years labour neither eloquence of false Teachers nor force of civil powers has been able so wholly to pervert our Nation as to the belief of that high mystery of the real presence but even still there remain a considerable number retainers of the antient belief And can you think that not in a much greater space of time to wit betwixt the sixth and nineth Century all the Christian world could be perswaded to admit so strange a doctrin to nature and reason and yet no man by vertue of History or Tradition should be able to give any account what Orators prevailed with the world to relinquish the belief of their Ancestors or what power of civil Magistrates forced them to it Especially seeing there have not wanted Ecclesiastical Historigraphers who have made mention of matters of far less note than such a change of Faith must needs have made But what place will there remain for doubting that this high mystery was always believed if not only all writers be silent as to any change but also the seventh and eighth Age yea the most Primitive times do positively attest this very mystery by the pens of the chiefest Champions of the Christian Church who have left us any memorials of their learning and piety in their deservedly admired works I shall faithfully recount their words be your own judge what their sentiment was In the first place then glorious Saint and great Doctor S. Augustin tell us your Faith concerning the Holy Eucharist Is it Bakers bread or the body of our Lord and God I remember saies the holy Doctor in his 28. Ser. de verbis Domini when I treated of the Sacraments I told you that before the words of Christ that which is offered up is called Bread but when the words of Christ shall have been pronounced now it is no longer called bread but the body of Christ. And explicating those words of the Royal Prophet Psal. 98. v. 5. Exalt ye our Lord God and adore his foot-stool for it is holy Now what is this Foot-stool of God why saies this great Doctor The Earth is his Foot-stool But how is the Earth holy and to be adored by us The Saint goes on and tells us how Our Lord took Earth of the Earth because Flesh is of the Earth and he took Flesh of the Flesh of Mary And because he walked here in Flesh and gave to us that very Flesh to be eaten by us to our Salvation but no body eats that Flesh unless he shall first have adored it And indeed what could we expect that S. Austin should teach and believe concerning this divine Sacrament but what he had been taught by his Father and Instructor in Christ the glorious St. Ambrose And what was that Hear his words lib. 4. De Sacramentis Thou wilt perhaps say nnto me my Bread is ordinary Bread but that bread is bread before the Sacramental words but when Consecration has been made of bread it is made the Flesh of Christ. But how can bread be the body of Christ By Consecration Consecration by what and whose words is it perfected By the words of our Lord Jesus For all other things which are said Praise is given to God By prayer supplication is made for the people for Kings for the rest When the time is come that the Venerable Sacrament is to be made now the Priest does not use his own words but the words of Christ therefore the word of Christ makes this Sacrament But what word of Christ That word by which all things were made Our Lord commanded and Heaven was made our Lord commanded and the Earth was made Our Lord commanded and the Seas were made Our Lord commanded and every Creature was produced Doest thou see then how operative the word of Christ is If then there be so great force in the word of our Lord Jesus that it could make things which were not begin to be how much rather is it operative that those things which were should be and be charged into another thing Heaven was not the Sea was not the Earth was not but hear him saying He said the word and they were made he commanded and they were Created That therefore I may Answer thee the body of Christ was not before Consecration bâ— after Consecration I say unto thee that now the Body of Christ is He said it and it was made He commanded and it was Created And in chap. 5. of the same Book Before the words of Christ the Chalice is full of Wine and Water but when the words of Christ have bad their operation then it is made the blood which Redeemed the people See then in how many kinds of things the word of Christ is able to change all things Moreover our Lord Jesus himself testifies unto us that we receive his body and blood ought we then to doubt of his testification Add to S. Austin and S. Ambrose the Learned S. Hierom in his Epistle ad Heliodorum Far be it from me saies the Saint that I should speak amiss of those who succeeding the Apostles do make the body of Christ with their sacred mouth And in his 85. Epistle to Enagrius By whose prayers the body and blood of Christ is made Take notice that these three Holy Fathers lived not four hundred years after our B. Saviours death S. Cyprian yet nearer the Apostles age does no less clearly nor fully attest the same verity in his Serm. de Caena Domini That bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being changed not in shape but in its nature by the Omnipotency of the Word was made Flesh. And in his Book de Lapsis reprehending such as were angry with the Priests of God who refused to admit them to the holy Communion of the B. Sacrament after they had polluted themselves with the profane Sacrifices of Heathen Idolaters expresses their sin in these words He that has fall'n from his Faith threatens them that have stood firm Sacrilegious wâ—etch he is angry with the Priests of God that he is not prosently admitted with defiled hands