only adore with Latria the flesh and bloud of Christ Jesus for whatsoever our late Advarsaries have foolishly enough invented Catholicks do not so adore the Elements of Bread or wine or species of them presence or circumstances but only and soly Christ Jesus believing firmly and without the least hesitation that he is really there present from which belief as a necessary sequel follows all true Adoration Our pretended Reformers will not stick at this for the first and chief beginner of this Reformation Luther not only approved it but also left it in practise to all his followers for generally all Lutherans do use it in their dayly practise the Tiguran Calvinists do affirm That if the true and natural body of Christ be in the Eucharist why should not our Lord be adored there if we should teach that the Natural body of Christ were truly there with the Papists we should also truly and faithfully adore It is certain the same errours do follow from Consubstantiation as from Transubstantiation to wit Adoration circumgestation inclusion and oblation Osâ—ander in Cont. 16. par 12. alledges the Divines of Wittenberg saying If Bread in the Lords supper be the substantial body of Christ the sacrifice of the Mass and Adoration of the sacrament may be defended The Divines of Geneva say to the Lutherans that Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation being admitted Adoration necessarily follows Eusebius Alckercherus affirms That from this foundation of the corporal and real presence and eating we must necessarily grant that aswell Adoration as oblation do follow in the sacrifice of Christs body and bloud Chemnitius in his Examin Con. Trident. par 12. plainly says If we believe Christ God and man to be present in a peculiar manner of presence and grace in the action of the supper so that he doth there exhibite to them who cat truly and substantially his body and bloud c. It cannot or ought not to be done but that faith should worship and adore Christ present in that action so Jacob Gen. 28. Moyses Exod. 23. Elias 3. Reg. 19. Truly had no command that they should adore in those places but because they had a general command that they should adore God every where and God was truly present under those extern and visible symbols c. Truly they adore that God whom they believed to be there present c. but they did not adore God as far from them in the Imperial heaven as remote and absent from them c. rightly therefore S. Augustine in Psal 98. S. Ambrose Nazianzene in the Epitaph of his sister from the sentence of Eusebius Emissenus and Luther cont Lovanienses ar 6. call the Eucharist a venerable Sacrament whence he makes this Adoration out of all Controversies between him and the Tridentine Councel From these learned men of the pretended Reformation we may note that although they opposed the Catholick Doctrine of the Church yet they were far from condemning this Adoration or making it Idolatry that they plainly confess that those who believe the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist do constantly affirm that it is our duty to do it since the real and only object of such adoration is the body and bloud of Christ Jesus whence I make this Syllogism 1. They who give the honour due to God to any creatures are Idolaters But Catholicks give no honour due to God to any creatures Ergo Catholicks in this are not Idolaters 2. To adore or worship Christ Jesus in the Eucharist is not Idolatry But Catholicks only adore Christ Jesus in the Eucharist Ergo Catholicks in this are not Idolaters 3. He that believes Christ Jesus in the Eucharist may lawfully there adore him But Catholicks believe that Christ Jesus is in the Eucharist Ergo they may lawfully adore him there The sequel of Adoration to our belief is no way to be reprehended and is admitted by most of our Reformers and only those who deny the Real Presence can with any reason deny it Those who admit Consubstantiation whereof many were of our first pretended Reformers cannot nor do any way exclude it and I see not how those who believe the Real presence in what manner they please can any more for if Christ be there sure he is an Object adorable Our present Church of England plainly admits the Real presence as is manifested in its Catechisme before Confirmation where it is declared that The outward part or signe is bread and wine the inward part is the body and bloud of Christ which are verily and truly taken and received by the faithful in the Lords Supper the benefits are the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the body and bloud of Christ and so all ancient protestants in England did believe and accordingly did with kneeling and adoration devoutly receive it The additional note at the end of the form of Communion expounds it That the kneeling is but a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ given to all worthy receivers pray what is this but adoration when the Minister kneels at the Lords table sure he adores not the table but the Eucharist which is to be offered and taken thereon Nay the peculiar form ordained peculiarly for the Communion argues some special honour to the Eucharist and in words can signify no less for therein it is called the sacrament of Christs body and bloud The spiritual food and sustenance of our Lord the Communion of the body and bloud of our saviour Grant us gratious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy son and to drink his bloud that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and washed through his most pretious bloud Again make us partakers of his body and bloud In the Communion The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life and the bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee preserve thy body and soul