which God had not determined could they therefore void the Law it self or transgress and violate it in any of those things which God had particularly appointed Thus the Christian Church may order many things relating to Divine Worship and even to the Sacraments themselves which no Law of Christ has ordered or determined as the time the place the outward form and manner of administring them and yet these as de Meaux says Are absolutely necessary for the observation of the Divine Law which cannot be observed without some of those circumstances thus as to Baptism it may appoint it to be performed by sprinkling or dipping because neither of those are commanded by the word Baptize but onely washing with Water as I have shewn before against de Meaux but to do this in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is absolutely necessary because this is commanded though whether with that form I baptize thee or Be thou baptised which is used in the Greek Church is indifferent Thus as to the Eucharist the Church may command it to be taken kneeling or standing which was an ancient posture of receiving it it may use such a form of words in the consecrating the Elements and in blessing the Bread and Wine or another for it is plain one was not always used and St. Gregory tells us That the Apostles consecrated onely with Lord's Prayer †Epist 63. ad Syr. It may use such a sort of Bread and Wine or another for no particular sort is commanded but it is necessary to bless and to give both because both are instituted and both are commanded and the Ministers who are the Stewards of the Mysteries of God ‖ 1 Cor. 4.1 these alone have the ordinary power of blessing and distributing them to the people but they may do this by the hands of the Deacons or by suffering the people to take them and divide them among themselves Such things as these which de Meaux offers to us as great difficulties are onely indifferent things left undetermined by the Divine Law in which the Church has a power to appoint what it thinks most proper for decency and order and edification and thus the greatest knots with which he designed to entangle us are easily resolved and untied and yet not any one of the Divine Laws are in the least loosened or dissolved One of the greatest things he urges for the necessity of Tradition and the Practice of the Church is the Baptism of Infants for which he says we can produce nothing from Scripture but must be forced to resolve it wholly into Tradition as to that I am not willing to begin another Controvesie with him here and therefore shall onely send him to Bellarmine for his satisfaction who proves Infant Baptism from Scripture * Bellarmin de Sacram. Baptismi c. 8 9. as well as from Tradition and says It may be clearly gathered from Scripture it self †Tamen id colligitur satis apertè ex Scripturis But if it were not does it follow because the Church may make a Law which is not contained in Scripture that therefore it may break a Law which is and because it may appoint some things which God has left indifferent that therefore it may forbid what he has absolutely commanded 2. Other instances produced by de Meaux relate not onely to matters Ecclesiastical but to those that were Civil or at least mixt and so belonging to the Power of the Magistrate as the Lex Talionis and the prohibition of Marriage with the Moabites and Ammonites The Civil Magistrate was to see all possible Justice done by the one according to God's own command and it was a commendable act in him to prevent all mischief that might have come by the other though this was done without a Divine Precept by a general Power vested in the Magistrate or a particular and immediate direction perhaps given by God to Esdras and Nehemiah But how these can any way serve de Meaux I cannot imagine in the present Controversie unless he would prove the Magistrate not bound to execute the Lex Talionis at all or that the Jews might have dispensed with the Law in Deuteronomy which forbad Marriages with the Canaanites because upon the same ground and reason they forbad those also with the Ammonites and Moabites afterwards 3. Some cases he mentions were excused upon the account of necessity which when it is notorious and unavoidable dispences with a positive Law. Thus David's eating the Shewbread which it was not lawful but for the Priests ordinarily to eat is approyed by our Saviour Matth. 12.4 not upon the account of Tradition or the judgement of the High-Priest but the extream hunger which he and his Companions were then pressed with and which made it lawful for them them to eat of the hallowed Bread when there was no other to be procured But did this make it lawful afterwards for the High-Priest or the Sanhedrim to have made the holy Bread always common to others when there was no such necessity Thus if some Christians lived in a Country where it was impossible to have any Wine this might excuse them from taking the Cup but does this justisie the making a general Law to take away the Cup when there is no such necessity for it and the same may be said of many other like instances 4. In other cases when a Law was founded upon a particular reason the ceasing of that made the Law to cease which was wholly grounded upon it as in the prohibition of eating Bloud and things strangled and Meats offered to Idols this being to avoid giving any scandal to the Jews at that time when the reason