A09466:428
A treatise tending unto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of…A treatise tending vnto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of…
A treatise tending unto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of damnation or in the estate of grace and if he be in the first, how he may in time come out of it: if in the second, how he may discern it, and persevere in the same to the end. The points that are handled are set down in the page following.A treatise tending vnto a declaration whether a man be in the estate of damnation or in the estate of grace and if he be in the first, how he may in time come out of it: if in the second, how he maie discerne it, and perseuere in the same to the end. The points that are handled are set downe in the page following.
London: printed by R. Robinson for T. Gubbin, 1590
The Assertion. › Argument 4 › The proof.The Assertion. › Argument 4 › The proofe.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
4 Transubstantiation is a monster standing on manifold contradictions. First, it maketh Christs body to be in many places: an evident contradiction. For it is of the nature and essence of a body to be in one place only: which I prove thus. A body is a magnitude, a magnitude is a continued quantity, a continued quantity cannot be but in one place: therefore a body cannot be but in one place. In this argument the doubt is only of the last part: which undoubted is most true. For it is called a continued quantity, because his parts are continued ⟨p. 229⟩and knit together the one with an other by a common term or bond, as a line by a point, a plane and his parts by a line, a solid by a superficies or plane. Now, these points can in no wise be continued, unless every one of them keep one only special place. For examples sake: suppose the plane a, b, c, d, to be divided into 3. parts, l, k, l, by two lines, e, g, f, h, which do both divide the three parts & continue them the one with the [figure] other. Now I say, that every one of the parts may be continued with his next fellow, it is necessary, that every one of them should have one special and distinct place. That the first place of the plane, I, may be continued with, k, it must be situated only there where it is, and no where else: for if it shall be situate elsewhere, as in the place m, then it cannot be continued with k. Now then, if the parts must of necessity have their own particular place only, then the whole figure a, b, c, d, must also be only in one place. And this is that which the prince ⟨p. 230⟩of Philosophers teacheth, that every magnitude hath his parts sited in some one place, one by an other, so that a man may1 say of them, here it is, & there it is not. To conclude, therefore this must need, agree to a body and to the parts of it to be in one only place alone. So that the Church of Rome when it saith that Christs body is in many places: in effect they say, that Christs body is no body: for if it be a body, it is only in one place: & if it be in many places, it is no body. They object that God is omnipotent. True indeed: but there be some things, the doing of which agreeth not with gods power, as to make contradicentia things contradictory to be both true: of which sort these are.