But they must be so many as are suited to every ones capacity and means during his life And no man living can know that he understandeth and believeth as much as his capacity and means were in their kind sufficient to Nay there is no man that hath not been culpably ignorant of somewhat which he might have known 2. Mens Sacramental receptions and comforts depend on the Intention of the Priest which no man knoweth 3. Almost all Godly men must expect the fire of Purgatory and consequently none of them can be rationally willing to dye Because this life is better than Purgatory and no man will desire to go from hence into the fire And so by making all men unwilling to dye it destroyeth a heavenly mind and killeth faith and hope and love and holy joy and tempteth men to be worldlings and to love this life better than the next Yea it tempteth men to be afraid of Martyrdom lest dying in Venial sins as all do they go to a Purgatory fire more terrible than Martyrdom XXIII Reason Their Doctrine is not only contrary to many express Texts of Holy Scripture but also contrary to it self One Pope and one Council having decreed one thing and another the clean contrary XXIV Reason All this evil is made more pernicious by that professed Impenitence which is included in the conceit of their Churches Infallibility For they that hold themselves Infallible do profess never to Repent of any thing in which they suppose themselves to be so And as Repentance is the great evidence of the pardon of sin so Impenitency is that mortal sign of an unpardoned soul without which no sin doth qualifie the sinner to be Excommunicated by man or damned by God And a sin materially less is more Mortal unrepented of than a greater truly lamented and forsaken XXV Reason Every honest godly Protestant may be as sure that Popery is false as he is that he is himself sincere and Loveth God and is truly willing to obey him And no man can turn Papist without self-contradiction who is a true Christian and an honest man For by turning Papist he confesseth himself to be before a false-hearted hypocrite who neither Loved God nor sincerely desired to obey him nor was true to his Baptismal Covenant For it is a part of Popery to believe that none are in a state of salvation but the Subjects of the Pope or members of the Papal Church And consequently that no others have true Faith Repentance or Love to God Or else that God is false in promising salvation to all that have true Faith Repentance and Love to God All therefore that know their own hearts to be truly devoted to God are safe from Popery And seeing it is agreed on both sides that none can or ought to turn Papists but ungodly hypocrites or Knaves no wonder if such are deluded by the most palpable deceits and forsaken of God whom they perfidiously forsook I will name you no more If I make these or any one of these good as I undertake to prove them all you will see that I refuse not my self to be a Papist without sufficient cause And yet by this charge you will see that I am none of their extream adversaries I pass by abundance of Doctrinal differences wherein by many they are most deeply charged Not as Justifying them against all or most so charged on them but 1. As giving you those Reasons which most move my self and which I am most able to make good and leaving every one to his proper work 2. And as one that have certainly found out that in many doctrinals seeming to be the matter of our widest difference we are thought by many to differ much more than we do 1. The difference lying most in Words and Logical Notions and various wayes of mens expressing their conceptions 2. And the animosity of men engaged in Parties and Interests against each other causing most to take all in the worst sense and to make each other seem far more erroneous than they are and to turn differing names into damnable heresies And 3. Few men having Will and Skill to state controversies aright and cut off mistaken seeming differences 4. And few having honesty and self-denyal enough to incurr the censure of the ignorant Zealots of their own party by seeming but impartial and just to their adversaries I mean in such points as 1. The Nature of Divine faith Whether it be a perswasion that I am pardoned c. 2. Of Certainty of salvation 3. And Certainty of perseverance 4. Of Sanctification 5. Of Justification 6. Of Good works 7. Of Merit 8. Of Predestination 9. Of Providence and the Cause of Sin 10. Of Free-will 11. Of Grace 12. Of Imputation of Righteousness 13. Of Universal Redemption 14. Of Original Sin and divers others In all which I cannot justifie them but am sure that the difference is made commonly to seem to be that which indeed it is not In the true impartial stating whereof Lud. Le Blanck hath begun to do the Christian Churches most excellent service worthy our great thanks and his bearing all the Censures of the ignorant PART IV. The First Charge made good against Transubstantiation In which Popery is proved to be the Shame of Humane Nature Contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTURE and TRADITION or the judgement of the Antient and Present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels CHAP. I. The First Reason to prove Transubstantiation false R. THe Papists Belief of Transubstantiation is that There is a change made of the whole substance of the Bread into the body of Christ and of the whole substance of Wine into his blood Their opinion called their faith hath two parts The first is that There is no more true Proper Bread and Wine after the words of Consecration Hoc est Corpus meum The second is that There is the true proper Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ under the species as they call them of Bread and Wine It is the first that I shall now prove false And you must not forget the state of the Question which is not Whether Christs Body and Blood be present But Whether there remain any Bread and Wine Arg. I. If there remain no Bread and Wine after the Consecration then all the senses of all the sound men in the world are deceived or all mens perception of these sensible things deceived though there be due magnitude site distance of the object a due abode and a due medium and no depravation of the sense or intellect But this Consequent is notoriously false as shall be proved Therefore Popery is false 1. That all mens senses perceive Bread and Wine or all mens Intellects by their senses will not be denyed Not only Protestants but Greeks Mahometans Heathens Papists all persons perception by sense is here the same Therefore it is sound senses or else there are none sound in the world 2. It is not one
question Whether Christs Body and blood be here And I grant you that sense is no judge of that any more than whether an Angel be here But the question is now only Whether Bread or Wine or sensible substance be here And of this we have no natural way but by sense to judge P. V. If God should say to you Your senses are in this deceived Here is no bread or wine or sensible substance Would you not believe him R. 1. Again I tell you it is a supposition not to be put As if you should say If God should say that part of the Gospel or word of God is false would you not believe him 2. If I know that God telleth me that some disease or false medium c. deceive me or another in particular I will believe him But here it is supposed 1. That I have assurance that it is God that tells me so 2. And that I have no assurance that common sense saith the contrary But if the sense of all the world about a well scituate object of sense agree I will not take that to be Gods word which contradicteth it till I have some evidence which is better and stronger than the agreeing senses of all the world to prove it to be so And what evidence must that be I assure you somewhat greater than the authority of a beastly ignorant murdering Pope and his factious Council P. VI. Cartesius giveth you an instance of deception of sight We think a square Tower of a Steeple to bâ— round till we come neer it And the water seemeth to us to move when it is the boat R. Cartesius and you do seem to be Confederate to put out the eye of nature and tempt the world to Infidelity if not to Atheism 1. Nature tells us that a distanâ— Steeple or other object is not perfectly discernible and therefore Nature forbiddeth us to judge till wâ— come neerer We speak only of objects duly scituate anâ— qualified 2. The failing of the sight there is but Negative It discerneth not the corners but here yoâ— feign it to be positive 3. As the errour is corrigiblâ— by nearer approach so also by the use of other senseâ— If a man feel the Tower that is square he will infallibly perceive it But if you could prove that this squarâ— Tower is no Tower no Stone no Substance at all thougâ— all the world should judge otherwise that see it at thâ— meetest distance and feel it with their hands then you did something to the purpose So as to the moving water or banks 1. Motion is not so evident as substance 2. Though one sense through the weakness of the brain be insufficient the Intellect by the same sense about other objects and by other senses can infallibly discern what that one perceiveth not 3. And if one mans eyes deceive him who is in the boat ten thousand mens eyes that stand on the firm land perceive the truth But in our case it is all the senses of all the world in all ages about the neerest object that agree P. VII Substance is not the proper object of sense but only Accidents We see feel taste smell the accidents but not the substances R. 1. If you can name some notional speculator or Word-maker that hath said so you think you have authority to renounce humanity by it Call it proper or not-proper substance is the certain object of sense as cloathed with its accidents Quantity and the res quanta are not two things but one And he that feeleth or seeth quantity feeleth or seeth the rem quantam He that seeth or feeleth shape or figure seeth or feeleth the thing figured He that smelleth odor smelâ—eth rem odoratam He that seeth Colour seeth the rem coloratam When to feel the superficies you feel â—he substance 2. By this we see how by words you will unman mankind Have you any way of perception of corporal substances but by sense Do you know that there is any Earth or Water or any corporal substance in the world or not If you do tell us how you know it but by the â—erception of sense presenting it to the Intellect You know that you must thus know it or not at all 3. And thus still you would bring men with Scepticism to Infidelity You would teach men that they that saw Christ were not sure that they saw him or any substance at all but only the accidents called Quantity Shape Colour c. They that saw Apostles Miracles Bibles Councils were not sure that they saw any more than accidents c. P. VIII They that saw Angels appearing to them like men or the Holy Ghost descending on Christ in the shape of a Dove thought they saw Men and a Dove So Moses Rod did seem a Serpent But their senses did deceive them R. Their senses were not at all deceived And if by rash judging they would go beyond sense and wilfully deceive themselves it was their fault Their sense saw the shape or likeness of a man and dove The text saith not that the Holy Ghost was a dove but that it descended in the likeness of a Dove and their senses perceived no more And this was true A man consisteth of a soul and a body of flesh and blood Did sense perceive any of this in the Angels either soul flesh or blood or any such thing in the appearance of a dove If I see your picture or statue is my sense deceived if I take it not for a living man It I see it moved is my sense deceived if I take it not for any other than a moving Image Nature doth not bind me to take every simile to be idem a corps for a man an Image for the person It will be foolishness so to take it But if this Angel or Dove had come near to the senses all the senses of all sorts of men and they had seen and felt and tasted and smelt all that are the objects of these senses and yet there had been indeed no visible tactible sensible substance at all this had been a deception of the senses remediless Christ I am sure appealed to sense to prove that he had flesh and blood and was not a meer spirit The same I say of Moses Rod either it was really a Serpent or not If it was then it was no deception to judge it such If not sense was not at all deceived For it perceived nothing but the similitude and motion and those with the substance were certainly there But if all mens senses seeing feeling tasting c. had been deceived and there had been indeed no shape of a Serpent nor any sensible substance at all but Accidents real without any substance this had been indeed a deception of the senses And if God so subvert mans nature he will not bind him to do the things which belong to the nature of man to do But by all this we may perceive that there is no end of Controversies with
