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A28850 A treatise of Communion under both species by James Benigne Bossuet.; Traité de la communion sous les doux espèces. English. Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, 1627-1704. 1685 (1685) Wing B3792; ESTC R24667 102,656 385

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that they were so far from the thought of mingling it with the blood that they mad use of another liquor to steepe it in a common liquor taken at the house of the sick In fine this distribution of the body and blood mixed togeather begins not to appeare till the VII Conc. Brac. IV. t. 6. Concil ult edit c. 2. age in the Council of Brague where it is moreover forbidden by an expresse Canon From whence it is easy to comprehend how much a coustume which at first appeares only in the VII age in a Canon which disapproves it is short not only of the third age and the time of S. Denis of Alexandria but likewise of the fourth and that of the third Council of Carthage viz three or four hundred yeares Wee shall see in another place hwo much difficulty was made to admit of the establishment of this mixture even in the X. and XI age especially in the Latine Church and this will serve as a new argument to demonstrate how little it was thought of in the primitive times and in the III. Council of Carthage from whence may be undoubtfully gathered that the Communion which was there ordained for the sick was without doubt under one species and moreover like that of Serapions under the species of bread only Neither will there be any difficulty to acknowledge this when we reflect upon the manner how S. Ambrose communicated at his death in the same age Wee have the life of this Great man writ at the intreaty of S. Augustin and dedicated to him by Paulinus S. Ambroses Deacon and Secretary whom Erasmus improperly confounds with the great Saint Paulinus Bishop of Nole in which he relates that S. Honoratus the famous Bishop of Verceil who was come to assist this Saint at his death heard this voice three times during the silence of the night Rise stay not he is going to dye He went down presented him the body of our Lord and the Saint had no sooner received it but he gave up the ghost Who dos not see that this great Saint is represented to us as one for whom God took care that he should dye in a state where nothing more could be desired seeing he had just received the body of his Lord And at the same time who would not beleeve that he had communicated aright in receiving after the same manner that Saint Ambrose did in dying after the same manner that Saint Honoratus gave it after the same manner it was writ to Saint Augustin and after the same manner the whole Church saw it without finding therein any thing of new or extraordinary The subtility of the Protestants is at a losse about this passage Georg. Calixt disp cont comm sub una specie n. 162. The famous George Calixte the most able amongst the Lutherans of our times and he who has writ the most learnedly upon the two species against us sustaines that Saint Ambrose received in both kinds and for an answer to Paulinus who relates only that the body was given him which he had no sooner received but he gave up the Ghost this subtile Minister has recourse to a Grammaticall figure called Synecdoche which puts the part for the whole without ever so much as offering to bring us one example of such a kind of speech in a like occasion Oh strange effect of a prejudicate opinion Wee see in the Communion of Serapion an assured example of one only species where the restriction of the figure Synecdoche cannot have the least admittance seeing Saint Denis of Alexandria expresses so precisely that the bread and solid part alone was given Wee finde the same language and the same thing in the Council of Carthage and wee see at the same time Saint Ambroses communion in which there is no mention of any thing but the body Nay further for I may well here presuppose what I shall presently demonstrate all ages shew us nothing but the body alone reserved for the ordinary communion of the sick and yet this consequence must not be allowed and a Synecdoche without aledging one example must be preferred to so many examples that are received What blindnesse or rather what cavill is this If these Gentlemen would act sincerely and not study how to evade rather then to instruct they would see that it dos not suffise to alledge at random the figure Synecdoche and to say that it is ordinary by the use of this figure to expresse the whole by its part All things are eluded by these meanes and nothing of certain is left in speech A man must come to the matter proposed in particular and to the place under debate He must examin for example weather the figure he would apply to this relation of Paulinus be found in any other of the like nature and weather it agree in particular to that of this Historian Calixt dos nothing of all this because all this would only have served to confound him And at the very first sight it is cleare and certain the figure of which he speakes is not one of those which are common in ordinary speech as when wee say to eat togeather to expresse the whole feast and to drink as wel as to eat or as the Hebrews mentioned bread alone to expresse in generall the whole nourishment It is not the custome of Ecclesiasticall language nor in common use to name the body alone to expresse the body and the blood seing on the contrary we may finde passages in every page of the fathers where the distribution of the body and blood is related in expressely naming the one and the other and it may be for certain held that this is the ordinary practice But without