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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
separated from them and it makes us not to partake of Christ's Body as crucified upon the Cross but as glorified in Heaven as it is so indeed Christ's body cannot be divided from his bloud and his whole humanity soul and body are always united with his Divinity but we do not take it as such in the Sacrament but as his body was sacrificed and slain and wounded and his bloud as shed and separated from it They who can think of a crucified Saviour may think of receiving him thus in the Sacrament without horrour de Meaux owns That this mystical separation of Christ's body and bloud ought to be in the Eucharist as it is a Sacrifice †P. 180 181. And why not then as it is a Sacrament is there any more horror to have Christ's body thus consecrated then thus eaten and received The words of consecration he says do renew mystically as by a spiritual Sword together with all the wounds he received in his body the total effusion of his blood ‖ Ib. Why may we not then receive Christ's body as thus wounded and his bloud as thus poured out in this mystical Table and why must Concomitancy joyn those together which Consecration has thus separated and divided Christ's body and bloud we say ought to be thus mystically separated in the Sacramental reception of them and so ought to be taken separately and distinctly they own they ought to be thus mystically separated in the consecration though how that consists with Concomitancy is hard to understand but whatever they have to say against the separating them in the Reception may be as well said against their separating them in the Consecration Is Christ then divided P. 310. is his body then despoiled of bloud and blood actually separated from the body ought Christ to die often and often to shed his blood A thing unworthy the glorious state of his Resurrection where he ought to conserve eternally humane nature as entire as he had at first assumed it Why do they then make this separation of his body and bloud when they consecrate it if that be onely mystical and representative so is it in our reception much better for we do not pretend to receive Christ's natural body and bloud as they do to consecrate them but onely his mystical body and bloud which is always to conserve this figure of Death and the character of a Victim not onely when it is consecrated but when it is eaten and drunk which it cannot otherwise be 'T is this errour of receiving Christ's natural body in the Sacrament which has led men into all those dark Mazes and Labyrinths wherein they have bewildred and entangled themselves in this matter and so by applying all the properties of Christ's natural body to his mystical body in the Sacrament they have run themselves into endless difficulties and destroyed the very notion as well as the nature of the Sacrament The third Principle of Monsieur de Meaux is this That the Law ought to be explained by constant and perpetual practice But cannot then a Law of God be so plain and clear as to be very well known and understood by all those to whom it is given without being thus explained Surely so wise a Law-Giver as our blessed Saviour would not give a Law to all Christians that was not easie to be understood by them it cannot be said without great reflection upon his infinite Wisdom that his Laws are so obscure and dark as they are delivered by himself and as they are necessary to be observed by us that we cannot know the meaning of them without a further explication If constant and perpetual practice be necessary to explain the Law how could they know it or understand it to whom it was first given and who were first to observe it before there was any such practice to explain it by This practice must begin some where and the Law of Christ must be known to those who begun it antecedent to their own practice There may be great danger if we make Practice to be the Rule of the Law and not the Law the Rule of Practice and God's Laws may be very fairly explained away if they are left wholly to the mercy of men to explain them For thus it was the Pharisees who were the great men of old for Tradition did thereby reject and lay aside the Commandment of God by making Tradition explain it contrary to its true sense and meaning This Principle therefore of Monsieur de Meaux's must not be admitted without some caution and though we are well assured of constant and perpetual practice for Communion in one kind yet the Law of Christ is so clear as not to need that to explain it and we may know what appertains or does not appertain to the substance of the Sacraments from the Law it self and from the divine Institution of them as I have all along shewn in this Treatise It would have been a great reflection upon the Church if its Practice had not agreed with the Law of Christ though so plain and express a Law ought neither to loose its force nor its meaning by any subsequent practice I have so great a regard and honour for the Catholic Church that I do not believe it can be guilty of any Practice so contrary to the Law of Christ as Communion in one kind and I have therefore fully shewn that its Practice has always agreed with this Law in opposition to de Meaux who falsely reproaches the Church with a practice contrary to it his design was to destroy the Law of Christ by the Practice of the Church mine is to defend the Practice of the Church as agreeable to and founded upon the Law of Christ but the Law of Christ ought to take place and is antecedent both to the Churches Practice and the Churches Authority As to Tradition which was the main thing which de Meaux appealed to I have joyned issue with him in that point and must leave it to those who are able to judge which of us have given in the better evidence and I do not doubt but we may venture the Cause upon the strength of that but there is another more considerable plea which is prior to Tradition and which as de Meaux owns †P. 201. Is the necessary ground work of it and that is Scripture or the Command and Institution of Christ contained in Scripture which is so plain and manifest that it may be very well understood by all without the help of Tradition I do not therefore make any manner of exceptions to Tradition in this case onely I would set it in its right place and not found the Law of Christ upon Tradition but Tradition upon the Law of Christ and I am willing to admit it as far as de Meaux pleases with this reasonable Proviso That it does not interprete us out of a plain Law nor make void any Command of God that may be known
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
destroyed by eating If it be they are true Cannibals or Capernaitical feeders that eat it I had thought that Christs body was not thus grosly to be broke by the Teeth or chewed by the jaws of the priest or Communicants so as to be destroyed by them The Gloss upon Berengarius his Recantation says this is a greater Heresie then his unless it be understood of the species and not of the body it self and they generally disown that Christs body is thus carnally eaten but only the Sacramental species but the species are not the sacrifice and therefore 't is not sufficient that they be destroyed but the sacrifice that is the body of Christ must be so Christs body as it is food is not a sacrifice but a Sacrament they make two distinct things of it as it is a sacrifice and as it is a Sacrament as it lies in the Pix or is carried to the sick it is food and a Sacrament but they will not allow it to be then a sacrifice and on Maunday Thursday it is eaten but not accounted a sacrifice †Feriâ sextâ majoris hebdomadae non censetur sacrificium Missae propriè celebrari licet vera hostia adsit frangatur consumatur Bellarm de Miss l. 1. c. 27. B. The Consumption then by eating belongs to it not as a sacrifice but a Sacrament and the body of Christ is not then consumed but only the species nay the body of Christ is not then consumed under the species for the real consumption belongs only to the species and not to the body of Christ which is no more truly consumed with them or under them then it is as sitting in heaven no more then a mans flesh is consumed when only his clothes or his mantle is tore tho he were in them What though it ceases to be really on the Altar and ceases to be a sensible food as he farther explains or rather intangles it Is Christs body ever a sensible food And is its ceasing to be upon the Altar a consumption of it Then Isaac was consumed when he was took off from the Altar on which Abraham had laid him and if his Father had been as subtle as