A rational discourse concerning transubstantiation in a letter to a person of honor from a Master of Arts of the University of Cambridge. Hutchinson, William, fl. 1676-1679. 1676 Approx. 121 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 25 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2004-11 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A70303 Wing H3838 ESTC R2970 09657613 ocm 09657613 43930 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Transubstantiation -- Early works to 1800. 2004-06 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2004-07 Apex CoVantage Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2004-08 Emma (Leeson) Huber Sampled and proofread 2004-08 Emma (Leeson) Huber Text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-10 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion A RATIONAL DISCOURSE CONCERNING TRANSUBSTANTIATION . IN A Letter to a Person of Honor , from a Master of Arts of the University of CAMBRIDGE . Printed in the Year , MDCLXXVI . A RATIONAL DISCOURSE CONCERNING TRANSUBSTANTIATION . SIR , HAving lately had the honor of your Company , you were pleased to signifie a particular difficulty which you had , to believe the great mystery of Love , and grand stumbling block of more ingenious Protestants , the mystery of Transubstantiation ; in which , if I could give you satisfaction , to my best remembrance , you promised me to reconcile your self to the Church of Rome . Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco . My own sad misfortune to have been Educated in the misbelief of this sublime Article of our Christian Faith , till the five and twentieth year of my Age , makes me very tenderly compassionate both to your self and all others whom I see to be involved in the same misery . The all good and all powerful God ( who has so firmly made me to believe this strange miracle of Love , that had I a thousand Lives , I would most willingly , through God's assistance , lay them all down to Seal it with my blood ) give your Honor , and all Mis-believers the like satisfaction to your and their Eternal comfort . What satisfies me , I shall in the best manner I am able , Candidly propose to your mature and impartial consideration . Sir , My sentiment concerning the adorable Eucharist , is , that it is neither less nor more than the Sacred Body and Blood of God ; neither less nor more than whole Christ. God and Man , Soul , Body , and Divinity , though for the love and service of us Sinners , veiled under the vile accidents and appearances of common Bread and ordinary Wine . Concerning which mystery my first Assertion shall be . Assertion 1. It is possible to the Omnipotent power of God , to change the substance of Bread and Wine into the substance of our blessed Saviours Body and Blood. And this our Adversaries generally grant . Whence by the way , take notice , that all such Arguments , and most of them are such , as pretend to prove Transubstantiation impossible , even in the judgment of our Adversaries , are Sophisms , and do not prove their Proposers inintent : Else they must confess that two Contradictories may be true , and that they can , and do believe them both . To wit , that Transubstantiation is both possible and impossible , and they can , and do believe as much . 'T is possible that they grant , and 't is also impossible , for that their Arguments attempt to prove . Further. I prove Transubstantiation possible , thus . What you and I can do , and every day actually do in four and twenty hours , surely God Almighty can do in a moment . But you and I in four and twenty hours turn Bread and Wine into the substance of our bodies , by eating , drinking , and digesting of them . Therefore our B. Saviour in a moment , without eating and drinking , by a mere Fiat , or will , that the substance of bread and wine be turned into the substance of his Body and Blood , can effect it . But then you will say , the substance of the bread and wine must be transferred into Heaven , that it may be changed into the substance of our Lord's body there . But why so ? Is it not sufficient that the substance of our-Lord's body in Heaven , be made to be under the accidents of bread and wine here ? But how can the substance of our Saviours body be in Heaven under such a measure of quantity , and such accidents there , and at the same time be here on Earth under a different quantity and accidents ? Why , how is the substance of the same Air condens'd under a lesser quantity to day , which rarified yesterday , was under a greater quantity ? For the antient and commonly received definition of Rarefaction , is : a little matter under a great quantity ; and of Condensation , is , a great deal of matter under a little quantity . For example : In a Weather-glass , the same air rarified , fills twice as much space as did the same air condens'd , as is evident to your eye . So that the same substance of air , when it is rarified , fills the spaces A. and B. which when it was condens'd fill'd only the space A. and this without any addition of any new substance of air , only the same substance by vertue of Rarefaction is under a greater quantity than it was before . And will you pawn your soul , the Omnipotent God cannot by Consecration make his own body be present to the spaces A and B , which before Consecration was only present to the space A. Now who would ever have imagin'd such Doctrin as this concerning Rarefaction and Condensation should have been taught by an Aristotle to explicate Nature , and not rather have been invented by some Christian Philosopher , to declare the supernaturality of Transubstantiation , so aptly does it agree with that hidden and holy mystery ? 2. None make difficulty of a spirits being in different places at once . The soul is generally acknowledged to be all in the head , and all in the foot : as Almighty God is all in France , and all in England ; not one part of him here , and another there ; not one God in France , and another in England . We indeed , because we never saw the same thing in two places , but always different things in different places , are apt to imagine it impossible for the same thing at the same time to be in two different places . Hence it follows , whatsoever involves not a contradiction , being possible to God Almighty , let our phansie say what it will , we must follow our reason , and acknowledge Almighty God can make not only a spiritual substance , but even a material one be in two places at once , unless we can shew it includes a contradiction . To be here , and not to be here , is indeed a contradiction ; but to be here and there at the same time , is no contradiction ; else neither our soul , nor God Almighty himself , could be all here , and all in another place at the same time . Now will any one , who is forced by his Faith and Reason to acknowledge a spiritual substance is actually in two places at once , pawn his eternal salvation ( as he does who purely for this difficulty continues Protestant ) that God Almighty cannot by all his Omnipotency , make a corporeal substance be here and in Heaven at the same time ? Now that the bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist should affect our senses in the same manner as they did before their change into our B. Saviours body and blood , this ought to seem no impossible wonder to a Christian , who believes so many miracles in our Lords Incarnation , Conception , and Nativity of a Virgin. Such a Miracle as this our Lord wrought when he appeared to S. Mary Magdalen in the shape of a Gardner . His face no doubt was his own true face , but it wrought upon S. Mary Magdalens eyes as if it had been the face of the Gardiner . And here I had thought to have inserted the different ways , which different Schools of Catholick Divines take , to explicate how this high mystery is wrought . But my design being to satisfie Unbelievers as to the substance of the mystery , and not to puzle the Faith of Believers , by making them glare too wistly upon the manner how this divine secret is wrought , it being more safely admired , together with the mystery of the Incarnation and ever blessed Trinity , then curiously pried into ; I resolved to draw a Veyl before it , by a profound silence of the several explications of Divines , and to content my self with letting you know in general , how different Doctors of different Philosophical Principles , according to their several Philosophies , differently explicate the mystery of the H. Eucharist , and defend it differently against Calvinists , as they do the mystery of the B. Trinity against the Antitrinitarians , and of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word against the Arrians ; some by virtual distinction , others by real formal , and others otherwise . And yet all hold , that after Consecration , the bread is no longer bread , but is changed into the body of our Lord ; but how it is done , some say one way , some another , according to their different Tenets in Philosophy , still all agreeing that this change is fitly called Transubstantiation , and that with good reason ; for the same remaining the same , must needs be the same , and cannot possibly be made what it was not , without some change . The bread then that it may become our Savious body , must have some change wrought in it ; but in its accidents its evident there is none , they remaining the same as before , therefore the change must be in the substance . And can now the change of the substance of bread , into the substance of our B. Lords body , be called by a fitter name than a substantial change , or Transubstantiation ? And this some of the Learnedst of the Church of England would do well to reflect on ; who urged by the clearness of our Saviviours own words ; This is my Body , and the multitude of Testimonies of the Fathers of the first six hundred years , and the impossibility of such a Doctrins over spreading the whole Christian world , without any appearance of its beginning , and the opposition it must needs have found by reason of its strangeness both to sence and reason , and its engaging the whole Church in a material , at least , Idolatry , unless it had been taught the world at first by our B. Lord and his Apostles : I say some of the Learnedst of the Engglish Glergy being urged by such considerations as these , confess the Holy Eucharist , as they begin to call it , after Consecration to be really and truly our B. Saviours body , and therefore fall down before it , and adore it : and for this cause disown the new Rubrick of the Common-prayer-book , which saies our Lords body is in Heaven , and not upon the Altar . These Doctors will tell you they acknowledge the thing , only they dare not be so bold as the Romanists , to determine the manner . And one of the Learnedst of them , Mr. Thorndike , asks ; why cannot our B. Saviour appear to us in what shape he pleases ; in the shape of a Gardiner , or if it so please him , in the shape of bread and wine ? These Doctors , I say , would do well to reflect the Church of Rome has not determin'd the manner of our B. Saviours bodies being in the Sacrament , and therefore her Divines , some explicate it one way , some another ; but only the thing it self , the manner how , being left to the dispute of her Doctors . 2. Assertion . If our B. Saviour would have left us his sacred body and blood , instead of all the Sacrifices of Sheep and Oxen , under the Mosaical dispensation , to be offered up by Christian Priests , and to be fed upon by the Christian people , it would have been a favour worthy of his excessive love to Mankind , by reason of the innumerable benefits which would have accrued to us by the continual oblition and presence of so worthy a sacrifice . What an incentive would this have been to Christian piety ? How would such a Sacrifice as this have compell'd High and Low , Rich and Poor , Learned and Unlearned , with a strange reverence to have flocked about our Christian Altars , where not a Lamb or a Beast , but the body of God , and the blood of God , and by concomitancy whole God and Man , Christ Jesus , should have been offered up by choice Persons to the Almighty for the good of the World ? How would the presence of such an Oblation have kept them attentive , and encreased their servor in their Prayers ? when they should have been able to have said ; This before me , which I see with my eyes , is my dear Redeemer , and God that was Crucified for me , and is to be my Judge . How earnestly should we have made all our Petitions to him , and how heartily should we have thanked him for all his Love ? To understand this : Imagin our B. Saviour should appear to you in your Chamber every Morning , in that very body and shape He is now in Heaven ; were you assured it was he , and not an illusion , with what humility would you prostrate your self before him ? How heartily would you cry him mercy for all your sins , and earnestly recommend all the desires of your soul unto him ? And how would this high favour melt your soul into a mòst tender affection towards him ? But these would have been the happy circumstances of the whole Christan world , would our Omnipotent Lord , out of his abundant goodness , have left us his sacred self , under the disguise of the Accidents of bread and wine . The same Petitions , with a like fervour , would every Christian have made every Holy Mass , which you would have made every Morning upon such an Apparition as was supposed . My dear Jesus , true God and Man , the very same who art in Heaven in all splendor and glory , art here upon the holy Altar before me , Veiled under the vile appearances of common bread and ordinary wine ; and all this for my sake , that to my souls health thou mightest be seen , handled , and tasted by me . Nor couldst thou be hindred from this excess of Love to me unworthy Sinner , although thou didst foresee the Revilings thou wert to endure for it from ungrateful Calvinists . Who for this would call thee a Breadden God , and reproach thy devout Adorers , as more stupid Idolaters than the very Pagan Worshippers of Sun and Moon . Rather then I should want the delicious comfort of thy continual presence , the happy pledge of eternally seeing thee face to face : all this , and yet greater indignities wouldst thou subject thy self unto , by one to to be reviled by his impious tongue ; by another to be trampled under his foul feet ; by a third , to be cast into some Sink or Jaques . O Impiety , O Ingratitude of finful men ! O unheard of goodness of our dearest Lord , thus to abject himself for our sakes ! But what wonder , if when he was in a passible mortal body he would permit himself by wicked Miscreants to be torn with cruel Whips , to be bespatterd with filthy Spittle , and to be made black and blew with ignominious buffets ; what wonder now , when he is become immortal and impassible , and can suffer no more defilement from the basest ordures , than do the bright Sun beams from the foulest mud when they shine upon it , that he should permit himself to be eaten by Mice or Doggs , or suffer other viler indignities , if Sacrilegious Sinners will permit or cause them ? Moreover , such a presence of our great Lord , what an Incitement would it have been