amongst the Christians and Catholicks there are persons of good behaviour or at least appear so to the world This is therefore no infallible sign of a true Religion but suppose it were so that the holiness and integrity of life were an infallible sign of the Truth the Papists will never be able to better their Cause by this reason unless their Chief and Governours who are to be look'd upon as the Paterns of the rest change their manner of living The Church of Rome is not so holy as it is said to be to the simple people ignorant of the Affairs of that City Examin the Transactions there now and within this eight or nine hundred years If we did but see the disorders of this Church plainly presented unto us we should have cause to wonder at the things related by the Papists themselves of their Popes I shall here mention some of them and that I may not be traduced as a Lyar I shall bring two or three of their own famous Writers speaking of the Court of Rome such I mean who endeavour to cover its imperfections and have never made use of their Pens but in its defence The first is devout St. Bernard Ser. 1. de Convers Pauli This man's integrity can never be suspected In this manner he speaks of the Court of Rome Iniquity proceeds from the grave Judges who are named Christ's Vicegerents and who seem to govern His people Of them we cannot say As is the People so is the Priest for the people were not like or so bad as the Priest And elsewhere de Consid ad Eugen. lib. 1. cap. 4. From all parts of the world the ambitious the covetous and persons guilty of symony sacriledge debauchery and incest and such like Monsters did flock to Rome to get the Ecclesiastical Honours or to keep them by the Pope 's Authority About the year 897 Cardinal Baronius affirms That there were the most wicked Varlets brought in to sit in St. Peter 's Chair men of most infamous lives most fearfully debauch'd of a corrupt and filthy behaviour every where and in every respect And when he speaks of the year 900 he intreats the weaker sort of Christians not to be offended from thenceforth if they see sometimes the abomination of desolation in the Temple of God Afterwards he cryes out What horrible Monsters were introduced into this See which the Angels respect O disgrace O grief how many evils have proceeded from them how many grievous tragedies have been acted by them what villanies have been here committed in this glorious See what filthy and base actions have appeared here c. In the year 912 he saith sect 8. this Church was so debauch'd and swimming in vice That the filthiest and the noted whores did govern all at Rome At their pleasure the See was disposed of the Bishops were created and their Favourites and Gallants were chosen in St. Peter 's Chair to be Popes This is what Baronius hath been forced to acknowledge after many other Historians who have recorded the disorders of the Roman Church Let any man read Genebrard Chron. l. 4. ad ann 902. Isidor Peleus l. 3. epist 323. Baptist Mantuan de calam suorum temp l. 3. Alvar. Pelag. de planctu Ecclesiae Or let any man go to Rome to see how such behave themselves who pretend to be established of God to govern His Church on earth and they shall find there more wickedness than ever was in Sodom or in Nineveh Let Rome be therefore ashamed saith a Learned Man who beheld these abominations Claud. Espens in Epist ad Tit. c. 1. Let her never offer to shew a Catalogue of her shameful Crimes I would advise her to not mention nor produce this Calendar of so many Saints whom she hath canonised and in whom she glories so much for all those former Saints discover her shame seeing that the Lives of the present Popes and Governours are quite contrary to theirs therefore she hath no cause to challenge them as her own Those former Worthies are her reproach and condemnation because she doth not imitate their Example Nevertheless the Popish Doctors are so impertinent to boast of these disorders vices and abominations and to gather from thence reasons to prove the truth and holiness of their Religion Who would believe that Baronius after that he had filled his Annals with the filthy debaucheries of many Popes should gather from thence a conclusion to the advantage of his Church Yet this he doth very boldly for when he hath taken notice of the debauch'd and abominable Lives of some Popes declared their vices in a most horrible manner and acknowledged all that hath been written of them by his predecessors to be very true that there have been Popes very ambitious covetous symoniacal impious Murderers lecherous incestuous Atheists and Sodomites which things the Papists cannot deny because their own Historians declare them Nevertheless when Baronius hath said all this of the Popes he concludes as boldly as if he had to prove the Divinity of Jesus
Saint hath been pull'd out of the dirt and mire that such a one grants every man his request that he obtains for them their suits in Law that he procures a safe arrival to Ships and Merchants goods at Sea that he gives rain or fair weather as people require that he heals diseases the Tooth-ach the infirmities of the Eyes c. all the world will throng to him all will run with their hands full of Gifts and laden with stately Offerings From whence proceeds this It is because that people have forsaken God to adhere to the creature and their minds are possessed with a devilish superstition which aims so much at their present advantage that they will have no devotion but for themselves they will seek nothing but their own contentment in the worship of their God nor adore him but for their profits What I have heard from the mouth of a Suffragan of a Bishop of