of this for this is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins JESUS took bread and blessed and brake it and gave to them and said Take eat this is my body And he took the cup and when he had given thanks he gave it to them and they all drank of it And he said unto them This is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many And he took bread and gave thanks and brake it and gave unto them saying This is my body which is given for you this do in remembrance of me Likewise also the cup after supper saying This cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you The LORD JESUS the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and said Take eat this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped saying This cup is the new testament in my blood this do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me From all these it evidently appears that our Saviour appoints the Cup as well as the Bread and commands that to be drunk as much as the other to be eat And two of the Evangelists remark that particularly of the Cup which they do not of the Bread that they all drank of it and that Christ said expresly to them Drink ye all of it As if the infinite Wisdom of God which foresaw all future events and all the after-errours that should arise about this Sacrament had had some especial regard to this very thing and designed to prevent the abuse and mistake of those who would not have all Christians drink of this Cup as well as eat of the Bread. What other reason there should be of those particular and remarkable words in St. Mathew and St. Mark relating to the Cup more than to the Bread I believe it will be hard to find out for Christ gave them the Bread just as he did the Cup and there was no more danger that any of them at that time should omit drinking the one any more than eating the other nor did there need any greater caution that we know of or more particular command in reference to themselves for the one more than the other and yet no doubt there was some great and peculiar reason for St. Matthew and St. Mark 's adding of those words of which there can be no such probable account given as their having a respect and relation to after Ages as many other things in the Scripture have which was written for the use not onely of the present but all times of the Church and if these were spoken to the Apostles onely as Priests as the Roman Sophisters pretend though without any ground as we shall shew by and by there cannot then be given any reason for them as yet for there is no such corruption yet got into any part of the Christian Church as to forbid the Priests to drink of the Cup and therefore it cannot be said that this remark or precaution was upon their account unless the Romanists will think fit to take it to themselves upon the account of their not allowing their very Priests to Communicate of the Cup unless when they Minister and Consecrate and so will have it regard onely that other abuse of theirs which is unjustifiable even upon their own grounds to wit That the assistent Priests are not to receive it though Christ by their own confession said to the Priests who were present Drink ye all of it Which is the best way that I know for them to come off of those words by their own Principles For to avoid the force of those words and to elude the plain Command and Institution of our Saviour about the Cup 's being given to all Christians they say The Apostles received it onely in the capacity of Priests and that our Saviour's Command Drink ye all of it belongs onely to Priests and was given to the Apostles meerly as such nay Monsieur Boileau says ‖ Igitur haec verba S. Matthei bibete ex hoc omnes haec S. Marci biberant ex illio omnes neminem hominem praeter duodecim Apostolos spectant aut attinent Boileau de pracepto divino Commun Sub utrâque specie p. 188. that those words in St. Matthew Drink ye all of it and in St. Mark they all drank of it Respect no man whatsoever nor belong to no other man but to the twelve Apostles and Monsieur de Meaux tells us P. 237. that these words were addressed to the Apostles onely who were present and had their entire accomplishment when in effect they all drunk of it Then it seems none but the Apostles themselves no other Priests have a right or a command to drink of the Cup but onely the Apostles And this they might say if they pleased upon as good grounds and defend with as much reason as that the Apostles onely drank of it as Priests but I suppose they do not intend to improve this notion so far but mean onely the same with their Brethren who say that those words concern the Apostles not onely in their own persons but as Priests and as bearing the persons of all Christian Priests in which capacity alone they received the Cup and were commanded by our Saviour to drink of it whereas they received the Bread as Lay-men and as representing the whole body of private and ordinary Christians What a sudden change is here in the Apostles they who sat down as Lay-men and as Lay-men took the Bread just before have their capacity altered in a trice and are made Priests in a moment Yes say they so they were at that very time they were made Priests whilst they were sitting at Table with Christ and Celebrating this his last Supper the first and only ordination that ever was either in the Jewish or Christian Church in the time of eating and siting at Table And they may set up I dare say for the first Authors among all the Christian Writers that ever were of this Opinion that is now held by them That Christ at his last Supper appointed not onely one but two Sacraments that of Orders as well as that of the Eucharist and the first without any proper Solemnity for such a purpose without any outward Action or any Words one would think importing any such thing But they were made Priests say they by vertue of those words Hoc facite Do this which Christ spake to them after he had given them the Bread. This is a very short and a quick form of Ordination and had it been known to be one sooner for 't is a very late discovery I suppose the Roman Church would have kept to that in the Ordaining Priests as they do to Hoc est Corpus in Consecrating the Sacramental Bread But this
presume he will not say they have the same right to it or interest in it that Christians have and yet I own they ought as much to have the Cup as they ought to turn Christians that is they ought to do both But yet first I think to become Christians and be Baptized before they have ordinarily a right either to Christ's Blood or to the Sacrament and it must seem very strange and grate very much upon all Christian ears to have it said that Turks and Infidels have a right to the Cup and Blood of Christ as well as Christians from this reason here of our Saviour to his Disciples concerning which it is I think very observable that to partake of the Sacrificial Blood and to drink that Sacramentally which was shed for the expiation of our Sins is a peculiar and extraordinary priviledge allowed to Christians The Jews were forbid all blood for this reason given by God himself ‖ Levit. 1◠10 11. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls The life of the Beast which was given and accepted by God for the life of the Offender that was forfeited by the Law was supposed to be in the Blood as 't is there added the life of the flesh is in the blood and therefore the Blood of the Sacrifice was poured out and so given to God at the Altar the peculiar vertue and atonement of Christs Sacrifice is attributed to his Blood We have redemption through his blood * Eph. 1.7 We are justified by his blood †Rom. 5.9 In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins ‖ Coloss 1.14 And without shedding of blood either under the Law or under the Gospel there was no remission to be had * Heb. 9.22 Now for Christians to partake and Communicate of that Blood in the Sacrament which was shed and sacrificed for them and by which they have atonement and expiation of Sins this is a peculiar favour and singular priviledge which Christ has vouchsafed to Christians and which he takes notice of at his Institution of this Sacrament Drink ye all of it for this is my blood of the new Testament which is shed for you for the remission of sins The Author of the Treatise de caenâ Domini in the Works of St. Cyprian ‖ Nova est hujus Sacramenti doctrina scholae Evangelicae hoc primum Magisterium protulerunt doctore Christo primum haec mundo innotuit disciplina ut biberent sanguinem Christiani cujus esum legis antiquae auctoritas districtissimè interdicit Lex quippe esum sanguinis prohibet Evangelicum praecipit ut bibatur has remarked this as first brought in by Christ and as a new thing belonging to the Sacrament of the Gospel That Christians should drink Blood which the old Law did absolutely forbid but this says he the Gospel commands and St. Chrysostome †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Homil. 18. in 2 Cor. observes It is not now as it was formerly when the Priest ate of that which the People might not partake of but now one Body and one Cup is offered to all So it was it seems in his time and they had not then learnt the way of drinking the Blood by eating the Body which now they pretend to do in the Church of Rome we do say they partake of the Blood and the Body both together for the Blood is in the Body and necessarily joyned with it but besides that this depends upon that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Doctrine of Transubstantiation upon which this and a great many other things are built when it is yet too heavy and ruinous to bear its own weight yet this cannot here do the business for we are to drink the Blood and not to eat it that is we are to partake of it as separated from the Body as shed for us or else it is not a Sacramental partaking of it we are to receive Christ's Body as it was a Sacrifice for us but it was not a Sacrifice but as the Blood was poured out and separated from it and we cannot any other way partake of the Sacrificial Blood which is to be drunk by all Christians 5. It is a most groundless fancy and an Opinion perfectly precarious to suppose the Apostles were made Priests at our Saviour's Institution of the Sacrament by those words Hoc facite and that they received the Cup onely as Priests None of the Ancients who write upon this Sacrament or upon these words of its Institution ever thought so nor did it ever enter into the head of any man till a few late School-men invented this new subtilty that they might have something to say against the clearest cause and to shift off if they could the plainest Evidence in the World and though they now generally take up with this Sophistical Evasion which Monsieur Boileau †Creavit instituit Sacerdotes his verbis hoc facite p. 189. insists upon yet some of the wisest men among them are ashamed of it Estius owns that this appears not at all solid nor agreable to ancient Interpreters * Nobis parum solidum videtur nec apud veteres interpretes Dist 12. §. 11. and confesses that Hoc facite belongs to the common People eating and drinking of this Sacrament and that St. Paul refers it to them ‖ Et Paulus 1 Cor. 11. illad facere etiam ad plebem refert edenter bibentem de hoc Sacramento quando ait hoc facite quotiescunque Suarez acknowledges it is not convincing †Hoc argumenti genus per se non convincere Disp 74. Tom. 3. And Alfonsus à Castro * Contra haeres Tit. Euch. p. 99. would not make use of it because he says it does not appear whether those words were spoken by Christ before or after he gave the Eucharist to the Apostles and he rather thinks after and that they took it not as Priests * Ib. He was aware of a difficulty if the Apostles took the Cup onely as Priests and by the right of Priests at the first Institution then it would be contrary to that to have any but Priests receive the Cup And then why is it ever given to the Laiety as it is sometimes by the Pope's favour and concession if it belong onely to Priests and the Priests onely have right to it from the first Institution because the Apostles received it only as Priests But so inconsistent are they to their own Principles that they do not give the Cup even to their Priests unless when they themselves Consecrate and Officiate None but the Minister Conficiens is to receive that though never so many other Priests be by so much at variance are they between this their pretence and their own practice and so do they fight even with their
the Bread and Wine St. Paul who wrote to the Laiety would no doubt have taken notice of it and told them their respective duties but he delivers the Institution to them just as Christ did to his Apostles says not a tittle of their not being to receive the Cup but on the contrary adds that command to it which is in none of the Evangolists Do this in remembrance of me Gives not the least intimation that this was given to the Apostles as Priests or that they were made Priests then but what is observable does not so much as mention the Apostles or take any notice of the persons that were present at the Institution and to whom the words Do this were spoken So that so far as appears from him they might be spoken to other Disciples to ordinary Laics nay to the women who might be present at this first Sacrament as well as the Apostles and so must have been made Priests by those words Hoc facite as well as they After the recital of the Institution in which he observes no difference between the Priests and Laics he tells the Faithful of the Church of Corinth that as often as they did eat this Bread and drink this Cup they shewed forth the Lord's death till he come So that they who were to shew forth Christ's death as well as the Priests were to do it both by eating the Bread and drinking the Cup and indeed one of them does not shew forth his death so well as both for it does not shew his Blood separated from his Body He goes on to shew 'um the guilt of unworthy eating and drinking for he all along joyns both those Acts as a phrase signifying the Communion and he expresly uses it no less than four times in that Chapter But in some Copies say they instead of and he uses the particle or in the 27 v. Whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup unworthily and here Monsieur Boileau would gladly find something for either Eating or Drinking without doing both which is such a shift and cavil as nothing would make a man catch at but such a desperate cause as has nothing else to be said for it If the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or were used in that place instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet he has but little skil either in Greek or Latine Authors who knows not that it is the commonest thing in both to use that disjunctive for a copulative as to Abraham or his seed for to Abraham and his seed ‖ Ro. 4.13 Of which it were easie to give innumerable instances both in the Bible and profane History The Apostle having used the copulative in all other Verses and all along in this Chapter and having joyned eating and drinking cannot be supposed here to use a disjunctive and to separate them but after all there are Copies of as great Credit and Authority for the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though I think no such weight bears upon the difference of these particles as to make it worth our while to examine them for if the Apostles did disjoyn them it was onely to lay a greater Emphasis upon the guilt of unworthy eating and drinking which though they both go together yet are both very great Sins and I see no manner of consequence that because a man may both eat and drink unworthily that therefore he should onely eat and not drink at all or that the Apostles supposed it lawful to eat without drinking or drink without eating But the Apostolical practice and the Institution of our Saviour for Communion in both kinds though it be very plain and clear in Scripture and being founded upon so full a Command and a Divine Institution I know no Power in the Church to alter it or vary from it yet it will be further confirmed and strengthened by the Universal Practice of the whole Christian Church and of the purest Ages after the Apostles and by the general consent of Antiquity for a thousand years and more after Christ in which I shall prove the Eucharist was always given to all the Faithful who came to the public Worship and to the Communion in both kinds without any difference made between the Priests and the Laiety as to this matter which was a thing never heard of in Antiquity nor ever so much as mentioned in any Author till after the Twelfth Century in which wretched times of Ignorance and Superstition the Doctrine of Transubstantiation being newly brought in struck men with such horror and Superstitious Reverence of the sacred Symbols which they believed to be turned into the very substance of Christ's Body and Blood that they begun to be afraid of taking that part which was fluid and might be spilt each drop of which they thought to be the same blood that flowed out of the side of Christ and the very substantial Blood that was running in his Veins and now by a miraculous way was conveyed into the Chalice Hence at first they used Pipes and Quils to suck it out of the Cup and some used intinction or dipping of the Bread in the Wine and afterwards the same superstition increasing they came to leave off and abstaine wholly from drinking the Cup which was reserved onely to the more sacred lips of the Priests who were willing to be hereby distinguisht from the more unworthy and prophane Laiety The Council of Constance first made this a Law in the Year 1415 which was before a new and superstitious custom used only in some few places and got by degrees into some particular Churches of the Latine Communion for it never was in any other nor is to this day of which we have the first mention in Thomas Aquinas who lived in the Thirteenth Age and who speaks of it thus faintly in his time * In aliquibus Ecclesiis servatur ut solus sacerdos communicetsanguine reliqui vero Corpore Comment in Johan c. 6. v. 53. In some Churches it is observed that onely the Priest Communicates of the blood and others of the Body †In quibusdam Ecclesiis observatur sum p. 3. q. 80. In quibusdam in Aliquibus Ecclesiis shows that it was then but creeping into a few particular Churches and very far from being generally observed in the Western Parts And that it was quite otherwise in the whole Primitive Church for above a thousand years who in all their assemblies kept to our Saviour's Institution of both kinds and never varied from what Christ and his Apostles had commanded and delivered to them as the Church of Rome now does I shall fully prove that so according to Vincentius Lirinensis his rule against all manner of Heresies the truth may be establisht First ‖ Primo scilicet divinae legis auctoritate tum deinde Ecclesiae Catholicae traditione by the authority of a divine Law and then by the Tradition of the Catholic Church which
