CHAP. I V.] Ti&NSUBS?ANTL&TION, ?49 real body and blood of Christ. If our senses cannot be trusted, as the Roman Catechism says, how do we know that these words, Th/s is my body, are to be found in Scripture? Unless we see them there, or/?ear them read, and can trust to our eyes and ears, ? is uncertainty. But if I am not certain that the bread and wine, which I see, )?d, taste, and vne//, are bread and wine, but literally and truly the very body and blood of Christ, then there is no medium whatever by which I can dis- cover that the words, This is my body, are in the New Testament. Only let the evidence of sense be denied, and we cannot be certain of any thing. It is said, however, that although the body of Christ be generally invested with improper accidents, that sometimes he hath really appeared in his own shape, and blood and flesh have been pulled out of the mouths of the communicants. It is also stated that on a certain occasion Plegilus the priest saw Christ in the form of a child on the altar, whom he first took in his arms, and then, under the form of a wafer, devoured. This gave occasion for Berengarius to say, "It was but a Judas's kiss, to kiss him with the lip and bite with the teeth." But these are only ?onu? of the wonders of transubstantiation. The Scripture receives its principal evidence from the evidence of sense. St. Luke, in the commencement of his gospel, placed unlimited confidence in the evidence of sense, as he receives as from an un- doubted source those thin? which were committed to him from those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of t/?e tvord, Luke i, 2. In like manner John declares that the evidence of the senses was not falla- cious, but true. "That which was from the beginning, which we have bard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have beneld, and our hands have )?andlod, of the word of life," 1 John i, l, 2. Thus the apostles depended on the infallibility of their own senses and of those who gave them information. They heard Christ with their own ears preach those doctrines. They saw with their eyes the miracles he wrought to attest his doctrines. And after they had seen him put to death, they had the testimony of their senses that he was raised from tile dead, and conversed with them for many days. Accordingly we find the first arguments of the apostles were founded on tiffs ground, "that our senses do not deceive us." The resurrection of Christ, that cardinal doctrine, without which our faitA is vain, was proved by the evidence of sense. The angel said to Mary, "Come s?e the place where the Lord lay." Thomas was convinced by seeing and .feeling. The inspired apostles and evangelists considered the evidencp of the senses as infallible; but transubstantiation rejects the evidence of sense; therefore it is a false doctrine, and contradicted by the clearest testimony, even that of sense. If this doctrine be admitted, it will entirely overthrow the evidences of Christianity; so that it would be impossible for us to assure our- selves, or convince others, of the truth of the Christian religion. If the ground of our faith be the truth of our senses, whoever teaches any doctrine that supposes our senses may be deceived does so far over- throw t?e ground of our faith. Or, to put it plainer, if the principal reason for which we believe the Scripture be founded in this proposi- tion, tluat we are to believe our senses; then that doctrine which supposes that we are not to believe our senses, entirely overthrows the ground of our faith. But the doctrine of transubstantiation takes away the
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