aut denique Scripturae expositionem quam non facilè observet ab alijs Pontificijs Doctoribus aut luculentâ ratione solutam enervatam explosam aut denique quod maius est per receptas Ecclesiae Romanae doctrinas oppugnatam Nae illa praeclara est istorum hominum constantia qui si minùs viribus nostris suâ tamen imbecillitate dissentione vincuntur atque succumbunt Praetereà de Pontificiorum Doctorum versutia obstinaciaque satis queri vix possumus Versutia eorum cernitur cùm in rebus alijs tûm praecipuè in abutendis veterum Patrum Testimoniis sive per falsas Editiones Translationesque ea depravando sive novo excogitato Commento illudendo siue denique adversis frontibus oppugnando quorum omnium Exempla plurima Libri singuli sequentes vobis exhibent Obstinaciae verò eorum specimen nullum potest esse illustrius quà m quod in altera Synopsi nostra videre est ex Veterum sententijs facta Collatione Eucharistiae cum Baptismate Illi ad sua Dogmata stabilienda de Praesentia Corporali Corporis Christi in Eucharistia ipsiusque adeò Adoratione Latreutica obijciunt Nobis Patres negâsse Eucharistiam esse nudum Panem Nos reponimus eosdem Patres paritèr negâsse in Baptismate esse Aquam nudam At opponunt Veteres Eucharistiam Sacrificium vocâsse Nos rursùs Baptisma quoque Sacrificium nominant Illi At apud Patres Eucharistia Sacramentum Terribile Venerabile dicitur Regerimus nos à Patribus moneri homines ad Baptisma utpote quod venerandum sit cûm Tremore accedere Pergimus dein per sexdecim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 par pari referimus quod Adversariorum nostrorum nisi animos obsirment Conscientias mordeat lancinet sed manu tamen medicâ ut sanet Eant igitur Antagonistae nostri cum de Antiquitate agitur nos ut solent Novatores appellitent nunquà m tamen efficiet quin ipsi ut praeclarè olim Clariss vir Iosephus Scaliger Veteratores habeantur Redeo ad Vos tandem dignissimi Viri quorum intimos animorum conceptus audire mihi videor quibus quoad possim liceat occurrendu esse◠duxi Prim in loco Fateor equidem me iamdiú in ist usmodi Polemicis negotijs exercuisse calamum non quòd nesciverim à Detractione neminem esse immunem nisi qui nihil scriberet sed quòd abundè noverim pro salute Patriae proquè patria salutis atque adeò pro fidei synceritate nullum non laborem esse subeundum Secundò multos alios multo majore cum profectu munere hoc defungi posse agnosco veruntamen quatenùs praestare quicquam valeam illud S. Augustini aures mihi vellicat animumque stimulat Qui mendacium docet inquit qui veritatem tacet uterque reus est alter qui◠prodesse non vult alter quia nocere desiderat Nec profectò hanc Romulei stabuli cùm purgandi non datur exagitandi provinciam in re Missatica alio animo suscepi quà m ut omnes quibus veritas cordi est intelligant Nos Anglicanae Ecclesiae Alumnos Causam nactos esse Divinis literis consentientem maximè Catholicae Antiquitatis suffragijs comprobatam mille omnis ordinis Martyrum sanguine testatam imò etiam addendum est enim cuiusvis Christiani si fieri posset vel mille mortibus obsignandam Praetereà Romanae Ecclesiae Tyrunculis omissis Antesignanos ipsos libentiùs aggredior duplici ratione adductus quià primò his profligatis illi non possunt consistere deindè ut clariùs constet in illam Ecclesiam quadrare illud Christi Si lumen quod in te tenebrae ipsae tenebrae quantae Quos tamen dûm Argumentis prosequor non probris insector quià in hoc altero Certaminis genere vincere vinci est nam praeclarè olim Artaxerxes Rex militi hostem convitijs proscindenti Non ut maledicas te alo inquit sed ut pugnes Cur verò vobis potissimùm has meas Lucubrationes dedicarem plurimae me Causae impulerunt Antiquitùs plurimi dicebantur Episcopi Catholicae sive Vniversalis Ecclesiae non solùm quòd Catholicam tenerent fidem sed etiam quòd suam pro incolumitate Ecclesiae Vniversalis curam Scriptis laboribus testarentur Egone igitur ut non illud studium ergà utramque Vniversitatem profitear meum quod ipsi ut ità dicam Vniversalitati debeam Huc accedit nam quidni fidorum Amicorum literis fidem habeam quòd cum vos Opus nostrum aliud tribus abhinc annis publici iuris factum non vulgari animorum vestrorum significatione approbâsse intellexerim hocque quod nunc ad umbilicū perduxi non minori cum desiderio expectâsse quorum illud GRANDEM ROMANAE ECCLESIAE IMPOSTVRAM detexit hoc ROMANAE MISSAE IDOLOMANIAM tanquà m immane monstrum confodicat non committendum putavi ut non grati animi meum hoc testimonium Vobis referrem Quid quòd Causae ipsius necessitas quoque id à me exigere videbatur quae profectò in hac Causa homines Academicos nihil minùs quà m Academicos Scepticos esse sinet nè quis vestrûm quod detestabile omen Deus obruat in Rom. Artolatriam prolabatur quò vel alijs scandalo Majestati divinae odio sibi ipsi denique certo exitio esse possit Postremò in hanc spem adducor nunquà