crating Bread and Wine to Gods peculiar service in the Sacrament of
the Lords Supper, (which is but a separation of it from the common use,
to signifie, that is, to put men in mind of their Redemption, by the
Passion of Christ, whose body was broken, and blood shed upon the Crosse
for our transgressions,) pretends, that by saying of the words of our
Saviour, "This is my Body," and "This is my Blood," the nature of Bread
is no more there, but his very Body; notwithstanding there appeared not
to the Sight, or other Sense of the Receiver, any thing that appeareth
not before the Consecration. The Egyptian Conjurers, that are said
to have turned their Rods to Serpents, and the Water into Bloud, are
thought but to have deluded the senses of the Spectators by a false shew
of things, yet are esteemed Enchanters: But what should wee have thought
of them, if there had appeared in their Rods nothing like a Serpent, and
in the Water enchanted, nothing like Bloud, nor like any thing else but
Water, but that they had faced down the King, that they were Serpents
that looked like Rods, and that it was Bloud that seemed Water? That
had been both Enchantment, and Lying. And yet in this daily act of
the Priest, they doe the very same, by turning the holy words into the
manner of a Charme, which produceth nothing now to the Sense; but they
face us down, that it hath turned the Bread into a Man; nay more, into
a God; and require men to worship it, as if it were our Saviour himself
present God and Man, and thereby to commit most grosse Idolatry. For if
it bee enough to excuse it of Idolatry, to say it is no more Bread, but
God; why should not the same excuse serve the Egyptians, in case they
had the faces to say, the Leeks, and Onyons they worshipped, were
not very Leeks, and Onyons, but a Divinity under their Species, or
likenesse. The words, "This is my Body," are aequivalent to these,
"This signifies, or represents my Body;" and it is an ordinary figure of
Speech: but to take it literally, is an abuse; nor though so taken, can
it extend any further, than to the Bread which Christ himself with his
own hands Consecrated. For hee never said, that of what Bread soever,
any Priest whatsoever, should say, "This is my Body," or, "This is
Christs Body," the same should presently be transubstantiated. Nor did
the Church of Rome ever establish this Transubstantiation, till the time
of Innocent the third; which was not above 500. years agoe, when the