Sacrament as appeareth by that ignorant and Capernaiticall Retractation and Abjuration which they imposed upon Berengarius Peâ—…ned by Vmbertus a Cardinal approved by Pope Nicholas and a Councill Ego Berengarius c. I Berengarius do consent to the Holy Roman Apostolick See and professe with my Mouth and my Heart to hold the same Faith of the Sacrament of the Lords supper with Pope Nicholas and this holy Synod c. And what the Faith of Pope Nicholas and this Synod was follows in the next words That the Bread and Wine which are set upon the Altar after Consecration are not only the Sacrament but the very Body and Blood of Christ. This seems to favour Consubstantiation rather than Transubstantiation If the Bread and Wine be the Body Blood of Christ then they remain bread and wine stiâ—…l If the bread be not only the Sacrament but also the thing of the Sacrament if it be both the signe and the thing signified how is it now to be made nothing It follows in the Retractation That the body and blood of Christ is sensibly not only in the sacrament but in truth handled and brokâ—…n by the hand of the Priest and bruised by the teeth of the Faithfull If it be even so there needs no more but feel and be satisfied To this they made Berengarius swear by the consubstantiall Trinity and the holy Gospels and accurse and anathematize all those who held the contrary yet these words did so much scandalize and offend the Glosser upon Gratian that he could not forbear to admonish the Reader that unless he understood those words in a sound sense he would fall into a greater Heresie than that of Berengarius Not without reason for the most favorable of the School-men do confess that these words are not properly and literaly true but figuratively and metanimically understanding the thing containing by the thing contained as to say the Body of Christ is broken or bruised because the quantity or Species of Bread are broken or bruised they might as well say that the Body and Blood of Christ becoms fusty and sowr as often as the Species of Bread and Wine before their corruption become fusty and sowr But the retractation of Berengarius can admit no such figurative sense that the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament are divided and bruised sensibly not only in the Sacrament that is the Species but also in truth A most ignorant Capernaitical assertion For the Body of Christ being not in the Sacrament modo quant itativo according to their own Tenet but indivisibly after a spiritual manner without extrinficall extension of Parts cannot in it self or in Truth be either divided or bruised Therefore others of the Schoolmen go more roundly and ingenuously to work and confess that it is an abusive and excessive expression not to be held or defended and that it happened to Berengarius they should have said to Pope Nicholas and Cardinal Umbertus as it doth with those who out of a detestation of one error encline to another Neither wil it avail them any thing at all that the Fathers have sometimes used such expressions of seeing Christ of touching Christ in the Sacrament of fastening our teeth in his Flesh and making our toungsred in his Blood There is a great difference between a Sermon to the people and a solemn Retractation before a Judge The Fathers do not say that such expressions are true not only Sacramentally or figuratively as they made Berengarius both say and accurse all others that held otherwise but also properly and in the things themselves The Fathers never meant by these forms of speech to determine the manner of the presence which was not dreamt of in their daies but to raise the Devotion of their Hearers and Readers to advertise the people of God that they should not rest in the externall symbols or signes but principally be intent upon the invisible Grace which was both lawfull and commendable for them to do Leave us their primitive liberty and we will not refrain from the like expressions I urge this to shew that the new doctrine of Transubstantiation is so farre from being an old Article of Faith that it was not well digested nor rightly understood in any tollerable measure by the greatest Clerks and most concerned above a thousand years after Christ. The first definition or determination of this manner of the presence was yet later in the Councill of Lateran in the daies of Innocent the Third after the year 1200. Ante Lateranense Concilium Transubstantiatio non fuit dogma fidei And what the fruit of it was let Vasques beare witnes Audito nomine Transubstantiationis c. The very name of Transubstantiation being but heard so great a Controversie did arise among the later Schoolmen concerning the Nature thereof that the more they endeavoured to wind themselves out the more they wrapped themselves in greater difficulties whereby the Mystery of Faith became more difficult both to be explaned and to be understood and more exposed to the Cavils of its Adversaries He adds that the name of Conversion and Transubstantiation gave occasion to these controversies No sooner was this Bell rung out no sooner was this fatal Sentence given but as if Pandora's Box had been newly set wide open whole Swarms of noysom Questions and Debates did fill the Schools Thâ—…n it began to be disputed by what means this Change comes whether by the Benediction of the Elements or by the repetition of these words of Christ This is my Body The common current of your Schools is for the later But your judicious Arch-Bishop of Caesaria since the Councill of Trent in a book dedicated to Sixtus the Fifth produceth great reason to the contrary Then was the Question started what the demonstrative Pronoun Hoc signifies in these words This is my Body whether this Thing or this Substance or this Bread or this Body or this Meat or these Accidents or that which is contained under these Species or this individum vagum or lastly