unto life everlasting and after it is called The spiritual food of the most pretious body and bloud of thy son our Saviour Jesus Christ These words and many such like according to vulgar understanding import a Real Presence and signify no less and moves the hearers to a devout expression of the honour they bear to the holy Sacrament yea to adore it which I speak not to condemn them in it no more then I would condemn Jacob Gen. 28. who seeing nothing of God but by the effects which he felt in himself he gathered that God in a speciall manner had been in that place he adored and worshipped God The Israelites Exod. 35. beholding the pillar of the cloud which was but a sign of Gods presence adored God and 2. Par. 6. the people seeing fire descending and the glory of our Lord on the temple falling flat on the earth upon the pavement paved with stone they adored and praised our Lord they adored not what they saw nor any
was sent by the Emperour to the Church of Libia for to make the Eucharist that by that occasion the Incruent al sacrifice of the Mass was not for long time offered he adds moreover that those goods which Perisopia a most noble woman had bequeathed by Testament to Monasteries and to the poor to the end that the sacrifice might be offered for the health of her soul he had given to prophane persons sure these actions were then esteemed great Crimes or else he durst not to have presumed to propound them in the face of so great a Councel 431. In the great Councel of Ephesus the Epist of Cyrill Patriarck of Alexandria and synod of that place to Nestorius was read cap. 3. and highly approved and commended as agreeable to the Councel of Nice or containing nothing ambiguous nothing dissentaneous but agreeing to our setled faith without any noveltie Now this Epistle was a profession of the Catholick faith and to our purpose in these terms Announcing the death of the only born Son of God that of Jesus Christ according to the flesh and his Resurrection and in like manner confessing his ascension into the heavens we celebrate in the Churches the incruental verity of sacrifice so also we come to the Mystical Benedictions and are sanctified and made partakers of the holy body and precious bloud of Christ redeemer of all of us not receiving as common flesh farr be it nor as of a sanctified man and as of one joined to the word according to the unity of dignity or of one possessing the divine habitation but as truely life-giving and made proper to the word it self being life naturally as God for he is united to proper flesh and has declared that to be life-giving and therefore as he said to us Amen Amen I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his bloud yet we ought not to think that to be as a man one of us for how can the flesh of man according to his nature be life-giving but truly made proper to him who for us both is and is called the son of man I cannot conceive but that this was then the common belief of the whole Church when from this Mystery of the Mass they proved the Godhead of Christ 325. I shall conclude with the 18. Canon of the first General Councel held at Nice where it is said That there was brought to the holy great Council that in some places and Citties the Deacons did give the Grace of holy Communion to Priests which neither Rule nor custome hath delivered that those who offer Christs body should receive from them who have no power to offer also it was declared that some Deacons did touch the holy thing offered that is the Eucharist before the bishops These might suffice to any rational man for a clear attestation of the holy sacrifice of the Mass even in those primitive times nevertheless I shall by way of addition produce the testimony and judgment of the holy Fathers and Doctours of those times CHAP. IV. The testimony and judgment of the holy Fathers and Doctours for the Sacrifice of the Mass and that within five hundred years after Christ 430. I Shall begin with the foresaid S. Cyril even in the first Councel of Ephesus in his Declaration of the 11. Anathematicisme We celebrate in the Church the life-giving and incruental sacrifice beleiving that which is set before us to be the body and in like manner precious bloud not of some man-like and common but rather we receive it as the proper body and bloud of the life-giving Word for common flesh cannot vivificate and our Saviour testified this saying the flesh profiteth nothing it is the spirit that quickeneth but because it is made proper to the word therefore it is understood as is life-giving as our Saviour said As the living father sent me and I live by the Father and he who eats me the same also shall live by me 430. Theodoret about the same time cap. 20. of the History of the holy Fathers In the life of holy Maris says When divine Maris had a long time desired to sea the spirituall and mystical sacrifice to be offered he asked that the oblation of the divine gift might be made I willingly yielded to him and commanded the holy vessells to be brought when the village was not far distant and for an Altar used the Deacons hands and offered the mystical divine and salutarie sacrifice 420. S. Augustine Epist 23. ad Benifacium Was not Christ once immolated in himself and yet in the sacrifice not only through all the Paschall solemnities but every day for the people l. 20. oont Faustum c. 21. Who of the Bishops assisting at the Altar in the place of the holy bodies at any time said I offer to thee Peter or Paul or Cyprian but what is offered is offered to God who crowned the Martyrs Afterward We most frequently sacrifice to God in the Memory of Martyrs only with that Rite with which in the manifestation of the New testament he hath commanded to be sacrificed to him which pertains to that