tiring our selves unprofitabley in the search of those passages where the Fathers may have mentioned the one without the other nor the particular reasons which might have obliged them to it I will say sticking to the Examples debated of in this place that I have never seen any relation where in recounting the distribution of the body and the blood they have expressed only one of the two And if I have not observed any example of this neither has Calixte remarked any such more then I And what ought to make any one beleeve that there is none is that a man so carefull as he has been to heap togeather all he can against us has not beene able to finde any I finde also M. Du Bourd ch 17. p. 317. du Bourdieu who has writ since him and read him so well that he followes him almost throughout and therefore ought to have supplyed his defects tells us not upon occasion of Paulinus and Saint Ambrose but upon occasion of Tertullien that if this Father in speaking of Domestick Communion of which wee shall also treat in its proper place has mentioned nothing but the body and consecrated bread without naming the blood or the wine it is that he expresses the whole by the part and
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
body and blood even in giving the body only and this by the naturall union of the substance and the Grace both of the one and the other Wee see neverthelesse that this Council had some scrupule concerning this matter and beleeved that in expressing the two species they ought both of them to be given in some manner In effect it is true that in some sence to be able to call it the body and the blood the two species must be given because the naturall dessine of this expression is to denote that which each of them containes in vertue of the Institution But it will be granted me that to mix them in this manner and let them dry for eight dayes togeather was but a very weake meanes to conserve the two species and how ever it be this part of the Canon which containes a custome so particular cannot be a prejudice to so many decrees where wee see not only nothing resembling it but moreover quite the contrary That which is most certain is that this Canon makes it appeare they did not beleeve the holy liquor could with ease be conserved in its proper species and that their endeavours were cheefely to conserve the consecrated bread As to the other part which regards the mixture what wee have said tooching the Grecians may be applyed here and all the subtility of the Ministers cannot hinder but it will alwayes be certain by this Cannon that they never beleeved themselves bound either to make the person communicating drink or to give him the blood seperated from the body to denote the violent death of our Lord or lastly to give him in effect any liquor at all seing after eight dayes it is sufficiently cleare there remained nothing of the oblation but the drye and solid part So that this Canon so much boasted of by the Ministers without concluding any thing against us serves only to shew that liberty which the Churches thought them selves to have in the administration of the sacred species of the Eucharist After all these remarks wee have made it must passe for constant and undeniable that neither the Greeks nor the Latins ever believed that all that is writt in the Gospell tooching the communion under two species was essentiall and expressely commanded and that on the contrary it was allwayes believed even from the first ages that one sole species was sufficient for a true communion seing that the custome was to keepe nothing for nor give nothing to the sick but one only It serves for nothing to object that the two species were frequently carryed to the sick and more over in generall that they were carryed to those that were absent Saint Justin Just Apol. 1. I owne is expresse in this matter But why do they alledge to us these passages which serve for nothing It is one thing to say as Saint Justin does that the two species of the Sacrament were carryed at the same time as M. de la Roque speaks it was celebrated in the Church Hist de l'Eucharist 1. P. c. 15. p. 176. and another thing to say they could reserve them so long a time as was necessary for the sick and that it was the custome to do so especially in a time when persecution permitted not frequent Ecclesiasticall assemblyes Hier. Ep. IV. ad Rust The same thing must be said of Saint Exuperius Bishop of Toulouze of whom Saint Hierome writ that after he had sold all the rich vessells of the Church to redeeme captives and solace the poor he carryed the Body of our Lord in a basket and the Blood in a vessell of glasse He carryed them sayes S. Hierome but he does not say he kept them which is our question And I acknowledge that when there was any sick persons to be communicated in those circumstances where they could commodiously receive both the species without being at all changed they made no difficulty in it But it is no lesse certain by the common deposition of so many testimonys that where as the species of wine could not be kept with ease the ordinary communion of the sick like that of Serapion and Saint Ambrose was under the sole species of bread In effect Hist Fr. Script T. IV. wee read in the life of Louis the VI. called the Grosse written by Sugerus Abbot of Saint Denis that in the last sicknesse of this Prince the Body and Blood of our Lord was carryed to him but wee see there also that this faithfull Historien thought himselfe obliged to render the reason of it and to advertise that it was as they came from saying Masse and that they carryed it devoutly in procession to his chamher which ought to make us understand in what manner it was used out of these conjunctures But that which putts the thing out of all doubt is that in substance M. de la Roque agrees with us as to the matter of fact in debate There is no more difficulty to communicate the sick under the sole species of bread then under that of wine only a practise which this curious observer shews us in the VII Hist Euch. I. p. ch 12. p. 150. 