A TREATISE OF COMMUNION UNDER BOTH SPECIES By the Lord JAMES BENIGNE BOSSUET ' Bishop of Meaux Councellour to the King heretofore Preceptor to Monseigneur le DAUPHIN first Almoner to Madame la DAUPHINE PRINTED AT PARIS By SEBASTIAN MABRE CRAMOISY Printer to his Majesty M.DC.LXXXV WITH PRIVILEDGE THE PVBLISHER TO THE READER MANY doubtesse will wonder that I who cannot well endure the very Name even but of a Papist in Masquerade should yet translate and publish a Book of popery and this too in a point peradventure of higher concerne then any other now in debate betwen Papists and Protestants To give therefore some account of my proceeding herein it is to be noted that the Church of England if I apprehend her doctrine aright concerning the Sacrament of the last Supper hath receded from the Tenent of the Church of Rome not so much in the thing received as in the manner of receiving Christs Body and Blood both Churches agree that Christ our Saviour is truely really wholy yea and substantially though not exposed to our externall senses present in the Sacrament And thus they understand the words of Christ This is my Body which shall be delivered for you This is my Blood which shall be shedd for the remission of sins my Flesh is meat indeed and my Blood is drink indeed c. Only the Papists say This reall presence is effected by Transsubstantiation of the elements and Protestants say noe but by some other way unintelligible to us Nor is the adoration of Christ acknowledged present under the formes of bread and wine so great a Bugbeare as some peradventure imagine For as John Calvin rightly intimates adoration is a necessary sequel to reall presence Calvin de Participat Corpor. Chr. in Coenâ What is more strange saith he then to place him in Bread and yet not to adore him there And if JESUS-CHRIST be in the bread t is then under the bread he ought to be adored Much lesse is the Oblation of Christ when present upon the Altar under the symboles such an incongruity as to render the Breach between Papists and Protestants by Protestants I mean Church of England men wholy irreparable for if Christ be really present under the consecrated species upon the Altar why may he not so present be offered a gratefull Sacrifice to his heavenly Father in thanksgiving for blessings received in a propitiation for sin and in commemoration of his Death and Passion 1. Cor. 11. But the main stone of offence and Rock of scandall in this grand Affaire is Communion under one kinde 1. Pet. 2.8 wherein the Roman Clergy are by some heartily blamed for depriving tke Laity of halfe Christ and halfe the Sacrament For my part I am not for making wider Divisions already too great nor do I approve of the spirit of those who teare Christs seamelesse Garment by fomenting and augmenting schismes in the universall Church Indeed I do not finde it any Part or Article of the Protestant faith to beleeve that in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper one halfe of Christ is in the bread and the other halfe in the Wine but on the contrary that in some exigences as of sicknesse a man may receive under one kind or species all Christ and an entire Sacrament So that upon the whole matter the difference herein betweene the Church of England and the Roman seemes to me from the concessions of the most learned and antient Protestants for I wave the figments of moderne Novelists reducible in great measure to mere forme and Ceremony It is true Christ instituted this Sacrament at his Iast Supper under two kinds which he did as well to signify by a corporeall Analogy to bread and wine the full effect and refreshment this divine food workes in the soule as also say the Papists to render the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood upon the Altar distinctly commemorative or representative of his Passion and therefore when he said Luke 22. This is my Body which is now given not only to you but for you 1. Cor. 11. he added This not only eat but doe that is Offer or Sacrifice in remembrance of mee Act. 13.2 Hence the Christians in the Acts of the Apostles are found Ministring that is as the Greeke text hath it sacrificing to the Lord of which Sacrifice Saint Paul also speaks Wee have an Altar saith he whereof they have no right to eat who serve the Tabernacle But that Christ gave his Body seperated from his Blood under one element and his Blood squeezed from his Body under another and that by consequence he that receives under one kind receives only halfe Christ and halfe a Sacrament is as Saint Austin attests a Judaicall way of understanding this Mystery no wise agreable as is before said to the doctrine of the Church of England Jo. 6.53 Neverthelesse this Communion under one kind though in my judgement but a bare Ceremony yet hath beene since the reformation alwayes regarded as a mighty eye-sore and alleaged as one sufficient cause of a voluntary departure and seperation from the preexistent Church of Rome Wherefore being conscious of the dreadfull guilt danger and mischeife of Shisme and unwilling to shutt my selfe out of Christs visible sheepfold upon dislike of a Ceremony so to loose the substance for the shadow after having duly examined the Arguments made by some Protestant divines against the Papists on this subject I thought it prudence and justice both to my selfe and them to heare also what the Papists could say in their owne defence And least I might be imposed upon by the malice or ignorance of any in a businesse of this high nature I made choice of an Author whose learning and vertue renders him omni exceptione major above the reach of calumny to denigrate or even criticisme to finde a blemish in A person who were he not a Romanist might justly be stiled the Treasury of Wisdome the Fountaine of Eloquence the Oracle of his age In breife to speake all in a word 'T is the great James formerly Bishop of Condom now of Meaux Whether the Author enoble the worke or the worke the Author I dare not say but 't is certain that if he write reason he deserves to be believed if otherwise he deserves to be confuted And however it be 'T is no fault especially in Protestants who adhere to the Dictamen of their own Judgement without penning their Faith on Church-Authority to read him and this too without Passion or Prejudice To which end I have here as a friend to Truth and lover of unity translated his Treatise into English for the benefit of such as being of the same spirit with me are yet strangers to the French language A TABLE OF THE ARTICLES contained in this Treatise THE FIRST PART The Practise and Judgement of the Church from the first ages I. AN Explication of this Practise p. 2 II. Four authentique Customes to ' shew the judgement
and such as carrys a face of probability But in reality there was none Nor dos M. Jurieux shew us any in the Authors of that time The first contradiction is that which gave occasion to the decision of the Councile of Constance in the yeare 1415. It begun in Bohemia as wee have seene about the end of the XIV age and if according to the relation of M. Jurieux the custome of communicating under one sole species begun in the XI age if they do not begin to complaine and that in Bohemia only but towards the end of the XIV age by the acknowledgement of this Minister three hundred whole yeares should be passed before a change so strange so bold if wee beleeve him so visibly opposite to the institution of JESUS CHRIST and to all precedent practises should have made any noise Beleive it that will for my part I am sensible that to beleeve it all remorse of conscience must be stifled M. Jurieux must without doubt have some of them to fee himselfe forced by the badnesse of his cause to disguise truth so many wayes in an historicall relation that is in a kind of discourse which above all others requires candor and sincerity He do's not so much as state the question sincerely V. Sect. p. 464. The state of the question says he is very easy to comprehend he will then I hope declare it clearely and distinctly Let us see It is granted adds he that when they communicate the faithfull as well the people as the Clergy they are obliged to give them the Bread to eate but they pretend it is not the same as to the Cupp He will not so much as dreame that wee beleeve Communion equally vallid and perfect under eather of the two species But beeing willing by the very state of the question to have it understood that wee beleive more perfection or more necessity in that of the Bread then in the other or that JESUS-CHRIST is not equally in them both he would thereby render us manifestly ridiculous But he knows verry well that wee are far from these phancyes and it may be seene in this Treatise that wee beleeve the Communion given to little children during so many ages under the sole species of wine as good and vallid as that which was given in so many other occurrences under the sole species of Bread So that M. Jurieux states the question wrong He begins his dispute concerning the two species upon that question so stated He continues it by a history where wee have seene he advances as many falsityes as facts Behold here the man whom our Reformers looke upon at present every where as the strongest defendour of their cause §. IX A reflection upon concomitancy and upon the doctrine of the sixth chapter of Saint Johns Gospel IF wee add to the proofs of those practises which wee have drawn from the most pure and holy source of antiquity and to those solid maximes wee have established by the consent of the Pretended Reformers if wee add I say to all these what wee have already said but which it may be has not been sufficiently weighed that the reall presence being supposed it cannot be denyed but that each species containes JESUS-CHRIST whole and entire Communion under one species will remaine undoubted there being nothing more unreasonable then to make the grace of a Sacrament where JESUS-CHRIST has wouchsafed to be present nor to depend of JESUS-CHRIST himselfe but of the species under which he is hidden These Gentlemen of the Pretended Reformation must permitt us here to explicate more fully this concomitancy so much attaqued by their disputes and seing they have let passe the reall presence as a doctrine which has no venome in it they ought not henceforth to have such an aversion from what is but a manifest consequence of it M. Jurieux has acknowleged it in the places heretofore mentioned Exam. p. 480. If says he the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the reall presence were true it is true that the Bread would containe the Flesh and Blood of JESUS-CHRIST So that concomitancy is an effect of the reall presence and the Pretended Reformers do not deny us this consequence Let them then at present presuppose this reall presence seing they suffer it in their brethren the Lutherans and let them consider with us the necessary consequences they will see that our Lord could not give us his Body and his Blood perpetually seperated nor give us either the one or the other without giving us his person whole and entire in either of the two Verily when he said Take eat this is my Body and by those words gave us the flesh of his sacrifise to eate he know verry well he did not give us the flesh of a pure man but that he gave us a flesh united to the divinity and in a word the flesh of God and man both togeather The same must be said of his Blood which would not be the price of our salvation if it were not the Blood of God Blood which the Divine Word had appropriated to himselfe after a most particular manner by making himselfe man conformable to these words of Saint Paul Heb. 11.14.17 Because his servants are composed of flesh and blood he who ought in all things to be like unto them would partake both of the one and the other But if he would not give us in his Sacrament a flesh purely humain he would much lesse give us in it a flesh without a soule a dead flesh a carcase or by the same reason a flesh despoiled of blood and blood actually seperated from the body otherwise he ought to dye often and often to shed his Blood a thing unworthy the glorious state of his Resurrection where he ought to conserve eternally humain nature as entire as he had at first assumed it So that he knew verry well that wee should have in his flesh his Blood that in his Blood wee should have his flesh and that wee should have in both the one and the other his blessed soule with his divinity whole and entire without which his flesh would not be quickning nor his Blood full of spirit and grace Why then in giving us such great treasors his holy soule his divinity all that he is why I say did he only name his Body and his Blood if it were not to make us understand it is by that infirmity which he would have common with us wee must arrive to his strength And why has he in his word distinguished this Body and this Blood which he would not effectually seperate but during that little time he was in the sepulchre if it be not to make us also understand this Body and this Blood with which he nourisheth and quickneth us would not have the vertue if they had not beene once actually seperated and if this seperation had not caused the violent death of our Saviour by which he became our victime So that the vertue
that there is nothing more common in books and ordinary in humain language But I find not that in the matter wee treat of and in the relation which is made of the distribution of the Eucharist he has found in the Fathers any more then Calixte one single example of an expression which according to him should be so common Behold two Ministers in the same perplexity Calixtes finds the body alone mentioned in the communion of the sick and M. du Bourdieu the same in domestick communion Wee are not astonished at it wee beleeve that the body alone was given in both these Communions These Ministers will beleeve nothing of it both of them bring the figure Synecdoche where by to save themselves both of them are equally destitute of Examples in the like cases What therefore remaines but to conclude that their Synecdoche is but imaginary and that in particular if Saint Paulinus speake only of the body in the Communion of Saint Ambrose it is in effect that Saint Ambrose did receive nothing but the body only according to custome If he tell us that this great man expired immediately after having received wee must not here search after subtilityes nor fancy to our selves a figure It is the simple truth and matter of fact which makes him thus plainly relate what passed But to the end wee may compleat the conviction of these Ministers supposing that their Synecdoche is as common in such like cases as it is rare or rather unheard of let us se whether it agree with the passage in question and with the History of Saint Ambrose Paulinus sayes S. Honoratus being gone to repose during the silence of the night a voice from heaven advertised him that his sick man was going to expire that he immediately went down presented him with the body of our Lord and that the Saint give up the Ghost presently after having received it How comes it to pass that he did not rather say that he dyed immediately after having received the pretious blood if the thing hapned really so Were it as ordinary as Calixtus would have it to expresse only the body to signify the receiving of the body and the blood by this figure which puts the part for the whole it is as naturall also for the same reason and by the same figure the blood alone should be sometimes made use of to expresse the receiving under both the one and the other species But if ever this should have hapned it ought to have been cheefly upon the occasion of this Communion of Saint Ambrose and of the relation which Paulinus has left us of it For since he would shew the receiving of the Eucharist so immediately fallowed by the death of the Saint and would represent this great man dying as another Moyses in the embraces of his Lord If he intended to abridge his discourse he should have done it in abridging and shuning in the relation of that part or action wherein this Holy Bishop terminated his life that is to say in the reception of the blood which is alwayes the last and the rather because this supposed the other and it would have beene in effect immediatly after this that the Saint rendred up his blessed soule to God Nothing would have so much struck the senses nothing would have been so strongly printed in the memory nothing would have presented it selfe sooner to the thoughts and nothing by consequence would have run more naturally in discourse If therefore no mention of the blood be found in this historian it is indeed because Saint Ambrose did not receive it Calixtus foresaw verry well Ibid. that the recitate of Paulinus would forme this idea naturally in the readers mindes and it is thereupon that he adds it may verry well be that they carryed to the Saint the pretious blood togeather with the body as equally necessary but that Saint Ambrose had not the time to receave it being prevented by death Oh unhappy refuge in a desperate cause If Paulinus had this idea instead of representing us his holy Bishop as a man who by a speciall care of the Divine Providence dyed with all the helps which a Christian could wish for he would on the contrary by some word have denoted that notwithstanding this heavenly advertissement and the extreame diligence of S. Honoratus a sodain death had deprived this sick Saint of the blood of his Master and of so essentiall at part of the Sacrament But they had not these Ideas in those times and the Saints beleeved they gave and received all in the body only Thus the two answers of Calixtus are equally vaine In like manner M. du Bourdieu his great follower has not dared to expresse eather the one or the other and in that perplexitay whereinto so pecise testimony had thrown him he endeavours to save himselfe by answering only that Du Bourd rép chap. 13. p. 378. Saint Ambrose received the communion as he could not dreaming that he had immediately before said they had given the two species to Serapion and that if it had been the custome it would not have been more difficult to give them to Saint Ambrose Moreover if they had beleived them inseparable as these Ministers with all those of their religon pretend it is cleare that they would raither have resolved to give neither of the two then to give only one Thus all the answers of these Ministers are turned against themselves and M. du Bourdieu cannot fight against us without fighting against himselfe He has notwithstanding found another expedient to weaken the authority of this passage and is not afraid in so knowing an age as this is to write that before this example of Saint Ambrose there is not any tract to be found of the Communion of the sick in any words of the ansients Ibid. The testimony of Saint Justin who in his second Apologie sayes they carryed the Eucharist to those that were absent touches him not Ibid. 382. For Saint Justin sayes he has not expressely specifyed the sick as if their sicknesse had been a sufficient cause to deprive them of this common consolation and not raither a new motive to give it them But what becomes of the example of Serapion Is it not clearly enough said that he was sick and dying T is true but the reason was because he was one of those who had sacrifised to Idols and one that was ranked amongst the penitents He must have been an Idolator to merit to receive the Eucharist in dying and the faithfull who during the whole course of their lives have never been excluded from the participation of this Sacrament by any crime must be excluded at their death when they have the most need of such a succour And thus a man amuses himselfe and thinks he has done a learned exploit when he heaps togeather as this Minister does the examples of dyinh persons where there is no mention made of communion without reflectinh that
