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understanding can no more be deceived in the substances lying under the accidents, than the senses can in the accidents themselves.

4. To the same purpose it was, that the apostles were answered concerning the article of the truth of Christ's resurrection. For when the apostles were affrighted at his sudden appearing, and thought it had been a spirit, Christ called them to feel his hands, and to show that it was he; "For a spirit hath no flesh and bones, as ye see me have ;" plainly meaning, that the accidents of a body were not communicable to a spirit; but how easily might they have been deceived, if it had pleased God to invest other substances with new and stranger accidents? For though a spirit hath not flesh and bones, they may represent to the eyes and hands the accidents of flesh and bones; and if it could, in the matter of faith, stand with the goodness and wisdom of God to suffer it, what certainty could there be of any article of our religion relating to Christ's humanity, or any proposition proved by miracles? To this instance the man that must answer all, I mean Bellarmine, ventures something: saying it was a good argument of our blessed Saviour, "Handle and see that I am no spirit: that which is handled and seen is no spirit:" but it is no good argument to say, This is not seen, not handled, therefore it is no body: and, therefore, the body of Christ may be naturally in the sacrament, though it is not seen nor handled. To this I reply, 1. That suppose it were true what he said, yet it would also follow by his own words. This is seen bread,' and is handled,' so therefore it is bread.'' Hoc enim affirmativè colligitur.' This is the affirmative consequent made by our blessed Lord, and here, confessed to be certain. It being the same collection. "It is I; for, by feeling and seeing, you shall believe it to be so:" and "it is bread; for, by feeling, and seeing, and tasting, and smelling it, you shall perceive it to be so."-To which let this be added: That in Scripture it is as plainly affirmed to be bread, as it is called Christ's body. Now then, because it cannot be both in the proper and natural

St. Luke, xxiv. 39.

b Quod videtur, corpus est: quod palpatur, corpus est. S. Ambros. in S. Luc. 4.

i Lib. i. de Euch. c. 14. Sect. Resp. ad Calvinum.

sense, but one of them must be figurative and tropical; since both of the appellatives are equally affirmed, is it not notorious, that, in this case, we ought to give judgment on that side, which we are prompted to by common sense? If Christ had said only, This is my body, and no apostle had told us also that it is bread,-we had reason to suspect our senses to be deceived, if it were possible they should be: but when it is equally affirmed to be bread, as to be our Lord's body, and but one of them can be naturally true and in the letter, shall the testimony of all our senses be absolutely of no use in casting the balance? The two affirmatives are

equal; one must be expounded tropically; which will you choose? Is there in the world any thing more certain and expedite than that what you see, and feel, and taste, natural and proper, should be judged to be that which you see, and feel, and taste, naturally and properly, and therefore, that the other be expounded tropically? Since you must expound one of the words tropically, I think it is not hard to determine, whether you ought to do it against your sense, or with it. But it is also remarkable, that our blessed Lord did not, only by feeling and seeing, prove it to be a body; but by proving it was his body,' he proved it was himself;' that is, "by these accidents, representing my person, ye are not led into an error of the person, any more than of the kind and substance; see my hands and my feet,' or autòs éyw eiμí, 'that it is even I myself;"" this I noted, lest a silly escape' be made, by pretending these accidents only proved Christ to be no spirit, but a body; and so the accidents of bread declare a latent body, meaning the body of Christ; for as the accidents of a body declare the substance of a body, so the particular accidents of this kind declare this kind, of this person declare this person. For so our blessed Saviour proved it to be himself in particular; and if it were not so, the deceit would pass from one thing to another; and although it had not been a spirit, yet it might be John the Baptist risen from the dead, or Moses, or Elias, and not Jesus their dear Lord. Besides, if this had been all that Jesus had intended, only to prove he was no ' spectrum,' but a body, he had not done what was intended. For put case it had been a spirit, and had assumed a body, as Bellarmine, in the very next paragraph, forgetting himself, or else being

entangled in the wildernesses of an inconsistent discourse, affirms, that in Scriptures the Israelites did sometimes see; and then they were not deceived in touching or seeing a body; for there was a body assumed, and so it seemed to Abraham and Lot; but then, suppose Jesus Christ had done so, and had been indeed a spirit in an assumed body, had not the apostles been deceived by their feeling and seeing, as well as the Israelites were, in thinking those angels to be men, that came to them in human shapes? How had Christ's arguments been pertinent and material? How had he proved, that he was no spirit, by showing a body, which might be the case of a spirit? but that it is not consistent with the wisdom and goodness of God to suffer any illusion in any matter of sense relating to an article of faith.