160. age in the cleaventh Council of Toledo Canon XI He sayes as much of the eleavent age and of Pope Paschalis II. Conc. Tolet. XI Pasch II. Ep. 32. ad Pont. by whom he makes the same thing to be permitted for little infants Hee is so far from disapproving these practises that he is carefull to defend them and excuses them himselfe upon an invincible necessity as if a parcel of the sacred bread could not be so steeped that a sick person or even an infant might swallow it almost as easily as wine But the businesse was that he must finde some excuse to hinder us from concluding from his own observations that the Church believed she had a full liberty to give one species only without any prejudice to the integrety of communion Behold what wee finde tooching the communion of the sick in the tradition of all ages If some of these practises which I have observed concerning that veneration which was payed to the Eucharist astonish owr reformers and appeare new to them I engage my selfe to shew them shortly and in few words for it is not difficult that the originall of it is antient in the Church or reather that it never had a beginning But at present that wee may not quit our matter it is sufficient for me to shew them only by comparing the customes of the first and last ages a continuall Tradition of communicating the sick ordinarily under the sole species of bread although the Church alwayes tender to her children if she had beleeved both the species necessary would rather have had them consecrated extraordinarily in the sick persons chamber Capit. Anytonis Basil Episc temp Car. Mag. cap. 14. T. VI. Spicil as it has been often actually practised then to deprive them of this succour on the contrary she
other It is true the moderne Greeks explane thēselves other wayes and appeare not for the most part very favourable to communion under one species but it is in this the force of truth appeares the greater since that in despite of them their own customes their own Liturgies their own Traditions pronounce sentence against them But is it not true will some say that they put some drops of the pretious Blood in forme of a Crosse upon the parcells of the sacred Body which they reserve for the following dayes and for the Office of Presanctified It is true they do it for the most part but it is true at the same time that this custome is new amongst them and that in the substance to examin it entirely it concludes nothing against us It concludes nothing against us because besides that two or three drops of consecrated wine cannot be preserved any long time the Greekes take care immediately after they have dropped them upon the consecrated bread to dry it upon a chafendish and to reduce it to powder for it is in that manner they keep it as well for the sick as for the Office of the Presanctified A certain signe that the authors of this Tradition had not in prospect by this mixture the Communion under both species which they would have given in another manner if they had beleeved them necessary but indeed the expression of some mystery such as might be the Resurrection of our Lord which all Liturgyes both Greeke and Latin figured by the mixture of the Body and the Blood in the Chalice because the death of our Lord arriving by the effusion of his Blood this mixture of his Body and his Blood is very proper to represent how this man-God tooke life again I should be ashamed to mention here all the vaine subtilityes of the modern Greeks and the false arguments they make about the wine and about its more grosse and more substantiall parts which remain after the sollid bodyes with which wine may be mixed bacome dryed from whence they conclude that a like effect is produced in the species of consecrated wine and therefore that the Blood of our Lord may remain in the sacred Bread even after it has been upon the chafendish and is entirely drye By these wise reasonings the Lees and the Tartar orsalt would still be wine and a lawfull matter for the Eucharist Must wee thus argued concerning the mysteryes of JESUS-CHRIST It was wine as properly called so that is a liquid and flowing wine which JESUS-CHRIST instituted for the matter of his Sacrament It is a liquor which he has given us to represent to our eyes his Blood which was shedd and the simplicity of the Gospell will not suffer these subtilityes of the modern Grecians It must also be acknowledged they arrived to this but of very late and moreover that the custome of putting these drops of consecrated Wine upon the Bread of the Eucharist was not established amongst them but since their schisme The Patriarch Michael Cerularius who may be called the true author of this schisme writes notwithstanding in a booke which he composed in defence of the Office of the Presanctified That the sacred Breads Synodic seu Pand. Guill Bevereg Oxon. 1672. Not. in Can. 52. Conc. which are beleeved to be and which are in effect the quickning Body of our Lord must be kept for this sacrifice Trull T. II. p. 156. Leo All. Ep. ad Nihus without sprincling one drop of the pretious Blood upon them And wee finde notes upon the Councils by a famous Canonist who was one of the Clergy belonging to the Church of Constantinople in which he expressely takes notice that according to the doctrine of Blessed John Patriarch of Constantinople The pretious