m defuturos ex utraque Academia viros plurimos Theologici juris consultiss omnibusque armis instructissimos non modò ad hujusce Causae patrocinium sustinendum verumetiam ad Mataeologiam omnem Romanensium expugnandam Pergite igitur ô macti antiqua prudentia veritate pergite inquam Amantissimum Vestri diligite quod rectius noveritis impertite precibus vestris adjuvate In Christo Jesu valete qui vos conservet in gloriam Gratiae suae AMEN Tho. Coven Lichff An Advertisement To all Romish Priests and Iesuites of the English Seminaries concerning the Necessity of this ensuing Treatise as also of the Authors Sincerity and his Adversaries unconscionable Dealing in their Allegations of Authors Grace Peace and Trueth in CHRIST IESVS AMong all the Controversies held against your Romish Religion none were ever more hot to draw Protestants violently into the fier than these two first the denying of your Romane Church to be The Catholike Church without which there is no Salvation the second to affirme the Romish Adoration of the Sacrament of the Altar to be Idolatrous Therefore have I especially vndertaken the discussion of both these Questions that seeing as S. Augustine truly said It is not the punishment but the Cause which maketh a Martyr it might fully appeare to the world whether Protestants enduring that fierie triall for both Causes were indeed Heretickes or true Martyrs and consequently whether their Persecutors were iust Executioners of persons then condemned and not rather damnable Murtherers of the faithfull Servants of Christ And I doubt
not but as the first hath verified the Title of that Booke to prove your Doctrine of the Necessity of salvation in your Romish Church to be a GRAND IMPOSTVRE So this second which I now according to my promise present vnto you will make good by many Demonstrations that your Romish MASSE is a very Masse or rather a Gulfe of many Superstitious Sacrilegious and Idolatrous Positions and Practises And because the very name of Romane Church is commonly used as in it selfe a powerfull enchantment to stupifie every Romish Disciple and to strike him deafe and dumbe at once that he may may neither heare nor utter any thing in Conference concerning the Masse or any other Controversie in Religion be the Protestants Defence never so Divine for trueth or ancient for time or universall for Consent or necessary for beleefe I therefore held it requisite in the first place to discover the falshood of the former Article of your Church before I would publish the Abominations of the Masse to the end that for Idolatrie in Scripture is often termed spirituall Adulterie the Romish Church which playeth the Bawd in patronizing Idolatry being once outted your Romish Masse as the Strumpet might the more easily either be reformed or wholly abandoned This may satisfie you for the necessity of this Tractate The next must be to set before you your owne delusorie tricks in answering or not answering Bookes written against you especially such as have beene observed from mine owne experience One is to stangle a Booke in the very birth so dealt Mr. Breereley long since by a letter writ unto mee to prevent the publishing of my Answere against the first Edition of his Apologie when he sent me a second Edition thereof to be answered which both might and ought to have beene sent a twelve-month sooner but was purposely reserved to be delivered not untill the very day after my Answere called and Appeale was published Of which his prevention I have therefore complained as of a most unconscionable Circumvention Another device you have to give out that the Booke whatsoever written against your Romish Tenents is in answering and that an Answere will come out shortly So dealt Mr. Parsons with me Certifying me and all his credulous Readers of an Epistle which hee had received from a Scottish Doctor censuring my Latine Apologies to be both fond and false and promising that his Answere to them Printed at Gratz in Austria should be published before the Michaelmas following whereas there have beene above twenty Michaelmasses sithence every one giving Mr. Parsons his promise the flatt lie A third Art is a voluntarie Concealement and thus Maister Brereley who hauing had knowledge of the fore-mentioned Booke of Appeale manifesting his manifold Aberrations and Absurdities in doctrine his ignorances and fraudes in the abuse of his Authors as in other passages through-out that booke so more especially the parts concerning the Romish Masse yet since hath written a large Booke in defence of the Romish Liturgy or Masse vrging all the same proofes and Authorities of Fathers but wisely concealing that they had beene confuted and his fashoods discouered Only he and Master Fisher singling out of my Appeale an explanation which I gaue of the testimonie of Gelasius in condemning the Manichees