199. without any difference and all along mentions both the Symbols by the words Sacramenta Mysteria Dona in the plural number and concludes with this Prayer That as many as have taken the Body and Blood of Christ may be filled with all heavenly benediction and grace * Vt quotquot ex hâc altaris partici patione sacrosanctum filii tui corpus sanguinem sumpserimus omni benedictione caelesti gratiâ repleamur p. 198. The three other are lately published by Mabillon and were used very anciently in the Gallican Church before that Nation had received the Roman Office in all which also there are plain evidences for the Communion in both kinds in the old Gothic one after the Lord's Prayer follows this †Libera nos à malo Domine Christe Jesu Corpus tuum pro nobis crucisixum edimus sanguinem sanctum tuum bibimus fiat nobis corpus sanctum tuum ad salutem sanguis sanctas tuus in remissionem peccatorum hìc in aeternùm Missale Gothico-Gallicanum apud Mabillon de Lyturg. Gallic p. 300. Deliver us from evil O Lord Jesus Christ we have eaten thy Body crucified for us we have drunk thy holy Blood which was shed for us Let thy sacred Body be unto us for Salvation and thy sacred Blood for the remission of Sins here and for ever And in the Missa Dominicalis after the Communion there is this Prayer Thy body O Lord which we have taken and thy Cup which we have drunk let it stick in our entrails ‖ Corpus tuum Domine quod accepimus calicem tuum quem potavimus haereat visceribus nostris Ib. p. 297. An expression used now in the Canon Missae In the Missale Francorum which is but short the Sacramenta and Mysteria and Sacrosancta Mysteria are used in the plural which may denote the two parts of the Sacrament but in the old Gallican Missal it is as plain as can be in the Collect after the Eucharist We have taken from the holy Altars the body and blood of Christ our Lord and our God Let us pray that we being always filled with Faith may hunger and thirst after Righteousness * Sumsimus ex sacris altaribus Christi Domini Dei nostri corpus sanguinem oremus ut semper nobis fide plenis esurire detur ac sitire justitiam Ib. p. 331. And in another Collect after the Communion upon Easter day We beseech thee O Lord that this wholsome food and sacred drink may bring up thy Servants †Quaesumus Domine famulos tuos salutaris cibus sacer potus instituat Ib. p. 366. There are several old Missals produced by Menardus at the end of his Notes on Gregory's Sacramentary which are supposed to be written about the Tenth and the Eleventh Century and though the Doctrine of Transubstantiation creeping in in those dark and ignorant times made them begin to have a superstitious fear of spilling the Wine and so brought them in order to prevent that to mix the two Elements together yet they never gave the one without the other as appears in all those Masses The Sacramentary of St. Gregory is alone a sufficient Authority for Communion in both kinds in which the Priest who Celebrates prays that as many as shall take the sacred Body and Blood of thy Son may be filled with all heavenly blessings ‖ Quotquot ex hâc altaris participatione sacrosanctum filii tui corpus sanguinem sumpserimus omni benedictione caelesti repleamur Gregor Sacram. and we who take the Communion of this holy Bread and Cup are made one body of Christ * Ipsi qui sumimus Communionem hujus sancti panis calicis unum Christi corpus efficimur Ib. So that the Body and Blood of Christ were plainly to be taken by more than himself and were so by all the Faithful who were thereby to be made the Body of Christ so we are fed with his flesh we are strengthned by his bloud †Cajus cane pascimur reboramur sanguine Ib. Thou hast refreshed us with the body and bloud of thy Son ‖ Corpore sanguine filii tui nos resecisti Ib. and we beseech thee that we may be numbred amongst his members whose body and bloud we do Communicate * Quaesumus ut inter ejus membra numeremur cujus corpori communicamus sanguini Ib. I have before considered the Ordo Romanus as an ancient Ritual of the Latine Church and both that and the Sacramentary of St. Gregory which are the most ancient Writings at least next to Gelasius that give us an account of these things in the Roman Church do bear witness to the custom of giving the Cup in the Communion as well as the Bread which Cassander also observes †Quem morem sanguinis Domiai porrigendi antiqua Sacramentaria B. Gregorii libellus Ordinis Romani apertè testantur Cassand Consult de commun sub utrâ que who had as great skill as any man in these matters but yet had not seen the Gelasian Sacramentary since published out of the Queen of Sweden's Library which is a further confirmation of this 3. As to the Testimony of the Fathers or ancient Writers some of those have been already given upon the two former heads I shall add several others to them who bear witness to the Communion in both kinds Ignatius in one of his Epistles says One Bread is broken to all one Cup is distributed to all ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat. Ep. ad Philadelph And here I cannot but admire the Confidence and Folly of Monsieur Boileau * De solitario pane mentionem facit Ignatius Boileau de praecept Divin Commun sub utráque p. 216. who brings this very passage One Bread is broken for them all as a proof that it was onely the Bread that was given and leaves out what is immediately added One Cup is distributed to all which not onely confutes but shames him †Quomodo dicunt carnem in corruptionem devenire non percipere vitam quae à corpore Domini sanguine alitur Iren. l. 4. c. 34. Irenaeus says The flesh is fed by the body and bloud of Christ and that of the Cup and the Bread the substance of our flesh is increased and consists ‖ Quando ergo mixtus calix fraclus panis percipit verbum Det fit Eucht istia sangutnis corporis Christi x quibus augetur consistit carnti nostrae substantia quomodo carnem negant capacem esse donatio is Dei. qui est vitae aeterna quae sanguine corpere Christi nutritur membrum ejus Id. l. 5. c. 2. And from hence he there proves the Resurrection of the Body against those Hereticks that denied it because the body is nourished by the bloud and body of Christ and is made a member of him He must mean this of
the Bodies of all Christians unless the Resurrection of the Body belong onely to the Priests as well as the Cup. Tertullian upon the Resurrection says the same with Irenaeus Our flesh is fed with the body and bloud of Christ * Caro corpore sanguine Christi vescitur Tertul. de Resur carnis And in his Book to his Wife he speaks of her taking the Cup in two several places †Dâ—â—câ—jus manu desiderabit dè cujus poculo participabit Id. ad uxor l. 2. c. 6. De cibo de poculo invadere desiderare in mente habere Id. c. 4. Upon one of which a very learned Critic of the Roman Church who owns those places to belong to the Communion has made this observation to our hands At that time the Supper of the Lord was Celebrated in both Species ‖ Sub utrâque specie illo tempore convivium Domini cerebratur quod tantâ aviditate arripiebatur ut illud invadere desiderare in mente habere De la Cerda Not. in locum p. 634. Even to Women it seems who I suppose were no Priests Origen upon the Book of Numbers says We drink the bloud of Christ Sacramentally in the Eucharist as well as Spiritually by believing his Doctrine * Bibere dicimur sanguinem Christi non solùm Sacramentorum ritu se cum sermenes ejus recipimus Quis est iste populus qui in usa habet sanguinem bibere Origent homil 16. in Num. When he had before asked What people drink of Bloud St. Cyprian admonishes Christians to prepare themselves for the hardest encounters as the Souldiers of Christ Considering that for this very purpose †Gravior nunc ferocior pugna immicet ad quam parare debent milites Christi considerantes idcirco se quotidiè calicem sanguinis Christi bibere ut possint ipsi propter Christum sanguinem fundere Ep. 58. ad plebem Thiberitanam Edit Oxon. they every day drink the Cup of Christ's Bloud that so they may also shed their bloud for Christ. And he pleads for giving the Communion to the lapsed upon this very account to arm and fortifie them for farther tryals and persecutions How can we teach or provoke them to shed their bloud for the confession of Christ if we deny them the Bloud of Christ ‖ Nam quomodo docemus aut provocamus eos in confessione nominis sanguinem suum fundere si eis militaturis Christi sanguinem denegamus aut quomodo ad Martyrit poculum idoneos facimus si non eos prius ad bibendum in Ecclesiâ poculum Domini jure communionis admittimus Ep. 57. ad Cornel. Or how can we make them fit for the Cup of Martyrdom if we do not first admit them to drink the Cup of the Lord in the Church by the right of Communion The excellent Epistle * Ep. 63. Caecilio fratri of that Holy Martyr against those who out of a principle of abstaining wholly from Wine or lest they should by the smell of Wine which they had drunk in the Morning-Sacrifices Simili modo calicem quod si à Domino praecipitur ab Apostoloejus hoc idem confirmatur traditur hoc faciamus quod fecit Dominus invenimus non observari a nobis quod mandatum nisi eadem quae Dominus fecit nos quoque faciamus calicem Dom. pari ratione miscentes à divine Magisterio non recedamus Ib. Quod nos obandire facere oportet quod Christus fecit faciendum esse mandavit Ib. discover themselves to be Christians used Water in the Eucharist instead of Wine is so full a demonstration that the Wine ought always to be taken in the Sacrament and that Christ's Institution and Command could not otherwise be observed that there needs no other Arguments but what that great Man there uses to shew the necessity of Christians Communicating in both the Species of Bread and Wine Christ Quare si solus Christus audiendus est non debemus attendere quod alius ante nos faciendum putaverit sed quid qui ante omnes est Christus prier fecerit Ib. Quomodo autem de creaturâ vitis novum vinum cum Christo in regno patris bibemus si in sacraficio Dei Patris Christi vinum non offerimus nec calicem Domini dominicâ traditione miscemus Ib. says he gave the Cup and we are to do that which Christ did and ought by no means to depart from what was commanded by Christ and delivered by the Apostles upon any custom or pretence whatsoever How shall we drink says he of the fruit of the Vine with Christ in the Kingdom of his Father if we do not now offer the Wine in the Sacrifice and mingle the Cup of the Lord as he delivered it to us And that this Wine was drunk by all Christians is plain from that fear which some had lest by their drinking it in the morning they should smell of it * Nisi in sacrificiis matutinis hoc quis veretur ne per saporem vini redoleat sanguinem Christi Ib. p. 155. and so discover themselves to the Heathens It was then it seems a mark to know Christians by That they did smell of the bloud of Christ which if they had done as the Papists now do they need not have been afraid of But to proceed to others who though they speak less of this then St. Cyprian yet speak plainly of Christians taking the Bloud as well as the Body Athanasius speaking of the Cup says It belongs to the Priests of right to give this to the People †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apolog 2. St. Basil in one of his Epistles says It is good and profitable to Communicate every day of the Body and Bloud of Christ ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ep. ad Caesar And speaking of the peculiar Vertues of Christians asks What is proper to those that eat the Bread and drink the Cup of the Lord * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. Moral denoting that to belong to all Christians St. Chrysostom in his Oratorian manner speaks of Christians as being all Died and Purpled with the Bloud of Christ †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Sacerdot l. 3. And thus compares all Christians in general with the Israelites As thou eatest the Body of Christ so did they Manna as thou drinkest the Bloud of Christ so did they Water out of the Rock ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. Homil. 23. in 1 Cor. And in another place he expresly observes what I have taken notice of before That 't is not now as under the Jewish Law where the Priest partook of several things from the Altar which the People did not There is no difference between the Priest and the People when we come to receive the Holy Mysteries for one Body and one Cup is offered to all †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Id. in Homil. 