you to be hoped for For how is it possible to bring any thing to a more satisfying issue than when the senses of all the world do as clearly perceive it as any sensible thing can be perceived If our difference were whether this be Paper and these be Letters or whether this be a Pen a Table yea or a substance and I should appeal to the sense of all the World and yet this will not serve to decide the Controversie what end or hope of ending can there be I will sooner look for concord with a mad man than with men that deny the senses of all the World CHAP. III. The second Argument against Transubstantiation The Contradictions of it R. Arg. 2. GOd owneth not Contradictions nor can do The Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation or nullification of the whole substance of Bread and Wine is contradictious Therefore it is not owned by God The Major I know no man that denyeth The Contradictions are these I. You feign many Accidents of no substance which is a gross contradiction For to be an Accident is essentially Relative to a subject or substance And ejus esse est inesse To be a Father without a Son or a Son without a Father a Husband without a Wife or a Wife without a Husband c. are contradictions And so it is to be an Accident of nothing or without a subject Particularly 1. The quantity of nothing is a contradiction We can measure the Bread and Wine To be an inch in longitude latitude or profundity and yet to be no substance is a contradiction To be as the Wine is a quart a gallon of Nothing is a contradiction 2. So for number we can number the wafers or pieces of Bread and the Cups of Wine And to be twenty forty an hundred nothings is a contradiction 3. So for the Weight To be an ounce a pound or ten pound of nothing is a contradiction 4. So for the figure or shape It is a contradiction to be a round nothing a square nothing c. 5. So is it to be a sweet nothing a sharp nothing an austere nothing c. as the Wine is fancied by you 6. Or to be an odoriferous nothing A rough or a smooth nothing c. 7. Or to be a white nothing or a red nothing or any coloured nothing The same I may say of site and of a multitude of Relations c. II. It is a contradiction for Nothing to have all those Real notable effects which it is certain that the consecrated Bread and Wine have As 1. That when a man or a beast is really nourished by the Bread and Wine and flesh and blood and spirits are made of it as they may live by it many months that these should be the effects of nothing or made out of no substance by way of Nutrition without a proper Creation 2. When the Consecrated Bread and Wine do partly turn to Excrements Vrine Dung and Spittle that all the Excrements are nothings or made of nothing without a new Creation is a contradiction 3. When the Wine shall as it may do make a man or a swine drunk that he is made drunk by nothing or no substance when as that drunkenness is essentially the operation of the spirits of the Wine upon the spirits of him that drinks it this also is a contradiction And God maketh not contradictions true P. It is the plea of an Infidel to say that God cannot do this or that Will you limit the power of the Almighty Will you say that God cannot make Quantity quality site c. without substance because we cannot It is blasphemy to say God cannot R. God can do All things that are works of Power God can do nothing which is a work of Impotency defectiveness naughtiness or folly or which are contradictions in themselves And when we say God cannot we do but say either that God is Perfect and Almighty or that the thing is Nothing but a false name and not capable of being any ones work God cannot lye because he is perfect and Almighty and not because he wanteth power God cannot make you to be a man and no man a substance and no substance in the same sence at the same time because it is a contradiction But if this Argument did not hold and it were no contradiction for God to overturn his setled course of Nature I shall shew you next that we have other reasons enough to judge that he doth it not If he Can make darkness to give Light and a clod to be to the World instead of the Sun without changing it or a stone to understand and speak without changing it yet that God doth none of this both reason and experience prove CHAP. IV. The Third Argument against Transubstantiation from the certain falshood of their assertion of multitudes of Miracles in it R. THat doctrine which asserteth a multitude of false or feigned Miracles is false and not of God But such is the doctrine of Transubstantiation Ergo I will 1. Shew you what Miracles it asserteth and 2. Prove that they are feigned or false I. It is a Miracle for Bread and Wine to be turned into no Bread and Wine yea into nothing and this by the speaking of four words II. It is a Miracle or Contradiction for the Bread and Wine to be turned into Christs Body and Blood and yet neither the matter nor form of it to become any of the matter of Christs body and blood III. It is a Miracle or a contradiction rather as aforesaid for the Accidents to be the Accidents of Nothing or no substance to be the quantity of Nothing the shape the number of nothing the colour savour smell of nothing and so of all the rest IV. It is a Miracle to have all the sound senses of all sorts of men in the world so deceived herein as to perceive bread wine and substance if there be none V. It is a Miracle to have the senses of Mice and Rats and Dogs and other Brutes also deceived when they eat and drink it VI. It is a Miracle or contradiction to have nothing without a Creation to become excrements or else those excrements to be nothing also And the Accidents of all those excrements to be the Accidents of Nothing VII It is a Miracle to be nourished by Nothing For you say that it is not Christs body and blood that nourisheth the flesh To have flesh and blood made of nothing is a creation VIII It is a Miracle to be drunk with nothing when the Wine is annihilated or gone and seemeth to be it that causeth the effect Yea for Beast or man to be so drunk IX It is a Miracle or contradiction for Christ to eat his own body as the Papists hold he did and yet it was his Whole Body which did eat his body and yet he had but one body X. It was a Miracle or contradiction for Christs entire body to be nourished by that eaten
Resurrection his turning water into Wine and his feeding thousands with a little food But he that will examine Transubstantiation as afore-described shall find it to have more that is contrary to nature than all these by far The substance of the dead body of Christ or Lazarus did not vanish but remained to be the organized Recipient matter of the re-entring soul There were no Accidents without substances or other such things as are mentioned before The multiplying of food could at the most be but a new Creation But it was real food and none of the contradictions or absurdities before recited The turning of Water into Wine was likest this in the Papists opinion but indeed little like it For the matter of the water there remained with the form of Wine and so became the Matter of Wine and did not vanish And here was real Wine and real substance and not Accidents without substances deceiving all the senses or Intellectual perceptions The same may be said of the miracles of the Apostles compared with Transubstantiation 2. And as to the Number though Christs and his Apostles Miracles were very many yet there is no Scripture-evidence that they were for number comparable for so much time to every Priests Christs miracles are set down in the sacred history in such order and the Evangelists so much agree in reciting the same miracles that though St. John say the world could not contain the Books that should be written yet we find no probability that they were neer so common as Masses are when in several places where Christ came they that looked after Miracles and Signs were denyed them and had none but were put off to the sign of the Prophet Jonah c. Yea Herod and Pilate were in this denyed their desired satisfaction and they that call to him for a miracle on the Cross And so of the Apostles But every Priest doth his miracles as oft as there is a Mass though every day 3. And as to the Facility I said before that in his own Country among his own kindred he could do no mighty work save that he layed his hands on a few sick folk and healed them and he marvelled at their unbelief Mark 6.4 5 6. And he some time groaned in spirit and wept as for Lazarus And the Disciples could not cast out a Devil Mar. 9.18 28. Luk. 9.40 It was not to be done but by fasting and prayer It s like Paul would have cured Trophimus if he could when he left him sick And as holy men spake not when nor as they pleased but when and as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost so did they work miracles not arbitrarily but at such times and in such manner as the spirit moved them But any the most wicked Priest can do it at his pleasure any hour of the day and that but by reciting Hoc est corpus meum Many other disparities appear in what is said before IV. The End of the Gift of Miracles confuteth the feigned Miracles of Transubstantiation The End of Christs gift was to prove him to be of God as is aforeshewed and to prove his Apostles to be of God and to confirm the Gospel which they Preached Mar. 16.17 18 19 20. Heb. 2.4 As the gift of Tongues so other wonders were to convince unbelievers 1 Cor. 14. Act. 2. 4.30 5.12 7.36 8.13 14.3 2 Cor. 12.12 But the miracles of Transubstantiation are known to no unbeliever nor to any one in the world by any sense and have no such End but a contrary effect The Apostles who were to convert the world and next Christ to do the greatest good were therefore to do the greatest miracles And it was their argument for Christ Joh. 7.31 When Christ cometh will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done Yet now every ignorant Priest pretendeth to far more who doth but tempt Infidels to deride Christianity by the pretence as we do Mahometanism for Mahomets sport pretended with the Moon and other such delirations V. God is not to be said to work Miracles and cross the established course of nature without proof But these pretended Miracles have no proof No man living perceiveth them by sense And that God telleth us of no such things by supernatural Revelation shall be further shewed anon In the mean time it may satisfie us that they bring us no proof but their own affirmation which they require us to believe VI. The Matter of these pretended Miracles is expresly contradicted by the Word of God as shall be proved in the next Chapter VII Ad hominem Do not the Papists forget themselves here and contradict their other suppositions 1. They make Miracles to be one evidence of sanctity and therefore Canonize men when they think that they have proof that they wrought Miracles And yet maintain that a Whoremonger Drunkard or Heretick may do many more 2. They make Miracles a proof that they are the true Church and say that among us there are no Miracles and yet they confess that every Priest among us and all others whom they account Schismaticks and Hereticks do more Miracles than Christ did if they consecrate frequently 3. They burn men to ashes for working miracles even for making God if so be they do it not in the Roman fashion 4. They confess that the other Sacraments are not thus made up of Miracles no not Baptism which is our Christening and washeth us from our sins And yet this Sacrament alone must by a multitude of Miracles differ from the rest 4. Whether the Doctrine of their St. Thomas and his followers and others that the formal words of this Sacrament have a created effective virtue by which they instrumentally make the change 3. q. 78. a. 4. c. be not an absurdity rather than a proper miracle For words Physically move but the air first and the terminus of the aires motion e.g. the ear next and next that if it be an intellectual or other animal recipient the sense and fantasie next and so on But the Bread and Wine have no sense nor fantasie nor Intellect And to say that the moved aire is the means of turning them into the body and blood of Christ is still to multiply miracles 5. Do they not too much magnifie the common work and consequently the office of a Priest above the work of a Pope or Prelate who seldom consecrate when the Priest worketh so many Miracles more than they 6. They conclude that a sinner that hath Voluntatem peccandi receiveth Baptism in vain as to its ends of pardoning him and therefore should not receive it Concil Rom. Epist Gregor 7. Aquin. 3. q. 68. a. 4. c. c. And yet be the sinner never such an hypocrite or Infidel he eateth Christs real flesh nevertheless yea against his will if he do but the outward act 7. Is it not strange that an Infidel receiveth as verily the real flesh and blood of Christ as a