concerning their opinion of not administring the Eucharist in both kindes did both of them divulge it in their Bookes and reports also in many parts of this kingdome as making for the iustification of their sacrilegious dismembring the holy Sacrament and fora foule Contradiction vnto my selfe notwithstanding that this their scurrilous iusultation as is here proued serueth for nothing rather than to make themselues ridiculous The last but most base and deuellish Gullerie is a false imputation of Falshoods in the alleaging of Authors which was the fine sleight of Master Parsons a man as subtileâ— for inuention as elegant for expression for obseruation as dextrous and acute and as politike and perswasiue for application as any of his time He in an answere to some Treatises written against your Romish blacke art of Aequiuocation by mentall Reseruation and other Positions fomenting Rebellion to wit in his bookes of Mitigation and Sober Reckoning doth commonly leaue the principall Obiections Reasons and falleth to his verball skirmishes concerning false Allegations and as turning that Ironicall counsaile into earnest Audacter fortiter calumniare c. he chargeth mee with no lesse than fiftie Falsifications All which I spunged out in a Booke entituled an Encounter and retorted all the same Imputations of falshood upon himselfe with the interest of above forty more Which may seeme to verifie that Cognizance which your owne Brother-hood of Romish Priests in their Quodlibets have fastened on his sleeue calling him The Quintessence of Coggerie As for mine owne integritie I have that which may iustifie mee for howsoever any one or other Error may happen in mis-alleaging any one Author yet that I have not erred much or if at all yet never against my Conscience Heereof I have many witnesses One within me a witnesse most Domesticall yet least partiall and as good as Thousands mine owne Conscience a second is above me God who is Greater than the Conscience A third sort of Witnesses are such as stand by mee even all they who have beene conversant with mee in the perusall and examination of Authors Testimonies by mee alleaged men of singular learning and iudgement who can testifie how much they endeared them-selves vnto mee when any of them happened to shew mee the least errour in any thing Hee that shall say Non possum errare must be no man and hee that will not say Nolo errare as hating to erre can be no Christian man The last witnesse for my integritie may be the Bookes of my greatest Adversaries Mr. Parsons and Mr. Brereley whose many scores of falshoods have beene laid so open and published for above sixteene yeares past in two Bookes one called an Encounter against the fore-man the other an Appeale against the second yet hath not any one appeared out of your Romish Seminaries for the vindicating of them heerein By these Advertisements you may easily conceive with what confidence I may proceede in this worke wherein is displayed and layd open in the discussing of these Eight Words of Christ his Institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist HEE BLESSED BRAKE GAVE TO THEM SAYING TAKE EATE DRINKE your Ten Romish Prevarications and Transgressions Afterwards in the following Bookes are reveiled the stupendious Paradoxes Sacrilegiousnes and Idolatrie of your MASSE together with the notorious Obstinacies some fewe Overtures of Periuries out of that great Summe which may afterwards be manifested in your swearing to the other Articles of your new Romane Faith and the manifold Heresies in the Defenders thereof as also their indirect and sinister Obiecting and Answering of the Testimonies of ancient Fathers thorow-out as if they contended neither from Conscience nor for Conscience-sake
stand you still confuted by your owne domesticall witnesses Wee may adde this Reason why there could be no Resemblances of Truth because all the personall Apparitions are said to be of an Infant and of the Childe Iesus albeit Christ at his ascension out of this world was 34. yeares of age and yet now behold Christ an Infant 34. yeares old as if your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had beheld Christ with the Magi in Bethlehem at the time of his birth and not in Bethaven with his Disciples at the instant of his Ascension Of the Suggesters of such Apparitions and of their Complices SECT V. THe first Apparition of flesh above-mentioned was not before the dayes of the Emperour Arcadius which was about the yeare 395. The second not untill 700. yeares after Christ nor is it read of any like Apparition in all the dayes of Antiquity within the compasse of so long a time excepting that of one Marcus recorded by Irenaeus who faigned to Make the mixed wine in the Cup through his Invocation to seeme redd that it might be thought that grace had infused Blood into the Cup which the same