of it ceased so did the Law and it is not so much Tradition which makes it void as those general sayings of Christ and the Apostle that nothing which enters in at the mouth defiles the man and that whatever is sold in the shambles may be eat without asking any question for conscience sake As to the Jews defending themselves upon the Sabbath on which they were commanded so strictly to rest it was both necessity and the reason of the Law which made this justifiable and not any Tradition or any sentence of the Sanhedrim and our Saviour when he blames their superstitious observance of the Sabbath does not reprove them for keeping it as it was commanded or otherwise than Tradition had explained it but contrary to the true reason and meaning of it and to the true mind and will of the Lawgiver As to the Christians changing the Sabbath into the first Day of the Week this was not done by Tradition but by the Apostolical Authority and whatever obligation there may be antecedent to the Law of Moses for observing one day in seven it can neither be proved that the Jews observed exactly the Seventh day from the Creation much less that the Christians are under any such obligation now or I may adde if they were
see if any such matter is to be found in them which I confess will be very surprizing if they be As to the first St. Luke tells us Chap. 24. That the same day Christ was risen two of the Disciples the name of one of which was Cleophas going to Emmaus a Village near to Hierusalem Christ as they were Communing together about him and his Resurrection drew near and went along with them and discourst to them about those things as a person unknown and going into a House and sitting at meat with them he took bread and blessed it and brake and gave to them v. 30. Here say they Christ gave the Sacrament and gave it onely in Bread for he took bread and blessed and brake and gave to them which are the very words used at his giving his last Supper But must Christ always be supposed to give the Sacrament whenever he took bread and blessed and brake it and gave it to others Then he did so when he filled the five thousand with five Loaves and two Fishes for then he looked up to heaven and blessed and brake the loaves and gave them to others Mark 6.41 Mat. 14.19 And so he did when he filled four thousand at another time he took the seven loaves and gave thanks and brake and gave to his disciples to set before them Mark 8.6 Here though he blessed the Bread and gave thanks as was always the custom of Pious and Religious Men at their ordinary meals and though he brake the Bread which is a Jewish phrase for distributing and giving it yet it cannot in the least be pretended that in any of these places he gave the Sacrament nor is there any manner of reason to suppose he did so at Emmaus with these Disciples but to satisfie them of the truth of himself and his Resurrection he took meat with them as he did afterwards with the Eleven Apostles and by his behaviour at Table and by his form of Blessing which was probably the same he used at other times and by thus seeing and conversing with him more intimately at Table they came to understand who it was and their eyes were opened and they knew him or as is v. 35. he was known to them in breaking of bread that is in eating with him not that any thing miraculous or extraordinary was here shewn by Christ or wrought upon them any more than was to the Apostles afterwards to whom he shewed himself likewise and took meat with them to give them full satisfaction that it was the same person who was Crucified and who was risen with the same Body he had before or if they were illuminated and their eyes open'd in an extraordinary manner at that time yet it was not necessary this should be done by the Sacrament of all the vertues of which the opening mens eyes and curing them of Infidelity is the least to be ascribed to it since it is onely to be taken by those who do believe and whose eyes are opened before though this may sometimes be applyed to it by way of Allegory and allusion as it is by St. Austine Theophylact and others who make the Pool of Bethesda and the curing of the Lame and the Leprous by a word to be as much Sacramental as they do this that is to have some signification or resemblance to Spiritual things But there is not one Father or ancient Interpreter who does plainly affirm that Christ did here give the Sacrament to those Disciples at Emmaus The Bread which Christ blessed was no more truly made a Sacrament thereby than the House of Cleophas was dedicated into a Church by Christ's presence and Divine Discourses there which yet it might be according to St. Hierom's words without any administring of the Sacrament of which that place quoted out of him makes no mention Boileau p. 192. But if it must be supposed without any Authority and without any Reason that Christ did here give the Sacrament it must also be granted that he did something more than is related in that short account which is there given he must not onely have blessed and brake the bread and given it to them but he must have done it with those words This is my body which they say are always necessary to the true Consecration of this Sacrament And if he may be supposed to have used those though they are not mentioned which is a good argument to prove it was not the Sacrament but onely an ordinary Meal then we may as well suppose that at the