give them no peace or quietness in the World unless they will say that Gods Natural Revelations are false and that all mens senses are herein deceived by God as the great deceiver of the World CHAP. II. The Papists Answers to all this confuted P. IT is easie to make any cause seem odious till the accusations are answered which I shall confidently do in the present case I. All this is but argument from sense And sense must vail to faith Gods word must be believed before our senses R. It is easie to cheat fools and children into a dream with a sound of empty words To talk of senses vailing to faith and such like Canting and insignificant words may serve turn with that sort of men But sober men will tell you that sense is in exercise in order of Nature at least before Reason or faith and that we are Men and Animals before we are Christians And that the truth and certainty of faith presupposeth the Truth and Certainty of sense Tell me else if sense be false how you know that there is a Man or Pope or Priest in the World that there is a Book or Voice or any being And what possibility then have you of Believing P. Gods Revelation is surer than our senses R. This is the old song over and over Revelation without sense to you and ordinary Christians at least is a contradiction How know you that God hath any revelations If by preachers words How know you that there is a preacher or a word but by sense If by books How know you that there is a book but by sense P. II. We may trust sense in all other things where God doth not contradict it But not in this One Case because God forbiddeth us R. Say so of your Church too your Pope Council or Traditions that we may trust them in all cases save one or two in which it is certain that they do lye And will not any man conclude that he that can lye in one case can lye in more If one Text of Gods word were false and you would say You may believe all the rest save that how will you ever prove it For the formal object of faith is gone which is the Divine Veracity He that can lye once can lye twice So if all our senses be false in this instance how shall we know that they are ever true P. You may know it because God saith it R. 1. Where doth God say it 2. How shall I be sure that he saith it If you say that it is written in Scripture besides that there is no such word How shall I know that all mens senses are not deceived in thinking that there is a Scripture or such a word in it If you say that the Council saith it How shall I know that there is a man or ever was a Council or a Book in the world The certainty of Conclusions presupposeth the certainty of premises and principles And the certainty of faith and Reasoning presupposeth the certainty of sense And if you deny this you deny all and in vain plead for the rest P. I must believe my senses where I have no reason to disbelieve them But when God contradicteth them I have reason to disbelieve them R. 1. You vainly suppose without proof that God contradicteth them So you may say I may or must believe the Scripture or an Apostle Prophet or Miracle except God contradict them But if God contradict them he contradicteth his own word or revelation For we have no other from him but by man And if he contradict himself or his own word how can I believe him or know which of his words it is that 's true when one is false so here His Natural Revelation is his first nearest and most satisfactory revelation And if that be said to be false by his supernatural revelation which shall I believe and why P. III. You cannot deny but God can deceive our senses And therefore if he can will you conclude against all faith if once he do it R. 1. This is not once but as oft as God is worshiped in your Mass and our Sacrament 2. God can deceive us without a Lie but not by a Lie Christ deceived the two Disciples Luke 24. by carrying it as if he would have gone further but not by saying that he would go further God can do that from which he knoweth that man will take occasion of deceit God can blind a mans eyes or destroy or corrupt his other senses he can present an object defectively with unmeet mediums distance site c. In this case he doth not give us a FALSE SIGN nor doth he by the Nature of the Revelation oblige any man to believe it Yea Nature saith that a man is not to Judge by a vitiated sense or an unmeet medium or a too distant object or where the due qualification of the sense or object are wanting Nature there tells us that we are there to suppose or suspect that we are uncapable of certainty But Nature obligeth us to believe sound senses about duly qualified objects and to take sense for sound when all the senses of all the men in the world agree and the object to be a duly qualified object of sense when all mens senses in the world so perceive it For we have no way but by sense to know what is an object of sense 3. The question is not what God can do by his power if he will but what God will do and can will to do in consistency with his perfection and just and merciful Government of the World And God in making us men whose Intellects are naturally to perceive things sensible by the means of the perception of sense doth naturally oblige man and necessitate him also to trust his senses in such perception And in Nature man hath no surer way of apprehension Therefore if you could prove that sense is ordinarily fallible and Gods revelations to it false yet man were not only allowed but necessitated to use and trust it as having no better surer way of apprehension As among many knaves or lyars I must most trust the honestest and most trusty when I have no better to trust If I am not sure that it is a Sun or Light that I see yet I am sure that I must take my perception of it as a Sun or Light as it is For God hath given me no better If I am not sure that my sight feeling taste c. are infallible yet I am sure that I am made of God to use them and that I have no better senses nor a better way to be certain of their proper objects so that I must take and trust them as they are or cease to be a man P. IV. Christs Body and Blood are not sensible objects and therefore sense is no proper judge whether they be present R. This is one of your gross kind of cheats to change the question We are not yet come to the
Saint and yet not the benefits or effects As if Christs flesh and blood could be in a mans body without his benefit When he hath promised that he that eateth him shall live by him Yet see the measures of their faith and Church Saith Aquinas 3. q. 80. a. 3. ad 2. Vnless perhaps an Infidel intend to Receive that which the Church giveth though he have not true faith about other Articles or about this Sacrament then he may receive sacramentally CHAP. VI. The fourth Argument This Miraculous Transubstantiation is expresly contrary to the Word of God in Scripture Arg. 4. THe Papists say that there is no bread after the words of Consecration Gods word saith There is Bread after the Consecration Therefore the Papists speak contrary to the Word of God I. In 1 Cor. 11. It is called expresly BREAD after consecration no less than three times in three verses together 26 27 28. For as oft as ye eat this Bread and Drink this cup ye shew the Lords death till he come Wherefore whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the Body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup Here they that call for express words of Scripture for our doctrine without our consequences may see their own faith expresly contradicted and our opposition justified The Holy Ghost here expresly calleth it Bread And yet no expresness nor evidence will satisfie them P. By Bread is meant that which was Bread before or else that which nourisheth the soul as Bread doth the body And so it is metonymically only called Bread as Christs Flesh is called Bread in Joh. 6. R. Why then do you call for express texts of Scripture as our proof when that expresness signifieth nothing with you but you can say It is a metonymie or a metaphor at your pleasure But you say so against notorious Evidence The Apostle calleth it Bread so often over and over as if he had foreseen your inhumane heresie He calleth it The Bread which is to be Eaten joyned with Drinking the Cup never once calling either of them the Flesh or Blood of Christ but as he reciteth Christs words which he expoundeth Yea he telleth us that eating this bread and drinking this cup is to shew the Lords death till he come where he calleth us to look back at Christs death as past in our Commemoration and to look forward to his personal coming as future but never telleth us that we must kill Christ and eat him our selves when we have made him nor that his body is there present under the accidents of Bread and Wine But the rest of the Scriptures as expresly justifie our doctrine 1 Cor. 10.15 The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion or Communication of the blood of Christ And the Bread which we break is it not the communion or participation of the body of Christ Here it is the Cup and the Bread after Consecration if the Holy Ghost may be believed And in the next words the Apostle repeateth it in his reason For we being Many are One Bread and One Body For we all partake of one Bread or Loaf Is not here express proof So Act. 20.7 When we came together to break Bread And v. 11. He ascending and breaking bread and eating c. Here it is twice more called Bread after the Consecration which ever went before the Breaking So Act. 2.42 46. It is twice more called Breaking of Bread And what else can the recitation of Christs institution mean 1 Cor. 11.23 24. Panem accepisse fregisse to have taken Bread and having given thanks to have broken What is it that he brake It s non-sence if it have no accusative case that it respects And plain Grammatical construction tells us then that it must be that before mentioned What he Took he blessed and brake and gave But he took Bread and the Cup The same is in Mat. 26 26 27. and the other Evangelists II. The Scriptures expresly Act. 2 c. make the Killing of Christ and drawing his blood to be the heynous sin of the Jews for which some Repented and others were cast off Therefore it is not to be believed that Christ did first kill or tear himself and shed his own blood or that his disciples did kill him or tear his flesh and shed his blood before the Jews did it And if they tore his flesh and drank his blood and yet killed him not the event altered not the fact The Jews did but break his flesh and shed his blood If you fly to a good intention Paul will come in for some further excuse for his persecution III. 1 Cor. 10.21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of Devils Ye cannot be partakers of the Lords table and of the table of Devils Here note 1. That the same phrase is used of the Participation of the Lords mysteries and the Devils But it was not the flesh and blood or the substance of Devils which the Idolaters ever intended to partake of but only their sacrifices 2. It is here called only the Table and the Cup and not the flesh and the blood 3. It is said that They could not partake of both whereas according to the Papists doctrine if a man should partake of the Idols sacrifice in the morning and of the Lords Table in the evening without repentance he should really partake of Christs own flesh and blood which the Text saith cannot be done P. It meaneth only You cannot Lawfully or you ought not to partake of both but not that it is impossible or never done R. No doubt but it meaneth that They ought not or cannot Lawfully but that 's not all The text plainly meaneth You cannot have communion with both You may take the bread and wine at your peril but you cannot partake of it as a sacramental feast which God prepareth you and so partake of Christ therein And the same is said expounding this 2 Cor. 6.15 What concord hath Christ with Belial and what agreement hath the temple of God with Idols Intimating that Communion with God and Idols Christ and Belial are so far inconsistent But by the Papists doctrine an Idolater and Son of Belial may partake of the very substance of Christs body and blood into his body as verily as he partaketh of his meat and drink IV. The Scripture teacheth us expresly to judge of sensible things by sense Luk. 24.39 Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have And when he had thus spoken he shewed them his hands and his feet And v. 43 he did eat before them to confirm their faith But they could have no more sensible evidence of any of this than we have of the being of Bread and Wine or some
order of nature Thou blindest the providence of God himself as if he had made mens lying and deceitful senses to be the Lords in understanding honouring dispensing and enjoying all his works Is not the whole Condition of man subadministred by these And after We may not call those senses into question lest Christ himself must deliberate of their certainty or must distrust them Lest it may be said that he falsly saw Satan cast down from Heaven or falsly heard the voyce of his Father testifying of him or was deceived when he touched Peters Wives Mother or perceived not a true taste of the Wine which he Consecrated in the memorial of his blood Many such places are in Tertullian 4. Origen is large and plain to the same purpose in Matth. 