Father noteth to have beene done by Magicke at what time there were dayly Proselytes and new Converts to the Christian Religion and on the other side divers Rankes of Heretiques as namely Valentinians Manichees Marcionites and others who all denyed that Christ had any corporall or Bodily Substance at all Were it not then a strange thing that so many Apparitions should be had in after-times in Churches established in Christian Religion and no such one heard of in these dayes of Antiquity when there seemed to be a farre more necessary use of them both for confirming Proselytes in the faith and reducing Heretiques from their Errour that Apparition onely of Marcus excepted which the Church of Christ did impute to the Diabolicall Art of Magicke As for the Reporters much need not to be said of them Simon Metaphrastes is the first who was of that small Credit with your Cardinall that in Answere to an Obiection from the same Author hee said I am not much moved with what Metaphrastes saith And if the Fore-man of the inquest be of no better esteeme what shall one then thinke of the whole Packe As for the testimony under the name of Amphilochius obiected by your Coccius writing the life of Basil and mentioning the like Apparitions of Flesh we make no more account of it then doe your two Cardinals by whom it is reiected as Supposititious and Bastardly But the Suggesters of these Apparitions what were they a matter observable ordinarily Priests together with either old men weomen and sometimes young Girles who wheresoever superstition raigneth are knowne to be most prone thereunto That we say nothing of the lewde Iugglings of your Priâ—sts who in other kinds have beene often discovered amongst us and in other Countries We conclude A true Miracle for Confirmation of Religion we are sure is Divinum opus the Infidell Magicians being enforced to confesse as much saying Digitus Dei hic est And as sure are we that a fained miracle although it be in behalfe of Religion is impious and blasphemous against God who being the God of Truth neither will nor can be glorified by a lie Hath God need of a Lye saith holy Iob. Wee right willingly acknowledge that diuers Miracles have beene wrought for verifying the Eucharist to be a Divine Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ but to be it selfe the true and substantiall flesh of Christ not one When a Iew that had beene once Baptized by one Bishop betooke himselfe to another Bishop to be againe Baptized of him in hope of profiâ— The Water in the Font presently vanished away S. Augustine telleth of a Physitian who was vexed extreamly with the Gout and at his Baptisme was freed from all paine and so continued all his life long Baronius reporteth another of a Child fallen into a little well prepared for men of age to be Baptized in and after that it was held for drowned in the opinion of all by-standers at the prayer of Damascus it arose from the bottome as whole and sound as it was before These Miracles happened not for the dignifying of the matter which was the water of Baptisme but of the nature of the Sacrament it selfe albeit voyd of the Corporall presence of Christ Not to tell you which your Durantus will have you to know of Miracles wrought by the Booke of the Gospell for the extinguishing of Fiers This first Obstacle being removed out of the way our passage will be so much the more easier in the following Discourse CHAP. III. That the Romish manner of the Corporall Presence of Christ in the Sacrament is manifoldly Impossible SECT I. NO sooner doe you heare Protestants talke of the Impossibility of your manner of Presence which your Church prescribeth but you presently cry out upon them as vpon Blasphemous Detractors from the Omnipotencie of God as if they meant To tie God to the Rules of Nature as your Authors are pleased to suggest Wee hold it necessary therefore to remoue this scandall thus cast in the way for simple people to stumble upon before wee can conveniently proceed to the maine matter and this wee shall endeavor to doe by certaine Propositions That by the Iudgement of ancient Fathers some things by reason of Contradiction in them may be called Impossible without the impeachment of the Omnipotencie of God yea with th great advancement thereof SECT II. THis Proposition accordeth to the Iudgement of Ancient Fathers shewing that God cannot doe something even because he is omnipotent as not die not sinne not lye because such Acts proceed not from power but from impotencie and infirmity So the Fathers It is not long since you have beene taught by an exceeding worthy Scholler that in such Cases as imply Contradiction the ancient Fathers noted the pretence of Gods omnipotencie to have beene anciently The Sanctuary of Heretiques And they give an instance in the Arrians who denying Christ to have beene God eternall beleeved