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 Catholice traditione by the authority of a divine Law and then by the Tradition of the Catholic Church which Tradition being well made out does more fully explain the Law and shew the necessity of observing it The Universal practice of the Catholic Church being a demonstration how they understood it contrary to the new Sophistry of our Adversaries and how they always thought themselves obliged by it And because none are more apt to boast of Tradition and the name of the Catholic Church upon all accounts than these men I shall more largely shew how shamefully they depart from it in this as they do indeed in all other points of Controversie between us and how they set up the Authority of their own private Church in opposition to the Universal as well as to the Laws of Christ and Practice of the Apostles Their Communion in one kind is such a demonstration of this that we need no other to prove this charge upon them and as I have showed this to be contrary to the Institution and command of Christ
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 P. 310. Is Christ then divided 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 lest 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 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
see if any such matter is to be found in them which I confess will be very surprizing if they be As to the first St. Luke tells us Chap. 24. That the same day Christ was risen two of the Disciples the name of one of which was Cleophas going to Emmaus a Village near to Hierusalem Christ as they were Communing together about him and his Resurrection drew near and went along with them and discourst to them about those things as a person unknown and going into a House and sitting at meat with them he took bread and blessed it and brake and gave to them v. 30. Here say they Christ gave the Sacrament and gave it onely in Bread for he took bread and blessed and brake and gave to them which are the very words used at his giving his last Supper But must Christ always be supposed to give the Sacrament whenever he took bread and blessed and brake it and gave it to others Then he did so when he filled the five thousand with five Loaves and two Fishes for then he looked up to heaven and blessed and brake the loaves and gave them to others Mark 6.41 Mat. 14.19 And so he did when he filled four thousand at another time he took the seven loaves and gave thanks and brake and gave to his disciples to set before them Mark 8.6 Here though he blessed the Bread and gave thanks as was always the custom of Pious and Religious Men at their ordinary meals and though he brake the Bread which is a Jewish phrase for distributing and giving it yet it cannot in the least be pretended that in any of these places he gave the Sacrament nor is there any manner of reason to suppose he did so at Emmaus with these Disciples but to satisfie them of the truth of himself and his Resurrection he took meat with them as he did afterwards with the Eleven Apostles and by his behaviour at Table and by his form of Blessing which was probably the same he used at other times and by thus seeing and conversing with him more intimately at Table they came to understand who it was and their eyes were opened and they knew him or as is v. 35. he was known to them in breaking of bread that is in eating with him not that any thing miraculous or extraordinary was here shewn by Christ or wrought upon them any more than was to the Apostles afterwards to whom he shewed himself likewise and took meat with them to give them full satisfaction that it was the same person who was Crucified and who was risen with the same Body he had before or if they were illuminated and their eyes open'd in an extraordinary manner at that time yet it was not necessary this should be done by the Sacrament of all the vertues of which the opening mens eyes and curing them of Infidelity is the least to be ascribed to it since it is onely to be taken by those who do believe and whose eyes are opened before though this may sometimes be applyed to it by way of Allegory and allusion as it is by St. Austine Theophylact and others who make the Pool of Bethesda and the curing of the Lame and the Leprous by a word to be as much Sacramental as they do this that is to have some signification or resemblance to Spiritual things But there is not one Father or ancient Interpreter who does plainly affirm that Christ did here give the Sacrament to those Disciples at Emmaus The Bread which Christ blessed was no more truly made a Sacrament thereby than the House of Cleophas was dedicated into a Church by Christ's presence and Divine Discourses there which yet it might be according to St. Hierom's words without any administring of the Sacrament of which that place quoted out of him makes no mention Boileau p. 192. But if it must be supposed without any Authority and without any Reason that Christ did here give the Sacrament it must also be granted that he did something more than is related in that short account which is there given he must not onely have blessed and brake the bread and given it to them but he must have done it with those words This is my body which they say are always necessary to the true Consecration of this Sacrament And if he may be supposed to have used those though they are not mentioned which is a good argument to prove it was not the Sacrament but onely an ordinary Meal then we may as well suppose that at the same time he used Wine too though that is not mentioned and though we have no account of any Drink which yet we cannot but think they had