the Creation to beleeve that something may be made of nothing than to say that a blinde man was made to see As for the last Obiection saying that Eternity is the instant of Duration it is an atheologicall Paradoxe for Eternitie is Duration it selfe without beginning or ending which is conceived without Contradiction In all these your former Pretences nothing is more considerable than the miserable Exigence whereunto your Disputers are brought whilest they are constrained for avoiding of Contradictions in things subiect to the determination of Sence to pose us with spirituall Mysteries which are Obiects onely of Faith by reason of the Infinitenes of their properties and therefore may well exceede the reach of mans wit and apprehension without any preiudice unto Truth by contradiction as if they meant to teach men to put out their eyes and never any more to discerne any sensible things by sensible meanes By which manner of reasoning all the Arguments used by the Apostles against Infidels for proofe of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ's Body all the Reasons of Fathers against Heretiques in distinguishing of the Properties of the divine and humane nature of Christ in himselfe and their former Testimonies in discerning Bodies from Spirits by Circumscription and Spirits from God by Determination in one place and lastly your owne Consequences of many confessed Impossibilities concerning Place as the Impossibility that God should be contained in Place as for one Body having Quantity to be incapable of a Place and the like are all vtterly made voyd For to what end were any of these if your Pretences have in them any shaddow of Trueth CHAP. VI. The third Romish Contradiction against the words of Christ MY BODY is by making a Body Finite to be a Body not finite SECT I. IF as you have said the Body of Christ is or may be at one time in so many places then may it be in moâ— and consequently every-where at one instant This Consequence your ancient Schoole-men taught and your Iesuite Valentia doth seeme to avow saying What hindreth that a Body may be Vbique every where at once not by it's naturall power but by the omnipotencie of God So he This we say is to make a finite infinite and your old Schoole-Doctors are hereunto witnesses who have iudged it Hereticall to say that the Body of Christ can be in divers places at once because then he may be in infinite So they And heare you what your Cardinall Bellarmine hath publikely taught To say saith he that the Body of Christ may be in infinite places at once is to ascribe an Immensity and infinitenes unto it namely that which is proper unto God So hee and so also your other Doctors to whom the Evidence of Truth commandeth us to assent For what greater Heresie can there be against that Article of our Faith concerning the Deity and Godhead of Christ begotten not made than to beleeve that there can be a made God for so doubtles doe they whosoever they bee that thinke a finite Body may be made Infinite CHALLENGE YOu understand the Argument viz. To believe that Christ his Body may be every where is a flat Heresie but to affirme that the same Body is in many places at once doth consequently inferre that it may be every where as hath beene directly professed Ergo your Doctrine of attributing to the Body of Christ an Existence in many places at once is by the confessed generall grounds of Christianity plainly Hereticall And from this our Conclusion your Aquinas will in no wise dissent who himselfe concludeth That the Angell is not in divers places at once because an Angell is a finite creature and therefore of a finite power and operation it being proper to God to be in many places at once So hee That by the iudgement of Ancient Fathers the Being in divers places at once inferreth an Infinitenesse proper unto God which without Heresie cannot be ascribed to any humane Body Proved from the manner of Existence of the Holy Ghost SECT II. STill you maintaine the Reall and Corporall presence of Christ his Body in so many places as there are consecrated Hoasts at one time in the whole world be they ten thousand times ten Millions of Millions or how many soever which say we is to make the Finite Body of Christ Infinite For Aquinas as your Iesuite witnesseth held it Hereticall to affirme One Body to be every where because this is a Divine property by which the Fathers did sufficiently prove the God-head of the Holy Ghost namely Augustine Fulgentius Ambrose and Basil So he But how did the Fathers prove this thinke you it were good that where your owne Authours be silent we heard some of themselves speake Fulgentius his reason is Because the Spirit of God dwelleth wholly in all the faithfull separated in divers places Basil thus The Angell that was with Cornelius was not at the same time with Philip nor was he then in Heaven when he was with Zachary at the Altar But the Holy Ghost was together with the Prophet Daniel in Babylon with Ieremy in the Dungeon and with Ezekiel in Chobar Ambrose thus Because the Apostles could not all be every where Christ severed them giving them all the Holy Ghost which was inseparable in them none therefore can doubt but it is a Divine Essence Augustine confuteth an Arian Bishop thus You that prayse the holy Spirit in sanctifying his faithfull wheresoever they are how can you deny him to be God Didymus of Alexandria whom Hierome acknowledgeth as his Master for the understanding of Scripture thus The Holy Ghost seeing it is in many places at once may not be thought to be a Creature Lastly upon the same ground Cyrill of Alexandria maketh the same Conclusion The Spirit of God is no Creature saith hee because things created are in one place but of the Spirit of God it is written Whither shall I goe from thy presence So these holy Fathers every one Gatholique without exception CHALLENGE ASyllogisme from these premises will set all straight To ascribe to a Body an Omni-presency and power of being every where is Hereticall But to say that a Body is in divers places at once doth consequently inferre a power of being in every place as it doth in demonstrating the Holy Ghost to be a divine Spirit Therefore to attribute to a Body a Being in divers places at once is a Doctrine Hereticall and implyeth a Contradiction by affirming a Finite thing to be infinite Adde but hereunto the former Testimonies of Fathers who have distinguished the humane nature of Christ from his God-head and their denying of all Possibilities of Existence of Angels in two places at once and your Consciences must needs tell you that it was Impossible for the Fathers to have beleeved your Romish Article of a Corporall Presence in every Hoast consecrated at onetime on divers Altars in
Vomiting it by the Communicants and the Transmittance into your guts together with the Eating and Feeding thereupon by Dogs Mice Wormes and which transcendeth if it may be all your other Absurdities to be deprived of all naturall power of Motion Sence and Vnderstanding O Abominable Abominable A Synopsis of the Idolatrousnesse of the Romish Masse and Defence thereof by many Evidences from Antiquity SECT V. OVR first Argument is against the foundation thereof which is your Interpretation of the Article HOC by denying it to have Relation to Bread contrary to the verdict of an Inquest of Antient Fathers shewing that the same pointeth out Bread as you have heard whereby the monstrous Conception of Transubstantiation is strangled in the very wombe Insomuch that sometimes they expressely interpret it thus Christs Body and Blood that is say they The Bread and Wine Item Hee gave the name of the Signe to the thing signified Item Bread the Signe of his Body And lastly Bread is called Christs Body because it signifieth his Body Secondly in the point of Transubstantiation it selfe they calling the Eucharist which you dare not Bread and Wine after Consecration and naming them Earthly materialls and Matter of Bread and also as you have heard out of the Antient Liturgies Fruits of the Earth and yet more plainly by way of Periphrasis describing them to consist of Divers graines and Divers grapes After by approving the Suffrage and judgement of our Senses in discerning all Sensible things and in speciall the Eucharist it selfe and at length affirming that there remaineth therein the Substance of Bread and Wine which are the Subject matter of your Divine Adoration All which are other Three Demonstrations of their meanings every singular point being avouched by the Suffrages of Antiquity Thirdly against your Faith concerning the manner of Corporall Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because so farre were the Fathers from beleeving that the Body of Christ could be in divers places as you say in Millions at one time that by this property of Being in many places at once they have discerned Angells to be Finite Spirits and not God They have distinguished the Godhead of Christ from his Manhood and they have proved the Holy Ghost to be God and no Creature by the same Reason Than which Three Arguments none can be more Convincent Whereunto you may adde the Fathers speeches contradicting your Dreame of a Body whole in every part in whatsoever space or place by judging it Impossible and also concluding Christ his Ascension into Heaven to argue his Absencâ— from Earth all which have been discussed from point to point Our Fourth Generall Argument is that whereas your Corporall Presence must needs inferre Corporall Eating thereof by the Communicants notwithstanding you have heard the contrary Sentences of Antient Fathers against Tearing and Swallowing of Christ's Body and Bodily Egestion next concerning the Eaters that only the Godly faithfull are partakers thereof insomuch that even the Godly under the old Testament did eat the same Then of the Remainders of the Consecrated Hosts that they were Eaten by the ordinance of the Church by Schoole-boyes and sometimes Burnt in the fire besides they called them Bits and Fragments of Bread broken after Consecration and diminished and lastly in respect of the End of Eating They held the thing present to be a pledge of Christ's Body absent and also allowed such a Touch of his Body by Faith that whosoever so toucheth him is Sanctified Which Observations concerning our Fourth Generall Argument doe minister unto us five particular Reasons which make our Defence to be Impregnable Fifthly forasmuch as you teach the Subject matter of the Eucharist to be the Body of Christ as a proper Sacrifice propitiatory wee upon due inquisition into the doctrine of Antiquity have found the Antient Fathers 1. Noting that which they called Sacrifice herein to be Bread and Wine saying thereupon that Melchizedech in that his Bread and Wine offered the Body and Blood of Christ 2. Such a Subject which being taken in great Quantity doth nourish and satiate mans Bodily Nature 3. Such as needeth prayer to God that it may be Acceptable to God as was the Sacrifice of Abels sheepe 4. Sonaming it an Vnbloâ—dy Sacrifice as meaning thereby void of Blood which cannot agree to the Body of Christ now risen from death 5. So qualifying their other Exuberances and Excesse of speech wherein they named it The same Sacrifice of Christ once offered by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 correcting it thus A Sacrifice or rather a Memoriall thereof 6. By placing the Sacrifice of Christ his Body as now Presentative only in Heaven and the thing offered on Earth but a Signe 7. In all your objected Testimonies for proofe of the same Body of Christ in the Eucharist which suffered on the Crosse they understood the same as the Object of our Remembrance and not as the Subject of Offering which make up so many Arguments moe 8. By paralleling Baptisme with the Eucharist in like tenour of speech from point to point 9. By praying God to be Propitious to that which is offered Sixthly upon the same Doctrine of Corporall Presence you have erected and fastened the roofe of all your Building which is Divine Adoration of the Host yet notwithstanding have you not beene able by the testimonies of any ancient Father to free your selves from Formall Idolatry by any of your Pretences devised for your excuse either of Good Intent Morall Certainty or of Habituall Condition especially seeing that the Fathers by that their universall Invitation Lift up your Hearts abstracted still the thoughts of the Communicants from contemplating of any Subject present here Below that they might be drawen to the meditation of the Body of Christ as it is in Heaven Lastly in your owne Romish Masse praying after Consecration God to be propitious to the thing offered as to Abel's Sacrifice which was but a sacrificed Sheepe Compute all these Particulars and you shall finde about sixteene Arguments to prove you to be absolutely Idolaters Wee having thus revealed these Three Principall and Fundamentall Abominations doe now proceed to their Concomitants and Consequences which are Mixtures of Heresie in many Overture of Perjury in some and Obstinacie in all We begin at the last CHAP. II. Of the stupendious Obstinacie of the Romish Disputers made palpable by their owne Contradictions and of the Defence thereof as being Contradictory in it selfe SECT I. ALL your Disputers shew themselves in nothing more zealous than in maintenance of your Romish Masse which they contend for by objecting Scriptures Fathers Reasons notwithstanding their Expositions of Scriptures their Inferences out of the Fathers their devised Reasons and almost all their Confutations are confuted rejected contradicted by their owne fellowes as the Sections thorowout this whole Tractate doth plainly demonstrate We cannot
Objectively Booke 6. Chap. 5. Sect. 3. Of Propitiousnesse B. 6. Ch. 8. Sect. 1. Divine Sacrament so called of the Fathers without any inference of a Corporall Presence B. 3. Ch. 3. Sect. 13. Dominus Vobiscum in the Romish Masse condemneth their private Masse Book 1. Ch. 2. Sect. 5. E. EAting and drinking spiritually are all one but not Sacramentally B. 1. Chap. 3. Sect. 8. Elevation not ancient B. 6. Ch. 1. Sect. 5. Proveth not Adoration B. 7. Ch. 3. Sect. 2. Eucharist anciently called the Lord's Supper Book 1. Ch. 2. Sect. 9. Forbid to be carried to the sicke for Adoration Book 1. Ch. 2. Sect. 10. In both kindes proved by Christ's precept B. 1. Chap. 3. Sect. 1. See Cup. Exposition of Scripture by the Romish Church sworne unto but not without Perjury in a Synopsis B. 7. Ch. 2. Sect. 5. G. GAzers excluded from the Sacrament anciently Book 1. Chap. 2. Sect. 9. Gesture of bowing objected for Adoration of the Host vainly Booke 7. Chap. 3. Sect. 3. God's Presence in many places objected fondly for proofe of the possibility of a Body in divers places at once Book 4. Chap. 5. Sect. 2. Holy Ghost proved to be infinite and God by it's being in divers places at once by the Iudgement of Antiquity Booke 4. Chap. 6. Sect. 2. Guilty of the Lords Bodie Words objected for proofe of Corporall Presence of Christ in the Eucharist vainly Book 5. Ch. 3. Sect. 1 5. H. HAbituall Condition no sufficient Pretence to free the Romish from Idolatry Booke 7. Chap. 5. Sect. 3 4. A matter of great perplexity in the Romish worship Ibid. Chap. 9. Sect. 7. Hands not taking the Sacrament therewith an Innovation against the Institution of Christ B. 1. Chap. 2. Sect. 8. Heresie the Defence of the Romish Masse fraught with many B. 8. Chap. 2. Sect. 5. Hoc facite Absurdly objected for proofe of a Sacrifice Booke 6. Chap. 1. Sect. 1. Hoc in the words Hoc est corpus meum doth not point out properly either Christ's Body or Individuum vagum Booke 2. Ch. 1. Sect. 2 c. I. IDolatry materiall in the Romish Masse possible almost infinitely Booke 7. Chap. 5. Sect. 1 c. Yea and Formall notwithstanding any Pretence to the Contrary Ib. Chap. 6. Sect. 1. No warrant for such Pretences from Antiquity Ibid. Sect. 5. A Synopsis of this Booke 8. Chap. 1. Sect. 5. Idolatry an errour in the understanding Booke 7. Chap. 7. Sect. 1. The Romish as Idolatrous as the Heathen Ibid. Chap. 8. Sect. 1. And in one respect worse B. 7. Chap. 8. Sect. 2. Impossibility acknowledged in things contradictory even with the Advancement of God's â—mpotencie Book 4. Ch. 3. Sect. 2. See Contradiction Omnipotencie Infants made partakers of the Eucharist erroneously B. 1. Ch. 2. Sect. 11. Institution of Christ transgressed by the Romish Church by ten Prevarications B. 1. Ch. 2. Intent good cannot free one from Formall Idolatry B. 7. Ch. 5. Sect. 3. Intention of the Priest if not right occasioneth Idolatry B. 7. Ch. 5. Sect. 4. A matter of extreme perplexity Ibid. Ch. 9. Sect. 5. Invocation upon the Sacrament can never be proved out of the Fathers B. 7. Ch. 3. Sect. 4. Ch. 5. Sect. 1. Romish manner of Invocating the Host Ibid. Chap. 7. Sect. 1. L. LIft up your hearts used anciciently maketh against Adoration of the Eucharist Book 7. Chap. 4. Sect. 2. Liturgies or Missals ancient praying God to accept this as Abel's Sacrifice B. 8. Ch. 8. Sect. 4. M. MAsse the word B. 1. Ch. 1. The Romish hath ten Innovations contrary to Christ his Institution B. 1. Ch. 2. The Superstitiousnesse thereof Book 8. Chap. 1. Sect. 1. Sacrilegiousnesse thereof Ibid. Sect. 2. Idolatrousnesse Booke 7. thorowout B. 8. Ch. 1. Sect. 5. Melchizedech his Priesthood and Sacrifice objected and discussed Booke 6. Chap. 3. Miraculous Apparitions thirteene of true flesh and blood in the Eucharist falsly pretended for proofe of a Corporall Presence Booke 4. Chap. 2. Sect 1 c. Miraculous birth of Christ thorow the wombe of the Blessed Virgin ob and his entrance thorow the doores and passing thorow the Tombe and a Camels passing thorow a needles eye Booke 4. Chap. 7. Sect. 7. Morall Certainty no sufficient Pretence to excuse from formall Idolatry B. 7. Ch. 6. Sect. 2. A matter of great perplexity in Romish worship Book 7. Ch. 9. Sect. 4. D. Morton vindicated from two Romish Adversaries in the point of the Maniches opinion imputed to the Romish Church B. 1. Ch. 3. Sect. 7. O. OBstinacies of the Defenders of the Romish Masse discovered in a Synopsis B. 8. Ch. 2. Sect. 1 c. Omnipotencie spoken of the Fathers and objected for a Corporall presence of Christ's body and for Transubstantiation vainly B. 3. Ch. 4. Sect. 2. God's Omnipotencie nothing impeached by the acknowledgement of Impossibilities by Contradiction B. 4. Chap. 3. Sect. 2 c. Omnipotencie pretended by Heretikes Ibid. Chap. 4. Sect. 5. See Impossibility and see Contradiction Ordination awanting in the Romish Priest causeth Idolatry in their Masse Booke 7. Chap. 5. Sect. 6. P. PAsseovâ—s no Type of a proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist Booke 6. Chap. 3. Sect. 10. Pastophorium what it signifieth B. 1. Ch. 2. Sect. 10. B. 7. Ch. 3. Sect. 4. Perjuries of the Romish Disputants in Defence of their Masse in a Synopsis Book 8. Ch. 2. Sect. 4. Perplexities wherewith the Romish are intangled in their Adoration and from which Protestants are free B. 7. Ch. 9. Place One Body in many places impossible proved by Contradictions in it selfe Book 4. Ch. 4. Sect. 2 c. By Confession Scripture and Fathers Ibid. Sect. 3 c. By Reasons Sect. 9. Objections to the contrary answered B. 4. Ch. 5. Sect. 1 c. Ob. Sol. Chap. 5. Sect. 4. The Fathers prove the Holy Ghost God by it's being in divâ—…s places at once B. 4. Ch. 6. Sect. 2. See Angels Pledge of Resurrection is the Eucharist called of the Fathers vainly objected for proofe of a Corporall Presence B. 5. Ch. 8. Sect. 6. B. 4. Ch. 10. Sect. 5. See also B. 