and was Invisible I hope the two first Reasons will be taken off by consent And first it is understood I think by all Mat. 17. that the Body of Christ when he was transfigur'd did exist after a Supernatural manner and was freed for the time being from the clog and earthly limitations of common humane Bodies Secondly It is plain that after his Resurrection Jesus made his Body become Invisible The Text tells us That he appear'd in several Forms After that he appear'd in another Form unto two of them Mark 16. v. 12. Which I suppose is somewhat above Nature Also the third time when Jesus shewed himself to his Disciples at the Sea of Tiberias he had changed again his Form for they knew him not John c. 21. Nor was he known the first time by Mary Magdalen but was mistaken by her for the Gardiner But in Luke 24. It is clearly exprest That Jesus appear'd to his Disciples after the manner of a Spirit for it is said in v. 36. And as they thus spake Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said unto them peace be unto you But they were terrified and affrighted and supposed that they seen a spirit Now altho' the Circumstances in this Text sufficiently denote that our Saviour came not to his Disciples progressively after the manner of humane Bodies but that eodem instante he appear'd in the midst of them which was the cause of their fear for they were told before that our Lord was risen Yet the preceding v. 31. of the same Chapter leads so manifestly to this Interpretation that there is no colour left to doubt for it is there written That after our Lord had been ignorantly entertain'd by the two Disciples at Emmaus at last Their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished out of their sight This agrees also with the account which we have from St. John c. 20. v. 19. Where it is said The same day at Evening when the Dores were shut came Jesus and stood in the midst of them The same Circumstance is also repeated in v. 26. In vain do ye therefore so often Object to us Worthy Fathers the necessity of believing our Senses in all things and upon all Occasions since you see how the Apostles themselves were deceived by them even concerning the real visible corporal Presence of Christ upon Earth As for St. Thomas and the Confirmation from the Evidence of his Senses our Saviour reproacht his want of Faith and suffer'd him to put his doubting hand into his Sacred Wounds not so much to shew him that he was meer Man as to convince them that he was God and Man God from his infinite Power in being able to make his Natural Body exist after the manner of a Spirit which they had seen before and were terrified at it And Man in that nevertheless he had the shape and Substance of that very Body in which he suffer'd Nor must we think that these Supernatural changes were done by chance or without the blessed design of the Divine Wisdome for the Disciples who hitherto had doubted concerning the great Article of the Resurrection of the Flesh were not only hereby convinced of this necessary truth but were also taught after what manner their Bodies should be raised from the dead Or as S. Paul says 1 Cor. c. 15. What Bodies they do become S. Paul gives them their Answer v. 36. Thou fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die Then telling us of the several differences between Bodies some more and some less glorified he proceeds v. 42. So also is the Resurrection of the Dead It is sown in Corruption it is raised in Incorruption It is sown in Dishonor it is raised in Glory It is sown in Weakness it is raised in Power It is sown a Natural Body it is raised a Spiritual Body And this our Saviour had before experimentally taught them by the differing and Spiritual manner of the Existence of his own Body confirming also has Divinity by that Power which he exercised upon it according to that of S. Matthew c. 28. v. 18. All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth If then our common Sinful Bodies shall have this Glory Power and Spirituality when they are raised from the Dead and probably be subject then to the Soul as the Soul is now to the Body who will dare to prescribe Laws to the holy and spotless Body of our Lord united to his Divinity However it be the vindication of the Real Presence seems to concern your selves worthy Fathers or at least many other Protestants no less than Catholics and if that be admitted methinks Transubstantiation should not be so rudely refused Entrance For give me leave to ask you from what Authority you pretend to tell us That Christ is really Present in the Sacrament except you mean as in all other pious Duties If you deny this real Presence you stand separate from the whole Christian World Lutherans as well as Catholics which is no very good Argument that you are in the right If you confess it solve these difficulties your selves for it concerns you no less than us But if again you do not confess it then tell me I say what ground you have from Scripture