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A26644
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A reply to two discourses lately printed at Oxford concerning the adoration of our blessed Savior in the Holy Eucharist
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Aldrich, Henry, 1647-1710.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing A899; ESTC R8295
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52,095
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76
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give him satisfaction In the fourth Section he falls on in earnest upon the declaration about adoration as he calls it 〈◊〉 I. §. IV. pag. 4. and from it as it now lyes draws three Observables which are either very dishonestly or else very ignorantly worded They need no other answer then a bare amendment of the expressions which if they were intended to give the sense of the Church of England should have been to this effect 1. Observable That the Clergy do profess and teach that the natural body and blood of Christ are not corporally i. e. locally present in the Eucharist 2. Observable That they have diverse reasons for this assertion one especially wherein Scripture Philosophy and common sense are agreed viz. that a true humane body cannot locally be in two places at once 3. Observable That in consequence hereof they declare that the Presence of Christs body in the Sacrament is indeed reall but spirituall and therefore the Elements are not to be ador'd because adoration ought not to be directed to the natural body of Christ but where it is locally present Had our Author had the ingenuity to express himself after this manner he had been no less kind to himself then just to the Church of England for he might have avoided divers errors he commits in the three next Chapters by avoyding the grand impertinence of having written them at all CHAP. III. A Reply to the second chapter of the first Discourse Disc I. §. VII pag. 5. THe design of the second Chapter is to prove by abundance of quotations that Learned Protestants heretofore have held that the same body of Christ which was born of the Virgin Mary crucify'd c. is present as in Heaven so here in the Holy Sacrament either to the worthy receiver or the Symbols By learned Protestants I presume he means those of the Church of England for so he should mean since he draws his Observables from a Rubric in their Liturgie Now he would have told us some news had he mentioned but one of these learned Protestants who pretending to give the sense of the Church of England does not hold that the same numerical body which was born of the Virgin Mary crucify'd c. is locally present in Heaven and virtually present in the Eucharist not to the Symbols but the Faith of the worthy receiver or if by those words as in heaven so here he means locally in both as indeed he must mean if his next Chapter be at all pertinent he would have told us no less news had he brought but one quotation that could be honestly taken in that sense But if he have any third meaning it would have been a favour to explain himself for we pretend not to any talent in divination Now supposing he designs to combat the Church of England I would gladly know to what purpose he alleges Calvin and Beza Disc I. §. VIII IX for let their doctrine be what it will to quote it to us who are not to be concluded by their authority is very trifling and impertinent When the sense of the Church of England was the question one would have expected to heare what the Church-Catechism says What the Homilies What Nowells Catechism Books allow'd and publish'd by the Churches authority and authentick witnesses of her judgment or if private Doctors were the game what Archbishop Cranmer's book of the Sacraments what Bradford Philpot and the rest of Q. Mary's Martyrs what Bishop Jewell in his Apology and the Defence of it what Bishop Vsher in his Sermon before the House of Commons But instead of these we have only the testimonies of some other eminent but private men all miserably mangled and disjoynted some of them Conciliators too whose very design obliges them to a looser kind of expression then a true and adequate standard of the Churches judgment will allow Now should any of our private writers either in heat of disputation or out of zeal to peace or desire to explain a great mystery a little deviate in their expressions we can easily forgive an error that proceeds from so allowable a cause but still the Church is not bound to justify that error But the quotations in the Pamphlet will not put us upon this Apology Not an author he quotes except only Mr. Thorndike of whom we shall say more by and by but speaks the sense of the Church and industriously drives at a point quite contrary to the Pamphlets design which discovers a great flaw either in the Authors judgment or honesty I grant the authors as he has mangled 'em looke as unlike those worthy champions of our Church as the shape that appear'd to Aenaeas did to the true and whole person of Hector But I desire the Reader neither to trust the Pamphlet nor me but his own eys to consult the quotations as they lye intire in the authors themselves and consider 'em with their several contexts For my own part having taken that pains I profess to find such dealing as I do not care to report because I cannot expect to be believ'd 'T is somewhat unaccountable that a man of sense having read the book of Bishop Taylor 's which the Pamphlet quotes should split upon the very Fallacy which that Bishop spends allmost the whole first Chapter in detecting He makes it his business there to shew that Protestants in explaining the Real Presence may lawfully use the same terms that Papists doe But they neither can nor doe use them in the Papists sense and he that will urge the Protestants with those words must take the Protestants meaning along with him This seems to be a very equitable proposal How far the Pamphlet complyes with it I dare leave to the meanest Reader when he has perus'd this short and plain account of our Churches doctrine in this point The natural body of our blessed Saviour comes under a twofold consideration in the Eucharist 1. As a body dead under which notion we are said to eat it in the Sacrament and to drink the blood as shed as appears by the words of the Institution Take and eat this is my body which is given or broken for you Drink ye all of this for this is my blood which is shed for you in which words * Acts and Monuments pag. 1611. as Mr. Bradford long agoe observ'd what God has joyn'd we are not to put asunder 2. As a glorify'd body in which condition it now sits at the right hand of God and shall there continue till the restitution of all things imparting Grace Influence and all the benefits purchased by the Sacrifice of the dead body to those that in the holy Eucharist most especially are through Faith and by the marvellous operation of the holy Ghost incorporated into Christ and so united to him that they dwell in Christ and Christ in them they are one with Christ and Christ with them they are made members of his body of his flesh and
