which he was to be delivered it was at this time he would leave us his Body given for us Does the time or the hour then belong to the Institution does this appertain to the essence of it and is it not as plainly and evidently a circumstance as night or noon is a circumstance to eating and drinking Does the command of Christ Do this belong to that or to the other circumstances of doing it when the same thing the same Sacramental action may be done without them is not this a plain rule to make a distinction between the act it self and the circumstances of performing it Because there were a great many things done by Jesus Christ in this Mystery which we do not believe our selves obliged to do such as being in an upper Room lying upon a Bed and the like which are not properly things done by Christ so much as circumstances of doing it for the thing done was taking Bread and Wine and blessing and distributing them does therefore Christ's command Do this belong no more to eating and drinking than it does to those other things or rather circumstances with which he performed those is drinking as much a circumstance as doing it after supper if it be earing may be so too Monsieur de Meaux is ashamed to say this but yet 't is what he aims at for else the Cup will necessarily appear to belong to the Sacrament as an essential and consequently an indispensible part of it and this may be plainly known to be so from the words of Christ and from Scripture without the help of Tradition though that also as I have shewn does fully agree with those but they are so plain as not to need it in this case Eating and drinking are so plainly the essential part of the Sacrament and so clearly distinguisht from the other circumstances in Scripture that St. Paul always speaks of those without any regard to the other The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ the Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ * 1 Cor. 10.16 For as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lord's death till he come †1 Cor. 11.26,27,28,29 Whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup unworthily Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup for he that eateth and drinketh So that he must be wilfully blind who cannot see from Scripture what is essential to this Sacrament from what is not But Monsieur de Meaux thinks to find more advantage in the other Sacrament of Baptism and therefore he chiefly insists upon that under this head and his design is to make out that immersion or plunging under Water is meant and signified by the word Baptize in which he tells us the whole World agree ‖ P. 168. and that this is the onely manner of Baptizing we read of in the Scriptures and that he can shew by the Acts of Councils and by ancient Rituals that for thirteen hundred years the whole Church Baptized after this manner as much as it was possible * P. 171. If it be so than it seems there is not only Scripture but Tradition for it which is the great principle he takes so much pains to establish And what then shall we have to say to the Anabaptists to whom de Meaux seems to have given up that cause that he may defend 〈◊〉 other of Communion in one kind for his aim in all this is to make immersion as essential to Baptism as eating and drinking to the Lord's Supper and if Scripture and Tradition be both so fully for it I know not what can be against it but de Meaux knows some Gentlemen who answer things as best pleases them P. 299. the present difficulty transports them and being pressed by the objection they say at that moment what seems most to disentangle them from it without much reflecting whether it agree I do not say with truth but with their own thoughts The Institution of the Eucharist in Bread and Wine and the command to do this which belonged to both eating and drinking lay very heavy upon him and to ease himself of those which he could not do if it were always necessary to observe what Christ instituted and commanded he was willing to make Baptism by dipping to be as much commanded and instituted as this though it be not now observed as necessary either by those of the Church of Rome or the Reformed and besides his arguments to prove that from Scripture he makes an universal Tradition of the Church which he pretends all along in his Book is against Communion in both kinds and which is the great thing he goes upon yet to be for this sort of Baptism no less than 1300 years So that neither the law in Scripture nor Tradition as it explains that law is always it seems to be observed which is the thing ought openly to be said for Communion in one kind The Cause it self demands this and we must not expect that an errour can be defended after a consequent manner ‖ Ib. But is Scripture and Tradition both for Baptism by immersion Surely not the word Baptize in which the command is given signifies only to wash in general and not to plung all over as I have already shewn in this Treatise †P. 21. and as