18. in 2 Cor. St Hierom says The Priests serve the Eucharist and divide the Bloud of the Lord among the People * Sacerdotes Eucharisticae serviunt sanguinem Domini populis ejus dividunt Hieron in Sophon c. 2. And upon occasion speaks of some loose and vitious Women who yet would not abstain from the bloud of Christ ‖ Ebâ—â—â—tati sacrilegium copulantes aiunt Absit ut ego me à Christi sanguine abstineam Id Ep. ad Eustoch So that this it is plain was taken by the Women St. Austin to the newly Baptized Christians says That in all their tryals and their time of being Catechumens they did approve themselves that they might eat the Lord's Body and drink the Cup * Vt cum seipsos probaverint tunc de mensâ Domini manducent de calice bibant August de fide Oper And speaking of the prohibition of Blood to the Jews because it was offer'd in Sacrifice but from taking the Bloud of the Sacrifice of our Lord no one says he is not onely forbidden but all are exhorted to drink of it who will have Life †Ab hujus sacrificii sanguine in alimeatum sumendo non solum nemo prohibetur sed ad bibendum omnes exhortantur qui volunt habere vitam Id. in Levit. qu. 57. I might easily bring down the like clear authorities of ancient Writers much lower even to the times of the very Schoolmen who are the first that ever mention any thing about the Communion in one kind But that I may not over-load my self or my Reader I shall onely offer one or two more of much later date but yet more considerable to our Adversaries at least because they believed Transubstantiation but had not it seems improved it into that consequence which Superstition afterwards did of Communicating in one kind Paschasius Ratbertus Abbot of Corbey was the very Parent of Transubstantiation and the first founder of that Doctrine in the Ninth Century yet in the same Book in which he broaches that new Opinion he fully and plainly asserts the old Practice of the Communion in both kinds The Priest says he consecrates by the power of Christ and performs the part of Christ between God and the People he offers their Prayers and Oblations to God and what he hath obtained of God he renders to them by the body and bloud of Christ which he distributes to every one of them ‖ Caeterum sacerdos quia vices Christi visibili specie inter Deum populum agere videtur infert per manûs Angeli vota populi ad Deum refert Vota quidem offert munera refert autem imperata per Corpus sanguinem distribuit singnlis Paschas de Corpore sanguine Domini c. 12. Those Singuli must be the People whose Prayers the Priest offered and to whom he distributed the Bloud as well as the Body of Christ and to shew further that the Bloud was given in the Sacrament not to the Priest onely but to the People he most expresly says That when Christ gives the Sacrament by the hands of the Ministers he says also by them Take and drink ye all of this as well Ministers as all the rest that believe This is the cup of my bloud of the new and everlasting testament * Et ideo hic solus est qui frangit hunc panem per manus ministrorum distribuit credentibus dicens Accipite bibete ex hoc omnes tam Ministri quam reliqui credeates hic est calix sanguinis mei novi aeterni testamenti Ib. c. 15. Then which words there could nothing have been said that does more directly destroy the late pretence of our Adversaries of the Cup 's being given and belonging onely to the Priests or Ministers and not to all the Faithful or the Reliqui Credentes But he still goes further as to this matter and makes the partaking of the Bloud to be necessary to Salvation in another Chapter It is manifest says he †Constat igitur liquet omnibus quòd in hâc mortali vitâ sine cibo potu non vivitur sic itaque ad illam aeternam non pervenitur nisi duobus istis ad immortalitatem nutriatur Ib. c. 19. that in this mortal life we cannot live without meat and drink so therefore likewise can we not come to eternal life unless we are spiritually nourisht with those two unto Immortality and speaks of the Cup in the very next words To him I shall add Algerus a very zealous defender of Paschasius his Doctrine of Transubstantiation and as heartily agreeing with him in the practice and necessity of Communicating in both kinds Because says he we live by meat and drink that we can want neither therefore Christ would have them both in his Sacrament ‖ Vnde etiam quia potu clod ita vivimus ut alterntro carere nequeumus ntrumque in Sacramento suo esse voluit Algerus de Sacramento l. 2. c. 5. And as he redeemed both our body and our soul by his body and blood so he argues * Nos qui corpore animâ perieramus corpus per corpus animam per animam Christus redimens simul corpus sanguis sumitur à fidelibus ut sumpto corpore animâ Christi totus homo vivificetur Ib. c. 8. we ought to partake both of his body and of his blood that our whole man may be quickned by both Then he quotes St. Austin and Gelasius for the taking of both Species †Vnde ut ait Augustinus nec caro sine sanguine nec sanguis sine carne jure communicatur Item Gelasius Majorico Joanni Episcopis Comperimus quòd quidam sumptâ tantùm corporis portione à calice sacri cruoris abstineant qui proculdubiò aut integra Sacramenta accipiant aut ab Integris arceantur quia divisio unius ejusdemque mysterii sine grandi sacrilegio non potest provenire Ib. c. 8. From whence as St. Austin says neither the flesh is rightly Communicated without the blood nor the blood without the flesh So also Gelasius to Majoricus and John Bishops We find that some taking onely the part of the body abstain from the Cup of the holy bloud who ought unquestionably either to take the whole Sacrament or to be kept wholly from it because the division of one and the same Sacrament cannot be without grand Sacriledge He that had this Belief and these Arguments for it could not but be a great enemy to the Mutilated and Sacrilegious Communion in one kind however great a friend he was to Transustantiation and his authority and his words are the more remarkable because he lived in the Twelfth Century which makes him as a great many others then were which I could produce an undeniable Evidence that that corruption was not brought into the Latine Church till the next Age against which we have
Gregory that in case the sick person was in a condition to receive the Elements separately then this form was used The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep thee to eternal Life The Bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thee to eternal Life which says he shews a distinct Sumption If he was in such weakness and extremity as to have them given mixt then it was said The Body and Bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy Soul to Eternal Life which as well shews a Sumption of both the Elements though in a different manner according to the different state of the sick person The Communion of Infants is the next custom alledged by this Author Communion of Infants it was a very ancient and almost universal practice of the Church to give the Eucharist to little Children as soon as they were Baptized thinking it to be as necessary to their Salvation as Baptism and that they were as capable of the one as the other and therefore the Council of Trent which has condemned all those who say the Eucharist is necessary for Infants has herein determined against the general sence and practice of the Church and put no less men than St. Austin and Innocent a Pope of their own notwithstanding his Infallibility who were notoriously of this Opinion under an Anathema which how they can reconcile with their other principles of following Tradition and of the Churches Infallibility in all Ages I shall leave to them to consider and make out if they can But as to our present question when the Communion was thus given to Infants I utterly deny that it was onely in one kind I cannot indeed produce so many proofs that it was in both as in the Sick because there was not so much occasion in any History to make mention of the one as the other but that which was the very ground and foundation of this Practice of Communicating Infants and the reason why they thought it necessary to their Salvation namely those words of our Saviour John 6.53 Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you these do suppose an equal necessity to drink the Bloud as to eat the Flesh and to do both as well as one And hence St. Austine who denys as he says all Catholics do with him That Infants can have Life without partaking of the Eucharist expresses it in such words as suppose plainly their partaking of both kinds viz. * Parvulos sine cibo carnis Christi sanguinis potu vitam non habituros sine participatione corporis sanguinis Domini Ep. 106. Their distinct eating the flesh and drinking the bloud of Christ as other Authors also do who mention this very thing in relation to Infants †Non cibatis carne neque potatis sanguine Christi Hipogn l. 5. Corporis Dominici edulio ac sanguinis haustu satiatos Liber Catoh magni de Imag. c. 27. and Pope Paschal the Second who in the eleventh Century allows the mixing the two species for Infants by this means appoints them to take both and supposes it an original custom to do so and if we had nothing else yet the remaining custom in the Greek and Eastern and in all Churches that still continue the Communion of Infants to Communicate them in both kinds is as full an evidence of this as can be expected And de Meaux has not been able to offer any one example to the contrary but that poor one out of St. Cyprian which if it proves any thing it proves that the whole Christian Assembly received onely the Cup in their public and solemn Meetings as well as the Infant he mentions which he is not so hardy as to venture to say nor dare any one that understands any thing of St. Cyprian's time but the Story he would improve to his purpose is this ‖ Cyprian de Lausis p. 132. Edit Oxon. A Child who had been carried by its Nurse to an Idol Temple and had there tasted of a little Bread and Wine that was Sacrificed this was afterwards brought by its Mother who knew nothing of this matter to the Christian Assembly and there it discovered the strange misfortune had befallen to it For all the time of the Prayers it was in great trouble and uneasiness it cried and tost and was impatient as if it had been in a fit and an agony and seemed to confess that by its actions which it could not by words thus it continued whilst the Solemn Offices were performed and towards the end of them when the Deacon bringing the Cup about to all the rest at last came to that it turned away its face and kept its lips close and would not receive it but the Deacon poured in a little into its mouth against its will which it quickly brought up again not being able to retain what was so holy and sacred in its impure and polluted stomack This was a miraculous and extraordinary warning to others not to partake with any part of the Idol Worship or Offerings which they were in that time greatly tempted to and for this purpose St. Cyprian relates the thing of his own knowledge he being an eye-Witness of it But Monsieur de Meaux would have this serve to shew that the Child had the Cup onely given to it there being no mention of the Bread and therefore that it received but in one kind and consequently that it was the custom for Infants to receive but in one kind in St. Cyprian's time if so then it was the custom also for all Christians in their Religious Assemblies to receive onely in one kind for St. Cyprian mentions nothing at all of the Bread in this place given to the rest any more than to the Child and if de Meaux or any one that pretends to any thing of Learning will assert this That in St. Cyprian's time Christians in the public Communion received but one Species and that this Species was that of Wine I 'll willingly give them this instance of the Child and take them up upon the other where I am sure I have all the learned men that ever read St. Cyprian or understand any thing of Antiquity on my side But why does not St. Cyprian mention any thing of the Bread if that were then given to the Child or others Because he had no reason to do it in this short relation which was not to give an account of all that was then done by the Christians in their Religious Offices but onely of this accident which happened to the Child at that time it being his business in that Discourse to deter men from joyning in the Pagan Idolatry from the terrible Judgements of God upon several who had done this and after this remarkable instance of the Child he relates another of a man who had received the Bread in the Sacrament * Sacrificio à sacerdote celebrato partem cum caeteris ausus
kind will be quite taken off and destroyed but because this is the great Plea and the fundamental reasoning which he every-where uses in his Book I shall therefore fully consider it under these two Questions 1. Whether the same Grace Vertue and Benefit do not belong to one Species or be not given by one Species which is by both 2. Whether one Species containing both Christ's Body and Blood by the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and consequently the person of Christ whole and entire by the Doctrine of Concomitancy do not contain and give whole Christ and so the whole substance and thing signified of the Sacrament I. Whether the same Grace Vertue and Benefit be not given by one Species as by both This de Meaux every-where asserts and 't is the foundation he all along goes upon but is it not strange presumption when God has been pleased to appoint such a Religious Rite and Sacramental Action to be performed in such a manner with a promise of such graces and benefits to those who perform it aright to think he will grant the same benefits to those who perform it otherwise than he has appointed and to venture to make a change and alteration from what he positively ordered and yet think to partake of the same benefits another way without any such outward means and without any Sacraments at all for they are wholly in his own free disposal and he is not tied to any outward means nor to such particular means as the Sacraments are but since he has thought fit to make them the ordinary means of conveying those benefits to us we cannot ordinarily hope for the one without the other thus we cannot expect the vertue and benefit of Baptism without the outward ceremony of washing and without observing that in such a way as Christ has appointed i. e. washing with Water in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost neither can we receive the inward grace and vertue of the Eucharist without taking that Sacrament as Christ hath appointed and commanded it for all Sacraments would loose their worth and value their esteem and reverence and would not be necessary to be observed according to the Divine Institution if without the observance of that we had any just grounds to hope for the vertue and benefits of them there is therefore all the reason in the World to fear that God to preserve the integrity of his own Institution and the force and authority of his own Laws will deny the inward Grace and Vertue of the Sacrament to those who wilfully violate and transgress the outward observance of it in such a way as he has appointed Has not Christ annexed the inward Grace and Vertue of the Sacrament to the outward Sign If he have and we do not receive the outward Sign as he has appointed how can we then hope to receive the inward Grace What is it that makes such an outward sign or ceremony as a Sacrament be a means of conveying such spiritual Grace and Vertue and exibiting such inward benefits to our minds It is not any physical power or natural vertue which they have in themselves it is not the washing with a little Water can cleanse the Soul or the eating a little Bread and drinking a little Wine can nourish and strengthen it but it is the Divine Power of Christ who by his Institution has given such a spiritual and inward vertue to such outward signs and visible actions and made these the means and instruments of conveying and exhibiting such grace and vertue and real benefits to us all the power and efficacy they have to do this is owing purely to the Divine Institution and wholly depends upon that if therefore we do not observe the Institution how can we expect the benefit that comes wholly from that and if Christ by the Institution has annexed the grace and vertue and benefit of the Sacrament to both kinds which he has plainly done by instituting of both how can we then hope to receive it by one contrary to the Institution and how can we be assured that we loose nothing and are deprived of nothing by taking one onely and that this is as good and sufficient as taking of both There is nothing appears from the will and pleasure of him that instituted both upon which the whole vertue of them does entirely depend from whence we can gather any such thing it rather appears from thence that both are necessary because both are instituted de Meaux therefore does not fetch it from thence but from the nature of the thing it self from the inseperableness of that grace which is given in the Sacrament and from the impossibility in the thing to have it otherwise Christ says he cannot seperate the vertue of the Sacrament nor effect that any other grace should accompany his Blood shed than that same in the ground and substance which accompanies his Body immolated †P. 182. But Christ can annex the vertue of the Sacrament to the whole Sacrament and not to any part of it and he can effect that the grace of his Body and Blould should accompany or belong to both the eating his Body and drinking his Blood and not to the doing one of these without the other contrary to his command and institution although the grace be inseparable so that the grace annexed to the Body be no other than that which is annexed to the Blood ‖ P. 3. yet this grace may not be given till both the Body and Blood are received as Bellarmine expresly says it may not in the case of the Priests taking both kinds till the whole sumption of both Species is performed and finished * Possit etiam dici Eucharistiam sub specie panis non conferre gratiam nisi totâ sumptione Eucharistiae absolatâ quia cum sumitur utraque species non censetur absoluta sumptio nisi cum sumta est utraque species ideò Eucharistiam sub specie panis conferre quidem gratiam sed non ante sumptionem alterius speciei Bellarm. de Sacram. Euch. l. 4. c. 23. and if it may not be so in the case of the Priest why not also in all other Communicants unless Christ have made and declared it otherwise which he has not what will it then signifie if as de Meaux says It be impossible to separate in the application the effect of Christ's Bloud from that of his Body †P. 182. If the effect of these be not applied till they are both received and there be no application of the effect as we cannot be assured there is without the receiving of both But did Christ then says he suspend the effect which his Body was to produce until such time as the Apostles had received the Bloud in the first institution of this Sacrament and in the internal between their taking the Bread and the Cup I answer they did not receive the grace of the Sacrament till they had received the