25. calling it Bread and a Typical and Symbolical Body which profiteth none but the worthy receivers and that according to the proportion of their faith and which no wicked man doth eat c. Many more such places Albertinus vindicateth 5. Cyprians Epistle to Magnus is too large this way to be recited As Even the Sacrifices of the Lord declare the Christian Vnanimity connexed by firm and inseparable love For when the Lord calleth Bread his body or his body bread made up of many united grains c. And when he calleth the Wine his Blood c. So Epist ad Caecil 6. Eusebius Caesar demonstr Evang. l. 1. c. 10. Celebrating daily the memorial of the body and blood of Christ Seeing then we receive the memorial of this Sacrifice to be perfected on the Table by the symbols of his body and most precious blood And l. 8. He delivered to us to use Bread as the symbol of his own body 7. Athanasius's words are recited by Albertinus l. 2. p. 400 401 c. 8. Basil de Spir. Sanct. saith Which of the Saints hath left us in Writing the words of invocation when the Bread of the Eucharist and the Cup of blessing are shewed 9. Ephrem in Biblioth Photii p. 415. Edit August saith The body of Christ which believers receive loseth not his sensible substance and is not separated from the intelligible grace And ad eos qui filii Dei c. Take notice diligently how taking Bread in his hands he blessed it and brake it for a figure of his immaculate body and he blessed the Cup and gave it to his Disciples as a figure of his pretious blood 10. Cyrillus vel Johan Hierosol Catech. Mystag calls the bread indeed Christs body but fully expounds himself de Chrysmate Cat. 3. pag. 235. For as the Bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is no more Common Bread but is the Body of Christ So also this Holy Oyntment is no more meer Oyntment nor if any one had rather so speak common now it is consecrated but it is a Gift or Grace which causeth the presence of Christ and the Holy Ghost that is of his Divinity As the Oyntment is Grace or the Holy Ghost just so the Bread is the body of Christ as he saith after Cat. 4. It is not only what we see Bread and Wine but more 11. Hierom cont Jovinian l. 2. The Lord as a type or figure of his blood offered not water but wine 12. Ambrose de Sacram. l. 4. c. 4. This therefore we assert How that which is Bread can yet be the body of Christ And If Christs speech had so much force that it made that begin to be which was not how much more is it operative that the things that were both Be and be changed into something else And As thou hast drunk the similitude of death so thou drinkest the similitude of pretious blood 13. Theodoret in Dialog Immutab dealeth with an Eutychian Heretick who defended his Error by pleading that the bread in the Eucharist was changed into the body of Christ To whom saith Theodoret The Lord who hath called that meat and bread which is naturally his Body and who again called himself a Vine did honour the visible signs with the appellation of his body and blood not having changed their Nature but added Grace to Nature And in Dialog 2. In confus he saith The divine Mysteries are signs of the true body And again answering the Eutychians pretence of a change he saith By the net which thou hast made art thou taken ☞ For even after the Consecration the Mystical signs change not their nature For they remain in all their first SVBSTANCE figure and form and are Visible and to be Handled as before But they are understood to be the things which they were made and are believed and venerated as made that which they are believed to be Would you have plainer words 14. Gelasius cont Nest Eutych saith Verily the Sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we take is a Divine thing for which and by which we are made partakers of the divine nature ☞ And yet it ceaseth not to be the Substance and Nature of Bread and Wine And certainly the Image and similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the action of the Mysteries What can be plainer 15. Cyril Alexandr in John 4. cap. 14. saith He gave to his believing disciples fragments of Bread saying Take Eat This is my body 16. Facundus lib. 9. cap. 5. pag. 404. as cited by P. Molin de Novitate Papismi We call that the body and blood of Christ which is the Sacrament of his body in the consecrated Bread and Cup. ☞ Not that the Bread is properly his body and the Cup his blood but because they contain the Mysterie of his body and blood But I am so weary of these needless Transcriptions that I will trouble my self and the Reader with no more Albertinus will give him enow more who desireth them And no doubt but with a wet finger they can blot out all these and teach us to deny the sense of words as well as our senses D. But you said also that the Present Church and its Tradition is against Transubstantiation as well as the Antient How prove you that R. Just as I prove that the Protestants are against it By the present Church I mean the far greater part of all the Christians in the world The Greeks with the Muscovites the Armenians the Syrians the Copties the Abassines and the Protestants and all the rest who make up about twice or thrice as many as the Papists That they hold that there is true Bread and Wine after Consecration all impartial Historians testifie both Papists and Protestants and their own several Countreymen and also Travellers who have been among them And their Liturgies even those that are in the Bibliotheca Patrum put out by themselves do testifie for those Countreys where they are used Though as Bishop Vsher hath detected by one words addition they have shamelesly endeavoured to corrupt the Ethiopick Liturgy about the Real presence But I need no more proof of that which
no faithful History doth deny And then I need not prove that Transubstantiation is against the most General or Common Tradition For all these Christians the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. profess to follow the Religion which they have received from their Ancestors as well as the Papists do And if the Papists be to be believed in saying that this is the Religion which they received from their forefathers Why are not the other to be believed in the same case And if the Popish Tradition seem regardable to them Why should not the Tradition of twice or thrice as many Christians be more regardable And if in Councils the Major Vote must carry it Why not in the Judgement and Tradition of the Real body of Christs Church As for their trick of excepting against them as Schismaticks and Hereticks to invalidate their Votes and Judgement we despise it as knowing that so any Usurper that would make himself the sole Judge may say by all the rest of the world But as they judge of others they are justly judged by others themselves CHAP. X. The second part of the Controversie Whether it be Christs very Flesh and Blood into which the Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated R. OUr first Question was Whether there be any Bread and Wine left after Consecration Our second is Whether Christs Real Flesh and Blood be there as that into which the Bread and Wine are changed And herein 1. I do freely grant that the change of Christs Body by Glorification is so great as that it may be called though not a Spirit yet a spiritual body as Paul 1 Cor. 15. saith Ours when Glorified shall be that is A body very like in purity simplicity and activity to a Spirit And the general difference between a spirit and body was not held by many of the Greek Fathers as it is by us And if the second Council of Nice was Infallible no Angel or other Creature is Incorporeal Or as Damasus saith They are Corporeal in respect to God but Incorporeal in respect to gross bodies The perfect knowledge of the difference between Corpus and Spiritus except by the formal Virtues is unknown to mortal men 2. I grant therefore that our senses are no Competent Judges Whether Christs true body be in the Sacrament no more than Whether an Angel be in this room There are bodies which are Invisible 3. I grant that it is unknown to us how far Christs Glorified body may extend Whether the same may be both in Heaven and on earth I am not able nor willing to confute them that say Light is a Body nor them that say It is a spirit nor them that say It is quid medium as a nexus of both I mean Aether or Ignis visible in its Light And it is an incomprehensible wonder if Lumen be a real radiant or Emanant part of the Sun that it should indivisibly fill all the space thence to this earth and how much further little do we know So for the extensions of Christs body let those that understand it dispute for me 4. And I will grant that it is very probable that as in Heaven we shall have both a Soul and Body so the Body is not like to have so near an Intuition and fruition of God as the soul And whether the Glorified Body of Christ will not be there a medium of Gods Communication of Glory to our bodies yea and his glorified soul to our souls as the Sun is now to our eyes I do not well understand only I know that it is his prayer and will that we be with him where he is to behold his Glory and that God and the Lamb will be the Light of the Heavenly Jerusalem 5. And I am fully satisfied that it is not the signs only but the Real Body and Blood of Christ which are given us in the Sacraments both Baptism and the Eucharist But how given us Relatively de jure as a man is Given to a Woman in Marriage or as a house and land are delivered to me to be mine for my use though I touch them not Thus 1. A right to Christ is given us 2. And the fruits or benefits of his Crucified body and shed blood are actually given us that is Pardon and the Spirit merited for us thereby 6. And among the Benefits given us besides the Relative there are some such as we call Real or Physical terminatively and hyperphysical originally ut à Causa which are the spirit of Holiness or the Quickening Illuminating and Sanctifying influence of the spirit of Christ upon our souls And the Sacrament is appointed as a special means of communicating this 7. I have met with some of late who say that Indeed Christs Body and Blood in his humbled state were not really eaten and drunk by the disciples at his last supper For the flesh profiteth not to such a use But that his Glorified Body is spiritual and is extensively communicated and invisibly present under the form of Bread in the Sacrament and that as we have a Body a sensitive life and an Intellectual soul so Christ is the life of all these respectively viz. His Body is made the spiritual nourishment of our Bodies his sensitive soul for which the word Blood is put because it is in the blood in animals is the food or life of our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul of ours And to these uses they assert the Real presence and oral participation of Christs Glorified body To all which I say 1. Whether or how far an invisible spiritual Body is present sense is no judge nor can we know any further than Gods word telleth us 2. That Christ in his Glorified soul and Body is our Intercessour with God through whom we have all things we must not doubt 3. That Christ in his Humane and Divine Nature now in Heaven is that Teacher who hath left us a certain word and that King who hath left us a perfect Law of Life whom we must obey and a promise which we must trust we must not question 4. That the Holy Ghost who is our spiritual Life is given us by from and for Christ our Mediator we must take for certain truth But though in all these respects Faith apprehendeth and liveth upon Christ yet that moreover his Glorified Body in substance either feedeth or by contact purifieth our Bodies and his sensitive soul our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul our Intellectual souls as if in themselves and not in their effects only they were thus communicated to us I understand not either by any just conception of the thing it self or any proof of it from the word of God But if any can help me to see it I shall not refuse instruction Nor can I see why the soul of Christ should be said to be given in the Wine only and not in the Bread Nor why by this kind of Communication he may not as truly be said to be given us in
are less doubtful and resolved into a conceded Principle PART II. The Principles which Papists and Protestants are agreed in And therein the full â—ustification of all the Protestants Religion THe first common Principle That we are Men having Reason and Free-will and Sense whose Natural way of knowing things sensible is by the perception of our senses having no way of greater Certainty R. I take it for a common principle that we are Men having Reason and Free-will and Sense whose natural way of Knowing things sensible is by the perception of our senses And therefore that our rightly constituted or sound senses with their due media about their proper objects are to be trusted being either certain or we have no certainty P. I know what you intend I grant it as you express it R. It must then be granted us that there is true Bread and Wine in substance remaining after the words of the Mass-Priests consecration P. Yes When you can prove that the consecrated Bread and Wine are the proper objects of sense which we deny they being not now Bread and Wine R. Is it by the Perception of sense that you deny it or by other means P. No It is by Faith and Reason which are above Sense R. Now you come to deny the Principle which you granted Sense is the perceiver of its own objects No Faith no Reason can perceive them but by sense And if due sensation perceive them and Faith deny them then Faith denyeth sense to be the proper natural perceiver of its objects and our judgement of things sensible to be such as must follow that perception But we must dispute of this anon and will not now anticipate it Only remember that if you deny sense which is the first Principle no mortal man is capable of disputing with you there being no lower principle to which we can have recourse and resolve our differences The second Principle That there is One only God Infinite in Being Power Wisdom and Goodness Our Owner Ruler and Chief Good Most Holy Just and True and therefore cannot lye but is absolutely to be believed and trusted and loved R. I need not repeat it Do you not Agree with us in this P. Yes Heathens that are sober and Christians are agreed in it R. You grant then that this may be known by them that are no subjects of the Pope Remember anon that we are not to be blamed for Believing God The third Principle That the whole frame of Nature within us and without us within our reach is the signal Revelation of God and his Will to man called Objectively The Light and Law of Nature R. I suppose that this also may pass for a common granted Principle P. Yes as you express it If we agree not of the Light and Law of Nature we come short of Infidels and meer Natural men R. Observe then that we are Justified by your principles for Believing and Trusting Gods Natural Revelation The very first part of which is made to our senses By Natural Evidence God sheweth us that Bread is Bread P. Yes when sense is sound and objects and media just and God doth not contradict sense by supernatural Revelation The fourth Principle That Natural Revelation is before supernatural and sense before faith and we are Men in order of Nature at least before we are Christians and the former is still presupposed to the later R. This also I suppose