which seemes stranger than all the rest this Nothing Then it began to be argued whether the Elements were annihilated whether the matter and form of them being destroyed their Essence did yet remain or the essence being converted the existence remained whether the sacramental existence of the Body and Blood of Christ do depend upon its natural Existence whether the whole Host were Transubstantiated or only some parts of it that is such parts as should be distributed to worthy Communicants or whether in those parts of the Host which were distributed unto unworthy Communicants the matter of bread and wine did not return Whether the Deity did assume the Bread or the Species thereof by a new Hypostaticall Union called Impanation either absolutely or respectively Mediante Corpore Whether the Body and Blood of Christ might be present in the Sacrament without Transubstantiation with the Bread or without
Moreover whether the whole Body Blood of Christ be in every particle of the Bread and of the Cup and if it be then whether only after the division of the Bread and Wine or before division also And in how many parts and in which parts is the whole Body and Blood of Christ whether in the least parts and if in the least parts then whether in the least in kind or the least in quantity that is so long as the Species may retain the name of Bread and Wine or so long as the matter is divisible and whether the Body and Blood of Christ be also in the indivisible parts as points and â—…ines and superficies Lastly whether Accidents can subsist without their Subjects that is whether they can be both Accidents and no Accidents whether all the Accidents of the Elements do remain and partienlarly whether the quantity doth remain whether the other Accidents â—…o inâ—…ere in the quantity as their subject thâ—…t is whether an Accident can have an Aâ—…cident whether the Quantity of Christ's Body be there and whether it be thero after a quantitative manner with extension of Parts either extrinsecal or intrinsecal and whether the quantity of the Body of Christ be distinct anâ—… Figured or indistinct and Unfigured whether the Accidents can nourish or make drunken or corrupt and a new body be generated of them And what supplies the pâ—…ace of the matter in such generation whether the quantity or the Body of Christ or the old matter of the bread and wine restored by Miracle or new matter created by God And how long in such corruption doth the body of Christ continue Whosoever is but moderatly versed in your great Doctors must needs know that these questions are not the private doubts or debates of single Schoolmen but the common Garboils and general engâ—…gements of your whoâ—…e Schools Wherfore it had been a meer vanity to cite every particular Author for each question and would have made the margent swell ten times greater than the Text. From this bold determination of the manner of the presence how have flowed two oâ—…her differences First the detention of the Cup from the Laity meerâ—…y upon presumption of Concomitance first decreed in the Councill of Constance after the year 1400. Let what will become of Concomitance whiâ—…est we keep our selves to the Institution of Christ and the universal practice of the Primitive Church It was not for nothing that our Saviour did distinguish his Body from his blood not only in the Consecration but also in the Distribution of the Sacrament By the way give me leave to represent a Contradiction in Bellarmine which I am not able to reconcile In one place he saith The Providence of God is marveilous in holy Scripture for Sâ—… Luke hath put these words do you this afâ—…er the sacrament given under the form of Bread but he repeated it not after the giving of the Cup that we might understand that the Lord commanded that the Sacrament should be dâ—…stributed unto all under the form of Bread but not under the form of Wine And yet in the next Chapter but one of the same book he doth positively determin the contrary upon the ground of Concomitance that the Bread may be taken away if the Cup be given but both cannot be taken away together Can that be taken away which Christ â—…ath expresly commanded to be given to all A second difference flowing from Transubstantiation is about the Adoration of the Sacrament One of those impediments which hinder our Communication with you in the Celebration eâ—… divine Offices We deny not a Venerable respect unto the Consecrate Elements not only as love-tokens sent us by our best friend but as the Instruments ordained by our Saviour to convey to us the Merits of his Passion But for the Person of Christ God forbid that we should deny him Divine worship at any time and especially in the use of this Holy Sacrament we belecve with St. Austine that No man eats of that Flesh but first he Adores But that which offends us is this That you teach and require all men to Adore the very Sâ—…crament with Divine Honour To this end you hold it out to the People To this end Corpus Christi day was instituted about 300 years since Yet we know that even upon your own grounds you cannot without a particular Revelation have any infallible assurance that any Host is consecrated And consequently you have no assurance that you do not commit materiall Idolatry But that which weighs most with us is this That we dare not give divine worship unto any Creature no not to the very Humanity of Christ in the Abstract much less to the Host but to the whole person of Christ God and Man by reason of the Hypostaticall Union between the Child of the blessed Virgin Mary and the eternal Son who is God over all blessed for ever Shew us such an Union betwixt the Deity and the Elements or Accidents and you say somthing But you pretend no such things The highest that you dare go is this As they that adored Christ when he was upon Earth did after a certain kind of manner adore his Garments