〈◊〉 Ch. 3. Sect. 11. Popes Consecration a matter doubtfull and dangerous B. 7. Ch. 7. Sect. 4. Popes made wiser than the Apostles Book 1. Chap. 3. Sect. 4. Christ's Divine Precept held to be by the Pope dispensable Booke 1. Chap. 3. Sect. 13. Presence of Christ's Body wherein the Difference de modo 〈◊〉 necessary Booke 4. Ch. 1 c. Romish manner Capernaiticall Chap. 2. Sect. 1. Impossible Chap. 3. Sect. 1. Priesthood Romish not after the order of Melchizedech B. 6. Ch. 3. Sect. 6. Word Priest uproperly used of the Fathers B. 6. Ch. 5. Sect. 15. Christs Priesthood now performed in heaven B. 6. Ch. 3. Sect. 7. Confirmed by antiquity Sect. 8. Private Masse See Masse Procession with the Sacrament an Innovation Booke 1. Chap. 2. Sect. 10. Pronuntiation of the words of Consecration a matter of
Eucharist you know is called by Saint Paul The supper of the Lord and by ancient Fathers an holy Banquet The second kind of Romish Pretences is of such which might have beene common to other Churches The other Causes above-mentioned were common to the primitive Church of Christ wherein the use of both kinds was notwithstanding preserved and continued except that you will say no Northerne Nations were Christians in those times and that no stomacks of Christians were disaffected to wine in loathing it c. But two other Pretences you have which you thinke to be of more speciall force to forbid the use of this Sacrament in both kinds One is Because saith your Cardinall Such is the now-received and approved custome of Nations and People So hee But first to argue that your Church did therefore forbid the use of both kinds because shee had approued the contrary Custome is a meere Nugacitie and Tautologie and as much as to say Shee would forbid it because shee would forbid it Secondly saying that the Vse of but One kinde had indefinitely the Consent of Nations and People is a flat falsity because as hath beene confessed The Greeke Church not to mention Aethiopians Aegyptians Armenians and Others have alwayes held the Contrarie Custome Lastly to justifie your Churches Innouation in consenting to the humour of People of later times what can you censure it lesse than a grosse and absurd Indulgence The other Motive which the Cardinall calleth a Vehement presumption and which all your Obiectors most earnestly urge is the Cause of Irreverence lest the blood might be split especially in such a multitude of faithfull Communicants and also least any particle of the Hoast fall to the ground saith Master Brereley We have but foure Answeres to this mightie Obiection First that this was not held a Reason to Christ or his Apostles or to the Church of Christ for many ages when notwithstanding the multitudes of Communicants were innumerable Secondly that The Casuall spilling of the Cup saith your Salmeron is no sinne else would not Christ have instituted the use of the Cup nor would the Apostles or primitive Church aswell in the West as in the East in their communicating nor yet the Priest in consecrating have vsed it So hee Wee might adde by the same reason should people be forbid the other part also left as your Priest said any particle thereof should fall to the ground Furthermore for the avoiding of Spilling you as your Cardinall Alan relateth have provided Pipes of silver which are used by Popes Cardinals Monks and some other Illustrious lay-Personages Surely there being no respect of persons with God as said S. Peter we thinke that he who will be S. Peter's Successor should have taken out with S. Peter that lesson of Christ of loving the whole flocke of Christ aswell Lambes as Sheepe not to provide Pipes or Tunnels for himselfe alone his Grandes for receiuing this part of the Sacrament and to neglect all other Christians albeit never so true members of Christ For this wee all know that Our Lord Christ prepared his table aswell for the poore as the Rich according to the Apostles Doctrine by your owne construction answerable to the Doctrine of ancient Fathers And that the pretence of Reverence cannot be a sufficient Reason of altering the ordinance of Christ wee may learne from ancient Histories which euidently declare that the opinion of Reverence hath often beene the Damme and Nource of manifold Superstitions As for example The Heretikes called Discalceati in pretence of more humilitie thought that they ought to goe bare-foote The Encratitae in pretence of more sanctitity abhorred marriage The Aquarij in pretence of more sobriety used water in this Sacrament The Manichees wanted not their pretence of not drinking wine in the Eucharist because they thought it was created by an evill Spirit And yet were these iudged by Pope Gelasius to be Sacrilegious Yea and what greater defence had the Pharisees for all their Superstitions than that of Reverence whom notwithstanding Christ did pierce thorow with so many Vae's for annulling of the Precepts of God by their Traditions vnder the pretence of religious Reverence and sanctity In briefe It was the opinion of Reverence that made S. Peter to contradict our Lords command when he said Thou shalt never wash my feete yet how dangerous it had beene for Peter to have persisted in opposition the Replie of our Saviour doth declare If I wash not thy feete saith Christ thou hast no part with me c. Vpon which Text S. Chrysost readeth vnto you this Lecture Let us therefore learne saith he to honour and reverence Christ as he would and not as we thinke meete And sure wee are that he would that same which he commanded saying Doe this Therefore our next Difference betweene our defence and yours is no other than obedient Reverence and reverent or rather irreligious Disobedience As for your Pretence of manifesting hereby a Greater dignity of Priests than of Laicks it is too phantasticall for the singularity too harsh for the noveltie and too gracelesse for the impietie thereof seeing that Christ who gave his Bodie and Blood an equall price of Redemption for all sorts would have the Sacrament of his Body and Blood equally administred to People as Priests as you have heard the Fathers themselves professe The three Romish Pretences which are more peculiar to their owne Church in two points First because Heretikes saith Bellarmine and meaning Protestants doe not believe Concomitancie that is to say that the blood of Christ is received under the forme of bread but for this Concomitancie the Church was moved to prescribe the vse of the Eucharist in one kinde So he And this point of Concomitancie is that which M. Fisher and M. Breerly most laboured for or rather laboured vpon And albeit your Romane Catechisme iudgeth this the principall Cause of inducing your Church to preferre one kinde yet wee whom you call Heretikes beleeve that the deuout Communicant receiving Christ spiritually by faith is thereby possessed of whole Christ crucified in the inward act of the Soule and onely deny that the whole is received Sacramentally in this outward act vnder one onely part of this Sacrament which is the present question And in this wee say no more than your Bishop Iansenius iudged reasonable who hath rightly argued saying It doth not easily appeare how the outward receiving of Christ under the forme of Bread should be called Drinking but onely Eating being received after the manner of meates as that is called Drinking onely which is received after the manner of Drinke Drinking therefore and Eating are distinguished by Christ in the outward Act. So hee even as your owne Durand before him had truely concluded with whom M. Breerly will beare a part Therefore your Concomitancie if wee respect the Sacramentall manner of Receiving
nature thereof is Changed yet not in the Substance of the thing but in the legall necessitie of the use But to come nearer Answer us but this one Question Whereas all learning alloweth this saying that in Baptisme the nature of the Element and the nature of the Sacrament are different whereupon it is said The word comming to the Element maketh it a Sacrament when we shall say of the water in Baptisme that the Nature of it as of a Sacrament is more excellent than is the nature of it as it is a meere Element whether doth not the word Nature attributed to the Sacrament iustly accord unto the Phrase of Cyprian in the case of the Eucharist and so much the rather because that Cyprian in the words of immediatly following the Testimony obiected doth fully confute Transubstantiation by a Similitude comparing the Humanity and Deity of Christ with the Naturall and Spirituall parts of this Sacrament to wit As in Christ himselfe true humanity appeared in his flesh and his Deity was hid This was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and first part of this Similitude the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and next part followeth Even so in this visible Sacrament the Divine Essence infuseth it selfe So hee which by the law of a Similitude must stand thus Even so Bread in this Sacrament is seene and the Spirituall operation of God's power therein to the Faithfull is Invisible Like as we may say of the preaching of the Word of God to the Faithfull The words are audible and sensible but because of the inward working of God's Spirit for the Conversion of Man's soule it is called The Power of God unto salvation as likewise Baptisme is made the Lavacre of Regeneration whereof Greg. Nyssen affirmeth that It worketh marvellously by benediction and produceth marvellous Effects As for Augustine and Chrysostome not to be superfluous every Protestant doth both beleeve and professe namely a Divine Operation of God both by changing the Element into a Sacrament and working by that Sacrament Spirituall Effects to the good of Man's soule The second Vnconscionablenesse of Romish Disputers in abuse of the Testimonies of Ancient Fathers is seene in objecting their deniall of Common and Bare Bread in this Sacrament for an Argument of Transubstantiation SECT III. TO this purpose Irenaeus saying that It is not Common Bread Ergo say you not to be properly iudged by Sense Vnconscionably knowing that Chrysostome and also all other Fathers whom you moreover obiect saith likewise of the Sacrament of Baptisme Wee are to behold it not as common water The second i◠Iustine Martyr saying We receive these not as Common Bread or Common Drinke Therefore say you we may not iudge them by Sence Vnconscionably knowing that Iustine Martyr in the same place sheweth his Reason why it is not to be called Common euen because saith he it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Sanctified meate And so Water in Baptisme is Sanctified as you know The third is Cyril of Ierusalem saying Consider these not as Common Bread and Wine Ergò say you not to be iudged by Sense Vnconscionably knowing that the same Cyril in the same place saith the same of the water of Baptisme It is not simple Water Yea but he further saith say you Thinke not of it as of bare Bread adding but the body of Christ Ergò say you not to be iudged otherwise by Sense Vnconscionably knowing that the same Father in the same place for explanation sake saith likewise of Sacred Oyle viz. Even so that holy Oyle is not bare and simple Oyle Adding but the gift of Grace And that your Authours Vnconscionablenesse may be the more notorious in their wresting of the Catholique meaning of the Fathers in this kind wee must tell you that there is no speech more familiar unto ancient Fathers than to esteeme as they ought all Sacramentall Signes Sacred and therefore no more Common or bare Elements Insomuch that Gregory Nyssen speaking of a Ceremony inferiour to this Sacrament which is the Altar or Table of the Lord he saith that Although by nature it be but as other stone wherewith the Pavements are garnished and adorned yet being Consecrated to God's Service by Benediction it is an holy Table and Altar Yea and what lesse doth your Church say of your hallowed Balsome Beads and Bels and the like all which you distinguish from Common and bare Oyles and Metalls because of their different use and service without Opinion of any Change of Substance at all The third Vnconscionablenesse of your Disputers in urging for proofe of Transubstantiation the Testimonies of Ancient Fathers forbidding men to Discerne of this Sacrament by their Senses And first of their abusing the Testimony of Cyril by two egregious Falsifications SECT IV. VVE may not easily passe over your Obiection taken out of Cyril being in the opinion of your Cardinall so impregnable Let us first heare your Obiector This Testimony of Cyril alone ought to suffice being the Sentence of an holy man and most ancient out of a worke which unquestionably was his yea and most cleare and plaine as that it cannot be perverted Besides it is in his Catechisme wherein the use of all things is delivered simply properly and plainly Nor was this Father Cyril ever reproved of Errour in his doctrine of the Eucharist Thus farre your Cardinall you see with as accurate an oratory of Amplification as could be invented What Protestant would not now if ever expect a deadly blow from this Father to our Catholique Cause but attend to the Issue First Cyril will not allow a man to credit his Taste but although Tast saith it is Bread yet undoubtedly to believe it to be the Body of Christ whereinto the Bread is changed And hee is brought in by your Cardinall to averre furthermore that The Body of Christ is given under the forme of Bread And so the Sentence seemeth to be most manifest saith he But for what wee pray you That first forsooth the Change is the same with Transubstantiation and secondly that there is no more Substance of Bread but Accidents under the forme of Bread So hee and Master Brerely from him as followeth Cyril saith under the forme of Bread his Body is given c. and then dancing in the same triumph addeth Can any Catholique of this Age write more plainly So he And we answere could any Iugglers deale more falsly For upon due examination it will appeare to be a manifest Delusion by a false Translation of Cyril's words The Body of Christ is given as your Cardinall doth render it sub specie Panis under the forme of Bread whereas it is in the Greeke Vnder the Type of Bread even as hee saith afterwards Thinke not that you taste Bread but the Antitype of Christ's Body In both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
