and why might they not use the same Tenure of Speech which our Lord Christ used before them But they say also that Bread is therefore called his Body as being an outward Sacrament Signe and Figure of his Body seeing that every Sacrament being a Signe or Figure the Sacramentall Speech must necessarily be Figurative as hath beene proved by Scripture as in all other Sacraments so likewise in the severall confessed Figurative words of Christ concerning this Sacrament in six severall Instances This one Argument of it selfe hath beene tearmed by Master Calvin Murus ahaeneus that is a brazen Wall and so will it be found more evidently to be when you shall perceive the same Fathers judging that which they call Change into Christ's flesh to be but a Change into the Sacrament of his flesh Bread still remayning the same and teaching that Melchisedech offered in his Sacrifice the Body and Blood of Christ when he offered onely the Types of both in the Sixt Booke And now we are to with-stand your Paper-bullets wherewith you vainely attempt in your Objections following to batter our Defence withal CHAP. III. The Romish Obiections against the Figurative Sence Answered The first Obiection SECT I. NOthing useth to be more properly and simply spoken say you than words of Testaments and Covenants Ergò this being a Testamentary Phrase must be taken in the literall Sence CHALLENGE WHat is this are Figurative speeches never used in Covenants and Testamentary Language or is there not therefore sufficient perspicuity in Figures This is your rash and lavish Assertion for you your selves doe teach that The Old and New Testament are both full fraught with multitude of Tropes and Figures and yet are called Testaments Secondly That the Scripture speaking of the Trinity and some divine things cannot but speake improperly and figuratively Thirdly That Sacramentall speeches as The Rocke was Christ and the like words are Tropicall and Figurative Fourthly That even in the Testamentary Speech of Christ at his Institution of this Sacrament saying This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood there is a Figure in the very word Testament So have you confessed and so have you consequently confuted your owne Obiection Hereto might be added the Testament of Iacob prophesying of his sonnes and saying Reuben is my strength Iudah a Lions Whelpe Issachar a strong Asse Danan Adder in the way All figurative Allusions Nay no man in making his Testament can call it his Will or say that he hath set his hand and Seale unto it without Figures Namely that he hath given by writing a Signification of his Will that the Subscription was made by his Hand and that he added unto it the Print of his Seale These Three Will Hand Seale every word Figuratiue even in a Testament The Second Romish Obiection against the Figurative Sence SECT II. LAwes and Precepts say you should be in plaine and proper words But in the Speech of Christ Take eate you c. are words of Command Ergò They may not be held Figurative CHALLENGE CAn you be Ignorant of these Figurative Precepts viz. of Pulling out a man 's owne eye of cutting off his hand Matth. 5. Or yet of a Penitents Renting of his heart Ioel 2. Or of not hardening his heart Psal 95. and the like Christ commanded his Disciples to prepare for his keeping the Passeover with his Disciples and the Disciples prepared the Passeover as Iesus commanded them saith the Evangelist In this Command is the word Passeover We demand The word Passeover which is taken for the Sacrament and Signe of the Passeover is it taken figuratively You cannot deny it And can you deny that a Commandement may be delivered under a Figurative Phrase You can both that is say and gaine-say any thing like false Merchants onely so farre as things may or may not make for your owne Advantage But to catch you in your owne snare your Doctrine of Concomitancy is this viz. Bread being turned into Christ's Body is ioyntly turned into whole Christ and Wine being changed into his blood is likewise turned into whole Christ both flesh and blood If then when Christ commanded his Disciples saying Drinke you All of this that which was Drunke was the whole substantiall Body of Christ either must his Disciples be said to have Drunke Christ's Body properly or else was the Command of Christ figuratively spoken To say the first contradicteth the universall expression of man's speech in all Languages for no man is said to drinke Bread or any solid thing And to grant the Second that the speech is Figurative contradicteth your owne Objection Againe Christ commanded to Eate his Body yet notwithstanding have Three Iesuites already confessed that Christ's Body cannot be said to have beene properly Eaten but figuratively onely What fascination then hath perverted your Iudgements that you cannot but still confound your selves by your contrary and thwarting languages Your Third Romish Obiection SECT III. DOctrinall and Dogmaticall speeches say you ought to be direct and literall But these words This is my Body are Doctrinall CHALLENGE A Man would maruaile to heare such silly and petty Reasons to be propounded by those who are accounted great Clerkes and those who know full well that the speech of Christ concerning Castrating or gelding of a man's selfe is Doctrinall and teacheth Mortification and yet is not literally to be understood as you all know by the literall errour of Origen who did really Castrate himselfe And the same Origen who thus wounded himselfe by that literall Exposition in his youth Hee in his Age expounding the words of Christ concerning the Eating of his flesh said of the literall sence thereof that It killeth Secondly these words This is the New Testament in my blood they are wordes as Doctrinall as the other This is my body and yet figurative by your owne Confession Thirdly the words of Christ Ioh. 6. of Eating his flesh are Doctrinall and yet by your owne Construction are not to be properly vnderstood but as Christ afterwards expounds himselfe Spiritually Fourthly where Christ thus said The bread which I shall give is my flesh Ioh. 6. 