Is this all This is after a certain kind of manner indeed We have enough There is no more Adoration due to the Sacrament than to the Garments which Christ did wear upon Earth Exact no more Thus the seamless Coat of Christ is torn into piâ—…ces Thus Faith is mincâ—…d into shreds and sâ—…un up into â—…icities more subtil than the Webs of Spiders Fidem minutis dissâ—…ant ambagibus 〈◊〉 quisque est lingua â—…quior Because curious wits cannot content themselves to touch hot Coals with Tongs but they must take them up with their naked Fingers nor to uâ—…prehend Mysteries of Religion by Faith without descanting upon them and determining them by Reason whilst themselves confess that they are incomprehensible by humane Reason and imperceptible by Mans imagination How Christ is present in the sacrament can neither be perceived by sense nor by imagination The more inexcusable is their presumption to Anatomise Mysteries and to determine supernatural not reveled Truths upon their own heads which if they were revealed were not possible to be comprehended by mortal man As vain an attempt as if a Child should think to lade out all the water out of the Sea with a Cockleshell Secret things belong to the Lord our God but things revealed unto us and our Children for ever This is the reason why we rest in the words of Christ this is my body leaving the manner to him that made the sacrament we know it is sacramental and therefore esficacious because God was never wanting to his own Ordinances where man did not set a Barr against himself But to determine whether it be corporeally or spiritually I mean not only after the maner of a spirit but in a spirituall sense whether it be in the soul only
see that thâ—… Ministers called in the presence of youâ—… Majestie either by their avowing of thâ—… truth or refusal to appear shall havâ—… been themselves the Ministers of youâ—… Conversion every one will â—…nter up on the examination of the causes anâ—… reasons of the Truth which shall havâ—… moved you thither which shall have noâ—… less vertue to make the like impression in their souls by the same means For whether the Ministers do sincerely yield to the Truth which they will not know how to contradict or whether they condemn themselves by their refusal of an ingenuous proceeding the event of their Convocation shall be alike and universal in all places where the same way to call back the People to the Church shall be practised There are no Ministers in France will know what to answer when those of Paris shall be made dumb No others will by any manner of means dispute them concerning their sufficiency But if they are wanting to the duty of a good Conscience you may easily meet many more ingenuous who will no waies refuse to acknowledge the Truth By this way the People who seek nothing but their salvation and who have no interest more pretious will be ravished to see themselves at last by a plain solid and sincere instruction upon the true understanding of matters of the Catholick Faith drawn from this Labyrinth of disputes which are given them for matter of Reformation no less Enemies to Piety than Christian Charity For this effect Sir desiring to be assisting to the design of making the People see by the conviction of their Ministers that being separated from the Church under this pretext of Reformation they are left by that means without Faith and without the Church And then when one perswades them that in the Questions controverted iâ—… Faith the Church teaches contrary to what the Antient Church hath believed those that accuse them cannoâ—… do it but by a formal contradicting botâ—… the holy Fathers and themselves which is a necessary argument of lying and errour I here put forth into the light a little Treatise wherein these two Truthâ—… are rendred evident They have formed no Controversy more important according to their own opinion than that of Transubstantiation in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist They accuse us for having Introduced by the truth of this change the necessity of adoring Jesus Christ in this Sacrament or the Sacrament it self which we maintain to be Jesus Christ himself They impute unto us that in this we have altered the Faith of the Antient Church to whom they say both this change and the adoration of the Sacrament hath been unknown They make this the principal cause forsooth of their sole necessity of separating themselves from us And being not able to deny that the whole Antient Church did solemnly offer the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to God his Father according to his institution in the holy Eucharist they also cloak their difference in this subject from the Antient Church and from us with this That the Antient Church did not believe as they presume Transubstantiation with us nor by consequence the Sacrifice as we do saying That to this subject as they reject in our belief Transubstantiation so they have for the same reason likewise abolished the Sacrifice which the Church celebrates at this present I have made it evident Sir that the Faith of the Church at this day is conformable to the Antient upon this change in a Book which I have published against the defences brought by Minister Aubertin upon the passages of the holy Fathers in his Book of the Eucharist I have reduced the demonstration of the Truth to this point viz. That all the holy Fathers have believed that by the change which interposes it self in this Sacrament there is rendred the same Flesh and the same Blood of Jesus Christ received by the mouths of Believers whereof Jesus Christ speaks in St. John where he commands us to eat and drink them that we may have eternal life The Minister hath not been able to contradict this truth but in formally contradicting the sense which the Authors of his opinion before him have attributed to the Fathers as conformable to them and