would have given them so much the rather to dying persons by how much they had a greater combate to sustain and at the article of death the most need of their Viaticum Lastly I do not believe the Gentlemen of the pretended Reformation will raise us here any difficultyes upon the change of the species of which wee shall have occasion to speake often in this discourse Those Cavils with which they fill their books upon this point regard not our question but that of the reall presence from whence also to speake candidly they ought to have been retrenched long since it being cleare as I have already remarked that the Son of God who would not in this Mystery do any myracle apparent as such to the senses ought not to suffer himselfe to be obliged to discover in any conjuncture what ever that which he designed expressely to hide from our senses nor by consequence to change what ordinarily happens to the matter which it has pleased him to make use of to the end he might leave his body and blood to the faithfull There is no man of reason who with a little reflection will not of his own accord enter into the same sentiment and at the same time grant that these pretended undecencyes which are brough against us with so much seeming applause avail only to moove the humain senses but in reality they are too much below the Majesty of JESUS-CHRIST to hinder the course of his dessigns and the desire he has to unite himselfe to us in so particular a manner It happens thus so very often in these matters and especially to our Reformers to passe from one question to another that I esteeme my selfe obliged to keepe them close to our question by this advertisement The same reason obliges me to desire them not to draw any advantage from the expression of bread and wine which will occurre so often because they know that even in believing as wee do the change of the substance it is permitted us to leave the first name to those things that are changed as well as it was to Moyses to learne that a rod which was turned into a serpent Exod. 8.12 or that water which was become blood Ibid. 21.24 or the Angels men becaus they appeared such Gen. 18.2.26 not to alledge here Saint John who cals the wine at the marriage of Cana water made wine John 2.9 It is naturall to man that he may facilitate his discourse to abridge his phrases and to speake according to the appearances neither is advantage usvally taken from this manner of speech and I do not beleeve that any one would object to a Philosopher who defends the motion of the Earth that he overthrows his hypothesis when he sayes that the Sun rises or setts After this sleight digression to which the desire of procceding with clearenesse has engaged me I retourne to my matter and to those practises which I have promised to explicate whereby to shew in antiquity the communion under one species § III. Second Custome Communion of little Infants THE second practise I undertake to prove is that when the Communion was given to little children that were baptised it was given them in the first ages yea and ordinarily in all the following under the species of wine only S. Cyp. Tr. de Lapsis Cyprien who suffered martyrdome in the third age authorises this practise in his treatise de Lapsis This great man represents there to us with a gravity worthy of himselfe what passed in the Church and in his presence to a little girle to whom had been given a little moistned bread offred to Idols Her mother who knew nothing of it omitted not to bring her according to custome into the Church assembly But God who would shew by a miraculous signe how much they were unworthy of the society of the faithfull who had participated of the impure table of Divells caused an extraordinary agitation and trouble to appeare in this childe during prayer as if sayes S. Cyprian for default of speach she had found her selfe forced to declare by this meanes as well as she could the misfortune she was fallen into This agitation which ceased not during the whole time of prayer augmented at the approching of the Eucharist where JESUS-CHRIST was so truly present For as S. Cyprian pursues after the accustomed solemnityes the Deacon who presented the holy cup to the faithfull being come to the order or ranke of this child JESUS-CHRIST who knows how to make himselfe be perceived by whom he pleases caused this infant at that moment to feele a terrible impression of the presence of his Majesty She turned away her face sayes Saint Cyprian as not able to support so great Majesty she shuts her mouth she refused the Chalice But after they had made her by force swallow some drops of the pretious blood she could not adds this Father retaine it in those defiled entrals so great is the power and Majesty of our Lord. It became the body of our Lord to produce no lesse effects and Saint Cyprian who represents to us with so much care and zeale togeather the trouble of this child during all prayer time not mentioning this extraordinary emotion caused by the Eucharist but at the approaching and receiving of the consecrated Chalice without speaking one only word of the body shews sufficiently that in effect they did not offer her a nourishment that was inconvenient to her age It is not that they could not with sufficient facility make a childe swallow a little of the sacred bread by steeping of it seing it appears even in this history that the little girle mentioned here had in this manner taken the bread offered to Idols But this is so far from hurting us that on the contrary it lets us see how much they were persuaded that one sole species was sufficient because there being in deed no impossibility of giving the body to little infants they so easily determinated to give them the blood alone It suffised that the sollid part was not so convenient to that age and on the other side as they would have been obliged to steepe the sacred bread to the end they might make little children swallow it so in these ages where wee have seen that they did not so much as dreame of mixing the two species they must have been obliged to take an ordinary liquor before that sacred liquor the blood of our Lord contrary to the dignity of such a Sacrament which the Church has alwayes believed ought to enter into our bodyes before all other nourishment August Ep. 118. ad Jan. It was alwayes I say believed and not only in the time of Saint Augustin Ep. 118. from whom wee have borrowed those words wee last produced but in the time of Saint Cyprian himselfe as it appeares in his letter to Cecilius Ep. 63. and before S. Cyprian seing wee finde mention in Tertullian of the sacred
from the III. age to the VI. it stops not there wee finde it even to the last ages and even at present in the Greeke Church Allat Tract de cons utr Eccles Anno. de Comm. Orient Thom. Smith Ep. de Ecc. Gr. stat hod p. 104. 1. ed. Hugo de S. Vict. erudit Theol. lib. I. c. 10. Bib. PP Par. de div Offic. Allatius a Catholick and Thomas Smith an English Protestant Minister each of them relate it equally after a great number of Authors and the thing it selfe has no difficulty It is true M. Smith has varyed in his second edition For they were afraid in England to authorise an example which wee make use of to establish communion under one species M. Smith after having remarked in his Preface the advantage wee take from it Praef. 2. edit init thinks he can remove it by two or three very feeble testimonyes of moderne Grecians who studyed in England or who live there and whose writings are printed in Protestant towns The last testimony he alledges is that of an Archbishop of Samos whom wee have too much seen in this country to rely much upon his capacity any more then upon his sincerity He is at present established at London and M. Smith produces us a letter which he writ to him wherein he sayes that after the baptisme of infants the Priest holding the Chalice where the blood is togeather with the body of our Saviour reduced into little particles takes in a little spoon one drop of this blood so mixed in such sort that some little crums of the consecrated bread are found in this spoon which suffices to make the child participate of the Body of our Lord. M. Smith adds that these crums are so little that they cannot well be perceived because of their smalnesse and that they stick to the spoon though never so little dipt into this holy liquor See here all can be drawn from a Grecian who is entertained at London and from M. Smith in favour of the communion under both species given in baptisme to children in the Greeke Church That is that they gave them the blood in which the body was mixed with so little of designe to give them the sacred body that they give them not any part of that which they see swimme in the holy liquor and which they give to them of riper yeares as M. Smith himselfe sayes They content themselves to presume that some insensible particle of the consecrated bread sticks to the spoon of the childe see what they call communicating them under both species In truth had not M. Smith done as well to change nothing in his booke and will not every man of sense believe himselfe obliged to stand to that which he said ingenuously in his first edition so much the rather because he sees it conformable to the antient Tradition which wee have exposed And if wee finde the communion of little children under the sole species of wine in the Greeke Church wee finde it no lesse amongst the Latins It is found according to M. de la Roque in the Decrees of Pope Paschal II. as wee have lately seene that is to say in the eleventh age It is found till the XII age in the same Latin Church Hug. de S. Vict. erud Tb. l. III. cap. 20. and Hugo de Sainto Victore so much praysed by S. Bernard sayes expressely that the Blessed Sacrament was not given to little infants in baptisme but under the sole species of blood teaching also afterwards that under each species the body and blood of Christ were both received Wee finde the same doctrine with the same manner of communicating little children in William de Champeaux Bishop of Châlon Ex lib. manuscript qui dicitur Pancrisis relat in praef Saec. 3. Bened. p. 1. num 75. intimately conversant with the same Saint Bernard Father Mabillon Benedictin Monke of the Congregation of Saint Maur whose sincerity is not to be called in question any more then his capacity has found in an antient manuscript a long passage of this worthy Bishop one of the most famous of his age for piety and learning where he teaches that he who receives one sole species receives JESUS-CHRIST whole and entire because adds he he is not received neither by little and little nor by parts but whole and entire under one or two species from whence it eomes that they give the Chalice alone to infants newly baptized because they cannot receive the bread but they do not therefore lesse receive JESUS-CHRIST whole and entire in the Chalice alone The Ministers confounded by these practises found established without an contradiction in all past ages fly ordinarily to incident questions Du Bourd 1. rép p. 36. sec rép c. 20.21 to withdraw us from the principall They exaggerate the abuse of Communion of little infants for so they call it against the authority of all ages an abuse which they say was founded upon the great and dangerous errour of the absolute necessity of receiving the Eucharist in all ages under paine of eternall damnation which according to them is the error of Saint Cyprian Saint Augustin Saint Innocent Pope Saint Cyril Saint Chrysostome Saint Cesarius Bishop of Arles and not only of many of the Fathers but also of many ages Oh holy antiquity and Church of the first ages too boldly condemned by Ministers without reaping from thence any thing but the pleasure to have made their people believe that the Church could fall into errour even in the purest times For as to the substance what availes this controversy to our subject The antient Church believed the Eucharist necessary for little infants Wee have allready demonstrated that supposing the two species to have been of the essence of this Sacrament that belife would have been a new motive to give it them under both Why therefore give they it them but under one and what can these Ministers say here if not to answer us that the antient Church added to the errour of believing that the communion was absolutely necessary to salvation that of beleving the communion to have its entire effect under one sole species and that by making an antiquity so pure to erre they be willing to shew themselves visibly in an error Wee have God be praysed a doctrine which obliges us not to cast our selves into such excesses I could very easily explicate how the Grace of that Sacrament of the Eucharist is in effect necessary to all the faithfull how the Eucharist and its grace is virtually contained in Baptisme which produces in the faithfull that sacred right which they there receive to the body and Blood of our Lord and how it belongs to the Church to regulate the time of exercising this right I might also shew upon these grounds that if some one as for example that William Bishop of Châlons quoted so faithfully by Father Mabillon seeme to have beleeved the necessity of the Eucharist yet
