Wherefore Monsieur Arnauld prays him to take great care lest that while he is proving a God and the Immortality of the Soul he should endanger that Faith by which himself hoped to be saved Here Cartes was beset and forced to declare himself and therefore was put upon his Invention which was first to contrive a way of solving the Appearances of Bread and Wine which are in the Sacrament by a New Hypothesis of the Superficies which he told them he should more fully make out in his Physics And when he had thus first entertained them with a new Hypothesis then he shews them what Impossible Absurdities Real Accidents are and how full of Repugnancy and Contradictions and that these Contradictions made men Dissenters from the Church of Rome And then he concludes That he hoped the Time would come when the Divines of that Church would hiss the Doctrine of Real Accidents out of the world as an Unreasonable Incomprehensible and Unsafe Doctrine to be Believed and that his Superficies would be embraced instead of it as Certain and Indubitable Monsieur Arnault was a Man of sense and therefore I doubt not but he let fall his Ears at this Answer And the Paris Divines sent Cartes word afterwards in their sixth Objections Scruple the 7th That they did not understand his Superficies and knew not what to make of it And that tho he put them in hope that he would make things plainer in his Physics yet they were inclined to Believe they should never part with their old Opinion concerning Accidents for his new one But tho they were of this mind yet we find a very considerable Person Epist Vol. 2. Epis 3. who had better thoughts of it and says That he had happily shewn how the Inseparableness of Accidents from a Substance might be consistent with the Sacrament of the Altar but then he desires to know of Cartes whether he had bethought himself of a way to Reconcile another part of his Philosophy with Christs Body being without Local Extension upon the Altar for otherwise he would expose to great Peril the most sacred thing in the world Upon this Cartes stops short and does not care to give any thing more concerning the Sacrament under his hand but offers to meet him if he pleases and to tell him his Conjectures by word of mouth ibid Epist. 4. And was not this a pleasant way of proceeding Which is in effect as if they had said Sir You are a great Philosopher of our own Church you know we hold the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and you your self hope to be saved by it see therefore what can be done for it pray make it as reasonable as you can It is too like the Comical Story of the Woman who after she had eaten Pig in Smithfield went to Rabbi Buisy and prays him to make the eating of Pig as lawful as he can And is it not likewise a neat turn to quiet them with his Doctrine of the Superficies Now the Superficies is much such another Rationale of Transubstantiation as the following Argument is a proof of Purgatory If there be one whose words are recorded in Scripture who when he died went neither to Heaven nor Hell then there is such a Middle place as Purgatory but there is one whose words are recorded in Scripture c. Ergo. I have seen a Papist catch at this Syllogism very greedily and as Impatient to know who that One was as if he would presently have gone a Converting with the Argument But he was as blank when he was told that it was Balaam's Ass as I fancy Dr. Arnault was when he had read and considered the long Story of the Superficies which I believe never yet drew one of those back again to the Church of Rome whom Cartes complains the Doctrine of Real Accidents drove away 2. This Proposition Nihili nullae possunt esse Affectiones That Nothing cannot possibly have any Qualities or Affections is a Necessary and Everlasting Truth and it is so clear and self-evident that all words and discourse about it would but darken the Natural Light which is in it Now a Wafer or singing Cake is an Extended Round White Substance having all the Qualities and Affections of Bread and when this Substance (a) Sect. 25. ut Omnino esse desinant wholly ceases to be it is nothing But if the Extension Roundness Whiteness and all the Bready Qualities of it still Remain then at the same time there do Remain the Extension the Roundness the Whiteness and the Bready Qualities or Affections of Nothing which is Impossible And that Nothing whose Extension Roundness Whiteness and Bready Qualities are still Remaining is an Extended Round White and Bready Nothing which are so many Contradictions and Impossibilities Q. E. D. I see that I must either break off Abruptly or never have done For I find the Dividing of the Accidents of a Wafer into 3 Parts which is one of the Operations performed in the Mass and with the self same Division the Dividing of Christ's Body into 3 Wholes and many more of their Absurdities coming thick into my head and therefore I will here Conclude in time All these Demonstrations hitherto are Arguments to all Mankind I have now an Argument or Two ad Hominem or to the Papists themselves And 1st By their own Infallible Doctrine of Concomitancy I shall Demonstrate That there has been never a God's Body as they call