him to have beene created God in time as if it were possible there should be a made God whose property is to be eternall Their onely pretence was Gods Omnipotencie to make false things true wherein they proved themselves the greatest Lyars Take unto you a second Proposition II. That the Doctrine of the same Impossibility by reason of Contradiction doth magnifie the power of God by the universall consent of Romish Doctors and their divers examples of Impossibility concerning a Bodie SECT III. YOur owne Iesuites doe lay this for a ground All Divines affirme say they that God is omnipotent because hee can doe any thing that implyeth not contradiction for that Contradiction both affirmeth and denyeth the same thing making it to be and not to be that it is But God who is Being in himselfe cannot
confessed asseverantly by your owne Iesuit where he will have you furthermore to observe that Bread and Wine before Consecration is called an Immaculate Sacrifice even in your Roman Masse And that the Primitive Fathers called Bread and Wine Sacrifice after Consecration also we have likewise proved in two full Sections which your Cardinall is bound to acknowledge who to prove that Melchizedech Sacrificed Bread and Wine produced the Testimonies of Ambrose Augustine Chrysostome Oecumenius and Theophylact to conclude them to have beene Figures of the Eucharist which we desire you to cary still in minde untill we end this Section Hereupon we demand whether you think that Bread and Wine in the Eucharist can be called of Christians a Sacrifice properly either before or after Consecration No saith one Iesuit Because it is not agreeable to our Priest-hood No saith a Second because it were most absurd that the Church of Christ should have a lifelesse Sacrifice and consequently more vile than was the Iewish No saith a Third because it were an heinous impiety now after the abrogation of the terrene Sacrifices of the Iewes to beleeve that the Church of God should professe an Offering of Corporall and earthly Sacrifices No saith a Fourth for it is the judgement of all Christians that there is no Sacrifice in Christian Religion but the Body and Blood of Christ because otherwise the Act of Sacrificing thereof being a Divine Worship should be exercized upon Bread and Wine So they Wee would be glad to take the Apostle of Christ to be our Guide for our better security he as is likewise confessed teacheth that God now is not to be worshipped by way of Sacrifice with any outward thing Oh that your Divines would exercise their quils in publishing such sound Truths as this is we then would wish them Good speed in all their Writings Notwithstanding upon consideration of the Premises we are inforced to complaine of the Vnconscionablenesse of your Cardinall who to prove a proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist did as you may remember produce the Testimonies of five Fathers wherein that which they called a Sacrifice they expressed to be Bread and Wine which by the joynt and consonant Confession of the Cardinall himselfe and other prime Iesuites of his owne society cannot be held to be proper Sacrifices without Absurdity and Impiety And the like obliquity of Iudgement you may finde in your Romish Divines in alleaging the Testimonies of Irenaeus for proofe of the Sacrifice of your Masse which your Iesuit Maldonat hath truly observed to have beene spoken of Bread and Wine even before Consecration One word more By this you may perceive another proofe of the Idiome of Ancient Fathers in Extending the word Sacrifice beyond it's literall sense which beside the former the last annexed Testimony of Augustine confirmeth shewing that now there is in this our Sacrifice no other Subject but Bread and Wine This may serve for the present concerning the true and proper Subject of the Eucharist Bread and Wine We in the next place are to examine the pretended Subject which your Church will have to be the Body and Blood of Christ Our Second Demonstration is that the Ancient Fathers held not the Body and Blood of Christ to be the proper Subject matter of the Eucharist in calling it a Sacrifice SECT II. HOw commeth the Body and Blood of Christ to be a Proper Sacrifice in the Eucharist Your Cardinall will tell us to wit Bread and Wine are consecrated and by Consecration made the Body and Blood of Christ so that now Not Bread saith he but the Body of Christ is the Thing sacrificed This is plaine dealing and as much as if he had said If there be in the Eucharist no Transubstantiation of the Bread into Christ's Body by Consecration then cannot Christ's Body be a proper Sacrifice But that there is no such Transubstantiation or Corporall Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament hath beene proved to be the Iudgement of Ancient Fathers by many Demonstrations thorow-out the third and fourth