it is necessary, 1. That the organ be sound, in such a measure as that no prevalent distemper undispose it. 2. That it be not oppressed by any disturbing adjunct. 3. That the sensitive soul do operate on and by these organs; for else its alienation will leave the organ useless: as some intense meditations make us not hear the clock. 4. That it be the due sense and organ which meeteth with the object; as sounds with the ear, light with the eye, &c., besides the aforesaid necessaries.

VII. Common notitia or principles are not so called, because men are born with the actual knowledge of them; but because they are truths, which man's mind is naturally so disposed to receive as that upon the first exercises of sense and reason, some of them are understood, without any other human teacher.

VIII. Even self-evident principles are not equal, but some of them are more, and some less evident; and therefore some are sooner, and some later known. And some of them are more commonly known than others.

IX. The self-evidence of these principles ariseth from the very nature of the intellect which inclineth to truth, and the nature of the will which essentially inclineth to good, and the nature and posture of the objects which are Truth and Goodness in the most evident position, compared together, or conjunct; some call it instinct.

X. It is not necessary to the certainty of a principle, that it be commonly known of all or most. For intellects have great variety of capacities, excitation, helps, improvements, and even

principles have various degrees of evidence, and appearances to men.

XI. Man's mind is so conscious of its own darkness and imperfections, that it is distrustful of its own inferences, unless they be very near and clear. When by a long series of ergos any thing is far fetched, the mind is afraid there may be some unperceived error.

XII. He therefore that holdeth a true principle as such, and at once a false inference which contradicteth it, is to be supposed to hold the principle first and fastest, and that if he saw the contradiction he would let go the consequent and not the principle.

XIII. He that denieth the certainty of sense, imagination, and intellective perception of things sensed as such, doth make it impossible to have any certainty of science or faith, about those same objects but by miracle. And therefore the Papists denying and renouncing all these (sense, imagination and intellective perception) when they say, that there is no bread or wine in the Sacrament, do make their pretended contrary faith impossible. For we are men before we are Christians, and we have sense and intellects before we have faith, and as there is no Christianity but on supposition of humanity, so there is no faith, but on supposition of sense and understanding. How know you that here is no bread and wine? Is it because Scripture or Councils, say so? know you that; by hearing or reading? But how know you that ever you did hear or read or see a book or man; by sense or no way? If sense be infallible here, why not there? You

How

will say that sense may be infallible in one case, and not in others. I answer, either you prove it infallible from nature, even by sense and intellective perception, of and by sense; or else by - supernatural revelation. If only by this revelation, how know you that revelation? How know you that ever you heard, read, or saw any thing which you call, revelation? If by a former revelation, I ask you the same question 'in infinitum.' But if you know the certainty of sense, by sense and intellective perception, then where there is the same evidence and perception, there is the same certainty. But here is as full evidence and perceiving as any other object can have. 1. We see bread and wine. 2. We taste it. 3. We smell the wine. 4. We hear it poured out. 5. We feel it. 6. We find the effects of it; it refresheth and nourisheth as other bread and wine. 7. It doth so by any other creature as well as by man. 8. It corrupteth. 9. It becometh true flesh and blood in us, and a part of our bodies; even in the worst; yea, part of the body of a mouse or dog. 10. It is possible for a mouse or dog to live only upon consecrated bread and wine. Is his body then nothing but Christ? 11. In all this perception, the objects are not rare, but commonly exhibited in all ages; they have all the conditions that other sensible, evident objects have, as to sight, magnitude, distance, medium. 12. And it is not one or two, but all men in the world of the soundest senses, who sense and perceive them to be bread and wine. So that here is as full evidence as the words which you read or hear can have to assure us.

Object. But if God deny sense in this case

and not in others, we must believe sense in others and not in this.'

Answ. But again I ask you, How you know that God biddeth or forbiddeth you anything, if sense be not first to be believed?

Object.But is it not possible for sense to be deceived? Cannot God do it?'

Answ. 1. It is possible for sense to be annihilated, and made no sense; and it is possible that the faculty, or organ, or medium, or object be depraved, or want its due conditions, and so to be deceived. But to retain all these due conditions, and yet to be deceived is a contradiction, for then it is not the same thing; it is not that which we call now formally sense and intellect, or sensation and intellection. And contradictions are not things for Omnipotency to be tried about. God can make a man to be no intellectual creature; but thereby he maketh him no man for to be a man, and not intellectual, is a contradiction. And so it is to be men, and yet to have no sense nor intellect, that can truly perceive sensible objects as before qualified: therefore they unman all the world, on pretext of asserting the power of God.

2. But suppose that all sense be fallible, and intellection of things sensible, yet it is the first and only entrance of all things sensible into the mind or knowledge of man; and therefore we must take it as God hath given us, for we can have no surer: no sensible thing is in the intellect which was not first in the sense. Whether my eyes and ears and taste be fallible or not, I am sure I have no other way to perceive their objects; but by them I must take them and use

them as they are. All the words and definitions in the world will not give any man without sensation, a true conception of a sensible object.

3. Such absurd suppositions therefore are not to be put. (As-what if God should tell you by his Word, that all the senses of all men are deceived, in one thing, or in all things? would you not believe him?) It is not to be supposed that God will give us all our senses and intellective perception by them, to be our discerner of things sensible, and then bid us not believe them, for they are false; unless he told us, that all our perceptions are false; and our whole life is but deceit. And I further answer, if God tell me so, it must be by some word or writing of man or angel, or himself; and how should I know that word, but by my sense?

But the great answer which seemeth to satisfy Bellarmine and the rest, is, that sense is no judge of substances, but of accidents only; therefore it is not deceived.

But, 1. It is false, that sense perceiveth not substances: it is not only colour, quantity, figure, which I see; nor only roughness and smoothness which I feel; nor only sweetness which I taste; but it is a coloured, extended, figured substance which I see; a rough or smooth substance which I feel, and a sweet substance which I taste: and if the accident were the only primary object, the substance is the secondary and certain. Else no one ever saw a man, a tree, a bird, a plant, the earth, a book, or any substance; but only the colour, quantity or figure of them. No man ever touched felt or a body, but only the accidents of it.