Discussion of the Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation

The Sum of all that hath been said.

1. THat there is nothing in the Gospel whereby it may appear that those words of our Savior, This is my Body, may not be figuratively understood, is by Cardinal Cajetan confessed.

2. That our Saviors words of eating his flesh and drinking his blood are to be understood not corporally but spiritually, is acknowledged by many Popish writers of great note: and is, beside other Reasons, by a Rule given by Augustine evidently proved.

3. That the Elements in the Sacrament remain in Substance the same, and are not really transubstantiated into Christ's Body and Blood, is evinced by diverse Arguments.

1. From the Course of the Context, which plainly showeth, that Christ brake and delivered no other then he took and blessed.

2. From the express words of Scripture, that calleth the one Bread, and the other Wine, even after consecration.

3. From the Nature of Signs, whose property it is to be one thing, and to signify another thing.

4. From the Nature of Christ's Body, that hath flesh, blood, and bones, which the Eucharisticall bread hath not, that. which our taste, our sight, and our sense informeth us, by which our Savior himself hath taught us to discern his body.

5. From the nature of every true Body, such as Christ's is, which cannot be in many places at once, nor have any part of it greater then the whole.

6. From the quality of the Communicants, good and bad, promiscuously feeding on the Elements in the Eucharist, whereas none but the faithful can feed upon Christ.

7. From these infirm and unseemly, yea foul and filthy things that do usually, or may befall the Elements in the Eucharist, which no Christian ear can endure to hear that they should befall Christ's blessed and glorious body.

Whence I conclude, that since this Corporal presence, such as the Church of Rome maintaineth, hath no warrant from God's word, as their own Cardinal confesseth; and is besides contrary to Scripture, to nature, to sight, to sense, to reason, to religion, we have little reason to receive it, as a truth of Christ, or a principle of Christianity, great reason to reject it, as a figment of a man's brain, yea as a doctrine of the devil, invented to wrong Christ and Christianity.

It is the Rule of a Schoolman.

We ought not to add more difficulty unto the difficulties of Christian belief. But rather according to that which the Scripture teacheth, we should endeavor to clear that that is obscure. And therefore since that the one manner of Christ's presence in the Eucharist is clearly possible and intelligible, whereas the other is not intelligible (yea, nor possible neither,) it seemeth probable that that manner of his presence that is possible and intelligible should be chosen and held.

Division I.

N OBLE Lady, I find your Divine utterly ignorant and unacquainted with the Authors works by him frequently cited.

For example, pag. 9. he termeth Cornelius Jansen more then once a Jesuit: whereas the first leaf of his book (if he had ever seen it) witnesseth him to have been a Bishop of Flaunders, and no Jesuit. Like herein to another of his own coat (for I guess him to be a Minister, who to myself and other worthy persons confidently auerred Cardinal Bellarm. to have been an English man borne at Harr •• on the Hi •• ; where there hath been indeed an ancient family of the Bellamies, not Bellarmine's, as he foolishly conceived.

Secondly, pag. 5. he citeth an authority out of Pope Gelasius written by a far different Author of that name Bishop of Cesarea in Palestine mentioned together with his works by Photios Bibliotheca sua Codice 102.

Thirdly, in his 2. page, on the false report of another nameless Author like to himself, ignorant and insincere in his assertions, he maketh Bishop Fisher to affirm the reali presence of Christ's body in the Sacrament not to be gatherable out of any one word in Scripture, contrary to Bishop Fishers, yea Luther's own doctrine in innumerable places.

Fourthly, having traced him throughout his whole Treatise, I find him to be a mere collector out of other Authors: and for his best Arguments be hath stolen Bellarmine's objections against our doctrine, craftily dissembling his full and solid solutions of them in those very places: which is the usual trade of such Protestant petty writers. His proofs are tedious, superficial, and stuffed with impertinent allegations, maimedly and corruptly produced: with a very bad hand (which I suppose is his own) he inserteth many notes wholly idle and impertinent to his purpose; as I have in reading his papers particularly observed: which is to me an evident sign, that he hoped his papers should never come to the view of other then Ladies and unlearned pers •… unable 〈…〉 exam ••• them.

It is the usual manner of those that defend a bad cause, to leave the matter, and fall foul on the adverse party, and (like the crauen Cock, that having eaten garlic, by his strong and stinking breath endeavoreth to drive him away from him, whom he is not able well to bicker with) by railing, re • iling and abundance of bad language to seek to beat off their adversary, or by lying and out-facing to cry down those that they deal with, when by evidence of truth and strength of Argument they are unable to convince them; hoping by such means to delude the simpler sort at least, that cannot so well discern their shifts.

This as I have heretofore by experience found to be the common practice of Popish companions; so this Defendant loath to degenerate from the kind he cometh of, at the first dash beginneth with, charging the Divine he dealeth with to be one utterly ignorant, unacquainted with the Authors works that he citeth, a petty-writer, a mere collector, a false filcher, a foul corrupter, a superficial disputer, and what not?

This is his charge: Let us hear how he proveth it.

1. He termeth Jansen, whom he citeth, more then once a Jesuit, when he is not. It is true indeed: I confess, I do twice so term him, and I took him to have been so: wherein if I were mistaken, the matter is not great. I hope the authority of a famous Bishop, and a great writer of special note among them, our of a work of his written with much learning and mature judgment, as the Louaine professor acknowledgeth; and approved by the common judgment of the learned among them, as the King of Spain's (to whom also it is dedicated) and the Popes Censurer of books testifieth, may well be deemed of as much weight as the word or work, (if not of any, yet) of many a Jesuit at least.

As for the idle tale he telleth of the Bellarmine's and Bellamies, which a Minister forsooth should take the one for the other, and thereupon affirm Card. Bellarmine to have been borne at Harrow on the Hill; it may well be thought to have been brought in for no other end (being so little to the purpose) but to let us understand that he is a man of some worth; for so much he intimateth when he saith, it was averred to himself and other worthy persons. He doubteth (belike) that his work would scarce make his worth known, if he should not otherwise acquaint us with it. The thing it self is like enough to be but a mere fiction; and might easily be requited with the tale of the Frier, that took Messias for the Mass, and so would prove out of the Gospel that Christ said Mass; or of the Priest that took vnigeniti written short, for viginti, and so read to his people, God's twenty sons; or of him that bad the Epiphany day, but could not tell whether it weere an he or a she-Saint; or of him that bad Solin Cancro for an Holy-day, because he found it written in red letters; and with many moe the like, probable enough, if the learning of their lack-Latin Priests be well weighed.

But, had I ever seen the first leaf of his book, I might have known him to be a Bishop of Flanders and no Jesuit. As if as oft as one either readeth or allegeth any Author, he must needs turn always to the title-page, to see what his style is: or as if Jansen might not as well be Bishop of Gaunt, as Bellarmine a Cardinal, and (if I mistake not) Arch-bishop of Capua, and yet for all that a Jesuit. His proof therefore of my being unacquainted with this Author, (whom, I suppose, he will find me better acquainted with then he would) is very silly and slight: and the exception such, as showeth that he wanted matter of moment to except against.

But I hope when this Bishop of Flanders book cometh to be reprinted again, they will take that course with him, (if they have not left their old guise) that they have done formerly with many others; to wipe out of him whatsoever in this kind or any other, either maketh directly against them, or discovereth the weakness of such grounds as they labor to build their gross errors upon. Of which their false and fradulent dealing, it shall not be amiss to insert one Example by the way; the rather, because it concerneth the point here debated. Whereas therefore in the time of Carolus Calvus King of France and Emperor, above 800. years since, there was much disputation and dissension in the Church about the doctrine of the Sacrament, one Bertram a man of great note in those times both for life and learning, willed by the Emperor to declare his judgment therein, wrote a learned discourse thereof, wherein he confimeth by the testimonies of Augustine, Ambrose, and others of the Ancients, the very same that we now hold: and among other things affirmeth that there is as great difference between Christ's body that was borne of the Virgin Mary, and that which is daily received with the month in the Sacrament, as there is between the pledge, and that for which the pledge is given, between the image, and that whereof it is an image, and between the type and the truth. Now the Popish purgers authorised to main and mangle Authors, as well old as new, cum privilegio, without control, lighting among others on this book of Bertrams, use these words of it, and of their own confessed courses in this kind. Albeit (say they) we make no great reckoning of this book, and therefore should not greatly care if it were utterly lost, and were nowhere to be had; (I cannot blame them if they wish it, and many other the like, burnt and abolished) yet seeing that the book hath been oft printed, and reprinted, hath been read of very many, is known commonly by the name of a book forbidden, and the Heretics by diverse Catalogues of Books prohibited, are sure there is such an one, &c. And besides, since that in other old catholic writers we bear with very many errors, we extenuate, we excuse them, with some devised shift or other we very often times deny them, and by feigning give them some commodio as sense, (such they mean as may serve their own turns) when in disputations with our Adversaries they are objected unto us. (Mark, I pray you, the common dealing of these men in disputation, not charged on them by us, but confessed by themselves; and then judge you what fidelity or sincerity in cyting of Authors, is to be expected at their hands.) We see not, why Bertram should not find the like favor with us: The rather, L • st the Heretics should be snarling at us, and telling us that we burn up and prohibit antiquity, when it maketh for them against us. Which, you see, in this Author they would fain, if either they could, or durst do it. So at length they resol •… to do Bertram the favor to mangle and misuse his whole book, and having put in, and put out what they list themselves, to let him to pass, taught to speak for them now, that spake all against them before. I may well say here, as Arnobius an ancient Father, sometime said; To intercept writings, and seek to suppress things published, what is it but to be afraid of having the truth told and testified?

2. From the first idle Exception I pass to a second, as false, as the former frivolous. He citeth, saith he, an authority out of Pope Gelasius, written by a far different Author of that name, Bishop of Cesarea in Palestine. Had not mere malice and a mind bent to cavil, either blinded this wrangler, or made him willfully to wink, he might easily have seen (that which he could not also be ignorant of) in my very quotation, that the style and • itle I give him, is no other then is commonly given him by Popish writers, as among others by Margarinus la Bigne, and those with him (besides many others) that gathered together the works of the ancient Fathers, in the fourth T • me of their great Library sundry times printed, which 〈…〉 note there also in the Margine where I cite him. So that it is a mere false and friu •• us cavil to tax me for cyring Gelasius by 〈…〉 title that he knew well to be given him, (yea and that truly too, as anon shall evidently be •… ed) by those of their own side that have at sundry times set him out by no other name but of G • lasius Pope or Bishop of Rome.

But how doth this trister prove that he was not Bishop of Rome? Forsooth, because Photios maketh mention of one Gelasius Bishop of Cesarea in Palestine, that wrote against the Heretics called Anomoei. The place wringeth them, and therefore they would fain shift off the Author, from being Bishop of Rome at least. And B • llarmine, he telleth us that it was one Gelasi •• a Bishop of Cesarea, of whom Iereme maketh mention. But Baronius confuteth Bellarmine; (here is Cardinal against Cardinal:) and saith, it cannot be that Gelasius: their times are too far asunder: both he was dead and his next successor, before that business was on foot, that he dealeth in. Thus they stick not to make men write books after they are dead, and laid up in their graves. But who is he then, saith Baronius? for Bishop of Rome he must not be. He is that Gelasius (saith he) that Photios maketh mention of: and this Defendant saith the same. Gennadius and diverse other, telleth us that Gelasius of the City of Rome Bishop, wrote against the Eutychians and Nestorians. And that is the very title of the book • that I cite. Now Photios telleth us of another Gelasius Bishop of Cesarea, that wrote against the Anomaeans. Therefore saith Baronius, and from him this Defendant, the one must needs be the other. As if two Bishops of the same name could not write books against Heretics, but they must needs be by and by the same. But observe I pray you, how hansomely these things hang together. The Anomaeans were Arians and Aetians, so called, because they held the Son to be unlike the Father. The ^u Eutychians heretics, that held that Christ's humanity was turned into, or swallowed up of his deity. And now mark how these men reason; Gelasius of Cesarea (saith Photios) writ against those that oppugned Christ's divinity: and this Gelasius writeth against those that took away his humanity: this and the other therefore must needs be all one. Rather I reason on this manner: Gennadius reporteth that G • lasius Bishop of Rome writ against Eutyches and Nestorius: so doth this whom I cite; and all Editions of him, so style him: this Gel • sius therefore was Bishop of Rome. And how doth this now prove, that I cite Authors, whose works I am altogether unacquainted with, when the work I cite in their own printed Editions hath no other title, then that I give it?

But for the further and fuller clearing of the truth in this point, and the vindicating of this piece of Antiquity to his right Author: Besides that Phetius flatlyaffirmeth that that Gelasius that wrote against the Anomaei, is the same with that Gelasius whom they would have this Author to be, to wit, he that wrote of the Nicene Council, but one that both for style and learning goeth far beyond him: Nor is the frame of this Authors discourse such as he describeth his to have been in that work, to wit, fastidiously and childishly, or youthfully at least, full of Logic rules and terms, for which himself maketh an Apology; which this neither doth, nor (writing in a far other strain) needed to do: As also that in this very work, the Author intimateth himself to have been Bishop of Rome, or (as he speaketh) of the Apostolic Sea: Nor is it needful that with Melchior Canu • we turn sedem into fidem, as (to shift off this Author) he would there do: Besides all this, I say, Eulgentius an African Bishop who lived together in the same time with Pope Gelasius, and was his own Countriman, doth (as Hen •… y Spondan the Popes Protonotary himself informeth us) ascribe this work to Pope Gelasius, cyting out of it certain passages; as John the second, who not long after succeeded this Gelasius in the same sea, also doth. That which putteth this truth so far out of all doubt, that Spondan by such evidence undeniable convinced, is enforced to control Cardinal Baronius and those other of their own writers therein. It is clear therefore that this Gelasius was not Bishop of C • sare • , as this Defendant would have him; but Bishop of Rome, as I allege him, above a thousand years since, and both held and taught then the same doctrine of the sacrament of the E • ch • rist, that we do at this day.

But let him give me leave here to tell him of a trick too common with him and those of his coat; to wit, as to coin and forge Fathers, such as never were, not a few; so to cite oft in their discourses in matters of controversy Authors and writings, either justly suspected, or evidently spurious and counterfeit. In which kind this Defendant is more then once or twice faulty. To omit Cyril of Jerusalem his Catechetical Sermons, which even Popish writers themselves dare not confidently avow; and diverse passages in them bewray to be of a later date, then that Cyril whom they are fathered on. As also his citing of the very self same Author sometime as Augustine, and sometime as Ambrose, which it may well be was neither, and may the rather be so deemed even for this cause, because he beareth the name of both; which both sure he could not be: He citeth these confessed counterfeits as authentical Authors;

1. Di • nysius Areopagita, branded long since in Photios his time, as Posseuine confesseth, for a counterfeit; doubted of by C • ietan; denied by Grocinus; derided by Ualla and diverse others.

2. The passion of S. Andrew pretended to be written by the Ministers of Ach • ia: which D ^r . White (not ours but theirs) writing of this very Argument, confesseth to be without controversy an Apocryphal story: and containeth manifest untruth, if Bellarmine himself may be believed.

3. Cyprian de cardinalibus Christi operibus; which Posseuine, Erasmus, Hesselius, and many other P • pish writers flatly deny to be Cypriaus, yea or any one n • ere Cyprians time.

4. Eusibius Emissenus his Homilies; which whose they are, saith Bellarmine, is not known; Baro • i • s con •… th to have been foolishly set out under his name; and Six •… S •… sis (besides many others) affirmeth to have be • e patched together by some Latin Author out of other men's writings, whereas E • sebi • s was a Greek.

I add only what Bellarmine saith of the most of these Auth • rs together. Di • nysius his book (saith he) Eusebius his Homilies, and Cyprians Sermons of Christ's Cardinal works, are with some counted doubtful, yea or counterfeit writings: 〈…〉 nor is it certain̄ whether they be theirs, whose names they bear. Yea of some of them he saith else-where, that it is certain they are not. And yet are these of the principal Authors that this Defendant to uphold his tortering fabrique produceth; albeit the things alleged out of them do not greatly stand him in steed, as shall appear when we come at them. But such counterfeit feips do they commonly tender us, and will needs enforce us to accept them for curr • nt 〈…〉 ; when they know that their own Critics have marked and bored them for such, neither will they pass in payment among themselves.

§ 3. His third Exception is that he citeth a nameless Author, ignorant and insincere, like himself; who m • keth Bishop Fisher affirm the real presence of Christ's body in the Sacrament not to be gatherable out of any word in Scripture. True it is, I say, that I find Bishop Fisher all • adged to affirm, that there is no one word in the Gospel, from which the true presence of Christ's flesh and blood in their M • sse may be proved. Which because I had not the 〈…〉 myself, nor knew where to have it, I thus only allege. And now, to put the matter wholly out of suspense; that ignorant and insincere Author like myself, as 〈…〉 •… rmeth him, who shall no longer be nameless, is that right Re • erend Prelate, now Lord Bishop of Winchester, in his elaborate work against Bellarmine's Apologi • ; who (I doubt not) both had the book by him there cited, and cited the words no otherwise then they are in the book. No • (I think) is this Popish Doctor so extremely brazen-faced (though they have many of them in their brows too much of that metal) that he dare challenge that M • rour of learning for an ignorant Author. I should esteem it but to great a grace to be counted ignorant as he is.

§ 4. Fourthly, having traced him through his whole Treatise • e findeth him to be a mere collector out of other Authors, & to have stol • e out of Bellar. his • bi • ctions, cōc • aling his answers: and in a word all so poor & so weak, that it may seem written only for Ladies and ideotes, unable to examine. I say no more here in way of defense for myself but this only; that this should have been rather discovered by him in particular, then thus charged in general, unless he could in the prosecution of it have better discharged himself then he hath done hitherto. The truth is; he himself is so much beholden to Bellarmine, that he is fain ever and anon to refer his Reader to seek in him what he should say (if he thought it at least worth the saying) himself. As if it were a good proof of what he auerreth, or a sufficient resutation of what he findeth objected, to say, that Bellarmine hath largely proved the one, or Bellarmine hath sufficiently answered the other. Which if he have done either, he hath done more by much then he oft attempteth once to do. And surely his manner of dealing, beside the slightnesse and slenderness of his Answeres, with a wet finger (as we say) passing by the manifold allegations produced as well out of the Auncients, as out of their own Authors, doth give a shrewd suspicion, that he thought this his writing would never be examined by any either learned or unlearned, unless they were such as wanted even common sense, sufficient to discover the absurdity of diverse passages therein.

To give your Ladyship a taste of some of them before hand.

Absurd Positions, and Contradictions.
• 1. He saith, that a Testament, as all learned know, may well signify a Legacis.
• 2. He maketh our Savior to say, This my Blood is the Testament in my blood.
• 3. He saith, that Christ's blood is offered in the Eucharist, vnbloodily, or not as blood.
• 4. He expoundeth a place of Theod • ret thus; * The Sacramental Signs, that is, the Accidents, retain still the same Substance, that is, the same Accidents,
• 5. He saith that Christ's Body is in the Eucharist, but without bodily existence, that is, his body is there, but not as a body.
• 6. That it is there, and yet it followeth not that it is eaten, though that that is there be eaten.
• 7. He maintaineth a corporal eating of Christ in the Sacrament, and yet that he is not there corporally eaten.
• 8. He affirmeth that all are not saved that believe in Christ, and so fe • de spiritually on Christ.
• 9. He saith that the Son of God is contained in the bread that is ea • en in the E • ch • rist; whereas they dery any br •… at 〈…〉 to be there.
• 10. He maintaineth that a thing may truly be said to be turned 〈…〉 that that cometh only in the place of it.
• 11. He affirmeth that one and the self same thing may 〈…〉 .
• 12 That Christ's body in the Sacrament hath no exte •… bigness a • 〈…〉 .
• 13. He affirmeth Christ's very body to be present in the Sacrament but in a spiritual manner, or as a Spirit; and therefore can no more there be broken, then Angels wounded i • b • di • s • ffirmed, or then his De •… on the Cross; and that nothing but acc ••• nts are broken in the Euch • rist.
• 14. That Christ's hiding himself in the Sacr •• ent is 〈…〉 ex •… ion of him.
• 15. He saith, that Christ is not touched in the Sacrament, and yet we touch him: that he in •… th 〈…〉 there, and yet he cannot be touched of us.
• 16. He saith, that Christ's body is not abused, though mice and Rats eat it.
• 17. That their Mass is the very self same with Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross, and yet it is unbloody.
• 18. He maketh Christ himself a memorial of himself.

Cross and willful falsehoods and falsifications.
• 1. That I affirm Sacraments to be nothing but bare Signs and Types: and that, we make the Sacrament but a bare Memoriall of Christ.
• 2. That I affirm them to be nothing but bare bread and wine.
• 3. That I affirm Caietane, Bellarmine and Gratian to say the same.
• 4. That Justin Martyr describeth the Celebration of the Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Eucharist just as they now celebrate it.
• 5. That the Fathers affirm that I • das received Christ's natural body.
• 6. That all Christians in the World celebrate as, they do.
• 7. That Augustine and all the ancient Fathers understand Christ's words John 6. literally, and not figuratively.
• 8. That all the Fathers expound those words property, This is my body.
• 9. That Christ did not say of the Eucharist Cup, I will drink no more of this fruit of the vine.
• 10. That the Centurists blame all the Fathers almost of Constantine's time universally for teaching Transubstantiation, and adoration of the Sacrament.
• 11. That the ancient Britens held the same.
• 12. That Origen, Basil, Jerome, and Augustine make the sin of such as come unworthily to the Sacrament equal with the sin of those that betrayed and killed Christ.

But pass we from his Preamble to the Work it self.

Division 2.

HIs first end •… for three leaves together is to pr •… that there is nothing in the Gospel, whereby it may appear that those words of our Savior, This is my Body, may not be understood figuratively as well as other speeches of the like kind in Scripture; as when, Seven kine are said to be seven years; ten Horns ten Kings; The Rock was Christ, &c. So he; not telling withal his Reader (as he ought to have done, like an ingenuous solid Author) the many differences noted by Bellarmine and other Catholic Authors soluing this very Objection, between Christ's literal words, This is my Body, and other figurative speeches; these being simply and without any other explication vniformally recounted by three Evangelists, as also by Saint Paul, in their historical narrations: whereas where the Lamb is called the Passover, the Rock is said to be Christ, &c. Something is still added in the text, to explicate the literal and true meaning of them. The Lamb (for example) is called in the same place the sacrifice of the Passover: Christ is said to be a spiritual Rock, &c. And the very scope of visions and parables doth still show in what sense the words of them are literally to be taken: • s the seven kine, ten horns, &c.

Besides in all such figurative speeches, Semper predicatur de disparato disparatum: One thing is said to be another, which cannot be •… dually or specifically the • ame, but wholly different in nature from it. A man, (for example) as Christ was, cannot 〈…〉 •… narily be a Vine, a Lyon, a Rock, &c. But in Christ's words, This is my body, no such absurdor impossible thing is affirmed; but only that the substance which he had in his hands, was his body made by the miraculous conversion of bread into it; Christ's words being operative (saith S. Ambrose) and omnipotently able to make that to be which is signified by them in in these words. Perhaps thou wilt say; I see another thing: How prove you to me, that I take the body of Christ? And this remaineth yet for us to prove, that it is not what nature framed, but what benediction hath consecrated: and that the force of benediction is greater then the force of nature: because even nature it self is changed by benediction. Moses holding a wand in his hand, did cast it from him, and it became a serpent. Now if man's benediction were of such force, as that it could change nature; what say we of that same divine Consecration, where the words of our Lord and Savior do work? For this Sacrament which thou takest is made by the speech of Christ. And if the speech of Elias was of such pow •• as to draw fire from heaven; shall not Christ's words be of fo • ce to change the forms of the elements? Thou hast read of the works of the whole world: Because he spake the word, they were made; he commanded, and they were created. The word of Christ then, which of nothing could make that which was not, cannot it not as well change those things which are into that which before they were not? Since it is not a less matter to give new natures unto things then to change natures, &c. It is indeed Bread before the words of the Sacraments: But after that consecration is once added unto it, of bread it is made the flesh of Christ, &c.

I have told you, (saith S. Augustine) that before Christ's words that which is offered on the Altar is called bread: but when Christ's words are uttered, it is called no more bread, but his body. And explicating the Title of the 33. Psalm, wherein these words are written, Et ferebatur in manibus suis; And-he was carried in his own hands: Who (saith he, conc. 1.) is able to conceive how this can happen in man? For who is carried in his own hands? A man may be carried in the hands of another: But in his own hands he cannot be carried. How this may be literally understood in David, we find not. But in Christ we do. For Christ was carried in his own hands, when giving his body he said, This is my Body. For then did he carry that body in his own hands, &c.

When as Christ himself (saith S. Cyril) affirmeth and saith of the bread, This is my Body, who may presume to make any doubt thereof? And when the same Christ confirmeth and saith, This is my Blood, who can doubt, and say it is not his blood? Again, Let us not consider it as mere bread, or bare wine. For it is the body and blood of Christ. For although the sense teacheth thee that it is bread and wine, yet let thy faith confirm thee, that thou judge not the thing it self by thy taste. And a little after; This knowing for most certain, that the bread which we see is not bread, although thy taste thinketh it to be bread, but that it is the body of Christ: and the wine which we behold, although to the sense of tasting it seemeth to be wine, yet that it is not wine indeed, but the blood of our Savior, &c.

Let us believe God (saith S. Chrysostom) in everything; not gain-saying him, though what he saith may seem absurd to our sense and cogitation. I beseech thee therefore, that his speech may overcome our sense and reason. Which point we are to observe in all things: but especially in holy mysteries; not only beholding those things which lie before us; but also laying hold of his words; for his words cannot deceive us: but our sense may easily be deceived. And elsewhere lib. 3. de Sacerd. O miracle! saith he: O the bounty of God! he that sitteth above with his Father, even in the same instant of time is handled with the hands of all, and delivereth himself to such as are willing to entertain and embrace him. Again, Elias did leave his garment to his disciple. But the Son of God ascending to heaven did leave his flesh. But Elias by leaving it was deuested thereof: Whereas Christ leaving his flesh to us, yet ascending to heaven there also he hath it.

AFter that he hath thus spent some part of his railing Rhetoric in traducing & vilifying this Protestantical Divine his Adversary, asignorant, unacquainted with the Authors he citeth, a petty writer, a mere collector, a filcher, a falsifier, &c. and disgraced his Discourse as consisting of proofs tedious, and superficial, and allegations impertinent maimedly and corruptly produced; and (that nothing may escape him without some nip) written with a very bad hand, which he taketh to be his own; and the party therefore one (it may be) not so fit to write for Ladies as himself, being both a man of worth (as before he intimated himself to be) and writing a fair hand too, though not very Scholerlike, as the work it self showeth: He cometh now to deal with the matter and substance of the Discourse.

Where the first Proposition, that he undertaketh to oppugn, as I propound it, is this:

These words in the Gospel, This is my Body, may well be taken figuratively.

(Which how it may be, I show by some instances: to wit; these other in Scripture; The seven kine, are seven years: The ten horns, are ten Kings: The Rock was Christ: or as those other in ordinary speech; This is Caesar: That is Cicero, &c.