5. Secondly: It was the case of the Christian church once, not only to rely upon the evidence of sense for an introduction to the religion, but also to need and use this argument in confirmation of an article of the creed; for the Valentinians and the Marcionites thought Christ's body to be fantastical, and so denied the article of the incarnation: and if arguments from sense were not enough to confute them, viz. that the apostles did see and feel a body, flesh, and blood, and bones, how could they convince these misbelievers? for whatsoever answer can be brought against the reality of bread in the eucharist, all that may be answered in behalf of the Marcionites: for if you urge to them all those places of Scripture, which affirm Christ to have a body, they answer, it was in Scripture called a body, because it seemed to be so; which is the answer Bellarmine gives to all those places of Scripture, which call it bread' after consecration. And if you object, that if it be not what it seems, then the senses are deceived; they will answer, (a Jesuit being bye, and prompting them), the senses were not deceived, because they only saw colour, shape, figure, and the other accidents; but the inward sense and understanding, that is, the man was deceived, when he thought it to be the body of a man; for under those accidents and appearances, there was an angel, or a Divinity, but no man: and now, upon the grounds of transubstantiation, how can they be confuted, I would fain

know.

* Lib. i. de Euch. c. 14. Sect. Respondent nonnulli.

6. But Tertullian', disputing against them, uses the argument of sense, as the only instrument of concluding against them infallibly: "Non licet nobis in dubium sensus istos revocare," &c. "It is not lawful to doubt of our senses, lest the same doubt be made concerning Christ; lest, peradventure, it should be said, he was deceived when he said, 'I saw Satan, like lightning, fall from heaven;' or when he heard the voice of his Father testifying concerning him; or lest he should be deceived when he touched Peter's wife's mother by the hand; or that he smelt another breath of ointment, and not what was offered to his burial; Alium postea vini saporem, quod in sanguinis sui memoriam consecravit,' or 'tasted another taste of wine, which he consecrated to the memory of his blood."" And if the catholic Christians had believed the substantial, natural presence of Christ's body in the sacrament, and, consequently, disbelieved the testimony of four senses, as the church of Rome at this day does,-seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling,—it had been impudence in them to have reproved Marcion, by the testimony of two senses, concerning the verity of Christ's body. And supposing that our eyes could be deceived, and our taste, and our smelling, yet our touch cannot : for supposing the organs equally disposed, yet touch' is the guardian of truth, and his nearest natural instrument; all sensation is by touch, but the other senses are more capable of being deceived; because, though they finally operate by touch variously affected, yet their objects are further removed from the organ; and, therefore, many intermedial things may intervene, and, possibly, hinder the operation of the sense; that is, bring more diseases and disturbances to the action: but in touch,' the object and the instrument join close together; and, therefore, there can be no impediment, if the instrument be sound, and the object proper. And yet no sense can be deceived in that which it always perceives alike; "The touch can never be deceived";" and, therefore, a testimony from it and three senses more, cannot possibly be refused: and, therefore, it were strange if all the Christians, for above one thousand six hundred years together, should be deceived, as if the eucha

Lib. de Animâ, c. 17.

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1 'H μiv yàg aïoðngıç räv idíwy aleì danSnç.— Aristot. de Animâ, lib. iii. t. 152.

rist were a perpetual illusion, and a riddle to the senses, for so many ages together: and indeed the fault, in this case, could not be in the senses: and, therefore, Tertullian and St. Austin" dispute wittily, and substantially, that the senses could never be deceived, but the understanding ought to assent to what they relate to it, or represent: for if any mant thinks the staff is crooked that is set half way in the water, it is the fault of his judgment, not of his sense; for the air and the water being several mediums, the eye ought to see otherwise in air, otherwise in water; but the understanding must not conclude falsely from these true premises, which the eye ministers for the thicker medium makes a fraction of the species by incrassation and a shadow; and when a man, in the yellow jaundice, thinks every thing yellow, it is not the fault of his eye, but of his understanding; for the eye does his office right, for it perceives just as is represented to it, the species are brought yellow; but the fault is in the understanding, not perceiving that the species are stained near the eye, not further off: when a man, in a fever, thinks every thing bitter, his taste is not deceived, but judges rightly; for as a man, that chews bread and aloes together, tastes not false, if he tastes bitterness; so it is, in the sick man's case; the juice of his meat is mingled with choler, and the taste is acute and exact, by perceiving it such as it is so mingled. The purpose of which discourse is this, that no notices are more evident and more certain than the notices of sense; but if we conclude contrary to the true dictates of senses, the fault is in the understanding, collecting false conclusions from right premises: it follows, therefore, that, in the matter of the eucharist, we ought to judge that which our senses tell us; for whatsoever they say is true: for no deceit can come by them; but the deceit is, when we believe something besides or against what they tell us; especially when the organ is perfect, and the object proper, and the medium regular, and all things perfect, and the same always and to all men. For it is observable, that, in this case, the senses are competent judges of the natural being of what they see, and taste, and smell, and feel; and, according to that, all the

" Lib. de Animâ, c. 87, &c. S. Austin. c. 33. de Verâ Religione.

• Αἱ μὲν ἀληθεῖς ἀεὶ, αἱ δὲ φαντασίαι γίνονται αἱ πλείους ψευδεῖς. — Arist. lib. iii. De Anim. lib. cίκν. Διανοεῖσθαι δ' ἐνδέχεται καὶ ψευδῶς. -- Id. ibid,

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