although it be not consecrated by that solemn and particular consecration which changes it into the Blood of JESUS-CHRIST becomes notwithstanding sacred by tooching the sacred Body of our Lord yet of a quite different manner from that consecration which according to this Saint is made by the words taken out of the Gospel That it is of this imperfect and inferiour sort of consecration which these Authors wee explicate do here speake will be acknowledged an undeniable truth if wee finde that these Authors and in the sames places say there cannot be made a true consecration of the Blood of our Lord but by words and by the words even of JESUS-CHRIST himselfe Alcuinus is expresse herein when explicating the Canon of the Masse as wee have it to this day when he comes to the place where wee prononce the sacramentall words which are those of JESUS-CHRIST himselfe This is my Body this is my Blood he sayes these are the words by which they consecrated the Bread and the Chalice in the beginning by which they are consecrated at present and by which they shall be consecrated eternally because JESUS-CHRIST prononcing again his own words by the Priests renders his holy Body and his sacred Blood present by a celestiall bcnediction Amal. l. III. 24. ibid. And Amalarius upon the same part of the Canon sayes no lesse clearly that it is in this place and by the pronunciation of these words that the nature of the Bread and Wine is changed into the nature of the Body and Blood of JESUS-CHRIST Lib. I. 12. and he had said before in particular concerning the consecration of the Chalice that a simple liquor was changed by the benediction of the Priest into the Sacrament of the Blood of our Lord which shews how far he and Alcuinus were from beleeving that the only mixing them without any words could produce this effect When therefore they say that the pure wine is sanctifyed by the mixture of the Body of JESUS-CHRIST it appeares sufficiently their meaning is that by tooching the Holy of Holyes this wine ceases to be profane and becomes some thing of holy but that it should become the Sacrament of JESUS-CHRIST and that it should be changed into his Blood without prononcing the words of JESUS-CHRIST upon it is an errour inconsistent with their doctrine All those who have writ of the Divine Office and of that of the Masse use the same language these two Authors do Isaac Bishop of Langres their contemporary Isaac Lingâ—â—t Specil T. â— p. 151. in his explication of the Canon and place where they consecrate sayes that the Priest having thetherto done what he could to the end he may then do something more wonderfull borrows the words of JESUS-CHRIST himselfe that is to say these words This is my Body Powerfull words says he to which the Lord gives his vertue according to the expression of the Psalmist words which have allvayes their effect because the Word who is the power of God sayes and dos all at a time in so much that there is here made by these words contrary to all humain reason a new nourishment for a new man a new JESUS borne of the spirit an Hoste come downe fro heaven and the rest which makes nothing to our subject this being but too sufficient to shew that this great Bishop has placed consecration in the words of our Saviour Remigius Bishop of Auxerre in the booke which he composed of the Masse towards the end of the ninth age is visibly of the same judgement with Alcuinus seeing he has done nothing but transcribe word for word all that part of his booke where this matter is treated of Hildebertus Bishop of Mans Hildeb eod T. Bibl. PP and afterwards of Tours famous for his piety as well as for his eloquence and learning and commended even by the Protestants themselves because of the prayses he has given to Bengarius yet after he was returned or pretended to be retourned from his errours affirmes in expresse words that the Priest consecrates not by his own words but by those of JESUS-CHRIST that then under the signe of the crosse and the words the nature becomes changed that the Bread honours the Altar by becoming the Body and the Wine by becoming Blood which obliges the Priest to elevate at that time the Bread and the wine thereby to shew that by consecration they are elevated to some thing of a higher nature then what they were The Abbot Rupertus sayes the same thing Rup de Div. Off. l. II. c. 9. lib. V. c. 20. Hug. de S. Vict. erud Theol. l. III. c. 20. and after him Hugo de Sainto Victore Wee finde all these bookes collected in the Bibliotheca of Patrum in that tome which beares the title de Divinis Officiis This Tradition is so constant especially in the Latin Church that it cannot be imagined the contrary could be found in the Ordo Romanus nor that it could have entred into the thoughts of Alcuinus and Amalarius tho they had not explicated themselves so clearly as wee have seene they have But this Tradition came from a higher source These many fore cited French Authors as were preceded by a Bishop of the Gallican Church Euseb Gailic sive Euch. T. 6. Max. Bib. P P. hom V. de Pasch who said in the V. age that the creatures placed upon the holy Altars and blessed by the celestiallwords ceased to be the substance of Bread and Wine and became the Body and Blood of our Lord and Saint Ambrose before him understood by these celestiall words Amb. de init c. 9. the proper words of JESUS-CHRIST This is my Body this is my Blood adding that the consecration as well of the Body as of the Blood was made by the words of our Lord. And the Author of the booke of Sacraments be he whom he will Saint Ambrose or some other neere unto his time Amb. lib. IV. Sac. c. 5. who imitates him troughout who ever he be well known in antiquity speaks after the same manner and all the Fathers of the same time keepe the like conformity in their language and before them all Saint Ireneus laught that ordinary bread is made the Eucharist by the invocation of God which it receives over it Iren. IV. 34. and Saint Justin Just ap 2. whom he often cites said before him that the Eucharist was made by the prayer of the word which comes from JESUS-CHRIST and that it was by this word that the ordinary food which usvally by being changed nourisheth our flesh and our blood became the Body and the Blood of that JESUS-CHRIST incarnated for us and before all the Fathers the Apostle Saint Paul clearly remarked the particular benediction of the Chalice 1. Cor. 10.16 when he said the Chalice of benediction which wee blesse And to go to the very originall JESUS-CHRIST consecrates the Wine in saying This is my Blood as he
given to the people which is the cause why the table of our Lord so tearmed by Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians 1. Cor. 10.21 Heb. 13.10 is called Altar by the same Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrewes It is not our businesse here neither to establish nor explaine this sacrifice the nature of which may be seene in our Treatise of the Exposition Exp. art 14. and I shall only say because my subject requires it that JESUS-CHRIST has made this sacrifice of the Eucharist to consist in the most perfect representation of the sacrifice on the Crosse that could be imagined Whereupon it is that he said expressely This is my Body and This is my Blood renewing mystically by these words as by a spirituall sword togeather with all the wounds he received in his Body the totall effusion of his Blood and although this Body and this Blood once seperated ought to be eternally reunited in his Resurrection to make a perfect man perfectly living he would notwithstanding that this seperation once made upon the Crosse should never cease to appeare in the mystery of the holy table It is in this mysticall seperation that he would have the essence of the sacrifice of the Eucharist to consist to make it a perfect image or representation of the sacrifice of the Crosse to the end that as this later sacrifice consits in the actuall seperation of the Body and Blood this likewise which is the perfect image of it should consist also in this representative and mysticall seperation But whether JESUS-CHRIST has seperated his Body and his Blood either really upon the Crosse or mystically upon the Altars yet can he not seperate the vertue nor effect that any other Grace shall accompany his Blood shed then that same in the ground and in substance which accompanyes his Body immolated which is the cause that this so lively and so strong a resemblane or expression necessary to the sacrifice is no more so in the reception of the Eucharist it being every whit as impossible to seperate in the application the effect of his Blood from that of his Body as it is easy and naturall to represent to the eyes of the faithfull the actuall seperation of the one from the other For this reason it is that wee have found upon so many occasions in antiquity the Body given without the Blood and the Blood given without the Body but never one of them consecrated without the other Our Forefathers were perswaded that the faithfull would be deprived of some thing too pretious if the two species were not consecrated in which JESUS-CHRIST had made togeather with the perfect representation of his death the essence of the sacrifice of the Eucharist to consist but that nothing essentiall was taken from them in giving them but one because one only containes the vertue of both and the minde once preoccupayed by the death of our Lord in the consecration of the two species receives nothing from the Altar where they were consecrated which do's not conserve this figure of death and the character of a victime in so much that whether wee eate or whether wee drinke or whether wee do both togeather wee allwayes apply the same death and receive allwayes the same Grace in substance Neither must so much stresse bee put upon the eating and drinking seing that eating and drinking spiritually is apparently the same thing and that both the one and the other is to beleeve Let it be then that wee eate or that wee drinke according to the body wee both eat and drinke togeather according to the spirit if wee beleeve and wee receive the whole effect of the Sacrament § III. That the Pretended Reformers do agree with us in this principle and can have no other foundation of their discipline An Examen of the doctrine of M. Jurieux in his booke entilled Le Préservatif c. BUT without any further dispute I would only aske the Ministers of the Pretended Reformed Religion whether they do not beleeve when they have received the bread of the Lords Supper with a firme faith they have received the Grace which do's fully incorporate us to JESUS-CHRIST and the entire fruict of his sacrifise What will then the species of wine add there unto if not a more full expression of the same mystery Furthermore they beleeve they receive not only the figure but the proper substance of JESUS-CHRIST Whether it bee by Faith or otherwise is not to our present purpose Do they receive it whole and entire or do they only receive one halfe of it when the Bread of the Lords Supper is given to them JESUS-CHRIST is he divided And if they receive the substance of JESUS-CHRIST whole and entire let them tell us whether the essence of the Sacrament can be wanting to them And it can be no other then this reason that as persuaded them they could give the bread alone to those who could not drinke wine This is expresse in the VII art of the XII chapter of their discipline which is that concerning the Supper This argument proposed at first by the great Cardinall Richelieu intangled very much the Pretended Reformers I have endeavoured in my Exposition to solve some of the answers they give thereto Exp. art XVII and I have carefully related what their Synods have regulated in confirmation of that article of their discipline The matter is left without contest those who have writ against me have all of them with one accord acknowledged it as publick and notorious but they do not likwise agree in the manner of answering it All were not satisfyed with the common answer which only consists in saying that those mentioned in the article of their discipline are excused from taking the wine by their incapacity of drinking it and that it is a particular case which must not be drawne into a consequence for on the contrary they saw very well that this particular case ought to be decided by generall principles If the intention of JESUS-CHRIST were that the two species should be inseperable if the essence or substance of the Sacrament consist in the union of the one and the other since essenses are indivisible it is not the Sacrament which these receive it is a meere humaine invention and has not its foundation in the Gospell They were forced therefore at last but with extreame paine and after infinite turnings and windings to say that in this case he who receives only the Bread dos not receive the Sacrament of JESUS-CHRIST M. Jurieux who writ the last against my Exposition in his book entitled Le Préservatif Préservatif art XIII p. 262. suiv after having seen the answers of all the others and after having given himselfe much trouble sometimes in being angry at M. de Condom who amuses himselfe sayes he like a petty Missioner in things of so low a nature and in these old kind of cavils sometimes in putting as much stresse as
of the primitive Church p. 7 First Custome Communion of the sick p. 8 III. Second Custome Communion of little Children p. 65 IV. Third Custome Domestick Communion p. 94 V. Fourth Custome Communion at the Church and in the ordinary Office p. 119 VI. A continuation The Masse on Good Friday and that of the Presanctifyed p. 131 VII The Judgement and Practise of the later ages founded upon the judgement and Practise of the primitive Church p. 160 THE SECOND PART Principles on which are established the judgement and practise of the Church of which principles the Pretended Reformers make use as well as wee I. FIrst Principle There is nothing indispensible in the Sacraments but that which is of their substance or essentiall to them p. 167 II. Second Principle To know the substance or essence of a Sacrament wee must regard its essentiall effect p. 173 III. That the Pretended Reformers do agree with us in this principle and can have no other foundation of their discipline An examen of the doctrine of M. Jurieux in his Booke entituled Le Préservatif c. p. 165 IV. Third Principle The law ought to be explained by constant and perpetuall Practise An exposition of this Principle by the example of the civill law p. 194 V. A proofe from the observances of the Old Testament p. 205 VI. A proofe from the observances of the New Testament p. 224 VII Communion under one kind established without contradiction p. 260 VIII A refutation of the History concerning the taking away the Cupp writt by M. Jurieux p. 279 IX A reflection upon concomitancy and upon the doctrine of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Saint John p. 306 X. Some Objections solved by the precedent doctrine p. 322 XI A reflection upon the manner how the Pretended Reformers make use of Scripture p. 334 XII Occurring difficulties vain subtilityes of the Calvinists and M. Jurieux the judgement of antiquity concerning concomitancy reverence exhibited to JESUS-CHRIST in the Eucharist the doctrine of this Treatise confirmed 342 A TREATISE OF COMMUNION UNDER BOTH SPECIES A division of this discourse into two parts THIS Question concerning the two Species whatever is said thereof by those of the Pretended Reformed Religion hath but an apparent difficulty which may be solved by the constant and perpetuall practise of the Church and by Principles assented unto by the Pretended Reformers themselves I shall then in this discourse lay open 1. This Practise of the Church 2. These Principles on which this Practise is grounded Thus the businesse will be cleared for on the one side wee shall see the constant matter of Fact and on the other side the assured causes of it THE FIRST PART The Practise and judgement of the Church from the first ages § I. An Explication of this Practise THE Practise of the Church from the Primitive times is that Communicants received under one or both kinds without ever imagining there wanted any thing to the integrity of Communion when they received under one alone It was never so much as thought on that the Grace annexed to the Body of our Lord was any other then that which was annexed to his Blood He gave his Body before he gave his Blood and it may be further concluded from the words of S. Lukc and S. Paul Lukc 22. v. 20. 1. Cor. 11. v. 24. that he gave his Body during the supper and his Blood after supper in such sort that there was a considerable interval between the two actions Did he then suspend the effect which his body was to produce untill such time as the Apostles had received the Blood or did they so soon as they had received the Body at the same instant receive also the Grace which accompanied it that is to say that of being incorporated to Jesus Christ and nourished by his substance Undoubtedly the later So that the receiving of the Blood is not necessary for the Grace of the Sacrament nor for the ground of the Mystery The substance is there whol and entiere under one sole Species and neither dos each of the Species nor both togeather containe other then the same ground of sanctification and of Grace S. 1. Cor. 11.27 Paul manifestly supposeth this Doctrine when he writes that Hee who eateth this Bread or drinketh the Chalice of our Lord unworthily is guilty of the Body and Blood of our Lord From whence he leaveth us to draw this consequence that if in receiving the one or the other unworthily wee profane them both in receiving either of the two worthily wee participate of the Grace of both To this there can be no other reply but by saying as the Protestants also do that the disjunctive particle or which the Apostle makes use of in the first part of the Text hath the force of the conjunctive and of which he serveth himselfe in the second This is the only answer M. Exam. de l'Euch V I. Tr. 7. Sect. p. 483. Jurieux affords to this passage in the treatise he lately published upon the subject of the Eucharist and he calls our Argument a ridiculous cavill but without ground For though he had made it out that these particles are sometimes taken the one for the other yet here where S. Paul useth them both so manifestly with designe in placing or in the first part of his discourse and reserving and for the second wee must of necessity acknowledge that by so remarkable a distinction he would render us attentive to some important truth and the truth which he would here teach us is that if after having taken worthily the consecrated Bread wee should so forgett the Grace received afterwards to take the sacred liquor with a criminall intention wee should be guilly not only of the blood of our Lord but also of his Body A truth which can have no other ground then what wee lay dowen viz that both the one and the other part of this Sacrament have the same foundation of Grace in such a manner as that wee cannot profane one without profaning both nor also receive either of the two devoutly without partaking of the sanctity and vertue both of the one and the other 'T is also for this reason that from the beginning of Christianity the faithfull beleeved that after what manner soever they communicated whether under one or both species the Communion had alwayes the same efficacy of vertue § II. Four authentick Customes to shew the judgement of the Primitive Church FOUR authentick customes of the Primitive Church demonstrate this Truth These customs will appeare so constant and the oppositions made against them so contradictory and vaine that I dare avouch an expresse acknowledgement of them would not render them more indisputable First Custome Communion of the sick I Finde then the custome of receiving under one kind or Species in the Communion of the sick in the Communion of infants in domestick Communions formerly in practise when the Faithfull carryed the Eucharist