in making the sense of the Fathers formally contrary to that of Jesus Christ and that which he attributes to them formally contrary to the true sense which they have and do declare in clear and express words I have convinced him by the proof of an evident demonstration in this little Treatise And if he be called to answer upon this conviction the Truth will be found to be victorious either by his good or his evil Faith And as their Consciences tell them and bite them for having introduced by their Reformation all Opinions equally contrary to the Faith of the Church of all Ages When they see themselves reduced to this extremity they cast themselves into the retrenchment of their Fundamental Maxims which is to admit of no rule of Faith but that of the Scripture interpreted by every mans reason Upon that I have convinced them by a Demonstration without Reply that by the design of their Reformation founded upon the use of this rule they have lost both the Church and Faith Which they must avouch if they be called to answer there or that the Truth shall conserve its advantage by the refusal they shall make I most humbly intreat your Majestie Sir that you will be pleased to let this little work have the glory to appear to the World under your Royal Name for a prop which will be able to serve your Faith as an Instrument of the Truth the Victory whereof ought happily to gain you to the Church And by gaining you to bring with you her Peace and re-union of all the Parties that are divided from her For assuredly this grace of Heaven is not far from us if we our selves do not draw our selves back And I am certain that if it please the prudence of the Bishops which the Holy Ghost hath established for the conduct of the Church as I hope they will be pleased to serve themselves towards the People that have abandoned their Crosier of the way that I propose and present to your Majestie they shall see without much pain and in a little time the strayed Sheep returning to them by the very hand of those which keep them withdrawn from their Sheepfolds For in effect when the evidence of this demonstrated Truth shall once have taken its place by the sweetness of the amiable conferences where she ought to be treated with all sincerity and liberty in the spirit of all our separated Brethren as well Ministers as People they will consent with joy to re-enter into the Catholick Church So much the more willingly that by the reasons of the truth of her Faith acknowledged conformable to the Tradition of all Ages they shall so acknowledge her in all her parts to be the True Seed from
grace the Kingdome of Jesus Christ. To these prayers which all the Angels and Saints which are in the Church in Heaven and in Earth make to God for your Majestie I joyn Sir my vows and supplications with this testimony of my devotion to your most humble service in a Subject which I have esteemed the most important and most worthy to gain me the honour of the good favour of your Majestie and that to stile my self SIR Of your Majestie the most humble most faithfull and most obedient Servant La Militiere AN ANSWER TO Monsieur de la Militiere his Impertinent Dedication of his Imaginary Triumph To the KING of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman Catholick Religion By John Bramhall D. D. and Lord Bishop of Derry HAGUE Printed in the Year 1653. An Answer to Monseiur de la Militiere his Fpistle to the King of Great-Brittain wherein he inviteth His Majesty to forsake the Church of England and to embrace the Roman Chatholick Religion SIR YOU might long have disputed your Question of Transubstantiation with your learned Adversary and proclamed your own Triumph on a silver Trumpet to the World before any Member of the Church of England had interposed in this present exigence of our Affairs I know no necessity that Christians must be like Cocks that when one Crows all the rest must crow for company Monseiur Aubertine will not want a surviving friend to teach you what it is to teach you what it is to sound a Triumph before you have gain'd the Victory He was no fool that desired no other Epitaph on his Tomb than this Here lies the Author of this sentence Prurigo disput andi scabies Ecclesiae the itch of disputing is the scab of the Church Having viewed all your strength with a single eye I find not one of your Arguments that comes home to Transubstantiation but only to a true Real Presence which no genuine Son of the Church of England did ever deny no nor your Adversary himself Christ sayd This is my Body what he sayd we do stedfastly believe he said not after this or that manner neque con neque suh neque trans And therefore we place it among the Opinions of the Schools not among the Articles of our Faith The holy Eucharist which is the Sacrament of Peace and Unity ought not to be made the matter of strife and Contention There wanted not abuses in the Administration of this Sacrament in the most pure and primitive times as Prophaness and Uncharitableness among the Corinthians The Simonians and Menandrians and some other such Imps of Sathan unworthy the name of Christians did wholly forbear the use of the Eucharist but it was not for any difference about the sacrament it self but about the Naturall Body of Christ They held that his Flesh and Blood and Passion were not true and real but imaginary and phant astical things The Maniches did forbear the Cup but it was not for any difference about the sacrament it self They made two Gods a good God whom they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Light and an evill God whom they tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Darknes which evill God they sayd did make someCreatures of the Dreg or more feculent parts of the Matter which were evil and impure and among these Evil Creatuâ—…es they esteemed VVine which they called the Gaul of the Dragon For this cause