The Anatomy of the Mass

And in the XI §.

If Christ must be heard alone, we ought not to regard what others before us have thought fitting to be done, but what Christ, who is before all, hath done first. For we must not follow the custom of man, but the will of God.

CHAP. I.

T He Institution of the holy Supper by Christ Jesus, as it is contained in the first Epistle of the Apostle Saint Paul to the Corinthians Chap. 11.

23 I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you; that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread;

24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it and said, Take, eat: This is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

25 After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood: This do ye as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come.

27 Wherefore, whosoever shall eat thi • bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body an • blood of the Lord.

28 Let a man therefore examine himself, and so let him ea • e of that bread, an • drink of that cup.

29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnatio • to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.

CHAP. II. Four and thirty contrarieties between the Lord's holy Supper and the Mass; and how far the Church of Rome is departed from the Institution of the Lord.

NOne can deny but that our Lord Jesus did institute the holy Supper aright and as it ought: And it were an impiety to find fault with his institution. Therefore the shortest way, yea the only means to end all our differences, would be to come back to Christ's institution, and to speak as he spake, and to do as he did. That is the thing which we desire and beg with so much earnestness, and whereunto the Church of Rome can by no means agree. For the Council of Trent in the XXII Session denounceth Anathema on all those that shall say that in the Canon of the Mass there is any error. Yet nevertheless it is evident that the Mass is nothing else but a changing and a disfiguring of the Lord's Institution. Whereof we will give some examples.

1. Christ instituting the holy Supper among his Disciples, spake in a known and intelligible tongue to the assistants. On the contrary, the Priest in the Mass speaketh in a tongue which the people understand not.

2. Christ presenting the Cup to his Disciples, said, Drink ye all of it. And S ^t . Paul in the 1 to the Cor. Chap. 11. verse. 28. bids the people of Corinth to drink of the cup, saying, Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. And in the 10. Chap. 17. Verse, We are all partakers of one bread, and of one cup: according to the Version of the Roman Church, solely authorised by the Council of Trent.

3. Christ in celebrating the Eucharist, spake not of sacrificing his body, and made no offering unto God his Father. On the contrary, the Priest in the Mass pretends to sacrifice Christ's body, and offereth him up to God in sacrifice propitiatory for the quick and for the dead, without a warrant, and without God's command.

4. Christ in the holy Supper made no elevation of the host, as likewise the Apostle worshipped not the Sacrament, but sat still at the Table. On the contrary, the Priest in the Mass lifts up the host, and maketh the people to worship it.

5. Christ did not cause any bones nor relics of Saints to be put under the sacred table, and did not ask of God the remission of sins through the merits of those Saints whose relics were under the table. On the contrary, the Priest in the Mass, kissing the Altar, speaks thus to God, We pray thee, Lord, through the merits of thy Saints, whose relics are here, that thou wilt vouchsafe to pardon me all my sins.

6. Christ said to his Apostles, Take, eat. On the contrary, in the Roman Church, a great number of private Masses are said, at the intention of such as pay for them, without communicants and without assistants, in which the Priest saith, Take, eat: but there is nobody either for to take or for to eat. Yea even in public Masses, the Priest oftentimes eateth and drinketh alone.

7. Three Evangelists, viz. S. Matth. in the 26 chapter, S. Mark in the 14. Chap. and S. Luke in the 22. and S. Paul in the eleventh chapter of the first to the Corinthians, testify that Christ gave bread to his Disciples, saying, He took bread, and brake it, and gave it. Now the Sacrament is not given but after the consecration. Christ therefore gave bread after the consecration. And Saint Paul, 1 to the Corinth. Chap. 11. Verse 26.27. and 28. saith three several times that we eat bread. And in the 10 Chap. Verse 16. he saith that we break bread. And in the 20 Chap. of the Acts, Verse 7. it is said that the Disciples came together to break bread. On the contrary, the Church of Rome teacheth, that in the Eucharist no bread is eaten, and that the bread is not broken: but that which the Priest breaks in the Mass, is the body of Christ, which nevertheless cannot be broken.

8. Christ giving that bread, said, This is my body, declaring that the bread that he gave, was his body. On the contrary, the Roman Church teacheth that the bread is not the body of Christ: But that the bread is no more bread: and that it is transubstantiated into Christ's body, Now how the bread is Christ's body, himself teaches it, when he adds that it is his commemoration. Even as in the next line following he saith that the Cup is the New Testament, because it is the sign and commemoration of it: according to the style of the Scripture, that giveth to the signs and memorials the name of the thing which they do signify and represent.

9. Christ called that which was in the cup the fruit of the Vine, saying, I will drink no more of this fruit of the Vine. On the contrary, the Church of Rome teacheth that that which is in the cup, is not the fruit of the Vine, but blood. And saith that in the Cup is not only the very blood of Christ, but also that his Body, and his Soul and his Divinity is there: and that the Body is whole in every drop of the Chalice. Whereupon it followeth (and the Roman Church believes it so) that Christ drank his flesh, and swallowed down his own soul and body, and ate himself, and had his head in his mouth.

10. The Evangelists do record that Christ having taken bread, blessed it. But according to the Church of Rome's doctrine, which abolisheth the substance of the bread in the Eucharist, Christ did not bless the bread; for, to destroy a thing and reduce it to naught, is not to bless it.

11. Christ distributing the bread and breaking it, spake in the present tense, saying, This is my body which is broken for you. Whereby it appeareth that by his body, he meant the Sacrament or commemoration of his body. For Christ's natural body cannot be broken. To shun the force of this argument, the Latin Version of the Roman Church hath corrupted this place, and instead of these words, Which is broken for you, hath turned Which shall be delivered for you, putting delivering for breaking, and the future for the present. And indeed our Adversaries are mightily pestered to tell us what it is that the Priest breaketh in the Mass. Doth he break bread? But they say that it is no more bread. Doth he break Christ's body? But it cannot be broken, and they themselves say that it is whole and entire in the least crumb of the host, as big and as large as it was upon the cross. Doth he break the Accidents of bread which most fraudulously they call species, viz. the taste, the color, and roundness of the host? But these things cannot be broken. Can a man make pieces of taste, or of whiteness? None but bodies can be broken.

12. The Apostle Saint Paul conforming himself to the Lord's institution, saith in the 10 chapter of the 1 • to the Corinthians, 16 Verse, that the bread which we break, is the communion of the body of Christ. The Church of Rome gain says and contradicteth every word of this sentence. The Apostle saith that it is bread. The Church of Rome on the contrary saith that it is not bread. The Apostle saith that it is bread which we break. On the contrary, the Church of Rome saith, that it is flesh which we do not break. The Apostle saith that this bread is the communion of the body of Christ. On the contrary, the Church of of Rome saith, that this bread is Christ's body it self. Behold then a clear and a plain exposition of these words, This is my body: given by the Apostle, to wit, The bread which I break, is the communion of my body, and not that which the Church of Rome giveth, viz. That which is under these species, is transubstantiated into my body.

13. It is very considerable that the same Apostle, in the same chapter and 21 verse, maketh an opposition between the Lord's table and the table of devils, saving, Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of Devils. The reason of the opposition showeth plainly, that as to be partaker of the table of Devils, is not to eat Devils : So to be partaker of Christ's Table, is not to ea • Christ, but to be partaker of the mea • consecrated by Christ, in remembrane of Christ and of his death.

14. Christ in distributing the brea • and the cup, said, Do this in remembran •• of me. These words show manifestly tha • the Priest maketh not Christ in the Mass, and sacrificeth him not. For it is impossible to make Christ in remembrance of Christ. It is impossible to sacrifice Christ in remembrance of Christ. Can a man build a house in remembrance of that house? Did Aaron sacrifice a Lamb in remembrance of that Lamb? Besides that the remembrance is but of things absent and past, as Saint Austin saith upon the 37 Psalm, Nemo recordatur nisi quod in praesentia non est positum: No remembrance can be had but of things that are not present. The council of Trent declareth indeed that Christ by these words, Do this, commanded that he should be sacrificed in the Mass: But besides that Christ cannot be sacrificed in remembrance of Christ, the Apostle Saint Paul presently after these words, Do this in remembrance of me, addeth the explication, saying, For as often as ye eat of this bread, and drink of this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Will we therefore know what is to Do this? Saint Paul teacheth us that it is to eat this bread and drink of this cup, for to show and declare the remembrance of Christ his death.

15. Our Lord Jesus brake the bread before he pronounced the words which they call the words of consecration. He took the bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it, saying, This is my body which is broken for you. Whereby it followeth by the doctrine of the Roman Church, that he brake bread unconsecrated and untransubstantiated. On the contrary, in the Roman Church the Priest breaks the host after the words of consecration: to the end the people may believe that he breaketh and sacrificeth the very body of Christ. Our adversaries then confess that the Priest breaketh another thing than Christ brake.

Some, for to arm themselves against the Apostle, which saith that the bread that we break, is the communion of the body of Christ, tell us that Saint Paul saith that we break bread, because that when he did minister this holy Sacrament, he did break afore he consecrated, following Christ's example, and consequentl • did break unconsecrated bread. Br •• those that speak so, contradict the R • man Church, which doth not belee •• that the fraction of the unconsecrated bread, is the communion of the body of Christ.

16. The same Apostle, 1. Cor. 11.28. saith, Let a man examine himself, and s • let him eat OF this bread: Which is the same kind of speech used by Christ, saying Bibite ex eo omnes, Drink ye all OF it. The Apostle commands us to eat OF this bread: that is to say, to take everyone his part and portion of it: and Christ saying Drink ye all of it, bids the Communicants to take their share of the cup. This manner of speaking is become absurd in the Roman Church, who by this bread, understand Christ himself. For they would esteem that man to be mad, or a mocker, that should say that we eat everyone his portion of Christ body.

17. Christ presenting the cup to his Disciples, said in the present tense that it was his blood which is shed for many. Where manifestly he speaketh of a Sacramental, and not of a real effusion. For our adversaries confess that in the Mass the blood of Christ is not shed out of the body, and goeth not out of the Veines. He therefore speaketh of a Sacramental effusion, which is respective to the real effusion made upon the cross. We ask then, whether the Priest in the Mass drinketh that blood of Christ which came out of his side and wounds upon the cross. If they answer that the Priest drinks not that blood of the Lord which issued forth of his body upon the cross, but that blood which remained in the body, and is there still: thereby they confess that the Priest drinks not the same blood which Christ will have us to drink. For he commands us expressly to drink the blood shed for us. But if they answer, that the Priest drinketh the same blood which the Lord shed upon the cross, then they presuppose rashly, and without word of God, that that blood which came out of the Lord's body, is gotten in again. All this abuse comes for lack of considering that in the holy Supper, Christ's body is represented unto us, and presented to our faith, as suffering, and broken, and dying, and dead for us, and his blood as shed and issued out of his body. Whereas on the contrary, the Roman Church hath a conceit, that she receive the spiritual & glorious body of Christ and his blood enclosed within the body and within the veins.

18. The Apostle Saint Paul, 1. Cor. 1 • And Saint Luke chap. 22. record th • Christ said, This cup is the New Testame • in my blood. If by this word of cup th • blood must be understood, the sense 〈◊〉 these words shall be, This blood is th • New Testament in my blood. By that means, loe here two kinds of blood of Christ, whereof the one shall be within the other.

19. Christ in celebrating the holy Supper, said, Do this in remembrance of me. And Saint Paul hath told us here above, that in earing this bread we do show his death. On the contrary, the Priest in the Mass saith, that he celebrateth, In the first place, the remembrance of the Virgin Mary; saying, Communicantes & memoriam venerantes in primis gloriosae semperque Virginis Mariae: Communicating and solemnizing in the first place the remembrance of the glorious Virgin Mary, leaving Christ behind. As Gabriel Biell saith in the 32 Lesson of the Canon of the Mass, First and principally the remembrance is made of the most blessed Virgin Mary, because (saith he) she is the most safe sanctuary of our calamities, and hath been the administratrix and dispensatrix of this sacrifice, and all the reason of our hope.

20. In the whole institution of the Eucharist, there is no mention made of the Saints, neither is there any command to pray unto Saints: No word of the intercession of Angels. On the contrary, the Priest in the Confiteor of the Mass, prays Michael the Archangel, and John the Baptist, and all the Saints, to pray for him. There are some Masses in which the Litany is rehearsed, which is but a long chain of prayers unto Saints. In the Mass, they bless the Encense through the intercession of Michael the Archangel. The Priest asks of God, that he would be pleased to command his Angel to take the consecrated host, and to carry it up to heaven. And for an excess of abuses, at the offertory of the Mass, the Priest saith he makes that oblation in honor of the Virgin Mary and of the Saints: As if the holy Supper were instituted in honor of the creatures. That, truly, is to put the creatures above Christ. As when a man gives alms in God's honor, he presupposeth that God is more excellent than the Alme.

21. S. John in the 13 chapter, and 2 verse, witnesseth, that in the action o • the holy Supper, the Devil entered int • Judas. But our adversaries, with mos • of the Fathers, hold, that Judas was partaker of the Eucharist, with the rest o • the Disciples. They will therefore tha • both Christ and the Devil have entre • together into Judas. So they give unto Christ a very unsuitable companion; and truly, the Son of God, and the Devil, had been very ill lodged together.

22. We agree in this point with ou • adversaries, that Christ ate and drank with his Disciples, and was partaker of the holy Sacrament. He showeth it himself sufficiently, when after he had delivered the cup, he said, I will drink no more of this fruit of the Vine. Whereby it followeth, that after the doctrine of the Roman Church, Christ did eat himself, and swallowed his own body and soul, and had his whole body in his mouth, and in his stomach. By this means Christ's passable body, devoured the impassible body. Whereupon it were good to know, what Christ's body did within the body of Christ, and how Christ's soul could enter into Christ's body, seeing that it was in already. And since that that which containeth, and that which is contained, are several things, and that nothing containeth it self: by this doctrine it is evident that they make Christ to have two bodies, the one of which was contained within the other. And since that to eat ones self, is a more admirable thing than the Creation of the World, it is not credible that Christ did eat himself, without some great profit should come thereby for our salvation. Yet our adversaries produce none at all.

For to prop so extravagant a doctrine, and which exposeth the Christian Religion to laughter, our adversaries allege a place out of S. Austin upon the 33 Psal. where he saith, that in this Sacrament, Christ did carry himself in his own hands But Austin saith not only that he did carry himself in his own hands: But he saith, Ipse se portabat quodam mode cum diceret, Hoc est corpus meum: he did carry himself in a manner when he said, This is my body. So a man that carries his own picture in his hands, carries himself in a manner. Even as it would be a senseless speech to say that the Moon is the Moon in a manner: so i • that which Christ carried in his hands, was his true body, it would be a foolish thing to say that it was his body in some kind. For concerning the sense of these words, This is my body, S. Austin expounds them plainly enough in the 12 chapter against Adimantus, saying, The Lord made no difficulty to say, This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body.

23 Christ our Lord was sitting at the table, his face turned towards the Assistants. Whereas the Priest, in the Mass, standeth before an Altar, turning hi • tail to the people.

24 Christ gave to everyone of the assistants, a piece of the bread he had broken with his hands, which bread his Disciples received with their own hands As also in the ancient Church both me • and women received with their hand the Sacrament under both kinds: The contrary of all that is practiced in the Mass, in which the Priest chops into the mouths of the Communicants cound wafer unbroken. If a woman ha • touched with her hand, I do not say th • host, but only the clothes, or the patine, or the chalice, that would be thought a heinous offense, and a profanation of sacred things.

25 Our Lord Jesus instituted this Sacrament for the remission of sins, and for to show his death. But in the Roman Church they sing Masses for the easing of sick people, for preserving of the vines from a white frost, for the healing of a horse, &c. In all these the priest makes a gain. For that man at whose intention the Mass is said, is to pay for it.

26 The Apostle S. Paul 1. Cor. 11.12. calleth this Sacrament, the Lord's Supper. Whereof we find but of one sort. But the Roman Church hath invented a thousand sorts of Masses. There is the Mass of the Holy Ghost. The Mass of S. Giles. That of Linus Pope. That of S. Francis, &c. There are amongst other Masses, that of S. Catherine, and that of S. Margaret, which are Saints that never were in the World, no more than S. Ursula, S. Longis, S. Christopher, and many others, which they have placed in heaven, though they were never upon earth. Item there are Loud Masses and Lowe Masses. Great Masses and Small Masses. Dry Masses. Episcopal Masses. Masses in White, and others in Green, and others in Violet color.

27 Christ in the holy Supper made no prayer for the dead. On the contrary there is in the Mass a prayer for the dead, by which the Priest prayeth for the deceased which sleep in the sleep of peace. A thing which is to be carefully observed. For it showeth that when this prayer was added to the Mass, they did not then believe the Purgatory. For those that burn for many ages in a hot burning Fornace, sleep not peaceably.

28. Item, the confession which the Priest maketh at the Mass, in the Confiteor, is very far from the Lord's institution. For in it the Priest confesseth his sins unto God, and to the Virgin Mary, and to John the Baptist, and to Peter and Paul, and to all the Saints. None is there left out but Christ.

29. In the Mass of the Friday before Easter, they worship the image of the Cross with the highest adoration, called by them Latria, which is due to God alone, saying, Behold the wood of the Cross, Come, let us worship. There likewise is sung the Anthem which saith, We do worship thy Cross O Lord. And speaking to the Cross, Faithful Cross, the only noble among the trees, &c. That is to speak to an senseless thing, and which understandeth not.

30. Upon the Altar there be Images, as also in all places of the Churches, that are commanded to be worshipped, under the penalty of a curse, by the second council of Nice, and by the council of Constantinople, which they term the Eighth general Council, and by many Popes, and generally taught by the Jesuits.

31. Christ celebrated the holy Supper with all simplicity. But the Priests of the Roman Church, sing Mass with allegorical habits, and full of mysteries, with a thousand turns and undecent gesticulations, unbeseeming the holiness of that action. They busy the eyes of the people, because their ears are of no use unto them.

32. In the Canon of the Mass there is an evident untruth. For the Priest saith, that the Lord when he had taken the Chalice into his hands, said, This is the Chalice of my blood of the new and eternal Testament mystery of the Faith. Contrary to the testimony of the Evangelists, in which these words are not to be found. Pope Innocent in the chapter Cum Marthae de celebratione Missarum, saith, that the Church holdeth that from the Tradition. Which he will have men to believe, though it be contrary unto the Gospel.

33. All that Christ said, in celebrating this Sacrament, he pronounced it with a loud and intelligible Voice; he did not mutter in secret the words which are called the words of consecration, as the now Roman Church doth, which in this point as in many others, differs from the Greek and Eastern Churches, which pronounce the words of consecration with a loud voice. The Pope Innocent the third, in the third book of the Mysteries of the Mass, chapter first: And Durant in the fourth Book of his Rationals, Chap. 35. renders the reason of this change: To wit, that one day it came to pass that certain Shepherds having learned the words of consecration, pronounced them upon the bread of their ordinary meal, which was instantly turned into flesh; Wherewith God being angry, sent down fire from heaven that consumed them. Nevertheless, they vary in the recital of this fable, and do not tell where, and when that came to pass, neither do they bring any witness, nor do agree one with another in the relation of that story.

34. After that the Disciples of the Lord had taken the Sacrament, Christ did not command that the remainders of the bread should be locked up in a box, and kept for to be carried in pomp up and down the streets, as the Roman Church doth on Corpus Christi -day, and in its Octaves. This holy day was instituted by Pope Urbanus the fourth, in the year of our Lord 1264. as Pope Clement the fifth his successor doth testify in the third book of his Clementines. Tit. 16. where Urbans Epistle by which he did institute this holy day, is inserted, wherein he saith he was moved so to do By a Revelation made unto some Catholic persons. By which Catholic persons he meaneth a Nun of Leodium called Eva, whom he had known when he was Arch-Deacon of the same place. This woman said that God had revealed unto her that he did not like well that every Saint had his holy day, and he none. Nevertheless, this feast had been extinguished, if Clement the fifth had not instituted it again some Forty years after.

CHAP. III. How the change in the Lord's institution, hath changed the nature of the Sacrament. And that in the Mass there is no consecration.

THis change, and so horrible a depravation of the institution of the Lord, hath wholly abolished the nature of the Sacrament. For Sacraments are sacred signs. Not only the Ancient, but also all the Doctors of the Roman Church do define the Sacrament after that manner, saying that Sacramentum est sacrum signum. So in Baptism, water is the sign, and Christ's blood is the thing signified. And in the holy Supper, the bread and the wine are the signs, but the body and blood of Christ are the things signified. Even therefore, as if the water were taken away from Baptism, it would be no more a Sacrament nor Baptism: so the Eucharist in the Roman Church is no more a Sacrament, since the signs, to wit the bread and wine are abolished: instead of which they put Christ's natural body and blood, which they call the Sacrament. Wherefore the Council of Trent ordaineth that the Sacrament be worshipped. By this means Christ in the Mass is the figure and the sign of himself, as Bellarmine with the rest teacheth: as if one should say that a man is the picture of himself.

Moreover, the Sacraments are not instituted for to make Christ come down to us, but to lift up our hearts to him. Nor for to eat Christ with our teeth, but to feed our souls and strengthen our faith.

Again, by Transubstantiation the consecration of the Sacrament is destroyed: and there is nothing in the Mass that is consecrated. The bread is not consecrated: for they hold that the bread is no more bread. Christ's body is not consecrated; for Christ cannot be consecrated by men. Neither can the accidents of bread and wine be consecrated. For lines, colors, and taste, are not the offering which is pretended to be offered unto God. Therefore there being nothing consecrated, there is no consecration: and there being no consecration, there is no Sacrament.

CHAP. IV. That by altering the Lord's Institution, the Roman Church hath changed the nature of Christ.

THis change is gone so far, that Christ's human nature, by Transubstantiation, is wholly destroyed and abolished. For the Scripture speaking of Christ's human nature, saith, that he is like unto us in all things, sin excepted. But the Roman Church gives unto Christ a body that is nothing like ours. Whence followeth, that he is no more our brother: so that all the glory of the faithful which consisteth in having a brother who is the eternal Son of God, is altogether abolished.

For the Church of Rome forgeth unto Christ a body, which is in many several places at one and the same time: which is in Heaven and upon several Altars, but not in the space that is between. From whence followeth, that Christ's body is separated from it self, and far from it self, and higher and ower than it self. There is no less aburdity in willing that an human body • e at the same time in several remote places, than to will that a man, in one and the self same moment, be in two several years, and so be young and old at once, and out-live himself.

The same doctrine giveth unto Christ an human body, which is whole in every crumb of the Hoste, and hath his head and his feet in one and the self same place, and both his eyes under one point. Can a man say that a body whose parts are not one out of the other, and differ not in situation, and which taketh and filleth no place, and is more spiritual than the very spirits themselves, is a true human body? And for that cause the priests of the Roman Church shave or keep short the beard of their upper lips. For that Church believeth that if a Priest should dip his mustachoe in the chalice, the whole body of Christ would remain hanged at every hair thereof.

The same doctrine forgeth unto Christ two bodies of a contrary nature, and unto which are attributed contradictory things. For the body of Christ which was at the table celebrating the Eucharist, did speak and stir his hands: But he that was in the mouths and stoma •• of the Apostles, neither spake not sti •• his hands. The soul of Christ as he at the table, was in anguish: but t •• which was in the Apostles mouth, su •• red no grief. Christ after he was ri •• from the table & entered into the gard •• did sweat great drops of blood: but that was in the Apostles stomachs, did 〈◊〉 sweat drops of blood. Which of th • two is our Savior's? Or if it be the sat Christ, how is he contrary to himself?

Furthermore, by this doctrine, 〈◊〉 whole history of Christ's life is made •• diculous, and turned into a fable. F •• if Christ's body may be in several remo •• places at once, it may be said that while •• he was in the Virgins womb, peradventure he was in other wombs: And th • whilst he was upon the Cross, he walked in Spain. From thence also followeth, that all the journeys that Chris • made to and fro, going and commin • from Galilea to Judea, were to no purpose. For why did he go from Galilea to Judea, if he might be in both places at one & the same time, and be found it Judea, without budging from Galilea?

What? (say they) is not God omnipotent for to do this? I answer that God without question could do all these things if he would. But I say, It is impossible that God should will such things. For he is no liar, and cannot contradict himself. But it were to contradict himself, if he would that at one and the same time a man should speak and not speak, stir and not stir, suffer and not suffer, and be far and remote, and divided from himself. He will have Christ's body to be a true human body. God will not have a thing so absurd and contradictory, whereby they will that in the Hoste there be accidents without a subject, and (as Pope Innocent the third teacheth) that there be in the host greatness and nothing great, color and nothing coloured. As if one should suppose an eclipse of the Sun without a Sun, a halting of a leg and no leg, a sickness without a sick-man. Besides, the omnipotency of God is not the rule of our faith, but his Will. By that means, a man might maintain all the fables of the Alcoran, saying that God is powerful so to do. Joyne to this, that God doth nothing but wisely. Therefore he will never have Christ to be subject to sinful men, now that he is glorified, and be exposed to 〈◊〉 disgraces and ignominy which th • make him suffer every day, whereof sh •• be spoken hereafter.

CHAP. V. Of Maldonats audaciousness 〈◊〉 giving Saint Paul and Sai • Luke the lie: and in correcti •• Saint Matthew & Saint Mar • And touching the fruit of th • Vine.

OF all the words which the Lo •• used in the Institution of the E • charist, none gaule and vex our Adversaries more, than those which he pronounced in delivering the cup, saying This Cup is the New Testament: and thos • by which he calleth that which was i • the cup, the fruit of the Vine. For they are forced (as we shall see hereafter • to acknowledge in these words, Th •• Cup is the New Testament, a figure like unto that which is in these words, This is my Body: and confess that it is the sign and remembrance of it. Besides that to presuppose that Christ called his blood the fruit of the Vine, is out of all likelihood.

Against these words of the Lord, This Cup is the New Testament, related by Saint Luke and Saint Paul, Maldonado the Jesuit is mad and furious, and stirred up with an audaciousness full of impiety, and speaketh of these two organs of God's Spirit, as of two liars that have not related the Lord's words according to the truth: And will have men to give credit to the testimony of Saint Matthew, which saith This is my blood: and not to the words of Saint Luke and Saint Paul which witness that the Lord said, This cup is the New Testament. Here be his words upon the 28 Verse of the 26 chapter of Saint Matthew: There needs not many words. I deny that Christ said these words: For seeing that Matthew which was present, and Mark that had learned it of Matthew, writ that Christ gave his blood in these words, This is my blood of the New Testament, it is reasonable to believe that Christ did rather use the words of Matthew and Mark, than those of Luke and Paul. And a little after, maintaining that Christ's inten •• was to give his own blood, he speaketh of Saint Luke and of Saint Paul as no having well conceived Christ's meaning saying, Luke and Paul seem to speak • such sort, as if Christ had chiefly aimed: this, viz. to declare that he gave the No Testament rather than his blood. And little after; Though we should fain an • suppose that Christ spake as it is written i • Luke and Paul, &c.

Truly this presumption is intolerable, to dare contradict thus an Evangelist and an Apostle, Luke and Pau • saying, I deny that Christ spake these word • And to make himself a Judge of the fidelity of the Apostles, saying, this ma • is more credible than that man, an • deem that for to excuse Saint Luke an • Saint Paul, one must fain and presuppose that which is not.

Every man that hath any remnant o • modesty and fear of God, shall rathe • believe that all the Evangelists and Apostles are to be believed alike, and that all have spoken the truth. For i • we believe that they have reported some • thing falsely, all the rest of the Scripture becometh suspect and uncertain And though we should grant that Saint Luke and Saint Paul have brought some alteration in the words of the Lord, yet were we bound to believe that they were moved by the holy Spirit to speak after that manner, for to clear and illustrate Christ's words, and turn the minds of men from gross thoughts, and take away from the spirit of error the occasion of forging a Transubstantiation.

This Jesuit having thus abused Saint Paul and Saint Luke, a little after, upon these words I will drink no more of this fruit of the Vine, cleaveth to Saint Luke his side against Saint Mark and Saint Matthew, and will have Christ to have said these words, I will drink no more of this fruit of the Vine, of the cup of the Passover, against the testimony of Matthew and Mark, who report that Christ said these words upon the cup of the holy Supper. Wherein indeed he maketh Christ a liar. For after the Paschal cup, he drank the cup of the Eucharist, wherein there was wine. The Lord had spoken against the truth, if in drinking in the cup of the Paschal Lamb, he had said he would drink wine no more, seeing he drank of it a little after. Add to this that Saint Matthew and Saint Mark make not any mention of the Paschal cup: and consequently call not the fruit of the Vine that which was in a cup whereof they spake not.

In this, Maldonado hath the Antiquity, Popes, Councils, and the Jesuits themselves against him, which maintain that these words I will drink no more of this fruit of the Vine, ought to be understood of the cup of the holy Supper. Saint Cyprian in the 63 Epistle, The Lord said, I say unto you, I will drink no more henceforth of this creature of the Vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Fathers Kingdom. Wherein we find that it was a mingled cup which the Lord offered, and that which he called his blood was wine.

The Council of Wormes in the fourth chapter. It was wine in the mystery of our redemption, when the Lord said, I will drink • no more of the fruit of the Vine.

Pope Innocent the third, in the fourth book of the Mysteries of the Mass, Chapter 27. Now that it was wine which Christ consecrated in the Chalice, it appeareth by that which he addeth, I will drink no more of the fruit of this Vine.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent, in the Chapter of the Sacrament of the Eucharist: The Catholic Churc • hath always taught, that our Savior used Wine in the institution of this Sacrament, seeing that himself said, I will drink no more of this fruit of the Vine.

Salmeron the Jesuit, in the IX Tome in the fourteenth Treatise, holdeth the same; and the Jesuit Vasquez upon the third part of Thomas, Tome III. in the Dispute 196 chap. 4. I think Christ said these words, I will drink no more of this fruit of the Vine, of the chalice of his blood, and proveth his saying by the Fathers.

CHAP. VI. How much Christ is dishonored by this Doctrine. And of the character indelible: And of the power of creating ones Creator.

THe very cauteles of the Mass do sufficiently discover the abuse, and maketh every man that loveth Christ shake with horror: At the end of the old editions of the Roman Decree, are added many penitential Canons, whereof the nine and thirtieth is such: When a mouse eateth or gnaweth the body of Christ, for the penance in this case, look • for the second distinction of the Consecration, towards the end.

In the new Mass-Book reviewed and amended by the Popes authority, there is in the beginning a treatise of the defects that happen in the Mass, where these rules are found in the third chapter: If the consecrated host vanish away by some accident, as if it be carried away with the wind or by some miracle: or eaten up by some beast, and cannot be found, then let another be consecrated, beginning again about the place of the Mass, Qui pridie, &c. And in the tenth chapter: If a Flye or Spider fall into the chalice, and that the Priests Stomack rise not against, and fear not any danger thereby, let him swallow the Flye or Spider with the blood. And in the same Chapter: If in winter the blood do freeze in the chalice, let the chalice be wrapped up in ho • clothes. Note these words, If the blood do freeze. Whilest Christ is full of glory in heaven, they thaw him here upon earth. Let them tell us what body or what substance is frozen in the chalice: For all Ice is a body.

But above all is to be noted, that which is found in the same Chapter: If the Priest vomit up the Eucharist, and that the species appear whole, they must be chewd again with reverence: unless the stomach should loath them. For then the consecrated species must be carefully severed, and put into a sacred place, and after that be cast into the reliquary or shrine wherein relics are kept.

Pope Innocent the third in the fourth Book of the Mysteries of the Mass, Chapter 16, moveth a very important question. He asketh that if a flux or looseness takes a Priest that hath nothing in his stomach but consecrated hosts, what is the matter that comes out of his body? Of which difficulty the Pope rids himself wisely, saying with the Apostle: Be not wiser than it behooveth, but be wise unto sobriety.

By these things it appeareth that God, stirred up with anger against men that have rejected his word, hath stricken them with giddines. For who would ever have thought that Christian men would have come to that point as to worship a God which may be stolen, or carried away with the wind, so that one may say God is lost. A God that may be gnawed by mice, and devoured by brute beasts. A God that is wrapped in the midst of vomiting and spuing, and that must be eaten and chewed again. A God who being fallen down cannot rise up again: Of whom their Doctors say, that under the host he cannot open his eyes, nor stir his hands: and that he is neither lieing, sitting, nor standing.

Our Adversaries do answer that when Mice have gnawed or carried away the consecrated host, or that a beast hath devoured it, Christ suffereth no pain nor hurt thereby. But they cannot deny but that Christ there by is exposed to laughter, and suffers a greater ignominy than that of the Cross. To be eaten by beasts and vomited up, and wrapped among vomiting and spuing, is a thing more shameful than to be crucified. The Turks and Pagans will say, Is that the God of the Christians that could not defend himself against Mice, and which is devoured by Dogs? Certain it is, that God would never make the glorious body of his Son to be subject to so many ignominies, without it were very beneficial and useful unto the Church. And yet our Adversaries cannot tell us what good it doth to our Salvation that Christ should be thus carried away by a mouse, or devoured by brute beasts.

Cardinal Tolet the Jesuit, in the second Book of the Institution of Priests, chapter 25. saith, The Priests can consecrate many baskets of bread, and a Tunne of wine. If he can consecrate one Tun, he may also consecrate two, yea ten or twenty, and so may turn into blood all the Wine of a Market.

Whereupon tis necessary to know that the Church of Rome holdeth, that by conferring of the order of Priesthood, an Indelible character is engraven into the Soul of the Priest, So that the Pope himself cannot blot it out: And that a Priest degraded for Heresy, or other crime, may consecrate and transubstantiate bread into flesh, and wine into blood, by virtue of that character remaining in him, though the function of his office be interdicted unto him. By that means, a Priest that hath forsaken the Roman Religion, yea a Priest Sorcerer and Magician, may transubstantiate whole tuns of wine into blood, and make Christ's blood to be carried up and down in pints and bottles over all the taverns & tippling houses of a town: which is truly to make Christ the sport of Magicians and drunkards, and expose him to great ignominy.

By the same doctrine Christ is in the power of Priests, who make him, and pin him up, and walk him, and may if they will, cast him into the fire: As Gabriel Biel a famous Doctor saith, in the first Lesson upon the Canon of the Mass: The Priest hath great power over the one and the other body of Christ, that is to say, over the Church, and over the consecrated host. Whereupon he addeth: Who ever saw things like unto this? He that hath created me (if I may say so) hath given me to create him; And he that hath created me without me, is created by my means. Thus Priests do create Christ in the Mass, and make Christ who is made already: As if one should beget a man already born.

CHAP. VII. That the very words of the Mass are contrary to Transubstantiation.

IN the midst of this alteration of the Lord's Institution, God hath permitted that in the Mass some clauses should remain, which manifestly condemn the Transubstantiation. For a great part of the Canon of the Mass are prayers, which have been added when they did not yet believe the Transubstantiation. As when the Priest, having before him the consecrated host, saith, We offer to thine excellent Majesty of thy gifts and presents a pure host. By these gifts, they understand at this day Christ himself. Surely, never a man in his right sense called Christ gifts and presents in the plural: But that agrees very well with the bread and wine.

The Priest goes on, saying, Upon which things vouchsafe to look with a cheerful eye. Is it not a jest to call Christ these things? and for a full measure of abuse, to ask of God that he may look upon Christ with a gracious eye: as if Christ had need of our recommendation?

Moreover, the Priest demandeth of God afterward, that he would be pleased to have these gifts and presents as acceptable, as he had acceptable the presents of Abel. That is to say, that Christ may be as acceptable unto God, as the beasts sacrificed by Abel. This prayer is good being said upon the bread and the wine, but being said upon Christ, it is altogether blasphemous.

Chiefly, this is evident, in that the Priest looking upon the consecrated host and the chalice, saith, that by Christ our Lord, God creates always for us these good things, sanctifies them, and vivifies them. Can Christ be called these good things? Doth God create and vivify Christ always? And since God creates these things through Jesus Christ, as the Mass saith, it is certain these things are not Christ. But all that agrees very well with the bread and wine.