Nor is there anything in the Gospel that may enforce the contrary.

Now this worthy man that taxeth me for a mere Collector, and a filcher out of Bellarmine, hath nothing here to answer, but what he fetcheth from Bellarmine, whom he saith I filch all from.

But let us see how well he urgeth and maketh good Bellarmine's answers.

1. The words are simply, and without any other explication, simply and vniformally (for so in his scholerlike manner he speaketh) recounted by three Evangelists and Saint Paul. And therefore they cannot be taken figuratively. For that must follow, or else he speaketh nothing to the purpose. We shall not need to go far to discover the weakness of this consequence. The three Evangelists, and S. Paul speaking of the other part of this Sacrament, do all simply and without another explication vniformally (to retain his own precise terms) say, This Cup is, &c. therefore the Cup cannot be taken figuratively there: which if it be not, they must invent a new Transubstantiation of some other matter or metal then the fruit of the Vine, either into the New Testament, or into Christ's blood.

§ 2. When the Lamb is called the Passover; and the Rock said to be Christ, something is added in the Text to explain the literal true meaning of them. The Lamb for example in the same place is called the Sacrifice of the Passover. Christ is said to be a spiritual Rock, &c.

1. It is not true that he saith; that in the same place where the Lamb is called the Passover, the same Lamb is called the Sacrifice of the Passover: There is no more said, Exod. 12. 11. but this; Ye shall eat it in hast; it is the Lord's Passover: there being nothing by way of explication there added. But after indeed verse 27. not the Lamb precisely, but the whole Service is said to be the Sacrifice of the Lord's Passover. When your Children shall ask you, What service is this that you observe? Then shall you say, It is the Sacrifice of the Lord's Passover.

Neither is Christ said to be a spiritual Rock. 1. Cor. 10. 4. But the real Rock is called a spiritual Rock: as the Manna, and the water that issued from it are called spiritual meat and drink: And that Rock for matter corporal, for use spiritual, is said, as Augustine well observeth, not to signify, but to be Christ: Nothing being added more to intimate a figurative sense there, then here in the words, This is my Body, which two speeches both Augustine and Cajetan compare the one with the other.

2. It is senseless thus to reason; In some places where figurative speeches are used, something is added to explicate them: therefore wheresoever nothing is added to explicate the figure, the words are not, or cannot be figuratively taken.

3. In many of the instances given, no such explication is added; as these, The ten Horns are ten Kings; The seven Kine are seven years: This is Caesar: This Cicero, &c.

4. In the very Context there is added that which showeth the sense to be figurative. For that which is called Christ's blood by the Evangelist in the one verse, is expressly said to be the fruit of the vine in the next verse. And that which is called Christ's body by the Apostle, is immediately after, more then once or twice expounded to be bread.

§ 3. The very scope (saith he, or Bellarmine by him) of visions and parables doth still show in what sense the words are literally to be taken; as, the seven kine, ten horns, &c.

And doth not the very nature of signs and Sacraments show in what sense the words used of, or in them, are to be taken? to wit, figuratively and symbolically, not properly or essentially. For what are Signs and Sacraments but real parables? both therefore termed Mysteries, as Chrysostom noteth; because one thing is seen in the one, as heard in the other, and some other thing understood. Or what is more v • uall then (as Augustine and others well observe) that Signs and Sacraments be called by the names of those things, which they are signs and sacraments of? What Sacrament also is there, wherein or whereof such speeches are not used? Circumcision is called the Covenant: the pasohall Lamb, the Passover: the Rock, Christ: Bap •• sme, the Laver of Regeneration. And in like manner, saith Augustine, is the bread Christ • body; the name of the thing signified (saith Theodoret) being given to the sign. So that whereas this worthy writer thus argueth out of Bellarmine; In visions and parables the very scope ever showeth that the things spoken are to be vnstoode figuratively: But these places, the seven kine, and the ten horns, are visions and parables: And therefore the things therein spoken are to be taken figuratively. Why may not we as well reason on this wise? The very nature of signs and sacraments leadeth unto this, that when the names of the things whereof they are signs and sacraments are given unto them, it is to be understood not properly, but figuratively. But it is a Sacrament wherein and whereof these speeches are used, This is my body, and This is my blood: These words therefore, wherein the name of the thing signified is given to the Sacrament, are to be understood figuratively. And so he hath from his own grounds by due proportion somewhat more to conclude then was before required; to wit, not only, that there is nothing that may enforce us to expound them literally, but that there is somewhat of moment to induce us to expound them figuratively.

§ 4. In all such figurative speeches (saith he further out of Bellarmine) Semper praedicatur de disparato disparatum; One thing is said to be another, when it cannot be indi • idually or specifically the same, but wholly different in nature from it. A man for example, as Christ was, cannot but similitudinarily be a Rock, a Vine, or a Lion. But in Christ's words, This is my body, no such absurd or impossible thing is affirmed; but only that the substance which he had in his hands was his body made by the miraculous conversion of bread into it.

1. In this speech of our Savior, This is my body, as well as in that speech of the Prophet, This is Jerusalem, or in that speech of the Apostle, The Rock was Christ, is one thing, to wit, bread (as is afterward proved both by the course of the context, the words of the Apostle, and the doctrine of the ancient Fathers) said to be another thing, to wit, the flesh of Christ, which is wholly different in nature from it. Nor can this worthy Disputer prove thē contrary, unless you grant him the point in question, which here he shamefully beggeth to make good his Assertion, to wit, that that which Christ had in his hands was his body made by the miraculous conversion of bread into it?

2. A man may as well be a rock; as a rock may be a man, or bread may be flesh. And why was it not as possible for the rock to be turned into Christ, and so to become Christ, as for bread to be turned into the body of Christ, and so to be the flesh of Christ? that the one might be understood properly as well as the other. If they will say, It is impossible that the rock should be turned into the flesh of Christ, before Christ was incarnate, I might answer them, as they use to do us; that God is able to do all things. And questionless it is as possible that the rock should be turned into that flesh, that as yet was not; as that a little thin wafer cake, or the compass of it at least, should contain Christ's whole and entire body here on earth, while the very self same individual body should be whole and entire still in heaven. A creature may as well be, and yet not be at once, as a natural body may at the same time be wholly and entire thus contracted on earth, and yet whole and entire also in his full stature in heaven. Yea how is it not a thing absurd and impossible, that Christ's body sitting whole and entire at the table, should hold the self-same body whole and entire in its two hands on the table, and should give the self-same body away whole and entire over the table to twelve several persons, to go severally into each of their mouths still whole and entire, and to become so many whole and entire human organical bodies in their mouths, as in chewing they made pieces of that that was given them, and yet the self-same body that they did thus take and eat, remain sitting there still unstirred and untouched? If these things be not absurda absurdorum absurdissima (as he speaketh) as monstrous absurdities as ever were any, I know not what are.

3. Observe how these men that cannot endure to hear us say, This, or that thing is impossible: yet tell us themselves of many impossibilities; and that even then also when they speak of these miraculous mysteries, in the confuting one of another. It is impossible (saith this worthy writer) for a man, as Christ was, otherwise then similitudinarily, to be a rock, or a vine. It is impossible (saith Aquinas) that a man should be an Ass. It is impossible (saith the Gloss) that bread should be Christ's body. It is altogether impossible (saith Bellarmine) that this sentence, This bread is my body, should be true properly. It is impossible (saith Biel) that Christ's body should be broken or divided and so be spoiled, being impassible. It is impossible (saith Aquinas) that Christ in his last Supper should give his body impassible. It is impossible that his body being now impassible should be altered in shape or hew. It is impossible that Christ's body in his proper shape should be seen in any other place, but that one only wherein he is definitively. It is impossible that the substantial form of bread should remain after consecration: or that the substance of bread and wine should abide there. It is impossible that Christ's body by a local motion should come to be in the Sacrament. It is impossible that the same thing should both rest and move at once. It is impossible that the same body should by local motion arrive in diverse several places at once. It is impossible that Christ's should personally assume the bread in the Sacrament. It is impossible that Christ's body should be in the Sacrament any other way but by the conversion of bread into it. All these and many other impossibilities they tell us of, that cannot endure to hear us speak of any. Now if they will tell us why these things are impossible, we shall as soon tell them again in their own words, why such a Transubstantiation and real presence, as they dream of, is impossible.

4. How doth this follow: There is no impossible thing affirmed in Christ's words: Therefore they must needs be taken properly, or they cannot be taken figuratively? He might by the same reason prove that the Apostles words where he saith of himself, I die daily; or where he saith, I am crucified together with Christ; or where he saith of the Galatians that Christ was crucified among them; or the Psalmists as some fantastical Rabbin's have held, where he saith of the Heavens, that they relate God's glory, &c. or our Saviors, where he saith, that the tongue of the Rich man's soul was in torment; must of necessity be all understood literally and properly, because there is nothing simply impossible affirmed in them.

§. 5. He telleth us in Conclusion; that the meaning of our Savior Christ's words is this; The Substance which I hold in my hands is my Body made by the miraculous conversion of bread into it. But where is ought in the Text that inti nateth this miraculous conversion? yea if this were the sense of them, it should be made Christ's body ere those words were spoken of it: Whereas he and his associates commonly hold that this miraculous conversion is wrought by those words, This is my body, and is not effected till those words be all out; which they give the Priest a special charge thereof to utter speedily with one breath. And here let this profound doughty Doctor give an ignorant petty writer leave to demand of him, what is meant by the word This, in those words, This is my body; (for I suppose he will not be so absurd as the Glosser is, to say that Hoc or this there signifieth nothing at all:) or what that substance was (as he speaketh) that Christ held in his hands when he spake the word, Hoc, or this. If it were Christ's body made before of bread, then the uttering of those words did not then, nor doth now work any conversion of the bread into Christ's body: for nothing can be turned into it self, or into that that already it is: or if it were bread still, (as for ought ap 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 peareth in the text, still it was) then must this needs be the sum and sense of Christ's words, This bread is my body: and so by his own rule, when disparatum de disparato dicitur, one thing is said to be another different in nature from it, it must needs be taken figuratively.

§ 6. Well wotting that there was no such thing either in the Text, or gatherable (to use his own terms) out of it: he would fain find out some Author, that would say that for him, that the text it self will not; and alleagdeth therefore some few Testimonies. Concerning which I might well say, as he saith, if I would do as he doth, that they have been answered long since by the L. Morney, the B. Morton, D. Fulke, and others, and he doth not deal sincerely in concealing their Answers; and so turn my Reader over to them, as his manner is, when he hath nothing to answer. But I answer to them severally.

1. Ambrose is alleged out of his books de Mysterijs, &c. and de Sacramentis: which books, howsoever for diverse passages of them, and phrases used in them, they may well be doubted of whether they were written by him or no; and Posseuine himself implieth that some have denied it, when he saith, that all almost hold them to be his: and part of them (as we shall see anon) goeth commonly under another name: yet not to stand thereupon, but admit them for his. Nothing there said doth necessarily enforce any such Transubstantiation as the Romanists hold; yea some subsequent words, if they had been annexed, would evidently speak against it.

For first, Ambrose there expressly teacheth, that the creatures of bread and wine still abide even after Consecration, which utterly overthroweth the Popish Transubstantiation. If (saith he) there were so much force in the word of the Lord, (in the work of Creation) that those things began by it to be that before were not; how much more operative is it to cause that things should be still what they were before, and be changed into another things. So that by this Ambroses confession the elements remain still what they were, and yet are changed indeed, which we deny not, into that which they were not; as wax is turned into a seal, being annexed to a deed; though it remain still for substance what erst it was.

2. That which Ambrose saith in the latter place, that This bread is bread before the words sacramental; but when consecration cometh to it, it is of bread made Christ's flesh; that he speaketh in these words in the former place, which this mangler of him omitteth; Before the blessing of the heavenly words is another kind named, but after Consecrationis Christ's body signified. And again in the latter place: Wine and water is put into the Cup, but by Consecration it becometh blood. Thou wilt say, I see no kind or show of blood. But it hath (saith he) a similitude of it. For as thou hast taken a similitude of death in (Baptism, he meaneth as lib. 3. cap. 7. so) thou drinkest a similitude of Christ's precious blood, &c. And thereupon he concludeth, Thou hast learned now, that that which thou receivest is Christ's body. So that it is in regard of signification and similitude that the one is said to be Christ's flesh, and the other his blood, as this Ambrose explicateth himself.

3. Expounding what manner of change he meaneth, when he saith, They are changed into that which erst they were not. Thou thyself (saith he) wast before; but thou wast an old creature: after thou wast consecrated, thou begannest to be a new creature; which newness yet (as Tertullian well observeth) importeth no corporal, but a spiritual change in the party so consecrated, not in substance, but in quality differing from what he was before.

4. In the next Chapter, relating the words of their Church Liturgy then in use, he calleth that holy oblation, a figure of Christ's body and blood: which they entreat God to accept of, as he did Abel's gifts, and Abraham's sacrifice, &c. which cannot be understood of the very real sacrifice of Christ himself, unless they will make the Priest an intercessor to God the Father in the behalf of Christ Jesus. Of which also more hereafter.

2. Out of Augustine are cited two Testimonies. In the former whereof he showeth, how judicious he is in the choice of his allegations, (that for which he taxeth the Divine he dealeth with) and how well seen in and acquainted with the Authors he allegeth. There are diverse Sermons set out under Augustine's name, (for this is no new thing with them to forge daily as well new works, as new writers) which they cite many of them, sometime under the name of Augustine, sometime under the name of this or that other Father: for they can find Fathers for their bastards as they list themselves. Of these many by Bellarmine, Baronius, Erasmus, the Divines of Louaine, and diverse others are confessed to be mere counterfeits. One whereof is the Sermon de Verb. Dom. 28. which this worthy Writer here citeth; and indeed is nothing else but a whole Chapter verbatim taken out of the fifth book of that work de Sacramentis, which he cited last before as Ambroses. So that he doth herein as Captains, that wanting of their full number borrow one of another, and so produce the same party by one name today as one man's soldier, and by another name the next day, as another man's soldier, a gun-man (it may be) today, and a pike-man tomorrow. For this Author was but even now Ambrose; and now he is suddenly become Augustine; as if some such spel had been said over him, as they suppose to be said over their Hoast. And thus (as their common guise is) they make their coined creatures, like plaiers on a stage, sometime to act one part, and sometime another. And this may well give just cause to suspect the authority of the Author, when sometime he is Ambrose, and sometime Augustine, and it may well be neither. For he is hardly ever believed that is taken once in two tales. And this Erasmus his annotation would have given him some hint of, had he been so well acquainted with the Authors he citeth as he would seem to be. Besides that this Ambrose, or Augustine, or what ever he be, when he is cited to give in evidence, saith nothing but this, that that which before Christ's words is called bread, is after them called no more bread, but Christ's body. Which unless it be meant, that it is not called only bread, but Christ's body also, which manner of speaking is not unusual) he will not deny himself to be most manifestly vnture: for he acknowledgeth a little after that even after consecration the Apostle diverse times so termeth it. And if it be so understood, what maketh it either against us, who acknowledge (with the Auncients,) that it is commonly called, as all other signs ordinarily, by the name of the thing it signifieth; or for them, who should prove, not that it is commonly called Christ's body, but that it is really and essentially it. It is no more then as if one had said; Wax before it is set to a deed and imprinted, is called wax: but after that, it is not called wax, but a Seal. Mean while it may hence appear, that either this Writer (what ever he be) is scarce well acquainted with the writings of those Fathers that he citeth, or else he is wretchedly bent to abuse and delude those that he dealeth with.

The latter Authority is taken out of Augustine's first Sermon on Psal. 33. wherein he saith, that Christ was carried in his own hands, when he said, This is my body. And here again this great Doctor showeth either his little acquaintance with Augustine, or his fraudulent dealing with those whom he desireth to delude. For Augustine repeating again in the very next Sermon what he had delivered in the former, putteth in those words, which show what his meaning was: When he commended (saith he) unto them his body and blood, he took into his hands, what the faithful know: (that was nothing, they themselves will grant, but bread, when he took it.) And he carried himself after a manner, when he said, This is my body. And if you will know what that, after a manner, meaneth, Augustine himself will best tell you, where he saith elsewhere; The Sacrament of Christ's body is after a manner Christ's body: because Sacraments for the most part be are the names of those things whereof they are Sacraments. After a manner then it is the body of Christ. And yet is it bread still. For so Augustine again elsewhere; It was Bread that Christ carried in his hands at his last Supper: Which Supper we to this day eat daily by Faith; and in it by faith receive Christ, in whom we believe; and taking a little modicum, are spiritually fatted.

His third Author is S. Cyril, that should be Bishop of Jerusalem a little after the time of Constantine the Great: An Author not without good cause shrewdly suspected. Under his name our Popish Father-forgers have set out diverse things: Among others an Epistle of his that should be written to S. Augustine of S. Jerome's decease, and of the miracles that he wrought. Which Epistle is so gross and ridiculous, writing of the death of one that many a long year out-lived him that should write it, that albeit many of them are not ashamed to cite it as Cyrils for the maintenance of sundry Popish points, yet others of them are enforced to confess the work countorfeit, and stick not to brand the Author of it for an heretical impostor, and a loud liar. And of late they have set out under the name of the same Cyril two books of Catechising; which besides sundry passages in them that argue a late writer, as where he speaketh of the Invention of the Cross as a matter long before his time, and saith that the whole world was then filled with the pieces of it, whereas the true Cyril was living at the very time when the Cross is reported to have been found by Helen; the same Catech • sings are reported to be found in some written copies under the name one John Bishop of Jerusalem, of which name there was one about the 2. Nicene Council, some hundreds of years after that Cyrils decease. So that they may as well cite that second Council of Nice for the adoration of Images, as this counterfeit Cyril for their Transubstantiation, unless they can bring sounder proof for him, and better inform us what he is, and whence he came. The authority of this Catechiser is no better then the authority of that Epistler for ought can be shown; which yet in this very Argument is also produced, and is enforced upon us as an indubitate and authentical Author. Such bastard pearls, Bristow diamonds, and glass bugles are these poor pedlars, like petty chapmen fain to stuff their packets with, for want of better and choiser wares. And yet may we but have leave to expound this Cyril, or whosoever he is else, by himself, we shall soon show him to say no more then we willingly admit. For in the same Catechising that is here alleged, Do not regard (saith he) these things, as bare • read and wine. And in the Catechising next before; Do not suppose that ointment to be bare ointment. For as the Bread of the Eucharist, after the invocation of the holy Ghost, is no longer bare bread, but Christ's body: so this holy Ointment after invocation is no more bare or common ointment, but a gift of Christ and the holy Ghost, by the presence of his Deity. And look what he saith concerning the not trusting of our senses in the matter of the Eucharist, the same doth the Ambrose before cited say of the Sacrament of Baptism. What seest thou? saith he. Water: but not water alone, &c. First, the Apostle teacheth thee to contemplate not the things that are seen but the things that are not seen. Believe the presence of the Deity. For how could it work there, if it were not present. And again afterward; Believe not thy bodily eyes alone: that is better seen that is not seen. And say not we as much? that it is not bare bread, nor bare wine that is offered us in the Eucharist, (whatsoever this lying wretch hereafter shamelessly auoweth, as when we come to it shall be shown) which is all that our outward sense is able to inform; but spiritual signs and seals, and effectual instruments of grace, which the eye of our soul is alone able to conceive, and our faith to assure us of.

4. Chrysostom is alleged; but little to the purpose. The former allegation is here cited out of Sermon 60. ad Popul. Antioch. which Sermon this Answerer, had he been so well acquainted with the Author he citeth, as would beseem such a Doctor as he professeth himself to be, he should have found to be an Homily never made by Chrysostom, but by some other composed of part of two Sermons of his, on the Gloss of S. Matthew pieced together, to wit, the 83. and the 51. according to the Latin, or the 82. and 50. according to the Greek. The place produced is out of the 83. on Matthew: for that is the proper place of it. In which Sermon Chrysostom speaketh no more of the Eucharist, then he doth of the Sacrament of Baptism, in the very next words. It is no sensible thing (saith he) that Christ hath left us, but in things indeed sensible matters all intelligible. In like manner it is in Baptism. By a sensible thing, to wit, water is the gift given, but the thing that is there wrought, to wit, regeneration and renovation, is a thing intelligible. If thou wert not corporal, he would have given thee the gifts themselves naked and spiritual: but because thy soul is conjoined with thy body, thereforeby sensible things he giveth thee things intelligible. And in the other Sermon out of which that Homily is pieced: Believe thou that the same supper wherein Christ himself sat down, is now celebrated. For there is no difference between this and that. For it is not a man that doth the one, and Christ the other. But it is Christ himself that doth both the one and the other. When therefore thou seest the Priest reaching somewhat to thee: do not imagine that it is the Priest that doth it, but that it is Christ's hand that is stretched out to thee. For as when thou art baptized, he doth not baptize thee; but it is God that holdeth thy head by his invisible power; and neither Angel nor Archangel, nor any other dare approach and touch: So is it now also. Now what is here spoken but of Mysteries or Sacraments in general, applied after in particular, as well to Baptism as to the Eucharist? and therefore may as well prove a real or essential transmutation in the one as in the other: and if not in both, in neither, since the very same things are spoken of either: to wit, that we must in either regard not so much what our bodily eye seeth, as what the spiritual eye of the believing soul by faith apprehendeth, and upon ground of God's word believeth: and that by things sensible are things intelligible conueighed to us, and effected in us as well in the one as in the other.

The 2. place of Chrysostom is out of his 3. book de Sacerdotio. Wherein this alleadger of him fareth as ill as in the former allegation. Chrysost. saith indeed that Christ that sitteth above with his Father in heaven, is at that time (to wit, when the Eucharist is celebrated) held in the hands of each one, and offereth himself to those, that will clasp him about and embrace him. But not to insist upon what was above said by him, that Christ himself and not Man both there and in Baptism administereth; nor upon other phrases in the same place used by him, both before of the same Eucharist, that the people are all died purplered in it with Christ's blood; and afterward of Baptism, that in it we are buried together with Christ: Which cannot be understood but figuratively: he showeth in the very next words to those here cited, what his meaning was in them, and how all this is done, when he saith; And this they do all then with the eyes of faith.

The third place is not, as he seemeth to cite it, out of the same book, but out of his 2. Sermon ad populum Antiochenum. He found them joined together in Bellarmine, out of whom he hath all, and therefore took them (it seemeth) to be both out of one book. Chrysostom there saith that Christ hath left us his flesh, and yet hath it still in Heaven. But how that may be verified, he himself showeth in the same place a little before, when he saith, that there was a twofold Elias, (whom he compareth Christ withal,) when Elias was translated, an Elias above, and an Elias beneath; he meaneth Elisaeus, on whom rested the spirit of Elias, whom he therefore esteemeth a symbolical Elias; as John the Baptist is called Elias, because he came in the power and the spirit of Elias, and so was also Elias, as our Savior auerreth (and Augustine well observeth) though not essentially Elias, yet Elias symbolically. And so here in like manner. Christ's essential flesh is in heaven, whither they must also, saith Chrysostom, ascend, and fly up like Eagles, that will have it: his symbolical Flesh is here upon earth, as the Symbolical Elias was, in the Sacrament of his body; which (saith Augustine) in some sort is his body, being a Sign and Sacrament of it.

And thus you see what substantial proofs this great Blusterer hath brought to prove their Transubstantiation: and how well he hath acquit himself for a man well read in the ancient Fathers, as hereafter he boasteth himself to be.

Division 3.

THis is the true Doctrine of the ancient Fathers: and so plainly and vnanswerably do they teach the literal understanding of our Saviors words, and the miraculous conversion of the bread & wine of the Altar by the omnipotent force of them into the body and blood of Christ; telling us that we must not believe our sense or reason telling us the contrary; nor conceive it so impossible, as our carnal and gross Adversaries pretend, for the body of our Savior to be in heaven, and in numberless places of the earth together i •… sibly existing. Whose plain testimonies are in a whole Book together by learned Bellarmine truly and particularly collected: where also he refuteth the shifting answers of Protestanticall Divines unto them; soluing all Objections gathered out of their obscurer sayings against Catholic doctrine. Who is by this Minister ignorantly or maliciously traduced, and made directly against the whole drift of his Controuersie to teach a probability at least of Protestant Doctrine about the figurative and tropical sense of our Saviors words, This is my Body; because disputing against Luther; supposing as well as he the literal sense of our Saviors words, argumento ad hominem, by an Argument drawn from Luther's own grounds, he driveth Luther either to confess Transubstantiation necessarily purported in our Saviors words, This is my Body; or for to admit barely (against the known opinion of himself and all his disciples) a figurative and metaphorical understanding of them. For if Christ's words be literally to be understood, and bread also admitted to remain in the Sacrament, the Pronoun, Hoc, This, would naturally and necessarily demonstrate it, and not the body of Christ invisibly therein present, and so bread in our Saviors speech should falsely be affirmed to be Christ's body: Whereas if bread remain not, but be truly converted into Christ's body, no such absurd and impossible sense followeth out of the literal understanding of Christ's words. Why then doth this Minister falsely make Bellarmine in this place seem to affirm that there is nothing in the holy Text, that may enforce us to believe that Christ is corporally present in the Sacrament, or (which is all one) that may enforce us literally and not figuratively to understand Christ's words, &c. Ignorance and mistaking must be my adversaries best means to salve this falsehood and many others which do ensue afterward.

IN the next place having digressed all this while from the Argument he should have answered, he addeth that that which they teach concerning the literal sense of Christ's words and the miraculous conversion of the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Christ, is the true doctrine of the ancient Fathers: and to save himself the labor of proving that which neither he, nor any of his side shall ever be able to make good, he turneth his Reader over to Bellarmine, out of whom he picked all that before he had said, and telleth him that he hath both proved it, and refuted all the shifting answers of the Protestanticall Divines. Bellarmine (it seemeth) is his Aiax, behind whose shield he must shroud himself, or else he dare abide no brunt of encounter again.

Now to make Bellarmine again some part of requital, because he is so much beholden to him, he will do his best to clear him from either the ignorant or malicious abuse of this bad Minister, by whom he is traduced and made directly against the whole drift of his Controuersie to teach, a probability at least of the Protestant doctrine concerning the figurative sense of our Saviors words, and to affirm, &c. It is true; I say that Bellarmine granteth, and so he doth, (I have set down his own words; they are not, nor can be denied) that these words, This is my body, may imply either such a real change as the Catholics hold, or such a figurative change, as the Calvinists hold: and that is all I say of him. The truth contrary to the main drift and scope of his controversy, (as it falleth out oft with those that against their own knowledge maintain error) did start from him unawares. Nor is the question now de re, but de proposition, as Bellarmine there speaketh: the question is not of the main matter in controversy whether Christ did really convert the Bread into his Body; which Bellarmine affirmeth; but whether that speech of our Savior may not bear such a figurative sense as we give, which Bellarmine in plain and precise terms granteth. And all that this his Champion can say for him is nothing but this, that Bellarmine doth not say that which in express words I have cited out of him, without alteration of any one syllable; and the falsehood therefore lieth manifestly on him that denieth it, when he knoweth them to be Bellarmine's own words in precise terms. But he hopeth (it seemeth) that with facing he may carry away anything.