that they were so far from the thought of mingling it with the blood that they mad use of another liquor to steepe it in a common liquor taken at the house of the sick In fine this distribution of the body and blood mixed togeather begins not to appeare till the VII Conc. Brac. IV. t. 6. Concil ult edit c. 2. age in the Council of Brague where it is moreover forbidden by an expresse Canon From whence it is easy to comprehend how much a coustume which at first appeares only in the VII age in a Canon which disapproves it is short not only of the third age and the time of S. Denis of Alexandria but likewise of the fourth and that of the third Council of Carthage viz three or four hundred yeares Wee shall see in another place hwo much difficulty was made to admit of the establishment of this mixture even in the X. and XI age especially in the Latine Church and this will serve as a new argument to demonstrate how little it was thought of in the primitive times and in the III. Council of Carthage from whence may be undoubtfully gathered that the Communion which was there ordained for the sick was without doubt under one species and moreover like that of Serapions under the species of bread only Neither will there be any difficulty to acknowledge this when we reflect upon the manner how S. Ambrose communicated at his death in the same age Wee have the life of this Great man writ at the intreaty of S. Augustin and dedicated to him by Paulinus S. Ambroses Deacon and Secretary whom Erasmus improperly confounds with the great Saint Paulinus Bishop of Nole in which he relates that S. Honoratus the famous Bishop of Verceil who was come to assist this Saint at his death heard this voice three times during the silence of the night Rise stay not he is going to dye He went down presented him the body of our Lord and the Saint had no sooner received it but he gave up the ghost Who dos not see that this great Saint is represented to us as one for whom God took care that he should dye in a state where nothing more could be desired seeing he had just received the body of his Lord And at the same time who would not beleeve that he had communicated aright in receiving after the same manner that Saint Ambrose did in dying after the same manner that Saint Honoratus gave it after the same manner it was writ to Saint Augustin and after the same manner the whole Church saw it without finding therein any thing of new or extraordinary The subtility of the Protestants is at a losse about this passage Georg. Calixt disp cont comm sub una specie n. 162. The famous George Calixte the most able amongst the Lutherans of our times and he who has writ the most learnedly upon the two species against us sustaines that Saint Ambrose received in both kinds and for an answer to Paulinus who relates only that the body was given him which he had no sooner received but he gave up the Ghost this subtile Minister has recourse to a Grammaticall figure called Synecdoche which puts the part for the whole without ever so much as offering to bring us one example of such a kind of speech in a like occasion Oh strange effect of a prejudicate opinion Wee see in the Communion of Serapion an assured example of one only species where the restriction of the figure Synecdoche cannot have the least admittance seeing Saint Denis of Alexandria expresses so precisely that the bread and solid part alone was given Wee finde the same language and the same thing in the Council of Carthage and wee see at the same time Saint Ambroses communion in which there is no mention of any thing but the body Nay further for I may well here presuppose what I shall presently demonstrate all ages shew us nothing but the body alone reserved for the ordinary communion of the sick and yet this consequence must not be allowed and a Synecdoche without aledging one example must be preferred to so many examples that are received What blindnesse or rather what cavill is this If these Gentlemen would act sincerely and not study how to evade rather then to instruct they would see that it dos not suffise to alledge at random the figure Synecdoche and to say that it is ordinary by the use of this figure to expresse the whole by its part All things are eluded by these meanes and nothing of certain is left in speech A man must come to the matter proposed in particular and to the place under debate He must examin for example weather the figure he would apply to this relation of Paulinus be found in any other of the like nature and weather it agree in particular to that of this Historian Calixt dos nothing of all this because all this would only have served to confound him And at the very first sight it is cleare and certain the figure of which he speakes is not one of those which are common in ordinary speech as when wee say to eat togeather to expresse the whole feast and to drink as wel as to eat or as the Hebrews mentioned bread alone to expresse in generall the whole nourishment It is not the custome of Ecclesiasticall language nor in common use to name the body alone to expresse the body and the blood seing on the contrary we may finde passages in every page of the fathers where the distribution of the body and blood is related in expressely naming the one and the other and it may be for certain held that this is the ordinary practice But without tiring our selves unprofitabley in the search of those passages where the Fathers may have mentioned the one without the other nor the particular reasons which might have obliged them to it I will say sticking to the Examples debated of in this place that I have never seen any relation where in recounting the distribution of the body and the blood they have expressed only one of the two And if I have not observed any example of this neither has Calixte remarked any such more then I And what ought to make any one beleeve that there is none is that a man so carefull as he has been to heap togeather all he can against us has not beene able to finde any I finde also M. Du Bourd ch 17. p. 317. du Bourdieu who has writ since him and read him so well that he followes him almost throughout and therefore ought to have supplyed his defects tells us not upon occasion of Paulinus and Saint Ambrose but upon occasion of Tertullien that if this Father in speaking of Domestick Communion of which wee shall also treat in its proper place has mentioned nothing but the body and consecrated bread without naming the blood or the wine it is that he expresses the whole by the part and
in these descriptions wee often omit that which is most common and that probably wees hould not have known by this testimony of Paulinus that his Bishop had communicated if this writer had not intended to shew us the particular care which God tooke to procure him this grace But is this Minister ignorant that in these occasions one only positive testimony renverses the whole fabrik of these negative arguments which they build with so much industry upon nothing and is it possible he should not lee that the example alone of Saint Ambrose shews us an established custome seeing that so soon as Saint Honoratus knew this great man was dying he understood without having need that the Eucharist should be mentioned to him that it was time to carry it to this sick Saint No matter The Ministers would have one to doubt of this custome to the end they may give some resemblance of singularity and novelty to a communion which was but too clearly given to a Saint and by a Saint under one species And what shall wee say to Calixtus who seems to be astonished that wee dare count Saint Ambrose amongst those who communicated under one species Calixt v. 163. in dying Is it not effect an unheard of baldnesse to say this after a grave Historian who had been an eye witnesse of what he writes and who sent his history to Saint Augustin after having writ it at his intreaty But the businesse is they must be able to say they have answered and when they are at a non plus it is then the most confidence must be showen In a word we finde in Paulinus nothing but the common customes of the Church which every where makes no mention but of the body when it mentions that which was kept for the sick Cone Tur. II. c. 3. Tom. 1. Conc. Gall. The second Council of Tours celebrated in the yeare 567. ordaines that the body of our Lord should be placed upon the Altar not in the rank of the Images non in imaginario ordine but under the figure of the Crosse sed sub Crucis titulo By the way it may be noted that there were Images placed in the Churches and that there was a Crosse during these primitive ages it was under this figure of the Crosse they reserved the body of our Lord and the body only for this reason peradventure it is that Gregory of Tours at the same tyme this Council was held tells us of certaine Vessalls or Tabernacles in forme of Towers Greg. Tur. L. I. cap. 8.6 wherin the Box or Pix containing or Lord's Body was reserved and which were placed on the Altar in tyme of Sacrifice without doubt in Order to the Adoration of the Sacrament soe reserved By the Ordinance of Hincmarus the famous Archibishop of Reims who lived in the 1 x. age Cap. Hincmar art VIII Tom. II. Conc. Gall. there ought to be a box where the holy oblation for the Viaticum of the sick should be decently conserved both the box and the word it selfe of holy oblation shew sufficiently to those who understand Ecclesiasticall language Leo IV. Hom. Tom. VIII Conc. Spicil T. II. p. 263. that only the body was there meant which was ordinarily expressed by this name or by that of Communion or simply by that of the Eucharist The blood was expressed either by its naturall name or by that of the Chalice Wee finde in the same times a Decree of Leo the IV. Ibid. where after having spoke of the body and blood for the ordinary communion of the faithfull when he treats of the sick he speaks only of the box where the Body of our Lord was kept for their Viaticum This Ordinance is repeated in the following age by the famous Rathierus Bishop of Verone and some time after under King Robert Gest Concil Aurel. ibid. 673. a Council held at Orleans speakes of the ashes of an infant that was burnt which some abominable heriticks hept with as much veneration as Christian piety observes in the custome of keeping the body of our Lord for the Viaticum of the sick Wee finde here also the body and the blood expressed in the Ordinary communion of the Faithfull and the body only for that of the sick To all these authorityes wee must joyne here that of the Ordo Romanus Bib. P P. part T. de div off which is not little seing it is the antient Ceremoniall of the Roman Church cited and explicated by authors eight or nine hundred yeares since Wee see there in two places the consecrated bread divided into three parts the one to be distributed to the people the other to be put into the Chalice not for the communion of the people but for the Priest alone after he had taken the consecrated bread separately as wee do at this present and the third to be reserved upon the Altar It was this they kept for the sick which was for that reason called the dying peoples part Microlog de Ecc. observ 17. T. XVIII Max. 616. as the Micrologist an author of the eleventh age sayes and was consecrated in honour of the buriall of JESUS-CHRIST as the two other parts represented his conversation upon Earth and his resurrection Those who have read the antient interpreters of the Ecclesiasticall Ceremonyes understand this language and the mystery of these holy Ceremonyes The Author of the life of Saint Basile observes likewise that this great man separated the consecrated bread into three parts the third of which he hung over the Altar in a Dove of Gold he had caused to be made Amphil. vit S. Basil This third part of the consecrated bread which he ordered to be placed there was manifestly that which was reserved for the sick and these Doves of gold to hang over the Altars are antient in the Greeke Church as it appeares by a Council of Constantinople held by Mennas under the Empire of Justinien Cone Const Menna ad s. T. V. Conc. Wee see likewise these Doves amongst the Latins neere the same time all our Authors make mention of them and the will of Perpetuus Bishp of Tours remarkes amongst the vessells and instruments made use of in the Sacrifice Test Perp. T. V. Spicil a Dove of silver wherein to keepe the Blessed Sacrament ad repositorium Furthermore without tying my selfe to the name of Amphilochius S. Basils Contemporary to whom the life of this Saint is attributed I will admit that the passage taken out of this life proves only for that time in which this History was writ let who will be the author of it Let them say moreover if they will that this Author attributes to S. Basil the practise of those times in which this life was composed yet is it enough in either case to confirme what is otherwise certain that the custome of reserving the species of Bread only for the sick is of great antiquity in the Greeke Church seing
that the life of Saint Basil is found already translated into Latin in the time of Charles the bald Aeneas Ep. Par. lib. adv Graec. T. IV. Spic p. 80. 81. and cited by Eneas Bishop of Paris renowned in these times for his piety and learning who moreover quotes the very place in this life where mention is made of these Doves and of the Sacrament of our Lord kept therein and hung over the Altar Hereunto may be reduced those Ciboriums mentioned amongst the presents which Charlemagne gave to the Roman Church Anast Bib. vit Leon. III. T. II. Conc. Gal. and all antiquity is full of the like examples And to the end the Tradition of the first and last ages may appeare conformable to each other as wee have seen in the first ages in the history of Serapion and in the Council of Carthage that in communicating the sick under the species of bread only they moistned it in some liqueur so does the same custome appeare in after ages Wee see this above six hundred yeares since in the antient customs of Clugny Ant. Consuet Cluniac l. III. c. 28. Tom. IV. Spicil collected at that time out of most antient memorials by S. Udalricus a Monke of this Order Hist Euch. I. P. c. 16 p. 183. and the Minister de la Roque in his history of the Eucharist cites this booke without any reproche It is remarked in this booke that the infirme Religious received the body only which was given to them steeped in unconsecrated wine There wee finde also a cupp in which it was steeped and thus it was the Religious of the most famous and most holy Monastery in the world communicated their sick By this wee may judge of the custome of the rest of the Church Const Odon Paris Episc c. 5. art 3. T. X. Conc. In fine wee find every where mention of this cupp which was carryed for the communion of the sick Const Episc anon T. XI Syn. Bajoc c. 77. ibid. 2. p. but which was made use of only to give them the consecrated bread moistned in common wine to facilitate the passage of this heavenly food The Greeks also retained this tradition as well as the Latins and as their inviolable custome is not to Consecrate the Eucharist for the sick but upon holy Thursday only they mixe the species of bread wholy dryed during so long a time either with water or unconsecrated wine As for consecrated wine it is manifest it could not be kept so long especially in those hot countryes so that their custome of consecrating for the sick only one day in the yeare obliged them to communicate them under one only species that is under that of bread which they could keepe without difficulty their Sacrifice in leavened bread keeping better them ours in unleavened especially after the drying wee lately mentioned It is true for wee will dissemble nothing that at present they make a Crosse with the pretious bloods upon the consecrated bread which they reserve for the sick But besides that this is not to give the blood of our Lord to drink as it is expressed in the Gospell nor to marke the seperation of the body and the blood which alone perswades our Reformers of the necessity of the two species It abundantly appeares that at the yeares end nothing remains of one or two drops of the pretious blood which they put upon the heavenly bread and that there is nothing left for the sick but one only species To which