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
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
the sacrifice of Christ and of those of the Jews and compare them so much together and show the excellency of the one above the other that he should never say the least word of the sacrifice of the Mass when he had so much occasion to do it that it can hardly be imagined he should have so wholly omitted it had it been as others since account it as true and proper a sacrifice as any of the Jewish or of Christs himself upon the cross Fourthly The Apostle here plainly layes down a principle directly contrary and wholly inconsistent with their Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass and that is that if Christ be offered he must suffer and that without shedding of blood there is no Remission Nor yet saith he at the 25 26. verses and 9th chapter That he should offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself For then must he often have suffered if he had been often offered without suffering then Christ cannot be offered and sacrificed and indeed to sacrifice any thing is to consume and destroy it so that it be wholly parted with and given up to God and to sacrifice any thing that is living is to take away its life and to kill it and so to make it suffer death as a vicarious punishment in anothers stead this is the common and allowed notion of sacrifices but Christ cannot thus suffer in the Mass therefore he cannot be truly offered or sacrificed since according to the Apostle if he be often offered he must often suffer and they would not I hope crucifie to themselves the Lord of Life again and put him to death upon the Altar as the Jews did upon the cross and yet without this they cannot truly sacrifice him or properly offer him according to the Apostle But this says their great Champion the Bishop of Meaux is done mystically Christ is mystically slain and doth mystically suffer death upon the Altar that is by way of representation and resemblance and the mysterious signification of what is done there as St. Paul says to the Galatians chap. 3. v. 1. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you Now so Christ may be crucified every time we hear or read his crucifixion lively represented to us as we may see a bloody Tragedy without one drop of blood spilt so Christ may be mystically slain in the Sacrament when his body is broke and his blood poured out in mystery and representation but this is not true and proper Offering which is necessary to make a true and proper sacrifice as they will have that of the Mass to be if they would be contented with a mystical sacrifice to represent and commemorate Christs death that they know we are willing to allow and then a mystical suffering that is not a real and proper would be sufficient for a mystical that is not proper sacrifice but the suffering must be as true and proper as the sacrifice and if the one be but mystical the other must be so too if the Bullock or Goat of the sin-offering which was to be offered on the great day of Atonement had been only Mystically slain and Mystically offered upon the Altar they had been as really alive for all that as any that were in the Fields and had been no more true and proper sacrifices of atonement and expiation then they were for without sheding of blood as the Apostle says there is no Remission Heb. 9.22 it was the shedding or pouring out the blood in which the Life was supposed to be and therefore the taking away the Life of the sacrifice that did really make the sacrifice to be truly propitiatory or available before God as a price and recompence for the remission of sins and how then can the sacrifice of the Mass be truly propitiatory when the blood is not truly shed when according to themselves it is Incruentum sacrificium an unbloody sacrifice and therefore according to the Apostle it cannot be pro pitiatory for the Remission of sins as will be further insisted upon afterwards Thus we see how much there is in those clear places of Scripture against the sacrifice of the Mass and how little there is for it in those dark ones which are produced by our Adversaries Thirdly It has no just claim to Antiquity nor was there any such Doctrine or Practice in the Primitive Church this is greatly boasted and vaunted of and although their cause runs very low in Scripture yet they pretend it carries all Antiquity before it where nothing is more common than to have the name of Oblation and Sacrifice and Host and Victim attributed to the blessed Eucharist and to have it said that we do there offer and immolate and sacrifice unto God this we readily acknowledge and though we can by no means allow Antiquity to take place of Scripture or to set up either an Article of Faith or essential part of Worship which is not in Scripture and our Adversaries seem to agree with us in this that there must be a divine Institution for a sacrifice or else it can have no true foundation so that if Scripture fails them 't is in vain to flye for refuge to Antiquity yet we doubt not but that Scripture and Antiquity will be fairly reconciled and be made very good Friends in this point and both of them against the sacrifice of the Mass as 't is taught and practised in the Church of Rome The name of Sacrifice and oblation is often given both in Scripture and Antiquity in an improper general and metaphorical sense thus it is applyed to the inward actions of the mind to penitence and sorrow for sin The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Psal 51.17 To the outward Thanksgivings of the mouth when we render unto God the Calves of our lips Hosea 14.2 When we offer unto him Thanksgiving Psal 50.14 or as the Apostle more fully expresses it when he commands Christians to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name Heb. 13.15 where the Metaphor is carried on in several words and in the very next verse 't is applied to works of Mercy and Charity and beneficence to others but to do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased verse 16. and St. Paul in another place calls the Philippians Charity an odour of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God Philip. 4.18 Nay he calls preaching the Gospel a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Adversaries earnestly contend to mean nothing less then a sacrifice and the converting the Gentiles