and Wine in this Sacrament as he could discerne either Man from a Seraphin or Spirit or his own Fingers from a paire of Tongs Fiftly that the Sentence obiected against us is adorned with the same figure Hyperbole when he saith that No sensible thing is delivered unto us in this Sacrament and that our Senses herein may be deceived Words sore pressed by you yet twice unconscionably both because every Sacrament by your owne Church is defined to be A Sensible Signe and also for that you your selves confesse that Our senses cannot be deceived in their proper sensible Obiects Sixtly that Chrysostome himselfe well knew he did Hyperbolize herein who after that he had said No sensible thing is delivered unto us in this Sacrament notwithstanding he addeth immediately saying of this Sacrament that In things Sensible things Intelligible are given unto us Thus farre of the Rhetorique of Chrysostome Now are we to shew his Theologie and Catholique meaning as it were the Kernell of his speech Hee in the same Sentence will have us understand Man to consist of Body and Soule and accordingly in this Sacrament Sensible things are ministred to the Body as Symbols of Spirituall things which are for the Soule to feed upon So that a Christian in receiving this Sacrament is not wholly to exercise his mind upon the bodily Obiect as if that were onely or principally the thing offered unto us No for then indeed our Senses would deceive our Soules of their spirituall Benefit As for Transubstantiation and Absence of Bread Chrysostome in true Sence maketh wholly against it by explaining himselfe and paralleling this Sacrament with Baptisme As in Baptisme saith hee Regeneration the thing intelligible is given by water the thing sensible the Substance of water remaining Which proportion betweene the Eucharist and Baptisme is held commonly by ancient Fathers to the utter overthrow of Transubstantiation And that Chrysostome beleeved the Existence of Bread after Consecration hath beene already expressly shewne and is here now further proved For he saith of Bread after Consecration that Wee are ioyned together one with another by this Bread And now that you see the Nut cracked you may observe how your Disputers have swallowed the shell of Hyperbolicall Phrases and left the kernell of Theologicall Sence for us to content our selves withall Furthermore for this is not to be omitted the other Testimony of Chrysostome is spun and woven with the same Art which saith of Consecrating this Sacrament that Man is not to thinke it is the hand of the Priest but of Christ himselfe that reacheth it unto him seeing immediately after as it were with the same breath it is added It is not the Minister but God that Baptizeth thee and holdeth thy head Thus farre concerning the Iudgement of Sences which hath beene formerly proved at large both by Scriptures and Fathers wee draw nearer our marke which is your Transubstantiation Fourthly the Vnconscionablenes of your Disputers in urging other Figurative Sayings and Phrases of the Fathers of Bread Changed Transmuted c. into the Body of Christ for proofe of a Transubstantiation thereof in a Proper Sence SECT VII SVch words as these Bread is the Body of Christ It is made the Body of Christ It is Changed Translated Trans-muted Transelementated into the Body of Christ are Phrases of the highest Emphasis that you can find in the Volumes of Antiquity which if they were literally meant according to your Romish Sence there ought to be no further Dispute But if it may evidently appeare by the Idiome of speech of the same Fathers that such their sayings are Tropicall and sometimes Hyperbolicall then shall we have iust Cause to taxe your Disputers of as great Vnconscionablenes if not of more in this as in any other For whensoever they find in any Father as in Eusebius these words The Bread is the Body of Christ they obiect it for Transubstantiation but Vnconscionably First seeing that the Fathers doe but herein imitate our Lord and Master Christ who said of the Bread This is my Body which hath beene proved by Scriptures and Fathers to be a Figurative and unproper speech Secondly seeing that they use the same Dialect in other things as Cyrill of Sacred Oyle saying this is Charisma the Gift of Grace as hee called also the Holy Kisse a Reconciliation and others the like as you have heard Thirdly seeing that you your selves have renounced all proper Sence of all such Speeches because things of different natures cannot possibly be affirmed one of another for no more can it be properly said Bread is man's Body than we can say An Egg is a Stone as you have confessed Againe Some Fathers say Bread is made Flesh as S. Ambrose obiected but Vnconscionably knowing First that you your selues are brought now at length to deny the Body of Christ to be Produced out of Bread Secondly knowing the like Idiome of Fathers in their other speeches Chrysost saying that Christ hath made us his owne Body not only in Faith but in deed also And Augustine saying that Christians themselves with their Head which ascended into heaven are one Christ yea and Pope Leo saying of the party Baptized that Hee is not the same that he was before Baptisme by which saith he the Body of the party Regenerate is made the Flesh of Christ crucified Finally Venerable Bede saith Wee are made that Body which we receive In all which the word Made you know is farre from that high straine of Transubstantiation Wee draw yet nearer to the Scope Wee may not deny but that the Fathers sometimes extend their voyces higher unto the Praeposition Trans as Transit Transmutatur signifying a Change and Trans-mutation into the Body of Christ Every such Instance is in the opinion of your Doctours a full demonstration of Transubstantiation it selfe and all the wits of men cannot saith one Assoyle such Obiections Wherein they shew themselves altogether Vnconscionable as hath beene partly declared in Answering your Obiected Sayings of Ambrose In aliud Convertuntur of Cyprian his Panis naturâ mutatus of Cyrils Trans-mutavit and as now in this Section is to be manifested in answering your other Obiections to the full The Father Greg. Nyssen comparing the Body of Christ with Manna which satisfied every man's tast that received it saith that The Body of Christ in this Sacrament is changed into whatsoever seemeth to the Receivers appetite convenient and desired This is obiected by your Cardinall to prove Transubstantiation but First Vnconscionably because it is in it selfe being literally understood euen in your owne iudgements incredible For what Christian will say that the Body of Christ is Transubstantiated into any other thing much lesse into whatsoever thing the appetite of the Receiver shall desire No. But as Manna did satisfie the bodily Appetite so Christ's Body to the Faithfull is food satisfying the Soule
The Eutychian Heretikes you know confounded the properties of Christs humane nature with his Godhead pretending as you doe the Omnipotencie of Christ for the patronizing of their heresie As thinking thereby thus saith Theodoret out of Amphilochius To magnifie the Lord Christ whereas this was indeed as the same Father saith to accuse God of falshood You may heare the same voice sound out of the Romane Chaire Pope Leo speaking of Eutyches the Authour of that heresie saith that Hee affirmed that thereby hee did more religiously conceive of the Maiestie of Christ by denying his humane nature whom therefore that holy Pope censureth to have beene seduced by the spirit of falsity Therefore it cannot be but that the Fathers in confuting an heresie founded upon a pretence of Omnipotencie did hold that doctrine absolutely impossible which they withstood as will now more lively appeare by the Testimonies of themselves Theodoret against this Heretike argueth thus The Body of Christ being a compounded thing cannot be changed into a divine nature because it hath Circumscription This had beene no good reasoning except his CANNOT had imported an absolute Impossibility Vigilius anciently Bishop of Trent might have read a Lesson to the late Bishops at Trent who against the same Heretique distinguishing the two natures of Christ his humane nature by being Circumscribed in one place the divine by being unlocable doubted not to inferre saying of his Bodily nature It being now in heaven is not at all on earth And least that any might thinke this was but his owne private opinion he averreth saying This is the Catholique profession taught by the Apostles confirmed by Martyrs and hitherto held of the faithfull So Fulgentius upon the same distinction maketh the same Conclusion saying of his Bodily substance that therefore Being on Earth it was absent from Heaven and going to Heaven it left the Earth Damascen had to deale with the fore-named Heretique and professing to deliver the substantiall difference of both natures hee differenceth them by these contrary Charters Created not Created Capable of mortalitie and not capable of mortalitie circumscribed and not circumscribed and Invisible in it selfe and visible which notwithstanding is in the Eucharist by your doctrine not Capable of Circumscription because whole in the whole hoast and in every part thereof and to the very Angels of God Invisible Let vs ascend hither to the more primitive Ages to inquire of Fathers who had conflicts also with Heretiques who gaine-said the Truth of either nature Athanasius urged Christ his Ascention into Heaven to prove that he was truely man as God because his God-head was never out of Heaven being Vndeterminate in place and uncircumscribed even then when it was Hypostatically united with the Body being on earth Therefore it was his Body that ascended into Heaven from Earth His Argument is taken from Circumscription even as Nazianzene also doth Characterize them Augustine falling upon such Heretiques as taught a Bodily presence of Christ in the Sunne and in the Moone at once which you your selves will confesse could not be imagined to be according to the Course of nature giveth them first this Caueat You may not saith hee so defend the Deity of Christ as to defraud the Truth of his humanity then he addeth as if none could faine a presence of a Body without determination in space or place Bodies cannot be without space And againe A Bodie cannot be at one time in places distinct one from another And what els doth that saying of Ambrose imply spoken as to Christ Stephen saith he who saw thee in Heaven sought thee not upon earth Cyrill of Alexandria is a Father whose Patronage your Disputers would bee thought often to rely vpon hee is now about to deliver his Iudgement so freely and plainly as if he had meant to stop the mouthes of all our Opposites in the same Answere which he maketh against certaine Heretiques who held that God's nature is a Substance which can receive division and partition If God saith Cyrill should be divisible as a Bodie then should it be contained in place and then should it have Quantity and having Quantity it could not but be Circumscribed Will you now say which hitherto hath beene your onely Answere to other Fathers that Cyrill meant not that it was absolutely Impossible that Quantity should be without Circumscription but onely according to the Course of nature then might the Heretiques whom Cyrill confuted have made the same Answere and consequently Cyril's Consequence and confutation had beene of no force What shall wee say must still the antient Fathers be made no better than Asses in arguing that your Romish Masters forsooth may be deemed the only Doctors even then when they prepare the same Evasion for Heretiques which they devise for themselves but you must pardon us if wee beleeue that Cyrill seeing hee durst say that God himselfe if hee were a Body must be in a place as a thing having Quantitie and Circumscribed would have abhorred your now Romish Faith of beleeving Christ's Bodie consisting of Quantity albeit not Circumscribed in place CHALLENGE THese so many and manifest proofes of the ancient Fathers concluding an Impossibility of Existence of a Body without Determination in one place may be unto us a full Demonstration that they were Adversaries to your Romish Doctrine of Corporall Presence and that all your Obiections out of them are but so many forged and forced Illusions Wee conclude If Christ himselfe gave a Caveat not to beleeve such Spirits as should say of his Bodily presence in this world after his Resurrection Behold here is Christ and behold there is Christ then doubtlesse much lesse credit is to be given to your Church which teacheth and professeth an Here is Christ and a There is Christ in the same instant as wee shall further more confirme by like verdict of Antiquity when wee shall heare the Fathers proue both that Angels and all created Spirits are finite Creatures and not Gods even because they are contained in one place and also that the holy Ghost is God and no finite Creature because it is in divers places at once But we must handle our matters in order That the Romish Doctors in their Obiections have no solid proofe of the Existence of one Body in divers places at once from the Iudgement of Antiquitie SECT VII IT is a kind of Morosity and Perversnes in our Opposites to obiect those testimonies which have their Answeres as it were tongues in their mouthes ready to confute their Obiections For Chrysostome saith not more plainly that Christ at one and the same time sitting with his Father in Heaven is here handled of Communicants on earth than hee doth say of the Priest and People communicating that They doe not consist or stay on earth but are transported into Heaven And againe a little after the words obiected The Priest saith
or space wherein the Body is If therefore you will not Heretically teach a Mathematicall or Phantasticall body of Christ you must deny the Article of Trent untill you can beleeve and make good that a part of a divisible Body longer or shorter broader or narrower can be and that equally in one indivisible point This is confirmed by the Essence of Christ his glorified Bodie as you confesse it to be now in Heaven possessing a Reall place in the said proportion of Spaces of length and breadth as it had here upon earth which it doth by the naturall Magnitude or Quantity thereof But the said naturall magnitude or quantity of the said Body of Christ is according to your owne generall Doctrine in this Sacrament Therefore must it have the same Commensuration of Space Wee should be loath to trouble your wits with these speculations if that the necessity of the Cause by reason of the Absurdities of your Romish profession did not inforce us hereunto Therefore must you suffer us a little to sport at your trifling seriousnesse who writing of this divine Sacrament and seeing it to be round solid broken moulded in the one kind and liquid frozen and sowring in the other doe attribute all these to Quantities and Qualities and Accidents without any other subiect at all So then by the Romish Faith we shall be constrained to beleeve in effect that the Cup is filled with Mathematicall lines the Mouse eating the Hoast is fed with colours and formes that it is Coldnesse that freezeth and Roundnesse which weigheth downe and falleth to the ground as if you should describe a Romish Communicant to be a creature clothed with Shadowes armed with Idaea's fed with Abstracts augmented with Fancies second Intentions and Individuall Vagues and consisting wholly of Chimaera's That your Romish Doctrine is contrary to the Iudgement of Ancient Fathers SECT VI. IF this your profession had beene a Catholike Doctrine doubtlesse Saint Augustine who is so devout in his fervent Meditations upon this holy mystery would not have oppugned it as he did when unto that Question of Volusianus whether the Body of Christ before his birth did fill the Body of the blessed Virgin he answered That every body be it greater or lesse wheresoever it is must needs fill that space wherein it is so that the same Body cannot be the whole in any part thereof So hee which is directly Contradictory to your Article of Trent for here is expresse mention of Relation to place and space And whereas for usuall colour of a Possibility that the whole Body of Christ is in every part of the Hoast you have obiected the Example of Man's Soule which is said to be whole in every member and part of the Body S. Augustine as if hee had fore-seene your mystery of Errour pre-occupateth saying The nature of a Soule is farre different from the nature of a Body And againe the same holy Father seeking to finde out some Similitude whereby wholly to resemble the Existence of God in respect of place in the end saith that Quality hath a prerogative to make some Similitude hereof and hee doth instance in Wisedome which saith hee is as great in a little man as in a great man but denyeth that Quantity hath any such Priviledge for speaking of Quantity and Magnitude In all such Quantity or magnitude saith hee there is lesse in the part then there is in the whole And by this same Maxime concerning whole in respect of Place hee distinguisheth the God-head from the Man-hood by which you haue confounded them And yet againe else-where as though hee thought this your