Section XIII. Of Adoration of the Sacrament

WHEN a proposition goes no further than the head and the tongue, it can carry nothing with it but his own appendages, viz. to be right or to be wrong, and the man to be deceived or not deceived in his judgment: but when it hath influence upon practice, it puts on a new investiture, and is tolerable or intolerable, according as it leads to actions good or bad. Now, in all the questions of Christendom, nothing is of greater effect or more material event, than this. For since by the decree of the council of Trent, they are bound to exhibit to the sacrament the same worship, which they give to the true God, either this sacrament is Jesus Christ, or else they are very idolaters; I mean materially such, even while, in their purposes, they decline it. [Sess. 13. c. 5.] I will not quarrel with the words of the decree commanding to give Divine worship to the sacrament; [Tantum ergo sacramentum adoremus cernui. Hymn. in Miss.] which by the definition of their own schools, is 'an outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace,' and so they worship the sign and the grace with the worship due to God: but that which I insist upon, is this: that if they be deceived in this difficult question, against which there lie such infinite presumptions and evidence of sense, and invincible reason, and grounds of Scripture,--and in which they are condemned by the primitive church, and by the common principles of all philosophy, and the nature of things,--and the analogy of the sacrament,--for which they had no warrant ever, till they made one of their own,---which themselves so little understand, that they know not how to explicate it,--nor agree in their own meaning, nor cannot tell well what they mean;--if, I say, they be deceived in their own strict article, besides the strict sense of which there are so many ways of verifying the words of Christ, upon which all sides do rely; then it is certain they commit an act of idolatry in giving Divine honour to a mere creature, which is the image, the sacrament, and representment of the body of Christ: and at least, it is not certain that they are right; there are certainly very great probabilities against them, which ought to abate their confidence in the article; and though I am persuaded, that the arguments against them are unanswerable;--for if I did not think so, then I shall be able to answer them, and if I were not able to answer, I would not seek to persuade others by that which docs not persuade me;--yet all indifferent persons, that is, all those who will suffer themselves to be determined by something besides interest and education, must needs say they cannot be certain they are right, against whom there are so many arguments, that they are in the wrong: the commandment to worship God alone is so express;--the distance between God and bread dedicated to the service of God is so vast,--the danger of worshipping that which is not God, or of not worshipping that which is God, is so formidable,--that it is infinitely to be presumed, that if it had been intended that we should have worshipped the holy sacrament, the holy Scripture would have called it, 'God,' or 'Jesus Christ,'--or have bidden us, in express terms, to have adored it; that either by the first, as by a reason indicative,--or by the second, as by a reason imperative,--we might have had sufficient warrant direct or consequent, to have paid a divine worship. Now that there is no implicit warrant in the sacramental words of "This is my body," I have given very many reasons to evince, by proving the words to be sacramental and figurative. Add to this; that supposing Christ present in their senses, yet as they have ordered the business, they have made it superstitious and idololatrical; for they declare that the Divine worship does belong also to the symbols of bread and wine, as being 'one with Christ;' they are the words of Bellarmine;--that even the species also with Christ are to be adored; so Suarez:--which doctrine might, upon the supposal of their grounds, be excused; if, as Claudius de Sainctes dreamed, they and the body of Christ had but one existence; but this themselves admit not of, but he is confuted by Suarez. [Lib. iv. de Euch. c. 29. tom. 1. in 8. Thom. disp. 65. sect. 1.] But then let it be considered, that since those species or accidents are not inherent in the holy body, nor have their existence from it, but wholly subsist by themselves (as they dream), since, between them and the holy body, there is no substantial, no personal union, it is not imaginable how they can pass divine worship to those accidents which are not in the body, nor the same with the body, but by an impossible supposition subsist of themselves, and were proper to bread, and now not communicable to Christ, and yet not commit idolatry: especially since the Nestorians were, by the fathers, called anqropolatroi, or 'worshippers of a man;' because they worshipped the humanity of Christ, which they supposed, not to be personally, but habitually united to the divinity.