to receive the Body of our Lord or to drink his blood with his defiled mouth And this was the very doctrin of his learned Master Tertullian who yet nearer approached the holy Apostles lib. de Resur cur The Flesh is fed with the body and blood of Christ that the soul may be made fat with God And in his Book de Idololatria he complains of the prosaneness of some Christians who made no scruple to day to be working in their Shops making Idolatrous Statues for the Heathens and yet to morrow would presume to come into the Christian Congregations and receive the Sacred mysteries of our Lords body and blood and communicate them to others His words are these To touch the body of our Lord with those hands which give bodies to Devils Nor is this all their Crime would be less did they only receive from the hands of others what they contaminate and pollute
but moreover they deliver to others what they have polluted Makers of Idols are admitted into the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy O Impiety Once the Jews laid profane hands on Christ these daily violate his body O hands deserving to be cut off But shall we desire a Greek Father or two to give us their sense concerning our present Controversie S. Crysost ho. 60. ad pop Antioch Because the Word saies This is my Body let us assent and believe And a little after How many are there now adaies that say O that I could see his Figure his Garments his Shooes Lo thou seest himself thou touchest him thou eatest him Thou desirest to see his Garments but he give thee not only to see but also to eat and touch and take himself into thee And a little after Consider what an indignation thou hast against the Traytor Judas and against those that Crucified him Therefore consider lest thou also beest not guilty of the body and blood of Christ. They killed his most holy body and thou receivest it with a polluted soul after so many benefits For he was not satisfied to be made man to be Buffetted and Crucified but moreover he does mix himself with us and makes us his body not only by Faith but in very deed And ho. 24. in Ep. 1. ad Corin. Christ has given us his body both that we might have it and might eat it which is the greatest sign of love Wherefore Job chap. 31. that he might show the love of his Servants to him said they oftentimes of their execeeding great love to him would say concerning him Who will give us of his Flesh that we might be filled with it Even so Christ has given us his Flesh that we might feed upon it thereby to allure us to love him very much This body the Sages adored in the Manger Thou seest it not in the Manger but npon the Altar not a Woman holding it in her arms but a Priest present Nor do I show thee Angels nor Arch-angels nor Heaven nor the Heaven of Heavens but the very Lord of all these things Nor doest thou only see him but touch him not only touch him but eat him and having received him returns to thy home And Hom. 60 ad pop Antioch and 83. in Math. Let us every where believe God and not oppose him although that which he saies seem absurd to our sense and thoughts let his speech overcome both our sense and our reason which let us do in all things and especially in the Mysteries not only regarding those things which lie before us but also holding fast to his words For we cannot be deceived by his words but our sense is most easily deceived those cannot be false this is deceived very often Because therefore he has said this is my body let us make no doubt but believe and see it with the yes of our understanding And in his 3. ho. in Ep. ad Ephes Let us think that him that sits above who is adored by the Angels 't is him that we tast that we feed upon And ho. 2. ad pop Antioc Elias left his Disciple his Mantle but the Son of God ascending left us his Flesh. But Elias indeed put off his Mantle but Christ both left us his Flesh and retaining it ascended with it Let us not therefore be dishartened nor lament nor fear the difficulty of the times For he that has not refused to shed his blood for us and has communicated to us both his flesh and blood will not refuse to do any thing for our Salvation Hear another Greek Doctor S. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechistical discourses which are the plainest declarations of the mysteries of our holy Faith Catech. 4. Mys. Seeing then Christ himself so affirms and says concerning the bread This is my body who after this can dare to doubt of it and the same also affirming and saying This is my blood who I say can doubt of it and say it is not his blood He changed water into wine in Cana of Galilee by his sole Will and shall he not be worthy whom we may believe that he changed wine into his blood For if being invited to a corporeal Wedding he wrought a stupendious miracle shall we not confess him much rather to have given his body and blood to the Children of the Bridegroom Wherefore with all assurance let us take the body and blood of Christ for under the appearance of bread is given to thee his body and under the appearance of wine is given his blood that having received the body and blood of Christ thou maiest be made partaker together with him of his body and Blood So shall we be Christophers such as carry Christ in them when we shall have received his body and blood into our Members and so as S. Peter saies shall be made partakers of the divine Nature Do not therefore look upon it as bare bread and bare wine for it is the body and blood of Christ according to the words of our Lord himself For although thy sense suggest this to thee yet let Faith confirm thee do not judge of the thing by thy tast but rather from Faith hold for certain so