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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56750	The three grand corruptions of the Eucharist in the Church of Rome Viz. the adoration of the Host, communion in one kind, sacrifice of the Mass. In three discourses.	Payne, William, 1650-1696.; Payne, William, 1650-1696. Discourse concerning the adoration of the Host. aut; Payne, William, 1650-1696. Discourse of the communion in one kind. aut; Payne, William, 1650-1696. Discourse of the sacrifice of the Mass. aut	1688 (1688)	Wing P911A; ESTC R220353	239,325	320

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

and erronious yet they are useless and insignificant for they do not prove but onely suppose the Churches practice and if the practice be not true as it is plain it is not then what signifie those principles which are wholly grounded upon a wrong supposal and are onely designed to make out that which never was Those principles are like framing an Hypothesis to give an account of the reason of some strange and extraordinary thing which thing upon enquiry proves false and mistaken and so they are but like the Virtuoso's solution of a Phoenominon which nothwithstanding all his Philosophic fancy and fine Hypothesis never was in Nature Monsieur de Meaux must better prove to us the Practice of the Church for Communion in one kind then he has yet done before he establishes such Principles by which such a Practise may be made out for whatever the Principles be as long as the Practice is false the Principles will not make it true And since I have so largely proved that Communion in both kinds was the Practice of the Primitive and the whole Catholick Church for above Twelve hundred years and have disproved all the instances of de Meaux to the contrary so that no manner of question can be made of the truth of this matter of fact unless where as de Meaux says Passion makes prevaricated persons undertake and believe any thing * P. 164. I have sufficiently answered that part of de Meaux's Book wherein the strength of the whole lies and that which is the ground and foundation of all the rest being destroyed the other falls of its self I might therefore spare my self the trouble of Examining the Principles which de Meaux layes down as the Reasons of the Churches practice for if the Practice of the Church be against him the reasons of that Practice will be so too and I may turn those upon him as I have done the other His third Principle which is the most considerable and which alone he says carries along with it the decision of this question † P. 194. namely That the Law ought to be explained by constant and perpetual Practice this is wholly for us who are assured that we have the constant and perpetual Practice of the Church for so many Ages for the Communion in both kinds and therefore though the Law of Christ which is so clear in it self that it needs nothing to explain it be the main thing upon which the decision of this matter depends yet the Tradition and Practice of the Church is a farther confirmation of the Law to us and we shall be willing to joyn with de Meaux in whatever he can say for Tradition provided it be so certain and general and authentic as we have proved it to be for Communion in both kinds and provided that it do not destroy a plain Law of Christ nor make void the Commandment of God which we can never believe that an universal Tradition of the Catholic Church ever will do What a vain and empty flourish some are used to make with a name of Tradition and the Church I have shewn in this question of the Communion in one kind in the managing of which I have as de Meaux speaks Attacked our enemies in their own Fortress ‖ P. 254. and taken this Goliah weapon out of their hands and though the disarming de Meaux of that in which his whole strength lies is entirely to overcome him yet since some of the reasons he lays down to justifie his pretended Tradition may without that considered meerly by themselves carry a seeming plausibleness if not real strength in them to defend the Communion in one kind from those apparent difficulties under which as he owns it labours and which he would willingly take off from it I shall in the last place consider all those principles and arguments from Reason which are laid down by him to this purpose His first principle is this That in the administration of the Sacraments we are obliged to do not all that which Jesus Christ hath done but onely that which is essential to them This we allow and this principle as he says Is without contest No Church nor no Christians did ever think themselves obliged to all those circumstances with which Christ celebrated the blessed Eucharist at its first Institution and as to Baptism Christ himself did not perform but onely command that Sacrament I cannot think that Monsieur Jurieux should propose this for a rule as de Meaux charges him * P. 349. To do universally all that Jesus Christ did in such sort that we should regard all circumstances he observed as being of absolute necessity What to do it onely at night and after supper and in an upper room and the like This could never enter into any mans head of common understanding much less into so learned a mans as Monsieur Jurieux They who are so zealous for unleavened Bread because Christ probably used it for there are disputes about it at his Paschal Supper though if he did it was onely by accident yet do not think fit to enquire what was the particular sort of Wine which he blessed and gave his Disciples nor think themselves obliged to celebrate only in that which yet they might do with as much reason and though the putting Water into the Wine which was very ancient and used very likely by the Jews and others in those hot Countrys is not remarked in the first Institution yet I know none that make any great scruple at it As to the posture of receiving which has been the most controverted yet the stiffest Contenders in that have not thought it necessary to keep exactly to the same in which Christ gave and the Apostles received at first which was discumbency if these circumstances indeed had been commanded as a great many of the like nature were very precisely to the Jews in their eating the Passover then they ought to have been observed in obedience to the Divine Law but the Command of Christ Do this does not in the least extend to these but onely to the Sacramental Action of blessing Bread and eating it blessing Wine and drinking it in remembrance of Christ For that was the thing which Christ did and which he commanded them to do and the very same thing may be done with quite other circumstances then those with which he did it with other words for we know not what were the words with which Christ blest the Bread or the Wine with other company more or less then twelve men in another posture then that of lying and in another place and time and the like he that does not plainly see those to be circumstances and cannot easily distinguish them from the thing it self which Christ did and commanded to be done must not know what it is to eat and to drink unless it be with his own family in such a room of his own house and at such an hour of the day 't