The motive inducing this Pope to make this Decree was because he found that some did not receive the Blood as well as the Body and the reason why they did not was some either Manichean or other Superstition so that this Decree I own was occasioned by them and particularly relates to them and shews that they herein differed from the Faithful not onely in their superstition but in the practice too but to say that he forbad this practice onely in respect of such a Superstition going along with it and that he did not forbid the Practice it self which was the effect of it is so notoriously false that the Decree relates wholly to the Practice and as to the Superstition it does not inform us what it was or wherein it consisted no doubt it must be some Superstition or other that hinders any from taking the Cup the superstitious fear of spilling Christ's Blood or the superstitious belief that one Species contains both the Body and Bloud together and so conveys the whole vertue of both which is truely Superstition as having no foundation in Scripture or in the Institution of Christ which gives the Sacrament its whole vertue and and annexs it not to one but to both Species And whatever the Superstition be Gelasius declares it is Sacriledge to divide the Mystery or to take one Species without the other the reason which he gives against taking one kind is general and absolute because the Mystery cannot be divided without Sacriledge so that however our Adversaries may assoile themselves from the Superstition in Gelasius they can never get off from the Sacriledge How wide these conjectures from Pope Leo and Gelasius are from the mark which de Meaux aims at I shall let him see from one of his own Communion whose knowledge and judgement in antiquity was no way inferiour to his own and his honesty much greater who thus sums up that matter against one that would have strained and perverted it to the same use that de Meaux does Conjectura vero quam adfert ex Leonis Sermone Gelasii decreto prorsus contrarium evincit nam ex iis Manifestè constat horum Pontificum temporibus Communionem non nisi in utrâque specie in Ecclesiâ usitatam fuisse Quomodo enim Manichaei hâc notâ deprehenderentur quod ingredientes Ecclesiam percepto cum reliquis corpore Domini à sanguine Redemptionis abstinerent nisi calix Dominici sanguinis distributue fuisset quomodo superstitionis convincerentur qui sumptâ Dominici corporis pertione à calice sacrati cruoris abstinerent nisi calix ille sacrati cruoris omnibus in Ecclesiâ fuisset oblatus non igitur ut quidam existimant novo decreto utriusque speciei usum hi sanctissimi Pontisices edixerunt sed eos qui solennem hunc receptum calicis sumendi morem neglexerunt ille ut heresis Manichaeae affines notandos evitandos hic ad usitatatam integri Sacramenti perceptionem compellendos aut ab omni prorsus Communione arcendos censait Nam Catholicis novo decreto non opus erat qui receptam integra Sacramenta percipiendi consuetudinem religiosè servabant Cassand de Com. sub utrâque p. 1026. The Conjecture says he which he makes from the Sermon of Pope Leo and the Decrees of Gelasius does wholly evince the contrary to what he pretends for from them it manifestly appears that in the time of these two Popes the Communion was onely used in both kinds for how should the Manichees be known by this mark that when they came to the Churches they abstained from the Bloud of our Redemption after they had with others taken the Body of the Lord unless the Cup of the Lord had been distributed and how should they be convicted of Superstition who took a portion of the Lord's Body and abstained from the Cup unless the Cup of his sacred Bloud had been offered to all in the Church These holy Popes did not therefore as some imagine appoint the use of both Species by a new Decree but those who neglected this solemn and received custom of taking the Cup one of these Popes would have them avoided and markt as those who were a-kin to the Manichean Heresie the other would have them compelled to the accustomed perception of the entire Sacrament or else to be wholly kept from all Communion for there was need of no new Decree for the Catholics who did Religiously observe the received custom of taking the Sacrament entirely that is in both kinds There needs much better Arguments to prove the Public Communion in the Church to have been ever in one kind than such improbable Guesses and forced Conjectures whereby plain and full evidences are rackt and tortured to get that out of them which is contrary to their whole testimony sense and meaning Let us enquire then whether any particular instances can be given as matters of fact which will make it appear that the Church ever used onely one kind in its Public Communions this de Meaux attempts to shew in the last place and as the strongest evidence he can rally up for his otherwise vanquisht cause He brings both the Latine and Greek Church to his assistance though the latter he owns appears not for the most part very favourable to Communion under one Species but yet this manner of