mistaken is sufficient for avoiding the just imputation of Idolatry Whence he infers that if Catholics can produce a rational ground of their apprehending Christ present in the Eucharist tho' possibly mistaken in it they are to be excus'd from Idolatry at least by those Protestants who excuse the Lutherans and so he proceeds to shew his Rational Grounds I think it an easy undertaking to shew a vast disparity between the Papists and Lutherans in this point but not very pertinent at this time For neither of those parties is concern'd in the question as 't is now stated by our Author 'T is with him and with his Catholics we have to do with them that prescind from Transubstantiation and a Corporal Presence and not with the Lutherans or Papists who both stick to a Corporal Presence are not so ill advis'd as to quit their hold to run the hazard of this man's idle suppositions· But here 's the juggle I expected here 's the Main Point lost in a mist We that have been drill'd on through one whole Discourse and twenty and six long pages of another and all in hopes to have seen it prov'd that supposing no Corporal but precisely a Real Presence to adore the Elements is no Idolatry are now to be put of with five stale grounds for beliefe of Transubstantiation I say of Transubstantiation though he only names a Corporal presence For he calls himself the Catholic Defender and the grounds he alleges are the Popish arguments for Transubstantiation and he disclaims being a Lutheran and we know of no party besides these two that now holds a Corporal Presence CHAP. X. A Reply to the six next Grounds of the second Discourse begining at sect 24. SInce my present undertaking obliges me no farther then to answer the Defender's arguments upon the question as he has stated it I might very well pass over his grounds for beliefe of Transubstantiation which were before offer'd in the Guide and in other Authors before that Guide could go alone and may be easily trac'd from Author to Author up to Archbishop Cranmer who has reported and answer'd every one of them in his Book of the Eucharist Our Author delivers in his list of them like a bill that begins with Item Disc 2. pag. 27. sect 24. For he says his first ground for a Corporal presence after a possibility thereof granted also by sober Protestants is Divine Revelation viz. the words hoc est corpus meum so often iterated in the Gospel and again by S. Paul without any variation change or explication as also the discourse of our blessed Saviour in the sixth Chapter of S. John's Gospel Now to this second and foremost argument the * I choose to refer here to the Archbishop's book that the Reader may the better see these Arguments are stale and have been baffl'd above a hundred years since Arch-Bishop has punctually reply'd viz. to the words of the institution p. 8.23.253 and elsewhere and the answers are now so well known that they need not be repeated and whereas the Pamphlet insists upon S. Paul's repeating them without any variation or explication the Archbishop plainly shew's p. 254. * Pag. 254. S. Paul is not afraid for our better understanding of Christ's words somewhat to alter the same least we might stand stifly in Letters and Syllables and err in mistaking the sense and meaning For whereas our Saviour Christ broke the Bread and sayd This is my Body S. Paul say'th that the Bread which we break is the Communion of Christ's Body Christ said his Body and S. Paul said the Communion of his Body meaning nevertheless both one thing that they which eat the Bread Worthily do eat Spiritually Christs very Body that S. Paul both varies and explains them as will be evident to any man that consults 1 Cor. X. 16 so likewise to the Popish explication of our Saviours discourse Joh. 6. the Archbishop answers in divers places * Pag 20. The Spiritual eating of his Flesh and drinking of his Blood by Faith by digesting his Death in our minds as our only price ransome and redemtion from eternal Damnation is the cause wherefore Christ say'd that if we eat not his Flesh and drink not his Blood we have not Life in us and if we eat his Flesh and drink his Blood we have everlasting Life And if Christ had never ordain'd the Sacrament yet should we have eaten his Flesh and drunken his Blood and have had thereby everlasting Life as all the Faithful did before the Sacrament was ordain'd and dayly do when they receive not the Sacrament See more Ibid and again p. 112. These words what if you see c. Joh. VI. 62.63 our Saviour Christ spake to lift up their minds from Earth to Heaven and from Carnal to Spiritual eating that they should not Fantasy that they should with their teeth eat him present here on earth for his Flesh so eaten saith he should profit them nothing and yet so they should not eat him for he would take his Body away from them and ascend with it into Heaven and there by Faith and not with Teeth they should Spiritually eat him sitting at the right hand of his Father and therefore saith he the words which I do speake be Spirit and Life that is to say are not to be understood that we shall eat Christ with our teeth grossly and carnally but that we shall Spiritually and Ghostly with our Faith eat him being carnally absent from us in Heaven p. 18.31.37.111.217.329 in all things speaking consonant to the sense of the primitive Fathers according to whose notions the true and plain meaning of that Chapter has been so fully express'd in a late Paraphrase that no more need be sayd of that matter And whereas this Author farther says that no argument from our senses is valid against plain revelation though the case was something otherwise in the fourteenth page of the first Discourse to this likewise the Arch-Bishop answers p. 263. * Pag. 263. Let us now consider how the same Transubstantiation is against natural reason and natural operation which although they prevail not against God's word yet when they be joyn'd with God's word they be of great moment to confirm any truth not that they add any authority to God's word but that they help our infirmity p. 266. where giving divers instances out of Scripture of Faith confirm'd by sense he concludes Which sensible proofs were so far from derogation of Faith that they were a sure establishment thereof Again p. 270 concerning arguments drawn from the Schoolmen I make saith he no foundation at all upon them but my very foundation is only upon God's word and mine arguments in this place I bring in only to this end to shew how far your imagin'd Transubstantiation is not only from Gods word but also from the order of nature in the very same manner that we do to this day and have allready answer'd in