worship which is called Latria and is due only to God And a little after The flesh and bloud of this sacrifice before the comming of Christ was promised by victims of similitudes In the Passion was given by truth it self and after Christs Ascension is celebrated by a Sacrament of memory Ser. 91. de temp he makes mention of some lessons which were read in the Masse Ser. 32. cap. 1. It is not to be doubted but that the dead receive help by the prayers of the Church and by the Salutarie Sacrifice and almes which are given for their souls that God may deal more mercifully with them then their sins have deserved for this is delivered to us by our Fathers The whole Church observes when she prayes for those who are dead in the communion of Christs body and bloud when in their place they are remembred at the Sacrifice Ser. 251. On Sonday let none absent themselves from the celebration of Masses where he also complains that some do force the Priest to abreviate their Masses lib. 10. di civitate Dei cap. 20. The man Christ Jesus was made Mediatour between God and man when in form of God he takes sacrifice with the Father with whom also he is true God yet in form of a servant he had rather be then take Sacrifice by this he is both a Priest himself the Offerer and he himself the Oblation the Sacrament of which he would have to be the dayly sacrifice of the Church which being the body of that head learns to offer her self by him The ancient sacrifices of the Saints were manifold and various signs of this true sacrifice when this one was figured by many and to this high and true sacrifice all counterfeit Sacrifices did give place and lib. 22. cap. 8. A house being haunted by evill spirits the man of the
house entreated one of our Priests to go thither and expell them by prayer one went and offered there the Sacrifice of Christs body and by Gods mercy the divells did leave the place lib. 9. confess cap. 12. the Saint tells us that he was present when the Sacrifice was offered for his Mothers Soul 398. S. Chrysostome in 2. ad Tit. 1. hom 2. That holy oblation which Peter or Paul or a Priest of whatsoever merit he be who doth offer is the same which Christ gave to his Disciples which now also Priests do make this has no less then that hom 24. in 1. Cor. 10. God hath prepared here a much more admirable and more magnificent Sacrifice and when he had changed the Saccrifice for the slaughter of bruit beasts he commanded himself to be offered hom 69. ad Populum Antioch It was not unadvisedly ordained by the Apostles that commemoration of the dead should be made in the dreadfull mysteries for they know that from thence much gain and profit comes to them for when the whole people with hands stretched forth the sacerdotall plenitude and the dreadfull Mystery is propounded how praying for them shall we not be heard of God To these we may admit what the same Saint hath left to posterity in his liturgie of which we have spoken already cap. 1. § 3. and remit the Reader to Claud. de Sanctis at the end of his book of the Liturgy who hath made a Collection out of S. Chrysostoms works not only in general but also in every particular of the Masse 390. S. Jerome Epist ad Theophilum applauding his book sayes In thy work we have beheld the verity of the Churches that those who are ignorant may learn and be taught by the testimony of the Scriptures with what veneration they ought to receive holy things and serve in the Ministery of Christs Altar and to have the holy Chalice and holy veils and other things which belong to the worship of our Lords passion from the participation of our Lords body and bloud Again in cap. 1. ad Tit. If lay-men be commanded to abstain from their wives for prayer what shall we think of a Bishop who must dayly offer immaculate sacrifices unto God for his own sins and for the sins of the people 380. S. Gregory of Nice orat de Resurrect Our Lord preventing the violence of the Jews offered himself a sacrifice being himself both priest and Lamb but thou wilt say to me when was this done even then when he gave to his familiar friends his body to eat and his bloud to drink and what he himself did the same he commanded his Ministers to do 374. S. Ambrose in his prayer before Mass which the Church to this day uses exclaims O with how great confusion of heart and fountain of tears with how great reverence and trembling with how great chastity of body and purity of mind is that divine and celestial sacrifice to be celebrated where thy flesh in verity is taken where thy bloud in verity is drunken where lowest things are joyned to highest things earthly things to Divine where is the presence of the holy Angels where thou art wonderfully and ineffably Sacrifice and Priest Again I O Lord mindful of thy venerable Passion do come to thy Altar although a sinner that I may offer to thee the sacrifice which thou hast instituted and commanded to be offered in remembrance of thee for our Salvation And in his Mass he has this prayer How can we despair of thy mercy who receive so great a gift that we should deserve to offer such an host to thee to wit the body and bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ who delivered himself for the redemption of the world to that pious and venerable passion who instituting the form of everlasting sacrifice of Salvations first offered himself a sacrifice and first taught it to be offered And again Our Lord Jesus Christ thy son hath ordained the Rite of sacrificing in the New testament when he transformed bread and wine which Melchisedech Priest had offered in prefiguration of the mystery to come into the sacrament of his body and bloud and l. de officits cap. 48. Now Christ is offered as man as receiving his passion and he offers himself as Priest