A brief reply to a late answer to Dr. Henry More his Antidote against idolatry Shewing that there is nothing in the said answer that does any ways weaken his proofs of idolatry against the Church of Rome, and therefore all are bound to take heed how they enter into, or continue in the communion of that church as they tender their own salvation.

CHAP. III.

That the Romanists worship the Host with the highest kind of •• orship, even that of Latria, according to the Injuncti∣on of the Council of Trent; and that it is most gros•• Idolatry so to do.

I. AND having thus clearly and distinctly evinced and declared what is or ought to be held Idolatry amongst Christians; let us at length take morefull notice of some Particulars wherein, according to these De∣terminations, the Church of Rome will be manifestly found guilty of Idolatry, and that according to the very Definitions of their own Council of Trent. As first, in the Point of the Adoration of the Host, touching which the very words of the Council are, Latriae cultum, qui vero Deo debetur,* 1.1 huic sanctissimo Sacramento in veneratione esse adhibendum: and again, Si∣quis dixerit,* 1.2 in sancto Euc••aristiae Sacramento Christum non esse cultu Latriae etiam externo, adorandum, & solenniter circumgestandum po∣pulóque proponendum publicè ut adoretur, Anathema sit.

2. This confident Injunction of gross Idolatry, as it is certainly such, is built upon their confidence of the truth of their Doctrine of Transubstantiation. For the Chapter of the Adoration of the Host succeeds that of Transubstantiation, as a natural, or rather necessary, In∣ference, therefrom. Null•••• itaque dubitand•• locus relin∣qui••ur, &c. That is to say, The Doctrine of Transub∣stantiation being established, there is no Scruple left touching the Adoration of the Host, or giving Divine Worship to the Sacrament (or Christ, as it is there cal∣led,)

when it is carried about, and exposed publickly in Processions to the view of the people.

But the Doctrine of Transubstantiation being false, it must needs follow, that the giving of Divine Worship to the Host is as gross a piece of Idolatry as ever was commit∣ted by any of the Heathens. For then their Divine Wor∣ship, even their Cultus Latriae, which is onely due to the onely-true God, is exhibited to a meer Creature, and that a very sorry one too; and therefore must be gross Idolatry, by the twenty-first and twenty-second Conclusi∣ons of the second Chapter.

3. But now, that their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false, after we have proposed it in the very words of the Council, we shall evince by undeniable Demonstrati∣on. Per consecrationem Panis & Vini conversio∣nem fieritotius substantiae Panis in substantiam Cor∣poris Christi,* 1.3 & totius substantiae Vini in substan∣tiam Sanguinis ejus;* 1.4 quae conversio convenienter & propriè à Sancta Catholica Ecclesia Transubstantiatio est appellata.* 1.5 And a little before, cap 3. Si quis ne∣gaverit in venerabili Sacramento Eucharistiae sub unaquaque specie,* 1.6 & sub singulis cujusque speci••i partibus,* 1.7 separatione factâ, totum Christum contineri, Ane∣thema sit. In which passages it is plainly affirmed, that not onely the Bread is turned into the whole Body of Christ, and the Wine into his Bloud, but that each of them are turned into the whole Body of Christ, and every part of each, as often as division or sepa••ation is made, is also turned into his whole Body. Which is such a contra∣dictious Figment, that there is nothing so repugnant to the Faculties of the humane Soul.

4. For thus the Body of Christ will be in God knows how many thousand places at once, and how many thou∣sand miles distant one from another. Whenas Amp••itruo rightly expostulates with hi•• Servant Sosia, and rates him for a Mad-man or Impostour, that he would go about

to make him believe that he was at home, though but a little way off, while yet he was with him at that distance from home. Quo id (malúm!) pacto p••test fi••ri nunc ntí 〈◊〉〈◊〉 hícsis, •• domi? And a little before, in the same Col∣loquie with his Servant, Nemo unquam ••omo vidit, saith he, nec potest fieri, tempore uno homo idem d••obus locis ut simul sit. Wherein Amphitruo speaks but according to the common sense and apprehension of all men, even of the meanest Idiots.