is a granted Principle P. It is so But see that you raise no false consequents from it R. I conclude from it that He that denyeth the perception of sense to be the certain way of Judging of things sensible denyeth all the Certainty of faith and subverteth the very foundations of it And that we are justified for our Assenting first to Gods Natural Revelations It is God that made my senses and understanding and God that made the object and media as Bread and Wine and therefore God deceiveth me if I be deceived in taking it for Bread and Wine after Consecration But God is to be believed in his first Revelations P. You vainly call Sensation and Intellection or Knowledge of things sensible by the name of Believing R. We will not vainly contend about the Name if we agree of the Thing But this leadeth me to another Principle The fifth Principle That the Knowledge of things fully sensible hath more quieting satisfying Evidence than our Belief of supernatural Revelations alone as made to us by a Prophet or Apostle And that where all the sound senses of all men living do agree about their near and proper sensible object there is the most satisfying Evidence of all R. I suppose that we are all agreed also in this principle P. As you word it we are For our Divines distinguish of Evidence and Certainty and are so far from saying that Faith hath more Evidence than Sense and Knowledge that it is ordinary with them to say that this is the difference between Faith and Knowledge and that faith hath not Evidence but yet it hath no less certainty R. Some men use words first to sport themselves out of their understandings and then to use others to the same game Evidence is nothing but the Perceptibility or Cognoscibility of a thing by which we call it Knowable which is the Immediate necessary qualification of an Object of Knowledge Certainty is either Objective which is nothing but this same Cognoscibility or Evidence as in a satisfying degree Or it is Subjective or Active which is nothing but the Infallible or True and quieting satisfactory knowledge of a Truth Where the Certainty of Object and Act concurr For no man can be certain of a lye or untruth For to be Certain is to be certain that it is True Those therefore would befool the world who would perswade men that a clear and confident perception of an untruth or confident error is Certainty There may be Objective Truth and Certainty of the Matter where there is not in us an Active or Subjective Certain Knowledge of it But there can be no Active Certainty of an Objective Vncertainty or certain Knowledge of a lye Now if you mean that faith hath Objective Certainty without Evidence of Certainty or Ascertaining Evidence that is but to say and unsay It hath Certainty and no Certainty For this Certainty and Evidence is all one But if you mean that Faith hath an Active Subjective Certainty without an Objective Certainty in the Matter you speak an impossibility and contradiction as if you said I clearly see a thing invisible or without light P. Do you think that our Divines knew not what they said when they say that to believe without Evidence maketh faith meritorious R. The old asserters of this meant the same that Christ meant when he saith to Thomas Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed There is a sensible Evidence and an Intelligible Evidence Faith hath not an Immediate sensible Evidence that is we believe
things unseen and above sense And this is their meaning We see not God Christ Heaven Angels c. But faith hath alwaies Intelligible Evidence of Verity and as our Mr. R. Hooker saith can go no further than it hath such Evidence However I appeal to any that have not been disputed out of their wits whether If God would give us as full a sight of Heaven and Hell and Angels and Blessed souls as we have of the Bread and Wine before us and as full a Hearing of all that they say in justification of Holiness or Lamentation of sin and as full sensible acquaintance with the world we go to and our title to it as we have with this world I say whether this would not be more ascertaining and satisfactory to us and banish all doubts more than our present faith doth I love not to hear men lie as for God and talk and boast against their experience as if the interest of faith required it Things revealed to faith Are Certain and Infallible But that is because we have certain evidence 1. That God cannot lie 2. And that God revealed them and so that they are True But if we did see feel taste c. we should be more certain Else why is it said that we now know but enigmatically and as in a glass and as children but hereafter shall see as face to face and know as we are known when faith is done away as being more Imperfect than Intuition We have evidence to prove that the Revelation made to David Isaiah Jeremiah Peter Paul c. were of God and that their words are by us to be believed c. But to see hear taste feel c. would be a more quieting Assurance Therefore when all the sound senses of all men living perceive after consecration that there is Bread and Wine this Certainty is 1. in order antecedent to that of faith and 2. by Evidence more satisfying and assuring than that of meer faith as to a prophets Revelation And therefore to reject it on pretence of faith is a subversion of all natural methods of assurance and is but pretended I think by your selves The sixth Principle That except those Immediate Inspirations which none but the Inspired do Immediately and clearly perceive we have no Revelations from God but by signes which are created beings and have their several Natures and so may be called Physical though signifying Moral things And thus far our natural and supernatural Revelations agree R. Every being is either Vncreated which is God only or Created in a large sense that is Caused What God Revealed to Christ Peter Paul c. we have knowledge of but by signes In Scripture these signes are Words These words signifie partly the mind of God and the speakers or writers and partly the matter spoken or written When it is said that It is impossible for God to lye it can mean nothing to us but that it is impossible that God should make us a deceitful sign of his will The voice of an Angel Prophet Apostle a thousand Miracles c. are but signes of the matter and of Gods will And if God can ordinarily make false natural signes we are left unassured that he cannot make false signes by an Angel or a Prophet or a Miracle And so all faith is left uncertain P. Then you will make God a lyar or deceiver whenever any man is deceived by natural signes R. Not so For men may deceive themselves by taking those for signes of a thing which are none and so by misunderstanding them And the Devil and bad men may promote this deceit But whenever God giveth man so plain a sign of the Matter and his Will as that no errour of an unsound sense an unqualified object a culpable or diseased fantasie or Intellect interveneth then if we are deceived it can be none but God that doth deceive us which cannot be because he cannot lye And as it is an unresistible argument against the Dominican doctrine of Physical Predetermination as absolutely necessary to all acts of natural or free agents that If God physically predetermine every lyar to ivery lye that is mentally conceived or uttered then we have no certainty but he might do so by the Prophets and Apostles so is it as good an argument against Papists that if he ordinarily deceive the senses of all sound men by a false appearance of things seeming sensible he may do so also by the audible or legible words of a prophet The seventh Principle That he that will confute sense and prove that we should not Judge according to its perceptions must prove it by some more certain evidence that contradicteth it R. I suppose you will not question this P. No The word or Revelation of God is a more certain evidence R. How know you that there is any word of God but by your senses P. But yet by sense I may get a certainty which is above that of things sensible As I know by the world that there is a God by a certainty above that of sense R. 1. If that were so yet if things sensible be your media you destroy your Conclusion by denying them and undermine your own foundation 2. But it is not true The knowledge of the Conclusion can be no stronger than that of the principles even of the weaker of them If you are in any uncertainty whether there be Sun Moon Heaven Earth Man Beast Heat Cold or any Created sensible being you must needs be in as much doubt whether there be a God that made them The eighth Principle That Believing or Assenting is Intellection of the Truth of something revealed and therefore must have Intelligible Evidence of Truth in the thing believed R. I know that Assiance or Trust as it is the act of the Will reposing it self quietly on the Believed fidelity of God is not Intellection But the Assenting act is an Intellection or an Act of Knowledge of a Verity not as Science is narrowly confined to principles but as Knowledge is taken in genere for notitia So to believe is no other than to know that this is true because God saith it Joh. 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ c. Joh. 3.2 We know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man could do such works c. Joh. 21.24 We know that his testimony is true See Rom. 7.14 8.28 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if this earthly house c. 1 Tim. 1.8 1 Joh. 3.2 Joh. 8.28 32. 1 Cor. 15.58 We know that our Labour is not in vain c. Therefore your denying the certainty where the evidence is most notorious and telling men of Meriting if they will but believe your Church without any Evidence of certainty is a meer cheat The ninth Principle That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World and that Christianity is the true Religion and Gods appointed sufficient way to Heaven
of damnation to believe that there is no Bread and no Wine when all the soundest senses of any men in the world do perceive Bread and Wine by seeing it tasting it feeling it smelling it and by the notorious effects and all this built upon no Revelation of God no Reason at all nor any true consent of the Primitive Church but clean contrary to them all that I solemnly profess that I find it an utter Impossibility to believe it And it often puts me to a doubt Whether it be possible for any mortal man unfeignedly and fully to believe it and Whether there be really any such Papist in the world or Whether most do not for carnal respects take on them to believe it when they do not or rather the Vulgar understand their words as not really excluding the true being of Bread and Wine and the rest only somewhat overawing their own reason with a reverence of their Church so far as not to contradict or so far as notionally to own it when they do not from the heart believe the thing So many contradictions absurdities and impieties are to be by them believed with it that I am sure no man that understandeth them can possibly believe them all And all this must be done by Miracles stupendious miracles daily or common miracles which every Priest can do at his pleasure and never fail sober or drunken greater than raising a man from the dead so that every beastly sordid ignorant Priest shall do more miracles by far than ever Jesus Christ did in all his life on earth as far as we know by the holy Records if he live as long He that can believe all this may next believe that there is neither Earth under his feet nor the Firmament over his head nor Water nor Air nor any other Creature and that he hath no being himself II. Reason The Faith or Religion of the Papists as described by themselves is so far from Infallibility as that it is utterly uncertain unintelligible and meer contradiction and confusion and a changeable thing so that no man knoweth whether he have it or not and whether he have it all But whoever hath it he hath certainly a hodge-podge of truth and falshood III. Reason Their Papacy which essentiateth their Church is a horrid Usurpation of Christs own Prerogative and of an Office to do that which is incompaparably above the Natural Power or Capacity of any mortal man even to be the Apostle and Governour of the whole world of Christians at least To take Charge of all the souls on earth to teach and call those that are uncalled and to Rule those that are baptized even at the Antipodes and in all those unknown or inaccessible parts of the world which he hath no knowledge of A far more arrogant undertaking than to be the Civil Monarch of all the earth and utterly impossible for him to perform and which never was performed by him IV. Reason The said Papacy is an arrogant Usurpation of the Power of all the Christian Princes and Pastors upon earth or of a Power over them never given by Christ It setteth up a Kingdom in a Kingdom and taketh from Pastors the power which Christ gave them over their particular flocks V. Reason The said Papacy is a meer humane Institution They confess themselves that it is not of Divine faith that the Bishop of Rome is St. Peters Successor by Divine Right It is no article of their own faith But History fully assureth us that it was but in the Roman Empire that the Roman Bishop was made Supream as the Archbishop of Canterbury is in England And that he standeth on the same humane foundation as the other four Patriarchs of the Empire did And that their General Councils were called by the Emperours and were called General only with respect to that Empire And there never was such a thing as a General Council of all the Christian world nor ever can be And that there never was such is most notorious yet by the