our beneficence and communicating unto the necessities of the poore which are sacrifices wherewith God is well pleased wee are taught to give both our selves and our almes first unto the Lord and after unto our brethren by the will of God so is it in this ministery of the blessed Sacrament the service is first presented unto God from which as from a most principall part of the dutie the sacrament it selfe is called the Eucharist because therein wee offer a speciall sacrifice of praise and thankesgiving alwaies unto God and then communicated unto the use of Gods people in the performance of which part of the service both the minister was said to give and the communicant to receive the sacrifice as well as in respect of the former part they were said to offer the same unto the Lord. For they did not distinguish the Sacrifice from the Sacrament as the Romanists doe now adayes but used the name of Sacrifice indifferently both of that which was offered unto God and of that which was given to and received by the communicant Therefore wee read of offring the sacrifice to God as in that speech of Gallus to his scholler Magnoaldus My master Columbanus is accustomed to offer unto the Lord the sacrifice of salvation in brasen vessels Of giving the sacrifice to man as when it is said in one of the ancient Synods of Ireland that a Bishop by his Testament may bequeath a certaine proportion of his goods for a legacie to the Priest that giveth him the sacrifice and of receiving the sacrifice from the hands of the minister as in that sentence of the Synod attributed unto S. Patrick He who deserveth not to receive the sacrifice in his life how can it helpe him after his death and in that glosse of Sedulius upon 1. Cor. 11. 33. Tarry one for another that is saith he untill you doe receive the sacrifice and in the Brittish antiquities where we reade of Amon a noble man in Wales father to Samson the Saint of Dole in little Brittain that being taken with a grievous sicknesse hee was admonished by his neighbours that according to the usuall manner he should receive the sacrifice of the communion Whereby it doth appeare that the sacrifice of the elder times was not like unto the new Masse of the Romanists wherein the Priest alone doth all but unto our Communion where others also have free libertie given unto them to eat of the Altar as well as they that serve that Altar Again they that are communicants in the Romish sacrament receive the Eucharist in one kinde onely the Priest in offering of the sacrifice receiveth the same distinctly both by way of meat and by way of drinke which they tell us is chiefly done for the integritie of the Sacrifice and not of the Sacrament For in the Sacrifice they say the severall elements be consecrated not into Christs whole person as it was borne of the Virgin or now is in heaven but the bread into his body apart as betrayed broken and given for us the wine into his bloud apart as shed out of his bodie for remission of sinnes and dedication fo the new Testament which bee conditions of his person as hee was in sacrifice and oblation But our ancestours in the use of their Sacrament received the Eucharist in both kinds not being so acute as to discerne betwixt the things that belonged unto the integritie of the sacrifice and of the sacrament because in very truth they tooke the one to be the other Thus Bede relateth that one Hildmer an officer of Egfrid King of Northumberland intreated our Cuthbert to send a Priest that might minister the sacraments of the Lords body and bloud unto his wife that then lay a dying and Cuthbert himselfe immediately before his owne departure out of this life received the communion of the Lords body and bloud as Herefride Abbat of the monsterie of Lindisfarne who was the man that at that time ministred the sacrament unto him made report unto the same Bede who elsewhere also particularly noteth that he then tasted of the cup. Pocula degustat vitae Christique supinum Sanguine munit iter lest any man should thinke that under the formes of bread alone he might be said to have been partaker of the body and bloud of the Lord by way of Concomitance which is a toy that was not once dreamed of in those daies So that we need not to doubt what is meant by that which wee reade in the booke of the life of Furseus which was written before the time of Bede that he received the communion of the holy body and bloud and that hee was wished to admonish the Pastors of the Church that they should strengthen the soules of the faithfull with the spirituall food of doctrine and the participation of the holy body and bloud or of that which Cogitosus writeth in the life of Saint Brigid touching the place in the Church of Kildare whereunto the Abbatesse with her maidens and widowes used to resort that they might enioy the banquet of the body and bloud of Iesus Christ. which was agreeable to the