all Writers against the Anabaptists do sufficiently make out to whom I shall refer the Reader for further satisfaction in that Controversie which it is not my business to consider at present and so much is de Meaux out about Tradition being so wholly and universally for Baptism by immersion that Tertullian plainly speaks of it by intinction ‖ Omne praeterea cunctationis tergiversationis erga pâ—…nitentiam vitiâ—… praesumâ—… intiuctionis importat Tertul. de paenit Cap. 6. and by sprinkling * Quis enim tibi tam insidae paenitentiae viro aspergiuem unam cujuslibet aquae comm odabit Ib. reprehending those who presumed upon pardon to be obtained by Baptism without repentance and S. Cyprian in his Epistle to Magnus determines That the form of Baptism by aspersion is as good and valid as by immersion and confirms this by several examples and instances of the Jewish Purifications †Aspergam super vos aquam mundam Ezech. 36.25 non erit mundus quoniam aqua aspersionis non est super eum sparsa Num. 19.19 Aqua aspersionis purificatio est Num. 19.9 unde apparet aspersionem quoque aquae instar salutaris lavacri obtinere Cypr Ep. 96. Edit Oxon. which were onely by sprinkling It is not the manner of washing nor the quantity or the sort of Water but onely washing with Water which is essential to Baptism and unalterable and so it is not the sort of Bread or Wine or the manner of receiving them that
Licensed Aug. 3. 1686. A DISCOURSE OF THE Communion in One Kind IN ANSWER TO A TREATISE OF THE BISHOP of MEAVX's OF Communion under both Species Lately Translated into English LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pidgeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil MDCLXXXVII AN ANSWER TO THE PREFACE of the Publisher THe Translatour of the Bishop of Meaux's Book of Communion under both Species having told us why he made choice of this Author whom he stiles The Treasury of Wisdom the Fountain of Eloquence the Oracle of his Age and in brief to speak all in a word the Great James formerly Bishop of Condom now of Meaux Having thus brought forth this great Champion of the Roman Church he makes a plain Challenge with him to us of the Church of England in these words If this Author write Reason he deserves to be believed if otherwise he deserves to be confuted By this I perceived he expected that we should be so civil as to take notice of so great a Man as the Bishop of Meaux or any thing that bears his Name and not let it pass unregarded by us after it was for our benefit as he tell us made English and besides I did not know but some unwary persons among us might believe the reason he writes however bad and therefore I thought he deserved to be confuted and ought by no means to go without the civility and complement of an English Answer This I doubt not might have been very well spared had the Publisher been pleased to have gone on a little further with his Work of Translating and obliged us who are strangers to the French Tongue with one of those Answers which are made to de Meaux's Book in that Language but since he has not thought fit to do that I must desire him to accept of such Entertainment as our Country will afford him though it is something hard that we must not only treat our Friends at home but have as many Strangers as they please put upon us But we who cannot Translate so well as others which is a much easier part than to Write at ones own charge must beg leave of our French Adversaries if we sometimes speak to them in plain English and the Bishop of Meaux must excuse me if Truth has sometimes made me otherwise answer him then if I were a Curé in his own Diocess Whoever has so great an opinion of the Bishop of Meaux's Vertue and Learning as to take matter of Fact upon his word which the Translatour's mighty Commendations were designed no doubt to beget in his Reader must believe the Communion in One Kind was the Practice of the Primitive and the Catholic Church which if it were true would be a very great if not sufficient excuse for the Roman This the Bishop asserts with all the confidence in the World and this his Book is designed to make out and whoever will not believe it must necessarily question either the Learning of this great Man or else his Sincerity I shall not dare to do the former but his late Pastoral Letter has given too much reason to suspect the latter He that can now tell the World That there has been no Persecution in France and that none has suffered violence either in their Persons or their Estates there for their Religion may be allowed to say That the Primitive Church had the Communion but in one Kind a great while ago But the one of these matters of Fact deserves more I think to be confuted than the other I suppose it was for the sake of the Author that the Translatour chose this subject of Communion in One kind though he says It is a point peradventure of higher concern than any other now in debate between Papists and Protestants this being the main Stone