I will add a little more out of Bellarmine, and yet no more then himself in precise terms saith. Scotus and Cameracensis, two great Schoolmen, grant that the doctrine of Transubstantiation cannot necessarily be gathered out of the text of the Evangelists; howsoever they hold it, because the Church of Rome, that cannot err, hath so expounded it. And Bellarmine himself granteth that this is not improbable: For though the Scripture (saith he) that we bring, may seem so clear, that it may contstrain a man that is not willful to yield it, yet it may well be doubted, whether it be so or no; since most learned men, and most acute, such especially as Scotus was, are of a contrary mind. And now we have besides Scotus and others, three Cardidinals, Card. Bellarmine, Card. Cajetan, and Card. Cameracensis, all confessing that the Popish doctrine of Transubstantiation cannot clearly or vnanswerably be proved by Scripture. I conclude then with mine Adversaries grant; It is all one (saith he) to say that there is nothing in the text that may enforce us to believe that Christ is corporally present in the Sacrament, and to say that there is nothing to enforce us literally and not figuratively to understand Christ's words. Card. Cajetan freely confesseth the latter: and unless he can disprove Cajetan (which as yet he hath not assayed to do) he must by his own confession yield the former.

Division 4.

PAge 3. He maketh a great stir in asking, how the Chalice may be called the New Testament in our Saviors blood. I answer him, because our Saviors blood by the effusion whereof his last W • ll and Testament was confirmed and our eternal inheritance purchased and applied unto us, is in this Chalice really contained and vnbloodily offered on the altar for us. For the word Testament (as all learned men know) is apt to import not only the interior act of the dying man's Will, but also the authentical instrument or deed, wherein that his dying Will is contained, and his legacy conueighed unto us, which here in the Chalice is our Saviors blood to cleanse and inebriate de ••• t souls.

Afterward in the same page confusedly and tediously he endeavoreth to show the bread and wine to be no other then bare signs and types of Christ's true body and blood; as Alexanders picture representeth his absent person; as Circumcision is called the Covenant, because it was a sign thereof, &c. either not vnderstatding like a dull Scholar his Master Calvin's doctrine, or over saucily willing to contradict him; who towards the end of his book de Coena Domini expressly denieth bread & wine to be empty signs of our Saviors body and blood, but such signs as have the signified substances of our Saviors body and blood conjoined with them. For Christ (saith he) is no deceiver to delude us with bare figures, &c. According to which doctrine of Calvin it will be easy for my Adversarie himself to salve many of his own objections: that for example, which he maketh out of Tertullian, page 3. saying, The bread which Christ took and distributed to his Disciples he made his body, saying, This is my body, that is, a figure of my body. For as Calvin's former words import, so also Tertullian meaneth, the sacramental symbols not to be naked signs of Christ's absent body and blood (as the Minister would have them) but such signs as have the signified substance conjoined unto them; as smoke is the sign of fire; warm blood of life; the fiery tongues over the Apostles, in that day of Pentecost, and the Dove over our Savior in his Baptism, were signs of the holy Ghost present, &c. Which manner of being signs of Christ's body and blood doth not exclude but suppose the Accidents of bread and wine to contain the true substances of our Saviors body and blood in them. So is Saint Augustine to be understood, where he saith, Our Lord doubted not to say, This is my body, when he delivered the sign of his body. And when out of Gratian my Adversary citeth those words, The heavenly bread, which is the flesh of Christ, &c. is a Sacrament of Christ's body visible, palpable, mortal, and pierced on the Cross, &c. So when Theodoret and Gelasius affirm the substance and nature of bread and wine still to remain in the Sacrament; they mean not physical substances and nature of bread and wine still to remain after the consecration, but only the accidents to remain vnaltered in their nature, signifying and containing our Saviors body and blood under them. And if he had cited the place of Theodoret fully out, he had utterly overthrown his heretical and fraudulent purposes of citing him. His words are these: Neither do the sacramental signs after consecration depart from their nature; for they remain (note how he speaketh of the signs not of the substances of bread and wine remaining) in their former substance figure and form to be seen and touched as before: but they are by our understanding conceived to be as they are made; and they are believed and adored according to our faith of them. So judicious and learned is mine Adversary here and in other places, in the choice of his Arguments and Authorities alleged against us. But howsoever he faileth in that, he will be sure to help out the matter by maiming and corruptly citing such testimonies. I have just cause to suspect his like dealing in citing Gratians Gloss on S. Augustine's words in the precedent page, and Caietans words cited by him page 2. But I have not these Authors now by me to examine the places in themselves. And they are of so small esteem with us, especially Cajetan in his dangerous and inconvenient manner of expounding Scripture with more subtlety many times then truth, as I cannot but wonder to see the Minister so to magnify him, as if he were the Oracle of our Church, and his ipse dixit and bare assertion so certain a proof as it could not be denied by us.

IN the next place therefore, skipping over this Confession of Cajetan, that there is nothing in the Gospel that may enforce us to take those words of our Savior properly, This is my body: but that they may for ought that is in the Text be taken figuratively as well as those words, The Rock was Christ.

As also leaping quite over the Answer given to that Objection that we are bound to believe our Savior, when he saith, This my body: as if we could not believe those words of his, unless we believe Transubstantiation: whereas their own writers grant that the words of our Savior may be true, though no such thing be: He picketh out here and there some by-matter to be nibbling upon, that he may seem to say somewhat, though he keep aloof off from the main matter.

And first, because he thought he had found out a pretty quirk and a strange crotchet, which he was desirous to vent: He saith I make a great stir in asking, how the Chalice may be called the New Testament in Christ's blood. I half suspect that somebody hath sometime pus • ed him with this Question; and he is willing therefore here to explicate it for the saluing of his own credit, the rather having lighted upon a new device, that he thinketh will easily help out. For I move no such Question, much less make such ado about asking it, but say only, We must believe our Savior as well, when he saith, This Cup is the New Testament, or This Cup is my blood; as we must believe him when he saith, This is my body: and that either may be true, though there be no such real conversion either of the Cup into the New Testament, or Christ's blood in the one, or of the Bread into his body in the other. And his part had been (if he meant to keep to the point) to show why the one may not be true in a figurative sense as well as the other.

But let us hear how learnedly (though it be beside the matter) he explicateth our Saviors words, This Cup is the New Testament in my blood. Thus forsooth; My blood in this Chalice really contained and vnbloodily offered on the altar is that by the effusion whereof my last Will and Testament is confirmed, and the eternal inheritance purchased and applied unto us: and it is therefore called the New Testament in my blood. Did any man in his right wits (think we) ever expound Scripture on this manner? Yea but he hath a singular piece of Schollership by himself to justify his Exposition. For all learned men (saith he) know that the word Testament is apt to import, not the dying man's Will only, but the deed wherein it is contained, and the legacy conueighed by it; which here in the Chalice is our Saviors blood, to cleanse and inebriate devout souls, &c. If he had been himself inebriated when he writ this, he could not lightly have been more absurd. For,

1. By this exposition of his, our Savior should say, This Cup, that is, this blood contained in the Chalice, is the New Testament in my blood. And so Christ's blood shall be not in the Chalice only, but in his blood; would any reasonable man say, My body is in my body; or, My blood is in my blood? But they care not what absurd language they fasten upon our Savior, so it may make for their own turn.

2. There is the blood of Christ really contained in the Chalice, and yet this blood is vnbloodily offered. It is vnbloodily offered, and yet it is really blood; yea there is nothing there but blood. True it is the ancient Fathers oft term the Eucharist an unbloody sacrifice; which showeth their speeches, where they say, that the Altar and the people are besprinckled and died purplered with blood, were metaphorical and hyperbolical: and well might they so call it, not dreaming of any such bloody stuff in the Chalice, as these men seem to imagine. But how there can be an unbloody offering, where there is much more blood then flesh; and Christ offered vnbloodily, where men drink nothing but mere blood; yea if Chrysostom's speeches were to be taken properly, where all the Communicants are died red with blood, let any reasonable man judge.

3. All learned men (he saith) of which number I hope he counteth himself one) know that a Testament is apt to import, not a will only, or a deed, but a legacy too. Vsus loquendi Magister: Use is the Lord and Master of language. We should think (they say) as the best, speak as the most; and use, as such coin, so such speech, as is commonly currant. We ignorant and unlearned Protestanticall Ministers are unacquainted with this learning. But I would request him, if he can here, as well for the saving and saluing of of his own credit, as for our better instruction, to produce any one learned man besides himself and his associates, that ever so said, or ever so spake, that ever called a legacy by the name of a Testament. Such learned men (I see) as he is, may say what they list; we unlearned must speak by rule, when we speak, least such learned men as he is control us if we do otherwise, for ignorant.

4. Mark (I beseech you) this learned man's Logic, how soundly and substantially he argueth. This word Testament may well signify either a Will or a Legacy: ergo Christ's blood wherewith his last Will was confirmed, may well be termed the New Testament. What connection there is between these two Propositions, the one produced by him to prove the other, let any one, that is not utterly senseless, consider.

5. Let it be observed, how these men that cannot endure at our hands to hear of any figure in the words of our Savior, though one never so frequent, in signs and Sacraments especially, which both they grant these things to be; yet themselves in the explicating of them are enforced to fly to figures, yea take liberty to themselves to coin and forge such figures, as were never heard of before, either in holy writ, or in profane writer. For let him if he can, show a legacy so termed in either.

Lastly, Christ's blood indeed may in some sense be said to inebriate men's souls, and the Ancients sometime so speak. But that which is in the Chalice, if it be taken (which the Priest sometime may chance to do) ouerlargely, will (as Aquinas well observeth) inebriate the body and not the soul: which I never yet heard that blood did, or could do. And therefore we have cause to think, if we see the Priest drunk with it, yea we have reason to believe, because we know he well may, that it is not Christ's blood, but the fruit of the vine, the blood of the grape, that is in the Chalice, and produceth such effects.

§ 2. In the next place, like a man in a maze going backward and forward, as uncertain which way to turn himself, Afterward (saith he, relating, but misrelating, as his usual manner is, some things spoken before) confusedly and tediously he endeavoreth to show the bread and wine to be no other then bare signs and types of Christ's body and blood, as Alexanders picture representeth his absent person, as Circumcision is called the Covenant, because it was a sign thereof, &c.

True it is, I say these words of our Savior, This is my body, may as well be understood figuratively, as those speeches are where the Rock is called Christ, and when pointing to the pictures of Caesar and Alexander (it is the comparison that Augustine useth) we say, This is Caesar, and That is Alexander. And in Answer to the Objection before recited; I say, that the Cup, that is, the wine in the Cup, is said to be the New Testament, as Circumcision the Covenant, because a sign and seal of it. But that the bread and wine are no other then bare signs and types, &c. I nowhere say: It is his untruth, not mine assertion. I say expressly more then so, that they are not signs only, but seals, and signs and seals so effectual, (as after I show) that by them the things signified by them, and sealed up in them are truly and effectually, yet spiritually, conueighed unto those that do faithfully receive them. He dealeth herein but as Bellarmine (whom he imitateth) doth with Calvin, one while charging him to make the Sacramemt nothing but a symbol and memorial of Christ's passion, and so no better (saith he) nay nor so good as a Crucifix, and yet else-where acknowledging that he maketh it not a sign only, but a seal also confirming and sealing up God's promises made in the Word.

But like a dull Scholar (he saith) herein I understood not my Master Calvin. Master in these matters we acknowledge none but Christ; whose Word alone is absolutely authentical with us. Calvin we reverence as a worthy servant of Christ. And as dull a Scholar as I am, I understand him well enough, where in that book he calleth Transubstantiation a device of the Devil; their Consecration a kind of Incantation; the Mass an Histrionicall action; and the Priest acting it a mere Ape. The signs indeed, saith he, in the Eucharist are not naked signs, but such as have the truth of the thing conjoined with them, (that which is true of Baptism, as well as of the Lord's Supper.) Yet not enclosed in them, nor carnally but spiritually partaked. Nor doth God delude us with bare figures, though there be no such real change of the elements in the Eucharist, more then he doth us now in Baptism, or did the Israelites of old, when he fed them with spiritual food and water in the Wilderness.

§ 2. And here again, I cannot say cunningly, but knauishly rather, having falsely related my words, and passing over mine Answer to this very Objection, wherein they challenge us to make the Sacrament nothing but bare bread; which by the instance of the other Sacrament of Baptism, besides other proofs, I show evidently to be otherwise, (as if he thought that like an hare by i • mping and wheeling to and fro, he should keep himself safe from being traced and taken, when either he reported gross untruths, or dissembled those things that it stood him upon to give answer unto, if he would either make good their cause, or overthrow ours.) He runneth back to an allegation of Tertullian, and then forward again to Theodoret, &c. and (if his words may bear weight with us) he would make us believe that this Doctrine of my Master Calvin, if like a dull Scholar I had sooner understood him, would salve many of my Objections, as namely, that of Tertullian; This is my Body, that is, a figure of my body; and the like speech of Augustine; and what I cite out of Gratian to the like purpose, &c.

Surely this man was of that opinion that Polybius saith some are, who think other men cannot see them, if they wink themselves. The Question is whether our Saviors words, This is my Body, may not be, or are not to be figuratively understood; not whether the bread and wine be bare Signs or no, which none say, but this shameless wretch contrary to mine express words affirmeth me to affirm. This being the Question I produce Tertullian, who precisely so expoundeth them, This is my Body, that is, a figure of my body. I produce Augustine, who not only doth the like; but rendereth a reason also why he so doth, to wit, because Signs and Sacraments are called vsuaelly by the names of those things that they signify and represent. I produce the Gloss on Gratian, that saith; It is called Christ's body improperly, not in the truth of the thing itself, but in a significant mystery: and that when it is said that it is called Christ's body, the meaning of the words are, that it signifieth Christ's body. All which produced to prove that our Saviors words are to be understood figuratively, (which how pregnantly they do prove, he cannot but see, that will not willfully win • ke) he can give no answer unto; but saith only they may be so •… d with that which Calvin saith that they are not bare signs; which neither is denied, nor is any part of the Argument here in hand.

§ 4. Thus having leapt a page back, he now iumpeth again as fa • re forward; where he lighteth again upon Pope Gelasius (for so is his work styled in all editions of him, and so by Fulgentius he is proved to be; howsoever they would fain shift him of, because he is so expressly against their Transubstantiation, as he is also against their mangling of the Sacrament, and giving the bread without the Cup, which he condemneth as gross Sacrilege) and with him upon Theodoret, that speaketh in effect the same with him.

Theodoret and Gelasius both aver that the Elements in the Eucharist after consecration retain still not the same shape and form only, but the same Nature and Substance. Can anything be more plain? or any testimony more pregnant? Yet this nimble-headed Doctor wanteth not aneuasion for it, such as it is. For (saith he) Theodoret and Gelasius do not mean thereby that the physical nature and substance, but the Accidents (that is, the shape and outward • o • me, &c.) only remain vnaltered. They say that they retain still the same both shape and substance too. And this shameless fellow sticketh not to tell us that they mean contrary; that they retain the same shape, but not the same substance. It is a cursed gloss (they say) that corrupteth the Text. Yet such is the gloss that this Sophis • er giveth Gelasius and Theodoret, not corrupting only, but directly crossing that that they say, & denying them to say that that in precise terms they do. The Substance, say they: Not the Substance, saith he. The Substance, say they: that is, The Accidents, saith he. Not unlike that Gloss on Gratian, that expoundeth, We ordain, that is, We • brogate, or disannul. If this be not a most sorry and senseless shift, I know not what is.

But yet will you see another as gross as the former? By Sacramental Signs (saith he) Theodoret meaneth not the Substances of Bread and Wine; but the Accidents only; for either those then, or else nothing at all.

1. Here is a new distinction between the Elements of Bread and Wine, and the Sacramental signs in the Eucharist. And indeed if their doctrine be sound and true, neither Bread, nor Wine, are ever, or ever were Signs of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist, though the Auncients commonly so term them. For before Consecration they are not; and in Consecration they cease to be, as they say: and after Consecration they cannot be, because they have now no being: and so consequently they never are.

2. Here is a strange Interpretation, and a most abfurd assertion: The Sacramental Signs, that is, the Accidents, retain still their Substance, that is, their Accidents. This is like Christ's blood in his blood, that we had a little before. These are abstruse riddles indeed: and it is no great marvel, if dull pates and shallow brains cannot easily conceive them.

3. Will you see how gross and palpable this evasion is? Theodoret and Gelasius (saith Bellarmine, whom he learned some of this from) teach the very self same thing. Now look what Theodoret calleth the mystical Signs, that Gelasius termeth expressly Bread and Wine. By the mystical Signs therefore in Theodoret is the Bread and Wine meant, not the Accidents (as this corrupt and corrupting Glosser saith) of either.

§ 4. Yea but if Theodoret had been fully cited, all had utterly been overthrown, and the Ministers heretical and fraudulent purpose of citing him had been defeated.

If lying and out-facing would serve the turn, this man would be sure ever to give his Adversary the overthrow. Hear you but Theodoret at large; and then judge, if this man have not either a brazen brow, or a leaden brain, or both.

The work of Theodoret is a Dialogue, wherein he bringeth in disputing an Orthodox Divine against an Heretic, that held that after Christ's resurrection his Hemanitie lost it own nature, and his flesh was turned into his Deity; in the same manner as these Transubstantiators now say that the Bread in the Euchorist looseth it own nature, and is really changed into Christ's natural body. In debating of this Question they light upon the Eucharist, and fall to dispute how the Bread is there said to be Christ's body, and what change is wrought on it. The Heretic would have it changed to fit his turn, as our Papists now hold. The Orthodox Divine saith it is no more turned into Christ's body, then Christ's body is now turned in heaven into his Deity. But you shall have them both verbatim in their own words.

And at length, the Orthodox Divine thus concludeth: It is clear that that holy Food is a Symbole and a Sign of Christ's body and blood, the name whereof it beareth. For our Lord when he had taken the Symbole or Sign, said not, This is my Deity; But, This is my Body; and again, This is my Blood: and else where, The bread that I will give, is my Flesh that I will give for the life of the world.

You have heard Theodoret at large. It remaineth now to consider how he overthroweth that which I produce him for, to wit, that the bread & wine in the Sacrament remain for substance still the same; and that the Bread is called Christ's body figuratively; as his body is else-where called Bread; and the wine his blood figuratively, as himself is termed a Vine: Or to consider rather, if you please (because that any one at the first sight may see) how fitly this man's explication of Theodoret agreeth with Theodorets own words.

By Sacramental Signs (saith he) Theodoret meaneth not the Substance of Bread and Wine.

1. He understandeth by the mystical Signs that that is offered to God by God's Priests. And doth the Priest then offer nothing to God but accidents only? Indeed they tell us that Melchizedek offered bread and wine; and that their Priests are Priests after the order of Melchizedek, and so offer such offerings as he did. And the ancient Fathers, alluding to that story by them allegorised, say, that Bread and Wine are offered to God in the Eucaarist. But in the Popish Mass according to their opinion of it, no such thing can be offered, because no such thing is there present.

2. More particularly explaining himself he saith that by the one sign he meaneth the food that of certain grain is made, and by the other the fruit of the Vine. And is there any such food or fruit at all that is no physical substance, or that consisteth of mere accidents? He deserveth to be fed, till he starve, with such food, that would feed or infect rather men's souls with such draffy stuff as this is. Yea in precise terms he saith, that Christ called Bread (not the accidents of bread) his Body, as he called his Body else-where bread.

3. The very main drift and scope evidently manifesteth his meaning; which is to show that the Lord's Body, though it be not a common body, but hath glorious endowments, yet remaineth a true body still; as the Sacramental bread though it be not common bread, yet retaineth still it former nature and substance, and is true bread still.

4. If we ask Theodoret himself what he meaneth here by Substance; and whether he take the word in such sense as it is usually taken; he telleth us himself a little before he entereth into this discourse, that by Substance he understandeth a body; and by Accidents (which he opposeth to Substance) such things as betide bodies and yet may depart from them. And they may as well say, that by Substance Theodoret meant Accidents, when he saith that Christ's body retaineth still the same bodily substance; as they may say he so meaneth, when of the bread, which he compareth therewith, he saith the very same. But what take I so much pains to set up a light when the Sun shines? (the proof is so plain, and his meaning so perspicuous, that it may seem written, as Tertullian speaketh, with a beam of the Sun) save to lay open a little this man's shameless carriage and senseless shifts, who yet with a confident face telleth his Reader, that his Adversary both here and else-where showeth how learned and judicious he is in the choice of his authorities; as if this allegation made wholly for them and against us, were it read all out, or were nothing pertinent (at least) to the purpose.

§ 5. In conclusion, for Gratians Gloss, acknowledging the truth by us maintained that our Saviors words are figuratively to be understood; and Cardinal Cajetan confessing; that they may well bear that sense: having nothing (and that is marvel, for he dare say anything) to except against; either he excuseth himself that he hath not the books by him, as if they were not commonly in Paul's Church-yard to be had, if he had listed to look after them. A bad excuse (as we say) is better then none at all with him.

Only he addeth that they are both of small account with them; Cajetan especially: In regard whereof he wondereth that I should so much magnify him, as if he were the Oracle of their Church, &c.

For the former, none can be ignorant, what Authority among their Canonists the Glosses have: and in the place cited the rather, because he buildeth upon Augustine's own words. For the latter, I cite him only by the name of Cardinal Cajetan (nor had they many Cardinals in his time for learning his equals) one of our Adversaries: that is all my magnifying of him. But mine Adversaries lips must need over-run. Yet of what repute and esteem Cajetan was for both kinds of learning, as well Philosophy as Divinity; to omit the titles commonly given him in the Inscriptions of his works by those that set out some of them, styling him the most eminent Doctor and professor of divinity; his Commentaries on Thomas (whence this testimony is taken) most luculent and even divine Commentaries; his smaller Treatises golden works; I may refer you to the works themselves, so many, so learned, so elaborate; and to the story of his life written by Antonius Fonseca, and set out with some of them. It is apparent, and it is enough, that a prime Cardinal of the Sea of Rome confesseth ingenuously, that the words of our Savior, This is my body, may be siguratiuely taken for ought in the text, were it not that their Church, that is, the Pope, will have them otherwise expounded.

Division 5.

HE concludeth his first Discourse thus, page 5. Thus they; and thus we: and yet neither do they, nor we therefore make the Sacrament of Christ's body and blood ANY thing but bare bread and wine. Which Corollarium of his plainly so delivered may make any man see the Protestanticall Communion truly anathomized and plainly shown to have nothing holy, heavenly and divinely (as the Fathers speak) therein contained, but bare bread and wine, which any man may eat when and where he pleaseth, remembering withal our Saviors passion, Never Cajetan, never Bellarmine, never Gratian, never Father or other Catholic Divine of our Church believed or taught this gross and sacrilegious doctrine as my Adversary in his words, They, and We, falsely pretendeth. Neither doth Calvin or any other noted Divine of their Church speak at least, whatsoever they think, so poorly and grossly of this Sacrament; but they endeavor with Epithets and words to cover the bready nakedness thereof, making it seem mysterious at least, if not miraculous. Blessed Saint Dennis great Scholar of Saint Paul himself, I will here presume to ask thee. If the Sacrament of the Altar be but bare bread and wine, why doest thou so absurdly speak and blasphemously praey unto it, in this manner? O most divine and holy Sacrament, vouchsafe to open those signifying signs, and appear perspicuously unto us; and replenish the spiritual eyes of our soul with the singular and clear splendor of thy light, &c. Why likewise, thou holy Martyr and great Doctor of Christ's Church Saint Itaeneus, living so near the Apostles times, as to know great Polycarpus S. John's disciple, and deeply seen in the knowledge of heavenly verities, doest thou deny this bread after consecration to be anymore accounted common bread, but the Eucharist consisting of two things, heavenly and earthly; that being received into our bodies they may be no more corruptible, having the hope of resurrection? If no more then bare bread and wine be in this Communion, as my Adversary affirmeth, why did ye, noble Confessors of the first Nicene Council will us, in this divine table not to regard only bread and wine proposed, but to eleuate our mind by faith, and behold on this table the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world by Priests vnbloodily sacrificed; and receiving his body and blood to believe them to be symbols and pledges of our resurrection? &c. O holy Ephrem renowned so for thy great learning and singular sanctity, as Saint Jerome testifieth thy writings to have been read in the Church after the holy Scriptures, why doest thou will us not to search after these inscrutable mysteries, &c. but to receive with a full assurance of faith the immaculate body of the Lord, and the Lamb himself entirely? adding those words which cannot agree to such a communion of bare bread and wine as this Minister teacheth; The mysteries of Christ are an immortal fire: search them not curiously, least in the search thou become burned, &c. telling us that this Sacrament doth exceed all admiration and speech, which Christ our Savior the only begotten Son of God hath instituted for us. Finally why do other ancient • nd chief Fathers of the Greek and Latin Church call the consecrated bread and wine on the Altar dreadful mysteries, the food of life and immortality, hidden Manna, and infinitely excelling it, a heavenly banquet, the bread of Angels humbly present while it is offered, and devoutly adoring it, &c. If there be no more but bare bread and wine therein received in memory of our Saviors passion; as my Adversary affirmeth of his Protestanticall Sacrament.

THe next Diuisi •• he maketh entrance into with a gross and shameless depravation; and thereupon prosecuteth it to the end with an impertinent digression.

Having cited the forenamed Testimenies of Theodoret and Gelasius in mine Answer to that Objection brought commonly against us, as if by a denial of such a real presence as Papists maintain we should make the Sacrament to be nothing but bare bread; I conclude both mine Answer and the Allegation of those two Authors in these words; Thus they, (to wit Gelasius and Theodoret) and thus we: and yet neither do they nor we therefore make the Sacraments of Christ's body and blood NOthing but bare bread and wine. Now this shameless wretch wanting matter to be dealing with, turneth me NOthing into ANY thing (a man able indeed with his shameless & senseless shifts to pick anything out of nothing) and relateth my words in this manner to a clean contrary sense; Thus they; and thus we: and yet neither do they, nor we therefore make the Sacraments of Christ's body and blood ANY thing but bare bread and wine.

Had either I or my Transcriber, for the truth is, it was not mine own hand-writing that he had: I write a worse hand I confess, then he is aware of, that accounteth that so bad an one: If either I or he, I say, had slipped here with the pen, as I suspected he might have done, till I saw the copy again that this Answerer had; yet the whole tenor of my speech, wherein I show that the bread and wine in the Eucharist are no more bare bread or bare wine, then the water used in the Sacrament of Baptism is bare water, would sufficiently have shown my meaning. But when the copy that was delivered him, remaining in the custody of that Noble Personage for whom at first it was written, is found apparently to have the words in the very same manner as I have before cited them, I cannot devise what color this audacious wretch can bring to salve his own credit with, and excuse his corrupt carriage. It argueth not a bad, but a desperate cause, that without such senseless and shameless shifts cannot be upheld. And I beseech your Ladyship well to consider, what credit is to be given to these men alleging Authors, (Fathers, Councils, &c.) which they know you cannot yourself peruse and examine, when they dare thus palpably falsify a writing that you have in your own hands, and may have recourse to when you will.