Blood must not be sprincled upon the Presanctified which they would reserve Harmenop Ep. Can. sect 2. Tit. 6. and this said he is the practise of our Church So that let the modern Grecians say what they please their tradition is expressly against this mixture and according to their own authors and their own proper tradition there remains not so much as a pretense to defend the necessity of the two species in the Presanctified mysteries For can any one so much as conceive what Patriarch Michael in the worke by us newly cited sayes That the wine in which they mix the Body reserved is changed into the pretious Blood by this mixing without so much as prononcing upon the wine as appeares by the Euchologes and by Michaels own confession any one of the mystick and sanctifying prayers that is to say without prononcing the words of consecration bee they what they will for it is not to our purpose to dispute here of them A prodigious and unheard of opinion that a Sacrament can be made without words contrary to the authority of the Scripture and the constant tradition of all Churches which neither the Grecians nor any body else ever called in question By how much therefore wee ought to reverence the antient traditions of the Grecians which descend to them from their fathers and from those times whilst they were united to us by so much ought wee to dispise those errours into which they are falne in the following ages weakned and blinded by schisme I need not here relate them because the Protestants themselves do nor deny but that they are great and I should recede too far from my subject But I will only say to do justice to the modern Grecians that they do not all hold this grosse opinion of Michaels and that it is not an universall opinion amongst them that the wine is changed into the Blood by this mixture of the Body notwithstanding that Scripture and Tradition assigne a particular benediction by words as well to it as to the Body Wee are much lesse to beleeve that the Latins who exposed to us but even now the Office of Good Fryday could be fallen into this errour since they explicate themselves quite contrary in expresse words and to the end wee may omit nothing wee must again in few words propose their sentiments It is true then that wee finde in the Ordo Romanus and in this Office of Good Fryday that the unconsecrated wine is sanctifyed by the sanctifyed bread which is mixed with it The same is found in the bookes of Alcuinus and Amalarius upon the Divine Office Alc. de Div. Off. Amal. lib. r. de Div. Off. Bib. PP de Div. Off. But upon the least reflection made of the doctrine they teach in these same bookes it will be granted that this sanctification of the unconsecrated Wine by the mixture of the Body of our Lord cannot be that true consecration by which the wine is changed into the Blood but a sanctification of another nature and of a much inferiour order such as that is of which Saint Bernard speakes when he sayes that the Wine mixed with the consecrated Hoste Bern. Ep. 69. p. 92.
Acts of the Apostles that the three thousand and five thousand who were converted at the first Sermons of Saint Peter were baptised after any other manner and the great number of these converts is no proofe that they were baptised by sprinkling as some would conjecture For besides that nothing obliges us to affirme they were all baptised upon the same day it is certain that Saint John Baptist who baptised no lesse then they since all Judea flocked to him did notwithstanding baptise them by immersion or dipping and his example has showed us that to baptise a great nomber of man they were accustomed to make choice of a place where there was much water to which wee may further add that the baths and purifications of the antients and principally those of the Jewes rendred this ceremony facile and familiar in this time In fine wee read not in the Scriptures of any other manner of baptising and wee can shew by the acts of Councils and by antient Rituells that for thirteen hundred yeares the whole Church baptised after this manner as much as it was possible The very word also which is used in the Rituells to expresse the action of Godfathers and Godmothers when they say that they elevate the child from the font of Baptisme shows sufficiently that it was the custome to immerge or dipp them in it Though these truths be without dispute yet neither wee nor the pretended Reformers regarde the Anabaptists who hold that this immersion is essentiall and no wayes to be dispensed with and neither the one nor the other of us have any difficulty to change this plunging if I may call it so of the whole body into a meere sprinckling or a powring upon some part of the body No other reason can be given for this change but that this immersion or dipping is not essentiall to Baptisme and the pretended Reformers agreeing herein the first principle wee have layd must be also without contest § II. Second Principle To know the substance or essence of a Sacrament wee must regarde the essentiall effect THE second principle is that to distinguish what appertaines or do's not appertaine to the substance of a Sacrament wee must regard the essentiall effect of that Sacrament Thus though the words of JESUS-CHRIST Baptise signify immerge or dipp as has beene already said yet it was beleeved that the effect of the Sacrament was not restrained to the quantity of the water so that Baptisme by infusion and sprinckling or by immersion or dipping appearing in substance to have the same effect both the one and the other manner is judged vallid But as wee have said no essentiall effect of the Body distinct from that of the Blood can be found in the Eucharist so that the Grace both of the one and the other in the ground and in substance can be no other but the same It is nothing to the purpose to say that the representation of the death of our Lord is more exactly expressed in the two species I grant it in like manner the representation of new birth of the faithfull is more exactly expressed by immersion or dipping then by meere infusion or sprinckling For the faithfull being dipped or plunged in the water of Baptisme is buryed with JESUS-CHRIST Rom. 6.4 Coloss 2.12 according to the expression of the Apostle and the same faithfull coming out of the waters comes out of the Grave with his Saviour and represents more perfectly the mystery of JESUS-CHRIST that regenerated him Immersion by which water is applyed to the whole body and to all its parts do's also more perfectly signify that a man is fully and entirely washed from his spotts And yet Baptisme given by immersion or plunging is of no more vallue then Baptisme given by meere infusion and upon one only part it suffises that the expression of the mystery of JESUS-CHRIST and of the effect of Grace be found in substance in the Sacrament and that an ultimate exactnesse of representation is not there requisite Thus in the Eucharist the signification of the death of our Lord being found in substance when the Body delivered for us in given to us and an expression of the Grace of the Sacrament being also found when under the species of Bread the image of our spirituall nourishment is administred unto us the Blood which dos nothing but add to it a more expresse signification is not there absolutely necessary This is what is manifestly proved by the very words of our Lord and the reflection of Saint Paul when relating these words 1. Cor. 11.25.26 Do this in remembrance of me he immediately after concludes that so often as wee eat this Bread and drinke this Cupp wee shew forth the death of our Lord. Thus according to the interpretation of the Disciple the Masters intention is that when he ordaines wee should be mindfull of him wee should be mindfull of his death To the end therefore wee may rightly understand wheather the remembrance of this death consists in the sole participation of the whole mystery or in the participation of either of its parts wee need but consider that our Saviour dos not expect till the whole mystery be ended and the whole Eucharist received in both its parts before he sayes Ibid. 24.25 Do this in remembrance of me Saint Paul remarked that at each part he expressely ordained this remembrance For after having said Eat This is my Body do this in remembrance of me in giving the Blood he again repeates As often as you shall drinke this do it in remembrance of me declaring unto us by this repetition that wee shew forth his death in the participation of each kinde From whence it followes that when Saint Paul concludes from these words that in eating the Body and drinking the Blood wee shew forth the death of the Lord wee must understand that this death is not only shown forth by taking the whole but also by taking either part and the rather because it is otherwise apparent that in this mysticall separation which JESUS-CHRIST has signifyed by his words the Body seperated from the Blood and the Blood seperated from the Body have the same effect to shew forth the violent death of our Lord. So that if there be a more distinct expression in receiving the whole Representation more pressing it dos not cease neverthelesse to be true that by the reception of either part his death is wholy and entire represented and the whole Grace applyed to us But if any here demande to what purpose then was the institution of both species and this more lively represention of the death of our Lord which wee have here remarked it is that they will not reflect of one quality of the Eucharist well known to the antients though rejected by our Reformers All the antients beleeved that the Eucharist was not only a nourishment but also a sacrifice and that it was offered to God in consecrating of it before it was
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
and such as carrys a face of probability But in reality there was none Nor dos M. Jurieux shew us any in the Authors of that time The first contradiction is that which gave occasion to the decision of the Councile of Constance in the yeare 1415. It begun in Bohemia as wee have seene about the end of the XIV age and if according to the relation of M. Jurieux the custome of communicating under one sole species begun in the XI age if they do not begin to complaine and that in Bohemia only but towards the end of the XIV age by the acknowledgement of this Minister three hundred whole yeares should be passed before a change so strange so bold if wee beleeve him so visibly opposite to the institution of JESUS CHRIST and to all precedent practises should have made any noise Beleive it that will for my part I am sensible that to beleeve it all remorse of conscience must be stifled M. Jurieux must without doubt have some of them to fee himselfe forced by the badnesse of his cause to disguise truth so many wayes in an historicall relation that is in a kind of discourse which above all others requires candor and sincerity He do's not so much as state the question sincerely V. Sect. p. 464. The state of the question says he is very easy to comprehend he will then I hope declare it clearely and distinctly Let us see It is granted adds he that when they communicate the faithfull as well the people as the Clergy they are obliged to give them the Bread to eate but they pretend it is not the same as to the Cupp He will not so much as dreame that wee beleeve Communion equally vallid and perfect