5. But now let us examine it according to the Prin∣ciples of the learned, and of all their Arts and Sciences, Physicks, Metaphysicks, Mathematicks and Logick. It is a Principle in Physicks, That that internal space that a Body occupies at one time is equal to the Body that occupies it. Now let us suppose one and the same body occupy two such internal places or spaces at once; This Body is therefore equal o those two spaces, which are double to one si gle space; wherefore the body is double to that body in one single space, and therefore one and the same body double to it self. Which is an en∣ormous Contradiction.

Again, in Metaphysicks; The body of Christ is ac∣knowledged one, and that as much as any one body else in the world. Now the Metaphysical Notion of one is, to be indivisum à••se, (both quoad partes and quoad totum,) as well as divisum à quolibet alio. But the Body of Christ being both in Heaven, and without any continuance of that body, here upon Earth al••o, the whole body is di∣vided from the whole body, and therefore is entire∣ly both unum and multa: which is a perfect Contra∣diction.

6, Thirdly, in Mat••ematicks; The Council saying that in the separation of the parts of the Species, (that which bears the outward show of Bread or Wine,) that from this Division there is a parting of the whole, divided into so many entire Bodies of Christ, the Body

of Christ being always at the same time equal•• to it self, it follows, that a part of the Division is equal to the whole, against that common Notion in Euclide, That the Whole is bigger then the Part.

And, lastly, in Logick it is a Maxime, That the Parts agree indeed with the Whole, but disagree one with a∣nother. But in the abovesaid Division of the Host or Sacrament the Parts do so well agree, that they are en∣tirely the very same individual thing. And whereas any Division, whether Logical or Physical, is the Division of some one into many; this is but the Division of one into one and it self, like him that for brevity ••ake divided his Text into one Part.

To all which you may add, that, unless we will ad∣mit of two Sosia's and two Amphitruo's in that sense that the mirth is made with it in Plautus his Comedy, nei∣ther the Bread nor the Wine can be transubstantiated in∣to the intire Body of Christ. For this implies that the same thing is, and is not, at the same time. For that indi∣vidual thing that c••n be, and is to be made of any thing, is not. Now the individual Body of Christ is to be made of the Wafer consecrated, for it is turned into his individual Body. But his individual Body was before this Consecra∣tion. ••herefore it was, and it was not, at the same time. Which is against that fundamenta•• Principle in Logick and Metaphysicks, That both parts of a Contradiction cannot betrue; or, That the same thing cannot both be, and not be, at once.

Thus fully and intirely contradictious and repugnant to all Sense and Reason, to all indubitable Principles of all Art and Science, is this Figment of Transubstantiati∣on; and therefore most certainly false. Read the ten first Conclusions of the brief Discourse of the true Grounds of Faith, added to the Divine Dialogues.

7. And from Scripture it has not the least support. All is, Hoc est, corpus meum, When Christ held the Bread

in his hand, and after put part into his* 1.8 own mouth, (as well as distributed it to •• his Disci∣ples:) in doing whereof he swallow'd his whole Body down his throat at once, according to the Doctrine of this Council, or at least might have done so, if he would. And so all the Body of Christ, Flesh, Bones, Mouth, Teeth, Hair, Head, Heels, Thighs, Arms, Should∣ers, Belly, Back, and all, went through his Mouth into his Stomach; and thus all were in his Stomach, though all his Body intirely, his Stomach excepted, was still without it. Which let any one judge whether it be more likely, then that this saying of Christ, This is my Rody, is to be understood figuratively; the using the Verb substantive in this sense being not unusual in Scripture; as in,* 1.9 I am the Vine; The seven lean Kine are the seven years of Famine; and the like: and more particularly, since our Saviour, speak∣ing elsewhere of eating his flesh and drinking his bloud, says plainly, (Ioh. 6. 63.) that the words he sp ke, they were spirit, and they were truth, that is to say, a spiritual or aenigmatical truth, not carnally and literally to be under∣stood.