same time he used Wine too though that is not mentioned and though we have no account of any Drink which yet we cannot but think they had at that Supper let it be what it will eating together and sitting at meat includes and supposes drinking too though there is no particular or express mention of it As in the 2. Second place in those several instances out of the Acts of the Apostles wherein it is said of the first Converts to Christianity that they continued in breaking of Bread and in Prayer †Acts 2.42 and in breaking Bread from house to house ‖ Acts 2.46 and that they came together on the first day of the Week to break Bread * Acts 20.7 which I am willing to allow may be meant of the Sacrament though a great many Learned men think they belong to the charitable and friendly way of living among those first Christians who had all things in common and who came to eat together at the same time that they came to pray and contrived these daily meetings for Worship and Refreshment in the same house for greater conveniency Yet that they did not drink together as well as eat and that by an usual Synecdoche both those are not included in the Phrase of breaking of Bread is not to be imagined Bread was a word by which not onely amongst the Jews but all Nations all manner of food and nourishment necessary to life was signified as being the most considerable part of it so that we mean this when we pray for our daily Bread and when we say a man wanteth Bread and so to break our Bread to the hungry Isa 58.7 and by the young childrens asking bread and no man breaketh it unto them Lament 4.4 the same is imported To break Bread was an usual Hebrew expression for giving all manner of food as appears by those instances so that when Bread which is but one part of food is expressed yet the other is included and meant also as when Christ went into the house of one of the chief Pharises to eat bread Luke 14.1 we cannot suppose that he had only such a dry Banquet as not to drink with him too and when Joseph told the Steward of his house that he should prepare an entertainment for his brethren for they are to eat with me at noon Gen. 43.16 hodie sunt mecum comesturi as in the vulgar he did not I
ut illud invadere desiderare in mente habere De la Cerda Not. in locum p. 634. Even to Women it seems who I suppose were no Priests Origen upon the Book of Numbers says We drink the bloud of Christ Sacramentally in the Eucharist as well as Spiritually by believing his Doctrine * Bibere dicimur sanguinem Christi non solùm Sacramentorum ritu se cum sermones ejus recipimus Quis est iste populus qui in usu habet sanguinem bibere Origent homil 16. in Num. When he had before asked What people drink of Bloud St. Cyprian admonishes Christians to prepare themselves for the hardest encounters as the Souldiers of Christ Considering that for this very purpose they every day drink the Cup of Christ's Bloud that so they may also shed their bloud for Christ. Gravior nunc ferocior pugna imminet ad quam parare debent milites Christi considerantes idcirco se quotidiè calicem sanguinis Christi bibere ut possint ipsi propter Christum sanguinem fundere Ep. 58. ad plebem Thiberitanam Edit Oxon. And he pleads for giving the Communion to the lapsed upon this very account to arm and fortifie them for farther tryals and persecutions How can we teach or provoke them to shed their bloud for the confession of Christ if we deny them the Bloud of Christ ‖ Nam quomodo docemus aut provocamus eos in confessione nominis sanguinem suum fundere si eis militaturis Christi sanguinem denegamus aut quomodo ad Martyrii poculum idoneos facimus si non eos prius ad bibendum in Ecclesiâ poculum Domini jure communionis admittimus Ep. 57. ad Cornel. Or how can we make them fit for the Cup of Martyrdom if we do not first admit them to drink the Cup of the Lord in the Church by the right of Communion The excellent Epistle * Ep. 63. Caecilio fratri of that Holy Martyr against those who out of a principle of abstaining wholly from Wine or lest they should by the smell of Wine which they had drunk in the Morning-Sacrifices discover themselves to be Christians used Water in the Eucharist instead of Wine Simili modo calicem quod si à Domino praecipitur ab Apostolo ejus hoc idem confirmatur traditur hoc faciamus quod fecit Dominus invenimus non observari a nobis quod mandatum nisi eadem quae Dominus fecit nos quoque faciamus calicem Dom. pari ratione miscentes à divino Magisterio non recedamus Ib. Quod nos obandire facere oportet quod Christus fecit faciendum esse mandavit Ib. is so full a demonstration that the Wine ought always to be taken in the Sacrament and that Christ's Institution and Command could not otherwise be observed that there needs no other Arguments but what that great Man there uses to shew the necessity of Christians Communicating in both the Species of Bread and Wine Quare si solus Christus audiendus est non debemus attendere quod alius ante nos faciendum putaverit sed quid qui ante omnes est Christus prior fecerit Ib. Quomodo autem de creaturâ vitis notum vinum cum Christo in regno patris bibemus si in sacraficio Dei Patris Christi vinum non offerimus nec calicem Domini dominicâ traditione miscemus Ib. Christ says he gave the Cup and we are to do that which Christ did and ought by no means to depart from what was commanded by Christ and delivered by the Apostles upon any custom or pretence