at that Supper let it be what it will eating together and sitting at meat includes and supposes drinking too though there is no particular or express mention of it As in the 2. Second place in those several instances out of the Acts of the Apostles wherein it is said of the first Converts to Christianity that they continued in breaking of Bread and in Prayer †Acts 2.42 and in breaking Bread from house to house ‖ Acts 2.46 and that they came together on the first day of the Week to break Bread * Acts 20.7 which I am willing to allow may be meant of the Sacrament though a great many Learned men think they belong to the charitable and friendly way of living among those first Christians who had all things in common and who came to eat together at the same time that they came to pray and contrived these daily meetings for Worship and Refreshment in the same house for greater conveniency Yet that they did not drink together as well as eat and that by an usual Synecdoche both those are not included in the Phrase of breaking of Bread is not to be imagined Bread was a word by which not onely amongst the Jews but all Nations all manner of food and nourishment necessary to life was signified as being the most considerable part of it so that we mean this when we pray for our daily Bread and when we say a man wanteth Bread and so to break our Bread to the hungry Isa 58.7 and by the young childrens asking bread and no man breaketh it unto them Lament 4.4 the same is imported To break Bread was an usual Hebrew expression for giving all manner of food as appears by those instances so that when Bread which is but one part of food is expressed yet the other is included and meant also as when Christ went into the house of one of the chief Pharises to eat bread Luke 14.1 we cannot suppose that he had only such a dry Banquet as not to drink with him too and when Joseph told the Steward of his house that he should prepare an entertainment for his brethren for they are to eat with me at noon Gen. 43.16 hodie sunt mecum comesturi as in the vulgar he did not I
which we shall have occasion to consider afterwards In the Council of Braga in the seventh Age * Concil Bracarense this Custom which it seems continued was prohibited in the very words almost of Pope Julius so that some learned men mistake the one for the other Afterwards in the Council of Clermont as it is given by Baronius The Twenty Eighth Canon forbids any to Communicate of the Altar unless he take the body separately and the blood also separately unless through necessity and with caution †Ne quis communicet de altari nisi corpus separatìm sanguinem similitèr sumit nisi per necessitatem per cautelam Canones Concilii Claramont apud Baron Annal. An. 1094. §. 25. This Intinction was generally forbid unless in some cases as of the Sick and the like to whom the Council of Tours ‖ Quae sacra oblatio intincta esse debet in sanguine Christi ut veracitèr Presbyter possit dicere infirmo Corpus sanguis Domini proficiat tibi Apud Burchard l. 5. c. 9. Cassand Dialog p. 5. commands that the Sacrament be thus given Steeped and dipped and that for a most considerable reason That the Priest might truly say to the person to whom he gave it the body and blood of Christ be profitable to thee for remission of Sins This it seems could not have been truely said to them unless they had some way or other given them both kinds That this Intinction was also in use in private Monasteries appears from several Manuscripts produced by Menardus * Not. in Gregor Sacrament and it is notorious that the whole Greek Churches do use it to this day in the Communion not onely of the Sick and Infants but of all Laics I am not concerned to defend or justifie this Custom nor to say any thing more about it but onely to observe this plain inference from it That they who thus used Intinction or the mixing and steeping of the Elements together did hereby plainly declare that it was necessary to give the Sacrament in both kinds and not in one I might make also the same remark upon the several Heretical Customs of using Water or Milk instead of Wine as it appears in St. Cyprian and Pope Julius to have been the manner of some who though they were very blameable and justly censured for so doing yet they hereby confest that there ought to be two species given in the Sacrament a liquid one as well as a solid The Romanists and the Manichees are the onely Christians that ever thought otherwise When the Doctrine of Transubstantiation began to creep into the Church in the time of Berengarius and some Christians were thereupon possest with a greater fear of spilling the Blood of Christ they did not however at first leave drinking the Cup for that reason but they brought in another custom to prevent spilling which was to fasten little Pipes or Quills to the Chalices they then used and through them to suck the consecrated Wine This appears in the order of Celebrating Mass by the Pope taken out of several Books of the Ordo Romanus in Cassander's Lyturgics The Arch-deaconreceives of the Regionary Sub-deacon a Pugillaris with which he confirms the people †Archidiaconus accepto à Subdiacono regionario pugillari cum quo confirmet populum Cassander Lyturg in ordine celebrat Miss per Romanos celebrante pontifice Cassander in his Notes upon the word Pugillaris says They were Pipes or Canes with which the Sacramental Blood was suckt out of the Chalice ‖ Fistulae seu cannae quibus sanguis è Dominico calice exugebatur Ib. And he says he had seen several of these in his time So that in those times when the fear of effusion was greater than it was in the time of the Apostles and Primitive