that thou hast no doubt that the body and blood are given to thee Knowing and accounting for most certain that this bread which is seen by us is not bread although our tast judge it to be bread but that it is the body of Christ. And the wine which is seen by us although it may seem wine to our sense of tasting that yet it is not wine but the blood of Christ. Can the holy Council of Trent have plainer words than these or fuller to our present purpose Add the testimony of S. Justin Martyr who lived yet nearer the Age of the Apostles in his Apology for the Christians to Antoninus the Emperor in which he gives him an account of the Christian Faith and where certainly he would not make it more mysterious than it was nor more hard to be believed according to any part of it then the truth and common belief of Christians forced him but rather would moderate the mysteriousness of it than encrease it Hear him then giving an account of the Holy Eucharist This meat is called by us the Eucharist because no body may partake of it but he who believes those things to be true which we say and lives so as Christ has taught us For we do not take these things as common and ordinary bread but as by the word of God our Saviour Jesus Christ was made man and had flesh and blood for our Salvation so we have been taught that this meat which is Consecrated by the Prayers of that speech we received from him is the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ who was made man For the Apostles in their Commentaries which are called Gospels have delivered that Christ so commanded and that having taken bread when he had given thanks he said Do this
perswade Unbelievers to acknowledge the true Faith but only professes that by these her members are sanctified For example we say by Baptism as an outward and visible sign is wrought an invisible grace in the soul of the person Baptized Though view the Child as much as you please you can by none of your senses perceive any mutation to be wrought In like manner the Church professes to believe the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God that our Lord Jesus though to outward appearance a mere man was also true God and yet by no sense was the Hypostatical Union of his soul and body to the Second person of the blessed Trinity discernable This was no doubt a great Miracle yea the miracle of miracles wrought amongst us but the end of its working being not by it as a motive to draw the world to Christianity but to constitute a fit person for the working of the salvation of the world it was not necessary it should be the object of our senses The same Lord and Saviour telling us that he was God though we could discern no Characters of Divinity in him by any of our senses he saying that he was God proving by other Miracles to our senses that he was sent from God to teach us nothing but Truth this was sufficient to secure our belief of his Deity In like manner in the mystery of the holy Eucharist this miraculous change being not wrought to allure Strangers to the Christian Faith but to sanctifie Believers and to work all those spiritual effects in them above-mentioned by being received by them and offered up in their presence for them c. it was not requisite this change should be the object of our senses Nay it was necessary it should not be the object of our senses For it being wrought to the intent we should eat and drink our dear Lord his body and blood it was necessary only the substance of bread and wine should be turned into the substance of our Lords flesh and blood the accidents of bread and wine remaining for that otherwise we should have a horror to eat raw flesh and drink true appearing blood As to the confirmation of the Argument that hence it would follow we cannot trust our senses and consequently not be certain of any miracle wrought by our Saviour To this I Answer We may alwaies trust our senses about their own objects and in due circumstances and when we have not positive grounds to think either God Almighty by himself or by an Angel or permissively by a Devil represents things otherwise then they are The three Children in the fiery Furnace might really think themselves in the midst of scorching Flames though they felt them not because they had reason to surmise God Almighty wrought a miracle out of those circumstances they had no reason to believe any thing to be ordinary fire which should not burn as fire Nor must they for this for ever after be in doubt whether they were not environed with Flames of fire or no. Nor must Abram because once in a particular circumstance he mistook three Angels for three men therefore never after believe his eyes whether he saw a man or no unless he first pinched him by the arm and felt that he had flesh and blood as himself Nor must one who in the presence of a Conjurer had taken pibble stones for grapes for ever after be doubtful whether he saw grapes or no till he tasted them Nor does it follow S. Mary Magdalen could not be certain she ever saw our B. Saviour because once her senses were mistaken concerning him taking him for the Gardener And in our present case our B. Saviour telling us that the Holy Eucharist is his body we have all reason to think that by miracle he makes it to be so whatsoever it seems to our senses Nor do Catholicks therefore out of such a circumstance doubt of all the bread they see whether it be not their Lords body or no Though I must tell you even here your senses are not mistaken for they do perceive what they seem to perceive that is the Accidents of bread and wine which remain and affect them in the same manner as when the substance under them was the substance of