it upon Earth these 1600 Years Provided they will allow me First That Christ's Body has been in Heaven these 1600 Years And 2ly That Heaven and Earth are different and distant Places I reckon that Infallibility her self either has granted me both these Postulata already in these following words Tr. Cat. de Euch. Sect. 37. But it is plainly Impossible That the Body of Christ should be in the Sacrament by coming out of one Place into another for so it would come to pass that the Body of Christ would be Absent from its Seat in Heaven Now I presume if it has not been Absent from its Seat in Heaven to come and be Present in the Sacrament these 1600 Years it has not been Absent upon any other Account Or else I reckon that because the things Demanded are very Reasonable she will not now stick at the Granting of them Now the Rule of Concomitancy is this Tr. Cat. de Euch. Sect. 33. Si enim duo aliqua inter se reipsa conjungantur Ubi unum sit ibi alterum etiam esse Necesse est If any two things are Really joined together where the one is there of Necessity the other must be also That is to say it is Impossible for it to be in any other Place But no two things in the World are more Really joined together than one and the same thing is with it self and if it were not so no one thing could be Really joined to another The Union of one and the same thing with it self is the
he goes on to tell me utter Impossibilities and after having affirm'd to me that the two Epistles of St. Peter are nothing else but Pope Innocent in person and that the very same Holy Father whom I think I have in my hand at London is also at the self same time personally present at Rome and at Paris and at Vienna and in ten thousand other very remote places he then puts me into a way to break the Enchantment and to overthrow his Delusion with such Arguments as will not be satisfied by saying That the senses may be deceived and cannot dive into the essence of things It is not such a light and ludicrous Cheat as this I have been now speaking of which the Church of Rome has put upon the World for many Ages together for then I question whether I should ever have employed my Pen against it though it is an indignity to mankind to impose upon them to deceive and make children of them but the Romish delusion is of an higher nature for it is the Cheat of a bit of Bread which you must believe to be a man's body nay to be a God And accordingly if you will not worship and bow down to this bit of Bread and acknowledg it to be your Maker then shall you be condemned for an Heretick then will they zealously tell you That they will no more pray for you See the Book of Martyrs in Q. Maries Reign than they will for a Dog and that as your Body fries in a Smithfield-Fire so your Soul shall for ever burn in Hell. And therefore it is of as great consequence to men as their souls and bodies are worth to know the truth of this matter for which cause I earnestly intreat them to weigh and ponder the Arguments and carefully to attend to the Demonstrations which I shall here lay down before them To proceed with the more strength and clearness in this matter and to avoid needless Repetitions and such like incumbrances of a Discourse I shall here premise some very reasonable Demands which without any man's leave I shall take for granted 1. That a Doctrine which consists of Impossibilities is an impossible Doctrine 2. That Omnipotency it self cannot make an Impossibility for what cannot be done at all cannot be done by Almighty Power Supposing an infinite excess of Power as we are sure there is in God yet it cannot do what cannot be done 3. That a Contradiction is an Impossibility From these Premises I shall infer That every Contradiction which is contained in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is an undoubted proof of the Impossibility of it so that it never was is or can be be true and that the pretence of Omnipotency it self cannot support it To avoid the force of this and such like Demonstrations the Representer of Popery tells us That Christ gives to his Body a supernatural manner of Existence by which being left without Extension of Parts and rendred independent of Place it may be one and the same in many Places at once and whole in every part of the Symbols and not obnoxious to any Corporeal Contingencies Thus far he It may be a few new-devised terms and half a dozen Inconsistent Words contradictiously jumbled together are able to overthrow a Demonstration We will try whether they can or no. As for the Privileges and Prerogatives of this Body which it must always be carefully remembred is an Organized Human Body to Exist without Extension of Parts to be whole in every part of the Symbols and not to be obnoxious to any Corporeal Contingencies they are Mysteries which will keep cold and we shall consider them by and by The Thing to be thought of at present is A Supernatural manner of Existence whereby this Body is rendred independent of Place and may be one and the same in many Places at once This Body which exists in a Supernatural manner must either 1. Be every where and in all Places which manner of Existence is Immense and Infinite and peculiar