of Christ's humanity to the will of his divinity: and this is true in every thing, which is not declared minutely, and in his particular sense. There is ordinarily no greater argument in the world, and none better is commonly used, nor any better required, than to reduce the opinion to an impossibility; for if this be not true without a miracle, you must prove your extraordinary, and demonstrate your miracle; which will be found to be a new impossibility. A sense, that cannot be true without a miracle to make it so, it is a miracle if it be true; and, therefore, let the literal sense in any place be presumed, and have the advantage of the first offer or presumption; yet if it be ordinarily impossible to be so, and without a miracle cannot be so, and the miracle no where affirmed, then to affirm the literal sense is the hugest folly that can be, in the interpretation of any Scriptures.

7. But there is an impossibility which is absolute, which God cannot do, therefore, because he is Almighty; for to do them were impotency, and want of power; as God cannot lie, he cannot be deceived, he cannot be mocked,—he cannot die, he cannot deny himself,-nor do unjustly :-And I remember, that Dionysius brings in (by way of scorn) Elymas, the sorcerer, finding fault with St. Paul for saying God could not deny himself; as if the saying so, were denying God's omnipotency; so Elymas objected; as is to be seen in the book de Divin. Nom. c. 8. And by the consent of all the world it is agreed upon this expression, That God cannot reconcile contradictions;' that is, it is no part of the Divine omnipotency to make the same proposition true and false, at the same time, in the same respect; it is absolutely impossible, that the same thing should be and not be, at the same time, that the same thing, so constituted in his own formality, should lose the formality or essential affirmative; and yet remain the same thing. For it is absolutely the first truth, that can be affirmed in metaphysical notices, Nothing can be, and not be.' This is it, in which all men and all sciences, and all religions are agreed upon, as a prime truth in all senses, and without distinctions. For if any thing could be, and not be, at the same time,-then there would be something whose being were not to be. Nay, Dominicus à Soto affirms expressly, that not only things only cannot be

Quæst. in Phys. lib. 3. q. 4.

done by God, which, intrinsically, formally, and expressly, infer two contradictories, but those also, which the understanding, at the first proposal, does, by his natural light, dissent from, and can by no means admit; because that which is so répugnant to the understanding, naturally does "suâ naturâ repugnare," " is impossible in the nature of things;" and therefore, when it is said in St. Luke, nothing is impossible with God,' it is meant; Nothing is impossible, but that which naturally repugns to the understanding.'

Now to apply this to the present question; our adversaries do not deny, but that in the doctrine of transubstantiation, there are a great many impossibilities, which are such naturally and ordinarily ; but, by Divine power, they can be done; but that they are done, they have no warrant, but the plain literal sense of the words of "Hoc est corpus meum." Now this is so far from proving, that God does work perpetual miracles to verify the sense of it, that the working of miracles ought to prove that to be the sense of it. Now the probation of a proposition by miracles is an open thing, clear as thunder; and being a matter of sense, and, consequently, more known than the thing which they intend to prove, ought not to be proved by that, which is the thing in question. And therefore to say, that God will work a miracle rather than his words should be false, is certain, but impertinent for concerning the words themselves there is no question, and therefore now no more need of miracles to confirm them; concerning the meaning of them is the question; they say this is the meaning.-Quest. How do you prove it, since there are so many impossibilities in it naturally and ordinarily? Answ. Because God said it, therefore it is true.-Resp. Yea, that God said the words we doubt not, but that his words are to be understood in your sense, that I doubt; because, if I believe your sense, I must admit many things ordinarily impossible. Answ. Yea, but nothing is impossible to God.-Resp. True; nothing that can be done, exceeds his power: but supposing this absolutely possible, yet how does it appear, that God will do a miracle to verify your sense, which, otherwise, cannot be true; when, without a miracle, the words may be true in many other senses? Jam dic, Posthume:' for it is hard, that men, by a continual effort and violence, should maintain a proposition