under eather of the two species But beeing willing by the very state of the question to have it understood that wee beleive more perfection or more necessity in that of the Bread then in the other or that JESUS-CHRIST is not equally in them both he would thereby render us manifestly ridiculous But he knows verry well that wee are far from these phancyes and it may be seene in this Treatise that wee beleeve the Communion given to little children during so many ages under the sole species of wine as good and vallid as that which was given in so many other occurrences under the sole species of Bread So that M. Jurieux states the question wrong He begins his dispute concerning the two species upon that question so stated He continues it by a history where wee have seene he advances as many falsityes as facts Behold here the man whom our Reformers looke upon at present every where as the strongest defendour of their cause §. IX A reflection upon concomitancy and upon the doctrine of the sixth chapter of Saint Johns Gospel IF wee add to the proofs of those practises which wee have drawn from the most pure and holy source of antiquity and to those solid maximes wee have established by the consent of the Pretended Reformers if wee add I say to all these what wee have already said but which it may be has not been sufficiently weighed that the reall presence being supposed it cannot be denyed but that each species containes JESUS-CHRIST whole and entire Communion under one species will remaine undoubted there being nothing more unreasonable then to make the grace of a Sacrament where JESUS-CHRIST has wouchsafed to be present nor to depend of JESUS-CHRIST himselfe but of the species under which he is hidden These Gentlemen of the Pretended Reformation must permitt us here to explicate more fully this concomitancy so much attaqued by their disputes and seing they have let passe the reall presence as a doctrine which has no venome in it they ought not henceforth to have such an aversion from what is but a manifest consequence of it M. Jurieux has acknowleged it in the places heretofore mentioned Exam. p. 480. If says he the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the reall presence were true it is true that the Bread would containe the Flesh and Blood of JESUS-CHRIST So that concomitancy is an effect of the reall presence and the Pretended Reformers do not deny us this consequence Let them then at present presuppose this reall presence seing they suffer it in their brethren the Lutherans and let them consider with us the necessary consequences they will see that our Lord could not give us his Body and his Blood perpetually seperated nor give us either the one or the other without giving us his person whole and entire in either of the two Verily when he said Take eat this is my Body and by those words gave us the flesh of his sacrifise to eate he know verry well he did not give us the flesh of a pure man but that he gave us a flesh united to the divinity and in a word the flesh of God and man both togeather The same must be said of his Blood which would not be the price of our salvation if it were not the Blood of God Blood which the Divine Word had appropriated to himselfe after a most particular manner by making himselfe man conformable to these words of Saint Paul Heb. 11.14.17 Because his servants are composed of flesh and blood he who ought in all things to be like unto them would partake both of the one and the other But if he would not give us in his Sacrament a flesh purely humain he would much lesse give us in it a flesh without a soule a dead flesh a carcase or by the same reason a flesh despoiled of blood and blood actually seperated from the body otherwise he ought to dye often and often to shed his Blood a thing unworthy the glorious state of his Resurrection where he ought to conserve eternally humain nature as entire as he had at first assumed it So that he knew verry well that wee should have in his flesh his Blood that in his Blood wee should have his flesh and that wee should have in both the one and the other his blessed soule with his divinity whole and entire without which his flesh would not be quickning nor his Blood full of spirit and grace Why then in giving us such great treasors his holy soule his divinity all that he is why I say did he only name his Body and his Blood if it were not to make us understand it is by that infirmity which he would have common with us wee must arrive to his strength And why has he in his word distinguished this Body and this Blood which he would not effectually seperate but during that little time he was in the sepulchre if it be not to make us also understand this Body and this Blood with which he nourisheth and quickneth us would not have the vertue if they had not beene once actually seperated and if this seperation had not caused the violent death of our Saviour by which he became our victime So that the vertue