delusion could never be sufficiently contradicted or rather derided hee will further have you not to be so Childish as not to know that The little finger is lesse than the whole hand and one finger is lesse than two and that one finger is one where and the other another where Vpon which where and where being notes of distinct places we may aske where are your Disputers now Nay yet furthermore passing from grosser Bodies hee saith as much of Ayre yea and of the most subtil of subtils the light of the Sunne one part whereof saith hee commeth in at one Window another at another window yet so that the lesse passeth through the lesse and the greater through the greater Moreover if Saint Gregory once Bishop of Rome had beleeved that Christ his Body is whole in every least indivisible part of the Hoast he would never haue condemned the Eutychian Heretique for beleeving The Body of Christ to have beene brought into such a subtilty that is cannot be felt But a greater subtilty there cannot be than for a divisible Body to be enclosed in every the least indivisible point Shew vs this Doctrine taught by any Catholike Doctor in the Church within the compasse of the twelve hundred years after Christ and then shall we conceive better of your Cause And lest you may talke as you vse of one body penetrating another wee say unto you as Damascen said vnto his Reader that This is impossible but that either the one or the other must be divided asunder That the Romish Obiections against our former Tenet are feeble and vaine SECT VII IT is ordinarily in the mouthes of every one of you to obiect the Miraculous entrance of Christ into the house the dores being shut his comming out of the grave when it was covered with a stone his birth from his mother her wombe being shut besides the miraculous passing of a Camell through the Eye of a needle spoken of by Christ all Miraculous indeed as we with many holy Fathers doe willingly Confesse What therefore Therefore say you the Body of Christ did passe through the substantiall dimensions of the Body of the Doores Stone and wombe and consequently confuteth all this which hath beene spoken of the Organicall proportions of a body in respect of space or place So you Wee grant unto you as much as these Fathers speake in noting each of these to have beene the Acts and workes of Omnipotencie but yet without any penetration of Dimensions at all or yet Alteration of the iust proportion of Christs body Which penetration of Dimensions seemed to your Durand as incredible as unto us The principall Testimony which is insisted upon concerning the passing of Christ through the Doores is the saying of Chrysostome viz. Christ's Body was thinne or small changed from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is it 's Thicknes impalpable unto mortall mans hand but onely by divine permission and dispensation So hee And this is alleadged for proofe of a Possibility of his now Corporall Presence in the Sacrament voyd of Palpabilitie never considering the Ordinary and confessed Hyperbole's wherewith Chrysostome embellisheth his Sermons insomuch that we may oppose Chrysostome against Chrysostome even in the point in question who else-where speaking of this Sacrament saith that Christ herein Giveth his Body both to
be felt and seene whereas every Priests hands and eyes can testifie the Contrary For what that Christ his Body in passing through the Doore should not alwayes have beene palpable in it selfe The Fathers of the Generall Councell at Ephesus would have protested against this whose Resolution is that The Body which Christ united to his God head is palpable but you will aske then how could it passe through either Stones or Doores without penetration of Dimensions or els by an extreame tenuity of the Body it selfe Wee answere the divine power constrained the Stone and Doores to yeeld a passage the Thicknes of his Body continuing the same We have Ierome for the first part teaching The Creature saith hee yeelded to the Creatour and ancient Iustine for the second saying that The passage of Christ through the Doores was by his Divine power above nature in his vnaltred Body which Body consisteth of thick parts Hee proceedeth shewing how even as was his walking upon the Water by divine power working upon the water without any Alteration of his Body more than was of the Body of Peter who was enabled by the same power to tread the water Each of which sayings of the Fathers professing a Body of Christ palpable whether Thinne with Chrysostome or Thicke with Iustine doe confute your Tridentine Faith in beleeving a Body of Christ whole in the whole and whole in every least part of the Hoast as unpalpable to man as you have said it is invisible to the Angels themselves which is to bring it to such a Subtilty as will draw you whether you will or no into a kindred with the Eutychian Heretiques who as your Aquinas will have you know held the Body of Christ to have beene as subtill as the ayre and as the winde impalpable as did also the Eunomians and were therefore condemned by Pope Gregory surnamed the Great Some more difficulty you suppose to be in the manner of Christ his Birth whereunto when we answer that Christ in his Birth opened the wombe of his Mother although without violation of her sacred vessell wee are therefore presently branded by your Disputers with the blacke marke of the Heresie of those wicked Spirits who taught the Corruption of her Virginitie Which obiection nothing but personall malice could make or Impudency defend as the Obiecters themselves well knew one of them confessing that divers Fathers in interpreting that Scripture which is by the Evangelist applyed to the Virgin Mary and Birth of Christ viz. Every Male child that openeth the wombe shall be holy unto the Lord did teach that Christ alone did properly open the wombe of a woman who onely found it shut He reckoneth for this opinion these holy Fathers Origen Tertullian Ambrose Gregory Nyssen Epiphanius Hierome Theophylact Eusebius So hee A faire company of fellow Heretiques with Protestants wee trowe to whom the same Iesuite ioyneth divers Doctors of your Romish Church whom he calleth Docti Catholici Thus your owne spirit of Contradiction whereas two words might have quit the Heresie maintained the Miracle and defended the Integritie of that sanctified wombe of the Blessed Virgin to witt that the Virginall cell might be said to open it selfe which was shut in respect of other women who necessarily suffer violent rupture by the birth being preserued from all hurtfull violence either from within or from without which could not be without a Miracle Furthermore hearken to the answere of some other Doctors of your Church and you shall finde your owne Doctrine to smell ranke of the Heresie of the Marcionites in the opinion of the fore-cited ancient Fathers for your fore-named Iesuite telleth you of some Doctors in your Church whom hee himselfe approveth who taught that The Fathers who said that Christ did open the Matrix of his Mother speake it in the heat of Dispute against the Hereticall Marcionites who denyed that Christ had any true Body because that els the said Fathers should seeme to make Christ his Body to be no better than an Incorporeall and onely imaginary thing So they Which proveth that in the iudgement of those Ancient Fathers all your defence in this Case is at least Phantasticall Let Isiodore Pelusiota his suffrage be added to the rest who in an Epistle calmly and as it were in a coole blood teacheth that Christ is the only he who by his birth opened his Mothers wombe and left it shut sealed up againe And maketh bold to tearme them vnlearned that thinke the contrary who living above a thousand yeares agoe is therefore so much the more competent a witnes of the Catholike truth As for the entrance of the Camell which is said of Christ to passe through the eye of a needle the subtilty of your Obiection is not so needle-sharpe but that it may be easily blunted for Christ spake by way of comparison and implyed as well an Impossibility as a Possibility Thus as it is simply Impossible for a Camell be it Rope or be it Beast to passe through the eye of a Needle retaining the same dimension and property so is it Impossible for a Rich-man so long as he hath on him a great Bunch or grossnes of confidence in his riches and wordly affections to enter into the Kingdome of God Although otherwise as it is possible for God by his miraculous power so to contract the Camell that it may passe through the Needles eye so is it as possible by his omnipotent power of Grace to abate the swelling Bunch of worldly Confidence in the heart of the Rich-man that hee being truely mortified may repose his whole trust in God himselfe and at length enter into the Kingdome of Heaven CHALLENGE SHall not then the novelty of your Romish Article which was not so much as beleeved of Romish Doctors of this last Age of Christianity Shall not your Contradiction to your owne Romish Principle Shall not the expresse Testimony of S. Augustine who as he was universally acknowledged to be a Catholike Father so was he never condemned by any other Catholike Father for this his Doctrine concerning the Existence of Bodily Parts according to proportionable dimensions of Space Finally shall not the affinity which your opinion bath with damnable heresies perswade you of the falsity of this your Romish Faith CHAP. VIII Of the fift Romish Contradiction against the words of Christ MY BODY as the same Body is now considered to be most perfect by making it most Imperfect SECT I. NOne will thinke we need to impose any absurd Doctrine upon your Church the Absurdities which we have already heard professed therein under the testifications of your own Disputers having beene so marvailously and palpably absurd as hath beene shewen Among which wee may reckon this that followeth as not the least prodigious Consequence of your Romish Corporall Presence to wit That your Church of Rome alloweth a Doctrine teaching a Body of Christ now glorifyed
mans infirmity to descend raw through the Body into the Draught which in other meates is knowne sometime to be certaine you falling into this speculation tell us concerning the Egestion that it is held Probable that the Body of Christ doth not passe with the formes into the Draught in that Case So you affirming this to be but onely Probable whereas whosoever shall teach that the Body of Christ is not severed from the forme of Bread so long as it is uncorrupt which is your generall Tenet they must hold that the same Body in the like case of mans bodily infirmity doth passe by Egestion in like sort into the seege For if as you do also say the same Body of Christ hath beene once hidden in a Dunghill why may you not as wickedly beleeve that it may passe into the Draught That the Romish foresaid Indignities are contrary to holy Scriptures and iudgement of Ancient Fathers SECT III. HOly Writ teacheth us that there is as great difference betweene the humiliation of Christ when he was on earth and his now Exaltation in glory in Heauen as there is betweene Shame and Glory it being now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Body of Glory Now for you to believe and professe the personall burning devouring regorging yea and the hiding of that glorious Body of Christ in a dung hill and the like are such execrable speeches as that we stand astonished with horrour to heare them thinking that we have heard in these the scoffes reproaches and blasphemies of some Pagans against Christian Religion rather than the opinion of any that take to themselves one syllable of the name of Christians If this had beene the ancient Faith some Fathers doubtlesse upon some occasion by some one sentence or other would have revealed their Iudgement therein from whose diuerse and copious Volumes neither doe you alleage nor we reade any one word of mans spewing up or Mice eating or so much as the winde blowing away the Body of Christ much lesse of the other basenesse spoken of But contrariwise Origen and Cyrill distinguishing betweene the spirituall Bread which is the Reall Body of Christ and the Bread Sacramentall say That not that Body but this Bread goeth into the Draught Which to affirme of Christs Body were an Assertion abhominable That the Romish Answeres for defence of this their vile and beastly Opinion are but false and fond SECT IV. IT was said of Philosophers of old that nothing was so absurd but some one or other of them would take in hand to defend it the like may be said of our Romish Opposites whereof wee have given you divers Instances throughout this whole Treatise as in the most particulars so for the point now in Question And although many of your Disputers have for modesties sake passed by it yet have two among you as it were putting on Vizards on their faces come in with two fanaticall Answeres Both which are taken from the condition of Christ his humane Body whilest he was in the world Many saith your Cardinall can scarce endure to heare that Christ is included in a Boxe fallen to the earth burnt or eaten of beasts as though we doe not read that Christ was included in the wombe of the Virgin lay upon the earth and might without any miracle have beene eaten of beasts why may not such things now happen unto him but sine laesione without any hurt at all So he Ioyne with this the Determination of your Schoole That the substance of Christ his Body remaineth still although the Hoast be eaten with Dogs But Master Brerely more cunningly that he might not disguise your opinions but also make Protestants odious if it might be for their exceptions against them doth readily tell us that Pagans Iewes and Heretiques conceived Indignities against some mysteries of Christian Religion as against Christ his Incarnation and his Crucifying So he Both which Answeres are but meere tergiversations by confounding the two most different conditions of Christ That then in the state of his humiliation with This which is Now in the highest exaltation of Glory Wee therefore reioyne as followeth Your Disputers have so answered as if Christ his Incarnation in the wombe of a Virgin his Conversation upon earth and his Passion upon the Crosse were not obiects of Indignity notwithstanding the Spirit of God hath blazed them to the world to have beene the Indignities of all Indignities Thus Who being in the forme of God and thinking it no robbery to be equall with God yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made himselfe of no reputation but tooke upon him the forme of a servant such was his Incarnation and became obedient to death even spoken for aggravating the Indignity thereof The shamefull death of the Crosse Than which never any thing could make more either for the magnifying of Gods grace and mercy or for the dignifying of Christ his merit for man as it is written God so loved the world that he sent his Sonne namely to suffer that whosoever should believe in him should not perish but have life everlasting How could your Answerers but know that it was not the observation of the indignities which Christ suffered that wrought to the condemnation of Pagans Iewes and Heretikes but their faithlessenesse in taking such scandall thereat as to deprive themselves by their Infidelitie of all hope of life by Christ crucified Hearken furthermore That the state of Christ his Humanity cannot be now obnoxious to bodily Indignities and that the comparing both the Estates in your answering is unworthy the learning of very Catechumenists and Petties in Christian Religion SECT V. THis Disproportion betweene Christ his estate in the dayes of his flesh in this world and his now present Condition at the right hand of God is as extreamely disproportionable as is Mortality and Immortality Shame and Glory Misery and Blessednes Earth and Heaven that being his state of humiliation and this contrariwise of his exaltation as all Christians know and professe And although the Body of Christ now in eternall Maiesty be not obnoxious to Corporall iniuries yet may Morall and Spirituall abasements be offered unto Christ as well in the Opinion as in the Practice of men Of the opinion wee have an Example in the Capernaites concerning Christ whensoever he should give his flesh to be eaten carnally for the Practice you may set before you the Corinthians who abusing the Sacrament of the Lord did thereby contemne him and were made guilty of high Prophanation against the glorious Body of Christ And what else soundeth that Relative iniury against Christ by murthering his Saints on earth complained off by his voice from Heaven Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Your Cardinall in answere to the Obiection of Indignity offered to Christ by putting him in a Boxe and of being Eaten with Wormes and the like opposed as you have heard saying Why may not such things