Communicating is practised however and consecrated too by the Tradition of both Churches If it be but practiced in both Churches this will go a great way to make it a Practice of the Catholic Church though neither of those Churches singly nor both of them together do make the Catholic But let us see how this is practiced in those two great though particular Churches Why in the Office of Good-Friday in the Latine Church and the Office of the Greek Church every day in Lent except Saturday and Sunday at those times it seems these two Churches have the Communion onely in one kind as appears by their public Offices if they have it so at those times at other times then I suppose they have it in both or else how come those particular times and those particular Offices to be singled out and remarked as distinct and different from all the rest then generally and for the most part the Public Communion is to be in both kinds according to the Tradition of both those Churches and then surely this Tradition which is thus consecrated by both the Churches Of the Mass on Good-Friday in the Roman Church is violated by the Roman But the Priest himself who officiates takes but in one kind in the Missa Parasceues as they call it or the Mass on Good-Friday as appears by the Office this custom then will shew that the Priest himself or the Minister Conficiens may receive onely in one kind in the Public Communion as well as the People which I think they ordinarily think unlawful and call it Sacriledge if he should ordinarily do so and if I
remember Bellarmine himself says * Sacerdotibus utriusque speciei Sumptio necessaria est ex parte Sacramenti nam quia Sacramentum sub duplici specie institutum est utraque species necessariò ab aliquibus sumenda est Bellarm. de Euchar. c. 4. c. 23. The Sumption of both Species is necessary for the Priest who officiates as it is a Sacrament as well as a Sacrifice for since the Sacrament was Instituted under both kinds it is necessary that both kinds be taken by some-body to make it a Sacrament This Communion then of the Priest in one kind must be no Sacrament and the Missa Parasceues must be a very imperfect one and I think themselves are pleased so to call it it must be but equivocally call'd a Mass as Cardinal de Bona phrases it †Missam illam non nisi aequivocè ita dici Bona rer Lyturg. l. 1. c. 15. and consequently such an unusual and extraordinary and imperfect Communion as this will be no good president nor an instance of any weight and authority to justifie the practice of Public Communion in one kind But after all perhaps there may be a great mistake and this Mass on Good-Friday though it be very different from all others yet may not be a Communion in one kind but in both and so may that in the Greek Church in the Lyturgy of the Presanctified which is used on most days in Lent and then we may relieve the Church of Rome from the difficulty of the Priests Communicating but in one kind and vindicate both the Churches in great measure from being guilty of such an irregular practice contrary to the general practice of the whole Church and to the institution of Christ this cannot to this day be laid to the Greek Church who never uses the Communion in one kind neither privately nor publickly nor could it be charged upon the Roman till long after this particular Mass on Good-Friday was used in it which it is plain it was in the eleventh Age from the Ordo Romanus Amulatius Alcuinus Rupertus Tuiriensis and others but there is no manner of proof that the Public Communion in one kind was brought into the Church of Rome till the thirteenth Century when it came by degrees into some particular Churches as Thomas Aquinas informs us and was afterwards established by a general Decree in the Council of Constance The Mass therefore on Good-Friday though it was a singular and different Office from all others they not thinking it fit for I know not what reasons to make a formal Consecration of Christ's Body on the same day he died but to Celebrate the Communion with what was thus consecrated the day before yet it was not wholly in the one species of Bread but in that of Wine too as is plain from the Office it self and from those Authors who have wrote upon it The Bread which was Consecrated the day before Corpus Domini quod pridiè remansit ponentes in patenam Subdiaconus teneat calicem cum vino non consecrato alter Subdiaconus patenam cum corpore Domini quibus tenentibus accipit unus Presbyter prior patenam alter calicem defertur super altare nudatum Ordo Romanus p. 75. ex Edit Hittorp was brought by the Sub-Deacon and a Calice of unconsecrated Wine by another Sub-Deacon and the Priest sets them both together upon the Altar then after some Prayers and particularly the Lord's Prayer he takes the consecrated Bread ‖ Sumit de Sanctâ ponit in caticem Sanctificatur autem vinum non consecratum per sanctificatum panem communicant omnes cum silantio Ib. and puts into the Calice and so the unconsecrated Wine is sanctified by the sanctified Bread and then they all Communicate with silence They Communicated with the Bread and the Wine thus mixed together and so their Communion this day was not in one kind But this Wine says de Meaux was not truely Consecrated this Sanctification of the unconsecrated Wine by the mixture of the Body of our Lord cannot be that true Consecration by which the Wine is changed into the Bloud I cannot tell whether it be such a Consecration that does that in his sense but it may be as true a Sacramental Consecration of the Elements for all that not onely by vertue of the mixture and by way of contact as some explain it * Aliter in Romano Ordine legitur ut contactu Dominici corporis integra fiat Communio Cassand de