of Offence and Rock of Scandal and it having been always regarded since the Reformation as a mighty eye-sore and alledged as one sufficient Cause of a voluntary departure and separation from the Pre-existent Church of Rome When this Pre-existent Church of Rome fell into her Corrupt Terrestrial and Vnchristian State among other Corruptions this was one that gave just offence and was together with many more the Cause of our separating from it That it gave the Eucharist but in one kind contrary to Christ's Institution and took away the Cup of Christ's precious Bloud from the People But yet this point of highest concern is in the judgement of the Translatour but a bare Ceremony and upon the whole matter the difference herein between the Church of England and the Roman seems to him reducible in great measure to meer Form and Ceremony If it be then I hope it may be easily compromized and agreed for I assure him I am as little as he for making wider Divisions already too great nor do I approve of the Spirit of those who tear Christ's seamless Garment for a meer Form and Ceremony but we who are sometimes thought fit to be called Heretics and to be Censured and Anathematized as differing in Essential matters from the Church of Rome at other times are made such good Friends to it that we differ but very little and there is nothing but Form and Ceremony between us But what is to Accomodate this matter and Reconcile this difference between the two Churches Why the Doctrine of the Real Presence in which Both Churches he says agree that Christ our Saviour is truly really wholly yea and substantially present in the Sacrament This is to close up the difference not onely of Communion in one kind but of the Adoration of the Sacrament and the Sacrifice of Mass too in the Translatour's judgement But does the Church of England then agree with the Roman in the Real Presence of Christ's natural Body and Bloud in the Sacrament Does it not expresly say the contrary namely That the natural Body and Bloud of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here and that it is against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one * Rubric after Office of Communion So that though Christ be really present by his Spirit and the real Vertue and Efficacy of his Body and Bloud be given in the Sacrament yet his natutural Body is by no means present there either by Transubstantiation or by any other way unintelligible to us as the Translatour would insinuate so that all those consequences which he or others would willingly draw from the Real Presence of Christ's natural Body in the Sacrament as believed by us do fall to the ground and I doubt he or I shall never be so happy as to make up this great breach between the two Churches however willing we may be to do it but instead of making a Reconciliation between them which is impossible as long as the Doctrines of each of them stand as they do I shall endeavour to defend that Article of the Church of England which not
as well as the Adult did then partake of both appears from the same Treatise of St. Cyprian de Lapsis where he represents the Children who were thus carried to partake of the Idol Offerings as blaming their Parents for it and making this Vindication for themselves †Nos nihil secimus nec derelicto cibo poculo Domini ad profana contagia sponte properavimus Perdidit nos aliena perfidia Cyprs de Laps We have not left the Meat nor the Cup of the Lord nor gone of our selves to the profane Banquets but anothers perfidiousness has destroyed us So that they were then to partake not onely of the Cup but of the Meat of the Lord. Monsieur de Meaux was in a great streight sure for some other instances of the Communion of Children in one kind when he brings in ‖ P. 91 92 94. the School-Boys at Constantinople who according to Evagrius * Hist l. 4. had the remainders of the Bread that was left at the Communion given to them which custom he finds also in a French Council †Mascon Were these Boys true Communicants for all that were not the Elements given them as they were sometimes to the Poor who were not present at the Office meerly that they might consume them that so they might not be undecently kept or carried away As for the same reason it was the custom to burn them in the Church of Hierusalem ‖ Hesych in Levit. l. 2. c. 8. and as it is now with us in the Church of England for the Communicants to eat them before they go out of the Church If we should have some remainders of consecrated Bread which we might call the particles of Christ's Body as Evagrius there does would the eating of them be an argument that we had a custom to Communicate in one kind and yet Monsieur de Meaux's Wit and Eloquence must be laid out on such ridiculous things as these to shew what Customs there remain in History in testimony against the Protestants P. 94. and how the Communion of some Infants under the sole Species of Wine and some under that of Bread is a clear conviction of