bread and wine but now is the substance of our Lords body and blood Substances are not discernable by any sense only we conclude by a Physical certitude such a substance is under such a complex of Accidents when we have nor positive grounds that God Almighty works a miracle as here we have he saying expresly of this object before us 'T is his body and 't is his blood But if there be so much to be said for this great mystery how comes it to pass so many have so great difficulty to believe it It is not because the mystery is not highly credible but it is partly from Nature and partly from Education and partly from want of a serious and frequent consideration of those Arguments which strongly evince the credibility of it and partly for want of strange desires of the happiness of the other life and of a heart void of inordinate affections to the things of this life Pleasures Riches and Honors 'T is partly from Nature I say For 't is not more difficult to our senses to practice Sobriety Temperance Chastity and Fasting then it is to our understanding to assent to Truths which seem to shock our reason and senses though proposed by never so great Authority Should you have seen our B. Saviour sucking his Mothers Breast in the Stable of Bethlehem whosoever should have told you the little Infant there was God Almighty the maker of Heaven and Earth Nature would have found a great difficulty to believe so strange an assertion and no less then it does now to believe that a little Wafer in the hands of a Priest is the same Christ both God and man veiled under the appearance of the common accidents of bread But had it been moreover from your infancy continually noysed in your ears by such as you reverenced for their learning and skill in divine matters that it was impossible for God to become man this would strangely have encreased your difficulty to believe a little Infant in nothing different as to outward appearance from other Children should be God But if to all this you should add never or very seldom and slightly to consider the positive Arguments for the belief of that mystery of the Incarnation but were ever still poring upon the difficulty and unlikeliness and seeming impossibility of any such thing 't is not possible you should ever come to the belief of it though the mystery be never so true in it self nor the Arguments to prove it never so evident and cogent But this is the case of us generally in England as to the mystery of the B. Sacrament and therefore no vvonder if generally it be not believed by us but we
and blew with ignominious buffets what wonder now when he is become immortal and impassible and can suffer no more defilement from the basest ordures than do the bright Sun beams from the foulest mud when they shine upon it that he should permit himself to be eaten by Mice or Doggs or suffer other viler indignities if Sacrilegious Sinners will permit or cause them Moreover such a presence of our great Lord what an Incitement would it have been to pious Munificence in adorning our Christian Churches with the richest Gold and most precious Stones or what ever else that 's rare and splendid which Nature or Art does afford making them little Heavens for lustre and glory and thereby exciting in the hearts of all that should enter them a due reverence to the Almighty whom we worship If Solomon so adorned his Temple where only a Sheep or a Calf or a little Incense was offered to the Creator of all things what glory could have been thought too rich for our Christian Churches where an Oblation worthy of the great God should every day have been Sacrificed unto him the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world the God-Man Christ Jesus In fine what vertue should not our dear Saviour have given us example of by such a charitable humiliation of himself Obedience to come down from Heaven to Earth at the voice of every Christian Priest though never so simple for his understanding or never so wicked for his life and manners Charity Humility Patience Contempt of the Judgments or sayings of men c. 3. Assertion The bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist are by the Omnipotent power of God actually and in deed changed into the body and blood of our B. Saviour Jesus Christ which I prove thus This was the universal belief of the Christian world in the nineth Century after our B. Saviour as is evident by the testimony of all the writings of that Age and by the universal testimony of the tenth Age who profess in all Christian Countrys to have received this Faith from their immediate Ancestors Nor do our Adversaries deny it and therefore appeal to the first six hundred years in which they say the Christian doctrine remained incorrupt But if the doctrine of the real mutation of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist into our B. Saviours body and blood was generally believed in the nineth Age it must necessarily be taught in the first Age by the Apostles to their first Converts over all the world and consequently be most certainly true For it cannot be doubted but that the first Converts of the H. Apostles did not only understand what the Apostles taught them concerning this great mystery but also did throughly believe it and highly esteem it as they did all other doctrines and practices taught them by the same their first Maffers as not only of exceeding profit above all the things of this life but also as highly necessary to them and their Children to bring them to eternal bliss Which being so none can doubt but that the same first Disciples both could and would and actually did teach the very same doctrine which they so highly esteemed