We must not omit that Christ giving the bread to his Disciples, said simply, Take, Eate,: But in the Canon of the Mass there is, Accipite & manducate ex hoc omnes: Take and eat all of it. Whosoever added these words E X HOC, lie did not believe that in the Eucharist the Lord's body was really eaten by the mouth of the body. For to eat of that, is to eat a part thereof, and not all. Which cannot be said of Christ's natural body.

CHAP. VIII. Recrimination of our Adversaries.

THe Prophet Elisha accused the Israelites of Idolatry, and of forsaking God's Covenant. They out of revenge called him bald-pate, which was a reproach nothing belonging to the doctrine. We stand upon the like terms with our Adversaries. We accuse the Roman Church to have brough in Idolatry in the Mass, worshipping of the Sacrament, and a Sacrifice of Christ's body, which Christ hath not instituted: To have taken away from the people the half of the Sacrament: To have changed the nature of the Sacrament yea of Christ himself: which are thing of importance, and altogether essential to the Eucharist and to Christian Religion. But they, out of recrimination, tell us, that we have likewise changed many things in the Lord's Institutution. For (say they) ye solemniz • the Supper in the morning: but Chri •• instituted it after Supper. Ye celebrate it in a Temple: but Christ did celebrate it in an upper Chamber. Ye receive women to the Communion: But when Christ instituted the Eucharist, there were none but men. Things, whereof the two first are indifferent, and all three not only are not of the essence of that Sacrament, but even make no part of that action.

To this objection, Christ affords us an answer. For he said, Do this in remembrance of me. He said not Do this in such a place, nor at such an hour, nor with such a Sexe or such persons: But he said, Do this, commanding us to do as he hath done, and to imitate his action. Christ did not exclude women. If any had been there present, worthy to be partakers of the holy Supper, he would not have rejected them.

CHAP. IX. Causes why the Pope admitteth not of any alteration in the Mass, and will not conform himself to the Lord's Institution.

THough the abuse be so apparent, yet the Church of Rome and the Pope will not let go their hold, and suffer any change or alteration to be made in the Mass. The cause of that is easy to be known. For if the Church of Rome should yield to the least alteration, it would overthrow the three Maxims that are the basis whereon all Popery is grounded, whereof the first is, that the Church of Rome cannot err: the second, that the Pope and Church of Rome are not subject to the holy Scripture, and have greater authority than the holy Scripture: the third, that the Pope and Church of Rome have power to change God's Commandemens, and make new Articles of Faith. All which things are seen not one by practice, in that all the doctrine 〈◊〉 the Roman Church is contrary to th • holy Scripture, but also by example of Popish Councils, and open proof • sion of the principal Doctors of tha • Church: whereof I will allege so •• places in the next chapter.

CHAP. X. Places wherein the Doctors and Councils of the Roman Church maintain, that the Pope and the Church of Rome are not subject to th • Scripture, and have greater authority than the Scripture, an • may make void and abolish th • Commandments of God.

THe Romish Decree and its Gloss • are all stuffed with this brave maxim, that the Pope may dispense against the Apostle, and against the Old Testament, and may dispense with the Law, as being above the Law: And that he may dispense against the Gospel in giving interpretation to it.

In the first book of the Decretals of Gregory the 9. Title 7. at the Chapter Quanto personam, the Pope Innocent the third saith, that the Pope, on earth, holdeth not the place of a mere man, but of a very God. And thereupon the Gloss of the Doctors saith: The Pope of nothing can make something: And a sentence that is of no value, he can make it to be something: Because in the thing that he willeth, his will stands him instead of reason: And no man saith to him, Wherefore doest thou do that? For he may dispense above the Law, and make of injustice Justice.

Thomas Aquinas, whom the Pope hath Sainted, saith: A new edition of a Creed, belongeth solely to the Popes authority. The same is defined by the Council of Florence in the last Session, to wit, that the Pope may add to the Creed. That is one of the crimes for which Luther was anathematised by Pope Leo the tenth, viz. because he had taught, That it is not in the power of the Pope and of the Roman Church, to establish any Articles of faith: as is to be seen in the Bull added to the last Council of Lateran.

The Cardinal du Perron in his book against the King of Great Britain hath a chapter whose title is such Of the Churches authority, in changing 〈◊〉 things contained in the Scriptures.

Vasquez the Jesuit in the third To •• upon the third part of Thomas, Dispute • 216. speaking of this Commandemen • of the Lord, Drink ye all of it, saith Though even we should grant that th • was a Commandment of the Apostles yet the Church and the sovereign Bish •• might abolish it upon good grounds. 〈◊〉 the Apostles power to make Laws, was n •• greater than the power of the Church an • of the Pope.

Salmeron the Jesuit in the second Prolegom. It is no wonder if the Scripture be subject to the Church, which hath th • Spirit. The same man in the ninth Tome and 13 Treatise, * disputing of the change and alteration in the form of the Sacrament, speaks thus: We are no wa • tied to imitate Christ in all things, except in good manners. By that, he teachet • we are not bound to imitate Christ in the Sacraments, nor in the communion under one kind, nor in that he celebrated the holy Supper in a known tongue, nor in the doctrine of Pargatory, not In the Sacrifice of the Mass, &c. For these things concern not manners.

The same, in the first Prolegom. The Churches authority is more ancient and more worthy, than the authority of the Scriptures. That, truly, is to say that men are above God. For it is God that speaketh in the holy Scriptures. Can a man say without impiety that the Church of Israel was above the Law, which God had written in two tables? Are Subjects above the Laws? Is not the Pope subject to the Law of God?

The same Jesuit saith, that the Christian Religion admitteth still of some additions in things essential. Whence followeth that Christian Religion is not yet perfect, since that essential Articles may be added thereunto.

John Almain, a Sorbonist, in his Book of the Ecclesiastical and Temporal power, chapter 12. The Pope may dispense in things that are forbidden by God's Law: and alleadges thereupon Panormitanus and Angelus.

Andradius in the second Book of the Defense of the Tridentine Faith: The Roman Bishops in defining many things that were bidden before, are accustomed to enlarge the Creed. And in the same place: It appeareth those haven • erred which say that the Roman Bishop may sometimes dispense from obeying th • Laws of the Apostle Saint Paul and th • four first Councils. Item: Our Ances • ers, excellent men in Piety, have canceled and abrogated many of the Apostle Decrees.

Cardinal Bellarmine in the fourth Book de Pontif. chapter 5. If the Pep •• should err in commanding the vices, an forb • dding virtues, the Church were bou •• to believe that vices be good, and virtues bad, unless she would sin against her own conscience.

The same Cardinal in the 31 chapter against Barklay, In a good sense Chris • gave to Peter (that is to say to the Pope) the power to do that that which is sin be not sin, and that which is no • sin to be sin.

The Romish Decree in the fortieth Distinction, Canon Si Papa, hath these words: If the Pope being careless of his own Salvation and of the Salvation of his brethren, leadeth by troops with him, first slave of hell fire, innumerable people's to be tormented with him with many plagues eternally, none dares reprove him of his faults. Because that he that is to be Judge of all men, is to be judged of none: Except he do swerve from the Faith.

Stapleton an English Doctor, in the second Book of the authority of the Scripture, chapter 11. I have said, and say still, that the Church is the rule of the Scripture. By this reckoning, Sinners shall rule God, and shall be masters of his word.

Lindan in the Index of the Chapters of the fifth Book of his Panoplia: The Church by the will of God is not tied to the Scriptures. For he, and the rest with him, will have the Church bound to the Tradition of the Church, that is to say to the Laws which she giveth to her self. Now by the Church they understand always the Roman Church, and by the Roman Church the Pope.

Costerus the Jesuit in his Enchiridion, Chapter 1. calleth the Tradition of the Roman Church a second kind of Scripture, and saith, that the excellency of this Scripture goes fam • beyoud the Scriptures which the Apostles left unto us written in parchements.

Gregory de Valentia the Jesuit, it the fourth Book of his Analysis, chapter 2. The Scripture is not the Judge if controversies. And in the third Chapter. The Scripture is no sufficient rule of Faith. And in the fourth Chapter. The Scripture by the secret judgment of God, is 〈◊〉 stumbling block, and a temptation to the fe •• of fools, to the end that those which will • rely upon it alone, may easily stumble and swerve from the way. Wherefore after he hath withdrawn us from the holy Scriptures, in the seventh Book he s • nds us back to the Pope, saying, The Roman Bishop is he in whom resideth that authority of judging wholly of all the controversies of Faith. According as Andradius saith in the first book of the Defense of the Tridentin Faith, Our faith is contained and sub sisteth by the Popes faith, and all men's Salvation depends on his authority.

The same Jesuit in his first book of the Sacrifice of the Mass, Chapter forty, finding no proofs in the Scriptures whereon to ground the Sacrifice of the Mass, saith, that If this worship or Service were not instituted of God: Yet these men could not draw from thence this conclusion, that it is not lawful. For that ( viz. to be instituted by God) is in no wise required for to make a worship or a Sacrifice to be good. And in his second book: Here above and often elsewhere I have shown, that for the goodness of a worship or service, God's commandemem is not required.

For these causes, in the fourth Tome of his Commentaries, he affirmeth that there are some things which in the latter times are better ordained than they were at the beginning. For he supposeth that the Church now is better instructed than it was in the Apostles time.

Of this power which the Roman Church taketh upon her self, to change, cancel, and make void the commandments of the Lord, we have a remarkable example in the Council of Constance, kept in the year 1416. which is the first Council that took away the Cup from the people. That Council acknowledgeth in the 13 Session, that Christ instituted the Eucharist under both kinds, and that in the Primitive Church the people received the Cup. Yet withal it dare say, that in some • parts of the World some dare affirm rashly, that the Christian people ought to take the Eucharist under both kinds: as if it were a temerity to follow Christ's example. And ordaining that henceforth the people shall receive the species of the bread only, will have this custom to be held as a Law, which it is not lawful to reprove or change. Finally this Council concludeth, that those which obstinately affirm the contrary, • ught to be d • iven out as Heretics, and grievously punished.

With the like audacity the Council of Trent in the 5 Session b • speaking of the concupiseence forbidden in God's Law, which Saint Paul in the seventh Chapter to the Romans calleth sin, declareth and defineth that concupiscence is no sin in those that are regenerate, that is to say baptized: and that Saint Paul spake neither truly nor properly. Whence will follow that a baptized person may without sin cover his neighbors wife: but in an unbaptised person it is a sin.

Now, let every impartial Reader judge, with what reason our Adversaries call our Religion a new Religion, seeing they do declare themselves that they may change the Commandments of God, add to the Creed, and make a new Religion, and that in the Mass they are not tied to the Lord's Institution.

CHAP. XI. That our Exposition of these words This is my body, is conformable to the Scripture and to the nature of Sacraments, and approved by the Ancient Fathers, and confirmed by our Adversaries.

THe interpretation that we give of these words, This is my body, is the same which Christ himself giveth in the same place, viz. that it is his commemoration. And the same which Saint Paul giveth in the 10 chapter of the first to the Corinthians. The bread which we break, is the communion of the body of Christ. The Sacrament being a figure, there is nothing more sit than to make use of a figure, drawn from the nature of the action, by which the name of the thing siguified, is given to the sign. Even as in the seventeenth of Genesis the Sacrament of Circumcision is called the Covenant of God, because it was the sign and remembrance of it. So in the twelfth of Exodus, the Sacrament of the Paschal Lamb, is called the Passe-over, because it was a memorial of the Passover of the Augell sparing the houses of the Israclites.

And Saint Paul 1. Corinth. 10. speaking of the Rock which gusht out waters in the Wilderness, saith that this Rock was Christ, because it was the sigure of Christ. As Austin saith in the Eighteenth Book of the City of God, Chapter 48. the Apostle saith, the Rock was Christ, because that Rock did signisie Christ. And in the 57 question upon the Leviticus: The thing which signifieth, is wont to bear the name of the thing signified, as it is written, Seven ears of corn are seven years, and seven kine are seven years, and many such like things. Thence comes what is said, that the Rock was Christ. he did not say the Rock signifieth Christ, but as if it were that which it was not in substance, but only by signification. Pope Innocent the third, in the fourth Book of the Mysteries of the Mass, chapter 7. saith, Petra erat Christus, id est, significabat Christum. The Rock was Christ, that is to say, did signify Christ. And Aquinas in the Exposition of this Epistle: The Rock was Christ, not in substance, but by signification. Lombardus in his Commentary upon this Chapter, They did drink of the Rock which signified Christ. Which thing is confirmed by that word Was. For Bellarmine that doth invert these words, and translateth Christ was the Rock, seems to imply that Christ was then the Rock, but is not now.

And the same Apostle to the Romans, Chapter 6.4. saith, We are buried in Christ's death by Baptism, because Baptisine signifieth to us, that our sins are as buried with Christ, and that we are to be made conformable to 〈◊〉 death.

And without extending myself further upon this: Christ giving the Cur said, This Cup is the New Testament i • my blood. Wherein there is two figures as Salmeron the Jesuit saith truly There is (saith he) a double Metonymy, by which the continent is put for the thing contained, that is to say, the Cup for the wine contained therein: the other, that that which is contained in the Chalice, i •• called the Covenant or Testament, for that it is the symbol or sign of it because of th • species. And a little after. The blood i • called the New Testament, as the Circumcision is called the Covenant, because it representeth that Covenant. And Thomas Aquinas in his Commentary upon the eleventh chapter of the first to the Corinthians: This Cup is the New Testament in my blood, as if be did say, By that which is contained in this cup, is made a commemoration of the New Testament, which was confirmed by Christ's blood. And Immanuel Sa the Jesuit, in the first edition of his notes upon the first to the Corinthians, Chapter 11. saith that the word IS implies as much as containeth or signifieth.

This manner of speaking is ordinary, to say a mourning suite, because it is a sign of mourning, & a celestial Sphere, for the figure of a heavenly Sphere: And in showing of Mappes, to say This is France, and that is Spain. And to be lodged at the Eagle, or at the Swan, for the sign of the Eagle or of the Swan. So doth Saint Austin say in the fifty seventh question upon Leviticus, The thing which signifieth, is wont to be called by the name of the thing signified. And Theodoret in the first Dialogue, speaking of these words This is my body, saith, that the Lord gave unto the sign the name of his body. And Tertullian in his fourth Book against Macion, chapter 40. He made it to be his body, saying, This is my body, that is to say the sigure of my body. Saint Austin in the 23 Epistle to Bonis • ce, is very express: If Sacraments had not some resemblance of the things whereof they be Sacraments, they would be no Sacraments. But because of this resemblance, they take very often the name of the things themselves. Even then as the Sacrament of Christ's body, is in a man • the body of Christ: so the Sacrament of faith, to wit Baptism, is faith. Note that he saith that the Sacrament of Christ's body is the body of Christ, after the same manner as Baptism is faith.

Therefore our Adversaries say very ignorantly, that figures elsewhere are receiveable; but in the Articles of faith and institution of a Sacrament, figures are no way convenient or agreeable. For we have produced many examples of figures in the institution of Sacraments: and they themselves acknowledge two figures in these words, This Cup is the New Testament. And touching the Articles of faith, the Creed saith that Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, which is a figurative kind of speech; for God hath no right hand. The wh le Gospel is comprised under th • se words, J • sus is the Lamb of G d: and all Popery is grounded upon these word, Upon this Rock will •• uild my Church, • nd I will give thee the keeps of the kingdom of heaven, which he all figurative words.

And it is to be observed that when Christ instituted this holy Sacrament, he spake in the Jewish language, which is a dialect of the Syrian tongue, saying H • n in pagri, that is to say, This my dead body, supplying the word IS, after the manner of the Hebrews and Syrians. He did then say to his Disciples, that he gave them his dead body. Which could not be true but in taking it figuratively: For the body of Christ was not dead when he did institute this Sacrament. But it is very true in the sense that we take it, to wit, that the bread which he did break, and give to his Disciples, was the figure or remembrance of his body, dead for us. For we have shown already, that in the holy Supper Christ's body is presented to our faith, not as glorious and spiritual, but as broken, and dying, and dead for us. This is confirmed in that in the Evangelists, this word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which signifieth body, is in most places taken for a dead body: As in the 17 of Saint Luke Verse 37. Wheresoever the body is, thither will the Engles be g • thered together. And M • tthew. 27.52. * Many bodies of Saints which slept, arose. And Mark 14.8. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to anoint the body. For the proper word in Greek for to signify a dead body, is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . It is true that in the Syriac Testament, the word Peger is taken sometimes for a living body: But it is not credible that Christ took this word in another sense than it is taken in the Old Testament, where it signifieth always a dead body.

Neither is it to be omitted that Saint Paul calls oftentimes the Church Christ's body, Ephes. 1.23. and Chapter. 5.23. If then from these words, This is my body, they will infer that the bread is transubstantiated into Christ's body: by the like reason when the Scripture saith that the Church is the body of Christ, it may be inferred that the Church is transubstantiated into Christ's body.

CHAP. XII. That our Adversaries, to avoid a clear and natural figure, forge a multitude of harsh and unusuaall ones, and speak but in figurative terms. And of Berengarius his confession.

Our Adversaries, who make a show to be enemies to Figures, forge nevertheless a great number of absurd and violent figures, and turn all into figures.

When Christ saith This is my body, by This, they understand an individuum Vagum, or that which is under these species; without determining anything. Others interpret the word IS, by shall be or shall become. For they say that the Transubstantiation is not made or effected, till the words be pronounced.

When the Evangelists say that the Lord gave bread, by this word bread, they understand flesh. And we have heard them confess that these word This cup is the New Testament in my bloe • are figurative.

By their doctrine, which puts 〈◊〉 body into the cup, Christ giving 〈◊〉 cup, might have said This is my body and had spoken truly, if we belee • them.

Christ called that which he dran • in the Eucharist, the fruit of the Vi •• But our Adversaries by the fruit 〈◊〉 the Vine, will have the blood to be understood.

By these words Do this, they understand Sacrifice me; but the words following, Do this in remembrance of 〈◊〉 do refute that interpretation. For it 〈◊〉 impossible to Sacrifice Christ in remembrance of Christ.

We shall see anon that when i • the 6 of Saint John, Verse 53. Chri •• saith, Except ye drink my blood, ye ha •• no life in you: our adversaries, least th •• should be accused of taking the li •• from the Lay people, in depriving the • of the cup, by the word drinking, they understand eating. And that whe • Christ saith, I leave the World, and am 〈◊〉 more in the world, they add this tail to it, to wit, by my visible presence.

We have seen before, that the Apostle saith four several times, that in the Lord's Supper, we break bread and eat bread. To shun the force of these words, they wrest them into figures, saying that it is not bread that we eat: But that figuratively Christ's body is called bread, because it seems to be so. Which thing they know to be false: for Christ's body never seemed to be bread. Item they say that it is called bread, because it was bread before the consecration. Which also is false. For the Lord's body was never bread. To such figures, Rhethorick affords no name.

They bring indeed for example, Moses Rod, which is still called a rod after it was turned into a Serpent: and the water of the wedding of Cana, which is still called water after it was turned into wine. Which are examples making against them. For of that rod it is expressly said, that it was turned into a Serpent, Exod. 4.3. And of that water it is said in express terms that it was turned into wine, John 2.9. But of the bread of the holy Supper, it is not said that it was converted into flesh. Of this Serpent one might have truly said that it was once a rod: and of this wine, that it was once water, because it was the same matter clothed with another form. But of Christ's body it cannot be said truly that ever it was bread. The matter or substance of the body of Christ, is not the matter of the bread. For Christ's body is not made of bread, and was never bread.

Others say, that the Apostle saith not, When ye eat bread, but when ye eat of this bread, understanding by the pronoun This, a spiritual and heavenly bread. But they consider not that the Apostle in the first to the Corinthians, Chapter 10, saith not THIS BREAD: but the bread that we break. And Saint Luke in the 20 of the Acts, 7 Verse. The Disciples came together to break bread. There, their Philosophy fayles them. They must also learn that when the Scripture taketh this word Bread in a spiritual sense, it is never opposed to the cup: because that when the question is of a spiritual food, to eat and to drink are but one and the same thing. But Saint Paul opposeth this bread to that cup, saying, Let every man eat of this bread, and drink of this • up.

That if any one consider exactly all the terms which our Adversaries use in this matter, he shall perceive that they be unintelligible figures. They say that the Priest breaketh the host, and that this host is the body of Christ, which nevertheless cannot be broken. They say they lift up God, but God cannot be lifted up. They say the consecrated host is round: And that Christ's body is in the consecrated host. Whence will follow in good Logic, that the body of Christ is round. Which, nevertheless, they do not believe. They grant both propositions, and deny the conclusion. Which is against common sense.

And when they speak of drinking the cup, by drinking, they understand a swallowing down of flesh and bones, and the Soul of Christ with his Divinity.

The Roman Council under Nieholas the second, prescribed to Berengarius a form of abjuration of his doctrine, in the most exquisite and formal terms that ever they could devise. These terms are, that he protesteth to stand and keep himself close to the doctrine of the Pope and Church of Rome, to wit, that the bread and the wine which are upon the Altar, are not only the Sacrament but also the very body and blood of Christ. Words that must be taken in a quite contrary sense: For the Church of Rome believeth not that the bread is the true body of Christ. Item they make him say that Christ's body is sensibly handled by the Priest, and is broken and crushed with the teeth of the faithful. But the Doctors Gloss noteth in the margent these words. Except thou understandst aright Berengarius his words, thou shalt fall into a greater heresy than Berengarius did. It is the property of untruth, to entangle it self with figures, and not to understand it self.

CHAP. XIII. Of the Ascension of the Lord and of his absence: and of that our Adversaries say, that in the Sacrament he is Sacrmentally present.

ABove all things the Glosses and figures of our Adversaries are intolerable, when as they wrest the places of Scripture wherein mention is made of Christ's Ascension and of his departure out of this world.

The Lord in the 12 Chapter of Saint John, 8 Verse, saith, The poor ye have always, but me ye have not always. And in the 14 Chapter, 3 Verse. If I go, I will come again, speaking of his return at the day of judgment. And in the chapter 17.10. speaking of his Ascension near at hand, as if it were past, he saith, Now I am no more in the World. Saint Peter in the third Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, saith, Heaven must contain him, until the times of the restitution of all things, which is the day of judgment.

All these words are as many lies, if we believe the Transubstantiation. For in these places Christ saith that he hath left the world, and is no more in the world, and that we shall not have him always. But if we believe the Transubstantiation, we must say Christ hath not left the world, but is much more present than he was before his ascension. For then he was but in one place at once upon earth, but now they will have him to be present upon a million of Altars, in boxes, and in bellies.

And for to conclude that place of Saint Peter which saith, that Heaven must contain him until the day of restitution: the Latin version of the Roman Church hath put, Heaven must receive him, as if when S. Peter said these words, Christ was not yet ascended. And it is false that heaven doth receive Christ continually until the day of Judgment. The Lovain Doctors, which have translated the Bible into French, have acknowledged the same: wherefore they have turned faithfully, Whō heaven must contain. And Emanud S • the Jesuit, in his Notes upon this place, Recipere, id est, receptum continere. To receive, that is to say, to contain him after he be received. Christ then must be contained in heaven, & not be still upon earth.

They rid themselves as ill out of the other places. They say, that when Christ saith, He leaveth the world and is no more in the world, it must be understood concerning his visible presence. So they make without word of God, 2 sorts of Christ's presence, the one visible, the other invisible. And make Christ say, I go away, but I will remain invisibly: I leave you, but my body shall be always with you. Now in conscience, could a man that had Christ's body and soul in his mouth, say that Christ is not present, under color that he sees him not? By the same reason one may say, that a man hath no soul, because it is invisible, and that a man hath left the town, when he lieth hid in it.

What more? Christ himself in the 13. of Saint Mark, 21. verse, warns us that there will come a time in which they shall say unto us, Loe, here is Christ, or loe he is there: and forbids us to believe it. And in the 24. chapter of Saint Matthew, he addeth: If any man shall say unto you, he is in the closets or in the cup-boards, (for the Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , signifieth that) believe it not. Truly he speaketh evidently of the places wherein they shall say that Christ is hidden. And speaketh in the plural 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in closets, as of a Christ which shall be thought to be in several places at once.

But Christ refuteth plainly all these shifts and evasions of our Adversaries, when as to comfort his Disciples, sorrowful for his departure, he promiseth them to send them the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost. According to the doctrine of the Church of Rome, he should have said, I go away, but that shall not hinder me from being present in your mouths, and in your stomachs, and I shall 〈◊〉 more present unto you than I am now. H • saith not a word of all that unto them but comforting them for his departure he promiseth them his holy Spirit.

Saint Paul in the second to the Corinthians, chap. 5.8. saith, We are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. And to the Philippians, chap. 1.23. My desire is to depart and to be with Christ. Had this Apostle lost his wi • s? For according to the Popish doctrine he should have said, I am already with Christ, I do carry him in my hands, I have him in my stomach.

S. Austin upon that is very express, in his 50. Treatise upon S. John, where he saith: According to the Maj sty of th • Lord, according to his unspeak ••• e and in • isi •• e grace is accomplished that which he said, I will be with you at all times till the consummation of the world. But according to his flesh which the world bath taken, and is he is horn of the Virgin, &c. he said, Ye shall not have me always. And in the first Treatise upon the first of John, We can no more handle him with our hands, now that he sitteth in heaven, but well may we touch him by faith. He speaketh to the Priests of these times, who brag to have Christ in their hands. And in the 78. Treatise upon S. John, Christ was going away as being a man, and withdrew not himself as he is God, And in the 30 Treatise, The Lord's body in which he is risen, must be in one place only, but his truth is spread everywhere. There is in the Latin, in uno loco esse oportet, and not, in uno loco esse potest, according to the new editions falsified. Gratian, Ivo Carmitensis, Lombard, Thomas, Gabriel Biel, and the old editions of Saint Austin have oportet. Reason also requireth it. For it would be repugnant to common sense to say, that the body of Christ may be in one place: as if one should say, that the Sun may be in one place, it were to say that it may be in no place.

Cyril of Alexandria in his eleventh book upon Saint John, chap. 3. Though he be absent in body, appearing for us before his Father, and sitting at his right hand, he dwelleth in his Saints through his Spirit. He supplieth the want of his corporal presence by giving his Spirit, and nor in keeping himself hidden under the accidents of bread.

The Eutychian heretics spake as our Adversaries do. For they said, th •• Christ's body is present on earth, as well as in heaven, by an invisible presence. Against whom, whither Vigil, or Gelasius Pope hath written five Books, in the first whereof he speaketh thus: The Son of God according to his humanity, hath left us, and withdrawn himself from us. But according to his divinity he saith unto us, I will be with you till the consummation of the world. And in the 4 Book: When Christ's flesh was upon earth, it was not in Heaven, and now that it is in Heaven, it is not on earth. Even as Vigilius, saying that when Christ's flesh was upon earth, it was not in heaven, understood it was not in heaven neither visibly nor invisibly. So when he saith, that now it is no more on earth, he meaneth it is not there, neither visibly nor invisibly. That if he meant or understood that Christ's flesh is present unto us invisibly, then would he plead the Eutychians cause, for that was their opinion.

To be short, the Apostle to the Ephesians, chap. 3.17. saith, that Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith, and not in our stomachs in the midst of meat.

When we ask of them after what manner the body of Christ is present in the Sacrament, they answer, that it is not present there circumscriptively, as wine is enclosed in a tun or cask, nor definitively, as immaterial spirits: But that it is Sacramentally present. This answer truly is ridiculous. For, to say that Christ is in the Sacrament sacramentally present, is a thing as absurd as to say that a man which is in a Temple, is there Templarily present, and he that is in a Coach, is present in it Coacharily. Moreover, it is certain that by this answer they come to be of our side. For they say themselves that this word, Sacrament, signifieth a sacred sign. Therefore to be present sacramentally, signifieth no other thing, but to be present significatively, and by figure and representation.

CHAP. XIV. Confession of our Adversaries, acknowledging that Transubstantiation is not grounded in the Scriptures. That the Primitive Church did consecrate by the prayer, and not by these words, This is my body.

THe most learned of the Roman Church ground their Transubstantiation not upon these words, This is my body, but upon the authority of the Church of Rome, which, as they hold cannot err.

Scotus, which is termed the suttle Do • tor, upon the fourth of the Sentences Dist. 11. quest, 3. saith: There is no place 〈◊〉 be found in the Scripture, that may wi hout the determination of the Church, compel • man to believe the Transubstantiation. Upon which place, Cardinal Bellarmine in his 3. book of the Eucharist chap. 23. speaketh thus: Sc tus saith that there is no place in the Scripture so express, as to compel evidently without the declaration of the Church, to receive the Transubstantiation. And that is not altogether improbable. For although the Scripture that we have alleged, seem to us so plain that it may compel a man not proud or insolent, yet nevertheless it may justly be doubted whether it be so or no, seeing the most acute and learned men, such especially as Scotus was, are of a contrary opinion. And in the same place he tells us, that Scotus saith, that Transubstantiation was not an article of faith before the Council of Lateran, held Anno 1215.

For that cause Vasquez. the Jesuit upon the 3. part of Thomas, Disp: 180. chap. 5. having represented the opinion of Scotus, who saith, that the truth of the words of consecration might have been preserved, though the substance of the bread and wine had remained in the Eucharist, (to whom also Durand joineth himself) blameth Bellarmine without naming him, for saying, that the opinion of Scotus is probable, & accuseth him of halting on both sides. We see (saith he) certain professors in Divinity in our times, who halting a little on both sides, do not esteem improbable that which Scotus hath said touching the words of consecration.

Of that number of learned and acute men, was Cardinal Cajetan, who in hi • notes upon Thomas, speaketh thus: Th • other point which the Gospel expoundeth n •• expressly, we have received it from the Church to wit, the conversion of the bread into the body of Christ.

Item. Conversio non explicate habetur i • Evangelio. The conversion (of the bread) is not to be found explicitly in the Gospel.

The Cardinal de Alliaco, It appears that this manner which supposeth that the substance of bread remains still, is possible, neither is it contrary to reason, nor to the authority of the Bible, but is more easy to conceive, and more reasonable. And for this cause he is checked by Vasquez the Jesuit in the 3 Tome upon the 3 part of Thomas, Disp: 180. cap: 5. And in that same place he saith that Durand followed the opinion of Scotus upon the 4. of the Sentences, Disp. 11. quest. 2.

Gabriel Biel in the 40 lesson upon the Canon of the Mass: How the body of Christ is there, whether it be by conversion of •• me thing into it, or whether without conver • ion Christ's body begins to be there with the bread, the substance and the accidents remaining, it is not expressed in the Canon of the Bible. And even there: That hath been proved by the authority of the Church and of the Saints, for that cannot be proved by reason.

The same in the 41 lesson asketh, Why the Saints and the Church have chosen to say and determine that that should be understood in so difficult a manner: seeing the Scriptures may be expounded and kept in their soundness, in a manner easy to be understood. To this he answereth, that the Church hath determined it so, meaning by the Church, not the Syrian, nor the Greek or Ethiopian, but the Roman Church only.

Salmeron the Jesuit in the thirteenth Treatise of the ninth Tome, expounding these words This is my body, speaketh thus: Certainly these words do not signify that any conversion be made, by the force of the words. Otherwise he that should say this is my body, in showing his own body, would signify that something is converted into his body. And he insistes very much upon this, that these words This is my body, are declarative or significative of the thing which is, and not effective of that which is not.

Wherefore the same Jesuit, in th • same Treatise, joins himself to th • opinion of Pope Innocent the third, a who in the fourth book of the Mysteries of the Mass, Chapters 6. and 17 teacheth that Christ made not the conversion of the bread by these words H • est corpus meum, but by his divine power, and by the blessing that had preceded. For he will have the pronouncing of these words to have another virtue at this day in the mouths of Priests, than they had in the mouth of Christ. Which opinion of Innocent the third, is followed by Innocent the fourth, his Successor, and by multitudes of Doctors, which Salmeron produceth in the same Treatise.

It is credible that these Popes and Doctors were moved to teach that Christ did not consecrate by these words This is my body, but by the prayer 〈◊〉 blessing he made before, because the Fathers say the same, and that such was the belief of the ancient Church. Justin Martyr calleth that which we receive in the Eucharist a food consecrated by the prayer of the Word, that is to say Christ. Saint Austin in the third book of the Trinity; Chapter 4. speaking of that which we receive in the Sacrament, saith that it is taken of the fruits of the earth, & prece mystica consecratum, and is consecrated by the mystical prayer. Origen in his eight book against Celsus: * We eat loaves of bread which by the prayer are made one body, which is some holy thing. Irenaeus in his fourth Book, Chapter 34. The bread receiving the invocation of God, is no more common bread, but Eucharist. Basil in the first book of the holy Ghost, 27 Chapter, calleth the words of consecration 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the words of invocation. Isido us in the sixth book of Origines, in the Chapter de Officij • : The Sacrifice is so called, as if one should say a sacred deed, because it is consecrated by the mystical prayer in remembrance of the Passion which the Lord s • ffeced for us. Yet at this day the Greek Churches consecrate by the prayer, as Bellarmine acknowledgeth in the fourth Book of the Eucharist, Chapter 12. See the Canon Corpus in the second distinction of the consecration.

By this it is as clear as the light, that the Ancient Fathers did not believe that by these words This is my body, any conversion of the bread was made.

CHAP. XV. Of the Adoration of the Sacrament. The opinion of the Roman Church.

THe Roman Church having deified the Sacrament, hath consequently obliged her self to worship it with the highest adoration which is due to God alone. By this means a wafer of bread hath taken God's place, and is called God, and is worshipped as God. They speak of lifting up God in the Mass, and of God's feast ( viz, Corpus Christ • day) and of carrying God to a sick • body. Phrases that are not to be found in the holy Scriptures, and unheard off in the Ancient Christian Church.

The Council of Trent in the thirteenth Session, Chapter 5. speaketh thu • There remains no doubt but that all faithful Christian people ought to give the worship of L • tria, which is due to the true God, to this holy Sacrament in the veneration. Now by this word Sacrament, they understand the body of Christ with the species or accidents. For by this word Sacrament, our Adversaries never understand Christ Jesus out of the species. This Council then ordaineth that the species of the bread and wine shall be worshiped with sovereign adoration.

The practice doth verify what I say. For the people worshipping the consecrated host, divide not their mind into two Adorations, and worship not the body of Christ with one kind of Adoration, and the species of the bread with another: but carry their whole devotion to worship with sovereign adoration, the host they have before their eyes.

Bellarmine teacheth as much in his fourth Book of the E charist, Chapter 29. We say that Christ, For se & proprie, is to be worshipped with the ad • ration of Latria, and that this adoration belongeth also to the signs or symbols of the bread and wine, in as much as they are conceived or considered, as being one with Christ himself, whom they contain. And saith, it was just so that Christ's garments were worshipped with the same adoration that Christ was. For (saith he) they did not pull off his clothes for 〈◊〉 worship him.

For he proposeth this for an infallibl • Maxim, that be that worshippeth so •• thing, worshippeth also all the things th •• are conj • yned to it. That is to say that h • that worshippeth the Images, worships also the Cobwebs that are upo • them: And that he that worshippeth th • Pope, worshippeth also his Breeche • and his shirt. He will have then th • roundness, whiteness, length, breadth and taste of the host, to be worship • with the same adoration that God i • worshipped with, because these accident and Christ are but one.

Vasquez the Jesuit saith the same in his second Book of Adoration. Disp. 9. Chapter 1. Christ's humanity (saith he) and the Eucharist are worshipped absolutely with the adoration of Latria, albeit that being enjoined by accident with th • God-head, a worship is given to the • And that we may know that the accidents of the bread, that is to say th • breadth, length, color and savor of the bread are worshipped with the same adoration that Christ is worshipped: he addeth, The accidents of the bread and wine, because they exist not by their proper existence, but by the existence of the body and blood of Christ, may very well receive the same honor of adoration together with the body and blood of Christ: even as Ch • sts humanity and his Divinity are worshipped with one and the same motion of adoration.

