and demonstrate the said substance, yet here they make it to signify such a vagrant, that all the world knows not where to find it. And in like manner they rack the word "is," which must sometimes mean "is properly and essentially," when it speaks of the accidents; sometimes, "is made;" sometimes, "is transubstantiated;" and one* will have it to denote all these. And thus they torture this plain scripture, to serve their odious doctrine of transubstantiation; and when they have done all, they have nothing but the word of a blasphemous pope and factious council for it.

IV. Application.

USES. SIX INFERENCES.

INFERENCE 1. That it is idolatry in the Papists to worship the consecrated bread, though they think it is turned into the body of Christ. I should here speak to two things :

1. That their worshipping the consecrated bread is idolatry.

2. That their thinking it to be the body of Christ, doth not excuse them from idolatry.

1. For the first, I shall briefly speak to three things:

(1.) Acquaint you with their doctrine herein.

(2.) Acquaint you with their practice.

(3.) Prove that their practising this doctrine is idolatry.

(1.) Their doctrine is declared in the council of Trent thus :—that “it is an undoubted truth, that all Christians ought to give the same worship to the sacrament of the eucharist which they give to God himself;" and that "if any deny this, let him be accursed." +

(2.) They practise this doctrine. For in their Roman Missal, the priests are taught to lift up the host, and to worship it themselves, thrice striking their breasts, and saying, "O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us." And among many instances that may be given of their idolatrous practice herein, I shall only give you this: "In the year 1666, at Lyons, in France, it was instituted, that a company of devout persons, taking their turns, should perpetually day and night adore the holy sacrament, some of them always kneeling before it in a certain church chosen by them. And in a large place more spacious than Lincoln's-Inn Fields, London, called Belle Cour, the sacrament was exposed on a rich and magnific altar, set on a high scaffold, to be adored by all the town together; and there were about threescore thousand people on their knees together, worshipping it; the most glorious triumph that ever was seen," saith a Jesuit in his late description of this city. And thus do these poor deluded wretches solemnly give that worship to wafers which is only due to God himself. (3.) That this practice is idolatry, appears,

• CORNELIUS A LAPIDE in 1 Cor. xi.

First. By all that I have said against transubstantiation.—For, seeing the substance of the bread remains, as I have proved, the Papists' wor+ Nullus itaque dubitandi locus relinquitur, cùm omnes Christi fideles, pro more in Catholicâ ecclesiá semper recepto, latriæ cultum, qui vero Deo debetur, huic sanctissimo sacramento in veneratione adhibeant.-Concil. Trident. sess. xiii. cap. 5. Si quis dixerit in sancto eucharistiæ sacramento Christum, unigenitum Dei Filium, non esse cultu latriæ etiam externo adorandum, venerandum; neque in processionibus, secundùm laudabilem et universalem ecclesiæ sanctæ ritum et consuetudinem, et solenniter circumgestandum, vel non publicè, ut adoretur populo, proponendum; et ejus adoratores esse idololatras; anathema sit.-Can. 6.

shipping this bread must needs be gross idolatry: for the council of Trent makes transubstantiation to be the ground and reason of this solemn adoration.* And it is a known saying of their own Costerus to this purpose, that "if by transubstantiation the bread be not turned into the body of Christ, their worshipping the host is the greatest idolatry in the world."

Secondly. It is gross idolatry to give that worship to a creature which is only due to God. And yet these men fall down unto and worship and call upon this bread, as all believers fall down unto and worship and call upon God. Their practice herein is much like their idolatry in worshipping their graven images, mentioned in Isai. xliv. 16, 17: "He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth the rest, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god :" in like manner do the idolatrous Papists by this bread: part thereof they take into their mouths, and grind with their teeth, and eat it; and part of it (as in the case of the rats and worms eating the consecrated bread) they cast into the fire and burn it; and part thereof they reserve for their god, and carry it about, and fall down to it, and worship it, and pray to it, as to their saviour, to save them from their sins.

2. I proceed to prove, that the Papists' thinking this bread to be the body of Christ, doth not excuse them from idolatry.-This is evident; for God's law being sufficiently revealed, man's wilful ignorance thereof cannot extinguish the obligation of it, nor alter the nature of that sin which is a breach of that law. The Heathens' worshipping the sun is idolatry, though they think it to be God; so the Papists' worshipping the wafer is idolatry, though they think it to be the body of Christ with his soul and Godhead; as to kill the saints of God, is murder and persecution, though the enemies may think they do therein God service. (John xvi. 2.)

