my body must be expounded thus this Bread is the sign and Sacrament of my Body Whence it follows that in one single Proposition of Jesus Christ in the institution of the Sacrament of the Eucharist viz. this cup is the New Testament there are two figures one in the word Cup being taken for that which is in the cup this is a figure called a Metonymie whereby the thing containing is taken for the thing contained The other Figure is that the cup is called the New Testament this is also a Figure called a Metonymie whereby the sign is called by the name of the thing signified And therefore the Romish Doctors are mistaken when they tell us that all that Jesus Christ said when he instituted the Eucharist must be taken literally and without a figure But withal we must not imagine that Jesus Christ spake obscurely because he spake figuratively these figures and manners of speech being commonly and familiarly used by all the World 5. But when we say that these words this is my body this is my bloud must be expounded thus this Bread is the Sign and Sacrament of my Body this Wine is the Sign and Sacrament of my Bloud we do not mean that the Bread and Wine are barely and simply signs of Christs Body and Bloud but we believe that the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist are signs that do exhibit the body and bloud of Christ to Believers For when they do by the mouth of the body receive the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist they do at the same time by the mouth of the soul viz. by Faith receive the Body of Christ broken and his Bloud shed for the remission of their sins as will be proved in the next Chapter 6. Add hereunto this one Argument When a man saith that a thing is such if it be not such during the whole time which he imploys in saying it is such he makes a false Proposition For example When a man saith that a Wall is white if it be not white during the whole time he imploys in saying it is white he makes a false Proposition But according to the Romish Doctors when Jesus Christ said this is my body it was not his body during the whole time which he imployed in saying this is my body for they say it was his body afterward only Therefore according to the Romish Doctors Jesus Christ uttered a false Proposition which being blasphemous to affirm we must lay down this for a foundation that that which Jesus Christ gave his Disciples when he said this is my body was his body not only after he had said it but also while he was saying it and before he said it And here we have this advantage of those of the Romish Church that we believe the truth of these words of Jesus Christ this is my body much better then they do because they believe it at one time only viz. after he had said it but we believe it at three several times viz. before he said it when he was saying it and after he had said it But here some may object that we must not take the words of our Lord in too rigorous a sense and that in these words this is my body we must take the Present tense for the next Future and then the sense will be this this will immediately be my body To which I answer that the Romish Doctors will have us take these words this is my body in the rigour of the literal sense and then the Proposition is evidently false I know that the Present tense may be taken for the next Future as when Jesus Christ said I go to my Father and to your Father I go to my God and to your God that is I shall go speedily But who can be so bold and ignorant as to affirm that this speech is without a Figure seeing all Grammarians know that it is a Figure called Enallage of time Therefore the Romish Doctors must confess that by their own doctrine this Proposition of Jesus Christ this is my body is either false or figurative and that seeing it is not false it must be figurative and that the figure must be a Metonymie whereby the sign takes the name of the thing signified as hath already been proved and not an Enallage of time CHAP. II. Concerning the Exposition of these words He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud bath eternal life My flesh is meat indeed c. 1. IN this Chapter I shall prove that Jesus Christ speaks of a spiritual eating and drinking by Faith and not of a corporal eating and drinking by the mouth of the body My first Argument is this When a man would satisfie his hunger and quench his thirst he eateth and drinketh that thing which he hungers and thirsts after because eating satisfieth hunger and drinking quencheth thirst But it is by Faith that is by believing in Jesus Christ that we satisfie the hunger and quench the thirst which we have after Christ for it is in the sixth of St. John He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst Therefore it is by Faith or by believing that we eat and drink Jesus Christ and consequently the eating of Christ flesh and drinking his bloud is spiritual and not corporal 2. My second Argument is this Jesus Christ saith He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life And except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud ye have no life in you John 6. But it is the spiritual eating and drinking by Faith that gives life eternal and not the corporal eating and drinking by the