Christians who yet had as much reverence no doubt for the Sacrament as any after-Ages they were so unwilling to be deprived of the precious Blood of their Saviour in the Sacrament that though their superstition made them contrive new ways to receive it yet they could not be contented to be wholly without it But 5. The custom still remaining in all other Churches of the Christian World except the Roman of Communicating in both kinds is a demonstration of its Apostolical and Primitive Practice and of an Universal and Uninterrupted Tradition for it we see plainly where this Practice was broke and this Tradition violated in the Roman Church after above 1200 years till which time it bears witness against it self and condemns its own late Innovation which is contrary not onely to all former Ages but to the present practice of all other Christian Churches I need not produce witnesses to prove this the matter of Fact is plain and undeniable and none of their Writers can or do pretend the contrary as to public and general Communion concerning any Christians except those few that they have lately brought over by their well-known Arts to submit to the Roman Church as the Maronites and the Indians of St. Thomas All the other vast number of Christians over all the World the Greeks the Muscovites the Russians the Aethiopians the Armenians the Assyrians the Nestorians the Georgians and others do all administer the Eucharist to the people in both kinds There is some little difference indeed among them in the manner of doing it as some of them take the two Species mingled together in a Spoon as the Greeks and Muscovites others dip the Bread in the Wine as the Armenians but they all agree in this that they always receive both the Species of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament and never give the one without the other Cassander has collected several of their Rites and Orders in their public Lyturgies as of the Syrians the Aethiopians the Armenians the Abyssins in the Kingdom of Prester John of whom he says That as many as Communicate of the Body Communicate of the Bloud also * Quotquot communicant de corpore totidem communicant etiam de sangine Casand Lyturg. Reliquis omnibus nationibus Christiani nominis ut Graecis Ruthenis Armeniis Aethiopibus priscum institutum porrigendi populo sanguinis in hunc usque diem retinentibus Id. Dialog But we need not call in any other Churches to vouch for the universal and primitive practice of the Communion in both kinds We have in the last place 6. The most learned of our Adversaries who cannot but confess this and therefore are forced to take other measures to defend themselves and their cause namely by the Authority of the present Church and not by the Tradition or Practice of the Primitive as de Meaux vainly attempts to do which they freely give up and acknowledge to be contrary to the Communion as it is now practiced in one kind Cassander has fully and plainly declared his mind in a particular Treatise on this Subject among his Works printed at Paris and in his
and the writings of the Apostles so I shall evidently make it out to be contrary to the whole Primitive and Catholick Church in all Ages and this First From the most ancient Rituals or the earliest accounts we have of the manner of celebrating the blessed Eucharist in Christian Churches Secondly From the most ancient Lyturgies Thirdly From the Testimony and Authority of the Fathers or antient Writers Fourthly From some ancient Customs Fifthly From the Custom still remaining in all Christian Churches of the World except the Roman Sixthly From the Confession of the most learned of our Adversaries 1. From the most ancient Rituals or the earliest accounts we have of the manner of celebrating the blessed Eucharist in the Christian Church The first and most Authentic of which is in Justin Martyr's second Apology where he describes the publick Worship of Christians upon Sundays according to its true Primitive Simplicity and as to the Eucharist which was always a part of it * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Martyr Apolog. 2. There was brought he says Bread and Wine with water according to the custom I suppose of the Greeks and Eastern Countries who generally drank their Wines so mixt and these being offered to the chief Minister he receiving them giveth Honour and Glory to the Father of all things through the Name of the Son and the Holy Ghost and rendreth thanksgiving to him for these things and having finished his Prayers and giving of Thanks to which the People that were present joyn their Amen The Deacons give to every one that is present to partake of the blessed Bread and Wine and Water and to those that are absent they carry them Having discoursed of the nature of this Sacramental food and shewn the Institution and design of it out of the Gospel and from the words of our Saviour he again repeats their manner of Celebrating in the same words almost which he had used before and says †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. propè finem That the distribution and participation of what is blessed by the President is made to every one which every one belongs plainly to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that just goes before Nothing is more evident than that all the Elements were given to the People and to every one of them and no man I think ever had the impudence to question this or make the least doubt of it before Monsieur Boileau who if ever he read this place may be ashamed to say as he does ‖ Haec Sti. Justini verba perperà m assumuntur ad concludendum verè castigatè aetate sancti Martyris Eucharistiam plebi