that he may forgive our sins And in Psal 38. We have seen the high Priest coming unto us we have seen and heard him offering his bloud for us let us Priests follow him as much as we can that we though weak in merit yet honorable by the Sacrifice may offer sacrifice for the people for although Christ is not now seen to offer yet he is offered on earth when the body of Christ is offered yea he is manifestly offered in us his word sanctifies the sacrifice which is offered 370. S. Gregory Nariazene orat 4. makes mention of Altars having their name from the most pure and incruental sacrifice 340. S. Athanasius Ser. de Defunct The Oblation of the unbloudy sacrifice is our propitiation 328. Eusebius l. 1. de demonst cap. 10. After all things Christ working our salvation offered to his Father a certain wonderful victim and excellent sacrifice for the salvation of us all and ordained in memory thereof that we our selves should offer it to God for a sacrifice 318. S. Cyrill of Hierusalem Catech. 5. explicates the most parts of the Mass I will only note his words on the Consecration We pray sayes he the most benign God that he would send his holy spirit on the things set before us that he may indeed make the bread the body of Christ and the wine the bloud of Christ for that on which the holy spirit comes upon is altogether sanctified and transmutated or changed from one thing to another 350. S. Cyprian Epist 63. ad Clerum The Bishops our predecessours religiously considering and wholsomely providing that no brother departing this life shall name a Clergy-man to be tutour or guardian over pupils If he doth no offering is to be made for him nor sacrifice celebrated for his rest because he deserves not to be named at the Altar in the prayer of the Priests who would withdraw Priests and Ministers from the Altar for which he alledges the authority of Pope Victor and Sermone de coena Domini This sacrifice is a perpetual and alwaies a permanent holocaust no multitude consumes this bread it becomes not old by antiquity 180. S. Irenaeus l. 4. cap. 34. the Churches oblation which our Lord taught to be offered in the whole world is reputed before God a sacrifice pure and acceptable to him And again The kinde of Oblation is not reproved for oblations were there and also oblations are here sacrifice in the people and sacrifices in the Church And after he makes an argument against the hereticks of those times Now will it be manifest that the Bread whereon thanksgivings are made is the body of our Lord and Chalice his bloud if they say Christ is not the
the Christians for that they did eat their God But it is as foolish sport that he goes about to vilify the sacrifice of the Mass out of the Roman Missall which as he ignorantly conceives wholly destroys the essence and nature of this sacrifice for it shews that there may be many defects and abuses committed in the use of the Holy Eucharist Imagining that Christ may fall on the earth be torn in pieces eaten by catts and doggs devoured by beasts corrupted and burnt and that he lies there as a dead man or as one on a dunghill with innumerable such like frequently reiterated It is true the Roman Missal mentions some such abuser but by way of prevention and to give the Doctor more scope we will admit that some such abuses have happened either through casuality or negligence of those whom it might concern or by the perversity of men or instigation of the divell I must also tell the Doctor that he needs not talk so much of Christs being in so base and vile places for I can tell him that there is no place more vile and base nor more abhominable and odious none more loathsom and stinking then the mouth or stomack of a sinner yet such is the immense goodnes of Christ Jesus that he left this holy Sacrament to us and permitted it to be taken by sinners otherwise the Apostle S. Paul would never have said 1. Cor. 11. He that eateth this bread or drinketh the Chalice of our Lord unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself S. Crysostome on that place sayes such an one is guilty of our Lords death as if he had killed our Lord on shed his bloud and in cap. 10. by this sin the body of our Lord is troden under foot S. Cyprian ser de coena Dom. Violence is offered to our Lords body and by their mouth and hand our Lord is offended The Doctor need not talk of Jakes or sinks for one shall hardly find a more loathsome place then the stomack or belly of man S. Crysostome in Opere imperfect in Mat. said well If thou comparest an ill man to beasts thou shalt sind him worse yea a wicked man is worse then the devil With all this or whatsoever can be said of this kinde none can be so foolish as to think that Christs body or bloud suffers at all in any such abuses or defects for all such happens only in the species for Christs body and bloud in the Eucharist is as a spirit by an indivisible and secret manner and so no more defiled then the soul of man is hurt defiled or sullied by whatsoever filth ordure or excrement the body is insected Christs body being now glorified is impassible immutable and unalterable suffers no more proportionably then the Deity replenishing all places of what nature soever or how loathsom soever whence one said not amiss God who according to nature is no less in the sink then in the heavens cannot be hurt nor defiled The body of Christ in heaven is impassible notwithstanding that he remains there with all his natural dimensions but in the Eucharist it is in a sacramentall and spirituall manner without any quantitative or corporal dimension or situation or sensitive motion I believe the Doctor never understood these circumstances or if he did he makes himself a pratler and contrary to his knowledge wilfully seeks to gull the people