Bookes A stronger Argument there needeth not Our Third Demonstration is because the objected places of Antiquity for proofe of a Representative Sacrifice properly so called doe not point out any where the Body of Christ as the proper Subject but only as the Object of the Sacrifice spoken of SECT III. The necessary use of this Distinction OVr Distinction is this These words The Body and Blood of Christ as they are applyed to the Eucharist in the name of Sacrifice may admit of a double Acception one is to take them subjectively as being the proper Materiall Subject of this Sacrament the other is to understand them objectively that is to accompt the Body and Blood of Christ as they were the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse to be only the proper Object of a Christian Celebration according to the Direction and Institution of Christ saying Doe this in remembrance of me Your Romish Church professeth the Body and Blood to be the proper Subject we nay but the proper Object of our Celebration This Distinction well learned will be unto our Reader as an Ariadne's thred to winde him out of the Labyrinth of all Obscurities and seeming Repugnancies of Ancient Fathers out of all the confused Subtilties and equivocall Resolutions of your Romish Disputers and out of the Perplexities wherewith some Protestants also may seeme in some sort to have beene intangled The Demonstration it selfe is Because the Eucharist being only Commemorative and Representative cannot be a proper Sacrifice answering the Romish Objection taken from the Sacrifices under the Law SECT IV. THat it cannot be called properly a Sacrifice which is onely for Commemoration and Representation is the Conclusion of your owne Cardinall although it cannot be denied but that Improperly it may be called as well as you may call the Image of Christ crucified the Crucifix But to come to your Objection your Romish Divines and Romish Cardinall are very earnest and instant in proving that because the Iewish Sacrifices being Representations of the passion of Christ were notwithstanding true and proper Sacrifices Therefore the being Representative can be no hindrance that the Eucharist should be a proper Sacrifice So they But yet so as if they had meant to say nothing to the purpose because the Iewish Sacrifices albeit they were Representations of Christs Passion yet were they not only Representations thereof as the Eucharist is but were also beside that Sacrifices in themselves and so ordained to be by God first in their matter as Bulls Sheepe Goats next in their Sacrificing Act which was destructive as to be slaine and lastly in their proper and peculiar end which was as your Cardinall witnesseth for expiation of legall Pollutions and remission of temporall punishments Each one of these may satisfie your Objection The Confirmation of the former Demonstration out of the Fathers first
possibility of the other Six Defects neither man nor woman can deny every one concluding a Materiall Idolatry That there are manifold confessed possible Defects disabling the person of the Priest to consecrate in respect of his no-due Ordination whereby is occasioned a Materiall Idolatry SECT V. YOV have furthermore confessed that for want of due Ordination of the Priest the Sacrament remaineth in his former nature only of Bread and Wine as if he be an Incruder and not ordained at all or else of the forme of Ordination viz. Accipe potestatem offerendi Sacrificium Et Accipe Spiritum Sanctum quorum peccata remiseris remissa c. As if it hath beene corrupted by missing so much as one Syllable or letter by Addition Detraction or any of the six Errors before rehearsed as Accipe Spiritu Sancto for Spiritum Sanctum or Accipe potestatem ferendi Sacrificium for Offerendi or the like That there are many hundred confessed Defects which may nullisic the Consecration to make the Romish Adoration Idolatrous in respect of Insufficiencies which might be incident unto the Prae-ordainers of that Priest whosoever he be that now consecrateth for causing a Materiall Idolatry SECT VI. IF the Bishop that ordained this Priest which now consecrateth were not a true Priest himselfe truly ordained or duly baptized or else the next Bishop before him or yet any one in the same line of Ordainers untill you come to Saint Peter for the space now of a thousand six hundred yeares whereof your Iesuit saith The Defect of Ordination is seene in many Cases wherein Progredi possumus fere in Infinition that is we may proceed almost infinitely So he Thinking belike that if we should in this number of yeares allow unto every Bishop ordaining the continuance of twenty yeares Bishop upward to Saint Peter the number of them all would amount to fourescore Bishops among whom if any one were an Intruder or Vnordained then this Priest faileth in his Priest-hood Now of these kinds