Com. sub utr p. 1027. Concil Araus primum but by the solemnity of the action and by all the Religious circumstances that attend it and especially by those Prayers and Thanksgivings which were then used as in Micrologus 't is clearly and plainly exprest †Vinum non consecratum cum Dominicâ Oratione Dominici Corporis immissione jubet consecrare Microlog de Ecclesiast Observ c. 19. in Edit Hittorp p. 742. that the Wine is Consecrated with the Lord's Prayer and the Immission of the Lord's Body And why will not de Meaux allow that a true Consecration may be made by those words and prayers as well as by those formal words This is my Body when it is made out beyound all contradiction both by Dallee and Albertinus that the Primitive Church did not Consecrate by those words but by a Prayer and their own St. Gregory says ‖ Apostolos sulâ Dominicâ prece praemissâ consecrasse Sacramenta distribuisse Greg. l. 7. Ep. 63. ad Syr. That the Apostles Consecrated the Sacrament only with the Lord's Prayer Which was used here and particularly observed to be so by Micrologus as that whereby the Wine was consecrated so that all Monsieur de Meaux's labour is vain to shew that the Consecration could not be without words And that it cannot enter into the mind of a man of sense that it could ever be believed in the Church the Wine was consecrated without words by the sole mixture of the Body The Consecration might be made without those very formal words now used in the Roman Missal as it was by Prayer in the Primitive Church Walafridus Strabo observes concerning this very Office on Good-Friday that it was agreeable to the more ancient and simple way of the Communion of the first Christians which was performed only with the use of the Lord's Prayer and some commemoration of Christ's Passion * Et relatio majorum est ita primis temporibus Missas fieri solitas sicut modo in Parasceue Paschae communicationem facere solemus i. e. prâmissâ Oratione Dominicâ sicut ipse Dominus noster praecepit commemoratione passionis ejus adhibita Walagrid Strabo de rebus Eccles c. 22. p. 680. Edit Hittorp and yet he did not question but the Consecration was truly made by that simple manner and it did so far enter into the minds of the men of sense that were in those times that they all did
without it I have therefore prevented de Meaux in all he brings for Tradition and the Practice of the Church unless he will lay so great stress upon that as to make it null and supersede a divine Law nor am I at all concerned in all the instances he brings for it out of the Old and New Testament ‖ § V. §. VI. unless he can bring one to prove that either the Jewish Synagogue or the Christian Church did ever make void a Divine Law by a contrary Practice and Tradition of their own I can never allow any Church to have a power and Authority to do this and I am willing to allow it all Authority that is kept within those bounds It was boldly and openly done indeed by the Council of Constance when it owned That Christ instituted the Sacrament and administred it to his Disciples under both kinds * Licet Christus post caenam instituerit suis Discipulis administraverit subutrāque specie panis vini hoc venerabile Sacramentum Et similitèr quòd licet in primitivâ Ecclesiâ hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur à sidelibus sub utrâque specie Concil Constant Sess 11. and that the faithful received it under both kinds in the Primitive Church Yet to command it under one by its own power and authority and by its own Prerogative to give a Non obstante to Christ's Institution this was done like those that had a sufficient plenitude of power and were resolved to let the World see they had so and that Christ's own Institution was to give way to it they had not then found out the more sly and shifting subtilties that Christ gave the Cup to his Disciples onely as Priests and made them Priests just after the giving them the Bread this was a late invention found out since that Council by some more timerous and wary Sophisters who were afraid of setting up the Churches Power against a Divine Institution neither did they then offer to justifie the Communion in one kind by the Tradition and Practice of the Primitive Church as de Meaux and others have done since but they plainly gave up this and onely made a late Custom which was afterwards introduced to become a Law by vertue of their present Power notwithstanding the Institution of Christ and the Practice of the Primitive Church to the contrary Here the Case truly lies though de Meaux is willing to go off from it there must be a power in the Church to void a Divine Institution and to null a Law of Christ which can be no other than an Antichristian power in the strictest sense which may by the same reason take away all the positive Laws of Christianity or else Communion in one kind is not to be maintained and this power must be in a particular present Church in opposition to the Primitive and the Universal or else this Communion is not to be maintained in the Church of Rome De Meaux must be driven to defend that post which he seems to have quitted and deserted or else he can never defend this half-Communion which is contrary as I have proved and as the Council of Constance owns to the Institution of Christ and to the Practice of the Primitive Church The new Out-work he has raised from Tradition in which he puts all the forces of his Book and the main strength of his Cause this I have not beat down or destroyed but taken from him and his cause can never hold out upon his own principles of Tradition and the Practice of the Church which is a very strong battery against it as I have largely shewn so that all that he says for Tradition is in vain and to no