our Roman Sophisters and Sacrificers he might only have covered him with the skin of the Ram and have consumed that as an external species by fire and so Isaac had been both sacrificed and consumed and destroyed too and yet have been as live as ever for all this Such absurdities do they run into when they will make their notion suit of a true sacrifice and that which is not one and a man of sense must yet destroy his sense one would think before he can talk at this rate They are most sadly nonplust and most extremely divided among themselves about the Essence of this their sacrifice of the Mass and wherein they should place the true sacrificial act whether in the Oblation of the Elements or in consecration of them whereby they suppose them turned into Christs Body and blood and so in the express Oblation of those to God or in the fraction and commistion of the consecrated Elements or in the manducation and consumption of them Suarez and Vasquez and others are for the last of all the Council of Trent seems to be for Oblation Bellarmine is for consecration whereby instead of Bread and Wine Christs Body and Blood are placed upon the Altar and ordered for consumption Melchior Canus is for all the four last and he tells us it is the Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas †docuisse Thomam sacrificium ante fractionem hostiae esse peractum sumptionemque spectare propriè ad sacramentum oblationem verò ad sacrificium Can. Loc. Theol. l. 12. p. 833. that the sacrifice is performed before the fraction of the Elements and that the sumption of them belongs properly to the Sacrament the Oblation to the sacrifice so that they know not what to pitch upon to constitute it a sacrifice and if we examine them all we shall find no true proper sacrificial act in any of them the Oblation of the Elements before consecration can by no means make such a sacrifice as they design for that is but an offering of earthly things not of Christs body neither are they thereby changed or consumed and tho they are an offering they are not a proper sacrifice though in some sense they are a sacrifice and were accounted so by the Fathers as I have shown The Fraction of the Elements after they are consecrated which is done by the Priest not for distribution for they give them whole to the people but for another mystical reason this is not the formal Essence of the sacrifice for Christ they own did not break them in this manner at his last Supper when yet they will have him sacrifice and this is sometimes omitted by themselves neither is manducation for this is performed by the people as well as the priest when they communicate and sacrificing does not then belong to them nor is it ever their work but only the Priests and yet they then eat and consume the sacrament as well as the priest so that sacrificing cannot properly lye in this neither can it be proved that Christ did himself eat when he is supposed to sacrifice and besides both this fraction and manducation belongs only to the species they are the only proper subject of those actions but it is the Body and Blood of Christ that is sacrificed and not the species For this reason therefore consecration it self cannot well pass for the formal act of sacrificing for 't is the Bread is consecrated not Christs body 't is the bread only is changed by consecration that is supposed indeed to be destroyed when it is consecrated and if this be sacrificing it is sacrificing of nothing or at most 't is but sacrificing of bread which is a meaner sacrifice then many of the Jewish neither is this change of it visible and external but they will needs have the sacrificing action to be sensible and external or else the sacrifice will not be so and if it be only a spiritual and internal and mental offering up of Christs body and blood to God this is not proper sacrificing of it again but only by inward Faith and Devotion which we are very willing to allow But consecration must set Christs body upon the Altar and put it into the hands of the priest and then it must be visibly offered to God and visibly consumed and this is the true way of sacrificing it for Bellarmine takes in consumption as necessary together with consecration the oblation he owns is not verbal neither did Christ thus offer his Body and Blood at his last Supper but after he had blessed and brake the bread he gave it to his Disciples but placing this upon the Altar by the words of consecration is a real Oblation of it and then eating and consuming it there formally constitutes the sacrifice The
The Three Grand CORRVPTIONS of the Eucharist THE THREE GRAND CORRVPTIONS OF The Eucharist IN THE CHURCH of ROME VIZ. The Adoration of the Host The Communion in one kind The Sacrifice of the Mass In Three Discourses LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil MDCLXXXVIII A DISCOURSE Concerning the ADORATION OF THE HOST As it is Taught and Practiced in the CHURCH of ROME Wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that Subject And to Monsieur Boileau's late book De Adoratione Eucharistiae Paris 1685. LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1685. right Charge of the Church of England of which no honest man can be a Member and a Minister who does not make and believe it I might give several Instances to shew this but shall only mention one wherein I have undertaken to defend our Church in its charge of Idolatry upon the Papists in their Adoration of the Host which is in its Declaration about Kneeling at the Sacrament after the Office of the Communion in which are these remarkable words It is hereby declared that no Adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the sacramental Bread and Ware there bodily received or unto any corporal presence of Christs natural Flesh and Blood for the sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians Here it most plainly declares its mind against that which is the Ground and Foundation of their Worshipping the Host That the Elements do not remain in their natural Substances after Consecration if they do remain as we and all Protestants hold even the Lutherans then in Worshipping the consecrated Elements they worship meer Creatures and are by their own Confession guilty of Idolatry as I shall show by and by and if Christ's natural Flesh and Blood be not corporally present there neither with the Substance nor Signs of the Elements then the Adoring what is there must be the Adoring some things else than Christs body and if Bread only be there and they adore that which is there they must surely adore the Bread it self in the opinion of our Church but I shall afterwards state the Controversie more exactly between us Our Church has here taken notice of the true Issue of it and declared that to be false and that it is both Unfit and Idolatrous too to Worship the Elements upon any account after Consecration and it continued of the same mind and exprest it as particularly and directly in the Canons of 1640 where it says a Canon 7. 1640. about placing the Communion Table under this head A Declaration about some Rites and Ceremonies That for the cause of the Idolatry committed in the Mass all Popish Altars were demolisht so that none can more fully charge them with Idolatry in this point than our Church has done It recommends at the same time but with great Temper and Moderation the religious Gesture of bowing towards the Altar both before and out of the time of Celebration of the Holy Eucharist and in it and in neither a Ib. Cans 7. 