to pious Munificence in adorning our Christian Churches with the richest Gold and most precious Stones , or what ever else that 's rare and splendid , which Nature or Art does afford , making them little Heavens for lustre and glory , and thereby exciting in the hearts of all that should enter them a due reverence to the Almighty , whom we worship ? If Solomon so adorned his Temple , where only a Sheep , or a Calf , or a little Incense was offered to the Creator of all things ; what glory could have been thought too rich for our Christian Churches , where an Oblation , worthy of the great God , should every day have been Sacrificed unto him ; the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world ; the God-Man Christ Jesus . In fine , what vertue should not our dear Saviour have given us example of , by such a charitable humiliation of himself ? Obedience , to come down from Heaven to Earth at the voice of every Christian Priest , though never so simple for his understanding , or never so wicked for his life and manners . Charity , Humility , Patience , Contempt of the Judgments or sayings of men , &c. 3. Assertion . The bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist , are by the Omnipotent power of God actually , and in deed changed into the body and blood of our B. Saviour Jesus Christ : which I prove thus . This was the universal belief of the Christian world in the nineth Century after our B. Saviour , as is evident by the testimony of all the writings of that Age , and by the universal testimony of the tenth Age , who profess in all Christian Countrys to have received this Faith from their immediate Ancestors . Nor do our Adversaries deny it , and therefore appeal to the first six hundred years , in which they say the Christian doctrine remained incorrupt . But if the doctrine of the real mutation of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist into our B. Saviours body and blood was generally believed in the nineth Age , it must necessarily be taught in the first Age by the Apostles , to their first Converts over all the world , and consequently be most certainly true . For it cannot be doubted but that the first Converts of the H. Apostles , did not only understand what the Apostles taught them concerning this great mystery , but also did throughly believe it , and highly esteem it ( as they did all other doctrines and practices taught them by the same their first Maffers ) as not only of exceeding profit above all the things of this life , but also as highly necessary to them and their Children to bring them to eternal bliss . Which being so , none can doubt but that the same first Disciples , both could and would , and actually did teach the very same doctrine which they so highly esteemed , as to embrace it with the bazard of their lives , to their Children and Successors . And this they taught them not as an invention of their own , but as a doctrine taught them by the Apostles of Jesus Christ , who confirmed their Mission from the infallible God by evident miracles . In like manner it cannot be doubted but these taught their Children also concerning this mystery what they had been taught by their Fathers , and not as the invention of their Fathers , but as a doctrine taught their Fathers by the undoubted Messengers of Heaven , the Holy Apostles . The like may be said of all the intervening Generations for the first six hundred years , which our Adversaries do not deny , ( though it be all one to the force of this Argument , to grant so much only for the first four hundred years ) . Now if Transubstantiation was not taught for the first six hundred years , but the contrary ; whatsoever age , be it the seventh , eighth , or nineth , would begin to teach the doctrine of the real presence of our Lord● body in the Sacrament ; they could not possibly have the impudence to tell their Children the bread and wine in the Eucharist were turned into the true body and blood of our Saviour ; and thus they had been taught by their Fathers and Grandfathers uninterruptedly from the Apostles . This , I say , it is impossible they could have the Impudence to assert , when every one must needs know his Father and Grand-father had believed and taught him otherwise . What must they pretend then , to impose upon their Children this new and strange mysterious Doctrine ? They must tell them their Fathers and Grand-fathers , and other Ancesters , for some hundreds of years had been in an Error , and had forsaken the Doctrine taught by the Apostles , and their first Converts as to this mystery , and confirm their Assertion by the clear words of Holy Scripture , Take and Eat , this is my Body , &c. and by other testimonies out of the Writers of the first or second Century . But no History makes mention of any such manner of bringing in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in the seventh , eighth , or other Century : Therefore it was never so brought in , but was always believed ; nor indeed could it ever in any Century be brought in by the Church of Christ , whose custom has ever been , not only in the seventh and eighth , but in every other Century before & after , alwaies to teach , and to pretend to teach her Children , not Doctrins devised or found out by herself by reading the Holy Scriptures or other means , but what was taught her by her Fore . Elders uninterruptedly from the Apostles : and still when Hereticks , or beginners of any new Doctrin , in any age , pretended Scriptures for them , she opposed : we have been taught otherwise by our Ancesters , and to understand those Scriptures in another sense than you understand them . Which way of Teaching a bringer in of a new Doctrine , its evident could not use . For if he did not begin to teach his Child otherwise than he was taught by his Father he should teach no new or other Doctrine . But if he did begin to teach his Child otherwise than his Father taught him , he could not at the same time tell his Child , thus he was taught by his Father , and so upward from the Apostles , when both his own Conscience , and all his Neighbours would testifie the contrary . Calvin , for example , could not tell his Child that he was taught by his Father to deny Transubstantiation . No more could the first Teacher of Transubstantiation in the seventh or other Century , had it been a Novelty tell his Child he was so taught to believe by his Father , but must have pretended to have more light than his Father and Ancesters , as our Adversaries did when they began to deny it . Hence it is evident Transubstantiation was not begun in the seventh or other Century , but was alwaies believed since the Apostles , seeing that in the nineth Century Christians universally believed , that in the holy Eucharist the bread and wine were changed into the body and blood of our Saviour ; and as such adored them , and embraced this doctrine of the real presence , not as a doctrine newly found out by themselves , or their immediate Fore-fathers by reading the holy Scriptures or other means , but as taught them by their Fore-fathers uninterruptedly from the Apostles ; and seeing likewise this has ever been the way of the Catholick Church to teach and pretend to teach Posterity not new Doctrines of her own , but what she had learnt from her Ancestors . Hence S. Vincent Lerinensis , twelve hundred years ago , in his Golden Treatise against the profane Innovations of Heresies , upon those words of S. Paul. Siquis , &c. If any one Evangelize to you , besides what you have received , let him be Anathema . Sed forsitan , &c. But perhaps those things were commanded the Galatians only . Then those things also which follow in the same Epistle , were commanded the Galatians only . Be not desirous of vain-glory , provoking one another , envying one another . Or perhaps was it then commanded , if anyone announce , besides what has been announced , let him be Anathema●ized ; but now it is not commanded . Therefore , and that also which he there saies : But I say , walk in the Spirit , and do not perfect the desires of the Flesh , was then only commanded , but is not now commanded . But if it be impious and pernicious to believe so , it necessarily follows , that as these things are to be observed by all Ages , so those things also which are established concerning not changing the Faith , are commanded to all Ages . Wherefore it was never lawful , it is not now lawful , nor ever shall be lawful to Christian Catholicks to announce any thing besides what they have received — Let him cry and cry again , and to all , and alwaies , and every where let him cry by his Epistle that Vessel of Election , that Master of the Gentils ; that Trumpet of the Apostles , that Preacher of the World , Conscious to the secrets of Heaven let him cry ; if any one preach a new Doctrine let him be Anathematiz'd . And on the contrary side , let certain Froggs , and Cynifes and Flies that are to perish ; such as are the Pelagians reclame and this to Gatholiks ; We , say they , being Authors , we being Heads , we being Expositors , Condemn what ye did hold , hold what ye did Condemn , reject the ancient Faith , the institutions of your Fathers , the depositions of your Ancestors , and receive ; but what ? I have a horror to mention them , for they are such proud things , &c. But may not general Councils at least presume to reach new Doctrines ? Hear the same S. Vincent , chap. 32. Hoc semper neque quicquam praeterea , &c. The Catholick Church excited by the Novelties of Hereticks , by the decrees of her Councils even did this , and not thing more than this , what she had received by Tradition only ; this she consigned to Posterity by writing , comprehending a great , sum of things in a few letters , and for the most part for the light of understanding , signing the not new sense of Faith with the propriety of a new name . Take notice that the Christian Church using this means to preserve the Faith first received , its impossible she should ever lose or change it . For if Fathers from the beginning had resolved to teach their Children what they had learnt , or even thought they had learnt from their Parents , as to the point of the Real prefence or other doctrine , its impossible they should teach another doctrine . For should they teach another doctrine , it must happen , either because they were ignorant what was taught them by their Parents , which is impossible , not only to whole Nations , but even to the Inhabitants of one small Town , or else , because , though they knew what was taught by their Parents , yet they would teach otherwise than they had been taught ; but then they must forsake their first resolution of teaching their Children what they thought they had learnt from their Fathers , contrary to the Supposition . But on the other side let us suppose a book fully written , as to all points to be believed by Christians , by the first teachers of Christianity . Let them together , with this Book , give charge to their 〈◊〉 Converts , neither to add to it , nor to diminish it , and to believe as in their Consciences they shall think that Book shall teach them . Though Generation after Generation be never so faithful to such a charge , yet they may in after Ages come to lose or change their Faith because the Book may seem to one Generation to bear one sense , and to another Generation to bear another : Especially if the mysteries , to be believed be very sublime , and the Book obscure in many places , and admit of divers senses when it speaks of those mysterie● . For example , these words , This is my Body , may seem to one Age to bear this sense , This is a sign of my body ; and ●o another , This is really and truly my body . But no ten Families who have been taught by their Parents , either to believe our Saviours body is in the Euecharist , or that it is not there , can possibly mistake what their immediate Fathers taught them , and frequently inculcated to them , as to this point , both by themselves and choice persons ordained on purpose for this end to teach what they learnt from their immediate Masters and Fathers . Nothing can make a change here , but a resolution to go contrary to what they know was taught them by their Parents . Wherefore seeing God Almighty is resolved not to teach every Age by immediate infallible Missionants from himself , but to send inspired Ambassadors to one particular Generation only , and to leave that Generation to teach their Children successively till the day of Judgment , what they learnt from the immediate infallible Messengers of Heaven : And seeing also a Book , with a charge not to change or alter it , and with a charge also to follow what should seem to every Generation to be the sense of it , and supposing every Generation faithful to such a charge , would not have been a sufficient means to keep the first divine Faith from Corruption , we may safely conclude the Almighty has not taken that way to teach the world . But seeing Oral teaching by inspired Pastors at first , with a charge to every Generation to follow what they thought was taught them by their immediate Parents and Teachers , provided every Generation were true to this charge , would have kept the first Faith inviolate , we may also conclude the Almighty has taken this way . Especially finding a Congregation of so vast a spread in being , who pretends to have made use of this means to preserve her first Faith , taught her Ancestors many hundred years ago ; nor can she be evinced by any History or Tradition , or any thing but mere sayings and ungrou●●●d surmises , to have lost or changed her first belief . And if you 〈◊〉 make use of a Book to guide you in your Faith , as the Catholick Church also does , you must resolve to interpret it , ( if you will be sure not to mistake ) as she does ; that is , in that sense in which it was understood by your Fathers , and not in that sense it shall seem to bear to you , if contrary to the sense it seemed to bear to your Ancestors . Pardon Sir , this long digression , I hope it will conduce to your more full satisfaction . And take notice , that wheresoever Transubstantiation is believed , the believers of it profess to have been so taught by their Fore-fathers uninterruptedly from the Apostles : & wheresoever this mystery is denied , the deniers of it do not profess to have been taught to deny it by their Fathers uninterruptedly from the Apostles , but only by their Ancestors for about a hundred and fifty years ; and that their Ancestors about the year fifteen hundred , had more light than their Progenitors for about a thousand years , who were all in darkness , and had left the right Faith taught by the Apostles , and for the first fix hundred years of Christianity . An evident conviction this , that the denial of Transubstantiation is a Novelty , and the asserting of it the antient verity . For had Transubstantiation been a new Doctrin , and never heard of before the seventh or eighth Age , the Assertors of it must have been forced to plead for it , after the manner its Opposers plead against it ; by saying their Fore fathers only for so long , for example , for eight hundred years had believed it ; but in the year eight hundred , their Ancestors had more light than their Fore-fathers , and they by reading the Holy Scriptures and Fathers of the first Century , came to understand that our Saviours true body was in the Holy Eucharist , and that their immediate Progenitors for five or six hundred years , had left the first Apostolical doctrin as to this mystery . If you remember , I supposed from the confession of our Adversaries , that the Christian Doctrin remained pure and incorrupt for some Centuries of years , after its first planting ; which I now shall endeavor to prove . And indeed whosoever maturely considers the genius and temper of the Christian Doctors and Bishops , for the first Centuries after our Saviour , will find it impossible for all the power of Hell to impose a Novelty upon them , especially such an one as would make them all Idolaters . For they were not like the seeming Zelots of our Age , pretenders to new lights , but their profession was not to correct Antiquity , not to deliver to Posterity doctrine of their own devising , but carefully to keep what they had received from their Fore-fathers , and faithfully to teach their Children what they had been taught by their Fathers : And their great Answer to Introducers of new Doctrirs or Practices , was , Nihil nouandum nisi quod traditum est : We must innovate nothing , but stick close to what has been delivered to us by our Fore-fathers . As for pretenders to discover new Truths by reading of the holy Scriptures , it s easily conceivable how such persons may be imposed upon by subtil Sophisters , and made to believe erroneous doctrins ; to wit , by bad and new Interpretations of good and antient Scriptures . But on the other fide , how shall a Teacher of Novelties deceive a Christian Country , which is resolved to hold fast whatsoever doctrin was taught them by their immedate Progenitors , who received the same doctrin by an uninterrupted delivery from Father to Son , from the Apostles ? Let him pretend Scriptures , and bring a thousand places out of the Law , Psalms , Prophets , and Apostles ; what will the Reply be ? The Scriptures you alledge we reverence , and have ever been taught to reverence them as divine ; but we have been taught to interpret and understand them in another manner and sense than you alledge them . Let him pretend Authority of Doctors , as Learned as Origen , as Holy as Cyprian ; nay , if he will , of a whole Provincial Council , as numerous as that in Africa , which determin'd Rebaptization of persons Baptized by Hereticks ; they Reply , we must not Innovate , we must hold to what was taught us by our Ancestors . What means then to make persons thus disposed to leave their an●ient Faith , and admit of a Novelty ? You must prove to them , that you and they , and other Christians in several Countrys , have been taught so to believe by your immediate Predecessors , and uninterruptedly From Father to Son , from the Apostles : but then you cease to be a Teacher of Novelties , contrary to the supposition . Now that such was the disposition of the Primitive Centuries of Christianity , hear S. Vincent Lerinensis , who lived in the fifth Age ; who testifies , that often asking of very many his Contemporaries , famous for their Sanctity and Learning , how he might be able to discern the truth of the Catholick Paith from the falsity of Heretical prayity , he always received this Answer in a manner from them all : That if he desired to remain sound in his Faith , he must fortifie it ; first with the Authority of the divine Law , and then with the Tradition of the Catholick Church . That is , as he explicates himself afterwards , he must examin what has always , all over the Christian Church , and by all Christian Doctors , or in a manner by all ▪ been believed , and hold to that Against all Novelty ; though defended by private Doctors , never so Holy , or never so Learned , or producing never so many Scriptures for themselves , if interpreted after a new manner . But saies the same S. Vincent , chap ▪ 2. Here perhaps some body may ask , seeing the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect , and is it self sufficient , and more than sufficient for all things , what need is there to add to it the Authority of the Ecclesiastical , or Churches understanding of it ? Because the Holy Scripture , by reason of its depth , is not by all taken in one and the same sense . — For Photinus expounds it one way , Sabellius another , Donatus another , Arrius another . And ch . 41. He tells us how the third general Council held in his days at Ephesus , proceeding according to this rule , condemn'd Nestorius . For the Fathers of that Christian Synod , in number about 200 having consulted the Sentiment of their Predecessors , the eminent Doctors of the Oriental and Western Churches , S. Peter of Alexandria , S. Athan●sius , S. Theophilus , S. Gregory Nazianzen , S. Basil , S. Gregory N●ssen , S. Felix , S. Julius , S. Cyprian , concerning their controversie in debate , they resolved to hold their doctrin , to follow their Counsel , to believe their testimony , to obey their Judgment . Quae tandem , &c What were at length ( saies S. Vincent ) the Voices and Votes of them all , but that what was antiently delivered should be kept , what was of late invented should be exploded ? After which we admired and proclamed the great humility and sanctity of that Council . In which so many Priests , in a manner as to the greater part , were so many Metropolitans , and of so great Erudition and Learning , as they were almost all able to dispute of Dogms . To whom , when their gathering together in one , seemed to add a confidence of daring , and decreeing something from themselves , yet notwithstanding they would presume nothing , arrogate nothing at all to themselves , but took all possible heed lest they should deliver to their Posterity what themselves had not received from their Fathers ; and not only well disposed the matter for the present , but also gave example to them that were to come after them , to wit , that they should reverence the dogms of sacred Antiquity , and condemn ( Adinventa ) the additional inventions of profane Novelty . This then was not an Age wherein to introduce new doctrins into the Church , nor any other before S. Vincent . For he tells us , chap. 9. Mos iste , &c. That custome has always flourished in the Church , and by how much any one hath been more Religious , the more readily has he opposed new inventions . We have hereof plenty of examples every where . The same S. Vincent witnesses , that in the third Age , the Assertors of Rebaptization wanted neither wit nor eloquence , nor number , nor verisimilitude of Truth , nor Oracles of the divine Law , but understood in a bad and new manner . chap. 9 , and 10. How came they then to lose their cause ? S. Stephen and his Collegues reclamed , Nihil novandum , &c. Nothing is to be innovated besides what has been delivered to us . Agrippinus , Bishop of Carthage , holding Rebaptization against the rule of the Universal Church , against the sense of all his fellow Priests , against the custom and institutions of his Ancestors ; and hereby ( as S. Vincent observes ) giving a form of Sacriledge to all Hereticks , this overthrew him . Had now the doctrin of the Real presence been an Idolatrous Novelty , its manifest no Introducer of it could have perswaded it to a Christian Church thus principled as the Doctors of these times were . They would all unanimously have reclamed ; Nothing must be innovated , besides what has been delivered to us by our Ancestors . Moreover , that the Christian doctrin remained pure and incorrupt for some Centuries of years , after its first planting , is further evinced by considering the state of the Christian Church for the first 300. years ; to wit , that it was severely persecuted all the world over . Now can any reasonable man imagin , that they who were continually exposing their lives for their Religion , would if they could agree together , so notoriously to change it , as to make themselves most gross Idolaters by adoring bread and wine , as the true body and blood of their Creator and God. Nor can it be imagin'd when the Centuries of the persecuted state of the Church were ended , that the Christians now in a full liberty of professing and practising their Faith , would all on the sudden so notoriously change that Faith which had been delivered them by their Fore-fathers , who had seal'd it with their blood . And this none can doubt of , who reflects how tenacious all man kind is of that Religion they were bred up in . In so much , as let any one consult the whole world , and he shall never find so much as one Nation or Country , to have changed their Religion without a great deal of ●oise and difficulty , and a considerable length of time ; and so as Posterity could for many Ages give an account of such a change , how and by what means it happened , so as to satisfie any rational demander of an account of such a change , without flying to imperceptible mutations , by little and little , but when or by whom no account is to be given : The usual refuge of our Adversaries , when we demand of them how not one Country , but all the Christian Countrys in the world , came to believe so universally this strange doctrin of the change of Bread and Wine into our B. Saviours body and blood . The whole world formerly in a manner Pagan , except a handful of Jews , is now become Christians ; we give an account of it . Twelve men dividing the world amongst them by stupendious Miracles a holy life and glorious death , converted great numbers of several Nations to the Christian Faith ; and these taught it their Children under sharp persecutions for some three hundred years ; and after that , through the favour of Emperors and Kings , Converted to be Christians , it made that spread we now see . Arrianism over-ran a great part of the Christian world , and we are able to give an account how , and by what means , without recurring to imperceptible growing by little and little . Arrius first broach'd that Heresie , and by the favour of Emperors ; it got a great footing in Christendom . In like manner had the strange doctrin of Transubstantiation been a Novel Invention ; 't is not possible , but at first teaching , it must needs have been opposed , and could not have so over-spread the Christian world in the nineth Century , as its evident to any one versed in Ecclesiastical History it did , without great preaching of its first Abettors , and strange favour of Christian Princes . That the whole Christian world , for the first six hundred years , should be wholly ignorant of this strange mysterious doctrin , and so hard to be believed ; and that in the nineth Century it should be generally believed , and not as a new doctrin neither , which was pretended by that Age to have been found out by vertue of greater light , by reading the Holy Scriptures , &c. but as a doctrin they had been taught from their Fore-fathers by an immemorable Tradition , is harder to believe than the mystery it self to any judicious considerer ; how difficultly , as I hinted above , we are perswaded to leave the doctrins we have been taught by our Parents from our Child-hood . In confirmation of this , let but any one consider the state of our own Country . About the year 1500 we generally believed and adored the bread and wine in the H. Eucharist , as our B. Saviours true body and blood . Now 't is confess'd , we , a hundred for one , believe the contrary . But how was this new Faith bred in us ? By stopping the mouthes of all the Preachers of the antient mysterious doctrin , and by persecuting with severe Laws , all Professors of that antient Faith. And yet you see even all this diligence has not been able to root out the antient belief universally neither . Much-less was what has been done , been effected so without noise ; but all our Chronicles mention how our new belief was wrought . And can any one think that not one Kingdom , but all the Kingdoms of the Christian world , could be brought so universally to change their Faith without any mention in any History , how and by whom this strange change was wrought ? Especially if he reflect how hardly human nature does believe strange things which neither sense nor reason can give any evidence of : And on the contrary , how easily and gladly we relinquish Beliefs which have been imposed upon us , when we have , as we think , the evidence both of sense and reason for our change . All which notwithstanding , you see how that after a 150 years labour , neither eloquence of false Teachers , nor force of civil powers , has been able so wholly to pervert our Nation as to the belief of that high mystery of the real presence , but even still there remain a considerable number retainers of the antient belief . And can you think that not in a much greater space of time , to wit , betwixt the sixth and nineth Century all the Christian world could be perswaded to admit so strange a doctrin to nature and reason ; and yet no man by vertue of History or Tradition should be able to give any account what Orators prevailed with the world to relinquish the belief of their Ancestors , or what power of civil Magistrates forced them to it ? Especially seeing there have not wanted Ecclesiastical Historigraphers who have made mention of matters of far less note than such a change of Faith must needs have made . But what place will there remain for doubting , that this high mystery was always believed , if not only all writers be silent as to any change , but also the seventh and eighth Age ; yea , the most Primitive times do positively attest this very mystery by the pens of the chiefest Champions of the Christian Church , who have left us any memorials of their learning and piety in their deservedly admired works ? I shall faithfully recount their words ; be your own judge what their sentiment was . In the first place then , glorious Saint , and great Doctor S. Augustin , tell us your Faith concerning the Holy Eucharist ; Is it Bakers bread , or the body of our Lord and God ? I remember , saies the holy Doctor in his 28. Ser. de verbis Domini , when I treated of the Sacraments , I told you that before the words of Christ , that which is offered up is called Bread , but when the words of Christ shall have been pronounced , now it is no longer called bread , but the body of Christ. And explicating those words of the Royal Prophet , Psal. 98. v. 5. Exalt ye our Lord God , and adore his foot-stool , for it is holy . Now what is this Foot-stool of God ? why saies this great Doctor , The Earth is his Foot-stool . But how is the Earth holy , and to be adored by us ? The Saint goes on and tells us how : Our Lord took Earth of the Earth , because Flesh is of the Earth ; and he took Flesh of the Flesh of Mary . And because he walked here in Flesh , and gave to us that very Flesh to be eaten by us to our Salvation ; but no body eats that Flesh , unless he shall first have adored it . And indeed what could we expect that S. Austin should teach and believe concerning this divine Sacrament , but what he had been taught by his Father and Instructor in Christ , the glorious St. Ambrose . And what was that ? Hear his words , lib. 4. De Sacramentis . Thou wilt perhaps say nnto me , my