(?KkP? IV.] T?,.AN SUBSTANTIATION. 255 complying with the folly and stupidity* of the people, who are made to believe that they can eat Mrt, ?" The various absurdities and xmpossibfiities already brought to view �present but too many instances of the truth of the proposition just now stated. Indeed, Roman Catholics themselves declare, that did their senses perceive what their faith doth oblige them to believe, the horror of' it would be so great that all persons would abhor the sacrament. Hence they give these two notable reasons why they eat the body and drink the blood of Christ under the species of bread and wine. 1. That human piety might not abhor the sacrament. 2. That the setion should not lie open to the blasphemies of infidels, who would view it as .r/diculous, scandalous, inhuman, and execrable. Lanfrank and Algertin assign these reasons. (1.) And indeed, this being not only tAe eat?g of Auman flesA, &ta tb eatlag of tAe?r God, who knows not that on both these acconnt8 the Christian faith was and still is execrable, both to Jew and Gentfie, pagan and Mohammedan ? (2.) The apologists of the primitive Christiann tell us this was one of the greatest accusations which the heathen made against the Chris- tinns, that they did eat human flesh. But the Christian apologists refute this as the vilest calumny, a thing which would be almurd in them did they believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation. But when we advance to the consideration of this doctrine, as it is the eating of that very ? we worahip, a? the Council of Trent hatIt declared, (Mss. 13, c. 5,) this renders it absurd, ridiculous, and blasphemous, beCaAISe, (3.) The very heathen considered this as the greatest absurdity. "When we call wine Bacchus, and fruit Ceres,*' says Cicero, "we use the common mode of speaking; but can you imagine any rao?gyp- so mad as to think that which he eats to be a god ?,,o "The tinns," saith Origen, "think a brute creature to be ?d, and therefore they abstain from eating its flesh as they do from dea?h."t In like manner Juvenal, the heathen poet, with indignant scorn employs the following cutting satire: "0 sanetas gentes, quibus ha?c nascuntur in hortis Numina." "0 happy nation, who?e gods grow in the/r fields !" Sat. xv. (4.) The Mohammedans declare that by thus eating of Christ's flesh the Christians treat him worse than the Jews, because it is more savage to eat his flesh and drink his blood than only to procure his death. (5.) The Jewish sentiments on this subject were the same, as we may learn from Baruch vi, 72. (6.) The Christirex fathers continually ridiculed the ]Louthen for wor- shipping such deities as eould be eaten, and pronounced it the highest absurdity to do so. Now certainly these fathers would not ridicule the heathen for that very thing which made so great a part of their own religion. Could they brand that ? the extremity of nmdneas, stupidity, and folly, when done by heathen, .which their faith taugh t them was the highest act of religious worship when performed by themselves ?
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