wee must add that after all this custome of the Greeks to mixe a little of the blood with the sacred Body concerning which wee see nothing in their antient Fathers or Canons is new amongst them and wee shall finde some occasion to make this more clearely appeare in the following discourse Those who deny every thing may deny these observances of the Greeke Church but they do not therefore cease to be indubitable and no one can deny it without a wonderfull insincerity if he be never so little read in the Euchologes of the Greeks or instructed concerning their rights And as for the Latin Church Conc. sub Edg. Rege Can. 38. T. IX Conc. p. 628. Conc. Bitur c. 2. ibid. p. 865. Constit Odon Paris Episc T. X. p. 1802. Constit Episc anon T. XI 1. p. Innoc. IV. Ep. X. ibid. 1. Conc. Lambeth c. 1. ibid. Syn. Exon. c. 4. ibid. 2. p. Synod Bajoc c. 12.77 Conc. Ravenn II. Rub. VII Conc. Vaur 6.85 ibid. the Councils are full of necessary precautions for the conserving of the Body of our Lord the carrying it with respect and a convenient decorum and to cause a due adoration to be rendred to it by the people They speake likewise of the box and linnen in which it was kept and of the care which the Priests ought to have to renew the Hosts every eight dayes and to consummate the old ones before they drunke the holy cup. They ordaine likewise how those Hosts which had been kept too long should be burnt and the ashes reserved under the Altar without so much as ever speaking amongst so many observances either of vialls to conserve the pretious Blood in or of any precautions for the keeping of it although it be given us under a species much more capable of alteration Wee may aledge also upon the same account a Canon which all the Ministers object against us It is a Canon of the Council of Tours which wee finde not in the volumes of the Councils Burch Coll. Can. l. V. c. 9. Yvo dec II. P. c. 19. but in Burchard and Yvo of Chartres collectors of the Canons of the eleaventh age This Canon as well as others sayes that the holy oblation which is kept for the sick that is the species of bread as appeares by what followes ought to be renewed every eight dayes but id adds which wee finde no where else in the West that it must be dipped in the blood to the end it may be said truly that the body and blood is given If this Canon gave us any difficulty Aubert de Euch. lib. II. in Exam. Pii p. 288. wee might say with Aubertin what is very true that Burchard and Yvo of Charters collected many things togeather without choice or judgement and that they give us many peices as antient which are not such But to act in every thing which sincerity it may be said that this Canon so exactly transcribed by these Authors is not false as also that it is none of those which were admitted since wee see nothing like it in all the others Moreover this Canon which does not appeare but in above named collections for certain was not made any long time before and the sole mixing of the body and blood shews sufficiently how far short it is of the first antiquity But let it be in what time it will it is apparent that before it was made it was the custome to name the
body and blood even in giving the body only and this by the naturall union of the substance and the Grace both of the one and the other Wee see neverthelesse that this Council had some scrupule concerning this matter and beleeved that in expressing the two species they ought both of them to be given in some manner In effect it is true that in some sence to be able to call it the body and the blood the two species must be given because the naturall dessine of this expression is to denote that which each of them containes in vertue of the Institution But it will be granted me that to mix them in this manner and let them dry for eight dayes togeather was but a very weake meanes to conserve the two species and how ever it be this part of the Canon which containes a custome so particular cannot be a prejudice to so many decrees where wee see not only nothing resembling it but moreover quite the contrary That which is most certain is that this Canon makes it appeare they did not beleeve the holy liquor could with ease be conserved in its proper species and that their endeavours were cheefely to conserve the consecrated bread As to the other part which regards the mixture what wee have said tooching the Grecians may be applyed here and all the subtility of the Ministers cannot hinder but it will alwayes be certain by this Cannon that they never beleeved themselves bound either to make the person communicating drink or to give him the blood seperated from the body to denote the violent death of our Lord or lastly to give him in effect any liquor at all seing after eight dayes it is sufficiently cleare there remained nothing of the oblation but the drye and solid part So that this Canon so much boasted of by the Ministers without concluding any thing against us serves only to shew that liberty which the Churches thought them selves to have in the administration of the sacred species of the Eucharist After all these remarks wee have made it must passe for constant and undeniable that neither the Greeks nor the Latins ever believed that all that is writt in the Gospell tooching the communion under two species was essentiall and expressely commanded and that on the contrary it was allwayes believed even from the first ages that one sole species was sufficient for a true communion seing that the custome was to keepe nothing for nor give nothing to the sick but one only It serves for nothing to object that the two species were frequently carryed to the sick and more over in generall that they were carryed to those that were absent Saint Justin Just Apol. 1. I owne is expresse in this matter But why do they alledge to us these passages which serve for nothing It is one thing to say as Saint Justin does that the two species of the Sacrament were carryed at the same time as M. de la Roque speaks it was celebrated in the Church Hist de l'Eucharist 1. P. c. 15. p. 176. and another thing to say they could reserve them so long a time as was necessary for the sick and that it was the custome to do so especially in a time when persecution permitted not frequent Ecclesiasticall assemblyes Hier. Ep. IV. ad Rust The same thing must be said of Saint Exuperius Bishop of Toulouze of whom Saint Hierome writ that after he had sold all the rich vessells of the Church to redeeme captives and solace the poor he carryed the Body of our Lord in a basket and the Blood in a vessell of glasse He carryed them sayes S. Hierome but he does not say he kept them which is our question And I acknowledge that when there was any sick persons to be communicated in those circumstances where they could commodiously receive both the species without being at all changed they made no difficulty in it But it is no lesse certain by the common deposition of so many testimonys that where as the species of wine could not be kept with ease the ordinary communion of the sick like that of Serapion and Saint Ambrose was under the sole species of bread In effect Hist Fr. Script T. IV. wee read in the life of Louis the VI. called the Grosse written by Sugerus Abbot of Saint Denis that in the last sicknesse of this Prince the Body and Blood of our Lord was carryed to him but wee see there also that this faithfull Historien thought himselfe obliged to render the reason of it and to advertise that it was as they came from saying Masse and that they carryed it devoutly in procession to his chamher which ought to make us understand in what manner it was used out of these conjunctures But that which putts the thing out of all doubt is that in substance M. de la Roque agrees with us as to the matter of fact in debate There is no more difficulty to communicate the sick under the sole species of bread then under that of wine only a practise which this curious observer shews us in the VII Hist Euch. I. p. ch 12. p. 150. 160. age in the cleaventh Council of Toledo Canon XI He sayes as much of the eleavent age and of Pope Paschalis II. Conc. Tolet. XI Pasch II. Ep. 32. ad Pont. by whom he makes the same thing to be permitted for little infants Hee is so far from disapproving these practises that he is carefull to defend them and excuses them himselfe upon an invincible necessity as if a parcel of the sacred bread could not be so steeped that a sick person or even an infant might swallow it almost as easily as wine But the businesse was that he must finde some excuse to hinder us from concluding from his own observations that the Church believed she had a full liberty to give one species only without any prejudice to the integrety of communion Behold what wee finde tooching the communion of the sick in the tradition of all ages If some of these practises which I have observed concerning that veneration which was payed to the Eucharist astonish owr reformers and appeare new to them I engage my selfe to shew them shortly and in few words for it is not difficult that the originall of it is antient in the Church or reather that it never had a beginning But at present that wee may not quit our matter it is sufficient for me to shew them only by comparing the customes of the first and last ages a continuall Tradition of communicating the sick ordinarily under the sole species of bread although the Church alwayes tender to her children if she had beleeved both the species necessary would rather have had them consecrated extraordinarily in the sick persons chamber Capit. Anytonis Basil Episc temp Car. Mag. cap. 14. T. VI. Spicil as it has been often actually practised then to deprive them of this succour on the contrary she
bread which the faithfull tooke in secret before all other nourishement Lib. II. ad ux 5. and in a word before them all because they speake of it as of an established custome This consideration which alone was the reason why they gave the blood only to little children though never so strong in it selfe would have beene forcelesse against a divine command It was therefore most certainly believed that there was not any divine precept of uniting the two species togeather M. Hist Euch. I. p. ch 12. p. 145. de la Roque would gladly say though he dare not do it in plain tearmes that they mixed the body with the blood for infants and imagines it might be gathered from the words of Saint Cyprian though there is not one syllable as wee see which tends to it But besides that the discipline of that time did not suffer this mixture Saint Cyprian speakes only of the blood It is the blood says he that cannot stay in defiled entrals and the distribution of the sacred Chalice of which alone this infant had participated is too clearly expressed to leave the least place for that conjecture which M. de la Roque would make Thus the Example is precise the custome of giving the Communion to little children under the species of wine only cannot be contested and that doubt which they would raise in the minde without any ground shews only the perplexity they are thrown into by the great authority of Saint Cyprian and the Church in his time Certainly M. Hist Euch. I. p. ch 11. p. 136. ch 12. p. 150. de la Roque would have acted with more sincerity if he had kept himselfe to that Idee which first presented it selfe as it were naturally unto him The first time he had spoke of this passage of Saint Cyprian he told us that they powred by force into the mouth of the child some of the sacred Chalice that is without question some drops of the pretious blood pure and without any mixture just as it was presented to the rest of the people who had already received the body And on the other side wee have even now seen that this Minister does not blame the Pope Paschalis the II. who according to him permitted little children to communicate under the sole species of wine so much did his conscience dictate that this practise had no difficulty in it As for M. du Bourdieu Du Bourd I. rép p. 37. Et repliq ch 20. p. 341. this passage of Saint Cyprian had at the first also produced its effect in his minde And this passage having been objected to him by a Catholique this Minister easily accorded in his first answer that in effect nothing had been given to this childe but the consecrated wine alone He comes of in saying that the antients who beleeved the communion absolutely necessary for little infants gave it them as they could that it was for this reason Saint Cyprians Deacon beleeving this childe would be damned if it dyed without the Eucharist opened by force its mouth to poure into it a little wine and that a case of necessity a particular case cannot have the name of a custome What efforts are these to elude a thing so cleare Where are those extraordinary reasons this Minister would here imagine to himselfe Is there one single word in Saint Cyprian which shewes the danger of this infant as the motive of giving it the Communion Dos it not on the contrary appeare by the whole discourse that this blessed Sacrament was given to it only because it was the custome to give it to all children so often as they were brought to the assemblyes Why will M. du Bourdieu divine that this little girle had never communicated Ch. 20. p. 345. Was she not baptised Was it not the custome to give the communion togeather with baptisme even to infants To what purpose is it therefore to speake here of a feare they should have least she should be damned for not having received the Eucharist since they had already given her it in giving her baptisme Is it that they believed also in the antient Church that it did not suffise to the salvation of a child to have communicated once and that it should be damned if they dit not reiterate the Communion What chymeras do men invent rather then give place to truth and confesse their errors with sincerity But to what end do they throw us here upon the question of the necessity of the Eucharist and upon the errour they would have Saint Cyprian to have been incident to in this point Grant it were true that this holy Martyr and the Church in his time should have believed the Communion absolutely necessary to infants what advantage would M. du Bourdieu draw from thence and who dos not on the contrary see that if the two species be essentiall to Communion as the Pretended Reformers would have it the more one shall believe the Communion necessary to little children the lesse will he be dispenced with in giving them both these species M. du Bourdieu foresaw verry well this consequence so contrary to his pretentions and in his second reply he would divine though Saint Cyprian has sayd nothing of it and against the whole connection of his discourse that this little girle when she was so cruelly and so miraculously tormented after the taking of the Blood had already received the Body without receiving any prejudice thereby where is a man when he makes such answers But why do wee dispute any longer There is no better proofe nor better interpreter of a custome then the custome it selfe I would say that there is nothing which demonstrates more that a custome comes from the first ages then when it is seen to continue successively to the last This of communicating little children under the sole species of wine which wee finde established in the III. age and in the time of Saint Cyprian continued alwayes so common that it is found in all after ages It is found in the V. or VI. Jobius de Verb. incar lib. III. c. 18. Bibl. Phot. Cod. 222. age in the book of Jobius where that learned Religious speaking of the three Sacraments which were given togeather in a time when the Christian Religion being established very few others were baptised no more then at present but the children of the faithfull speakes thus They baptise us sayes he after that they anoint us that is they confirme us and lastly they give us the pretious Blood He makes no mention of the Body becaus it was not given to children And for this reason he takes great care in the same place to explaine how the Blood may be given even before the Body a thing which having no place in the communion of those of riper yeares was found only in that which the Faithfull had all of them received in receiving the Blood alone in their infancy So that this custome has already passed