so they may be offered to God and a more lively representation may be made of Christ's death But this is no answer to the question for I do not ask why they are necessary as the Eucharist is a Sacrifice which it is not in a proper sence though it be not my business to shew that here but as it is a Sacrament Why did Christ institute both Species in the Eucharist as it is a Sacrament and why did he give both Species to his Apostles He did not give these to them as a Sacrifice for as such if it were so it was to be onely offered up to God but he gave both the Species to his Disciples and why did he do this if the whole grace and vertue of the Sacrament was given by one and why does the Priest receive both as well as offer both to God He does not receive them as a Sacrifice but as a Sacrament And why is the Sumption of both necessary to him as the Eucharist is a Sacrament which Bellarmine says it is upon that very account †Sacerdotibus utriusque speciei Sumptio necessaria est ex parte Sacramenti Bellarm. de Euch. c. 4. If the taking of one be sufficient to convey the whole grace and vertue of both and the other be not necessary for this end All these questions will return upon de Meaux though the Eucharist were a Sacrifice and as to that I shall onely ask him this question Whether Christ did as truly and properly offer up his Body and Blood as a Sacrifice to God when he instituted this Sacrament as he did upon the Cross If he did and therefore two Species were necessary though if his Body and Blood be both together in one that might be sufficient why needed he then to have afterwards offered up himself upon the Cross when he had as truly offered up his Body and Blood before in the Eucharist If two Species are necessary to make a full representation of Christ's death and to preserve a perfect image of his Sacrifice upon the Cross and by the mystical seperation of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist to represent how they were really separated at his death why are they not then necessary as de Meaux says They are not to the ground of the Mystery Is not the Eucharist as it is a Sacrament designed to do all this and to be such a Remembrance of Christ and a shewing forth the Lord's death till he come as the Scripture speaks And do not they in great measure destroy this by giving the Sacrament in one kind without this mystical separation of Christ's Body and Blood and without preserving such a sacramental Representation of it as Christ has appointed But says de Meaux The ultimate exactness of representation is not requisite ‖ P. 175. This I confess for then the eating the Flesh and drinking the Bloud of a man as some Heretics did of an Infant might more exactly represent than Bread and Wine but such a representation as Christ himself has appointed and commanded this is requisite and when he can prove that Christ has commanded Immersion in Baptism to represent the cleansing of the Soul as he has done taking Bread broken and Wine poured out in the Eucharist to represent his Death I will own that to be requisite in answer to his § 11. There ought to be also an expression of the grace of the Sacrament which is not found in one Species alone for that is not a full expression of our perfect nourishment both by meat and drink and if the Sacraments onely exhibit what they represent which is an Axiom of the School-men then as one kind represents our spiritual nourishment imperfectly so it exhibits it imperfectly but however if the whole grace and vertue of the Sacrament be given by one Species the other must be wholly superfluous and unnecessary as to the inward effect and so at most it must be but a meer significant sign void of all grace as de Meaux indeed makes it though the name of a sign as applied to the Sacrament is so hard to go down with them at other times when he says of the species of Wine That the whole fruit of the Sacrament is given without it and that this can adde nothing thereunto but onely a more full expression of the same Mystery * P. 185. II. The second question I proposed to consider was Whether one Species containing both Christ's Body and Blood by the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and consequently the person of Christ whole and entire by the Doctrine of Concomitancy do not contain and give whole Christ and so the whole substance and thing signified of the Sacrament This de Meaux and all of them pleade That each Species contains Jesus Christ whole and entire †P. 306. §. 9. so that we have in his Flesh his Blood and in his Blood his Flesh and in either of the two his Person whole and entire and in both the one and the other his blessed Soul with his Divinity whole and entire so that there is in either of the Species the whole substance of the Sacrament and together with that substance the whole essential vertue of the Eucharist ‖ P. 327. according to these Principles of the Roman Church I am not here to dispute against those nor to shew the falseness and unreasonableness of that which is the ground of them and which if it be false destroys all the rest I mean Transubstantiation whereby they suppose the Bread to be turn'd into the very natural Body of Christ with Flesh Bones Nerves and all other parts belonging to it and the Wine to be turned into the very natural substance of his Bloud and since this Flesh is not a dead Flesh it must have the Blood joyned with it and even the very Soul and Divinity of Christ which is always Hypostatically united to it and so does necessarily accompany it and the Body with Christ's Soul and Divinity must thus likewise ever accompany his Blood To which prodigious Doctrine of theirs as it relates to the Communion in one kind I have these things to say 1. It does so confound the two Species and make them to be one and the same thing that it renders the distinct consecration of them to be not onely impertinent but senceless For to what purpose or with what sense can the words of Consecration be said over the Bread This is my Body and those again over the Wine This is my Blood If upon the saying of them by the Priest the Bread does immediately become both the Body and Blood of Christ and the Wine both his Blood and his Body too this is to make the Bread become the same thing with the Wine and the Wine the same thing with the Bread and to make onely the same thing twice over and to do that again with one form of words which was done before with another for upon repeating the
words This is my Body Christ's Body and Blood are both of them immediately and truly present and when they are so what need is there of the other form This is my Blood to make the same thing present again which was truly present before It matters not at all in this case whether they be present by vertue of the consecration or by vertue of Concomitancy for if they be truly present once what need they be present again if they become the same thing after the first form of Consecration which they do after the second why do they become the same thing twice or what need is there of another form of words to make the Wine become that which the Bread was before they hold it indeed to be Sacriledge not to consecrate both the Species but I cannot see according to this principle of theirs why the consecrating of one Species should not be sufficient when upon the consecration of that it immediately becomes both Christ's Body and Blood and what reason is there for making the same Body and Blood over again by another consecration They might if they pleased say over the Bread alone Hoc est Corpus meum hoc est sanguis meus This is my Body and this is my Bloud for they believe it is so upon the saying those words Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body And if it be so as soon as the words are pronounced they may as truly affirm it to be both as one What does it signifie to say they are both present by Concomitancy does not Concomitancy always go along with the Consecration is there any space between the Consecration and the Concomitancy is not the one as quick and sudden as the other and can it be said over the Species of Bread This is my Body before it can be as truly said This is my Blood why therefore may not they be both said together Nay it may be as truly said by vertue of this Doctrine not only This is my Body and Blood but this is my Soul and my Divinity for though they will not say it is made all those yet it becomes all those and truly is all those by this Concomitancy upon the Consecration and it may be said to be all those as soon as it is consecrated and at the same time that those words are spoke There being a distinct Consecration of Christ's Body and Bloud in the Sacrament if Christ's Body and Bloud be really present there by vertue of the words of Consecration yet they ought to be as distinctly present as they are distinctly consecrated that is the Body present in the species of Bread and the Blood in the species of Wine for else they are not present according to the Consecration so that this Concomitancy by which they are present together does quite spoile the Consecration by which they are present asunder and so confounds the two Species as to make them become both the same thing after they are consecrated and renders the consecration of one of them to be without either use or sense 2. It makes the distinct Sumption of both the Species to be vain and unnecessary to any persons to the Priests or to any others to whom the Pope has sometimes granted them and even to the Apostles and all the first Christians who received both for if the one contains the very same thing with the other and gives the very same thing what need is there of having or of taking both that is of taking the very same thing twice over at the same time If one Species contain Jesus Christ whole and entire his Body Bloud Soul and Divinity and all these are given by one Species what can be desired more as de Meaux says Then Jesus Christ himself and what then can the other Species give but the same thing is Jesus Christ with whole Humanity and Divinity to be thus taken over and over and to be taken twice at the same time if he be why not several times more and if he were so this might be done by taking several times the same Species since one Species contains the same as both even the whole substance and the whole essential effect of the Sacrament and the very person of Jesus Christ himself This does so alter the nature of the Sacrament by which we have a continual nourishment conveyed to our Souls and receive the Grace and Spirit of Christ by fresh and daily recruits and in several measures and degrees every time we Communicate that it makes it not onely to no purpose for any person to take more than one Species at once but to take the Sacrament more than once all his whole life for what need he desire more who has received together with the humanity of Jesus Christ his Divinity also whole and entire †P. 314. and if he has received that once there is no reason for receiving it again for this as it renders the Grace and Substance of the Sacrament Indivisible as de Meaux often pleades so it renders it Infinite to which nothing can be ever added by receiving it never so often and if we thus make this Sacrament to give the very Body and Bloud of Christ and so the whole and entire Person of Christ and his whole Humanity and his whole Divinity instead of giving the spiritual Graces and Vertues of Christ's Body and Bloud we then make every Communicant to receive all that by one single Communion which he can ever receive by never so many thousands and we make all persons to receive this alike however different the preparations and dispositions of their minds are and even the most wicked and vile wretches must receive not onely Christ's Body and Blood but even his Soul and his Divinity and his whole and entire Person for though the spiritual graces and vertues may be given in different measures and degrees and in different proportions according to the capacity of the receiver yet the Humanity and Divinity of Christ which is whole and entire in each Species never can Thirdly If Christ's Body and Bloud were thus always joyned together in the Sacrament and were both contained in one Species yet this would not be a true Sacramental reception of them for to make that they ought to be taken as separate and divided from one another his Body from his Blood and his Bloud from his Body and not as conjoyned or mixt together this was the way and manner which Christ himself appointed and this is the onely way by which we can be said to eat his Body and to drink his Blood and as they own they ought to be thus consecrated so they ought also to be thus received for I cannot understand why they might not be as well consecrated together as received together and why it would not be as true a Sacrament with such a Consecration as with such a Sumption nay I think the Consecration this way would have more sense in it than
the Sumption for it is nothing so odd and strange to suppose the Bread to be turned into the Body and Bloud of Christ as to suppose that by eating that we both eat the Body and drink the Blood of Christ to make eating and drinking the same thing or to say we drink by eating and eat by drinking are very unaccountable and unintelligible expressions so that Concomitancy does wholly confound those two Sacramental Phrases and Sacramental Actions But is it not enough says de Meaux ‖ P. 323. for a Christian to receive Jesus Christ is it not a Sacrament where Jesus Christ is pleased to be in person But Jesus Christ is not received in the Sacrament in any other manner but by receiving his Body and Bloud nor is it his Person he bids us receive but his Body and Bloud and the way by which we are to receive them is by eating the one and drinking the other and we cannot be properly said to do that or to receive Christ or his Body and Blood Sacramentally but this way Though the Body and Blood of Christ therefore should be both in one Species and both received by one Species yet this would not be the eating the Body and the drinking the Blood for as one of their own Popes Innocent the Third says and Durandus from him Neither is the Blood drunk under the Species of Bread nor the Body eaten under the Species of Wine for as the Blood is not eaten nor the Body drank so neither is drunk under the Species of Bread nor eat under the Species of Wine * Nec sanguis sub specie panis nec Corpus sub specie vini bibitur aut comeditur quia sicut nec sanguis comeditur nec Corpus bibitur ita neutrum sub species panis bibitur aut sub specie vini comeditur Durand Rational l. 4. c. 42. And therefore though they should be both received according to them by one Species yet they would not be both eat and drank that is received Sacramentally eating and drinking are distinct things and both belong to the Sacrament and though eating and drinking spiritually be as de Meaux says The same thing †P. 184. and both the one and the other is to believe Yet eating and drinking Sacramentally are not but are to be two distinct outward actions that are to go along in the Sacrament with our inward Faith. This Doctrine of Concomitancy and of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ together in that gross manner which is believed in the Roman Church does quite spoile the Sacramental reception of Christ's Body and Bloud for according to that they can never be received separate and apart no not by the two Species but they must be always received together in either of them so that though by the Institution the Species of Bread seems particularly to contain or rather give the Body and the Species of Wine the Bloud and as St. Paul says ‖ 1 Cor. 10.16 The bread which we bless is it not the communion of the body of Christ and the cup which we bless is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ Yet hereby either of them is made the Communion of both and it is made impossible to receive them asunder as Christ instituted and appointed and as is plainly implied by eating and drinking and seems to be the very nature of a Sacramental reception But Fourthly This Concomitancy makes us to receive Christ's Body and Bloud not as sacrificed and shed for us upon the Cross but as they are now living and both joyned together in Heaven whereas Christ's Body and Bloud is given in the Sacrament not as in the state of life and glory but as under the state of death for so he tells us This is my body which