produced before;- not by natural mutation, for Christ himself is wholly immutable, and though the bread be mutable, it can never become Christ. That which is now, and was always, begins to be; and yet it cannot begin, which was so long before. And by this doctrine is affirmed that, which even themselves judge to be simply and absolutely impossible. For if, after a thing hath his being, and during the first being, it shall have every day many new beginnings, without multiplying the beings, then the same thing is under two times at the same time; it is but a day old, and yet was six days ago, and six ages, and sixteen. The body of Christ obtains to be what it was not before, and yet it is wholly the same, without becoming what it was not. It obtains to be under the form of bread; and that which it is now and was not before, is neither perfective of his being, nor destructive, nor alterative, nor augmentative, nor diminutive, nor conservative. It is, as it were, a production, as it were a creation, as a conservation, as an adduction; that is, it is, as it were, just nothing; for it is not a creation, not a generation, not an adduction, not a conservation. It is not a conversion productive; for no new individual is produced. It is not a conversion conservative; that is a child of Bellarmine's: but it is perfect nonsense; for it is, as he says, a conversion, in which both the terms remain, in the same place; that is, in which there are two things not converted, but not one that is: but it is a thing, of which there never was any example. But then if we ask what conversion it is? after a great many fancies and devices, contradicting each other, at last it is found to be adductive,' and yet that adductive' does not change the place, but signifies a substantial change; and yet adduction is no substantial change, but accidental; and yet this change is not accidental, but adductive and substantial. "O rem ridiculam, Cato, et jocosam!" It is a succession, not a conversion and transubstantiation; for it is Corpus ex pane confectum,' a body made of bread;' and yet it was made before the bread was made: but it is made of it as day of night,' not ' tanquam tanquam ex termino,' not as of matter, but as of a term1,' from whence, say they, but that is, a direct

ex materiâ,' but

Bellarm, de Missa, lib. i. c. 27. Sect. 3. Propositio. Lib. iii. de Euch. cap. ult. sect. ad tertiam. Scotus 4. dist. 11. q. 3.

motion or succession, not a substantial change. For that I I may use the words of Faventinus ; "What is the formal term of this action of transubstantiation, or conversion? Not the body of Christ; for that is the material term:" the formal term is, that Christ's body should be contained under the species of bread and wine: " Hoc autem totum est accidentale, et nihil addit in re nisi præsentiam realem sub speciebus:" "But all this is accidental, and nothing real, but that he becomes present there." For since the body of Christ relates to the accidents only accidentally, it cannot, in respect of them, have any substantial manner of being, different from that which it had before it was eucharistical. And it is no otherwise, than if water on the ground were annihilated, or removed, or corrupted, and some secret way changed from thence, and, in the place of it, snow should descend from heaven, or honey, or manna, it were hard to call this conversion, or transubstantiation: just as if we should say, that Augustus Cæsar was converted into his successor, Tiberius, and Moses into Joshua, and Elias into Elisha, or the sentinel is substantially changed into him that relieves him.

38. Twelfthly: Lastly, if we consider the changes, that are incident to the accidents of bread and wine, they would afford us another heap of incommodities: for besides that accidents cannot subsist without their proper subjects, and much less can they become the subjects of other accidents', for what they cannot be to themselves, they cannot be to others, in matters of supply and subsistence; it being a contradiction to say, insubsistent subsistencies:- besides this, I say, if Christ's body be not invested with these accidents, how do they represent it, or to what purpose do they remain? If they be the investiture of Christ's body, then the body is changed, by the mutation of the accidents. But however, I would fain know, whether an accident can be sour or be burnt, as Hesychius m affirms they used in Jerusalem to do the reliques of the holy sacrament; or can accidents make a man drunk, as Aquinas supposes the sacra

* Faven. in 4 disp. 35. c. 6.

1 Τὸ γὰρ συμβεβηκὸς οὐ συμβεβηκότι συμβεβηκὸς, εἰ μὴ ὅτι ἄμφω συμβέβηκε ταυτῷ. - Metaph. lib. iv. c. 4. 1.

In Lev. c. 1.