not upon any other scruple they wholly abstained from the Cup or used water in the place of wine which Epiphanius recordeth among the Errors of the Ebionites and Tacians And St Augustine of the Aquarians Still we do not find any clashing either in word or writing directly about this sacrament in the universall Church of Christ much less about the presence of Christ in the sacrament Neque ullus veterum disputat contra hunc errorem primis sexcentis Annis The first that are supposed by Bellarmine to have broached any Error in the Church about the Real presence were the Ichonomachi after 700 years Primi qui veritatem corporis Domini in Eucharistia in quaestionem vocarunt fuerint Ichonomachi post Annum Domini 700. only because they called the Bread and Wine the Image of Christs body This is as great a mistake as the former Their difference was meerly about Images not at all about the Eucharist so much Vasques confesseth that In his judgment they art not to be numbred with those who deny the presence of Christ in the Eucharist We may well find different observations in those daies as one Church consecrating leavened Bread another unleavened One Church making use of pure wine another of wine mixed with water One Church admitting Infants to the Communion another not admitting them but without Controversies or Censures or Animosity one against the other we find no Debates or Disputes concerning the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament and much less concerning the manner of his presence for the first 800 years Yet all the time we find as different expressions among those Primitive Fathers as among our modern writers at this day some calling the Sacrament the sign of Christs Body the figure of his Body the Symbol of his Body the mystery of his Body the exemplar type and representation of his Body saying that the Elements do not recede from their first Nature Others naming it the true Body and Blood of Christ changed not in shape but in nature yea doubting not to say that in this Sacrament we see Christ we touch Christ we eat Christ that we fasten our teeth in his very Flesh and make our Tongues red in his Blood Yet notwithstanding there were no Questions no Quarrells no Contentions amongst them there needed no Councils to order them no Conferences to reconcile them because they contented themselves to believe what Christ had said this is my Body without presuming on their own heads to determine the manner how it is his Body neither weighing all their own words so exactly before any controversie was raised nor expounding the sayings of other men contrary to the Analogy of Faith The first doubt about the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament seems to have been mooved not long before the year 900. in the dayes of Bertram and Paschasius but the Controversie was not well formed nor this new Article of Transubstantiation sufficiently concocted in the dayes of Berengarius after the year 1050. as appeareth by the grosse mistaking and mistating of the Question on both sides First Berengarius if we may trust his Adversaries knew no mean between a naked Figure or empty sign of Christs presence and a Corporeal or Local presence and afterwards fell into another extreme of impanation on the other side the Pope and the Councill made no differrence between Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation they understood nothing of the spiritual or indivisible being of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the
the Bread VVhether a Body may be Transubstantiated into a Spirit and which is most strange whether a Creature might be Transubstantiated into the Deity Then the Schoolmen began to wrangle what manner of change this was whether a materiall change or a formal change or a change of the whole substance both matter and form and if it were a Conversion of the whole substance then whether it was by way of Production or by Adduction or by Conservation each of which greater Squadrons are subdivided into several lesser Parties speaking as different language as the builders of Babel pestering and perplexing one another with inextricable difficulties It cannot be a new Production saith one because the Body of Christ wherinto the Elements are supposed to be converted did pre-exist before the change neither can that Body which is made of Bread be the same body with that which was born of a Virgin If it be not by Production say others but only by Adduction then it is not a Transubstantiation but a Transubiation not a change of Natures but a local succession Then the Priest is not the Maker of his Maker as they use to brag but only puts him into a new positure or presence under the Species of Bread and Wine Howbeit this way by Adduction be the more common and the safer way if we may trust Beâ—…larmine yet of all Conversions or Changes it hath least affinity with Transubstantiation Suppose the water had not been turned into wine at Cana of Galile by our Saviour but poured out or utterly destroyed and wine new created or Adduced by Miracle into the water-Pots in such a manner that the introduction of the wine should be the expulsion of the water not only comitanter but causaliter in such case it had been no Transubstantiation Moses his Rod was truly changed into a Serpent but it was by Production if his Rod had been conveyed away invisibly by Legerdemain and a Serpent had been adduced into the place of it what Transubstantiation had this been None at all no though the adduction of the Serpent had been the means of the expulsion and destruction of the Rod. It is so farr from Transubstantiation that it is no Conversion at all The substance of the Elements is not converted for that is supposed to be destroyed The Accidents are not converted but remain the same they were It is no Adduction at all when the Body of Christ which is the thing supposed to be