purpose since this Tradition he pleades for is utterly against him and if it were never so much for him yet no Tradition can take away a Divine Law. He seems to own and I think he dare not expresly deny that what is essential to the Sacraments or belongs to the substance of them cannot be taken away by Tradition or the Power of the Church but he utterly destroys this by making onely Tradition and the Practice of the Church to determine what is thus essential to the Sacraments for if nothing be essential but what is made so by them and may be known by them then they have a power to make or to alter even the very essentials of the Sacraments which are hereby made wholly to depend upon the Church and Tradition We are willing to own that nothing is unalterable in the Sacraments but what is essential to them and that all other indifferent things belonging to them may be altered by the Church or by Tradition but then we say that what is essential is fixt and known by the Institution and by a Divine Law antecedent to Tradition and if it were not so then there were nothing essential in the Sacraments at all but all would be indifferent and all would depend upon Tradition and the Churches Power and then to what purpose is it to say That the Church has power onely in the Accidentals and may alter whatever is not essential or belongs not to the substance of the Sacraments this onely shews that they are ashamed to speak out and they dare not but grant with one hand that which they are forced to take away with another they dare not openly say That the Church has power over the essentials of the Sacraments but yet they say That there are no essentials but what are made and declared to be so by the Church So the streight they are in obliges them in effect to revoke their own concessions and Truth makes them say that which their Cause forces them to unsay again and they are put upon those things in their own necessary defence which amount in the whole to a contradiction If the Bishop of Meaux can shew us that any Divine Institution was ever altered by the Jewish or Christian Church or any Law of God relating to Practice and Ceremony was ever taken away by a contrary Practice and Tradition then he says something to the purpose of Communion in one kind but if the many Instances which he brings for Tradition out of the Old and New Testament do none of them do this they are then useless and insufficient they fall short of what they ought to prove and come not up to the question in hand but are wholly vain and insignificant and to shew they are so I shall reduce them to these following heads 1. They chiefly relate to the Churches Power in appointing and determining several things which are left indifferent and undetermined by the Law of God and here we acknowledge the Church to have a proper Power and that it may oblige even in Conscience to many things to which we are not obliged by the Law of God and may determine many things for the sake of Peace and Uniformity in Divine Worship which are not so precisely determined by
Sence of Scripture III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible Succession 5. A Discourse concerning a Guide in matters of Faith with Respect especially to the Romish pretence of the Necessity of such a one as is Infallible 6. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be Received and what Tradition is to be Rejected 7. A Discourse concerning the Unity of the Catholick Church maintained in the Church of England 8. A Discourse concerning the Necessity of Reformation with Respect to the Errours and Corruptions of the Church of Rome In two Parts 9. A Discourse concerning the Object of Religious Worship or a Scripture-Proof of the Unlawfulness of giving any Religious Worship to any other Being besides the one Supream God. 10. A Discourse against Transubstantiation 11. A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host as it is Taught and Practised in the Church of Rome Wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that Subject and to Monsieur Bocleau's late Book de Adoratione Eucharistiae Paris 1685. 12. A Discourse concerning Invocation of Saints 13. A Discourse concerning the Devotions of the Church of Rome 14. A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue 15. A Discourse concerning Auricular Confession as it is Prescribed by the Council of Trent and Practised in the Church of Rome With a Postscript on occasion of a Book lately printed in France called Historia Confessionis Auricularis 16. A Discourse concerning the Worship of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints with an Account of the Beginnings and Rise of it amongst Christians In Answer to Monsieur de Meaux's Appeal to the Fourth Age in his Exposition and his Pastoral Letter 17. A Discourse of the Communion in One Kind in Answer to the Bishop of Meaux's Treatise of Communion under both Species Lately Translated into English A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS Imprimatur Guil. Needham October 24. 