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we should with faith and humility admire this high and sacred mystery, which our tongue cannot sufficiently explain, nor our heart conceive.
CHAPTER IV.
The Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation.
It is an Article of Faith in the Church of Rome, that in the blessed Eucharist the substance of the Bread and Wine is reduced to nothing, and that in its place succeeds the Body and Blood of Christ.… The Protestants are much of another mind; and yet none of them denies altogether but that there is a conversion of the Bread into the Body, (and consequently the Wine into the Blood,) of Christ; for they know and acknowledge, that in the Sacrament, by virtue of the words and blessing of Christ, the condition, use, and office of the Bread is wholly changed, that is, of common and ordinary, it becomes our mystical and sacramental food; whereby, as they affirm and believe, the true Body of Christ is not only shadowed and figured, but also given indeed, and by worthy communicants truly received. Yet they believe not that the bread loseth its own, to become the substance of the Body of Christ; for the holy Scripture, and the ancient interpreters thereof for many ages, never taught such an essential change and conversion, as that the very Substance, the matter, and form of the bread should be wholly taken away, but only a mysterious and sacramental one, whereby our ordinary is changed into mystic bread, and thereby designed and appointed to another use, end, and office than before. This change, whereby supernatural effects are wrought by things natural, while their essence is preserved entire, doth best agree with the grace and power of God.
There is no reason why we should dispute concerning God's Omnipotency, whether it can do this or that, presuming to measure an Infinite Power by our poor ability, which is but weakness. We may grant that He is able to do beyond what we can think or apprehend, and resolve His most wonderful acts into His absolute will and power, but we may not charge Him with working contradictions. And though God's Almightiness were able in this mystery to destroy the substance of Bread and Wine, and essentially to change it into the Body and Blood of Christ, while the accidents of Bread and Wine subsist of themselves without a subject, yet we