keeping of the Eucharist under the sole species of bread in particular houses confirmes what ought to be beleeved of the keeping of it in the Church or the Bishops houses for the use of the sick and such practises which sustaine one another so well put the doctrine of the Church out of all dispute All that the Ministers answer hereto serves only to discover their incumbrance They all accuse with one accord this custome of profanation and abuse even after they had established it as universall for many ages Hist Euch. I. P. ch 11. pag. 159. ch 14. p. 175. Bourd rep ch 19. and what is yet more strange during the purest times of Christianity This answer refutes it selfe and it will be an easy matter to grant it seeing the whole consists in this to know whether all the Martyrs were profane persons or whether the Ministers who accuse them be not temerarious Calixtus and M. Calixt n. 11. Bourd rép ch 19. Conc. Caesaraug C. III. Conc. Tol. I. C. XIV T. II. Conc. du Bourdieu who exactely followes him mention two Canons of the Church of Spain one of the Council of Saragoza and the other of the first Council of Toledo where those who do not swallow the Eucharist received from the hands of the Bishop are expelled as sacrilegious and excommunicated persons M. Hist Euch. I. P. ch 14. p. 174. de la Roque answers them that he dos not beleeve this Canon of Saragoza was made to abolish the custome of carrying away the Eucharist and keeping of it And he sayes the same afterwards of the first Council of Toledo which he proves from the eleaventh Canon of the eleventh Council held at the same place Conc. Tol. XI C. XI T. VI. Conc. And though the opinions of M. de la Roque were not to be relyed upon it is sufficiently cleare that these two Councils held in the IV. age or there about could not have detested as a sacrilege a custom which all the Fathers shew us to have been common in those times as wee have proved by the acknowledgement even of the Ministers themselves In fine these Councils speake not of those who receiving in the Church a part of the consecrated bread reserve another part for domestick communion but of those who receiving the communion from the hands of the Bishop swallow none at all of it Behold what these Councils forbid and it is not difficult to guesse at the motives of this their prohibition seeing the I. Council of Toledo which in the XIII Canon so severely blames those who affected in assisting at the Church never to communicate there when it condemnes in the following Canon as sacrilegious persons those who swallow not the communion after they have received it from the hand of the Priest makes it known sufficiently by this connection that its intention was to condemne another manner of avoiding the communion so much the worse because it shewed either a sacrilegious hipocricy or too visible an aversion to this holy mystery These unfortunate people who so obstinately avoided the communion were the Priscillianistes hereticks of those times and places who mixed themselves ordinarily with the faithfull But if they will not grant this to have been the motive of that Canon they cannot at least deny but there are other evill motives not to swallow the Eucharist which might be condemned in these Councils A man may refraine from the Eucharist out of superstition he may reserve it to abuse it he may reject it out of infidelity and the XI Council of Toledo informes us that it was such a sacrilege which the first condemned These or the like abuses taken notice on in certain places might have given occasion to local prohibitions which brought no prejudice to the customes of other countryes and it is certain moreover that what is practised in one place as well as in one time with reverence may be so badly practised in another time and place that it shall be rejected as sacrilegious Therefore in what manner soever a man will take these Canons they do not in any sort authorise the errour of them who would make the practises of the holy Martyrs and of the whole antient Church passe for an abuse and who can finde no other answer to an invincible argument but in condemning their proceedings M. du Bourdieu endeavours to come of by an other evasion no lesse impertinent He would have it be beleeved that the faithfull communicated under both species in these domestick communions and reserved them both Rep. ch 18. for which he brings after Calixtus four testimonyes Just apol 2. that of Saint Justinus who sayes that after consecration in the Church the Deacons carryed the two species to them that were absent That of S. Gregory the great Greg. Dial. III. c. 136. who relates that in a voyage from Rome to Constantinople and in a great tempest the faithfull received the Body and the Blood that of Amphilochius who tells us in the life of S. I. vit Basile that a Jew jayning himselfe to the faithfull in their assembly carryed away to is house some of the remainders of the Body and Blood and lastly that of Saint Gregory of Nazianzen who relates of his sister Saint Gorgonia that she mixed with her teares what she had gathered of the species or symboles of the Body and Blood Naz. he ought to have translated it of the Body or the Blood as it is in the text and not of the Body and the Blood as he has done thereby to insinuate that both the one and the other were reserved togeather Of these four examples the two first are manifestly nothing to our subject Wee have already remarked with M. de la Roque that in the example of Saint Justinus the two species t is true were carryed but presently after they had been consecrated by which it dos not appeare that they kept them which is precisely our question To shew that in the passage mentioned by Saint Gregory the faithfull had kept the two species in their vesselle from Rome to Constantinople it ought before to have been certain that there was no Priest in this vesselle who could celebrate or that Maximian of whom Saint Gregory speakes in this place was none though he was the Superieur of a Monastery This great Pope sayes nothing of these circumstances and leaves us the liberty to supply them by other reasons of which the principall is drawn from that impossibility already so often remarked of keeping so little quantity of consecrated wine so long a time What M. du Bourdieu sayes here that they durst not have celebrated in a ship showes that he searches only to cavil without so much as considering that even at present wee celebrate in all sort of places when there is a reason for it So that of these four examples behold two of them already uselesse The two others with the passages of Baronius and the
learned Aubespinus Bishop of Orleans with which they defend them may verry well prove that the blood was not refused to the faithfull to carry with them if they required it for upon what account should they also refuse it and beleeve that the Sacred Body with which they trusted them was more pretious then the Blood but can never prove that they could keepe it any long time since that nature it selfe opposed it nor that it was the custome to do it the Church being so well persuaded the communion was equall under one or both species that the least difficulty made them determine to give it either in the one or the other kind Wee see also in that passage of Saint Gregory of Nazianzen that the dos not say that his sister watered the Body and the Blood with her teares as if it had been certain she had the one and the other but the Body or the Blood to shew that he did not know which of the two she had in her keeping it being ordinary to reserve the body only What serves it therefore to cavil as a constant practise Truth ought alwayes at the last to come to light And M. de la Roque he who of all the Ministers has examined this matter with most exactnesse ingeniously confesses that the faithfull carryed home the bread of the Eucharist to take it when they would Hist Euch. I. P. ch 12. p. 159. saving himselfe as well as he can from the consequence by the remarke he makes that this abusive and particular custome cannot prejudice the general practise and that even those who carryed the Eucharist home dit not probably do it till after they had eaten a part in the assembly and participated of the Chalice of our Lord. Calixtus brings himselfe of with the same answer almost Disp num 10. At the beginning of the treatise he has given us about communion in both kinds he had candidly owned that some reserved the sacred bread to eat it either in their houses or on a journey and after having related many passages amongst others that of S. Basil which suffers no evasion he had concluded that it was certain from these passages that some moved by a religious affection towards the Eucharist carryed away with them a part of the consecrated bread or of the holy symbole There is no body who reading these passages even in Calixtus himselfe dos not see that these whom he cals so slyly some are the whole Church and when he adds that this custome was tolerated some time this which he cals some time is as much as to say four or five hundred yeares and that in the time of the greatest purity and this which he cals tolerated is no other then universally received in these beautifull ages of the Church no body ever attempting either to blame them or to say that this communion was unsufficient In the sequel of his dispute Calixtus chafes and labours to prove by the examples already refuted that this communion might be made under the two species But he returnes at last to the solution which he at first had given that the faithfull who communicated under the sole species of bread in their houses had received the species of wine in the Church and that there is no example that they ever communicated publickly under one species for a thousand or cleaven hundred yeares As if it did not suffice to convince him that communion under one species had been declared perfect and sufficient or that it was permitted to communicate contrary to the order of JESUS-CHRIST and to divide his mystery in the house rather then in the Church or lastly that this parcelle of sacred Bread which was taken in private in the house was not given at the Church it selfe and by the hands of the Pastors for that use Behold the vaine Cavills by which these Ministers think to elude a manifest truth but I will not leave them in their errour as to publick communion and although it suffise to have for us this communion taken in private with the approbation of the whole Church wee shall presently se that communion under one species was no lesse free in solemne assemblyes then in the house § V. Fourth Custome Communion at the Church and in the ordinary Office I Place therefore as the fourth practise that in the Church it selfe and in the assemblyes of Christians it was free for them to receive either both species or one only The Manicheans abhorred wine which they beleeved was created by the Devill The same Manicheans denyed that the son of God had shed his Blood for our redemption beleeving that his Passion was nothing but an illusion and a phantastical appearence These two reasons gave an aversion from the pretious Blood of our Lord which was received in the Mysteryes under the species of wine And as to hide themselves the better sayes Saint Leo and to spread more easily their venom they mixed themselves with Catholicks even to communicate with them so they received the Body of our Lord only avoiding to drink the Blood by which wee were redeemed This fraudulent proceeding of theirs could hardly be discovered because Catholicks themselves did not all of them communicate under both species At the last it was taken notice of that these Hereticks dit it out of affectation in so much that the Holy Pope S. Leo the Great would that those who were known as such by this marke should be expelled the Church and Saint Gelasius his disciple and successour was obliged to forbid expressely to communiacte any other wayes then under both species a signe that the thing was free before and that they would not have thought of making this ordinance but to take from the Manicheans the meanes of deceiving This practise is of the V. I. Part. ch 11. p. 144. age M. de la Roque and others relate it togeather with the judgement of these two Popes and take their advantage from it But on the contrary this practise shews clearly that there was need of a particular reason to oblige the faithfull to a necessity of communicating under both species and that the thing was indifferently practised both wayes before otherwise the Manicheans would immediately have too much exposed themselves and could not have expected to be suffered But if it had been freely permitted say the Ministers to communicate under the sole species of bread when they would the Manicheans could not have been distinguished by this marke as if there were no difference betwixt a liberty to receive one or both species and a perpetuall affectation of these Hereticks obstinately to refuse the consecrated wine What an effect of prejudice is this not to observe wilfully a thing so manifest T is true that this liberty being allowed there must have been time and a particular vigilance to discerne these hereticks from amongst the faithfull And this was also the reason of the long continuance of their deceit and that which
Alcuinus or in that antient author whose explication of that booke wee have under his name in Amalarius in Abbot Rupert in Hugo de Sainto Victore what wee practise even to this very day that they dit not consecrate upon Good Fryday but that they reserved for communion the Body of our Lord consecrated the day before and that they received it upon Good Fryday in unconsecrated wine It is expressely remarked in all these places that the Body only was reserved without reserving the Blood the reason of which is sayes Hugo de Sainto Victore Hug. de S. Vict. erud Theol. l. III. c. 20. that the Body and the Blood are received under each species and that the species of wine cannot be kept with security This last reason wee finde in one of the editions of Amalarius which is no lesse his then the others this Author having frequently reviewd his book severall of which so reviewed have been preserved to our dayes Such was likewise the practise of Jonas Bishop of Orleans and of many other Authors and without troubling our selves with these criticismes the matter of fact is that Amalarius after divers mysticall reasons which he brings for this custome according to the example of other Authors concludes that it may be said yet more sincerely that the consecrated wine is not reserved because it is more subject to alteration then the bread Which confirmes in short all what wee have shown tooching the communion of the sick under the sole species of bread and shews verry vell that the Eucharist which was constantly kept for them during many dayes according to the spirit of the Church could not be kept for them under the species of wine since they feare even that change which might happen to it from one day to the next that is from Thursday to Good Fryday I might here take notice that the Church endeavours not only to avoid the corruption of the species which change the nature and the necessary matter of the Sacrament but also every change which makes the least alteration in them being desirous out of respect to this Sacrament that all there should be pure and propper and that the least even sensible disrelish should not be suffered in a Mystery where JESUS-CHRIST was to be the banquet But these remarkes being little necessary to our subject are for another place and it suffises us to see here that they reserved at that time as wee do to this verry day do nothing but the sacred Body for the service upon Good Fryday Neverthelesse it is certain by all the Authors and by all the passages wee have lately quoted that the Priest the whole Clergy and all the people communicated this holy day and by consequence communicated under one species only This custome appeares principally in the Gallican Church since most of these Authors were of it so that it ought to finde a particular veneration amongst us but it would be too visable in abusing ones selfe to say that a custome so firmely established in the VIII age had no higher a beginning Wee finde not the originall wherefore if that opinion which beleeves communion under one species to be sacrilegious should be admitted wee must say that the primitive Church had purposely made choyce of Good Fryday the day of our Blessed Saviours death on which she might profane a Mystery instituted in memory of it They communicated after the same manner upon Easter Eve seeing that on the one side it is certain by all Authors that Good Fryday and Easter Eve were dayes of communion for all the people and on the other side it is no lesse constant that they did not Sacrifise during these two dayes A thing which occasions that even at this day wee have no proper Masse in our Missel for Easter Eve So that they communicated under the sole species of Bread kept from Holy Thursday and if wee will believe our Reformers they prepared themselves for a Paschal communion by two sacrilegious ones The Monks of Clugny as holy as they were did no better then others and the book of their customs once already cited in this discourse showes that six hundred yeares since they did not communicate at that holy time but under one sole species These practises let us see sufficiently the universall custome of the Latine Church But the Greeks go yet further They do not consecrate upon fasting dayes to the end they may not mixe the joy and solemnity of the Sacrifice with the sorrowfulnesse of a fast From whence it is that in the time of Lent they do not consecrate but upon Sundayes and on Saturdayes upon which they fast not Upon other dayes they offer the Sacrament reserved on those two solemne dayes which they call the imperfect Masse or the Masse of the Presanctified because the Eucharist which they offer in these dayes had been consecrated and sanctifyed in the two precedent dayes and in the Masse they call perfect The antiquity of this observance cannot be contested being it appeares in the VI. age in the Councile in Trullo Conc. Trull c. 52. where wee see the fondation of it from the IV. age in the Council of Laodicea Conc. Laod. c. 49.91 and there is nothing more remarkable amongst the Greeks then this Masse of the Presanctified If wee would at present know what it is they offerd there wee have no more to do then to read in their Euchologes and in Bibliotheca Patrum the antient Liturgies of the Presanctified Euch. Goat Bibl. PP Paris T. II and wee shall there see that they reserved nothing but the sacred Bread It is the sacred Bread which they carry from the Sacristy it is the sacred Bread which they elevate which they adore and which they incense it is the sacred Bread which they mix without saying any prayer with unconsecrated wine and water and which in fine they distribute to the people In so much that all the Lent that most holy time of the yeare they communicated five dayes of the weeke under the sole species of Bread I know not why some of the Latins have undertaken to blame this custome of the Greeks which neither the Popes nor Councils ever reprehended and on the contrary the Latin Church having followed this custome upon Good Fryday it is manifest that this Office with the manner of communicating practised in it is consecrated by the tradition of both Churches What is here most remarkable is that though it be so apparent that the Greeks receive not any thing upon these dayes but the Body of our Lord yet they change nothin in their ordinary formularyes The sacred guifts are allwayes named in the plurall and they speake no lesse there in their prayers of the Body and the Blood so stedfastly is it imprinted in the minds of Christians that they cannot receive one of the species without receiving at the same time not only the vertue but the substance also both of the one and the