§ 2. Now having thus laid a lewd and loud untruth for the ground of his ensuing Discourse:

1. He falleth into an Inuectiue against our Protestanticall Communion, as acknowledged by me to have nothing holy, heavenly and divinely (for so it pleaseth him to speak) therein contained, but bare bread and wine, &c. adding withal, that never C • ietan, never Bellarmine, never Gratian, never Father or other Catholic Divine believed or taught this sacrilegious doctrine (a lie he meaneth, of his own forging) as my Adversary in these words, They, and we, falsely pretendeth.

In which words first (for he cannot forbear f • lsifying for his life, no not then and there where he chargeth others with falsehood) he intimateth that in those words, Thus they; I should have reference to Cajetan, Bellarmine, and Gratian: whereas my words evidently point at Gelasius and Theodoret, whose own words in precise terms I had next before cited.

2. He chargeth me falsely to say that of the Eucharish, that neither I, nor any of our Divines ever said: yea which being by way of Objection before produced, I not only disauow and disprove, approving freely and at large proving the contrary; but in this place in plain terms conclude the direct contrary unto in the very words by him foully falfified.

3. He runneth out (to give us some taste of his rolling Rhetoric as well as his loose Logic) into a solemn invocation of his forged S. Dionyse, together with some of the Ancients, (as if he were raising of Spirits with some magical enchantment, to fight with a shadow, and to skirmish with a man of straw of his own making) to testify in that against us that he would fain put upon us, but none of us (by his own confession) ever said or do say.

Thus he hath nibled here and there, caviled at bymatters, coined lies, forged and faced; but given no direct Answer to the Argument, whereunto he should have answered, and whereby it was proved that these words of our Savior, This my body, may well bear a figurative sense; so expounded by the Ancient Fathers, and confessed by their own writers; not so much as attempted to prove the contrary thereunto.

§ 3. Now howsoever I might very well let pass, as impertinent, those citations and sayings of the Authors here summoned to give in either testimony or sentence against that that none of us auoweth, and which therefore, though all, that either they do say, or he would have them say, were true, did no way cross us, or once touch us in ought that is herein affirmed of us; and I had sometime therefore determined wholly to pass by them, for fear of overcharging this Discourse: yet considering that some weak ones peradventure may stumble at some passages in them, especially as they are unfaithfully by this alleadger of them here translated: I have thought good now ere we part with them, to examinine what they say, that may seem to make in any sort not against that here charged on us, which we utterly deny, but against that which of this Sacrament we hold otherwise.

The first testimony is S. Dennis his, shown before to be but a counterfeit by the confession even of Popish writers themselves. But whosoever he were (for certain enough it is that he was not the party whose name he beareth, but one of a far later time, unknown utterly to Athanasius, Eusebius, and Jerome, though curious searchers and inquirers after the works of those that were before them, nor known commonly to the world before Gregory's days, as Bellarmine also himself acknowledgeth) he maketh little for them in this point, either in that that here is alleged, or in ought else that Bellarmine can fish or fetch out of him. His words in the place here cited are these and no more: O most divine and holy Mystery, symbolically discovering those enigmaticall ensoldments, be declared brightly unto us, and replenish our intellectual eye sights with single (or immixt) and vnenueloped light. These (I say) his words are as near as I can express them: Which I so do to give you a taste of this Dennis his style, writing rather like a Dithyrawhicall Poet (the boldest sort of them) then like a sober and sound Divine; as taking upon him to determine the degrees, orders, and offices of the Angels in heanen, which other the Ancients durst not do; so discoursing of them and such other matters as he entreateth of in an affected swelling and abstruse strain, and coining a world of strange words and phrases nowhere else to be found. And no more they are then these; which I add, because to the end of his allegation this fellow putteth an, &c. as if the Author had in that place used some longer discourse of that kind. Nor is the sp •• ch (as he would have it) a prayer; but a mere prosopopoei • , or rhetorical compellation, directed not to the Elements alone, but to the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper (if with the Apostle they will give us leave at least so to term it) the whole Mystery, or mysterious rite, as the word there used properly importeth. Which Pachymeres the Greek paraphraser of this Dennis well paralleleth with another of Gregory Nazianzenes of the same nature; (and as well might Bellarmine or this Defendant have alleged the one as the other.) Who in his Easter-day Sermon turning his speech to the Festiuity it self, and then from it to Christ himself, the substance of it, as Nicetas also well observeth; ^x O great and holy Passover (saith he) the purgation of the whole world. For I will speak to thee as t • some living thing. O word of God, and light, and life, and wisdom, and might. For I take delight in reckoning up all thy titles. Have thou this Oration as well • g • atul • torie as supplicatorie, and so forth. And Nicet as thereupon; Those words, O Pasch or Passover, he speaks or referreth to the Feast it self. But those, O word of God, and so forward, by way of acclamation he directeth to Christ the spiritual Passover. Nor is it unlike to the speech that Ambr. makes in general to the Element of water, though with more special allusion and application to the water of Baptism: O water that hast merited (that is, in the usual language of those Auncieuts, too much abused by our Adversaries, hast been vouchsa • ed the grace) to be a Sacrament of Christ: that washest all, vnwasht of any. Thou bringest in the first; thou closest up the last Mysteries. The beginning is from thee; and the end in thee: or rather thou makest us to be without end. And so he goeth on in a long speech to the Element, which yet no wise man will say that he had any purpose there to pray unto. Nor anymore had this Dennis when he discoursed thus to the Eucharist; the rather to be admitted and so conceived in him, considering his Poetical and aenigmaticall vain and manner of discourse. I might well put them in mind of that Hymn of theirs, wherein they thus if not invocate, at least parley with the Cross:

Which howsoever they would fain salve with such a prosopopoeia some of them; yet Aquinas ingenuously confesseth that therein they give divine worship to the wooden Cross: or of the like speeches that in a form both of praise, and prayer, they use to the Veronicke or the print of Christ's face in a towel; and to our Ladies girdle, and other the like, wherein they crave • o less of them, beside sundry other graces, then to be cleansed from all sin, and to attain eternal happiness: in so much that one of their writers relating the latter of them breaketh out into these words; O how many, and how marvelous things are requested of that holy girdle! To which I might well adjoin also, what Aquinas saith, that they speak & pray to the Cross as to Christ crucified himself: and what Bellarmine telleth us that their Priests and Friers in the pulpit are wont to say to the wooden Crucifix, Thou hast redeemed us, and reconciled us to God the Father. Which he thus salueth, that this they say to it, not as it is a piece of wood, nor as it is an image neither, but as it supplieth the place of him whom it representeth, that is, they say it to Christ, whose Deputy & vicegerent the Image there is. And yet from all this (though too too bad and gross indeed, yea absurd and blasphemous by this man's own grant) will no man infer, that they hold either that girdle to be the Virgin Mary, or either the wooden Cross, or the stained towel, or the carved Crucifix to be Christ himself. So that though that of Dennis were a prayer indeed, which yet plain it is that it is not, yet were it not, by their own grounds and grants, sufficient to prove that he held the Sacrament therefore to be Christ himself. I add only what from Augustine venerable Bede hath, that holy Signs not only are called by the names, but do in some sort sustain the persons also of those things that they represent. Which as being well considered it may help to clear many speeches of the Ancients wherein they speak those things of the sacred Elements, which cannot be understood but of the things by thē signified, so it occasioned them to take the more liberty to themselves for such Rhetorical compellations, as before have been spoken of. Yea, but else-where (may some say,) and that but a little after, he turneth himself to the Host, which is said there to be his better or above him, and therefore not bare bread; excusing himself to it, that he presumeth to deal with it. Indeed so it pleaseth Bellarmine to cite him as if he had said; The high Priest, that he sacrificeth the saving Host, that is above him, excuseth himself to him, or to it, crying out; Thou hast said, Do this; &c. But let Dennis speak in his own language, or but as their own writers translate him, and both Bellarmine's mis-alleging of him will soon be discovered, and the force of his reason drawn from thence utterly dissolved. That which he saith is word for word thus; The divine Hierarch standing at the divine Altar, celebrateth (that is, praiseth and extolleth) Christ's holy divine works out of his most divine care of us for our salvation by the goodwill of his Father in the Holy Ghost by him consummated. Which having celebrated, and by contemplation with intellectual eyes taken a venerable and spiritual view of them, he passeth unto the symbolical celebration (or, holy administration) of them, and that according to divine Tradition: Wherefore religiously and hierarchically (that is, as becometh an Hierarch, or a Bishop) after the holy celebration (or, solemn praise) of those divine works, he maketh an Apology for himself in regard of that boly service (or, sacrifice, as they translate it, though the word be more general) that is to worthy for him to deal with, crying out to him, (to whom but to Christ Jesus before mentioned?) Thou hast said, Do this in remembrance of me. And then having requested that he may be vouchsafed the grace of performing this holy and divine service in holy manner, and that those that are to communicate may religiously partake in it, he performeth the most divine service, &c. For uncovering the bread that was hitherto covered and undivided, and dividing it into many pieces, and distributing to them all the one only Cup, be doth symbolically, further their unity, thereby performing his most holy service. Now where is there here any mention of an Host? or affirming that Host to be above him or better then himself? or making any speech at all to it? And yet if it were Christ, to whom should he direct his speech more fitly then to it? what should he speak to him as sited else-where, when he hath him corporally there present? The rather if, as they tell us, he seeth there what we do, and heareth what we say, though he say nothing himself, because he would not be discovered. Yea but he acknowledgeth the holy service then and there to be performed, to be too worthy for him to deal with? And doth not the Apostle say as much of the ministry of the word; that no man is sufficient, or worthy enough for such a work? Or may not the same truly be said of the Sacrament of Baptism, and the administration of it? There is nothing here then in either allegation that may at all help to establish the Popish Transubstantiation. And yet this is all, that out of this Dennis Bellarmine is able to produce. Who though indeed otherwise not free from sundry fantastical conceits, yet is so far from inclining to that prodigious fancy, that the whole tenure of his discourse concerning that Sacrament (as the ancient Scholiast also hath well observed on him) runneth clean another way. He calleth the Eucharist, (as you have heard) a symbolical service; and a distribution of bread and a Cup: and the bread and the Cup used in it, symbols or signs, and images, or pictures, and patterns resembling the truth of their principals, to which he doth also there oppose thē. And not we, but the Monk Maximus anciently expounding him, Mark you (saith he) how still he calleth this divine service a Symbolical service; that is, a service (saith he) consisting of Symboles or Signs; and the holy gifts themselves signs or symbols of the true things above. And again, He calleth them pictures and images of true things unseen. And if we ask him what that word Symbole or Sign signifieth; A Symbole or Sign (saith he) is a thing sensible taken for something intelligible, as bread and wine for the spiritual and divine food and refection, and the like. Yea hereupon he inferreth that because these things are Symboles and Signs, they are not therefore the truth it self. For the image (saith he else-where, and that from Dennis himself too) albeit it have never so near a resemblance, yet in substance differeth from that whereof it is a resemblance. The thing indeed it self (saith this Dennis) that by an exact image or picture is represented, is, if we may so say, thereby doubled, while the truth is shown in the type, and the precedent or principal in the picture or pattern; but yet there is for all that a diversity of substance in either.

From this Dennis his own grounds therefore, we may well reason and conclude thus against the Popish doctrine which they would have him to uphold. No picture is the same in substance with that whose picture it is: But the bread and wine in the Eucharist are pictures and images (so he termeth them) of the spiritual food, to wit, the body and blood of Christ. They are not therefore the same in substance with it. Or as Maximus directeth us; No type is the Truth: for it were then no type: But these are Types: and consequently other then the Truth.

The second allegation is out of Irenaeus: 1. Irenaeus (saith he) denieth the bread after consecration to be anymore accounted common bread, but 2. The Eucharist, consisting of two things, heavenly and earthly, that being received into our bodies they may be no more corruptible, having the hope of resurrection. These words indeed are found the most of them in Irenaeus, but are foully disioynted, and related in other manner then they lie in Irenaeus his context. As the bread (saith he) that is from the earth after divine invocation is no more common bread, but the Eucharist consisting of two things, the one earthly, the other heavenly: So our bodies receive the Eucharist are not now corruptible, having the hope of resurrection. 3. Where first, He denieth the bread after consecration, to be anymore common bread: as before him Justin Martyr, that they received those creatures not as common bread, or common drink. And doth not their Cyril (as before you heard) deny the oil also after it is consecrate, to be anymore common oil? Or may we not say truly as the Auncients also oft do? yea dare any Christian man say otherwise, but that the water in Baptism being once consecrated, is no more common Water? There is nothing then hitherto said by Irenaeus of the bread, but what may truly be said of any other consecrated creature: since that holy and common in this sense oppose and expel either other. Secondly, he saith that the Encharist consisteth of two things, the one earthly, the other heavenly. And do not all Sacraments the same? Or doth not Baptism the like? you may be pleased to consider, what out of their own Ambrose was before said of it; as also out of Gregory Nyssene is here after related. For it is nothing to the purpose that Bellarmine objecteth, that no man would say that the water of Baptism consisteth of two things, the one earthly, the other heavenly: For neither doth Irenaeus say that the bread of the Eucharist, but the Eucharist it self of such two things consisteth. But I would fain know how the Eucharist according to their doctrine should, when the bread is once consecrated, consist at all of any earthly thing, when the substance thereof is (as they say) thereby utterly abolished? Sure Irenaeus his Eucharist consisting of matter in part earthly, and theirs having none at all such, are not one and the same. Thirdly, Irenaeus saith that our bodies receiving the Eucharist are no more now corruptible; in regard of hope and expectation he meaneth of their future resurrection, which thereby they are assured of and sealed up unto: (for otherwise who seeth not that they are not yet incorruptible?) as he afterward expoundeth himself. And what is said more here of the Lord's Supper, then Tertullian and others say of Baptism, to wit, that by it the Flesh also hath its assurance of resurrection to life eternal? yea let them look back but a line or two, and they shall soon see, how little Irenaeus favoreth their cause? How (saith he) say they that the flesh perisheth and liveth not everlastingly, that is nourished with the body and blood of Christ? He affirmeth our flesh to be nourished with that which he calleth the body and blood of Christ. And else-where more plainly: When the Cup mixed, and the bread broken receiveth the word of God, it becometh the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ, of which the substance of our bodies groweth and consisteth. Now how deny they the flesh to be capable of life eternal, that is nourished with Christ's body and blood? And again, That part of man that consisteth of flesh, sinews and bones, is nourished by the cup that is his blood, and groweth, or is increased by the bread that is his body. The same with that, which out of Justin we shall hereafter further consider of, that our flesh and blood are nourished by the Eucharisticall food by a change thereof, that is, it being changed and turned into them. But to say so of the very body and blood of Christ is, by these men's own grants, most absurd. That in the Eucharist therefore that Irenaeus, and before him Justin, speak thus of, is not the very flesh and blood of Christ it self, but the creature sanctified, as he himself termeth it; or the first-fruits of God's creatures, which in way of thankfulness, with thanksgiving, he saith, they offer unto God; why so termed, is out of Augustine and others shown else-where.

The third allegation is (as he saith) out of the voices of the Fathers in the first Nicene Council. Where I might well out of Cardinal Baeronius except, that there are no • Acts of that first Nicene Council now extant: and that the work out of which this allegation is taken, is no record of those Acts, but a story only of that Council, written by one that lived long after it, whom they themselves account to be but a sorry obscure fellow, and one of no great credit. But let the Author, or the Relator rather, pass; and let us hear his relation. Those holy Confessors (saith he) will us at the divine Table not to regard only bread and wine proposed, but to eleuate our mind by faith, and be hold on the holy Table the Lamb of God, &c. by Priests vnbloodily sacrificed; and receiving his body and blood to believe them to be symbols and pledges of our resurrection. Here is nothing at all that any way hurteth our cause. First, they acknowledge bread to be and abide in the Euchaerist: which these men utterly deny. Secondly, they will us not basely to regard therein the bread and cup, or the elements only. And the very same in the same place of Baptism they say, that we must not so much regard in it the water that we see, as the power of God accompanying it; of which we shall speak more upon another the like occasion hereafter. Thirdly they will us to lift up our mind, and by faith to consider (for so their words are) the Lamb of God lying on the Table. And by faith we grant that he is not seen and considered only, but received also in the Eucharist. Fourthly, they say, not (as this man translateth it) that he is vnbloodily there sacrificed, but that he is without sacrificing there sacrificed; that is not really, but mystically and symbolically sacrisiced; or not in truth of the thing, but in a mystery signifying the same: as out of Pope Pascasius and Augustine in their Canons themselves speak. Fifthly, they say, that we receive his body and blood in the Encharist; yea they are reported to say (which he omitteth here) that we do truly receive them: which that we do truly also and effectually (according to our doctrine) though spiritually and not corporally, hath already been shown, and shall in his due place again be further confirmed. And lastly, that these are symbols or pledges of our resurrection; which how they was are was before shown out of Tertullian, who from those Sacraments and sacred rites and exercises in general (as well other as these) that the body partaketh in, draweth Arguments to confirm the faith of the resurrection of it.

The next allegation is out of S. Ephrem, whose both praises and speeches he hath borrowed from Bellarmine: which Bellarmine when he hath cited, addeth withal in a bravery, as if the proofs were so pregnant that there were no gainsaying of them, To this testimony our adversaries neither do answer, nor indeed can answer ought. That none had then answered, was not much to be marvelled: as Harding saith of their Cyril; few had yet the sight of him. One of that name indeed wrote many things in the Syriac tongue long since, having no skill at all in the Greek. And under his name our Popish Fatherbreeders have of late set out a many of Sermons and Treaeises, that have no testimony at all from antiquity the most of them; translated (as they tell us) out of Greek, which he good man never spake; quoting some of them Greek Authors at large, whom he never understood; wanting all of them that subtlety and sublimity of wit, that Jerome commendeth in Ephrems works, and appeared even in the trarslations of them, as both he and others affirm of them; very sorry and silly things a great part of them; not free from gross untruths and contradictions, yea and ridiculous too, if not impious assertions; as that the damned spirits in hell salute all the Saints in heaven, and by name the Apostles, Prophets, and Martyrs, the Patriarchs, Monks, and the Virgin Mary: and lastly their several editions of them so chopped and changed, mangled and made up again, cut off or pieced out, as they pleased that had the breeding of them, that scarce any one of them is any whit like another. The testimonies cited out of him could not be answered, before the Author himself was hatched, and his works abroad in men's hands, that they might be seen and known what they were. And now that they are seen and known what they are, they appear plainly to be such, that they are not worthy of any answer. Unless it be deemed equal that we be tied to answer to every saying that is alleged out of any counterfeit, that they shall at any time thrust out with the glorious title of some Ancient Father clapt on his Frontispiece. And yet neither are this Authors words (what ever he be) by the Cardinals good leave, for all his great brag, so pregnant and full for them that no answer can be given to them. He saith that the mysteries of Christ are most admirable and inscrutable: and who denieth it? this follow himself bringeth in Calvin and Beza saying the same: and that men ought not to pry over curiously into them: wherein not we, but their S. Dennis is faulty, & their Schoolmen who with their wanton wit have therein exceeded all bounds as well of modesty as of measure: that we partake with our Lord's immaculate body by faith: (for so in Uossius his edition are his words distinguished) which we may well without any such corporal presence of it, as by their own Authors is confessed: that we must be assured that we eat the Lamb himself whole: which is contrary, not to our doctrine, who say and show evidently, that the Fathers did as much that lived even before Christ was incarnate, but to the doctrine of their Pope Nicholas, as else-where is shown. So that here is nothing that we need so much to stick at, or that should be deemed so unanswerable: unless he will press us with that that followeth, that Christ giveth us fire to feed on, when he giveth us his body: as Chrysostom saith sometime that fire floweth from the Lord's table, and it is a coal of fire that we receive in the Eucharist. Which if they will expound figuratinely and spiritually, as I suppose they must needs, let them give us the like liberty to understand the former words in like manner. I will add only and so leave this Ephrem, what in the very same discourse himself saith: what this potion and perception is (saith he) it is our part to learn: (And it is lawful then belike, yea and our duty too, to make some kind of inquiry into it.) Mark diligently, how Christ taking bread into his hands, blessed it, and brake it, for a figure of his immaculate body; and how he blessed the Cup, for a figure of his blood. Which words (I take it) incline rather to our doctrine then to theirs. And yet further in the same Treatise: With the eyes of faith, when like light it shineth bright in a man's heart, doth he clearly see the Lamb of God, that was slain for us, and that hath given us his holy and immaculate body perpetually to feed upon, and to partake of unto remission of sins. This eye of faith he that hath, doth clearly and openly see the Lord, and by a sure and full faith eateth of the body of that immaculate Lamb, the only begotten son of the heavenly Father, and drinketh his blood, &c. By faith (saith he) we see the Lamb of God, (as expounding that that was said out of the story of the Nicene Council before) and by faith we seed on him, and his body and blood, and partake of him, perpetually; and not in the Eucharist only. Which as it fitteth not their oral manducation, which without faith may be effected, so it agreeth well with that spiritual feeding, that we expound our Saviors words of. So little doth this their Ephrem further or avail them in this Argument.

Lastly, for the high terms and stately titles that the Ancient Fathers give the Eucharist; let him but compare them with those that they give to its elder sister, the other Sacrament of Baptism, and I suppose he will find little odds between either. Only for what he saith of their affirming that the Angels adore it: let the places be produced, and they shall then be answered. That they are present oft, (and if present, no doubt present with much reverence) as well at the celebration of the Lord's Supper, as at other parts of God's worship; and that they adore him who is therein represented, (which is all that Chrysostom saith in the places produced out of him by Bellarmine) we deny not: and of Baptism in effect their Cyrist saith as much. But that they do adore as God a piece of bread or a sorry wafer cake, as the Papists do in their Mass, therein committing as gross idolatry (it is their own grant, if it be not Christ, which we well know it is not) as ever any was in the world, that we utterly deny, nor will this Defendant ever be able to produce any one Orthodox Father that ever so said. And thus much for his allegations, though produced here to no purpose, to disprove (as they might well enough without hurting of us) no assertion of ours, but a fiction of his own framing; nor was it necessary therefore that they should have been answered. Let us now proceed to the next part of his Answer.

Division 6.

HIs next ground for overthrowing our literal understanding of Christ's words and real presence of his true body and blood in the Sacrament, is an unlearned and slender manner of proving our Saviors large discourse in S John. 6. not to be at all understood of sacrament all manducation, but spiritual eating his flesh and blood by believing in him. And first he quareleth at Pope Nicholas manner of speech, making Berengarius in the abjuration of his heresy to affirm not only the sign, but the body it self of Christ to be handled by the Priests hands, and rent and bruised with the teeth of the faithful, &c. Which manner of speech was purposely by Pope Nicholas in a Council of learned Doctors devised to make this slippery shifting heretic make a direct and plain confession of his faith concerning our Saviors being present in the hands of the Priest consecrating the Sacrament, and mouths of such as receive him impassible now in his own corporal nature glorified, and incapable of renting or any kind of corporal mutation, as being not with the sacramental signs also quantitatiuely extended, but indiuisibly and after a spiritual manner existing, yet really handled and received as Angels in assumpted bodies are said to be seen, and felt, and as S. John the Baptist likewise John. 1. said he saw the holy Ghost, when he only saw a Dove the sign of his presence, &c. which manner of speech is not v • usual with the holy Fathers. Thou seest him, (saith S. Chrysostom speaking of Christ in the Sacrament) Thou touchest him, Thou eatest him, &c. Which is the same in sense which Pope Nicholas affirmeth, only he explicateth somewhat more particularly the division and fraction of the sacramental forms containing the very body and blood of Christ, under them all and each particle of them entirely and vndeuidedly remaining. Insomuch as John Husie falsely wont by our Adversaries to be claimed for Patron and faithful witness of their doctrine, singeth thus in certain verses of Christ's presence and manner of being received in the Sacrament, which he with us to his dying day constantly believed, as now also his disciples do after him;

It is not bread, but God and Man my Redeemer, who hanged on a Cross, and died in flesh for me. He is not increased on multiplied by Consecration, nor divided in breaking of the Host, but God full in stature. So likewise S. Andrew in his passion authentically (as Bellarmine proveth) written by the Clergy of Achaia present thereat, told the Procounsul Egeus; I daily offer to God, who is one and omnipotent, not the flesh of Bulls & blood of Goats, but the immaculate Lamb upon the Altar, whose flesh when all the multitude of faithful people hath received, the Lamb sacrificed integer persevere at ac viuus; doth live and remain entire, &c. So as Pope Nicholas doctrine understood of Christ's flesh being eaten in the Sacrament, needeth not Gratians Gloss to save it from heretical blasphemy and the danger of a worse opinion then Berengarius renounced, unless he had taught Christ's flesh in it self to have been torn with teeth and bloodily eaten, as the Capharnites imagined; and the Gentile persecutors were went to object against poor Christians, that they did eat the flesh of a certain man in their synaxes and meetings; calling them men eaters, &c. to wit, because they did eat bread and drink wine consecrated by the miraculous force of Christ's words into his natural flesh and blood; as Saint Justin that holy Martyr and great Christian Philosopher told Aurelius the Emperor in his second Apology for Christians; where he describeth (as much as it was fit for him to open the heavenly mysteries of our faith to the Gentiles) the whole order of the Sacrifice and distribution of the Sacrament as it is now celebrated by us: this being the new Oblation of the New Testament, as S. Irenaeus termeth it, instituted by Christ in his last Supper, and that clean Sacrifice which Malachi foretold should succeed in place of the Jewish Sacrifices, and be offered by the Gentiles in all places.

IN the next place I proceed to discuss the words of our Savior concerning the eating his flesh and drinking his blood. John 6.

Where first I quarrel (he saith) at P. Nicholas his manner of speech devised purposely (as this mine Adversary here informeth us) in a Council of learned Bishops to make a slippery shifting heretic, make a direct and plain confession of his faith concerning the real presence. His words are, as I have related thē, that the very body of Christ in the Eucharist is broken with the Priests hands, and torn in pieces with men's teeth, not sacramētally only, but sensually. Which palpable absurdities, and carnal and Capernaiticall assertions this Defendant would fain salve if he could; (but he showeth himself therein but a sorry Quackesaluer.)

1. By citing (besides some of his own counterfaits, of which more anon) a saying of S. Chrysostom, affirming that the faithful see, and touch, and eat Christ in the Eucharist: which neither they nor we deny; nor is it ought to the purpose, unless Chrysostom should also say, that he is eaten in such sort as Pope Nicholas averreth, not sacramentally only, or spiritually, but even sensually: so he saith. For so the Galatians also saw him crucified (as the Apostle telleth them) in their sight: and some of the Ancients say that even at this day he is crucified.