to name those words except as a consequence from these This is my Body and upon the Supposition that at least the Substance of the Bread is become after Consecration the very Body of our Lord You tell us again That we do verily truly and indeed receive the very Body of Christ That born of the Virgin Mary which suffer'd for us and rose from the Dead Let me enquire again what Authority you have to use those words if you do not literally intend the thing Spiritual Graces proceed not from his Humanity but from his Divinity Faith is one of these Spiritual Graces and the immediate Gift of God and signifies only this at least in this place That Christ was the Son of God that he became Man that he died for us and rose again from the dead What hath this to do with eating his Body and drinking his Blood A Commemoration only of his Death it cannot mean nor could the Apostles so understand it except you can shew me some such like Metaphor used to express the memorial of a Man after his death But if neither before our Saviours Passion nor since amongst Jews Heathens or Christians such an Expression was ever used why must we believe that Christ spake or the Apostles understood different from all the expressions of mankind since the Creation of Adam When the Master of the House in Celebrating the Paschal Supper said This is the Bread of affliction which our Fathers eat in Egypt true Bread was really deliver'd and the Memorial was proper When Moses said Behold the Blood of the Covenant which the Lord hath made with you It was very Blood which Moses sprinkled on the People Exod. 24. v. 8.
best assistance of my impertial Reason and Understanding and shall follow him according to his own Method He supposes five Grounds or Reasons for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or the Real Presence according to a literal Sense which he pretends to confute The first is from the Authority of Scripture and among other things as little to the purpose he tells us p. 7. That he doth not believe any sensible Man who had never heard of Transubstantiation being grounded upon these words This is my Body would upon reading the Institution of the Sacrament in the Gospel ever have imagined any such thing to be meant by our Saviour in those words but would have understood his meaning to have been This Bread signifies my Body c. And do this for a memorial of me Where you may observe worthy Fathers that he excludes also the Real Presence in a litteral sense as shall be shewn hereafter He goes on But sure it would never have entred into any Mans mind to have thought that our Saviour did literally hold himself in his hand and gave away himself from himself with his own hands Now altho I dare not pretend to interpret all Scripture a lawful sufficient Interpreter being the thing I look for yet since he hath put the Case I presume to say thus much That if a sensible Turk or Pagan who had never heard of the great Mysteries of Christianity should seriously read the New Testament possibly he would not have understood these words This is my Body in a literal sense neither do I think he would ever have establisht the Doctrine of the Hypostatical Union The Consubstantiality of the Son The Trinity Predestination and Free-will with many other Mysteries of Christian Religion especially if he were govern'd only by his humane Reason as our Discourser seems to be and yet all this while he might have had a great esteem of the moral part and have believed Christ a Person divinely inspired For my part I fear I should never have overcome these Difficulties upon my own strength and yet I believe the Trinity as firmly as I believe there is a God Whether the Discourser doth so or not I cannot say But supposing a Man already well grounded in the Christian Religion and having heard that the Doctrine of the Real Presence had been believed in a literal sense by the greatest part of most Learned and Pious Christians through all Ages And that the Scriptures containing this Doctrine were writ several years after the death of our Saviour in which time the Sacrament had been celebrated by them and by consequence if the Apostles had not understood this Mystery according to a literal Sense they had time and reason plainly to have expounded it otherwise and have given us warning of this difficulty as was done to the Carnal Caphernaites and not all three punctually agreed in the same Expressions without any caution of a dangerous Figure in them In such Case I say the Doctrine of the Real Presence to such a Person having laid aside all prejudices is as clear in Scripture as most of those other great Mysteries are and that for these Reasons First because I cannot imagine why our Blessed Saviour should ever have made use of these Terms This is my Body besides many other such like Expressions except he really intended a literal Interpretation for what necessary relation hath a Body and Blood to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper more than to the Sacrament of Baptism Why a Consecration in that Sacrament yet none either in Baptism or others Might not Christ with reverence be it spoken have said much more plainly and yet sufficiently to the same purpose Take this Bread and Cup of Blessing in remembrance of that Passion of mine which is now at hand and as often as ye take it worthily it shall conveigh to your Souls invisible Grace and many other Benefits Would not this have fully answered the End of Zuinglius and our Discourser's Doctrine concerning this Sacrament But why doth the God of Mercy and Truth command us to eat his Body and drink his Blood assuring us that except we eat his Flesh we have no life in us if he did not really intend we should do so But except he be really and substantially present in the Sacrament we can neither eat his Body nor drink his Blood for to take the Figure for the Substance is idle in any Command which positively orders the Substance if the Substance possibly can be had and in this Case it is impious because he that commanded the Substance is able to give it us and if he did not design to give it us we have reason to believe he would not have commanded it in such express terms Especially since there was no necessity no nor conveniency of using those words according to our Discourser's Interpretation For if by his Body he meant the Figure only of his Body what good doth that Figure do us Or how doth it satisfie the Command or why should Bread be the Figure of his Body Since Figures of this Figure that is to say the Paschal Lamb and Manna descending from Heaven were much more noble and proper Representing than the thing Represented and yet neither was Manna nor the Lamb called his Body as the Bread is in the Sacrament The Expression therefore of Justin Martyr saying This Passover is our Saviour and our Refuge p. 7. Is nothing at all to the purpose nor could the Paschal Lamb be taken really and truly for God their Saviour or their expected Messian because there was no such thing mention'd or â—â—â—â—ted in the Institution of the Passover On the contrary it was instituted in the plainest Manner and most intelligible and so free from all figurative Expressions that there are no less than 12 Verses in explaining every Circumstance of the Action They shall take to them every Man a Lamb c. Exod. c. 12. And can we believe that the Passover which was indeed a Figure of the Sacrament should be exprest and understood in an unquestionable literal Sense and that the Sacrament which was the Substance of the Figure should be instituted in such a prodigious wonderful Figure according to our Discourser's acceptation as to involve the greatest part of the Christian World not only in most pernicious Mistakes but also in the most detestable Sin of Idolatry Sure the imagination of it must be totally inconsistent with the Veracity Mercy Goodness and the main design of our blessed Saviour To institute a Figure literally and the Substance figuratively is a strange Method and not easily suppos'd in the God of Truth and Wisdom Nay more our Saviour who establisht a Law and a Church to interpret it who suffer'd the Indignities of humane Life and Death of the Cross on purpose to save Sinners He to whom the past and future was always present and who knew what would happen to his Spouse the Church after his Death had left so great a
a true and real tho' Mystical Manner the very Person of our Lord himself whole perfect and entire Next we offer the Testimony of Bishop Ridley quoted by Arch-Bishop Laud set down in Fox p. 1598. You says he the Transubstantialists and I agree in this That in the Sacrament is the very true and Natural Body and Blood of Jesus Christ even that which was born of the Virgin Mary which ascended into Heaven which sits on the right hand of God the Father c. only we differ in Modo in the way and manner of being there Dr. Taylor who hath written one of the last on this Subject is very clear and particular concerning this Real Presence Sect. 1. N. 11. p. 18. It is enquired says he whether when we say we believe Christs Body to be really in the Sacrament we mean that Body that Flesh that was born of the Virgin Mary that was Crucified Dead and Buried I answer I know none else that he had or hath there is but one Body of Christ Natural and Glorified But he that faith that Body is Glorified which was Crucified says it is the same Body but not after the same manner and so it is in the Sacrament we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ that was broken and poured forth for there is no other Body no other Blood of Christ But tho' it is the same we eat and drink yet it is in another manner And therefore when any of the Protestant Divines or any of the Fathers deny that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary that was Crucified to be eaten in the Sacrament As Bertram as St. Heirom as Clemens Alexand. expresly affirm The meaning is easie They intend that it is not eaten in a natural