as to embrace it with the bazard of their lives to their Children and Successors And this they taught them not as an invention of their own but as a doctrine taught them by the Apostles of Jesus Christ who confirmed their Mission from the infallible God by evident miracles In like manner it cannot be doubted but these taught their Children also concerning this mystery what they had been taught by their Fathers and not as the invention of their Fathers but as a doctrine taught their Fathers by the undoubted Messengers of Heaven the Holy Apostles The like may be said of all the intervening Generations for the first six hundred years which our Adversaries do not deny though it be all one to the force of this Argument to grant so much only for the first four hundred years Now if Transubstantiation was not taught for the first six hundred years but the contrary whatsoever age be it the seventh eighth or nineth would begin to teach the doctrine of the real presence of our Lordâ— body in the Sacrament they could not possibly have the impudence to tell their Children the bread and wine in the Eucharist were turned into the true body and blood of our Saviour and thus they had been taught by their Fathers and Grandfathers uninterruptedly from the Apostles This I say it is impossible they could have the Impudence to assert when every one must needs know his Father and Grand-father had believed and taught him otherwise What must they pretend then to impose upon their Children this new and strange mysterious Doctrine They must tell them their Fathers and Grand-fathers and other Ancesters for some hundreds of years had been in an Error and had forsaken the Doctrine taught by the Apostles and their first Converts as to this mystery and confirm their Assertion by the clear words of Holy Scripture Take and Eat this is my Body c. and by other testimonies out of the Writers of the first or second Century But no History makes mention of any such manner of bringing in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in the seventh eighth or other Century Therefore it was never so brought in but was always believed nor indeed could it ever in any Century be brought in by the Church of Christ whose custom has ever been not only in the seventh and eighth but in every other Century before after alwaies to teach and to pretend to teach her Children not Doctrins devised or found out by herself by reading the Holy Scriptures or other means but what was taught her by her Fore Elders uninterruptedly from the Apostles and still when Hereticks or beginners of any new Doctrin in any age pretended Scriptures for them she opposed we have been taught otherwise by our Ancesters and to understand those Scriptures in another sense than you understand them Which way of Teaching a bringer in of a new Doctrine its evident could not use For if he did not begin to teach his Child otherwise than he was taught by his Father he should teach no new or other Doctrine But if he did begin to teach his Child otherwise than his Father taught him he could not at the same time tell his Child thus he was taught by his Father and so upward from the Apostles when both his own Conscience and all his Neighbours would testifie the contrary Calvin for example could not tell his Child that he was taught by his Father to deny Transubstantiation No more could the first Teacher of Transubstantiation in the seventh or other Century had it been a Novelty tell his Child he was so taught to believe by his Father but must have pretended to have more light than his Father and Ancesters as our Adversaries did when they began to deny it Hence it is evident Transubstantiation
Doctors to whom we appeal then judged concerning this our cause when no body could say they had favor or ill will for either party They had neither friendship nor enmity with you or us We did not as yet appeal with you to them as Judges and our cause was decided by them Neither you nor we were known to them and we recite their sentence given for us against you We did not yet contest with you and they pronouncing sentences for us we have overcome you Or will my Calvinist have the impudence to accuse as some do thâ—se grave Doctors of blindness A multitude of blind men forsooth avails nothing to find out the Truth and these were the errors and mistakes of those learned Prelates What an Age are we fal'n into Truth must be called error and error truth light darkness and darkness light S. Augustin S. Ambrose S. Crysostom S. Hierom are blind but Calvin and Stillingfleet see These Doctors I have called a Council of were persons of such Learning and Sanctity that if a Synod of Bishops were gathered out of the whole world it would be much if so many and such Doctors could be found to sit in it Neither indeed were these all at one time but God Almighty as pleases him and as he judges to be expedient scatters a few more excellent and faithful dispensers of his mysteries in several Ages and distances of places By such Planters Waterers Builders Pastors nursing Fathers after the Apostles the holy Church has encreased Now what an imprudence and what an impudence must it be for any to presume to accuse of the horrible crime of Idolatry so many holy egregious and memorable Doctors of the Catholick Verity and moreover together with them the whole Church of Christ to which divine Family they faithfully Ministring spiritual Food flourished with great glory in our Lord. Nay further they who dare to oppose the manifest Sentiment not of so many Platonical Aristotelieal or Zenonical Doctors but of so many Saints and illustrious Prelates in the Church of God and these some of them singularly