and the most useful and comfortable part of Christian Worship and if it be so it is a great defect in us that want it they charge us very high for being without it without a Sacrifice which no Religion they tell us in the World ever was before and one amongst them of great Learning and some temper in other things yet upon this occasion askes whether it can be doubted where there is no Sacrifice there can be any Religion † An dubitari potest ubi nullum peculiare Sacrisitium ibi ne Religionem quidem esse posse Canus in loc Theol. l. 12. p. 813. We on the other side account it a very great corruption of the Eucharist to turn that which is a Sacrament to be received by us into a Sacrifice to be offer'd to God and there being no Foundation for any such thing in Scripture but the whole ground of it being an Error and mistake as we shall see anon and it being a most bold and daring presumption to pretend properly to Sacrifice Christs body again which implyes no less then to Murder and Crucifie him we therefore call it a Blasphemous Fable † See Article 31. of the 39 Articles of Religion and as it is made use of to deceive people into the vain hopes of receiving benefit by the Communion without partaking of it and a true pardon of sin by way of price and recompence is attributed to it and it is made as truly propitiatory as Christs sacrifice upon the Cross both for the dead and living and for that purpose is scandalously bought and sold so that many are hereby cheated not onely of their mony but of their souls too it is to be feared who trust too much to this easie way of having a great many Masses said for them and because when the priest pretends to do those two great things in the Mass to turn the Bread and Wine into the very substance of Christs Body and Blood and then to offer Christ up again to his Father as truly as he offered himself upon the cross which are as great as the greatest works which ever God did at the very Creation and Redemption of the World yet that he really does no such thing as he then vaunts and boasts of for these Reasons we deem it no less then a dangerous deceit † Ibid. These are high charges on both sides and it concerns those who make them to be well assured of the grounds of them And here I cannot but passionately resent the sad state of Christianity which will certainly be very heavy upon those who have been the cause of it when the corruptions of it are so great and the divisions so wide about that which is one of the most sacred and the most useful parts of it the Blessed Eucharist which is above any other the most sadly depraved and perverted as if the Devil had hereby shown his utmost malice and subtlety to poyson one of the greatest Fountains of Christianity and to make that which should yield the Waters of Life be the Cup of destruction That blessed Sacrament which was designed to unite Christians is made the very bone of Contention and the greatest instrument to divide them and that bread of Life is turned into a stone and become the great Rock of offence between them Besides the lesser corruptions of the Eucharist in the Church of Rome such as using thin Wafers instead of bread and injecting them whole into the mouths of the Communicants and Consecrating without a Prayer and speaking the words of Consecration secretly and the like there are four such great ones as violate and destroy the very substance and Essence of the Sacrament and make it to be a quite other thing then Christ ever intended it and therefore such as make Communion with the Roman Altar utterly sinful and unlawful These are the Adoration of the Host or making the Sacrament an object of Divine Worship the Communion in one Kind or taking away the Cup from the People the turning the Sacrament into a true and proper Sacrifice propitiatory for the Quick and the Dead and the using of private or solitary Masses wherein the Priest who celebrates Communicates alone The two former of these have been considered in some late discourses upon those subjects the fourth is a result and consequence of the third for when the Sacrament was turned into a sacrifice the people left off the frequent communicating and expected to be benefitted by it another way so that this will fall in as to the main Reasons of it with what I now design to consider and Examine The Sacrifice of the Mass or Altar wherein the Priest every time he celebrates the Communion is supposed to offer to God the Body and Blood of Christ under the forms of Bread and Wine as truely as Christ once offered himself upon the cross and that this is as true a proper and propitiatory Sacrifice as the other and that 't is so not only for the Living but also for the Dead The Objections we make against it and the Arguments by which they defend it will fall in together at the same time and I shall endeavour fairly and impartially to represent them in their utmost strength that so what we have to say against it and what they have to say for it may be offered to the Reader at one view that he may the better judg of those high charges which are made he sees on each side First then we say That the very foundation of this Sacrifice of the Mass is established upon two very great Errors and Mistakes The one is the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or Christs Corporal presence in the Eucharist The other is the Opinion That Christ did offer up his body and blood as a sacrifice to God in his last Supper before he offered up himself upon the Cross If either or both of these prove false the Sacrifice of the Mass is so far from being true that it must necessarily fall to the ground according to their own principles and acknowledgments Secondly There is no Scripture ground for any such sacrifice but it is expresly contrary to Scripture under which head I shall examine all their Scriptural pretences for it and produce such places as are directly contrary to it and perfectly overthrow it Thirdly That it has no just claim to Antiquity nor was there any such Doctrine or practise in the Primitive Church Fourthly That it is in it self unreasonable and absurd and has a great many gross Errors involved in it First we say That the very Foundation of this sacrifice is established upon two very great Errors and Mistakes the first of which is the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or which may be sufficient for their purpose the corporal presence of Christs natural body and blood in the Eucharist though they disclaim the belief of this without the other but if Christs body and blood be not substantially present under the species of