INFER. II. Hence see under what characters we are to look upon Papists. We are told what names some of their flatterers have given to some of their popes. In the council of Lateran, it is said of the pope, "All power in heaven and earth is given to thee; " and Panormitan saith, "The pope can do all things that God can do." The ambassadors of Sicily cried to one pope, "Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us ;" and saith a bishop, in a profane quibble, of pope Leo, "Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah! We have waited for thee, O most blessed Leo, to be our saviour!" (See Brightman on Rev. xiii. 3.) And we know, "His Holiness" is the name given him by the Papists; and the Romish church doth arrogate the name of "the only holy catholic church." But if we will give the Papists a name from their religion and practice, we must give them three cha

racters.

us;

First. They are an idolatrous people; as appears by what I have now said, and as is made known to you by more arguments from other hands; and therefore we need not envy their grandeur and kingdom upon earth,

• Sess. i. cap. 4, 5.

seeing the apostle assures us, that "no idolaters have any inheritance in the kingdom of God." (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10.)

Secondly. They are a most uncharitable and cruel people.-And though their Schoolmen do ingeniously plead, that charity or love is the most excellent of all graces, and measure the worth of other graces, and the evil of all sins, by charity; yet are they a most inhuman and barbarous people. And this is not only evident by all the blood of the saints that lies crying at their doors for vengeance; but also that they will have all men cursed and damned who will not, in defiance of God and scripture and reason and sense, say that bread is no bread, and who will not believe that the God of truth doth speak all the hideous contradictions in their doctrine of transubstantiation; as if, having usurped the keys of hell and death, they had decreed that all believers shall be damned, and that none but atheists and infidels shall be saved.

Thirdly. A perjured people; in that they impose, and many of them take, this oath: "I, N. N., do swear, that this conversion, which the catholic church doth call 'transubstantiation,' is made in the eucharist, without the belief of which no man can be saved." What horrid perjury is this, to swear that bread is no bread, and wine is no wine; and that all the contradictions in the doctrine of transubstantiation are true, and that all are damned who do not believe the same!

INFER. III. Hence we see, that there is no communion to be had with the church of Rome.-For except we will all renounce our present Christianity, and profess that we are no members of the church of God till we are in union with the pope, and so proclaim ourselves, and all Christians in the world who are not Papists, to be a generation of dissembling knaves; and except we first turn atheists, and believe that God speaks lies and contradictions; we cannot turn Papists.

INFER. IV. Hence see what a dreadful slavery it is to be the servants and slaves to the devil, who engageth his servants to debauch their consciences, and rack their wits, and to spend their precious time and parts and learning, to spread and defend nonsense and lies.—Bellarmine saith, he spent fifteen years about controversies in religion : a fearful thing, that a man of so great learning and parts should waste a great part of his age, and much of it in contradicting God and the truth and himself! But though I will not judge any one that is gone into the eternal world; yet I would warn all to take heed especially how they venture to sin in print, lest their books should be speaking for the devil on earth, when they themselves are tormented with the devil in hell.

INFER. V. Be faithful to the truths of God, and let them not be held in unrighteousness in your judgments, but let them rule in your hearts and lives. If truth prevail to make you holy, then though seducers may make merchandise of your estates, yet they shall never make merchandise of your souls; but if you will not love the truth, and walk in the truth, all our arguments cannot secure you from the temptations of the devil and seducers, nor keep God from being angry with you, and from giving you up to strong delusions to believe lies.

INTER. VI. Lastly. Bless God for your religion; that your religion comes from the grace of God by his word, to make you holy here, and Epistola Sexto V.

happy hereafter; and not from the devil and pope, to feed your lusts, and damn your souls, and to make you go ignorantly and quietly to hell. And bless God that you have in this nation the true doctrine of the sacrament of the Lord's supper; which, as I said in the beginning of this discourse, so I say again in the conclusion, is clearly and fully delivered from the mind of Christ in these words, and which hath been sealed by the blood of those blessed martyrs in our own land who have been sacrificed to death for the service of your faith, whose blood was of more value than all the popes' that ever usurped supremacy over the church and body of Christ.

THE PAPISTS GO

SERMON XXIII. (XXII.)