1640. Vpon any opinion of a corporal presence of Christ on the Holy Table or in the mystical Elements but only to give outward and bodily as well as inward Worship to the Divine Majesty and it commands all Persons to receive the Sacrament Kneeling b Rubric at Communion in a posture of Adoration as the Primitive Church used to do with the greatest Expression of Reverence and Humility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Cyrill of Hierusalem speaks c Cyril Hierosolym Catech. Mystag 5. and as I shall shew is the meaning of the greatest Authorities they produce out of the Ancients for Adoration not to but at the Sacrament so far are we from any unbecoming or irreverent usage of that Mystery as Bellarmine d Controv. de Eucharist when he is angry with those who will not Worship it tells them out of Optatus that the Donatists gave it to Dogs and out of Victor Vticensis that the Arrians trod it under their Feet that we should abhor any such disrespect shown to the sacred Symbols of our Saviours Body as is used by them in throwing it into the Flames to quench a Fire or into the Air or Water to stop a Tempest or Inundation or keep themselves from drowning or any the like mischeif to prevent which they will throw away even the God they Worship or the putting it to any the like undecent Superstitions 'T is out of the great Honour and Respect that we bear to the Sacrament that we are against the carrying it up and down as a show and the Exposing and Prostituting it to so shameful and Abuse and so gross an Idolatry We give very great Respect and Reverence to all things that relate to God and are set apart to his Worship and Service to the Temple where God is said himself to dwell and to be more immediately present to the Altar whereon the Mysteries of Christs Body and Blood are solemnly celebrated to the Holy Vessels that are always used in those Administrations to the Holy Bible which is the Word of God and the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as the Sacrament is his Body and the New Testament in his Blood to the Font which is the Laver of Regeneration wherein we put on Christ as well as we eat him in the Eucharist and if we would strain things and pick out of the Ancient and Devout Christians what is said of all these it would go as far and look as like to adoring them as what with all their care they collect and produce for adoring the Sacrament as I shall afterwards make appear in Answer to what the a Jacob. Boileau Paris De Adoratione Eucharistiae Paris 1685. latest Defender of the Adoration of the Eucharist has culled or rather raked together out of the Fathers It seems from that Declaration of our Church that some were either so silly or so spiteful as to suppose that by our Kneeling at the Sacrament we gave Worship to the Elements and that learned man is willing to have it believed that we do thereby externè Eucharistiam colere b Boil p. 145. outwardly Worship the Sacrament and he blames us for not doing it inwardly in our minds as well as outwardly with our Bodies so willing are these men to joyn with our wildest Dissenters in their unreasonable Charges against our Church and use any crutches that may help their own weak Cause or be made use of to strike at us but it may as well be said that the Dissenters Worship their Cushions or their Seats when they kneel before them the roof of the Church or the crowns of their Hats when they fix their Eyes upon them at the same time they are
in Bishop Jewels reply but however if no such misfortune come to it it will in a little time if it be kept prove sowre and grow mouldy and when it does so what should then thrust out the Deity and bring in again the substance of the Bread that was quite gone before is an unaccountable Miracle and that which is taken of it into our Bodies is not like one would think to have any better or more becoming treatment there than by the other ways so that upon all these accounts this which is worshipped by Christians is in as ill Condition as that which was worshipped by Heathens and those witty Adversaries Celsus and Porphyry and Julian would have thrown all that the Christians had said against the Heathen Idols back upon themselves and have improved them with as great Advantage and retorted them with as much force had the Christians in those times worshipt the Host or the Sacramental Elements as the Papists do now and 't is more than a Presumption no less than a Demonstration that the Christians did not because none of these things that were so obnoxious and so obvious were ever in the least mentioned by the Heathens or made matter of Reflection upon them when they pickt up all other things let them be true or false that they could make any use of to object against them But the Primitive Christians gave them no such occasion which was the only Reason they did not take it As soon as the Church of Rome did so by setting up the worship of the Host ſ Apud Dionys Carthus in 4. dist Nullam se sectam Christiana deteriorem aut ineptiorem reperire Quem colunt Deum dentibus ipsi suis discerpunt ac devorant Averroes the Arabian Philosopher in the 13th Century gave this Character of Christians that he had found no Sect more foolish or worse than they in all his Travels and Observations upon this very account For they eat the God whom they worship and t Bullaeus Gultius in Itin. Mange Dieu a later Historian and Traveller tells us that 't is a common Reproach in the Mouths of the Turks and Mahumetans to call the Christians Devourers of their God and a Jew in a Book Printed at Amsterdam in the year 1662 among other Questions put to Christians asks this shrewd one If the Host be a God why does it corrupt and grow covered with Mold and why is it gnawn by Mice or other Animals v Si Hostia Deus est cur situ obducta corrumpitur curagliribus umribus correditur Lib. quaest Resp The only way the Papists have to bring themselves off from these manifest Absurdities is only a running farther into greater and their little Shifts and Evasions are so thin and subtil Sophistry or rather such gross and thick falshoods that it could not be imagined that the Heathen Advertaries could ever know them and therefore be so civil as Boileau would make them a Cap. 10. l. 2. de ador Euch. as not to lay those charges upon them as others do nor can any reasonable and impartial man ever believe them for they are plainly these two That they do not worship what all the World sees they worship And that they do not eat what they take into their Mouths and swallow down Which is in plain words an open Confession that they are ashamed to own what they plainly do We do not worship the Bread say they for that we believe is done away and turned into the natural Body of Christ and so we cannot be charged with Bread-worship But do ye not worship that which ye see and which ye have before ye and which is carried about And would not any man that sees what that is think ye worship Bread or Wafer And could you ever perswade him that it was any thing else And if notwithstanding what you think of it against all Sense and Reason it be still Bread then I hope it is Bread that ye worship and till others think as wildly as ye do ye must give them leave to think and charge ye thus But if it were true that ye did not worship the Bread yet ye must and do own that ye worship the Species of the Bread and how ye should do that without being guilty of another very gross Absurdity ye do not know your selves for ye must make them so united to Christ as to make one Suppositum and so one Object of Worship as his Humanity and Godhead are and then according to this way of yours Christ may as well be said to be Impanated and United to Bread or its Species as Incarnated and United to Flesh as some of you have taught w Bellarm. de Ruperto Abbate Tuitiensi l. 3. de Euch. c. 11. that the Bread in the Eucharist is assumed by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the humine Nature was But not to mention these which wheresoever ye turn ye state ye full in the face and should make ye blush one would think had ye not put off all shame as well as all sense in this matter grant ye what ye would have that it is not Bread but the substantial Body Flesh and Blood of a man that is in the Host will this help much to mend the matter or to lessen the Absurdity and not rather increase and swell it For besides the incredible wonder that a bit of Bread should by a few words of every common Priest be turned immediately into the true and perfect Body of a man nay into ten thousand Bodies at the same time which is a greater Miracle than ever was done i' th' World and is as great almost as creating the World it self out of nothing and if it were true would make the Priest a God certainly and not a man and much rather to be worshipt than a bit of Bread as Lactantius saies of the Heathen Idols He that made them ought rather to be worshipt than they x Meliorem esse qui fecit quam illa quae facta sunt si haec adoranda sunt artificem a quo facta sunt ipsum quoque multo potiori jure adorandum esse Lactant. Instit l. 2. c. 2. Besides this it seems it is the whole Body of a man then which is eaten and swallowed down instead of Bread for sure the same thing is not one thing when it is worshipt and another thing when it is eaten and then how barbarous and inhumane as well as absurd and ridiculous must this appear to any man that is not used to swallow the most substantial Nonsense as well as the whole Body of a man for a Morsel and then all the former Absurdities which I mentioned do return again of the Eating that which we worship which the Apologists thought so wild and extravagant in the Egyptian God eaters Well then there is no other way but to say we don't eat him as we eat other food y Boil c. 10. l. 2.