your Historians afford us Examples of your Popes some dissolving the Ordinations of their Predecessors even to the cutting off of one Popes fingers wherewith he had used to consecrate Yet is not this all for unto these are to be added the other Defects to wit want of Baptisme whether for want of due Intention being three or undue Pronunciation being six or the Errors either of Intention or Pronunciation in Ordination all which make eighteene and these being multiplied by fourescore which is the number of Bishop-ordainers from this Bishop to Saint Peter the totall we suppose will amount unto a Thousand possible Defects each one whereof if it happen doth quite frustrate and annull the Consecration of this Priest whosoever he be that now saith Masse and leaveth to the people nothing but the substance of the Creatures of Bread and Wine to be Adored in stead of Christ Iesus the Sonne of God And yet in this Summe are not reckoned the foresaid Defects concerning the Matter or Forme of Consecration or of the Priests Intention therein or else of his possible Intrusion into this Function of Consecrating of this one Priest now supposed to be ordained every Defect being of force in it selfe to infer necessarily a Materiall Idolatry in your Romish Masse Now rather than you shall call these our Instances odious or malicious you must accuse your owne Romish Church because we have alleaged no Testimony but out of your owne publike Romish Missall Cardinal's Iesuites and other Authors privileged in your Church We are now in the high point of Christian Religion even the principall part of God's Royalty Divine Adoration not to be trifled withall Therefore now if ever shew your selves conscionable Divines by freeing your Romish Masse from a Formall Idolatry in these forenam'd Respects concerning your confessed Materiall Idolatry and doe it by some grounds of Truth or else abandon your Profession as most damnably Idolatrous CHAP. VI. That the Romish Masse-worship is a Formall Idolatry notwithstanding any Pretence that by your Romish Doctors hath beene made to the Contrary The State of the Question SECT I. VPon this occasion ôh how your Summists Theologues and Casuists doe bestirre themselves for the vindicating of your Church from the guilt of formall Idolatry The Briefe of your Defence is this Although say they in the Margent there be no true Consecration by reason of divers Defects yet in him who upon a Morall certainty with a sincere minde and good intention doth adore Bread it is but Materiall and no Formall Idolatry so that he have an habituall condition as being so disposed in his minde not to give a divine honour unto it if he knew it to be but Bread As for Example He that giveth an Almes to a Rich man being probably perswaded that he is not rich the Act proceedeth from a pious Intention And As it was no sinne in Iacob to lie with Leah because he thought her to be his wife so in this case it is no formall Idolatry to worship Bread being morally perswaded that it is Christ Thus they Your Pretences then are three Morall Certainty Good Intent and at least Habituall Condition But alas all this is but sowing Fig-leaves together which will never be able to cover your foule shame of grosse Idolatry To begin first with that which you call Morall Certainty That the Pretence of Morall Certainty of worshipping of Bread instead of Christ cannot free the Romish Church from Formall Idolatry SECT II. OVR Confutation is grounded upon divers impregnable Reasons one whereof is taken from the Iealouzie of God in his worship the second from the Faith required in a true worshipper the third from the nature of an Oath and the last from the Vncertainty of that which you call Morall Certainty First then although Morall and Conjecturall perswasions might excuse men's Actions in divers Cases yet in an Object of Divine Worship it is utterly condemnable even because of the Iealousie of the Almighty who expresseth himselfe to be a Iealous God Exod. 20. signifying as you know that He will not indure any confort in his worship his Motto being this I am and there is no Other even as in the Case of mortall Majesty when as a subject building upon a morall Certainty onely shall question the Title and Right of his Soveraigne established in his Throne he becommeth guilty of High Treason Secondly all Divine Worship must be performed with a Divine Faith which is an Infallible perswasion of the God-head of that which we honour as God as it is written He that commeth to God must beleeve that God is Heb. 11. 6. and againe You must aske in faith nothing doubting Iac. 1. because this is the nature of Faith as the Apostle describeth it Faith is the Hypostaâ—is of things not seene Heb. 11. That is to take your owne Comment Faith maketh those things which are beleeved no lesse certaine than if they did subsist whereby we