other It is true the moderne Greeks explane thēselves other wayes and appeare not for the most part very favourable to communion under one species but it is in this the force of truth appeares the greater since that in despite of them their own customes their own Liturgies their own Traditions pronounce sentence against them But is it not true will some say that they put some drops of the pretious Blood in forme of a Crosse upon the parcells of the sacred Body which they reserve for the following dayes and for the Office of Presanctified It is true they do it for the most part but it is true at the same time that this custome is new amongst them and that in the substance to examin it entirely it concludes nothing against us It concludes nothing against us because besides that two or three drops of consecrated wine cannot be preserved any long time the Greekes take care immediately after they have dropped them upon the consecrated bread to dry it upon a chafendish and to reduce it to powder for it is in that manner they keep it as well for the sick as for the Office of the Presanctified A certain signe that the authors of this Tradition had not in prospect by this mixture the Communion under both species which they would have given in another manner if they had beleeved them necessary but indeed the expression of some mystery such as might be the Resurrection of our Lord which all Liturgyes both Greeke and Latin figured by the mixture of the Body and the Blood in the Chalice because the death of our Lord arriving by the effusion of his Blood this mixture of his Body and his Blood is very proper to represent how this man-God tooke life again I should be ashamed to mention here all the vaine subtilityes of the modern Greeks and the false arguments they make about the wine and about its more grosse and more substantiall parts which remain after the sollid bodyes with which wine may be mixed bacome dryed from whence they conclude that a like effect is produced in the species of consecrated wine and therefore that the Blood of our Lord may remain in the sacred Bread even after it has been upon the chafendish and is entirely drye By these wise reasonings the Lees and the Tartar orsalt would still be wine and a lawfull matter for the Eucharist Must wee thus argued concerning the mysteryes of JESUS-CHRIST It was wine as properly called so that is a liquid and flowing wine which JESUS-CHRIST instituted for the matter of his Sacrament It is a liquor which he has given us to represent to our eyes his Blood which was shedd and the simplicity of the Gospell will not suffer these subtilityes of the modern Grecians It must also be acknowledged they arrived to this but of very late and moreover that the custome of putting these drops of consecrated Wine upon the Bread of the Eucharist was not established amongst them but since their schisme The Patriarch Michael Cerularius who may be called the true author of this schisme writes notwithstanding in a booke which he composed in defence of the Office of the Presanctified That the sacred Breads Synodic seu Pand. Guill Bevereg Oxon. 1672. Not. in Can. 52. Conc. which are beleeved to be and which are in effect the quickning Body of our Lord must be kept for this sacrifice Trull T. II. p. 156. Leo All. Ep. ad Nihus without sprincling one drop of the pretious Blood upon them And wee finde notes upon the Councils by a famous Canonist who was one of the Clergy belonging to the Church of Constantinople in which he expressely takes notice that according to the doctrine of Blessed John Patriarch of Constantinople The pretious Blood must not be sprincled upon the Presanctified which they would reserve Harmenop Ep. Can. sect 2. Tit. 6. and this said he is the practise of our Church So that let the modern Grecians say what they please their tradition is expressly against this mixture and according to their own authors and their own proper tradition there remains not so much as a pretense to defend the necessity of the two species in the Presanctified mysteries For can any one so much as conceive what Patriarch Michael in the worke by us newly cited sayes That the wine in which they mix the Body reserved is changed into the pretious Blood by this mixing without so much as prononcing upon the wine as appeares by the Euchologes and by Michaels own confession any one of the mystick and sanctifying prayers that is to say without prononcing the words of consecration bee they what they will for it is not to our purpose to dispute here of them A prodigious and unheard of opinion that a Sacrament can be made without words contrary to the authority of the Scripture and the constant tradition of all Churches which neither the Grecians nor any body else ever called in question By how much therefore wee ought to reverence the antient traditions of the Grecians which descend to them from their fathers and from those times whilst they were united to us by so much ought wee to dispise those errours into which they are falne in the following ages weakned and blinded by schisme I need not here relate them because the Protestants themselves do nor deny but that they are great and I should recede too far from my subject But I will only say to do justice to the modern Grecians that they do not all hold this grosse opinion of Michaels and that it is not an universall opinion amongst them that the wine is changed into the Blood by this mixture of the Body notwithstanding that Scripture and Tradition assigne a particular benediction by words as well to it as to the Body Wee are much lesse to beleeve that the Latins who exposed to us but even now the Office of Good Fryday could be fallen into this errour since they explicate themselves quite contrary in expresse words and to the end wee may omit nothing wee must again in few words propose their sentiments It is true then that wee finde in the Ordo Romanus and in this Office of Good Fryday that the unconsecrated wine is sanctifyed by the sanctifyed bread which is mixed with it The same is found in the bookes of Alcuinus and Amalarius upon the Divine Office Alc. de Div. Off. Amal. lib. r. de Div. Off. Bib. PP de Div. Off. But upon the least reflection made of the doctrine they teach in these same bookes it will be granted that 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 Blood but a sanctification of another nature and of a much inferiour order such as that is of which Saint Bernard speakes when he sayes that the Wine mixed with the consecrated Hoste Bern. Ep. 69. p. 92.
Acts of the Apostles that the three thousand and five thousand who were converted at the first Sermons of Saint Peter were baptised after any other manner and the great number of these converts is no proofe that they were baptised by sprinkling as some would conjecture For besides that nothing obliges us to affirme they were all baptised upon the same day it is certain that Saint John Baptist who baptised no lesse then they since all Judea flocked to him did notwithstanding baptise them by immersion or dipping and his example has showed us that to baptise a great nomber of man they were accustomed to make choice of a place where there was much water to which wee may further add that the baths and purifications of the antients and principally those of the Jewes rendred this ceremony facile and familiar in this time In fine wee read not in the Scriptures of any other manner of baptising and wee can shew by the acts of Councils and by antient Rituells that for thirteen hundred yeares the whole Church baptised after this manner as much as it was possible The very word also which is used in the Rituells to expresse the action of Godfathers and Godmothers when they say that they elevate the child from the font of Baptisme shows sufficiently that it was the custome to immerge or dipp them in it Though these truths be without dispute yet neither wee nor the pretended Reformers regarde the Anabaptists who hold that this immersion is essentiall and no wayes to be dispensed with and neither the one nor the other of us have any difficulty to change this plunging if I may call it so of the whole body into a meere sprinckling or a powring upon some part of the body No other reason can be given for this change but that this immersion or dipping is not essentiall to Baptisme and the pretended Reformers agreeing herein the first principle wee have layd must be also without contest § II. Second Principle To know the substance or essence of a Sacrament wee must regarde the essentiall effect THE second principle is that to distinguish what appertaines or do's not appertaine to the substance of a Sacrament wee must regard the essentiall effect of that Sacrament Thus though the words of JESUS-CHRIST Baptise signify immerge or dipp as has beene already said yet it was beleeved that the effect of the Sacrament was not restrained to the quantity of the water so that Baptisme by infusion and sprinckling or by immersion or dipping appearing in substance to have the same effect both the one and the other manner is judged vallid But as wee have said no essentiall effect of the Body distinct from that of the Blood can be found in the Eucharist so that the Grace both of the one and the other in the ground and in substance can be no other but the same It is nothing to the purpose to say that the representation of the death of our Lord is more exactly expressed in the two species I grant it in like manner the representation of new birth of the faithfull is more exactly expressed by immersion or dipping then by meere infusion or sprinckling For the faithfull being dipped or plunged in the water of Baptisme is buryed with JESUS-CHRIST Rom. 6.4 Coloss 2.12 according to the expression of the Apostle and the same faithfull coming out of the waters comes out of the Grave with his Saviour and represents more perfectly the mystery of JESUS-CHRIST that regenerated him Immersion by which water is applyed to the whole body and to all its parts do's also more perfectly signify that a man is fully and entirely washed from his spotts And yet Baptisme given by immersion or plunging is of no more vallue then Baptisme given by meere infusion and upon one only part it suffises that the expression of the mystery of JESUS-CHRIST and of the effect of Grace be found in substance in the Sacrament and that an ultimate exactnesse of representation is not there requisite Thus in the Eucharist the signification of the death of our Lord being found in substance when the Body delivered for us in given to us and an expression of the Grace of the Sacrament being also found when under the species of Bread the image of our spirituall nourishment is administred unto us the Blood which dos nothing but add to it a more expresse signification is not there absolutely necessary This is what is manifestly proved by the very words of our Lord and the reflection of Saint Paul when relating these words 1. Cor. 11.25.26 Do this in remembrance of me he immediately after concludes that so often as wee eat this Bread and drinke this Cupp wee shew forth the death of our Lord. Thus according to the interpretation of the Disciple the Masters intention is that when he ordaines wee should be mindfull of him wee should be mindfull of his death To the end therefore wee may rightly understand wheather the remembrance of this death consists in the sole participation of the whole mystery or in the participation of either of its parts wee need but consider that our Saviour dos not expect till the whole mystery be ended and the whole Eucharist received in both its parts before he sayes Ibid. 24.25 Do this in remembrance of me Saint Paul remarked that at each part he expressely ordained this remembrance For after having said Eat This is my Body do this in remembrance of me in giving the Blood he again repeates As often as you shall drinke this do it in remembrance of me declaring unto us by this repetition that wee shew forth his death in the participation of each kinde From whence it followes that when Saint Paul concludes from these words that in eating the Body and drinking the Blood wee shew forth the death of the Lord wee must understand that this death is not only shown forth by taking the whole but also by taking either part and the rather because it is otherwise apparent that in this mysticall separation which JESUS-CHRIST has signifyed by his words the Body seperated from the Blood and the Blood seperated from the Body have the same effect to shew forth the violent death of our Lord. So that if there be a more distinct expression in receiving the whole Representation more pressing it dos not cease neverthelesse to be true that by the reception of either part his death is wholy and entire represented and the whole Grace applyed to us But if any here demande to what purpose then was the institution of both species and this more lively represention of the death of our Lord which wee have here remarked it is that they will not reflect of one quality of the Eucharist well known to the antients though rejected by our Reformers All the antients beleeved that the Eucharist was not only a nourishment but also a sacrifice and that it was offered to God in consecrating of it before it was