their errour It would be to little other purpose but to tire my self and my Reader to follow that great man through all his little Arguments and Authorities of this Nature and especially into the dark and blind paths of later Ages when Superstition and Ignorance lead men out of the way both of Scripture and Antiquity which are the good old Paths that we are resolved to walk in His French Answerers I hear have pursued him through all these and driven him out of every private skulking-hole he would make to himself I am rather for meeting him in the open Field and for engaging his main strength and most considerable arguments and objections and I seriously profess though I never met with any Book written so shrewdly and cunningly with so much Art and Eloquence upon a subject that I thought could hardly bear it though it stood in need of it above any other yet there is not any thing of strength in it that I have not fairly considered and I hope fully answered Of Domestic Communion The third Custom is the Domestic Communion when after the Christians had received the Sacrament in their publick Meetings they carried it also home with them to receive it alone in their private Houses this must be allowed also to be very ancient being mentioned both by Tertullian * Accepto corpore Domini Reservato de orat Cap. ult Nesciat maritus quid secretò ante omnem cibum gustes Ad Uxor l. 2. and St. Cyprian †Cum quaedam arcam suam in quâ Domini sanctum suit De Laps and the reason of it was that in those times of Persecution when they could not come so frequently to the public Communions and yet stood in need of the greatest aids and supports they might not want the benefit and comfort of what was so precious to them but though there might be great zeal and piety in this practice yet I cannot wholly excuse it from superstition nor think it to be any thing less than an abuse of the Sacrament and the same opinion the Church quickly had of it and therefore universally forbad it ‖ Concil Caesar Augustan and as Petavius says * De paenit publ l. 1. c. 7. It would be now a very punishable action and accounted a great profanation of the Sacrament Howe-ever angry Monsieur de Meaux is with the Protestants for calling it so †P. 105. undoubtedly the Eucharist was not intended by our Saviour for any such private use but to be a public part of Christian Worship and a solemn Commemoration of his Death and Passion And I know not how to call this a true or perfect Communion unless as it was a part of the same Communion that was in the Church as the sending a person part of the entertainment at a common Feast or Banquet is a making him partaker of the same Feast though he be not present at the Table but eats it by himself however let it be allowed to be never so true a Communion yet I know no advantage that can be made of it to the purpose of Communion in one kind unless it can be made appear that after the Faithful had communicated of both kinds in the Church that they onely reserved and carried home one Species to be received in their private Houses How improbable is this if it be granted that they received both in public which is not denied why should not they be as desirous to partake of both at home as they were in the Church Vpon what account as de Meaux says ‖ P. 114. should they refuse them both And believe that the the sacred Body with which they trusted them was more precious than the Bloud He is forced to own That the Bloud was not refused to the Faithful to carry with them when they required it * P. 113. And why they should not desire that as well as the other I cannot imagine the onely argument he has against it is that they could not keep it any long time But could not they keep it so long as till the next publick Communion could they not conserve the Wine in little Vessels to that purpose as well as the Bread Does Nature it self as he pretends more oppose the one than the other when we find by experience that Wine will keep much longer without corruption than Bread What a vain cavil is it therefore which begins and runs through his whole Book to make us believe that the Christians so often communicated under the species of Bread alone because the species of Wine could not be either so long or so easily reserved being too subject to alteration and Jesus Christ would not that any thing should appear to the sense in this Mystery of Faith