6

mental wine did the Corinthians, of whom St. Paul says, "One is hungry, and another is drunken?" I am sure if it can, it is not the blood of Christ; for Mr. Bland's argument, in queen Mary's time, concluded well in this instance. That which is in the chalice, can make a man drunk; but Christ's blood cannot make a man drunk: therefore, that which is in the chalice, is not Christ's blood. To avoid this, they must answer to the major, and say that it does not supponere universaliter;' for every thing in the chalice does not make a man drunk,— for in it there are accidents of bread, and the body besides, and they do inebriate, not this; that is, a man may be drunk with colour", and quantity, and a smell, when there is nothing that smells; for indeed if there were a substance to be smelt, it might; but that accidents can do it alone, is not to be supposed; unless God should work a miracle to make a man drunk, which to say, I think, were blasphemy. But again, can an accidental form' kill a man? But the young emperor of the house of Luxemburgh was poisoned by a consecrated wafer, and pope Victor III. had like to have been, and the archbishop of York was poisoned by the chalice, say Mathew Paris and Malmsbury. And if the body be accidentally moved at the motion of accidents P, then, by the same reason, it may accidentally become mouldy, or sour, or poisonous; which, methinks, to all Christian ears, should strike horror to hear it spoken. I will not heap up more instances of the same kind of absurdities, and horrid consequences of this doctrine; or consider how a man or a mouse can live upon the consecrated wafers; (as Aimonius tells that Lewis the Fair did, for forty days together, live upon the sacrament; and a Jew, or a Turk, could live on it without a miracle, if he had enough of it), and yet cannot live upon accidents; it being a certain rule in philosophy, "Ex iisdem nutriuntur mixta ex quibus fiunt ;" and a man may as well be made of accidents, and be no substance, as well as be nourished by accidents without substance: neither will I inquire,

Η ψόφος δὲ καὶ χρῶμα καὶ ὀσμὴ οὐ τρέφει, οὐδὲ ποιεῖ οὔτε αὔξησιν, οὔτε φθίσιν, Arist. De Anim. lib. iii. c. 12.

• Est enim hic color et sapor, qualitas et quantitas, cùm nihil in alterutro sit coloratum, et sapidum, quantum et quale. Innocent. 3. de Offic. Missæ, lib. iii. c. 21.

P Bellar. lib. iii. c. 10. de Ench. Sect. Respondeo corpus.

how it is possible, that we should eat Christ's body without touching it; or how we can be said to touch Christ's body, when we only touch and taste the accidents of bread; or, lastly, how we can touch the accidents of bread, without the substance, so to do being impossible in nature:

Tangere enim aut tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest res,

said Lucretius, and from him Tertullian, in his fifth chapter of his book De Animâ.' These, and divers other particulars, I will not insist upon: but instead of them, I argue thus from their own grounds; if Christ be properly said to be touched, and to be eaten, because the accidents are so,then, by the same reason, he may be properly made hot, or cold, or mouldy, or dry, or wet, or venemous, by the proportionable mutation of accidents: if Christ be not properly taken and manducated, to what purpose is he properly there? so that on either hand there is a snare. But it is time to be weary of all this, and inquire after the doctrine of the church, in this great question; for thither at last, with some seeming confidence, they do appeal. Thither, therefore, we will follow.

SECTION XII.

Transubstantiation was not the Doctrine of the primitive Church.

CONCERNING this topic or head of argument, I have some things to premise.

1. First: In this question, it is not necessary, that I bring a catalogue of all the ancient writers. For, although to prove the doctrine of transubstantiation to be catholic, it is necessary, by Vincentius Lirinensis's rules, and by the thing, that they should all agree; yet to show it not to have been the established, resolved doctrine of the primitive church, this angíßua is not necessary. Because although no argument can prove it catholic, but a consent; yet if some, as learned, as holy, as orthodox, do dissent, it is enough to

Eichstadt, lib. i. 305. p. 15.

prove it not to be catholic. As a proposition is not universal, if there be one, or three, or ten exceptions; but to make it universal, it must be narà avròs, it must take in all.

2. Secondly: None of the fathers speak words exclusive of our way, because our way contains a spiritual sense; which, to be true, our adversaries deny not, but say, it is not sufficient, but there ought to be more. But their words do often exclude the way of the church of Rome, and are not so capable of an answer for them.

3. Thirdly When the saying of a father is brought, out of which his sense is to be drawn by argument and discourse, by two or three remote uneasy consequences; I do not think it fit to take notice of those words, either for or against us : because then his meaning is as obscure as the article itself, and, therefore, he is not fit to be brought in interpretation of it. And the same also is the case, when the words are brought by both sides; for then it is a shrewd sign, the doctor is not well to be understood, or that he is not fit, in those words, to be an umpire; and of this cardinal Perron is a great example, who spends a volume in folio, to prove St. Austin to be of their side in this article, or rather, not to be against them.

4. Fourthly: All those testimonies of fathers, which are as general, indefinite, and unexpounded, as the words of Scripture which are in question, must, in this question, pass for nothing; and, therefore, when the fathers say, that in the sacrament is the body and blood of Christ,'— that' there is the body of our Lord,'-that before consecration it is aròs äptos, mere bread,' but after consecration it is 'verily the body of Christ, truly his flesh, truly his blood,'- these and the like sayings are no more than the words of Christ, "This is my body;" and are only true in the same sense, of which I have all this while been giving an account: that is, by a change of condition, of sanctification, and usage: We believe that after consecration and blessing, it is really Christ's body, which is verily and indeed taken of the faithful in the Lord's supper;'-and upon this account, we shall find that many, very many of the authorities of the fathers, commonly alleged by the Roman doctors in this question, will come to nothing. For we speak their sense, and in their own words,-the church of England expressing