adduced remains still in Heaven where it was before It cannot be a Conservative Conversion say others for the same individual thing cannot be Conserved by two total distinct Conservations but if this were a Conservative conversion the Body of Christ should be conserved by two total distinct Conservations the one in Heaven the other in Earth Yea by ten thousand distinct total Conservations upon Earth even as many as there are consecrated Hosts Which seems to be ridiculous and without any necessity administers great occasion to the Adversaries of Christian Religion of jeasting and deriding the Mysteries of four Faith So here we have a Transubstantiation without Transubstantiation A production of a Modus or maner ofbeing for a production of a Substance An Annihilation suppoâ—…ed yet no Annihilation confessed An Adduction without any Adduction A terminus ad quem without a terminus à quo who shall reconcile us to ouâ—… selves But the End is not yet Then grew up the Qâ—…tion what is the proper Adequate Body which is contained under the species or Accidents whether a material Body or a substantial Body or a living Body ora n organical Body or an Humane Body whether it have weight or not and why it is not perceived whether it can be seen by the eye of mortal man whether it can act or suffer any thing whether it be movable or immovable whether by it self or by Accident or by both whether it can move in one place and rest in another or be moved with two contrary motions as upwards and downwards Southwards and Northwards at the same time Add to these whether the Soul of Christ and the Deity and the whole Trinity do follow the Body and Blood of Christ under either species by Concomitance whether the Sacramental body must have suffered the same things with the Natural Body As supposing that an Host consecrated at Christ's last supper had been reserved untill after his Passion whether Christ must have died and his Blood have been actually shed in the Sacrament Yea whether those wounds that were imprinted by the Whips in his naturall body might and should have been found in his sacramental body without flagellation Likewise what Blood of Christ is in the Sacrament whether that blood only which was shed or that blood only which remained in the Body or both the one and the other And whether that blood which was shed was assumed again by the Humanity in the Resurrection Then began those Paradoxical Questions to be first agitated in thâ—… Schools whether the same inividual body without division or discontinuation from it self can be locally in ten thousand places yea in Heaven and in Earth at the same time or if not locally yet whether it can be spiritually and indivisibly And whether it be not the same as to this purpose whether a Body be locally or spiritually present in more places than one Bellarmine seemes to encline to the affirmative Though to be any where sâ—…cramentally doth not imply the taking up of a place yet it implies a true and real presence and if it be in more Hosts or Altars than one it seems no lesse opposite unto Indivisibility than the filling up of many places Nay he is past seeming positive that without doubt if a Body cannot be in two places locally it cannot be sacramentally in two places Compare this of Bellarmine with that of Aquinas that it is not possible for one body to be in more places than one locally no not by Miracle because it implies 〈◊〉 Contradiction And consider upon what toâ—…ering foundations you build Articles of Faith It is impossible and implies a Contradiction for the Body of Christ to be locally in more Hosts than one at the same time saith Aquinas But it is as impossible and implies 〈◊〉 Contradiction asmuch for the Body oâ—… Christ to be Sacramentally in morâ—… Hosts than one at the same time as to be locally saith Bellarmine The Inference is plain and obvious And many such strange questions are moved as whether it be possible the thing contained should be a thousand times greater than the thing containing whether a definitive being in 〈◊〉 place do not imply a not being out oâ—… that place whether more bodies than one can be in one and the same place whether there can be a penetration of Dimensions whether a Body can subsiâ—… after a spirituall manner so as to take up no place at all but to be whollv in the whole and wholly in every part
praises we profess a commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross and in the language of holy Church things commemorated are related as if they were then acted As Almighty God who hast given us thy Son as this day to be born of a pure Virgin And whose praise the younger Innocents have this day set forth And between the Ascension and Pentecost which hast exalted thy Son Jesus Christ with great Triumph into Heaven we beseech thee leave us not comfortless but send unâ—… thy holy Spirit We acknowledge a Representation of that sacrifice to God the Father we acknowledge an Impetration of the benefit of it we maintain an Application of its vertue So here is a commemorative impetrative applicative sacrifice Speak distinctly and I cannot understand what you can desire more To make it a suppletory sacrifice to supply the defects of the onely true sacrifice of the Cross I hope both you and I abhor The next crime objected by you to us is that we have renounced Transubstantiation It is true we have rejected it deservedly from being an Article of our Creed you need not wonder at that But if we had rejected it 400 years sooner that had been a Miracle It was not so soon hatched To find but the word Transubstantiation in any old Author were sussicient to prove him a counterfeit Your next Article of the septenary number of the Sacraments is not much older Never so much as mentioned in any Scripture or Council or Creed or Father or antient Author first devised by Peter Lombard first decreed by Eugenius the fourth