as truely the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Sacrament though they used not those words of Consecration which the Latines now do and the Latines had them both as truly in the Missa Parascues in which as Strabo says they used the old simple manner of Communion as much as on any other days De Meaux must either deny that Consecration of the Elements may be truly performed by that simple and ancient way which will be to deny the Apostolic and first Ages to have had any true Consecration or else he must own this to be a true one The Roman Order says not onely the Wine is Consecrated which it does in more places then one but that it is fully and wholly Consecrated so that the people may be confirmed by it ‖ Vt ex eadem sacro vase confirmetur populus quia vinum etiam non consecratum sed sanguine Domini commixtum sanctificatur per omnem modum Ord. Rom. a phrase often used in Ecclesiastical Writers for partaking of the Cup and entire Sacrament Amalarius thinks this to be so true a Consecration that he says * Qui juxta ordinem libelli per commixtionem panis vini consecrat vinum non observat traditionem Ecclesiae de quâ dicit Innocentius isto biduo Sacramenta penitùs non celebrari Amalar. Fortunat. de Eccles Offic. l. 1. c. 15. Edit Hittorp He who according to the order of that Book Consecrates the Wine by the commixtion of the Bread and Wine does not observe the Tradition of the Church of which Innocent speaks that on these two days Friday and Saturday before Easter no Sacraments at all should be Celebrated So that he complains of it because such a Consecration is used on that day The Author of the Book of Divine Offices under the name of Alcuinus †De hâc autem Communicatione utrum debeat fieri suprà relatum est Sanctificatur autem vinum non consecratum per sanctificatum panem Alcuini lib. de Off. div p. 253. Ib. makes a question whether there ought to be such a Communion but says expresly that the Vnconsecrated Wine is sanctified by the sanctified Bread. Micrologus says the same in the place produced before that it is Consecrated by Prayer as well as mixture with the Body and he gives this as a reason against Intinction in that Chapter ‖ C. 19. In parascene vinum non consecratum cum Doninicâ oratione Dominici corporis immissione jubet consecrare ut populus plenè possit communicare quod utique superfluo praeciperet si intinctum Dominicum à priore die corpus servaretur ita intinctum populo ad Communicandum sufficere videretur that the Wine is Consecrated on that day so that the people might fully Communicate to shew that it would not have been sufficient as he thinks to have had the Bread dipt in the Wine the day before and so kept and I suppose he was of de Meaux's mind that the Wine was not so fit to be kept for fear of that change which might happen to it even from one day to the next but he is so far from Communion in one kind that in that very Chapter against Intinction he mentions Pope Julius his Decree * Julius Papa bujusmodi intinctionem penitus prohibet seorsùm panem seorsùm calicem juxta Dominicam institutionem sumenda docet which forbids that and commands the Bread to be given by it self and the Wine by it self according to Christ's Institution and likewise the Decree of Gelasius †Vnde beatus Gelasius excommunicari illos praecepit quicunque sumpto corpore Dominico à calicis participatione se abstinerent nam ipse in eodem decreto asserit bujusmodi Sacramentorum divisio sine grandi sacrilegio provenire non potest Ib. Microlog in these words He commanded those to be Excommunicated who taking the Lord's Body abstained from the participation of the Cup And he asserts says he in the same Decree that this division of the Sacraments could not be without great Sacriledge So that this man could not be a favourer of Communion in one kind or an asserter that the Good Friday Communion was such When ever this Communion came into the Latine Church for it was not ancient to have any Communion on those two days on which Christ died and was buried yet it will by no means serve the purpose of de Meaux for Communion in the Church in one kind for it is plain this Communion was in both and it was the belief of the Church and of all those who writ upon the Roman Order except Hugo de St. Victore who is very late and no older than the twelfth Century when Corruptions were come to a great height that the Communion on that day was full and entire as well with the Bread which was reserved the day before as with the Wine which was truly Consecrated on that and held to be so by the opinion of them all Of the Office of the Presanctified in the Greek Church The Lyturgy of the Presanctified in the Greek Church will afford as little assistance if not much less to de Meaux's Opinion of Public Communion in one kind then the Missa Parasceues we see has done in the Latine the Greeks do not think fit solemnly to Consecrate the Eucharist which is a Religious Feast of Joy upon those days which they appoint to Fasting Mortification and Sadness and therefore during the whole time of Lent they Consecrate onely upon Saturdays and Sundays on which they do not fast and all the other five days of the Week they receive the Communion in those Elements which are Consecrated upon those two days which they therefore call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Presanctified The antiquity of this observation cannot be contested as de Meaux says seeing it appears not in the sixth Age as he would have it but in the seventh whereas the beginning of the Latin Office on Good-Friday is