BY THE REV. RICHARD STEELE, A. M.

CHANGE AND
PEOPLE, IN
SUPPER.

OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

PRESUMPTUOUSLY

AGAINST THE INSTITUTION OF CHRIST, AND CORRUPT HIS ORDINANCE, AND ARE INJURIOUS TO THE DENYING THE USE OF THE CUP TO THEM IN THE LORD'S

THE RIGHT OF EVERY BELIEVER TO THE BLESSED CUP IN THE LORD'S SUPPER.

And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.-Matthew xxvi. 27, 28.

ye

:

THE declared will of God being the most certain and happy rule of man's practice, especially in those duties which have no foundation save in divine revelation, it is the greatest arrogance and affront to the wisdom and will of our Lawgiver to contradict him therein but when our blessed Redeemer hath in his institutions plainly consulted our benefit and comfort; when he hath stooped so low, to raise us up so high; to cross and correct him therein, is the strangest folly and ingratitude that is imaginable.

Yet hereof we have a sad instance in the present church of Rome, in the business of the Lord's supper; where nothing can be more plain than our Saviour's institution on the one side, nor more palpable than their corruption of it on the other: wherein is evident the lamentable degeneracy of the human nature, together with the power of prejudice, and the mischief of a wilful obstinacy, especially when accompanied with the worldly interest of profit or honour.

It hath been indeed the more ordinary humour of that church to invent and add burdensome superfluities to other of God's ordinances; but they whose consciences will permit them to add, will easily adventure also to diminish, when it serves their turn; as appears in their

VOL. VI.

I I

denying to God's people the one-half of the Lord's supper, to wit, the sacred cup, against the stream of scripture and all antiquity.

The vindicating of this blessed ordinance of God is my present work; and I cannot have a better ground to build upon than the words of the holy evangelist which are before you.

Wherein you may please to consider,

1. The connexion, "and;" that is, having immediately before taken bread, blessed it, and delivered to his disciples, in like manner he now takes the cup.

2. The narration.

(1.) Of what our Saviour did.-The ordinary actions of princes are observed; with what careful reverence then should we ponder this extraordinary action of the King of heaven, especially when he was at death's door! Three things he did: (i.) He took the cup. (ii.) He gave thanks. (iii.) He gave it to them. It was the practice of the Jews, (unto which certainly our Saviour had regard herein,) at the end of their feasts, for the master thereof to take a cup of wine, and, after a short thanksgiving, to drink a little thereof, and so the cup passed round the table; and this they termed, "a cup of thanksgiving." * This use He was pleased to translate and sanctify to be a sacred rite at the Lord's supper to the end of the world, as he did adopt their washing of their proselytes in the institution of baptism.

(2.) Here is an account of what our Saviour said, when, if ever, "his lips were like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh :" (Canticles v. 13 :) where there is,

First. A command: "Drink ye all of it :" wherein you have,

(i.) The thing commanded: "Drink of it; " that is, by an usual figure, of the wine contained in this cup; or, as some translations (Dutch) read, "Drink out of it."

(ii.) The persons intended: "Ye all;" that is, "All ye my disciples," in the first place; who, upon occasion of celebrating the passover, they being our Saviour's ordinary family, were then alone with him at the table. But forasmuch as he commanded them to do this "in remembrance" of him, that is, when he was dead, and the apostle Paul declares, that this sacramental action must continue "until he come," and that by "all that are sanctified in Christ Jesus," that are able to "examine themselves; (1 Cor. i. 2, with 1 Cor. xi. 28;) therefore the "all" in the text must neither be confined to the persons of the apostles, nor to them that succeed them in any particular office; but concludes all that are adult disciples of Jesus Christ to the end of the world.

or, as

Secondly. A reason or argument to urge the due participation thereof, drawn from the sacramental nature of that cup: "For this," to wit, the wine contained in this cup, "is my blood of the new testament: the evangelist Luke (xxii. 20) delivereth it, "This cup is the new testament in my blood," that is, "the new covenant sealed with my blood." For neither the cup, nor the wine in it, nor the blood of Christ, is properly the new covenant or testament; but by this that is contained in this cup, the new covenant, which is sealed and confirmed by the blood of Christ, is kept in remembrance. He saith in effect, "As covenants

PAULUS FAGIUS in Deut. viii. 10, ex Rabbin.