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
1. Cor. 11.23 Do this in remembrance of me so often as you shall drinke But after all this discourse of our Saviour to take it in rigour and in its precise tearmes imports only a conditionall ordre to do this in remembrance of JESUS-CHRIST as often as one shall do it and not an order absolutely to do it the which I could prove by Protestant interpreters if the thing were not of it selfe too cleare to neede a proofe And thus the words Do this would be found absolutely applyed to these words only Take eate and the Protestants would loose their cause But if they say as some of theirs do that these words attributed to the reception of the Body Do this in remembrance of me have the same force as these which are saide after the Chalice As often as you shall drinke do it in remembrance of me the one as well as the other ordaining only to do it in remembrance and not absolutely their cause will be but the worse because on that account there will not remaine in the whole Gospel any absolute precept contrary to their doctrine to receive either of the species much lesse both It serves them for nothing to answer that the institution of JESUS-CHRIST suffices them seeing the question alwayes retournes to know what appertaines to the essence of the institution JESUS-CHRIST not having distinguished it and all the foregoing examples demonstrating invincibly that it cannot be learnd but from Tradition If they add that in all cases they cannot be deceived in doing what is written and what JESUS-CHRIST did this is with a seeming reason to leave the difficulty untouched because on the one side they have seene so many things which ought to be observed though they be not regulated in Scripture and on the other part they see also so great a number of those that are written and done by JESUS-CHRIST which are not observed amongst themselves without finding any thing in Scripture which can assure them they are lesse important then others So that without the assistance of Tradition wee should not know how to consecrate how to give how to receive nor in a word how to celebrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist no more then that of Baptisme and this discussion may aide us to understand with how much reason Saint Basil said that in rejecting unwritten Tradition the Gospel it selfe is attached and Preaching is reduced to meere words Basil de Sp. S. cap. 27. the meaning of which is not intelligible In effect all the answers and all the reasonings of these Ministers do manifestly produce nothing but new difficultyes and the sole meanes to disentangle themselves is to search as wee do the essence of our Lords institution and the right understanding of his commands in the Tradition and practise of the Church If therefore she has alwayes beleeved the grace of the Eucharist was not restrained to both species if she has beleeved that Communion under one or both species was a saving Communion if the Pretended Reformers have followed this sentiment in a certain case not mentioned in the Gospel that is to say in regard of those who drinke no wine what difficulty can be founde in a thing regulated by such certain principles and by so constant a practise § VII Communion under one Species was established without contradiction WE see also that Communion under one species was established without noise without contradiction without complaint in the same manner as Baptisme was established with bare sprinkling and other innocent customes The feare they had to spill our Saviours Blood in the midst of a multitude which approached to Communion with much confusion was the reason why the faithfull being always persuaded that one sole species was sufficient insensibly accustomed themselves to receive in effect but one onely There was so great difficulty not to spill this precious Blood in those Churches where there were but few Ministers and where there was a numerous Congregation the precautions which were necessary in distributing of it rendred the service so long especially on great solemnities and in great assemblies that for that reason they easily brought themselves to the usage of one sole species In the conference held at Constantinople in the yeare 1054. under Pope Leo the IX Disp Humb. Card. apud Bar. app T. XI between the Latins and the Greeks Cardinall Humbert Bishop of Sylva candida produced a custome of the Church of Jerusalem attested by a passage of an antient Patriarke of this Church This custome was to communicate all the people under the species of bread solely and seperatly without mingling it with the other according to the practise of the rest of the east There it is expresly noted that they reserved what was remaining of the consecrated Bread of the Eucharist for the Communion of the day following without giveing there the least intimation of the sacred Chalice and this custome was so antient in that Church that it was attributed to the Apostles I am willing to acknowledgd that those of Jerusalem were mistaken in that point seeing there are none but those customes that are as well universall as immemoriall which according to the rule of the Church ought to be referred to that originall Neverthelesse by this means we see the antiquity of that custome It was received in the holy city and throughout the Province that depended upon it as the Cardinall affirmed Nicetas Pretoratus his Antagonist dos not in the least contradict him The wholl world resorted to Jerusalem and went with a holy zeale to communicate in those parts where the Mysteries of our salvation were accomplished It was with out doubt the vast multitude of communicants which made the custome to communicate under one species be embraced not one person complained of it and Cardinal Humbert who appeared concerned at the mixture sayes not a word concerning the Communion under one species There are many other reasons which induce us to think that the usage of one sole species bigan on great festivalls by reason of the multitude of Communicants and however it was it is certain the people without the least reluctancy conformd to that manner of communicateing grounded on the antient faith which they had embraced viz that they received under one sole and under both the species the same substance of the Sacrament and the same effect of grace The most certain mark that a custome is held as free is when it is changed without any trouble so when they defisted either to administer the Communion to little infants or to baptise them by immersion not one person was disturbed at it just so they brought themselves to communicate under one species and for many ages the people communicated not but in that manner when the Bohemians bethought themselves to say that it was ill done I doe not find that Wiclef their cheif Leader as rash as he was did yet condemne that custome of the Church at least it is certain there is
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