Names subscribed to all the Councils But they abuse the world and claim that power over all the Christians on earth which one Prince gave his subject-Prelates in his Empire As if the General Assembly of Scotland or France should pretend to be a General Council of the world and the Archbishop of Canterbury should call himself Archbishop of all the Church on earth and claim the government of it VI. Reason The said Papacy hold their claim of Supream Government as by Gods appointment though they confess as before said that it is not de fide that the Pope succeedeth Peter by Divine right and this notoriously Contrary to the Judgement and Tradition of the far greatest part of the Churches in the world General Councils such as they had and the sense of the greatest part of Christians have determined against the Papal claime And Tradition condemneth them to this day while they plead Tradition VII Reason It is Treason against Christ for the Papists who are but a Sect and not the third part of the Christians in the world to call themselves the whole Church and unchurch all the rest and seek to rob Christ of the far greatest part of his Kingdom by denying them to be such As if they would deny two third parts of this Kingdom to be the Kings They are Sectaries and Schismaticks by this arrogant dividing from all the rest and appropriating the name and priviledges of the Church to themselves alone VIII Reason By making an unlawful and Impossible Condition and Center of Church Vnion they are the greatest Schismaticks in all the world The greatest Dividers of the Church upon pretence of Vnity As he would be a divider of this Kingdom who would set up a Vice-King without the Kings authority and say that none that subject not themselves to him shall be taken for subjects of the King IX Reason They studiously brand themselves with Satans mark of malice or uncharitableness and cruelty to mens souls while they sentence to damnation two third parts of the Christian world because they will not be the subjects of their Pope And they think their way to Heaven is safest because they are bolder than us in damning other Christians Whereas Love is the mark by which Christs Disciples must be known to all X. Reason They are inhumanely cruel to mens bodies And this is their very Religion For the Council at the Laterane under Innocent the third decreed that those that believe not or deny Transubstantiation are Hereticks and all Temporal Lords shall exterminate them from their Dominions That is no man shall be suffered to live under any Christian Lord that will not renounce all his senses and profess that he believeth that they are all deceived by God himself which is not only to renounce their Humanity but their Animality or sense it self So that no men indeed are to be suffered to live but only such as deny themselves to be men What Heathens
sense but all The eye seeth Bread and Wine The hand and mouth feel it The palate tasteth it The smelling sense smelleth the Wine yea and the ear heareth it poured out 3. It is in due quantity and not an undiscernable Atome 4. It is near the sense and neither by too much distance or nearness made insensible 5. It hath a due abode and is not made insensible by hasty passing by 6. The air and light and all necessary media of perception are present So that there is nothing wanting to the sensibility of the object P. And how do you prove all or any of these For ought you know the media may be undue the magnitude site distance abode may not be what they seem to be and so you prove not what you say R. All that I am now saying is that All men of sound sense in the world have these immediate clear perceptions The Intellect by sense perceiveth the object as quantitative as near c. This you dare not deny So that if this perception be false and here be no Bread and Wine then Sense or the Intellect discerning by the means of sense is deceived P. I say that the Senses or Intellects perception are deceived R. I prove that they are not deceived or at least that this kind of perception is the most certain that man on earth is capable of and is to be trusted to by all men and disbelieved or contradicted by none Reason I. Because that humane nature is so formed that the Intellect hath no other way of perceiving things sensible but as they are first perceived by the sense and by it transmitted to the Intellect or made its objects And if about Spirits it hold not that There is nothing in the Intellect which was not first in the sense yet about things sensible it doth undenyably hold And also that the Intellect of it self is not free to perceive things sensible otherwise than as they are sensed or not to perceive them but is naturally necessitated to perceive them So that it is a contradiction for a man to be a man consisting of a reasonable soul with sensitive faculties and a body and yet not to be formed to judge of things sensible as sense perceiveth them P. Then mad men cease to be men if they judge otherwise R. Mad men are your fittest presidents But 1. I told you how mans nature is made by God to judge of things I told you not that this nature may not be vitiated and hindered from right action Did I ever say that the eye may not be blinded or the understanding distracted Blind men and mad men judge not according to the tendency of Nature and therefore mis-judge The Connexion of the Intellect to the sense is essential to man as man but so is not the soundness or right exercise of his faculties Reason II. Hence I argue that sensation and the understandings perception thereby is the first perception of mans soul and all that follow are but the rational improvements of it and therefore ever presuppose it The natural order of the souls apprehensions is this beyond all controversie First Sense perceiveth things sensible and the Imagination the Images of them Next the Vnderstanding by a simple perception conceiveth of them as it findeth them in the imagination Thirdly then by this Thinking or Knowing we perceive also our own Act that we do so Think or Know. And then Fourthly We compound our conceptions and form organical notions and spin out conclusions from what we first perceive Now if the first perceptions be uncertain or false it must needs follow that all those following thoughts and reasonings which do but improve them are at least as uncertain and false if not more So that there can be no more certainty in any of the Conclusions as such than there is in the premises and principles Therefore if mans first and most natural necessary perceptions are false all the following actions or reasonings of his mind must be no better All being finally resolved into these perceptions by sense there is no Truth or Certainty in mans mind at all if there be none in these Reason III. Else you would infer that God is not at all to be Believed and that there is no such thing as Divine Faith and Religion in Certainty in the world And so you would bring in by unavoidable consequence far worse Impiety and Irreligiousness than Mahomet or Julian or any Idolaters that I hear of on the earth For you directly will overthrow the Divine Veracity or Truth of Gods Revelations which is the Formal Object of Faith without which it is no Faith P. A heavy charge if you can make it good R. To make it good do but first observe 1. That Gods Essential Will or mind is not in it self immediately seen by man but known only by some Revelation 2. That this Revelation is nothing but some SIGNES For there is nothing in the Universe of Beings but GOD and CREATURES and the ACTS or Works of Creatures Now it is not Gods own Essence which is the Revelation in question Therefore it must be either A Creature or work of God or an Act or Work of a Creature As the voice on Mount Sinai and that of Christ at his baptism and transfiguration and the written Tables of Stone c. were either the works of God immediately and so created Signs of his mind or else the Acts of Angels and so Imperate Signs of his mind Nor it is not the ordinariness or extraordinariness of the way of making these signs which maketh them currant and true or credible For if God can make a Natural false sign he can make a supernatural false one for ought any mortal man can prove Only all the question is Whether it be indeed a sign of the mind and will of God or not Now the works of Nature are Gods Natural Signs and his Natural objective Light and Law as the perception of them is the Subjective or Active Light and Law of Nature Something of God these Natural signs do signifie or reveal plainly and some things darkly And so it is with supernatural signs As the written Tables the voice of an Angel the words of an inspired Prophet or Apostle c. Now there is no other way for God to speak or reveal falsly could he do it but 1. Either to make a false sign naturally or supernaturally or 2. To determine mans sense or mind to a false perception And if God can do this naturally why not supernaturally Nay à fortiore mark how you teach the Infidel to inferr 1. Gods Natural Revelations are Common and his supernatural rare 2. Gods Natural Revelations are most certainly his own Acts But how far a Voice or Book from a Spirit may be the Act of that Spirit or Angel as a free Agent and how far that Agent is fallible or defectible we could not tell if we had not farther Evidence of Gods owning it Therefore
if you make Gods own ordinary Natural Revelations or significations to be false how will you be able to disprove the Infidel about the rest 3. And then note that our Case is yet lower and plainer than all this For if the very Being of the Creatures which is the Matter of these Signs be uncertain to us and all our senses and minds deceived about it then we have no place for enquiry Whether this Creature be any sign of the mind of God As if the hearing of all men was deceived that thought they heard that voice This is my Beloved Son or Pauls that thought he heard Christ speak to him Saul Saul c. or if their Eyes and Intellects were deceived that thought they saw Christ and his miracles or that think now that they read the Bible and indeed there be no such thing as a Bible no such words c. then there is no room to enquire what they signifie For nothing hath no signification Truth and Goodness are affections or modes of Being And if we cannot by all our sound senses know the Being of things we can much less know that they are True or Good Therefore all knowledge and all faith and all Religion is overthrown by your denyal of the truth of our Senses and Intellects perception of things sensible Reason IV. And by this means you are not capable of being disputed with nor any Controversie between you and any others in the world of being decided while you deny sense For then you agree not with mankind in any one common principle And they that agree in nothing can dispute of nothing For this is the first principle Est vel non est is first to be agreed on before we can dispute any farther of a substance What will you do to confute an adversary but drive him to deny a certain principle And can you drive him to deny a lower fundamental Principle than the Being of a substance perceived by sense yea by all the sound senses of all men in the world Reason V. Yea it is specially to be noted that our difference is not only about the species of a sensible substance but about the very substance it self in genere Whether all our senses perceive any substance at all or not Suppose the question were Whether it be water or not which all mens senses see in Rivers If a Papist would deny it to be water doubtless he denyed the agreeing judgement of all mens Intellect by sense But if he should also say It is no substance which we call water or earth This were to deny the first Principle and most fundamental perception in nature Now that this is your case is undenyable For 1. You profess that Christs Body and Blood are not sensible there That it is not the quantity shape number colour smell weight c. of Christs Body and Blood which we perceive and that these Accidents are not the Accidents of Christ 2. And you believe that the Bread and Wine is gone that is changed into the body and blood of Christ so that no part of their substance matter or form is left And you put no third substance under these Accidents in the stead So that you maintain that it is the quantity of nothing the figure of nothing the colour the weight the scituation the smell the number c. of nothing which all mens Intellects by sense perceive So that the Controversie is Whether it be any substance at all which by those accidents we perceive And when we see handle taste smell it you believe or say you believe that it is none neither Bread or Wine or any other Now if by sense we cannot be sure of the very Being of a substance we can be sure of nothing in the world Reason VI. Yea it is to be noted that though Brutes have no Intellects yet their Sense and Imagination herein wholly agreeth with the common perception of man A Dog or a Mouse will eat the bread as common bread and a Swine will drink the Wine as common Wine and therefore have the same perception of it as of common bread and wine And so their senses must be all deceived as well as mans And Brutes have as accurate perfect senses as men have and some much more And meer natural operations are more certain and constant as we see by the worlds experience than meer Reason and Argumentation Birds and Beasts are constant in their perceptions and course of action being not left to the power of Mutable free-will Reason VII You hereby quite overthrow your own foundation which is fetcht from the Concord of all your party which you call all the