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ANSVVER. [ A]
That Accidents may subsist, and haue their naturall force and operation, without a subiect of support or inhaerencie, im∣plies a contradiction; for it is of the being and definition of Accidents to be in another a, or to be in their subiect: And none of the Examples taken from a Kernell, Ashes, Iron in the belly of an Ostridge, the barke of a tree, &c. are ad idem, for these are not Accidents without a substance, but reall bodies, hauing by nature a proportion and propension to produce [ B] their owne effects, either as seminall causes, or true materials, conuerted by heate, fire, and art; or things putrescent, for∣med, and animated by the heate of the Sunne, and other se∣cret and naturall causes: That an Akorne should become an Oake, is wonderfull, as the workes of God are: yet it is as na∣turall, as that a Lyon begets a Lyon, nay, as that the Sunne or fire shineth. That of ashes is made glasse, what is it, but that a transparent bodie is made of a bodie not transparent: so, Yee of Snow, &c. And concerning Stones, Iron, &c. I doe not thinke that these feed or nourish Doues, Hawkes, Struthioca∣meles, &c. but onely coole or cleanse them: and this I count [ C] not impossible in nature, that vegetatiue heate should in short time dissolue stones. The Barnacles are generatio ex putri, as are Mice, Frogs, and Serpents: but what is this to accidents nourishing without matter and substance.
Now for all the former, wee know the truth and certaintie by naturall reason, and by experience of our sences: but there is no naturall or supernaturall rule or Law, no manifest demon∣stration either to sence or reason, no reuelation of Faith, that the abstracted formes of bread and wine subsist without a sub∣iect, [ D] and haue power to nourish, and may bee tasted and felt, and also putrifie: but Romists presumptuously forme these Chimera's and Idols in the forge of their owne deceiued brest, and they deserue to bee fed onely with accidents (like Birds that pecked at the painted grapes b) which thinke to feed any intelligent Reader with such improper and extrauagant ac∣cidents.