practice not only of the Nunneries founded beyond the seas according to the rule of Columbanus where the Virgins received the body of the Lord and sipped his bloud as appeareth by that which Ionas relateth of Domnae in the life of Burgundofora but also of S. Brigid her selfe who was the foundresse of the monasterie of Kildare one of whose miracles is reported even in the later Legends to have happened when shee was about to drinke out of the Chalice at the time of her receiving of the Eucharist which they that list to looke after may finde in the collections of Capgrave Surius and such like But you will say these testimonies that have beene alledged make not so much for us in proving the use of the communion under both kindes as they make against us in confirming the opinion of Transubstantiation seeing they all specifie the receiving not of bread and wine but of the body and bloud of Christ. I answer that forasmuch as Christ himselfe at the first institution of his holy Supper did say expresly This is my body and This is my bloud hee deserveth not the name of a Christian that will question the truth of that saying or refuse to speake in that language which hee hath heard his Lord and Master use before him The question onely is in what sense and after what manner these things must bee conceived to bee his body and bloud Of which there needed to be little question if men would bee pleased to take into their consideration these two things which were never doubted of by the ancient and have most evident ground in the context of the Gospel First that the subject of those sacramentall propositions delivered by our Saviour that is to say the demonstrative particle THIS
can have reference to no other substance but that which hee then held in his sacred hands namely bread wines which are of so different a nature from the body and bloud of Christ that the one cannot possibly in proper sense be said to be the other as the light of common reason doth force the Romanists themselves to confesse Secondly that in the Predicate or latter part of the same propositions there is not mention made only of Christs body and bloud but of his body broken and his bloud shed to shew that his body is to be considered here apart not as it was borne of the Virgin or now is in heaven but as it was broken and crucified for us and his bloud likewise apart not as running in his veines but as shed out of his body which the Rhemists have told us to be conditions of his person as hee was in sacrifice and oblation And lest wee should imagine that his body were otherwise to bee considered in the sacrament than in the sacrifice in the one alive as it is now in heaven in the other dead as it was offered upon the Crosse the Apostle putteth the matter out of doubt that not onely the minister in offering but also the people in receiving even as often as they eate this bread and drinke this cup doe shew the Lords death untill hee come Our elders surely that held the sacrifice to bee given and received for so we have heard themselves speak as well as offered did not consider otherwise of Christ in the sacrament than as hee was in sacrifice and oblation If here therefore Christs body be presented as broken and livelesse and his bloud as shed forth and severed from his body and it be most certaine that there are no such things now really existent any where as is confessed on all hands then must it follow necessarily that the bread and wine are not converted into these things really The Rhemists indeede tell us that when the Church doth offer and sacrifice Christ daily hee in mysterie and sacrament dyeth Further than this they durst not goe for if they had said hee dyed really they should thereby not only make themselves daily killers of Christ but also directly crosse that principle of the Apostle Rom. 6. 9. Christ being raised from the dead dyeth no more If then the body of Christ in the administration of the Eucharist be propounded as dead as hath been shewed and dye it cannot really but onely in mysterie and sacrament how can it be thought to bee contained under the outward elements otherwise than in sacrament and mysterie and such as in times past were said to have received the sacrifice from the hand of the Priest what other body and bloud could they expect to receive therein but such as was sutable to the nature of that sacrifice to wit mysticall and sacramentall Coelius Sedulius to whom Gelasius Bishop of Rome with his Synod of LXX Bishops giveth the title of venerable Sedulius as Venantius Fortunatus of conspicuous Sedulius and Hildephonsus Toletanus of the good Sedulius the Evangelicall Poet the eloquent Orator and the Catholicke Writer is by Trithemius and others supposed to be the same with our Sedulius of Scotland or Ireland whose Collections are extant upon St. Pauls Epistles although I have forborne hitherto to use any of his testimonies