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
tremendous Mysteries and this Prayer or Thanksgiving is used for them all ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lyturg. Petr in Biblioth Patr. Blessed be God who has vouchsafed us to partake of his immaculate Body and his most precious Bloud That under the name of St. James after the Prayer of the Priest that the holy Spirit coming and sanctifying the Elements would make them become the Body and Blood of Christ that they may be effectual to all that receive them for remission of Sins †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lytur Jacob. Ib. which word all supposes more than the Priest who Consecrates represents the Deacons after the communion of the Clergy as taking up both the Patens and the Chalices to give to the people ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. and after they had received of both the Deacons and the People both give thanks to Christ because he has vouchsafed them to partake of his Body and of his Blood * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. The Lyturgy which bears the name of St. Mark describes the Priest as praying for all those who were to communicate that they might be worthy to receive of those good things which were set before them the immaculate Body and the precious Blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Chrst †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lyturg. Marcl Ib. and using these words in his Prayer of Consecration over the Elements That they may become available to all those who partake of them to Faith Sobriety ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. and Christian Vertues Which had bin very improper if none but himself had bin to partake of them So that whatever Antiquity and whatever Authority may be allowed to those Lyturgies who go under the names of those Apostolic Saints the advantage of them is wholly for the Communion in one kind And those Churches who used these Lyturgies and so probably ascribed these Names to them as Hierusalem that of St. James Alexandria that of St. Mark these must be acknowledged to have given the Communion in both kinds as anciently and as certainly as it can be proved or may be supposed that they used these Lyturgies But to come to the more Authentic Lyturgies of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom which are now used in the Greek Churches though both the time and the Authors of these may be very questionable yet with all their present Additions and Interpolations there is a manifest proof in both of them for the Communion in both kinds In the former the Priest thus prays for himself and all the Communicants that we all who partake of one Bread and one Cup may be united together into the Communion of one holy Spirit and that none of us may be partakers of the Body or Bloud of Christ to judgement or condemnation * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lyturg. Easil so that it was plain he did not communicate of the Bread or Cup alone nor was alone partaker of the Body or Bloud of Christ in another Prayer he mentions the people expresly and begs of Christ that he would vouchsafe by his great power to give unto them his pure Bloud and by them that is by the Priests to all the People †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. And as the Priest thus prays for the People and for others before the Communion so he offers up a Thanksgiving for them afterwards in these words We give thee thanks O Lord our God for the participation of thy holy pure and heavenly Mysteries which thou hast given us to the benefit sanctification and health both of our Souls and Bodies Do thou O Lord of all things grant unto us that this may be the partaking of the Body and Bloud of Christ to our sincere Faith ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. In the Lyturgie of St. Chrysostom the Priest having prayed God to make this Bread the precious Body of Christ * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lyturg. Chrysost Savil. Edit Tom. 6. which is an expression the Church of Rome will by no means allow and that which is in the Cup his Blood †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. that so they may become to those who partake of them for the cleansing of the Soul the remission of Sins ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. and the like And having used that Prayer Vouchsafe to give us this pure Body and Blood and by us to all the people He gives the Deacons both the Bread and Wine and uses particular expressions at the giving of each As this hath touched thy Lips and will take away thy Sins and purge away thy Wickedness * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. and then afterwards the Deacon having the Cup speaks to the people to draw nigh in the fear of God and in Charity †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. And though there is no particular description of their Communion as there is of the Deacons yet this is onely an Argument that it was the same and had it been different no doubt there would have been an account of it but after all the Priest makes a general Thanksgiving in the name of all Blessing God that he has vouchsafed us this day his heavenly and immortal Mysteries ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. p. 1003. To confirm this observation of the Communion in both kinds from the Lyturgy of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom Cassander in his Lyturgies tells us * Lyturgia Aethiopum sententia orationum ordine actionis fere cum Graecorum Chrysost Basilii Lyturgiis convenit Lyturg. per G. Cassand That the Lyturgie of the Aethiopians agrees with these two both in the prayers and the orders of the performance and in this the people as he informs us pray towards the conclusion That God would bless them who have received the sacred Body and the precious Blood †Populus sub finem benedic nos Domine servos tuos qui sanctum corpus pretiosum sanguinem sumpsimus Benedictus sit qui aedit sanctum corpus pretiosum sanguinem Gratia sit Domino qui dedit nobis corpus suum sanctum pretiosum sanguinem suum Ib. and blessed be God who has given us his sacred Body and precious Bloud And again Thanks be to God who has given us his sacred Body and precious Blood. As to the Lyturgies of the Latins which they call Missals they have received such Additions and Corrections at Rome as was necessary to make them sute with the present Opinions and Practices of that Church but yet we have many of those which have escaped that usage and which contain the Communion in both kinds as appears by the Codices Sacramentorum publisht at Rome by Thomasius where the Gelasian Form that is older than the Gregorian speaks of the Priests communicating alike with the sacred Orders and with all the People ‖ Post haec Communicat sacerdos cum ordinibus sacris cum omni populo P.