Britany whose name I shall conceal for the respect I have for him will further confirm unto you this Truth He assured me that when he was in the Visitation with his Bishop he passed by a Parish situate at the entrance of a Forest where the Countrey people did worship a Saint named St. Gontran or Gautran that he might protect their Sheep from the Wolves the Bishop's curiosity more than his devotion led him into the Parish-Church to see the Saint whom he found holding a Wolf tyed to his garment but so much decayed that there was scarce any thing to be seen of the Saint only the bold Wolf did there appear the Bishop being a good and understanding man and such a one as labours to remove and banish away as much as he can all Superstitions of this kind commanded the Image to be taken down with the Wolf and to be burnt together because the Saint being decayed by degrees and vanishing out of sight the Country-people began to reverence and pay their devotions to the Wolf If the rest of the Roman Bishops were but like to this Prelat the Popish Religion would soon become Reformed Now it happened by chance that the very day that this Protector of the flocks was consumed in the fire the Wolves of the Forest came out and carried away three Sheep out of the Village the people immediately believed that the Saint had sent them this misfortune because he had been burned in the flames therefore they flocked about the Suffragan whom they believed to be the occasion of the Saint's burning they loaded him with imprecations and curses and threatned him in such a manner that if he had not withdrawn himself out of their sight they had stoned him All this makes me believe that these Papists seek not so much God's honour and the glory of their Saints as their own worldly gains and benefit as the Heathens did when they worshipped their Idols For I am fully perswaded that if the Saint that is reverenced in the Church of Rome were a Devil they would nevertheless pay him respect and devotion if he had but the reputation of working Miracles and granting Petitions so abominable they are in their Superstitions § There is another grievous abuse crept in occasioned by the Relicks of the Saints because the Primitive Christians did entomb with honour and secure the bodies of the deceased Martyrs and gather up the ashes and bones of their consumed bodies that the Heathens might not express their cruelty upon them after death nor make a sport of them after death therefore by degrees this superstition is crept in men pay them now as much respect as to Christ's body if it were upon earth This Idolatry was in St. Austin's days as he himself declares de opere Monach. c. 2. The Devil hath cloathed a great many of his hypocrites with a Monkish attire they wander up and down the Provinces without being sent they are never setled never fixed never resting some of them saith he make sale of Martyrs members or such as are supposed to be so c. This Traffick is nothing in comparison of that which is now-a-days for such things are sold at an excessive rate as dear as the Devil intended to buy Christ with the power of Kingdoms and their glory upon condition to fall down to them and worship them the whole World is full of this deceitful commodity which may be said to be the most subject to cozenage We have good cause to wonder to hear no less than eight or ten Churches boasting to have the Virgin Mary's Girdle Christ's Winding-sheet and Seamless-coat there have been many suits in Law in the Courts of Parliament between several Churches about the keeping of one Relick for every one did affirm theirs to be the truest If all the bits of wood which are now esteem'd to be pieces of our Saviour's Cross were gather'd in a heap one hundred men would not be sufficient to carry them and if all the nails which are said to be the true nails of his Cross were together there would be enough to nail a Coach we may say the same of all the other Instruments of his Passion I would mention them all but they are already reckoned up by others and there is no man that hath peep'd out of his Cradle and seen never so little of the World but knows what I say to be true Go to Turin there you shall find some ready to swear that Christ's Winding-sheet is there kept entire go to Besançon you shall find the same thing But that which hath surprized me most was that which I have seen in a Convent of devout Virgins unto whom I was a long time Confessor I had no design to name them but because some have accused me of falshood in this Article I find my self forced against my will to particularize more than I intended it was in the Nunnery of Religious Carmelits called of Nazareth in the City of Vennes in the Province of Britany At a certain time I went in amongst these devout Nuns to receive the Confession of one of them upon her death-bed when I came a way three or four of them according to their custom brought me back from the place where their sick are kept to the gate one of them invited me to visit their ancient Chapter which was an old decayed Chappel at a corner of their Convent I went with them and at the entrance I wondered to see them kneel in a place where I perceived no Image I desired them to tell me the cause they informed me that it was because of some Relicks that were there I went to them and found in the Wall in a place very clean a great number of Bones with an Inscription that declared that they were the Relicks of eleven thousand Virgins I asked of them the reason why they had not put them into a vessel fit for Relicks according to the custom and why they did not make them more publick They replied that the Bishop had caused them to be visited