of this Body and this Blood coming from his death he would conserve the image of this death when he gave us them in his holy Supper and by so lively a representation keepe us alwayes in minde to the cause of our salvation that is to say the sacrifise of the Crosse According to this doctrine wee ought to have our living victime under an image of death otherwise wee should not be enlivened JESUS-CHRIST tells us also at his holy table I am living but I have beene dead Apoc. 1.11 and living in effect I beare only upon wee the image of that death which I have endured It is also thereby that I enliven because by the figure of my death once suffered I introduce those who beleeve to that life which I possesse eternally Thus the Lambe who is before the Throne as dead Apoc. 5.6 or rather as slaine do's not cease to be living for he is slanding and he sends throughout the world the seaven Spirits of God and he takes the booke and opens it and he fils heaven and earth with joy and with grace Our Reformers will not or it may be cannot yet understand so high a mystery for it enters not into the hearts but of those who are prepared by a purifyed Faith But if they cannot understand it they may at least understand very well that wee cannot beleeve a reall presence of the Body and Blood of JESUS-CHRIST without admitting all the other things wee have even now explicated and these things thus explicated is what wee call concomitancy But as soone as concomitancy is supposed and that wee have acknowledged JESUS-CHRIST whole and entire under each species it is verry easy to understand in what the vertue of this Sacrament consists John VI. 64. Cvr. lib. IV. in Joh. c. 34. Ia. Anath XI Conc. Eph. p. I. T. III. Conc. The flesh profiteth nothing and if wee understand it as Saint Cyrille whose sence was followed by the whole Council of Ephesus it profiteth nothing to beleeve it alone to believe it the flesh of a pure man but to believe it the flesh of God a flesh full of divinity and by consequence of spirit and of life it profiteth very much without doubt because in this state it is full of an infinite vertue and in it wee receive togeather with the entire humanity of JESUS-CHRIST his divinity also whole and entire and the very source or fountaine of graces For this reason it is the Son of God who knew what he would place in his mystery knew also very well how to make us understand in what he would place the vertue of it What he has said in Saint John must therefore be no more objected John 6.54 If you eate not the Flesh of the Son of man and drinke not his Blood you shall not have life in you The manifest meaning of these words is there is no life for those who seperate themselves from the one and the other for indeede it is not the eating and drinking but the receiving of JESUS-CHRIST that gives life JESUS-CHRIST sayes himselfe and as it is excellently remarked by the Councill of Trent Sess XXI c. 1. too injustly calumniated by our adversaryes He who said John 6.54 IF YOU EATE NOT THE FLESCH OF THE SON OF MAN AND DRINKE NOT HIS BLOOD YOU SHALL NOT HAVE LIFE IN YOU has also said Ibid. 52. IF ANY ONE EAT OF THIS BREAD HE SHALL HAVE LIFE EVERLASTING And he who said Ibid. 55. HE WHO EATES MY FLESH AND DRINKES MY BLOOD HAS ETERNALL LIFE Ibid. 52. has said also THE BREAD WHICH I WILL GIVE IS MY FLESH WHICH I WILL GIVE FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD And lastly he who said Ibid. 57. HE THAT EATES MY FLESH AND DRINKES MY BLOOD REMAINES IN ME AND I IN HIM has also said HE WHO EATES THIS BREAD Ibid. 59. SHALL HAVE ETERNALL LIFE and againe Ibid. 58. HE THAT EATES ME LIVES FOR ME AND SHALL LIVE BY ME. By which he obliges us not to the eating and drinking at his holy Table or to the species which containe his Body and his Blood but to his propper substance which is there communicated to us and togeather with it grace and life So that this passage of Saint John from whence as wee have said Jacobel tooke occasion to revolt and all Bohemia to rise in rebellion becomes a proofe for us The Pretended Reformers themselves would undertake to defend us if wee would against this passage so much boasted of by Jacobel seeing they owne with a common consent this passage is not to be understood of the Eucharist Calvin has said it Cal. Inst IV. c. Aub. lib. I. de Sacr. Euch. c. 30. c. Aubertin has said it every one says it and M. du Bourdieu says it also in his Treatise so often cited Repl. ch VI. p. 201. But without taking any advantage from their acknowledgements wee on the contrary with all antiquity maintaine that a passage where the Flesh and Blood as well as eating and drinking are so often and so clearly distinguished cannot be understood meerely of a communion where eating and drinking is the same thing such as is a spirituall Communion and by faith It belongs therefore to them and not to us to defend themselves from the authority of this passage where the businesse being to explicate the vertue and the fruict of the Eucharist it appeares that the Son of God places them not in eating and drinking nor in the manner of receiving his Body and his Blood but in the foundation and in the substance of both the one and the other Whereupon the antient Fathers for example Saint Cyprian he who most certainly gave nothing but the Blood alone to little infants as wee have seene so precisely in his Treatise De lapsis Test. ad Quir. III. 25.20 dos not omit to say in the same Treatise that the parents who led their children to the sacrifises of Idols deprived them of the Body and Blood of our Lord and teaches also in another place that they actually fulfill and accomplish in those who have life and by consequence in infants by giving them nothing but the Blood all that which is intended by these words If you eate not my Flesh and drink not my Blood you shall not have life in you Aug. Ep. 23. Saint Augustin sayes often the same thing though he had seene and examined in one of his Epistles that passage of Saint Cyprian where he speakes of the Communion of infants by Blood alone without finding any thing extraordinary in this manner of communion and that it is not to be doubted but the African Church where Saint Augustin was Bishop had retained the Tradition which Saint Cyprian so great a Martyr Bishop of Carthage and Primate of Africa had left behind him The foundation of this is that the Body and Blood inseperably accompany each other for although the species which
containe particularly the one or the other in vertue of the institution are taken seperately their substance can be no more seperated then their vertue and their grace in so much that infants in drinking only the Blood do not only receive the essentiall fruit of the Eucharist but also the whole substance of this Sacrament and in a word an actuall and perfect Communion All these things shew sufficiently the reason wee have to believe that Communion under one or both species containes togeather with the substance of this Sacrament the whole effect essentiall to it The practise of all ages which have explained it in this manner has its reason grounded both in the foundation of the mystery and in the words themselves of JESUS-CHRIST and never was any custome established upon more sollid foundations nor upon a more constant practise § X. Some objections solved by the precedent Doctrine I Do not wonder that our Reformers who acknowlege nothing but bare signes in the bread and wine of their Supper endeavour by all meanes to have them both but I am astonished that they will not understand that in placing as wee do JESUS-CHRIST entirely under each of these sacred Symboles wee can content our selves with one of the two M. Exam. Tr. VI. Sect. 6. p. 480. 481. Jurieux objects against us that the reall presence being supposed the Body and the Blood would in reality be received under the Bread alone but that yet this would not suffise because t is true this would be to receive the Blood but not the Sacrament of the Blood this would be to receive JESUS-CHRIST wholy entirely really but not sacramentally as they call it Is it possible that a man should believe it is not enough for a Christian to receive entire JESUS-CHRIST Is it not a Sacrament where JESUS-CHRIST is pleased to be in person thereby to bring with himselfe all his graces to place the vertue of this Sacrament in the signes with which he is vailed rather then in his proper person which he gives us wholy and entirely Is not this I say contrary to what he himselfe has said with his own mouth John 6.57.58 he who eates of this Bread shall have eternall life and he who eates me shall live for me and by me as I my selfe live for my Father and by my Father But if M. Jurieux maintaine in despite of these words that it dos not suffise to have JESUS-CHRIST if wee have not in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood the perfect image of his death as he do's nothing in that but repete an objection alread cleared so I send him to the answers I have given to this argument and to the undeniable examples I have set down to shew that by the avouched confession of his Churches when the substance of the Sacrament is received the ultimate perfection of its signification is no more necessary But if this principle be true even in those very Sacraments were JESUS-CHRIST is not really and substantially contained as in that of Baptisme how much the rather is it certain in the Eucharist where JESUS-CHRIST is present in his person and what is it he can desire more who possesses him entirely But in fine will some say there must not be such arguing upon expresse words Seing it is your sentiment that the VI. chapter of Saint John ought to be understood of the Eucharist you cannot dispence with your selves in the practise of it as to the letter and to give the Blood to drinke as well as the Body to eat seing JESUS-CHRIST has equally prononced both of the one and of the other If you eat not my Body and drinke not my Blood you shall have no life in you Let us once stop the mouths of these obstinate and contentious spirits who will not understand these words of JESUS-CHRIST by their whole connexion I demande of them whence it comes they do not by these words believe Communion absolutely necessary for the salvation of all men yea even of little infants newly baptised If nothing must be explicated let us give to them the Communion as well as to others and if it must be explicated let us explicate all by the same rule I say by the same rule because the same principle and the same authoritè from which wee learne that Communion in generall is not necessary to the salvation of those who have received Baptisme teach us that the particular Communion of the Blood is not necessary to those who have been already partakers of the Body The principle which shews us that the Communion is not necessary to the salvation of little infants baptized is that they have already received the remission of sins and a new life in Baptisme because they have beene thereby regenerated and sanctifyed in so much that if they should perish for want of being communicated they would perish in the state of innocence and grace The same principle shews also that he who has received the Bread of life has no neede of receiving the sacred Blood seing as wee have frequently demonstrated he has received togeather with the Bread of life the whole substance of the Sacrament and togeather with that fubstance the whole essentiall vertue of the Eucharist The substance of the Eucharist is JESUS-CHRIST himselfe The vertue of the Eucharist is to nourish the soule to conserve therein that new life it has received in Baptisme to confirme the union with JESUS-CHRIST and to replenish even our bodyes with sanctity and life I aske whether in the very moment the Body of our Lord is received all these effect be not likewise received and whether the Blood can add thereunto any thing essentiall Behold what regards the principle let us come now to what regards the authority The authority which persuades us that Communion is not so necessary to the salvation of little infants as Baptisme is the authority of the Church It is in effect this authority which carryes with it in the Tradition of all ages the true meaning of the Scripture and as this authority has taught us that he who is baptised wants not any thing necessary to salvation so dos it also teach us that he who receives one sole species wants none of those effects which the Eucharist ought to produce in us From hence in the very primitive times they communicated either under one or under both species without believing they hazarded any thing of that grace which they ought to receive in the Sacrament Wherefore though it be writt If you do not eate my Body and drinke my Blood John 6.54 you shall have no life in you it is also writt after the same manner John 3.8 If a man be not regenerated of water and the Holy Ghost he shall not enter into the Kingdome of God The Church hath not understoud an equall necessity in these two Sentences on the contrary she alwayes understood that Baptisme which gives life is more necessary then the Eucharist
had consecrated the Bread in saying This is my Body in such sort that it cannot enter into the minde of a man of sense that it could ever be beleeved in the Church the Wine was consecrated without words by the sole mixture with the Body from whence it followes that it was under the Bread alone that our Fathers communicated upon Good Fryday § VII The sentiments and the practise of the last ages grounded upon the sentiments and practise of the primitive Church THUS many constant practises of the primitive Church thus many different circumstances whereby it appeares in particular and in publick and allwayes with an universall approbation and according to the established law that she gave the Communion under one species so many ages before the Council of Constance and from the origine of Christianity till the time of this Council do invincibly demonstrate that this Council did but follow the Tradition of all ages when it defined that the Communion under one kind was as good and sufficient as under both and that in which manner soever they tooke it they neither contradicted the institution of JESUS-CHRIST nor deprived themselves of the fruict of this Sacrament In matters of this nature the Church has allwayes beleeved she might change her laws according to the conjuncture of times and occurrences and upon this account after having left the Communion under one or both species as indifferent after having obliged to both species for particular reasons she has for other reasons reduced the faithfull to one sole species being ready to give both when the exigence of the Church shall require it as it appeares by the Decrees of the Council of Trent This Council after having decided that Communion under both species was not necessary Sess 21. post Canon proposes to it selfe to treat of two points The first whether it were convenient to grant the Cupp to some countrys and the second upon what conditions it might be granted They had an example of this concession in the Council of Basile where the Cupp was granted to the Bohemians upon condition they should acknowledge that JESUS-CHRIST was received wholy and entirely under each of the two species and that the reception of both the one and the other was not necessary It was therefore doubted a long time at Trent whether they should not grant the same thing to those of Germany and France who demanded it in hopes thereby more easily to reduce the Lutherans and the Calvinists In fine the Council judged it most expedient for many important reasons to remit the matter to the Pope Sess 22. in fine to the end he might do herein according as his prudence should dictate what might be the most advantagious to Christianity and the most convenient for the salvation of such as should make this demande In consequence to this Decree and according to the example of Paul the III. his successour Pius the IV. at the instance of the Emperour Ferdinand and some other Princes of Germany by his Breifs of the first of September 1563. sent a permission to some Bishops to render the Cupp to the Germans upon the conditions set down in these Breifs conformable to those of Basile if they found it profitable to the salvation of soules This was put in execution at Vienna in Austria and in some other places But it appeared presently that their mindes were to much exasperated to receive any profit from this remedy The Lutheran Ministers sought nothing but an occasion to cry in the eares of the people that the Church herselfe acknowledged she had been deceived whilst she had beleeved that the substance of the Sacrament was received entirely under one sole species a thing manifestly contrary to that declaration she exacted but passion makes prevaricated persons under take and belecve any thing So that they ceased to make use of that concession which the Pope had given with prudence and which it may be at another time in better dispositions would have had a better effect The Church which ought in all things to hold the ballance equall ought neither to make that appeare as indifferent which is essentiall nor that as essentiall which is not so and ought not to change her discipline but for an evident advantage to all her children and it is from this prudent dispensation whence all the changes are come which wee have remarked in the administration of one or both species THE SECOND PART Principles upon which are established the judgement and practise of the Church of which principles the Pretended Reformers make use as well as wee SUCH hath been the practise of the Church The Principles upon which this practise is founded are no lesse certain then the practise has been constant To the end that nothing of difficulty may remain in this matter I will not alledge any one Principle that the Reformers can call in question § I. First Principle There is nothing indispensable in the Sacraments but that which is of their substance or essentiall to them THE first Principle I establish is that in the administration of Sacraments wee are obliged to do not all that which JESUS-CHRIST hath done but only that which is essentiall to them This principle is without contest The Pretended Reformers do not immerge or dipp their infants in the water of Baptisme as JESUS-CHRIST was immerged or dipped in the river of Jourdan when Saint John baptised him neither do they give the Lords Supper at table or during Supper as JESUS-CHRIST did neither do they regard as necessary many other things which he observed But must especially it imports us to consider the ceremonyes of Baptisme which may serve for a ground to many things in this matter To baptise signifies to dippe or immerge and herein the whole world agree This ceremony is drawn from the purifications of the Jewes and as the most perfect purification did consist in a total immerging or dipping in water JESUS-CHRIST who come to sanctify and accomplish the antient ceremonyes was willing to choose this as the most significative and the most plane to expresse the remission of sins and the regeneration of a new man The Baptisme of Saint John which served as a preparative to this of JESUS-CHRIST was performed by dipping or immerging That prodigious multitude of people who flocked to this Baptisme Math. 3.5.6 Luk. 3.3 John 3.23 caused Saint John to make choice of the borders of Jordan and amongst those borders of the country of Annon neere to Salim because there was much water there and a great facility to immerge or dipp the men who came to consecrate themselves to Pennance by this holy ceremony When JESUS-CHRIST came to Saint John to the end that by receiving Baptisme he might elevate it to a more wonderfull effect Mat. 3.16 Mark 1.10 the Scriptures say that he ascended out of the waters of Jordan to denote that he had been wholy and entirely immerged or dipped It do's not appeare in the