have a better argument for this than they can have against it or than these two Instances of Serapion and St. Ambrose are for the custom of Communicating the Sick in one kind and that is a full proof of a contrary custom for their Communicating in both I confess I cannot produce any very ancient testimonies for this because in the first Ages the faithful who used to receive the Communion very frequently in public it being in its self and its own nature a true part of public Worship did seldom or never take it upon their Death beds in private †Vide Dallaeum de Cult l. 4. c. 3. and therefore they who give us an account of the death of several very pious and devout Christians as Athanasius of St. Antony Gregory Nazianzen of Athanasius of his own Father and of his Sister Gorgonia yet they never mention any thing of their receiving the Sacrament at their deaths no more does Eusebius ‖ De vitâ Constant l. 3. c. 46. in his History of the Death of Helena the most zealous Mother of Constantine but so soon as Christians came to receive the Sacrament as the most comfortable Viaticum at their deaths which was not till after-Ages then by whatever instances it appears that they received it at all it appears also that they received it in both kinds and it is plain that among the numerous examples of this nature which are to be found in Bede and Surius and the Writers of the Saints Lives there is not one to be produced to the contrary else no doubt the learned Bishop of Meaux who picks up every thing that seems to make for his purpose and who was fain to content himself with those two insignificant ones of Serapion and St. Ambrose would not have omitted them I shall mention some few in opposition to those two of his of those who according to St. Austine's advice * Quoties aliqua infirmitas supervenerit Corpus sanguinem Christi ille qui aegrotat accipiat Sermo 215 de Tempore When they were sick did partake both of the Body and of the Bloud of Christ contrary to what they would have Paulinus report of St. Ambrose to St. Austine himself that he did onely receive the Body And the first shall be that of Valentinus of Pavia in the fifth Century †Ante obitum propriis manibus accepit corporis sanginis Domini Sacramentum Surius August 4. who before his death took with his own hands the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. The second that of Elpidius as it is in the next Century reported by Gregory the Great ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gregorii Dialog 616. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That calling his Brethren and standing in the midst of them he took the Body and the Blood of the Lord and continuing in prayer gave up the Ghost And he mentions this no less then of three others in the same Dialogues and in his Office for Visiting the Infirm after Prayers and other things then says he * Deinde communicet eum corpore sanguine Domini Gregor Sacram Visit infirm Let the Priest Communicate him with the Body and Bloud of Christ. In the same Age the Writer of St. Vedastus his Life says †Sacrosancto Corporis sanguinis Domini Viatico confirmatus obiit Alcuin in vit Vedast He died being confirmed with the most sacred Viaticum of the Body and Blood of Christ. And the same also of Richarius very near in the same words Isidore the famous Bishop of Sevil Received with a profound sigh the Body and Bloud of the Lord and died presently after ‖ Corpus sanguinem Domini cum profundo gemitu suscepit Redemptus de obit Isidor And to go down no lower than the next Age Bede then reports of Ceadda a British Bishop That he fortified his departure with the perception of the Body and Bloud of our Lord seven days before * Obitum suum Dominici Corporis sanguinis perceptione septimo ante mortem die munivit Bed. Hist Angl. l. 4. And the same of St. Cuthbert Who received from him the most wholsome Sacraments of Christ's Body and Bloud †Acceptis à me Sacramentis salutaribus Dominici Corporis Sanguinis Id. in vit Cuthberti And thus did that glorious Prince Charles the Great make his pious exit Commanding his most familiar Priest Hiltibald to come unto him and give him the Sacraments of the Lords Body and Bloud ‖ Jussit familiarissimum Pontificem suum Hiltibaldum venire ad se ut ei Sacramenta Dominici Corporis Sanguinis tribueret Eginhard vit Caroli Mag. And the same universal Custom and Practice I might bring down to all those other Ages that succeed till a new Doctrine of the Sacrament brought in a new Practice by degrees but I cannot omit one in the Eleventh Age though it has a Legendary Miracle joyned with it 't is an account Damianus * Presbyterum quendam Cumanae Ecclesie Eucharistium detalisse aegroto illum mox cum in Ecclesiam rediens aliquantulum Dominici sanguinis comperisset remansisse in calice Peri Damian Opusc gives of a Priest Who had carried the Eucharist to a sick person and by negligence brought back and left in the Cup a little of the Bloud of the Lord So that it is plain nowithstanding the fear either of keeping or spilling they carried the Wine with them to the sick as well as the Bread and Communicated them with both And now if we adde to these the Decree of Pope Paschal the Second forbidding to mix the Sacramental Elements but to give them seperately and distinctly unless to young Children and to the Sick which exception makes it unquestionable that both were then given to the Sick and the fore-mentioned Canon of the Council of Tours which is in Burchard Ivo and Regino commanding the Bread to be dipt in the Wine that the Priest may truely say to the sick The Body and Bloud of Christ be profitable to thee these being all laid together make it clear beyond all contradiction that the Communion of the Sick was not as de Meaux pretends in one kind but in both and as a parting blow upon this point I shall onely offer that observation of their own learned Menardus †Cum communicat infirmus quem vis morbi non ad tantam virium imbecillitatem adduxit dicitur utrâque formâ Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat te in vitam aeternam sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi redimat te in vitam aeternam quae distinctam sumptionem indicant at dum communicat infirmus qui ingravari caeperit unica tantum formula recitatur in hunc modum Corpus Sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam Menard notae in Greg. Sacram. p. 379 380. from an ancient Mass in his Notes upon the Sacramentary of St.