is given for you that is to God as a Sacrifice and Oblation and This is my blood which is shed for the remission of sins So that we are to take Christ's Body in the Sacrament as it was crucified for us and offered up upon the Cross and his Bloud as it was shed and poured out not as joyned with his Body but as separated from it the Vertue of Christ's Body and Bloud cometh from his Death and from its being a Sacrifice which was slain and whose Blood was poured out for to make expiation for our Sins and as such we are to take Christ's Body and Bloud that is the vertue and benefits of them in the Sacrament for as de Meaux says * P. 311. This Body and this Blood with which he nourisheth and quickneth us would not have the vertue if they had not been once actually separated and if this separation had not caused the violent Death of our Saviour by which he became our Victim So neither will it have that vertue in the Sacrament if the Body be not taken as broken and sacrificed and the Bloud as shed or poured out and both as separated from one another De Meaux owns We ought to have our living Victim under an image of Death otherwise we should not be enlivened †P. 312. I do not well understand the meaning of a living Victim for though Christ who was our Victim is alive yet he was a Victim onely as he died so that a living Victim is perhaps as improper a phrase as a dead Animal If we are to receive Christ then in the Sacrament as a Victim or Sacrifice we are to receive him not as living but as dead I would not have de Meaux or any else mistake me as if I asserted that we received a dead Body a dead flesh a carcase as he calls it ‖ P. 309. in the Sacrament for he knows we do not believe that we receive any real flesh or any proper natural Body at all but onely the mystical or sacramental Body of Christ or to speak plainer the true and real Vertue of Christ's Body and Bloud offered for us and we are not onely to have this under an image of death that is to have the two Species set before us to look upon but we are to receive it under this image and to eat the Body as broken and the Bloud as poured out and so to partake of Christ's death in the very partaking of the Sacrament de Meaux speaks very well when he says * P. 312. The Vertue of Christ's Body and his Blood coming from his Death he would conserve the image of his Death when he gave us them in his holy Supper and by so lively a representation keep us always in mind to the cause of our Salvation that is to say the Sacrifice of the Cross But how is this image of his Death conserved in his holy Supper if Christ be there given not as dead but living Concomitancy does rather mind us of Christ's Resurrection when his Body was made alive again and reunited to his Soul and to his Divinity than of his death when it was divided and
themselves upon the Sabbath on which they were commanded so strictly to rest it was both necessity and the reason of the Law which made this justifiable and not any Tradition or any sentence of the Sanhedrim and our Saviour when he blames their superstitious observance of the Sabbath does not reprove them for keeping it as it was commanded or otherwise than Tradition had explained it but contrary to the true reason and meaning of it and to the true mind and will of the Lawgiver As to the Christians changing the Sabbath into the first Day of the Week this was not done by Tradition but by the Apostolical Authority and whatever obligation there may be antecedent to the Law of Moses for observing one day in seven it can neither be proved that the Jews observed exactly the Seventh day from the Creation much less that the Christians are under any such obligation now or I may adde if they were that Tradition would excuse them from a Divine Law. All the instances which Monsieur de Meaux heaps up are very short of proving that and though I have examined every one of them except that pretended Jewish Tradition of Praying for the Dead which is both false and to no purpose yet it was not because there was any strength in them to the maintaining his sinking Cause but that I might take away every slender prop by which he endeavours in vain to keep it up and drive him out of every little hole in which he strives with so much labour to Earth himself when after all his turnings and windings he finds he must be run down If any instance could be found by de Meaux or others of any Tradition or any Practice of a Church contrary to a Divine Institution and to a plain Law of God they would deserve no other answer to be returned to it but what Christ gave to the Pharisees in the like case Why do ye transgress the commandment of God by your tradition ‖ Mar. 15.3 Our Saviour did not put the matter upon this issue Whether the Tradition by which they explained the Law so as to make it of none effect was truly ancient and authentic and derived to them from their fore-Fathers but he thought it sufficient to tell them that it made void and was contrary to a Divine Law. There is no Tradition nor no Church which has ever broke so plain a Law and so shamefully violated a Divine Institution as that which has set up Communion in One Kind the true reason why it did so was not Tradition no that was not so much as pretended at first for the doing of it but onely some imaginary dangers and inconveniencies which brought in a new custom contrary to ancient Tradition These were the onely things insisted on in its defence at first the danger of spilling the Wine and the difficulty of getting it in some places and the undecency of Laymens dipping their Beards in it These were the mighty reasons which Gerson brought of old against the Heresie as he calls it of Communicating in both Kinds †Tractatus Magistri Johannis de Gerson contra haeresin de communionae Laicorum sub utraque specie as if it were a new Heresie to believe that Wine might be spilt or that men wore Beards or as if the Sacrament were appointed only for those Countreys where there were Vines growing De Meaux was very sensible of the weakness and folly of those pretences though they are the pericula and the scandala meant by the Council of Constance and therefore he takes very little notice of them and indeed he has quite taken away all their arguments against the particular use of the Wine because he all along pleades for either of the Species and owns it to be indifferent which of them so ever is used in the Sacrament But I have shewn that both of them are necessary to make a true Sacrament because both are commanded and both instituted and both of them equally belong to the matter of the Sacrament and so to the essence of it and both are ordinarily necessary to the receiving the inward Grace and Vertue of the Sacrament because that is annext to both by the Institution and cannot warrantably be expected without both To conclude therefore Communion in One Kind is both contrary to the Institution and to the Command of Christ and to the Tradition and Practice of the Primitive Church grounded upon that Command and is no less in it self than a sacrilegious dividing and mangling of the most sacred Mystery of Christianity a destroying the very Nature of the Sacrament which is to represent the Death of Christ and his Blood separated from his Body a lessening the signification and reception of our compleat and entire spiritual Nourishment whereby we are Sacramentally to eat Christ's Body and drink his Bloud an unjust depriving the People of that most pretious Legacy which Christ left to all of them to wit His Sacrificial Bloud which was shed for us and which it is the peculiar priviledge of Christians thus mystically to partake of and lastly a robbing them of that Grace and Vertue and Benefit of the Sacrament which belongs not to any part but to the whole of it and cannot ordinarily be received without both kinds O that God would therefore put it into the hearts of those who are most concerned not to do so much injury to Christians and to Christianity and not to suffer any longer that Divine Majesty which is the great Foundation of all Spiritual Grace and Life to be tainted and poysoned with so many corruptions as we find it is above all other parts of Christianity And O that that blessed Sacrament which was designed by Christ to be the very Bond of Peace and the Cement of Unity among all Christians and to make them all one Bread and one Body may not by the perversness of men and the craft of the Devil be made a means to divide and separate them from each other and to break that Unity and Charity which it ought to preserve FINIS A CATALOGUE of some Discourses sold by Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pidgeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1. A Perswasive to an Ingenuous Tryal of Opinions in Religion 2. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England 3. A Discourse about the Charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 4. The Protestant Resolution of Faith being an Answer to Three Questions I. How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true Sence of Scripture II. Whether a vissible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this vissible Succession an Infallible Interpreter of Scripture and whether no Church which has not this visible Succession can teach the true
bread and Wine they have no subject matter for a sacrifice for 't is not the bread and wine which they pretend to offer nor the bare species and accidents of those nor can they call them a proper propitiatory sacrifice but 't is the very natural body and blood of Christ under the species of bread and wine or together with them for they with the species make one entire subject for sacrifice and one entire object for Adoration as they are forced to confess †Panis corpus Domini Vinum sanguis Domini non sunt duo sacrificia sed unum neque enim offerimus corpus Domini absolutè sed offerimus corpus Domini in specie panis Bellarm de Miss l. 1. c. 37. So that according to their own principles they must both sacrifice and adore something in the Eucharist besides the very body and blood of Christ which is a difficulty they will never get off but I design not to press them with that now but Transubstantiation upon which their sacrifice of the Mass is founded is so great a difficulty that it bears down before it all sense and reason and only makes way for Church Authority to tryumph over both Their wisest men have given up Scripture for it and frankly confest it were not necessary to believe it without the determination of the Church and if so then without the Churches determination there had been no foundation it seems for the sacrifice of the Mass for there can be none for that without Transubstantiation and 't is very strange that a sacrifice should be thus founded not upon Scripture or a Divine institution but only in effect upon the Churches declaration and should have no true bottom without that as according to those men it really has not But Transubstantiation is a Monster that startles and affrights the boldest Faith if the Church be not by to encourage and support it 't is too terrible to be looked upon in its self without having a thick mist of Church Authority and Infallibility first cast before a mans eyes and then if there were not a strange and almost fascinating power in such principles one would think it impossible that any man who has both eyes and brains in his head should believe a Wafer were the body of a man or that a crum of bread were a fleshly substance they do not indeed believe them to be both but they believe one to be the other which is the same thing there is nothing can expose such a doctrine for nothing can be more uncouth and extravagant then itsself it not only takes away all evidence of sense upon which all truth of miracles and so of all Revelation does depend but it destroys all manner of certainty and all the principles of truth and knowledge it makes one body be a thousand or at least be at the same time in a thousand places by which means the least atome may fill the whole World Again it makes the parts of a body to penetrate one another by which means all the matter of the whole World may be brought to a single point it makes the whole to be no greater then a part and one part to be as great as the whole thus it destroys the nature of things and makes a body to be a spirit and an accident to be a substance and renders every thing we see or taste to be only phantasm and appearance and though the World seems crouded with solids yet according to that it may be all but species and shadow and superficies So big is this opinion with absurdities and inconsistencies and contradictions and yet these must all go down and pass into an Article of Faith before there can be any foundation for the sacrifice of the Mass and let any one judge that has not lost his judgment by believing Transubstantiation what a strange production that must be which is to be the genuine of-spring of such a doctrine It is not my province nor must it be my present task to discourse at large of that or to confute the little sophistries with which it is thought necessary to make it outface the common reason of mankind There never was any paradox needed more straining to defend it nor any Sceptical principle but would bear as fair a wrangle on its behalf there is a known Treatise has so laid this cause on its back that it can never be able to rise again and though after a long time it endeavours a little to stir and heave and sruggle yet if it thereby provokes another blow from the same hand it must expect nothing less then its mortal wound I pass to the next Error and Mistake upon which the sacrifice of the Mass is founded and that is this that our blessed Saviour did at his last Supper when he celebrated the Communion with his Disciples offer up his body and blood to his Father as a true propitiatory sacrifice before he offered it as such upon the Cross This they pretend and are forced to do so to establish their sacrificing in the Mass for they are only to do that in the Sacrament they own which Christ himself did and which he commanded his Apostles to doe and if this sacrifice had not its institution and appointment at that time it never had any at all as they cannot but grant Let us then enquire whether Christ did thus sacrifice himself and offer up his body and blood to God at his last Supper Is there any the least colour or shadow of any such thing in any of the accounts that is given of this in the three Evangelists or in St. Paul The Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and gave thanks or blessed it and brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying take eat this is my Body which is given for you this do in remembrance of me after the same manner also he took the Cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying drink ye all of this for this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins Is here any mention or any intimation of offering up any thing to God Was not the bread and the cup and what he called his body and his blood given to his Disciples to be eaten and drank by them and was any thing else done with them is there any thing like an offering or a sacrificing of them yes say they Christ there calls it his body which is broken and his blood which is shed in the present tense therefore the one must be then broken and the other shed So indeed it is in the Original Greek though in the Vulgar Latin it is in the future tense and so it is also put in their Missal sanguis qui effundetur this is my Blood which shall be shed and is it not usual to put the present tense instead of the future when that is so near