2. By telling us that Christ's glorified body is incapable of renting: which if it be so, how saith Pope Nicholas that it is torn in pieces? This is a strange manner of saluing him, to tell us that that cannot be done, which he in precise terms saith is usually done. And mark here (I pray you how these men play fast and loose with us. They tell us, when we press them with the indignity of the thing, that Christ's body cannot be bruised now or broken: and this is (it seemeth) when they speak mystically or shiftingly, as he speaketh. But when they make a plain and direct confession (for so he saith Pope Nicholas did when he thus spake, and no forms are more exact, saith Bellarmine, then those forms of abjuration are) then they acknowledge that according to their saith and belief (if they believe at least as they speak, and do not dally with us and delude us) Christ's very body is sensually rent and torn in pieces in the Sacrament.

3. By granting that if he had taught that Christ's flesh in it self were torn with teeth, &c. it were indeed heretical blasphemy. And what other thing (I pray you) doth Pope Nicholas affirm, when he saith that Christ's very body not in the Sacrament only, but in very truth and sensually is torn in pieces with men's teeth? This is not to excuse him, but to accuse and condemn him both of heresy and blasphemy.

4. By affirming that the Popes words need not Gratians Gloss to save them from any such imputation. Yet Gabriel Biel a great Schoolman (whom we rather believe) freely confesseth that Pope Nicholas in so saying exceeded the truth; (as another Gloss on Gratian also else-where acknowledgeth) and while he sought to shun one error ran into another: wherein others also of their own writers dare not defend him. So that the Pops sitting in his Chair, yea and in Council too, with all his learned Bishops, like himself, round about him, consistorially to censure and to determine truth in matter of faith, may yet err for all his infallibility, so much & so oft b • agged of. And it was not unwisely done of Bellarmine to let this pass, where he relateth and refuteth as well as he may, the several errors and heresies that their Popes are charged with.

§▪ 2. Here by the way (though little to the present purpose, to wit, the clearing of Pope Nicholas) that he may fill up his Discourse with some show of allegations;

1. He telleth us that John Hus was of their judgment concerning the Sacrament; and alledgeth a sorry Rome to prove it; which whence he hath, I know not, nor am able to say, what Hus sometime held: But sure I am that in the Council of Constance one of the Articles, wherewith he was charged, and for which condemned, and (contrary to the Emperors safeconduct granted him) perfidious •• burnt, was the denial of Transubstantiation as a device invented to delude simple people with: and the teaching and maintaining as well publicly as privately that the substance of bread, and material bread, remained after Consecration in the Sacrament; deposed by many that had heard him, and that had argued about it with him.

2. He citeth a few Fathers, some forged, as the Author of the Passion of S. Andrew; some falsified, as that of Justin Martyr; (which shall by and by be examined) some saying nothing but what we will willingly yield him, as both Irenaeus, and that also out of the apocryphal Story of S. Andrew: which howsoever he saith that Bellarmine (which is his wonted manner of proof) hath proved to be authentical: Yet neither are his proofs pregnant; no just antiquity being produced for it; and by others of their own (as we shown before) it is confessed to be apocryphal: and, if we may believe Bellarmine himself, there is some gross untruth in it. For this uncertain Author affirmeth that S. Andrew was not nailed with nails, but with cords eyed to the cross, (as their counterfeit Abdie also saith) that he might live the longer in pain, as he did preaching two days together as he hung there alive: Whereas, if Bellarmine may be believed, it was not so, but he was with nails fastened, as Christ was, to the Cross.

But to leave that, as saying nothing that we need stick at; no more then we do at ought that out of Irenaeus is alleged. I may not let pass his falsifying of Justin Martyr; whom having so little occasion to allege here, he may well seem for no other end to have alleged, but to falsify what he saith of this Sacrament; in which kind he hath the best gift one of them that ever I knew any. Justin Martyr (saith he) in his 2. Apology, where, as far as was fit, &c. he describeth the whole order of the Sacrifice and distribution of the Sacrament as it is now celebrated by us, telleth Antoninus the Emperor that they did therein eat bread and drink wine converted by the miraculous force of Christ's words into his natural flesh and blood. Now hear Justines own words: Having spoken before of Baptism: After this (saith he) is there bread and a cup of water and wine presented to the Prelate of the brethren: Who receiving the same sendeth up praise and glory to the Father of all, by the name of the Son and the holy Ghost; and at large giveth thanks to him for being vouchsafed to be by him reputed worthy of these things. And when he hath ended his prayers and thanks-giving, all the people answer, Amen. Now when the Prelate hath given thanks, and all the people have answered, those that we call Deacons, give to each one of those that be present to partake of the blessed Bread, and wine and water, and they carry of it to those that be not present. And this food is with us called the Eucharist; which none may partake of but those that believe, have been baptized, and live as Christ taught. For we receive not these things as common Bread and Wine; but in like manner as Christ our Savior being by the word of God incarnate had flesh and blood, so have we been taught that the food blessed by the word of prayer that is from him, whereby our blood and flesh by a change are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus Christ incarnate. For so in the Gospels have the Apostles delivered that Jesus enjoined them, having taken the bread and given thanks to say, Do this in remembrance of me; This is my Body: And taking the Cup likewise, and having given thanks to say; This is my blood; and to give it to such only.

Now first tell me (I pray you) where there is any mention of a Sacrifice in Justin, distinct especially from the Sacrament, that this corrupter of all almost that he dealeth with, should say; Justin describeth the whole order of the Sacrifice and distribution of the Sacrament. True it is that the Fathers term the Lord's Supper oft a Sacrifice; (as we also in our Liturgy:) partly in regard of the spiritual Sacrifice of praise therein offered; and partly because it is a lively representation and commemoration of Christ's Sacrifice once offered on the Cross; (as their Master of the Sentences himself explaineth it;) and partly also because it succeedeth in the room of the Passover, and those other Sacrifices, that in the old Testament were offered. But that they ever dreamed of any other Sacrifice distinct and diverse from the Sacrament, no Papist shall ever be able to prove. Nor either out of our Saviors words, or Iustines report can be gathered.

2. Observe how justly Justin describeth the whole order of this Sacrifice and distribution of the Sacrament, as it is celebrated by them. Yea, mark and judge (I pray you) whether his description of it come nearer unto ours or unto theirs.

1. Where are all those crossings and bendings, and • ringes, and turnings, and eleuations, and adorations, and mimicke gestures, and apish sooleries that their Mass-books enjoin?

2. As well the cup as the bread is given to all present; which Justin also saith that Christ enjoined them to give; and which Pope Gelasius saith cannot be severed from the Bread without great Sacrilege. Whereas with them the people may not meddle at all with it.

How many toys are there in theirs that are not touched at all in Justin? And again, what is there in Iustines relation, that is not found in our Protestanticall (as he termeth it) communion? that sending of it home ordinarily only excepted, which neither they themselves use ordinarily when they celebrate, and the danger of repair hindering access (it seemeth) then occasioned.

3. Where doth Justin say, as this corrupt corrupter reporteth him, that they eat bread and drink wine converted by the miraculous force of Christ's words into his natural flesh and blood? No one word in him of a miraculous conversion, nor of their being the natural flesh and blood of Christ. There is mention indeed of a change, and that a natural change, not of the creatures into Christ's natural flesh and blood, but of the blessed food, Or the food made the Eucharist (as Bellarmine translateth it) into our flesh. Which words though Bellarmine would fain wrest awry, because they wring him, yet no Grammar will admit any other sense of them. From whence it is apparent that the blessed food that Justin speaketh of, is not really, but symbolically and figuratively Christ's body. For there can nothing be devised more absurd (saith Bellarmine) then that the Substance of our bodies should be nourished with Christ's flesh. But our flesh and blood (and that, I hope, is the substance of our Bodies; as Irenaeus also expressly speaketh) are nourished (saith Justin) by the blessed food, or by the Bread and Wine made the Eucharist, and that by a change of the things received. The blessed food therefore that Justin speaketh of, is not really Christ's natural Body, as this mis-reporter and mis-expounder of him affirmeth.

NEither can ever the Minister prove his ensuing Assertion, that Christ's corporal presence in the thing eaten must necessarily infer and enforce a corporal and carnal manner of eating him, unless his body had therein a corporal extensiue and sensible manner of existing; which is by no Catholic Author affirmed; and so no heinous and unseemly thing is in such a manner of receiving Christ's body committed: For avoiding whereof we should be enforced to run to a figurative interpretation of our Saviors speeches, John. 6. So as to exclude the real receiving of our Saviors flesh and blood in the Sacrament; as out of an obscure place of S. Austin, cited by him page 7. and fully answered by Cardinal Bellarmine, he falsely gathereth; the place proving no more but that our Saviors speech concerning the eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood is figurative so far forth as that his flesh was not carnally to be eaten, but after a Sacramental and invisible manner, as the signs of bread and wine do contain them; the chief end of his being so received by us being indeed to communicate with Christ's passion, and profitably to lay up in our memories that his flesh was wounded for us, as S. Austin in that place affirmeth. Whose plain places for the real receiving of our Saviors body and blood in the Sacrament my superficial Adversary taketh no notice of, but as Eels love rather to hide themselves in dirt then to swim in clear waters; so are he and his companions glad to hide themselves and their heretical novelties, in dark and obscure places of the holy Fathers, not regarding their pregnant and plain testimonies for us, and against them, vnanswerably in other places expressed.

§ 3. AT length he pleaseth to recollect himself and return to the matter in hand. Christ's corporal presence (saith he) in the thing eaten, doth not necessarily infer and enforce a corporal and carnal manner of eating him, unless his body had therein a corporal, extensiue and sensible manner of existing.

To pass by these mystical and metaphysical terms, wherewith he and his Associates are wont to enwrap and involve themselves, like Eels in mire and mud (as himself speaketh) that their absurd and senseless doctrines, or dotages rather, may not be discerned; nor to insist upon the implication of contradiction, when he saith that Christ's body is corporally, that is, bodily present in the Eucharist, and yet hath there no corporal, that is, bodily existence: a body bodily present, and yet not bodily existing; like the Marcionites riddles in Tertullian; A man no man; Flesh no flesh; a body nobody; blood no blood: or, A body; but not as a body; with blood, but not as blood; in a place, but not as in a place; with qualities, but not qualitatiuely; with quantity, but not quantitatiuely. Such strange fancies and prodigies are these men's brains possessed with.

1. If the one do not follow upon the other, Pope Nicholas was much to blame, when he inferred thereupon that Christ's very body was sensually (that is as much, if not more then corporally) chewed and eaten in the Eucharist.

2. If it be true that Bellarmine telleth us, that by the Eucharist Christ remaineth carnally in us: which he citeth also, but with a foul hand, and some of his own words foisted in, as a saying of S. Hilaries: then sure he must needs carnally be eaten of us. And to see how inconstant error is, and how contrary to it self: one while he saith that there is a corporal eating of Christ's body in the Sacrament; as their common tenent is: (and how is he not then corporaelly eaten?) and that Christ carnally thereby abideth in us: And yet again another while; out of Athanasius, that the eating of Christ's body is not carnally to be taken, nor is in a carnal manner to be understood.

In a word; 1. Either Bread or Christ's body must needs be corporally eaten in the Eucharist: but not bread, if we believe them; for there is none there: and to say that mere accidents only are chewed and fed upon is most senseless and absurd: It remaineth therefore that Christ's body, if that alone be there, be corporally eaten there, as Pope Nicholas before affirmed.

2. Either Christ's flesh is eaten there corporally, or spiritually only. If corporally, why doth this fellow stick at it, and is so loath to acknowledge it? If spiritually only, why urge they those passages of John 6. to prove 〈…〉 corporal and bodily manducation of Christ's body in the Eucharist? And so come we to examine that place by them so much and so oft urged to prove such a carnal eating of Christ.

§ 4. Here this profound and learned Doctor telleth us, that his superficial Adversary hath in an unlearned and slender manner endeavored to prove that our Saviors discourse there is not to be understood of Sacramental Manducation, but of spiritual eating his flesh and blood by believing in him.

I propound two Propositions to be proved.

1. That the words are not to be understood of any such corporal eating and drinking, as they hold.

2. That Christ doth not in that whole discourse speak of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which was not as yet instituted, but of such spiritual feeding on Christ, as is performed, not in the Sacrament only, but out of it also.

The former I prove by a plain place of S. Augustine; which this Adversary, referring us still for an answer to Bellarmine, (from whom he borroweth the most that he hath) saith is an obscure place, and is pleased a little after to term it no better then dirt, which we Protestants, like Eels, desire to hide our selves in.

1. Were it not an absurd thing for Augustine to speak • bscurely there, where he giveth rules for the opening and right understanding of places obscure? where should he speak more plainly and perspicuously then there; where his main aim is to make things clear?

2. This shifters answer borrowed from Bellarmine is but a bare shift; to wit, that the place proveth no more, but that our Saviors speech concerning the eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood is figurative so far forth, as that his flesh was not carnally to be eaten, and in a bloody manner, as flesh sold in the shambles is wont to be eaten, &c. As if flesh bought in the shambles used to be eaten raw and in bloody manner. Here is a deal of dirt indeed and mud raised to trouble Augustine's clear water. The Question is whether our Saviors words be to be understood properly or figuratively. They say properly; and not figuratively: Augustine saith figuratively; and so consequently, not properly: which is as much as is here required. Christ's body (saith Bellar mine) is with the body properly eaten in the Eucharist. But it is no proper, but a figurative eating, saith Augustine, that Christ speaketh of John 6. It is no such eating of Christ's body therefore, as they imagine to be in the Eucharist. Yea so contrary to them, and so pregnant for us is that passage of Augustine, that in Fulbertus his works, where those words of his are related, they have with a foul insertion branded them for heretical.

Yea but (saith mine Adversary) there are many plain places in Augustine, cited by Bellarmine, for the real receiving of Christ; which my superficial Adversary taketh no notice of. Bellarmine is still much in this man's mouth; and the superficialnesse of his silly and unlearned Adversary. But this (I am sure) is a very unlearned, slender and superficial proof of points questioned, to turn his Reader over still for satisfaction to some other. Yet I will do him the couttesie, since he telleth us of other plain places in Augustine to present him with one of them, though such an one (it may be) as will not easily go down with him. Augustine speaking of this place in John on Psal. 98. saith that Christ having used those words, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. When some understood them foolishly and carnally, he taught them to understand them spiritually; saying, It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak are Spirit and life. As if he should have said; understand you spiritually what I have spoken. You are not to eat that body which you see, and to drink that blood which they will shed that shall crucify me. I have commended a kind of Sacrament unto you; which being spiritually understood will quicken you. Though it must be visibly colebrated, yet is it invisibly to be understood. Thus Augustine in plain terms: and yet if we believe these men, the very same body of Christ that was then seen, and that very same blood that was shed on the Cross is orally eaten and drunk in the Eucharist.

ANd surely if the Authority of holy Fathers might prevail with the Minister further then himself listeth, he cannot be so ignorant as not to know that all the ancient Doctors expounding or treating of Christ's words, John. 6. have literally understood them of the Sacrament, as learned Tolet, Saunders, Bellarmine, and other of our divines have particularly proved; collecting from them invincible Testimonies also, to prove the verity of our Saviors body and blood really in the Sacrament contained and received: Insomuch as S. Austin affirmeth S. John purposely to have emitted all mention of the Sacrament in our Saviors last Supper, because he had in the 6. Chap. of his Gospel so particularly expressed the promised excellency and heavenly fruits thereof: and many evident and unanswerable Arguments are by Catholic expositors of that Chapter made to prove the same; which with silence my Adversary ouerpasseth. First, (for example) our Savior from the 31. to the 60. verse of that Chapter maketh a difference betwixt the gift which his Father had given to the Jews loving the world so as to give his only begotten Son for it, and the gift which himself meant to give to them, speaking of the one as a gift already past; but of the other as of a gift afterwards to be given unto them. Secondly, He compareth the eating of his flesh to the Israelites eating of Manna in the desert; which was a corporal food really eaten by them. Thirdly, If by eating his flesh and drinking his blood our Savior meant no other thing then that they should believe in him, it had been a strange course in him, who so thirsted after the salvation of souls by an obscure manner of speaking to drive away so many, such persons especially as had formerly followed him, without any word added, which might open this obscure doctrine unto them; as Card. Tollet excellently relateth there the whole process of our Saviors doctrine.

§ 5. MY second Proposition is, that Christ in that whole Discourse John 6 doth not speak of the Eucharist.

That Augustine and diverse others of the ancient Fathers do expound it of feeding on Christ, yet not corporally, but spiritually in the Sacrament (for so Bishop Jansen also ingenuously confesseth that Augustine holdeth it to be understood of seeding on Christ spiritually, not corporally; yea and so Pope Innocent himself, witness Durand, and Biel, and Peter Lombard also, witness Bon • uenture, expound it:) I deny not; nor doth it at all impeach our cause in the main point here in question of Christ's corporal presence. Yet the rather herein we are enforced (together with diverse Popish writers) to depart from them in that their exposition; so far forth as they understand the same as directly speaking of the Eucharist, (as for the one moitie of that discourse also even Bellarmine himself doth) in regard of some erroneous consequences that they were by that means enforced unto, which even the Papists themselves now condemn, and for other weighty reasons, as in my first writing I show.

Yea but Catholic Expositors (saith this Answerer) by many evident and unanswerable Arguments have proved that it is so to be understood; which his Adversary also (saith he) euerpasseth with silence.

And say I, A Catholic Expositor (in their language) to wit, Corn. Jansen (no Jesuit now, for so this Answerer hath informed me, and yet) a Bishop of Flanders, in a work of his by common consent of the learned among them well approved of (they are the Popes own Censurers words of it) hath by evident and unanswerable Arguments proved that it cannot so be understood; which this mine adversary also ouerpasseth with silence: And the like also doth Frier Ferus: and Gabriel Biel at large in the place above recited.

But he will at length (I hope) say somewhat himself.

1. Our Savior (saith he) maketh a difference there between the gift which his Father had • iuen the Jews, and the gift that himself meant to give, speaking of the one as past, of the other as to come: This out of Bellarmine.

I marvel where this man learned his Logic. He never is lucky in the framing of his Consequences. There is a difference between the gift that God the Father had given; and the gift that Christ would give: Ergo Christ's words must needs be understood of his corporal presence in the Eucharist. How hang these things together? or by what nec • ssity of consequence doth the one follow from the other?

For first, Are they diverse gifts that God the Father had given and that Christ would give? then the words are not meant of Christ's corporal presence in the Eucharist. For therein the very same Christ that the Father gave is given to the faithful, as we say, spiritually; to both faithful and unfaithful, as they affirm, corporally. And therefore the gift is not diverse, as he saith, but the self same.

2. If he say that the gift is diverse in regard of the diverse manner of giving: who knoweth not that Christ, who had been given by his Father (and yet by himself also) in his incarnation; was after given also by himself (and yet by his Father also) in his passion. So their own Jansen expoundeth his words, that he would give his b • die also unto death: and Frier Ferus that he would give it unto death on the Cross: for there (saith he) was that bread to be basked: and there that flesh of his (saith Bonaventure) was to be boiled. Yea so Gregory of Valence, My flesh that I will give, that is, that I will offer for the life of the world: Where (think we) but on the Cross?

2. Christ (saith he) compareth the eating of his flesh to the Jews eating of Manna; which was a corporal food really eaten by them: and he must needs therefore speak of the Eucharist. Bellarmine was not so absurd indeed as to argue on this manner. As if the Manna were not also a spiritual type of Christ: and Christ might not as well compare the type with the truth; as the type with the countertype; the type of the Manna a spiritual food then really taken with the spiritual eating of Christ that was therein figured.

Or 〈…〉 • f he might not compare our spiritual feeding on him with some corporal food really eaten (which both here and else-where it is confessed, as shall presently be shown, that he doth) and yet not mention the Sacrament of the Eucharist at all.

Bellarmine saith indeed that Christ compareth there with the Manna his body, not as it is received by faith alone, (and then belike by Bellarmine's grant it is truly so also received, even out of the Sacrament) but as in the Sacrament it is received. But how doth he prove it?

1. From the Apostle, where he compareth Baptism with the red Sea, and Manna with the Eucharist.

But how doth this follow; The Apostle doth so there: therefore our Savior doth so here? especially considering how diverse the scope of either in either place is. The Apostles scope is to show that the old Israelites had as good and as sure outward pledges of God's favor and love as we Christians now have; and yet were not spared when they provoked him to wrath, for all that. Our Saviors scope is to prove that the spiritual food of his flesh, which he there tendered them and advised them to seek after, was much more excellent and of far greater virtue and efficacy, then the Manna that their Fathers did once eat in the Wilderness. For, that that (considered as corporal food) was it self corruptible, and could not preserve them that eat of it from death, whereas this was food incorruptible, and being spiritually fed on would cause them to live forever. For the Apostles purpose therefore it was necessary to consider the Manna as a Sacrament and to compare the Eucharist with it, as with our Baptism he had paralleled the Red Sea before. But for our Savior so to do there was no necessity at all: Nor indeed doth he consider the Manna there as a Sacrament, no more then the Jews did, that there mentioned it to him; nor doth he speak cught of the Sacrament where he speaketh of the Manna, as Bellarmine also himself acknowledgeth. His speech to them occasioned by the bread that they had eaten of, and the Manna that they spake of, is the very like to that other speech of his to the Samaritan woman, occasioned by the water that he had asked of her; He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst more, &c. Which had it been considered, would easily have assoiled those difficulties, that (as Jansen observeth) so much troubled Augustine, and Cajetan, yea and Jansen himself too. Nor was there any necessity that the bread of the Eucharist should be more mentioned in the one place, then the drink of it in the other.

2. Because Christ's body, as by faith it is received, was not wanting to those of old time, that lived before Christ's Incarnation.

What he giveth us here we take, that Christ's body was by faith received even before he was incarnate. But how proveth this that Christ therefore spake there of a sacramental eating of it? and not rather that he called home those his carnal followers, from the corporal feeding, either on the bread that they had eaten of, or the Manna that they mentioned, and would fain still have been fed with, that they might live without labor, not to an eating of sacramental bread, which they would not have much misliked, but to that spiritual feeding, which as well their holy forefathers, as all true and faithful Christians now, were eternally saved by. Yea this may be confirmed by Bellarmine's own grants: Who first confesseth this as a certain truth, that there is no mention at all of the Eucharist in all that our Saviors discourse, before those words, (which were spoken after he had done speaking of the Manna) The bread that I will give is my flesh, that I will give for the life of the world. 2. He granteth expressly that those words, I am the brad of life; he that cometh to me shall not hunger, &c. do not properly belong to the Sacrament. 3. He observeth a threefold bread spoken of by our Savior: the first, that material bread, that Christ had fed them withal: the second spiritual bread, himself incarnate, which he wisheth them to get, and must by faith be apprehended, that it may feed and refresh • s: the third (he might well have said M • nna, which he omitteth, termed also bread there, but) the sacramental bread (saith he) expressed in those words. the bread that I will give, is my fl • sh that I will give for the life of the world: as if this were not the same spiritual bread that he spake of before. 4. Being pressed with this that there is no bread at all in the Eucharist (as they say) ^k & therefore it cannot be the sacramental bread that is there spoken of, neither can it be meant of the bread that Christ was to give in the Supper, as he elsewhere had said: he saith that bread there signifieth not wheaten bread, nor Christ's body absolutely, but meat or food in general: and so the sense of it is this; The bread, that is, the meat, that I will give, is my flesh it self, that is to be crucified and stain for the salvation of mankind. And he addeth that peradventure our Savior called his flesh sometimes bread, to show that under the species of bread it was to be eaten. So that all the force of Bellarmine's Argument is but merely conjectural, and dependeth upon a peradventure, which he cannot certainly aver. But without all peradventure he affirmed before that the bread of which our Savior said; My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven; and The bread of God is he that came from heaven and giveth life to the world: and I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth in me shall never thirst: and I am the bread that came down from heaven: and again, I am the bread of life: and This is the bread that came down from heaven, that whosoever eateth thereof should never die: and I am the living bread that came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever: that the bread I say, of which he said all this, was not the Encharist, or the sacramental bread, and none of all this directly and properly concerneth it. And well may we put it out of peradventure, that the bread of which our Savior saith it is his flesh that he will give for the life of the world, and whosoever eateth of it, hath life everlasting; which no man also can have without it; is no other then that of which he had before said, that it is himself, and that it giveth life to the world, and life everlasting to everyone that eateth of it: the rather also for that our Savior himself so informeth us when he saith, (not passing as Bellarmine would have it from a second bread to a third, but more particularly expressing what the second bread was, and repeating more fully what before he had said) I am the living bread that came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give (what bread, think we, but the same that he was even then speaking of? which yet was none of the sacramental bread, saith Bellarmine) is my flesh that I will give for the life of the world. Those ensuing passages therefore are not meant of the sacramental bread or the Eucharist, no more then the former. But leave we Bellarmine, and return we to this our Defendant, whom we are principally now to deal with.

His last Argument out of Tolet is not so much for the Eucharist, as against the spiritual eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood by faith. If our Savior had meant nothing but that they should believe in him, it had been a strange course by such an obscure manner of speaking to drive away so many that had formerly followed him and believed in him, without any word added that might open this dark doctrine.

To omit that here again he departeth from Augustine, who saith thus expressly; Our Lord being about to give the holy Ghost called himself bread exhorting us tobeleeue in him. For to believe in him is to eat that living bread. He that believeth in him feedeth on him, he is fatted invisibly, because he is invisibly bred again: he is there filled, where he is renewed. And again, They that shed Christ's blood, drank his blood whē they believed in him; and they drank it by believing in him.

1. It pleased our Savior sometime, as to Nicodemus, and to the people ofttimes, to speak things in obscure Parables, which yet to them he did not explicate. Nor may any tax the wisdom of Christ without impiety for so doing. Yea so (saith Augustine) he spake that here which he would not have all to understand.

2. Those that went away from him upon it, were (as our Savior himself intimateth) such as followed him only to be fed; and did not believe in him.

3. If his meaning had been that they were to eat of his very flesh it self miraculously made of bread, as these men would make us believe, had it not been as obscure and as difficult for them to have conceived it?

4. It is not true that our Savior added nothing to explicate himself. Augustine in the place before cited showeth that he did. And both in the beginning, when he first told them of this bread: and ^d they desired him ever to give them of it; he maketh them answer in these words; I am the bread of life: He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth in me shall never thirst: and in the process of his speech again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth in me, hath life everlasting: Whereby saith Jansen, they might well have understood, in what manner he would give them his flesh to eat. Who also thence gathereth (agreeably to Augustine and other of the Ancients) that it is all one to feed on Christ, and to believe in him: As also in the Conclusion and shutting up of all, when he saw how they mistook him: It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh availeth nothing: the words that I speak are spirit and life. In which words saith the same Jansen (out of Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Augustine) he showeth how they should understand what before he had said.

MY Adversaries Arguments to the contrary are merely topicall, and prove nothing. For first it is false, that the faithful Jews before Christ did sacramentally receive our Savior as well as we: which he barely affirmeth and proveth not, page 7.

Secondly, those words of Christ, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you; was a precept respectively given and only obliging such persons to an actual receiving of the Sacrament as they were to whom it was uttered; such persons (to wit) as are by age capable of Sacramental manducation. And surely if Christ's words be only understood, as my Adversary would have them, of spiritual eating Christ by faith, they must necessarily import a precept more impossible to be fulfilled by children then sacramentally to receive him. For sooner may children receive the Sacrament, especially drink of the consecrated Chalice (as anciently in the Greek and Latin Churches they were went to do) then actually believe in him.