whatsoever How shall we drink says he of the fruit of the Vine with Christ in the Kingdom of his Father if we do not now offer the Wine in the Sacrifice and mingle the Cup of the Lord as he delivered it to us And that this Wine was drunk by all Christians is plain from that fear which some had lest by their drinking it in the morning they should smell of it * Nisi in sacrificiis matutinis hoc quis veretur ne per saporem vini redoleat sanguinem Christi Ib. p. 155. and so discover themselves to the Heathens It was then it seems a mark to know Christians by That they did smell of the bloud of Christ which if they had done as the Papists now do they need not have been afraid of But to proceed to others who though they speak less of this then St. Cyprian yet speak plainly of Christians taking the Bloud as well as the Body Athanasius speaking of the Cup says It belongs to the Priests of right to give this to the People †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apolog 2. St. Basil in one of his Epistles says It is good and profitable to Communicate every day of the Body and Bloud of Christ ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ep. ad Caesar And speaking of the peculiar Vertues of Christians asks What is proper to those that eat the Bread and drink the Cup of the Lord * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. Moral denoting that to belong to all Christians St. Chrysostom in his Oratorian manner speaks of Christians as being all Died and Purpled with the Bloud of Christ †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Sacerdot l. 3. And thus compares all Christians in general with the Israelites As thou eatest the Body of Christ so did they Manna as thou drinkest the Bloud of Christ so did they Water out of the Rock ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. Homil. 23. in 1 Cor. And in another place he expresly observes what I have taken notice of before That 't is not now as under the Jewish Law where the Priest partook of several things from the Altar which the People did not There is no difference between the Priest and the People when we come to receive the Holy Mysteries for one Body and one Cup is offered to all †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. in Homil. 18. in 2 Cor. St Hierom says The Priests serve the Eucharist and divide the Bloud of the Lord among the People * Sacerdotes Eucharisticae serviunt sanguinem Domini populis ejus dividunt Hieron in Sophon c. 2. And upon occasion speaks of some loose and vitious Women who yet would not abstain from the bloud of Christ ‖ Ebrietati sacrilegium copulantes aiunt Absit ut ego me à Christi sanguine abstineam Id. Ep. ad Eustoch So that this it is plain was taken by the Women St. Austin to the newly Baptized Christians says That in all their tryals and their time of being Catechumens they did approve themselves that they might eat the Lord's Body and drink the Cup * Vt cum seipsos probaverint tunc de mensâ Domini manducent de calice bibant August de fide Oper And speaking of the prohibition of Blood to the Jews because
the plain and evident Authority of these two great men for receiving the Eucharist in both kinds Monsieur de Meaux though he heaves a little yet cannot but sink under it and it makes him confess That these passages may very well prove that the Bloud was not refused to the faithful to carry with them if they required it but can never prove that they could keep it any long time since that Nature it self opposes it So that if Nature be not against keeping the Wine Custom and Authority it seems are for it and I dare say that Nature will suffer the Wine to be kept as long as the Bread however they who are such friends to Miracles and have them so ready at every turn especially in the Sacrament have no reason methinks to be so afraid of Nature Of Public Communion in the Church Monsieur de Meaux passes next to the Public Communion in the Church And if he can prove that to have been in one kind he has gained his main point however unsuccessfully he has come off with the rest though we see all his other pretences are too weak to be defended and we have destroyed I think all his out-works yet if he can but maintain this great fort he saves the Capitol and preserves the Romish Cause He has used I confess all imaginable stratagems to do it and has endeavoured to make up his want of strength with subtlety and intrigue He will not pretend it was a constant custom to have the Public Communion in one kind but that it was free for Christians to receive either both Species or one only in the Church it self and in their solemn Assemblies and that they did this on some particular days and occasions as in the Latine Church on Good-Friday and almost all Lent in the Greek Now though we have made it out that the whole Catholic Church did generally in their Public Communions use both kinds yet if they left it free to Christians to receive one or both as they pleased or to receive sometimes both and sometimes one this if it can be proved will shew that they thought Communion in one might be lawful and sufficient and that it was not necessary to be in both Let us therefore see what evidence there is for any such thing for it looks very strangely that the Church in all its Lyturgies in all the accounts of celebrating the Communion should always use both kinds to all that partook of the Sacrament and yet leave it free