Bread is ordinary Bread ; but that bread is bread before the Sacramental words ; but when Consecration has been made of bread , it is made the Flesh of Christ. But how can bread be the body of Christ ? By Consecration : Consecration ; by what and whose words is it perfected ? By the words of our Lord Jesus . For all other things which are said , Praise is given to God : By prayer supplication is made for the people , for Kings , for the rest . When the time is come that the Venerable Sacrament is to be made , now the Priest does not use his own words , but the words of Christ ; therefore the word of Christ makes this Sacrament . But what word of Christ ? That word by which all things were made . Our Lord commanded and Heaven was made ; our Lord commanded and the Earth was made : Our Lord commanded , and the Seas were made : Our Lord commanded , and every Creature was produced . Doest thou see then how operative the word of Christ is ? If then there be so great force in the word of our Lord Jesus , that it could make things which were not begin to be ; how much rather is it operative , that those things which were , should be and be charged into another thing ? Heaven was not , the Sea was not , the Earth was not ; but hear him saying : He said the word , and they were made ; he commanded , and they were Created . That therefore I may Answer thee ; the body of Christ was not before Consecration ; b● after Consecration , I say unto thee , that now the Body of Christ is . He said it , and it was made : He commanded , and it was Created . And in chap. 5. of the same Book . Before the words of Christ , the Chalice is full of Wine and Water ; but when the words of Christ have bad their operation , then it is made the blood which Redeemed the people . See then in how many kinds of things the word of Christ is able to change all things . Moreover our Lord Jesus himself testifies unto us , that we receive his body and blood ; ought we then to doubt of his testification ? Add to S. Austin and S. Ambrose , the Learned S. Hierom in his Epistle ad Heliodorum . Far be it from me , saies the Saint , that I should speak amiss of those who succeeding the Apostles , do make the body of Christ with their sacred mouth . And in his 85. Epistle to Enagrius . By whose prayers the body and blood of Christ is made . Take notice that these three Holy Fathers lived not four hundred years after our B. Saviours death . S. Cyprian yet nearer the Apostles age , does no less clearly nor fully attest the same verity , in his Serm. de Caena Domini . That bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples , being changed not in shape , but in its nature , by the Omnipotency of the Word was made Flesh. And in his Book , de Lapsis ; reprehending such as were angry with the Priests of God , who refused to admit them to the holy Communion of the B. Sacrament , after they had polluted themselves with the profane Sacrifices of Heathen Idolaters , expresses their sin in these words . He that has fall'n from his Faith , threatens them that have stood firm . Sacrilegious w●etch , he is angry with the Priests of God , that he is not prosently admitted with defiled hands to receive the Body of our Lord , or to drink his blood with his defiled mouth . And this was the very doctrin of his learned Master Tertullian , who yet nearer approached the holy Apostles , lib. de Resur . cur . The Flesh is fed with the body and blood of Christ , that the soul may be made fat with God. And in his Book de Idololatria , he complains of the prosaneness of some Christians , who made no scruple to day to be working in their Shops , making Idolatrous Statues for the Heathens , and yet to morrow would presume to come into the Christian Congregations , and receive the Sacred mysteries of our Lords body and blood , and communicate them to others . His words are these ; To touch the body of our Lord with those hands which give bodies to Devils . Nor is this all ; their Crime would be less , did they only receive from the hands of others what they contaminate and pollute ; but moreover they deliver to others what they have polluted . Makers of Idols are admitted into the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy . O Impiety ! Once the Jews laid profane hands on Christ ; these daily violate his body : O hands deserving to be cut off ! But shall we desire a Greek Father or two , to give us their sense concerning our present Controversie . S. Crysost . ho. 60. ad . pop . Antioch . Because the Word saies , This is my Body , let us assent and believe . And a little after , How many are there now adaies that say , O that I could see his Figure , his Garments , his Shooes ? Lo thou seest himself , thou touchest him , thou eatest him . Thou desirest to see his Garments , but he give thee not only to see , but also to eat and touch , and take himself into thee . And a little after , Consider what an indignation thou hast against the Traytor Judas , and against those that Crucified him : Therefore consider lest thou also beest not guilty of the body and blood of Christ. They killed his most holy body ; and thou receivest it with a polluted soul after so many benefits . For he was not satisfied to be made man , to be Buffetted and Crucified : but moreover , he does mix himself with us , and makes us his body , not only by Faith , but in very deed . And ho. 24. in Ep. 1. ad Corin. Christ has given us his body , both that we might have it and might eat it , which is the greatest sign of love . Wherefore Job chap. 31. that he might show the love of his Servants to him , said they oftentimes of their execeeding great love to him , would say concerning him , Who will give us of his Flesh , that we might be filled with it . Even so Christ has given us his Flesh , that we might feed upon it , thereby to allure us to love him very much . This body the Sages adored in the Manger . — Thou seest it not in the Manger , but npon the Altar ; not a Woman holding it in her arms , but a Priest present . — Nor do I show thee Angels , nor Arch-angels , nor Heaven , nor the Heaven of Heavens , but the very Lord of all these things . — Nor doest thou only see him , but touch him ; not only touch him , but eat him ; and having received him , returns to thy home . And Hom. 60 ad pop . Antioch . and 83. in Math. Let us every where believe God , and not oppose him , although that which he saies seem absurd to our sense and thoughts ; let his speech overcome both our sense and our reason ; which let us do in all things , and especially in the Mysteries , not only regarding those things which lie before us , but also holding fast to his words . For we cannot be deceived by his words , but our sense is most easily deceived : those cannot be false , this is deceived very often . Because therefore he has said this is my body , let us make no doubt but believe , and see it with the yes of our understanding . And in his 3. ho. in Ep. ad Ephes Let us think that him that sits above , who is adored by the Angels , 't is him that we tast , that we feed upon . And ho. 2. ad pop . Antioc . Elias left his Disciple his Mantle , but the Son of God ascending , left us his Flesh. But Elias indeed put off his Mantle , but Christ both left us his Flesh , and retaining it , ascended with it . Let us not therefore be dishartened , nor lament , nor fear the difficulty of the times . For he that has not refused to shed his blood for us , and has communicated to us both his flesh and blood , will not refuse to do any thing for our Salvation . Hear another Greek Doctor , S. Cyril of Jerusalem , in his Catechistical discourses , which are the plainest declarations of the mysteries of our holy Faith. Catech. 4. Mys. Seeing then Christ himself so affirms and says concerning the bread , This is my body who after this can dare to doubt of it ? and the same also affirming and saying , This is my blood , who I say can doubt of it , and say it is not his blood . He changed water into wine in Cana of Galilee , by his sole Will , and shall he not be worthy whom we may believe , that he changed wine into his blood ? For if being invited to a corporeal Wedding , he wrought a stupendious miracle , shall we not confess him much rather to have given his body and blood to the Children of the Bridegroom ? Wherefore with all assurance let us take the body and blood of Christ ; for under the appearance of bread , is given to thee his body ; and under the appearance of wine , is given his blood ; that having received the body and blood of Christ , thou maiest be made partaker together with him of his body and Blood. So shall we be Christophers , such as carry Christ in them , when we shall have received his body and blood into our Members ; and so as S. Peter saies , shall be made partakers of the divine Nature . — Do not therefore look upon it as bare bread and bare wine ; for it is the body and blood of Christ , according to the words of our Lord himself . For although thy sense suggest this to thee , yet let Faith confirm thee ; do not judge of the thing by thy tast , but rather from Faith hold for certain , so that thou hast no doubt that the body and blood are given to thee . Knowing and accounting for most certain , that this bread which is seen by us is not bread , although our tast judge it to be bread , but that it is the body of Christ. And the wine , which is seen by us , although it may seem wine to our sense of tasting , that yet it is not wine but the blood of Christ. Can the holy Council of Trent have plainer words than these , or fuller to our present purpose . Add the testimony of S. Justin Martyr , who lived yet nearer the Age of the Apostles , in his Apology for the Christians to Antoninus the Emperor , in which he gives him an account of the Christian Faith ; and where certainly he would not make it more mysterious than it was , nor more hard to be believed , according to any part of it , then the truth and common belief of Christians forced him ; but rather would moderate the mysteriousness of it , than encrease it . Hear him then giving an account of the Holy Eucharist . This meat is called by us the Eucharist , because no body may partake of it , but he who believes those things to be true which we say , and lives so as Christ has taught us . For we do not take these things as common and ordinary bread , but as by the word of God , our Saviour Jesus Christ was made man , and had flesh and blood for our Salvation ; so we have been taught that this meat , which is Consecrated by the Prayers of that speech we received from him , is the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ , who was made man. For the Apostles in their Commentaries , which are called Gospels , have delivered that Christ so commanded , and that having taken bread , when he had given thanks , he said , Do this in memory of me , This is my Body ; and having taken the Cup , when we had given thanks , he said also , This is my blood , and gave it to them only . Mark how this holy Father saies , that what we have received concerning the holy Eucharist , is , that it is both the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ , who was made man. Now would any man in his wits have given such an account of the Christian Faith to an unbelieving Heathen , with a desire to Convert him , and to recommend our holy Faith to him , had the blessed Eucharist been a mere sign of the flesh and blood of Christ. This he would easily have understood to be very feasable , whereas the other strangely shocks both his sense and reason . For other Testimonies out of these and other Holy Fathers , I refer you to our Books of Controversie on this Subject , which are full of them . And who now that has the least grain of Humility and Modesty , would not blush to accuse so many and so grave Doctors of Christ's Church of Idolatry and damnable Error ? And here Sir , you must give me leave to bespeak our Adversaries in the words of S. Augustin , directed by him to Jul●an the Pelagian , after a like Citation , about another matter , of these very Holy Fathers by me now cited , as to a good part of them . Tu qui tam crebro , &c. Thou sadly deluded Calvinist , that doest so often object to us Catholick Christians the crime of Idolatry for adoring the Holy Eucharist ; if thou beest awake , see what and what kind of men , and how glorious Defenders of the Christian Faith , thou darest to be spatter under our names , with so execrable a Crimination . Go now and object to us the crime of Idolatry , dissemble and feign thy self not to know what they say in this point ; over-look them as it were , and attack us only , as not knowing that under our name they are reviled ; and confidently insult over so many and so great Doctors of the Church of Christ , who after a most Saintly life , and having beaten down the Errors of their times , most gloriously went out of this life before you and your Camerades bubled up . Doest thou see with what kind of men we sustain thy reproaches ; doest thou see with whom we have the same common cause , which without any sober consideration thou Calumniates and endeavours to expugn ? Doest thou see , proud Calvinist , how pernicious it is unto thy self , to object so horrible a crime of Idolatry to such men as these , and how glorious it is to us to sustain the charge of any crime , together with such Doctors ? Or if thou doest see , see , and hold thy peace , and let so many Catholick tongues silence thy Calvinistical tongue , and submit thy brazen forehead to the venerable mines of so many grave Fathers . The Russian Polemus to compleat his wilde ramble , would needs early in the morning , half Drunk with his Night-Revels , go to the School of the Grave Sophist Xenocrates , to affront him and his Scholars . But he was no sooner entred the School of that sober Platonist , but the very fight of the modest and grave Comportment of the Philosopher and his Scholars did so strike my young gallant , that he was quite out of Countenance ; and asham'd of himself , he pull'd off his drunken bayes , and compos'd himself to modesty , and became his Convert , whom he came on purpose to deride and scoff at . Such force had the grave Countenances of a sober Platonist and his School to comp●●at a rude Russian . Finding my presuptuous Calvinist drunk with pride and self-conceit , I could think of no better means to reduce him to Sobriety , then to bring him , not into the School of a sober Ethnick Philosopher , but into a grave Assembly of the most memorable Bishops and Doctors of the School of Christ. To whom certainly so much a greater Reverence and respect is due , by how much their Doctor and Master Christ , is greater then Xenocrates 's Master and Doctor Plato . I desire now my conceited Calvinist , that thou wouldst think it worth thy while , to eye , to look upon so many and so grave Prelates of the Catholick Church ; and imagin them to look as it were upon thee , and mildly and gently to say unto thee : Itanè nos fili Juliane , &c. Is it so indeed Son Stilling fleet , are we 〈◊〉 Idolaters ? What answer wouldst thou give them . With what face wouldst thou look upon them ? What arguments would occur to thee ? Wouldst thou dare , wouldst thou have the face to produce such wodden Daggers as thou art ever and anon drawing upon us ? Or rather would not such pittiful Weapons fall out of thy hand , at the presence of so great Doctors , and such grave Prelates of Gods Church ? Wouldst thou have the forehead to tell the great S. Augustin our B. Lord said , Do this in remembrance of me ; the words which I speak unto you are spirit and life ; I am a Door , I am a true Vine , &c. As if that great Doctor and his venerable Fellows could be ignorant of such petty Cavils as those . Tautumne apud te , &c. Can a Calvin , or a Stillingfleet have so much Authority with any person of sobriety , that he should for their regards , not only for sake so many and so great Doctors and defenders of the Christian Faith , from the rising of the Sun to the going down thereof ; but also dare to call them I dolaters and Abertors of damnable Errors ? I desire my conceited Calvinist , would but consider into what an Assembly I have brought him . 