endowed with human litterature and all of them eminently learned in the Sacred Letters have reason not so much to fear them as him who made them profitable Vessels to himself These Judges by how much the more desirable they ought to be unto thee if thou didst hold the Catholick Faith by so much thou hast more reason to fear them because thou opposest the Catholick Faith which they ministred to little and great and manifestly and stoutly defended against its Enemies yea against you then not as yet born For not only when they lived did they by their words but also by their writings which they left to Posterity did they strenuously defend the Catholick Faith that they might break in pieces your Arguments Hitherto S. Augustin l. 1. et 2. Contra Julianum I thought fit to adjoyn this Reflexion of S. Augustin though superabundant to the force of my Argument it being sufficient for my purpose to prove that the doctrin of the Real presence was generally believed in the Primitive Centuries of Christianity and so much evidently follows from the Authorities above cited For though some may be so self-conceited as to confess that S. Ambrose S. Crysostom and the rest of the holy Fathers Greek and Latin believed the doctrin of the Real presence but they with humble submission deemed it to be an Idolatrous and damnable doctrin yet few I think but have so much regard for thâ—se Primitive Doctors as to allow them so much iudgement as to know what was the belief of their several Churches in their daies and so much fidelity as to write the Truth as to this particular which is sufficient for the purport of my discourse Unless you can think that these holy Fathers were of one Faith and their several Flocks who reverenced them as Saints of another An Answer to an Objection But you will say if there be such a miraculous change wrought in the bread and wine in the holy Eucharist why does it not appear to our senses as well as other miraculous works of our Lord Jesus did When he turn'd water into wine it appeared such to the sight and tast of the Guests at the Marriage-Feast He did not barely tell them the water was turn'd into wine and exact their belief of his word contrary to the evidence of all their senses but convinced them that it was so by their very senses Why then in our present case if he turn wine into his blood does it not appear to our fight to be blood But barely to tell us that it is his blood and yet to let it tast and appear as it did how is this credible How is it not contrary to one but to all the Miracles that ever he wrought And this Argument is further strengthned for that it would hence follow we might call in question the whole mystery of Christianity For we therefore believing in our Lord Jesus as one indeed sent from God to teach us nothing but Truth because of his Miracles and we having no assurance of his Miracles but from our senses if our senses may be mistaken how can we tell but those who were eye-witnesses of his wonders were illuded and water for example was not turned by him into wine but only seemed wine to the tast and sight of those which were present and indeed remained water as before For why may not water remain water and yet seem to my tast wine as well as wine be changed into blood and yet seem to my tast and sight to remain wine For Answer to this Objection we must distinguish two sorts of Miracles with the ends for which they are wrought Some Miracles are wrought by Almighty God to draw the world to the Christian Faith and these must necessarily be the object of our senses else it could not reasonably be expected they should work their intended effect in them for whose sakes they are wrought For example If any one will by Miracle prove he is sent from God by raising a dead man to life or by turning water into wine he must make it evident to my senses that the man who was dead is alive and the water now wine and not barely tell me so Else he will be derided as an Impostor and impudent Lyer instead of being admired and received as a Messenger from Heaven and Oracle of Truth There are other Miracles which are wrought by the Almighty not as a motive to induce us to receive the true Faith but to sanctifie us when we have received it or for the necessity of working the salvation of the world Such are the Miracles of the Incarnation of the Son of God and all the spiritual effects wrought in the souls of Christians by any of the Sacraments Now these miraculous effects are not the object of our senses nor is there any reason they should be For the Church of Christ does not urge these to
and yet we can give no assured credit to History or immemorial testimonies of whole Countrys Moreover we finding by the experience of the Age we live in that though fabulous stories be told and printed too yet we easily distingnish betwixt them and true Histories of the present times For that true Histories gain an universal credit amongst persons of the best understanding and the Historigraphers that write them are commended to Posterity as faithful witnesses of Truth whereas fables and fictions every one of ordinary capacity looks upon them as such nor do we give any other Recommendation of them to Posterity then as of fabulons Romances This we experiencing in the present Age persons of humility and solid judgment deem the like to have happen'd in the daies of their Fore-fathers and consequently give another kind of credit to Stories how strange so ever recounted by a S. Bernard a venerable Bede or a S. Bonaventure then they do to the fictions of a Don Quixot a Guy of Warwick c. And he that will consult what has happen'd in the World will find mens eyes and other senses