2. But secondly: suppose that the article were true in 'thesi,' and, that the bread in consecration was changed, as they suppose; yet it is to be considered, that that which is practicable in this article, is yet made as uncertain and dangerous as before. For, by many defects, secret and insensible, by many, notorious and evident, the change may be hindered, and the symbols still remain as very bread and wine as ever, and rob God of his honour. For, if the priest errs in reciting the words of consecration, by addition, or diminution, or alteration, or longer interruption; if he do but say, 'Hoc est cor pusmeum,' for 'corpus meum'---or 'meum corpus' for 'corpus meum;' or, if he do but as the priest that Agrippa tells of, that said, 'Haec sunt corpora mea,' lest, consecrating many hosts, he should speak false Latin: if either the priest be timorous, surprised, or intemperate,--in all these cases, the priest and the people too, worship nothing but bread. [De Vanit. Scien. c. 3] And some of these are the more considerable, I mean, those defectibilities in pronunciation; because, the priest always speaking the words of consecration in a secret voice, not to be heard; none of the people can have any notice whether he speaks the words so sufficiently as to secure them from worshipping a piece of bread. [Concil. Trid. Sess. 22 can. 9. Ledesmo ait Sacerdotem isto Canone prohiberi clarâ voce eloqui verba consecrationis.] If some of all these happen, yet, if he do not intend to consecrate all, but some, and yet know not which to omit; if he do intend but to mock; if he be a secret atheist, a Moor, or a Jew; if he be an impious person, and laugh at the sacrament; if he do not intend to do as the church does; that is, if his intention be neither actual, nor real; then, in all these cases, the people give Divine worship to that which is nothing but bread: but if none of all this happen, yet, if he be not a priest, 'quod sæpe accidit,' saith Pope Adrianus VI., 'in quæst. quodlib. q. 3.,' it often happens, that the priest feigns himself to celebrate, and does not celebrate; or, feigns himself to celebrate, and is no priest; if he be not baptized rightly; if there was in his person, as by being simoniack, or irregular, a bastard, or bigamus, or any other impediment, which he can, or cannot know of; if there was any defect in his baptism, or ordinations, or in the baptism and ordination of him that ordained him, or in all the succession from the head of the diadoch, from the apostles that first began the series;--in all these cases, it cannot but be acknowledged by their own doctrine, that the consecration is invalid and ineffective, the product is nothing, but a piece of bread is made the object of the Divine worship. Well! suppose that none of all this happens, yet there are many defects in respect of the matter also: as if the bread be corrupted; or the wine be vinegar; if it be mingled with any other substance but water; or if the water be the prevailing ingredient; or if the bread be not wheat; or the wine be of sour, or be of unripe grapes; in all these cases nothing is changed, but bread remains still, litoV artoV, 'mere bread,' and 'mere wine;' and yet they are worshipped by divine adoration.

3. Thirdly: When certain of the society of Jesuits were to die by the laws of England, in the beginning of king James's reign; it was asked them, whether, if they might have leave to say mass, they would to the people standing by, for the confirmation of their doubt, and to convert them, say these words: "Unless this whole species you see in the chalice, be the same blood, which did flow out of the side of the crucifix, or of Christ hanging on the cross,--let there be no part for me in the blood of Christ, or in Christ himself to eternal ages:" and so, with these words in their mouths, yield to death; they all denied it, none of them would take such a sacrament upon them. And when Garnet, that unhappy man, was tempted to the same sense; he answered, 'that a man might well doubt of the particular.' No man was bound to believe that any one priest in particular, now, or at any one certain time, does consecrate effectively; but that the bread is transubstantiated some where or other, at some time or other, by some priest or other. [Vide Bonavent. In 3. dist. 24 a. 1. q. 1.] This I receive from the relation of a wise prelate, a great and a good man, whose memory is precious, and is had in honour. [Bishop Andrew's Resp. ad apolog. Bellarm. p. 7.] But the effect of this is, that transubstantiation, supposing the doctrine true (as it is most false), yet in practice is uncertain; but the giving it divine worship is certain; the change is believed only in general, but it is worshipped in particular; concerning which, whether it be any thing more than bread, it is impossible, without a revelation, they should know. These, then, are very ill, and deeply to be considered; for certain it is, 'God is a jealous God,' and, therefore, will be impatient of every encroachment, upon his peculiar. And then for us, as we must pray with faith, and without doubting, so it is fit we should worship; and yet in this case, and upon these premises, no man can choose but doubt; and, therefore, he cannot, he ought not, to worship; "Quod dubitas, ne feceris."