51. he saith also of his Body that it is True bread Verse 32. and bread of life Verse 48. and living bread whereof whosoever eateth liveth eternally Verse 51. All Divine and Doctrinall Assertions yet was his body figuratively called bread Fiftly that in those words of Christ to Peter Matth. 16. Vpon this Rocke will I build my Church And To thee will I give the keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven And Ioh. 21. Feed my Sheepe In which texts of Scripture you place although most falsly your Doctrinall foundation of Popedome it selfe yet know you all these to be Tropicall Speeches Yea and what say you to the first Doctrinall Article and foundation of Christian Doctrine delivered by God unto man in the beginning The seed of the
make a thing ioyntly to be and not to be This is a Contradiction and were not Omnipotencie but Impotencie not an effect but a defect To conclude Every thing either is or is not take away this Principle say you and farewell all learning and knowledge So you and that without contradiction most truely As your Doctors have taught the truth in Thesi and Doctrine so will they manifest the same in Hypothesi by examples of Impossibilities because of Contradiction namely that it is Impossible for God to be contained in one place Secondly for a Spirit to be divided into parts Thirdly for Bread to be the Body of Christ at the same instant when it is Bread Fourthly for the same thing to be present together at divers times Fiftly for one thing to be twice produced in divers places at once Sixtly for a Body having quantity not to be able to possesse a place Seaventhly It is impossible for Christ his Body as it is in the Sacrament to come from one place into another Eighthly Impossible it is to vndoe that which is once done because this were to make that which is true to be false So your Iesuites with others III. That the Doctrine of Calvin who is most traduced in this point accordeth to the former Iudgement of ancient Fathers SECT IV. IT is no new Calumny which you have against Calvin as if he had impugned the Omnipotencie of God in this Question of the Sacrament which Calvin himselfe did refute in his life-time professing that he is farre from subiecting the power of God to man's reason or to the order of nature and beleeving that even in this Sacrament it exceedeth all naturall principles that Christ doth feed men's soules with his Blood But his only exception is against them who will impose upon God a power of Contradiction which is no better than infirmity it selfe Wee saith hee are not so addicted to naturall reason as to attribute nothing to the power of God which exceedeth the order of nature for we confesse that our soules are fed with the flesh of Christ spiritually above all Physicall or naturall vnderstanding but that one should be in divers places at once and not contained in any is no lesse absurdity then to call light darknesse God indeed can when hee will turne light into darknes but to say light is darknesse is a perverting of the order of Gods wisedome So Calvin and Beza accordingly with him And so say we that it is possible for Christ as God if he were so pleased to make of Bread an humane body as easily as of stones to raise up Children to Abraham for there is involved no Contradiction in this But to make Bread to be flesh while it is Bread is a Contradiction in it selfe and as much as to say Bread is no Bread and therefore to the honour of the Omnipotencie of Christ wee iudge this saying properly taken to be Impossible CHAP. IV. That the Romish Doctrine of the Corporall Presence of Christ in the Sacrament doth against that which Christ called CORPVS MEVM MY BODY imply sixe Contradictions The first Romish Contradiction in making it Borne and not borne of a Virgin SECT I. THe Catholique Faith hath alwayes taught concerning the Body of Christ That it was borne of the Virgin Mary Secondly that this so borne was and is but One Thirdly that this one is Finite Fourthly that this finite is Organicall and consisting of distinct parts Fiftly that this Organicall is now Perfect and endued with all Absolutenesse that ever any humane body can be capable of Sixtly that this Perfect is now also Glorious and no more subiect to vilification or indignity here on earth But your now Romish Doctrine touching Corporall Presence in this Sacrament doth imply Contradictions touching each of these as now we are to manifest beginning at the first Our Apostolicall Article concerning the Body of Christ is expresly this Hee was borne of the Virgin Mary which is the ancientest Article of Faith concerning Christ that is read of in the Booke of God The seed of the woman c. Gen. 3. to shew that it was by propagation But your Romane Article