who for the most part are ignorant of such mysteries Moreover if such scurrile arguments may have place in divine things may not the Infidel and Jews use the same against Christ himself nay some have done it already saying Can any Imagine Josephs Son to be a God was he not subject to all mankind Miseries he lay nine months as a prisoner in his Mothers womb in all uncleanness was born in a loathsome stable and as a childe might have been devoured by the wilde beasts as he might have been torn out of his mothers womb some sow or Swine might have eaten him some ravenous Wolf or other cruel beast might have torn him to peeces He might have fallen into the saw-pit ditch or pond and so be made food for toads frogs or snakes or other venemous beasts if drowned at Sea meat for fishes they made difficulty also in that he was subject to the devil who earried him too and fro at his pleasure with a thousand such like If God then did permit his only son in person to be thus subject to so many casualties abuses and defects what shall we wonder that such may or have followed him in the Eucharist Christ's body then was possible and capable yea susceptible of all imaginable abuses pains and cruelties of humane malice or diabolical inventions what wonder is it that God should leave Christs body to such accidental and extrinsecal abuses by which it receives no damage at all To conclude the Doctor in alledging the Rubrick of the Roman Missal does little consider that he gives no light argument against himself for in all times since Christ there have been such rules meerly to prevent such abuses and defects as manifestly appears in the ancient penitential Canons also in the several Decrees of Popes and Councils besides the great care that no Infidels Jews or Hereticks should be present at the Mass the continual care that the Church has always had that the holy bloud should not fall on the Altar or ground according to the constitution which Pope Pius the 1. an 158. set down in the Roman Missal de defectibus according to which S. Chrysostome hom 21. Operis impers in Mat. tells us that it is not to be given to beasts or Infidels and S. Augustine l. 50. Hom. 26. We observe with great care when the Body of Christ is administred to us that nothing of it do fall out of our hands to the ground Origen hom 13. in Exod. Ye that are accustomed to be present at the divine Mystery do know how when ye receive our Lords body ye observe with great carefulness and veneration lest any thing of the consecrated gift should fall down for ye believe and that rightly that ye are guilty if any thing do fall through your negligence Surely all this care and folicitude could not be but on some motives more then natural for if there were only pure bread and wine they would have no more care of it then the Protestants have in the Communion of bread and wine but because as I have proved before the Church always believed that the true body and bloud of Christ Jesus was in the Eucharist they laboured by all convenient means to avoid such abuses CHAP. IX The Doctors Raillery concerning Miracles wrought in the Sacrifice of the Mass THe Doctor very frequently scoffs and jears at the many Miracles which are wrought in the sacrifice of the Mass thinking thereby to diminish the credit and belief of it whereas if they be Miracles the multitude makes them not less to be Miracles nay if we will
contemplate the works of God and confider every particular in one Miracle we may finde many Miracles which exceed all created power For the satisfaction of the Reader I shall illustrate it by examples Exodus the 4. God converted Moses his rod into a serpent which without all doubt was a great Miracle which also carries with it many Miracles included therein 1. the Rod was reduced to nothing and 2. To the serpent then created God gave motion proportion figure and other qualities of a serpent and in like manner turning this new created serpent into a rod the serpent was reduced to nothing and the serpent was converted into a rod which received a new being not by any created power but by God himself who also gave it colour proportion figure and dimension with other properties agreeable to the nature of a rod so that there was a double transubstantiation or conversion from one substance to another substance and transmutations or conversions of accidents to other accidents independently of any natural cause or action and here we may note that our wonderful God afterward gave to Moses power to do the same not by his humane vertue or power but by the power and gift of God whereby alone Moses as Gods Ministers and instrument did the same In like manner God did miraculously give to the Children of Israel Manna Exod. 16. and in it are contained many Miracles 1. That it was in such plenty that every day it was sufficient for three Millions 2. That every one how much or how little they gathered had as much and no more then theother 3. Every one received nourishment thereby equally to their condition savour and appetite The holy text sayes according to that which they were able to eat 4. The Manna putrified the next day excepting only the sabbaoth day when it did not putrify 5. On the sixth day the Manna was doubled and was not to be found on the sabaoth day 6. Solomon sap 16. tells us that God gave bread from heaven without labour having in it all delectation and the sweetness of all tasts serving every mans will and was turned to what every one would 7. God continued this Manna for 40. years and no more 8. God preserved this Manna in the Tabernacle for many ages If this Manna which as our Saviour himself John 6. teaches was but a figure or sign of the bread which he was to give to wit his body and bloud has so many maricles accompanyed it why