to have been as often mistaken as he will find whole Towns and Countries to have confidently told a Lye to their Posterity which they evidently knew to be a Lye And this the Atheists of our days would do well to reflect on when they so senselesly call in question the History of Moyses or Book of Exodus concerning the wonders wrought by Almighty God in Aegypt And Dr. N. N. too must one day give a sad account for all his Drollery as merry as he makes himself with the History of Lorretto and other stories registred by persons of noted sanctity and integrity And would he reflect a little on the difficulty of making whole Countrys believe a Lye contrary to the evidence of their senses he would find it a greater miracle that the whole Territory of Lorretto should so immemorially believe so great a Lye as he would make his Reader think they do then the wonder it self he sacrilegiously scoffs at To wit the Translation of the House in which our B. Lord was conceived by his Holy Mother at Nazareth out of the Holy Land first into Dalmatia and then afterwards into Italy Let the Dr. cause a house to be built in a Night in S. James's Park and then tell the Citizens of London it was brought thither by Angels out of a forreign Country and see if he can make them so universally to believe it as they shall no body contradicting make their Posterity believe as much and I perswade my self he may with the same ease bring such a House from Geneva or New-England in a Night as make the numerous multitude believe such a notorious Lye O England England dear Native Soyl at length open thine Eyes and acknowledge the illimited goodness of the divine Majesty to be such that not contenting himself with giving us prodigies of sanctity for the first Planters of Christianity and with confirming their sublime and holy doctrins with evident signs and wonders he is ever now and then awakening the drowsie world with a S. Dominick a S. Francis or a S. Xauerius and ceases not by undeniable miracles to confirm the languishing Faith of tepid Christians The sight of present miracles strangely strengthens our Faith of wonders past and done long since And believe it 't is a next disposition to Antichristianism and Atheism freely to give our selves the liberty to scoff at all miracles though attested by never so grave Authors except such as are recorded in the four Gospels and to laugh at all lives of Christian Saints as ridiculous but those of the twelve Apostles though to an impartial considerer one Egg does not more resemble another then do the persons we so freely deride express the first followers of our dear Redeemer in their holy and divine Conversations 4. Consider the force of S. Austins Argument to prove the truth of Christianity The world has actually submitted to Christianity as to a Religion taught from Heaven From whence the Saint argues thus The world believed the high mysterious doctrins of Christianity either upon miracles wrought by the first teachers of them or without miracles If upon miracles then you who doubt have reason also to believe them Or if the world submitted their Faith to believe such strange mysteries without any miracles this is the greatest miracle of all that such vast multitudes and innumerable of these of ripe judgement and quick understanding should believe such strange things upon the Authority of the Proposer without a miracle Apply this to our present mystery Two hundred years ago the whole Christian world believed the H. Eucharist to be our B. Saviours body and adored it as such Hereupon I argue These vast multitudes and many of them of great learning and judgement began to believe this strange mystery either for miracles wrought by the first Teachers of it or without miracles If upon miracles then you ought to believe it also If without miracles this is the greatest miracle of all that such vast multitudes and these innumerable of them well cultivated with learning besides their natural ripeness of judgment and sharpness of wit should believe so strange a mystery without any miracles wrought by those who first demanded their belief of it Finally consider with your self how many millions there are who believe this mystery and would sooner part with their life then their Faith of it and these if you have the least grain of humility such as you have reason to think them of as good Learning Wit and Judgment as your self Add as good Christians as your self for either piety to God or Charity to their indigent Neighbor or mortification to themselves Imagin you saw all these as holy and as wise as your self in the several Christian Countrys of the whole world all upon their knees adoring a seeming Wafer-Cake as their Creator and God Bishops Priests Doctors of Divinity in vast numbers Kings and Princes Men and Women of all degrees and condition And can you now think all these people to be in their wits and not have some strong Reasons and Arguments which induce them to such a Faith and such a practice Had you and I been in the Stable of Bethlehem in the Night of our Lord's Nativity and S. Joseph should have told us that the little Infant we saw there sucking his Mothers Breast was the Maker of Heaven and Earth we should no doubt have found great difficulty to believe him But should we have staied there a while and have seen the Shepherds come in and fall down upon their knees before him by the admonition as they pretended of an Angel that had appeared to them as they were keeping watch over their Flocks this doubtless would a little have enclined us to think that at least there was something extraordinary in the new born Babe But had we staied till the comeing of the three Kings