sense c. That Body which was Crucified is not that Body that is eaten in the Sacrament is true if the intention of the Proposition be to speak of the eating it in the same manner of being But that Body which was Crucified the same Body we do eat is also true if the intention be to speak of the same thing in several Manners of being and Operating Some also may turn all this into a meer figurative sense excluding the Corpus Domini or Real Presence of Christs Natural Body in the Sacrament and it may be they may think that this Doctor himself from some other of his expressions may have given them just reason so to do I shall then only observe these two things First that concerning this Real Presence a Catholic could not have written more justly nor more plainly than the Doctor hath done in what hath been above recited And Secondly That if after all this the Doctor should mean no more than a Spiritual efficacy or virtue excluding the Corpus Domini or Substantial Presence of Christs Natural Body tho' indeed after a Spiritual manner as we confess then doth the Doctors Opinion seem as contradictory to it self and as incomprehensible to me as the great Mystery of Transubstantiation it self or as if he had written in Characters totally unintelligible But let us now hear Bishop Forbes de Eucharist L. 2. c. 2. Sect. 9. The sober Protestants doubt not but that Christ is to be ador'd in the Sacrament for in the taking of the Eucharist Christ is to be ador'd with Divine Worship because his Living and Glorious Body is present by an unexpressible Miracle to the Worthy Receiver and this Adoration is not due or performed to the Bread or Wine or the taking or eating but to the very Body of Christ immediately exhibited to us in the taking of the Eucharist And again L. 3. c. 1. Sect. 10. The holy Fathers often tell us That the very Body of Christ is Offer'd and Sacrificed in the Eucharist as appears by almost innumerable passages but not that all the properties of a Sacrifice are properly and really observ'd but it is done by a Commemoration and Representation of that which being once offer'd in that only Sacrifice of the Cross Christ our High Priest did thereby consummate all other Sacrifices and by pious Supplications by which the Ministers of the Church for the sake of the perpetual Oblation of that one Sacrifice assisting in Heaven at the right hand of the Father and present after an unexpressible manner on the holy Table most humbly pray God the Father that he would please to grant that the Vertue and Grace of this perpetual Victim may become profitable and efficacious to his Church for helping all the necessities both of the body and Soul The Archbishop of Spalato says much the same thing in his Rep. Eccles L. 7. c. 11. Only he will not admit the Body of Christ to be corporally in the Bread or under the Bread but to be taken with the Bread Sumitur cum Pane Christi Corpus reale illi communioni realiter praesens Mr. Thorndyke in his Epilogue to the Tragedy L. 3. c. 3. Says thus That which I have already said is enough to Evidence the Mystical and Spiritual Presence of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Elements as the Sacrament of the Same before any Man can suppose that Spiritual Presence of them to his Soul which the eating and drinking Christs Flesh and Blood spiritually by living Faith importeth And ibid. c. 2. where it follows He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords Body Unless a man discern the Lords Body where it is not of necessity it must there be where it is discerned to be And l. 3. c. 5. Having maintained that the Elements are really changed from ordinary Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ mystically present as in a Sacrament and that in vertue of the Consecration not by the Faith of him that receives I am to admit and maintain whatsoever appears duly consequent to this Truth namely that the Elements so consecrated are truly the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross in as much as the Body and Blood of Christ are contained in them c. And then p. 46. he further collecteth thus And the Sacrifice of the Cross being necessarily propitiatory and impetratory both it cannot be denied that the Sacrament of the Eucharist in as much as it is the same Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross is also both propitiatory and impetratory You may consult Archbishop Laud Bishop Montague Bishop Bilson and many other Learned Protestants too long to be here recited for further satisfaction in this Matter Now worthy Fathers what would you advise me to do in this Case would you have me follow the Judgments of these Learned and Pious Men who wrote not only their private Opinions but some of them in the Name of the King and whole Church of England Or would you have me believe our Discourser and some others of our late Sacramentary Pamphleters If the first then Transubstantiation will not appear so absurd ridiculous senseless and foolish a Doctrine as he