to God alone It is a Divine Attribute and where there is one Divine Attribute there are all the rest But if by an Impossible Supposition this manner of Existence were Communicable to a Body yet it would not serve their purpose for then this Body would be in too many Places at once in all other Places out of the Sacrament as well as in it and so there would be no need of Priests to make Christ's Body in the Sacrament which would be a thing very inconvenient at least for that Order of Men. Or else 2. This Body which is Independent of Place must be in no Place and then with it's Supernatural manner of Existence it does not Exist at all for that which is No-where is nothing Or 3dly and lastly It must be somewhere for let the manner of Existence be what it will Natural or Supernatural or Infinite still this Body which is independent of Place must either be Every-where or Somewhere or No-where if this Body be Every-where as was shewed before it would be Infinite which is Blasphemy for if a Body may have Divine Attributes and be a God then God may be a Body And then again if this Body be No-where it is Non-Existent and Nothing And therefore it remains that it be Some where And this is easily granted for it is said to be in many Places at once which is many Some-wheres Well if it may be in many Places at once it may be in one of those many Places This is undeniable and must be granted us Let us make use therefore once again of the former Scheme and let this one Place be A and D the Body in it and now at last though this Body D be independent of Place yet we are sure of it in one Place for it is in A. But it seems it may be in several other places at the same time Be it so and let B and C be two of those other Places and let D be the self-same independent Body in those Places and then we are haunted again with all the former Contradictions D is in A and at the same time D is not in A for it is in B which is not in A. Again D is wholly in B and D is wholly out of B at the same time for it is in C which is wholly out of B. So that this pretended Supernatural manner of Existence is full of Contradictions that is to say it is Impossible Which was to be Demonstrated In this foregoing Demonstration I have taken the word Place in the largest Sense so as to contain Angels and Spirits who are Somewhere and who cannot be Elsewhere at the same time And this I did on purpose to shew That though the Body of Christ should be present after the manner of a Spirit without filling a Place or having any relation to the Dimensions of it which was the old Hypothesis before the Representer came with his new Jargon and tho it
the defence of Image worship they were betrayed into it and were driven to take shelter and sanctuary in it to avoid the force of an Argument which they could not otherwise answer Every body knows that when Image-worship was first set up there was a great number of Christians who stoutly opposed it and gathered Councils to condemn it and these went by the name of Image-Breakers On the other side the Image worshippers were furiously bent upon it and gathered Councils to maintain it particularly that famous one of Blessed Memory the second Nicene Council In these Oppositions and Disputes one Argument which the Image-breakers made use of in Reference to the Images of our Saviour was this If our Saviour has left one Image of himself which is of Divine Institution then it is not lawful to erect other Images of him which are of humane invention But he has left one Image of himself namely in the Sacrament which is of Divine Institution Ergo. To make it good That the Sacrament was an Image of our Saviour of his own Appointment they shew that all the Ancient Fathers had called it the Image the Figure the Type the Antitype the Resemblance or Representation of our Saviour This very Argument was used by the preceding Council at Constantinople and is recited by the Nicene Council which was presently after But how does the Nicene Council answer it They could not deny the Major Proposition and therefore they were forced to break through the Minor after this fashion They say that the Sacrament is not the Image Resemblance Figure Type Antitype of our Saviour but his own Body for he himself expresly says Hoc est corpus meum It is not therefore an Image or Figure of him but it is he himself in Person And thus they rescued and disengaged themselves from a very close and distressing Argument and so their show of Image-worship went on This is the first time that the Literal Interpretation as they call it of Hoc est corpus meum is to be met with which it is plain likewise the former Council was not aware of for if they could have foreseen so full and so ready an Answer common sense would never have suffered them to make use of that Argument Now after the Literal Interpretation was thus broached to serve a present turn and they had used it as a man does the next thing that comes to hand to stop a gap it was yet a long time before Transubstantiation was imposed as a Doctrine of Faith It had done good service in solving an Argument and the Image-Breakers were all broken and destroyed themselves and therefore there was no further