because I have some reason to doubt whether hee were the same with our Sedulius or no. But Coelius Sedulius whatsoever countryman hee was intimateth plainly that the things offered in the Christian sacrifice are the fruit of the corne and of the vine Denique Pontificum princeps summusque Sacerdos Quis nisi Christus adest gemini libaminis author Ordine Melchisedech cui dantur munera semper Quae sua sunt segetis fructus gaudia vitis or as hee expresseth it in his prose the sweete meate of the seede of wheate and the lovely drinke of the pleasant vine Of Melchâ—sedek according to whose order Christ and he onely was Priest our owne Sedulius writeth thus Melchisedek offered wine bread to Abraham for a figure of Christ offering his body and bloud unto God his Father upon the Crosse. Where note that first hee saith Melch sedek offered bread and wine to Abraham not to God and secondly that hee was a figure of Christ offering his body and bloud upon the crosse not in the Eucharist But we saith he doe offer daily for a commemoration of the Lords passion once performed and our owne salvation and elsewhere expounding those words of our Saviour Doe this in remembrance of me hee bringeth in this similitude used before and after him by others He left a memory of himselfe unto us even as if one that were going a farre journey should leave some token with him whom hee loved that as oft as hee beheld it hee might call to remembrance his benefits and friendship Claudius noteth that our Saviours pleasure was first to deliver unto his Disciples the sacrament of his bodie and bloud and afterwards to offer up the body it selfe upon the altar of the crosse Where at the first sight I did verily thinke that in the words fractione corporis an error had beene committed in my transcript corporis being miswritten for panis but afterwards comparing it with the originall whence I tooke my copie I found that the author retained the manner of speaking used both before and after his time in giving the name of the thing signified unto the signe even there where the direct intention of the speech was to distinguish the one from the other For hee doth expresly here distinguish the sacrament of the bodie which was delivered unto the Disciples from the body it selfe which was afterwards offered upon the Crosse and for the sacramentall relation betwixt them both hee rendreth this reason Because bread doth confirme the body and wine doth worke bloud in the flesh therefore the one is mystically referred to the body of Christ the other to his bloud Which doctrine of his that the sacrament is in it owne nature bread and wine but the body and bloud of Christ by mysticall relation was in effect the same with that which long afterwards was here in Ireland delivered by Henry Crumpe the Monke of Baltinglas that the bodie of Christ in the sacrament of the altar was onely a looking glasse to the body of Christ in heaven yea and within fifty or threescore yeeres of the time of Claudius Scotus himselfe was so fully maintained by Iohannes Scotus in a booke that hee purposely wrote of that argument that when it was alledged and extolled by Berengarius Pope Leo the ninth with his Bishops assembled in Synodo Vercellensi anâ— Domini 1050 which was 235. yeeres after the time that Claudius wrote his commentaries upon St. Matthew had no other meanes to avoide it but by flat condemning of it Of what great
redeemed and the lost who by a cause drawne from their common originall were framed together into one masse of perdition For all mankinde stood condemned in the apostaticall roote of Adam with so just and divine a judgement that although none should be freed from thence no man could rightly blame the justice of God and such as were freed must so have beene freed that by those many which were not freed but left in their most just condemnation it might bee shewed what the whole lumpe had deserved that the due judgement of God should have condemned even those that are justified unlesse mercy had relieved them from that which was due that so all the mouthes of them which would glory of their merits might bee stopped and hee that glorieth might glory in the Lord. They further taught as Saint Augustine did that Man using ill his Free will lost both himselfe and it that as one by living is able to kill himselfe but by killing himselfe is not able to live nor hath power to raise up himselfe when hee hath killed himselfe so when sinne had beene committed by free will sinne being the conquerour free will also was lost for asmuch as of whom a man is overcome of the same is hee also brought in bondage 2 Pet. 2. 19. that unto a man thus brought in bondage and sold there is no liberty left to doe well unlesse he redeeme him whose saying is this If the Sonne make you free yee shall bee free indeede Iohn 8. 