should any reasonable man wonder that so many Miracles should accompany the celestial and divine Manna especially if they be necessarily annexed to the nature of so great and so miraculous a Sacrament wherein the body and bloud of our Saviour Christ is contained The royal Peophet Psal 110. cries out God hath made a memory of his miraculous works a merciful and pittiful Lord he hath given meat to them that fear him which according to all Catholick Interpreters is as much as to say God hath left one most special and most beneficial memory of all other benefits to wit his body and bloud in a miraculous manner as a memory of his Passion and our Redemption as the spiritual food and substance of all souls who rightly fear him The greatest Miracle is the Transubstantiation or conversion of the bread and wine into the body and bloud of Christ of which I shall speak in place convenient which with it carries necessarily many other Miracles as in the next Chapter I shall fully declare There remain two difficulties which manifest the Doctors Ignorance or malice the first is that the Doctor attributes all these Miracles to the Priests as if it all were done by their power according to our belief wherein he grievously errs as hereafter I shall declare for with S. Augustine l. 10. de civit Dei cap. 12. All Catholicks believe all Miracles done by Angels or men truly to be done by Gods power working in them If then there be any Miracles as no Christian can deny in the Eucharist it is God alone who works them by the Ministery of the Priests even as I said before he did work miracles by his servant Moses so S. Peter Act. 3. cured the lame man at the doors of the temple but advises the people that they should not think that he did it by his own power or holiness but in the name or power of Jesus so the priests do not any of those miraculous things in the sacrifice of the Mass by any humane power but by his ministerial power received in his Ordination Christ himself doth effect them so that the Doctors babling so often of Miracles wrought by the Romish priests is but meer raillery or most base ignorance The other as ignorant folly is his canting with reiteration touching the Roman priest bringing down Christs body from heaven at his pleasure as though Christ in coming to the Eucharist did leave the right hand of his Father in heaven which is a grosse errour for Christ is no less in heaven after the Consecration then he was before the Consecration he is sitting still at the right hand of his Father according to the Article of our Creed yet nevertheless he is in the Sacrament this indeed is a Miracle wrought only by Gods omnipotent power this made S. Chrysostome l. 3. de sacerdot to exclame O Miracle O benignity of God he who sitts above with the Father in the same article of time is often handled in the hands of all and he delivers himself to those who are desirous to receive and embrace him hom 3. ad Ephesios and hom 61. ad populum Antioch Also he says As many of us who communicate of the body of Christ and taste his bloud let us consider that we taste the body and taste the bloud of him who sits in the celestials and is adored by the Angels Their great Master Calvin lib. 4. Instit cap. 17. says In his supper he commands me to take eat and drink under the symbols of bread and wine his body and bloud for although it may seem incredible that in so great a distance of places as heaven and earth the flesh of Christ should penetrate to us that it may be meat for us we must yet remember how much above our senses the secret power of the holy Ghost can shew it self that which our minde comprehendeth not our faith conceives the spirit truly joyns together things locally separated sect 24. Nothing mooe incredible that things so far distant and remote within the whole space of heaven and earth in the whole distances of places are not only conjoyned but also united CHAP. X. Concerning the Miracles which follow in the hody Sacrament of the Eucharist THe Doctor much troubles himself about the Miracles which occur in the Eucharist whereas any one who believes the real presence of Christs body and bloud in the Sacrament must needs know that those Miracles do necessarily follow thereto If he could disprove
banquet when thou doest enjoy the bread and cup of life thou doest eat and drink the body and bloud of our Lord then our Lord enters under thy roof thou therefore then humbling thy self imitate the Centurion say Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof 203. Tertullian lib. 4. contra Marcionem The bread which he took in his hand he made his body saying This is my body And lib. de Resurrectione carnis The flesh feeds on the body and bloud of Christ that the soul may be replenished and filled with God 186. S. Jrenaus lib. 4. cap. 35. How shall it be manifest to them that the bread on which thanks are given is the body of the Lord and the Chalice of his bloud if they say be is not the son of the Creatour of the wrrld the saint makes an argument of Christ being the Son of God from the holy Mysteries of the Mass and Eucharist 150. S. Justin Martyr in Apolog. ad Antomin We do not take it as common bread nor this as common drink but as by the word of God our Saviour Jesus Christ was incarnate and took both flesh and bloud for our Salvation so also by the prayers of the word of God we are taught that the Eucharist being made our food by him whereby our bloud and flesh may be nourished by mutation is the flesh and bloud of the same Jesus incarnate 71. S. Ignatius Martyr as Theodoretus Dial. 3. in his epist ad Sawnon They do n t admit Eucharists and Oblations because they do not confesse the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour which suffered for our sins which the Father