fore. And so transubstantiation must lead a person to deny the Saviour.

9. Finally, this mystery of iniquity is replete with absurdities; for if there be such an essential change, the creature must then eat his God, consume him in his stomach, and cast him forth into the draught. Abominable! yea, more abominable than the practice of the ancient idolaters, condemned of old, "who made a God of part of the wood, by which they warmed themselves, baked bread, and roasted roast," in order to satisfy their appetite, and worshiped that God, Isaiah xliv. 14-20. The Popish God may be devoured by every kind of vermin, and may moulder in itself. Observe this contradiction, the priest saith, "This is my body," and yet the bread doth not become his body upon those words, when he nevertheless speaks of his own body, but it becomes the body of another, even of Christ. What a wonderful kind of philosophy have these men, when they must persuade themselves by transubstantiation, that substances, Christ, his flesh and blood can exist without forms, qualities, or accidents, flesh and blood without the colour, smell or taste of flesh and blood, that a human body of an ordinary stature and bulk, can exist and be contained in a small, and slender wafer! still more wonders, forms, qualities and accidents can exist without substances and essences, in which they inhere; the colour, smell and taste of bread and wine can exist, when there is no bread and wine; yea, one substance can have the forms, qualities and accidents of another substance, which hath not those of its own. The flesh and blood of Christ, which have not the colour, smell or taste of flesh and blood, have that of bread and wine. How do they extricate themselves here! They say, we must not hearken to reason, when we attend to the mysteries of faith, but must lead reason captive: but this is a matter in dispute, whether transubstantiation be a mystery; we deny it: the mysteries of faith are indeed above, but not contrary to reason; but this Popish invention is contrary to reason, and must therefore be rejected by reason. Let it be admitted, that this doctrine of the Papists is a mystery, it is however in part bodily, and must therefore be examined by reason. When scripture subjects reason to her, she doth not then deprive us of our reason, but will rather employ it even with respect to this opinion, also; 'therefore the man of God saith in our text, "I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say; the cup of blessing," &c. This cloak of shame helps still less, when we consider that we attack transubstantiation not only by arguments from reason, but also from scripture.

III. But do not those men offer aught, in order to prove this doctrine? yes, What do they alledge?

1. They are very ready to say, that God is almighty, and is able to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ upon the muttering of the five words: But can God, because he is almighty, do aught that is a contradiction? God is almighty, yet "he cannot deny himself," Titus ii. 13. "He cannot lie,” Titus i. 2. It is impossible for God to lie," Heb. vi. 18. And so it is also impossible for him to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ; for it is a contradiction, that the body of Christ, which exists already, should exist afterwards newly; that his body should be at the same time in heaven and on earth; and that it should be at the same time both great and small; but although there were no contradiction in this, and although God could do it, doth he therefore do it? can we conclude that a thing really is, because it can be? God could make thousands of men more on the earth than he hath made; doth he therefore make them? No: God doth not do all that he can, but all that he will, and "whatsoever he pleaseth," according to Psalm cxv. 2. We must be certain, that he will do a thing, before we conclude from his power that he will do it, or that be doth it at present. The leper reasoned better than the Papists, when he said to Jesus, Matt. viii. 2, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Therefore they must prove that God will do it, if he even can do it.

2. They imagine that they are clear here, because Christ saith, "This is my body, and the cup is my blood," Matt. xxvi. 26, 27, 28. But there are many learned men among the Papists, who perceive that this passage is not to be understood literally, and therefore they betake themselves to their traditions: Scotus saith," I hold this proposition, because the church holds it." G. Athaides, a divine of the king of Portugal at the council of Trent, disapproved of making use of the scripture in this controversy, that they might not be ridiculed by the heretics; and he said that the words, "this is my body," were much plainer, when they were not understood in the sense of the church of Rome, than when they were so understood ;" and the cardinal Cajetan, said, "that there was no necessity to understand these words in their literal sense." Was he not right? For (a) Christ calls himself "a door," John x. 9, "the way," John xiv. 6, and "the true vine," John xv. 1. No man will therefore say that he was changed into a door, a way and vine. What reason have we then to say from Matt. xxvi. 20, 27, 28, that bread and wine are VOL. II.

changed into his flesh and blood? And, that we may abide by the words, "this is my body," Paul saith of believers that they are" the body of Christ," 1 Cor. xii. 26. Why should we then understand one and the same phrase more literally in one passage than in another. (b) The words, "this is my body," are to be understood according to the usual phraseology of the Hebrews, who said, this is, instead of this signifieth. We see this in Joseph's exposition of Pharaoh's dream, Gen. xli. 26, 27. "The seven kine and the seven ears are seven years." For the Hebrews have no word which answers to our word, "it signifies." Do not we ourselves say of a picture, or of a graven image, this is that man, that woman? do not ask us then, why Christ did not rather say, this signifieth my body, than this is my body, if he meant, this signifieth my body; for he spoke according to the usual language of his people. (c) This is a sacramental phrase, according to the nature of all the sacraments, in which the name of the thing signified is given to the sign. Circumcision is called "the covenant of God," Gen. xvii. "The lamb the Lord's passover," that is, passing over, Exod. xii. Christ also is called "our passover, sacrificed for us," 1 Cor. v. 7. and Paul saith, "The Rock was Christ," 1 Cor. x. 4. Baptism is also called "the washing away of sins," Acts xxii. 16. Why then should we depart from this sacramental phraseology in the supper? there is no reason; but there are indeed reasons and causes why Christ calls the bread and wine his body and blood. Surely not to teach us transubstantiation, for this is a contradiction, but for two reasons; first, on account of the agreement of the sign with the thing signified, because of the word of institution; and then on account of the scaling virtue of this sacrament, according to the word of promise. This is clearly discovered to us in the seventy ninth question, which read: we have explained it more fully on the former Lord's day. (d) We add to this also. that the words, "this is my body," cannot be understood literally; for if we understand them so, then Christ was whole and broken, alive and dead at the table; for the supper exhibits him as dead; he did then eat his own flesh, and drink his own blood; the apostles did then eat his broken body, and drink his shed blood, while he sat at the table. Paul explains these words spiritually, when he calls bread and wine in the text the communion of the body and blood of Christ. The Papists themselves cannot understand these words literally, because they must explain the word "is" by "let it be, or become," and they must explain the cup by the wine which is in the cup. Let them do then what they will, they cannot find a proof of transubstantiation in those words. Therefore it can.