'T is an Assembly of Saintly Doctors , not of the popular multitude : Such as were not only Children , but Fathers of the Church ; famous in their Generations for Learning and Sanctity , who well furnished with spiritual Weapons , strenuously warred against the Hereticks of their days , and having happily finished the labours of their dispensation , holily went to rest in peace . Nor was the doctrin , we are now disputing , any new devised Opinion of theirs ; but what they learnt in the Church of Christ , in the time of their Rudiments , that they taught the Church of Christ in time of their Honors . That which they found in the Church , that they held . That which they received from their Fathers , they delivered to their Children . And if my Calvinist will perhaps say , he does not charge S. Augustin , or S. Chrysostom with the crime of Idolatry , he must give me leave to tell him , nor then does he justly charge us , whom he sees in the same cause to have followed their steps . But if he will only reproach us with such a Calumny , nor for any other reason , but because we think concerning the holy Eucharist what they thought , hold what they held , preach what they preacht ; who does not see that he openly reviles us only , but secretly has the like judgement of them ? For what they believe , we believe ; what they teach , we teach , yield to them , and you yield to us ; acquies● in their sentiments , and you 'l cease to condemn ours . Moreover this grave Assembly of antient Doctors , to whom we appeal , then judged concerning this our cause , when no body could say they had favor or ill will for either party . They had neither friendship nor enmity with you or us . We did not as yet appeal with you to them as Judges , and our cause was decided by them . Neither you nor we were known to them , and we recite their sentence given for us against you . We did not yet contest with you , and they pronouncing sentences for us , we have overcome you . Or will my Calvinist have the impudence to accuse ( as some do ) th●se grave Doctors of blindness ? A multitude of blind men forsooth avails nothing to find out the Truth ! and these were the errors and mistakes of those learned Prelates . What an Age are we fal'n into ? Truth must be called error , and error truth , light darkness , and darkness light . S. Augustin , S. Ambrose , S. Crysostom , S. Hierom are blind , but Calvin and Stillingfleet see . These Doctors I have called a Council of , were persons of such Learning and Sanctity , that if a Synod of Bishops were gathered out of the whole world , it would be much if so many , and such Doctors could be found to sit in it . Neither indeed were these all at one time , but God Almighty as pleases him , and as he judges to be expedient , scatters a few more excellent and faithful dispensers of his mysteries , in several Ages , and distances of places . By such Planters , Waterers , Builders , Pastors , nursing Fathers after the Apostles , the holy Church has encreased Now what an imprudence , and what an impudence must it be for any to presume to accuse of the horrible crime of Idolatry , so many holy , egregious , and memorable Doctors of the Catholick Verity , and moreover together with them the whole Church of Christ ; to which divine Family they faithfully Ministring spiritual Food , flourished with great glory in our Lord. Nay further , they who dare to oppose the manifest Sentiment , not of so many Platonical , Aristotelieal or Zenonical Doctors , but of so many Saints and illustrious Prelates in the Church of God , and these some of them singularly endowed with human litterature , and all of them eminently learned in the Sacred Letters , have reason not so much to fear them as him who made them profitable Vessels to himself . These Judges , by how much the more desirable they ought to be unto thee , if thou didst hold the Catholick Faith , by so much thou hast more reason to fear them , because thou opposest the Catholick Faith , which they ministred to little and great , and manifestly and stoutly defended against its Enemies , yea against you , then not as yet born . For not only when they lived did they by their words , but also by their writings which they left to Posterity , did they strenuously defend the Catholick Faith , that they might break in pieces your Arguments . Hitherto S. Augustin , l. 1. et . 2. Contra Julianum . I thought fit to adjoyn this Reflexion of S. Augustin , though superabundant to the force of my Argument , it being sufficient for my purpose to prove that the doctrin of the Real presence was generally believed in the Primitive Centuries of Christianity , and so much evidently follows from the Authorities above cited . For though some may be so self-conceited as to confess that S. Ambrose , S. Crysostom , and the rest of the holy Fathers , Greek and Latin , believed the doctrin of the Real presence , but they with humble submission deemed it to be an Idolatrous and damnable doctrin : yet few I think but have so much regard for th●se Primitive Doctors , as to allow them so much iudgement , as to know what was the belief of their several Churches in their daies , and so much fidelity as to write the Truth as to this particular , which is sufficient for the purport of my discourse . Unless you can think that these holy Fathers were of one Faith , and their several Flocks , who reverenced them as Saints , of another . An Answer to an Objection . But you will say , if there be such a miraculous change wrought in the bread and wine in the holy Eucharist , why does it not appear to our senses , as well as other miraculous works of our Lord Jesus did ? When he turn'd water into wine , it appeared such to the sight and tast of the Guests at the Marriage-Feast . He did not barely tell them , the water was turn'd into wine , and exact their belief of his word , contrary to the evidence of all their senses , but convinced them that it was so by their very senses . Why then in our present case , if he turn wine into his blood , does it not appear to our fight to be blood ? But barely to tell us , that it is his blood , and yet to let it tast and appear as it did ; how is this credible ? How is it not contrary to one , but to all the Miracles that ever he wrought ? And this Argument is further strengthned , for that it would hence follow , we might call in question the whole mystery of Christianity . For we therefore believing in our Lord Jesus , as one indeed sent from God , to teach us nothing but Truth , because of his Miracles , and we having no assurance of his Miracles but from our senses , if our senses may be mistaken , how can we tell but those who were eye-witnesses of his wonders were illuded : and water , for example , was not turned by him into wine , but only seemed wine to the tast and sight of those which were present , and indeed remained water as before . For why may not water remain water , and yet seem to my tast wine , as well as wine be changed into blood , and yet seem to my tast and sight to remain wine ? For Answer to this Objection , we must distinguish two sorts of Miracles , with the ends for which they are wrought . Some Miracles are wrought by Almighty God , to draw the world to the Christian Faith ; and these must necessarily be the object of our senses ; else it could not reasonably be expected , they should work their intended effect in them for whose sakes they are wrought . For example ; If any one will by Miracle prove he is sent from God , by raising a dead man to life , or by turning water into wine ; he must make it evident to my senses , that the man who was dead is alive , and the water now wine , and not barely tell me so . Else he will be derided as an Impostor and impudent Lyer , instead of being admired and received as a Messenger from Heaven , and Oracle of Truth . There are other Miracles which are wrought by the Almighty , not as a motive to induce us to receive the true Faith , but to sanctifie us when we have received it , or for the necessity of working the salvation of the world . Such are the Miracles of the Incarnation of the Son of God , and all the spiritual effects wrought in the souls of Christians by any of the Sacraments . Now these miraculous effects are not the object of our senses , nor is there any reason they should be . For the Church of Christ does not urge these to perswade Unbelievers to acknowledge the true Faith ; but only professes , that by these her members are sanctified . For example ; we say by Baptism as an outward and visible sign , is wrought an invisible grace in the soul of the person Baptized . Though view the Child as much as you please , you can by none of your senses perceive any mutation to be wrought . In like manner the Church professes to believe the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God : that our Lord Jesus , though to outward appearance a mere man , was also true God , and yet by no sense was the Hypostatical Union of his soul and body to the Second person of the blessed Trinity , discernable . This was no doubt a great Miracle , yea the miracle of miracles wrought amongst us ; but the end of its working , being not by it as a motive to draw the world to Christianity , but to constitute a fit person for the working of the salvation of the world , it was not necessary it should be the object of our senses . The same Lord and Saviour telling us that he was God , though we could discern no Characters of Divinity in him by any of our senses , he saying that he was God , & proving by other Miracles to our senses , that he was sent from God to teach us nothing but Truth ; this was sufficient to secure our belief of his Deity . In like manner , in the mystery of the holy Eucharist , this miraculous change being not wrought , to allure Strangers to the Christian Faith , but to sanctifie Believers , and to work all those spiritual effects in them above-mentioned , by being received by them , and offered up in their presence for them , &c. it was not requisite this change should be the object of our senses . Nay it was necessary it should not be the object of our senses . For it being wrought to the intent we should eat and drink our dear Lord his body and blood , it was necessary only the substance of bread and wine , should be turned into the substance of our Lords flesh and blood , the accidents of bread and wine remaining ; for that otherwise we should have a horror to eat raw flesh , and drink true appearing blood . As to the confirmation of the Argument , that hence it would follow we cannot trust our senses , and consequently not be certain of any miracle wrought by our Saviour . To this I Answer ; We may alwaies trust our senses about their own objects , and in due circumstances , and when we have not positive grounds to think , either God Almighty by himself , or by an Angel , or permissively by a Devil , represents things otherwise then they are . The three Children in the fiery Furnace , might really think themselves in the midst of scorching Flames , though they felt them not , because they had reason to surmise God Almighty wrought a miracle ; out of those circumstances they had no reason to believe any thing to be ordinary fire , which should not burn as fire . Nor must they for this , for ever after be in doubt , whether they were not environed with Flames of fire or no. Nor must Abram , because once in a particular circumstance he mistook three Angels for three men ; therefore never after believe his eyes , whether he saw a man or no , unless he first pinched him by the arm , and felt that he had flesh and blood as himself . Nor must one who in the presence of a Conjurer had taken pibble stones for grapes , for ever after be doubtful whether he saw grapes or no , till he tasted them . Nor does it follow , S. Mary Magdalen could not be certain she ever saw our B. Saviour , because once her senses were mistaken concerning him , taking him for the Gardener . And in our present case , our B. Saviour telling us that the Holy Eucharist is his body , we have all reason to think that by miracle he makes it to be so , whatsoever it seems to our senses . Nor do Catholicks therefore , out of such a circumstance , doubt of all the bread they see , whether it be not their Lords body or no ? Though I must tell you , even here your senses are not mistaken ; for they do perceive what they seem to perceive ; that is the Accidents of bread and wine , which remain and affect them in the same manner , as when the substance under them , was the substance of bread and wine , but now is the substance of our Lords body and blood . Substances are not discernable by any sense ; only we conclude by a Physical certitude , such a substance is under such a complex of Accidents , when we have nor positive grounds that God Almighty works a miracle , as here we have ; he saying expresly of this object before us , 'T is his body , and 't is his blood . But if there be so much to be said for this great mystery , how comes it to pass so many have so great difficulty to believe it ? It is not because the mystery is not highly credible , but it is partly from Nature and partly from Education , and partly from want of a serious and frequent consideration of those Arguments which strongly evince the credibility of it , and partly for want of strange desires of the happiness of the other life , and of a heart void of inordinate affections to the things of this life , Pleasures , Riches , and Honors . 