mouth of the body because many Reprobates according to the very doctrine of Rome it self do corporally eat the flesh and drink the bloud of Christ and yet shall not inherit eternal life 3. The third Argument is taken from S. Augustine and Cardinal Cajetan who expound the words of Jesus Christ as we do St. Augustin in Book 3. of Christian Doctrine speaketh thus To eat the flesh of Christ is a figure teaching us to partake of Christs Passion and to imprint in our memories with delight and profit that Christ was crucified for us Card. Cajetan in his Commentary on St. John 6. saith To eat the flesh of Christ and drink his bloud is faith in Christs death so that the sense is this if you use not the death of the Son of man as meat and drink ye shall not have the life of the Spirit in you And having sufficiently proved his Exposition he adds To eat and drink the Sacrament is a thing common as well to those that eat unworthily as to those that eat worthily but that which Jesus Christ here speaks of is not common to both for he saith he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternal life he saith not he that eateth worthily and drinketh worthily but he that eateth and drinketh Whence it
clearly appears that according to the Letter he speaks not of eating and drinking the Sacrament of the Eucharist but of eating and drinking the death of Jesus Christ 4. Now that we may clearly understand this doctrine we must consider wherein the life which Jesus Christ gives us doth consist for seeing the flesh of Jesus Christ is meat to us because it gives us life it is evident that if we know what life what life that is which Jesus Christ gives us we must know likewise how Jesus Christ is meat to us and consequently how we eat him But to know what that life is which Jesus Christ gives us we must consider what that death is in which we were involved which is expressed by St. Paul Ephes 2. in these words When we were dead in sins and trespasses God hath quickned us together with Christ by grace ye are saved and consequently the death in which we were involved consists in two things first in the curse of the Law which imports the privation of felicity and the suffering of temporal and eternal punishment for our sins Secondly it consists in an habitual corruption whereby sin raigns in us and therefore it is said 1 Tim. 5. The widow that lives in pleasure is dead while she liveth Also sins are called dead works Heb. 10. So that the life which Jesus Christ hath purchased for us consists in two things First In deliverance from the curse of the Law by the pardon of our sins as St. Paul tells us Colloss 2. God hath quickned you together with Christ having forgiven you all trespasses blotting out the obligation that was against us which obligation proceeded from the Law because it did oblige all the transgressors of it to a curse Secondly It consists in regeneration or sanctification whereof Jesus Christ speaking in John 3. saith Except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God and S. Paul Heb. 12. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Therefore seeing that the life which Jesus Christ hath purchased for us consists in the pardon of our sins and in our regeneration and sanctification which ends in glorification and that Jesus Christ is called meat in reference to this life we must consider the means whereby Jesus Christ hath purchased these things for us and seeing it is certain that his death is the means by which he hath purchased pardon of sins and regeneration we must conclude that Jesus Christ is the food and nourishment of our souls in regard of the merit of his death But that Jesus Christ by his death hath purchased life for us that is justification which consists in the pardon of our sins and regeneration which consists in holiness of life appears by these passages of Scripture viz. We are justified by the bloud of Christ and reconciled to God by his death Rom. 5. We have redemption by his bloud even the remission of sins Ephes 1. He hath reconciled us in the body of his flesh by his death that he may present us holy without spot and blameless in his sight Coll. 1. We are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all Heb. 10. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that he might present it unto himself a glorious Church c. Eph. 5. Therefore seeing Jesus Christ hath purchased life for us by his death and that his flesh and bloud are our meat and drink because they purchased life eternal for us on the Cross viz. the remission of our sins and sanctification ending in glorification it follows that the action whereby Jesus Christ is applied to us for righteousness and sanctification is the same by which we eat the flesh of Christ and drink his bloud But this action is nothing else but Faith as the Scripture tells us Being justified by faith we have peace with God Rom. 5. God purifies our hearts by faith Act. 15. He that believeth hath eternal life Joh. 6. From what hath been said I form this Argument That Action whereby we obtain remission of sins and sanctification ending in glorification is the same whereby we have that life which Jesus Christ hath purchased for us by his death because that life principally consists