occasion for it But in process of time they could not but discover many other advantages in it as amongst the rest That it would deck the Priesthood with the highest honour in the world and advance them above all Thrones and Crowned Heads if it were once believed that they could make their Maker when they pleased And therefore it is no wonder that they were so very sharp upon Berengarius when he set himself to oppose it And from that time forwards they were forming this Doctrine into shape and at last four hundred and odd years after the first invention of it it was made an Article of Faith in the Great Lateran Council and Christened by the name of Transubstantiation This was done by a good Token in King John's time when the Pope made himself Landlord of the Realm of England and put it under a servile Tribute which lasted for several Kings Reigns Thus you see the Rise of Transubstantiation which came not into the world by the Papists sticking close to the Scripture but by their cleaving to the Idolatry of Image-worship whereby they are faln according to David's imprecation from one wickedness to another But what we call an Idol that they say is God's Body which they affirm to be the plain and literal sense of those words This is my Body let us therefore see at last what their Literal Exposition is Now it runs after this manner This which I now give you to eat was lately Bread but I have changed the substance of the Bread into the self-same Body with which I now deliver it to you I tell you the late Bread is I my self it is mine own Body * Catech. Trid. de Euch. Sect. 31. For in that which you now have in your hands assure your selves there is whole Christ I am there Body and Soul yea and my Divinity is there also So that there is contained under the appearance of that bit of Bread my Divine Nature and my whole Humane Nature which consists of my Soul and all the parts of my Body together with my Blood. My true real Natural Body which was born of the Virgin Mary is there together with whatsoever belongs to a true Humane Body as Bones and Sinews You will say that notwithstanding all that I have said it appears to be Bread still That is true for though the substance of the Bread be gone yet the figure colour smell taste and all the other Qualities and Conditions of the Bread remain and †Sect. 44. Ipsa se nulla alia re nisa substentant hang by Geometry * Sect. 46. Nam cum a Communi Hominum naturâ maximè abhorreat Humanae carnis esca c. And this I have most wisely ordered For these Accidents of Bread disguise my Body That it may the better go down and that you may not be filled with horror at the eating of Man's flesh which humane nature detests And then besides what would the Infidel world say if they saw you devouring your Lord and eating him up in his own shape And lastly this way of Receiving of my Body the more remote it is from your senses the better it is for the improvement of your Faith and will make it the more Meritorious But you will wonder especially now I am by in Person and you have an opportunity of comparing this one same Body together how this large Body which you see is at least five Foot and a half long and of a proportionable bulk can be contained at the same time within the compass of a small crumb of Bread without any Alteration at all for it is the self same body within the Sacrament as it is without Now you may soon be satisfied in that Point * Sect. 43 For as I am now sitting at Table I am in the condition of other bodies which are in a place which are always endued with Magnitude but the other same I which am in the Sacrament am not as in a place but I am there as a substance and under that notion I am neither big nor little for that belongs to Quantity which is in another Predicament For the substance of the Bread is turned into my substance not into my Magnitude or Quantity Now no body doubts but a substance may be contained in a
sent it home again with such Arguments ad Hominem as would close the Mouths of any body but Papists But because it now also lies just cross my way I ought likewise to say something to it 1st Therefore I say That the Supposition of One Body in Two Places at once is an utter Impossibility which I have already Demonstrated over and over again both under the 1st Head of Place and also under the 4th Head of Number 2ly One Body Equivalent to Two that is One Body which to all Intents and Purposes is Two is a Contradiction in Terms for at this rate One and One is Three and Three and One is Five and in short there is a full end of all Arithmetick 3ly It is not One Body in Two Places which will serve their turn but it must be One Body in Ten Thousand Places For it must be One Body in form of Flesh and the same Body in form of New Bread and the same Body in form of Old Bread and the same Body in form of Sweet Wine and the same Body in form of Sowre Wine and the same Body at Limestreet at Rome at Avignion and in a word in all Places where a bit of Bread a Mass Priest and a Slate are to be found together And this as I have already shewn draws after it Millions of Millions of Contradictions 4thly I say That even the Impossible Supposition of One Body in several