Church You think that a General Council could not agree to any thing aâ— an Article of faith if it were not such when it is buâ— the Major Vote that agree You say that Traditioâ— is Infallible because All the Church agreeth in iâ— when it is perhaps but your Sect which is a Minoâ— part But do you not overthrow all this when yoâ— profess that All the senses of all the sound men in thâ— world and all the simple perceptions of their Intellectâ— by sense do agree that there is substance yea dâ— specie Bread and Wine after the Consecration No onâ— mans perception by sense disagreed in this from thâ— institution of the Sacrament to this day that can be proved or the least probability of it given And iâ— this Concord be no proof much less is yours For 1. The Intellect in Reasoning is more fallible than iâ— its Immediate perception of things sensed or perceived by sense 2. Yours is but the Consent of some men but ours is the Consent of all mankind Yours among your selves hath oft in Councils a Minor part of dissenters who must be overvoted by the rest But our Case hath never one dissenting sense or perception Reason VIII By this denyal of sense you overthrow the foundations of Humane Converse How can men make any sure Contracts or perform any duty on a sure ground if the Concordant senses of all the world be false Parents cannot be sure which are their own Children nor Children which are their own Parents Husbands cannot certainly know their own Wives from their neighbours No Subjects can certainly know their own Prince No man can be sure whether he buy or sell receive money or pay it c. No man can be sure that there is a Pope or Priest or man in the world Reason IX You seem to me to Blaspheme God and to make him the greatest Deceiver of mankind even in his holy Worship Whereas God cannot lye It is impossible And the Devil is the Father of lyes And you make God to tell all the world as plainly as if words told them even by demonstration to their sight smell feeling taste that here is Bread and Wine when there is none yea that it is at least some substance which they perceive when it is none at all Reason X. You thus fain
God to be Cruel to Mankind and that under pretence of Grace Even to put such hard Conditions of salvation on man which seem to us impossible to any but mad men or those who by faction have cast their minds into a dream If these be Gods Conditions that no man shall be saved that doth not believe that all his senses and all the senses of all the world are deceived when they perceive Bread and Wine or substance many may take on them to believe it but few will believe it and be saved indeed Reason XI Hereby you make the Gospel or New Covenant to be far harder and more rigorous than either the Law of Moses or the Law of Innocency For neither of these did damn men for believing the agreeing senses of all mankind Perfect Obedience to a perfect nature was fit to be a delight The burdensome Ceremonies had no such Impossibilities in them None of them obliged men to renounce all their senses and to come to Heaven by so hard a way Reason XII You seem to me to Contradict Gods Law and terms of life and to forge the clean contrary as his He saith He that cometh to God must Believe that God is c. and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned But you seem to me to say in plain effect He that Believeth Gods Natural Revelations to all mens senses shall be damned and that believeth that the said Revelations are false may be saved caeteris paribus Reas XIII And what a thing by this do you mak◠Gods Grace to be Whereas true Grace is the Repaire◠and perfecter of Nature you make it to be the destroye◠and deceiver of Nature The use of Grace according to your faith is to cause men to believe that Gods natural Revelations are false and that all the senses of th◠world in this matter are deceived Whereas a mad ma◠can believe this without Grace Reas XIV By this doctrine you abominably corrupt the Church with hypocrisie while all that will hav◠Communion with you must be forced to profess tha◠all mens senses are thus deceived And can you thin◠that really they can all believe it or rather you◠Church must be mostly made up of gross hypocrites who falsly take on them to believe it when they do not Reas XV. And by this means you make the Vnity of the Church to become a meer Impossibility For you◠condition of union is that men all believe this among other Articles of your faith And that man hath lost o◠vitiated his humanity who can believe and expect tha◠all Christians in the world should ever believe that al◠the senses of all the world are thus deceived You might as well say The Church shall never have Unity till all Christians do believe that David or Christ was a Worm and no man a door a Vine a thief a Rock in proper sense or we shall have no unity till we renounce both our humanity and animality and the light and Law of God in Nature And after this to cry up Vnity and cry down Schism what abominable hypocrisie is it Reas XVI And by this doctrine what bloody inhumanity is become the brand or Character of your Church When you decree Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. that all that will not thus renounce their senses and give the lie to Gods natural revelations shall be excommunicated and utterly undone in this World even banished from all that they have and from the Land of their Nativity Yea your Inquisition must torture and burn them and your Writ de hereticis comburendis must be issued out against them to fry them to death in flames if they will not renounce the common senses of mankind Reas XVII And it even amazeth me to think what horrid Tyrants you would thus make all Christian Princes When the said Canon determineth that they shall be first Excommunicate and then cast out of their Dominions which shall be given to others and their subjects absolved from their allegiance and fidelity except they will exterminate all these as hereticks from their Dominions who will not give the lye to all mens senses and to Gods natural Revelations The plain English is ☞ He shall not be the Lord of his own Dominions who will have men to be his subjects or such as will not renounce both their humanity and animality or sense For to perceive substances in genere in specie by sense and to believe or trust the Common senses of all the World about things sensible as being the surest way that we have of perception is as necessary to a Man as Ratiocination is Choose then O ye Princes of the Earth whether you will be Papists and whether you will have no men to be your Subjects even none that believe the senses of themselves and all the world Reas XVIII Thus also your Idolatry exceedeth in absurdity the Idolatry of all the Heathens else in the World Even Canibals and the most barbarous Nations upon Earth For if they call men to Worship an Image the Sun the Moon an Ox or an Onion of which the Egyptians are accused they do but say that some spiritual or celestial numen affixeth his operative presence to this Creature But they never make men swear that there is no Image or Sun or Moon or Ox or Onion left but that the whole substance of it is turned into God or somewhat else Your Absurdities tend to make the grossest Idolatry seem comparatively to yours a very fair and tolerable errour Reas XIX By these means you expose Christianity to the scorn of humane nature and all the world You teach Heathens Mahometans and other Infidels to deride Christ as we do Mahomet and to say that a Christian Maketh and Eateth his God and his faith is a Believing that Gods supernatural Revelations are a lie and that God is like the Devil the great Deceiver of the world Wo be to the world because of offences and wo be to him by whom offence cometh Reas XX. Lastly by this means you are the grand pernicious hinderers of the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world For you do as it were proclaim to them Never turn Christians till you will believe that Gods Natural Revelations are false and that all mens senses in the world are deceived in judging that there is Bread Wine or sensible substance after the words of Consecration These are the mischievous Consequents of your doctrine But one benefit I confess doth come by occasion of it that it is easier hereby to believe that there are Devils when we see how they can deceive men and to believe the evil of sin when we see how it maketh men mad and to believe that there is a Hell when we see such a Hell already on Earth as Learned Pompous Clergie men that have studied to attain this malignant madness to decree to fry men in the flames and damn them to Hell and
eat and drink VII It is a Miracle that every wicked Priest should do so many Miracles in one and so many more in number than Christ himself did in the same proportion of time as far as the History of the Gospel telleth us Christ is quite exceeded by them all VIII It is a Miracle that every wicked Priest can work all these Miracles so easily as with the careless saying over four words When the Apostles could not cast out some Devils or work some Miracles and some could not be done but by fasting and prayer IX It is a Miracle that every Priest can work all these Miracles upon an unbeliever or a wicked man For to such they say it is the real flesh and blood of Christ and no bread or wine And the senses of all these wicked men are deceived Whereas Christ himself could not do any great miraculous work among some where he came because of their unbelief X. It is a Miracle that God and the Priest should do these foresaid Miracles on Mice and Rats and other Beasts by deceiving their senses which we find not that Christ ever did or that God should feed them with the miraculous accidents aforesaid XI It is a Miracle of these Miracles that the Priest can thus easily work Miracles not only on other creatures but on the glorified body of Christ himself by the foresaid changes c. XII It is a Miracle that when Christ wrought his Miracles usually before a far smaller number these Priests work Miracles thus before or on the senses of all the men in the world that will be present at the Mass for all their senses are deceived XIII It is a Miracle that the Abassines Armenians Greeks Protestants yea any that they call Schismaticks and Hereticks who do not intend to work any Miracle nor believe Transubstantiation do yet work Miracles in each Sacramental administration of the Eucharist not only without their knowledge but contrary to their belief and against their wills For they say that even such mens consecration is effectual XIV Either their Priests consecration worketh all these Miracles when they intend it not as if they speak the words in jeast or scorn or in Infidelity or only when they intend it If the first be said it is a Miracle of Miracles that any Priest can work so many and great Miracles by a jeast or scorn If not then all the business is come to nothing and no one but the Priest knoweth whether there be any such Miracle at all and whether ever he eat the flesh of Christ And so it will be in the power of the Priest to deceive and damn all the people according to the Papists exposition of Christs words Joh. 6. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you XV. Either a malicious intention to a wrong end will be effectual in Consecration or not If not none but the Priest knoweth that there is any body and blood of Christ or that ever he received any Because none knoweth though the Priest intend Consecration whether he intend it to a right end But if a wicked end will serve as I think most of them hold the Miracle may be great and sad For any Roguish drunken malicious Priest may undo a Baker or Vintner at his pleasure and by four words deprive him of all his Bread and Wine Yea he might nullifie all the Bread and Wine in the City and so either make a famine at his pleasure or else make whole Families and Cities live still and be nourished without any substance by bare Accidents which would be a Miracle indeed If the Priest can by consecration change only a convenient quantity of bread and wine then all that is overmuch is bread and wine after consecration If otherwise why may he not change all the bread and wine in the Shop or Cellar where he cometh intending consecration to an ill end If he can do it only on the Altar then want of an Altar would frustrate the effect which they hold not But if he can do it without an Altar he may do it in the Shop and Cellar If he can do it only on the bread and wine present how near must it be Then the words will work at so many yards distance and not at so many Or if he cannot do it out of sight a blind Priest cannot do it But if he can do it on that which is absent we may fear lest in an anger he may take away all the bread and wine in the Land at least in a frolick to try his power XVI And it is some aggravaion of these manifold Miracles that a Degraded Priest can do them Because they follow the indelible Character And so he that hath once made a Miracle-worker cannot take away his power again nor his sin lose his power Is not this a marvellous power of Miracles which becometh like a nature to them as the power of speaking is XVII Yet is this Miracle-working-power more miraculous in that a mans own unwillingness or Repentance of his Calling cannot hinder the Miracle if he do but speak four words Consent it self is not necessary to it Let a man Repent that ever he was a Priest and profess that he continueth in that Calling against his will yea let him write as I now do against Transubstantiation yet all this will not hinder his next Consecration from working all the foresaid Miracles XVIII It is miraculous that if you keep a consecrated Wafer never so long if you use it never so coursly if you as he did who occasioned the conversion of Mr. Anthony Egan a late Irish Priest pawn it at an Ale-house for thirty shillings if you lay it down for a stake at Cards or Dice c. it will not cease to be Christs flesh and so by his blood nor ever becomes bread or any other substance till it corrupt And yet in a mans stomach it ceaseth to be Christs body as natural heat corrupteth it by concoction And yet it is not Christs flesh that is concocted XIX It is a Miracle of this Miracle which Aquinas and others assert that the Bread and Wine are not Annihilated but wholly turned into Christs body and blood and yet as Vasquez saith It is not that the matter of bread begins to be under the form of Christs body as Durandus held Saith Veron Reg. fid cap. 5. This Transubstantiation is neither a change nor a production of any thing but it is a Relation of order between the substance that doth desist to be and that into which it doth desist And yet saith the Concil Trident. There is a change made of the whole substance into c. XX. Lastly It is a Miracle that all these Miracles should be done so as not to appear to the senses of any man living either to Convert Unbelievers or Confirm the faithful So that millions of these Miracles are seen and not