4. I will not censure, concerning the men that do it, or consider concerning the action, whether it be formal idolatry or no. God is their judge and mine, and I beg he would be pleased to have mercy upon us all; but yet they that are interested for their own particulars, ought to fear and consider these things. 1. That no man, without his own fault, can mistake a creature so far, as to suppose him to be a God. 2. That when the heathens worshipped the sun and moon, they did it upon their confidence that they were gods; and would not have given to them divine honours, if they had thought otherwise. 3. That the distinction of material and formal idolatry, though it have a place in philosophy, because the understanding can consider an act with his error, and yet separate the parts of the consideration; yet hath no place in divinity; because, in things of so great concernment, it cannot but be supposed highly agreeable to the goodness and justice of God, that every man be sufficiently instructed in his duty and convenient notices. 4. That no man in the world, upon these grounds, except he that is malicious and spiteful, can be an idolater; for, if he have an ignorance, great enough to excuse him, he can be no idolater; if he have not, he is spiteful and malicious; and then all the heathens are also excused as well as they. 5. That if good intent and ignorance, in such cases, can take off the crime, then the persecutors that killed the apostles, thinking they did God good service, and Saul, in blaspheming the religion, and persecuting the servants of Jesus, and the Jews themselves, in crucifying the Lord of life, "who did it ignorantly, as did also their rulers," have met with their excuse upon the same account. And, therefore, it is not safe, for the men of the Roman communion to take anodyne medicines and narcotic, to make them insensible of the pain; for it will not cure their disease. Their doing it upon the stock of error and ignorance, I hope, will dispose them to receive a pardon: but yet that also supposes them criminal; and though I would not, for all the world, be their accuser, or the aggravator of the crime; yet I am not unwilling to be their remembrancer, that themselves may avoid the danger. For though Jacob was innocent, in lying with Leah instead of Rachel, because he had no cause to suspect the deception: yet, if Penelope, who had not seen Ulysses in twenty years, should see one come to her, nothing like Ulysses, but saying he were her husband, she should give but an ill account of her chastity, if she should actually admit him to her bed, only saying, 'if you be Ulysses, or upon supposition that you are Ulysses, I admit you.' For, if she certainly admits him, of whom she is uncertain if he be her husband, she certainly is an adultress: because she, having reason to doubt, ought first to be satisfied of her question. Since therefore, besides the insuperable doubts of the main article itself, in the practice and the particulars, there are acknowledged so many ways of deception, and confessed that the actual failings are frequent (as I showed before out of pope Adrian), it will be but a weak excuse to say, 'I worship thee if thou be the Son of God, but I do not worship thee, if thou beest not consecrated;' and, in the mean time, the divine worship is actually exhibited to what is set before us. At the best we may say to these men, as our blessed Saviour to the woman of Samaria, "ye worship ye know not what; but we know what we worship." For, concerning the action of adoration, this I am to say, that it is a fit address in the day of solemnity, with a ''sursum corda,' with 'our hearts lift up' to heaven, where Christ sits (we are sure) at the right hand of the Father, for "nemo dignè manducat, nisi prius adoraverit," said S. Austin; "no man eats Christ's body worthily, but he that first adores Christ." But to terminate the divine worship to the sacrament, to that which we eat, is so unreasonable and unnatural, [Vide Theodoret quæst. 53. in Genes. et q. 11. in Levit.] and withal, so scandalous, that Averroes, observing it to be used among the Christians, with whom he had the ill fortune to converse, said these words: "Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt, sit anima mea cum philosophis:" "Since Christians worship what they eat, let my soul be with the philosophers." [Theodoret q. in Gen, q. 55.] If the man had conversed with those who had better understood the article, and were more religious and wise in their worshippings, possibly he might have been invited by the excellency of the institution to become a Christian. But they that give scandal to Jews by their images, and leaving out the second commandment from their catechisms, give offence to the Turks by worshipping the sacrament, and to all reasonable men by striving against two or three sciences, and the notices of all mankind. "We worship the flesh of Christ in the mysteries (saith Ambrose), as the apostles did worship it in our Saviour."