1687. LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil M DC LXXXVIII The CONTENTS THE charge of the Church of England against the sacrifice of the Mass page 2 3. Sect. 1. The sacrifice of the Mass founded upon two great Errors the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Opinion that Christ offered up himself to God at his last Supper p. 5 to 11. Sect. 2. No Scripture ground for the sacrifice of the Mass p. 11 to 41 Melchisedec's offering Bread and Wine Gen. 14.18 considered p. 13 Of the Melchisedecian Priesthood p. 16 The figure of the Paschal Lamb Examined p. 19 The prophesie of Malachy Examined p. 22 Other places out of the Old Testament Answered p. 25 An Answer to the places out of the New Testament p. 28 Plain places of Scripture against the Mass-sacrifice out of the Epistle to the Hebrews p. 33 Their Evasions to them Refuted p. 35 Sect. 3. The sacrifice of the Mass has no just claim to Antiquity p. 41 to 70 The Eucharist called a sacrifice by the Ancients upon account 1. Of the Oblations there made p. 44 2. Of the Religious Acts there performed p. 47 3. As it is Commemorative and Representative of the Crosssacrifice p. 49 Christ is offered mentally by every Communicant p. 52 How the Minister may be said to offer Christ to God in the Eucharist p. 53 General Remarks out of Antiquity to prove the Eucharist no proper sacrifice p. 54 to 70 1. From the Christian Apologists p. 54 2. From the Epithets they give to it when they call it a sacrifice p. 58 3. From the Novelty of private Masses which are a consequence of this Doctrine p. 60 4. From the Canon of the Mass it self p. 63 5. From the new form of Ordination in the R. C. p. 67 Sect. 4. The Mass-sacrifice in it self Vnreasonable and Absurd and has a great many Errors involved in it p. 70 to 95 1. It makes an external visible sacrifice of what is perfectly invisible p. 70 2. It makes a proper sacrifice without a proper sacrificing Act. p. 71 Their differences about the Essence of the sacrifice p. 73 3. It makes a living Body a sacrifice p. 76 4. The making it truly propitiatory is a great Error and inconsistent with it self p. 77 5. How it is Impetratory p. 80 6. The making it a sacrifice truly Propitiatory and yet only Applicatory of another is a great Absurdity p. 82 7. The making it the same sacrifice with That of the Cross and yet not to have the same vertue and efficacy is strange and unaccountable p. 84 8. Making Christ as they do the true offerer of this sacrifice hath great Absurdities p. 87 9. The Offering this sacrifice to Redeem Souls out of Purgatory one of the greatest Errors and Abuses that belong to it p. 88 Of the Ancient Oblations for the Dead p. 90 to 95 10. The sacrifice of the Mass must be either unnecessary or else must reflect on the sacrifice of the Cross p. 95 The Conclusion and the Reason why no more of the Errors belonging to it are added ERRATA PAge 12. line â antepenult for desire read derive PAge 39. Line 8. for the read that PAge 68. To Concil Carthag in margin add 4. PAge 72. Line 8. for Maunday-Thursday read Good-Fryday A DISCOURSE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS THE Sacrifice of the Mass is the most considerable part of Worship in the Roman Church It is their Juge sacrificium their dayly and continual Offering and the principal Thing in which their Religion does consist It is they tell us of the greatest profit and advantage to all persons and I am sure their Priests make it so to themselves for by this alone a great number of them get their Livings by making merchandise of the Holy Sacrament and by selling the Blood of Christ at a dearer rate then Judas once did The saying of Masses keeps the Church of Rome more Priests in pay then any Prince in Christendom can maintain Souldiers and it has raised more Money by them then the richest Bank or Exchequer in the World was ever owner of 't is indeed the truest Patrimony of their Church and has enricht it more then any thing else it was that which founded their greatest Monasteries and their Richest Abbies and it had well nigh brought all the Estates of this Kingdom into the Church had not the Statutes of Mortmain put a check to it The Donation of Constantine were it never so true and the Grants of Charles and Pepin were they never so large and the Gifts of all their Benefactors put together are infinitely outdone by it the Gain of it has been so manifestly great that one cannot but upon that account a little suspect its Godliness but yet if it could fairly be made out to be a true part of Religion it were by no means to be rejected for that accidental though shameful abuse of it It is accounted by them the greatest
and the Apostle says we are buryed with Christ in Baptism and rise with him Col. 2.12 when those are but remotely signified thus Christ is immolated and sacrificed in the Eucharist as St. Austin speaks when according to the Glosse upon his words his immolation is represented and there is made a memorial of his passion (a) Christus Immolatur i. e. Christi immolatio repraesentatur fit memoria Passionis de Consec Dist 2. Christ says he was but once offered and yet in the Sacrament he is dayly immolated neither does he lye who says Christ is immolated for if Sacraments had not the likeness of those things whereof they are sacraments they would be no sacraments at all but from this likeness they received the names of the things themselves (b) Nonne Christus semel oblatus est tamen in Sacramento quotidie populis immolatur nec mentitur qui dicit Christum immolari si enim sacramenta non haberent similitudinem earum rerum quarum sunt sacramenta nulio modo essent sacramenta sed ex similitu line saepe nomina earum accipiunt August Ep. 120. ad Honorat Thus as he there gives several instances wherein that which is the memorial of a thing does for its similitude to that thing of which it is a memorial receive its name When Easter approcheth we say to morrow or next day is the passion of Christ and on the Lords day we say this day Christ arose when Christs passion was but once and that several years ago and that day is said to be Christs Resurrection which yet it is not (c) Illud quod alicujus memoriale est propter similitudinem saepe ejus rei cujus memoriale est nomen accipiat ut appropinquante Paschate dicimus cras aut perendie est passio Christi cum semel tantum ante multos annos sit passus die Dominicâ dicimus hodit Christus resurrexit propter similitudinem