well as Christ that which the Priest holds in his hands or lies upon the Altar before us that this is to be the Object of our Worship and to have all manner of Latria both of Body and Soul directed to that as to God himself that the consecrated Elements or the sacred Symbols of Christs Body and Blood are to be worshipt by us when we receive them or when without receiving them we see them set upon the Altar or carried about in Procession this which is the Controversie between us not one Father says but above three hundred of them together in a Council say g Concil Sept. Constant Act. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That to prevent Idolatry Christ appointed an excellent Image and Representation of himself in the Sacrament without any manner of humane shape even the plain and simple substance of Bread. But they resolve that Idolatry shall not be prevented but they will be so sottish as to commit it with that which was designed to prevent it and which one would think should not in the least tempt any man to it with a bit of Bread. The Absurdities of which upon a general view of the whole I shall now for a Conclusion represent and offer as the last Argument against it and tho that alone might be sufficient since God never imposes any thing that is really foolish and ridiculous to be believed or practiced by his Creatures yet I thought it the fittest to be produced after we are well assured that neither Scripture nor Antiquity have required any such thing And however unwilling Bellarmine h Bell. de Sacram. Euchar. l. 3. c. 10. is to admit of Arguments of this nature from the Absurdity of the thing as knowing how very liable the Church of Rome was to them and tho 't is the most unjust Reflection upon Christianity to say that any thing that is a part of that is so which they are too ready to insinuate and so bring a reproach upon the common Christianity rather than part with their own ridiculous Opinions yet after we have thoroughly imformed our selves that there is nothing of a Divine Authority as one can hardly think there should be for what is so absurd in it self then an Argument from the folly and unreasonableness of the thing must be allowed to be very proper and till men have lost all their Reason it will always be very cogent and here it is so very strong and presses so hard upon their Adoration of the Host that 't is no wonder that they love to set by and except against reason whenever this matter is to be tryed but it is most sad to consider that they should have so little regard and concern for the Credit and Reputation of the Christian Religion as by this means so shamefully and notoriously to expose it to the Reproach and Contempt of the wisest Men. How must a Jew or a Turk who are great enemies to all Idolatry be prejudiced against Christianity when he sees those who profess it fall down and worship a Wafer and make an Idol of a bit of Bread When he lives in those places where he sees it carried about with Candles and Torches before it in most Solemn and Pompous Processions and all Persons as it goes by falling upon their Knees and saying their prayers and using all acts of Devotion to it would he not wonder what strange and new God that no History ever mention'd the Christians adored Mankind indeed when very ignorant used to worship a great many Creatures that were very useful to them and when they were very hungry if they lighted upon Bread it was no great wonder but sure it can be no more sit to be worshipt by those who better know God than any of his other Creatures or any of the most dumb and senseless and pitiful Images for which the Christians so often and so justly laught at the Idolatrous Heathens especially those of them who were so foolish and such true belly-Gods as to eat and feed upon what they worshipt and deified This the first and most learned Christians charged as the highest degree of folly in the Egyptians to eat the same Animals whom they worshipt i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orig. contra Celsum l. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tatian Orat. contra Graec. Apim bovem adoratis pascitis Minut. Octav. p. 94. And a wise Heathen could not think any would be so mad as to think that to be a God with which he was fed k Ecquem tam amentem esse putas ut illud quo vescatur Deum esse credat Tully de natura Deorum It was the ingenious Opinion of a very learned Father that God made the difference between the clean and unclean Beast to prevent this Egyptian and Brutish folly in the Israelites who lived among them Because saies he by their abominating the unclean they would not deifie them and by eating the clean they would be secured from ever worshipping them for it must be the extreamest madness to worship what they eat l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret in Quaest in Genes How did the Ancient Apologists for Christianity with great wit and smartness ridicule the other Idols of the Heathens as being the works at first of the Carver or the Painter and particularly for being such Gods as were baked at first in the Furnace m Incoctos fornacibus figulinis Arnob contra Gent. l. 6. of the Potter and it had been much the same had it been in the Oven of the Baker for being Gods of Brass or of Silver n Deus aereus vel argenteus Minut. Octav. p. 74. And yet they counted the Silver or the Brass no more a God o Nos neque aeris neque auri argentique materias Arnob. ut supra than others do the Bread as I have shown above How at other times did they think fit to expose their impotent and senseless Deities because they could not preserve themselves from Thieves p Deos vestros plerumque in praedam furibus cedere Lactant. Institut l. 2. c. 4. nor yet from rotteness but the Worms would still gnaw and the Vermine deface them and the Birds would defile them with their excrements even in their own Temples q Quanto verius de diis vestris animalia muta naturaliter judicant mures hirundines milvi non sentire eos sciunt rodunt insultant insident ac nisi abigatis in ipso Dei vestri ore nidificant Araneae vero faciem ejus intexunt Minut. Octav. p. 75. And could not this be said of a breaden Deity is not that as subject to all these mischances and therefore as liable to all those Reproaches will not a Mouse or Rat run away with it tho if it do so they have taken care if they can catch the sacrilegious Thief to have the Sacrament drawn out of its entrails and religiously disposed of r Antonin de defect Miss
of Communion So that though Christ be really present by his Spirit and the real Vertue and Efficacy of his Body and Bloud be given in the Sacrament yet his natutural Body is by no means present there either by Transubstantiation or by any other way unintelligible to us as the Translatour would insinuate so that all those consequences which he or others would willingly draw from the Real Presence of Christ's natural Body in the Sacrament as believed by us do fall to the ground and I doubt he or I shall never be so happy as to make up this great breach between the two Churches however willing we may be to do it but instead of making a Reconciliation between them which is impossible as long as the Doctrines of each of them stand as they do I shall endeavour to defend that Article of the Church of England which not onely Modern Novellists as the Translatour calls those who are not for his Real Presence and his Reconciling way but the most learned and ancient Protestants who have been either Bishops Priests or Deacons in our Church have owned and subscribed namely That the Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people for both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament by Christ's Ordinance and Commandment ought to be ministred to all Christian Men †Article 30 th ADVERTISEMENT The Reader is desired to Correct the small Errata of the Press without a particular Account of them A DISCOURSE OF THE Communion in One Kind THE Controversie about the Communion in One Kind is accounted by a late French Writer upon that Subject one of the chiefest and most capital Controversies in Christian Religion * Cum haec quaestio ac Controversia visa sit semper in Religione Christianâ praecipua ac capitalis Boileau de praecepto divino Commun sub utrâque specie p. 217. I suppose he means that is in difference between the Reformed and the Church of Rome it is indeed such a Case as brings almost all other matters between us to an issue namely to this Point Whether the Church may give a Non obstante to the Laws of Christ and make other Laws contrary to his by vertue of its own Power and Prerogative If it may in this case it may in all others and therefore it is the more considerable Question because a great many others depend upon the Resolution of it When it had been thus determined in the Council of Constance yet a great many were so dis-satisfied namely the Bohemians to have the Cup taken from them that the Council of Basil was forced upon their importunity to grant it them again and at the Council of Trent it was most earnestly prest by the Germans and the French by the Embassadors of those Nations and by the Bishops that the People might have the Cup restored to them The truth in this cause and the advantage seems to be so plain on the side of the Reformation that as it required great Authority to bear it down so it calls for the greatest Art and Sophistry plausibly to oppose it One would think the case were so evident that it were needless to say much for it and impossible to say any thing considerable against it but it is some mens excellency to shew their skill in a bad cause and Monsieur de Meaux has chosen that Province to make an experiment of his extraordinary Wit and Learning and to let us see how far those will go to perplex and intangle the clearest Truth He has mixt a great deal of boldness with those as it was necessary for him when he would pretend that Communion in one kind was the Practice of the Primitive Church and that it was as effectual as in both and that the Cup did not belong to the substance of the Institution but was wholly indifferent to the Sacrament and might be used or not used as the Church thought fit How horribly false and erronious those Pleas of his are the following Discourse will sufficiently make out and though he has said as much and with as much artifice and subtilty as is possible in this cause yet there being another Writer later then him †Boileau de praecepto divino commun Sub utrâque specie Paris 1685. who denys that there is any Divine Precept for Communion in both kinds and who hath designedly undertaken the Scripture part of this Controversie which Monsieur de Meaux has onely here and there cunningly interwoven in his Discourse I resolve to consider and examine it as it lies in both those Authors and though I have chosen my own method to handle it which is First from Scripture then from Antiquity and lastly from the Reasonings and Principles made use of by our Adversaries yet I shall all along have a particular regard to those two great men and keep my eye upon them in this Treatise so as to pass by nothing that is said by either of them that has any strength or show in it for my design is to defend the Doctrine of our own Church in this matter which our Adversaries have thought fit to attaque and to fall upon not with their own but the borrowed forces of the Bishop of Meaux whose great name and exploits are every-where famous and renowned but since we have all Christian Churches in the World except the Roman to be our seconds in this Cause we shall not fear to defend them and our selves and so plain a Truth against all the cunning and Sophistry of our Adversaries though it be never so artificially and drest after the French Mode We will begin with Scripture which ought to be our onely Rule not onely in matters of Faith which should be founded upon nothing less than a Divine Revelation but in matters of pure positive and arbitrary Institution as the Sacraments are for they depend merely upon the will and pleasure the mind and intention of him that appointed them and the best and indeed the onely way to know that is by recurring to his own Institution as we know the mind of a Testator by going to his last Will and Testament and by consulting that do best find how he has ordered those things that were of his own free and arbitrary disposal And by this way we shall find that the Church of Rome by taking away the Cup has plainly violated the Institution of our blessed Saviour and deprived the People of a considerable part of that Legacy which he bequeathed to them Let us lay therefore before us the Institution of our Saviour as we find it in the three Evangelists and in St. Paul as he received it of the Lord. Matthew 26.26 27 28. Mark 14.22 23 24. Luke 22.19 20. 1 Corinthians 11.23 24 25. JESUS took bread and blessed it and brake it and gave it to the disciples and said Take eat this is my body And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying Drink ye all
sanctis literis nam ut non haberent haeretici justam excusationem sustulit eis omnem tergiversando occasionem Nam Lucas illud Hoc facite posuit post datum Sacramentum Sub specie panis post datum autem calicem illud non repetivit ut intelligeremus jussisse Dominum ut sub specie panis omnibus distribueretur Sacramentum sub specie autem vini non utrem Bellarm. de Sacram. Euchar. l. 4. c. 25. that to take away all Heretical Tergiversation this should so happen that it might be plainly understood that the Wine was not to be given to all and that this command did not belong to that but onely to the Bread But this shews how over-hasty he was to catch at any thing though by the plainest mistake in the World that might help him in his straights and how over-glad to find any thing that might seem to favour and relieve him in his distressed cause and how his zeal and forwardness out run not onely his judgement but even his memory for if he had but turned to St. Paul and had but thought of this passage in him where he addes these very words Do this in remembrance of me to the Cup as well as to the Bread it would have quite spoiled his mighty Observation and made him ashamed of it and not have suffered him to be guilty of so horrid a flip But the Bishop of Meaux espied this †P. 255. as it is hard to miss it and what way has he to put by the force of those words which so undeniably belong to the Cup as well as the Bread He says They import onely a conditional order to do this in remembrance of Christ as often as one shall do it and not an order absolute to do it But does not this conditional order imply an absolute one to do it often and virtually forbid the not doing it at all if he had gone on but to the very next verse would he not have found that St. Paul gives the same conditional order concerning eating the Bread as both here and there concerning drinking the Cup As often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth or do ye shew forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord's death till he come And do not those words though spoke conditionally of the Bread yet absolutely order the eating of it when we received the Sacrament if they do as sure no body will deny then they as well absolutely order the drinking the Cup too when we do so Affirmative precepts such as this is oblige us not absolutely at all times as when ye pray when ye fast are onely conditional commands but yet they import an absolute command to perform those duties and when we do so to perform them so as Christ has appointed us to do and thus we have an absolute precept in the Gospel to receive the Sacrament which he is very willing we should not have ‖ P. 256. and when we do so we are to receive it as Christ commanded we should by eating Bread and drinking Wine and doing both those in remembrance of him 3. Christ's own Institution had there been no such particular Commands to Drink as well as to Eat and to Do both in remembrance of him I say his own Institution of the Sacrament both by Bread and Wine should suffice methinks to show us what we should do when we Celebrate the same Sacrament that he did namely use both Bread and Wine and eat and drink it as was done then if it be the same Sacrament that he celebrated with his Disciples why do not we celebrate it as he did why should we not observe his own Institution but without any order from him and contrary to what he did leave out part of it and that part of it which is as considerable and as remarkable in his Institution as the other If from the bare Institution of Christ all Christians are bound to receive this Sacrament which surely they are then from thence they are bound as much to drink the Cup as to eat the Bread for both are equally instituted If the Institution for of that I speak now as 't is in St. Matthew and St. Mark without the additional command of Do this if that do not oblige to drink the Cup neither does it oblige to eat the Bread for that is no more in the Institution then the other And if the Church has such a power as to take away the Cup notwithstanding the Institution it may have a power to take away the Bread too notwithstanding the Institution for the one is as much in the Institution as the other and if the Cup be not an Essential part of the Sacrament which is the other thing they say and which the Bishop of Meaux insists on which I shall examine afterwards then neither is the Bread so far as appears by the Institution and so neither of them may be necessary and both of them may be taken away notwithstanding Christ's own Institution of both Which though it be the most presumptuous boldness and the most horrid Sacriledge that can be yet shall I say no more to it at present but what St. Cyprian does upon the like case of those who would omit the Wine in the Sacrament and use water instead of it ‖ Quod si nec minima demandatis Christi licet solvere quanto magis tam magna tam grandia tam ad ipsum dominicae passionis nostrae Redemptionis Sacramentum pertinentia fas non est infringere aut in aliud quam quod divinitùs institutum sit humanâ institutione mutare Cyprian ep 63. ad Caecilium But if it be not lawful to loose any one of the least Commands of Christ how much more is it not lawful to infringe so great and so weighty ones and such as the very Sacrament of our Lord's Passion and our Redemption and to change it by Humane Institution into quite another thing then what it is by Divine Institution 4. The reason added by our Saviour to his Institution and Command of Drink ye all of it * Matth. 26.28 for this is my blood of the new testament which is shed for you as in St. Luke for many as in St. Matthew and St. Mark for the remission of sins This shews the Cup not onely to have a peculiar use as well as the Bread and a particular mistical relation to his Blood shed or poured out but that it belongs to all those to drink of it for whom Christ's Blood was shed who are to have remission of sins by it and who have a right to the new Covenant which Christ has purchased and establisht in his Blood which I suppose are the Christian Laiety as well as the Priests though I do not think with Bellarmine †Dispute de Euch. l. 4. that all Turks and Infidels ought to have the Cup because Christ's Blood was shed for them too but I