--[De Spir. S. 1. 3. c. 12.] For we receive the mysteries as representing and exhibiting to our souls the flesh and blood of Christ; so that we worship it in the sumption, and venerable usages of the signs of his body. But we give no divine honour to the signs: we do not call the sacrament our God. And let it be considered, whether, if the primitive church had ever done, or taught, that the divine worship ought to be given to the sacrament, it had not been certain, that the heathen would have retorted most of the arguments upon their heads, by which the Christians reproved their worshipping of images. The Christians upbraided them with worshipping the works of their hands; to which themselves gave what figure they pleased, and then, by certain forms, consecrated them, and made, by invocation, (as they supposed) a divinity to dwell there. They objected to them, that they worshipped that which could neither see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor move, nor understand: that which could grow old, and perish,--that could be broken and burned,--that was subject to the injury of rats and mice, of worms, and creeping things,--that can be taken by enemies, and carried away,--that is kept under lock and key, for fear of thieves and sacrilegious persons. Now, if the church of those ages had thought and practised, as they have done at Rome, in these last ages, might not they have said, 'Why may not we as well as you? Do not you worship that with Divine honours, and call it your God, which can be burnt, and broken, which yourselves form into a round or square figure, which the oven first hardens, and then your priests consecrate, and, by invocation, make to be your God,--which can see no more, nor hear, nor smell, than the silver and gold upon our images? Do not you adore that which rats and mice eat, which can grow mouldy and sour, which you keep under locks and bars, for fear your God be stolen? Did not Lewis IX. pawn your God to the soldan of Egypt, insomuch that to this day the Egyptian escutcheons, by way of triumph, bear upon them a pix with a wafer in it: true it is, that if we are beaten from our cities, we carry our Gods with us; but, did not the Jesuits carry your host (which you call God) about their necks from Venice, in the time of the interdict? And now, why do you reprove that in us which you do in yourselves?'' What could have been answered to them, if the doctrine, and accidents of their time, had furnished them with these, or the like instances? In vain it would have been to have replied; 'yea, but ours is the true God, and yours are false gods.'--For they would easily have made a rejoinder; and said, that this is to be proved by some other argument; in the mean-time, all your objections against our worshipping of images, return violently upon you. Upon this account, since none of the witty and subtle adversaries of Christianity ever did, or could make this defence by way of recrimination, it is certain, there was no occasion given; and, therefore those trifling pretences made out of some sayings of the fathers, pretending the practice of worshipping the sacrament, must needs be sophistry, and illusion, and can need no particular consideration. But if any man can think them at all considerable, I refer him to be satisfied by Michael le Faucheur, in his voluminous confutation of Cardinal Perron. [Lib. 4. c. 3. de la Cêne du Seigneur.] I, for my part, am weary of the infinite variety of argument in this question; and, therefore, shall only observe this, that antiquity docs frequently use the words proskunhtoV, sebasmiwtatoV, qeioV, proskunoumenoV, 'venerable,' 'adorable,' 'worshipful,' to every thing that ought to be received with great reverence, and used with regard: to princes, to laws, to baptism, to bishops, to priests, to the ears of priests, the cross, the chalice, the temples, the words of Scripture, the feasts of Easter; and upon the same account, by which it is pretended, that some of the fathers taught the adoration of the Eucharist, we may also infer the adoration of all the other instances. But that which proves too much, proves nothing at all.

These are the grounds by which I am myself established, and by which I persuade or confirm others in this article.

I end with the words of the fathers in the council [A.D. 745] of Constantinople, artou ousian prosetaxe prosferesqai, mh skhmatizousan anqrwpou morfhn, ina mh eidololatreia pareisacqh. "Christ commanded the substance of bread to be offered, not in the shape of a man, lest idolatry should be introduced."

Gloria Deo in excelsis:
In terris pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

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