through his bounty raised again S. Dionise about the same time I. de Eccl. Hierarch par 3. c. 3. O most divine and holy sacrament vouchsafe to open the coverings of those significant signs which overshadow thee and appear plain to us and fill our spiritual eyes with the singular and clear shining of thy Light By these authorities of the holy Fathers the faith of the Church in those first five hundred years is made manifest so that none with reason can doubt of the real presence of Christs body and bloud in the Eucharist unless he will altogether dissent from Christs Church in those primitive times and say that Christ never had a true Church upon earth in which number Doctor Brevent is not to be reckoned for he ingeniously admits a true Church for five hundred years after Christ which admitted the real presence whereto the miracles which he scoffingly rehearses do necessarily follow as I said before to the being of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament To begin therefore with his first miracle which is that the bread is distroyed in a moment pray cannot he who gives it a being take it away when he pleases did not the same God turning Lot's wife into a pillar of salt take away or destroy or bring to nothing her humane form and nature in a moment was not the form of Moses â—â—d nature and substance destroyed in a moment was not the water when Christ turned it into wine wholly destroyed moreover this destruction follows the nature of all conversions either partial or total no new form is introduced but as the former is destroyed no total substance is produced but when the total substance precedent is also destroyed If then the body of Christ be by the power of the omnipotent God introduced or produced in the place of bread as the holy Catholick Church always taught us according to the testimonies now alledged and this shall be more manifested in the Chapter of transubstantiation it necessarily follows that the precedent substance be destroyed or brought to nothing so that this decision or not being of bread and wine proceeds ex necessitate miraculi from the real presence of Christs body and bloud in the Blessed Sacrament and so is no new miracle but the same with the former The second miracle which he jeers at is the being of the accidents of bread and wine without a subject which is not only possible but also is actually in the Eucharist as is sufficiently declared in the Liturgical discourse part 2. sect 3. cap. 9. whereto I may add the Authority of great S. Basil hom 6. Hexam S. Gregory orat in Diem Dominic and Theodoret when they affirm that the quality of light in its Creation was without a subject until the Sun was created and certain it is that accidents by the power of God may be preserved without a subject for he that gives a being in such or such manner can give them another as actually he has done in the Eucharist where quantity alone is preserved without a subject in which all other accidents as qualities c. are immediatly although by the same omnipotent power they also may be conserved without quantity and that it is so in the Eucharist has always been believed in the Catholick Church as in the precedent testimonies plainly appears when the holy Fathers affirm that the body and bloud of Christ is contained in the species of bread and wine whence the Councel of Constance sess 8. condemned that proposition of Wickliff who held that the Accidents of the Bread did not remain without a subject as heretical Moreover this miracle necessarily follows the Mystery of the real presence inasmuch as it is a sacrament for it would not be a sacrament if there were not in a visible form the essence of a sacrament consisting in a visible sign of some invisible thing The Eucharist therefore being a sacrament and containing the invisible body of Christ necessarily requires a visible signe S. Chrysostome hom 60. ad Populum Antioch and Hom. 83. in Mat. says If thou wert incorporeal God would have given thee plain and incorporeal gifts themselves but because the soul is joyned to the body he has given thee intelligible things in sensible things and a little before sith the word said This is my body we do assent and believe and with our intellectual eyes behold him for Christ has given 〈◊〉 nothing sensible but all intelligible things inâ—â—â—â— in sensible things It was therefore most congruous to the divine providence most agreeable to the nature of this mystical sacrament and most proper to our humane nature that Christ instituted this sacrament under the form of bread for as Christ is the true bread of life so he gave us his body and bloud under the form of bread and wine whence S. Cyprean Ser. de Coena Domin The bread which he gave to his Disciples changed not in Essigies or resemblance but in nature is made flesh by the Omnipotency of the word as in the person of Christ the humane nature was seen and the Divinity lay hid so in the visible sacrament the divine essence diffused it self Give me leave good Reader to set down the words of Theophilact Archbishop of Bulgary and no mean interpreter of the sacred Text who in Mark cap. 14. This