His next Argument pag. 8. maketh more (if this Minister had wit to discern the force thereof) against his own exposition of Christ's words, then it doth against our understanding of them. For as all that receive Sacramentally Christ's flesh and blood, are not saved; no more are all that spiritually and by faith eat him. This being sufficient for the verity of our Saviors speeches that the Sacrament is ordained to produce those excellent and heavenly effects which Christ's promises there import in the souls of such as worthily receive it; and such centrarily as come unworthily thereunto receive death and judgment to themselves by it.

As for those few Catholic writers who have denied Christ's words in that 6. Chap. of Saint John to have been understood at all of Sacramental manducation; I answer, that their number is not great, and their authority of no weight at all against a numberless multitude of ancient Fathers and moderne Doctors of better note contrarily understanding them; yielding better reasons for that their literal true explication, and easily soluing all heretical Objections gathered from the literal sense of our Saviors words in that Chapter against our communion under one kind and other points of Catholic doctrine. And sithence my Aduersaerie will not stick to contemn these very Authors in their other known Catholic doctrines, why doth he so highly value and mainly urge them in this opinion, wherein without any heretical intention or obstinacy of Judgment they differ from us?

§ 6. AT length he cometh to refute mine Arguments; which he saith are topicall, and prove nothing.

My first Argument is this:

None are saved but such as so feed on Christ, as is there spoken of. But many are saved that never fed on Christ in the Eucharist; as the Fathers before Christ; the children of the faithful that die infants, &c. Ergo it is not spoken of the Eucharist.

To this he answereth.

1. That I barely affirm that the Jews before Christ did sacramentally receive Christ as well as we, but I prove it not. It is true; I say obiter that they fed on Christ's flesh spiritually as well as we now do: though that be no part of mine Argument. And I add a place or two of Augustine for the proof of it grounded on the Apostles words, 1. Cor. 10. 3, 4. Which seeing that this shifter ouerslippeth, let him hear Bishop Jansen himself (not to go any further) relate a little more at large, to wit, that the good Jews in the Old Testament were quickened by eating of Manna, because under that visible food they also spiritually did eat the true Bread of Life by Manna signified. Or if Jansen will not serve, let him hear their great Albert; There is (saith he) a three-fold eating of Christ; sacramentally only, spiritually only, or sacramentally and spiritually both. In the first sort all that ever were saved did eat: in the second sort evil Christians eat him in the Sacrament: in the third sort, good communicants only. And again, alleging those words of the Apostle; All those good Auncients in the Manna understood believed and tasted Christ himself, and were thereby saved. And this no Papist (I suppose) will be so absurd as to deny. But this is but a by-matter, no part of the main Argument; and therefore I forbear here to insist further on it.

2. That is as impossible for children to eat Christ by faith spiritually, as to receive him sacramentally in the Eucharist.

Not to run out into more Questions then needs must at the present, I answer:

1. Many young ones die, though at years of discretion, when in ordinary course they may well have faith, and believe actually, yet ere they be admitted to the Eucharist: and yet is not their salvation at all thereby preindiced.

2. By the doctrine of their Church even Infants have an habit of faith infused into them in Baptism.

3. Neither is it a thing impossible for the Spirit of God by an extraordinary manner to work faith in such infants as are to be saved dying before years of discretion; no more then it was to regenerate John the Baptist in his mothers womb: of whom Gregory therefore saith that he was new bred yet unborn.

4. The speech is of the same latitude and extent at least with those other; whosoever believeth in me, hath life eternal: And, Whosoever believeth not in the Son of God. shall never live, but shall be damned: and the like; which comprehend those only, to whom it appertaineth actually to come unto Christ, and to believe in him, saith Jansen. And that is enough for my purpose.

§ 7. My second Argument was thus framed.

All that so feed on Christ, are eternally saved: our Savior so saith.

But many feed on the Eucharist that are eternally damned.

Ergo Christ speaketh not there of oral eating in the Eucharist.

Now this Argument (saith he) if I had wit to discern the force of it, maketh more against us then against them. And why so? Forsooth, because all are not saved that spiritually and by faith feed on Christ. This is like B • llarmines bold assertion, that some that believe in Christ perish eternally, because they die before they can have a Priest to assoil them. And what is this but to say that all that do truly believe in Christ are not saved? Yea what is this (not to repeat all the allegations both of Scripture and Fathers produced for the proof of the Proposition, which he purposely passeth over, not being able to answer) but to give our Savior himself and the holy Ghost the lie, who so oft say; Whosoever believeth in him shall be saved.

Nor is it sufficient (as he addeth) for to verify our Saviors speeches that the Sacrament is ordained to produce such effects in the Souls of such as worthily receive it, though the contrary befall those that do unworthily rēceiue it. For (to answer them again in the words of one of their own Authors) our Saviors words imply manifestly a certain effect (as he speaketh) not a matter that may be: (as Augustine and Cyril also in the places cited by me there show,) whereupon also he concludeth that it is apparent thence that all are not there said to eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood, that receive the Sacraments of Christ's body and blood.

§ 8. To their own Authors, Cardinals, Schoelemen, Canonists, public Professors, or Readers of Divinity in their Universities, ( Friers I might have said too,) and in steed of Jesuits (being better informed by him) I now say, Bishops, which will not much mend the matter.

1. He answereth that they be but few in number, and their authority of no great weight, in regard of those that hold the contrary. Yet one of their own Bishops (though of another mind himself) confesseth, that there are very many of them that are of this judgment. But had there been but one or two of them (especially of note, as some of them were) of someone sort, it might well have weighed much on our side. For the witness of an adversary is of no small weight. How much more, when so many of all sorts, of so special repute, shall so uniformly speak for us, and herein accord with us?

2. He demandeth of his Adversary, why he doth so highly value them and mainly urge them herein, when in other points he will not stick to contemn them. Had he any wit in his adle brain, he would never have asked this idle Question It is as if in a Law-suite, because a man taketh hold (as he may well do) of somewhat that falleth from his Adversaries, or is granted him and confessed by them, because it furthereth his own cause, he were therefore bound to believe or admit all that ever they say to the prejudice of his right. The greater differences are between them and us, yea in the present controversy concerning the manner of Christ's presence in the Sacrament, the less cause there is to suspect that they should speak partially for us; and the greater cause to suppose they were by evidence of truth enforced to confess that, that should take away some of those grounds, whereby the cause that themselves stiffly maintained, is ordinarily upheld.

3. He addeth in the end: These men herein without heretical intention, or obstin • cie of judgment differed from us. Whom he meaneth by that, Vs, I leave to himself to explain: And the less heretical their intention was (as he understandeth heretical) the less suspicion there is of collusion or any purpose therein to gratify us; and so much the stronger therefore is their testimony for us. The testimony of a mere stranger, or no well-willer to the cause maketh it to be of more moment. But when he speaketh of obstinacy of judgment, he glaunceth at a secret in their Church, which I shall in a word or two take occasion hereby to discover. It is no matter what a man hold or maintain among them, so long as he acknowledgeth the Popes Supremacy, the main pillar of their faith, and submit himself and his works wholly to his censure, and so be ready to unsay what he saith, when he will have him so to do. For his censure indeed alone is that which they call commonly the censure of the Church. And to this purpose they confess that many of their writers have held the very same points, for which they condemn us now as Heretics, of whom yet they say that they were not Heretics, because they submitted themselves to this Censure. I will add an instance or two hereof out of Bellarmine.

1. In this very particular; he confesseth that many of the Authors before mentioned expound that 6. Chap. of John as the Heretics do: but they submit themselves (saith he) and their writings to the Censure of the Councils and Popes; which the Heretics do not.

2. In the present controversy, Durand held not a Transubstantiation, but a transformation in the Sacrament: which opinion (saith he) is heretical; and yet was he no Heretike; because he was ready to yield to the judgment of the Church.

3. Ambrose Catharines opinion of the Ministers intention in the Sacrament, differeth not ( saith he) for ought I see, from the opinion of Chemnicius and other Heretics, save that he in the end of his book submitteth himself to the Apostolic Sea and Council.

4. Durand in the point concerning merit of works held as we now do, that no reward was due to them but out of God's mere liberality, and that it were temerarious and blasphemous to say, that God were unjust, if he should not so reward them: And yet was he also no Heretike for the cause before-mentioned.

And thus are we at length arrived (after much winding to and fro, while we follow a shifting wind) at the end of the former part of my Discourse: wherein hath been shown, beside other Arguments, confirming the same, by the confession of their own Authors, that those places of Scripture do not enforce any such corporal presence of Christ in the Sacrament as Papists maintain, which they commonly produce to prove it.

Division 7.

PAg. 9. My Adversary becometh a more formal Disputant then before: and against our Doctrines of Transubstantiation and real presence of our Savior in the Sacrament ignorantly by him in many places confounded he frameth this wise Argument;

Which is a formel • sse and fallacious kind of arguing, wholly forcelesse, if we suppose the former doctrine of the holy Fathers to be true, that Christ's words have force now as then they had, when himself uttered them, to change the substance of Bread and Wine into his Body and Blood: As if after the like manner of the water converted by Christ into wine, I should make this deduction: The Ministers drew water out of the well; carried what they drew: therefore that which they drew and carried was water. If the Minister shall tell me, that they drew water; but carried it made wine by our Saviors omnipotent operation: so I will tell him, that Christ took bread and wine, and converted them by his miraculous and omnipotent benediction into his own body and blood before he distributed them, as he by his plain words pronounced of them, saying, This is my Body, &c.

HItherto, if you will believe this worthy Doctor, his Adversary hath disputed without form or figure, that you may not marvel why his Answer is so diffused, deformed and mis-figured; for the fault (it seemeth) was in his Adversaries misshapen Syllogisms; which made him also so loath to meddle with any of them. Here (he confesseth) he becometh a more formal Dissutant; and I hope therefore we shall find him a more formal Defendant.

Yet ere he come to my first Argument he must needs have a fling at me for confounding their doctrine of Transubstantiation and the real presence (corporal, he should have said for more perspecuity; for so I speak) ignorantly the one with the other. I perceive well what his drift herein is; to make some believe that howsoever Transubstantiation was not generally held till of late times; yet a real, that is a corporal presence was ever acknowledged. But if we will believe Bellarmine, Aquinas, and the Council of Trent, the one of them is every jot as ancient as the other, yea the one cannot possibly be without the other. This, (the Council of Trent telleth us,) was always the faith of the Church, that by the consecration of Bread and Wine, the whole Substance of the Bread was turned into the Substance of Christ's body, and the whole Substance of wine into his Blood. And, A body, (saith Aquinas) cannot be, where it was not before, but either by local motion, or by the conversion of some other thing into it. But it is manifest that Christ's body beginneth not to be in the Sacrament by any local motion: And therefore it must needs come there by the conversion of the bread into it. Yea, by local motion it cannot be there, nor by any means but by this. And Bellarm. clean contrary to himself else-where, It cannot be, that the words of Christ should be true, but by such a conversion and transmutation as the Catholic Church calleth Transubstantiation. It is no matter of ignorance therefore in this Controversy to confound those things, which those we deal with conjoin, yea which they tell us cannot be dis-joined.

To overthrow this their opinion then of Transubstantiation and Christ's corporal presence in the Eucharist; I first reason from the Context, Christ took bread, and blessed it, and gave it, and said; This is my body. Whence I thus argued:

But it was bread that he took, blessed, brake and delivered; ( It is bread, saith Durant a Popish writer, that all those verbs are referred to.)

It was bread therefore of which he said, This is my body.

Now this (saith mine Adversarie forgetting, it seemeth, what he had said but even now, that here I began to dispute formally) is a formlesse, fallacious and wholly forcelesse kind of arguing, if we suppose with the holy Fathers (who belike held Transubstantiation then as well as a real and corporal presence, if this worthy man upon his bare word may be believed) that the substances of bread and wine were by the force of Christ's words turned into Christ's body and blood. That is, as if he should say, this Argument is of no force at all, if the point in Question be granted, or if that be yielded, that is not at all in the Text. Yea but this is as if a man should make the like deduction of the water that Christ turned into wine;

How formal a Disputant soever this man's Adversary is; sure I am he disputeth neither in form nor figure. But let us help him a little to bring his Argument into form; and then he shall have an Answer. Thus, it seemeth, he would argue, if he could hit on it:

What the Ministers drew out of the well, they carried:

But they drew water: Therefore they carried water.

And now I deny his Proposition: The Ministers carried not that that they drew: They drew water; they carried not water but wine.

And for his addition hereunto, that Christ after he took the bread and wine, and before he distributed them, by his miraculous and omnipotent benediction converted them into his own body and blood, as he showeth by his words plainly pronounced of them, This is my body. Though it be nothing to the Argument, and a mere begging of the point in Question, yet let us consider a little of it, where in the Text he findeth that Christ thus converted them: for the words, This is my body (as was formerly shown) do not evince it. But he findeth it (it seemeth) in the benediction or the blessing of the bread; which is yet against the common conceit of his Associates, that say there was no conversion at all till Christ uttered those words, This is my body. Hear we Bellarmine a little arguing this point against Luther. Having acknowledged (as was said formerly) that Christ's words, This is my body, may bear either the sense that we give them, or the sense that they give them, but not that sense, that the Lutherans give: For (saith he) the Lord took bread, and blessed it, and gave it his Disciples, saying, This is my body. Bread therefore he took; bread he blessed, and of bread of he said, This is my body. Either therefore Christ by blessing changed the bread into his body truly and properly, or he changed it improperly and figuratively, by adding signification (or as Theodoret rather, by adding to nature that grace) which before it had not. If he changed it truly and properly, then gave he bread changed, and of that bread so changed he truly said, This is my body, that is, that which is contained under the shape of bread is no more bread, but my body: and this we say, If it be said that he changed the bread figuratively, then shall there be that bread given the Apostles, that is siguratiuely Christ's body, and those words, This is my body have this sense, This is the figure of my body: and so the Protestants hold. Yea so indeed (as you have heard before) did Augustine in precise terms after Tertullian expound them, who belike then by Bellarmine's ground was in this point a Protestant. Now let either Bellarmine, or this Answerer prove that our Savior by his blessing wrought any other conversion, and we will yield unto them. But they will as soon prove that Christ turned the children that he blessed into bread, as that he turned the bread by blessing it into his natural body. Yea run over all the whole Chapter in Bellarmine wherein he propoundeth to himself to prove Transubstantiation out of God's word, in the entrance whereunto he confesseth that the words of Christ may be taken as well our way as their way, but not Luther's way; and you shall find that there is never a word in it, much less any sound proof, either to prove that Christ's words are so to be understood as they say, or that they are not to be understood as we say; but it is wholly spent in confuting of Luther's opinion, to wit, that bread remaineth together with Christ's body in the Sacrament. Which opinion also themselves confess that Luther admonished by Melancthon renounced before he died. He beginneth with a first Argument, without any second, the sum and substance whereof was before related: Either his second (he saw) was unsound, and it seemed best therefore to suppress and conceal it, or else he wanted a second, and thought to let the first though without a fellow, stand still as first by the rule of the Ciuilians, who say, That is first, that hath none before it, though no other come after it: or, that is first that hath none before it, that is last that hath none after it. And so is this Bellarmine's both first and last Argument there. And in Conclusion he is fain to fly to the Councils and pretended Fachers. Though there were some ambiguity (saith he) in our Savior Christ's words, yet it is taken away by Councils; (what Councils think we? Surely none but such as themselves held within these 300. years as himself afterward showeth) and the consent of Fathers: which remaineth yet to be shown. As for the benediction, the best, nay the sole Argument, whereby he can prove such 〈…〉 conversion wrought there is this; Christ is not wont to give thanks but when he is about to work some great and marvelous thing: For he is read only to have given thanks, when he would multiply the five loaves; and again when the seven: and when he was to raise Lazarus from the dead; and lastly, in the institution of this Sacrament. And in like manner he is not wont to bless insensible things, but when he was to work some admirable thing with them: For he is never read so to have done, but when he blessed the bread to be multiplied; and in the Encharist. As on the contrary when he cursed the fig tree: for it withered away instantly. For God's blessing is a well-doing; not a praying, as ours; but an effecting, as appeareth, when he blessed the beasts: for by that blessing he bestowed fruitfulness upon them. Nor do we read that Christ ever blessed the water in Baptism. And what of all this? Therefore (forsooth) it must needs follow that Christ by that blessing turned the bread into his own natural body.

Where to omit that it is not true, that Christ is never read to have given thanks oftener then is here said: for at other times also he is reported to have given thanks, and that when he was not about to work any miracle neither: Nor is it truly said, that Christ's blessing was not a prayer, (which that it was, not Jansen only, but Maldonado the Jesuit from some of the Ancients also confesseth) being conceived by him as man, but effected by him as God: and beside, that it is absurd to reason à non scripto ad non factum, he is not read oft • er to have blessed or given thanks, therefore he never oftener did either: yea it is impious to imagine that Christ, who for our sakes made himself subject to the Law, did not ordinarily bless and sanctify the food, that he took commonly, by thanks-giving and prayer: who denieth but that Christ went about a marvelous work, when he was to institute this Sacrament? or who doubteth but that Christ's benediction was a most effectual benediction, and as effectual as that of God's was in the Creation, whereby he blessed the creatures? by virtue whereof yet the creatures so blessed were not transformed into new shapes, but had a natural faculty only conferred upon them which before they had not, nor of thenselves could have; and so have the elements a spiritual and supernatural (by our acknowledgement) in the Sacrament. But who seeth not what a silly and senseless consequence this is? Bellarmine could not be so silly and sottish as not to see it himself. Christ gave thanks and blessed the bread ere he gave it: therefore he wrought such a miracle on it as we would have; or, therefore (if you will) he turned it into the very substance of his body. It may as well be said that Samuel wrought some miracle by blessing the sacrifice, as our Savior here by blessing the bread.

For the water in Baptism it is easy to answer, though it be little to the purpose: It is not to be marvelled if he be not read to have blessed it: for we are told expressly that he never baptized, save as he doth. spiritually baptize to this day. But dare any say that his Disciples were so profane as to baptize without blessing? or must a bald, yea a Baals Priests blessing of bread at this day be needs more effectual then their blessing of water then was? Or do not the ancient Fathers compare the blessing of the water and the effect thereof in Baptism with the blessing of the waters and the moving of the Spirit upon them in the Creation? And why must the blessing then of necessity import such a change more in the one Sacrament then in the other?

Division 8.

AS for the names of bread and wine after given by Saint Paul and the holy Fathers to the consecrated parts of the Sacrament; which with this Minister is a great argument tediously urged, page 10. he cannot be ignorant (I suppose) as not to conceive the little source of the Argument. For if Aaron's red after it was converted into a Serpent, and retained not the essence or figure of a rod, be notwithstanding called so; with much more reason may the Accidents of bread and wine still remaining and containing in them Christ's body and blood, retain their old names: especially with articles superadded, importing the singular and divine excellency of them, still used by Saint Paul, 1 Cor. 10, 11. as this bread, this Chalice; the bread which we break, &c. willing them to prove themselves, &c. before they come to eat of this bread; least eating it unworthily, they eat their own damnation, not discerning the body of Christ; or (which is all one) not distinguishing it from other common bread, it being indeed bread blessed and converted into the very body of Christ, and therefore not irreverently and unworthily to be received by any Christian under pain of damnation; as the ancient Doctor and holy Mariyr of Christ's Church S. Cyprian affirmeth: S. Basil also, S. Chrysostom, S. Jerome, Origen, and S. Augustine, with other Fathers express • lie teach the sin of such as come unworthily to the Sacrament to be heinous, and equal even to the sin of such as betrayed and killed Christ, because they presume unworthily to eat that bread wherein the Son of God himself is contained.

MY second Argument was taken from the express words of Scripture, wherein after Consecration there is said to be bread and wine in the Sacrament.

1. The little force of this Argument (he saith) I cannot be so ignorant as not to conceive: because Aaron's rod after it was converted into a Serpent, and retained not the essence or figure of a rod, yet was notwithstanding so called, &c. And he cannot be so ignorant as not to conceive that this very Objection is there by me propounded and answered: yea, and that Bellarmine himself rejecteth it as not very sound, but such as just exception may be taken unto. Did he think that any one not void of common sense would not soon see this?

2. He saith that the accidents of bread and wine remaining retain still their old names. To what purpose? For who doubteth but that the accidents, that is, the color, savor, shape, sise, &c. of the elements, remain still in the Eucharist, not without a subject, as they say, (for how can accidents so do, when the very essence of an accident, as it is an accident, is to be in some subject?) but in the self same subject, wherein formerly they were? And what should hinder but that remaining so, they should retain still their old names? But neither are the accidents of bread and wine, bread and wine: and it is absurd to say either that the Apostle by bread meant the accidents of bread only; when he said The bread which we break, &c. and, Let a man eat of that bread, &c. Or that by the fruit of the vine our Savior meant nothing but the acci dents of wine, when he said, I will drink henceforth no more of this fruit of the vine, &c. So that his reason is • idiculous, The accidents remaining retain still their old names; therefore the substance that is gone retaineth it own name still: or, the color, savor shape and sise retain their old names, and that which is in the Eucharist what ever it be, is said still to be white, round, thin well tasted, &c. and that with good reason, since it is so still as it was; therefore though it be no more bread now, yet is it said to be so still. Sure reason and this man's brain were far asunder, when he writ this.

3. He addeth that the Apostle when he calleth it bread, (for so I suppose he would say, and not when he speaketh of the accidents of bread only) speaketh with such articles superadded, as may note the singular and divine excellency of it, This bread, and so This Chalice, and The bread which we break: and requireth men to examine themselves before they come there: least they sin in not distinguishing it from other common bread, &c. And that the ancient Fathers show what an horrible sin it is to come unreverantly to it, &c. because they presume to eat that bread, wherein the Son of God himself is contained.

And is not this a most silly Argument to prove that that he should prove, unless you take in withal his lie at the last, where he saith that the Son of God himself is contained in the bread, which he falsely also fathereth upon those Fathers, as would have appeared, had he cited their words; and which being the point in Question (had it been propounded as it should have been) unless you grant him he sticketh fast still and cannot go forward? For may not a man say as much of Baptism, that the holy Ghost speaks of it with such elogies superadded, as may note the singular & divine excellency of it; that those therefore that are of years ought with great care to address and prepare themselves unto it, when they are to be baptized, and that those that distinguish it not from ordinary water, or use it irreverently, commit an heinous sin even against Christ himself? And yet whoever dreamed therefore of any such Transubstantiation in Baptism? yea the very same Authors here produced by him so plentifully (though by their bare names only out of Bellarmine) in a point for the general not at all denied, to wit the heinousness of their sin that abuse this Sacrament: yet distinguish expressly some of them (as in mine allegations I have noted) between the bread of the Lord, (as the Apostle termeth it) and the Bread the Lord; of which our Savior in the Gospel; between the body that was on the Cross, and the bread that is on the bord: Which he taketh no notice of.

4. And yet neither is it true that so confidently here he affirmeth, that all those Fathers in all those places, yea or that any one of them, in any one of those places that he quoteth, (nor as I verily believe, in any place of their writings else-where) do (as he saith) expressly and purposely teach that the sin of unworthy receivers is equal (for the heinousness of it) with the sin of those that betrayed and killed Christ. Which no sober Divine will say; nor can it be justified, unless the Stoicall parity of sins (charged upon Jovinian by some, how truly I know not, upon us by some of their side, falsely I am sure, Bellarmine himself therein acquitting us) be in Theology admitted. Bellarmine indeed in the Chapter, whence he took all these quotations as he found them there mustered together, hath somewhat out of Oecumenius that may seem to look that way, ( He compareth unworthy communicants, saith he, with those that killed Christ) which this man having strained more then an inch further, ascribeth unadvisedly and untruly to them all. Whereas only Basil (if those ascetica at least be his) and Chrysostom, (who is wont to press far in reproving of sin) the one of them willeth us to repair holily to God's bord, least we incur the judgment of them that killed Christ: the other of them in one of the places there quoted saith, that as those that defile the princes robe are punished in like manner, as those also that rend it; so it is ^u not unlikely or unequal that those that with an unholy heart receive the Lord's body, undergo the same punishment with those that tore it with nails; that is, that the one be damned for so doing as well as the other; which may well be, albeit their sins be not equal. The rest of them, to wit, Origen, Jerome and Augustine have not any one word at all in any of all those places of the sin of those that killed Christ; yea the places well weighed utterly overthrow the ground of that Argument, which from the words of the Apostle, and their application of it, they would frame to prove a real and essential presence of Christ's natural body and blood in the Eucharist, because such unworthy receivers are said to be guilty of wronging Christ's body and blood, and thereby to acquire iudgemen • or condemnation to themselves. For beside that in the one place Augustine saith nothing but this, that the Sacrament of Baptism, as well as that other of the Eucharist, is a true Sacrament even to those that use it otherwise then they ought: which is nothing at all to that for which here it is alleged. In the other place he saith nothing of the Eucharist, but what he saith also both of the Word of God, or the Law, and Baptism expressly in the same place; to wit, that even holy and divine things hurt those that use them otherwise then they ought. Yea Jerome goeth further in the place alleged, and applieth what he speaketh not to the Sacraments only of the New Testament, but to the Sacrifices also (which were Sacraments too) of the old. For commenting on those words, Wherein do we pollute thee? When the Sacraments (saith he) are violated, he is violated whose Sacraments they are. And that is all he saith there. Now were not the Sacrifices and the Sacraments of the Old Testament (as the ^l Paschal Lamb at least) Sacraments of Christ, yea and of his body and blood too? If they were, as no doubt can be but they were, then by Jerome's Rule was Christ and his body and blood wronged in them, when any wrong was done to them, albeit it were not essentially or corporally present in them: nor doth such wrong therefore or guilt acquired by evil usage of the Eucharist imply any such corporal presence thereof in it.

5. Let me add only, that this Defendant telleth us, • hat the Son of God is contained in that bread that is eaten • n the Eucharist: and yet by their doctrine there is no bread at all there. How is he in bread where no bread is? Or how is there no bread there, where in bread the Son of God is (as he telleth us) contained? What is this but that which Bellarmine condemneth in the Lutherans, to forge us a Christ impanated, or enclosed in bread? Nor doth their own doctrine any whit mend the matter. For as Bellarmine saith of Rupert us and some others that they make Christ have a breaden body: so may we as truly say the same of them. For what is a body made of bread but a breaden Body? But that (you see) this Doctor here swerveth from and saith, that Christ's body is but couched in Bread.

ANd I marvel not to find this Minister to corrupt the sayings of the holy Fathers to his heretical purpose, sithence he maketh Bellarmine himself page 10. to speak like a Protestant, and seem to say against his own express doctrine, that the bread blessed and consecrated on the Altar is not, nor cannot be called Christ's body: Whereas Bellarmine only disputeth against Luther teaching natural bread to remain still in the Sacrament, and making the sense of Christ's words, This is my body, to be the same as if he had said, This bread is my body; saith this and no more, that Natural bread cannot be otherwise then figuratively and significantly affirmed to be Christ's body: Speaking not at all of bread consecrated, and by consecration converted into the true body of Christ, yet still retaining the name of bread for the Accidents of bread still remaining, as this false fellow would have; frequently citing Authors which he understandeth not.