36. that the minde of men from their very youth is set upon evill there being not a man which sinneth not that a man hath nothing from himselfe but sinne that God is the author of all good things that is to say both of good nature and of good will which unlesse God doe worke in him man cannot doe because this good will is prepared by the Lord in man that by the gift of God hee may doe that which of himselfe he could not doe by his owne free-will that the good will of man goeth before many gifts of God but not all and of those which it doth not goe before it selfe is one For both of these is read in the holy Scriptures His mercy shall goe before mee and His mercie shall follow mee it preventeth him that is unwilling that hee may will and it followeth him that is willing that he will not in vaine and that therefore we are admonished to aske that wee may receive to the end that what we doe will may be effected by him by whom it was effected that we did so will They taught also that the Law was not given that it might take away sinne but that it might shut up all under sinne to the end that men being by this means humbled might understand that their salvation was not in their owne hand but in the hand of a Mediatour that by the Law commeth neither the remission nor the removall but the knowledge of sinnes that it taketh not away diseases but discovereth them forgiveth not sinnes but condemneth them that the Lord God did impose it not upon those that served righteousnesse but sinne namely by giving a just law to unjust men to manifest their sins and not to take them away forasmuch as nothing taketh away sins but the grace of faith which worketh by love That our sinnes are freely forgiven us without the merit of our workes that through grace we are saved by faith and not by works and that therfore we are to rejoyce not in our owne righteousnesse or learning but in the faith of the Crosse by which all our sinnes are forgiven us That grace is abject and vaine if it alone doe not suffice us and that we esteem basely of Christ when we thinke that he is not sufficient for us to salvation That God hath so ordered it that he will be gracious to mankind if they do beleeve that they shall be freed by the bloud of Christ. that as the soule is the life of the body so faith is the life of the soule and that wee live by faith onely as owing nothing to the Law that hee who beleeveth in Christ hath the perfection of the Law For whereas none might be justified by the Law because none did fulfill the Law but onely hee which did trust in the promise of Christ faith was appointed which should be accepted for the perfection of the Law that in all things which were omitted faith might satisfie for the whole Law That this righteousnesse therefore is not ours nor in us but in Christ in whom were are considered as members in the head That faith procuring the remission of sinnes by grace maketh all beleevers the children of Abraham and that it was just that as Abraham was justified by faith onely so also the rest that followed his faith should bee saved after the same manner That through adoption we are made the sons of God by beleeving in the Sonne of God and that this is a testimony of our adoption that we have the spirit by which we pray and cry Abba Father forasmuch as none can receive so great a pledge as this but such as bee sonnes onely That Moses himselfe made a distinction betwixt both the justices to wit of faith and of deedes that the one did by workes justifie him that came the other by beleeving onely that the Patriarches and the Prophets were not justified by the workes of the Law but by faith that the custome of sinne hath so prevailed that none now can fulfill the Law as the Apostle Peter saith Acts 15. 10. Which neither our fathers nor wee have beene able to beare But if there were any righteous men which did escape the curse it was not by the workes of the Law but for their faiths sake that they were saved Thus did Sedulius and Claudius two of our most famous Divines deliver the doctrine of free will and grace faith and workes the Law and the Gospel Iustification and Adoption no lesse agreeably to the faith which is at this day professed in the reformed Churches that to that which they themselves received from the more ancient Doctors whom they did follow therein Neither doe wee in our judgement one whit differ from them when they teach that faith alone is not sufficient to life For when it is said that Faith alone justifieth this word alone may bee conceived to have relation either to the former part of the sentence which in the Schooles they terme the Subject or to the latter which they call the Predicate Being referred to the former the meaning will be that such a faith as is alone that is to say not accompanied with other vertues doth justifie and in this sense wee utterly disclaime the assertion But being referred to the latter it maketh this sense that faith is it which alone or