He shot that body through the opposing might,
Of bolts and bars, impervious to the light,
And stood before his train confessed in open sight.—P. [122].
"Then the same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you."
Again, "And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you."—The Gospel of St John, chap. xx. verses 19. 26.
From these passages of Scripture, Dryden endeavours to confute the objection to transubstantiation, founded on the host being consecrated in various places at the same time, in each of which, however, the body of Christ becomes present, according to the Papist doctrine. This being predicated of the real body of our Saviour, the Protestants allege is impossible, as matter can only be in one place at the same time. Dryden, in answer, assumes, that Christ entered into the meeting of the disciples, by actually passing through the closed doors of the apartment; and as, at the moment of such passage, two bodies must have been in the same place at the same instant, the body of Jesus namely, and the substance through which he passed, the poet founds on it as an instance of a transgression of a natural law, proved from Scripture, as violent as that of one body being in several different places at once. But the text does not prove the major part of Dryden's proposition; it is not stated positively by the evangelist, that our Saviour passed through the doors which were shut, but merely that he came and stood among his disciples without the doors being opened; which miraculous appearance might take place many ways besides that on which Dryden has fixed for the foundation of his argument.
}
More haughty than the rest, the Wolfish race }
Appears with belly gaunt, and famished face; }