§ 2. ANd here again, as one running the wild goose race, he windeth back to a passage in the former Argument: and saith, he marueileth not to find me corrupt the sayings of the Fathers (he thought sure every one would believe whatsoever he said, though he never assayed to show it) since I make Bellarmine himself speak like a Protestant. No: I make him speak nothing but what he saith of himself: and by his own grants prove that either the ancient Fathers spake very absurdly, or else they meant as we mean. The Argument is this:

Nor is it enough to prove that I corrupt Bellarmine, to say that he disputeth in that place against Luther, who taught that bread remained still in the Sacrament: For what is that to the purpose? much less to say untruly, that he spake not of bread consecrated; when the very Question is there concerning the consecrated bread.

But I cite Authors (he saith) that I understand not. It is true indeed; In this very place I cite some sayings of Bellarmine, that neither I, nor any such dull-heads as I am (I think) can easily understand; as for example, where he saith, as I here cite him, that The Priest maketh Christ's body of bread; and yet Christ's body is not made by the Priest: And again, that the body of Christ that was crucified, was truly or verily made of Bread: And yet confuting Rupertus he saith else-where, that it was not a breaden body that was crucified for us; as Tertullian inferred from the doctrine of the Marci • nites; and as we may well infer from theirs. He waiueth else-where Metaphysical subtleties in disputing of this Sacrament. And taxeth Calvin for his fond and foolish Metaphysics. But these are such transcendent subtleties, if not absurdities, as any Metaphysics will afford. And this deep Metaphysical Doctor, that hath no want of wit, and understandeth him so well, should have done well to unfold to us these mysteries, and arreade us these riddles: whereas he very uncharitably passeth them by, and only controlling us for our ignorance, leaveth us sticking still in the briars with them, not vouchsafing to help us out.

PAg. 12. He affirmeth it to be most absurd to affirm, as we do, that a thing is made of that in the room whereof it only succeedeth, or is turned into that which succeedeth only in the room thereof; Whereas in every substantial conversion one substance is destroyed and another succeedeth in the place thereof by the same action: as where wood is converted into fire, &c. The difference betwixt Transubstantiation in the Sacrament, and other substantial natural conversions chiefly consisting in this, that the whole substance of bread passeth into another praeexisting substance, Christ's body, to wit, introduced in place thereof, so as nothing thereof remaineth; whereas in them the same matter, albeit receiving a new form and so made a distinct substance from what it was before, still remaineth: which is to the Ministers purpose wholly impertinent, unless he will falsely and foolishly withal affirm that God can destroy no substance entirely leaving the Accidents thereof still remaining, to introduce another substance in place thereof.

And albeit we cannot say of Christ's body, that it was bread, (which is another Argument of the Minister, ibidem) yet may it be said to have been of bread, as being by the same miraculous and omnipotent power of Christ's words, whereby bread looseth natural being in place thereof Sacramentally produced and made present. And this is without any difficulty affirmed by us, who know the same in a propertionable manner to be found in all other substantial and accident all conversions, howsoever his poor Judgment will not serve to consider it: heat (for example) was never cold, albeit in place thereof produced; fire was never wood, but as a substance (as natural understanding might teach him) essentially different, and produced by the others destruction.

§▪ 3. AFter he hath thus recoiled back a little, now he beginneth to make again forward. And 1. whereas they not knowing well how to salu or shift of such absurdities as follow necessarily upon this their senseless conceit of the conversion of bread into Christ's body, affirm that Christ's body is therefore said to be made of bread, and the bread said to be turned into Christ's body, because the bread ceasing to be there, Christ's body (as they say) doth only come in the room of it: For they dare not say that Christ's body is produced of it, or that the Substance of the bread is that whereof as the material cause Christ's body is framed, as ashes are made of wood, or glass of some ashes: And I thereupon reply, that it is absurd to say that a thing is made of that in the room whereof it only succeedeth, or is turned into that that succeedeth only in the room thereof. (That which Suarez himself also confesseth to be rather a translocation, then a transubstantiatiō, or a true & substantial conversion. He telleth me, that, if my poor judgment would serve to consider it, such a succession is to be found in every subst • ntiall conversion, whereby one substance is destroyed, and another succeedeth in the room of it.) And consequently (for that or nothing must follow) that it is not absurd so to say. Did ever man (think we) either sober or in his right wits thus reason? In every substantial conversion one thing succeedeth in the room of another, and is turned into it. Therefore whatsoever thing doth succeed only in the room or place of another, is converted into it. Suppose a puppy should get up into the Chair that this Disputant had sat in when he writ this discourse, after he quitted it: would he not take it evil, if a man should say therefore that he were turned into a puppy, because the puppy were got into his place. Or suppose some light-fingered person having picked his purse and taken a piece of gold or two out of it, should put in a copper counter or two in the room of it; would it follow that his gold were really turned into copper, because the one is gone, and the other is come in the room of it? Or suppose an old house pulled or burnt down, and another raised up again in the room of it, and that just of the same proportion with it: would any man say, that the one were turned into the other, because the one succeeded in the room of the other being destroyed? But idle and absurd consequences are no strange matters with this Disputant for all his great learning, that which a little learning will serve to discover.

2. Whereas answering that silly shift of theirs, that Christ's body is called bread still after Consecration, as Aaron's rod is called a rod after it was turned into a Serpent, because it had sometime so been; I say (among many other things, which he here ouerslippeth) that the case, by their own confession, is not alike: for that, of the rod it may be said that it was once a Serpent, but of Christ's body it cannot be said that ever it was bread; he replieth; that albeit we cannot say of Christ's body that ever it was bread, no more then of heat that ever it was cold, nor of fire we can say that ever it was wood, though by the others destruction it be in place thereof produced, Yet it may be said to have been of bread; because in this their prodigious Metamorphosis or methyleosis, or what ever you will term it; (for new inventions require new names) the whole substance (to use his own terms; that is both the matter and form) of bread passeth into a preexistent substance, to wit, Christ's body, in the room of it introduced, so as nothing thereof remaineth, whereas in other natural conversions the matter remaineth still, though receiving another form. In which few lines it is not easy to tell how many contradictions are implied both to his master Bellarmine's doctrine, and to his own assertions.

For first, If it cannot be said of Christ's body that ever it was Bread; here is it affirmed by them, as Bellarmine himself also acknowledgeth, that Christ's body is therefore called Bread, because it was bread before. Neither doth Bellarmine at all control them therein: yea he confesseth, with Cajetan, that it may truly be said, That is now Christ's body, that once was bread.

2. If it may be said to have been of bread, why may it not be said that once it was bread? as of Adam because he was of the earth, it may truly be said that once he was earth. As for his instances, they are idle: the one is of an accident not made of, but succeeding only in the room of another, or in the same subject whence it hath expelled the other; and for the other we may say truly that a fire made of wood, not only was wood once, but is wood still, till the form of the wood be utterly destroyed, and the wood turned into coals, or dissolved into ashes; whereof we may also truly then say, that those coals or those ashes were once wood; in such sense as they say, that the rod was sometime a snake.

3. If it may at any time be said, Christ's body hath been of bread, it might at sometime be said, Christ's body is of bread: and if of bread, why not a breaden body? which yet Bellarmine will by no means admit. For what is a body of bread (as was said before) but a breaden body, as a pot of earth, an earthen pot, a dish of wood, a wooddendish? &c.

4. Not to demand if nothing remain of the bread, what figure, and color, and weight, and taste it is that we discern in the Eucharist, whither the breads or Christ's body; because for those things they tell us that they hang, I know not how nor where, neither in the bread that now is not, nor in Christ's body neither, the accidents whereof they are not: and in that answer we must rest (though it be hard for any man endued with reason so to do) for them; since no other from them can be had: I ask, if the whole substance of the bread be utterly abandoned, so as nothing thereof remaineth; how saith Bellarmine, and other of them, that the bread is not annihilated, or is not clearly brought to nothing? and check us for belying them when we say that any such thing is maintained by them? albeit their great Master of the Sentences say as much. For how is it not annihilated, if nothing remain of it?

5. If no bread be left in the Eucharist, how said he before, that Christ is there contained in bread; and that the ancient Fathers so affirm? For how can he be contained in that that is not?

6. If the whole substance of it be destroyed so that nothing remaineth of it, how doth the whole substance of it pass (as he saith) into Christ's body? For how can that pass into it, that is not at all? Or how can that substance pass into the substance of some other thing, that utterly perisheth and ceaseth to be, so soon as ever that other substance approacheth?

7. If the very substance of bread passeth into the substance of Christ's body, then Christ's body (belike) doth not barely succeed in the room of it, (as before was affirmed) but is produced therefore and consisteth of it, which yet they usually deny. Else how doth the substance of the one pass into the substance of the other?

8. If the whole substance of bread (that is, both matter and form) passeth into Christ's body, why may it not as well be said of Christ's body, that that body was once bread; as of Moses his rod it might well be said, that that rod was once a Snake; or of the wine that our Savior so miraculously produced, that that wine was sometime water? the rather since that but part of the substance, to wit, the matter only of the Snake and the water passed into the substance of the rod and the wine there, whereas the whole substance (as this fellow beareth us in hand) that is, both matter and form of bread, passeth into Christ's body here.

9. To say that one substance passeth into another substance preexisting; is to say, that that is made, that already is, or that is produced and hath being given it, that is in being already, when as a thing cannot be in making and being at once; nor can being be given to that, that already is; or to say, that a creature is now made, that was fully made before, or that a creature that was before is new made of that that before was not it: Yea (to speak more plainly) it is all one to as say, that a man is killed, when he was dead before; or is quickened when he was alive before; or is now stripped, when he was stark naked before, or is now bred or begotten, when he was borne before.

Lastly, to say that Christ's body long before preexisting is now made of bread that some two or three days past had no existence it self, is all one as to say, that wine of a twelve-month old is made of grapes that were but yesterday gathered and pressed, and were yet growing the day before; or that an Oke having stood upward of an hundred years, and yet standing in the Forest is sprung up this year of an acorne of the last years growth. And consider we now how well these things agree together: The body of Christ is contained in the bread; and yet there is no bread at all in the Eucharist: The body of Christ succeedeth only in the room of bread; and yet the substance of the bread passeth into the substance of Christ's body: The whole substance of bread is so abolished that nothing remaineth of it, and yet the whole substance of the same bread passeth into the substance of Christ's body: Christ's body was in being before: and yet it is now made of another substance that before it was not: yea Christ's body that was bread and borne above a thousand years since, is now made of a wafercake of yesterdayes baking: The whole essence of that wafer cake passeth into Christ's body; and yet we cannot say of Christ's body, that ever it was that wafer-cake. But like ropes of sand (as we are wont to say) do these things hang together: and to spend much time in refuting them may be deemed (I fear) as ridiculous, (to use their Dennis his terms) as to stand seriously and curiously pulling down by piece-meal such castles as little children have in sport built up of sand.

NEither is it a good or Christian kind of Argument which my Adversary in the end of the same 12. page to this purpose maketh; Other substantial conversions are sensible and easily discerned, albeit miraculous, as when Aaron's rod was made a Serpent, &c. Whereas in the Sacrament we see wholly the contrary: therefore we are not to believe therein any such conversion; citing thus for proof thereof a place of S. Augustine in his margent, which directly if he had marked it, overthroweth his own doctrine, and purpose of citing it: That which you see (saith this Father) is bread and a Cup: but that which your faith requireth you to be informed of, is, that the bread is Christ's body, and the Cup his blood. Could he affirm anything more plainly against this Ministers sensual and absurd Argument; which were it good, would lead us to believe nothing; faith being only of things which appear not to our understanding or senses. How far is this carnal, poor, unlearned man from the holy Fathers spirit and doctrine, as I have formerly cited their assertions? wherein they teach us to renounce the natural judgment of our understanding and senses, and with the Apostle to captivate our understandings to the obedience of faith in this and many other mysteries of faith, humbly to be upon the warrant of God's word assented unto, and not over-curiously searched after by us. We are (saith S. Hillarie, that great Doctor of Christ's Church, and victorious Champion of his deity) not to dispute (as my Adversarie doth) in a secular and sensual manner of divine things. For of this natural verity of Christ in us (speaking of the Sacrament) unless we learn of Christ himself, we speak foolishly and impiously. Wherefore sithence he saith, My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink: He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, remaineth in me and I in him: there is no place of doubting left concerning the verity of Christ's body and blood. For now by the profession of our Lord and faithful belief which we have thereof, it is his true flesh and blood: and these being received by us do make us to be in Christ and Christ in us. Is not this truth? Surely it is; but to those that deny Jesus Christ to be true God, &c. With a cloud of such ancient and vncontrollable Testimonies of the holy Fathers formerly touched could I confound my sensual Adversary, and teach him a new manner of disputing of these heavenly and divine Mysteries instituted by the Son of God with equal wisdom power and goodness for us; wherein the omnipotency of him that chiefly doth them is to be assigned for a sufficient reason of them.

§ 4. NOw further, whereas I allege among other things that in every miraculous conversion of bodies there is a sensible change; whereas no such thing at all is found in the Sacrament: Our eyes, saith Augustine, inform us that it is bread that is there. He telleth me, this is no good, nor Christian, but an absurd, secular, and senseless arguing, and such as would lead us to believe nothing but what we see: and that Augustine, if I had marked him, whom I cite in the margent, (as if his very words were not in the text) utterly overthroweth it: as also Hillarie and other Fathers, when they teach us in divine mysteries to renounce the natural judgment of our understanding and senses, which this poor, carnal, unlearned man his Adversarie is so far from, &c. And withal as commiserating and bewailing my simplicity, (Oh how far is this poor &c.) He telleth his Reader, that he could with a cloud of such ancient and vncontrolleable testimonies of the holy Fathers confound this his sensual Adversarie, and teach him a new manner of disputing of these heavenly and divine mysteries. Well, when he doth this, you may believe that he can do it: and his poor puny Adversary shall be eternally obliged to him for it. But mean while let us see what Pyrgopolinices here saith.

1. Augustine telleth us that something is seen in the Sacrament, and something else is to be believed. But doth Augustine tell us that we must not believe that there is bread there, though our eyes inform us, that there is? No: He telleth us expressly, that there is bread there, as our eyes do inform us. And what can be more evidently or plainly spoken? Yea but he addeth withal, that our faith informeth us that the bread is Christ's body. Yea but, saith Bellarmine, that sentence is most absurd and impossible, if it be not meant figuratively. In which manner Augustine (as before was shown) expoundeth himself else-where.

2. Do the Fathers tell us that in this holy Mystery we must not so much regard what our sense informeth us, as what our faith apprehendeth? And do they not say the same of Baptism, and of all mysteries or Sacraments in general? Hear we one or two of them speak for all. The Fathers of the Nicene Council, whom before he alleged: Our Baptism (say they) must not with bodily eyes be considered, but with spiritual. Seest thou water? understand the power of God hidden in it: conceive it full of the holy Ghost, and divine fire. And then will they the same regard to be had also at the Lord's Table. That Ambrose that this Author and his Associates so oft cite, as making so much for them: You are come (saith he) to the Font: consider what you there saw; consider what you said, &c. You saw the Font; you saw water, &c. you saw all that you could see with your bodily eyes and human aspect. You saw not those things that work and are not seen. The Apostle hath taught us that we are to behold not the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen. For far greater are the things that are not seen, then those that are seen. Believe not thy bodily eyes alone. That is better seen that is not seen. So Gregory Nyssene: Both the spirit and water concur in Baptism. And as man consisteth of two parts, so are there medicines of like like appointed for either: for the body water that appeareth and is subject to sense; for the soul the spirit that cannot be seen, nor doth appear, but is called by faith, and cometh in an ineffable manner. Yet the water that is used in Baptism, addeth a blessing to the Body baptized. Wherefore do not contemn the divine Laver: neither make little account of it as common, because of the water that is used in it. For it is a greater matter that it worketh: and marvelous effects proceed from it. And a little after of the Eucharist: ^y The bread also is at first common bread: but when the Mystery hath sanctified it, it is called Christ's body. And in like manner the wine, though it be a thing of small price before the blessing, yet after the sanctification which proceedeth from the Spirit, both of them work excellently. And so in many other things, if you regard it, you shall see the things that appear to be, contemptible; but the things wrought by them, to be great and admirable. And so Chrysostom speaking of those words of our Savior, The words I speak are spirit and life. To understand (saith he) things carnally, is to consider the things simply as they are spoken, and no otherwise. Whereas all mysteries (and then not the Eucharist only) are to be judged not by the external things that are visible, but are to be considered with the inward eyes, that is, spiritually. And in particular of Baptism else-where: The Gospel is called a mystery, because we believe not in it what we see; but we see some things, and believe other things. For that is the nature of our mysteries: which myself therefore and an Infidel are diversely affected with, &c. He when he heareth of a Laver, thinketh it but bare water: but I consider not the thing seen simply, but the purging of the soul by the Spirit, &c. For I judge not the things that appear by my bodily sight, but with the eyes of my mind. Again, I hear Christ's body. I understand the thing spoken one way, and the Infidel another. And as children or unlettered persons, when they look on books, know not the power of the letter, nor know what they see: but a skillful man can find matter in those letters contained, lives, or stories and the like, &c. So it is in this mystery: the Infidels, though hearing, seem not to hear; but the faithful having spiritual skill, see the force of the things therein contained. Nothing then in this kind is said of the Eucharist, but what is said of all Sacraments, and of Baptism by name. Nothing therefore that argueth any miraculous change more in the one then in the other.

Nor doth it follow that we would have men to believe nothing but what they see, because we refuse to believe that that we see is not so. We may not (saith Tertullian) call in question our senses; lest in so doing we detract credit from Christ himself, as if he might be mistaken when he saw Satan fall down, or heard his Fathers voice from heaven, or mistook the smell of the ointment that was poured upon him, or the taste of the wine that he consecrated for a memorial of his blood. Neither was nature deluded in the Apostles. Faithful was their sight, and their hearing on the mount: Faithful was their taste of the wine that had been water: Faithful was the touch of incredulous Thomas. (And yet, as Augustine well observeth; Thomas saw one thing, and believed another thing: He saw Christ the man, and believed him to be God: He believed with his mind that which he saw not, by that which appeared to his bodily senses. And when we are said to believe our eyes, saith he, by those things that we do see, we are induced to believe those things that we do not see.) In a word, Rehearse me (saith Tertullian) John's testimony: That which we have heard and seen with our eyes, and felt with our hands, that declare we unto you: A false testimony (saith he, an uncertain at least) if the nature of our senses in our eyes, ears, and hands be such. But these men would have us as the sons of Elijah speak, to thrust out our eyes, and as the Jewish Rabbin's say (abusing a place of Scripture to that purpose) that a man must believe the High Priest in all things, yea though he shall tell him that his left hand is his right, and his right hand the left: so they would have us to believe whatsoever the Pope or they say, though they tell us that, that both our sight and sense informeth us to be most false.

§ 5. But to make good in part yet his former glorious flourish; he citeth a place of Hilary, where he affirmeth, that concerning the verity of Christ in us (not speaking, as he here saith specially of the Eucharist, but of our union and conjunction with him in general) unless we speak as Christ hath taught us, we speak foolishly and impiously: that there is no place left to doubt of the verity of Christ's body and blood; that the Sacraments being received cause that Christ is in us, and we in him.

Now who (I pray you) doubteth of, or denieth ought that is here said? who teacheth men to speak otherwise then Christ ever taught, but they that tell us of bread transubstantiated, and of a body of Christ made of bread, of Christ's flesh contained in bread, or under the accidents of bread, and of his blood in the bread, and his body by a concomitancie in the Cup, &c? Who doubteth with us of the truth of Christ's body and blood? For of the corporal presence of either in the Sacrament, Hilary hath not here a word. Or who denieth but that by the receiving of those venerable mysteries, Christ is (spiritually) in us and we in him; Doth not the Apostle say of Baptism that by it we are engraffed into Christ? and Chrysostom, that by it we become flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone? Hilaries scope is to show that Christ is one with God and his Father, and we one with him, not by consent of will only, (as some Heretics said) but by a true and real union, yet spiritual; as his words imply when he saith, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. Upon whinch words their own Bishop Jansen. They (saith he) that thus eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood either by such faith alone, or in the Eucharist, are said to have Christ abiding in them, and to abide themselves in him, in regard of the true union of our nature with the divine nature by the spirit of Christ, whereby we are made partakers of the divine nature. Yea those words of our Savior cannot be meant of Christ corporally received in the Eucharist, nor could Hilary so mean, if he were otherwise of their mind, appeareth. For Christ's body so taken as they imagine, doth not abide long in those that so receive it, but by their own doctrine goeth away again, I know not whither, a while after. Whereas by virtue of such receiving Christ as our Savior there speaketh of, We do abide in him, and he in us; that is, we are most inwardly and inseparably knit unto Christ, and he unto us (they are still Jansen his terms, and Hilary also saith the same,) and obtain therefore thereby not a transitory life, as we do by the eating of corporal meat, that passeth est-soones away and abideth not in him that eateth it, but life permanent and eternal. Whence it is manifest also (saith the same Author) that all are not in this place said to eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood that receive the Sacraments of his body and blood, since that all such have not Christ abiding in them. But they eat his flesh and drink his blood, as he there speaketh, who believing that his flesh and blood were given on the Cross for the Salvation of mankind, and that by virtue of the hypostatical union they have a power to give life, do either by such faith alone, or in the holy Eucharist also, receive the Lord himself within themselves, & embrace him, and by faith fast clasping him so keep him within them, as one by whom whatsoever we desire, cometh to us, and is conferred on us. Thus he; by whose words it plainly appeareth, that our abiding in Christ and Christ in us, which Hilary from our Savior speaketh of, dependeth not upon any such corporal presence of his body and blood in the Sacrament, nor doth necessarily require the same: which by their own doctrine also it doth not effect.

Division 9.

HIS next Argument drawn from the Nature of Signs and Sacraments is idle and forcelesse. For we deny not (as there he supposeth) the Sacramental Signs containing the body of Christ under them to signify somewhat distinct from themselves, to wit, the spiritual nutrition of souls living by grace that worthily receive them. They signify likewise Christ's body and blood dolorously severed in his passion. And so a thing considered in one manner may be a sign of it self in another manner considered, as Christ transfigured represented his own body as now it is in heaven glorified: his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on Palme Sunday figured his own entrance into heaven afterwards, as Eusebius Emissenus and other Fathers teach: and as an Emperor in his triumph may represent his own victories, &c.

MY third Argument was taken from the Nature of Signs and Sacraments: whose nature is to signify one thing, and to be another. The Argument is this:

No Signs or Sacraments are the same with that that they signify:

But the bread and wine signify Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist:

They are not therefore essentially either.

To this idle and forcelesse Argument (as he pleaseth to style it) he thus answereth:

1. That the Sacrament all Signs signify the spiritual nutrition of souls living by grace; as also Christ's body and blood dolorously severed in his Passion.

Now 1. what is this to mine Argument? was this man (think we) ever a disputant, that answereth Arguments on this wise? which part of my Syllogism (I pray you) is this Answer applied to? I had thought that a Syllogism being propounded, the Answerer should either have denied or distinguished of one of the former Propositions.

2. It is not true, that the bread and wine in the Sacrament are signs of these things. Some affections of them and Actions used about them indeed are. The bread and wine themselves are signs of spiritual nutriment, not nutrition. The eating and drinking is a sign of it. Signs they are of Christ's body and blood; not of the dolorous severing of them in the passion, though their being apart is a sign of it also.

3. He saith that a thing in one manner considered may be a Sign of it self in another manner considered: as Christ transfigured of himself now in heaven glorified; his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem of his triumphant entrance into heaven; and an Emperor in his triumph may represent his own victory.

But 1. If signum & res signata, the Sign and the thing signified by it be relatives (as without all Question they are) a Father may as well be a father to himself, as a sign may be the sign of it self. Not to add that the Ancients (as hath formerly been shown) are wont to call the Sacraments pictures, and pledges: and it is against common sense to say that ought is either a picture, or a pledge of it self.

2. I might well put this Defendant to prove that Christ's transfiguration was a representation of his present glorification, or that his entrance into Jerusalem was a type of his glorious entrance into heaven, whatsoever his bastardly Eusebius Emissenus say of it; whose authority is no better then his own.

3. Let him have what he would; that the one was a type of the other: Doth it follow; Christ's transfiguration was a type of his glorification: therefore Christ was a type or a sign of himself?

4. An Emperor and his victory (I suppose) are not all one; no more then Christ's body and the glorification of it; nor again the transfiguration, & the present glorification.

The Argument therefore is neither idle nor forceless • for ought that he hath yet shown.

Division 10.

HIs next Argument pag. 13. is grossly carnal and unfit indeed to be answered. For who but a babbling ignorant Person would as he doth there, make such an inference? Christ's hands and feet were visible and palpable after his passion (which tediously and needelesly he proveth,) But they are not so in the Eucharist: Ergo, the natural parts of Christ's body are not at all in it. For if the Argument were good, we might rightly infer that Christ had nobody at all when in Emmaus (for example) after he had blessed and brake bread, he vanished out of the Disciples sight; when he hid himself from the Jews, who would have stoned him, in the Temple, not by running into a corner (as this gross fellow peradventure may of Christ basely and unworthily imagine) but by becoming vndiscernable by them; as he became also invisible and impalpable to the Nazarites holding and drawing him towards the hill on which there City was built, whence they meant to tumble him. As if local extension, visibility, palpabilitie and other natural Accidents and sensible properties could not by God's omnipotency be severed from his own body without the total destruction thereof. This is a gross kind of Philosophy and Divinity fit for such a stupide Professor.

MY fourth Argument was taken from the Nature of Christ's Body, which hath flesh, blood and bones, is an organical body, endued with limbs and lineaments, yea and life too. Whereas that which is given and received in the Eucharist, is (as Epiphanius well observeth) liveliness and limmelesse, &c. Now here, (according to his usual manner) he letteth the Argument go, and falleth to rail down right; that it is an argument grossly carnal, and unfit indeed to be answered, of a babbling and ignorant person, and a stupide professor. He showeth where his shoe wringeth him. Yet that he may not seem to say nothing to it; he frameth me an Argument of his own on this wise: Christ's hands and feet were visible and palpable after his Passion:

But they are not so in the Eucharist: ergo

Whereas I tell him that Christ's body hath flesh, blood and bones, and sense and life, and limbs and lineaments of a body organical. But their silly sorry wafer-cake hath none of all these. And then he telleth us that I might as well affirm that Christ had nobody when at Emmaus he vanished out of the sight of his Disciples; when he hid himself from the Jews that would have stoned him in the Temple; when he passed through the midst of them that would have thrown him down head-long, &c.