to Christians to receive it in one if they pleased and that on some few days they should give the same Sacrament in a quite different manner then they used at all other times this if it be true must be very odd and unaccountable and unless there be very full and evident proof of it we may certainly conclude it to be false What cloud of witnesses then does de Meaux bring to justifie this what names of credit and authority does he produce for it Why not one not so much as a single testimony against the universal suffrage of the whole Church and of the most learned of our Adversaries who all agree in this truth That the Public Communion was in both kinds for above a thousand years Is there any one Writer in all the Ten nay Twelve Centuries who plainly contradicts it any one between the Apostles and Thomas Aquinas who says it was the Custom of the Catholic Church or any part of it to Communicate onely in one kind Nay can de Meaux shew any particular persons or any sort of Christians that ever were in the World before the thirteenth Age that were against both kinds and received onely in one except the Manichees a sort of vile and abominable Hereticks who are the onely Instances in Antiquity for Communion in one kind These men believing Christ not to have really shed his Blood but onely in phantasm and appearance would not take the Sacrament of his Bloud and by the same reason neither should they have taken that of his Body and thinking Wine not to be the Creature of God the Father of Christ but of the Devil or some evil Principle or bad Spirit and so calling it the Gall of the Dragon they had a general abhorrence from it and so would not receive it in the Sacrament Pope Leo heard that several of these were at Rome and that to cover their infidelity and skulk more securely Cum ad tegendam infidelitatem suam nostris audeant interesse mysteriis ita in Sacramentorum Communione se temperant ut interdum tutiùs lateant ore indigno Christi Corpus accipiunt Sanguinem autem Redemptionis nostrae haurire omnino declinant Quod ideo vestram volumus scire sanctitatem ut vobis bujusmodi homines his manifestentur indiciis quorum deprehensa fuerit sacrilega simulatio notati proditi à sanctorum societate sacerdotali auctoritate pellantur Leo Sermo 4 de Quadrag they came to the public Assemblies and werè present at the very Sacrament but yet they did so order themselves at the Communion that so they might the more safely hide themselves and be undiscovered They take with their unworthy mouth the Body of Christ but they refused to drink his Blood this he gave notice of to his Roman Congregation that so these men might be made manifest to them by these marks and tokens that their sacrilegious disimulation being apprehended they might be markt and discovered and so expelled or excommunicated from the society of the Faithful by the Priestly Authority Now how can all this which shews plainly that the Communion at Rome was in both kinds be turned to the advantage of Communion in one this requires the slight and the dexterity of Monsieur de Meaux and 't is one of the most artificial fetches that ever were It is the onely argument which he has to prove that the Public Communion was not in both kinds This remark upon the words of Pope Leo and upon the Decree of Gelasius which is much of the like nature This fraudulent design says he of the Manichees could hardly be discovered because Catholics themselves did not all of them Communicate under both Species But how knows he that That is the question that is not to be begged but proved and 't is a strange way of proving it by no other medium but onely supposing it and that very groundlesly and unreasonably Is this poor weak supposition to bear the weight of that bold assertion which contradicts all manner of Evidence and Authority that the Public Communion in the Church was in one kind If it had been so and Catholics had not all of them Communicated under both Species the Manichees would not have been discovered at all for they would have done the same the Catholics did and to all outward appearance been as good Catholics as they they might have kept their Opinion and Heresie to themselves and that it seems they
they reserved or which they distributed in those days to the People for they pour some of the consecrated Wine upon the consecrated Bread which they reserve on those days and make the form of the Cross with it upon the Bread as appears from the Rubric in the Greek Euchologion ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Eucholog And whatever any private men may pretend to the contrary as Michael Cerularius or Leo Allatius a Latinized Greek this can with no manner of reason prejudice or confront the public Ritual of a Church which as it in no instance practices Communion in one kind but to prevent that uses often the mixture of the two Species where never so little of each is sufficient to justifie the use of both so by this custom of dropping some of the consecrated Wine upon the reserved Bread it shews both its judgement and its care never to have the Communion wholly in one kind But to take off this custom of theirs of dropping some Wine upon the Bread which they reserved for this Communion de Meaux says That immediately after they have dropped it they dry the Bread upon a Chafendish and reduce it to Powder and in that manner keep it as well for the Sick as for the Office of the Presanctified