the full testimony of both ancient and later Writers 4. It appears by some ancient Customs that Christians were so far from receiving the Sacrament onely in one kind that they used extraordinary care and contrivance to receive it in both kinds From hence it was that they used intinction or dipping of the Bread in the Wine which was very early as appears by the Decree of Pope Julius who forbad it in the Third Century ‖ Illud vero quod pro complemento communionis intinctam tradunt Eucharistiam populis nec hoc prolatum ex Evangelio testimonium recipit ubi Apostolis corpus suum sanguinem commendavit seorsùm enim panis seorsùm calicis commendatio memoratur Julius Papa Episcopis per Aegypt apud Gratian. decret de Consecr 3 Pars dist 2. It is probable that it was thus given to the Sick as in the instance of Serapion and to Infants in the time of St. Cyprian which we shall have occasion to consider afterwards In the Council of Braga in the seventh Age * Concil Bracarense this Custom which it seems continued was prohibited in the very words almost of Pope Julius so that some learned men mistake the one for the other Afterwards in the Council of Clermont as it is given by Baronius The Twenty Eighth Canon forbids any to Communicate of the Altar unless he take the body separately and the blood also separately unless through necessity and with caution †Ne quis communicet de altari nisi corpus separatìm sanguinem similitèr sumit nisi per necessitatem per cautelam Canones Concilii Claramont apud Baron Annal. An. 1094. §. 25. This Intinction was generally forbid unless in some cases as of the Sick and the like to whom the Council of Tours ‖ Quae sacra oblatio intincta esse debet in sanguine Christi ut veracitèr Presbyter possit dicere infirmo Corpus sanguis Domini proficiat tibi Apud Burchard l. 5. c. 9. Cassand Dialog p. 5. commands that the Sacrament be thus given Steeped and dipped and that for a most considerable reason That the Priest might truly say to the person to whom he gave it the body and blood of Christ be profitable to thee for remission of Sins This it seems could not have been truely said to them unless they had some way or other given them both kinds That this Intinction was also in use in private Monasteries appears from several Manuscripts produced by Menardus * Not. in Gregor Sacrament and it is notorious that the whole Greek Churches do use it to this day in the Communion not onely of the Sick and Infants but of all Laics I am not concerned to defend or justifie this Custom nor to say any thing more about it but onely to observe this plain inference from it That they who thus used Intinction or the mixing and steeping of the Elements together did hereby plainly declare that it was necessary to give the Sacrament in both kinds and not in one I might make also the same remark upon the several Heretical Customs of using Water or Milk instead of Wine as it appears in St. Cyprian and Pope Julius to have been the manner of some who though they were very blameable and justly censured for so doing yet they hereby confest that there ought to be two species given in the Sacrament a liquid one as well as a solid The Romanists and the Manichees are the onely Christians that ever thought otherwise When the Doctrine of Transubstantiation began to creep into the Church in the time of Berengarius and some Christians were thereupon possest with a greater fear of spilling the Blood of Christ they did not however at first leave drinking the Cup for that reason but they brought in another custom to prevent spilling which was to fasten little Pipes or Quills to the Chalices they then used and through them to suck the consecrated Wine This appears in the order of Celebrating Mass by the Pope taken out of several Books of the Ordo Romanus in Cassander's Lyturgics The Arch-deacon receives of the Regionary Sub-deacon a Pugillaris with which he confirms the people †Archidiaconus accepto à Subdiacono regionario pugillari cum quo confirmet populum Cassander Lyturg in ordine celebrat Miss per Romanos celebrante pontifice Cassander in his Notes upon the word Pugillaris says They were Pipes or Canes with which the Sacramental Blood was suckt out of the Chalice ‖ Fistule seu cannae quibus sanguis è Dominico calice exugebatur Ib. And he says he had seen several of these in his time So that in those times when the fear of effusion was greater than it was in the time of the Apostles and Primitive Christians who yet had as much reverence no doubt for the Sacrament as any after-Ages they were so unwilling to be deprived of the precious Blood of their Saviour in the Sacrament that though their superstition made them contrive new ways to receive it yet they could not be contented to be wholly without it But 5. The custom still remaining in all other Churches of the Christian World except the Roman of Communicating in both kinds is a demonstration of its Apostolical and Primitive Practice and of an Universal and Uninterrupted Tradition for it we see plainly where this Practice was broke and this Tradition violated in the Roman Church after above 1200 years till which time it bears witness against it self and condemns its own late Innovation which is contrary not onely to all former Ages but to the present practice of all other Christian Churches I need not produce witnesses to prove this the matter of Fact is plain and undeniable and none of their Writers can or do pretend the contrary as to public and general Communion concerning any Christians except those few that they have lately brought over by their well-known Arts to submit to the Roman Church as the Maronites and the Indians of St. Thomas All the other vast number of Christians over all the World the Greeks the Muscovites the Russians the Aethiopians the Armenians the Assyrians the Nestorians the Georgians and others do all administer the Eucharist to the people in both kinds There is some little difference indeed among them in the manner of doing it as some of them take the two Species mingled together in a Spoon as the Greeks and Muscovites others dip the Bread in the Wine as the Armenians but they all agree in this that they always receive both the Species of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament and never give the one without the other Cassander has collected several of their Rites and Orders in their public Lyturgies as of the Syrians the Aethiopians the Armenians the Abyssins in the Kingdom of Prester John of whom he says That as many as Communicate of the Body Communicate of the Bloud also * Quotquot communicant de corpore totidem
have Consecrated the Eucharist in such a Tempest in an unconsecrated place and at Sea where according to Cassander ‖ Lyturgic c. 34. Haec Missa sicca i. e. sine consecratione communicatione etiam navalis seu nautica dicitur eò quòd in loco fluctuante vacillante ut in mari flaminibus quibus in locis plenam missam celebrandam non putant In libello ordinis Missae secundum usum Romanae Ecclesiae they are not permitted to use Consecration nor to have the full Mass but onely what he calls the Missa sicca and the Missa Navalis and it is plain Baronius with whose Authority I am now urging de Meaux is of the mind that the faithful did carry the two Species in their Vessel for he says so expresly in so many words * In Navi portasse Navigantes Christi Corpus Sanguinem Baron Annal. an 404. n. 32. There is no getting off the plain and evident Authority of these two great men for receiving the Eucharist in both kinds Monsieur de Meaux though he heaves a little yet cannot but sink under it and it makes him confess That these passages may very well prove that the Bloud was not refused to the faithful to carry with them if they required it but can never prove that they could keep it any long time since that Nature it self opposes it So that if Nature be not against keeping the Wine Custom and Authority it seems are for it and I dare say that Nature will suffer the Wine to be kept as long as the Bread however they who are such friends to Miracles and have them so ready at every turn especially in the Sacrament have no reason methinks to be so afraid of Nature Monsieur de Meaux passes next to the Public Communion in the Church Of Public Communion in the Church And if he can prove that to have been in one kind he has gained his main point however unsuccessfully he has come off with the rest though we see all his other pretences are too weak to be defended and we have destroyed I think all his out-works yet if he can but maintain this great fort he saves the Capitol and preserves the Romish Cause He has used I confess all imaginable stratagems to do it and has endeavoured to make up his want of strength with subtlety and intrigue He will not pretend it was a constant custom to have the Public Communion in one kind but that it was free for Christians to receive either both Species or one only in the Church it self and in their solemn Assemblies and that they did this on some particular days and occasions as in the Latine Church on Good-Friday and almost all Lent in the Greek Now though we have made it out that the whole Catholic Church did generally in their Public Communions use both kinds yet if they left it free to Christians to receive one or both as they pleased or to receive sometimes both and sometimes one this if it can be proved will shew that they thought Communion in one might be lawful and sufficient and that it was not necessary to be in both Let us therefore see what evidence there is for any such thing for it looks very strangely that the Church in all its Lyturgies in all the accounts of celebrating the Communion should always use both kinds to all that partook of the Sacrament and yet leave it free to Christians to receive it in one if they pleased and that on some few days they should give the same Sacrament in a quite different manner then they used at all other times this if it be true must be very odd and unaccountable and unless there be very full and evident proof of it we may certainly conclude it to be false What cloud of witnesses then does de Meaux bring to justifie this what names of credit and authority does he produce for it Why not one not so much as a single testimony against the universal suffrage of the whole Church and of the most learned of our Adversaries who all agree in this truth That the Public Communion was in both kinds for above a thousand years Is there any one Writer in all the Ten nay Twelve Centuries who plainly contradicts it any one between the Apostles and Thomas Aquinas who says it was the Custom of the Catholic Church or any part of it to Communicate onely in one kind Nay can de Meaux shew any particular persons or any sort of Christians that ever were in the World before the thirteenth Age that were against both kinds and received onely in one except the Manichees a sort of vile and abominable Hereticks who are the onely Instances in Antiquity for Communion in one kind These men believing Christ not to have really shed his Blood but onely in phantasm and appearance would not take the Sacrament of his Bloud and by the same reason neither should they have taken that of his Body and thinking Wine not to be the Creature of God the Father of Christ but of the Devil or some evil Principle or bad Spirit and so calling it the Gall of the Dragon they had a general abhorrence from it and so would not receive it in the Sacrament Pope Leo heard that several of these were at Rome and that to cover their infidelity and skulk more securely Cum ad tegendam infidelitatem suam nostris audeant interesse mysteriis ita in Sacramentorum Communione se temperant ut interdum tutiùs lateant ore indigno Christi Corpus accipiunt Sanguinem autem Redemptionis nostrae haurire omnino declinant Quod ideo vestram volumus scire sanctitatem ut vobis hujusmodi homines his manisestentur indiciis quorum deprehema fuerit sacrilega simulatio notati proditi à sanctorum societate sacerdotali auctoritate pellantur Leo Sermo 4 de Quadrag they came to the public Assemblies and were present at the very Sacrament but yet they did so order themselves at the Communion that so they might the more safely hide themselves and be undiscovered They take with their unworthy mouth the Body of Christ but they refused to drink his Blood this he gave notice of to his Roman Congregation that so these men might be made manifest to them by these marks and tokens that their sacrilegious disimulation being apprehended they might be markt and discovered and so expelled or excommunicated from the society of the Faithful by the Priestly Authority Now how can all this which shews plainly that the Communion at Rome was in both kinds be turned to the advantage of Communion in one this requires the slight and the dexterity of Monsieur de Meaux and 't is one of the most artificial fetches that ever were It is the onely argument which he has to prove that the Public Communion was not in both kinds This remark upon the words of Pope Leo and upon the Decree of Gelasius which