1. Let him prove unto us that at any of these times those that had Christ's body in their hands to feel at their pleasure, as his Disciples had, when he appeared unto them after his passion and resurrection, (which in prosecution of mine Argument I produce also and press) did find it and feel it to have neither hands, nor feet, flesh blood, nor bone, life nor limb; and the consequence shall then be granted him; but never till then. And look what limbs and lineaments our Savior then had, when he was here on earth, the same he retaineth still. Augustine demanded whether Christ's body had bones and blood still, and other bodily limbs and lineaments; I believe (saith he) that Christ's body is now in heaven as it was on earth, when he went up into heaven. For so when the Disciples doubted, whether it were a body or a spirit that they saw, he had them see and feel his hands and feet: for that a spirit had not flesh and bones, as they saw that he had. So he was on earth; so he was seen to be when he went to heaven; and so shall he, as the Angel told, come again from thence. But such (we are sure) their little breaden God is not. It is none of Christ therefore.

2. Look how this man argueth, so did the Heret • kes of old, to prove our Savior Christ to have an aiery, spiritual, and fantastical body. Let it not deceive you, you simple sots, (saith John of Jerusalem) when you read that Christ shown Thomas his hands and his side, or when you hear him say, that he hath flesh and bones: These things he made some show of indeed to strenghthen the saith of his doubting Disciples. But he shown that he had an ai • ry and spiritual body in truth, when he came to his Disciples while the doors were shut, and he vanished out of their sight. And to the like purpose did the Marci • nites urge his escape frō those of Nazareth. Now what do the ancient Fathers hereunto answer? That Christ's body (saith Tertullian) is no fancy ever, hereby appeareth, in that it end • red violent handling, when he was taken and held, and hailed to the hill-brow. For albeit he made an escape through the midst of them, being first forcibly held, and after let go, either the throng being dissolved, or forcibly broken through; yet was it not by any fantastical delusion. For he had a true body still, and hands that he touched others still with, and were by them felt; (and then his body belike was not impalpable as this fellow saith it was.) And again, when Christ showeth his Disciples his hands and his feet, without doubt he hath hands, and feet, and bones, which a spirit hath not. And Jerome refuting John of Jerusalem; As Christ shown his Disciples true hands and a true side; so he ate truly with them, spake with his tongue truly to them, and with his hands truly brake, and reached them out bread. For that he suddenly vanished out of their sight; as before his passion also at Nazareth he passed through the midst of them, that is, he made an escape out of their hands, it was done by his divine power, not by any fantastical delusion. Could not Christ do as much as some Magicians have done? Apollonius, as he stood in the Court before Domitian, vanished suddenly out of sight. Yet do you not therefore match Christ's power with Magicians iuglings in making him seem to be that that he was not, to eat without teeth, break bread without hands, walk without feet, speak without tongue, show a side without ribs. And whereas it might be demanded how it came to pass that those two Disciples did not know him, till a little before he left them; Jerome maketh answer out of the Text it self, that it was not because his body was not the same it had been, but because their eyes were held that they might not know him. And the same Jerome else-where dealing against the same dotages, Christ (saith he) had hands and sides, had breast and belly too: he that had hands and feet, had arms and thighs too. And seeing he had all the members of the body, he must needs have a whole body that consisteth of those members. Let us reason backward, as well we may. If Christ have an entire body consisting of those limbs, then he hath all those limbs, whereof such a body consisteth. And then let us say to these, as he then to them, You hear of flesh, and feet, and hands, and other limbs. And do you forge us some Stoicall round bals, and aiery dotages. (As these do little round wafer-cakes, which they bear us down to be Christ's body.) He alludeth to the Stoics, who held that the God's had some shape; and that shape was as a body, but yet nobody; and had as it were blood and yet no blood. Wherein the Marcionites also in a manner agreed with them, (and our Romanists at this day with either) imagining our Savior ( saith Tertullian) to have flesh hard without bones, solid without muscles, bloody without blood, clad without coat, speaking without tongue, eating without teeth, &c. Whereupon Tertullian concludeth, that since Christ had all his limbs when he shown them to his Descipl • s, they that imagined such a Christ as this, that deceiveth, beguileth, and deludeth all men's eyes, and senses and touchings, (and taste too he might have said, we at least may say) should not bring him from heaven (from whence the Marcionites said their Christ had his body, though the Papists dare not say, they have theirs from thence) but fetch him rather out of some iuglers box (the Popish pyx, or the like) not to work salvation, but to make sport with. This I have the rather insisted upon to show how the Papists iump in their conceits about this their breaden God; and strange fantastical body, that hath all parts of a man's body, and yet none at all to be seen, felt, heard, yea or understood, with the Heretics of old time; and to confirm these their dotages use and urge the very same Arguments that they then did, by the ancient Fathers long since answered: As also that the ancient Fathers used then the very same Arguments against them, that we do now against these; which yet it pleaseth this vain trifler to term grossly carnal and unworthy to be answered.

§ 2. Oh but (saith he) it is a gross kind both of divinity and philosophy fit for such a stupide Professor, to hold that local extension, visiblitie, palpability, and other natural accidents and sensible proprieties cannot by God's omnipotency be severed from his own body without the destruction of it.

1. Yea and to omit that it is a very sorry shift to have recourse to God's omnipotency for the justifying of such monstrous fictions and forged miracles as either in this their prodigious dotage, or in their lying Legends they have endeavored to obtrude upon the world: To say that God can make Christ's body to remain still in his full stature, and yet at the same time to be no bigger then to enter in at a man's mouth, or go down a child's throat, or to make a man's body consisting of flesh, blood and bone to have no dimensions or extension at all, not other accidents and properties of a natural body; is manifestly to say that God can make a thing at the same time to be and not to be, to be a body and nobody; which implieth contradiction. And those things that imply contradiction, they thenselves grant that God cannot do. For it were to make falsehood truth; which he that is Truth it self can never do.

2. In this very manner also did the Heretics reason as appeareth by Theodoret, to maintain their absurd dotages against the Orthodox Christians, who likewise answered them then, as we do these now. There is nothing (saith the Heretic) that God cannot do. We say, that all things are possible with God. And Job saith, that God can do all things, and there is nothing impossible with him. There is nothing therefore but he can do, that is able to do all things. Now how doth the Orthodox disputer answer this? God (saith he) can do whatsoever he will: But God neither can do, nor will anything which is not agreeable to his own nature. As for example he cannot sin; he cannot lie, nor do any unjust thing, being justice and truth it self. Many things there are therefore that God, that can do all things, yet cannot do. Yea it is a part of his power that he cannot do them, no argument at all of any impotency in him. This was deemed a sufficient answer to those Heretics then; and may as well now be returned our Popish Adversaries, fighting with the same weapons that they then did, for points as absurd as ever any of them held.

Division 11.

ANother Argument is by my Adversary tediously prosecuted pag. 12. wherein from Christ's local being still in heaven, he argueth and endeavoreth to prove an utter impossibility of his bodily being in the Sacrament. Of which kind of disputing I may fitly say with Saint Augustine, Behold with what manner of Arguments human infi • mity possessed with vanity, contradicteth God's omnipotency. As if natural under standing were able to comprehend the utmost limit and extension of God's power, which is in it self infinite and inforutably manifested in many of his wonderful miracles: of which (as I have said) no other reason can be given, but that he is omnipotent that did them, and cannot deceive us when he is pleased to testify them. Can we conceive (for example) the creation of the world of nothing at all preexisting; the resurrection and repair which God will make of all bodies so utterly by frequent and successive conversions into other things altered and consumed; the personal union of man with God; the torment of souls and devils wholly spiritual by corporal fire; the consubstantial subsisting of the divine nature simply one of it self in three distinct persons; and other like mysteries of faith not conceiuable more then the bodily being of our Savior in the Sacrament; yet upon the warrant of Scripture and doctrine of Christ's Church faithfully by us believed? Can this Minister tell me (to come more nearly to our purpose) how our Savior appeared visibly to S. Paul on earth (as diverse plain texts import, particularly by Bellarmine produced and discussed) and yet (as himself will not deny) still remaining in heaven? Or can he tell me, how our Saviors body went out of his Sepulcher, without removing that huge stone, rolled afterward by the Angel from it? Or how he entered the house, the doors being and remaining still shut upon his disciples; as for a great miracle the Evangelist recounted? Or how he pierced the solid and huge Orbes of heaven in his ascension without making any hole in them? Sithence it is equally above nature for many bodies to possess one place, as for one body to be in many places. And if according to Christian true Philosophy, the soul of man being a spiritual and indivisible substance can at one be entirely in distant parts of man's body exercising all distinct operations in them, why is it impossible for God to give his human body distant presences and a spiritual manner of being in the Sacrament? when as by personal union with himself, he giveth to the same body a far higher and more inconceiuable manner of being.

MY fifth Argum • nt is from the nature of a true body which cannot possibly be the same whole and entire in many places at once, much less in places as far distant, as East and West, Heaven and Earth.

Now here again is he fain to fly (as before) to God's omnipotency. That is their Deus e machina; as they had wont to speak; that is the knife still at hand to help to cut all those knots that by their wanton wits and absurd fantasies they have snarled themselves in. And the better to enforce this Catholic Answer, that se • ueth them for the saluing of all sores, he reckoneth up a long bead roll of wonderful works; as the Creation, the Resurrection, the Hypostatical union, the Trinity in Unity, the torment of Spirits by corporal fire, Christ coming out of the Sepulcher without removing the huge stone, his entering into the house while the doors were still shut, his appearing to Paul on earth while he was still in heaven, (which he telleth us Bellarmine hath plainly proved) his piercing of the solid Orbes of heaven in his Ascension, the soul being at once entirely in distant parts of man's body, &c. And then demandeth why God cannot cause Christ's body to be as well one and the same, whole and entire in so many several distant places at once; the rather since that it is equal above nature for many bodies to possess one place, as for one body to be in many places.

1. Here are diverse things that are questionable both in Divinity and Philosophy: which albeit he take pro concessis, will not so easily be granted him, till they be better proved then as yet they are, howsoever we exclude not diverse of them out of the reach of God's omnipotency, even as he understandeth them; as

1. The manner of the souls being in distant parts of the body is disputable: nor is there the same reason of bodies and of spirits.

2. The torment of spirits whether it be by corporal fire or no, is not agreed on as a matter of faith; Bellarmine himself so confesseth.

3. The manner of Christ's apparition to S. Paul is not certain. Neither doth Bellarmine prove that Christ was below on earth, or near the earth in his humanity; nor is it to the purpose whether he were or no. Stephen saw him in heaven, the heavens opened: Paul was wrapped up himself into heaven. Yea in heaven, and from heaven it was that Christ appeared to him; if we may believe Pope Gregory and one that goeth ordinarily for Ambrose. Nor can Bellarmine produce any one of the Ancients that saith otherwise. Howbeit neither do we so pen up Christ in heaven, but that he may at his pleasure (though ordinarily he doth not) descend.

4. For Christ's coming in to his Disciples when the doors were shut. Why might not (as Jerome speaketh) the creature give way to the Creator; as the iron gate did to Peter? It is said, saith Durand, one of their Schoolmen, that Christ came when the doors were shut: but it is not said, that he came in through the doors so shut: he might enter in by some other place; or cause the doors to open suddenly, and shut instantly again.

5. For Christ's resurrection; Let him hear the same Durand. It cannot (saith he) be proved by any Text of Scripture, that Christ rose again while the Tomb was so shut: and so consequently that his body passed through the stone. Or if Durands authority will not serve; let them hear Pope Leo in one of his decretal Epistles: Christ's body (saith he) rose again the stone being rolled away.

6. For his Ascension; to omit, that this solidity of the Orbes is in Philosophy a thing questionable; and such a point, as if it be denied, this great Doctor will hardly be ever able to make good: I answer with Durand; that Whether the heavens be divisible in their own nature, or by divine virtue, (as the one they well may be, and the other certainly they are) there is no necessity that Christ's body in his Ascension should be together in the same place with the bodies of the Orbes.

So that in none of these Examples there is any necessity of two bodies being in one place at once. Which yet if it were proved (if they will believe their own Schoolmen) were not suffiicient. For howsoever this great Doctor tell us, that it is equally above nature for many bodies to be in one place, and for one body to be in many places: yet they say, that it is not so. Though two bodies (saith Aquinas) may be in one places at once; yet it followeth not that one body may be in two places at once. The former is not possible but by miracle; the latter not at all. It is not alike (saith Durand) for two bodies to be at once in one place; and for one body to be at once in more places then one. For the one implieth a contradiction; the other doth not, (the former he meaneth) though it may seem so to do.

2. And so he hath a direct answer, why we deny that a body can be in diverse places at once; notwithstanding we believe and acknowledge God's wonderful works of Creation, Resurrection, Christ's Incarnation, and those unsearchable mysteries of the Trinity, and Hypostatical union, &c. because the one implieth a contradiction, those other do not.

And here let me entreat the Reader (since that these men so much press us with God's omnipotency) to cast his eye back with me to those manifold impossibilities before mentioned, and by themselves acknowledged, even in this very business concerning the Sacrament. Whereby it may appear, that they make use of it only to serve their own turns, urging it then when it may stead them, and denying it then when it doth not. To recite again someone or two of them only, adding one or two more to them Luther's opinion (saith Bellarmine) cannot be true: because it is no way possible that one thing should not be changed, and yet should become another. And It is impossible (saith Lanfranck) that one thing should be turned into another, and not cease to be, so far forth as it is converted. It is impossible (saith this Defendant, that cannot endure here to hear of any impossibility) That a man should be a Rock, or a Uine. And It is impossible (saith Bellarmine) that bread should be Christ's body. It is not possible (saith Maironis) that one should be in two times at once. (And is it not as impossible then, for one to be in two places at once?) And it is impossible that one single effect should have diverse total causes: and impossible therefore that one and the same accident should be in diverse subjects. (And why not as impossible for one subject to have diverse accidents, as diverse seats, sites, qualities, and quantities at once? which Christsbody must needs have, i • it be with us in the Eucharist.) It is impossible (saith Durand) that one and the same thing should move two contrary ways at once. And It is impossible (saith Aquinas) that the same body should by local motion arrive in diverse several places at once. And It is impossible that one and the self same thing should both rest and stir at once. And yet should Christ's body, if it were in the Host, or if it were the very Host rather, do all this, when at the same time it both resteth in the Pyx in one place, and goeth in Procession in another place, and is in diverse processions, or on sundry several occasions carried contrary ways to several persons and places at the same instant. No more therefore do we curb or restrain God's • mnip • tency, when we deny that a body can be by any means in two distant places at once, then they do, when they deny a possibility of the things before spoken. And for the reason of our denial, let them hear be side Durands, Aquinas his confession. For one body (saith he) to be locally in two places at once, it implieth a contradiction: and therefore cannot a body be in two places at once; no not by miracle neither: For those things that imply contradiction God cannot do. God therefore cannot make a body to be locally in two places at once. The very self same saith Aegidius too: and Amolynus on him; that although a thousand miracles were wrought, nothing could be effected that implieth a contradiction; as this doth.

CErtainely the holy Fathers doubted not to affirm that Christ left his body here on earth, and yet assumed with him the same body into heaven; he held his body in his own hands at his last Supper, and distributed it severally to his Apostles; as hath been already out of S. Chrysostom, S. Augustine, and other holy Fathers formerly by me alle • dged. Insomuch as Melancthon one of the main pillars of Protestant Religion, understood the opinion of the holy Fathers so well in this point, and attributed so much withal to God's omnipotency, as he writeth thus of this very Argument. I had rather offer myself to death then to affirm as Zwinglians do, that Christ's body cannot be but in one place at once. And S. Augustine (as Bellarmine proveth) was so far from denying this to the body of Christ, as he doubted whether the holy Martyrs may not be at the self same time in several Churches and Memories erected of them; albeit naturally no spirit nor body can be more then in one place, or remain without some certain place of being: which latter is in the places ciced by this Minister out of him only affirmed. And if a perfect substance or nature (as was the humanity of Christ) could want the natural personality and subsistence thereof, supplied by the divine person and hypostasis of the Son of God (as our Christian faith teacheth us) why cannot in like manner by God's omnipotency the accidents of bread and wine remain without actual inhering and being in their natural subject?

His other Arguments page 15. are drops of an afterstorme, and objections gathered out of S. Augustine, which do only prove that Christ is not visibly but in heaven; not denying his sacramental being in many places; as this Minister would have him. And surely our Savior himself in the 6. Chapter of S. John, verse 61. solueth this very objection (as S. Chrysostom understandeth him) when perceiving that his Disciples murmared at his promise of giving his flesh for meat, &c. he said to them, Doth this scandalize you? If then you shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was before, &c. As if he had said; Are you scandalised that I said being now present with you, I will give my flesh for food? what then will you do, or how far will▪ you be from believing that I canso give you my flesh, when I •… ll ascend to heaven and be absent so far from you?

§ 2. THe places of the Fathers here pointed at, were before answered, where by him they were a • large alleged. And howsoever Augustine spake modestly (after his manner) of a difficult Question, not daring peremptorily to determine by what means that was effected, that by diverse other means might be: yet in his books against Fa • stus the Manichie he saith expressly and peremptorily, that Christ in regard of his bodily presence could not be at once in the Sun and in the Moon, and upon the Cross also: as they absurdly imagined and maintained that he was. And again in his Comment aries on the Gospel of S. John; not (as Bellarmine corruptly citeth him, as he doth also many others) that Christ's body in which he rose again, M AY be; but (as Peter Lombard, and other of their own Authors acknowledge him to say) that it MVST be in one place; howsoever his verity (that is, his Deity) be everywhere. Yea discusing the question at large in one of his Epistles, and having concluded the Negative, he saith that they take away the truth of his body, that maintain it to be in many places at once: Whereas though immortality be conferred on it, yet nature is not taken from it. To which purpose he disputeth much of the nature of a true body, and delivereth those things, which I press out of him: all which together with the testimonies of other of the Ancients this superficial Answerer passeth over with sad silence; only boldly and b • asen facedly avouching that all that is alleged out of Augustine proveth nothing but this, that Christ is not visibly but in Heaven. Did he think that his Reader would not cast an eye on them, whem they were verbatim set down before him?

§ 3. Yea but our Savior himself (he saith) solveth this Objection, John 6. 61. as Chrysostom understandeth him, when he saith, Doth this scandalize you? What if you shall see the Son of Man ascending where he was before, &c? as if he had said; Are you scandalized because I said being now, present with you, I will give my flesh for food? What then will you do, or how far will you be from believing that I can so give you my flesh when I shall ascend to heaven, and be so far above from you?

1. Where Chrysostom thus expoundeth the place, I know not. Upon the place (I am sure) he hath nothing but this, that Christ by these words did intimate to them his Deity. Yea so Jansen also saith, that Chrysostom understandeth these words as spoken to assure them that he came down from heaven. The truth is; this exposition it not Chrysostom's, but Bellarmine's, (from whom this Collector hath filched it) who yet to add some grace and procure some weight to an invention of his own, saith that ^c Chrysostom to him seemeth to point at some such thing. And what Bellarmine saith cautelously, and timorously, Chrysostom to him seemeth to point at; that this blind bayard saith boldly and confidently, that Chrysostom saith; and upon the Exposition as backed now sufficiently with Chrysostom, he buildeth a peremptory answer to all mine Objections, that will easily remove them all. Did this man think that these things would ever be examined? Or is his credit so mean already that he need not fear to be discredited, that he dare use such sorry shifts as these are?

2. Grant all to be Chrysostom's, and all to be as true, as if not Chrysostom, but Christ himself had said it: what will thence be concluded to prove that Christ's body may be in many places at once? But since he hath cited this place, though to small purpose; let him hear Augustine's words on it, going directly agaiust them, and these absurd fantasies of theirs. Christ (saith he) doth in▪ these words solue that that moved them: and openeth that whereas they were jcandalized. For they thought that he would give them out his body: but he told them that be should g • e up whole into heaven. As if he had said, When you shall see the Son of Man ascend where he was before▪ certainly then you shall see, that he doth not give out his body in such a manner as you imagine: Certainly even then you shall understand, that his grace is not consumed by bits. And to Augustine addewe Athanasius one as ancient as the Nicene Council and a principal person in it Christ disputing (saith he) of the eating of his body, and seeing many thereupon scandalized, thus spake; Doth this scandalize you? What then if you shall see the Son of Man ascend where before he was? It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak are spinit and life. For here he spake of both, both his flesh and his spirit, and distinguished the spirit from the flesh, that believing not only that that appeared to the eyes, but that also that was invisible, they might learn that those things also that he spake were not carnal, but spiritual. For to how many men could his body have sufficed to eat of? that it might be the foodalso of the whole world. But therefore made he▪ mention of his ascension into heaven, that he might withdraw them form the corporal understanding; and that then they might understand that his flesh which he spake of was heavenly meat from above, and spiritual food to be given by him. For, saith he, Those things which I have spoken to you are spirit and life. Which is even all one as if he had said; My body that is shown and given, shall be given to be meat for the whole world, that it may spiritually be distributed to each one, and become to each one a safeguard and preservative for resurrection to life eternal. So little doth this place avail for this purpose, as the Ancients both Latin and Greek expound it: making much rather against them & this popish doctrine of a carnal feeding on Christ's flesh; which those Fathers gather and prove thence to be wholly spiritual. But thus judicious is he in the choice of his allegations; and so sincere in his citations of the Ancients, putting down their names only, but pointing to no place, that his fraud and forgeries may not be discovered; and fastening upon them his own, or his own associates expositions, wholly differing and dissenting from that that themselves say.

MOreouer it is a wild kind of arguing from the natural and local extension of bodies to infer (as my Adversary doth page 16.) that by no possible power of God anybody can want this local extension; this being a secondary effect of quantity, and an accidental propriety, which God may therefore easily hinder, and conserve without it bodily substance; as our Savior himself insinuateth in the Gospel; affirming for a thing possible with God, to make a great Camel to pass through the eye of a needle; by taking (to wit) from it exterior bigness and local extension. Of which Camel so extenuated and straitened in place all the very same may be proportionably affirmed, which this Minister accounteth so absurd, by us held of Christ's body in the Sacrament. And supposing truly that the body of Christ hath no extension in place, it is ridiculous for this ignorant Minister to make such inferences; as that any part of Christ's body must be as great and greater then his whole body; and his whole body less then any part of it. For if neither the whole nor any part thereof, as it is in the Sacrament hath any exterior bigness at all, how can one part be said to be bigger then the whole? as of two black things a man should say, one was whiter then the other, when neither had any whiteness at all in them.

§ 4. TO the recit • ll of their absurd assertions, that there is a whole Christ, flesh, blood, and bone, head, hands and feet, belly, breast and back, in every little wafercake, and every least crumb of each; and consequently, the whole body of Christ on earth less then the least limb or fingers end of it in heaven: as also to the allegations out of Augustine that this cannot be; for that in every true body, the parts cannot be altogether, but must have their due distance, and each of them his space or place according to his bigness; and none of them can be bigger then the whole: He maketh answer, that this is but a wild kind of reasoning: (and yet it is Augustine that so reasoneth, whom he might have been pleased to use with better terms:) telleth us what our Savior saith of a Camel passing thorough a needles ey: as if what were spoken there by our Savior of the one did relieve the absurdity of the other: (which no whit it doth, being only an hyperbolical speech, used to set forth the impossibility with man, of such a rich man's salvation as he there speaketh of:) and informeth this ignorant Minister, that neither the whole body of Christ nor any part of it, as it is in the Sacrament, hath any exterior bigness at all.

1. Did any man ever before hear of a body without bigness? or a co • pus non quantum, without those dimensions that are so inseperable from a body, that the very same name is given unto either, and we have no particular name either in Greek or Latin to express the one by, but that which is the usual appellation of the other? But a number of such absurd dreams and dotages doth this prodigious doctrine produce. Accidents without subjects: Bodies without bigness: Parts bigger then the whole: The whole less then the least part: A grown man's entire body with all limbs and toynts of it, couched and cooped up in a thin wafer-cake and in every crumb of it. The same body that is entire in heaven still, in a thousand places entire too at the same time here on earth; and yet never stir an inch from the place that in heaven it still holdeth. These are magical mysteries indeed, which it is no marvel if this ignorant Minister cannot conceive.

2 Yea but our Saviors words of a Camel passing through a needles eye, showeth that a body may be freed from it exterior bigness and local extension: that is as much as if he had said, they show that a body may become nobody, and yet be a body still. The speech is hyperbolical: and no more proveth a possibility of the thing therein spoken, (as Piscator well observeth answering Bellarmine, from whom he here hath it) then of many other things, spoken commonly in speeches of the like kind. Quantitie (saith Bonaventure) is of the verity of a body: and a true body consequently cannot be without it. And though it were granted that some substance might be without quantity, yet it cannot be that any quick or organical body (such as a Camels is, and such as he granteth Christ's to be) should be without it. Yea and therefore also not the verity only (as this fellow would have it) but the quantity also (as Bonaventure auoweth, and this fellow denieth) that is, the exterior bigness of Christ's body must needs be with it in the Sacrament, if it be at all there.

3. To conclude this wild discourse indeed, because we are in it compelled to follow one that turneth round till he be giddy again: when we reason thus from the nature and property of a true body to be but in one place; we reason no otherwise (howsoever he esteem it a wild kind of reasoning) then wise and learned men, yea Angels too, have taught us to reason. For as the Angel reasoneth with the nomen that came to seek Christ in the Sepulcher; He is not here; for he is risen again: which were no good Argument, if his body might have been in two places at once: So the ancient Fathers also reason in their disputes against Heretics, where it stood them upon to speak warily, and not to argue wildly, as this giddy brains termeth it. Christ's body (saith Theodoret) albeit it be now glorified, yet is a body still, and hath the same circumscriptiō that before it had Which (as the Angels teach) shall come in the same manner as it was seen go to heaven. But they saw it then circumscribed. Yea our Lord himself saith, You shall see the Son of Man come in the clouds. But that nature cannot be seen, that is not circumscribed. He showeth then that his body is circumscribed. It is not therefore changed into another nature, but it remaineth still a true body, though filled with divine glory. So Fulgentius, One and the same Christ (saith he) is both local man of man, and God infinite of his Father. One and the same according to his human nature absent from heaven, when he was here upon earth, and leaving the earth when he went up into heaven: but according to his divine and infinite nature, neither leaving heaven, when he came down from heaven; nor forsaking the earth, when he went up into heaven. Which may most certainly be gathered from his own words, who to show that his humanity was local, said, I go up to my Father, &c. Now how went he up into heaven, but because he was local and true man? Or how is he yet present with his faithful ones, but that he is infinite and true God? And Uigilius most evidently against Eutyches (to pass by all other places, which are more then one in him) If the Word (saith he) and the Flesh were both of one nature, how should not the flesh be everywhere as well as the word? For when it (to wit, Christ's flesh, or his body, his humanity) was on earth, it was not in heaven; and now because it is in heaven, it is not on earth: for that according to it we expect Christ to come from heaven, whom according to the Word (that is, his Deity) we believe to be with us on earth. It is apparent therefore that the same Christ is of a twofold nature, and is everywhere indeed according to the nature of his diviniti • ; but is contained in a place according to the nature of his humanity. And he concludeth his discourse thus; This is the Catholic Faith and Confession, which the Apostles have delivered, Martyrs have confirmed, and the faithful keep to this day. And if this be so, then sure the Popish doctrine that affirmeth the clean contrary to it, is not.