This Idolatry is prodigious, by which the color and roundness of the bread are worshipped with the same adoration that God is worshipped with. The Egyptians did seem to have attained to the highest degree of Idolatry when they did worship Cats, Onions, and Storks. But this Idolatry, in worshipping the accidents of the bread, goes far beyond them: For these things they worshipped, were substances and things really existing: But these accidents without a subject, are imaginary things, and which indeed are nothing. The folly of those Egyptians would have been much greater, if they had worshipped the color and the length, and the faces or lowering of a Cat, without worshipping the Cat. Add moreover that they did not worship beasts and plants as the Sovereign God: but as having in them some sparks of the Divinity. But the Roman Church worshippeth the accidents of bread without bread, with a Sovereign adoration, and which only belongeth to God.

And mark the doctrine of this Jesuit, who saith with approbation of the Examinators prefixed in the forefront of his book, that the accidents of the bread do exist in Christ after the same manner as the humanity of Christ hath no proper subsistence, but subsisteth in the divine nature. This truly is to unite and conjoin the roundness and color of the bread with Christ with a personal union.

And as errors are linked together an • cleave one to another, it is certain that the accidents of the bread are no • more straitly conjoined with Christ, than Christ with these accidents. And by consequent even as because of this imaginary union of the body of Christ with the accidents of the bread, the things which befall these accidents, are also attributed unto the body of Christ, of which they say, it is carried, and lifted up, and walked up and down, and stolen away, and eaten by mice, and vomited up, and devoured by a beast: So by the same reason because of the same union, they must say that the roundness and whiteness of the bread are the Son of God, and are borne of the Virgin, and are just and without origiginall sin.

In all this truly the Roman Church showeth her self idolatrous in the last degree. It is a bog or quagmire of abuses, and an abyssus or a gulf of seduction wherein Satan hath plunged men: God punishing in his just anger the contempt of his word, which is become an unknown Book among the people. For it is just that those that have lost Piety, should loose also the common sense.

CHAP. XVI. Examen of the Adoration of the Sacrament by the word of God. That the Ancient Christians did not worship the Sacrament.

IF the Scriptures had with our Adversaries any authority, this controversy would soon be decided.

Every action that concerns God's Service, and specially Adoration, is to be done in Faith, and not with doubts and conjectures, as Saint James saith, Chapter first: Let him ask in Faith nothing wavering: And Saint Paul, Rom. 14. saith that whatsoever is not of Faith, is sin. And the same Apostle to the Hebrews, Chapter 11. It is impossible without Faith to please God. Now it is impossible that the people of the Roman Church should worship the host of the Mass • in faith: Because God hath not commanded it in his word. For as Saint Paul saith, Rom. 1 • . Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

In general we have the Lord's commandment saying, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. He speaketh of the Sovereign God, Creator and Governor of the World, and not of a God made with words, that is made of bread, subject to falling, to be vomited up, and stolen away. Certainly, to worship such a god as that, is to violate the Commandment of the Law, which saith: Thou shalt have no other God before me.

In vain do they answer that Christ ought to be worshipped, since he is God: For, besides that they presuppose that which is not, to wit, that this bread is transubstantiated into the body of Christ, they declare themselves that in this Sacrament Christ's body is not only worshipped: but also the roundness, color, and savor of the bread.

That if any religious worship were to be given to this Sacrament, some trace of it would be found in the Institution of the holy Supper, and some commandment of the Lord: But neither trace nor appearance of that is to be found. But rather we see that the Apostles sat at the table during this action, as it appeareth by what is said i • Saint John 13.12. that Christ after h • had taken his garments, he sat down again. During which repast Saint John was leaning on Jesus bosom, Verse 23. And Saint Paul relating the Institution of the Lord, saith: I have received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you. Since then he doth not speak of any adoration of the Sacrament, it is certain he had not received it of the Lord, and believed not that the Church was obliged to worship the Sacrament.

The ordinary shift of our Adversaries, is to say that the Apostles worshipped not the consecrated host, because they had Christ every day with them, and must have been continually kneeling before him.

I answer that to eat Christ with their teeth, and receive him in their mouths, and sacrifice him in sacrifice propitiatory, are actions which were new to the Apostles, and which necessarily required Adoration. Every Sacrifice is performed in the worshipping of him to whom the Sacrifice is offered up. These things so extraordinary and admirable (if they were true) did well deserve an extraordinary veneration. Specially in the first Institution which was to serve for a rule unto the Church, and a pattern to conform her self unto.

And since our Adversaries will have Christ in the holy Supper to have eaten himself, he might by the same reason worship himself, and bow the knee before himself, which is a very merry and recreative conception, and suitable unto Transubstantiation.

Whereupon we give our Adversaries the choice. Will they have Christ to have adored the consecrated host? But it would follow from thence, according to their doctrine, that Christ had worshipped his own self, and that he was holier than himself. And it is certain that he that worshippeth, and he that is worshipped, are two persons. Will they have Christ not to have worshipped the consecrated host? But it will follow from thence that the Apostles, neither then, nor since, never worshipped it. For Christ saying unto them, Do this, commanded them to do as he had done.

That if the Lord would have had the Apostles to have worshipped the Sacrament he would have made an elevation of the host, as was observed in all Sacrifices, for to bind the sacrificers and the assistants to the adoration. A thing nevertheless which Christ did not do: for he offered up nothing to his Father. He did not say, Father receive this oblation: But said to his Apostles, Take, Eate.

Even in the very time of Tertullian and of Cyprian (as we shall see hereafter) the custom of divers Christians, both men and women, was to carry into their houses the sacred bread they had received in the Church, to wrap it up in a cloth, and to lock it up at home in a chest or cupboard. A manifest proof they worshipped not the Sacrament. For would they have permitted a woman to take God with her hand, put him up in her pocket, and keep him locked up close at home?

Would the Christians have upbraided the Pagans that they worshipped Statues that could not move themselves, nor rise when they were fallen, nor breathe, subject to rust, wherein mice make their nests, &c. if the Pagans might have upbraided them the same, and tell them that they worshipped an host that could not breath, nor rise up when it is fallen, nor open its eyes, nor stretch out its hands; that may be stolen by men, and eaten by mice, and will grow mouldie, &c?

Durst Theodoret have said in the 55 question upon Genesis, that it is an extreme folly to worship that which one eateth, if the Christians of his time had worshipped the Sacrament afore they are it? It is this error above all others that keeps the Pagans from embracing the Christian Religion, as Averroes testifieth; of whom Salmeron the Jesuit cites these words out of the 12 book of his Metaphysickes. Quoniam Christiani Deum suum quem adorant, manducant, sit anima mea cum Philosophis. Since Christians eat the God they worship, let my soul be with the Philosophers.

The ancientest form of celebrating the Eucharist in the Christian Church, is that which is described about the later end of the second Apology of Justin Martyr, wherein no mention is made of any adoration: No more than in that which is extant in the book of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Denis, who is surnamed Areopagite.

There are some places in the Fathers that say that Christ is worshipped in the Eucharist: but that makes nothing to this purpose. For the Father also and the Holy Ghost ought to b •• worshipped in the Eucharist. It is one thing to worship Christ in the action of the Sacrament, and another thing to worship the Sacrament. Yet notwithstanding, the third Council of Carthage in the 23 Canon, forbids one to address his prayer to the Son in the Eucharist, in these words: When any one assists at the Altar, let his prayer always be directed to the Father. If then they had worshipped the consecrated host, doubtless it would not have been forforbidden to invocate it.

There be also in Ancient Fathers some Oratory Apostropho's, wherein they speak to the water of Baptism, and to the bread and wine of the Eucharist: but that makes nothing for the adoration neither of the water nor of the bread. So the Scripture speaks often to heaven, to the Earth, to the Sea, to the Mountains; yet none can infer from thence that they must be worshipped.

Of Theodoret, who in his 2. Dialogue saith, that the signs are worshipped, •• all be spoken hereafter. There is in the Greek 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , which cannot be understood of the sovereign adoration, •• eing he speaks of the signs or Sym •• les, which cannot be worshipped reli •• ously, and with the worship of Latria, without manifest Idolatry. In the Greek copies of the African codex, Aurelius Bishop of Carthage, is often̄ called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : Abraham worshippeth, or rather pro •• rateth himself before the Sons of Heth, Genes: 23. verse. 7. & 12. And Jacob doth the same to his brother Esau, Gen: 33.3. and David to Jonathan. 1. Sam: 20.41. Whom nevertheless Abraham, and Jacob, and David esteemed not to be God's: Tertullian against Hermogenes, chap. 22. saith, that he worshippeth the plenitude of the Scriptures. Austiu in the 164 Epistle to Emeritus, Baptismum Christi ubique veneramur: We worship everywhere the Baptism of Christ. Such n ••• n • r of speeches ought to be understood according to the subject or matter in hand.

CHAP. XVII. Of the Priests intention, without which the Roman Church believe • no consecration, nor Transubstantiation is made.

THe Roman Church holdeth, that 〈◊〉 the Priest hath not intention to consecrate, and to do what the Church doth, there is no consecration or Transubstantiation made. It is thus defined and determined by Pope Eugenius the 4. in the instruction of the Armenians, which is at the end of the Council of Florence: And by the Council of Tren • in the 7. Session, Canon 11. in these words: If any one say that the intentiont • do at least what the Church doth, is not requisite in the Ministers, let him be accursed.

The Sacrament then being of no value, if the Priests intention be not to consecrate, it is impossible for the people to be assured that the consecration was made. For they know not what the intention and thought of the Priest was: only they presume it by conjecture. God only knows the hearts of men, 2. Chron. 6.30. The adoration therefore of the Hoste, is a conjectural adoration, and which is done at all adventure, since no man is assured of the Priests intention, without which the Sacrament is of no value. Bellarmine confesses it ingenuously in his third Book of Justification, chap. 8. No man (saith he) can be certain by the certitude of faith that he receives a true Sacrament, because it depends upon the intention of the Minister: And none can see another man's intention. And truly this Cardinal hath reason to say that none can be certain of it: for there are Priests that are Magicians, and there are examples of Priests convicted and punished for having consecrated in the name of the Devil. Even very lately there was one put to death at Loudun, accused of Magicke by the Ursulina Nuns that were possessed with the Devil. There be Priests Atheists & profane, that scoff and jest at everything they do in the Church. I have known diverse Priests, who being converted to the true Religion, did confess to have sung Masses for many years together against their intention, and detesting in their hearts what they did, and asked forgiveness of God for that they had fought so long against their own consciences. In all these Masses then no consecration was made.

By the same doctrine it appears that the Priest doth not know whether he b • a Priest or no. For he knows not what the intention of his Ordinator was▪ Whence followeth that all the Masses he sings, and all the absolutions he giveth, remain in suspense, and no man knows whether they be of any force or value Peradventure this Priest received the order of Priesthood of a Bishop that had intention, but this Bishop perhaps received his Orders of another Bishop that had no intention. And so mounting upwards, the uncertainty increaseth and multiplies it self ad infinitum. Gabri • Biel acknowledges the same in his Epitomie of the Canon of the Mass: No Priest (saith he) that celebrateth, can know evidently whether he be a Priest: for he cannot know evidently whether he be baptized, or whether he hath received the Ordination lawfully.

The Church then under the Old Testament had a great advantage over the Christian Church; for then the Salvation of Children depended not upon the intention of those that circumcised them, but on the only grace of God, and upon his Covenant, which is a stay infinitely more firm than the intention of men.

Pope Adrian the 6. after the council of Constance, excuseth the simple people that worshippeth the unconsecrated Hoste, which they think to be consecrated, saying, the Hoste is not worshipped but with this condition, to wit, if the consecration be made as it ought, in saying, Adoro te situes Christus: I worship thee if thou be Christ. As saying: I know not whether thou be Christ, or whether thou be not Christ; but howsoever, and at all adventure, I adore thee if thou be Christ.

Gerson in his Treatise of the Examen of Doctrines, Tome 1. moves an objection drawn out of Bonaventure, touching the worshipping of the Eucharist which is thought to be consecrated though it be not. His answer after Bonaventure is such: It is an ordinary ease which always carries this condition or implicit presupposition, that the Priest hath done as ought to be done in the Church, which condition needs not to be expressed in the adoration. Nevertheless this adoration frees it self from being a sin, because it is the custom of the faithful: whereof we have an example in the worshipping of Images. These Doctors will have the Hoste and Images of Saints to be worshipped upon these conditions, viz: if the consecration was duly made, and if those Images be Images of true Saints, and if those Saints hear us: Which be things that one must guess at piously, and be contented with conjectures, and be saved by custom. As if a wife doubting whether he that hath lien with her, were her husband or no, should say unto him, I have received you, but under this presupposition, that you are my husband: I have indeed lien with you, but it was under this condition, if you were my husband. The faith of the faithful is not grounded upon conjectures, it worships not a conjectural God, not knowing whether he be a God or no God.

The force of this intention is so great, that Vasquez the Jesuit saith, It is most certain that the power of consecrating was committed unto Priests, so that if they would consecrate to a bad use, viz: as for poysonings, or enchantments, the consceration never thelesse should have its effect. By this means Christ shall be in the power of a Magician, and shall become the sport or pastime of the Devil. Would God have given unto Priests a power against God himself, which he will not take from them when they employ it in the service of the Devil?

But upon this intention men's consciences are marvelously confounded and troubled, and their Doctors know not at what pass they be. For if a Priest hath before him a great household-loaf, and his intention is but to consecrate one half of it, without cutting it into two pieces: how shall a man discern Christ's body which is in that bread, from the unconsecrated bread? And if the Priest hath before him a dozen of wafer cakes, and his intention is but to consecrate ten of them, if these Hosts come to be mingled together, how shall he discern the consecrated ones from those that are not consecrated? How shall he discern his God from the wafers of common bread? Is it possible that Christ did not leave unto Christians any means to know with certainty whether his body be present under the species, or whether it be not: lest they should pollute themselves with Idolatry?

Upon this adoration it must be observed, that the Council of Trent ordaineth that the Sacrament be worshipped. Now all the Doctors with an unanimous consent, after Saint Austin, define that this word Sacrament, signifieth a sacred sign. This Council then ordains that the sign be worshipped. That if by the sacred sign Christ himself must be understood, Christ shall be the sign and the figure of himself, as Bellarmine saith in the 24. chapter of his second Book of the Eucharist: The same Christ was the figure of himself.

In this point of adoration, God in his just judgment hath given our adversaries over into a reprobate sense. For when the Hoste is fallen into some filthy place, or is vomited up through drunkenness, they worship it thus defiled, as Vasquez teaches in his 3 Tome, upon the 3 part of Thomas, Dispute. 195. chap. 5. That is (saith he) the common opinion of the Church, which would worship as a true Sacrament the species taken ou • of a filthy place, or vomited up again by a brute beast: for there is no reason to say that Christ's body ozaseth to be under them before they be corrupted. And in the same place he teacheth, that if a dumb creature hath eaten the consecrated Hosts, and drunken the consecrated cup, this beast shall grow fat with them, and may be made drunk with it, and its belly shall swell. It will then be drunk with accidents, and farten with roundnesses and lines.

The words of this Jesuit, in the beginning of the 4 chapter of the same Dispute, are such: It may come to pass that a beast that hath eaten the species of the Sacrament, shall not be less nourished with thē then if it bad eaten bread and wine not consecrated: yea it may fall out that this beast may be made drunk therewith, & her belly stretch & swell. To be short, by this doctrine that beast may burst for having eaten God.

For to avoid this ignominy and preserve Christ from these inconveniences, certain Doctors of the Roman Church, and namely Bonaventure have esteemed that so soon as a beast hath devoured the consecrated Hoste, or that it hath been cast into the dirt or in a privy, Christ's body with draws himself, and the substance of the bread returns by a second transubstantiation no less admirable than the first. But Pope Gregory the eleventh in his Directorie of Inquisitors, part. 2. quest. 20. condemns this opinion: and that conformably to the opinion of Thomas, and of Scotus, and of the Jesuits, who hold generally that the body of Christ is taken really by a beast, and that mice may carry it away.

CHAP. XVIII. That our Adversaries in this matter entangle themselves into absurdities, and insoluble contradictions.

IT is hard to believe a man that believes not his own self, and that contradicts himself, and heaps up together so many absurdities, that it seems he is afraid other men should believe him. This maxim is true without exception, that two things contradictory cannot both be true. Our Adversaries themselves confess that it passeth the omnipotency of God, and that he cannot do that a thing be and be not at one and the fame time: that Caesar be a man indeed and not be a reasonable creature. That a round sigure be square whilst it is round.

Against this rule do our adversaries offend, destroying the definition of things, and affirming things which are • ncompatible, and heaping together in this matter a thousand absurdities, whereof we will specify some.

1 They say that in the Mass the Priest with 5 words makes the body of Christ, which nevertheless was already before the Priest made it. They speak as if should say, that whilst Philip is at Paris, somebody makes him at Rome. To make a thing which is already, and to destroy a thing which is not, are like absurdities.

2 If a man be in this chamber who was not in it the day before, it must needs follow that either he came thither from elsewhere, or was borne in it. But in the Mass they say that Christ is not there before the consecration, and that after the consecration he is there, and yet that he came not thither: It follows then that he was borne there, or freshly formed, though he was already before.

3 They say that the Species of the bread and wine (for they speak after that manner) contain the body of Christ, and yet contain it not, for it is in heaven. This is a ridiculous contradiction, to will that a body be out of that which contains it, for thence will follow tha • the thing which containeth it, contain • it not.

4 They say that the Lord's body with all its bigness and length is contained i • the least crumb of the Hoste, and in th • least drop of the chalice, so that if th • point of a pin were dipt in the consecrated cup, the Lord's body would be whole in that drop that should hang 〈◊〉 the end of the pin. Whence followeth that the contained is greater tha • the continent, as if one should say that 〈◊〉 crown which is in a purse, is bigger than the purse, and that the Earth is bigger than heaven that compasseth it about.

5 They give to the body of Christ 〈◊〉 length without extent, that is to say, 〈◊〉 length without length, since all i • length is under one point that hath no • length.

6 They say that Christ's body is in this place, but not locally, as if a man should say, it is white, but not whitely. They say that the body of the Lord i • present, but not corporally, but rather spiritually. But for a body to be spiritually present, is a thing no less absurd, than for a spirit to be corporal-present.

7 They will have Christ's body in the crament to be long and large, and yet hold no space. How is that possible, •• ce that length and breadth are spaces.

8 They say that Christ's body in the crament is present not circumscrip • ely, that is to say, not bounded or en •• osed of any place. Yet what they de •• of the whole, they confess it of every •• verall part of the body. For they can • ot deny but that in the Lord's body the • aines are enclosed, and circumscribed • ithin the scull, and that his heart is en •• osed and limited within the pericardi • n, and the lungs within the breast or •• est, since they say that it is a true human body.

9 They say that the consecrated host 〈◊〉 Christ, and that the Priest breaks the Hoste, and yet breaks not Christ. They • ay that Christ's blood is shed in the Mass, and yet budges not, and comes not out of the veins. But all effusion is a motion: how can then Christ's blood be shed without motion?

10 They say that the Priest drinketh Christ's body and soul under the species of the wine. By that means they make Christ's body liquid. For although the • say that the Priest drinks the Lord's bo •• under the species of the wine: yet under these species it doth not lose its soliditi •• .

11 They say that Christ did eat himself, and swallowed up his own body Whence it followeth that he had at th • same time his mouth in his head, and his head in his mouth, and that the whole was enclosed in one part, whereas par • are comprised in the whole. A ma • should be esteemed mad that would say that the scabbard is within the blade of the sword, and the purse within a crown. And all this without being able to tell us what benefit comes to us, that Christ should have eaten himself. The absurdity redoubles in that that Christ eating, was infirm and passable, speaking, and moving, and fitting: But Christ that was eaten by Christ, was impassible and without infirmity, neither speaking, nor moving, fitting, lying▪ nor standing. By this means Christ passable hath devoured the impassible: And Christ did eat himself, not such as he was, but such as he was not.

12 It is true that things contradictory may agree in one and the same subject in several times, or in several parts, or in several respects, that is to say, in come • aring this thing with several things . • or example a man may be young and old 〈◊〉 several times: be white in one part of • s body, and black in the other. He • ay be tall and little, poor and rich 〈◊〉 several respects, that is to say, in • omparing him with several persons. • ee may be tall in comparison of a •• warfe, little in comparison of a Gi •• nt, rich in comparison of a beggar, • nd poor in comparison of Seneca, or Lucullus. But here they attribute unto Christ contradictory things at one and the same time, not in several parts, and without comparing him with any other but himself. They will have him at one and the same time to have been the contained and the continent, speaking and moving in the Eucharist, and neither speaking nor moving in the mouths of the Apostles, having a length without length, an extent without a space.

13. They say that as God may do that one and the same body be whole and entire in several remote places, and so be far and separated from himself, that is to say that he be one, and not be one: So likewise God can make that two bodies hold but one place, by penetration of dimensions, as they prattle in their Schools: That is to say that God can make that a vessel that holds a pinte, without making it bigger or larger, may contain two pintes yea three, yea ten, yea a thousand, yea a million, and so ad infinitum: So th •• this pinte shall contain the whole Se • without being made bigger, and without the water of the Sea being any wh •• diminished. Yea by this doctrine th •• whole World without diminishing o • its bigness, may be enclosed in one grai • of wheat.

14. Philosophy by a thousand reasons proveth that it is impossible that there be any Vacuum in the World, and our Adversaries teach it so in their Schools, and with good reason. By Vacuum is understood a space of place which is not filled with any substance a place that is full of nothing. Ye • notwithstanding, the Roman Church, by Transubstantiation puts a Vacuum in the consecrated cup. They say that this chalice is full, but they cannot tell with what body it is filled up. It is not full of wine: For they hold it is no more wine. It is not full of the body of Christ: for they hold that Christ's body in the Eucharist filleth no place. As for the accidents they are not a body. So no bodily substance shall be found that filleth the chalice.

15. It is not to be imagined but that when Christ did break the bread to his Disciples, some crumbs thereof fell upon the table: and some residue of that sacred bread was left behind. Now according to the Church of Rome's doctrine, in everyone of these pieces of bread, Christ's body was whole and entire. Whereupon we ask if when Christ (after he was risen from the table) swate drops of blood, that body of the Lord which was under these crumbs, swate also drops of blood? Item if when Christ was put upon the Cross, that body which was under these crumbs, or under the residues of that sacred bread was likewise crucified under the species of the bread? For if it was not crucified under these species of the bread, behold there was 2 Christ's, the one crucified, the other not crucified. Or if under those species Christ's body was crucified, they must also put under the same species the Cross, and the Soldiers that crucified him. For to be crucified without a cross is a thing inconceivable, & a plain contradiction.

16. This body also which was under the residue of the consecrated bread, mu •• of necessity either be living or deal when the Lord's body was in the Sepulcher: If living, behold there was two bodies of Christ at one and the same time, whereof the one was dead, the other living. Or if that body which was in these crumbs, suffered death under those species, there was a body▪ of Christ which suffered death without being put to the cross, and without the Soldiers touched it.

17. That if whilst the body of the Lord was dead, any of his Disciples had celebrated the Eucharist, if he had offered a living body, it would not have been the same body that was in the Sepulcher. Or if by pronoūcing the words of consecration he had turned the bread into a dead body, he had not offered a Sacrifice: For a dead body is not an acceptable Sacrifice. These difficulties would deserve well to consult the Papal Oracle: or some decision of the Sorbon.

18. From the same Doctrine followeth, that when in the Procession on Corpus Christi day two consecrated hosts meet one another and pass by one another, Christ encounters himself, and goes to meet with his own self. And it is to be presumed that these Hosts know one another, and make one to another a mutual salutation, and that if one should come to fall, the other that is not fallen, would look upon that which is fallen, with great compassion.

19. This is one of the best of all, and wherein the Romish Doctors entangle themselves most and trouble their brains exceedingly. A time was that they disputed in the Church of Rome whether it be in God's power to make that one body be circumscriptively in two or in many several places. As for example, whether God can make that Philip be at Paris and at Rome at one and the same time, contained and limited by two several remote places. But now they hold with a general consent that it is possible. Among those that have written in these our times, I know none but Vasquez that is of another opinion. This thing admitted to be so, it will follow that if Philip be at Rome in the water, and in the fire at Paris, he shall be both wet and burned at once. If one of his arms be cut off at Paris, he shall have but one arm at Paris, but at Rome he shall have two. If he be killed at Paris, he shall be dead at Paris, and living at Rome: and perhaps coming from Rome to Paris, he shall find himself to be dead, not knowing of it before, and shall assist at his own funerals. Perhaps that Philip of Paris will come to Rome to see himself, and being arrived there, shall not find himself there because he absented himself from Rome. That if both of them set forth on the way for to meet one another, one and the same man shall go to meet himself. And having met with himself, how shall their noses jumble themselves into one? How shall a man turn his back to his own self? That if Philip doth feast at Paris and fast at Rome, one and the self same man shall be both full and empty, fat and lean at the same time. That if Philip meet with himself upon the way, and that Philip embrace Philip, it is evident they shall be two. For every conjunction is at least between two divers things.

20. That if the body of one and the same man may be in a thousand several places at one and the same time, it may be also in a hundred thousand places, and if in a hundred thousand, so likewise in a Million, and so still in augmenting: so that at last one man's body shall be able to fill up the whole world. Indeed, the plurality of places and the Ubiquity comes all to one. The difference between the Church of Rome and those that put Christ's body everywhere, is only in this: the one say this body is everywhere, and the other say it may be everywhere. Truly the Roman Church hath no reason to contend with the Ubiquitaries about a thing which she believes to be possible.

21. The point in Mathematics is no quantity, and hath no magnitude, and is indivisible: To put therefore one and the same point in two divers remote places, is to divide the point and to separate it from it self. That is the thing our Adversaries do, putting one body in two several places. For example, if Philip may be at Paris and at Rome at one and the same time, the point that is in the midst of the apple of his eye, is the same point as well at Rome as at Paris, and yet it is far from it self, and separated and divided from it self.

22. And since Angelical Spirits are but in one only place definitively, those that put the Lord's body in several places at once, make it more spiritual than the very Spirits themselves, and divide it from it self.

23. There is impiety mingled with that. For after the Priest hath eaten the host, they hold that Christ's body is in the Priests stomach until the species by disgestion be destroyed. After then that those species be destroyed, the Lord's body is no more there, and yet is not gone out of it: (for these Doctors say it cannot move it self locally.) Whereupon it must follow of necessity that this body of Christ which was in the Priests stomach, is turned into nothing. And our Adversaries cannot tell us whither he is gone, nor what is become of him.

CHAP. XIX. Of accidents without a subject: places of Fathers.

THe accidents without a subject which they put in the consecrated Hoste, are another swarm of ridiculous absurdities and mere contradictions. For what is there more incompatible than this, to wit, that Accidentia non accidunt, as if one said, Albentia non albent, that the speakers speak not: and to forge qualities which qualify nothing: color and nothing coloured, a length and nothing long, a roundness and nothing round: as if one should forge a sight without an eye, a sickness without a sick body, a halting without a leg, an Ecclipse of the Moon without a Moon. So they put in the Hoste a taste of bread, a color of bread, a roundness of bread without bread. And as Pope Innocent the third saith in his 4 Book of the Mysteries of the Mass, chap. 11. There is here color and savor, quantity and quality, though there be here nothing savory, nothing coloured, nothing that hath quantity or quality. In sum, God hath so created substances, and accidents, that as a created substance cannot be without accidents, so accidents cannot be without a substance: These things be so relative one to another, as to separate them, is as if one should put a Father without a Son, or a Son without a Father.

This error casts our Adversaries head-long into many others. For if the Hoste become dirty, being fallen into the mire, loe there are accidents that carry a substance: and whereas the substance is the subject of accidents, here on the contrary, accidents are the subject of the substance.

None can deny but that Ice is a substance: when then the consecrated cup freezeth, they will have the accidents alone to be frozen, and so the accidents are become a Substance by a new kind of Transubstantiation, no less prodigious than the first, and which never thelesse availeth nothing to our salvation. Unless they will have Christ's body to be frozen.

That if the Hosts grow mouldie, behold there are lines, a whiteness, a length, a roundness mouldie. If one warm the consecrated cup so that it smoke, behold accidents which produce a Substance. If (as Thomas and Suarez acknowledge) worms breed in the consecrated host, we must say that accidents have engendered a substance, and that Soul-less accidents have produced an animated Substance: and all that without being able to tell what profit the faithful reap thereby.

The histories written by our adversaries testify, that Pope Victorinus the 3 was empoisoned in the chalice of the Mass. And that Henry the 7 Emperor was served just so in taking the Hoste. Matthew Paris, in the year 1154. relates the like of Henry Archbishop of York. Then it was said with horror, God is empoisoned. It is likely that for to avoid this inconvenience, they make the essay to the Pope, and taste it before him at the Mass, as they do at his ordinary meals. That if the accidents only are empoisoned, besides the absurdity of impoysoning a length, breadth, and color, where there is nothing long, nothing broad, nor nothing coloured, this ignominy is done to Christ Jesus, that by his presence he could not t • move away the poison: and that his body served of a vehicle to the poison, and that being given for the salvation of the soul, it serveth to bring death and destruction to the body.

The Fathers impugn this error plainly and expressly. Gregory of Nysse, in his work of six days. The figure is not without body. S. Austin in his 57 Epistle to Dardanus, Take away the bodies from the qualities of bodies, they shall be no more, and therefore it is necessary they be not. Aud a little after, If the mass of the body be wholly taken away, its qualities shall be no more. The same in his 2 book of Soliloquies: Who can yield to that thou hast demanded of me, that that which is in the subject, may remain after the subject is abolished?

Briefly, in all the Fathers you shall not find one that saith that in the Eucharist the accidents remain without a Subject. That if they had be leeved it, doubtless when they said that an accident is never without a subject, they would have brought this exception taken from the Sacrament.

Moreover S. Austin in his 3 book of • he Trinity, chap. 10. saith openly that • n the Eucharist there is no miracle wrought. The bread (saith he) made for • his use, is eaten when the Sacrament is re • eived: but because these things are known unto men, by reason they are made by men, 〈◊〉 they may well be honored as religious: but cannot be admired as miraculous. In the 3 Tome of this good Doctor there are 3 books Of the marvelous things of the Scriptures, wherein he speaks nothing of Transubstantiation, nor of the Eucharist.

And those that talk here of Miracle, understand not what a miracle is. A Miracle is a sensible and a visible effect of the power of God, against or above the course of nature, to the end he may make his virtue known unto men. But in the Mass there is nothing seen miraculous. None can boast without lying, that ever he saw the Transubstantiation made. We do not deny but God may do all these things, if he would. But we say it is impossible that he would have such things to come to pass. For he will be no liar, nor will contradict himself, nor tie and submit his omnipotency to mers imagination, who employ it in ridiculous things, and forging of Chymera' • and castles in the air.

CHAP. XX, Answers to some examples brought out of the Scriptures by our adversaries for to prove that the body of Christ hath been sometimes in two several places.

TO cloak this abuse, they say that as God hath made that sometimes two bodies have filled and occupied but one place, so he can make that one and the same body be in several places at once: and thereupon they allege for example that Christ entered in at the doors shut, John 20.19. and consequently did penetrate the wood of the doors. But they falsify the Scripture. S. John saith not that Christ entered in at the doors shut, but that he entered in when the doors were shut. It may be that he went in by some other place than by the • ore. It may be that the wood of the door, or the stones of the wall yielded into him, the creature yielding and o • eying the Creator, as Jerome saith, God went in at the door shut, the creature having yielded to the Creator. By saying • hat he entered in at the door shut, he meant the door yielded to him, or that • ee opened it at his coming in. So if I say, a muddy brook runs thorough a clear water, I mean it marred it as it went thorough. But the best is always to stick close to the holy Scriptures.

Again, they allege to the same purpose, that Christ's body coming out of the Sepulcher, passed thorough the stone that stopped the mouth of the Sepulcher, without taking away or removing the stone. Matth. 28.2. But this place is likewise alleged falsely: For Saint Matthew in the very same place saith the clean contrary. There was (saith he) a great Earthquake: For the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came, and rolled back the stone from the door of the Sepulcher. And Mark, chap. 16.4. saith the same. Leo the first Bishop of Rome, in his 95 Epistle to Leo Augustus, acknowledges it, saying that in the third day the flesh of the Lord arose again, the stone of the monument being rolles back.

In vain do they allege that Chri •• walked upon the waters. For what i • that to prove that his body may be in several places at one and the same time▪ He that walketh upon the waters, is not for that far from himself. If Christ by his divine power▪ hath made the waters firm under his feet, or sustained his body that it might not sink, he hath not for that placed his body in several places, nor changed the nature of his body. If I keep up and uphold with my hand a stone above the water, that changes not the nature of the stone, and doth not take from it its weight and heaviness.

For to prove that the body of the Lord hath been sometimes in two several places at once, they allege the 23 chapter of the Acts, verse 11. where it is said, That the night following, the Lord stood by Paul: from whence they do infer that Christ's body being in heaven, stood nevertheless by Saint Paul on earth. In speaking thus, they presuppose without proof that the Lord of whom is spoken in this place, is Christ only, and not God simply without distinction of persons. Yea even in re •• raining this word, LORD, to Christ's person, there is nothing in that place that obliges us to understand this of the body of Christ, rather then of his divine nature and virtue. Might not • he son of God speak and make himself sensible to Saint Paul by his divine virtue, without a local and bodily approach? The Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , whereof Saint Luke makes use, signifieth not only to stand by one, but also to come upon him unlook'd for, to relieve and succor him, and make him feel his favor, as may be seen Acts 12.7. Luke 2.9. Acts 23.27. In all these places the Greek word signifieth to come upon unlooked for. Now the Roman Church doth not believe that Christ comes unto the Sacrament, but believes that he is made in it.

CHAP. XXI. Of the dignity of Priests. And that our Adversaries debase and vilisie the utility and efficacy o • Masses, and make them unprofitable for the remission of sins. And of the traffic of Masses.

THe Doctors of the Roman Church do speak of the Eucharist as of the highest mystery of Christian Religion, and extol with such big terms the power of priests in making Christ with a few words, that they call them God's and Creators of their Creator, having a power above the blessed Virgin Mary, and above all the Angels, who cannot make Christ, because he is made already. So saith Gabriel Biel in his 4 lesson upon the Canon of the Mass. The Angels, Citizens of Heaven, dare not aspire to the authority of Priesthood. And a little after: Passing by the bands of Angels, let us come to the Queen of Heaven and Lady of the World. The same, though in pleni •• de of grace she goes beyond all the crea • ures, yet she yields to the Hierarchs of • he Church, (he calls the Priests so) in the • xecution of the Mystery committed unto •• em. And it is in the same lesson where • e saith, that Christ in incarnate and made •• esh in the hands of Priests, as in the Vir • ins womb, and that Priests do create • heir Creator, and have power over the • ody of Christ.

Peter de Besse in his Book of the Royal Priesthood, chapter 2. speaks thus, Saint Peter addeth that all Priests are Kings, in token whereof they wear the crown. And in the 3 chapter: The Priesthood and the Godhead are in some things to be parallel'd, and are almost of equal greatness, since they have equal power, Matth. 16. & 18. Again, Seeing that the Priesthood walketh hand in hand with the Godhead, & that Priests are God's: it goes far beyond the kingly authority, and Priests are far above Kings. And in the same place, he calls them Masters of Kings, surpassing as much in dignity the royal office, as the Soul surpasses the body. Which he hath taken out of Baronius. He adds: Incredible things (saith he) but yet true, that the power of Priests is so great, and their excellency so noble, that heaven depends on them. Item in the same place comparing the Priests with Joshua, at whose Prayer the Sun stood still, he saith: Joshua stopped but the Sun, but these (to wit the Priests) stay Christ being in heaven, in the midst of an Altar. The creature obeyed to the first, but the Creator obeys to these last: The Sun to the one, and God to the other, as often as they pronounce the sacred words. To be short, he concludes that whatsoever God is in heaven, the Priest is the same on earth. And all that with the approbation of the Faculty of Divinity at Paris, prefixed in the front of the Book.