first confirmed in the Provincial Council of Senâ—…s and after in the Council of Trent Either the word Sacrament is taken largely and then the washing of the Disciples feet is called a Sacrament then the onely sprinkling of Ashes on a Christians head is called a Sacrament then there are God knows how many Sacraments more than seven Or else it is taken strictly for a visible sign instituted by Christ â—…o convey or confirm invisible Grace to all such partakers thereof as do not set a bar against themselves according to the Analogy between the Sign and the thing signified And in this sense the proper and certain Sacraments of the Christian Church common â—…o all or in the words of our Church generally necessary to Salvation are but two Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. More than these St. Ambrose wriâ—…es not of in his Book de Sacrament is because he did not know them These we admit for genuine and general Sacramenâ—…s Their Sâ—… cramental vertue we acknowledge The rest we retain more purely than your selves though not under the Notion of such proper and general Sacraments As Confirmation Ordination Matrimony Penitence though we neither approve of your preposterous manner of Absolution before satisfaction nor of your ordinary Penitentiary tax and lastly the Visitation of and Prayer for the sick which onely is of perpetual necessity The Unction prescribed by St. James being appropriable to the miraculous gift of healing or recovering men out of sicknesses then in use Whereas your custome is clean contrary never or rarely to enoyl any man untill he be past all hope of Recovery The Ordinary and most received custome of preparing sick persons for another world in the Primitive Church was Prayer and Absolution or the benefit of the Keys and the Viaticum of the Body and Blood of Christ which we retain Concerning Justification we believe that all good Christians have true inherent Justice though not perfect according to a perfection of degrees as Gold is true Gold though it be mixed with some dross We believe that this inherent Justice and Sanctity doth make them truly just and holy But if the word Justification be taken in sensu forensi for the acquittal of a man from former guilt to make an offender just in the eye of the Law as it is opposed to Condemnation It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth Then it is not our inherent righteousness that justifieth us in this sense but the free Grace of God for the merits of Jesus Christ. Next for Merits we never doubted of the necessity of good Works without which Faith is but a fiction We are not so stupid to imagine that Christ did wash us from our sins that we might wallow more securely in sin but that we might serve him in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our life We never doubted of the reward of good Works Come ye blessed of my Father c. for I was hungry and ye fed me Nor wheâ—…her this reward be due to them in Justice Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day Faithful promise makes due debt This was all that the Antient Church did ever understand by the name of Merits Let Petavius bear witness Antiqui Patres omnes prae caeteris Augustinus cumque i is consentiens Romana Catholica piet as agâ—…oscit merita eo sensu nimirum ut neque Dei gratiam ulla antecedant merita haec ipsa tum ex gratiâ tum ex gratuit â Dei pollicitatione tot a pendeant All the Antient Fathers especially St. Austin and the Roman and Catholique faith consenting with them do acknowledge Merits in this sense that no Merits go before the grace of God and that these very Merits do depend wholly on grace and on the free promise of God Hold you to this and we shall have no more difference about Merits Do you exact more of us than all the Fathers or the Roman and Catholique piety doth acknowledge It is an easy thing for a wrangling Sophister to dispute of Merits in the Schools or for a vain Orator to declaim of Merits out of the Pulpit but when we come to lye upon our death-beds and present our selves at the last hour before the Tribunal of Christ it is high time both for you and us to renounce our own merits and to cast our selves naked into the Arms of our Saviour That any works of ours who are the best of us but unprofitable servants which properly are not ours but Gods own gifts and if they were ours are a just debt due unto him setting aside Gods free promise and gracious acceptation should condignly by their own intrinsecal value deserve the joys of Heaven to which they have no more proportion than they have to satisfie for the eternal torments of Hell This is that which we have renounced and which we never ought to admit If your Invocation of Saints were not such as it is to request of them Patronage and Protection spiritual graces and Celestial joyes by their prayers and by their merits alas the wisest Virgins have oyl in their Lamps little enough for themselves Yet it is not necessary for two Reasons First no Saint doth love us so well as Christ No Saint hath