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
believe that the Wine was truly consecrated this way for so says expresly the Ordo Romanus the ancient Ceremonial as he calls it of that Church the Wine is sanctified and there is no difference between that and consecrated that I know of and it is plain they both mean the same thing there for it calls the consecrated Body the sanctified Body †Sanctificatur vinum non consecratum per sanctificatum panem and I know not what Sanctification of another nature that can be which is not Consecration or Sanctifing it to a holy and Sacramental use indeed this may not so well agree with the Doctrine and Opinion of Transubstantiation which requires the powerful and almighty words of This is my Body this is my Bloud to be pronounced over the Elements to convert them into Christ's natural Flesh and Blood but it agrees as well with the true notion of the Sacrament and the Primitive Christians no doubt had as truely the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Sacrament though they used not those words of Consecration which the Latines now do and the Latines had them both as truly in the Missa Parascues in which as Strabo says they used the old simple manner of Communion as much as on any other days De Meaux must either deny that Consecration of the Elements may be truly performed by that simple and ancient way which will be to deny the Apostolic and first Ages to have had any true Consecration or else he must own this to be a true one The Roman Order says not onely the Wine is Consecrated which it does in more places then one but that it is fully and wholly Consecrated so that the people may be confirmed by it ‖ Vt ex eadem sacro vase confirmetur populus quia vinum etiam non consecratum sed sanguine Domini commixtum sanctificatur per omnem modum Ord. Rom. a phrase often used in Ecclesiastical Writers for partaking of the Cup and entire Sacrament Amalarius thinks this to be so true a Consecration that he says * Qui juxta ordinem libelli per commixtionem panis vini consecrat vinum non observat traditionem Ecclesiae de quâ dicit Innocentius isto biduo Sacramenta penitùs non celebrari Amalar. Fortunat. de Eccles Offic. l. 1. c. 15. Edit Hittorp He who according to the order of that Book Consecrates the Wine by the commixtion of the Bread and Wine does not observe the Tradition of the Church of which Innocent speaks that on these two days Friday and Saturday before Easter no Sacraments at all should be Celebrated So that he complains of it because such a Consecration is used on that day The Author of the Book of Divine Offices under the name of Alcuinus †De hâc autem Communicatione utrum debeat fieri suprà relatum est Sanctificatur autem vinum non consecratum per sanctificatum panem Alcuini lib. de Off. div p. 253. Ib. makes a question whether there ought to be such a Communion but says expresly that the Vnconsecrated Wine is sanctified by the sanctified Bread. Micrologus says the same in the place produced before that it is Consecrated by Prayer as well as mixture with the Body and he gives this as a reason against Intinction in that Chapter ‖ C. 19. In parascene vinum non consecratum cum Dominicâ oratione Dominici corporis immissione jubet consecrare ut populus plenè possit communicare quod utique superflao praeciperet si intinctum Dominicum à priore die corpus servaretur ita intinctum populo ad Communicandum sufficere videretur that the Wine is Consecrated on that day so that the people might fully Communicate to shew that it would not have been sufficient as he thinks to have had the Bread dipt in the Wine the day before and so kept and I suppose he was of de Meaux's mind that the Wine was not so fit to be kept for fear of that change which might happen to it even from one day to the next but he is so far from Communion in one kind that in that very Chapter against Intinction he mentions Pope Julius his Decree * Julias Papa huiusmodi intinctionem penitus probibet seorsùm panem seorsùm calicem juxta Dominicam institutionem sumenda docet which forbids that and commands the Bread to be given by it self and the Wine by it self according to Christ's Institution and likewise the Decree of Gelasius †Vnde beatus Gelasius excommunicari illos praecepit quicunque sumpto corpore Dominico à calicis participatione se abstinerent nam ipse in eodem decreto asserit hujusmodi Sacramentorum divisio sine grandi sacrilegio provenire non potest Ib. Microlog in these words He commanded those to be Excommunicated who taking the Lord's Body abstained from the participation of the Cup And he asserts says he in the same Decree that this division of the Sacraments could not be without great Sacriledge So that this man could not be a favourer of Communion in one kind or an asserter that the Good Friday Communion was such When ever this Communion came into the Latine Church for it was not ancient to have any Communion on those two days on which Christ died and was buried yet it will by no means serve the purpose of de Meaux for Communion in the Church in one kind for it is plain this Communion was in both and it was the belief of the Church and of all those who writ upon the Roman Order except Hugo de St. Victore who is very late and no older than the twelfth Century when Corruptions were come to a great height that the Communion on that day was full and entire as well with the Bread which was reserved the day before as with the Wine which was truly Consecrated on that and held to be so by the opinion of them all The Lyturgy of the Presanctified in the Greek Church Of the Office of the Presanctified in the Greek Church will afford as little assistance if not much less to de Meaux's Opinion of Public Communion in one kind then the Missa Parasceues we see has done in the Latine the Greeks do not think fit solemnly to Consecrate the Eucharist which is a Religious Feast of Joy upon those days which they appoint to Fasting Mortification and Sadness and therefore during the whole time of Lent they Consecrate onely upon Saturdays and Sundays on which they do not fast and all the other five days of the Week they receive the Communion in those Elements which are Consecrated upon those two days which they therefore call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Presanctified The antiquity of this observation cannot be contested as de Meaux says seeing it appears not in the sixth Age as he would have it but in the seventh whereas the beginning of the Latin Office on Good-Friday is very
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
gratiarum actionis aut nudam commemorationem sacrificii in cruce peracii non autem propitiatorium vel soli prodesse sumenti neque pro vivis defunctis pro peceatis paenis satisfactionibus aliis necessitatibus offerri debere anathema sit Concil Trid. de sacrif Missae Canon 3. They make it to have the true vertue of a sacrifice in its self as a true price and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and compensation to God for sin and a true satisfaction to divine Justice for the punishment thereof as much as the sacrifice upon the cross and that they have the power of applying this whensoever and for whomsoever they offer it which is to have the greatest treasure in the World in their hands and to be able to make a proper propitiation for sin which belongs only to Christ but they can offer Christ as truly as he offered himself and set him upon the Altar as true a sacrifice as he hung upon the cross Christ I own is in some sense offered up to God by every communicant in the Sacrament when he does mentally and internally offer him to God and present as it were his bleeding Saviour to his Father and desire him for his sake to be merciful to him and forgive him his sins this internal oblation of Christ and his passion is made by every faithful Christian in his particular private devotions and especially at the more solemn and publick ones of the blessed Sacrament When he has the sacred symbols of Christs death before him and does then plead the vertue of Christs sacrifice before God not of the sacrifice then before him but of the past sacrifice of the crosse This is all done by the inward acts the Faith the devotion of the mind whereby as St. Austin says Christ is then slain to any one when he believes him slain (b) Tum Christus cuique occiditur cum credit occisum August quaest Evang. l. 2. and when we believe in Christ from the very remains of this thought Christ is dayly immolated to us (c) Cum credimus in Christum ex ipsis reliquiis cogitationis Christus nobis quotidie immolatur Id. in Psal 73. as St. Hierom says when we hear the word of our Lord his flesh and blood is as it were poured into our Ears (d) cum audimus Scrmonem Domini caro Christi sanguis ejus in auribus nostris funditur Hieron in Psal 147. and so St. Ambrose