very uncertain and there is no evidence for it till towards the ninth Century In a Council held under Justinian in the Hall of the Imperial Palace at Constantinople called therefore in Trullo An. 686 there is a Canon which commands that on all days of Lent except Saturday and Sunday and the day of the Annunciation the Communion be made of the Presanctified there was long before a Canon in the Council of Laodicea which forbad any Oblation to be made in Lent but upon those days viz. The Sabbath and the Lord's Day but that says nothing of the Presanctified nor of any Communion on the other days but let it be as ancient as they please although it be a peculiar Office which is neither in the Lyturgy of St. Basil or St. Chrysostom but is to be found by it self in the Bibliotheca Patrum where it is translated by Genebrardus it is most abominably false that it was onely the Bread which
suis Discipulis administraverit subutrâque specie panis vini hoc venerabile Sacramentum Et similitèr quòd licet in primitivâ Ecclesiâ hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur à â—idelibus sub utrâque specie Concil Constant Sess 11. and that the faithful received it under both kinds in the Primitive Church Yet to command it under one by its own power and authority and by its own Prerogative to give a Non obstante to Christ's Institution this was done like those that had a sufficient plenitude of power and were resolved to let the World see they had so and that Christ's own Institution was to give way to it they had not then found out the more sly and shifting subtilties that Christ gave the Cup to his Disciples onely as Priests and made them Priests just after the giving them the Bread this was a late invention found out since that Council by some more timerous and wary Sophisters who were afraid of setting up the Churches Power against a Divine Institution neither did they then offer to justifie the Communion in one kind by the Tradition and Practice of the Primitive Church as de Meaux and others have done since but they plainly gave up this and onely made a late Custom which was afterwards introduced to become a Law by vertue of their present Power notwithstanding the Institution of Christ and the Practice of the Primitive Church to the contrary Here the Case truly lies though de Meaux is willing to go off from it there must be a power in the Church to void a Divine Institution and to null a Law of Christ which can be no other than an Antichristian power in the strictest sense which may by the same reason take away all the positive Laws of Christianity or else Communion in one kind is not to be maintained and this power must be in a particular present Church in opposition to the Primitive and the Universal or else this Communion is not to be maintained in the Church of Rome De Meaux must be driven to defend that post which he seems to have quitted and deserted or else he can never defend this half-Communion which is contrary as I have proved and as the Council of Constance owns to the Institution of Christ and to the Practice of the Primitive Church The new Out-work he has raised from Tradition in which he puts all the forces of his Book and the main strength of his Cause this I have not beat down or destroyed but taken from him and his cause can never hold out upon his own principles of Tradition and the Practice of the Church which is a very strong battery against it as I have largely shewn so that all that he says for Tradition is in vain and to no purpose since this Tradition he pleades for is utterly against him and if it were never so much for him yet no Tradition can take away a Divine Law. He seems to own and I think he dare not expresly deny that what is essential to the Sacraments or belongs to the substance of them cannot be taken away by Tradition or the Power of the Church but he utterly destroys this by making onely Tradition and the Practice of the Church to determine what is thus essential to the Sacraments for if nothing be essential but what is made so by them and may be known by them then they have a power to make or to alter even the very essentials of the Sacraments which are hereby made wholly to depend upon the Church and Tradition We are willing to own that nothing is unalterable in the Sacraments but what is essential to them and that all other indifferent things belonging to them may be altered by the Church or by Tradition but then we say that what is essential is fixt and known by the Institution and by a Divine Law antecedent to Tradition and if it were not so then there were nothing essential in the Sacraments at all but all would be indifferent and all would depend upon Tradition and the Churches Power and then to what purpose is it to say That the Church has power onely in the Accidentals and may alter whatever is not essential or belongs not to the substance of the Sacraments this onely shews that they are ashamed to speak out and they dare not but grant with