of this Body and this Blood coming from his death he would conserve the image of this death when he gave us them in his holy Supper and by so lively a representation keepe us alwayes in minde to the cause of our salvation that is to say the sacrifise of the Crosse According to this doctrine wee ought to have our living victime under an image of death otherwise wee should not be enlivened JESUS-CHRIST tells us also at his holy table I am living but I have beene dead Apoc. 1.11 and living in effect I beare only upon wee the image of that death which I have endured It is also thereby that I enliven because by the figure of my death once suffered I introduce those who beleeve to that life which I possesse eternally Thus the Lambe who is before the Throne as dead Apoc. 5.6 or rather as slaine do's not cease to be living for he is slanding and he sends throughout the world the seaven Spirits of God and he takes the booke and opens it and he fils heaven and earth with joy and with grace Our Reformers will not or it may be cannot yet understand so high a mystery for it enters not into the hearts but of those who are prepared by a purifyed Faith But if they cannot understand it they may at least understand very well that wee cannot beleeve a reall presence of the Body and Blood of JESUS-CHRIST without admitting all the other things wee have even now explicated and these things thus explicated is what wee call concomitancy But as soone as concomitancy is supposed and that wee have acknowledged JESUS-CHRIST whole and entire under each species it is verry easy to understand in what the vertue of this Sacrament consists John VI. 64. Cvr. lib. IV. in Joh. c. 34. Ia. Anath XI Conc. Eph. p. I. T. III. Conc. The flesh profiteth nothing and if wee understand it as Saint Cyrille whose sence was followed by the whole Council of Ephesus it profiteth nothing to beleeve it alone to believe it the flesh of a pure man but to believe it the flesh of God a flesh full of divinity and by consequence of spirit and of life it profiteth very much without doubt because in this state it is full of an infinite vertue and in it wee receive togeather with the entire humanity of JESUS-CHRIST his divinity also whole and entire and the very source or fountaine of graces For this reason it is the Son of God who knew what he would place in his mystery knew also very well how to make us understand in what he would place the vertue of it What he has said in Saint John must therefore be no more objected John 6.54 If you eate not the Flesh of the Son of man and drinke not his Blood you shall not have life in you The manifest meaning of these words is there is no life for those who seperate themselves from the one and the other for indeede it is not the eating and drinking but the receiving of JESUS-CHRIST that gives life JESUS-CHRIST sayes himselfe and as it is excellently remarked by the Councill of Trent Sess XXI c. 1. too injustly calumniated by our adversaryes He who said John 6.54 IF YOU EATE NOT THE FLESCH OF THE SON OF MAN AND DRINKE NOT HIS BLOOD YOU SHALL NOT HAVE LIFE IN YOU has also said Ibid. 52. IF ANY ONE EAT OF THIS BREAD HE SHALL HAVE LIFE EVERLASTING And he who said Ibid. 55. HE WHO EATES MY FLESH AND DRINKES MY BLOOD HAS ETERNALL LIFE Ibid. 52. has said also THE BREAD WHICH I WILL GIVE IS MY FLESH WHICH I WILL GIVE FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD And lastly he who said Ibid. 57. HE THAT EATES MY FLESH AND DRINKES MY BLOOD REMAINES IN ME AND I IN HIM has also said HE WHO EATES THIS BREAD Ibid. 59. SHALL HAVE ETERNALL LIFE and againe Ibid. 58. HE THAT EATES ME LIVES FOR ME AND SHALL LIVE BY ME. By which he obliges us not to the eating and drinking at his holy Table or to the species which containe his Body and his Blood but to his propper substance which is there communicated to us and togeather with it grace and life So that this passage of Saint John from whence as wee have said Jacobel tooke occasion to revolt and all Bohemia to rise in rebellion becomes a proofe for us The Pretended Reformers themselves would undertake to defend us if wee would against this passage so much boasted of by Jacobel seeing they owne with a common consent this passage is not to be understood of the Eucharist Calvin has said it Cal. Inst IV. c. Aub. lib. I. de Sacr. Euch. c. 30. c. Aubertin has said it every one says it and M. du Bourdieu says it also in his Treatise so often cited Repl. ch VI. p. 201. But without taking any advantage from their acknowledgements wee on the contrary with all antiquity maintaine that a passage where the Flesh and Blood as well as eating and drinking are so often and so clearly distinguished cannot be understood meerely of a communion where eating and drinking is the same thing such as is a spirituall Communion and by faith It belongs therefore to them and not to us to defend themselves from the authority of this passage where the businesse being to explicate the vertue and the fruict of the Eucharist it appeares that the Son of God places them not in eating and drinking nor in the manner of receiving his Body and his Blood but in the foundation and in the substance of both the one and the other Whereupon the antient Fathers for example Saint Cyprian he who most certainly gave nothing but the Blood alone to little infants as wee have seene so precisely in his Treatise De lapsis Test. ad Quir. III. 25.20 dos not omit to say in the same Treatise that the parents who led their children to the sacrifises of Idols deprived them of the Body and Blood of our Lord and teaches also in another place that they actually fulfill and accomplish in those who have life and by consequence in infants by giving them nothing but the Blood all that which is intended by these words If you eate not my Flesh and drink not my Blood you shall not have life in you Aug. Ep. 23. Saint Augustin sayes often the same thing though he had seene and examined in one of his Epistles that passage of Saint Cyprian where he speakes of the Communion of infants by Blood alone without finding any thing extraordinary in this manner of communion and that it is not to be doubted but the African Church where Saint Augustin was Bishop had retained the Tradition which Saint Cyprian so great a Martyr Bishop of Carthage and Primate of Africa had left behind him The foundation of this is that the Body and Blood inseperably accompany each other for although the species which
