We

to call better than sacramental, that is, effected by eating; that while we eat and drink the consecrated bread and wine, we eat and drink therewithal the body and blood of Christ, not in a corporal manner, but some other way, incomprehensible, known only to God, which we call spiritual; for if, with St. Bernard and the fathers, a man goes no further, we do not find fault with a general explication of the manner, but with the presumption and self-conceitedness of those who boldly and curiously inquire what is a spiritual presence, as presuming that they can understand the manner of acting of God's Holy Spirit. contrariwise confess, with the fathers, that this manner of presence is unaccountable and past finding out, not to be searched and pried into by reason, but believed by faith. And if it seems impossible that the flesh of Christ should descend and come to be our food through so great a distance, we must remember how much the power of the Holy Spirit exceeds our sense and our apprehensions, and how absurd it would be to undertake to measure his immensity by our weakness and narrow capacity, and so make our faith to conceive and believe what our reason cannot comprehend.

4. Yet our faith doth not cause or make that presence, but apprehends it as most truly and really effected by the word of Christ; and the

faith whereby we are said to eat the flesh of Christ is not that only whereby we believe that He died for our sins (for this faith is required and supposed to precede the sacramental manducation), but more properly that whereby we believe those words of Christ, "This is My body;" which was St. Austin's meaning when he said, "Why dost thou prepare thy stomach and thy teeth? Believe, and thou hast eaten."* For in this mystical eating, by the wonderful power of the Holy Ghost, we do invisibly receive the substance of Christ's body and blood, as much as if we should eat and drink both visibly.

5. The result of all this is, that the body and blood of Christ are sacramentally united to the bread and wine, so that Christ is truly given to the faithful; and yet is not to be here considered with sense or worldly reason, but by faith, resting on the words of the Gospel. Now it is said, that the body and blood of Christ are joined to the bread and wine, because that in the celebration of the holy eucharist the flesh is given together with the bread, and the blood together with the wine. All that remains is, that we should with faith and humility admire this high and sacred mystery, which our tongue cannot sufficiently explain, nor our heart conceive.

Aug. super Joh. tract. 25 [§ 12. Ut quid paras dentes et ventrem? Crede, et manducasti.]

CHAPTER IV.

1. Of the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, which the Papists call transubstantiation. 2. Of God's omnipotency. 3. Of the accidents of the bread. 4. The sacramental union of the thing signified with the sign. 5. and 6. The question is stated negatively and affirmatively. 7. The definition of the Council of Trent. The bull of Pope Pius IV., and the form of the oath by him appointed. The decretal of Innocent III. The assertions of the Jesuits. 8. Transubstantiation a very monstrous thing.

1. It is an article of faith in the Church of Rome, that in the blessed eucharist the substance of the bread and wine is reduced to nothing, and that in its place succeeds the body and blood of Christ ; as we shall see more at large, § 6. and 7. The Protestants are much of another mind; and yet none of them denies altogether but that there is a conversion of the bread into the body (and consequently of the wine into the blood) of Christ; for they know and acknowledge that in the sacrament, by virtue of the words and blessing of Christ, the condition, use, and office of the bread is wholly changed; that is, of common and ordinary, it becomes our mystical and sacramental food; whereby, as they affirm and believe, the

true body of Christ is not only shadowed and figured, but also given indeed, and by worthy communicants truly received. Yet they believe not that the bread loseth its own to become the substance of the body of Christ; for the holy Scripture, and the ancient interpreters thereof for many ages, never taught such an essential change and conversion, as that the very substance, the matter and form of the bread, should be wholly taken away, but only a mysterious and sacramental one, whereby our ordinary is changed into mystic bread, and thereby designed and appointed to another use, end, and office, than before this change, whereby supernatural effects are wrought by things natural, while their essence is preserved entire, doth best agree with the grace and power of God.

2. There is no reason why we should dispute concerning God's omnipotency, whether it can do this or that, presuming to measure an infinite power by our poor ability, which is but weakness. We may grant that He is able to do beyond what we can think or apprehend, and resolve His most wonderful acts into His absolute will and power; but we may not charge Him with working contradictions. And though God's almightiness were able in this mystery to destroy the substance of bread and wine, and essentially to change it into the body and blood of Christ, while the accidents

of bread and wine subsist of themselves without a subject; yet we desire to have it proved that God will have it so, and that it is so indeed. For that God doth it, because He can, is no argument; and that He wills it, we have no other proof but the confident assertion of our adversaries. Tertullian

against Praxias declared, "that we should not conclude God doth things because He is able; but that we should inquire what He hath done.”* For God will never own that praise of His omnipotency whereby His unchangeableness and His truth are impaired, and those things overthrown and destroyed which in His word He affirms to be; for take away the bread and wine, and there remains no sacrament.

3. They that say, that the matter and form of the bread are wholly abolished, yet will have the accidents to remain. But if the substance of the bread be changed into the substance of Christ's body by virtue of His words, what hinders that the accidents of the bread are not also changed into the accidents of Christ's body? They that urge the express letter should shew that Christ said, This is the substance of My body without its accidents. But He did not say, that He gave

[* Non autem quia [Deus] omnia potest facere, ideoque credendum est, illum [hoc vel illud] fecisse, etiam quod non fecerit; sed an fecerit requirendum. p. 319. ed. De la Barre, 1582.]