is much of the like nature This fraudulent design says he of the Manichees could hardly be discovered because Catholics themselves did not all of them Communicate under both Species But how knows he that That is the question that is not to be begged but proved and 't is a strange way of proving it by no other medium but onely supposing it and that very groundlesly and unreasonably Is this poor weak supposition to bear the weight of that bold assertion which contradicts all manner of Evidence and Authority that the Public Communion in the Church was in one kind If it had been so and Catholics had not all of them Communicated under both Species the Manichees would not have been discovered at all for they would have done the same the Catholics did and to all outward appearance been as good Catholics as they they might have kept their Opinion and Heresie to themselves and that it seems they intended to dissemble and keep private but as to their Practice it would have been but the same with others and so they could not have been found out or discovered by that But it was taken notice of at the last says de Meaux that these Heretics did it out of affectation insomuch that the holy Pope St. Leo the Great would that those who were known as such by this mark should be expelled the Church How does it appear that their affectation was taken notice of or that they did it out of that does Pope Leo say any thing of this but onely points at their Practice without so much as intimating their reason Was their affectation the mark by which the Pope would have them known As de Meaux slighly but not honestly makes him speak by putting those words of his as relating to his own that went before whereas in Leo they relate not to the doing it outof affectation for he speaks not a word of that but meerly to the not drinking the Bloud This was the onely mark by which they were known as such by these indicia these marks and tokens of not drinking the Bloud they were to be known and discovered and made manifest according to the words of St. Leo by their visible Practice not by their Opinion or their Affectation and for this they were to be expelled the Society of Christians because they refused to drink the Bloud of our Redemption without regard to their private or particular reasons which St. Leo takes no notice of These cunning and dissembling Heretics to cover their dissimulation and infidelity and hide themselves the better which was it seems their main end and design might take the Cup but yet not drink of it nor tast the least drop of Wine and for this cause there must have been time and a particular vigilance to discern these Heretics from amongst the Faithful and not because there was a general liberty to receive one or both Species as de Meaux pretends That liberty is a very strange thing which has no manner of evidence for it which Pope Leo says nothing of but the quite contrary namely that the Body and Bloud were both received in the Communion and which if it had been allowed as it would have bred infinite confusion in the Church so the Manichees might have made use of it to their wicked purpose of receiving onely in one kind The continuance of this fraud and dissimulation either in the Manichees or some other Heretics and superstitious Christians for it does not appear who they were caused a necessity at last in the time of Pope Gelasius to make an express Order and Decree against the sacrilegious dividing of the Sacrament and the taking of one Species without the other And let us now come to consider that as it is in Gratian's Decree * Comperimus autem quod quidam sumptâ tantummodò corporis sacri portione à calice Sacrati cruoris abstineant qui proculdubiò quoniam nescio quâ superstitione docentur astringi aut integra Sacramenta percipiant aut ab integris arceantur quia divisio unius ejusdemque mysterii sine grandi sacrilegio non potest pervenire Gratian. decret 3. pars dist 2. We find says he that some taking onely a portion of the Body abstain from the Cup of the holy Bloud which persons because they seem to adhere to I know not what superstition let them either take the Sacraments entirely or else be wholly kept from them because the division of one and the same Mystery cannot be without great Sacriledge Can any thing be more plain or more full than this against mangling and dividing the blessed Sacrament and against taking it in one kind is it possible to put by such a home-thrust against it as this is and will it not require great art to turn this into an argument for Communion in one kind which is so directly against it Surely the substance of words and arguments must be annihilated and transubstantiated into quite another thing before this can be done Let us see another tryal of Monsieur de Meaux's skill Gelasius says he was obliged to forbid expresly to Communicate any other ways then under both Species A signe that the thing was free before and that they would not have thought of making this Ordinance but to take from the Manicheans the means of deceiving Was it then free till the time of Pope Gelasius to receive either in one or both kinds does any such thing appear in the whole Christian Church or is there any instance of any one Public Communion without both kinds is a Decree of a Church-Governour upon a particular occasion against particular Heretics and superstitious Persons new rose up and persuant to a general Law of Christianity and the Custom of the whole Church is that a sign the thing was free before Then it was free for Christians not to come to the Sacrament at all before such and such Councils and Bishops commanded them to come at such times Then it was free for the Priests who minister'd to receive but in one kind before this Decree of Gelasius for 't is to those it is refer'd in Gratian where the title of it is The Priest ought not to receive the Body of Christ without the Bloud †Corpus Christi sine ejus sanguine sacerdos non debet accipere Ib. Though there is no mention of the Priest in the Decree neither was there in the title in the ancient MSS Copies as Cassander assures us ‖ Ep. 19. and it seems plainly to concern neither the Priest nor the Faithful who by a constant and universal custom received in both kinds but onely those superstitious persons who were then at Rome and for I know not what reason refused the Cup and though there was a particular reason to make this Decree against them yet there needed no reason to make a Decree for the Faithful who always Communicated in both kinds and it is plain from hence did so in the time of Gelasius
the same sacrifice and continuing daily to offer it shows that it was not sufficient nor did do the business at once offering as the frequent using the same medicine shows that it has not fully cured the wound nor yet perfectly done its work Secondly The sacrifice of the Mass they say is only to apply the vertue and merit of the sacrifice of the Cross for though the sacrifice of the Cross like a powerful medicament have sufficient vertue in it yet what does that signifie unless it be applyed to us which it is by the sacrifice of the Mass But is there not another way to apply that to us Is it not applied to us by Faith and by the common means of Christs own institution the Christian Sacraments and especially by the Worthy Receiving of the Lords Supper wherein as the Apostle says The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ and the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 We do hereby communicate and are made partakers of Christs Body as it was sacrificed for us that is of all the vertues and benefits of his sacrifice by being as the Apostle adds verse 17. Made partakers of that One bread that is surely by eating it sacramentally and religiously as Christ has appointed for it would sound very hard and be a very odd expression to say we are partakers of that one bread by the sacrificing or offering up of that bread when they will not own that the bread is sacrificed or if it were could we well be thereby partakers of it but 't is the eating of that bread which makes us partakers of it and 't is the eating Christs Body and drinking his Blood in the blessed Sacrament that communicates and applies the vertue of his sacrifice of the Cross to us and not the sacrificing of that again as the Apostle goes on verse 18. Are not they who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the Altar 't is eating and communicating that makes us partakers of Christs sacrifice We do then eat of the sacrifice and so partake of it as the Jews did of their sacrifices the communion is a feasting upon a true oblatum the body and blood of Christ as is excellently made out by a Learned man of our own we do not there sacrifice Christs body but only sacramentally eat of it as being already sacrificed and offered once for all by Christ himself upon the Cross It is not at all necessary that it should be sacrificed again by us to make us become partakers of it for cannot a sacrifice be applyed without being sacrificed again It seems a very strange and uncouth way to sacrifice the same thing over and over in order to applying the vertue of it as if the Jews when they had slain the Paschal Lamb must have slain another Lamb in order to the partaking the vertue of it no they were to eat of it for that purpose and so are we of Christs sacrifice and this is the way whereby we do communicate of it and have its full vertue applyed to us It was the weakness and insufficiency of their sacrifices that made them so often repeat them and sacrifice them anew but Christs sacrifice being perfect is to be but once offered though it be often to be eaten and partaken of by us which it may be without being again sacrificed Thirdly The Authour of this Epistle makes not the least mention of Christs sacrifice being offered again upon Earth or of its being repeated in the sacrifice of the Mass but after he himself had once offered it upon the Cross he immediately speaks of his presenting it to God in Heaven and there by vertue of it interceeding and mediating with him for us that by his own blood he entered into the holy place having obtained eternal Redemption for us chap. 9. ver 12. as the Jewish high priest on the great day of expiation after he had offered the sacrifice of atonement for the whole Congregation upon the Altar carried the blood of it into the Holy of Holies and there sprinkled it before the mercy-seat Levit. 16.15 This great Anniversary sacrifice for the whole Congregation was the great Type and Figure of Christs sacrifice for all mankind and the Holy of Holies was the Type of Heaven and the High Priest of Christ as is confessed by all Christ therefore our great High Priest to whom alone it belonged to offer this sacrifice of Atonement and Expiation for the whole World having done this upon the Cross he entred not into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true but into heaven it self now to appear in the presence of God for us chap 9. ver 24. To appear there as our Advocate and Mediator and by vertue of his own blood there presented to his Father to make a very powerful intercession for us Now from this discourse of the Apostle we have a full account of Christs sacrifice that it was to be once offered upon the cross and then to be carried into the Holy of Holies in Heaven and no more to be offered upon Earth for this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God chap. 10. ver 12. The Apostle speaks not one tittle nor gives the least hint or intimation of this sacrifice being offered again by others upon Earth this lyes cross to the whole tenour of his discourse and the similitude and agreement which he represents between the Jewish sacrifice of Atonement and Christs is quite altered and destroyed by it for besides the High Priests offering this sacrifice this makes every lesser Priest to be still offering the same sacrifice upon the Altar when the High Priest is entred with the blood of it into the Holy of Holies and though he cannot go in there upon which the vertue and the perfection of the sacrifice does in great measure depend yet still to offer the same sacrifice and besides it makes this sacrifice like to the Jewish where every priest standeth daily ministring and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which for the reason shewed they could never take away sins chap. 10. ver 12. in opposition to which he says this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God verse 13. that is Christs sacrifice was never to be repeated as the Jewish were for if it had been to be offered by others though not by Christ himself and the Christian Priests were to stand daily ministring and offering the same sacrifice both they and their sacrifice would have been the same upon this account with the Jewish and there had not been that difference between them which the Apostle does there plainly mean and declare Further it cannot but seem very strange that when this Divine Author does so largely and copiously and designedly treat of
the sacrifice of Christ and of those of the Jews and compare them so much together and show the excellency of the one above the other that he should never say the least word of the sacrifice of the Mass when he had so much occasion to do it that it can hardly be imagined he should have so wholly omitted it had it been as others since account it as true and proper a sacrifice as any of the Jewish or of Christs himself upon the cross Fourthly The Apostle here plainly layes down a principle directly contrary and wholly inconsistent with their Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass and that is that if Christ be offered he must suffer and that without shedding of blood there is no Remission Nor yet saith he at the 25 26. verses and 9th chapter That he should offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself For then must he often have suffered if he had been often offered without suffering then Christ cannot be offered and sacrificed and indeed to sacrifice any thing is to consume and destroy it so that it be wholly parted with and given up to God and to sacrifice any thing that is living is to take away its life and to kill it and so to make it suffer death as a vicarious punishment in anothers stead this is the common and allowed notion of sacrifices but Christ cannot thus suffer in the Mass therefore he cannot be truly offered or sacrificed since according to the Apostle if he be often offered he must often suffer and they would not I hope crucifie to themselves the Lord of Life again and put him to death upon the Altar as the Jews did upon the cross and yet without this they cannot truly sacrifice him or properly offer him according to the Apostle But this says their great Champion the Bishop of Meaux is done mystically Christ is mystically slain and doth mystically suffer death upon the Altar that is by way of representation and resemblance and the mysterious signification of what is done there as St. Paul says to the Galatians chap. 3. v. 1. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you Now so Christ may be crucified every time we hear or read his crucifixion lively represented to us as we may see a bloody Tragedy without one drop of blood spilt so Christ may be mystically slain in the Sacrament when his body is broke and his blood poured out in mystery and representation but this is not true and proper Offering which is necessary to make a true and proper sacrifice as they will have that of the Mass to be if they would be contented with a mystical sacrifice to represent and commemorate Christs death that they know we are willing to allow and then a mystical suffering that is not a real and proper would be sufficient for a mystical that is not proper sacrifice but the suffering must be as true and proper as the sacrifice and if the one be but mystical the other must be so too if the Bullock or Goat of the sin-offering which was to be offered on the great day of Atonement had been only Mystically slain and Mystically offered upon the Altar they had been as really alive for all that as any that were in the Fields and had been no more true and proper sacrifices of atonement and expiation then they were for without sheding of blood as the Apostle says there is no Remission Heb. 9.22 it was the shedding or pouring out the blood in which the Life was supposed to be and therefore the taking away the Life of the sacrifice that did really make the sacrifice to be truly propitiatory or available before God as a price and recompence for the remission of sins and how then can the sacrifice of the Mass be truly propitiatory when the blood is not truly shed when according to themselves it is Incruentum sacrificium an unbloody sacrifice and therefore according to the Apostle it cannot be pro pitiatory for the Remission of sins as will be further insisted upon afterwards Thus we see how much there is in those clear places of Scripture against the sacrifice of the Mass and how little there is for it in those dark ones which are produced by our Adversaries Thirdly It has no just claim to Antiquity nor was there any such Doctrine or Practice in the Primitive Church this is greatly boasted and vaunted of and although their cause runs very low in Scripture yet they pretend it carries all Antiquity before it where nothing is more common than to have the name of Oblation and Sacrifice and Host and Victim attributed to the blessed Eucharist and to have it said that we do there offer and immolate and sacrifice unto God this we readily acknowledge and though we can by no means allow Antiquity to take place of Scripture or to set up either an Article of Faith or essential part of Worship which is not in Scripture and our Adversaries seem to agree with us in this that there must be a divine Institution for a sacrifice or else it can have no true foundation so that if Scripture fails them 't is in vain to flye for refuge to Antiquity yet we doubt not but that Scripture and Antiquity will be fairly reconciled and be made very good Friends in this point and both of them against the sacrifice of the Mass as 't is taught and practised in the Church of Rome The name of Sacrifice and oblation is often given both in Scripture and Antiquity in an improper general and metaphorical sense thus it is applyed to the inward actions of the mind to penitence and sorrow for sin The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Psal 51.17 To the outward Thanksgivings of the mouth when we render unto God the Calves of our lips Hosea 14.2 When we offer unto him Thanksgiving Psal 50.14 or as the Apostle more fully expresses it when he commands Christians to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name Heb. 13.15 where the Metaphor is carried on in several words and in the very next verse 't is applied to works of Mercy and Charity and beneficence to others but to do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased verse 16. and St. Paul in another place calls the Philippians Charity an odour of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God Philip. 4.18 Nay he calls preaching the Gospel a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Adversaries earnestly contend to mean nothing less then a sacrifice and the converting the Gentiles