enim dies ille id esse dicitur quod tamen non est Ib. What we call then a sacrifice is a memorial or a sign and a representation of a sacrifice as he says in another place (d) Quod appellamus sacrificium signum est repraesentatio sacrificii August de Civit. Dei l. 10. c. 5. We offer the same sacrifice that Christ did for the passion of Christ is the sacrifice which we offer (e) Passio enim Dimini est sacrificium quod offerimus Cypr. Ep. 3. in St. Cyprians words or rather we perform a remembrance of a sacrifice as St. Chrysostom speaks (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost in Heb. 10. Hom. 17. and after him Theophylact We always offer him or rather we make a remembrance of his offering (g) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophylact. in Heb. 10. don't we offer unbloody sacrifices yes we make a remembrance of his bloody death (h) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. so that instead of a sacrifice i. e. a proper one he hath commanded us perpetually to offer up a memorial as Eusebius more strictly words it (i) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Demonstrat l. 1. c. 10. If we come down to the Elder Schoolmen before the sacrifice of the Mass was understood in so strict and proper a sense as it is now in the Church of Rome and in the Council of Trent we shall find them calling it a sacrifice only upon this account that it is a memorial and representation of the true sacrifice and of the sacred immolation made upon the Altar of the cross which are the very words of Peter Lombard (k) Ad hoc breviter dici potest illud quod offertur consecratur à sacerdote vocari sacrificium oblationem quia memoria est repraesentatio veri sacrificii sanctae immolationis factae in arâ crucis Lombard l. 4. Dist 12. Master of the Sentences and Father of the Schoolmen whom Thomas Aquinas seems wholly to follow and more largely thus to explain the reason why the celebration of the Sacrament may be called a sacrifice and immolation of Christ because says he first it is an image of Christs passion for as St. Austin says to Simplicius Images used to be called by the names of those things of which they are Images as when we look upon a painted Table or Wall we say this is Cicero and this is Salust but the celebration of this Sacrament is a representative image of Christs passion which is the true immolation Another way as to the effect of Christs passion it may be called a sacrifice because by this Sacrament we are made partakers of the fruit of the Lords Passion (c) Tum quia hujus sacramenti celebratio imago quaedam est passionis Christi tum etiam quia per hoc Sacramentum participes efficimur fructus Dominicae passionis convenienter dicitur Christi immolatio Primò quidem quia sicut Augustinus ad Simplicium solent imagines earum rerum nominibus appellari quarum imagines sunt sicut cum intuentes tabulam aut parietem pictum dicimus ille Cicero est ille Salustius celebratio autem hujus Sacramenti imago quaedam est repraesentativa passionis Christi quae est vera ejus immolatio alio modo quantum ad effectum passionis Christi quia sc per hoc sacramentum participes efficimur fructûs Dominicae passionis Thom. Aquin. sum 3. pars qu. 83. Had the Church of Rome gone no further then this and not made the Eucharist a sacrifice in any other sense then as it is commemorative and exhibitive of Christs true sacrifice and immolation upon the crosse we had not blamed them nor had there been any controversie between us in this matter or had they been contented to have used the word sacrifice in a large and figurative and improper sense as the Fathers do when they call the Eucharist a sacrifice and therefore they immediately correct themselves as it were with this addition or rather a remembrance of a sacrifice and explain the reason why they give it that name but this would not serve our Adversaries purpose this would not make it a true proper propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead this would not give it those vertues which they assign to it as a proper sacrifice in it self distinct from its being a sacrament this would not make it so applicable to others who never partook or communicated of it and so would not make it of so great price and value that is so marketable to themselves and therefore the Council of Trent condemns this notion of its being a sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving or a meer commemoration of Christs sacrifice upon the cross and not a propitiatory one or that it profits only him that takes it or that it ought not to be offered for the quick and dead for sins for punishments for satisfactions and other necessities (a) Siquis dixerit Missae sacrificium tantum esse laudis
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
for all those that hold the Catholick and Apostolick Faith * See Canon Missae and then follows the commemoration Prayer Remember O Lord thy servants and thy handmaids N. and N. and all those who are present whose Faith and Devotion is known to thee for whom we offer to thee or who offer to thee this sacrifice of praise for themselves and for all others for the Redemption of their Souls for the hope of their Salvation and their safety and render their vows to thee the Eternal Living and True God then after the memorial of the Saints We beseech thee O Lord that thou wouldst mercifully receive this Oblation of our service and of all thy Family and dispose our days in peace and command us to be delivered from eternal damnation and to be numbred in the fold of thine Elect through Jesus Christ our Lord then immediately follows this prayer which Oblation thou O God we beseech vouchsafe to make altogether blessed ascribed ratified