what a man may say is certain R. To this I have several things to say 1. Ordination doth not make men wise holy humble and self-denying but sets such men apart for the sacred office who seek it and have tolerable gifts of utterance And it is too ordinary for worldly minded men to make a worldly trade of the Priesthood meerly for ease and wealth and honour In which case do you not think that the Papists who have multitudes of rich benefices prelacies preferments and Church-power and worldly honour are liker to be drawn by worldly interest than such as I that am exceeding glad and thankful if I might but preach for nothing 2. Do you lay your faith and salvation upon plausible discourses and will you be of that mans faith whom you cannot confute Then you must be of every mans faith or indeed of no mans There are none of all these sects so hardly confuted as a Porphyry a Julian or such like Infidels who dispute against Christ and the truth of the Scriptures or such Sadducees as dispute against the Immortality of the soul Alas the tattle of Papists Pelagians Antinomians Separatists Quakers and all such supposing the truth of the souls Immortality and the Scriptures is easily resisted and confuted in comparison of their assaults who deny these our foundations And will you turn Sadducee Atheist or Infidel because you cannot confute their Sophistry I tell you if you knew how much harder it is to deal with one of these than with a Papist or any other Sectary you would shake the head to hear one man dispute for an universal Monarch and another dispute against a form of prayer and another whether it be lawful to Communicate with dissenters c. while so few of them all can defend their foundations even the souls Immortality and the Scriptures nor confute a subtle Infidel or Sadducee 3. What if we all agreed to say that there is no Bread in the Sacrament after Consecration Were it ever the truer for that Will you be deceived as oft as men can but agree to deceive you There is a far greater party Agreed against Jesus Christ even five parts of the World than that which is agreed for him Will you therefore be against Christ too There are more Agreed for Mahomet a gross upstart deceiver than are agreed for Christ And doth that make it certain that they are in the right 4. Will you deny all your senses and the senses of all the World as oft as you cannot answer him that denyeth them Upon these terms what end will there be of any Controversie or what evidence shall ever satisfie man Have Papists any surer and more satisfying evidence for you than sense I pray you tell me Did you ever meet with any of them that doubt of another life or of the Immortality of the soul D. Yes many a one I would we were all more certain than we are R. And what is it that such men would have to put them out of doubt D. They say that our talk of Prophets and supernatural revelation are all uncertainties and if they could see they would believe Could they see such Miracles as they read of Had they seen Lazarus raised or Christ risen from the dead c. Had they seen Angels or Devils or Spirits appearing Had they seen Heaven or Hell they would believe R. And are not you more obstinate than they if you will not believe that there is any Bread and Wine when you see feel smell and taste it and all men that have senses are of the same mind What is left to satisfie you if you give so little credit to the common sense of all the world D. But I oft think that the faith of all the Church is much surer than my sense or my private faith At least it is safest to venture in the common road and to speed as the Church speedeth which Christ died for and is his Spouse R. 1. But do you think that the opinion of the Papal faction who are not the third part of the Universal Church that is the Christian world is the faith of all the Church Why call you Opinion faith and a sect and faction All the Church 2. Indeed if all the Church did set their senses against mine I would rather believe them than my senses For I should think that I were in that point distracted or my senses by some disease perverted which I did not perceive I mean if it were in a case where they had the affirmative As if all England should witness that they saw it Light at Midnight I would think my eyes had some impediment which I knew not of if I saw none But this is not your case The Papists themselves do not set all their senses against yours much less the senses of all mankind They do not say that We and all men except the Protestants do see and feel and taste that There is no Bread and Wine But contrarily You have the senses of all the world and the saith of two or three parts of the Christian world against the Opinion of one Sect which Schismatically call themselves All the Church D. But suppose that they err in this one point they may for all that be in the right in all the rest Who is it that hath no error I must not for this one forsake them R. 1. I will stand to their own judgements in this Whether all their foundation and faith be not uncertain if any one Article of their faith prove false They are all that ever I knew agreed of the affirmative And will give you no thanks for such a defence 2. And if we come to that work I shall prove all the rest of their opinions before mentioned to be also false D. What then if I find but one point false in the Protestants Religion Must I therefore forsake it all as false R. 1. Still remember to distinguish between our Objective and our Subjective faith or if you understand not those words between Gods Revelation and Mans Belief of it or the Divine Rule and Matter of our faith and our faith it self And about our own Belief you must distinguish between a mans Profession of Belief and the Reality of his belief All true Protestants profess to take Gods word alone or his Revelation in Nature and Scripture for the whole Matter of their Divine Belief and Religion But who it is that sincerely believeth little do I know nor how much of this word any singular person understandeth and believeth I can give you no account of If personal faith were that which we dispute of I would be accountable for no mans but mine own In this sense There are as many Faiths and Religions as men For every man hath his Own Faith and Religion And if you know that a man erreth in one point it followeth not that he erreth in another They that believed that the Resurrection was past believed a falshood and yet
and his own General Councils The Kings of France Spain c. may easily prove that they have more power to cast out the Pope than he hath to cast out half Christs Sacrament And they may better forbid their own Subjects to obey a forreign Usurper than he can forbid all the world to obey Christ 7. And for all this the wit of man can hardly devise What Reason they have to do it What point of their Religion What Interest of their own did engage them to it Unless it be their Interest to shew that they are Above Christ and the Scripture I do not yet discern their reason 8. And yet they have with Resolution and obstinacy persisted herein divers hundreds of years and denyed the requests of Emperours Nobles and great part of several Kingdoms in this point This and the leaving out the second Commandment seem to be of purpose to shew that they are above the Maker of the Ten Commandments and of the Gospel How long Lord shall Tyranny oppress the Nations of the Earth and the Honour and Domination and Wills of Rebels prevail to tread down Truth and Godliness and keep the notice of thy salvation from the sinful miserable world whilest yet we daily pray by thy Command that Thy Name may be Hallowed Thy Kingdome come and Thy Will be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven Whether the Pope be the Antichrist meant in the Scripture by that name or not you see that my passing it by doth shew my cautelousness in resolving as Zanchy and others before me have done because I am confessedly so far unstudyed or ignorant of the sense of the Revelations and some other Scripture Prophecies as that I must leave such cases to such as Bishop Downame and others that have deeper insight into them Every man should be best at that which he hath most studyed But I must needs say that though I take it to be indispensible duty to keep up all due charity to all professed Christians such instances as these which I have here opened do utterly disable me from confuting that man who shall assert that this pretended Vicar of Christ and King or Monarch of the world and so King of Kings and Lord of Lords is an abominable Usurper and insolent Traytor against God and the true King and Head of the Universal Church How long will Princes and Prelates Learned and Unlearned be deluded by him or fear Power And when shall he be restrained from hindering Christs Gospel and the Peace and Concord of the Christian world FINIS Johns Nov. Repr p. 426. Protestants formally such have not enough to be brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all things and special Love to his servants and unfeigned willingness to obey him I deny you have any certain knowledge or feeling that you love God or his servants or willingness to obey c. Knot against Chillingworth Ch. 2. p. 122. In no one doctrine Protestants would seem more unanimously to agree than in this That all things necessary to salvation are contained evidently in Scripture which they hold as the only foundation of the whole structure of their Faith and Religion Note this Confession See Dr. Holden Analys fidei Li. 1. c. 3. Lett. 1. He that would know what stress we lay on Tradition as the Medium may see it fully in my Reasons of Christ Relig. And Dr. Holden is more for us than for the Papists Cap. 3. Q. Was it from the Church that the first Church received it Or was it not the same Divine Religion which the first Church whether Council or Practicers received without the Tradition of Council or Practicers If so this cannot be essential to Religion If the Apostles words were to be believed their proved Writings are to be believed And their Writings were proved theirs before a General Council or Universal Practice witnessed it Even by each Church and person that received any Epistle from any one of them So that if the Doctors will but differ in their Expositions the Scripture is no more the sure Word of God or to be believed by Catholick faith Of the Pope without a General Council Mark then that it may be de fide divina though not of Catholick necessity without the proposal of Council or universal practice Johns Nov. Rep. p. 19. of the explication of Terms Know you not that Divines are divided what are the points necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii Some and those the more antient hold that the explicite belief of God of the whole Trinity of Christ his Passion Resurrection c. are necessary necessitate medii Others among the recentiors that no more than the belief of the Deity and that he is the rewarder of our works is absesolutely necessary with that necessary to be explicitely believed He doth better interpret the distinction of Explicite and Implicite on another occasion in another sense Holden l. 1. c. 9. p. 169. Queret an teneatur quispiam aâ— internum Divinae fidei actum quem nec semper fortasse in eius potestate situm novimus Quamdiu sane arbitretur quispiam hujusmodi fidei actum lumini naturali rationi oppositum contrarium esse nequaquam poterit ad illum eliciendum astringi Aquin. p. 3. q. 75. a. 5. ad 3. Fides non est contra sensum sed est dâ— eo ad quod sensus non attingit But doth not sense say Here is Bread and Wine Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 82. a. 7. c. Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 69. a. 9. Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 82. a. 8. 2 Cor. 12.12 Rom. 15.19 Act. 14.3 15.12 Matth. 21.15 So they do by forbidding to eat Flesh in Lent And yet say they eat Christs flesh in Lent When Irenaeus cited by Occumenius Com. in 1 Peâ— c. 3. bringeth in Blandina proving to the Heathens that Christians did not eat flesh and drink blood in the Eucharist because that they use even to abstain for exercise sake from Lawful flesh See my More Reasons for the Christian Religion and the Lord Herbert de Veritate Apply this to Mr. Johnsons Rejoynder on this Point and you will see his Vanity