of bringing the Body of Christ into this Sacrament is that The substance of Bread is changed into the substance of Christ's Body which inferreth a Body made of the substance of Bread as we have already proved and as all substantiall Conversions doe shew whether they be naturall or miraculous When the substance of Ayre is naturally changed into the substance of Water this water is made of Ayre when the substance of Water was miraculously changed into Wine the substance of the Wine was produced out of the substance of water when the Body of Lots Wife was turned into a pillar of salt the substance of that salt was made of the substance of her Bodily flesh CHALLENGE DOe you then beleeve your Doctrine of Transubstantiation that it is the substantiall Change by the operative wordes of Consecration of Bread into a Body which you call the Bodie of Christ then is this Body not borne but made nor by Propagation from the Blessed Virgin but by Production and Transubstantiation from Bread which differences Borne of the Virgin Mary and not borne of the Virgin Mary are plainly contradictory which was the cause that Augustine as Bertram sheweth distinguished betweene the Body borne of the Virgin and that which is on the Altar as betweene Aliud and Aliud one and another thing And this Argument hath beene fortified before and is furthermore confirmed by Saint Augustine afterwards The second Romish Contradiction to the ouerthrowing of that which Christ called MY BODY by making one Body of Christ not one but many SECT II. YOur Profession standeth thus The Body of Christ albeit now in Heaven yet is say you substantially in many places here on earth even wheresoever the Hoast is consecrated So you Next your Master Brerely laboureth earnestly to draw Calvin to professe a Possibility of Christ's Bodily presence in divers places at once contrary to Master Caluins plaine and expresse profession in the same Chapter where he directly confuteth this Romish Doctrine of Madnesse saying thus To seeke that Christ his Bodie should be in many places at once is no lesse madnesse than to require that God should make his body to be flesh and not to be flesh at one time whereas not Aristotle but the Spirit of God saith he hath taught us that this his body is to be contained in Heaven untill the last day Afterwards Calvin inveigheth against the folly of your Church which will not acknowledge any presence of Christ in this Sacrament except it be locall on earth As if saith he she would pull Christ out of his Sanctuary of Heaven And at last after that he had said Christ his Body is united to the soule of the Communicant he so explaineth himselfe that hee meant a spirituall Vnion so
belonging unto it many of the same Holy Fathers sealing that their Christian Profession with their Blood It is now referred to the Iudgement of every man whether it can fall within his capacity to thinke it Credible that those Fathers if they had beene of the now Romish Faith would not have expresly delivered concerning the due Worship of this Sacrament this one word consisting but of two Syllables viz. Divine for direction to all Posterity to adore the Sacrament with divine honour even as it is taught in the Church of Rome at this day and to have confirmed the same by some Practise not of one or other private man or woman but by their publike forme of Prayer and Invocation in their soleme Masses or else to confesse that Antiquity never fancied any Divine Adoration of the Eucharist Yet two words more You presse the point of the Invocation of the Sacrament more urgently and vehemently than any other and we indeed beleeve that the ancient Fathers if they had held according to the now Romane Church a Corporall presence of Christ would never have celebrated any Masse without an expresse Invocation of him as in your now-Roman Masse we finde it done saying O Lambe of God c. or some other like forme Yet know now that your owne learned Pamelius hath published two large Tomes of all the Masses in the Latine Church from Pope Clemens downe to Pope Gregory containing the compasse of six hundred yeares we say Latine Missals above forty in number in all which upon our once reading we presume to say that there is not one such tenour of Invocation at all This our first Reason taken from so universall a silence of ancient Fathers in a case of so necessary a moment may be we thinke satisfactory in it selfe to any man of ordinary Reason Our second Objection out of the Fathers followeth That the Ancient Fathers gain-said the Corporall presence of Christ in this Sacrament and Adoration thereof by their Preface in their presenting the Host saying Lift up your Hearts SECT II. IT was the generall Preface of Antiquity used in the Celebration of this Sacrament for the Minister to say Lift up your Hearts and the People to Answer We lift them up unto the Lord. This Sursum Cordâ— Calvin hath objected against you and your Cardinall confessing that This Preface was in use in all Liturgies of Antiquity as well Greeke as Latine and continued in the Church of Rome unto this day Then answereth that He that seeketh Christ in the Eucharist and worshippeth him if he thinke of Christ and not of the Cares of earthly things he hath his heart above So he As though the word Above meant as the Object the person of Christ in the Eucharist and not his place of Residence in the highest Heavens contrary to the word in the Greeke Liturgies which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Above wherein the Church alludeth to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Apostle Colos 3. 