It is good to know that England having been a long time without a Bishop subject to the Pope, the English Papists complained lately they had nobody to confer them the Orders, and to minister unto them the confirmation, without which the Canons say that a man cannot be wholly a Christian. Unto whose desire Urhan now reigning being willing to satisfy, sent them a titular Bishop which he hath called Bishop of Calcedon. But the Jesuits, t • at are in possession of ruling and governing among the English Papists, would not receive that Bishop, saying that Confirmation is not necessary, and that the Baptismal Unction may supply the want of Episcopal Crisome and that a Church may be without a Bishop. Against whom the Sorbonne of Paris did cast some Censures, calling their doctrine heretical and scandalous. Of which censures these Jesuits made a laughing stock, in a Book full of bitterness, which they have titled Spongia. For to refute this Spongia, the Sorbonne made use of the pen of a Sorbonist called Petrus Aurelius. In whose Book printed at Paris by Charles Morell, I find these words in the page 175. The Bishops have the power to produce Christ, that is to say, God himself, &c. Which virtue is in a manner infinite, and equivalent not only to the fecunditie of the Virgin Mother of God, inasmuch as the Virgin-Priests procreate upon the Altar the same God whom the Virgin procreated first in her most holy womb: But als • hath some ••• ulation with the eternal operationes by which the divine persons are produced, and with the eternal generation, by which the F •• there produceth with his divine mouth the same Word which the Priests produce with their sacred mouths. And gathers from thence, that the power of Priests surpasses very far all the Angelical power. And in the page 177. he saith that Priests do perfect and accomplish the Redemption of mankind. And in the page 187. he saith that the power of Priests is most like unto the Divine power, and that they have power over the real body of Christ, and over his mystical body which is the Church: and that with the Approbation of the Sorbon set in the front of the Book.

Long before, Pope Urban the second, in the year 1097. called a Council at Rome against the Emperor Henry the fourth, in which he did thunder against earthly Princes who challenged to themselves the investiture of Benefices, alleging it is a thing abhominable that the hands of those which create God their Creator by their Character, should be bound to this ignominy to be as drudges or servants to the hands that are night and day polluted with filthy and dishonest attractations. If these things be true, reason requires that so great a power hath not been given unto Priests without great necessity, and without some great profit should come thereby unto the Christian Church, and that so many wonders as our Adversaries pile up in the Eucharist, be greatly useful and profitable to the faithful. Yet when we come to examine what the fruit is that comes from Transubstantiation and from the Sacrifice of the Mass, we find they reduce it almost to nothing, and make the Mass almost needless and unprofitable.

That appears as clear as the day, by comparing it with Baptism. For in Baptism there is no Transubstantiation made. After these words I baptize thee in the name of the Father, &c. the water remains in its own nature, and is not turned into blood. Yet notwithstanding, according to the doctrine of the Roman Church, Baptism is a thousand times more profitable and beneficial, and of a more excellent nature, For in the Roman Church they hold Baptism with water absolutely necessary to Salvation. But as for the Eucharist, our Adversaries hold that many are saved without being partakers thereof: as appeareth by the example of John the Baptist, and of the Thief crucified with Christ our Lord, and of many faithful people that die without having partaked thereof, specially of those which the Ancient Church did call Catechumenes.

Secondly our Adversaries say, that by Baptism not only original sin is pardoned, but even wholly taken away, so that those which are Baptized, have no more original sin, nor nothing (to speak properly) that may be called sin. But concerning the Eucharist, the Roman Church doth not believe that it wipes away the vices, nor vicious customs in such sort as it may be said that all those which are made partakers of the Eucharist, be without pride, or without covetouesnesse, or without lascivious lusts.

The principal is, that our Adversaries teach that by Baptism is remitted and abolished all the guilt and punishment, both eternal and temporal, of all the sins as well venial as mortal, committed before Baptism. But as for the Eucharist, they say it availeth but against venial I sins, which they make to be so light, that a man needs not so much as to have and contrition or repentance for them. Vasquez the Jesuit: The rude and vulgar sort ought not to know the particular virtue of this Sacrament in remitting venial sins, for that remission is not necessary unto salvation. And the Catechism of the Council of Trent, in the chapter of the Sacrament of the Eucharist: It must not be doubted but by the Eucharist, light sins, which are called venial, are remitted and forgiven, which remission Vasquez told us just now not to be necessary. Bellarmine in the seventeenth Chapter of his fourth Book of the Eucharist, putteth this among Luther's errors, to have said that the first effect of this Sacrament is the remission of mortal sins. And about the end of the same Chapter: The whole question is reduced to this article, Whether the Sacrament of the Eucharist do confer the forgiveness of mortal sins wherewith a man's conscience is charged, or else (for it comes all to one) if for to receive the Communion worthily, it be required that a man's conscience be not charged with any mortal sin: For all Catholics teach that the Eucharist remits not such sins wherewith a man's conscience is loaden, and therefore it is requisite they should be purged before. And in the beginning of the eighteenth Chapter: In this chapter it is not taught that the Eucharist be instituted for the remission of sins, but only for to preserve spiritual life.

And though even these Doctors were not so express upon this subject, Yet the practice of the Roman Church shows evidently that the Eucharist and the Mass avails nothing for the remission of sins. For he that will receive the communion, must be confessed before, and after confession he receives of the Priest the absolution and forgiveness of all his sins. Whereupon it followeth, that when a little after he receives the host, there is nothing at all to be pardoned: and that the Eucharist is a plaster for a healed wound, and a remedy for a disease which is not.

Of how small efficacy likewise the Sacrifice of the Mass is in the Roman Church, appears in that they sing or say ten thousand Masses for to draw one Soul out of Purgatory, and yet after so many Masses, they doubt still whether that Soul be in Heaven, and are still uncertain of its condition.

They Sacrifice in private Masses the body of Christ in a corner of a Church, for the easing of a sick body, or for the curing of a horse; but it falls out very often that both man and horse die, and that the Priest hath created his Creator and Sacrificed Christ for naught. Whence ariseth a great occasion of doubting whether Masses serve for drawing of Souls out of Purgatory. For if Masses cannot obtain so small a thing, what assurance have we they shall obtain a greater? seeing that no Soul comes out of that Country for to thank those who in causing Masses to be said, have eased it with their money. For these private Masses are paid by such as cause them to be said at their intention. The Priest in his Memento names none of those for whom nothing was given. Of particular Masses for the Soul of a Beggar, there is no speech of it. Therefore Gabriel Biel in his 25 Lesson upon the Canon of the Mass, warns the Testators that bequeath anything to the Church for the easing of their Souls, to choose faithful executors, least their Souls be frustrated of the Suffrages of the Church, for lack of payment. That is to say, that Masses are not said if they be not paid for before hand.

And seeing that our Adversaries hold with us that our Savior Christ, sitting at the right hand of God, maketh request for all the faithful: it follows that he makes request also for the Souls that are in Purgatory. If they of me out of that fire through his Intercession, Masses are unprofitable. But if they come not out; who will believe that a Mass or a Papal Indulgence can do that which Christ's Intercession hath not done?

This is a Maxim received among the Romish Doctors, that a Mass said for three or four persons that join and pay for it together, is not so available and profitable unto them, as if everyone should cause a Mass to be said for himself alone. By this means the gain increases three or four fold Immanuel Sa the Jesuit, in his Aphorisms, gives this rule full of great equity: That if a Priest hath received a sum of money for to say a certain number of Masses, be may hire other Priests that will say them at a lower rate, and keep to himself the rest of the money.

And it is marvelous and strange, that Priests, which are thought to have the power to make a God with a few words, and to carry Christ every day shut up in a Pixe or Box, and in their stomaks, are in the mean while in such contempt, and that the Country Priests are the reproach and the very dregs of the people: And that a Cardinal Deacon, who hath no power to make Christ, should equal in magnificence the Kings of the Earth, whilst a wretched Priest is tippling in an Alehouse, and of his singing of Masses makes his only living. Who when he maketh Christ in a private Mass for two or three groats, may justly say with Judas, What will you give me and I will deliver him unto you? Men boast to give or deliver God unto others, and cannot give Salvation. And our Adversaries confess, that there are some Priests damned: Whereupon it will follow, that a man which hath carried God so many times, is himself carried away by the Devil.

CHAP. XXII. That the Roman Religion is a new Religion, and forged for the Popes profit and of the Clergy.

AFter that our Adversaries have utterly changed and wholly disfigured the Christian Religion, it becomes them very ill to accuse us of novelty. For indeed the Roman Religion is a garment patched with new pieces, and a heap or pile of doctrines invented and added from age to age, beaten upon the anvil of Ambition and covetousness. We are ready to undergo all kinds of punishments, if in the five hundred years after Christ, (and we might descend lower) one man be found, that had and professed a Religion coming anything near to the Roman Religion as it is at this day. Can they find one Church in all the Antiquity, wherein the people was deprived of the communion of the Cup? Hath the Ancient Church forbidden unto the people the reading of the holy Scriptures? Did he believe the fire of Purgatory? Was there then any speech of Roman Indulgences, and of the Treasure of the Church, in which the Pope gathers up the Superabundance of Satisfactions and penal works of Saints and Monk • , and distributes them to others by his Indulgences? Did they make in those days any Images of God and of the Trinity, in stone or in painting? Did men worship the Images of Saints? Was there then any Penitents that whipt themselves in public, not only for their own sins, but also to satisfy for the sins of other men? Did the Bishops of Asia, Egypt, Africa, &c. swear allegiance to the Bishop of Rome, or did they take from him their Letters of Investure?

Was the public Service read in an unknown tongue to the people? Did the Bishop of Rome then call himself a God? Did he cause himself to be worshipped? Did he give Pardons of two or three hundred thousand years? Did he depose Kings, and brag of his power to give and take away their Kingdoms? Had he power to dispense of Oaths and Vowes? And to disjoyne Marriages lawfully contracted, under color of Monachall • profession? Did they then speak of Beads, Rosaries, blessed Graines, Agnus Dei? &c. The like I say of the title they give to the Virgin Mary, of Queen of Heaven and Lady of the World: and of the several Offices they give unto Saints, to the one the charge over such a Country, to the other over such a Disease, to another over such and such a trade. As also the power that Priests take upon them to give the absolution, and forgive sins in the quality of Judges, is a new thing, and of the dregs of the latter ages. Item Privat Masses without Communicants and without assistants, said at the Intention of those that pay for them, are a thing whereof no trace is to be found in all Antiquity. As also the tax of the Papal Chauncerie, wherein the Absolutions for Murder, for Parricide, Inceste, Perjury, are taxed at a certain rate of money. So many groats, or so many Ducats for a man that hath killed his Father: so much for him that hath lain with his Mother. A Roman Jesuit called Silvester Petra sancta wrote lately a Book against me, wherein he teaches us a thing which we knew not before. He saith in the thirteenth Chapter, that during the time of Advent and Lent, the Pope permits not a man in Rome to pass the whole night in a bawdy house: that would be thought 〈◊〉 violating of the holiness of Lent. Wherefore in those days of devotion, it is only permitted to pass the whole day and a part of the night in the Bawdy-house. Can such Laws be found in the Ancient Church? Briefly, it is a very new Religion, and a heap of doctrines and Laws, unheard off in all Antiquity, expressly invented for gain, and for the raising of the Popes Empire, and building up that Monarchy which was not in the first ages of the Church: And for to keep the People in ignorance, least they should discover these Mysteries.

For example, Indulgences, Priv ••• Masses, Masses and S • ffrage • 〈…〉 dead, are very lucrative 〈…〉 to the Pope and 〈…〉 Auricul •• 〈…〉 the 〈…〉 Conscien •• 〈…〉 jection. 〈…〉 is not give •• 〈…〉 and satis ••• 〈…〉 Monks, serve to fill up that Spiritual Treasure of the Pope, whereof he carries the keys, distributing these satisfactions to the people by his Indulgences, so lucrative and profitable to the Pope and his Clergy. By Absolutions the Priests make themselves Judges of Souls, and Judges in God's cause. In reserving to themselves and unto Kings the communion of the Cup, they make themselves companions unto Kings, and exalt themselves above the People. By the single life of Bishops, and other Clergy men, the Pope keeps the Ecclesiastical goods from being wasted and consumed, and from being diverted and turned to the relief and enriching of the Children. In painting God the Father dressed like a Pope, they plant this opinion in the mind of the People, that the Pope is like unto God, and that God makes great account of the Pope, since he borrows his habit. By Canonizing of Saints, the Pope makes the People to worship his groomes, and gives the title of Saint for a recompense of Services. By the Sacrament of Penance, the Pope and his Priests usurp the power of imposing corporal and pecuniary punishments, so far as to cause Kings to • e whipt. By the Service in the Latin • ongue he entertains the People in • gnorance, and giving them his tongue, planteth in the midst of them a mark of his Empire. He gives them the Roman Language for to came and inure • hem to the Roman Religion. The Popes power to unthrone Kings, makes him King of Kings, and exalts him on an Empire above all the Greatness that is in the World. Images, which are called ignorant men's Books, accustom the People to forget, and be without the Scriptures, which in those Countries where the inquisition reigns, is a Book altogether unknown among the People. By Transubstantiation, Priests make Christ, and have him in their own power. By Holy-days that the Pope ordains, he rules the Civil Government, causing the Shops to be shut up, and the Seats of Justice and of the Kings Counsel to cease. When the Merchants shop shutteth, the Clergy-men's shop openeth. For then do the People go to gain Pardons (as they term it) and visit Relics, and always the Bason is by. By the distinction of meats and fasting days, the Pope rules the Markets, and bellies, and Kitchins, and Kings and Peoples tables. And the more prohibitions there is, the oftener come they to the Pope and to the Prelates for to have dispensations. The Pope hath made of Matrimony a Sacrament, that he might take away from the civil Magistrates and Judges Secular the right of judging of such causes; for it belongs to the Church to judge of Sacraments.

By Dispensations in degrees of consanguinity which in the Word of God hinders the Marriage, the Pope maketh that the Children of Princes (for such dispensations are given but to Great ones) are obliged to defend the Popes Authority, if they will be held for legitimate. By Annates or first fruits of Benefices, and the sale of Archiepiscopall Cloakes, the Pope makes an incredible gain. And there is such a Cloake, for which he draws above threescore thousand Ducats. By the power which the Pope assumes to himself to change the Commandments of God, and to dispense of Vowes and Oaths made unto God, he exalts himself above God. For he that can free and exempt men from obeying God and being faithful to him, must be greater than God.

The Invocation of Saints, the Adoration of Relics, and the Miracles which are said to be wrought at those Relics, serve to build up many Churches & Monasteries, which are as so many props to the Papal Domination. In sum, all the subtlety and policy in the World hath been brought therein. Never was there any Empire built with so much craft and cunning. The doctrine which teacheth that Christ Jesus by his death hath delivered us from the guilt and punishment of sins before Baptism: but as for the sins committed after Baptism, that we must bear the punishment for them, either in this life, or in Purgatory: hath clipped Christ's benefice for to make place unto their traffick, and for to give credit to their Indulgences, and Masses for the dead. In a word, they make profit of all: Death it self is tributary to the Roman Clergy.

CHAP. XXIII. Answer to the Question made unto us by our Adversaries, Where was your Religion before Calvin.

THis demand which every foot is made unto us by our Adversaries, viz. Shew us where your Religion was before Calvin, is altogether injust and deceitful. For to keep us from examining the Roman Religion by the holy Scripture, they amuse us with human Histories. For this is not a question of Divinity, but of History, wherein God hath not commanded us to be learned and skillful that we may be saved: But hath commanded us to be instructed in his Word. At the day of judgment, God shall not ask us whether we have believed as they did believe before Calvin: but Saint Paul tells us that God shall judge us according to his Gospel, and that men shall be judged by the Law of God, Rom. 2.12. & 16, That if for to be saved it were necessary to know the History of the ages before Calvin, mounting upwards from Calvin, to the Apostles time, hardly one Christian of a thousand could be saved.

That if the question be touching Histories, it is certain we must begin by the Ancientest, and that it belongs to our Adversaries to show where their Religion was in the time of the Apostles, afore they speak of the time before Calvin. There they are at a stand and driven to a non-plus, and not being able to show their Religion in the Apostles writings, they send us back to an unwritten word, which depends on the Popes Authority, whom they make judge in his own cause; and make the Church of Rome the Sovereign Judge of her own proper duty.

The principal is, that the Christian Church is subject to the Laws and to the practice of the Church of the Apostles time, and not to the example of what was done before Calvin. Of whom they speak as of the Inventer of our Religion, because he exhorted us to believe the holy Scriptures. For Calvin gave us not any Laws. We speak not of him in our Sermons, we ground not ourselves upon his authority, we do not say of him what the Church of Rome saith of the Pope, to wit that he could not err. We do not call ourselves Calvinists, as our Adversaries acknowledge themselves to be Papists, and make glory of that title, as Cardinal Baronius doth, in his Martyrologie at the 16 of October, where he saith that a man cannot be adorned with a higher degree of glory than to be called a Papist. So that after his account the title of Papist is of as much worth as the name of a Christian.

This demand is so much the more absurd, as it is made unto us. For when they ask of us where our Religion was before Calvin, they presuppose that the Orthodox Church ought to be visible in all ages: Which the Scripture saith not, but foretells us of great revolts and false Doctors that shall teach men to abstain from Marriage and from meats which God hath created for to be received with thanksgiving, 1. Timoth. 4.3. It foretells us that all the Earth ravished in admiration, shall go after the Beast, Revel. 13, 3. and that when Christ shall come, hardly shall he find faith on the earth, Luke 18.8. It tells us of the Son of perdition that shall be called God, and shall do wonders: and of the great harlot clothed with scarlet, who sitteth in the Citty with seven hills, that reigneth over the Kings of the earth, which seduceth Kings and makes them drunk, and is made drunk with the blood of the Saints and Faithful. It tells us in the twelfth of the Revelation that wings are given to the Church for to fly into the Wilderness, and live there hidden for a time. It warns us that the broad way where the throng of Peoples passeth, leadeth into perdition.

Which things afford us another consideration. That is if a Cut-purse asketh him whom he hath robbed of his purse, Where is thy Purse? This thief addeth scoffing and derision to his theft. So the Pope, who since so many ages hath persecuted to the uttermost the Church of God, and endeavored to abolish it, addeth to this violence this derision and scoffing, when he asketh, Where was your Religion at that time? For it were rather his part to inform us where he had put her himself, and to what pass he had reduced her.

In the mean while, though we are not bound to answer to such an absurd and injust a demand, and which doth not at all concern Religion, and being propounded by men whose Religion is new, and that have swerved from the Ancient Christian Religion, and who even say that the Pope may add unto the Creed new Articles of Faith: Yet we say that it is four or five hundred years ago since the Pope persecuteth with fire and sword the Faithful ones, whereof there was a great number in France, in the Low countries, England, Germany, Bohemia, and Hungaria, to whom our Adversaries gave odious nicknames, calling them Valdenses, Albigenses, Sodomites, Picards, &c. And fathering upon them many impious and abhominable doctrines f • rre from their belief. Of whom were Massacred in few months by one Domi • ick, Author of the Order of the Jacobins, above two hundred thousand in Languedoe and Gasconie, in Pope Innocent the third his time. Of these faithful people we have the Confession agreeable to ours, written in their own Language: a residue of which People remains still in Bohemia, Hungaria, Moravia, and in the Valleys of Angrogne, Luzerne, Peruse, Saint Martin, Pragela, Merindoles, and Cabrieres which Churches have joined themselves to ours, so soon as it pleased God to display in France and the neighbouring Countries, the Banner of his Gospel. And the sudden alteration that happened in Luther's time, shown that Europe was full of People that knew the truth, and groaned after a Reformation, which the Pope promised always, but would never suffer it to come to execution.

And for to specify something touching the age immediately before Calvin: Aeneas Sylvius, who in the year 1458. attained to the Popedom, was a capital enemy to the faithful (of whom in his time Bohemia and Hungaria, and the neighbouring Countries were full) and was a firebrand of war for to provoke the Emperors and Popes to persecute them. Wherefore his testimony in this point is the more worthy of credit. This man in his 130 Epistle, describeth his journey to Tabor, a City in Bohemia, and the Religion of the Inhabitants, and the Conferences he had with them. Their sect (saith he) is pestilentious and abhominable, and worthy of the uttermost punishment. They will not admit the Church of Rome to have the Primacy, nor that the Clergy should have anything in propriety. They pull down the Images of God and of his Saints. They deny Purgatory. They hold that the Prayers of Saints which reign with Christ, avail nothing unto men. They observe no holy day but the Lord's day and Easter. Contemne fasting and the Canonical Prayers. They give the Eucharist under the kinds of bread and wine, even to little Children and to mad men. When they consecrate the Sacrament, they say nothing but the Lord's Prayer, and the words of Consecration. They change no habits and take not any ornaments. Yea some of them are so mad as to hold that the very body of Christ is not in the Sacrament of the Altar, but that it is only the representation thereof: being wandering Sactators of Berengarius unconverted. Among the Sacraments of the Church they admit the Baptism, and the Eucharist, and Marriage, and Orders. But as for the Sacrament of Penance, they make little account of it. But of Confirmation and extreme Unction, they make no reckoning at all. They are very opposite to the Religions of Monks, and affirm they be diabolical Inventions. They use mere Water in Baptism. They have no holy Water. They me not consecrate their Church-yards. They bury their dead in the fields and with • easts, as also they deserve it, &c. And • ee addeth that the Emperor, instead of destroying them, granted unto them safety and liberty. But he should have added to this, that the Emperor Sigismond having by arms assaulted and scuffled with them, lost there many Battles. For which cause he did let them rest in peace. In this discourse Aeneas hath chopped and thrust in some calumniations; as when he saith they give the Eucharist to mad men and to Infants, and bury their dead with beasts. Things very absurd, and that never were. As for the rest, all our Religion almost is seen in it.

Hungaria at the same time was full of Faithful people holding the same belief. They presented to the King Uladislaus, in the year of our Lord 1508. their Confession of faith, conformable to ours, defending themselves against an Austin Frier that had accused them to the King of many errors, namely, for that they did not obey the Pope, called not upon Saints, denied Purgatory, received the Communion in both kinds, and rejected Transubstantiation. Upon which last point, they speak thus: This Frier writeth that the bread and wine in their natural substance are changed into the body and blood of Christ, and are changed into Christ God and man, so that nothing of the substance of the bread and wine remaineth, but that the only accidents are merely upheld by miracle. This Confession of faith hath no foundation in the Lord Christ Jesus his words, who never spake one word of the conversion of the substance. And a little after, By that is manifested that the Primitive Church had this Beleife, and hath confessed it, and hath not erred, and did not bow at this Sacrament. For in that time they received the Sacrament sitting, and reserved nothing of it, and carried none of it out of the house, &c.

About the same time, in the year 1520. Calvin being yet very young, the Faithful of Provence presented to the Parliament of Aix their Confession of Faith, conformable to ours. Upon the point of the Sacrament, they speak thus: We are not entangled with any errors or heresies condemned by the Ancient Church, and we hold the documents and instructions approved by the true Faith. And as for the Sacraments particularly, we have the Sacraments in honor, and believe that they be testimonies and signs by which God's grace is confirmed and assured in our consciences. For which cause we believe that Baptism is a sign whereby the purgation that we obtain by the blood of Jesus Christ, is corroborated, in such sort that it is the true washing of Regeneration and renovation. The Lord's Supper is the sign under which the true Communion of his body and blood is given unto us. And these poor Churches were the remainder of the horrible Persecutions exercised by the space of three or four hundred years, by Kings and Princes at the instigation of Popes. Which Churches they had defamed with horrible heresies, accusing them to be Manicheans, and enemies of Marriage: even as they accuse us now to be enemies unto the Saints and the blessed Virgin, and to believe that good works are not necessary to salvation, and that we make God Author of sin.

A few years before, under the reign of good King Lewis the XII. who was called the Father of the People, happed a memorable thing which Carolus Molinaeus a famous Jurisconsulte reciteth in his Book of the French Monarchy. He saith that certain Cardinals and Prelates did go about to stir up and incite this good King to destroy and exterminate the Inhabitants of Cabrieres and Merindoles in Provence, saying they were Sorcerers, Incestuous persons, heretics, condemned already by the Apostolic Sea. But this King answered that he would condemn nobody to death without hearing both sides, and be fully acquainted with the cause. And that for that end he sent one Adam Fumee, a Master of Request, and John Parin a Jacobin Frier, his Confessor, for to transport themselves into the place where they lived, and be informed of their Religion. Which they did, and reported to the King, that among these men they had found no Images, nor any • race or vestige of any ornaments of Masses or Papal Ceremonies. That they had found nothing touching Magicall Arts, whoredoms and other crimes laid upon them. The King understanding this, cried out with a loud voice, and swore that those people were better Christians than he and his people, and confirmed their privileges and immunities. That fell out about the year 1412. Calvin scarce being borne.

Pope Julius the second, made wars against this King: But the King defeated his Army, and the Emperors, near the City of Ravenna: Assembled a Council at Piso against the Pope: Caused money to be coined with this Inscription round about. PERDAM BABYLONIS NOMEN, as Thuanus relateth in the first Book of his History.

But under the reign of King Francis the first, Successor unto Lewis the twelfth, these poor Churches of Provence suffered hard and rude persecutions and Massacres. Nevertheless, they subsist yet at this day, and Thuanus in the sixth Book of his History, speaketh of their Religion: He saith that these Ualdenses (for he terms them so) did say that the Church of Rome had departed from the faith of Christ Jesus, and was become Babylon, and the great Whore whereof is spoken in the Revelation: That none ought to obey the Pope nor his Prelates: That Monachall life was a sink of the Church, and an Infernal thing: That the fi ••• of Rurgatorie, the Mass, the Dedicati • of Churches, the Service of Saints, as Suffrages for the dead, were invention • Satan. Then he addeth: To these 〈◊〉 and principal heads of their doctrine, 〈◊〉 thens were falsely added, touching Muriage, the Resurrection, the state an • condition of the dead, and touch •• meats.

The same Author in the 27 Book speaketh of the Churches of the Valsies of the Alps, which he saith to be descended from the ancient Valdeuses, which have yet at this very day a Religion altogether conformable to ourt and saith that in the year 1560 they presented their Confession of Faith unto those whom the Duke of Savoye their Lord had sent them, by which they declared that they stuck fast and adheared to the ancient doctrine contained in the Old and New Testament, and to the Apostles Creed, and to the four first General Councils, and that for the rule of a good life they kept themselves close to the renne Commandments of the the Law. That they taught to live chastely, soberly, and justly, and to yield obedience unto Princes and Magistrates. That nevertheless they rejected Sacrifice of the Mass, the ••• rament of Penance, Auricular Con •• sion, human Traditions, Prayers for the dead, but cleaved to the holy Scrip •• es. Which things they said to have •• eived not from Calvin, but from Christ and his Apostles: For the strait •• ssages and steep places of the Alps •• d preserved them from the persecuti •• s of the Pope and his Ministers.

And at this very day also, the Church of Ethiopia, which containeth 17 great •• ovinces, agrees with us in the fun • amentall points of Faith, though she • ave some small superstitions. For she • eleeveth not Purgatory, nor Transub • antiation. She maketh no elevation for Adoration of the Hoste. Is not sub • ect to the Pope. Knowes nor what Indulgences mean, nor private Masses. Celebrateth the divine Service in the Ethiopian tongue. Gives the Communion to the People under both kinds. Worships no Images. Hath but one Table or Altar in the Church. Hath Monks, but they are Muried, and earn their living by the work of their hands. Baptiseth not the male Children till forty days after this 〈◊〉 and the females after threes ••• days: an assured sign that she believes not 〈◊〉 Baptism of Water to be necessary u •• Salvation. These things are seen 〈◊〉 the History of Francis Alvarez, a P •• tugall Monk, who lived six year •• the Court of the great Neguz Empert •• of Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian Churches are cal •• niously and falsely accused to be Eutichians. True it is they be subje •• to the Patriarch of Alexandria is who 〈◊〉 an Eutichian. But that subjection i ••• in the doctrine, but only in that 〈◊〉 said Patriarch hath the right of no ••• nation of the Abuna or chief Pr • late of the Ethiopians when the Se •• void.

The Greek Church more ancient tha • the Roman, and of whom the Chu ••• of Rome received the Christian Religion, doth not acknowledge the Pope rejecteth his Laws, knoweth not wha • his Indulgences are. Beleeveth neithe • the Purgatory, nor the Transubstantiation. Celebrateth the divine Service in the Greek tongue. Hath her Priests married. Hath no Liturgies or Private Masses, and comes a greatdeale nearer to our Religion than to the Romish.

And this I say, not that we ground ourselves upon any of these examples, • or would be authorised thereby. For •• e do ground ourselves only upon the word of God, and of his blessed Apostles, contained in the holy Scripture, unto which the Pope braggeth not to be subject, and doth not acknowledge it for Judge, In a word, we must stand firm upon this: To wit, that our Adversaries must show us where their Religion was in the time of the Apostles, before we do show them where our Religion was before Cal • in.

CHAP. XXIV. That our Adversaries reject the Fathers, and speak of them with contempt.

Our Adversaries being pressed by the holy Scripture, are wont to have recourse to the Fathers, whom never thelesse they receive not for Judges, and acknowledge in them a multitude of errors, and speak of them with great contempt.

Denis Petau, a Jesuit, in his Notes upon Epiphanius pag. 244, speaketh thus. In the most holy Fathers, and chiefly in Chrysostom his Homilies, are dispersed many things, which if thore wouldest accommodate to the rule of truth, shall be found to be void of sense.

Cardinal Baronius in his Annals in the year 34. §. 213. The Catholic Church doth not follow always the most holy Fathers in the interpretation of the Scripture, And in the §. 185. Jerome hath erred for lack of memory. And in the year 31. §. 24. he checks Saint Austin for not understanding well these words of the Lord, Thou art Peter, &c. And in the year 60. §. 20. he is vexed against Theodoret, because he rejected the service of Angels grounded upon a place of Saint Paul, Colos. 2. By this (saith he) it may he seen that Theodoret (with his good leave) did not well apprehend the Apostles meanning. And in the veare 369. §. 24. Hilary had also his defects.

Alphonsus à Castro in his first Book of Heresies, Chapter 7. Oftentimes the opinions of the Fathers are repugnant one to the other.

Melchior Cano in his seventh Book of common places Chapter 3. Seeing there is none of the Saints, except only those that have written the Canonical Books, but have spoken by the spirit of man, and sometimes erred in that which afterwards was known to belong to the Faith: It is evident that from such an authority none can build a certain and assured Faith. And thereupon he produceth for an example, the errors of many Fathers, so far as to say that against the ordinary course of nature they bring forth monsters.

Sixtus Senensis in the Preface upon the fifth Book of his Bibliotheca: These ancient Masters of the Churches of have sometimes swerved from the scope of the truth at which they aimed. And in the same place: In the Books of the holy Doctors, whose authority is read in the Church, are found sometimes things wicked and heretical: and he speaketh this after Anselm in his Commentaries upon the second to the Corinthians.

Maldonado the Jesuit upon the sixth of Saint John, checking Saint Austin for not well conceiving in what sense Christ calleth himself the bread, saith, I am persuaded that if Austin had lived in ou • days, he would have been of another opinion. And in the same place: I do approve of this interpretation much more than that of Austin's.

Cardinal Cajetan in the beginning of his Commentaries upon Genefis: Let none detest a new sense of the Scripture, under color it disagreeth from the ancient Doctors. For God hath not tied the Expesition of the Scriptures to the sense or opinions of the ancient Doctors.

Andradius in his second Book of the defense of the Faith of Trent: I say nothing of Austin, Basil, Athanasius, both Cyrils, Chrysostom, and Epiphanius, to whose opinions we are not always tied.

Pererius the Jesuit, in his eighth Book upon Genesis, Disp. 1. I am ashamed to tell what I must say here against the best writers, so much do they say things not one •• false, but also shameful and absurd. Now the Fathers whom he meaneth, are Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Cyprian, Ambrose, Lactantius, Eusebaus, Sulpitius Severus.

Salmeron the Jesuit in the eight Prolegomene: Every Father expoundeth one place of the Scripture otherwise than the rest, yea one and the same Father expounds it in several fashions. And in the third Prolegomene, pag. 13. he bringeth many examples of Fathers which contradict themselves.

The same man in the 51 Dispute. upon the Epistle to the Romans, acknowledgeth that the Fathers generally are against him in the point of the Conception of the Virgin Mary. Whereupon he shifts off thus; Against this multitude objected against us, we answer by the Word of God, Exodus 23. Thou shalt not yield in judgment to the opinion of many, for to decline from the truth.

Cornelius Mus Bishop of Bitonto, upon the 14 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: I would give more credit (to confess it ingenuously) to one Pope, than to a thousand Augustine, a thousand Jerome's, a thousand Gregory's.

I should never make an end if I would produce all the places wherein our Adversaries abuse the Fathers, and accuse them of error, or of untruth, or of ignorance: and have reason in some things, in others not. Chrysostom accuseth often the Virgin Many of mbition, temerity, and importunity. Justin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus say, that God created the Sun and the Moon, that the Gentiles might worship them, least they should be without Religion. Justin, Irenaeus, Lactantius, Ambrose, Tertullian, and many others, were Chiliastes, holding a Reign of Christ that is to endure one thousand years in feastings and carnal delights. Ambrose teacheth that Baptism conferred in the name of the Holy-Ghost, without naming the Father or the Son, is good and warrantable. Austin hath condemned the Children dead without Baptism, to the eternal flames. Cyprian taught the Rebaptization of Heretics, and assembled a Council, in which he did condemn the doctrine of the Roman Church. Hilary taught that our Savior Christ suffered no pain at his death: And that the Virgin Mary is to be purged by the fire of the last judgment. Saint Jerome calleth Marriage an ignominy, • he end whereof is death, and the persons married, Vessels unto dishonor. He taught also that Bishops and Priests are equal by divine right. Whereupon Bellarmine in his first Book de Pontif. chap. 8. saith: This opinion is false and must be refuted in its due place. Gregory of Nice in the first Oration of the Lord's Resurrection, teacheth that when Christ instituted the Eucharist, his body was already dead, and that his Soul was in hell. For which he is censured by the Jesuit Salmeron, saying: In these words of Gregory there are many things which the Church doth not approve off. Clemens Alexandrinus teacheth that the Pagans were saved by Philosophy. Tertullian maketh God to be corporal. Clement the first, Bishop of Rome, in a Decretal Epistle, will have goods and women to be common. In the ninth Tome of Baronius Annals, there is an Epistle of Pope Gregory the second, wherein he declareth that it is not lawful to paint out God the Father: But Baronius noteth in the margent, that the Church now hath ordained of it otherwise.

Six hundred and thirty Bishops decreed at the Council of Chalcedone, that the Bishop of Constantinople should be equal in all things to the Bishop of Rome. The Milevitan Council where Saint Austin was present, and framed the Canons of it, forbiddeth upon paint of a curse, to appeal beyond the Sea, that is to say to appeal out of Africa to Rome.

The sixth Council of Carthage confirmeth the same prohibition, and writeth to Celestin Bishop of Rome long Letters which are inserted in the Council, wherein the Council warns him to take heed henceforth from receiving any appeals out of Africa, and not to send them his Legates anymore; not make use anymore of supposed Canons for to advance his authority, and not to bring in worldly pride into the Church. In all these things and in a thousand others more, the Roman Church condemneth the Fathers, and maketh no reckoning of their authority. Whence appeareth that it is to no purpose that our Adversaries in certain questions allege the Fathers unto us, seeing themselves reject them, and subject them to the Judgment of the Pope and Church of Rome.

CHAP XXV. Of the corruption and falsification of the Fathers writings: and of the difficulty to understand them.