in the remission of sins and sanctification as we have proved But the spiritual eating and drinking by faith and not the corporal by the mouth is that action whereby we obtain remission of sins and sanctification as we have also proved Therefore the spiritual eating and drinking by faith is the action whereby we have that life which Jesus Christ hath purchased for us by his death and not the corporal eating and drinking by the mouth And consequently seeing in St. John 6. a certain eating and drinking is spoken of whereby we have that life which Jesus Christ hath purchased for us by his death it is evident that a spiritual eating and drinking is there spoken of and not a corporal 5. From what hath been said it appears that when Jesus Christ saith my flesh is meat indeed c. the figure falls upon the word meat which is taken not for corporal but spiritual meat The reason whereof is that corporal food is that which is appointed for the nourishment of the body as spiritual food is that which is appointed for the nourishment of the soul so that although corporal food be taken by the mouth of the body yet that only doth not make it to be corporal food except it be taken for the nourishment of the body otherwise poison medicine a bullet c. which a man should swallow would be corporal food which is absurd to affirm But the flesh of Christ which is pretended to be eaten in the Eucharist by the mouth of the body is not appointed for the nourishment of the body because that food which is appointed for the nourishment of the body is changed into the substance of the body but the body of Christ is not changed into the substance of our bodies Therefore the flesh of Christ is not a corporal food but his flesh broken and his bloud shed on the cross is a spiritual food which nourisheth the souls of those who by a true and lively faith do embrace this flesh broken and this bloud shed that is who do wholy rest and rely on the merit of his death and passion for obtaining mercy from God And certainly seeing that the life which Jesus Christ gives us by his death is spiritual that the nourishment is spiritual that the eating his body and drinking his bloud is spiritual as hath been proved it follows that his flesh must be spiritual meat and his bloud spiritual drink And this flesh of Christ is incomparably better and more truly meat indeed in regard of its effects than corporal food can be because it doth better and more perfectly nourish the souls of Believers then corporal food
THE FUNERAL OF THE MASS OR The MASS dead and buried without hope of Resurrection Translated out of French LONDON Printed by Andrew Clark and are to be sold by Randal Taylor at the sign of the Crown in Little Britain 1673. To the Right Honourable The Earl of SHAFTESBURY Lord High Chancellour OF ENGLAND c. MY LORD I Could not without injustice have dedicated this Book to any but your Lordship because as there is no person to whom I am so much obliged so there is no member of either House of Parliament that hath so freely and generously owned the Protestant interest As for my obligations to your Lordship because they are too great to be exprest it is my duty to take all occasions of expressing my thankfulness for them and therefore I take this occasion to proclaim my thankfulness to the World As for your Lordships late owning the Protestant interest in the House of Peers it was so eminent and accompanied with such zeal and courage that next under God and the King your Lordship may deservedly be stiled the chief asserter and promoter of it and consequently the asserter and promoter of the interest of England For the interest of the Protestant Religion and the interest of this Kingdom are so interwoven that the welfare or ruine of either is the welfare or ruine of both Now being obliged by your Lordship both as an English Protestant and also more particularly in my private capacity I beseech God to grant that your life may be long and prosperous your memory and posterity honourable as long as the Sun and Moon shall endure and your soul and body eternally happy when time shall be no more To this Prayer I shall only add that I am unfeignedly My Lord Your Lordships Most affectionate honourer and most humble Servant S. A. The PREFACE THe Author of this Piece was one Mounsieur de Rodon Philosophy Professor in the Royal Colledge at Nismes a City of Languedoc in France where it was written But as soon as it was Printed it was supprest by the command of Authority prohibiting all persons to keep any of them upon I know not what severe penalties and such Copies as could be found were publickly burnt by the Hang man about 1660. Whereupon the poor Gentleman for fear of being condemned to keep company with his Books was forced to fly to Geneva where he not long after died These severities of our Adversaries bring to my remembrance what a learned and ingenious Frenchman once told me viz. that this small Tract hath more netled their Party then any one Piece that ever was extant in France since the Reformation of Religion there Whether that be a mistake I know not but this I dare affirm that though many famous men of that Kingdom have in the memory of this Age written very smartly against the Romish heresies yet