one hand that which they are forced to take away with another they dare not openly say That the Church has power over the essentials of the Sacraments but yet they say That there are no essentials but what are made and declared to be so by the Church So the streight they are in obliges them in effect to revoke their own concessions and Truth makes them say that which their Cause forces them to unsay again and they are put upon those things in their own necessary defence which amount in the whole to a contradiction If the Bishop of Meaux can shew us that any Divine Institution was ever altered by the Jewish or Christian Church or any Law of God relating to Practice and Ceremony was ever taken away by a contrary Practice and Tradition then he says something to the purpose of Communion in one kind but if the many Instances which he brings for Tradition out of the Old and New Testament do none of them do this they are then useless and insufficient they fall short of what they ought to prove and come not up to the question in hand but are wholly vain and insignificant and to shew they are so I shall reduce them to these following heads 1. They chiefly relate to the Churches Power in appointing and determining several things which are left indifferent and undetermined by the Law of God and here we acknowledge the Church to have a proper Power and that it may oblige even in Conscience to many things to which we are not obliged by the Law of God and may determine many things for the sake of Peace and Uniformity in Divine Worship which are not so precisely determined by God himself Thus the Jewish Church might settle the time of Vespers on which their Sabbaths and Feasts were to begin the evening being to them the beginning of the next day so they might appoint also the manner of observing the new Moons thus they might also settle the times of the Three Sacrifices the Daily the Sabbatical and the Paschal when they were all to be offered the same day upon one Altar and determine which of them should be offered first though God himself had not determined it But could they take away any one of these Sacrifices which God had commanded upon a pretence that the other were sufficient without it could they have neglected either the New Moons or the Evening-Oblations which God had appointed because they might appoint what God had not done namely the manner of observing them because they could regulate several things relating to the Law and necessary to the observance of it
that Tradition would excuse them from a Divine Law. All the instances which Monsieur de Meaux heaps up are very short of proving that and though I have examined every one of them except that pretended Jewish Tradition of Praying for the Dead which is both false and to no purpose yet it was not because there was any strength in them to the maintaining his sinking Cause but that I might take away every slender prop by which he endeavours in vain to keep it up and drive him out of every little hole in which he strives with so much labour to Earth himself when after all his turnings and windings he finds he must be run down If any instance could be found by de Meaux or others of any Tradition or any Practice of a Church contrary to a Divine Institution and to a plain Law of God they would deserve no other answer to be returned to it but what Christ gave to the Pharisees in the like case Why do ye transgress the commandment of God by your tradition ‖ Mat. 15.3 Our Saviour did not put the matter upon this issue Whether the Tradition by which they explained the Law so as to make it of none effect was truly ancient and authentic and derived to them from their fore-Fathers but he thought it sufficient to tell them that it made void and was contrary to a Divine Law. There is no Tradition nor no Church which has ever broke so plain a Law and so shamefully violated a Divine Institution as that which has set up Communion in One Kind the true reason why it did so was not Tradition no that was not so much as pretended at first for the doing of it but onely some imaginary dangers and inconveniencies which brought in a new custom contrary to ancient Tradition These were the onely things insisted on in its defence at first the danger of spilling the Wine and the difficulty of getting it in some places and the undecency of Laymens dipping their Beards in it These were the mighty reasons which Gerson brought of old against the Heresie as he calls it of Communicating in both Kinds †Tractatus Magistri Johannis de Gerson contra haeresin de communionae Laicorum sub utraque specie as if it were a new Heresie to believe that Wine might be spilt or that men wore Beards or as if the Sacrament were appointed only for those Countreys where there were Vines growing De Meaux was very sensible of the weakness and folly of those pretences though they are the pericula and the scandala meant by the Council of Constance and therefore he takes very little notice of them