Of God and His Creatures
The Difficulty of the Accidents remaining
IT cannot be denied that the accidents of bread and wine do remain, as
the infallible testimony of the senses assures us. Nor is the Body and
Blood of Christ affected by them, since that could not be without
change in Him, and He is not susceptible of such accidents. It follows
that they remain without subject. Nor is their so remaining an
impossibility to the divine power. The same rule applies to the
production of things and to their conservation in being. The power of
God can produce the effects of any secondary causes whatsoever without
the causes themselves, because that power is infinite, and supplies to
all secondary causes the power in which they act: hence it can preserve
in being the effects of secondary causes without the causes. Thus in
this Sacrament it preserves the accident in being, after removing the
substance that preserves it.*
4.64 : An Answer to Difficulties raised in respect of Place
4.66 : What happens when the Sacramental Species pass away