reasonable and acceptable Ascripta and Rata are words which they are as much puzled to understand as I am to Translate All these prayers are before consecration so that they cannot belong to the sacrifice of Christs Body but only to the oblation of the gifts and the sacrifice of praise as 't is there expresly called and yet these are a great deal more full and large then the prayers after consecration wherein there is no manner of mention of offering Christs Body and Blood but only offering the consecrated Elements as they were offered before when they were unconsecrated We offer unto thy excellent Majesty of thy gifts and presents a pure host an holy host an immaculate host the holy bread of Eternal Life and the cup of Eternal Salvation The first Composers would have used other words then Bread and Cup had they meant thereby Christs very natural Body and Blood and it is plain they were not those by what follows Vpon which vouchsafe to look with a propitious and kind countenance and to accept of them as thou didst accept the gifts of thy righteous child Abel and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham and that which Melchisedec thy High Priest offered to thee an Holy Sacrifice an immaculate Host. Now to compare Christs very Body and Blood with the sacrifices of Abel Abraham and Melchisedec and to desire God to look upon his own Son in whom he was always well pleased with a propitious and kind Countenance is very strange and uncouth to say no worse of it and to desire according to what follows that God would command these to be carried by the hands of his holy Angel into thy sublime Altar in the presence of thy Divine Majesty These cannot be meant or understood of Christs natural Body and Blood which is already in heaven and is there to appear in the presence of God for us as Menardus expresly owns in his notes upon this prayer in Gregories Sacramentary †Jube haec perferri non Christi corpus sed memoriam passionis fidem preces vita sidelâ—â—â— Menardi nota observat in lib. Sacrament Gregoriâ— Papae p. 19. and if so as we have the confession of the most Learned Ritualist of their own Church then there is nothing at all in the Canon of the Mass that does truly belong to these or that does any way express or come up to the new Tridentine Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass so that we need go no further then their own office to show the Novelty of this and as in other things namely in their prayers to Saints they are forced to use very gentle and softning interpretations to make the words signifie otherwise then what they do in their proper and literal meaning so here they must put a more strong and hard sense upon them then they will really bear or was at first intended to make them speak the new meaning of the Mass-sacrifice so that they must here contrive a way to raise the sense of the Church as they do in other cases to let it down or else their Prayers and their Doctrines will never be brought to suit well together The commemoration for the dead has nothing in it but a meer Remembrance and a Prayer that God would give to them a place of refreshment light and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord not through the merit or vertue of that sacrifice which is then offered there is not the least mention or intimation of any such thing nor any expression that looks that way The Priest indeed a little before he communicates prays Christ to deliver him from all his sins and from all evils by this his most sacred Body and Blood which he may do without its being a sacrifice and I know no Protestant would scruple the joining in such a petition There is a prayer indeed at the last by the Priest to the Holy Trinity that the sacrifice which he has unworthily offered to the eyes of the Divine Majesty may be acceptable to it and through its mercy be propitiable for himself and for those for which he has offered it and this seems the fullest and the most to the purpose of the Mass-sacrifice and yet it may very fairly be understood in a sound sense without any such thing as 't is a sacrifice of prayer and as God is thereby rendred merciful and propitious both to our selves and others but it is to be observed that this prayer is not in the old Ordo Romanus where the others are nor in the Gelasian or Gregorian Missal nor in any other ancient one put out by Thomasius Menardus Pamelius Cardinal Bona or Mabillon but was I suppose added of later days to those old Forms Fifthly The new Addition to the form of Ordination in the Roman Church whereby * Accipe potestatem offerre sacrificium Deo Missasque celebrare tam pro vivis quam pro mortuis power is given to the Priest to offer sacrifice to God and to celebrate Masses both for the dead and living this discovers the novelty of their Doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass for there was no such form of Ordination in the primitive Church nor is there any such thing mentioned in any Latin or Greek Ordinale for near a thousand years after Christ The most antient account of the manner of Ordaining is in the fourth Council of Carthage where there is nothing else but †Presbyter cum Ordinatur Episcopo eum benedicente manum super caput ejus tenente etiam omnes Presbyteri qui praesentes sunt manus suas juxta manum Episcopi super caput illius tenent Canon 3. Concil Carthag the Episcopal Benediction and Imposition of hands by the Bishop and all the Priests In the Apostolic Constitutions there is a pretty long prayer of the Bishops over the Priest who is to be Ordained †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Constitut Apostol de Ordinat Presbyt l. 8. c. 16. that God would look
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