1. Seeke the things that are above where Christ is at the right hand of God as your owne Durandus the Expositor of the Romish Masse doth acknowledge Saint Augustine saying It is not without Cause that it is said Lift up your heares He sheweth the Cause to be that wee who are here at the Bottome might according to that of the Psalmist Praise God in the highest This one would thinke is plaine enough but that is much more which we have already proved out of the Fathers by their Antithesis and Oppositionâ—etweene â—etweene the Altar on Earth and the other in Heaven where we have heard Chrysostome distinguishing them that fasten their thoughts upon this Below from Them that seeke Christ in Heaven as he doth Choughs from Eagles Ambrose as they that behold the Image from them that contemplate upon the Traâ—h Nazianzene as they that looke upon the Signes from them that see the Things And the Councell of Nice as they that stoope downe from them that looke up aloft And we may not forget the Observation which Athanasius made of Christ in his discourse of Eating his flesh and drinking his Blood purposely making mention of his Ascension into Heaven thereby to draw their thoughts from earthly Imaginations and to consider him as being in Heaven Cyril of Hierusalem is a Father whom you have often solicited to speake for your Cause in other Cases but all in vaine shall we hearken to him in this He interpreting these words Lift up your Hearts will not have it onely to signifie a sequestring of your thoughts from earthly Cares to spirituall and heavenly which you say was the meaning of the Councell of Nice as if that Lifting up their hearts had beene only an exercising of their thoughts upon that in the hands of the Priest or on the Altar beneath No but he saith that it is To have our hearts in Heaven with God the lover of man-kinde even as did also S. Augustine interpret this Admonition to be A lifting up of hearts to Heaven Whom as you have heard leaving our Eucharisticall Sacrifice on this Altar so would hee have us to seeke â—or our Priest in Heaven namely as Origen more expresly said Not on earth but in Heaven accordingly Oecumenius placing the Host and Sacrifice where Christ's Invisible Temple is even in Heaven Will you suffer one whom the world knoweth to have beene as excellently versed in Antiquity as any other to determine this point He will come home unto you In the time of the Ancient Church of Rome saith he the people did not runne hither and thither to behold that which the Priest doth shew buâ— prostrating their Bodies on the ground they lift up their minds to Heaven giving thankes to their Redeemer So he Thus may we justly appeale as in all other Causes of moment so in this from this degenerate Church of Rome to the sincere Church of Rome in the primitive times like as one is reported to have appealed from Cesar sleeping to Cesar waking Our difference then can be no other than was that betweene Mary and Stephen noted by Ambrose Mary because she sought to touch Christ on earth could not but Stephen touched him who sought him in Heaven A third Argument followeth That the Ancient Fathers condemned the Romish worship by their Descriptions of Divine Adoration SECT III. ALL Divine Adoration of a meere Creature is Idolatry hereunto accord these sayings of Antiquity No Catholike Christian doth worship as a Divine Power that which is created of God Orthus I feare to worship Earth lest he condemne me who created both Heaven and Earth Or thus If I should worship a Creature I could not be named a Christian It were a tedious superfluity in a matter so universally confessed by yourselves and all Christians to use Witnesses unnecessarily We adde the Assumption But the Romish Adoration of the Sacrament is an attributing of Divine Honour
condemned in divers who sopped the Bread in the Chalice and squeezed Grapes in the Cup and so received them even as did the Artoryritae in mingling Bread with Cheese censured for Heretiques by your Aquinas In which Comparison your Aberration from Christ's Example is so much greater than theirs as you are found Guilty in defending Ten Innovations for one 2. Your Pope Gelasius condemned the Hereticall Manichees for thinking it lawfull not to receive the Cup in the Administration of the Eucharist judging it to be Greatly Sacrilegious notwithstanding your Church authorizeth the same Custome of forbidding the Administration of the Cup to fit Communicants 3. As you pretend Reverence for withdrawing the Cup so did the Aquarii forbeare wine and used only Water under a pretence of Sobriety 4. Sometime there may be a Reason to doe a thing when as yet there is no right nor Authority for him that doth it Wee therefore exact of you an Autority for altering the Apostles Customes and Constitutions and are answered that your Church hath Authority over the Apostles Precepts Iumpe with them who being asked why they stood not unto the Apostles Traditions replyed that They were herein above the Apostles whom therefore Irenaeus reckoneth among the Heretikes of his Time BOOKE II. It is not nothing which hath beene observed therein to wit your Reasoning why you ought not to interpret the words of Christ This is my Body literally and why you urge his