CHAP. IX. From sense; securing all men from Popery that will believe their eyes, or any of their or others
CHAP. IX. From sense; securing all men from Popery that will believe their eyes, or any of their or others senses.
A rgum. 7. To the foregoing Arguments, I add the recital of one formerly mentioned, for the use of all that have the use of their wits and senses.
If a man may be sure, that he knows bread to be bread, and wine to be wine, when he seeth, feeleth, and tasteth them, then he may be sure that Popery is a deceit. (This Consequence they cannot question) But a man may be sure that he knoweth bread to be bread, and wine to be wine, when he seeth, feeleth, and tasteth them: therefore, &c.
Note that I speak of such a knowledge as belongs to men of sound wits and senses, and a convenient object and medium. It is the senses of the whole world that I appeal to, and not of one or two: it is bread and wine that are near us, in the hand or mouth that I speak of, and not at a miles distance: in the daylight, and not in the dark. So that take the bread and wine into your hand, and judge of it, and let this decide our Controversy. If you can tell whether that be bread or no bread, you may tell whether the Papists or we are in the right. Those therefore that be not learned and subtle enough to
judge by Disputations and writings of Learned men, may yet judge by their sight and feeling. Either you know bread and wine when you see it, taste it, feel it, or you do not. If you do, then the Controversy is at an end: for the senses of all sound men in the world, will be against the Papists that say the bread after Consecration is no bread, and the wine is no wine. But if you cannot know bread when you see, feel, and eat it, then see what follows. 1.
Then we are sure that the Pope and all his Council are not at all to be trusted: for if sense be not to be trusted, then the Pope and his Council know not when they read the Scripture, and Canons, and Fathers, and hear
Traditions, but that they are deceived. 2. Then we are uncertain of any Judgment that Pope or Council can give: for when they spoke or wrote it, we are uncertain whether our eyes and ears, or reason judging by them, are not deceived in the hearing or reading of their words. 3. How ridiculously then do they call for a Judge of Controversies? And what a foolish quarrel is it that they make, who shall be the Interpreter of Scriptures, or Judge of Controversies? For what can a Judge do but speak or write his mind? And when he hath done, you know not what it is that you hear or read, because your senses may deceive you. Its a far harder matter to understand a sentence or book of the Pope or Council when you read or hear it, then to know bread when you see, and feel, and eat it. Many thousands know bread, that know not the Popes sentence, nor a word of a book. 4. And by this rule, it is uncertain whether Scripture be true, or Christianity the true Religion.
For we cannot know it but by our senses: and if they are so uncertain, all our Religion must needs be uncertain. 5. Yea we cannot tell what Revelation to desire that should end our Controversies and make us certain. For if God should send an Angel or other Messenger from heaven to decide the Controversies between us and the Papists, what could he do more but speak
it to us as from God? And we should still be uncertain of what we see or hear: so that we are left uncurably in our ignorance and Controversies, if Popery be true.
And here you may see upon what terms we dispute with Papists, and what hope there is of satisfying them. We dispute with men that will not believe their own senses, or the senses of the world. The damned man, Luk. 16, thought if one might have been sent to his brethren from the dead, they would have believed. And if Abraham say to them, If they will not hear
Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead; we may say of Papists, sure, if they will not believe their own eyes, and ears, and taste, and know not bread when they see, and feel, and eat it, how should they be persuaded, though one were sent to them from heaven to resolve them? Can we think by all our Arguments to make any matter plainer to a man then that Bread is Bread, when he seeth and eateth it? If this be uncertain to them, what can you prove to them, or what way can you devise to deal with them? For indeed, if sense be uncertain, we have no certainty of anything in the world.
But to this H.T. (they say H. Turbervile) in his Manual of Controversies saith thus. [Answ. Substance is not the proper and immediate object of sense, but color, quantity, &c. Nor can sense judge at all of substance though it be under sensible accidents, unless it be the subject of those accidents, and have a sensible and corporal manner of being, which the Body of Christ neither is, nor hath in that Sacrament. It hath a spiritual manner of being, and is not the subject of the accidents of bread; they are without a subject by Miracle; therefore no wonder, if sense be deceived in this matter. Here Sense and Reason must veil bonnet to faith, and submit to
the Authority of God revealing, and the Church propounding; they are no competent Judges what God can do by his Omnipotence.] Thus H.T.
Repl. And is this all that these Rabbis have to satisfy the world that it is not Bread and Wine which is seen, and felt, and tasted! Let us first take notice of the by-passages of his answer, and then reply to the substance. 1.
Is not this like the rest of their contradictory imaginations? That Christ hath not a Corporal manner of Being in the Sacrament: and yet it is not Bread, but his Body that is there: yea before p. 207, he saith, [We maintain not his
Corporal, but real and spiritual presence in the Sacrament. So that either they affirm that his Body is present, and yet deny his Bodily presence; or else they affirm his Bodily presence, but not his Corporal presence. Most learnedly! We shall at last be taught to distinguish between Bodily and Corporal! But is not the Juggle in the word [Manner?] Perhaps the Corporal presence is not denied, but the Corporal manner. Answ. 1. Yes, in terms its said [We maintain not his Corporal presence] 2. And can a Body be present, and not in a Bodily manner? And why is [Spiritually] put as contra-distinct?
