The body of Christ continues in this state, as long ART. as the accidents remain in theirs; but how it should alter XXVIII. is not easy to apprehend: the corruption of all other accidents arises from a change in the common substance, out of which new accidents do arise, while the old ones vanish; but accidents without a subject may seem more fixed and stable: yet they are not so, but are as subject to corruption as other accidents are: howsoever, as long as the alteration is not total; though the bread should be both musty and mouldy, and the wine both dead and sour, yet as long as the bread and wine are still so far preserved, or rather that their appearances subsist, so long the body of Christ remains: but when they are so far altered, that they seem to be no more bread and wine, and that they are corrupted either in part or in whole, Christ's body is withdrawn, either in part or in whole.

It is a great miracle to make the accidents of bread and wine subsist without a subject; yet the new accidents that arise upon these accidents, such as mouldiness or sourness, come on without a miracle, but they do not know how. When the main accidents are destroyed, then the presence of Christ ceases: and a new miracle must be supposed to produce new matter, for the filling up of that space which the substance of bread and wine did formerly fill; and which was all this while possessed by the accidents. So much of the matter of this Sacrament.

The form of it is in the words of consecration, which though they sound declarative as if the thing were already done; This is my body, and This is my blood; yet they believe them to be productive. But whereas the common notion of the form of a Sacrament is, that it sanctifies and applies the matter; here the former matter is so far from being consecrated by it, that it is annihilated, and new matter is not sanctified, but brought thither or produced: and whereas whensoever we say of any thing, this is, we suppose that the thing is, as we say it is, before we say it; yet here all the while that this is a saying till the last syllable is pronounced, it is not that which it is said to be, but in the minute in which the last syllable is uttered, then the change is made: and of this they are so firmly persuaded, that they do presently pay all that adoration to it, that they would pay to the person of Jesus Christ if he were visibly present: though the whole virtue of the consecration depends on the intention of a Priest: so that he with a cross intention hinders all this series of miracles, as he fetches it all on, by letting his intention go along with it. If it may be said of some doctrines, that the bare expos

ART. ing them is a most effectual confutation of them; certainly XXVIII. that is more applicable to this, than to any other that can be imagined: for though I have in stating it considered some of the most important difficulties, which are seen and confessed by the Schoolmen themselves, who have poised all these with much exactness and subtilty; yet I have passed over a great many more, with which those that deal in school-divinity will find enough to exercise both their thoughts and their patience. They run out in many subtilties, concerning the accidents both primary and secondary; concerning the ubication, the production and reproduction of bodies; concerning the penetrability of matter, and the organization of a penetrable body; concerning the way of the destruction of the species; concerning the words of consecration; concerning the water that is mixed with the wine, whether it is first changed by natural causes into wine; and since nothing but wine is transubstantiated, what becomes of such particles of water that are not turned into wine? What is the grace produced by the Sacrament, what is the effect of the presence of Christ so long as he is in the body of the communicant; what is got by his presence, and what is lost by his absence? In a word, let a man read the shortest body of school-divinity that he can find, and he will see in it a vast number of other difficulties in this matter, of which their own authors are aware, which I have quite passed over. For when this doctrine fell into the hands of nice and exact men, they were soon sensible of all the consequences that must needs follow upon it, and have pursued all these with a closeness far beyond any thing that is to be found among the writers of our side.

But that they might have a salvo for every difficulty, they framed a new model of philosophy; new theories were invented, of substances and accidents, of matter and of spirits, of extension, ubication, and impenetrability; and by the new definitions and maxims to which they accustomed men in the study of philosophy, they prepared them to swallow down all this more easily, when they should come to the study of divinity.

The infallibility of the Church that had expressly defined it, was to bear a great part of the burden: if the Church was infallible, and if they were that Church, then it could be no longer doubted of. In dark ages miracles and visions came in abundantly to support it: in ages of more light, the infinite power of God, the words of the institution, it being the testament of our Saviour then dying, and soon after confirmed with his blood, were things of

ART.

great pomp, and such as were apt to strike men that could not distinguish between the shews and the strength of XXVIII. arguments. But when all our senses, all our ideas of things rise up so strongly against every part of this chain of wonders, we ought at least to expect proofs suitable to the difficulty of believing such a flat contradiction to our reasons, as well as to our senses.

We have no other notion of accidents, but that they are the different shapes or modes of matter; and that they have no being distinct from the body in which they appear: we have no other notion of a body, but that it is an extended substance, made up of impenetrable parts, one without another; every one of which fills its proper space: we have no other notion of a body's being in a place, but that it fills it, and is so in it, as that it can be no where else at the same time: and though we can very easily apprehend that an infinite power can both create and annihilate beings at pleasure; yet we cannot apprehend that God does change the essences of things, and so make them to be contrary to that nature and sort of being of which he has made them.