calls the virgins minds those Altars on which Christ is dayly offered for the Redemption of the Body (e) Vestras mentes considenter altaria dixerim in quibus quotidiè pro Redemptione corporis Christus ossertur Ambr. de Virg. l. 2. The Minister also does not only offer to God the oblations of the faithful at the Altar and their spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise which it is his proper duty in their names to present unto God but he does offer as it were Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for the people by praying to God for the people as a public Minister in and through the merits of Christs death and passion and by consecrating and administring the blessed Sacrament which is hereby made not only a commemorative sacrifice of Christs body and blood but does with the outward sign really exhibit the thing signified to the people So that 't is no. wonder to meet with the words offering and offering Christs body and blood as attributed peculiarly to the Minister as in those known places of Ignatius his Epistles 't is not lawful for the Priest to offer without the leave of the Bishop And in Tertullian when the Priest is wanting thou baptizest and offerest and art a Priest to thy self and in the Council of Nice where Deacons are forbid to offer the body of Christ Can. 14. To offer and to offer Christs body and blood is made the peculiar office of the Priest as he alone is the steward of these Mysteries of God and the proper Minister to consecrate and celebrate this Holy Sacrament and in that to offer up the peoples requests to God in the name of Christ and his meritorious cross and passion and by vertue of that to mediate for the people and present as it were Christs sacrifice on their behalf that is Christs body and blood as an objective sacrifice in heaven and as formerly truly offered upon the cross and now sacramentally and improperly upon the Altar but not as an external visible proper sacrifice subjectively present and placed upon the Altar by the hands of the Priest and by a visible and external action presented to God and offered up as the Jewish sacrifices used to be by any consumption or alteration as they hold the sacrifice of the Mass to be No such can be found in any of the Fathers or ancient Ecclesiastic Writers though they speak often of sacrifices and oblations and sometimes of offering Christ and the body of Christ in the Eucharist yet not at all in the present sense of the Romish Church or according to the doctrine of the Council of Trent or the Writers since that which how contrary it is to Antiquity I shall show by a few general Remarks and Considerations 1. Had they had any such sacrifice they might have given another answer to their Jewish and Heathen Adversaries who charged them with the want of outward Sacrifices and Altars as with a great impiety to which they made only this return in their Apologies that they had indeed no proper Altars nor visible and external sacrifices but instead of those they offered the more spiritual sacrifices of Praise and Thanksgiving and of an honest and good mind and of vertuous and holy actions which were the only sacrifices of Christians and more acceptable to God then any other this is the answer which runs through all their excellent Apologies in return to that accusation of their having no sacrifices which they owned to be true in the sense their Adversaries urged it that is that they had no proper external visible sacrifices such as the Jews and Heathens had such as the Roman Church will needs have the Mass to be but their sacrifices were of another nature such as were so only in an improper and metaphorical sense which the Romanists will by no means allow that of the Eucharist to be We are not Atheists says Justin Martyr as they were chargged to be because they had not the visible Worship of sacrifices but we Worship the maker of all things who needs not blood or libations or incense with the Word of Prayer and Thanksgiving giving him Praise as much as we can and counting this the only honour worthy of him (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Martyr Apolog. 2. and we are perswaded he needeth no material oblation from men (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. And in another place he says Prayers and Praises made by good men are the only perfect and acceptable sacrifices to God
excluded all those who were Non-communicants the Jews did not shut the people out of the Temple when the sacrifice was offering If the Eucharist as a sacrifice had been a part of Worship only to God an oblation to him and not a Sacrament to be received by themselves why might not they have been present at it as well as at the Prayers which were offered to God and at all the other parts of their Religious Worship The most ancient accounts we have of the manner of celebrating the Eucharist and the most ancient Liturgies or Eucharistic forms have not the least shadow of any private Communion by the Priest alone but always speak of the communion of others with him in the Apostolick Constitutions there is a Relation in what Order all the Faithful received First the Bishop then the Priests and Deacons then the Deaconesses and Virgins and Widows then all the whole people in order and after all have received then the Deacons take away the remainder St. Cyril speaks plainly of numbers receiving the Eucharist and not of a single person for he mentions the Deacons speaking to them at first to embrace each other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 give the kiss of Charity those very ancient Forms and Responses Lift up your hearts and the answer we lift them up unto the Lord * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us give thanks unto our Lord God It is just and meet so to do and afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these all show that the Priest did not communicate alone but had always the company of others at the Sacrament to join with him St. Denys called the Areopagite speaks of the Priests exhorting others at the Cûmmunion and praying that they who partake of these Mysteries may partake of them worthily The same is in all the Lyturgies which go under the name of St. James St. Mark and St. Peter in which there are the distinct parts of the people as well as of the Priest as when the Priest is to say peace be with you all the people are to answer and with thy spirit and the service is so framed as to suppose and require company in Communicating or else it would be nonsensical and ridiculous for the Priest alone to pray to God to breathe upon us his servants that are present to grant that the Sacraments may be to all us that partake of them the Communion of the blessedness of eternal Life and after the Communion is over after all have received for the priest to give the blessing to all and pray God to bless and protect us all who were partakers of the Mysteries The same form of speaking in the plural is in the more Authentick Liturgies of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom where it is very odd for the Priest to exhort others to pray to give thanks and the like and to pray God that they may be worthy partakers of the Sacrament if none were to partake of it but himself The Roman Missal which is much older then these private Masses or then the Doctrine of the Mass as I shall presently show speaks after the same manner and makes the Priest pray for all that are present and that all who have communicated may be filled with all heavenly benediction and Grace These must be all very improper for the Priest to say when he communicates by himself and he may with as good reason make a Congregation by himself alone as make a Communion Private Masses then which sprang up from the sacrifice of the Mass and are wholly suited and agreeable to that Doctrine these being so contrary to the best Antiquity show that that Doctrine also on which they are founded and from whence they arose is so too And I have the more largely considered these because they are another great corruption of the Eucharist of the Roman Church tho they are originally derived from the sacrifice of the Mass Fourthly The very Canon of the Mass as 't is at present in the Roman Church has very little in it agreeable to this new Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass but though it is somewhat difficult to give a certain account of the time of its composition it being made at first by an unknown Author whom St. Gregory calls Scholasticus who is supposed by some to be Pope Gelasius though had St. Gregory known this he would hardly have given him that name and it having a great many additions given to it by several Popes as is owned by their own Writers upon the Ordo Romanus * Walafrid Strabo de rebus Eccles c. 22. Micrologus de Ecclesiast Observat c. 12. Berno Augiensis