Fathers have declared what could these holy Fathers have thought of your Barbarous or rather Brutish faith that teacheth such a Corporall Vnion by a bodily Touch and Eating whereby according to your owne Doctrine Rats Wormes and Dogges and whatsoever vile beast may be as reall partakers of the bodie of Christ as Peter or Iohn or whosoever the essentiall member of Christ Wherefore you must suffer us to reason aswell against your Corporall Coniunction by bodily Touch as Many of your Divines have done against bodily Vnion by coniunction and commixture but why even Because the Sacrament was not ordained for a bodily but for a spirituall Coniunction So they So that wee need say no more but fore-seeing what you will obiect we adde the Propositions following CHAP. III. That wicked Communicants albeit they eate not bodily Christ's Bodie yet are they Guilty of the Lords Bodie for not receiving it spiritually namely thorow their Contempt for not receiving the Blessing offered thereby SECT I. THe Apostle 1. Cor. 11. 27. Whosoever saith hee Eateth this Bread and Drinketh this Cup unworthily he shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord And Vers 29. eateth and drinketh Damnation to himselfe not discerning the Lord's Bodie Your Rhemish Professors men not the least zealous for your Romish Cause obiecting this against the Protestants call upon you saying first Hereupon marke well that ill men receive the Body and Blood of Christ be they Infidels or ill livers for else they could not be guilty of that which they receive not Secondly That it could not be so hainous an offence for any to receive a piece of bread or a cup of wine though they were a true Sacrament for it is a deadly sinne for any to receive any Sacrament with will and intention to continue in sinne or without repentance of former sinnes but yet by the unworthy receiving of no other Sacrament is man made guilty of Christ's Bodie and Blood but here where the unworthy Receiver as Saint Chrysostome saith doth villany to Christ's owne person as the Iewes and Gentiles did that crucified him Which invincibly proveth against the Heretikes that Christ is herein really present And guilty is he for not discerning the Lord's Body that is because hee putteth no difference betweene this high meate and others So your Rhemists Your Cardinall also as though he had found herein something for his purpose fastneth upon the sentence of Cyprian who accounted them that after their deniall of Christ presented themselves to this Communion without repentance to offer more iniurie to Christ by their polluted handes and mouthes than they did in denying Christ and besides he recordeth Examples of God's miraculous vengeance upon those who violated the body of Christ in this Sacrament So hee All these points are reducible unto three heads One is that ill men might not be held guiltie of the Body of Christ except they did receive it as being materially present in this Sacrament Next is the Guilt of prophaning this Sacrament which being more hainous than the abuse of any other Sacrament therefore the iniury is to be iudged more personall The last that the Examples of God's vindicative Iudgements for Contempt hereof have beene more extraordinary which may seeme to be a Confirmation of both the former Before we handle these points in order take our next Position for a Directory to that which shall be answered in the VI. Section That some Fathers understood the Apostles words 1. Cor. 10. spiritually namely as signifying the Eating of Christ's Flesh and drinking his Blood both in the Old Testament and in the Newe SECT II. VPon those words of the Apostle 1. Cor. 10. v. 4. They ate of the same spirituall meate c. The Iewes received the same spirituall meate saith S. Augustine Yea saith your Cardinall the Iewes received the same among themselves but not the same with us Christians So hee Albeit the words of Augustine are plainly thus The same which we eat so plainly that divers of your own side doe so directly and truely acknowledge it that your Iesuite Maldonate not able to gain-say this Trueth pleaseth himselfe notwithstanding in fancying that If August were alive in this Age he would think otherwise especially perceiving Hereticall Calvinists and Calvin himselfe to be of his opinion So hee Was it not great pitty that Augustine was not brought up in the Schoole of the Iesuites surely they would have taught him the Article of Transubstantiation of the Corporall presence of Christ in the Sacrament and Corporall Vnion against all which there could not be a greater Adversarie than was Augustine whom Maldonate here noteth to have beene the Greatest Enemie to all Heretickes whom Bertram followed in the same Exposition and by your leave so did your Aquinas also The same saith he which wee eate Thus much by the way Wee goe on to our Answeres That the wicked Receivers are called Guiltie of Christ's Bodie not for Eating of his Body unworthily but for unworthily Eating the Sacrament thereof SECT III. THe Distinction used by St. Augustine hath bene alwayes as generally acknowledged as knowne wherein hee will have us to discerne in the Eucharist the Sacrament from the thing represented and exhibited thereby Of the Sacrament hee saith that It is received of some to life and of some to destruction but the thing it selfe saith hee is received of None but to Salvation So hee No Protestant could speake more directly or conclusively for proofe First That in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the Body of Christ is as well tendred to the wicked as to the Godly Secondly that the wicked for want of a living Faith have no hand to receiue it Thirdly that their not preparing themselves to a due receiving of it is a Contempt of Christ his Body and Blood Fourthly and Consequently that it worketh the iudgement of Guiltines upon them All which both the Evidence of Scripture and consent of Antiquity doe notably confirme For the Text obiected doth clearely confute your Romish Consequence because S. Paul's words are not Hee that eateth the Body of Christ and drinketh his Blood unworthily is guilty of his Body and Blood but Hee that eateth the Bread and drinketh the Cupp of the Lord unworthily c. which we have proved throughout the 2. Booke to signifie Bread and Wine the signes and Sacraments of his Body and Blood after Consecration And to come to Antiquity All the Fathers above cited Ch. 1. § 6. who denyed that the wicked Communicants are partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ albeit knowing as well as you that all such unworthy Receivers are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ have thereby sufficiently confuted your Consequence which was that because the wicked are Guilty of Christ's bodie Ergò his Body is Corporally present in them But we pursue you yet further That a Guiltines of Contempt of Christ's Body and
Manichâ—es had of their Corporall bread As for example that Christ should be Fastened or tied to mens guts by eating and let loose againe by their belching Which Hereticall Doctrine how shall it not accord with your Romish which hath affirmed a passage and Entrance of Christs body into and Cleaving unto mens Guts by eating and a Repasse againe by Vomitting albeit the matter so fast and loose in the iudgement of St. Augustine be Bread still after Consecration The Second Calumniation against the true Professours was by others who testified that Catholikes in the Eucharist adored Ceres and Bacchus after the manner of the Paganes What answere doe you thinke would a Romish Professor have made in this Case doubtles according to your doctrine of Corporall presence by saying thus Whereas some affirme that we adore Bread and Wine in this Sacrament yet the truth is wee adore that whereinto Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated to wit the Bodie and blood of Christ the sonne of God But S. Augustine as one fancying nothing lesse Wee saith he are farre from the Gods of the Pagans for we embrace the Sacrament of Bread and wine This is all and all this he spake after Consecration Whereupon we are occasioned to admonish our Christian Reader to take heed of the fraudulent practice of the Romish Sect because of their abusing of the Writings of ancient Fathers Whereof take unto you this present example The Paris Edition An. 1555. hath the Sentence of S. Augustine thus Noster Panis Mysticus fit nobis non nascitur But the last Paris Edition Ann. 1614. hath foisted in and inserted Corpus Christi albeit the sence be full without this Addition to signifie that Common Bread is by Consecration made Mysticall or Sacramentall according to S. Augustine his owne exposition saying that Wee embrace the Sacrament of Bread and Cup and also the Phrase of Panis fit corpus Christi Bread is made Christs Bodie be repugnant to a common Principle of all Christianity which never beleeved a Body of Christ made of Bread So that the foresaid Addition is not a correcting but a Corrupting of the Text. CHALLENGE HOw might it concerne you upon these premises if there be in you any spirit of Christianity to suffer S. Augustine to be your Moderator in this whole Cause who upon the speech of Christ Except you eate my flesh giveth this generall Rule That whensoever we fiâ—d in Scripture any speech of commanding some â—eynous Act or forbidding some laudable thing there to hold the speech to be figurative even as this is of eating the flesh of Christ So hee And what this figurative speech signifieth this holy Father declareth in the next words It Commandeth saith hee that wee doe Communicate of the passion of Christ and sweetly and profitably keepe in memory that his flesh was crucified for us Thus you see hee excludeth the Corporall Sensuall and Carnall Eating that hee might establish the spirituall of mind and Memory If St. Augustine by this his counsell might have prevailed with your Disputers and Doctors they never had fallen upon so many Rocks and Paradoxes nor sunke into such puddles of so nastie and beastly Absurdites as have beene now discovered which by your Doctrine of Corporall Presence you are plunged into CHAP. VII The Third Corporall manner of Vnion of Christ his Body by a Bodily mixture with the Bodies of the Communicants professed by some Romanists at this day is Capernaiticall SECT I. WEe heare your Iesuite reporting that Many latter Divines in your Church have beene authorized in these daies to write labouring to bring the Romane Faith to so high a pitch as to perswade a Reall naturall corporall and substantiall Vnion of the Body of Christ with the Bodies of the Communicants even almost all of late saith he who have written against Heretiques So hee Among others we find your Cardinall Alan who will have it Really mingled with our flesh as other meates Transubstantiation onely excepted as did also Cardinall Mendoza And what else can that sound which we have heard out of your Roman Missal praying that The Bodie of Christ eaten may cleave unto your gutts iust Manichean-wise as you have heard even now out of St. Augustine CHALLENGE Confuting and dispelling this foggie myst of Errour by your owne more common confessions THis first opinion of mingling the Body of Christ corporally with man's Bodily parts what thinke you of it your Iesuite calleth it Improbable and as repugnant to the dignity and maiesty of this Sacrament Rash and absurd Iustly because if this Doctrine were true you must likewise grant that the same Bodie of Christ which you say is eaten of myce and Rats is mingled within their guts and entrails and so such vile Creatures should be as really capable of Communion with Christ's Body as the most sanctified among Christians can be for which the Beasts themselues if they could speake would as the Asse unto Balâ—am condemne the foolishnes of your Prophets namely those of whom you have heard your Iesuite confessing that this is the Doctrine of Almost all late Diuines which is to adde one Capernaiticall Absurdity to another It onely remaineth to know with what Spirits these your New Divines have thus written your Suarez telleth vs saying That they speake so in hatred of Heretiques meaning Protestants against whom they writ Who would not now magnifie the Profession of Protestants to observe their Adversaries to be so farre transported with the Spirit of malignity and giddines against them that by the iust Iudgement of God they are become so starke blind in themselves as that they fall into opinions not onely as is confessed Rash and Absurd but also Capernaitically-Hereticall And indeed they who imagined a Corporall Eating how should they not aswell have conceived a Corporall fleshly Commixtion CHAP. VIII Of the Romish Obiections out of the Fathers for proofe of Corporall Presence and Corporall vnion with the Bodies of the Communicants SECT I. IT cannot be denyed but that many antient Fathers are frequent in these kind of Phrases Our Bodies are nourished and augmented by the flesh of Christ and his Body is mingled with our flesh as melted waxe with waxe yea we have a corporall and naturall vnion with him These kind of sayings of the Holy Fathers have beene obiected not onely by your new Divines for proofe of a Corporall Coniunction of Christ with the Bodies of the Communicants but also by your Cardinall and all other like Romish Professors for defence of a Corporall Presence of the Body of Christ in this Sacrament but with what coloured Consciences white or blacke they have beene so obiected commeth now to be scanned by iust Processe That the obiected Sentences of Fathers doe not intend a Corporall Coniunction so properly called even by the Confession of Romish Divines of best esteeme SECT II. ALl your Obiectors produce the Testimonies of Fathers for proofe
Traâ—sient and Passable but permanent and durable which hee proveth both from their expresse words and also by the ground of their Speech which is the Doctrine of Saint Paul 1. Cor. 10. For we being many are one Bread in as much as we are partakers of one bread which are spoken of a permanent Vnion of Christians as they are members of Christ As for the second note of Vnion professed by holy Fathers we have already learned from this their generall Doctrine that the Godly onely are truly Partakers of the flesh of Christ And that our Vnion with Christ by virtue of this Sacrament is proper to the Godly and Faithfull is now further confirmed by the Testimonies obiected Some expressing the Vnion to be such whereby Christ abideth in us and we in him as you have heard and some that whosoever hath it hath spirituall life by it whereas They who eate the Bread of iniquity doe not eate the flesh of Iesus nor drinke his Blood saith Hierome whereas your Popish Vnion is common to both For indeed what is it for Christ his Body to be receiued of the wicked but as it were to have him buried in a grave againe And to feed the ungodly with such precious food is like as if a man should put meate into the mouth of a dead Carkasse The former Assertion being so generally the Doctrine of primitive Fathers it is in it selfe a full and absolute Confutation of the Romish Defence throughout the whole Controversie touching the Corporall Vnion with the Body of Christ as properly so taken Have not then your Disputers in urging the iudgement of holy Fathers spun a faire thred trow yee whereby they have thus evidently strangled their whole Cause A Determination of this point in question I. That the former obiected Sentences of Fathers concerning Corporall Vnion are Sacramentally and Spiritually to be understood as proper to the Godly and Faithfull Receiver SECT V. HOwsoever the sound of their words have seemed unto some of you to teach a proper Corporall Vnion with the Bodies of the Communicants yet the Reasons wherewith the said Sentences are invested doe plainly declare they meant thereby a Spirituall Vnion onely first and principally because they ground their sayings upon that of Saint Iohn He that eateth my flesh abideth in me and hath life and I will raise him up at the last day He dwelleth in me and I in him which many of your owne Doctours have expounded to be taken spiritually as doth also your Bishop Iansenius out of Augustine Secondly because they make the Vnion perpetuall to the Receiver Thirdly because they hold this Vnion proper to the spirituall Communicant excluding the prophane from any reall participation of Christs flesh Fourthly because they taught the same Vnion whereof they speake to be made without this Sacrament even by Baptisme and that Really as your Iesuite Tolet hath said Fiftly because they have compared this Vnion to the continued-Vnion betweene Man and Wife Good and solid Reasons we thinke to perswade any reasonable man that they meant no proper Corporall Vnion Whereby peradventure your Iesuite Tolet was induced to grant that Hilarie and Cyril by the Corporall Vnion of Christ's Bodie with ours meant the Vnion by Faith and Charitie As also whereas Damascene saith That by this Communion wee are made ioynt-bodies with Christ And lastly Cyril of Ierusalem calleth the Communicants by reason of their participation of the Bodie and Blood of Christ Christophers that is being interpreted Carriers of Christ and that hereby we are made partakers of that divine nature a Sentence much urged by your Disputers notwithstanding your Suarez seeth nothing in it but a Spirituall Vâ—ion by Grace and Affection Which two Testimonies we may adde to the former Fathers for proofe that onely the Godly have Vnion with Christ II. That the obiected Ancient Fathers without Contradiction to themselves have both affirmed and denied a Corporall and perpetuall Vnion of Christ's Bodie with the Bodies of the Communicants SECT VI. THree acceptions there may be of the word Corporall Vnion the first Literall and proper which this whole Booke proveth out of the Fathers to be Capernaiticall by Corporall Touching Corporall Tearing with Teeth Corporall Swallowing and Devouring and Corporall mixture with our flesh a sence seeming pernicious to Origen and to Augustine odious and flagitious as hath beene proved The second is a Corporall Coniunction Sacramentall that as they called Bread broken the Bodie of Christ by reason of the Sacramentall Analogie with his Bodie Crucified as hath beene plentifully demonstrated so have they called the Sacrament all Vnion with our Bodies the Corporall Vnion of his Body with ours namely that as the Bread is eaten swallowed disgested by vs and incorporated into our Bodies to the preservation of this life so by the virtue of Christ's humanity dying and rising againe for us our Bodies shall be restored to life in that day In which respect Bread the Sacrament of Christ's Body being so changed into the Substance of our flesh is in us a perpetuall pledge of our Resurrection to glory The last is a Spirituall Vnion that as the Body of Christ is immediately foode of the Soule onely so is the Vnion thereof immediately wrought in the Soule and because in Christian Philosophy the Body followeth the Condition of the Soule according to the tenour of Iudgement used in the last day when as the vngodly Soule shall take unto it selfe it 's owne sinfull Body and carrie it into Hell and the regenerate Soule shall returne to it 's owne Bodie and being united thereunto be ioyntly raised to immortalitie and blisse and all this by our Spirituall and Sacramentall for they are not divided in the Godly Communicating of the Bodie and Blood of Christ This ought not to seeme unto you any novell Doctrine having heard it professed by your Iesuite in your publique Schooles saying The glory of the Bodie depends on the glorie of the soule and the Happinesse of the soule depends on Grace therein neither doth this Sacrament saith he any otherwise conferre immortalitie to the Bodie than by nourishing and preserving grace in the soule So hee In which respect wee concurre with the iudgement of ancient Fathers who call this Sacrament the Symbol and Token of the Resurrection the Medicine of Immortality by which our verie bodies have hope of Immortality So they Yea and which is a further Evidence as your obiected Optatus called the Eucharist The pledge of Salvation and hope of the Resurrection so doth Basil speake of Baptisme tearming it our Strength unto Resurrection being a Sacrament both of his death and Resurrection and the Earnest thereof Nor can wee desire a more pregnant confutation of your Corporall Presence than that the Eucharist is called of the Fathers a Pledge as you have obiected To this purpose wee are to consult with Primasius hee telleth vs that Christ
as their Eucharist and therefore could not reflect upon any Christian and Sacramentall communicating of Christ his flesh in the Eucharist wherein the Bodie represented according to our Christian profession is not of a Child but of a man of more than thirty yeares of age I say it could no more reflâ—ct on them than that other heathenish Lie that Christians did worship an Asse or Asses head for their God So childishly hath your Priest vaunted in calling his Obiection An evident Argument which will afterwards be encountred with an Argument against your Romish Sacrifice from the Answere of Cyril of Alexandria unto the Emperour Iulian the Apostate in defence of Christian Religion farre more Evident than yours was from the Apologie of Iustine to the other Infidell Emperour A SECOND CHALLENGE Against the Insufficiencie of the Reasons collected out of Iustine SECT III. THe Consequences deduced out of Iustine Martyr have beene answered in effect alreadie First Hee calleth the Eucharist Not common Bread and so doth every Christian speake of every sacred and consecrated thing you Papists will be offended to heare even your Holy Water no Sacrament to be called Common-water Secondly Iustine said As Christ was made flesh by incarnation so is the Eucharist by Prayer It were an Iniurie to Iustine for any man to thinke him so absurd as dealing with an Infidell to prove unto him one obscure mysterie of Christianitie by another And the calling of the Eucharist Flesh Sacramentally as being a Signe of Flesh could be no matter of Scandall to the Pagans who themselves in their Sacramentalls usually called the Signe by the name of the Thing signified one instance whereof you have heard out of Homer calling the Lambe sacrificed whereby they swore for Ratification of their Covenants their faithfull oathes Againe the generall Profession of Christians so well knowne to beleeve that Christ once crucifiedâ— ac cording to the Christian Creed set at the right hand of God in highest Maiestie might quite free them from all heathenish suspition of Corporall Eating the flesh of Christ Thirdly that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The meate blessed by giving of Thankes Iustine calleth Christ's flesh namely Improperly which who shall affirme properly without a Figure by the Censure of your owne Iesuites must bee iudged Absurde THE THIRD CHALLENGE Against the Vnluckinesse of the Obiectors by their urging that which maketh against them SECT IV. FOr first they have told us of the Martyr Attalius that hee upbraided his heathenish persecutors who put him to death calling them Devourers of mens flesh and avouching in behalfe of all true Christians that they Devoure not man's flesh which no Romish Professor at this day can affirme this Profession that you swallow and transmit that flesh of Christ into the stomacke this having beene confessed by your owne Iesuite to be a Devouring So that the Doctrine of that primitive Age as you now see was as different from your Romish Noveltie as are Corporall and not Corporall Eating of the same Bodie of Christ Finally All our premised Sections throughout this Fift Booke doe clearely make up this Conclusion that the Bodie of Christ which Protestants doe feed upon as their soules food is the Bodie of Christ once Crucified and now sitting in glorious maiestie in Heaven and that Bodie of Christ beleeved by you is of Corporall Eating in deed and in truth of Bread as hath beene proued and will be further discovered in a generall Synopsis Wherefore let every Christian studie with syncere conscience To eate the flesh of Christ with a spirituall appetite as his Soules food thereby to have a Spirituall Vnion with him proper to the Faithfull not subiect to Vomitings or Corruption and not common to wicked men and vile beasts but alwayes working to the salvation of the true Receiver so shall he abhorre all your Capernatticall fancies Thus much of the Romish Consequence concerning Vnion the next toucheth the Sacrificing of the Body of Christ whereunto we proceed not doubting but that we shall find your Disputers the same men as hitherto wee have done peremptorie in their Assertions Vnconscionable in wresting of the Fathers and vaine fantasticall and absurd in their Inferences and Conclusions THE SIXTH BOOKE Entreating of the fourth Romish Consequence which concerneth the pretended proper Propitiatorie Sacrifice in the Romish Masse arising from the depraved Sence of the former words of Christ THIS IS MY BODY and confuted by the true Sense of the words following IN REMEMBRANCE OF MEE The State of the Controversie WHosoever shall deny it say your Fathers of Trent to be a true and proper Sacrifice or that it is Propitiatorie Let him be Anathema or Accursed Which one Canon hath begot two Controversies as you know One Whether the Sacrifice in the Masse be a proper Sacrifice 2. Whether it be truly Propitiatorie Your Trent-Synode hath affirmed both Protestants deny both so that Proper and Improper are the distinct Borders of both Controversies And now whether the Affirmers or Denyers that is the Cursers or the parties so Cursed deserve rather the Curse of God we are forthwith to examine We begin with the Sacrifice as it is called Proper This Examination hath foure Trials 1. By the Scripture 2. By the Iudgement of Antient Fathers 3. By Romish Principles and 4. By Comparison betweene this your Masse and the Protestants Sacrifice in the Celebration of the holy Eucharist CHAP. I. Our Examination by Scripture SCriptures alleaged by your Disputers for proofe of a Proper Sacrifice are partly out of the new Testament and partly out of the old In the new some Objections are collected out of the Gospell of Christ and some out of other places Wee beginning at the Gospell assuredly affirme that if there were in it any note of a Proper Sacrifice it must necessarily appeare either from some speciall word or else from some Sacrificing Act of Christ at the first Institution First of Christs words That there is no one word in Christ his first Institution which can probably inferre a Proper Sacrifice not the first and principall words of Luc. 22. HOC FACITF DOE THIS SECT I. WHen we call upon you for a Proofe by the words of Christ wee exact not the verie word Offering or Sacrifice in the same Syllables but shall bee content with any Phrase of equivalencie amounting to the sense or meaning of a Sacrifice In the first place you object those words of Christ Hoc facite Doe this from which your Councell of Trent hath collected the Sacrificing of the Body of Christ which your Cardinall avoucheth with his Certum est as a Truth without all exception as if Doe this in the literall sense were all one with Doe you Sacrifice But why because forsooth the same word in the Hebrew Originall and in the Greeke Translation is so used Levit. 15. for Doe or Make spoken of the Turtle-dove prepared for an Holocaust or Sacrifice and 1
Fathers have so often called it a Sacrifice of Commemoration Representation and Remembrance and that the thing to be represented is his Body crucified and his Blood shed in that Sacrifice of his Passion is a point as questionlesse which accordeth both to the words of Christ his Institution Doe this in remembrance of me and to the Exposition of Saint Paul to be a shewing foâ—th of the Lords death untill he come yea and is also consonant to the last mentioned Doctrine of the Fathers calling it A Sacrifice of Christ or rather a Remembrance thereof The only Question will be how This which you call The same Sacrifice meaning the Body of Christ subjectively in the Eucharist being invisible can be said to represent figure and resemble the same Body as it was the Sacrifice on the Crosse We yeelding unto you a possibility that one thing in some respects may be a Representation of it selfe Your Tridentine Fathers to this purpose say that Christ left this visible Sacrifice to his Church whereby his Body sacrified upon the Crosse should be represented So they From whom it may seeme your Rhemists learned that lesson which they taught Others that Christ's Body once visibly sacrificed upon the Crosse In and By the selfe same Body is immolated and sacrificed under the shapes of Bread Wine and is most perfectly thereby resembled and therefore iâ— most properly Commemorative being called the same Sacrifice by the Ancient Fathers And againe This nearely and lively resembleth that So they But this we utterly deny because although a thing may in some sort be represented by it selfe yet say we there is no Representative quality of any Body and Blood of Christ as it is said by you to be in the Eucharist of his Body and Blood Sacrificed upon the Crosse And upon the Truth or Vntruth of this our Assertion dependeth the gaining or losing of the whole Cause concerning the Question of Sacrifice now controverted betweene us Two of yout Iesuits have undertaken to manifest your Representation by a more fit example than doe your Rhemists thus Even as a King say They having got a Victory should represent himselfe after his warre in a Stage-play in sight c. So they even in earnest which hath beene as earnestly yet easily confuted by us already although indeed the Play deserveth but laughter and that so much the rather because the Representative part as your Councell of Trent hath defined is in your Masse a visible Sacrifice whereby the Bloody Sacrifice of Christ on the Crosse might be represented as you have heard CHALLENGE YOu except you will be Players and not Disputers must tell us where ever it was seene or heard of a King as Conquerour or yet of any other of what condition soever acting himselfe and that visibly perfectly and truly as you have said yea or else any way semblably representing himselfe when as yet the same King or party was to all the Spectators altogether Invisible If you can then shew where this was acted whether it were not in Vtopia and who was the Actor if not 〈◊〉 and of what disposition the Spectators were whether not like the man of Argos who is said daily to have frequented the Theater and Stage alone void of all Actors yet seeming to himselfe to see all Varieties of Actions occasioning him to laugh and applaud at that which he saw represented to himselfe onely in his owne phantasticall braine Now have you nothing else to answer but which you have already said that The Body and Blood in the Eucharist are visible by the visible shapes of Bread and Wine Whereas it had beene much better you had answered indeed nothing at all rather than not only to contradict that which was said by your Fathers of Trent decreeing the Representation to be made By the Sacrifice on the Altar it selfe and more expresly by your Rhemists In and by the same Body in the Eucharist but also to expose your selves to the reproofe of your Adversaries and Scorne of any man of Common sence as if you would perswade him his money is Visible to any that will use his eyes which he hath therefore locked up close in his Coffer least any man might see it But this we have discussed sufficiently in the 2. Booke and 2. Chapter § 6. The sixth Demonstration of the no Proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist because divers Epithets objected as given by Fathers to this Sacrifice are used also by them where there is no Proper Sacrifice SECT VIII IT is objected by your Cardinall that Ancient Fathers gave certaine Epithets and Attributes to the Eucharist 1. Some calling it a Full and pure 2. some terrible Service 3. some termed it in the plurall number Sacrifices and Victimes and 4. some Anunbloody Sacrifice So hee concluding from each of these that they meant thereby a Proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist We encounter all these foure kinde of Instances with like Epithets given by the same Fathers to other Things in your owne judgement improperly called Sacrifices as namely to Prayers Praises giving Thankes and Hymnes instiled True Pure and Cleane and the only perfect Sacrifices by Primitive Fathers Secondly they are as zealous concerning the second point in terming holy Scriptures Terrible the Rules touching Baptisme Terrible words and Horrible Canons and the Christian duly considering the nature of Baptisme One compassed about with Horror and Astonishment Whereof more hereafter And indeed what is there whereby we have any apprehension of Gods Majesty and Divine Attributes which doth not worke a holy Dread in the hearts of the Godly And the third Instance is as idle as any of the rest because the holy Fathers named Prayers Giving of Thankes and other holy Actions Sacrifices and Hoasts in the plurall number And is not there in the Eucharist Prayers Hymnes and Thanksgivings nay but know that in as much as the Fathers have called the Eucharist in the plurall number Hoasts and Sacrifices it proveth that they were not of your Romish Beleefe of Concomitancy to thinke with you that Bread being changed into Christ's Body and Wine into his Blood make but one Sacrifice for there can be no Identity in Plurality The Answer to the fourth Epithete followeth The seventh Demonstration of no Proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist Because the principall Epithet of Vnbloody Sacrifice used by the Fathers and most urgently objected by your Doctors for proofe of a Proper Sacrifice doth evince the Contrary SECT IX IT hath beene some paines unto us to collect the objected Testimonies of Fathers for this point out of your divers Writers which you may peruse now in the Margent with more ease and presently percelve both what maketh not for you and what against you but certainly for you just nothing at all For what can it helpe your cause that the Celebration of the Eucharist is often called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is An unbloody Sacrifice a Reasonable