IN the Allegation of Fathers about our Controversies we have this disadvantage, that we have them but by the hands of our own Adversaries. For all the impressions that have been made of them, were made upon the Manuscripts found in Monasteries, written by Monks, who had fair opportunity to clip and alter them at their pleasure, and set old titles upon new Books made and composed by themselves. It is a hard case to one of the parties that goes to Law, when he can make use of no other writings but of such as his own Adverse party furnisheth him with, who hath thrusted in such clauses as seemed good unto him. But it is come to pass through the Providence of God, that the most part of these falsifications are so gross and so palpable, that we have not had much pains to discover the falsity of many places and false Works, which are in so great number, that if they were taken away, the Fathers Works would be found diminished of a third part. Those among our Adversaries that are well read in the Fathers, acknowledge the same with us, and pass condemnation in this point. Read Sixtus Senensis about the end of his fourth Book, and the Book of Cardinal Bellarmine Of Ecclesiastical Writers, where he hath put the Catalogue of the Fathers Works. There shall ye wonder to see the multitude of Books, which he saith to be doubtful or manifestly counterfeit. Which causes men to doubt of the other Works, whose falsity is not easily found out.

For the discovering of these falsities, we have been helped by the Catalogue of the Works of Ancient Writers, which Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople, who wrote about the year of our Lord 878. hath put into his Librarie. And by Gennadius, a Priest of Marseilles, that wrote a Book of the Illustrious men, about the year of our Lord 492. Item by the diversity of style. Item by certain places of the Fathers, which are alleged by Ivo, Gratian, Burchardus, Lombard, Thomas and others, quite otherwise than they be found in the editions printed in this last age. Item by other places of the same Fathers which say the contrary: so that one and the same Father is oftentimes found to contrary himself.

Even as the ninth Age was the Age wherein the Decretals of the ancient Bishops of Rome were forged, under the name of one Isidorus Mercator, which was falsely framed for the grounding of the Papal Monarchy, which with might and main was a building in that Age: So the eleventh Age, in which Berengarius, Archdeacon of Angiers, withstood and impugned stoutly and vigorously the opinion of the real presence and Transubstantiation, was the Age wherein were forged sundry works in the behalf of that error, and divers clauses were chopped into the Books of the ancient Fathers. Of this false coin is the Book attributed to Cyprian, of the Lord's Supper, which all the learned of the Roman Church acknowledge not to be of his making. And the Cathecheses Mystagogicall of Cyril of Jerusalem. The Catecheses of Gregory of Nysse are indeed his, but horribly corrupted and full of errors, which the Roman Church approves not. There is mention made there of one Severus an Heretic, who is posterior to this Gregory above 150. years.

Of these falsifications and divers others, we have entreated more at large in the Book against Cardinal du Perron. He that should take away from the works of Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, Austin and Athanasius, the counterfeit Books, should diminish the writings of these Fathers more than of a third part.

Wherefore after so many falsities discovered, when our adversaries object us some place of a Father, we might very justly desire them to proveunto us that that place was not added or depraved by some falsifier as well as so many others. By all manner of reasons, if in an writing brought in justice there be found but one falsification, the whole instrument loseth all its force and is rejected.

There is another difficulty that deceiveth such men as are not well seen in antiquity, to wit, that the words used in old time, have now changed their signification. In the Fathers are found these words, of Pope, of Sacrifice, of Oblation, of Purging fire, of Indulgence, of Station, of Species, of Monk, of Penance; but quite in another sense than these words are taken at this day.

Notwithstanding these difficulties and disadvantages, whereby our adversaries strive to prevail against us, we refuse not for all that to buckle with thē. For what falsifications soever were made in the Books of Ancient writers, yet in them remains still so many express and formal places against Transubstantiation, that of the collection of them, a man might make a great volume. We have produced above 500 in the Book of the Novelty of Popery; and M ^r le Faucheur, and M ^r Aubertin have labored lately, and taken pains about this subject with a • ost exact diligence and full of great learning. Here we will content ourselves to produce some few places for a taste, yet with this protestation, that I do not allege the Fathers for to be a stay to our cause, which is sufficiently propped and established upon the Word of God. Go • doth not beg the testimonies of men. H •• word is as strong alone, as being a • companied with human testimon • To go about to defend it with th • testimonies of men subject to errou • is as if a man would lighten the Sun •• with a Candle. But we do alleadg • the Fathers for to defend their honor, because that against their •• tent, our Adversaries make them Advocates of a bad cause: And for 〈◊〉 condescend and yield something to the disease of this froward age, wherein the holy Scripture hath lost its power and efficacy, and which armeth it self with human testimonies against the Word of God.

CHAP. XXVI. Places of the Fathers contrary to Transubstantiation, and to the manducation of the body of Christ by the corporal mouth.

TErtullian in his fourth Book against Marcion chapter, 40. disputing a • ainst the Marcionites that denied Christ • o have a true human body, speaketh • hus: Christ when he had taken the bread • nd distributed it to his disciples, made it • o be his body, saying, This is my body, • hat is to say the figure of my body. But it were not a figure, unless it were a true body. His reason is, because men represent not by figure the things that are not.

And in the third Book, chapter 19. Christ called the bread his body, that thereby thou mightest understand that he gave to the bread to be the figure of his body.

Origen upon the fifteenth Chapter of Saint Matthew, speaking of that which the Faithful receive by the corporal mouth in the Eucharist: If everything that entereth into the mouth, goes into the belly, and is sent into the prity▪ this food which is sanctified by the Word of God and by the Prayer, as it is material, g •• into the belly, and is sent into the privy. And a little after, And thus much be said touching the typical and symbolical body of Christ. Upon this place Cardinal du Perron writing against du Plessi • , maketh many exclamations against Origen, and calls him origin of all errors, and cries out, Shut y •• ears Christian people, as if men did read with their cares. What Cardinal d • Perron saith, that Theophilus Patriarck of Alexandria did condemn Origen for speaking so, is false, and shall never be found.

Theodoret in his first Dialogue titled the Unchangeable, speaking of these words, This is my body, saith, The Lord hath honored the visible signs with the appellation of his body and blood, not having changed their nature, but having added grace 〈◊〉 nature.

A little before, he had said, The Lord gave to the sign the name of his body.

And in the second Dialogue termed the Non confuse, The divine mysteries are signs of the true body. And a little after, he introduceth an Eutychian Heretic maintaining Transubstantiation. To whom he answereth in these words, Thou art o •• ght by the nets that thou hast woven. For even after the consecration, the mystical signs do not change their own nature, For they remain in their former Substance, Form and Figure. And in the same Dialogue, Tell me then, the signs that are offered unto God, what signs are they of? The answer is, Of the Lord's body and blood.

In the Books of Sacraments attributed to S. Ambrose, in the fourth Book, cha. 5. We have a clause of the public form used in the Eucharist, in these words, Grāt that this oblation be imputed unto us, as acceptable, reasonable, which is the FIGVRE of the body and blood of Christ Jesus our Lord. Which cannot be understood of the unconsecrated bread, for it is not an acceptable oblation for our sins. This clause is retained in the Mass, except this word, Figure, which they have taken away.

Eusebius in his 12 Book of the Demonstration, chap. 8. We have been instructed to celebrate at the table, according to the laws of the New Testament, by the signs of the body and blood, the remembrance of this Sacrifice. And in the eight Book, after he had said that Christ delivered to his Disciples the signs or symbols of his dispensation, he addeth Commanding to celebrate the Image or figure of his own Body.

Euphraemius Patriarck of Antioch▪ Christ's body which the Faithful receive, loseth not its sensible substance, and is not divided from intelligible grace. So Baptism being wholly made spiritual and one, doth retain the property of its sensible substance, t • wit water, and yet looseth not that which it is made. This place is very forcible; for he calleth the bread Christ's body, and acknowledges not therein any conversion of substance, and teacheth that in the Eucharist there is no more conversion of substance than in Baptism where the water remaineth always water.

Gregory Nazianzen in his 2. Oration of the Passover speaketh thus of the participation of the Eucharist: We shall indeed be partakers of the Passover in figure, though more evidently than in the old Passe over: For the Passover (I dare say) w •• a more dark figure of a figure.

And the same Father in his Oration in the Praise of his Sister Gorgonia, commendeth her devotion, in that having received with her own hand the Sacrament, she carried back home a parcel of 〈◊〉 If (saith he) her hand had shut up us in treasure anything of the signs or a •• itypes 〈◊〉 the body or of the blood of the Lord, she minded it with her tears.

Euphraemius Deacon of Edissa: Behold • iligently how the Lord after he had taken • e bread in his bands, blessed it, and brake it, 〈◊〉 figure of his immaculat body, and blessed • e cup in figure of his precious blood, and gave to his Disciples.

The imperfect work upon S. Matthew •• tributed to Chrysostom, in the 11 Ho • ily, speaking of those that employ the •• creed vessels, as Plates and Chalices, to • ofane uses: If it be so dangerous a thing 〈◊〉 transport to private uses the sacred vessels • herein Christ's body is not, but where the my • ry of his body is contained, how much more •• e vessels of our bodies which God hath pre • red to himse fe for to dwell in them? Note • at he doth nor say that the body of • hrist was not in these vessels, but that it not in them, that it may not be thought • e speaketh of the vessels of Solomon's • emple.

〈2 pages missing〉 The same Fathers upon the third Psalm: The Lord admit • ed Judas 〈◊〉 the banquet, in wh • ch he recommended an • gave to his disciples the figure of his b ••• and blood.

The same, in his third Book of Ch •• stian Doctrine, Chapter 16. When 〈◊〉 Lord saith, Except ye eat the fl • sh of 〈◊〉 Son of man and drink his blood, ye hav • no life in you, he seemeth to command a wi • ked thing or hai • us offense. It is therefore a figure, that commands to communicate to the Passion of the Lord, and to pu • sweetly and profitably into our memory that his flesh was crucified and wound •• for us. Note that Saint Austin saith no • only that these words Exce t ye e •• &c. are figurative. But all • o expoun • unto us the sense and meaning of th •• figure, saying, that it signifieth we m •• meditate with pleasure and profi • that Christ is dead for us. Which 〈◊〉 an exposition our Adversaries appro •• not.

The same Author in the first Treatise upon the first Epistle of Saint John The Lord comforteth us, we that can handle him no more with our hands, but touch him by Faith.

And in the 53 Sermon of the words of the Lord: All almost do call the body of Christ that which is the sacred sign of it: Words that are very considerable.

And in the 27 Treatise upon Saint John: The Capernaites thought he should distribute his body unto them; but he said unto them he would ascend into heaven whole indeed. When ye see the Son of man ascend where he was before, certainly, then at least, you shall see that he giveth not his body as you esteem. Verily then shall ye understand that his grace is not consumed with biting.

Chiefly that place of the same Father upon the 98 Psalm, seems to me very express, where expounding these words of the Lord, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, ye have no life in you, he bringeth in the Lord speaking thus: Understand spiritually what I have said unto you, ye shall not eat this body that you see, nor d ink that blood w • ich shall be shed by those that shall crucify me. I have commended a sacred sign unto you, which being understood spiritually, shall vivify you.

According to our Adversaries doctrine, both good and bad take the Lord's body in the Eucharist. For many be partakers of the Sacrament without Faith and hypocri • ically. Such nevertheless, do swallow the consecrated host and (if we believe our Adversaries) eat truly and really the body of Christ Jesus. Saint Austin impugneth that opinion, and maintaineth that the wicked eat but the signs, and receive not Christ. In the 26 Treatise upon Saint John. Whosoever dwelleth not is Christ, and in whom Christ dwelleth not, for a certain he eateth not his flesh spiritually, and drinketh not his blood, though he presseth carnally and visibly with his teeth the sacred signs of Christ's body and blood.

And in the Book of Sentences of Saint Austin collected by Prosper: h Whosoever discordeth with Christ, eateth not the flesh of Christ, and drinketh not his blood, though he take every day indifferently the sacred sign of so great a thing, to the condemnation of his own presumption.

And in the 25 Chapter of the 21. Book Of the City of God, It must not be said that he who is not in the body of Christ, eateth the body of Christ. And there he bringeth in Christ saying, He that abideth not in me, and in whom I abide not, let not him say nor think that be eateth my body or drinketh my blood. Therefore those do not abide in Christ, that are not the members of Christ.

Saint Jerome saith the same, upon the last Chapter of Isaiah: Whilest they are not holy in body and spirit, they eat not the flesh of Jesus, and drink not that blood whereof he speaketh himself, Whosoever eateth my flesh, &c.

Let no man wonder that I have turned this word, Sacrament, in Saint Austin, by a sacred sign: seeing that he himself expoundeth it so in the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus: The signs, when they belong to divine things, are called Sacraments. And in the tenth Book of the City of God, Chapter 5. The visible Sacrifice is a Sacrament of the invible Sacrifice, that is to say, a sacred sign. And against the adversary of the Law and the Prophets, 2 Book, Chapter 9. Sacramenta, id est sacra signa. The Sacraments, that is to say, the sacred signs. It is the definition given by Lombard in the first Distinction of the fourth Book, Tit. 3. Sacramentum est sacrae rei signum. Bellarmine himself in his first Book of Sacraments, Chapter 7. & 11. The word Sacrament signifieth a sign of a sacred or secret thing.

In one thing principally it appeareth how far Saint Austin was from believing Transubstantiation: In that in these words This is my body, by this word Body he understandeth the Church. At the end of Fulgentius his Works, who was Austin's disciple, there is a Sermon of Austin's which maliciously they have plucked out of his Works, and that had been lost, if Fulgentius and Beda had not preserved it. Here then be the very words of Austin: What ye have seen, is bread and wine, as your eyes show unto you; but according to the instruction that your Faith demandeth, the bread is the body of Christ, and the Cup is his blood. Bellarmine in his first Book of the Eucharist, Chapter 1. acknowledgeth that these words This bread is Christ's body, cannot be true if they be not taken figuratively. But let us learn how Saint Austin will have the bread to be the body of Christ. He saith then, How is the bread his body? and how is the Cup his blood? These things Bethren, are called Sacraments, because in them one thing is seen, and another is understood. What is seen, hath a corporal form: What is meant, hath a spiritual fruit. If then thou wilt understand what the body of Christ is, hear the Apostle saying to the Faithful, Ye are Christ's body and his members. If ye be therefore Christ's body and members, your mystery is set on the table of the Lord, &c. He giveth the same exposition in the 26 Treatise upon Saint John. By this m • ate, and by this drink, the Lord will have to be understood the society and fellowship of his body and of his members, to wit the holy Church of the Predestinate.

And in the Roman Canon, in the a Distinction of the Consecration at the Canon Hoc est: The heavenly bread which is the flesh of Christ, is after its manner called the body of Christ, although to speak truly it be the sacred sign of Christ's body, to wit of that which being visible, palpable, mortal, was put upon the Cross. And thereupon the Gloss of the Doctors hath these words, which truly are excellent: The heavenly Sacrament that representeth truly the flesh of Christ, is called the body of Christ, but improperly, for it is thus called after its manner, but not according to the truth of the thing, but by a significant mystery. So that the sense is, that it is called the body of Christ, that is to say, that it is signified.

S. Cyprian in his 63 Epistle will have in the sacred Cup water to be mingled with the wine. His reason is because that as the wine is the blood of Christ, so the water is the People: and that the People ought not to be divided from Christ. If (saith he) any one offereth nothing but wine, Christ's blood beginneth to be without us, but if the water be alone, the people begins to be without Christ. Whereby it followeth, that as Cyprian did not believe that the water was transubstantiated into the people: so did he not believe that the wine was transubstantiated into the body of Christ.

And in the same Epistle: That which Christ called his blood, was wine. And in the 76 Epistle: The Lord called his body the bread, compounded with the gathering together of many grains.

We have a Treatise of the two natures of Christ, against Nestorius and Eutyches, made by Pope Gelasius, who wrote about the year of our Lord 495. There, is this sentence to be found, which vexeth and grieves mightily our Adversaries: Certainly the Sacraments that we take of the body & blood of Christ, are a divine thing, for which cause also by them we are made partakers of the divine nature, and yet the substance or nature of the bread and wine ceaseth not to be. And verily the Image and similitude of the body and blood of Christ, is celebrated in the action of the mysteries. Note that he disputed against the Eutychians, who held that the substance of the body of Christ was passed and changed into the substance of the divine nature. The controversy was not about the conversion of the accidents, but of the Substance, which Gelasius maintaineth to remain in the body of the Lord, as the substance of the bread remaineth in the Sacrament. Now, no man can doubt but that this Book be of Gelasius Bishop of Rome, seeing that Fulgentius who lived in Gelasius time, allegeth it * in his Book to Fe • randus the Deacon, in the 2 proposition: and attributeth it to the Pope Gelasius.

Fulgentius, Disciple to S. Austin, in his second Book to Trasimondus, chap. 17. ^a How is Christ ascended into Heaven, but because he is in a place, and a man indeed? Or how is he present to his Faithful ones, but because he is infinite and a God indeed?

Again, in his Book of the Faith to Peter the Deacon, chap. 19. The holy Catholic Church which is over all the world now, that is to say under the New Testament, ceaseth not to offer unto Christ Jesus, with the Father and the holy Ghost with whom he is one and the same Godhead, a Sacrifice of bread and wine, in Faith and Charity. For in those ca • n ill oblations [of the Old Tetestament] there was a figure of Christ's flesh, which he was to offer for our sins, being without sin. But in the sacrifice [of the Eucharist] is made an action of thanksgiving, and a remembrance of the flesh of Christ which he offered for us, and of the blood that himself, who is God, hath shed for us. Besides this, that he calleth the Holy Supper a remembrance, and a Sacrifice of bread and wine: it is very remarkable that he saith, that this Sacrifice of bread and wine is offered unto Christ Jesus. Whereby it appeareth that this Sacrifice is not Christ himself: for Christ is not Sacrificed unto Christ.

Facundus an African Bishop, who wrote about the year of our Lord 550 in the defense of three heads or points of the Council of Chalcedon: The Sacrament of Adoption [to wit Baptism] may be called the Adoption, even as we call the Sacrament of his body and blood which is in the bread and in the consecrated Cup, his body and blood: Not that, to speak properly, the bread is his body, and the Cup his blood: But because they contain in them the mystery of his body and blood. This Book of Facundus, drawn out of the Vatiean Library, was published by Jacobus Sirmoudus a Jesuit, who for this cause was suspected. And I hear he hath been in trouble about it.

Turrianus and Vasquez, and Gregory of Valentia, Jesuits, object unto themselves a place of Chrysostom in his Epistle to Caesarius: which Epistle also is in Biblioth. Patr. Printed at Colen, anno 1618 in the 8 Tome. That place is such: Afore the bread be sanctified, we coll is bread: But the divine grace sanctifying it by the means of the Priest, it is freed indeed from the appellation of bread, and is honored with the name of the body of the Lord, though the nature of bread remain in it. These Jesuits answer that this place is not of John Chrysostom, but of another John of Constantinople. Which they say without proof. Yet it matters not, for it sufficeth they acknowledge that place to be of an ancient Author.

The 8 Books of Apostolical Constitutions attributed to Clement the first. Bishop of Rome, are not of him: Nevertheless these Books are ancient, and there is much good to be learned in them. In the 5 Book, chap. 16. it is said, that Christ having given the figurative mysteries of his body and blood, went to the mount of Olives. And in the 7 Book, chap. 26. We give thee thanks for the precious blood of Christ, which was shed for us, and for the precious body, whereof we perform the signs by his command, for to show forth his death.

There would never be an end if we should gather up all the places of the ancient Fathers, wherein they say that that which we receive in the Eucharist is bread, and that the bread and wine are Signs, Symboles, Figures and Antitypes of the body and blood of the Lord: I will add but two Canons of a Council, which are very formal.

The 24 Canon of the III Council of Carthage is such: Let nothing be offered in the sacred service but the body and blood of the Lord, (as also the Lord hath ordained it) that is to say, nothing but bread and wine mingled with water. The same Canon is found repeated in the very same words in the Council of Trull, in the Canon 32, as well in the Greeck as in the Latin Copies. Upon which Canon, Ba • samon maketh this Commentary: The two and thirtieth Canon of the Council of Trull hath ordained very at large, that the nonbloody Sacrifice was made with bread and wine mingled with water, because that the bread is the figure of the body of the Lord, and the wine the figure of his blood. Here is then above two hundred Bishops gathered in a Council, that interpret these words, the body and blood of Christ, by the bread and wine mingled with water.

The same Council in the 23 Canon ordaineth, that when a man officiates at the Altar, the Prayer must always be directed to the Father. Whence appeareth manifestly that then they worshipped not the Sacrament, seeing that the Council forbiddeth when men assist at the Altar, to address their Prayers to Christ. If this host be Christ, it must be worshipped, and by consequent invocated.

And that it may appear how lately this opinion of Transubstantiation was received: in the Tome de Divinis officiis, which is in Biblioth. P atr. we have an Epistle of that Great Emperor Carolus Magnus, where he saith, Christ supping with his Disciples, brake bread, and gave them likewise the Cup, in figure of his body and blood. This Epistle happily might be written about the year of our Lord 800.

Walefridus Strabo, who wrote about the year 850, in his Book of Ecclesiastical things, chap. 16. The Lord, at the last Supper he made with his Disciples afore he was betrayed, after he had made an end of the solemnity of the ancient Passover, gave to his Disciples the sacred signs of his body and blood in the SUBSTANCE of the bread and wine, and taught them to celebrate them in remembrance of his most holy Passion.

Rupertus Abbot of Deutsch, near Colen, who lived in the year 1112. and whose works are yet extant, hath condemned Transubstantiation, and taught that the Substance of bread remaineth after the Consecration. Here are his words upon the 12 chap. of Exodus: Even as Christ neither changed nor destroyed the human nature, but joined himself to it: So in the Sacrament he neither destroyeth nor changeth the substance of the bread and wine, but joineth himself to it in the unity of his body and blood. This place of Rupertus is alleged by Salmeron in the 16 Treatise of the IX. Tome, §. Ruit, and Bellarmine in his Book of Ecclesiastical Writers, alleadg • s out of him many such like places, and blameth him for it.

To so many places that say, that the substance of the bread remaineth after the Consecration, our Adversaries do reply, that by the word of Substance, the Fathers understand the Accidents. As it is a great absurdity by the word of Accidents, to understand the Substance: So is it as great an absurdity by the word of Substance to understand Accidents. If it may be lawful for them to wrest the Fathers thus, and when they say a thing is white, understand that they mean black: never will there be anything clear, nor sure. Certainly, if by this word Substance, the Fathers had understood the Accidents, they would have said the Substances in the plural. For Accidents are many: Among which our Adversaries must choose one, that may be called a Substance. But Theodoret in his second Dialogue, saying that the bread after the Consecration remaineth in its former substance, form, and figure, refuteth this evasion. For he distinguisheth expressly the Substance from the Accidents.

Now, as this error of the bodily presence of • hrists body under the species of the bread, began to be set on broach: Bertram a Priest, in Charles the Bald his time, about the year of our Lord 870. made a Book against that abuse, which Book is yet extant. For which cause also Bellarmine in his first Book of the Eucharist, chap. 1. placeth him among the Heretics. But Bertram, all his life time, lived with credit and honor, and was never reproved for it.

CHAP. XXVII. Confirmation of the same, by the customs of the ancient Church.

THis truth is confirmed by the ancient customs different from what is done in the Mass at this day, and incompatible with Transubstantiation. For in the ancient Church, Service was said in a known tongue. Everyone received the Communion in both kinds.

The people offered upon the table abundance of bread and wine, and not round & light wafers. The people, as well men as women, received the Sacrament with their hand, and many carried it home a long with them. The residues of the sacred bread that remained upon the table after the Communion, were either burnit, or given unto little children coming from School, or carried into the Priests houses, for to be eaten there. Than were there no private Masses. Nor no Corpus Christi day. The consecrated Host was not carried in procession. Ambrose in his Book of Widows, saith that the Widdowes were employed in the administration of the Sacrament. In the Roman Order which is in Bibliotheca Patrum, these words are to be found: Let the Virgin receive the Communion after the Mass is ended, and after she hath received, let her reserve of the Communion sufficiently for to communie the eight days together. Had they then believed the Transubstantiation, they would never have given unto maids the Sacrament to keep so long a time.

Certain it is the ancient Church worshipped not the Sacrament. There may be found indeed some places of the Fathers that say that in the Eucharist we worship Christ: But it is one thing to worship Christ in the action of the Sacrament, and another thing to worship the Sacrament. The Father and the holy Ghost in the Eucharist are also worshipped.

In vain do they allege some ancient Fathers that speak of the elevation of the Sacrament. For the elevation inferreth not necessarily adoration: seeing that in Moses Law the Priest waved the breast and shoulder of the offering, and a handful of the first fruits, without worshipping these things. Moreover, that elevation was nothing like to the elevation of the Host which the Priest maketh now a days over his head, turning his back to the people, and ringing a little Bell. But then after the Priest had uncovered the bread and wine, he took the Platter or Dish with both his hands, and lift it up for to show it unto the people, and that even before the words which are called of Consecration.

CHA. XXVIII. Explanation of the places of the Fathers that say that in the Eucharist we eat the body and blood of Christ, and that the bread is changed into the body of Christ, and is made Christ's body. Specially of Ambrose, Hilary, and Chrysostom. That the Fathers speak of several kinds of body and blood of Christ.

THe holy Scripture speaketh of two sorts of body of Christ. Namely, of the natural body of Christ, which he took in the womb of the Virgin M • ry, and of his mystical body, w ^ch is the Church, and of his Sacramental or commemorative body, which is the bread of the holy Supper: as we have shown already.

The Fathers following the style of the Scripture, besides Christ's mystical body which is the Church, speak of two bodies of Christ, to wit, of his natural body, and of his Symbolical and Sacramental body: of which body they speak as of a divine thing and full of Mysteries: and of a Spiritual flesh, which is made by the i • effable power of God, by the means and for the causes which I shall relate hereafter. Likewise also they make two kinds of blood of Christ; the one natural, the other mystical and Divine, which we receive in the Sacrament.

Clemens Alexandrinus in his second Book of the Pedagogue, chap. 2. There is two sorts of blood of Christ, the one is his carnal blood by which we are redeemed f • om corruption. The other is Spiritual, to wit, that by which we are anointed: and that is to drink the blood of Jesus, to be partaker of the Lord's incorruption.

Saint Jerome upon the Epistle to the Ephesians: Christ's flesh is meant or understood in two manners, either that spiritual and divine flesh of which he saith himself, My flesh is meat indeed. Or else that flesh that was crucified, and that blood which was shed by the spear of the Soldier. This place is alleged in the Roman D • cree in the second Distinction of the Consecration, at the Camon Dupliciter.

And in the same Distinction at the Canon De hac, the same Father is alleged upon Leviticus, in these words. It is indeed lawful to eat of this host, which is made admirably in remembrance of Christ. But it is not lawful in it self for any one to eat of that which he offered on the Altar of the Cross.

And in the same place, at the Canon Corpus, taken out of Saint Austin: We do call body and blood of Christ, that which being taken of the fruits of the earth, is consecrated by the mystical prayer. Certainly, a body of Christ taken of the fruits of the earth, is not the body of Christ crucified for us.

Tertullian in the sixth chapter of his Book of Prayer: The bread is the word of the living God which is descended from heaven. Item the body that is holden to be in the bread: This is my body.

Ensebius of Cesarea in his third Book of Ecclesiastical Divinity, Chapter 12. The Lord spake not of the flesh which he took, but of his mystical body and blood.

Saint Austin calleth very often that which we receive in the holy Supper, the body of Christ. But that we may not think that that which we receive by the corporal mouth is that body of the Lord which was crucified for us, he bringeth in Christ saying unto us, Ye shall not eat this body that you see, • nd shall not drink the blood shed by those that shall crucify me. What then? I have (saith he) recommended a Sacrament un •• you, which being taken Spiritually, shall quicken and vivify you.

Saint Ambrose in his Commentary • pon Saint Luke, maketh a plain diffe • ance between these two kinds of body of Christ, expounding the words of the Lord, Luke 17. Wheresoever the body is, • hither will the Eagles be gathered toge • her. First he saith that by the body may be understood the dead body of Christ, and by the Eagles which are about it, Mary wife to Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene, and Mary mother of the Lord: then he addeth, There is also that body • f whom it is said, My flesh is meat indeed.

Pope Innocent the third in the fourth Book of the Mysteries of the Mass, Chapter 36. distinguisheth in express terms these two kinds of flesh or body of Christ, saying, The form of the bread comprehendeth both the one and the other flesh of Christ, to wit, the true, and the mystical.

Salmeron the Jesuit in his fifteenth Treatise of the IX Tome, gathereth the same distinction of two sorts of blood of Christ, out of the Book of the Lord's Supper attributed to Saint Cyprian. Why (saith he) in the Law it was forbidden to eat blood, and it is commanded in the Gospel: Cyprian teacheth it excellently well in his Book of the Lord's Supper. For in the abstinence of that blood is designed the Spiritual and reasonable life, far from brutish manners. Now we drink of Christ's blood, both of that which is human, and of that which is divine. To the end we may understand that intasting of him we are called to the participation of eternal and divine life.

We have in the former Chapter alleged Eupbraemius calling the bread of the Eucharist the body of Christ, and yet saying that that body loseth not the Substance of bread. And the Canon Hoc est in the second Distinction of the Consecration, drawn out of Saint Austin, saying, that the bread which is the flesh of Christ, is after its manner called the body of Christ, though indeed it is the sacred sign of the body of Christ. And Saint Austin, The Lord made no difficulty to say, This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body. And Theodoret likewise, saying, The Lord hath given to the sign the name of his body. And Origen, calling the bread of the Supper a figurative body of Christ.

The same appeareth more clear than the very day, in that the Fathers which say that in the Eucharist we eat Christ's body, attribute unto this body things which cannot agree with the natural body of Christ borne of the Virgin Mary, and crucified for us. Saint Cyprian in his 76 Epistle saith: The Lord calleth the bread his body which is made and composed of many grains. And in the 63 Epistle, The Lord's body cannot be of the flower alone, or of the water alone, except both the one and the other be kneaded and conjoined together. Certainly, this body of Christ composed of many grains and kneaded with water, cannot be the body of Christ crucified for us.

Justin in his second Apology, saith: The Deacons do give to everyone of those that are present to participate, bread and wine and water, whereupon thankesgivings have been said. Then he addeth, that this bread is the body of Christ. But he showeth manifestly that this body of Christ, is not that which was crucified for us, in that he saith it is a meat wherewith ou • flesh and blood are fed by the transmutation. He speaketh of the change made by the disgestion. For our bodies are not fed of, or with the body crucified for us, that body is not changed into our flesh and blood. For, that Justin believed not the Transubstantiation, he showeth it sufficiently in the Dialogue against Tryphonius, saying, The oblation of fine flower was a figure of the bread of the Euch • rist, which our Lord Jesus hath ordained to be made in remembrance of his Passion.

Irenaeus in his first Book saith the same, The Lord hath affirmed that the Cup, which is a creature wherewith be maketh our bodies grow, is his body. Would Irenaeus have lost his wit so far, as to believe that our bodies grow and are fed with the crucified body of the Lord, and with the blood shed upon the Cross, which did not return into his body?

The same distinction of two sorts of body of Christ, in the writings of the ancient Fathers, appeareth in that they do speak of the pieces of the body of Christ, and of the residues of the body of Christ that remain after the Communion: Which cannot agree with Christ's natural body crucified for us, that cannot be broken in pieces, and whereof there can be no residue. Pope Gelasius in the Canon Comperimus, second Distinction of the Consecration. We have learned that some having taken one part of the body of Christ, abstain from the cup, which thing he calleth a sacrilege. And Evagrius the Historian in his fourth Book, Chapter 36. The ancient custom of the royal City requireth, that when many Peeces of the immaculate body of Christ remain, children not yet in age to be corrupted, going to School, be called for to eat them. How could one give pieces of the natural body of Christ, who sitteth at the right hand of God? What likelihood is there to give to a troop of little children the residues of the body of Christ? Would not that be esteemed at this day in the Roman Church, an horrible profanation?

Wherefore it is a thing very frequent in the Fathers to say, that Panis est Corpus Christi, The bread is Christ's body. And we have heard Saint Austin here above speak so. Words, which if they were taken or understood of the natural body of Christ, would be false. For the bread is not the body that was crucified for us.

It is therefore unjustly done by our Adversaries to expose unto the View, with great noise and rumour, some place • out of the Books of Sacraments attributed to Saint Ambrose, and out of the Book of the Lord's Supper attributed to Cyprian, wherein is said that the bread, after the words of Consecration, becometh and is made Christ's body • since we do show by so many proof •• that they speak of another body that of that which was borne of the Virgin Marie, and that was crucified, a • we will show yet more clearly hereafter.

For, that the Author of these Book • attributed to Saint Ambrose, hath believed that after the Consecration the bread is bread still: he shows it plainly when he saith, Let us therefore establis • this, to wit, how that which is bread, may be Christ's body. And a little after, If there be such power and virtue in the word of the Lord Jesus, as to make that things which were not, begin to be: how much more shall he make that the things which were, be, and be changed into other things? This excellent place, which saith that the things which were, are still, that is to say, that that which was bread, is bread still, is found thus alleged by Lombard, in his fourth Book of Sentences, Distinction 10. And by Thomas in the third part of his Sum, question 78. Art. 4. And by Gratian in the second Distinction of the Consecration at the Canon Panis est; And by Gabriel Biel, and Alger, and Ivo Carnutensis, and Jodocus Coccius: and not according to the new editions of Ambrose, in which these words, Sint quae erant, are left out. Such falsifications are frequent in the new editions.

Some places may be found indeed whe • ein some Fathers say, that the bread of the Eucharist is the body of the Lord crucified for us. But that must be understood after the s • me manner as Christ said of the bread that it was his body, and that the Cup is the New Testament, because it is the Sacrament or remembrance of it.

They do object a place of Saint Hilary out of his eighth Book of the Trinity, where he saith, Of the truth of the flesh and blood, there is no doubt. For at this day, both by the profession of the Lord and by our Faith, it is flesh indeed, and blood indeed: and these things taken and swallowed down, cause us to be in Christ and Christ in us.

First of all it is a great abuse to urge Saint Hilary, who in this point of the nature of Christ's body had an error that destroys the whole Christian Religion: For he teacheth that Christ in his Passion suffered no manner of pain at all, and that the stripes they gave him, were as if they had pierced the air or the fire with a dart. Secondly, it appeareth that Hilary speaketh of the Spiritual manducation. For by it alone are we in Christ, and Christ in us. Thirdly, when Hilary saith there remaineth no place to doubt of the truth of the flesh and blood of the Lord, he doth not mean it must not be doubted but that in the Eucharist we cate truly the natural flesh of Christ by the mouth of the body: But he saith that we must not doubt but Christ had a true flesh and a true blood: For he disputeth against certain Heretics that destroyed the truth of his human nature.

For as touching the Mystagogicall Catecheses attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem, which are objected against us, where it is said that we must not believe our senses telling us that it is bread: it is certain that those Catecheses are supposed and falsely attributed to Cyril. For the Style of them is very different from those 18 Catecheses of Cyril that precedes them, which are cited by Theodoret, and by Gelasius, and by Damascene: but these last are never alleged by any one. In the first Catechese, there is an evident mark of falsity. For he dissuadeth his hearers from frequenting the Amphitheater where the Gladiators chases and combats were made against wild beasts, and the Hippod omus or Circus, that is to say the Park or Place where horses races and combats were exercised. For then were no such buildings nor spectacles in Jerusalem, nor never were any since Jerusalem was Christian.

And concerning Chrysostom's hyperbolical amplifications, saying that the Altar streams with blood, that we fasten our teeth in his flesh, that we put ou • fingers in his wounds and suck the blood of them, and that a Seraphin bringeth unto us a burning coal with a pair of tongs, they be outlashing words that savor of a declamation, and which our Adversaries themselves do not believe.

CHAP. XXIX. That divers Ancient Fathers have believed a mystical Union of the Godhead of Christ with the bread of the Sacrament.