hath styled it which I hope to prove hereafter If the second then to use the Argument and Words of our Discourser p. 30. Christanity would become a most uncertain and endless thing for if we may thus change our Faith in such high and fundamental Doctrines as these are I know not what security we have that we shall not in time change our Faith in other necessaries and at length lose it all But to pin up the Basket as we say I shall conclude with the Testimonies of Calvin and Beza men to whom the Church of England is obliged for a great part of her Reformation Calvin upon 1 Cor. 11.24 Take eat this is my Body says thus Nor doth Christ only offer to us the benefits of his Death and Resurrection but that Body it self in which he suffered and rose again And again Instit l. 4. c. 17. Being made partakers of his Substance we perceive also the vertue of it in the Communication of all good things I know no other Substance he had spiritual or corporal but that which was born of the Blessed Virgin And of the Lutherans he says If they so explain their meaning that whilst the Bread is delivered there is annext to it the exhibition of his Body because the Truth is inseparable from its Sign I should not much oppose them And to strengthen this Assertion of Calvin I shall add the Confession of Beza and others of the same Sect related by Hospinian Hist Sacram. parte altera p. 251. We confess that in the Cup of our Lord not only all the Benefits of Christ but the very substance of the Son of man I say that very Flesh and that very Blood which he poured out for us not only significatively symbolically typically or figuratively as a remembrance of one absent but truly and certainly represented exhibited and offer'd not as naked Symbols but as having from God himself promising and offering the very thing it self truly and certainly joyned to them Now the manner by which the thing it self i.e. the very Body and the very Blood of our Lord is joyned with the Symbols we say it is Symbolical or Sacramental But we call it a Sacramental manner not that it is only Figurative but that it truly and certainly represents under the Species of visible Things that which God exhibits and offers with the Symbols that is as I said before the very Body and Blood of Christ And then he tells us That he differs with others concerning the manner of the Presence only but for the very Thing and Presence it self he retains and defends it And now Reverend Fathers I must acquaint you that whilst I was transcribing this very last Paragraph I was inform'd that there was an Answer lately publisht to Two Discourses printed at Oxford which contained in them the Testimonies of these Learned Protestants before mentioned I stopt my Pen bought the Book and read it over with great care I shall not at present speak any thing more of it in particular than what relates to this very Subject but in general give me leave to tell you that me thoughts this Answerer might very well have spar'd his Apology at last p. 125. for not having insisted more largely upon some points since I have not seen Twenty two Sheets written with so much magisterial Confidence and in my judgment with so little Substance even among all the Pamphlets that have come out on both sides from the Death of the late King to this present day but I leave the further examination to the Conclusion of this Discourse First we thank him for his plainness in delivering his opinion concerning the Real Presence which is the subject Matter in Debate and by which he tells us is meant no more than invisible Power and Grace in exclusion of the Real Presence of Christs Natural Body even after a spiritual manner Whether the Church of England will thank him for it I know not I am sure I was otherwise instructed and believed otherwise whilst in your Communion But let us hear what he says to these Testimonies He endeavours to elude their most plain indubitable sense and grammatical construction even according to the common Reason and Understanding of all Mankind these several ways First he tell us that Becanus says the Calvinists deny the Body and Blood of Christ to be truly really and substantially present in the Eucharist Not I hope according to that sense which our Answerer would make Calvin and others give of those and such like expressions But sure our Answerer might have collected among his other Protestant Relics an account of a rigider sort of Calvinists who reform'd even upon Calvin himself and yet retain'd the name of Calvinists But what doth Calvin himself say as this Answerer recites out of Hospinian Why that Christ is our Food because by the incomprehensible Vertue of the holy Spirit he inspires his Life into us that he may communicate it to us no less than the Vital Juice is diffused from the Root into all the Branches of the Tree c. No less than so then sure it is as substantial a Communication of Christ's Natural Body after a spiritual manner as the Oxford