other saying Except yoâ—… eat my flesh for proofe of Bodily Eating so that your Priest may literally say in your Masse that The Body of Christ passeth into your bellies and entrâ—ils because forsooth the words of Christ are Doctrinall And have you not heard of one Nicodemus who hearing Christ teach that every man must be Borne againe who shall be partaker of God's Kingdome and that hee expounding them in a Literall Sence conceited a new Entrance into his Mothers wombe when as nothing wanted to turne that his Errour into an Heresie but only Obstinacie But of the strong and strange Obstinacies of your Disputers you have received a full Synopsis BOOKE III. After followeth your Article of Transubstantiation I. Your direct profession is indeed to beleeve no Body of Christ but that which was Borne of the Virgin Mary But this your Article of Transubstantiation of Bread into Christs Body generally held according to the proper nature of Transubstantion to be by Production of Christs Body out of the Substance of Bread it necessarrly inferreth a Body called and beleeved to be Christ's which is not Borne of the Blessed Virgin as S. Augustine hath plainly taught diversifying the Bodily thing on the Altar from the Body of Christ borne of the Virgin Therefore your Defence symbolizeth with the heresie of Apollinaris who taught a Body not Borne of the Virgin Mary Secondly you exclude all judgement of Senses in discerning Bread to be trâ—… Bread as did the Manichees in discerning Christ's Body which they thereupon held not to have beene a True but a Phantasticall Body Tertullian also challengeth the Verity of Sense in judging of Wine in the Eâ—charist after Consecration in confutation of the same Errour in the Marcioniâ—es Thirdly for Defence of Christ his invisible Bodily Presence you professe that after Consecration Bread is no more the same but changed into the Body of Christ which Doctrine in very expresse words was bolted out by an Eâ—tychian Heretique and instantly condemned by Theodoret and as fully abandoned by Pope Gelasâ—… BOOKE IV. Catholique Fathers were in nothing more zealous than in defending the distinct properties of the two natures of Christ his Deity and Humanity against the pernicious heresies of the Manichees Marcionites Eâ—tychians and Eâ—nomians all of them diversly oppugning the Integrity of Christ's Body sometime in direct tearmes and sometime by irrefragrable Consequences whether it were by gaine-saying the Finitenesse or Solidity or else the compleat Perfection thereof wherein â—ow farre yee may challenge affinity or kindred with them be you pleased to examine by this which followeth 1. The Heretiques who undermined the property of Christ's Bodily Finitenesse said that it was in divers places at once as is confessed even as your Church doth now attribute unto the same Body of Christ both in Heaven and in Earth yea and in Millions of distant Altars at the same time and consequently in all places whatsoever Now whether this Doctrine of Christ's Bodily Presence in many places at once was held of the Catholique Fathers for Hereticall it may best be seene by their Doctrine of the Existence of Christ's Body in one only place not only Definitively but also Circumspectively both which doe teach an absolute Impossibility of the Existence of the same in divers places at once And they were as zealous in professing the Article of the manner of Christ's Bodily Being in place as they are in instructing men of the Article of Christ's Bodily Being lest that the deniall of it's Bodily manner of being might destroy the nature of his Body To which end they have concluded it to be absolutely but in one place sometime in a Circumspective Finitenesse thereby distinguishing them from all created Spirits and sometime by a Definitive Termination which they set downe first by Exemplifications thus If Christ his Body be on Earth then it is absent from Heaven and thus Being in the Sunne it could not be in the Moone Secondly by divers Comparisons for comparing the Creature with the Creator God they conclude that The Creature is not God because it is determinated in one place and comparing the humane and divine Nature of Christ together they conclude that they are herein different because the humane and Bodily Nature of Christ is necessarily included in one place and laâ—tly comparing Creatures with the Holy Ghost they conclude a difference by the the same Argument because the Holy Ghost is in many places at once and all these in confutation of divers Heretiques A thing so well knowen to your elder Romish Schoole that it confessed the Doctrine of Existence of a Body in divers places at once in the judgement of Antiquity to be Hereticall 2. The property of a Solidity likewise was patronized by Antient Fathers in confutation of Heretiques by teaching Christ's Body to be necessarily Palpable against their Impalpabilitie and to have a Thicknesse against their feigned subtile Body as the Aire and furthermore controlling these opinions following which are also your Crotchets of a Bodies Being whole in the whole space and in every part thereof and of Christ's Body taking the Right hand or left of it selfe 3. The property of Perfection of the Body of Christ wheresoever in the highest Degree of Absolutenesse This one would thinke everie Christian heart should assent unto at the first hearing wherefore if that they were judged Heretiques by Antient