'T is partly from Nature I say . For 't is not more difficult to our senses to practice Sobriety , Temperance , Chastity and Fasting , then it is to our understanding to assent to Truths which seem to shock our reason and senses , though proposed by never so great Authority . Should you have seen our B. Saviour sucking his Mothers Breast in the Stable of Bethlehem , whosoever should have told you , the little Infant there was God Almighty , the maker of Heaven and Earth , Nature would have found a great difficulty to believe so strange an assertion , and no less then it does now to believe that a little Wafer in the hands of a Priest , is the same Christ both God and man , veiled under the appearance of the common accidents of bread . But had it been moreover from your infancy continually noysed in your ears , by such as you reverenced for their learning and skill in divine matters , that it was impossible for God to become man ; this would strangely have encreased your difficulty to believe a little Infant , in nothing different as to outward appearance from other Children , should be God. But if to all this you should add , never or very seldom , and slightly to consider the positive Arguments for the belief of that mystery of the Incarnation , but were ever still poring upon the difficulty , and unlikeliness and seeming impossibility of any such thing , 't is not possible you should ever come to the belief of it , though the mystery be never so true in it self , nor the Arguments to prove it , never so evident and cogent . But this is the case of us generally in England , as to the mystery of the B. Sacrament , and therefore no vvonder if generally it be not believed by us : but we rather wonder at their stupidity and fond credulity , who can believe any such thing . But to get a right , strong and well grounded Faith concerning this high mystery , what must we do ? First Reflect we are Christians , and as such must necessarily believe very many strange things , unless we will renounce Christianity . For example ; we must believe that there are three distinct Persons , and every one of these is God ; and yet there are not three Gods , but only one God. We must also believe this one God is infinitly merciful , and yet he will permit millions of souls to lament and howl amidst scorching Flames for ever , though with a word he could ease them of all their pains . Moreover we must believe that 1600. years ago , one of the three divine Persons was incarnat , and became a true mortal man , flesh and blood as we are ; and after 33. years , which he lived upon our Earth , he was nailed to a Cross , Hands and Feet , till he died ; and after three daies came to life again , and after 40. days ascended into Heaven , where he remains to this day . These would seem strange things to believe , to one that should never have heard them before ; and yet stranger to one , that from his Childhood should have been taught to laugh at such stories as mere Fables and idle fictions of cheating Priests , who knew them well enough to be such ; but for their own gain and interest seem'd to believe them , and with a great deal of Confidence , taught them for infallible Truths to the credulous multitude . Which being so , Reflect 2d y. No Christian must bogle at any thing as to the belief of it , merely for the strangeness of it , and seeming unlikeliness to his senses or reason . But must consider what grounds he has to judge the strange mystery he is required to believe , was taught his Fore-fathers by our B. Saviour and his Apostles ; and if he find he has good grounds for this , he must immediately submit his understanding , and believe it . 3dly . Let us reflect upon the state of our own Country , as it is at present , and as our Annals represent it to have been ever since our first Receiving of the Christian Faith. At present we have a considerable number of Families who believe Transubstantiation , and have believed it from their Fore-fathers time out of mind , and they say ever since the first planting of the Christian Faith amongst us . We have also far greater multitudes who do not believe it , but yet so as there 's scarce one who is fifty years old , whose great Grand-father did not believe it , but when his great Grand-father , or his great Grand-fathers Ancesters began to believe it , we are able to give no acconnt . Moreover two hundred years ago , in all the several Shires or Provinces of England we all universally , Bishops , Priests , and People , Rich and Poor , Learned and Unlearned believed it : And this not as a new Doctrin found out by themselves by reading the holy Scriptures . No. They were Enemies to all Novelties , and professed they must hold fast what had been taught by their Fore-elders , and interpret Scripture in the sense their Fore-elders had done . Now how is it possible they should come to believe such a strange Doctrin , unless it had been taught them from their Fore-fathers , and the first Preachers of Christianity in our Nation ? Especially they not reading the holy Scriptures as we do now , nor having such store of Bibles , that they might perhaps by their private reading have come to believe this hard and high mystery contrary to what had been taught them by their Fore-elders . How came they to learn it then ? Did they some strange morning or other , all awake of a different belief from what they had been of the Evening before ? Or did it come into some Schollars head by studying the holy Scriptures ; reading for example those words , This is my body , so often repeated in the Evangelists & S. Paul ; and he hereupon was convinced they had all been in an Error for so many years , and by Preaching and Disputing perswaded others ? But how comes it to pass then , we having had Historians that have mentioned far less Matters , yet say not a word of any such thing ? Or did the Britons before S. Austin the Monk , believe no such thing ? How came they then not to clash about it , or if they did , how comes it to pass other differences are recorded and this is omitted ? Besides if S. Austin taught it our Ancesters , he confirm'd the Religion he taught by miracles , as all our Stories testifie . And also he lived within the first 600 years , to which Dr. N. N. in one of his Sermons appeals : Nor did that blessed man pretend to teach us a new Religion neither , newly found out at Rome , but what was alwaies believed ever since S. Peter . 4. Let us consider why we are Christians , and we shall find if we be so rationally and groundedly , and not merely because we were so brought up from our Childhood : I say we shall find our Faith to be grounded upon such principles , as if we be true to them , they will force us as strongly to believe Transubstantiation as the Incarnation , the Real presence as the Deity of our Saviour . For example , I believe the man Jesus Christ , who lived 1600. years ago , was also God. And why ? Because he said he was so , and proved by evident miracles that he was sent to teach the World Truth , and nothing but Truth . And why all this ? Because it could not stand with the providence of God , to suffer a Deceiver to work such miracles as he wrought , teaching withal , and practising such sanctity as he did . For then the most sincere desirers to know the Truth would be most subject to miss of it . But how do I know Jesus Christ wrought such miracles ? Because I find them Recorded in certain Books , which several Nations all over the World , have immemorially looked upon as faithful & true stories , ever since the time the miracles are said to have been wrought . Now 't is not possible but the men then alive must needs certainly know whether he did work such strange miracles or no. And if they had known no such thing was wrought by him ; but that these things were at first feigned by some of his Friends , and afterwards committed to writing by them , they could never contrary to the evidence of their own knovvledge , have told unanimously such notorious Lyes to their Posterity , and have made them believe them as they did . Nor could have recommended the Books vvherein they vvere Recorded to their Children , and have made them reverence them as unquestionable and infallibly certain Histories , as they did . But hovv do I knovv that Jesus Christ taught that he vvas God ? vvhy certainly the Apostles understood him vvhat he said concerning himself ; vvhether he vvere only a holy man like to their great Moyses , or else vvere true and substantially God , and consequently to be Worshipped by them as such . And no doubt but they taught their first Converts vvhat they had learnt from their Master Jesus as to this point , and their Converts their Children till Arrius ; the Church being till then under Persecution , and consequently cannot be supposed all that vvhile so notoriously to have changed their Faith , they vvere every day in danger to dye for . Now finding the vvhole Christian World in the belief of the Divinity of our Saviour , and Worshipping him as God , and this immemorially from their Fore-fathers , and as they professed from the Apostles . So as Arrius never vvent about to evince them , that such or such a Doctor in such an Age since the Apostles , had brought in the nevv Doctrin of our Lords Divinity : and finding him also called God in the Holy Scriptures , and vvhole Nations of Christians immemorially understanding them in a proper , literal sense , and not only in the sense vvhich Kings and Princes are called God ; notvvithstanding all Arrius his reasons drawn from the Impossibility of the thing , or from Scriptures understood by him after a nevv manner ; I conclude my Saviour vvas true God. In like manner no doubt but our B. Saviviour taught his Apostles concerning the holy Eucharist , whether it was only a sign of his body , or else his true body , and consequently to be adored and worshipt by them or no. And no doubt but they taught their first Converts what they had learnt from their Master concerning this mystery , and these their Posterity the same for the first 300. years of the Churches Persecution . Now finding whole Christian Countrys in the time of Berengarius , about the year one thousand und fifty , unanimously believing the holy Eucharist to be our Lords true body , and adoring it as such , and this as they professed immemorially from their Ancesters , from the Apostles , and Berengarius never undertaking to show , when or how this strange belief was wrought in the Christian Church , nor finding any beginning of it in any Ecclesiastical History of any one Country ; and finding it also called so expresly over and over our Lords body , and whole Countrys understanding those sacred Texts in a proper sense , and not one Christian Province understanding them otherwise ; for all Berengarius his Arguments , drawn as he pretended from the impossibility of the thing , or from Scriptures by him interpreted after a new manner , the wont of all misbelievers , I conclude it is our Lords true body . 5. Let us consider impartially the testimony of the present Church in communion with the See of Rome , which averrs the Holy Eucharist to be our B. Saviours true body . Travel in your thoughts , all over Europe , Asia , Africa , and America , and view well the vast multitudes of Roman Catholicks in the present Age , and by the confession of our Adversaries in the ten last Ages . Take notice of their circumstances , of Learning , Study , Vertue , Meditation , Retiredness from all secular encumbrances , as to vast multitudes of them ; the prodigies of Sanctity , we profess to have appeared amongst us in several Ages , like the extraordinary Prophets of old amongst the Jews , to awaken drowsie souls : Our Bennets , Bernards , Cuthberts , Bedes , Dominicks , Francis's , Ignatius's , &c. The miracles we undoubtedly believe in every Century since the Apostles ; yea , in this very Age wrought amongst us . For which we have such Records , as you have no way to evade , but by saying they are forged , without any further proof then your own uncharitable surmise . Records of such wonders , so publick and notorious , as had they been false , the Ages wherein they are said to have been wrought , could not be ignorant of it , und consequently could not unanimously have told their Posterity such notorious Lyes , nor have recommended the Books to them , wherein they are recounted as true stories . Consider moreover how this numerous Congregation professes her self to be the Mistriss of Truth , the Light of the World , fitly for this end dispersed in all Countrys throughout all Ages , with indefatigable Industry scattering the rayes of the Gospel by her Missionants throughout the whole Earth , fearing no encounter , but challenging the whole world to dispute of what they will , and as long as they will , of the most strange Articles of her Faith. And then think if it could not stand with the providence of the all good God , to permit one single person , our Lord Jesus , for three or four years in one small Country , to Alarum the World with stupendious miracles and doctrins of Sanctity , unless he had been indeed a true Teacher : Consider I say , how it can stand with the providence of the same all good God , to permit a Congregation made up of so many thousands , for so many Ages , so universally spread over the Earth , accompanied with no less wonders , if any credit can be given to such human testimony as never yet fail'd concerning matters of Fact ; if all this while this Congregation teaches damnable Idolatry , and is the greatest Cheat that ever appear'd in the World , and yet that the Divine providence should work nothing like miracles or singular and over-topping Sanctity , in those who pretend to be raised up by him extraordinarily , to discover to the deceived World this grand Imposture . How can this stand with the Almightys desire , that the World should not mistake the true Religion ? In confirmation of what I have said above , I add these considerations . 