Sure when Paul said our Bodies shall be raised spiritual bodies, he thought that they were nevertheless bodies for being spiritual; and therefore it is nevertheless a Bodily manner of presence, for being a spiritual manner. But if by the Corporal presence or manner (denied) be meant nothing but the qualities and quantity by which it is fit to be the Object of our senses, why had we not this plainly without juggling? To say Christ is present in Body but not sensibly, is plainer English, then to say that he is present in Body but not Bodily present.
2. Note also that he calls them [The accidents of bread] and yet saith [they are without a subject] And so doth the Explanation of the Roman Catholic
Belief, and their ordinary writers say that the Body of Christ is under the
forms of Bread and Wine, and yet say that Bread and Wine are none of the subject of those forms.
3. Note also that he professeth Transubstantiation is a Miracle, and so every ignorant, drunken, adulterous Priest of theirs hath the gift of Miracles, which he worketh as oft as he consecrateth: No wonder if Miracles be the glory of their Church, and the proof of their Infallibility; But let us come to the substance of his Answer.
1. He tells you that substance is not the proper and immediate object of sense, but color, quantity, &c. But 1. Is not the Mediate Object [Proper] as well as the Immediate? 2. But what gather you hence? Be it a Proper or improper Object, I hope we may yet have leave to believe that Reason by the help of sense doth judge as infallibly of Substances as Accidents. If you think otherwise, then all the forementioned consequences are undeniable.
You know not whether the world saw Christ on earth: or whether he were crucified, dead, buried, rose, or ascended: It might be but color and quantity which men saw; and when Christ told them a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see me have, they might have answered, We see no flesh and blood, but color and quantity: And Thomas had then small reason to be convinced by seeing and feeling, when he saw but color and quantity, and felt but quantity and quality. By this reasoning the world is not sure that ever there was a Pope of Rome, but the Color of a Pope, or other accidents. And you know not that there is any earth under your feet, or that you are a man, or have a body, because your senses perceive but the accidents of it.
2. But what manner of men did H.T. imagine he had to deal with, when he puts off his Readers with such an answer as this? Mark Reader the unfaithful dealing of these men, and how grossly they abuse poor people that follow them with mere deceits. The Question or Objection which he
undertook to answer was, Whether sense telling us that it is Bread after the Consecration be deceived? To this he takes on him to give an answer, and cunningly speaks to another question, and passeth this by. Its one question,
Whether sense can infallibly discern Christ in the Sacrament, if he were there, or discern that he is not there? And another question Whether sense can infallibly discern Bread and Wine, and know whether they be there?
The last was the question in hand: but he slily answers to the first instead of it; and tells us, that sense cannot judge of substance, though under sensible accidents, unless it be the subject of those accidents, and have a sensible and corporal manner of being, which the body of Christ neither is nor hath in the Sacrament.] And so goes on. And what of all this? [therefore Christ may be in the Sacrament and you not discern him by sense] Well: and whats that to the question? O Sir, is it not the holy truth of God that you are about?
And should you thus abuse it, and the souls of men? You knew the question is, Whether sense (and the intellect thereby) be infallible in judging Bread to be Bread when we see, feel and eat it? Had you never a word to say to this? To persuade men that they have eyes and see not, and hands and feel not, or that the world knoweth not certainly what they seem to know by seeing and feeling? I pray you hereafter deal by us as fairly as Bellarmine did (and yet we will thank you for nothing) who quite gave away the Roman cause by granting and pleading [that sense is infallible in Positives: and therefore we may thence say, This is a Body because I see it; (and so this is Bread or wine because I see, feel and taste it) but not in Negatives: and therefore we cannot say, this is not a Body because I see it not] I pray you give over talking of the Pope, or Church, or Religion, or Men, if you are uncertain of substances which are (suppose but per accidentia) the
Objects of your sense. And take nothing ill that I write of you, till you are more certain that you see it, and know what you see.
3. But you will say [Sense and Reason must here veil bonnet to faith.
Answ. In the Negative case let it be granted, and any case where faith can be faith. But if sense (and the Intellect therewith) be fallible in Positives, so that we cannot know Bread when we see and eat it, faith cannot be faith then. What talk you of faith, if you credit not the soundest senses of all the men in the world, when sense and reason are presupposed to faith. How know you that faith here contradicteth sense? You will say, because the Church or Scripture saith: This is my Body: and that there is no Bread? But how know you that there is any such thing in Scripture? Or that the Church so holdeth? You think you have read or heard it: But how know you that your sense deceived you not? He that cannot know Bread when he seeth and eateth it, is unlikely to know letters and their meaning when he seeth them.
See more of my answer to such Objections in a Book entitled The Safe Religion, p. 241, to 248.
The simplest Reader that hath honesty and charity, is secured against Popery by the first Argument, which he may make good to his own soul against all the Jesuits on earth. And he that is unable to proceed on that account, may by the evidence of this last Argument confute any Papist living, if he be a man of sense and reason. And having brought all our controversy so low, that sense itself may be the judge, I shall go no further in Argument, as thinking it vain to use any reason with that man that will not believe his own eye-sight, nor the sight, and feeling, and taste of all the world besides.