is my body this I say which ye take for the bread is not a figure or example of Christs body but is converted into the same body of Christ for our Lord said The bread which I will give is my flesh he said not is the sign of my flesh but is my flesh And again Vnless ye eat the flesh of the son of man And doest thou say flesh is not seen O man that is done for our infirmity because Bread and wine are of those things with which we are accustomed we do not abhor them but we should not bear but abhor seeing flesh and bloud set before us Wherefore our merciful God condescending to our infirmities conserves the species and forms of bread and wine but transelementates them into the vertue of flesh and bloud from whence I conclude that as it is possible to God to conserve the accident or species without any substantial subject for to him nothing is impossible to the constant belief of the holy Catholick Church in all times has been that those species are conserved as necessarily following that great Mystery The 3. Miracle to be baited at by the Doctor is that the body of Christ should be contained in so little a place or room as the Host nay in every parcel or part thereof Although this be miraculous yet it follows from the very being of our Saviour in the Eucharist for Christs body is not there with his natural dimension or Circumscription of place for so we could not eat him nor receive him in our Mouths nor the bread cover him unless we should say that of Mat. 19. a Camel might pass though the eye of a needle which nevertheless is possible according to what our Saviour there sayes with men this is impossible but with God al things are possible besides God is not tyed to natures laws as may be seen 4. Reg. 6. Iron did forget its natural weight and swom on the water Exod. 14. water lost its fluxibility and stood up as a wall In like manner the flowing of Jordan Josue 3. did stand and become like a mountain 3. Reg. 17. the pot of meal failed not and the vessel of Oyl diminished not Dan. 3. the fire lost its natural activity Luc. 23. the Sun lost its light It was not according to nature that a body should walk on the sea as our Saviour did Mat. 14. of which S. Justin Martyr in Respons ad quaest a gentibus As our Lord did walk on the Sea without a change of his body into a spirit but by divine power he made the Sea which cannot be passed over walking to be passable not only to his own body but also to that of Peter so by his divine power be also came out of the monument when a great Stone was put on it and entred in to his disciples the doors being shut All these things are above the law of nature and shall we deny the possibility of such like to the God of nature But to come nearer to our present purpose Christs body is now glorious and is in the Eucharist in a sacramental and spiritual manner not different from the being of a soul which is as well in every part and parcel of the body as in the whole body and shall we deny that to Gods power which he wrought in our souls which are indivisibly and without any commensuration of place This is confirmed by S. Epiphanius Haeres 64. Even as our Lord did rise from the dead not taking another body but the same that was and no other from that which was but changing that which was into a spiritual subtillity and making the whole spiritual he entred in by the doors shut that which could not be done here in our bodies for grossness and for that as yet they are not joyned in a spiritual subtillity S. Cyril speaking of the same miracle of entring the doors being shut on that place gives the reason for sith he is true God he is not subject to the law of nature S. Ambrose in c. 24. luc Not by corporeal nature but by a quality of a corporeal resurrection that it was not by natures law but by a subtillity of a glorified body which has no commensuration of place but is as the Angells in great or little place No wonder then that the body of our Saviour according to his Nature and for our benefit and commodity should be as well in the whole host as in every part thereof But some will cavill on what is said that Christs Body is indivisibly as the soul is in the whole Body and in every part thereof how little soever but we see by experience that if any part be separated from the whole the soul remains no more in it admitting therefore that the Body of Christ is in the whole Host yet if any part be separated from the whole Christs body also shall not be in that part so separated I answer there is no proportion between the works of nature so constituted by God and the works of God in his omnipotent power whence to argue against Gods works by the ordinary course of Nature is to limitate Gods power to what he has actually done whereas no act ad extra can be equal to his power no effect can fully correspond to his power God made the world and yet can make millions of worlds God ordained such and such effects in nature and can as well ordain many other yea different and contrary or exceeding in the same kinde It is meer folly to think that God can do nothing but what we can conceive or under and as if the infinite wisdom and power of God did not exceed our finite weak and in comparison no faculty at all Gods power is immense and without Limit Ipse dixit fact a sunt whatsoever he sayes is done and can do more things then any creature can conceive or Imagine Secondly There is no comparison in these two subjects for the part so separated from the whole is now no more capable to retain the vital form either vegetive or sensitive and consequently according to Natures law is uncapable of any rational form to wit the soul which gives no longer life to it being limited by the Authour of nature In our Case there is still the same disposition and capacity in every part as in the whole and consequently there arises no mutation but only a numerical difference which nothing alters the nature of the accidents which joynt or separate retain the species of bread or wine which are sensible signs required in this Sacrament as long therefore as this sensible signe or species remains so long the thing signed or signified remains The body of Christ has no union with the Accidents nor any reference to them but in as much as they are sacramental signs of his body and bloud so made by divine Institution in this their is no regard to the greatness or littleness of the species or accidents but to