lying on this Altar who teach that as he is in this Sacrament hee hath no locall Site Posture or Position at all It is also true of the Angels he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they stand in dread and the sight is fearefull And he saith no lesse of the festivall day of Christ's Nativity that It is most venerable and terrible and the very Metropolis of all others Yet doth not this argue any Corporall Presence of Christ in respect of the day This answer taken from Chrysostome may satisfie for Chrysostome We grant furthermore to your Cardinall That all the Greeke Fathers call the Eucharist terrible and full of dread But what As therefore implying a Corporall presence of Christ and Divine Adoration thereupon This is your Cardinall's scope but to prove him an ill marke-man take unto you an answer from your selves who teach with the Apostle that All prophane commers to this Sacrament make themselves guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ in which respect we doe acknowledge it to be Dreadfull indeed especially to the wicked but yet making no more for a Corporall presence than the contempt of Baptisme whereby a man maketh himselfe obnoxious to God's iudgements as Augustine hath compared them can infer the same Another answer you may receive from Ancient Fathers who together with the Eucharist have called the reading of Scriptures Terrible and so were the Canons of Baptisme called Terrible even by Chrysostome himselfe As for your objected assistance of Angels at the Celebration of the Eucharist it is no such a Prerogative but that the Prayers of the faithfull and Baptisme will plead for the same honour your Durandus granting of the first that The Angels of God are present with us in our prayers and for the second Divine Nazianzene teacheth that The Angels are present at Baptisme and doe magnifie or honour it with their presence and observance notwithstanding none of you ever defended either Corporall presence of Christ in the Sacrament of Baptisme or yet any Adoration of the consecrated Element of water therein If these two may not serve take unto you this saying of Augustine spoken of persons baptized They saith he with feare are brought unto Christ their Physician that is for so he expoundeth himselfe unto the Sacrament of eternall Salvation Which one saying of so Oxthodox a Father doth instruct us how to interpret all your objected Testimonies to with that Whosoever come to the receiving of the Sacrament of Christ they ought to come with feare as if they were in the presence of Christ And thus is your unanswerable Objection answered so that this your Cable-rope being untwisted is become no better than loose tow Now to your third Objection That the most earnestly-objected Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Adoration used of the Fathers doth not necessarily inferre any Divine Worship of the Eucharist SECT III. WEE finde not your Disputers more pressing and urgent in any Argument than in objecting the word Reverence Honour and especially Adoration for proofe that Divine Honour is due to the Eucharist as to Christ himselfe whensoever they finde the use of that Phrase applyed by Antiquity unto this Sacrament Our answer is first in Generall That the words Reverence Honour and Adoration simply in themselves without the adjunct and Additament Divine cannot conclude the Divine worship proper to God To this purpose we desire you not to hearken unto us but to heare your selves speake The Pontificall Vestments Chalices and the like are to be honoured say you but how with divine Honour you will not say it nor will you hold that ancient Bede worthy of Divine Worship albeit you entitle him Venerable in a Religious respect Yea under the degree of divine worship we our selves yeeld as much to the Eucharist as Augustine did to Baptisme when he said We reverence Baptisme wheresoever it is Accordingly of the word Adoration your Cardinall and other Iesuits are bold to say that It is sometimes used also in Scriptures for an honour common to creatures as to Angels to Kings to Martyrs and to their Tombs And although your Disputers should conceale this Truth yet would the Fathers themselves informe us in what a Latitude they used the same word Adoration Among the Latine Fathers one who knew the propriety of that Language as well as any viz. Tertullian saying I adore the plenitude of Scriptures and Gregory Nazianzene among the Greeke for his excellency in divine knowledge surnamed the Divine and therefore may not be thought to apply words belonging to Divine Worship preposterously or improperly instructed the partty baptized to say thus to the Devill Fall downe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and worship me Thus much in Generall Let us proceed You to your particular Objections and We to our Answers 1. Ob. Ambrose saith that We adore in these mysteries the flesh of Christ as the foot stoole of his Deity You call this an Argument infallible nay say we but false because Ambrose doth not say that we adore the Sacrament which is the point in Question but that in our mysticall Celebration of the memory of Christ his Passion we are to adore his humanity namely as it is hypostatically united to the person of his God-head which all Christians professe as well as you yea even in Baptisme also 2. Ob. None saith Augustine doth eat the flesh of Christ before he adore it A Testimony which seemeth to you Notable but which we judge to be indeed not able at all to prove the Divine Adoration of the Sacrament even in the Iudgement of Saint Augustine who hath every-where distinguished betweene the Sacrament and Christ's Flesh as betweene Bread and Christ's Body as hath beene often demonstrated His meaning therefore is no more but this that whosoever shall communicate of this Sacrament the Symbole of Christ must first be a true Christian beleeving that Christ is not onely man but God also and adore him accordingly with Divine honour as well before and without the Sacrament as at the receiving thereof Even as Athanasius spake of Baptisme saying that The Catechumenists did first adore the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost before that they were to be baptized in their names And is there any of your Priests so unchristian as not to adore Christ before he come to the Communion A plaine Case Will you have any more The places alleaged out of Saint Augustine by you are like Bellerophons Letters to confute you for lest Saint Augustines Reader might mis-construe the meaning of Christ's words by perverting them to a Corporall and Orall eating of his Flesh Saint Augustine addeth bringing Christ speaking to the Iewes concerning the eating of his flesh You are not to eat this flesh which you see he saith not You are not to see the flesh which you shall not eat which is your Romish Iuggling But thus You are not to eat the flesh
with a prodigious disease after that neither the Art of Physicke nor teares of her Parents nor the publike Prayers of the Church could procure her any health went and cast her selfe downe at the Altar invocating Christ who is honoured on the Altar saying that she would not remove her head from the Altar untill she had received her health when Oh admirable event she was presently freed from her disease This is the Story set downe by Gregory Nazianzene Hence your Cardinall concludeth that Gorgonia invocated the Sacrament as being the very Body and Blood of Christ and calleth this An hor and stinging Argument and so indeed it may be named yet onely in respect of them whose consciences are scorched or stung with their owne guiltinesse of inforcing and injuring the story as will now appeare For first why should we thinke that she invocated the Sacrament Because saith your Cardinall she prostrated her selfe at the Altar before the Sacrament which words Before the Sacrament are of his owne coyning and no part of the Story His next reason Because she is said to have invocated him who is honoured on the Altar As though every Christian praying at the Table of the Lord to Christ may not be justly said to Invocate him who is used to be Honoured by the Priest celebrating the memory of Christ thereon Nay and were it granted that the Sacramentall Symbols had beene then on on the Altar yet would it not follow that she invocated the Sacrament as betokening a Corporall presence of Christ as your Disputers have fancied no more than if the said godly woman upon the same occasion presenting her selfe at the sacred Font wherein she had beene baptized could be thought to have invocated the water therein because shee was said to have invocated him who is honoured in the Administration of Baptisme And furthermore it is certaine that the Remainders of the Sacrament in those daies were kept in their Pastophorium a place severed from the Altar especially at this time of her being there which was in the Night as the Story speaketh O! but she was cured of her disease at the Altar And so were other miraculous Cures wrought also at the Font of Baptisme But for a Conclusion we shall willingly admit of Gregory Nazianzene to be Vmpier betweene us He in relating the Story saith of the Sacrament of the Eucharist See the Margent above that If she had at that time of her invocating held the Antitypes or Symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ in her hands they had beene mingled with her teares So he calling the consecrated Sacrament Antitypes or Signes of Christ's Body thereby signifying that the Sacrament is not the Body and Blood of Christ as hath beene proved unto you at large out of Nazianzene and other Greeke Fathers Whereas if indeed he had meant that the Body and Blood of Christ had beene there corporally present as that which was Invocated then now if ever it had concerned this holy Father to have expresly delivered his supposition thus viz. If the Body and Blood of Christ had beene then held in her hands her teares had beene mingled with them viz. Body and Blood and not as he said with the Antitypes or Signes of his Body and Blood Thus is your hot and stinging Reason become chilly cold and altogether dronish Your second Instance is in Dionysius the Areopagite who writing of the Sacrament said O most divine Sacrament reveale unto us the mystery of thy signes c. which in the eares of your Disputers ringeth a flatt Invocation of the Sacrament Contrariwise we confidently affirme that your Teachers have taken a figure Prosopopoeia for Invocation like men who take Moon-shine for Day-light as we shall manifest by Examples Confessions yea and the very Instance of Dionysius himselfe Prosopopoeia then is a figure when one calleth upon that which hath no sence as if it had sence as when in Scripture the Prophet said Heare ô Heavens and hearken ô Earth Isa 1. In like manner among the Ancient Fathers one called upon his owne Church Anastasia whence he was to depart and saying thus Oh Anastasia which hast restored our Doctrine when it was despised Others of the Element of Baptisme thus Oh water that hath washed our Saviour and deserved to be a Sacrament or thus Oh water which once purged the world or thus Oh divine Lavacre c. Nay you your selves can sing and chant it to the Crosse O Crosse our only hope c. and in expounding the same allow no more than a Prosopopoeia and figurative speech lest that otherwise your Invocation may be judged Idolatrous And whereas in another Romish Anthem it is sung of the Eucharist Oh holy Feast This saying saith another Iesuite agreeth to every Sacrament Thus have you heard both from Fathers and from your selves the like Tenor of Invocation Oh Church Oh Water Oh Crosse Oh Feast nothing differing from Dionysius his Oh Divine Sacrament yet each one without any proper Invocation at all And that you may further understand that this Dionysius his OH is as in voyce so in sence the same which we judge it to be what better Interpreter can you require of this Greek Author Dionysius than was his Greeke Scholiast Pachumeres who hath given his Iudgement of this very speech directly saying that It was spoken as of a thing having life and that fitly as did Nazienzene saith he when he said of the Feast of Easter O great and holy Feast c. And how should this be otherwise seeing Dionysius at the writing hereof was not in any Church or place where the Eucharist was celebrated but privately contemplating in his minde upon this holy Mystery The due consideration of these your former so frivolous and so false Objections provoketh us to cry out saying Oh Sophistry Sophistry when wilt thou cease to delude the soules of men In which manner of speech notwithstanding we doe not Invocate but rather detest and abominate your Romish Sophistry And lest any of you should stumble upon the Attribute which Dionysius giveth to the Eucharist in calling it a Divine Sacrament as if it should imply a Corporall Presence therein read but one Chapter of the same Author and he will teach you to say as much of many other things wherein you will not beleeve any Corporall Existence of Christ we are sure for there he equally nameth the place of Celebration Divine Altar the Sacramentall Signes Divine Symbols the Minister Divine Priest the Communicants Divine People yea and which may muzzell every Opponent the matter of this Sacrament Divine Bread In the third place is objected this saying of Basil When the Bread is shewne what holy Father hath left in writing the words of Invocation Thus that Father whence your Father Bellarmine thus Hence know we the Custome of the ancient Church namely that the Eucharist is shewne to the people after
Consecration And that Then as we see now done among us it was Invocated upon even plainly after Consecration saith your Durantus also and indeed almost who not But doe you first if you please admire the wit of your Cardinall in so framing his Consequence and after abhor his will to decive you when you have done for he applyeth the words spoken by Basil of an Invocation before Consecration when as yet by your owne Doctrine Christ is not present as spoken of an Invocation of the Eucharist after Consecration for proofe of a Corporall Presence of Christ therein and the Divine Adoration thereof as will most evidently appeare For first it is not unknowne to you that the Greeke Church differeth from your Roman in the forme of Consecration at this day they consecrating in words of prayer and Invocation and you in the repetition of Christs words This is my Body wherein there is no Invocation at all And Basil was of the Greeke Church Secondly your Archbishop of Cesarea for proofe that Invocation by prayers was a forme of Consecration used primitively in the Greeke Church citeth the two most ancient Fathers Tertullian and Irenaeus and of the Greeke he alleageth Iustine Cyril Damascen Theophilus Alex. yea and by your leave Basil himselfe too and that Basil was an Orthodox Greeke Father you will not deny Thirdly therefore to come home unto you we shall be directed by the objected words of Basil himselfe appealing herein to your owne consciences For your Lindanus was in the estimation of your Church the strongest Champion in his time for your Roman Cause he to prove that the forme of Consecration of the Eucharist standeth not in any prescribed words in the Gospell but in words of Invocation by prayer as hath beene confirmed by a Torrent of Ancient Fathers saith That the same is illustrated by these words of Basil saying What Father hath left unto us in writing the words of Invocation when the Bread is shewne unto us adding That no man of sound Braines can require any more for the clearing of the point concerning the forme of Consecration So then Invocation was an Invocation by Prayer unto God for the Consecration of the Bread set before them and not an Invocation of Adoration unto the Eucharist as already consecrated which your Cardinall unconscionably we will not say unlearnedly hath enforced Looke upon the Text againe for your better satisfaction It speaketh expresly of an Invocation when Bread is shewne but you deny that Bread is Invocated upon untill after Consecration And Basil demanding What Father before us hath left in writing the words of Invocation is in true and genuine sence as if he had expresly said what Father before us hath left in writing the words of Invocating God by Prayer of Consecration of Bread to make it a Sacrament as both the Testimonies of Fathers above confessed manifest and your objected Greeke Missals doe ratifie unto us For in the Liturgie ascribed to Saint Iames the Apostle the Consecration is by Invocating and praying thus Holy Lord who dwellest in holiest c. The Liturgie of Chrysostome invocateth by praying We beseech thee O Lord to send thy Spirit upon these Gifts prepared before us c. The Liturgie under the name of Basil consecrateth by this Invocation when the Priest lifteth up the Bread Looke downe O Lord Iesu our