c. 1. alii in Collectione Hittorpii yet it is no doubt much ancienter then their present Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass which is very near as late as the Council of Trent The first manner of celebrating the Communion was very plain and simple so that St. Gregory tells us The Apostles consecrated the host of oblation only with the Lords Prayer †Mos Apostolâ—rum fuit ut ad ipsam solummodo orationem Dominicam oblationis hostiam conscerarent Gregorii Regist Epistol 64. l. 7. if they did so and used no other form in that sacred Office 't is certain they could not make a sacrifice of the Eucharist nor offer it as such to God because there are no words or expressions in that prayer whereby any such thing should be meant or signified so that this is a most authentick testimony against any such Apostolick practice but the present Canon Missae or Communion Office of the Roman Church does not fully come up to nor perfectly expresse or contain the present Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass there is no offering of Christs body and blood under the species of Bread and Wine in any formal words as might be expected in conformity to their Trent Doctrine nor is there any mention of Christs being there in his natural body or offered to God by the Priest as a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead for sins for punishments and for other necessities Neither this nor their great Doctrine of Transubstantiation is contained in their present office so that 't is to me a plain evidence of the novelty of both of them and that they are a great deal later then the Canon of the Mass there are several prayers indeed that make mention of a sacrifice and of an oblation but most of them and the most expresse of them are before consecration so that they plainly belong to those Gifts and Oblations which according to the Primitive custom were brought by the Communicants and which as I have shown were one great reason of the Eucharist's being called a sacrifice God is desired to accept and bless these gifts these presents these holy and pure sacrifices which we offer to thee for thy holy Catholick Church together with thy servant our Pope N. and our Bishop N. and for all the Orthodox and
Bishop of Meaux in his Exposition seems to make the whole Essence of the sacrifice consist in Consecration alone without any manducation or destruction which Bellarmine makes absolutely necessary Christ he says is placed upon the holy Table clothed with those signs that represent his death in vertue of the words of consecration which are the spiritual sword that make a mystical separation betwixt the Body and the Blood. Now if Christ be thus only sacrificed mystically and by representation he is not sacrificed truly and properly nor is there any true and proper propitiation made hereby which is the true state of the Controversie between us Christ may be sacrificed representatively as Caesar may be slain in a Tragedy without being really present and if he were present and placed upon the Altar as they will needs have him yet he is no more sacrificed by the mystical representation then if Caesars Picture were stab'd and he were behind it unhurt I see no reason why Christs presence should be necessary to make such a mystical representative or commemorative sacrifice and if Christ were present I see not how he is more sacrificed then if he were absent So that they only confound their thoughts to make a proper sacrifice where there is none and when they have boasted of a true proper visible external sacrifice they know not where to find any such thing and it comes to no more at last then a meer commemorative and representative one or in plain words to a sacramental and Mystical representation and remembrance of a past sacrifice which there is neither any need nor any possibility of renewing Their differences about the proper sacrificial act whereby they do with good success destroy one anothers notions of it and so taken together destroy the thing it self these are the more considerable because 't is not the res sacrificii which makes the sacrifice though that were never so truly present but the sacrificing Act or the Actual sacrificing it for as Bellarmine says * Nam non res illa sed rei illius oblatio proprie est sacrificium sacrificium enim est a 〈◊〉 no◠res permanens Bellarm de Miss l. 2. c. 4. D. A sacrifice is an action not a permanent thing and 't is not the thing it self but the offering it is properly the sacrifice So that though Christs natural Body and Blood were never so much present in the Eucharist even according to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation it self yet so long as there is no proper action there to sacrifice it or no sacrificing act it would signifie nothing to the making it a sacrifice 3. This Doctrine of the Mass makes a living body a sacrifice which requires it should be dead and yet at the same represents it dead when it supposes it present in a state of life which is as odd a jumble as making a man to be by at his own funeral and at the same time bringing in the person alive yet dressing up his picture to remember him dead and in the habit of death it self The Eucharist is to remember and represent Christ in a state of death his body and blood as separated from one another and the one broken and the other poured out and the words of consecration are the spiritual sword as the Bishop of Meaux calls them that are to do this and so to constitute the sacrifice but whilst this is a doing nay by the very doing this thing the same spiritual sword becomes a spiritual word and raises the same body living and sets it in that state upon the Altar so that by this means it destroys the sacrifice a great deal more then it made it before for it makes it be then truly living whereas it only represented it before as dead So that 't is at the same time a dead representative sacrifice and a living proper sacrifice which is in truth no sacrifice at all for a living sacrifice is just as much sense as a dead Animal that is 't is a contradiction and one of the Terms destroys the other If a Jewish Priest had knockt down the Oxe with one hand and raised him up with the other or restored him to life after he had slew him this would have made but a very odde sacrifice and to make Christ dead by the sacramental signs and to sacrifice him thus in Effigie and to make him alive again under the sacramental signs and so to sacrifice him truly this is a strange and unaccountable riddle I would ask whether the consecrated species of Bread and Wine by which Christs blood is shed mystically and death intervenes only by representation as the Bishop of Meaux phrases it whether these would make a real sacrifice without Christs living body under them if not 't is not this mystical representation of death makes the sacrifice Or whether Christs living body without those species and signs of his death would be a sacrifice If not then 't is not the placing that upon the Altar and so a real Oblation of it there makes the sacrifice and then what is it that does so Is it not very odd that the same person must be there seemingly dead and yet really alive at the same time to make up this sacrifice 4. The making it truly propitiatory is a very great Error and inconsistent with it self All our Religious Duties and all our vertuous actions may in a large and improper sense be said to be propitiatory as they are said also in Scripture to be sacrifices for no doubt but they make God kind and propitious to us and incline him to have Mercy upon us and the blessed Eucharist as it exhibits to us all the graces and benefits which Christ hath by his death purchased for us whereof Pardon and Remission of fin which is hereby sealed to us is a very great one so far may be called propitiatory and it may be instituted for the Remission of sin so far as it is to apply to us the vertue of Christs body and blood and make us partakers of his sacrifice upon the Cross but this it may do as it is a Sacrament without being any sacrifice much less without being a propitiatory one as the Council of Trent hath determined it to be truly propitiatory (b,) Vere propitiatorium esse hujus quippe oblatione placatus Dominus Concil Trident. Sest 6. c. 2. by the oblation of which God is appeased and this in opposition to a sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving (c.) Si quis dixerit Missaesacrificium tantum esse laudis gratiarum actionis non autem propitiatorium Ib. Can. 3. Now as it is a sacrifice of Praise and spiritual Devotion it is no doubt in the Bishop of Meaux's words acceptable to God and makes him look upon us with a more propitious eye (d,) Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church p. 35. Is this then all the meaning of its being propitiatory Did ever any Protestant deny it