So that no part of the fluid Wine can remain in the Bread thus dryed and powdered however this is for I must take it upon de Meaux's credit finding nothing like it in this Office of the Greeks yet to a man that believes Transubstantiation and thinks the most minute particle of the Species of Wine or Bread contains in a miraculous manner the whole substance of Christ's Body and Blood this difficulty methinks might in some measure be salved however small parts of the Wine may be supposed to remain in the crums of Bread and as the Greeks when they mix the Wine and the Bread together for the Sick and Infants yet believe that they give both the Species however small the margaritae or crums be which are in the Wine so they do the same as to the presanctified Bread however few unexhaled particles of Wine remain in it But Monsieur de Meaux knows very well and acknowledges that the Greeks do further provide against a meer dry Communion in this Office by mixing this sacred Bread with more Wine and Water at the time of the Communion and then as I proved in the case of the Latine Office on Good Friday that the unconsecrated Wine was consecrated by this mixture and by the Prayers and Thanksgivings that were used at that Solemnity so by this way as well as by the first mixture of some drops of Wine with the Bread the Communion in both kinds will be secured in the Greek Church in their Office of the Presanctified and to put it out of all doubt that this is such a Communion let us but look into their Office and we shall find there it plainly is so Behold say the Faithful in their Prayer before the Communion the immaculate Body and the quickning Bloud of Christ are here to be set before us on this mystical Table * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Priest in his low Prayer Begs of Christ that he would vouchsafe to communicate to them his immaculate Body and sacred Bloud and by them to the whole People †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. Then after he has Communicated He returns God thanks for the Communion of the holy Body and Bloud of Christ. So that it is most remarkable as de Meaux says that the Greeks change nothing in this Office from their ordinary Formularies the sacred Gifts are always named in the plural and they speak no less there in their Prayers of the Body and the Blood Is it to be imagined they could do this if they received not any thing upon these days but the Body of our Lord would they not then as the Church of Rome has done change in this Office from their ordinary Formularies but so stedfastly is it says he imprinted in the minds of Christians that they cannot receive one of the Species without receiving at the same time not onely the vertue but also the substance of one and the other So firmly is it imprinted upon the minds of those Christians that they ought not to receive one Species alone without the other contrary to the plain Institution of Christ that they take all care not to do it either in this or any other Office least they should loose the whole vertue and substance and benefit of them If in spite of the opinions of the Greeks themselves which de Meaux owns are of another mind and in spight of their publie Rubric their Rituals and Missals they must be understood to celebrate the Communion in their Churches in one kind then so far as I know de Meaux may as confidently impose upon us and all the World and bear us down by dint of Impudence that both the Greek Church and all the Christian Churches that ever were in the World had always the Public Communion in one kind notwithstanding all their Offices and all their Lyturgies speak to the contrary And now having so fully shewen the universal consent and constant and perpetual Practice of the Church for Communion in both kinds and having answered all the Instances by which de Meaux vainly endeavours to overthrow that I have I hope in some measure performed what was the subject of de Meaux's Prayer at the beginning of his Treatise That not onely Antiquity may be illustrated but that Truth also may become manifest and triumphant †P. 9. And I have hereby wholly taken away the main strength and the very foundation of his Book for that lies in those several customs and pretended matters of fact which he brings to justifie the Churches practice for single Communion and if these be all false and mistaken as upon examination they appear to be then his principles upon which he founds this wrong practice if they are not false and erronious yet they are useless and insignificant for they do not prove but onely suppose the Churches practice and if the practice be not true as it is plain it is not then what signifie those principles which are wholly grounded upon a wrong supposal and are onely designed to make out that which never was Those principles are like framing an Hypothesis to give an account of the reason of some strange and extraordinary thing which thing upon enquiry proves false and mistaken and so they are but like the Virtuoso's solution of a Phoenominon which nothwithstanding all his Philosophic fancy and fine Hypothesis never was in Nature Monsieur de Meaux must better prove to us the Practice of the Church for Communion in one kind then he has yet done before he establishes such Principles by which such a Practise may be made out for whatever the Principles be as long as the Practice is false the Principles will not