and indeed he has quite taken away all their arguments against the particular use of the Wine because he all along pleades for either of the Species and owns it to be indifferent which of them so ever is used in the Sacrament But I have shewn that both of them are necessary to make a true Sacrament because both are commanded and both instituted and both of them equally belong to the matter of the Sacrament and so to the essence of it and both are ordinarily necessary to the receiving the inward Grace and Vertue of the Sacrament because that is annext to both by the Institution and cannot warrantably be expected without both To conclude therefore Communion in One Kind is both contrary to the Institution and to the Command of Christ and to the Tradition and Practice of the Primitive Church grounded upon that Command and is no less in it self than a sacrilegious dividing and mangling of the most sacred Mystery of Christianity a destroying the very Nature of the Sacrament which is to represent the Death of Christ and his Blood separated from his Body a lessening the signification and reception of our compleat and entire spiritual Nourishment whereby we are Sacramentally to eat Christ's Body and drink his Bloud an unjust depriving the People of that most pretious Legacy which Christ left to all of them to wit His Sacrificial Bloud which was shed for us and which it is the peculiar priviledge of Christians thus mystically to partake of and lastly a robbing them of that Grace and Vertue and Benefit of the Sacrament which belongs not to any part but to the whole of it and cannot ordinarily be received without both kinds O that God would therefore put it into the hearts of those who are most concerned not to do so much injury to Christians and to Christianity and not to suffer any longer that Divine Majesty which is the great Foundation of all Spiritual Grace and Life to be tainted and poysoned with so many corruptions as we find it is above all other parts of Christianity And O that that blessed Sacrament which was designed by Christ to be the very Bond of Peace and the Cement of Unity among all Christians and to make them all one Bread and one Body may not by the perversness of men and the craft of the Devil be made a means to divide and separate them from each other and to break that Unity and Charity which it ought to preserve FINIS A CATALOGUE of some Discourses sold by Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pidgeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1. A Perswasive to an Ingenuous Tryal of Opinions in Religion 2. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England 3. A Discourse about the Charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 4. The Protestant Resolution of Faith being an Answer to Three Questions I. How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true Sence of Scripture II. Whether a vissible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this vissible Succession an Infallible Interpreter of Scripture and whether no Church which has not this visible Succession can teach the true Sence of Scripture III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible Succession 5. A Discourse concerning a Guide in matters of Faith with Respect especially to the Romish pretence of the Necessity of such a one as is Infallible 6. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be Received and what Tradition is to be Rejected 7. A Discourse concerning the Unity of the Catholick Church maintained in the Church of England 8. A Discourse concerning the Necessity of Reformation with Respect to the Errours and Corruptions of the Church of Rome In two Parts 9. A Discourse concerning the Object of Religious Worship or a Scripture-Proof of the Unlawfulness of giving any Religious Worship to any other Being besides the one Supream God. 10. A Discourse against Transubstantiation 11. A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host as it is Taught and Practised in the Church of Rome Wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that Subject and to Monsieur Bocleau's late Book de Adoratione Eucharistiae Paris 1685. 12. A Discourse concerning Invocation of Saints 13. A Discourse concerning the Devotions of the Church of Rome 14. A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue 15. A Discourse concerning Auricular Confession as it is Prescribed by the Council of Trent and Practised in the Church of Rome With a Postscript on occasion of a Book lately printed in France called Historia Confessionis Auricularis 16. A Discourse concerning the Worship of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints with an Account of the Beginnings and Rise of it amongst Christians In Answer to Monsieur de Meaux's Appeal to the Fourth Age in his Exposition and his Pastoral Letter 17. A Discourse of the Communion in One Kind in Answer to the Bishop of Meaux's Treatise of Communion under both Species Lately Translated into English