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
this opinion was so far from universall that wee finde it strongly opposed by other authors of the same time Hug. de S. Vict. lib. I erud Theol. c. 20. Hist Euch. l. p. ch 11. p. 139. Fulg. Ep. ad Ferr. Diac. as by Hugo de Santo Victore cited in M. de la Roques booke and many others I could also tell you how these Authors have explicated S. Augustin according to S. Fulgentius and shew with them by expresse passages and by the whole doctrine of this Father how far he is from that errour they attribute to him But my designe is here to teach what wee ought to believe concerning the two species and not to trouble my selfe and my readers with these incident questions Therefore I enter not into them and without burdning my discourse with an un profitable examen I shall deliver in few words the fayth of the Church The Church did allwayes and dos still believe that infants are capable to receive the Eucharist as well as Baptisme and finds no more obstacle as to communion in these words of S. Paul 1. Cor. 11.22 Let a man examine himselfe and so let him eat then she finds as to Baptisme in these words of our Saviour Teach and baptise Mat. 22.19 But as she knows that the Eucharist cannot be absolutely necessary to their salvation after they have received a full remission of their sins in Baptisme she beleeves that it is a matter of discipline to give or not to give the communion at that age Whereupon for good reasons she gave it the space of eleaven or twelve hundred yeares and for other good reasons she ceased to give it from that time But the Church which found her selfe free to communicate or not to communicate children could never have beleeved she had liberty to communicate them in a manner contrary to the institution of JESUS-CHRIST nor would ever have given one only species if she had beleeved the two species inseparable by their institution In a word to disengage our selves at once from these unprofitable disputes when the Church gave the communion to little infants under the sole species of wine she either judged this Sacrament necessary to their salvation or she did not If she did not thinke it necessary why should she presse so to give it as to give it wrong And if she judged it necessary it is a new demonstration that she beleeved the whole effect of the Sacrament included under one sole species And further to shew this was her beliefe the same Church which gave the Eucharist to little children under the sole species of wine gave them it when more advanced in yeares without scrupule under the sole species of bread None is ignorant of the antient custome of the Church to give to innocent children that which remained of the Body of our Lord after the communion of the faithfull Some Churches burnt these sacred remainders and such was the custome of the Church of Jerusalem as Hesychius Priest of that Church relates Hesych in Levit. lib. II. 68. JESUS-CHRIST is absolutely above all corruption but humain sense demanded that out of respect to this Sacrament that should be observed which least offends the senses and it was thought much better to burne these sacred remainders then to see them changed by keeping them after a manner lesse becoming That which the Church of Jerusalem consumed by fire the Church of Constantinople gave to be consummated by little children looking upon them in that age where their baptismal grace was entire as its most holy vessells Evag. lib. IV. c. 35. Evagrius writes in the VI. age that this was the antient custome of the Church of Constantinople Conc. Matisc II. c. 2. T. I. Conc. Gall. Hist Euch. I. P. ch 16. p. 183. M. de la Roque takes notice of this custome and shews us the same practise at the same time in France where a Council ordained that the remainders of the Sacrifice after Masse was finished should be given sprinkled with wine Wednesdays and Frydayes to innocent children to whom they ordained to fast that they might to receive them It was without doubt the Body of our Lord which they received as well as the rest of the faithfull Ibid. Evagrius calls these remainders the particles of the immaculate Body of JESUS-CHRIST our God and thus it is that M. de la Roque translates it The same Evagrius relates that this communion preserved a Jewish child which had communicated in this manner with the children of the faithfull from a burning fournace whereinto his father had thrown him in hatred of that communion he had received God being willing to confirme this communion under one species by so illustrious a miracle None ever dreamed of saying they did amisse in giving the body with out the blood nor that such a communion was defective If the custome have beene changed it has been upon other reasons and after the same manner other things of discipline have been altered without condemning the precedent practice So that this custome although it have ceased to be in practise in the Church remains in Historyes and Canons in testimony against the Protestants The communion of infants is a cleare conviction of their errour The youngest sort of infants communicate under the sole species of wine and the children of a more advanced age under that of bread both one and the others concurring to make apparent the integrity of communion under one species only § IV. Third Custome Domestick Communion THE third practise is that the faithfull after having communicated in the Church and in the holy assembly carryed with them the Eucharist to communicate every day in their houses The species of wine could not be given them because it could not be conserved especially in so little a quantity as that which is made use of in the holy Mystyres and it is certain also that it was given them under the species of bread only Tert. de Orat. c. 14. Tertullian who mentions this custome in his booke de Oratione speaks only of taking and keeping the Body of our Lord and in an other place he speaks of the Bread which Christians eat fasting in secret Lib. 11. ad ux 5. without any other addition Saint Cyprian lets us see the same practise in his treatise de Lapsis This custome which begun during the persecutions and whilst Ecclesiasticall meetings were not free did not cease neverthelesse to continue for other reasons during the peace of the Church Wee learne from Saint Basile that the Solitaryes or Hermites communicated after no other manner in the deserts where there was no Priests Bas Ep. 289. And it is certain moreover that these wonderfull men not coming to the Church but at most on principall solemnityes could not possibly have conserved the species of wine There is likewise no mention in Saint Basil but of that which was put into the hand to be carryed to the
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.
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
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
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