NEverthelesse, I cannot deny but that many Fathers have had an opinion, which with good reason is rejected by the Roman Church of these days. They teach that as Christ's divine nature hath united it self personally unto his human nature, so the same divine nature, by virtue of the Consecration, is united to the bread of the Eucharist, by an union, though not personal and hypostatical, yet mystical, divine, and ineffable, by which the bread remaining bread, is made the body of Christ. For they use this comparison, taken from the personal union of the two natures of Christ, for to show how the bread is the body of Christ: This opinion hath no foundation in the Scripture. Yet I dare say, it is an error no way prejudicial to Christian Religion. For that opinion changeth not the nature of Christ, and destroys not his humanity. Neither doth it destroy the nature of the Sacrament, since they did believe that the bread changeth not its substance. Whence also they worshipped not the Sacrament, neither did fall into Idolatry. To be short, it was an innocent error, serving to augment and increase the people's respect and reverence to the holy Sacrament, which for that cause they call terrible and wonderful.

In the mean while we have in that a most evident proof that these Fathers did not believe the Transubstantiation. For as they believed not that by the union of Christ's divinity with his humanity, the human nature was transubstantiated, or his body abolished: so did not they believe that by this mystical and divine union of the God-head of Christ with the bread, the bread should be destroyed, and turned into another substance.

By this doctrine the bread of the Eucharist is the body of Christ in two manners: the one because of that mystical union of the bread with Christ, after the same sort as Jesus Christ man is called the Son of God; because of the personal union with the Son of God: The other, because this bread is the sacred sign and remembrance of Christ's body, as it is usual to give to the signs the name of that which they do signify. For this second consideration they say that the bread of the Eucharist is the body which was borne of the Virgin, and crucified for us. For as touching the first Consideration, it is certain that this bread which they say is made Christ's body by that mystical union, is another body of Christ than that which was crucified for us. For to effect such a transmittation, they interpose the Omnipotencie of God. For it must be a divine power for to cause that the bread remaining bread, be so straitly united to the Godhead of Christ, as to become the body of Christ.

Now, that these Fathers do hold that this mystical body of Christ is another body than that which was crucified for us, though it be the same in signification, we proved it just now by a multitude of places of Fathers, wherein they say that Christ hath two sorts of flesh, and that we may very well eat of that flesh or mystical body which is taken in the Sacrament, but no manner of way eat the flesh that was crucified for us.

The first Father that ever made use of the personal union of the two natures of Christ for to show how the bread is made the body of Christ, not by Transubstantiation, but by the mysterious union of the Godhead of Christ with the bread, is Justin Martyr, about the end of his second Apology, where he speaketh thus: We do not take these things as common bread: but after the same manner as Christ our Savior was incarnate and made flesh and blood for our salvation, so we have been taught that the meat whereon thankesgivings have been rendered by the prayer of the Word, whereby our flesh is nourished by transmutation, is the body and blood of Christ Jesus. Now that Justin believed that this meat is bread still, and hath not lost its substance, he showeth it when he saith that our bodies are fed with it. And by that which he saith in that very place, that the Deacons give to all them that are present to participate, the bread and wine, whereupon graces have been said.

The Author likewise of the Catechesticall prayer attributed to Gregory of Nysse, useth the same comparison. The body (saith he) was changed into a divine dignity by the inhabitation of the Word God. With good reason then also now I believe that the bread, sanctified by the word of God, is changed into the body of God the Word. If this comparison be good, as the body of Christ was not transubstantiated by the inhabitation of the Godhead: no more likewise is the bread transubstantiated by the consecration which is made at the Sacrament.

Hilary speaketh just so in the eighth Book of the Trinity: If the Word was truly made flesh, and we also in the meat of the Lord do take the Word flesh.

Gratian in his second distinction of the Consecration, allegeth a place of Austin, drawn from the Sentences of Prosper, in these words, The Sacrifice of the Church is composed of two things, to wit of the Sacrament, and of the thing of the Sacriment; hat is to say of the body of Christ, after the same manner as Christ's person is composed of God and man. For Christ is very God and very man.

Irenaeus hath an opinion by himself. For he saith that the bread is the body of Christ, because Christ is the Creator of all things, esteeming that the whole world in respect of God, is what the body of man is to his Soul. Which was the opinion and belief of Plato, of Cicero, of Virgil, and of all the Platonic School, that bore the sway in Irenaeus his time.

Such was the belief of the Author of the Book of the Lord's supper, attributed to Saint Cyprian. That Author speaketh thus: The common bread being changed into flesh, and into blood, bringeth • ife and growth unto the body. And therefore the infirmity of our flesh being helped by the accustomed effect, is taught by a sensible proof, that in the visible Sacraments there is an effect of eternal life. When he saith that the common bread is turned into flesh, and into blood, he doth not mean that it is turned into the flesh and blood of Christ, but into our flesh and blood by disgestion; for he addeth that this bread nourisheth our bodies and maketh them to grow; and all the currant of the speech showeth that. But a little after he addeth some words whereupon our Adversaries do triumph and glory, for lack of understanding what this Authors belief was. The bread (saith he) that the Lord gave to his Disciples, being changed, not in show, but in nature, is made flesh by the omnipotency of the Word. But in the words following, he showeth that this conversion of the bread into the flesh of Christ, is made, not by Transubstantiation, but by an union of the Godhead of Christ with the bread, like unto the union of Christ's divine nature with his human nature: For he added immediately after, And even as in • he person of Christ, his humanity was • eene, but his divinity was hidden, so the divine essence is infused in the visible Sacrament by an unspeakable manner. There is nothing more express, nor more contrary unto Transubstantiation. For according to this Authors belief, even as Christ's divine nature did not transubstantiate his Manhood, but made it to be the flesh of the Son of God: So the divine Essence which he saith to be infused in the bread of the Sacrament, maketh it to become Christ's body, without being Transubstantiated. Wherefore a litlte after, he saith, that that which we receive in the Sacrament, is unleavened bread, which sanctifieth us by touching it: acknowledging that it is bread still.

Bellarmine in the 15 chap. of his third Book of the Eucharist, allegeth Saint Remigius, that wrote about the year of our Lord 520 in these words, a The flesh which the Word of God the Father took in the Virgins womb in unity of person, and the bread that is consecrated in the Church, are one and the self-same body. For the plenitude of the divinity which was in that flesh, filleth also this bread. Bellarmine addeth that Haimo held the same language, and that Gelasius and Theodorets words that we have alleged above, may be fitted to this opinion.

The Author our Adversaries allege with more ostentation, is Damascene, whom they rank among the Saints. This man may be termed the Lombard of the Grecians, because he is the first among the Grecians that handled divinity in Philosophical terms: And is the first that wrote for the adoration of Images. Now, he did write about the year of our Lord 740. This man in his 4 Book of the Orthodox Faith, chap. 14. extendeth himself upon this matter, and will have the bread to be changed into the body of the Lord, not by transubstantiation, but by Assumption and union with the divinity, like unto the union of Christ's divinity with his humanity. Because (saith he) that it is the custom to eat bread, and to drink wine and water, the Lord hath conjoined his divinity to these things, and hath made them to be his body and blood. And a little after, If thou inquirest in what manner that is done, let it suffice thee to understand that it is done by the holy Spirit, after the same manner as the Lord hath made himself to himself and in himself, a flesh taken of the holy Mother of God by the holy Ghost. And a little after, he saith that the bread and wine is the body of Christ Deified. Chiefly he is very express in that he addeth: The bread of the Communion is not mere bread, but it is conjoined to the Divinity. But still he acknowledgeth that it is bread, saying, the bread is the body of Christ, and calling it the bread of the Communion: And a little after, The loaves of proposition did figurate this bread. Item, The broad is the first fruits of the future bread. And a little after, We partake all of one bread. Only he hath this of particular to himself, that he will not have the bread to be called the figure of Christ's body, rejecting that kind of speech, usual and ordinary in the Fathers that have written afore him.

It appeareth likewise in that he will have the Sacrament to be honored, but not to be worshipped. Let us (saith he) honor it with purity corporal and spiritual; and will have it to be received with the hands set in form of a Cross. For then it was not as yet the custom to chop it into the mouths of Communicants.

Rupertus was imbrued with the same opinion, Even as Christ (saith he) did neither change nor destroy the human nature, but joined himself unto it: So in the Sacrament he neither destroyeth nor changeth the substance of the bread and wine, but joineth himself unto it in the unity of his body and blood. For which cause also Bellarmine placeth him among the Impanators.

This doctrine doth no whit agree with the ubiquity. For they did put this union of Christ with the bread, in the Sacrament only, which bringeth no manner of change to the natural body of Christ. But these Fathers make two bodies of Christ: the one his natural body, which is but in Heaven, the other the bread of the Sacrament, which they make to be Christ's body two manner of ways: to wit because it is united to the divinity of Christ by an union like unto the hypostatical union of the two natures of Christ, and because it is a sign, figure, and symbol of Christ's natural body: according as the signs are wont to be called by the name of that which they do signify and represent. Whence also they say sometimes that that bread is the body of Christ, borne of the Virgin, and crucified for us.

Whosoever shall apprehend this aright, shall have a key in their hand for to enter into the knowledge and intelligence of the Fathers, and for to come out of all difficulties. It is the solution of the places of Cyril that are objected against us, and of those and Ambrose out of the Book of Sacraments. For indeed the Author of the Books of Sacraments was one of these Impanators, since that he holdeth that by the unspeakable virtue of God, the bread becometh the body of Christ, and yet remains bread still, as we have proved, and alleged the form of the service of that time, where it was said, That the oblation we offer, is the Figure of the body of Christ. And in the 4 chap, Let us establish this, to wit, how THAT WHICH IS BREAD, may be the body of Christ. And a little after, he saith that the bread and the wine are still what they were, and yet are changed into the body and blood of the Lord. We must not wonder if for to work this change in the bread of the Sacrament, he employeth the Omnipotency of God, and his unexpressable virtue in changing things. For indeed if that union he conceiveth, were true, it were an unspeakable and incomprehensible work, and wherein human reason is stark blind.

Because of this mystical union which is near unto the personal union, Cyril of Alexandria saith, that this body of Christ received into our bodies, maketh them susceptible and capable of the Resurrection. Which truly is an abuse. For by the same reason the participation of the Sacrament should keep us from dying. The Faithful of the Old Testament, and John the Baptist, and the Thief crucified with Christ, and an ininfinit number of Martyrs, that were never partakers of this Sacrament, are no less capable of the Resurrection.

From that impanation sprung up that custom by which in old time many particular persons carried away the Eucharist into their own houses, and kept it locked up in a chest or cupboard, as Gorgonia did, who was sister to Gregory Nazimzen. Which showeth on the one side that they did give unto that bread something more than to be the figure and sign of Christ body. And on the other side that showeth also that they did not believe the Transubstantiation. For they would never have put Christ's natural body into a woman's hand, for to keep it locked up in a cupboard.

From the same opinion proceeded that which Satyrus did, who was S Ambroses brother, and yet unbaptized Who being upon the Sea in danger of shipwreck, caused the Eucharist to be given him, and hanged it about his neck, and then threw himself into the sea, for to save himself by swimming. An evident proof they believed th • t in this Sacrament there was some secret virtue, and that nevertheless they believed not this bread to be the natural body of Christ, crucified for us. For they would never have given it to an unbaptized person for to hang it about his neck, and cast it with him into the Sea.

Neither is it to be omitted that the Fathers never speak of the species of the bread in the plural, but only in the singular, because that by the sp • cies of the bread, they understand the substance of the bread, which is one. But our Adversaries, which deprave the Fathers terms as well as their doctrine, speak of species of the bread in the plural, because that by the species of the bread, they understand accidents without a subject, which are many. Which is a new doctrine, and a phrase or kind or speech altogether unusual, not only in Philosophers, but also in the Fathers, and in all Antiquity.

CHAP. XXX. Particular opinion of Saint Agustine and of Fulgentius, and of Innocent the third.

AUsten, and Fulgentius his disciple, take sometimes these words, This is my body, in a sense patricular to themselves. For besides this exposition which is very frequent in S. Austin, namely, that the Lord called the bread his body, because it is the sigure and sign of his body: in some places he will have in these words THIS is my body, that by this word, body, the Church be understood. For in his Sermon to Children, which is to be found at the end of Fulgentius his Works, he speaketh thus: These things are called Sacraments, because in them one thing is seen, and another understood, &c. If then thou wilt know what the body of Christ is, hear the Apostle saying, Ye are the body and members of Christ. And in the 26 Treatise upon S. John, By this meant, and by this drink, the Lord will have the fellowship of his body and of his members to be understood, to wit, the holy Church of the Predestinat.

Pope Innocent the third holdeth the same doctrine: For in his 4 Book of the mysteries of the Mass, he saith, that Christ hath two bodies, to wit his natural body, which he took of the Virgin, and which was crucified, and his mystical body, viz. the Church. Then he addeth: The mystical body is eaten spiritually, that is to say in faith under the species of the bread.

By all the premises it is plain and evident, that he who forsaking the Scriptures, taketh the Fathers for his address or direction, entangleth himself into marvelous difficulties, and casteth himself into darkness, and in a labyrinth without issue. And that a man must be well read in them, and observe and heed them very exactly, for to attain to an indifferent knowledge of them. That if any one readeth them carefully, and with an unpreoccupated mind, though he meets with many errors in them, and small agreement among themselves: Yet he shall find them so far from the doctrine of the Roman Church, as the heavens are from the earth.

CHAP. XXXI. That the Church of Rome condemning the Impanation, is fallen her self into an error a thousand times more pernitiou • , by Transubstantiation. And of the Adoration of the accidents of the bread.

WE have shown that many Fathers have believed that the divinity of the Lord is joined to the bread of the Eucharist, by an union coming near unto the personal union that is between the two natures of Christ. The Transubstantiation, is an imitation of this doctrine, but in the worse: For whereas these Fathers conjoin the Godhead of Christ with the substance of the bread The Church of Rome conjoineth Christ with the accidents of bread, with a more strait union than that which those Impanators did put between the divinity of the Lord, and the bread of the Eucharist.

For the ancient Fathers esteemed not that because of the union of Christ with the substance of the bread, the bread should be worshipped. But the Roman Church by reason of the union of Christ's body with the accidents of the bread, worshippeth these accidents, that is to say, the roundness, whiteness, favor, and breadth of the Host, with the same adoration that Christ's body is worshipped with. The Council of Trente in the XIII. Session, ordaineth upon pain of a curse, that the Sacrament shall be worshipped with divine adoration, called Latria. Now by the Sacrament, the Council understandeth the body of Christ with the species or accidents. Of which abuse hath been spoken before.

It is therefore very wrongfully that the Church of Rome condemns those that have put a mystical and unspeakable union between the Godhead of Christ and the bread of the Sacrament, since our Adversaries themselves bring in another, a thousand times more absurd and more pernicious, between Christ and the Accidents of bread. More absurd, I say: For the union of two substances may easily be conceived; But to unite a substance with the accidents of another substance, as if one should put the Moon under the accidents of a horse, is a thing and a conceit which passeth all the imaginations of hypocondriaks, and which cannot fall into the mind of any man that hath not interdicted to himself the use of reason. Add moreover that this doctrine destroyeth the nature of the Sacrament, and the humanity of Christ, as we have proved: and bindeth men to worship a piece of bread with divine adoration. Things, which the ancient Church never believed nor practiced.

It seemeth that Satan, when he tempted Christ in the Wilderness, was a projecting this doctrine, and making an essay or trial of it. For promising unto Christ imaginary kingdoms, he proposed unto him accidents without a subject. And in speaking to him of turning stones into bread, he spake to him of a Transubstantiation.

CHAP. XXXII. That the Sacrifice of the Mass was not instituted by Christ. Confession of our Adversaries.

IN the holy Scripture, the holy Supper is not called a Sacrifice. Christ in instituting this Sacrament, offered nor presented nothing to his Father, but only to his Disciples, saying, Take, eat. He made no elevation of the Host. The Apostles worshipped not the Sacrament. In a word, there did not pass in it, any of the actions necessarily required in a Sacrifice properly so called. Bellarmine acknowledgeth it freely, saying, The oblation which is after the Consecration, belongeth to the integrity of the Sacrifice, but is not of its essence: which is proved in that the Lord made not this oblation, nor the Apostles themselves at the beginning, as we have demonstrated it out of Gregory. A confession very notable: by which this Cardinal will have Christ and his Apostles to have made a Sacrifice without offering anything: that is to say, that in the Eucharist he offered not himself in Sacrifice: But now the Church of Rome offereth Christ Jesus in Sacrifice, against Christ's example, and the example of his Apostles.

Salmeron Jesuit, in the XIII. Tome and first Book of Commentaries upon the Epistles of S. Paul, maketh an enumeration of the unwritten Traditions, and puts in their rank the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, that is to say the Papal Monarchy, and the service of Images, and the Mass, and the manner of Sacrificing. And the Tradition, that Christ made a Sacrifice in bread and wine. And here are the reasons why he thinketh it was not expedient those things should be written, or taught by word of mouth. It is (saith he) a foolish thing to think the Apostles have written all, or given all by Tradition: That would turn to injury against the holy host, acting and revealing. And it would be a thing uncouth unto nature, which comprehendeth not all things at once. And there he giveth a particular reason wherefore these things were not to be written, to wit, that Christ's Commandment might be kept, Give not that which is holy unto dogs If we believe this Doctor, the doctrine of the Birth and Passion of our Savior was given unto dogs: for it was God's will it should be set down in writing. By these Dogs he meaneth the People and the Princes.

Cardinal Baronius maketh the same confession, and acknwledgeth ingenuously that the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is an unwritten Tradition, and whereof, by consequent, no mention is made in the Gospel.

And Gregory of Valentia a Jesuit, in the 4 chap of his first Book of the Mass: Even though this service or worship [of the Mass] had not been instituted by God, yet these men could not conclude that it is not lawful, for we have showed that that [to wit to be commanded of God] is not necessarily required, for to make that a service be good.

All these Doctors speaking thus, condemn tacitly the Council of Trente, who in the XXII. Session, chapter 1. declareth and defineth, that by these words, Do this in remembrance of me, the Lord established the Priesthood of the New Testament. Words which M • tthew and Mark would not have omitted, if by them the Lord had instituted the Sacrifice and the Priesthood of the New Testament.

CHAP. XXXIII. That the Sacrifice of the Mass agrees neither with Scripture nor with reason.

1. THe two third partes of Saint Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews are employed in speaking both of the Sacrifice, and of the Priesthood of the Christian Church, where nevertheless no mention is made at all of the Eucharist, nor of any other Sacrifice of redemption than the death of Christ our Lord.

2. Moreover, in many places, namely about the end of the ninth Chapter, the Apostle saith, As it is appointed unto men once to die, so Christ was once offered for to take away our sins. Teaching us, that as man dieth but once, and that the death of men is not reiterated, neither bloodily nor unbloodily: so the Sacrifice by which Christ offered himself for our sins, receiveth no iteration. And in the tenth Chapter, two several times, he saith in express terms that Christ hath offered Unicam oblationem, one only Sacrifice, and then sat him down on the right hand of God.

3. For since Christ's death is a price, and a sufficient Sacrifice for our redemption; there is no more need of another Sacrifice of redemption. That if for applying unto our s lves Christ's Sacrifice he must he sacrificed again, by the same reason for to apply his d • ath unto ourselves, he must be put to death again. Christ and his death is applied unto us by the fraction of the bread, 1. Cor. 10.16. And by Baptism, Galat. 3.27. And by that Faith whereby Saint Paul saith that he dwelleth in our hearts, Ephesians 3.17. but not in sacrificing him.

4. But how should Christ in the Mass satisfy for our sins, seeing he is no more in that condition of satisfying, nor of suffering for us? But only in the state of interceding and impetrating for us, as Bellarmine confesseth. Christ (saith he) cannot now merit nor satisfy, but only impetrate. Wherefore the proper virtue and efficacy of this Sacrifice is to impetrate; not therefore to redeem and satisfy. Now for to impetrate, Christ's intercession whereby he maketh request for us, sitting at the right hand of his Father, Rom. 8.33. is sufficient, without being needful to sacrifice him.

5. Wherefore the Pastors of the Chritian Church, are never called Priests in the Scripture, for to distinguish them from the people. But all the faithful are called Priests by Saint Peter in his first E • istle, Chap. 2.9. And by Saint John, Revelation 1.6. He hath made • s Kings and Priests unto God and his Father,

6. The Apostle Saint Paul to the Ephesians 4.11. maketh a denumeration of the Offices which Christ, ascending up to heaven, left here to his Church. And he gave some Apostles, and some Prophets, and some Evangelists: and some Pastors and Teachers, Of Priests and Sacrificers he speaketh not one word. No more than in the first to Timothy, and in the Epistle to Titus, where he describeth the duty of Priests (whom he calleth also Bishops) and of Deacons, without making any mention of this Priesthood.

7. It is evident that to be a Sacrificer, is a thing more excellent than to be Sacrificed. So Aaron was more excellent than the beasts that he offered: Not only because he was a man, and had these Sacrifices in his power: but also because these Lambes and Bullocks were figures of Christ, as he was a man, who was to die for us: but Aaron represented Christ, as he was God, offering his body in Sacrifice to his Father for our sins. Priests therefore boasting themselves of sacrificing Christ, advance themselves above Christ.

8. In all Sacrifices the thing sacrificed and offered unto God, must be destroyed and killed. But in the Mass Christ is not destroyed and suffereth nothing there. Therefore in the Mass Christ is not sacrificed. To say that in the Mass Christ's sacramental being is destroyed, is a pure mockery. For Christ hath but one being, to wit his natural being. And this word of Sacramental being, is as much as a significative being, which is a Chymera o • fond conceit. The principal is that in the Mass they pretend to sacrifice Christ for our redemption. But the Sacramental or significative being of the Lord is not the price of our redemption, & is not sacrificed for us. That if the Sacrifice be made when the species of the bread and wine are destroyed, we must say that the Sacrifice is made in the stomach of the Priest some hours after the Mass is ended: for there must be some time for to destroy the species by the disgestion.

9. Furthermore in all Sacrifices the thing sacrificed must be Consecrated, and in every Sacrifice there must be some Consecration. But in the Mass there is nothing consecrated. Not the bread, for they hold it is no more bread. Not Christ's body, for men cannot consecrate him: It is he that consecrateth us. Not the accidents of bread: For they be not offered to God in Sacrifice: otherwise the Mass would be a Sacrifice of accidents, of color, of savor, of lines, and superficies.

10. Our Adversaries never find themselves more puzzled, than when they are put to find in the institution of this Sacrament, some action wherein this Sacrifice doth consist by which they pretend that the consecrated Hoste is sacrificed to God in propitiatory Sacrifice. Doth this Sacrifice consist in the words whereby the Priest presenteth the body of Christ unto God, and prays him to have that offering acceptable? But we have seen in the foregoing Chapter that our Adversaries do confess, tha • Christ made not God his Father. Doth this Sacrifice confist in the fraction of the bread? But that is impossible; for Christ brake the bread before he uttered the words of Consecration, therefore he brake no consecrated Hoste. And when the Priest lets the Host fall whole into the Chalice without breaking it, the Mass leaveth not for that to be called a Sacrisice, as Bellarmine acknowledgeth. Perhaps they will say the Sacrifice consisteth in the manducation: But that cannot be. For eating is not sacrificing. That if eating be sacrificing, everyone of the People shall be a sacrificing Priest: and the Peoples mouths shall be as many Altars. Under Moses Law in all the sacrifices, after which the people did • ate of the things sacrificed, the sacred feast was made some hours after the Sacrifice was ended. Neither can the Sacrifice consist in the pronouncing of the words of Consecration: For by these words This is my body, the Priest off • reth nothing to God. But every Sacrifice is an offering made unto God. Furthermore, in every Sacrifice, he that sacrificeth, addresseth himself to God, but these words are addressed to the broad. Which is more, we have seen hereabove the Confession of our Adversaries, acknowledging that in all this action Christ offered nothing to God. Therefore he made no Sacrifice.

11. It is to be noted that in the Roman Church the Order of Priesthood is a Sacrament, whose it stitution they will have to be found in the Institution of the Eucharist, when the Lord said, Do this, as if Christ by one and the same words had instituted two Sacraments. With as much absurdity, as if one would needs find the Institution of Marriage or of Extreame Unction in the institution of Baptism. That if these words, Do this in remembrance of me, be the formal and express words whereby Christ conferred the Order of Priesthood, how comes it to pass that the Bishops, when they d • e conserre that Order in the Ember weeks, make no mention of these words at all?

12. Our Adversaries put two sorts of Sacrifice. The one bloody, the other unbloody, which they call the Sacrifice of Melchizedek, and which they say to be far more excellent that the bloody sacrifice, and will have the Mass to be the Sacrifice after the Order of Melchizedek. Whence followeth that the Mass is more excellent than Christ's death, which is a bloody Sacrifice. It is great wonder then that the Apostle to the Hebrews speaking so at large of the Priesthood of Melchizedek, maketh not any mention at all of Mass, nor of Eucharist.

13. But how is it they by these words Do this in remembrance of me, Christ should command men to sacrifice him in the Mass, since it is impossible to sacrifice Christ in remembrance of Christ? seeing also that Saint Paul immediately after these words, addeth the explication of them, saying, For as often as ye cate this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death, 1. Cor. 11. He teacheth us that to Do this, is to eat bread and drink the cup in remembrance of the Lord's death.

Here therefore every man that sear • God, and loves the Lord Jesus, shall consider what a crime it is for moratal men and sinners to intrude and take upon themselves to Sacrifice the Eternal Son of God to his Father, and to be Priests after the Order of Melchizedek, without charge and without commission.

CHAP. XXXIIII. In what sense the holy Supper may be called a Sacrifice. Of Melchisedeks Sacrifice. And of the Oblation whereof Malachi speaketh.

THe holy Scripture calleth our Alms, our Prayers, our Praises and Thankesgivings, and generally what worship soever we render unto God, Sacrifices. In this sense the holy Supper may be called a Sacrifice. For the question between us and our Adversaries, is not whether the Eucharist may be cal • ed a Sacrifiee: But whether it be truly and properly a Sacrifice of redemption, and whether the Priests in the Mass sacrifice the body of Christ really and truly for the sins of the quick and of the dead.

Touching that, our Adversaries bring no manner of proof out of the New Testament, wherein nevertheless the institution of this Sacrifice should appear. Only they all eadge out of the Old Testament the example of Melchizedek, who as they say sacrificed bread and wine. Gen. 14.18. Which they produce falsely for that place saith no such thing. Melchizedek brought out bread and wine to Abraham for to refresh his weary • troops, but offered not bread and wine to Abraham in Sacrifice. The very Bibl • of the Roman Church hath proferens, and not offerens. Nevertheless we will suppose that place to be faithfully alleged. For if the Mass be the Sacrifice o • Melchizedek, it will follow that the Mass is a Sacrifice of bread and wine and not of flesh and bones and blood From thence it followeth also that the Mass is not a Sacrifice of redemption. For bread and wine offered up in Sacrified cannot be the price of our redemption. It were an abuse to think that Melchizedek hath sacrificed bread for the redemption of any one. The propitiatory sacrifices, under the Old Testament, were made by the death of the victime: and no propitiation was made without shedding of blood, saith the Apostle, Heb. 9. • 2. In sum, it is to speak against the comm • n sense, to argue thus: Melchizedek offered bread and wins: Therefore the Priest sacrificeth the Lord's body and blood.

They object likewise a place of Malachi, chap. 1. wherein God promiseth that in every place, Incense shall be offered unto his Name, and a pure offering. Which is a Prophesy of the calling of the Gentiles, whereby God foretells that among the •• tions, and acceptable service shall be offered unto him. Of the Sacrifice of the Lord's body: he speaketh nothing of it. The novelty of this service is, that it shall be made among all Nations, whereas in Malachies time • it was but made in the Jewish Nation.

They say also that the Passover of the Old Testament was a Sacrifice, and by consequent that the Lord's Supper, that succeeded thereunto, must be Sacrifice. They speak with as much reason, as if I should say that the night must be clear, because it succeedeth to the day which is bright and clear, and that 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 old Age is strong and lusty, seeing it succeedeth to young Age which is strong, and lusty. The succession of one thing unto another, bringeth commonly great alterations. Add to this that our Adversaries will not have the Mass to be such a Sacrifice as that Passover was. For the Passover was not offered by the Priests, and was not made upon the Altar of the Temple: it was a domestical sacrifice which particular men made at home in their own houses; As it appeareth by the Passover which Christ did celebrate among his Disciples, in which no Priest was employed. And even though by this example our Adversaries had proved that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice: yet there would remain for them to prove that in this Sacrifice Christ's body is really sacrificed.

CHAP. XXXV. In what sense the Fathers have called the Eucharist a Sacrifice.

THe ancient Fathers endeavoring to draw the Heathen unto the Christian Faith, who esteemed there is no Religion without sacrifice, and the Jews whose Religion under the Old Testament did chiefly consist in Sacrifices, have called the holy Supper a Sacrifice, and the Sacred Table an Altar, and those that serve at it, Levites.

But they show sufficiently how they call the holy Supper a Sacrifice, since they call it Eucharist, that is to say Thankesgiving, and not a Sacrifice of Propitiation. Saint Austin calleth it indeed the Sacrifice of our price in the ninth Book of Confessions, chapter 12. But we have produced a multitude of places out of the same Father, that say, that in matter of Sacraments the signs are wont to take the name of the things signified. That this is the sense and meaning of the Fathers when they speak thus, appeareth in that they call also the Eucharist Christ's death. As Cyprian in his 63 Epistle, The Lord's Passion is the Sacrifice we do offer. And Chrysostom in the 21 Homily upon the Acts of the Apostles, Whilest this death is a perfeciting, and this dreadful Sacrifice, and these ineffable mysteries. And so the Canon Hoc est, in the 2 Distin • tion of the Consecration, The immolation of Christ's flesh which is made by the hands of the Priest, is called the Passion, Death, and Crucifixion of Christ, not according to the truth, but by a significant mystery.

Austin in his 23 Epistle to Boniface: Was not Christ once sacrificed in himself? and yet he is sacrificed to the People in a sacred sign. And in his 10 Book of the City of God, chap: 5. The visible Sacrifice is a Sacrament, that is to say a sacred sign of the invisible Sacrifice. And a little after, That which men do call Sacrifice, is a sign of the rue Sacr fice. Note that he saith, that men do call it a Sacrifice, acknowledging tacitly the holy Scripture doth not call it so. We have then in these places of S. Austin, a clear exposicion of this place wherein he calleth the Eucharist the Sacrifice of our price.

The sixth Book of Apostolical Constitutions of Clemens, chap. 23 The Lord instead of a bloody Sac •• fice hath instituted a reasonable, and unbloody, and mystical Sacrifice, which is celebrated in consideration of the Lord's death by the signs of his body and blood.

In the 4. Book of Sacraments attributed to S. Ambrose, chap. 5. we have these words of the ancient Service: Grant that this oblation be imputed unto us as reasonable, acceptable, which is the FIGURE of the body and blood of the Lord. The succeeding ages have razed out the word Figure.

Procopius Gazaeus upon the 49. chap. of Genesis, Christ gave to his Disciples the Image, or Figure, and Type of his body and blood, receiving no more the bloody Sacrifices of the Law.

Eusebius in the 10 chapter of his first Book of the Evangelical Demonstration, The Lord having offered a Sacrifice and an excellent victime unto his Father for the salvation of us all, hath appointed us to offer continually the remembrance of it instead of a Sacrifice.

And in the same place, We have received the remembrance of this Sacrifice for to celebrate it at his own table, by the signs of his Body and Blood, according to the institution of the New Testament.

In a word, the Fathers are full of such places. Wherefore in the Eucharist they put no difference between the Sacrament and the Sacrifice. But to speak properly, there is such difference between a Sacrifice and a Sacrament, as between giving and receiving: For in a Sacrifice we offer unto God, but in a Sacrament we receive from God. The Fathers do not make this distinction. For, by reason the Sacrament is a sign and a figure of the Sacrifice, they call the Sacrament a Sacrifice.

This kind of speaking, to call the Lord's Supper a Sacrifice, had its beginning from the offerings and gifts, which in old time the people offered upon the sacred table afore the Communion, which gifts were commonly called Sacrifices and Oblations. Cyprian in his Sermon of Alms, chides a rich woman that had brought no Sacrifice, and yet took her part of the Sacrifices the poor had brought. And in the 21 Distinction at the Canon Cleros, Let the Subdeacons in the Lord's Temple receive the Oblations of the Faithful, and carry them to the Levites, that they may put them upon the Altars. Which manner of speech remains yet at this day in the Mass, wherein the Priest before the Cōsecration, saith, Receive, Lord, thi • immaculate Host, &c. as is acknowledged by Bellarmine in his first Book of the Mass, ch. 27. And he proves it by Ire • eus, who in the 4 Book, chap. 32. saith, we offer unto God a Sacrifice of his creatures, that is to say, bread and wine: And that, even before the Consecration.

In that therefore, the Fathers have said nothing but what is agreeable & conformable unto the Faith. Yet nevertheless the abuse that hath followed thereon a longtime after, is unto us an excellent example that the safest way is to cleave to the Apostles language, and not to depart from the style of the holy Scripture.

CHAP. I. Of two sorts of manducation of Christ's flesh, to wit, Spiritual and Corporal, and which is the best.

M Etaphors are similes contracted and reduced to a word. So we say feeding for teaching, and to flourish for to be in prosperity, and we call Pride a swelling, and truth a light. We say of a childes tongue, that it is untied, and of his wit, that it is displayed.

These Metaphors, besides the ornament, have some utility. For they propose an Image of the things whereof we speak, and make them more intelligible by a tacit comparison. Specially, it is a thing very usual and frequent, to express the functions and qualities of the soul, by terms borrowed from the actions and corporal qualities. So we say that Envy fretteth, that love burneth, that Covetousness is a thirst of money, and that hope is a tickling or soothing.

The holy Scripture is full of such manner of speeches, wherein nothing is more frequent than to speak of good instructions as of meats and drinks, and of the Graces of God, as of a water that quensheth the thirst, and of the desire of these graces as of a hunger and thirst. So in the 9 of Proverbs the supreme Wisdom saith, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. And David in the 36 Psalm saith, God makes us drink in the river of his pleasures. And in the 34 Psalm, O taste and see that the Lord is good. And Jeremiah in the 15 chap. Thy words were found, and I did presently eat 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 them. And God himself in the 55 of Isaiah • h, inviteth the thirsty to drink of the waters. And that it may be understood he speaks of a spiritual drink, he adds, Incline your care, and your soul shall live. According to this kind of speech S. Peter in his 1 Epistle, chap. 2, exhorts us to desire the milk of intelligence, to wit the Word of God. And S. Paul in the first to the Corinthians, chap. 3. saith he hath given them milk, and not solid meat. Christ our Lord is he that hath used very often such metaphors, taken from corporal meats and drinks. He saith in the 4. chap. of S. John, that his meat is to do his Fathers will. And in the same chap. he promiseth to give water, whereof whosoever shall drink, shall never thirst. And in the chap. 7.37. If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. And in the 5. chapter of S. Matthew, Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.

With such manner of figurative speeches is woven and interlaced a great part of the 6 chap. of S. John, where the Lord speaking to the Capernaites, promiseth to give them the bread of Heaven, and saith that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed. Two occasions moved him to speak so. For the Jews of Capernaum making him inferior to Moses, and objecting unto him, as by reproach of impotency, that Moses had given unto the Jews the Manna which they call the bread of Heaven: the Lord from thence takes occasion to tell them he would give them another bread descended from Heaven, far better than the Manna, to wit himself, come down from Heaven for to be the food of souls, and for to vivify them. The other cause that moved him to speak in figured terms, is that he was speaking unto ungrateful and rebellious Jews, • o whom S. Ma • th • w saith, he spake not wi • h • t a par • ble, Matth. 13.34

Here our Adversaries acknowledge with us, that there is a manner of eating the body of Christ which is spiritual, and which is done not by the corporal mo • th, but by the Faith in Christ Jesus, in whom we find our life and spiritual food. The Council of Trente in the XIII Session, chap. 8. teaches the same, saying: Some eat this bread, only spiritually and by a lively Faith.

But besides this spiritual manducation, the Church of Rome forgeth to her self a corporal manducation, whereby the Faithful in the Eucharist do chew and eat with their very teeth the body of our Savior Christ, and take it with the corporal mouth, and make him to enter into their stomachs, and do call this a real and true manducation, for to oppose it to the spiritual manducation, whereof they speak very often with contempt, as of a picture and of a thing which consists only in imagination. The Council of Trente intimates so much tacitly, saying, there be some that eat this bread only spiritually, as if it were a small thing in comparison of the real eating of it by the mouth of the body.