administratam fuisse sub utraque specie Boileau de praecepto divino Commun sub utraque specie p. 215. That it cannot be truely and strictly concluded from hence that the Eucharist was Communicated to the People under both kinds in the Age of this Holy Martyr And what man of modesty or creticism besides Monsieur Boileau would have observed that both the Elements were not then carried to the absent which Monsieur de Meaux * In the example of S. Justinus the two Species 't is true were carried p. 112. owns were though it is plainly said they carried the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same things that were blessed and that those who were present did partake of yet it is not said that they †Non dicit ta conjunctìm vel alternatìm ad absentes perserunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed tantummodò ad absentes perserunt Ib. p. 214. carried both together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He might as well have pretended that though they carried yet they carried nothing at all And they that make such answers to such plain places had I am sure better say nothing at all Next to Justin Martyr St. Cyril of Hierusalem gives us the fullest account of the manner of Celebrating the blessed Eucharist in his Mystagogic Catechisms they are called wherein having discoursed of all the Christian Mysteries to those who were newly Baptized and so fit and capable to be instructed in them he comes at last to the highest Christian Mystery that of the Lord's Supper and in his fifth Catechism largely describes the performance of it with a great many more particular Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer then were used before And having told his young Christians in the foregoing Homily †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril Catech. Mystag 4. That in the Species of Bread is given the Body of Christ and in the Species of Wine his Blood that so by partaking of the Body and Bloud of Christ he may become one body and one bloud with him he bids him come with firm Faith and great Devotion and tells him how he should receive the Holy Bread very particularly and directs him to the very posture of his Hands and Fingers and afterwards he as particularly orders him how and in what manner he should come to receive the Cup ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. Catech. 5. of the Lord's Blood not stretching out his hands but bending and in the posture of worship and adoration and whilst the moisture is upon his lips * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. he bids him take it with his finger and touch his eyes and forehead and other parts and so sanctifie them However superstitious that was for I cannot but think this use of the Sacrament to be so as well as many others that were yet very ancient it is plain that the newly baptized Christians did then receive the Eucharist in both kinds and were commanded †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. to come to receive the Cup and to drink of the Wine as well as to partake of the Bread. To St. Cyril who lived towards the latter end of the fourth Century I shall joyn the Apostolic Constitutions as they are called which I suppose not to be ancienter and in these in one place ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Constit Apostol l. 2. c. 57. The Sacrifice or Eucharist is ordered to be celebrated the People standing and praying silently and after the oblation every order to wit of young and aged of men and women into which they were ranged before at their Religious Assemblies as appears in that Chapter severally and by themselves take the body and blood of Christ and when the women do it in their order they are to have their heads covered * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. So that 't is plain all orders both of Men and Women were to receive both the Body and Blood In another place †L. 8. c. 13. where is a more perfect account of the Eucharistic solemnity and of the Prayers and Ceremonies used in it at the latter end he describes the order in which they Communicated first the Bishops then the Presbyters and Deacons and other Inferior Orders then the Religious Women the Deaconesses the Virgins the Widdows and their Children and after that
contrary to the ordinary course of Nature †P. 9. But it is matter of fact we have now to do with and that must be made out not by slight surmises but by good testimony and whether the Christians when this custom of Domestic Communion was in use among them did not reserve and carry home both kinds the Wine as well as the Bread let us now examine Monsieur de Meaux has not one Authority that proves any thing more than that they used to reserve the Sacrament or Body of Christ which by a Synecdoche is a common phrase in Ecclesiastical Writers for the whole Eucharist and is used by Tertullian and St. Cyprian where the two Species were unquestionably used as in the Public Communion St. Basil who speaks of the Communion of Hermits and who is produced as an evidence by de Meaux that they communicated in the Deserts advises them expresly to partake of the Body and of the Bloud of Christ ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil Ep. â—… and when those Solitarys had the Communion brought to them that it was in both kinds appears from their own Cardinal Bona * Rerum Lyturg l. 2. c. 18. in the relation of Zozimus an Abbot of a Monastery his carrying in a Vessel a portion of the sacred Body and Bloud of Christ to one Mary of Aegypt who had lived forty seven years in the Wilderness That those who communicated at home had both kinds sent to them appears evidently from Justin Martyr †Apolog. 