Disputation upon those terms which you propose That is â—…o accept of the Arch-Bishop of Paris and his Coadjutor two persons interessed for competent Judges I am as confident of the contrary that they would rather chuse to suffer than wrong their Cause so much Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora It were a readier way for them and but the same in effect to subscribe to a blank paper and to submit without Disputation Fifthly suppose all this notwithstanding such a Conference should hold what reason have you to promise to your self such success as to obtain so easy a Victory You have had Conferences and Conferences again at Poisye and other places and gained by them just as much as you might put in your eye and see never the worse When Conferences are onely made use of as Pageants to grace the Introduction of some new Proselite and to preserve his Reputation from the aspersion of Desultorious Levity they seem much more efficatious than they are As they know well enough who are privie to what is acted in the withdrawing Room The time was when you have been as confident in a contrary Opinion that such a Free Conference would have sealed the Walls of Rome and levelled the Popes Triple Crown Sixthly whether the Ministers â—…hould accept of such a partial unequall Conference or not or whatsoever should be the succes thereof you trespas too boldly upon his Majesties patience to dictate to him so pragmatically so Magisterially what he should do or would do in such a case which is never like to be Doth his Fathers constancy en ourage you to believe that he is a Reed shaken with the Wind Qui pauca considerat sacile pronunciat He that weighs no more Circumstances or Occurrances than serve for the advancement of his Design pronounceth sentence easily but temerariously and sor the most part unsoundly When such a thing as you dream of should happen it were good manners in you to leave his Majesty to his Christian Liberty But to trouble your self and others about the Moons shining in the water so unseasâ—…nably so impertinently or with what will come to pâ—…ss when the sky falls is unbeseeming the Counseller of a King Lastly consider how your Pen doth over-run your Reason and over-reach all grounds of probability to ascribe unto his Majesties chang such an infallible Iâ—…fluence upon all Protestants as to reduce them to the Roman Communion not onely his own subjects but Foreiners His blessed Fathers example had not so much influence upon the Scots his Native Subjects He was no Changling indeed neither to the right hand nor to the left Henry the Fourth his Grandfather did turn indeed to the Roman Church Had his change any such influence upon the Protestant party in France I know no followers such a change would gain him but I foresee cleerly how many Hearts it would lose him Certainly Sir if you would do a meritorious piece of service to his greatest Adversaries you could not fix upon any thing that would content them more highly than to see you successfull in this undertaking I have done with your Proposiâ—…ion He that compares it and your Demonstration together will easily judge them to be twins at the first sight As a Motive to his Majtsties Conversion you present him with a Treatise of Transubstantiation and desire that it may appeare un to the World under his Royal name I meddle not with your Treatise some of your learned Adversaries friends will give you your hands full enough But how can h s Majesty protect or patronise a Treatise against his judgement against his Conscience so contrary to the doctrin of the Church of England not onely â—…nce the Reformation but before About the year seven hundred The Body of Christ wherein he suffered and his Body Conseorated in the Host differ much The Body wherein he suffered was born of the Virgin consisting of flesh and bones and humane members his Spiritual body which we call the Host â—…onsists of many Grains without blood bones or human Members wherefore nothing is to be under stood there Corporally but all Spiritually Transubstantiation was neither held for an Article of Falth nor a point of Faith in those daies You charge the Protestants in divers places That they have neither Church nor Faith but have lost both And at the later end of your Treatise you undertake to demonstrate it But your Demonstration is a meer Parologism You multiply your Terms you confound your terms you chang and alter your Terms contrary to the rules of right arguing and vainly beat the air concluding nothing which you ought to prove nothing which your Adversary will deny You would prove that Protestants have no Church That you never attempt Bâ—…t you do attempt to prove how pittifull God knowes that they are not the onely Church that is the one Holy Catholique Church This they did never affirm they did never think It susficeth them to be a part of that Universall Church more pure more Orthodox more Catholique than the Roman alwaies professing Christ visibly never lurking invisibly in another Communion which is another of your mistakes I should advise you to promise us no more evident Demonstrations either your skill or your luck is so extremly bad In the second place you affirm that Faith is founded upon divine Authority and Revelation and deposited with the Church All that is true But that which you add that it is founded in the Authority of Christ speaking by the mouth of his Church By this Church understanding the Church of this Age and which is yet worse the Church of one place and which is worst of all the Bishop of that one Church is most false And so is that which you add that the faith of Protestants is founded upon their own reasonings which makes so many differences among them Reason must be subservient in the application of the Rule of Faith It cannot be the foundation of Faith Bad reasoning may bring forth differences and errors about Faith both with you and us but the abuse of Reason doth not take away the use of Reason We have this Advantage of you that if any one of us do build an erroneous Opinion upon the holy Scripture yet because our adherence to the Scripture is firmer and neerer than our adherence to our particular error that full and free and universal assent which we give to holy Scripture and to all things therein conteined is an implicite Condemnation and retractation of our particular error which we hold unwittingly and unwillingly against Scripture But your foundation of Faith being composed of uncertainties whether this man be Pope or not whether this Pope be Judge or not whether this Judge be infallible or not and if infallible wherein and how far the faith which is builded thereupon cannot but be fallible and uncertain The stricter the adherence is to a false