Places does plainly deny all Difference and Dissimilitude in that Body it allows indeed a Multiplication of the same Body but it perfectly excludes any Alteration of it For if it be Altered it is not the Body which was supposed to be Multiplied For instance I will suppose the same Pint of Milk to be in several Places but then it must be a Pint of Milk in all those Places For I cannot say without Contradiction That the same Pint of Milk in another Place is neither Pint Half pint nor Spoonful but perhaps an unperceivable Drop for then it is a Pint and not a Pint. And so likewise I cannot say That it is a Pint of Milk in this Place in the form of Milk and in another Place it is a Pint of Milk in form of Aqua vitae having the Smell Taste Colour and Virtues of Aqua vitae In another Place it is a Pint of Milk in the form of a Pen-full of Ink And in another Place it is a Pint of Milk in the form of a Bandelier full of Gunpowder For in these cases it is so Altered that it is not Milk it is not the Thing we spoke of and which we supposed to be Multiplied And at the same time though it be neither Milk nor Measure yet in the way of Transubstantiation it is still a very good Pint of Milk. These Men had bettet let their Contradictions alone than offer to assoil them for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is perfectly of the nature of Birdlime the more they stir and flutter in it the faster they are caught So that this sorry Evasion being of the same piece with Transubstantiation it self or rather an aggravation of Contradiction I shall set it aside as if it had never been and proceed to my intended Demonstration We have not in our Minds a clearer and brighter first Principle than this is That nothing can be Present and Absent from the same Subject at the same time Now the Mark of I H S is Present to Christs Body being imprinted upon it and at the same time it is Absent from the self-same Body having instead of I H S a Crucifix upon it and therefore the Mark of I H S is Present to Christs Body and Absent from the self-same Body at the same time which is Impossible Q. E. D. Again Gods Body in Form of Bread is not Gods Body in Form of Wine for if it were then the Form of Bread and the Form of Wine would be the same Wine would be Bread and Bread would be Wine that is to say Bread would be Not Bread. But according to the Papists Gods Body in Form of Bread is Gods Body in Form of Wine that is to say Bread is not Bread which is Impossible Which was to be Demonstrated 7. The last Head of Contradictions arise from this part of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which says That when the Substances of Bread and Wine are abolished and wholly cease to Be still all the Accidents of Bread and Wine are seen to Remain without any Subject at all For the Substances of Bread and Wine are departed and gone and these Accidents cannot cleave and be united to the Body and Blood of Christ and therefore it remains That in a Supernatural way they must subsist of themselves This is their own Infallible Doctrine Trid. Catech. de Euch. Sect. 25. 44. In which few words there is plenty of Contradictions For 1st I shall Demonstrate That Accidents subsisting without a Subject are Substances that is to say are not Accidents And because the Papists themselves are sensible how Absurd and Impossible this Doctrine of theirs is therefore they fly to Miracle and Omnipotency which is no Refuge nor Sanctuary for Contradictions and Impossibilities as we have already shewn Now the very Essence of an Accident is to subsist in a Subject and the Essence of a Substance is to subsist of it self without a Subject so that if God by his Omnipotency should make an Accident to subsist of it self without a Subject he would give one and the same single Thing Two contrary Natures Whereby the same thing would be what it is and would not be what it is it would subsist in a Subject and not subsist in a Subject at the same time which is Impossible Q. E. D. I have been beholden to the great Philosopher Des Cartes a Man of their own Communion for this Demonstration and have gathered it out of his Answer to the Fourth and Sixth Objections which were made against his Meditations and out of his Notes upon the Programma of Regius as I suppose And it has been heretofore no small diversion to me to see how the Papists stood on Tiptoe when that great Restorer of Natural Knowledg appeared expecting whether his New Philosophy would favour their Old Transubstantiation But when they found that he was not a Man for Substantial Accidents and such kind of Contradictious Stuff Dr. Arnault of the Sorbonne puts it home to him in the Fourth Objections and tells him That according to his Philosophy the Doctrine of the Church concerning the Sacrament of the Altar could not remain safe and sound because it is of Faith That the Accidents in the Sacrament remain without a Subject whereas Monsieur Cartes seemed to hold for he had not as yet spoke out nor expressed himself fully in that matter That Accidents are Inseparable from a Subject and that a Body and the Assections of that Body could not subsist apart nor be made to Exist separately by an Infinite Power