Yet nevertheless when we press them a little, they are forced to avow that the spiritual manducation is a great deal better: and that the corporal manducation, which they maintain and defend so stiflly and with so much ardour, is a small thing in regard of the spiritual. For they confess that many are saved without partaking of the Eucharist, but that none are saved without believing in Christ. And that many eat the Sacrament, which nevertheless do perish eternally: but that whosoever eateth Christ's flesh spiritually and with true Faith, shall have eternal salvation, according to the Lord's saying in the third chap. of S. John, that whosoever believeth on him, shall not perish, but have eternal life. Which is more, our Adversaries do acknowledge with us, that the manducation of the Sacrament, without the spiritual manducation by Faith, is not only unprofitable, but even turns into condemnation: and that it is profitable and useful, but for, and because of the spiritual manducation. But the spiritual manducation, by it self alone, and without the corporal manducation, leaves not to be profitable, and always necessary to salvation. The manducation of the Sacrament, by the mouth of the body, is common both to good and bad, and hypocrites partake thereof as well as the true Faithful: yea our Adversaries hold, that beasts may eat Christ's body, and that Mice do carry away sometimes the body of the Lord: But the spiritual manducation, is proper and peculiar to God's Children, and none but the true Faithful can be partakers thereof. Christ in the 15 of S. Matthew, saith: that which goeth into the mouth, defileth not a man: whence follows that neither can it sanctify a man.

In this, S. Austin is far from that language which the Roman Church holdeth now a days, who acknowledgeth no other true and real manducation of Christ's body, than that which is made by the bodily mouth in the Eucharist. For this holy man on the contrary, holdeth that there is no other true and real manducation of Christ's body, but the spiritual: and that that which is done in the Sacrament by the mouth of the body, is not a true manducation. He teacheth it in his 21 book of the City of God, chap. 25. The Lord (saith he) showeth what it is to eat the body of Christ, not in Sacrament only, but in truth. And in the same place, They have eaten the body of Christ, not only in Sacrament, but also truly and indeed. To this holy Doctor, Thomas joins himself in this point, in his 7 lesson upon the 6 of S. John, where speaking of him that eateth spiritually the body of Christ, he saith, It is that man that eateth the body of Christ, not only Sacramentally, but also in truth.

CHAP. II. That in the 6 Chapter of S. John the Lord speaks not of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, nor of the manducation of his flesh by the mouth of the body.

BY the corporal manducation, we understand the manducation of the bread and wine, which Christ hath honored with the title of his body and blood, because they are the Sacrament and remembrance of the same. But our Adversaries pretend to eat really the body of Christ with their mouth, and to make him pass into their stomach: and for to prop this so gross and Capernaitish manducation, they allege the sixth of Saint John, where Christ saith that he is the bread come down from Heaven, and promiseth to give his flesh to eat.

1. For to believe that, a man must of purpose put out his own eyes, and give the Son of God the lie: For all this d • scourse is addressed and spoken to the Jews of Capernaum, to whom he promiseth to give his flesh to eat. If by these words he had promised to give them the Eucharist, he would have deceived them: for he never administered nor presented the holy Supper unto them.

2. That appeareth by the time wherein the Lord held this discourse. It was when the holy Supper was not as yet instituted: no, nor till about two years after. How could the Lord's Disciples have understood that he spake of the Eucharist unto them, which was not, and whereof he had never spoken before?

3. Where is there in all this discourse of the Lord the least mention of a Table, or of a Chalice; or of a Supper, or of a Fraction of Bread, or of a distribution of the Sacrament among many? In sum, of any of the actions wherein the administration of this Sacrament doth consist?

4. It is to be noted that Christ speaketh often in the present tense. He doth not say, I shall be the bread come down from heaven: and I shall be the bread of life. But, I am the bread came down from heaven: and, I am the bread of life. And, He that eateth my flesh, hath ete na • l life. He was then the bread of life before the holy Supper was instituted, and might have been eaten then, and was the sood of the Soul, when the holy Supper had as yet no being.

5. Now that by eating and drinking the Lord meaneth to believe and to trust in him, and thereby to be nourished and vivified: he shows it himself, saying in the 35 Verse, I am the bread of life; be that cometh to me, shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me, shall never thirst. Who sees not that in this place, believing is put for drinking, since by believing the thirst is quenched? And as by that word of coming he speaketh of a spiritual coming: so by that word, drinking, he meaneth and understandeth a kind of spiritual drinking.

6. And when the Lord saith in the 47. and 48 Verse, He that believeth in me, hath eternal life: I am the bread of life: who sees not that this bread is taken in and by believing? For Christ showeth how he is the bread of life, to wit because he that believes on him, hath eternal life.

7. The very words whereupon our Adversaries ground themselves most, are those which make most against them. In the 53 Verse the Lord saith, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. There it is evident he speaks of a manducation necessary unto salvation, and without which none can be saved. He speaks not therefore of the manducation of the Sacrament by the mouth of the body, seeing that without it so many are saved. Now to say that this corporal manducation is necessary, not indeed, but in vow and desire, is to come near our belief, and reduce that necessity to the spiritual manducation. Moreover, to say that none are saved without desiring to be partakers of the holy Communion, is to exclude from salvation, John the Baptist, and the good Thief crucified with the Lord, who never participated thereof, neither in deed nor in vow. And we might bring many examples of Pagans and Idolaters, who by hearing of the words of the Martyrs, were converted at the same instant, and put to death at that very hour, without anybody ever having told them of this Sacrament, and consequently without having made any vow at all to be made partakers thereof. Yea many have suffered martyrdom without being Baptized, and by consequent very far from disposing themselves to receive the Eucharist.

8. The same appeareth by that which Christ addeth in the 54 Verse. He that eateth my flesh, hath eternal life. He speaketh not of the manducation of the Sacrament: For many that eat it, have not eternal life. Their ordinary evasion is, that Christ speaketh of him that eateth his flesh worthily. Wherein appeareth how strong the truth is on our side. For according to our belief, the Lord's words are true without any addition. But our Adversaries do add some glosses for to escape and save themselves. Which addition they make of their own head, without the Word of God. One may well eat the bread unworthily, as Saint Paul saith, 1. Cor. 11. Whosoever eateth this bread unworthily. But it is impossible to eat the Lord's flesh unworthily, since to eat is to believe, as we have shown. A man cannot believe in Christ unworthily, no more than to love God unworthily: since that in believing in Christ, and in loving of God, consisteth all our dignity. Cardinal Cajetan observeth the same, upon the sixth of Saint John, saying, Christ doth not say, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood worthily, but he that eateth and drinketh: to the end we may understand that he speaketh of a meat and of a drink that hath no need of modifieation, &c. It appeareth then plainly that this speech is not to be understood literally, and that the Lord speaketh not of eating and drinking the Sacrament, but of believing, and of feeding spiritually by faith in his death.

9. The Lord addeth in the 56 Verse, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him. Words that decide this question: For they would be false if they should be taken and understood of the manducation of the Sacrament: it being a thing most certain that profane men and hypocrites which receive the Sacrament, dwell not in Christ, nor Christ in them. Now to dwell in Christ, is to be conjoined to him with an union constant and continual and mutual between Christ and the believer. As Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Gant, teacheth very well. He (saith he) that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him: that is to say, he is conjoined unto me inseparably and intimately, and I to him: and proves it by other places of Saint John in his first Epistle, 4.16. He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. And in the same place, Hereby we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And in the third Chapter, 24. Verse, he saith, that he that keepeth his Commandments, dwelleth in him, and be in him. From whence he inserreth that also in this 6 Chapter of Saint John, the Lord speaks of a kind of eating, which is proper unto those that have a faith working through charity, and not of a corporal manducation, whereof wicked men are partakers.

10. That if for to make Christ to dwell in us, he must be eaten by the mouth of the body: Christ by the same reason must eat us, that we may dwell in him.

11. Christ, for to divert and turn away our minds from carnal thoughts, addeth in the 63 Verse, The f • est profiteth nothing, It is the Spirit that quickeneth. Since that by the spirit he meaneth his Spirit whereby he regenerateth us, by the flesh also he understandeth his human body: Whereof he saith that it profiteth nothing, to wit, being taken after that manner as the Capernaites did imagine themselves. What would it profit a man to have in his stomach the head and feet of Christ Jesus, whether he do swallow him by pieces and parcels, or do swallow him whole? For the absurdity is a like.

12. Christ addeth, The words that I have spoken unto you, are spirit and life, that is to say, are spiritual and quickening. They are not quickening but to them that understand them spiritually, and that imagine not a carnal and corporal manducation. So teacheth Saint Austin in his 27 Treatise upon Saint John. He demandeth, What meaneth, these words are spirit and life? His answer is, That they must be under stood spiritually. Hast thou understood them spiritually? They are spirit and life unto thee. Hast thou understood them carnally? In this manner they be also spirit and life, but not unto thee.

13. And upon that the Capernaites and some of the Lord's Disciples were scandelized, and said that these words were an hard saying, he saith unto them, What and if ye shall see then the Son of man ascend where he was before? Which words Saint Austin in the same Treatise explaineth thus, What meaneth that? Thereby he resolveth that which had moved them. They thought he would give them his body, but he saith unto them that he would ascend up to heaven, to wit, whole and entire. When ye have seen the son of man ascending where he was before, certainly then at le • st shall ye see that he giveth not his body as ye think. Then at the least shall ye understand that his grace is not consumed with biting.

CHAP. III. That the Roman Church, by this doctrine, depriveth the People of Salvation.

THat which grieves our Adversaries most, in all this discourse of the • ord, is this clause of the 53 Verse, Ve • ily I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh • f the son of man, and drink his blood, • e have no life in you. For if by these words Christ do speak of the parti • ipation of the Sacrament, it follows that the People of the Roman Church, whom they have deprived of the cup, • hall have no life, and are lost eternally: • or they drink not Christ's blood. To say, as Bellarmine doth, that the People • aches the blood in the Hoste, is to say • ust nothing. For Christ commandeth • ot only to take his blood, but also commandeth to drink it. If he speaketh of the Sacrament, he commandeth men not only to be partakers of his blood, but also declareth the kind and manner how he will have them to participate thereof; for, to drink, is th • kind and manner of participating thereof. Briefly, he commandeth to drink But to eat a dry Hoste or wafer, is no • to drink. That if to eat, is to drink the Priest drinketh twice in the Mass once in taking the Hoste, and anothe • time in taking the Cup. Unto which th • common sense contradicteth: and Pop •• Innocent the third too, in his fourt Book of the Mysteries of the Mass Chapter. 21. Neither is the blood drun • (saith he) under the species of the bread nor the body eaten under the species of t •• wine. Here then our Adversaries do forge an absurd figure, whereby to drin • signifieth to eat. Everywhere else the do distinguish eating from drinking but here they confound them as if th • were all one. Indeed to eat and 〈◊〉 drink, taken in a spiritual sense, signifieth one and the same thing. B •• when the question is of the Sacram •• of the Eucharist, and of eating th • bread, and drinking the Chalice, t • eat and to drink are different thing▪ That if to eat the Hoste, be to drink so to drink the Cup, shall be to ea •• the Cup. And if drinking be take figuratively, why not also the word eating?

Here the truth is so strong, that Vasquez the Jesuit sticks not to dispute with might and main against Bellarmine, who saith that the Lord commandeth only the perception of his blood, but not the manner of participating thereunto. I do not approve (saith he) of this answer, because the words of the Lord have not only reference unto the thing that is taken, but to the manner of taking it. For to eat, and to drink, if the words be taken properly, cannot agree with any species whatsoever. For the blood is not said to be drunk under the species of the bread, no more than the body is eaten under the species of the wino, as Innocent the third observeth very well in his 4 Book chap. 21.

And he addeth a thing very considerable, to wit, that from this answer of Bellarmine, who will have this word, drinking, to be taken improperly, it will follow that in the whole chapter there shall not be a word spoken of the Cup.

Salmeron another Jesuit, is of the same opinion, saying, that he that drinketh not, drinketh not the blood, though he do take the flesh and blood.

But the same Jesuits that contest against their own fellows, bring no better things themselves. They say that when Christ said, Except ye drink my blood, ye have no life in you, he bindeth the people to drink the Cup, and that they drink it indeed, in as much as the Priest drinketh for the people, and representeth the whole Church when he drinketh. By this reason, the People might as well forbear eating, and be contented that the Priest should eat for them. For the commandment for eating, in this place, is not more express than that of drinking. By the same means▪ when Christ commands the People to believe in him, the people may dispense themselves from believing in Christ, saying, it sufficeth that the Priest believe for others, for he representeth the whole Church: In a word, it is an impious temerity and presumption to add out of ones own authority unto the words of the Lord, whole clauses, yea absurd clauses, as if Christ had said, Except ye drink my blood your own selves, or by another, ye shall have no life in you.

With the like license they say that when Christ said, Except ye eat my flesh AND drink my blood, this AND must be turned into OR, and that Christ's meaning was to have said, Except ye eat my flesh, or drink my blood. If it may be lawful to change thus the words of the Lord, there is no law in the Scripture from which a man may not dispence himself. When the Law of God commands one to love God and his Neighbor, one may by the same reason say, that the Law meaneth that one must love God or his Neighbor: And when the Law saith Honor thy Father and thy Mother, it meaneth that one must honor his Father or his Mother, and that it is enough to honor either of them. Add withal that by this depravation of the Lord's Words, it follows that the people may drink the Cup without eating the Hoste, since it sufficeth to do either of them.

CHAP. IV. That the principal Doctors of the Roman Church, yea the Popes themselves do agree with us in this point: and hold that in the 6. of S. John nothing is spoken but of the spiritual Manducation, and that those that contradict them, do speak with incertitude.

IN this controversy we have the Popes for us, and a great multitude of the Romish Doctors, who hold with us that in the 6 of S. John, it is not spoken of the Eucharist nor of eating our Savior Christ by the mouth of the body, but that Christ speaketh of the spiritual manducation by Faith in Christ's death. Such is the opinion of Pope Innocent the III, and of Pius II, called Aeneas Sylvius afore he came to the Papacy. Item of Bonaventure, C • jetan, Cusanus, De Alliaco, Cardinals, Item of Durand Episcopus Mimatensis, Gabriel Biel, Hessel one of the Doctors of the Council of Trente, Lindanus, Ruardus Tapperu • , Jansen Bishop of Gand, Ferus a Divine of Maguntia, Valdensis, and many others. Among others, Gabriel Biel in his 36 Lesson upon the Canon of the Mass, saith, that the Doctors hold with a common consent that in the 6 of S •• ohn no mention is made but of the spiritual manducation. But for brevity sake it shall suffice to produce the places of the two forenamed Popes.

Pope Innocent 3. in the 14. chap▪ of his fourth Book of the Mysteries of the Mass hath these words: The Lord speaketh of the spiritual manducation, saying, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. In this manner, the good only do eat the body of Christ.

A learned Pope is a very rare thing. Yet of Pius II. one may say that he was one of the learndest of his age. The same Pius in his 130 Epistle to Cardinal Carviall, disputing against the Bohemians, speaketh thus: The sense of the Gospel of John is not such as you ascribe unto it. For there it is not commanded to drink at the Sacrament: But a manner of spiritual drinking is taught. And a little after, The Lord by these words declareth in that place the secret mysteries of the spiritual drink, and not of the carnal, when he saith, It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing: and again, The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. Wilt thou know openly that the Evangelist speaketh of the spiritual manducation which is made by Faith? Consider that what the Lord saith in the words HEE THAT EATETH AND DRINKETH, are words of the present tense and not of the future. At that very instant therefore that the Lord was speaking, there were some that did eat him, and drink him. And yet the Lord had not suffered as yet, neither was the Sacrament instituted.

Thomas Aquinas, termed the Angelical Doctor, was a great worshipper of Popes; so far as to accuse Christ of importunity, for asking his Vicar Peter thrice, Lovest thou me? For which likewise the Pope canonized him and made him a Saint after his death. This man, though a great defender of Transubstantiation, yet nevertheless upon this point of the manducation whereof Christ speaketh in the 6 of S. John, speaketh thus in his 7 Lesson upon these words, Except ye eat my flesh, ye have no life in you. If this (saith he) be referred to the spiritual manducation, this sentence is without all doubt. For that man eateth spiritually the flesh of Christ and drinketh his blood, that is partaker of the unity of the Church, which is effected through love, &c. But if that hath reference to the Sacramental manducation, there is some doubt in that which is said; Except ye eat my flesh, ye have no life in you.

But in this latter age the greatest part of the Romish Doctors, especially the Jesuits, have forsaken this opinion, generally received in the Church of Rome in former Ages, and have contemned the authority of the fore-alleged Popes. Their opinion is, that in the 51 verse of the 6 chap. of S. John, Christ beginneth to speak of the Sacramental manducation which is made by the corporal mouth: but that whatsoever is said before, is to be understood of the spiritual manducation. As when Christ saith in the 33, 35, & 50 verses that he is the bread come down from heaven. And that he is the bread of Life. And that whosoever believeth on him, shall never thirst. And that he is the bread come down from heaven, whereof whosoever eateth, he shall not die. In all these places they grant that it is spoken of a manner of eating and drinking that is spiritual, and will have nothing there to be spoken of the bread of the Encharist, but do take all these words figuratively. A doctrine truly full of absurdity, and which destroys and overthroweth it self. For what boldness is it to forge in the sequel or prosecution of one and the same discourse, two kinds of manducation, and by a Master-like authority, to will that one part of the chapter be understood figuratively, and the other simply, since they all be the same kind of speeches, and that the same exposition may be brought both to the one and to the other?

The Council of Trente was mightily pestered about that; for after this matter had been tossed a long time and disputed upon at the Council, the Prelates seeing the new Doctors were contrary unto the old, yea even to the Popes, and that the new ones besides did not agree among themselves, would determine nothing therein, and lest the thing undecided, as Salmeron the Jesuit, who was present at that Council, doth testify. The Synod (saith he) would not then determine namely which is the properest and natural sense of these words of Christ in S. John. because of the variety of Interpretations of the holy Fathers and Doctors that were brought on both sides. Yet it was there principally, that the infallible perfection of the Pope and of the Council should have been displayed, being a matter of so great importance. And yet to this very day the Popes have determined nothing upon that, nor condemned those that are of a contrary mind to the Jesuits.

CHAP. V. Reasons of our Adversaries for to prove that in the sixth chap. of Saint John it is spoken of the manducation by the mouth of the Body.

BUt let us see how the Doctors of this Age dispute against their Popes, Cardinals and Prelates, and go about to prove that in the 6 of S. John is spoken of the manducation by the mouth of the body in the Eucharist.

1. They say that Christ sp aketh in the future, saying, The bread that I will give, as speaking of a manducation that was not yet. I answer that he speaketh also in the present, saying, I am the bread come down from Heaven. And he that eateth thereof, shall not die. They themselves would laugh, if from that the Lord saith in the future, Whosoever shall believe and shall be Baptized, shall be saved, I should infer that before Christ spake these words, none believed, none were Baptized, none were saved. Moreover, when Christ speaketh in the future, saying, The bread that I will give, he hath regard to his future death, which is the true food of our Souls.

2. They say also that if this sixth chapter of S. John were not taken and understood of the manducation by the mouth of the body: it would follow that S. John did not speak at all of the Eucharist. Stapleton, one of the most furious Adversaries, answers for us: S. John (saith he) writes nothing of the Eucharisticall Supper, because the other three Evangelists had fully written of it before. S. John wrote long after the other Evangelists, and did only insist upō such things as the others had omitted. He did not put in his Gospel the history of the Lord's Conception and Birth, nor of his Temptation in the Wilderness, nor of his Baptism, nor of his Transfiguration in the Mount

3. They add that Christ doth distinguish the eating from drinking, for to design the two species of the Eucharist. To that I answer, that Christ speaks of eating and drinking, for to give us to understand that we have in him and in his death a full and entire spiritual nourishment. In the 55 chap. of Isaiah, 1. v. God inviteth the hungry and the thirsty to cate and to drink. And in the 22 of S. Luke, 30 ver. Christ saith: I appoint unto you a Kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom. In these places, our Adversaries do acknowledge that to eat and to drink, signifies one and the same thing, and that they are taken in a spiritual sense.

4. But (say they) it is neither fitting nor convenient that Christ should have used so many figures, and spoken in such dark terms, when he might have spoken plainly. We have already shown that Christ's ordinary use was to speak unto the Jews by figures and similitudes, and that the Capernaites, objecting unto him the bread of Heaven given by Moses, gave him occasion to speak so. That if our adversaries do so much dislike figures Why do they say that from the 27 verse this chap. to the 51. the Lord speaks of the spiritual manducation, and useth figurative words? Why will they have that when Christ said, Except ye drink my blood: by drinking, he understādeath eating? That if the question be touching the difficulty, is there anything in the World harder to conceive and to believe, than this doctrine, whereby they will have Christ to have eaten his own flesh, and that an human body be whole and entire in every crumb of the host, and be remote and divided from it self, and that a Priest should make a God with a few words, and that this god must run the risque and be subject to be eaten by Rats and Mice, and carried away by the wind?

5. Yet (say they) Christ said, My flesh is me at indeed. Now, this word truly or indeed, excludes all figure: For they esteem that figurative words are not true. If it be so, why do they themselves put in so many figures? Why will they have this word, bread, to be taken figuratively, and the word drinking, to signify eating? They must then say that when Christ in the 15 of S. John, 1 ver. said, I am the true Vine, he spake falsely: or else they must needs grant that this word, true, excluds not the figure. So in the 8 to the Heb. 2. v. the Apostle calleth Paradise the true Tabernacle. It is a common thing to say that God is the true Sun of the Soul, and that evil examples are truly the plague and contagion of the mind. All that in figurative terms, and yet true, and wherein the word true excludes not the figure.

6. What they do add, is not a whit better. Christ (say they) used an oath, saying, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. But it is not convenient (say they) to use figures in an oath. What will they say then to these places, Verily verily, I say unto you, that he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, the same is a thief and a robber, John 10.1. And a little after, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that I am the door of the sheep. And in S. Matth. 18.18. Verily I say unto you, that whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven. And John 3.5. Verily verily, I say unto you, Except a man be borne of the water and of the spirit, &c. Where we have the same oath with figurative words. What more? the same verse which they allege, Verily verily, I say unto you, Except ye ea • e my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life in you, is the same verse in which they will have drinking to signify eating. And in the same chap. ver. 32. Christ calleth himself the true bread: wherein our Adversa • ies do acknowledge a figure. To let pass that the word Amen is not an oath, but a simple and strong assirmation.

CHAP. VI. Testimonies of the Fathers.

IT is good upon this point to hear the ancient Fathers. S. Austin shall march in the fore front. In his Book of Christian Doctrine, chap. 16. When the Lord saith, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in yourselves, it seems that he commands some great crime or heinous offense. It is then, a figure, that commands to communicate unto the Lord's P • ssion, and sweetly and profitably to put in remembrance that Christ's flesh was crucified and wounded for us. Our Adversaries, to clear themselves and avoid the force of this place, do make long discourses, and find there are figures in these words, Except ye eat, &c. To wit that in the Eucharist, Christ's body is not eaten by piece-meals as the flesh of the Shambles. But they come not near the point. For Saint Austin saith not only that it is a figure, but he declares also how that figure is to be taken and expounded; to wit, that to eat Christ's flesh, is to meditare and call to remembrance with delight, that Christ his flesh was crucified for us. Which is an exposition our Adversaries do not allow.

The same Father upon the 98 Psalm. Under stand spiritually wh • t I have said unto you, Ye shall not eat this body that ye see, and shall not drink that blood that shall be shed by those that shall crucify m • I have commended unto you a sacred figne which being under slood spiritually, shall quicken and vivisie you.

We have in this Father a long exposition of the sixth Chapter of Saint John in the 25.26. & 27 Treatise upon Saint John: In the 25 Tracta • he saith, This (viz. to believe) is to eat the meat that perisheth not. Why doest that make ready thy teeth and thy belly? Believe, and thou hast eaten. And in the 26 Treatise, To believe in him, is to eat the living bread. He that believes in him, eateth him; he is fed invisibly, because he is regenerated invisibly. And in the same place, By this meat and drink Christ will have to be understood the society of his body and members, which is the Church of the Predestinate. This Father was so far from believing that Christ was eaten even by the mouth of the body, that by this meat he will have the Church to be understood. Whence also he addeth, This meat and drink which makes such as do take it, immortal and incorruptible, is the fellowship of Saints where there shall be peace and perfect unity.

And in the same place, That, therefore, is to eat this meat and to drink this drink, to dwell in Christ and to have him dwelling in us. And therefore he that dwelleth not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwelleth not, doublesse he eats not spiritually his flesh and drinks not his blood, how be it that carnally and visibly he presfeth with his teeth the sacred sign of Christ's body and blood. In sum, in three long Treatises containing many pages, wherein this good Doctor expoundeth the sixth Chapter of Saint John, there is not one word of eating by the mouth of the body the Lord's flesh crucified for us. Which exposition was so disliked by Cardinal du Perron, that he speaketh contemptibly of these Tractates of Saint Austin upon Saint John, saying that they be popular Sermons made before all kinds of persons, to whom he would not declare openly the Churches belief.

Tertullian in the 37 Chapter of his Book of the Resurrection, expounding these words, The flesh profiteth nothing: The sense (saith he) must be addressed according to the subject whereof he speaketh. For because they esteemed his words to be harsh and intolerable, as though he had determined to give them truly his flesh to eat that he might render spiritual the state of salvation, he said before, It is the spirit that quickeneth: Then he addeth, The flesh profiteth nothing, to wit for to vivify.

And there again, The word was made flesh, and by consequent, for to have life, it must be desired, and devoured by the ear, and ruminated by the understanding, and digested by faith.

And a little after, The Lord had a little afore declared that his flesh is the heavenly bread, urging altogether by allegory taken from necessary meats the remembrance of the Fathers.

Clemens Alexandrinus in his second Book De Pedagogo, Chapter 6. k He said, eat my flesh and drink my blood, propoundiog by an allegoric the evidence of the faith, and the drink of the promise.

And a little after, He calleth the holy Spirit flesh by a •• egory. For the flesh was created by him, and the blood signifies the Word.

Origen upon the Leviticus, in the seventh Book: Know that these things written in the divine volumes, are figures, and understand them as spiritual, and not as carnal. For if you receive them as carnal, they hurt you instead of nourrishing you. For in the Gospel's there is a letter which killeth him that observes not the things that are spoken spiritually. For if thou takest according to the letter that which is said, Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, that letter killeth.

The Commentary upon the Psalms, attributed to Saint Jerome, upon the 44 Psalm. When the Lord saith, He that eateth not my flesh, &c. though that may be understood in mystery, yet to speak more truly, the body and blood of Christ is the word of the Scriptures, and the heavenly doctrine. And a little after, The flesh and blood of Christ is poured into our ears.

It is true that some places may be found in ancient Fathers that apply and fit the words of the sixth Chapter of Saint John to the Eucharist, because the manducation of the Sacrament serves to help the spiritual manducation, and there is some analogy between these two. Add moreover that we have proved already by a multitude of places of Ancient Fathers, that when they say that in the Eucharist we eat the flesh or the body of Christ, they mean to speak of another flesh and another body than that which was crucified for us, which is called Christ's body because of the mystical union of the bread with Christ, and because the signs take the name of the things signified.

Upon this, the words of Pope Pius the second, are notable in his 130 Epistle. Ye must not wonder (saith he) if some Doctors speaking of the Sacramental communion, and counseling it unto the People, do employ Saint John his words. For it doth not follow from thence that it be the true and proper sense of that place, but by some resemblance and agreeable reason, this sense is rather drawn than led. And it is lawful for the Doctors, speaking after the manner of Orators, to use sometimes figures and translations, so that often times, speaking of the sign, they pass unto the thing signified.

CHAP. VII. Impiety of Salmeron the Jesuit, and of Peter Charron. And of Bellarmins four men enclosed in one suit of clothes. That by this doctrine, Christ hath not a true body in the Sacrament.

Superstition and Atheism are very near neighbors, and the one leadeth unto the other. For frantic superstition intangles the mind with extravagant conceits, that expose Religion to laughter, and make men to think that Religion is a shop of fables, and a mere imagination. Whence it comes to pass that those that take upon them to defend Superstition, let go very often certain words of impiety, whereby they profane the mysteries, and scoff at their own Religion under color of defending it.

Salmeron the Jesuit, and Doctor Charron gives us an example thereof. This Jesuit in the IX Tome and 26 Treatise, for to represent the manner and the end for which Christ gives us his flesh to eat, saith that Christ hath done as men do, who for to kindle and inflame a woman with love, do give her an amorous potion or morsel, and that just so Christ in the Eucharist gives to his Church Panis bucellam sancte benedictam & incantatam, a morsel of bread holily blessed and INCHANTED for to transport her with his love.

Charron hath followed him, but with an addition that declares what are the ingredients of those philters or amorous potions, to wit that there enters in them something of the substance of the Lover, which substance is a thing not fit to be named. In his eighth Discourse of the Eucharist, after he hath said that God comes down in the form of bread and wine: and that to dance for to serve God, is less strange then what is done in the Mass: a little after, he declares how Christ communitates himself unto men in the Eucharist, to wit, that he allures and intices them with a dainty and delicious bit. Love (saith he) is so ingenious and inventive, that for to win and allure the heart and will of others it hath found out a device to employ enchanted morsels, philters and amorous potious, and to make them to be taken and drunk by those of whom one desires to be loved, in which morsels or potions enters something of the Lover or Suitor. Thus it seems that God for to draw and allure unto himself the heart and love of the Church, would present a bit or potion made of his substance in this Sacrament, the philter and amorous drink of all Christians, the dainty and delicious bit for to draw and allure them unto himself. Doubtless this man jeasted and intended to make the world laugh, for he could not expect that men should believe him.

I know not whither Bellarmine did mock or jest, when for to prove that a body may be in several places at once, he saith that it is possible that four men hold no more place than one of the four alone, and that all four fill up but one place. Take me a man clothed with a suit of clothes that sits close and is made just to his body, Bellarmine saith it is possible for these four men to be contained in the same suit of clothes, without being made larger, and the men never a whit the less. If that be possible for four, it is also possible for ten, yea for a hundred, yea for a thousand: so that all the men of the World shall be contained in a single doublet. But if of these four men in this little doublet, one be sitting, the other lying, and the other standing: If one of-them embrace the other, and by consequent is out of the other, they shall not be in one and the same place. If they speak together and look one upon another, the one shall be the object of the others eyes, and therefore shall not be in one and the self same place. Truly I think this Jesuit, propounding such things, and shutting up a whole Common-wealth in a doublet, had a mind to deride his own Religion. For by the same reason a man may have both his eyes in one place, and not different of sitnation. By this means a man shall have two eyes, and shall have but one. And the parts of an human body shall not be distinct, and the one shall not be out of the other. This our Adversaries do by their Transubstantiation: as Bellarmine acknowledgeth, saying that in the Eucharist Christ doth not exist after the manner of bodies: but rather after the manner of Spirits, since he is whole in every part.

It is false likewise, that according to the doctrine of the Church of Rome, Christ's body be in the Eucharist after the manner of Spirits. For when an Angel is present in any place, he is not present in a thousand others several places and is not far from himself and divided from himself, a • they will have Christ's body to be in a million of several places at one and the same time.

The same Jesuit in the third Book and fifth chapter saith, that a Substance without qantity cannot be termed flesh. Whereupon it follows that Christ's body under the Host is not flesh, for there is no quantity, since it is whole under every point that hath no quantity. Besides that the quantity of a body is a continued quantity. But Christ's body in the Host is not one in continuity with that which is in Heaven sitting at the right hand of God the Father, since he is far and remote from it.

Again, he saith in the same place, That a body is nothing else but an extension in length, breath, and depth. Therefore in the Sacrament there is no true body of Christ, since it hath no extension, no length, breadth and depth: As he saith himself in the second chapter of his first Book, Christ's body in the Eucharist hath no extension.

I have wondered many times, seeing that our Adversaries hold that Christ municants until the species be destroyed and consumed by the disgestion, why they do not give them hard bread and not of easy disgestion, that they might have Christ in them a longer time, rather then to give them such light Hosts or wafers, which are presently turned into a Chylus and digested in an instant.

CHAP. VIII. Of the progress of this abuse, and by what means Satan hath established the Transubstantiation.

UPon this matter, the opinions of men began to vary in the eight Age, wherein the controversy touching the adoration of Images was in its hight and force. For Satan at the same time did labor and busy himself to introduce and bring into the Church these two sorts of Idolatry.

In the year of our Lord 754, the Emperor Constantine, son to Lisaurus, called a Council of his whole Empire at Constantinople, where 330 Bishops were present, that condemned the adoration of Images. Among other reasons that they bring, they exhort the people to be contented with those Images that Christ had instituted, having given in the holy Supper the bread and wine for Images and Figures of his body and blood. And speaking of the Eucharisticall bread, they say, Behold the image of this quickening body that is honorably presented. And a little after, The Lord commanded to set [upon the table] that image altogether chosen, to wit the substance of the bread, least Idolatry should creep in if it were represented in an human form.

But few years after, the Empire being fallen into the hands of Irenea, an Idolatrous woman, and who did put out the eyes of her own son, and ravished the Empire from him: this monster called another Council at Nice, in the year 787. where she caused Images to be re-established, and the worshipping of them to be commanded under pain of a curse. There likewise were condemned as abhominable, these foresaid clauses of the former Council, whereby the bread and wine are called Images of the Lord's body and blood. And it is the same Council that declares, that Images are equivalent and of as much worth as the Gospel: and that an Image is better than Prayer: And that Angels are corporal: And that he that hath the least doubt whither Images must be worshipped, is accursed. For certainly the spirit of Satan reigned in that pernicious Council. Wherefore also Charles the Great, who lived then, called another Council at Fran • kford, anno Domini 794, in which that Council of Nice was condemned as erroneous, by a general consent: notwithstanding that Pope Adrian had approved that Council, and made a Treatise in defense of it.

Whilest Satan bestirred himself thus in the East parts: the Roman Bishops on their side did labor in the West parts. For they did well perceive that these two things, to wit the adoration of the Sacrament, and the adoration of Images, would be of great use, and would serve much for the strengthening of their Empire, and increasing of the dignity of the Romish Clergy. For the Pope taking out of the way the holy Scriptures from the eyes of the People, hat •• given them Images, which they call Ignorant men's Books, busying the eyes of the people, whilst he conveyed away the Word of God from them. And the opiniō of the real presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist, exalts the dignity and power of Priests, so far as to be able to make God with words, and to have Christ in their own power.

This abuse, beginning to creep in France, King Charles the Bald, about the year 870, made a commandment unto one Bertram a Priest, and as learned a man as these times did afford, to compose and write a Book of this matter: which Book we have yet whole and • xtant at this day, wherein he maintains the true doctrine, and withstands stoutly and vigourously that opinion of the real presence of the body of Christ under the species of the bread. For of Transubstantiation there was yet no speech of it. For which cause also Bellarmine in his first Book of tee Sacrament of the Eucharist, first chap. puts this Bertram amongst the Heretics. Who not withstanding, in his time, lived with honor, and was neither troubled, nor received any rebuke or reprehension upon this subject. Of the same opinion were John Scotus and Drutmarus, and others of the same time. And I make no doubt but many others with them have defended the same cause in writing: But the following ages, in which error prevailed, have abolished their writings, and it is marvel how this Book of Bertram could escape thus.