there is not one of them whose person and writings have had such hard measure Whence it appears that our Author his very enemies being judges hath made good what he undertook viz. he hath destroyed that great Diana the Mass and hath also by way of prevention destroyed all the Arguments made use of by the Romish Doctors for the restoring and re-establishing of her which he hath so well performed that to this very day not one of them hath dared so much as to attempt to revive her by answering his Book so that here you may see her laid in her grave without hope of resurrection and therefore the Book may very fitly be termed The Funeral of the Mass and consequently the Funeral of Romish heresies and idolatries as the Author well observes For the truth is the Mass and the Romish Religion are almost convertible terms so that if the former be destroyed the latter must vanish into its first nothing and therefore our Author having destroyed the Mass hath destroyed the thing called Popery too As for the monstrous absurdities and blasphemies which flow from this one Romish doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass they would fill whole volumes but I shall content my self to say that the Mass consists of more gross and abominable Superstitions Phanaticisms and Idolatries then ever have been believed or practised by the most ignorant Pagans What the tenets of the Romanists are and what their practices have been in reference to Protestant Magistrates and People woful and sad experience hath sufficiently taught the World I shall only add that they are as pernicious to our bodies and estates as their heretical Doctrines and idolatrous Services are to our Souls And consequently to introduce Popery into this Kingdome would be an act as unpolitick as Anti-christian as hath been demonstrated in that incomparable piece entituled The established Religion in opposition to Popery But because I know not by what strange infatuation or enchantment or rather by what wonderful judgment of God this monstrous absurd and destructive shall I call it Religion prevails amongst us I thought good to English and Print this small Treatise as the best Antidote against Popery the Holy Scripture excepted that ever I read and for ought I know it is not inferior to the best of this kind that ever was yet extant to which opinion the harsh usage it hath had from our Adversaries as aforesaid doth certainly give no small Testimony But I know that the holy Scripture it self cannot profit except God be pleased to give his blessing much less can this Book and therefore I earnestly beseech him that he would make it prosperous and successful for the good of Souls and if any shall receive benefit by it I desire them to give him all the glory and then I shall think my self infinitely recompensed for my pains in translating it The Contents of the Chapters Chap. I. 1. COncerning the Exposition of these words This is my Body Page 1. Chap. II. 2. Concerning the Exposition of these words He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternal life My flesh is meat indeed c. P. 10. Chap. III. 3. Against Transubstantiation P. 19. Chap. IV. 4. Against the real presence of Christs Body in the Host or consecrated Wafer P. 32. Chap. V. 5. Against the adoration or worshiping of the Host P. 56. Chap. VI. 6. Against the taking away of the cup. P. 78. Chap. VII 7. Against the Mass P. 91. Chap. VIII 8. Containing answers to the objections of the Romish Doctors P. 112. Amend the following Errours of the Press thus PAg. 2. line 5. for obscure read obscurely p. 23. l. 7. for then read else p. 46. l. 22. for accident read accidents p. 49. l. â—2 for being read seing p. 51. l. 3. for that should read that it should p. 57. l. 17. for creatures read creature p. 60. l. 13. for tood read too p. 66. l. 17. for Apostles read Apostle p. 83. l. 12. read Pastors only because p. 105. l. 2. read Council of Trent p. 10â— l. 4. for Mass read Cross p. 115. l.
doth their bodies this being corruptible food which gives temporal life only but that spiritual and incorruptible food which gives life eternal 6. I conclude this Chapter with this consideration When a doctrine is proposed which is pretended to be divine and that passages of holy Scripture are alledged for the proof of it if it opposeth or seems to oppose sense and reason and to include contradictions and that a more suitable and rational sense can be found out for those passages so that all these inconveniences and contradictions may be avoided there is nothing more just than that we should embrace that probable and rational sense and reject that doctrine which opposeth sense and reason and seems to imply contradictions But the doctrine of the real presence of the Manhood of Jesus Christ in the Host and the transubstantiation of the Bread into his Body is repugnant to sense and reason and seems to include divers contradictions viz. that a humane body is in a point without any local extension that a body may be in divers places at one and the same time that the Bread and Wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ which were before that accidents may be without a subject c. And the passages that are impertinently alledged to prove such a presence and