Discourser in that place pretends to for if Calvin and this Answerer do not believe that the Vital Juice of a Tree is a Substance tho' whilst a Juice more spiritual and that the very Substance of the Tree is substantially nourished and increased thereby I fear they will both prove as bad Philosophers as Divines But before I proceed any further I must inform or mind our Answerer that tho' Catholics believe Christ's Natural Body to be in the Sacrament yet they deny it to be there bodily i.e. Modo Corporeo and tho' his Flesh be there yet not Fleshly nor yet doth his Natural Body leave the highest Heavens These premised because we shall have occasion to make these distinctions I come to next to Beza His words as recited by the Answerer are these We do not say that in the Eucharist there is only a Commemoration of the Death of our Lord Jesus Christ nor do we say that in it we are made partakers only of the Fruits of his Death and Passion but we joyn the Ground with the Fruits affirming with St. Paul that the Bread which by God's appointment we break is the participation of the Body of Christ crucified for us the Cup which we drink the Communion of the true Blood that was shed for us and that in the very same Substance which he received in the Womb of the Virgin and which he carried up with him into the Heavens And afterwards For this honor we allow to God that tho' the Body of Jesus Christ be now in Heaven and not elsewhere and we on Earth and not elsewhere yet are we made partakers of his Body and Blood after a spiritual manner i.e. modo spirituali and by the means of Faith P. 50. I am afraid Fathers this Answerer plays
booty with you for if this be a confutation of what was before alledged from Beza I profess I shall never quarrel with him about it nor desire any other hand than Beza's even in this very passage to express my Belief of the Real Presence of Christ's Natural Body in the Sacrament What a strange Answerer is this sure he thinks because Catholics submit their Sense and Reason in some things to Divine Revelation and the Authority of the Church therefore they have not Reason enough to judge in other Cases that three and one make four as well as two and two Next he brings in Cranmer and Ridley when he was among his Geneva Brethren I suppose and he might as well have nam'd himself and his Eminent Discourser against Transubstantiation And what if these two first were of the same opinion concerning the Real Presence with these two last It only proves that one at London contradicted himself at Geneva and the other Men ten times more learned than himself Our Answerer that he may take breath before he comes to our English Divines above-named for I perceive he finds that he is like to have a tough piece of work on 't charges the Oxford Author with disingenuity chiefly in favour of Doctor Burnets History of the Reformation Alas I am apt to believe tho' I know neither the Discourser nor this Answerer not so much as by Name but only by their Works I am apt I say to believe that this Discourser is much better acquainted with Church History than the Doctor and applies it with much more Sincerity and Truth than he hath done I confess were I worthy to advise I should counsel this Answerer to flesh himself first upon some Authors of a lower Classis for I doubt he is here over-match'd and hath got as we say a Bear by the Tooth What the Learned Historian means by the Wisdom of that time P. 58. in leaving a liberty for different speculations as to the manner of the Presence I cannot understand except that they did in that time generally believe the Real Presence as hath been before exprest but would not certainly determine the manner that is as Bishop Andrews hath said before whether it was per or in or cum or sub or trans but if there be no such Real Presence in any manner I know not what this Liberty of Speculations signifies as to the manner when the thing is not really after any manner and if not as our Answerer seems all along to affirm this then might indeed be great Wisdom or humane Policy not too rudely to choke the tender Ears of their late establisht Reformation But how it can consist with true Piety and a Church pretending to reform Errors we shall best find by this consideration If Men had liberty to believe that Christ was really present after any manner it follows necessarily that Christ was adorable there where he was so present But if the Church in its Wisdom did certainly know that Christ was not really present after any Manner then the Church in its Wisdom gave Men liberty to be Idolaters for our Answerer hath been pleas'd to deliver us his Opinion from Doctor Taylor p. 69. who there says That to give Divine worship to a Non Ens must needs be Idolatry For Idolum nihil est in mundo saith St. Paul and Christ as present by his Humane Nature in the Sacrament is a Non Ens for it is not true there is no such thing he is there by his Diviner Power and Blessing c. but for any other presence it