Another argument against Transubstantiation is this; God has made us capable to know and serve him: and, in order to that, he has put some senses in us, which are the conveyances of many subtile motions to our brains, that give us apprehensions of the objects, which by those motions are represented to us.

When those motions are lively, and the object is in a due distance; when we feel that neither our organs nor our faculties are under any disorder, and when the impression is clear and strong, we are determined by it; we cannot help being so. When we see the sun risen, and all is bright about us, it is not possible for us to think that it is dark night; no authority can impose it on us; we are not so far the masters of our own thoughts, as to force ourselves to think it, though we would; for God has made us of such a nature, that we are determined by such an evidence, and cannot contradict it. When an object is at too great a distance, we may mistake; a weakness or an ill disposition in our sight may misrepresent it; and a false medium, water, a cloud, or a glass, may give it a tincture or cast, so that we may see cause to correct our first apprehensions, in some sensations: but when we have duly examined every thing, when we have corrected one sense by another, we grow at last to be so sure, by the constitution of that nature that God has given us, that we

Ff

ART. cannot doubt, much less believe in contradiction to the express evidence of our senses.

XXVIII.

It is by this evidence only that God convinces the world of the authority of those whom he sends to speak in his name; he gives them a power to work miracles, which is an appeal to the senses of mankind; and it is the highest appeal that can be made; for those who stood out against the conviction of Christ's miracles, l:ad no cloak for their sins. It is the utmost conviction that God offers, or that man can pretend to from all which we must infer this, that either our senses in their clearest apprehensions, or rather representations of things, must be infallible, or we must throw up all faith and certainty; since it is not possible for us to receive the evidence that is given us of any thing but by our senses; and since we do naturally acquiesce in that evidence, we must acknowledge that God has so made us, that this is his voice in us; because it is the voice of those faculties that he has put in us; and is the only way by which we can find out truth, and be led by it: and if our faculties fail us in any one thing, so that God should reveal to us any thing, that did plainly contradict our faculties, he should thereby give us a right to disbelieve them for ever.

If they can mistake when they bring any object to us with the fullest evidence that they can give, we can never depend upon them, nor be certain of any thing, because they shew it. Nay, we are not, and cannot be bound to believe that, nor any other revelation that God may make to convince us. We can only receive a revelation by hearing or reading, by our ears or our eyes. So if any part of this revelation destroys the certainty of the evidence, that our senses, our eyes, or our ears, give us, it destroys itself: for we cannot be bound to believe it upon the evidence of our senses, if this is a part of it, that our senses are not to be trusted. Nor will this matter be healed, by saying, that certainly we must believe God more than our senses: and therefore, if he has revealed any thing to us, that is contrary to their evidence, we must as to that particular believe God before our senses; but that as to all other things where we have not an express revelation to the contrary, we must still believe our

senses.

There is a difference to be made between that feeble evidence that our senses give us of remote objects, or those loose inferences that we may make from a slight view of things, and the full evidence that sense gives us; as when

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we see and smell to, we handle and taste the same object: ART. this is the voice of God to us; he has made us so that we are determined by it: and as we should not believe a prophet that wrought ever so many miracles, if he should contradict any part of that which God had already revealed; so we cannot be bound to believe a revelation contrary to our sense; because that were to believe God in contradiction to himself; which is impossible to be true. For we should believe that revelation certainly upon an evidence, which itself tells us is not certain; and this is a contradiction. We believe our senses upon this foundation, because we reckon there is an intrinsic certainty in their evidence; we do not believe them as we believe another man, upon a moral presumption of his truth and sincerity; but we believe them, because such is the nature of the union of our souls and bodies, which is the work of God, that upon the full impressions that are made upon the senses, the soul does necessarily produce, or rather feel those thoughts and sensations arise with a full evidence, that correspond to the motions of sensible objects, upon the organs of sense. The soul has a sagacity to examine these sensations, to correct one sense by another; but when she has used all the means she can, and the evidence is still clear, she is persuaded, and cannot help being so; she naturally takes all this to be true, because of the necessary connection that she feels between such sensations, and her assent to them. Now, if she should find that she could be mistaken in this, even though she should know this, by a divine revelation, all the intrinsic certainty of the evidence of sense, and that connection between those sensations and her assent to them, should be hereby dissolved.

To all this another objection may be made from the mysteries of the Christian religion: which contradict our reason, and yet we are bound to believe them; although reason is a faculty much superior to sense. But all this is a mistake; we cannot be bound to believe any thing that contradicts our reason; for the evidence of reason as well as that of sense is the voice of God to us. But as great difference is to be made between a feeble evidence that sense gives us of an object that is at a distance from us, or that appears to us through a false medium; such as a concave or a convex glass; and the full evidence of an object that is before us, and that is clearly apprehended by us: so there is a great difference to be made between our reasonings upon difficulties that we can neither understand nor resolve, and our reasonings upon clear principles. The one may be false, and the other must be true: we are