And for the trusting of the judgement of the Roman Church herein, that makes it self so sacrosanct and infal∣lible, the Pride, Worldliness, Policy and multifarious Impostures of that Church, so often and so shamelesly repeated and practised, must needs make their Authority seem nothing in a Point that is so much for their own In∣terest, especially set against the undeniable Principles of common Sense and Reason, and of all the Arts and Scien∣ces God has illuminated the Mind of man withall. Con∣sider the twelfth Conclusion of the abovenamed Treatise, together with the otherten before cited. Wherefore any one that is not a meer Bigott may be as assured that Transubstantiation is a meer Figment or enormous

Falsehood, as of any thing else in the whole world.

8. From whence it will unavoidabl•• follow and them∣selves cannot deny it, that they are most gross and palpable Idolaters, and consequently most barbarous Murt••••rers, in killing the innocent Servants of God for not sub••it∣ting to the same Idolatries with themselves. Costerus the Iesui••e speaks expresly to this Point, (and conson••ntly, I think, to the Suppositions of the Council) viz. That if their Church be mistaken in the Doctrine of T••ansubst••n∣tiation, they ipso facto stand guilty of such a piece of Idolatry as never was before seen or known of in the world.

For the errours of those, saith he, were more to••rable who w••rship some golden or si••ver Statue,* 1.10 or some Image of any other Materials, for their God, as the Heathen worshipped their Gods; or ar••d Cloth hung upon the top of a Spear, as is reported of the Laplanders; or some live Animal, as of old the Aegyptians did; then of these that ••orship a bit of Bre••d, as hitherto the Christians have done all over the w••r•• for so many hundred years, if the Doctrine of: ransubstantiation be not true.

What can be a more full and express ackno••ledgement of the gross Idolatry of the Church of Rome then this, if Transubstantiation prove an Errour? Then which not∣withstanding there is nothing in the world more certain to all the Faculties of a man; as is manifest out of what has been here said. And therefore the Romanists must be gross Idolaters, from the second, third, fourth, seventh and ninth Conclusions of the first Chapter, and from the fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth, twenty fi••st, twenty∣second and twenty fifth of the second Chapter. All these Conclusions will give evidence against them, that they are very notorious Idolaters.

9. And therefore this being so high and so palpable a strain of Idolatry in them touching the Eucharist, or the

eating the Body and drinking the Bloud of Christ, wherein Christ is offered by the Priest as an Oblation, and the People feed upon him as in a Feast upon a Sacrifice, which is not done without Divine Adoration done to the Host, according to the precept of their Church; This does hugely confirm our sense of the eating of things offered unto Idols in the Epistles to the Churches in Pergamus and in Thyatira, this worshipping of the Host being so expresly acknowledged by the Pope and his Cler∣gy, and in that high sense of Cultus Latriae, which is due to God alone. And therefore it is very choicely and ju∣diciously perstringed by the Spirit of Prophecy above any other Modes of their Idolatry, it being such a gross and confessed Specimen thereof, and such as there is no Eva∣sion for or Excuse.

Hoc teneas vultus muianiem Protea nodo.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Concil. Trident.
• * 1.2

  Self. 3. cap. 5.
• * 1.3

  Concil.
• * 1.4

  Trident.
• * 1.5

  Sess. 3. cap. 4.
• * 1.6

  cap. 3.
• * 1.7

  can. ••.
• * 1.8

  See Paul. Fag, upon Deut. 8 10.
• * 1.9

  John 15▪ 5. Gen. 41. 27.
• * 1.10

  Francise. Cosler. Enchirid▪ Controv▪ cap. 12.