is Idolum And that the practice of the Learneder part of the Church of England nay of the whole Church of England it self if we will believe the Articles of Henry the Eighth in the beginning of the Reformation or King James in the strength of the Reformation was accordingly Idolatrous I am most abundantly satisfied until some stronger Pen than our Answerers shall fully confute what is already extant to that purpose In the mean time leaving the Matter of Fact to the Doctors Conscience we will follow our Answerer He is come now to Bishop Jewel who tells us p. 60. That Christs Body and Blood indeed and verily is given unto us that we verily eat it that we verily drink it c. yet we say not either that the substance of Bread and Wine is done away that is Transubstantiation which is not our Dispute or that Christ's Body is let down from Heaven or made really or fleshly present in the Sacrament If by really he means fleshly I subscribe to all this as to the Real Presence He goes on That spiritually i. e. modo spirituali and with the mouth of our Faith we eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood even as verily as his Body was verily broken and his Blood verily shed upon the Cross If the Bishop was not an Eutychian then certainly his Body was verily that is substantially and truly broken upon the Cross Thus far then we punctually agree But the Bishop explains himself The Bread he tells us is an earthly thing and therefore a Figure as Baptism in Water is also a Figure 'T is confest Now lest we should think that by this Figure the Bishop intended to exclude the substance he adds immediately But the Body of Christ that thereby is represented and is there offer'd to our Faith most true is the thing i. e. the Body of Christ it self and not the Figure As much of this as the Answerer pleases we have reason to be thankful to him for it But he now comes to Answer for the venerable Mr. Hooker You have heard what hath been offer'd from the Discourser The Answerer tells us from Mr. Hooker p. 61. That the parts of the Sacrament are the Body and Blood of Christ because they are causes instrumental upon the receipt whereof the participation of his Body and Blood ensueth And that the Real Presence of Christs most blessed Body and Blood is not therefore to be sought for in the Sacrament but in the worthy Receiver of the Sacrament All this is most consistent with the Protestant Notion of the Real Presence here contended for Next Bishop Andrews comes upon the Stage and first the Answerer tells us as from himself only that this Bishop insinuates P. 62. That the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was much the same as in Baptism the very Allusion which the Holy Fathers were wont to make to express his Presence by in this holy Sacrament That the Bishop and the Holy Fathers might mean that Christ is present in the Sacrament as in Baptism Catholics do not deny for they also constantly affirm the same thing as much as either But if our Answerer pretends to perswade us that either the Bishop or Fathers or Catholics mean him only so present as to exclude the presence also of his natural Body in the Sacrament that remains to be prov'd which hath not been done
to a sublimer pitch for by the participation of the Body of our Lord and his Presence in the blessed Eucharist we anticipate as it were the Joys of Heaven even in our mortal Bodies Homil. 24. whence St. Chrysostome tells us that Dum in hac vita sumus ut terra nobis coelum sit facit hoc mysterium Eightly That from the Consideration of our blessed Saviours Love who being touched even in the Bowels of Tenderness towards us left us at his departure his Sacred Body to nourish our Souls and Bodies unto Life Everlasting we also might return the purest Love and Affection toward him and Charity toward one another who are thus substantially united by the Communication of this Spiritual Food according to that of S. Paul 1 Cor. 10. For we being many are one Bread and one Body for we are all partakers of that one Bread And Ninthly That it is a Commemoration of our Lords Passion a Confirmation of his Testament and a propitiatory Sacrifice not only for the living but for the dead These and many more weighty Considerations of this kind together with the Testimony of the Fathers Authority of General Councils and universal practice of all Christians until these two last Centuries will enable us I hope to encounter the supposed absurdities of our Discourser We shall engage therefore this uncircumcised Philistine I mean this Goliah Argument with all its boasting train of sensless Questions And First I know not how Philosophy can be much concern'd on either side for what Philosopher will tell me how the Divine Nature identified in the Person of the Father should be Communicated to the Son without also communicating the Person Or how the Unity or Individuality of Nature should be in a diversity of Persons neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance How in the Mystery of the Incarnation God separateth from the Humanity of Christ his manner of subsistence inserting it in his Divinity How the Son should be Consubstantial and Co-eternal with the Father How something may be made out of nothing and that something reduc'd again to nothing How Eternity which is instans durationis non fluens an instant of duration may be demonstrated to subsist without respect to time past or time to come How God Almighty who is one simple and indivisible Being should be at once substantially present in all places and things A Mystery so inexplicable that it forced St. Augustin to say Miratur hoc Mens humana quia non capit fortasse non credit Nay more how our Soul which is the Light of our Bodies in this our Pilgrimage upon Earth can be totally in the Head and totally in the Feet and totally at the same time in the whole Body and in every part of it Or how the Needle which is our Common Guide through the paths of the deep should point always towards the North or if sometimes it varies whence should proceed its variation When Philosophy hath explain'd all these with many more hitherto invincible Difficulties I make no doubt but She will then free also Transubstantiation from the Calumny of our Discoursers monstrous Absurdities In the mean time that we may the better deal with them we shall divide them into such as seem to appear so First to Reason and Secondly to Sense For the First our Discourser seems to have been modest since of a thousand insinuated he is pleased to name but two First the gross contradiction of the same Body being in so many several places at once And Secondly of our Saviours giving away himself with his own hands and yet keeping himself to himself p. 37. The latter hath received a particular Answer from S. Augustin in his Comment upon Psal 33. as hath been already shewn and I shall not presume to mend it Nor will this Fathers own quodammodo in another place or that of Bedes upon the same Psal 33. help him in the least for all Catholics willingly accept the word and most justly interpret it to be modo Spirituali which manner they all profess and teach But for the First which as much concerns the Real Presence a Doctrine own'd by Bishop Andrews and the Church of England and at present by all Lutherans as Transubstantiation believ'd by Catholics I shall speak of That and the rest of his Questions about Sense which are common Objections in all Protestant Authors against this Subject when I come to the Conclusion to which I hasten Our Discourser hath one Argument more to countenance the Novelty of Transubstantiation which being more particularly urg'd by himself than some others I shall endeavour to give a reasonable Answer to it and so take my leave of him until we meet again in the Conclusion backt with the Objections of some other late Authors which are common to them all He tells us p. 26. That the first-rise of this Doctrine was about the beginning of the Ninth Age tho it did not take firm root until towards the end of the Eleventh And this time he says was the most likely of all others it being by the consent of their own Historians the most dark and dismal time that ever happened to the Christian Church both for Ignorance and Superstition and Vice And then illustrates all this by the Parable of the Tares which he conceives the Enemy might have sown in so dark and long a night The Conjecture is very plausible until it be well consider'd and then I am perswaded his Argument will not only vanish but be turn'd against himself as many others have been with no small advantage to our Cause I readily grant that some part of the time assigned by him for the introducing of this Doctrine was dismal enough upon those three accounts mentioned by him But I also affirm That such a Doctrine could never have met men in Circumstances more contrary and averse to its establishment than to be thus overwhelmed with Ignorance Superstition and Vice And first for Ignorance It is Evident to all Mankind and therefore the more strongly Objected against us by our Discourser and all Protestants That Transubstantiation is a Doctrine which highly contradicts our Common Senses Now as such the abuses of it must needs have been First most notoriously visible to the most Vulgar and illiterate for they seldom looking further into things than the Common appearances would certainly have taken the first and strongest Alarm upon the Proposition only of so new and insupportably senseless a Doctrine as our Discourser calls it if they had not from Age to Age suckt it in with their first nourishment and seen it so universally receiv'd that they no more consider'd the consequences of it than they did those of some other Mysteries of their Religion which they equally alike received as matter of Faith from the Authority and veracity of their Spiritual Guides and Governours But when as Berengarius about the Tenth Century was bold enough to teach and write against it shewing