God from thy holy habitation and vouchsafe c. All these therefore were according to the Example of Christ Invocations that is Prayers of Consecrating the Sacrament and therefore could not be Invocations and Adorations of the same Sacrament And as for any expresse or prescribed forme or prayer to be used of All well might Basil say Who hath set it downe in writing that is It was never delivered either in Scripture or in the Bookes of any Author of former Antiquity and this is that which is testified in your owne Bookes of Augustine out of Basil saying that No writing hath delivered in what words the forme of Consecration was made Now then guesse you what was in the braines of your Disputers in objecting this Testimony of Basil contrary to the evident Sence and accordingly judge of the weaknesse of your Cause which hath no better supports than such fond false and ridiculous Objections to relye upon Such as is also that your Cardinall his objecting the words of Origen concerning the receiving of this Sacrament saying Lord I am not worthy thou shouldest come under the roofe of my mouth which hath beene confuted as unworthy the mention in this case If you would have some Examples of Adoring Christ with divine worship in the Mystery of the Eucharist by celebrating the manner of his death as Hierom may be said to have adored at Ierusalem Christ in his Crach or as every Christian doth in the Mystery of Baptisme we could store you with multitudes but of Adoring the Eucharist with a proper Invocation of Christ himselfe therein we have not as yet received from you any one CHAP. IV. That the Divine Adoration of the Sacrament is thrice Repugnant to the Iudgement of Antiquity First by their Silence SECT I. YOV are not to require of us that we produce the expresse Sentences of ancient Fathers condemning the Ascribing of Divine honour to the Sacrament seeing that this Romish Doctrine was neither in Opinion nor Practice in their times It ought to satisfie you that your owne most zealous indefatigable subtill and skilfull Miners digging and searching into all the Volumes of Antiquity which have beene extant in the Christian world for the space of six or seven hundred yeares after Christ yet have not beene able to extract from them any proofe of a Divine honour as due to this Sacrament either in expresse words or practice insomuch that you are enforced to obtrude onely such Sentences and Acts which equally extend to the honouring of the Sacrament of Baptisme and other sacred things whereunto even according to your owne Romish Profession Divine honour cannot be attributed without grosse Idolatry and never ther the lesse have your Disputers not spared to call such their Objections Cleare Arguments piercing and unsoluble We therefore make bold hereupon to knocke at the Consistory dore of the conscience of every man indued with any small glimpse of Reason and to entreat him for Christ's sake whose Cause it is to judge betweene Rome and Vs after he hath heard the case which standeth thus Divine Adoration of the Host is held to be in the Romish Profession the principall practique part of Christian Religion Next the ancient Fathers of the Church were the faithfull Registers of Catholike Truth in all necessary points of Christian Faith and Divine Worship They in their writings manifoldly instructed their Readers by Exhortations Admonitions Perswasions Precepts how they are to demeane themselves in the receiving of this Sacrament not omitting any Act whereby to set forth the true Dignity and Reverence
rejecting the Expositions of the Fathers as for Example So indeed said the Fathers but I beleeve the Contrary Item This seemeth not to me to be the Sence of this place which All whom I have read except Hilary doe thinke Item Their opinions are divers I rest upon none of them All. Item All Antients almost doe so expound this Text but this is no fit Interpretation Item Thus I expound this Scripture and albeit I have no Author of this Exposition yet I doe approve it rather than that of Augustine or of others although otherwise most probable even because it is repugnant to the Sense and Exposition of the Calvinists So hee and that usually O dura ilia With what Stomach could this man swallow that O ath Salmeron the Iesuite may stand for the third upon that Text Rom. 5. In whom all have sinned which teacheth the universall Guilt of Originall Sinne of mankinde What the Sence of the Fathers was from this Text your Canus will certifie you All they saith he who have formerly fallen upon this subject matter have confessed as it were with one mouth that the Virgin Mary was conceived in originall sinne no one contrarying this opinon So he of the Iudgement of Aâ—tiquity which notwithstanding he durst contradict but wee returne to your Iesuite who premising that this Question doth belong to Faith propoundeth Objections made out of the Fathers for proofe that the Virgin Mary hath the same Originall defect in her owne naturall Generation and shapeth Answers full of regret and reluctancy For first To this Objection The Fathers did consenâ— Hee answereth thus The Argument from Authority is infirme 2. To this The Fathers were Antient Thus The younger Divines are more quicke of understanding 3. To this The Fathers were many hee answereth Hee is but a poore man that can number his Cattell And againe confronting the Antient Fathers and preferring novell Divines he saith Wee oppose multitude to multitude 4. But The Fathers were Devout he answereth Yet all Devotion towards the Blessed Virgin resteth not in the Fathers And when one of the Devoutest of them Bernard by name is objected who had said of the point now in Question To ascribe the prerogative of the Sonne to the Blessed Virgin is not an honouring but a dishonouring her wherein the same holy Bernard appealeth to Antiquity saying Are wee either more learned or more Devout than the Fathers Your Iesuite answering to him by name casteth him off with the Rest Here we see an Oath exacting a Consent to the Vnanimous Expositions of Fathers heare notwithstanding as plaine a Dissent of your Iesuites opposition unto Vnanimous Consent of Fathers which is the ordinary guise of your Disputers in their expounding of Scriptures and yet behold you forsooth the native children and heires of the Doctrine of Antient Fathers Your Fathers of the Councell of Trent have set it downe for a Canon whereunto you are also sworne that the words of Christ his Institution concerning the giving of his Body and Blood Have a plaine and proper signification without Tropes which notwithstanding the same words of Christ have beene evinced to be Figurative not only by the Vnanimous Consent of Antiquity but also by the expresse Confessions of your owne Iesuites in the words Eate Breake Cup c. and wherein your selves have acknowledged divers Tropes Besides the whole former Treatise is but a displaying of your unconscionable wresting of the Testimonies of ancient Fathers Ponder you these Observations with your selves and then judge whether your Swearing be not Perjury it selfe IV. Overture of Perjury in the Defenders of the Romish Masse is in respect of the pretended Necessity of their Doctrine IN the last Clause of the Oath prescribed in the Bull of Pope Pius IV. you are sworne that every Article therein is the True Catholique Faith without which none can be saved among which is the Article already mentioned swearing to whatsoever was declared in the Councell of Trent by which Councell your now Romane Missall or Masse-booke is approved Now take a Taste of your Oath in every Epithet First True and hereby are you sworne that in the dayes of Pope Innocentius the third the Administration of the Eucharist to Infants was not held necessary which your owne Authors have confessed and proved to be false Secondly that the presence of them who at the administration of the Eucharist doe not communicate is Commendable and held a Doctrine Catholique that is antiently Vniversall which was generally condemned by Ancient Fathers and even in the Church of Rome it selfe abandoned by two Popes Lastly in the point of Necessity to Salvation To sweare that whosoever beleeveth not that one may be said to Communicate alone is damned that whosoever beleeveth not that the Priest in the Masse being alone cannot duly say The Lord be with you he is damned or that the Body of Christ may not be run away with Mice be blowen away with the wind he is damned and a number other like extreme foolish Crotchets set downe in your Missalls which wee willingly omit The Summe of all these is that the same your Oath made to damne others doth serve chiefly to make the Swearers themselves most damnable If peradventure any of you shall oppose saying that none of you within this Kingdome which never admitted of the Councell of Trent nor of the Bull of Pope Pius IV. are yet bound to that Oath let him know that although this may excuse him from an Actuall Perjury yet can it not free him from the Habituall which is that hee is disposed in himselfe to take it whensoever it shall be offered unto him in any Kingdome that doth imbrace and professe the same Our Last Advertisement followeth Of the Mixture of many old Heresies with the former Defence of the Romish Masse SECT V. THe more odious the Title of this Section may seeme to be the more studious ought you to shew your selves in examining the proofes thereof that so you may either confute or confesse them and accordingly re-assume or renounce your Romish Defence Heresie hath a double aspect One is when it is direct having the expresse termes of Heresie the Other is oblique and by consequence when the Defence doth inferre or imply necessarily the same Hereticall Sence even as it may be said of Treason For to say that Caesar is not King is a Treasonable speech Directly in a plaine Sence and to say that Tribute money is not due to Caesar is as Treasonable in the Consequence Thus much being premised we are now to recognize such Errrours wherein your Disputers may seeme to have accordance with old Heretiques which point we shall pursue according to the order of the Bookes BOOKE I. Wherein your Church is found altering almost the whole forme of Christ his Institution and the Custome of the Catholique Church descended from the Apostles which Presumption Pope Iulius
Fathers who taught an Indivisible Vnion of mens soules with their Bodies naturally still subiect to corruption after the resurrection who can imagine that the holy Catholique Fathers would otherwise have judged of this your generall Tenet viz. to beleeve a Body of Christ now since his Glorification which is destitute of all power of naturall motion sence appetite or understanding otherwise than of a senslesse and Antichristian Deliration and Delusion Yea and that which is your only Reason you alleage to avoid our Objection of Impossibilities in such cases to wit The Omnipotencie of God the same was the Pretence of Heretiques of old in the like Assertions which occasioned the Antient Fathers to terme the Pretence of Omnipotencie The Sanctuary of Heretiques albeit the same Heretiques as well as you intended as a Father speaketh to magnifie God thereby namely in beleeving the Body of Christ after his Ascension to be wholly Spirituall To which Heretiques the same Father readily answered as wee may to you saying When you will so magnifie Christ you doe but accuse him of falshood not that wee doe any whit detract from the Omnipotencie of Christ farre be this Spirit of Blasphemy from us but that as you have beene instructed by Antient Fathers the not attributing an Impossibility to God in such Cases of Contradiction is not a diminishing but an ample advancing of the Omnipotencie of God BOOKE V. Your Orall Eating Gutturall Swallowing and Inward Digestion as you have taught of the Body of Christ into your Entrails hath beene proved out of the Fathers to be in each respect sufficiently Capernaiticall and termed by them a Sence both Pernicious and Flagitious Besides you have a Confutation of the Hereticall Manichees for their Opinion of Fastning Christ to mens guts and loosing him againe by their belchings Consonant to your Romish Profession both of Christ's Cleaving to the guts of your Communicants and Vomiting it up againe when you have done BOOKE VI. This is spent wholly in examining the Romish Doctrine of Masse-Sacrifice and in proving it to be Sacrilegiousnesse it selfe as you have seene in a former Synopsis BOOKE VII This containeth a Discoverie of your Masse-Idolatry not onely as being equall with the Doctrine of some Heretiques but in one respect exceeding the inâ—atuation of the very Pagans besides the Generall Doctrine of the power of your Priests Intention in consecrating hath beene yoaked by your owne Iesuite with the Heresies of the Donatists When you have beheld your owne faces in these divers Synopses as it were in so many glasses we pray to God that the sight of so many and so prodigious Abominations in your Romish Masse may draw you to a just Detestation of it and bring you to that true worship of God which is to be performed in Spirit and in Truth and to the saving of every one of your soules through his Grace in Christ Iesus AMEN ALL GLORY BE ONELY TO GOD. I. INDEX OF THE PRINCIPALL MATTERS Discussed thorow-out the eight Bookes of the whole former Treatise A ACcidents merely feed not Booke 3. Chap. 3. Sect. 10. Nor inebriate c. Ibid. Not without Subject according to the ancient Fathers Ibid. See more in the words Bread Councell Cyrill Adoration of the Eucharist Romish Booke 7. Chap. 1. Sect. 1. Not from Christ's Institution Chap. 2. Nor from Antiquity Ibid. Sect. 1. Not by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sect. 3. Romish Adoration Idolatrous by their owne Principles Booke 7. Chap. 5. Sect. 1. Eucharist forbid to be carried to the sicke for Adoration Booke 1. Chap. 2. Sect. 10. Romish manner of Adoration of the Host Book 7. Chap. 7. Sect. 1. Coadoration may be Idolatrous Sect. 2. See the words Gesture Idolatry Invocation Reverence Altar unproperly used of the Fathers Book 6. Chap. 5. Sect. 13 15. Angels not possibly in two places at once Book 4. Chap. 5. Sect. 3. Apparitions of Christ's flesh and blood in the Sacrament fictitious Booke 4. Chap. 2 c. See more in the word Miracles Application of Romish Propitiatory Sacrifice not yet resolved of Booke 6. Chap. 11. Sect. 1. Otherwise the Fathers Ibid. Sect. 2. Romish Application not sufficient for all in Purgatory Sect. 3. Application of Protestants Propitiously how justifiable Ib. Ch. 2. Sect. 1 2. B. BAptisme called a Sacrifice of the Fathers Book 6. Ch. 5. Sect. 15. Want of it in the Romish Priest inferreth Idolatry Booke 7. Chap. 5. Sect. 4. Paralleled with the Eucharist in most points Booke 8. Chap. 2. Sect. 2 3. Beast prostrate before the Host Objected Ridiculously for Adoration Booke 7. Ch. 3. Sect. 3. Blood of Christ not properly shed Booke 2. Chap. 2. Sect. 4. Body of Christ not properly broken Book 2. Chap. 2. Sect. 4. That in the Eucharist not borne of the Virgin Mary Booke 4. Chap. 4 5. By Corporall Presence not one Ibid. Sect. 2. Infinite Ibid. Chap. 6. Not organicall Chap. 7. not perfect Chap. 8. nor glorious and subject to vile indignities Chap. 9. See more in Vnion Bread not duly broken in the Romish Masse Booke 1. Chap. 2. Sect. 4. Remaining after Consecration Book 3. Chap. 3. Sect. 4 5. Proved by many Arguments Ibid. unto Sect. 9. Engendring Wormes Booke 3. Ch. 3. Sect. 10. See Accidents Broken Body of Christ unproperly Booke 2. Chap. 2. Sect. 4. and Booke 6. Chap. 1. Sect. 4. The word Broken in S. Luke signifies the Present Tense Booke 6. Chap. 2. Sect. 3. C CAnonization of Saints a Case doubtfull and dangerous Book 7. Ch. 7. Sect. 3. Capernaiticall conceit of eating Christ's flesh Bodily Booke 5. Chap. 4. Sect. 1. Such was the Romish and is Sect. 3. As also in swallowing and bodily mixture Ibid. Chap. 7 8. See Vnion Christ's Priesthood See Priest-hood Church of Rome hath erred in her opinion of administring the Eucharist to Infants Book 1. Ch. 2. Sect. 11. Her Doctrine made necessary to Salvation Book 8. Chap. 2. Sect. 4. Concomitance of Blood under the forme of Bread how Booke 1. Chap. 3. Sect. 6. Consecration used of Christ by prayer Book 1. Ch. 2. Sect. 3. Now transgressed in the Romish Church Ibid. Sect. 4. Forme thereof not set downe either in Scripture or in ancient Tradition Book 7. Chap. 3. Sect. 4. Many Defects incident to make void the Act and to inferre Idolatry Book 7. Ch. 5. Sect. 2. Contradictions Romish VI. against these words of Christ My Body Booke 4. Ch. 4. Cup is to be administred to all the Communicants Book 1. Ch. 3. Sect. 1. By Christ's precept and example Sect. 2 3. By Apostolicall practice and Fathers c. Ibid. Custome of 300. yeares preferred by the Romish before a more ancient of a thousand Booke 1. Chap. 3. Sect. 5. D. DEvouring Christ's flesh such is the Romish Swallowing of Christ Booke 5. Chap. 6. Sect. 1 2. and Chap. 9. Distinction of the Sacrifice of Christ's Body as Subjectively or