1. Let but any one take the pains to look into modern or antient Writers of Ecclesiastical History ( which he may do in a little time , and without any great labor , by looking in the Index the word Eucharistia , or some such head ) and he shall find , that whensoever there has been any dispute concerning this mystery , some one or few opposed it , and all the rest of the Country stood up in defence of it , as of a doctrin they had immemorially been taught by their Ancestors . An evident conviction , that the antient Faith of that Country was , that indeed the Holy Eucharist was our B. Saviours body and blood , and the denial of this mystery was a Novelty . For example , let him consult Ecclesiastical Historiographers , what happen'd about the year one thousand and fifty , and he shall find that one Berengarius , Arch-deacon of the Church of Angiers oppugned this mystery , but not as a new doctrin then endeavored by some Bishop or other to be imposed upon the people , but as then generally believed ; a clear sign that his own Opinion was a new Error , and the common Faith of the Country was the antient Christian verity . Now let him in the whole History of the Catholick Church , Greek and Latin , find me but one instance in any one Christian Country , on the contrary , and I 'le yield him the cause . That is , any one Doctor , Bishop , or Priest , that about such a year of our Lord , in such a Country , began to Preach the mystery of the real presence , upon pretence of clear Scripture for it , or other Arguments , and that he was opposed by the whole Country , as a Teacher of a new strange doctrin they had never heard of before : or else that upon such a Doctors appearing they presently yielded to the force of his Reasons and Arguments , and relinquished their former antient Faith. Which notwithstanding certainly must have happen'd , not only in one , but in all Christian Countries , were the doctrin of the Real presence a new invention , and the denial of it the antient Christian Faith. Else how came all Christendom , according to the confession of our Adversaries for many Ages universally to believe it ? Now can any one imagin , that the belief of so strange a mystery , and which in practice makes all the Believers of it Idolaters , unless it be true ; could be introduced both into the Greek and Latin Church , without any opposition , or if it were opposed , that no one Writer in any one Country , should make mention who they were that opposed it , and how they lost their cause ? And this , though there have not wanted Writers of what has happen'd in the Christian Church , who have made mention of far lesser accidents , in any Age wherein this belief can be pretended to have been brought in ; nay , which have taken notice in several Ages and Countries , how certain deniers of this mystery have attempted the bringing in of their new doctrin , & by whom they were opposed , and how they were silenced . Read our own Chronicles about the year 1370. concerning John Wiclef , and see whether he was not opposed by all the Bishops and Priests of our English Church as a teacher of a doctrin contrary to what they had been taught by their Ancestors , when he began to teach our Lord's body was not in the Eucharist ? And then reflect with your self , if the doctrin of the Real presence was not taught our Nation , when we were first converted to Christianity , how comes it to pass that all our Chronicles should be silent , when or by whom we were taught this mysterious doctrin , and what assistance they had from the civil power , so unversally to impose upon our Country such a strange belief ; which in all reason require ; a far greater power to make it prevail then the contrary doctrin . And yet you see where the contrary doctrin is believed , it cost no small pains and force , and time to introduce it , nor has all this neither been able to make it Universal , in so much as in one Christian Province . Make the like Reflexion upon the City of Rome , and consider that in the Apostles daies they believed aright concerning this great mystery , and for some hundreds of years according to the concession of our Adversaries . Now this great and Cultivated City , has memorials of what has past in it , as we have of what has past in London , and yet they make no mention of any one that ever began since their first Conversion to Christianity , to teach this strange doctrin and worship of the holy Eucharist , but that they have immemorially from S. Peter believed and adored it , as the body of their Saviour and God. Nor indeed can it be imagin'd how they could ever possibly change their first Faith , having ever opposed all Teachers of Novelties , with that Answer of S. Stephen Pope to the Clergy of Africa , concerning Rebaptization ( never heeding all their seeming Reasons , or Texts of Scripture understood after a new manner , as S. Vincent Lirinensis observes ) Nihil novandum nisi quod traditum est : We must Innovate nothing , but stick to the doctrin delivered to us by out Ancestors . When think you should we in London be brought universally to believe the Real presence , if we were resolved for ever tenaciously to adhere to the doctrin taught us by our immediat Predecessors , notwithstanding whatsoever Argument should be brought against us from Reason or Scripture ? 2. Consider how our Adversaries would triumph over us , could they find but one City in the whole world , which should prosess to have believed immemorially , since their first Reception of the Christian Faith , as they do concerning the Holy Eucharist , and all their Cronicles were either silent , or positively testified as much , and we were not able positively to shew when they began their Faith , but should Answer : their Chronicles were corrupted , or antient Records lost , or by little and little they left off imperceptibly believing as they were first taught . But if to all this they could produce in several Ages , how such a Doctor upon pretence of cleer Scripture , endeavor'd to make them leave their antient Faith , but they still retained it , opposing to all his seeming strong Arguments , that thus they had been taught time out of mind by their Ancestors , from their first Conversion to Christian Religion , and to understand those Scriptures otherwise . But if to all this , they could produce in several Ages Recorded miracles in confirmation of their Faith , and we should have nothing to reply but that these miracles were feigned . Think if they would not return upon us , that such wild Answers open'd a way to Atheists to deny all the miracles of Moyses and our B. Saviour . And then consider impartially whether this be not our Case . 3. Consider though our Adversaries but very irrationally deny any miracles to have been wrought in our Church , yet they cannot deny but we have Records without number of notorious and most evident miracles , and such Records as in civil matters no body questions . Men , for example , of good judgment and honest repute attesting upon their Oaths , that upon such a day , such and such miraculous events happen'd , & they were eye-witnesses of them , &c. And then reflect how it can stand with the providence of God and his desire of mankinds worshipping him according to his will , to permit even such Records of miracles in a false Church . For certainly a sincere desirer to find out the Truth , must needs be strangely enclin'd to give credit to such Records , and which moreover he should find to be credited by persons of as good judgment and integrity as himself in all Christian Provinces in Communion with the See of Rome . And indeed such Records of false miracles would be as apt to deceive impartial judicious Enquirers , as even the sight of false miracles themselves . For why are we so assured our senses cannot deceive us ? Is it not because we never experienced them to fail us in due circumstances ? and also because if we should be necessitated by them to judge of things otherwise than they are , God Almighty , who has so made our senses , would be the cause of our mistake , which were to tell a real lye ? And did Tradition duely circumstantiated , ever yet fail ? And would not God Almighties providence in the government of man-kind be deficient , ( it being necessary for us to know certainly not only things that are present to us , which we do by our senses ; but also things that are distant from us both in place and time , which we can only know by the report of others ) if no assured certain credit could be given to the restimony of men , though never so many in number , and of never so good repute ? Especially when he obliges us to be of a Religion which was taught our Ancestors 1600. years before we were Born , and yet we can give no assured credit to History or immemorial testimonies of whole Countrys ? Moreover , we finding by the experience of the Age we live in , that though fabulous stories be told and printed too , yet we easily distingnish betwixt them and true Histories of the present times . For that true Histories gain an universal credit amongst persons of the best understanding , and the Historigraphers that write them , are commended to Posterity as faithful witnesses of Truth ; whereas fables and fictions , every one of ordinary capacity , looks upon them as such , nor do we give any other Recommendation of them to Posterity then as of fabulons Romances . This we experiencing in the present Age , persons of humility and solid judgment , deem the like to have happen'd in the daies of their Fore-fathers ; and consequently give another kind of credit to Stories , how strange so ever recounted by a S. Bernard , a venerable Bede , or a S. Bonaventure , then they do to the fictions of a Don Quixot , a Guy of Warwick , &c. And he that will consult what has happen'd in the World , will find mens eyes and other senses to have been as often mistaken , as he will find whole Towns and Countries to have confidently told a Lye to their Posterity , which they evidently knew to be a Lye. And this the Atheists of our days would do well to reflect on , when they so senselesly call in question the History of Moyses or Book of Exodus , concerning the wonders wrought by Almighty God in Aegypt . And Dr. N. N. too , must one day give a sad account for all his Drollery , as merry as he makes himself with the History of Lorretto , and other stories registred by persons of noted sanctity and integrity . And would he reflect a little on the difficulty of making whole Countrys believe a Lye , contrary to the evidence of their senses ; he would find it a greater miracle that the whole Territory of Lorretto should so immemorially believe so great a Lye , as he would make his Reader think they do , then the wonder it self he sacrilegiously scoffs at : To wit , the Translation of the House , in which our B. Lord was conceived by his Holy Mother at Nazareth , out of the Holy Land , first into Dalmatia , and then afterwards into Italy . Let the Dr. cause a house to be built in a Night , in S. James's Park , and then tell the Citizens of London , it was brought thither by Angels out of a forreign Country , and see if he can make them so universally to believe it , as they shall , no body contradicting , make their Posterity believe as much ; and I perswade my self he may with the same ease , bring such a House from Geneva or New-England in a Night , as make the numerous multitude believe such a notorious Lye. O England , England , dear Native Soyl , at length open thine Eyes , and acknowledge the illimited goodness of the divine Majesty to be such , that not contenting himself with giving us prodigies of sanctity for the first Planters of Christianity , and with confirming their sublime and holy doctrins with evident signs and wonders , he is ever now and then awakening the drowsie world with a S. Dominick , a S. Francis , or a S. Xauerius , and ceases not by undeniable miracles to confirm the languishing Faith of tepid Christians . The sight of present miracles strangely strengthens our Faith of wonders past and done long since . And believe it , 't is a next disposition to Antichristianism and Atheism , freely to give our selves the liberty to scoff at all miracles , though attested by never so grave Authors , except such as are recorded in the four Gospels : and to laugh at all lives of Christian Saints as ridiculous , but those of the twelve Apostles ; though to an impartial considerer , one Egg does not more resemble another , then do the persons we so freely deride , express the first followers of our dear Redeemer , in their holy and divine Conversations . 4. Consider the force of S. Austins Argument to prove the truth of Christianity . The world has actually submitted to Christianity , as to a Religion taught from Heaven . From whence the Saint argues thus . The world believed the high mysterious doctrins of Christianity , either upon miracles wrought by the first teachers of them , or without miracles . If upon miracles , then you who doubt have reason also to believe them . Or if the world submitted their Faith to believe such strange mysteries , without any miracles , this is the greatest miracle of all , that such vast multitudes , and innumerable of these , of ripe judgement and quick understanding , should believe such strange things upon the Authority of the Proposer without a miracle . Apply this to our present mystery . Two hundred years ago the whole Christian world believed the H. Eucharist to be our B. Saviours body , and adored it as such . Hereupon I argue . These vast multitudes , and many of them of great learning and judgement , began to believe this strange mystery , either for miracles wrought by the first Teachers of it , or without miracles . If upon miracles then you ought to believe it also : If without miracles , this is the greatest miracle of all that such vast multitudes , and these innumerable of them , well cultivated with learning , besides their natural ripeness of judgment , and sharpness of wit , should believe so strange a mystery , without any miracles wrought by those who first demanded their belief of it . Finally consider with your self how many millions there are who believe this mystery , and would sooner part with their life then their Faith of it , and these , if you have the least grain of humility , such , as you have reason to think them of as good Learning , Wit , and Judgment as your self : Add , as good Christians as your self , for either piety to God , or Charity to their indigent Neighbor , or mortification to themselves . Imagin you saw all these , as holy and as wise as your self in the several Christian Countrys of the whole world , all upon their knees , adoring a seeming Wafer-Cake , as their Creator and God ; Bishops , Priests , Doctors of Divinity in vast numbers , Kings and Princes , Men and Women of all degrees and condition . And can you now think , all these people to be in their wits , and not have some strong Reasons and Arguments which induce them to such a Faith and such a practice ? Had you and I been in the Stable of Bethlehem in the Night of our Lord's Nativity , and S. Joseph should have told us that the little Infant we saw there sucking his Mothers Breast , was the Maker of Heaven and Earth ; we should no doubt have found great difficulty to believe him . But should we have staied there a while , and have seen the Shepherds come in , and fall down upon their knees before him , by the admonition as they pretended of an Angel that had appeared to them , as they were keeping watch over their Flocks ; this doubtless would a little have enclined us to think , that at least there was something extraordinary in the new born Babe . But had we staied till the comeing of the three Kings , and seen them in like-manner fall down before him , making him rich presents upon the admonition , as they said , of a miraculous Star which had appeared to them in their own Country ; such circumstances as these , would sure have strangely urged us to the belief of that wonder of wonders . And to make use of a homebred example . Who would have taken our Gracious Soverain Charles the Second , for the King of Great Brittain , France , and Ireland , that should have seen him under the disguise of a Sheepherd , Sea-man , or other habit he was forced to assume , to secure his Royal Person ? But could you and I have peeped into this private Chamber , and seen his small Retinue all bare before him , and some one of them upon his knees presenting him with a cup of Beer or wine : should we not think you have begun to suspect : Surely this Person , however and for whatsoever reasons he may disguise himself , is of another quality then his outward garb represents him to be ? Nor do I less perswade my self , did you and I see the many thousands all over the world , as well of the Grecian as Roman Church , who upon their knees with an assured Faith , devoutly adore a Consecrated Wafer as their Creator and God , if we have any , respect to reason and man-kind , and do not imagin all the world to be Fools except our selves : Such a prospect as this , would make us suspect in the secret of our hearts : Surely under this disguise of a contemptible Wafer , there is veiled some hidden Majesty or other , who forces the highest adoration from such vast multitudes of all Nations , and many of them so sharp-witted , and of such solid judgements , and such impartial enquirers after Truth , and of so good and holy lives . Say then , and we have reason to say it heartily , and without the least scruple or doubt . 