not avail the Romanists to say that we must speak plainly in a will, and that Christ made his will here; for Christ did not make his will here, but gave the seal of it; and besides this, the figurative sense is plain, and agreeable to the nature of all sacraments. It it said that we ought to speak plainly in a will; we deny it for Jacob spake figuratively, when he made his will, Gen. xlix. It is not customary to speak literally in sacraments; if Christ had spoken literally in the supper, his words would have been dark and unintelligable to a people, who were accustomed to figurative phrases in the sacraments, The Papists themselves, as hath been shown, cannot take these words in their literal sense.

3. They imagine that the Lord Jesus decides this controversy on their side, when he saith, John vi. 55, 56. "My flesh is meat in deed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." We reply to this, first of all, that Christ doth not speak here of the supper, and that these words do not therefore serve their purpose; for the sup per was not yet instituted, when Christ spake these words, and he had not respect in them to the breaking of his body, and the shedding of his blood, as in the supper, but to the manna, as appeareth from the foregoing and following parts of this chapter. But however this may be, these words cannot be understood literally; for then our communion with Christ would be a bodily communion, and he would have communion with the ungodly. Christ, when we receive his flesh and his blood, "dwells in us, as we dwell in him," that is, spiritually, for who can exist bodily in Christ? The Saviour himself will not permit us to understand these words literally, as the Capernaites understood them; for he saith, vrs. 63. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unte you, they are Spirit, and they are life." But Christ saith that his flesh and blood are meat and drink "indeed." Must it then be proper meat and drink? No, for spiritual meat and drink is meat and drink indeed for the soul. Christ is "the true light," John i. 9, "the true vine," John xv. 1, yet he is not therefore a proper, but a spiritual light and vine.

4. Antiquity is for us, say these men; but hear what others of the Popish communion say. One saith, the fathers (they spoke indeed as we do on this subject) spake unadvisedly; another, before the Lateran council, every one might believe in this matter as he pleased: a third, before that council transubstantiation was not yet an article of faith; they saw indeed that before the eighth century, there was neither jot ner tittle of transubstantiation to be found in

the writings of the fathers. It is also evident; for when in the year 754, the council of Constantinople condemned the images, they gave this reason for that condemnation, that they had the image of Christ, the substance, the nature of bread, in the supper. The worship. pers of images, seeing themselves forshamed and condemned by this proceeding, restored the images in the year 787, in the second council of Nice, saying that the bread was not an image of Christ, but his very body, not by a transubstantiation, but by the union of the bread and wine with the Godhead, the nature of the bread and wine nevertheless remaining, as John Damascene spake. This caused much contention among the ecclesiastics in the following centuries; but in the tenth century, that iron and leaden age, the opinion of the bodily presence of Christ in the supper gained ground ; and in the eleventh century Berenger, because he opposed the bodily presence of Christ in the supper, was condemned in three councils. The word transubstantiation was used first of all by a certain Stephen, bishop of Autun, in Burgundy, in the year 1130; and in the year 1215, the council of Lateran authorized it, allowing it to be used of the Lord's supper. This new doctrine could not however obtain the approbation of the council of Florence, in the year 1439; but this mystery of iniquity was fully established in the council of Trent. How then can they talk of antiquity; the ancients of the first and best antiquity knew nothing of the substantial change of the bread and wine; and when the innovators began to mutter these things from a love of images, they were immediately opposed until they had mastered the truth, suppressed it and endeavoured to banish it out of the world; but the witnesses. who had been slain, were raised up, and stand until this day on their feet, to bear witness against the Ro mish apostacy.

But are we then, as the Papists slander us, Socinians, who assert that the supper contains only bare signs, to serve as memorials and representations, that the body of Christ was broken, and his blood shed for the confirmation of his heavenly doctrine? No, we have professed before, that Christ was present here in a sacramental manner; working in a divine and spiritual manner, and that we eat and drink him thus: and therefore we detest the Socinians, who say that the whole virtue of the covenant consists in the signification of the breaking of the bread, and the pouring out of the wine, representing the suffering of Christ, as a prophet; for they deny thus the satisfaction of Christ by his "blood, shed for the remission of sins." the sealing virtue of the supper, and the true and spiritual commu nion of believers with his sufferings, body and blood. But is a șas