2. and de Meaux owns from him That the two species 't is true were carried ‖ P. 112. but this says he was presently after they had been consecrated Not till the Public Communion was over and then also the Faithful carried away what they reserved but it does not appear that they kept them nor does it appear to the contrary but they might have kept them if they had pleased He who wrote the Life of St. Basil by the name of Amphilochius reports the story of a Jew who being got secretly among the Christians at the time of Communion communicated with them and took the Sacrament first of the Body and then of the Bloud and then took and carried away with him * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amphiloch vit Basil c. 7. some part of each of the Elements and shewed them to his Wife to confirm the truth of what he had done Monsieur de Meaux has made no objection to the credit of this Writer and no doubt had it not been usual for Christians to carry away both the Elements the Writer of that Life let him be who he will had not told so improbable a Story Gregory Nazianzen †Orat. 11. relates of his Sister Gorgonia That what her hands had treasured up of the Anti-types of the precious Body or Bloud of Christ that she mingled with her tears and anointed her self withal So that it seems her hands treasured up both the Species or Anti-types as he calls them and it is a mighty subtilty to say She did not treasure them up both together when she certainly treasured up both But if we had no such instances as these there are two such unanswerable Authorities against de Meaux his Opinion That the faithful carried home only the Bread and communicated but in one kind as are enough to make him give up this part of the Cause and those are the famous Albaspinaeus Bishop of Orleans and Cardinal Baronius two men whose skill in Antiquity is enough to weigh down whatever can be said by de Meaux or any other and whose words will go farther in the Church of Rome than most mens and they are both positive that not onely the Bread but that the Wine also was reserved and carried home by Christians in their Domestic Communions Vpon what account can they prove says Albaspinaeus ‖ Sed quo tandem pacto probare poterunt Laicis Eucharistiam sub specie panis domum portare licuisse sub vini non licuisse Albaspin Observat 4. l. 1. that it was lawful for Laics to carry home the Eucharist under the Species of Bread and not under the Species of Wine Consider says Baronius * Hic Lector considera quà m procul abborreant à Patrum Traditione usuque Ecclesiae Catholicae qui nostro tempore Heretici negant asservandam esse Sacratissimam Eucharistiam quam videmus non sub specie panis tantum sed sub specie vini olim consuevisse recondi Baron Annal. an 404. n. 32. to his Reader how the Hereticks of our time differ from the Tradition of the Fathers and the Custom of the Catholic Church who deny that the Eucharist is to be reserved when we see it used to be kept not onely in the Species of Bread but in the Species of Wine And that he meant this of private reservation as well as in the Church he goes on further to prove this keeping of both Species by the Authority of Gregory the Great who gives an account in his Dialogues of one Maximianus a Monk and others his Companions who being in a great Storm and Tempest at Sea and in great danger of their Lives they took the Sacrament which they had carried with them and in both kinds received the Body and Bloud of their Redeemer †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Dialog Graecè l. 3. c. 36. But to this says Monsieur de Meaux To shew the faithful had kept the two Species in their Vessel from Rome to Constantinople it ought before to have been certain that there was no Priest in this Vessel or that Maximian of whom St. Gregory speaks in this place was none though he was the Superiour of a Monastery But Gregory speaks not a word of any Priest being there and Maximian might be no Priest though he were Superiour of a Monastery for they and the Monks were often no Priests but if a Priest had been there it had been unlawful for him according to the Principles of the Roman Church to 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 fluminibus 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
suis Discipulis administraverit subutrâque specie panis vini hoc venerabile Sacramentum Et similitèr quòd licet in primitivâ Ecclesiâ hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur à â—idelibus 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 God himself Thus the Jewish Church might settle the time of Vespers on which their Sabbaths and Feasts were to begin the evening being to them the beginning of the next day so they might appoint also the manner of observing the new Moons thus they might also settle the times of the Three Sacrifices the Daily the Sabbatical and the Paschal when they were all to be offered the same day upon one Altar and determine which of them should be offered first though God himself had not determined it But could they take away any one of these Sacrifices which God had commanded upon a pretence that the other were sufficient without it could they have neglected either the New Moons or the Evening-Oblations which God had appointed because they might appoint what God had not done namely the manner of observing them because they could regulate several things relating to the Law and necessary to the observance of it
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 ‖ Mat. 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 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