2

against reason and his unquestionable maxims, thinking it sufficient to oppose against it God's omnipotency; as if the cry out a miracle' were a sufficient guard against all absurdity in the world as if the wisdom of God did arm his power against his truth, and that it were a fineness of spirit to be able to believe the two parts of a contradiction, and all upon confidence of a miracle, which they cannot prove. And indeed it were something strange, that thousands and thousands of times, every day for above fifteen hundred years together, the same thing should be done, and yet this should be called a miracle, that is, a daily extraordinary: for by this time it would pass into nature and a rule, and so become a supernatural natural event, an extra regular rule, an extraordinary ordinary, a perpetual wonder, that is, a wonder and no wonder: and therefore I may infer the proper corollaries of this argument, in the words of Scotus', whose opinion it was pity it could be overborne by tyranny. 1.‘That the truth of the eucharist may be saved without transubstantiation' and this I have already proved. 2. The substance of bread, under the accidents, is more a nourishment than the accidents themselves; and, therefore, more represents Christ's body in the formality of spiritual nourishment.' And indeed, that I may add some weight to these words of Scotus, which are very true and very reasonable;-1. It cannot be told, why bread should be chosen for the symbol of the body, but because of his nourishing faculty, and that the accidents should nourish without substance, is like feeding a man with music, and quenching his thirst with a diagram. 2. It is fantastical and mathematical bread, not natural, which, by the doctrine of transubstantiation, is represented on the table, and, therefore, unfit to nourish or to typify that which can. 3. Painted bread might as well be symbolical as the real, if the real bread become no bread: for then that which remains, is nothing but the accidents, as colour and dimensions, &c. But Scotus proceeds. 3. That understanding of the words of institution, that substance of bread is not there, seems harder to be maintained, and to it more inconveniences are conséquent, than by putting the substance of bread to be there.' 4. Lastly, 'It is a wonder why, in

Sent. 4. dist. 11. q. 3. tit. b.

one article, which is not a principal article of faith, such a sense should be affirmed, for which faith is exposed to the contempt of all that follow reason: and all this is, because in transubstantiation there are many natural and ordinary impossibilities. "In hâc conversione sunt plura difficiliora quàm in creatione," said Aquinas; "There are more diffi→ culties in this conversion of the sacrament, than in the whole creation."

9. But then, because we are speaking concerning what may be done by God, it ought to be considered that it is rash and impudent to say, that the body of Christ cannot, by the power of God, who can do all things, be really in the sacrament, without the natural conversion of bread into him. "God can make, that the body of Christ should be 'de novo' in the sacrament of the altar, without any change of itself, and without the change of any thing into itself, yet some change being made about the bread, or something else." They are the words of Durand'. Cannot God in ány sense make this proposition true; This bread is the body of Christ,' or 'this is bread and Christ's body too?' If they say, he cannot, then it is a clear case, who it is that denies God's omnipotency. If God can, then how will they be able from the words of Scripture to prove transubstantiation? This also would be considered.

10. But now concerning impossibilities,—if it absolutely can be evinced, that this doctrine of transubstantiation does affirm contradictions, then it is not only an intolerable prejudice against the doctrine, as is the ordinary and natural impossibility; but it will be absolutely impossible to be true; and it derogates from God to affirm such a proposition in religion, and much more to adopt it into the body of faith. And, therefore, when St. Paul had quoted that place of Scripture; "He hath put all things under him;" he adds, "It is evident, that he is excepted, who did put all things under him;" for if this had not been so understood, then he should have been under himself, and he that gave the power, should be lessened, and be inferior to him that received it; which because they infer impossibilities, like those which are consequent to transubstantiation, St. Paul

3. q. 75. art. 2. ad. 3.

Sent. 4. dist. 11. q. 1.

makes no more of it but to say, The contrary is manifest,' against the unlimited literal sense of the words. Now for the eviction of this, these two mediums are to be taken. The one, that 'this doctrine affirms that of the essence, or existence of a thing, which is contrary to the essence or existence of it, and yet that the same thing remains; that is, that the essence remains without the essence, that is, without itself:'-The other, that this doctrine makes a thing to be and not to be, at the same time:' I shall use them both, but promiscuously, because they are reducible to one.

11. The doctrine of transubstantiation is against the nature and essence of a body. Bellarmine seems afraid of this; for immediately before, he goes about to prevaricate about the being of a body in many places at once;' he says, that if the essence of things were evidently and particularly known, then we might know what does, and what does not imply a contradiction; but, id non satis constat,' there is no certainty of that;' by that pretended uncertainty making way, as he hopes, to escape from all the pressure of contradictions, that lie upon the prodigious philosophy of this article: but we shall make a shift so far to understand the essence of a body, as to evince this doctrine to be full of contradictions.

12. First; For Christ's body, his natural body is changed into a spiritual body; and it is not now a natural body, but a spiritual; and, therefore, cannot be now in the sacrament after a natural manner, because it is so no where; and, therefore, not there; "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." And, therefore, though this spirituality be not a change of one substance into another, yet it is so a change of the same substance, that it hath lost all those accidents, which were not perfective nor constitutive, but imperfect and separable from the body; and, therefore, in no sense of nature can it be manducated. And here is the first contradiction. The body of Christ is the sacrament. The same body is in heaven. In heaven it cannot be broken naturally; in the sacrament, they say, it is broken naturally and properly; therefore, the same body is and is not, it can and it cannot be broken. To this they answer, that this is

m Lib. 3. Euch. c. 2. Sect. ult.