The tenth and eleventh Ages, are the Ages wherein this error did strengthen it self most, in which nevertheless God left not himself without testimony. For Bruno Bishop of Angiers, and after him (but more vigorously) Berengarius, his Arch-Deacon, taught and maintained openly that the bread and wine of the Eucharist were not the body of Christ, but the figure and remembrance of it: This Berangarius began to show himself about the year of our Lord 1050. Against whom Pope Victorius 2. caused a Council to be gathered at Tours about the year 1055 and four years after, Nicholas II. cited him to Rome to the Council assembled for that effect, where Berengarius was forced to condemn his own doctrine, & submit himself to the Popes will. By the reading of that Council, it appears that • here were in it many others of the same opinion of Berengarius. And Leo Hostiensis recordeth that none of those that were there present, could resist Berengarius. The form of the abjuration prescribed unto him, is to be found in the Collections of the Decrees made by Ivo Carnutensis, and by Gratian, which form is set down in absurd terms, and which the Church of Rome her self believes not. For they make him say, that the bread is the true body of Christ, and that Christ's body is truly and sensibly handled and bruised by the teeth of the Faithful. But Berengarius being rid out of the hands of that Council and returned back into France, protested against the violence offered unto him, and continued to teach the same doctrine till the year 1088. in which he died. Upon his tomb, Hildebertus, who after was Bishop of Mans, made an honorable Epitaphe, wherein he terms him the Prop and Support of the Church, the hope and the glory of the Clergy. And France, Germany, Italy and England, were full of people that embraced his doctrine, as William Malmesbury testifies in the 3. Book of his English History. All France (saith he) was full of his doctrine. And Matthew of Westminst • r in the year 1087 Berengarius of Tours being fallen into heresy, had corrupted by his depravations almost all the French, Italians, and English.

Platina in the life of John XV. speaks thus of Berengarius, It is certain that Odius Bishop of Clugni and Berengarius of Tours, men famous and renowned for doctrine and holiness, were in great esteem in that time. Add to this, that Berengarius distributed all his means to the poor, and betook himself to get his living with the labor of his hands. Antoninus Arch-Bishop of Florence, whom the Pope hath canonized and made a Saint, gives him this testimony in the 2 Tome of his Chronicles, Tit. 16 §. 20. This Berengarius was otherwise a good man, full of Alms deeds, and humility, and having great, possessions and riches, which he distributed to the poor, and would have no woman to come before his eyes.

About the latter end of Berengarius his life, lived Gregory the seventh, who entered into the Papacy in the year of our Lord 1073. called Hildebrand before he was Pope. This Gregory was suspected to incline to Berengarius his opinion. Sigonius in his 9 Book of the reign of Italy, in the year 1080, recordeth that the Bishops of Germany assembled at Brixina in Bavaria, did call this Gregory V • terem haeretici Berengari • discipulum, an old disciple of Berengarius the heretic, accusing him of calling into question the Apostolical Faith, touching the body and blood of the Lord. And this agrees with Cardinal Benno, Arch-Priest of the Cardinals who was very inward and familiar with the said Gregory, and who wrote his life: wherein he saith that Gregory appointed a fast to three Cardinals, to the end God might show whither of the two, to wit Berengarius of the Church of Rome had the rightest opinion. And there he relates that John Bishop of Port in a Sermon at S. Peters Church, did declare in presence both of Clergy and People, that Gregory, for to obtain some divine answer, had in the presence of the Cardinals cast the holy Sacrament into the fire.

Berengarius being dead▪ he had many successors that maintained the same doctrine even to the time of Petru • de Valdo, of the City of Lions, whose disciples were named by their enemies, Valdenses and Albigenses: Of whose Religion and Confession of Faith, conformable to ours, hath been spoken before in the 21 chapter of the first Book, and shown that their Churches remain, even unto our times.

Furthermore, John Wickl • f in England, in the year 1390. taught the same. Of whose doctrine contained in eighteen Articles, here is the first, That the substance of the bread remains after the Consecration, and ceases not to be bread.

Against the Faithful that professed this doctrine, the Pope stirred up Kings and Princes, and caused an incredible butchery to be made of them, preaching the Croisadoe against them, whereby he gave the same spiritual graces unto those that should massacre them, as to those that went into Syria against the Sarasens, for to reconquer Christ's Sepulcher, to whom he gave the remission of all their sins, and a degree of glory above the ordinary, as may be seen in the Bull of Innocent the third, placed at the end of the Council of Lateran. The Earl of Montfort, having with him one Dominic, author of the Order of the Jacobins, with an army of these crossed ones, did massacre in a few months above two hundred thousand of them.

And for to strengthen and fortify this abuse, there was no speech in those times but of miracles, coined of purpose, tending to the worshipping of Images, and establishing of the real presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist. They gave out to the people that such an Image had sweated blood, that another had nodded his head. That a wooden Crucifix pricked in the side, had cast blood. That to an Image of the Virgin Mary's, brought from Damascus, breasts of flesh were grown upon the wood. That in such a place the Host had appeared in the form of a child, and an Angel by it, that did hacke him to pieces. That an Hoste, pricked by a Jew, had gushed out blood: and being cast into a great cauldron or kittle, was turned into a man, as is to be seen yet at this day in Paris represented upon the forefront or porche of the Church of the Billetes. The life of Saint Anthony of Padoua saith, that he presented the consecrated Hoste to an Ass, which presently left eating of his Oats and worshipped the Hoste. Wedekindus a Saxon Prince saw a child thrust into the mouth of the Communicants. An Angel did present Christ in the Mass unto a Priest called Pleg • ls, in the shape or form of a child, which he kissed and embraced with great courage. 〈◊〉 A little Jewish boy coming by chance into the Church as he was playing, saw upon the Altar a little boy that was minced and cut into small pieces, and thrust by small lumps into the mouths of the Communicants. Thomas Cantipratensis in his second Book of Miracles, Chapter 40, saith that at Douay, in the year 1260. the consecrated host being fallen to the ground, rised up again of it self, and pearched it self upon the cloth wherewith the Priest did wipe his hands, in the shape or form of a fine little boy, who instantly became a tall man, having a crown of thorns upon his head, and two drops of blood running down from his forehead on both sides of his nose. Jodoeus Coccius collected about one hundred of such miracles. For in Berengarius his time such miracles were very rise and frequent. Matthew Paris an English Historian, in the year of the Lord, 1247 relates that the Templars of the holy land sent to Henry the third King of England, a little Crystal bottle full of the true blood of our Savior Christ that he shed upon the Cross, which Cristall bottle that silly King carried upon his nose to Westminster Church in Procession a foot, clothed with an old sle • velesse gown. Salmeron the Jesuit in the XI Tome and fifth Treatise, page 35. saith that at Rome in the Church of Lateran there is some of Christ's blood kept. Item in the Church of Saint Maximin at Rome, which Marie Magdalene gathered up at the foot of the Cross. There was also at Rochelle some kept, as the same Jesuit saith in the same place.

Sigonius in his fourth Book of the reign of Italy, saith that in the year 804. was brought out of Syria to Mantua, a portion of the blood that ran out of the Image of a Crucifix, which did many miracles. And that the fame of it being come to Charles the Great, he entreated by letters Pope Leo, to inquire of the truth of the matter: And that the said Pope having known and perceived the truth of the thing, wrote to Charle-main touching the same. And in the eighth Book, in the year 1048. he saith that the inhabitants of Mantua having forgotten this blood, and knowing no more what it was, this blood began again to do miracles. Vasquez the Jesuit upon the 76 question of the third Part of Th • mas, saith that yet at this day there is in Spain some of Christ's blood kept in Relics.

Thus the darkness grew thick, and the mystery of iniquity strengthened it self daily more and more, the kings having no knowledge at all of the holy Scripture, and trembling under the Popes thunderbolts and excommunications, and pouring abundance of wealth and riches into the bosom of the Clergy for the easing of their souls after death.

And for a full measure of mischief, new Orders of Mendicant Friers did spring up, namely the Franciscans and Dominicans, whereof Francis Assisias in Italy, and Dominick Calarogensis in Spain were the first Founders, in the year of our Lord 1216. and 1223. An incredible multitude of these Monks were dilated and sp • ead over all the regions of the Popes Empire, who made use of them as of so many torches and trumpets for to provoke and encourage Princes to the persecution of the faithful. And it was the said Monks that h • ve coined and forged the School Divinity, all bristled with pricks, and twisted about with subtleties, much like unto the Cray-fish in which there is much picking, but little to eat. It is from this Divinity that suttle distinctions are drawn, wherewith they cover themselves against the truth. A • istotle is alleged there a great deal oftener than the Apostle Saint Paul. Thus it behooved the mystery of iniquity should advance it self.

At the birth of these begging Friers, Innocent the third, in the year 1215. called a Council at Rome in the Lateran Church, in which the word of Transubstantiation, not as yet received by any definition in the Roman Church, was established by an express Canon, and authority of Council.

CHAP. IX. Of the Judgment which the Doctors of the Roman Church do make touching the apparitions, whereby a little Child, or a morsel of flesh hath appeared at the Mass in the hands of the Priest, and touching Christ's blood that is kept in Relics.

A Long time hath been that if one had doubted that a child, or a p •• ce of fl • sh that had appeared in a Pri • st • hand, were not truly Christ, and that Christ's blood that was kept in relics, was not truly his blood, it would have been an heresy deserving the fire, and a manifest impiety. The People did flock together for to worship this blood. Therefore Guitmondus in his third book of the Sacrament, and Paschasius in his Book of the body and blood of the Lord; Chapter 14. and I • docus C • c • ius in his Collection of the places of the Fathers, and many others, do make use of these miraculous apparitions, for to prove Christ's real presence in the Eucharist.

Thomas Aquinas in the third part of his Sum, question. 76. Art. 8. finds himself mightily pestered upon this point: For though he teacheth that that which appeareth thus miraculously, ought to be worshipped with the adoration of Latria, as Christ, and that Christ is there present: yet withal he esteems that sometimes these apparitions are not true, but only in appearance, especially when the same thing appears but to some and not to all. For which cause, C jetan in his Annotations upon this place of A • uinas, departes from his opinion touching the Adoration, and will have this blood or flesh that appears sometimes in the Mass • , to be worshi • ped, not as Christ: but as Christ's garment, which is an inferior adoration.

But the Jesuit Vasquez, goes more plainly to work, in his 193 Dispute. here be his words. I answer that that which appears, is not the flesh of Christ, nor of any other that be truly flesh, but that it is only an effigies or appearance of flesh, as Saint Thomas saith. And as touching the simple that are deceived, and believe that Christ's flesh is there in a manner di • isible and bloody, it matters not much. For that deception ought to be corrected by the true instruction of the Doctors.

Gabriel Biel, a famous Doctor, in his 51 Lesson upon the Canon of the Mass, goes further, and saith that such appariritions of flesh and blood may be done by illusion of the devil for to deceive the simple, God permitting it thus. And he brings an example of it: To wit that in the Country of Thuringe in the City of Ysennae in a Convent of Minorite Friers, a certain man in the likeness of an Angel appeared to a Lay Brother preparing himself to the communion, who chopped into his mouth piece of flesh, which so soon 〈◊〉 he had swallowed, he was posse •••• and grievously tormented by the devil.

And truly, those that esteem that Christ appeareth truly upon the Altar in the form of a child or of a piece of flesh, and worship it, are very much puzzled. For the Roman Church doth acknowledge but two sorts of Christ's real presence, the one natural and visible after which he conversed with his Disciples here on earth: the other Sacramental under the accidents of bread. But when these things do appear (yea if ever they do appear) Christ is neither present in the one, nor in the other manner. For he appears neither under his own proper accidents, nor under the accidents of the bread. And it shall behoove one to believe that Christ is a child upon the Altar: Or that a perfect man is under the accidents of a child. That if it be only a piece of flesh, we ask whether this piece of flesh be whole Christ: Or if it be but a part of his body, whether this portion or piece of fl sh was taken out of the Arm or out of the Legge.

These things serve to make us to know how powerful • e seduction of Satan hath been, and with • ow much horrible darkness he did envelope 〈◊〉 in the Ages wherein this monster of Transubstantiation was formed. This latter age hath been ashamed of it: for now we see no more the People run to Mantua, or to the Billettes Church at Paris for to worship the flesh and the blood of Christ that are there kept in relics. The French Pilgrim • passing by Mantua for to go to Rome, stay there no more. They pass the Pyrenean Mountains for to visit the supposed relics of Saint James: but do not go into those places of Spain where Christ's blood is kept. That blood of Christ sent from Syria to King Henry the third of England, whereof I have spoken in the former Chapter, that putrefied in a few days, lost instantly its credit, and there was no more speech of it.

CHAP. X. OF the corruption of the Papal Sea in the Ages wherein this error was most advanced.

IN the Eighth and Ninth Ages, were cast the first foundations of Transubstantiation; nevertheless it was not yet then establish d by Laws: and I cannot find that ever any man was molested for that subj ct. But in the Tenth and Eleventh Ages, the Popes labored to hatch that monster, and to establish it with authority. But God branded these two ages with infamous blemishes and disgraces. For as vices agree well with errors, the Popes of those times led such an infamous life, that hardly the like is to be found in all Pagan histories, and that Chair was filled with horrible confusions.

Since Pope Formosus who in the year 890. attained to the Popedom by violating the oath he had taken never to accept of it, and whose dead body was dragged ignominiously up and down the City of Rome and cast into the Tiber by his Successors: For the space of a hundred and fifty years, yea of two hundred years, we see nothing in histories but of Popes murderers, Popes Adulterers, necromanticall Popes, perjured Popes, Popes intruded by force or by money, creatures of the Earls of Toscane, that werer then powerful in Italy, and of the harlot Theodora and of her daughters Marozia and Theodora, that reigned a long time in Rome, and made and unmade Popes at their pleasure.

Of which time the Carmelite Frier, Author of Fasciulus Temporum, makes this lamentation: Alas, Alas, Alas, Lord God, how is the gold obscured and its good color changed? O most wicked time in which the holy one is fallen away, and truth diminished among the sons of men. And Cardinal Baronius after a long recital of the vilanios of the Papal Sea in those times, he pours out these complaints, What was then the face of the Roman Church and how foul, when most powerful and most filthy whores ruled and governed in Rome, by whose will the Seas were changed, and Bishoprics given away! And that which is horrible and not to be related, their Lovers, false Popes, were thrust in violently in Peters Chair. And Genebrard, a great worshipper of Popes, speaks of the same time, in the year 901. of his Chronicle, in these terms: In that alone this age was unfortunate, that for the space almost of one hundred and fifty years, about fifty Popes have wholly fallen away from the virtue of their predecessors, being rather Apotacticall or Apostaticall, than Apostolical. Sigonius puts two hundred years in.

In the year of our Lord 931. John the eleventh, came to the Popedom. He was Bastard to Pope Sergius begotten on the body of the whore Marozia. Whereupon Baronius saith, The Roman Church suffered her self to be so vilanously oppressed by such a monster.

After him, there was many Popes that were creatures of the fornamed whores, even to John the XII. who in the year of our Lord 955. attained to the Papacie at eighteen years old, whom Baronius abhors as an execrable monster. Luirprandus and Fascicu us Temporum, say, that this John being in bed with some bodies wife, was so beaten by the Devil that he died of it. This Pope made Children Bishops, drank to the Devil, when he played at dice he invocated Jupiter and Venus, and conferred the sacred Orders in a stable.

Then, many Popes did play at thrust out, and cruelly persecuted one another, the Papacy was exposed to sale, and vices were there up to the roof. France, though in an age full of darkness, was moved with it, and called a Council at Rheims under the reign of Hugh Capet, whose Acts we have extant. In that Council, Arnulphus Bishop of Orleans, who presided there, speaks thus: O lamentable Rome, which in the time of our Ancestors hast brought forth bright shining lights, but now h • st poured out such monstrous darknesses, that shall be infamous to future ages! And a little after, What think ye, Reverend Fathers, that the Pape is sitting upon a high throne, glistering in a robe of searlet and gold? If he hath no charity, if he do exalt himself being puffed up with science alone, he is the Autichrist sitting on God's throne. Then he adds, that the Citle of Rome is exposed to sale, and that Antichrist is near, and that the mystery of iniquity goes forward.

In the year 984. as Sigonius relates in the beginning of his seventh Book of the Reign of Italy, Boniface, who made himself to be called John the fifteenth, having put to death two Popes, usurped the Papacie by violence and by money. Baronius calls him a Thief and a Robber, and that had not one hair of a true Bishop. Genebrard, in the year 1007, speaks thus of all the Popes of that time. The Popes (saith he) of this time being intruded by the Emperors rather than elected, were monsters. Thus the lawful succession hath been troubled, as of old under the Synagogue in the time of the Kings Antiochi.

In the year 1033. Benedict the ninth being but ten years old, was created Pope by the faction of his Father the Counte of Tuscula. Petrus Damianus in his Epistle to Nicolas the second, and Platina, and Fasciculus Temporum, and Baronius, describe this Pope like a monster. Then three Popes held the Papacy, of whō Platina speaks thus, Henry the second being entered into Italy with a mighty Army, and having called a Council, constrained Benedict the ninth, Sylvester the third, and Gregory the sixth, as three horrible monsters, to forsake the magistrature. That was done in the year of our Lord 1044. when the contention touching the conversion of the bread into the body of the Lord was in its strength, and Bere • garius in great credit in France and in the neighbouring countries for his learning and good life.

The discreet Reader and lover of the truth, shall weigh & ponder these things in his mind, and say in himself, Is it credible that God would have used such wicked instruments for to defend his heavenly truth? Could any good thing spring from such wicked Popes? Are not those such Ages as Satan desireth for to bring forth monsters in, & in the mids of so thick a darkness to bring in Idolatry?

CHAP. XI. Of the oppression of England. How Religion passed out of England into Bohemia. Of Wicklef. John Huz, and Jerome of Prague. Of the Council of Constance. Of Zizka and Procopius, and of their Victories.

I Hope the Reader shall not dislike to take here a short view of the History of the troubles which happened in Bohemia about Religion, a little before God made the light of his Gospel to shine again in France, England, Germany, Switserland and the Low-Countries. For in it may be seen a lively Image of Satan, and of the power of God.

Of all Countries subject to the Papal Empire, England suffered the hardest and most shameful servitude. That slavery increased especially under the reign of Henry the second, and of John and Henry the third. In the year 1171. King Henry the second for to expiate the crime whereof he was accused, namely to have caused the murder of Thomas Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, was whipt upon his naked flesh by a multitude of Monks, some giving him three stripes and some five. With the like effeminatnesse that King yielded up to the Pope the Investures of Benefices, which the Kings his predecessors had possessed till that time.

That King being dead in the year 1189. had for Successor Richard his son, and after him John, a King brutish and furious, who made some attempts to recover the Investures which his Father had yielded up to the Pope. But being hated and contemned of his subjects, Pope Innocent the third had a fair way to handle him ill. He did declare him to have lost the right of his Kingdom, dispensed his subjects from their Oath of allegiance, a thing never seen nor heard of before in England, caused Divine Service to cease throughout all the Kingdom, and Churches and Church yards to be shut up: Which continued by the space of six years and a half. He also excommunicated the King, and gave the Kingdom of England to Philip Augustus King of France, upon condition to Conquer the same at his own peril and fortune: and that for the remission of his own sins.

That constrained King John to yield up his Kingdom to the Pope, and to bind himself to do homage unto him for his crown. So he made himself the Popes vassal, and England became Saint Peters patrimony. And a Patent with a golden seal was made and framed, by which the King did oblige himself and his successors forever, to pay yearly unto the Pope a thousand marks in gold, in sign of subjection, besides Saint Peters moneys that were paid by polle. Unto which that poor King was forced to add an Oath, whereby he swore that he was induced so to do without constraint and of his own accord, and by the motion of the holy Spirit: and that for the remission of his sins.

Under this slavery died this King in the year of our Lord 1216. to whom succeeded Henry the third, who did put his Crown at the Legates feet, one knee upon the ground, doing homage unto him for his Kingdom.

Then did the Pope begin to send his Legates, who skimmed England of money by a thousand kinds of devices. The Orders of the Franciscans and Jacobins were newly instituted. The same Friers preached the Croisado, whereby the Pope promised the remission of all sins, and a degree of glory in heaven above the common sort, to all those which being armed, would make the v • w to go to the holy I and f • r the recovering of Christ's Sepulcher, possessed by the Sarras • ons. At these Predications everyone c • ossed himself with a cross upon the shoulder, and a great multitude of Gentry and people sold and mo • gaged their Lands and estates for the charges of that Journey. But as they were armed and furnished for the journey, another Legate would come that dispensed the English from their vow, and gave them the same graces and Indulgences without b • dgeing from their own houses, provided they would give to the Pope as much money as was necessary to have been spent in their journey. By these means this Legate gathered huge sums of money. And that money was employed by the Pope for to conquer the Cities and Provinces which the Emperor had in Italy. Thus did the Pope enlarge his limits.

Never a year came over head but hungry Italians came over into England with new Commissions to raise monies, with power to excommunicate all such as would refuse, and put the Churches into interdict. What good horses soever there were, or curious household stuff, or fine wares in shops, were conveyed away without paying for, and carried into Italy. The Exactors took up the tithes of the corn yet unsowen. The Italians possessed in England the best Benefices. The Pope called England his garden of pleasure and his bottomless treasure. Whereupon great clamours arose among the People. The Nobles said: These are the successors of Constantine, and not of Peter. O shameful thing! rascally ruffians that know not what arms and honor is, will domineer over all the World by their excommunications. The Monks in the Country did say, The Daughter of Zion is become a brazen faced Whore, and without shame at all, through the just judgment of him, who because of the sins of the People makes an Hypocrite to reign, and a Tyrant to govern and rule. But all these clamours were unprofitable and without effect, because the holy Scripture was a Book then altogether unknown amongst the English people. They spake of nothing but of Miracles, and of Images, and of Pilgrimages, and of Relics: Until such time as an English Doctor and Preacher named John Wicklef, fell to preaching and writing openly against the Pope, and against the Mass, about the year of our Lord 1370. He was listened unto with great applause, and was able to have caused a great alteration in England, if the King would have given way to it. Of this oppression in England, Matthew Paris and Westmonasteriensis, English Monks that lived in those days, wrote strange and prodigious things.

Now as John Wicklef was a teaching, it fell out that a Bohemian Gentleman, who was a student of Oxford, did taste and relish wicklefs Doctrine, and coppied out his Books, which he carried over into his own Country, and imparted them to John Huz, a famous Preacher, to whom Wenceslans King of Bohemia, brother to Sigismond Emperor, had committed the government of the School of Prague, renowned at that time.

This John Huz, overcome by the evidence of Wickless reasons, fell a preaching his doctrine, and being a vehement and persuasive man, he drew after him a great number of People. To whom Jerome of Prague did adjoin himself, who surpassed John Huz in eloquence and learning. There came also out of Germany one Petrus Dresdensis, and one Jacobellus that spake with vehemency against Transubstantiation, and against the Communion under the only species of the bread.

For to appease these stirs and commotions, the Arch-Bishop of Prague, called Subinco Cepus, caused Wicklefs Books publicly to be burned, and drove out John Huz from Prague: But seeing the number of those that he called heretics did increase daily, he himself fled into Hongaria towards Sigismond: and John Huz returned back to Prague.

Then Benedict the thirteenth, & Gregory the twelfth, excommunicated one another, the one having his seat at Auignon, & the other at Rome. A Council was kept at Pisa in the year 1409. in which they created a third Pope, to wit, Alexander the fifth, who dying shortly after John XXIII. succeeded him. So there was then three Popes all at once, and there was nobody in all the Church of Rome but was excommunicated by someone of these Popes.

This John had war against Ladislaus King of Naples: and for to strengthen and fortify himself against him, he sent Preachers abroad over all the Countries of his obedience to preach the Croisadoe, whereby he promised the forgiveness of all sins to all those that would take up Arms against Ladislaus for the defense of the Church.

This Indulgence being published at Prague, many of the people began to say aloud and openly, that it was indeed the language of Antichrist, that promised salvation to those that should spill the Christian blood. At which the Magistrate of Prague being angry, he laid hands on some of them and clapped them up into prison. But the people gathered themselves together and demanded of the Magistrate the release of these prisoners: who fearing an uproar, appeased the people with mild words, promising that no harm or wrong should be done unto them: But so soon as this multitude was separated, the Magistrate caused these prisoners to be stabbed with a dagger or pomard in the prison: So that the blood ran out in such abundance that it streamed into the very street. At the sight of that blood the people being provoked to wrath and fury, they caused the Prison doors to be opened unto them, and conveyed away the dead corpses, and carried them from Church to Church, crying aloud, These are the faithful ones that have exposed their bodies f • r the Covenant of God. The King did consider these things without being much moved at it.

But the Emperor Sigismond desiring to remedy the disorders of the Papacie, and by the same means to pacify the troubles of Bohemia, did in such sort by his going and coming and bestirring himself too and fro, that a Council was called and kept at Constance, a City of Suaube in Germany, in the year 1414. wherein the three forenamed Popes were degraded; of especially John XXIII. for having (among other things laid to his charge) maintained openly and obstinately that the souls of men die as the souls of beasts; and that there is neither Heaven nor Hell.

In these three Popes room was chosen in the Council Martin the fifth, to whom the Emperor Sigismund kneeled down before the whole Council, kissed his feet, and worshipped him. This Martin sent some Ambassadors to Constantinople, to whom he gave instructions that begin thus: The most holy and most blessed, who hath the heavenly Empire, who is Lord on Earth, successor of S. Peter, the Christ of the Lord, the Master of the Universal World, the Father of Kings, the Light of the World, the most high and Sovereign Bishop, Martin by the divine providence, commandeth unto Master Anthony Masson, &c. These instructions are inserted in the Council of Siena, held a little after, Printed at Paris in the year 1612.

At the same Council of Constance John Huz and Jerome of Prague were called for to confer of their doctrine: they shown some unwillingness to meet thither, fearing some ill usage. But the Emperor assured them, and gave them, by the advice of the Council, a large safe conduct, whereby he did promise they should receive no harm there, but might with all liberty and freedom propound their reasons, and after that return home in all safety.

Grounded upon the Emperors faith and promise, they resorted to the Council and propounded their reasons. They spake chiefly of the Communion under both kinds. But the Fathers of the Council, perceiving they would not yield to that which was enjoined unto them, concluded that they should be burned alive. The Emperor made some difficulty in it, saying he had obliged his faith unto them, and that they came under his promise. Thereupon, that the Emperors conscience might be at quiet, the Council framed a Canon, wherein is declared and defined, that faith must not be kept unto heretics, after men have done what they can for to convert them; and that a Prince is not bound to keep what he hath promised them. This Sentence being pronounced to John Huz, he appealed to Christ Jesus.

They were then executed publicly. And Aeneas Sylvius, who afterward was Pope, and made himself to be called Pius the second, speaks thus of them in the 36 chapter of his History of Bohemia; Both of them suffered death with a constant courage, and made haste to go to the fire, as if they had been invited to a feast, without he • ring any word come from them that shown or testified any sorrowfulnesse of mind. When they began to burn, they fell a singing of an Hymn, which could hardly be hindered by the violence and noise of the flames. No Philosopher ever suffered death with such magnanimity as these endured burning. Then he allegeth an Epistle of Poggius, a Florentine, that describeth the death of Jerome of Prague, who was put to death some days after John Huz. In that Epistle Poggius speaks as one that was present at the examination and death of the said Jerome. I confess (saith he) I never saw anybody, who in a cause altogether criminal, came nearer the eloquence of the Ancients. It was an admirable thing to sie with what words, what eloquence, what arguments, what countenance, what confidence, he answered his Adversaries, and that too, after he had been three hundred and forty days in a deep and stinking dungeon. Then he relates afterwards how a list of heresies that were laid to his charge, was read unto him, and that upon every head or point he answered in such sort, as he did show they were calumnies laid upon him, saying he believed nothing of all that. And being brought to the place of punishment, and compassed round about with faggots and straw, he fell a singing of an Hymn or Psalm. The Executioner drawing near for to kindle the fire hehind him, he said unto him, Friend, come near, put the fire here before me, for if I did fear the fire, I would not be here. The ashes of these Martyrs were cast into the Lake of Constance, for to abolish the memory of them.

In this Council was framed a Canon, whereby those are declared heretics, and punishable by the secular power, who for conforming themselves unto Christ and unto the Ancient Church, will have the people to receive the Sacrament under both kinds.

There also was condemned Wicklefs doctrine, to whom in that Council are falsely attributed impious doctrines, and which never came into his mind. For example, That God ought to obey the Devil. That a Prince is no lawful master, while he is in a mortal sin. And that it belongs to the people to chastise their Lord's.

In the like manner was handled John Huz, whose doctrine was condemned by the Council of Constance, in the fifteenth Session. To whom also they did impute things far from his belief. Some witnesses presented themselves that testified they had heard him say, That the Pardons of the Pope, and of the Bishop, are nothing worth, unless God do forgive: That was one of the crimes for which he was burned. For that venerable Council hath judged that the Pope may forgive sins whether God will or no, and that God's consent is not necessarily required for to make that the Popes and Bishops Indulgences be of force and validity.

This news of John Huz his death, and of Jerome of Prague, brought into Bohemia, did pierce the heart of the Bohemians that were called Hussites, with exceeding grief. The King seeing their number increase daily more and more, granted them Churches in Prague for their meetings. Aeneas Sylvius saith, that the people moved with anger, pulled down some Monasteries and Churches both within and without the City. Namely, near Tabor, where thirty thousand persons did celebrate in the midst of a field the holy Communion under both kinds.

The King Wencestaus being dead, the Kingdom of Bohemia fell to Sigismund his brother, Emperor and King of Hungaria. Whereupon great fear did seise the people of Bohemia, because of his great power, and that against his oath, and violating the safe conduct he had given to John Hux and to Jerome of Prague, he caused them to be burned at Constance.

But a Bohemian Gentleman called Zizka, that had lost an eye in the wars, a man incomparable for vigor of body and mind, exhorted them not to be disscouraged. And it fell out at the same time, that Sigismund under took war against the Turk in Hungaria, with an indifferent bad success.

That gave leisure to the people order their businesses. The Queen, widow to Wenceslaus, levied some troops for to fall upon this people, and hinder their increasing. Sigismund sent Lievtenants to govern the Country, and set things into good order again, in whose hands Zizka did surrender and remit Pelzina and Plesta, and other places whereof he had gotten possession. For his desire was to obey the Emperor, and he sought all means to give him content. But there came Letters from the Emperor, whereby he did declare that his will and pleasure was that the Churches granted to the Bohemians called Hussites, should be taken from them, and their Religion interdicted. And they had good advice that Sigismonds intention was to destroy them. Whereat the People being afraid, looked for nothing but for a total ruin: and their enemies being become more vigorous, began to oppress them. Which things moved Zizka to take Arms, and think upon his defense. With a few forces be obtained many victories against the Queen, having none but foot forces of small experience, and little exercised in war.

Then came Sigismond into Bohemia with a mighty Army, resolved to destroy this people: Besieged Prague, wherein Zisea was, who in many sallies defeated the most part of Sigismonds army: made him raise the Siege, and took many towns by the very terror of his name. As he was besieging Vissegrad, the Emperor came at unawares for to make him raise the siege, having with him thirty thousand Horse, and all the Nobility of Mordvia. But Zisea defeated him, and obtained upon him a great victory. And a little after, Sigismond having for the third time prepared a mighty Army, lost a third Battle, by which he was constrained to leave Bohemia, full of shame and confusion.

A little after Zisea besieging a town, received a shot of an arrow in the eye, so that of blind of an eye as he was, he became blind of both. But that hindered him not from leading and conducting his troops, and giving many combats, being victorious everywhere.

But the Emperor being irritated and angry, came back again into Bohemia, bringing along with him two powerful Armies, the one out of Germany, and the other out of Hungaria, which like an overflowing torrent, overwhelmed all Bohemia: Tooke some towns, and made great ravage. But Zisea, though blind and having but a few men, drew directly towards the Emperors Army, and defeated him with a great defeat, took Bag and Baggage and all things belonging to the Army, and pursued him a whole days Journey. Pio a Florentine had brought out of Hungaria fifteen thousand horse, who passing upon a frozen River for to save themselves, the Ice breaking under them, were all drowned in the River

Furthermore, Zizka with his victorious Army went out of Bohemia, and entered into Moravia, and passed into Austria, and came to succor the faithful that were oppressed there. To him did adjoin himself a Moravian gentleman named Procopius, exceeding valiant, and an imitator of the virtue of Zisea, who caused the Emperor Sigismund to raise the siege before Ju • emberg in Moravia, which he had besieged. A great Battle was given between Zisea and the Emperors troupes near Ausck, upon the River of Elbe, where a great quantity of the Germane Centry were killed on the Emperors side. Who, pulled down and confounded with so many losses, resolved at last to seek after Zizka his love and friendship, promising him the General Lievetenancy of the whole Kingdom, and all kind of Advantages. Zisea gave ear thereunto, and took his journey for to go meet the Emperor; but he fell sick by the way and died, being very old, and blind. Aeneas Sylvius saith, that when he was a dying, he gave counsel to his people to make a Drumme of his skin after his death, assuring them that at the sound of that Drumme, his enemies would fly away.

Zisea being dead, Procopius succeeded him in the conduct of a part of the troops, against whom Pope Martin the fifth set all Germanic in Arms, and sent into Bohemia three mighty Armies, commanded by the Dukes of Saxe, the Marquess of Brandenbourg, and the Arch-Bishop of Trivers. These three Armies joined themselves together. But so soon as the Bohemians did appear, such terror and fear seised upon the Imperial Armies, that they presently fled without staying for the enemy: forsaking all their baggage and munitions of war. But the Cardinal Julian, sent by the Pope, stirred up the Emperor Sigismond to make a greater effort than any of the former. Aeneas Sylvius saith there was in his Army forty thousand Horse besides the Foot. This Cardinal entered into Bohemia, where he committed many unheard off cruelties, killing both women and children▪ But at the very first noise and rumour that came of the Bohemians approach, such a terrible fear took this huge Army, that everyone threw his arms down for to fly away more nimbly, and left their carriage and munitions of war to the enemy.

The Cardinal having escaped this danger, came to Basil for to preside at the Council that the Pope Eugenius the fourth had assembled there, in the year of our Lord, 1431.

Now we have made this recital, not for to approve Zisea his actions, nor the commotions of people's taking arms against their Sovaraigne for to avoid persecution and Martyrdom; For the truth of the Gospel is not established by these means; Christ Jesus calleth us to bear the cross after him; The blood of Martyrs hath more efficacy for to increase the Church and spread the doctrine of the Gospel, than Battels; But I have represented this history, for to be an example of God's justice, punishing the disloyalty of Sigismond, who against his faith and promise burned alive two faithful Martyrs, God having made use of weak and contemptible persons for to make him lose above two hundred thousand men, and cover him with shame and confusion.

CHAP. XII. The Confession of Cyril Patriarch of Constantinople, now living, touching the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

THis Prelate, in the seventeenth Article of his Confession, altogether conformable to the Doctrine of our Churches, after he hath recited the Institution of the holy Supper as it is found in the Gospel, addeth: That is the simple, true, and lawful Institution of this admirable Sacrament, in the administration whereof we do confess and believe the true and firm presence of the Lord Christ Jesus: Yet that presence which faith offereth and makes present unto us: but not that which Transubstantiation vainly invented, doth teach: For we believe that the faithful, in the holy Supper, do eat the body of Christ Jesus our Lord, not incrushing and breaking it sensibly, and destroying it with our teeth, in the participation: But in partaking thereof by the sense of the soul. For the body of Christ is not that which is taken and seen in the Sacrament with the eyes, but that which Faith having taken spiritually makes it present and communicates it unto us. Therefore it is 〈◊〉 that we eat it, and are made partakers of it, if we do believe: But if we believe not, we fall away from all the benefit of the Sacrament. By the same reason we believe that to drink the Cup in the Sacrament, is to drink indeed the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, after the same manner as hath been said concerning the body. For the Law-giver made the same commandment touching his blood, as he did touching his body. Which precept must not be mutilated, according to every ones fancy and humor: But the tradition that hath been prescribed unto us, must be kept sound and entire. When therefore in the Sacrament we have partaked worthily, and communicated entirely with the body and blood of Christ, we make this profession, that we are already reconciled and united to our head, and made one and the self same body, with a firm hope that we shall be his coheirs in his Kingdom.

Here is the Original in Greek.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 .