such a change have a sense very commodious and rational for the avoiding all these contradictions as appears in this and the former Chapter where I have very rationally expounded those two passages which the Romish Doctors impertinently make use of for this subject Therefore they ought to embrace that commodious and rational sense which we have given them and to reject the doctrine of the real presence of the body of Jesus Christ in the Host and the doctrine of Transubstantiation CHAP. III. Against Transubstantiation 1. TRansubstantiation is the substantial conversion of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Bloud of Christ which I destroy by divers Arguments the first whereof is this In every substantial conversion that thing into which another thing is converted is always newly produced For example when seed is converted into an animal that animal is newly produced when Jesus Christ turned the water into wine the wine was newly produced c. But the Body and Bloud of Christ cannot be newly produced in the Sacrament of the Eucharist Therefore the Bread and Wine are not substantially converted into the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist The second Proposition viz. that the Body and Bloud of Christ cannot be newly produced I prove thus That which is newly produced receives a new being because to produce a thing and to give it a being is one and the same But the Body and Bloud of Christ cannot receive a new being which I prove thus A man cannot receive â—â—â—t which he hath while he hath it and therefore he cannot receive a being while he hath a being for as it is impossible to take away a being from that which hath no being so it is impossible to give a being to that which hath a being already and as you cannot kill a dead man so you cannot give life to one that is living But the Body and Bloud of Christ have and always will have a being Therefore they cannot receive one and consequently cannot be reproduced in the Eucharist 2. My second Argument is this In every substantial conversion that thing which is converted into another is destroyed For example When the water was turned into wine the water was destroyed But in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Bread and Wine are not destroyed by the consecration which I prove thus In the celebration of the Eucharist there is breaking giving eating and drinking after the consecration as appears by the very practice of our Adversaries who after consecration break the Host and divide it into three parts give nothing to the Communicants but consecrated Hosts and eat and drink nothing but what was consecrated But the Scripture saith that in the celebration of the Eucharist Bread is broken that Bread and Wine are given and that Bread is eaten and Wine drunk as appears by these following passages St. Paul 1 Cor. 10. saith The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ and 1 Cor. 11. St. Matth. 26. St. Mark 14. and St. Luke 22. it is said that Jesus Christ took bread brake it and gave it and St. Mark 14. and St. Matth. 26. Jesus Christ after he had participated of the Sacrament of the Eucharist saith I will drink no more of this fruit of the Vine and 1 Cor. 11. As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. 3. Secondly When Jesus Christ said to his Disciples Drink ye all of this St. Matth. 26. that is drink ye all of this cup either he commanded to drink of a cup of Wine or of a cup of Bloud if he commanded them to drink of a cup of Wine then it follows that they drank nothing but Wine because it is certain that they obeyed Jesus Christ for it is said St. Mark 14. that they all drank â—f it Or if he commanded them to drink of a cup of Bloud then it follows that the Wine was already changed into his Bloud because it is not probable that Jesus Christ said to them Drink ye all of this cup of Bloud and yet that it was not a cup of Bloud but a cup of Wine But when Jesus Christ said Drink ye all of this he did not speak to them of a cup of Bloud for the Wine was not then converted into Christs Bloud because according to our Adversaries it was not changed until Jesus Christ had made an end of uttering these following words for this is my bloud But he uttered these words Drink ye all of this before he uttered those for this is my bloud because a man must utter a Proposition before he can give the reason of it 4. Thirdly When a thing is converted into another we cannot see the effects and properties of the thing converted but only of that into which it is converted For example When the seed is changed into an animal we can see no more the effects and properties of the seed but of the animal only and when Jesus Christ turned the Water into Wine the effects properties and accidents of the Water were no more seen but of the Wine only c. But in the Eucharist we cannot after the consecration perceive the effects properties accidents or parts of the Body and Bloud of Christ but we see there all the effects properties and accidents of Bread and Wine Therefore in the Eucharist the Bread and Wine are not converted into the Body and Bloud of Christ And the truth is if that which appears to be Bread and hath all the effects accidents and properties of Bread be not