'T was the same out Gracious Soverain , who lay hid in a common Oak at White-Ladys , under the disguise of a Peasants weed , who sits now at Westminster in his Princely Throne invested in his Royal Robes . And 't is the same Christ Jesus our only Saviour and God , who under the humble disguise of common bread and wine , is immolated here below every day upon our Christian Altars , who in transcendent splendor and glory , sits at the right hand of his Eternal Father in the Heavens . Sir , I have done my part , the Almighty do the rest , and make you a happy Child of his holy Church . But Sir , I beseech you give me leave to add A Postscript to my Fellow Collegians . My dearest Companions , whom with my soul I wish the same happiness with my self , both in this Life and the other . I beseech you , before you be engaged in the world , and hindred from an industrious impartial enquiry after Truth , by the cares of a Family , and fears of wanting a competent subsistance , do your selves and your Country that right , as to consider with as little passion and prejudice as you can , these my scattered thoughts ; and do not rashly conclude against Transubstantiation until you have fully heard what its Affertors , as well as what its Deniers have to say for themselves . I was once as you are , and many suspicions of the truth of the Roman Catholick Faith came into my mind , but still I was hindred from examining of it , with this one thought : If I turn Papist , I must believe Transubstantiation , but I know that 's an impossibility , and this made me sit down contented with the Religion in which I was educated . But afterwards making it my business more in good earnest to save my soul , and setting my self impartially to examin what was the belief of the Primitive times concerning this mystery , and finding mostclear Testimonies for the Real presence in the most renowned . Primitive Christian Doctors , I was much amazed , having been always taught they were of a contrary Faith. I read the citations to a Clergy-man of my Acquaintance , I demand of him what he thought their belief was , who in those words expressed their Faith ? He told me , no doubt but they believed as the Church of Rome believes . I consult the Authors themselves , read the context before and after the said citations , I am still more and more convinced , S. Augustin , Chrysostom , Cyril , &c. believed as the Church of Rome now believes . Hereupon I resolve not to venture my soul upon a point of Philosophy , for example , whether God Almighty by all his Omnipotency can make a body be in two places at once or no ? I believe two mysteries already , both which puzzle and shock my reason as much as Transubstantiation , to wit , the B. Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God , why may not I believe a third as well ; especially when I have the same Arguments for one as the other : clear Scriptures , the immemorial belief of all Nations ever since the Apostle , &c. And indeed , if God Almighty will oblige me to believe what was taught sixteen hundred years before I was born , how should he expect I should come to the knowledge of this , but by such books as were written in those times , and near those times , and by the testimony of all Christian Countrys what has been immemorially believed by them ever since they were Christians ? Now if it be too long a journey to go over all Christendom , to ask of them , what is , and what alwaies has been their Paith as to Transubstantiation , and how they have always understood the holy Scriptures that speak of that mystery go but to the Royal Exchange in London , and there you may meet with persons , which at least have been in all or most Christian Countrys , and ask of them what the belief and practice of Christendom is , and you will find they all believe and adore the B. Sacrament , and have done so , as they say , immemorially ever since they were Christians , as Roman-Catholicks do in England ; or else if they do for so me numbers amongst them believe and practice otherwise , 't is only since such a time above , &c. And then reflect how by such an Argument you prove , as you think , efficaciously against an Antiscripturist , that the Books of the Old and New Testament are infallible , and you securely believe every particular Story in them , though never so strange ; in like manner the change of Saturday-Sabbath into Sunday , against the Sibbatarians ; and Fasting in Lent as Apostolical with Bishop Gunning against Non-Conformists . And indeed it is impossible such an universal effect should ever be without a proportionate universal cause . That so many several Christian Countrys should immemorially abstain from certain meats on Fridays every week , and in Lent every year , or adore a Consecrated piece of Bread as their Creator and God , unless they had been either first taught so to do by the first Planters of Christianity ; or by some Preachers since ; or had agreed so to do in some General Council by their representatives , is impossible . Should we ever think you , even in the single City of London , have fall'n by little and little to have shut up our shops , on the Anniversary of the death of our gracious Soverain Charles the First , unless we had been commanded so to do by some Universal Authority , Ecclesiastical or Civil ? Take notice , by this Argument is also proved all other points of Catholick practice , or Faith , as Purgatory , prayer for the Dead , &c. but especially such as nature has a difficulty to believe or do . That one man should kill himself is no wonder , but that all the Inhabitants of a populous City should kill themselves , would be such a wonder as never yet happen'd in Nature . Against all that has been said , I doubt not but you will be apt to reply . We acknowledge for divers Ages , our own and other Christian Countrys believed the holy Eucharist to be really and substantially our B. Saviours true body & blood , & adored it as such , but yet we cannot believe that either S. Peter and Paul at Rome , or S. Joseph of Arimathia in our own Country taught any such doctrin , but that imperceptibly by little and little the whole Christian world changed the Faith that was first planted by the Apostles , as particular men grow gray , and whole Countries change their Languages imperceptibly . For Answer to this Reply , let us not discourse in generals , but consider and devise with our selves how possibly such a thing might practically happen . For example , let us take the City of Rome into our consideration . It s confessed by all , that the Inhabitants of that Cultivated City , Priests and People universally do believe , and have for many generations believed , a Consecrated Wafer to be Jesus Christ , God and Man , veiled with the outward appearance or species of common Bread : Now we are to enquire , how they came to this strange Faith ? Say then ; Rome by little and little began to believe this mystery , first one and then another , till at length the whole City was of that belief . But how ? without a Teacher , and all in the same year , or in what length of time ? That one man , or some few in a populous City , should of themselves fall to the belief of such a strange mystery , contrary to what has been believed by their Ancestors , might be granted ; but that the whole City Learned and Unlearned , Priest and People , should so change their Faith , and that for such a strange one too , without a Master or a Teacher , that 's wholly incredible : Or if some Bishop or Priest of Rome since the Apostles , had perswaded the people to believe the strange doctrin of Transubstantiation , how comes it to pass , seeing the belief of the doctrin is still retained , that the Authors name is not retained with singular honor and reverence by the believers of it , as the names of Calvin and Luther are by Calvinists and Lutherans ; and the names of the first Preachers of Christianity by the several Christian Countrys they converted ? Besides , whosoever Priest or Layman should have begun to preach such a strange and incredible doctrin to nature , must needs have met with great opposition from all sorts of persons ; from good men , because his doctrin tended to make them all gross Idolaters , and Worshippers of a piece of Bread as God ; from bad men , because his doctrin strangely shocked their sense and reason , which nature and vitious followers of nature would by no means endure . Now if opposition were made at the first introducing of this new Faith , how comes it to pass , all , both Roman and other Histories are silent as to any such thing ? Should I by way of Prophesie tell you , that the great City of London , within these 300. years , shall as universally , as does now the City of Rome believe and adore the Holy Eucharist as Jesus Christ himself , and this so imperceptibly , that neither they , nor neighbouring Citys or Countrys shall perceive it , till the whole City be quite changed : Nay 300. years hence , when they shall be charged with Idolatry and Innovation for such their belief and practice , they shall profess that they have always so believed and practised ever since they were Christians . And all this , though they shall for these 300. years have Priests and Bishops , whose Office it shall be to teach the quite contrary doctrin , and these Priests shall be such Zealous retainers of the doctrin they now believe , that when in the compass of this 300. years to come , there shall rise up Teachers of new Doctrins , deniers of the Divinity of our Saviour , and the eternity of the torments of impenitent Sinners , &c. and shall alledge strong human Reasons and seeming Scriptures for themselves , these Priests shall oppose , we must innovate nothing , we must stick to the belief our Ancestors were of in the year 1675. Then God Almighty testified from Heaven , by evident Miracles , the Truth of our Fore-elders Faith , and then we had charge not to change our Faith , though on Angel from Heaven should accuse us of mistake , and therefore you must pardon us if we adhere to this Faith. Add. There shall not want frequent Assemblies of the wisest and best Learned in the City , and they shall meet on purpose to enquire whether the faith and practice of the year 1675. be kept , and yet they shall never take notice of so gross and notorious a change , as the believing and adoring a piece of bread as God , till the whole City be in such a belief and practice , but other mistakes that some particular men were bringing in , they shall observe and correct . Nay 300. years hence , there shall rise up a certain Priest , who shall accuse all the Priests and people of the City for believing otherwise th●n their Ancestors did in 1675 , but yet shall not be able by vertue of any History or Oral Tradition , to shew how , or by whom they were perswaded to that strange Faith they shall then be of ; and yet there shall not want Historiographers neither , who shall take notice of other notorious changes that shall happen both in Church and State in those 300. years . Think now seriously with your selves , how impossible it is for any such thing to happen in nature , and examin impartially whether the deniers of Transubstantiation be not forced to affirm the like incredible wonder to have happen'd not in one City alone , but in many Cities and whole Countrys . But the wonder would be yet greater , if there were not one Believer of Transubstantiation in the year 1675. in the City of London , nor never had been one since the first planting of Christianity , neither there , nor in any other neighbouring City or Country : and yet all this must be solved by deniers of Transubstantiation to be Apostolical doctrin . For , place your self in what Age of Christianity you please , and suppose the known Cities and Countries of Christendom to believe universally concerning the holy Eucharist as the Citizens of London generally do now . Take for example the year 500. after our B. Lord ( though our Adversaries pretend to be willing to be judged by the Doctors of the first 600. ) Add to 500. a decursion of 300. or 500. years ; and then see what Faith the Christian world is of , and you 'l find they universally believe and adore the Holy Eucharist as Rome does at this present . Joyn now your selves with Berengarius in the year one thousand and fifty or thereabouts , and see what account you can give , how all your fellow Clergy and Laity came so to have changed and 〈…〉 from what it was in the fifth Century ? For you ●●●ll not think the several Councils gathered against that denier of the Real presence , the Bishops in them , then first began to believe the Real presence , and that when they returned to their several Diocesses they taught them a strange new doctrin , which they by inspiration had newly learnt when they were Assembled together ; but they only gave in their Verdicts what immemorially had been believed in their several Countrys they came from , as to that mystery . As if , for example , a Synod of all the Bishops in England should meet in the year 1675. to examin concerning the Quakers , whether they Preached false and Antichristian doctrin or no , in denying Baptism and all other Sacraments ; and they should conclude against those Innovators ; would you infer thence , the Church of England only in the year 1675. and never before , reverenced Baptism or any other Sacrament of Christ ? And yet this is just our case , when our Adversaries will have the belief and adoration of the B. Sacrament to have not been heard of before the Councils that condemned Berengarius . As to your instances of a man growing gray , and whole Countrys imperceptibly changing their language ; is it possible think you for any mans whole head by little and little to grow gray , and neither he nor any other should take notice of it , till he were as white as Snow , and this , though he and others were charged to take notice of every hair that should grow gray , and to pluck it out immediatly , and he and others should frequently consult whether any such change were made in his head or no ? Say the same concerning a whole Countrys changing their Language by little and little . Impose a severe penalty against any one that in writing or speech should introduce a new word , and appoint Officers to take notice of all such new coyned words , and let these Officers have frequent consults to this purpose . Add a menace of death both to Overseers and people , if any such alteration through their neglect of their duty should happen . And then think how it could be possible for a whole Country by little and little imperceptibly to change its Language ? The like change and menace gave Jesus Christ to the Pastors of his Church not to change their Faith. And yet after all this can not one Country , but the whole Christian world have so changed their Faith , as they became imperceptibly most stupid Idolaters ? To conclude , if you examin the matter well , you will find , you must either resolve to believe the strange doctrin of Transubstantiation , or else something far more incredible . Soli Christo Gloria .