containe particularly the one or the other in vertue of the institution are taken seperately their substance can be no more seperated then their vertue and their grace in so much that infants in drinking only the Blood do not only receive the essentiall fruit of the Eucharist but also the whole substance of this Sacrament and in a word an actuall and perfect Communion All these things shew sufficiently the reason wee have to believe that Communion under one or both species containes togeather with the substance of this Sacrament the whole effect essentiall to it The practise of all ages which have explained it in this manner has its reason grounded both in the foundation of the mystery and in the words themselves of JESUS-CHRIST and never was any custome established upon more sollid foundations nor upon a more constant practise § X. Some objections solved by the precedent Doctrine I Do not wonder that our Reformers who acknowlege nothing but bare signes in the bread and wine of their Supper endeavour by all meanes to have them both but I am astonished that they will not understand that in placing as wee do JESUS-CHRIST entirely under each of these sacred Symboles wee can content our selves with one of the two M. Exam. Tr. VI. Sect. 6. p. 480. 481. Jurieux objects against us that the reall presence being supposed the Body and the Blood would in reality be received under the Bread alone but that yet this would not suffise because t is true this would be to receive the Blood but not the Sacrament of the Blood this would be to receive JESUS-CHRIST wholy entirely really but not sacramentally as they call it Is it possible that a man should believe it is not enough for a Christian to receive entire JESUS-CHRIST Is it not a Sacrament where JESUS-CHRIST is pleased to be in person thereby to bring with himselfe all his graces to place the vertue of this Sacrament in the signes with which he is vailed rather then in his proper person which he gives us wholy and entirely Is not this I say contrary to what he himselfe has said with his own mouth John 6.57.58 he who eates of this Bread shall have eternall life and he who eates me shall live for me and by me as I my selfe live for my Father and by my Father But if M. Jurieux maintaine in despite of these words that it dos not suffise to have JESUS-CHRIST if wee have not in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood the perfect image of his death as he do's nothing in that but repete an objection alread cleared so I send him to the answers I have given to this argument and to the undeniable examples I have set down to shew that by the avouched confession of his Churches when the substance of the Sacrament is received the ultimate perfection of its signification is no more necessary But if this principle be true even in those very Sacraments were JESUS-CHRIST is not really and substantially contained as in that of Baptisme how much the rather is it certain in the Eucharist where JESUS-CHRIST is present in his person and what is it he can desire more who possesses him entirely But in fine will some say there must not be such arguing upon expresse words Seing it is your sentiment that the VI. chapter of Saint John ought to be understood of the Eucharist you cannot dispence with your selves in the practise of it as to the letter and to give the Blood to drinke as well as the Body to eat seing JESUS-CHRIST has equally prononced both of the one and of the other If you eat not my Body and drinke not my Blood you shall have no life in you Let us once stop the mouths of these obstinate and contentious spirits who will not understand these words of JESUS-CHRIST by their whole connexion I demande of them whence it comes they do not by these words believe Communion absolutely necessary for the salvation of all men yea even of little infants newly baptised If nothing must be explicated let us give to them the Communion as well as to others and if it must be explicated let us explicate all by the same rule I say by the same rule because the same principle and the same authoritè from which wee learne that Communion in generall is not necessary to the salvation of those who have received Baptisme teach us that the particular Communion of the Blood is not necessary to those who have been already partakers of the Body The principle which shews us that the Communion is not necessary to the salvation of little infants baptized is that they have already received the remission of sins and a new life in Baptisme because they have beene thereby regenerated and sanctifyed in so much that if they should perish for want of being communicated they would perish in the state of innocence and grace The same principle shews also that he who has received the Bread of life has no neede of receiving the sacred Blood seing as wee have frequently demonstrated he has received togeather with the Bread of life the whole substance of the Sacrament and togeather with that fubstance the whole essentiall vertue of the Eucharist The substance of the Eucharist is JESUS-CHRIST himselfe The vertue of the Eucharist is to nourish the soule to conserve therein that new life it has received in Baptisme to confirme the union with JESUS-CHRIST and to replenish even our bodyes with sanctity and life I aske whether in the very moment the Body of our Lord is received all these effect be not likewise received and whether the Blood can add thereunto any thing essentiall Behold what regards the principle let us come now to what regards the authority The authority which persuades us that Communion is not so necessary to the salvation of little infants as Baptisme is the authority of the Church It is in effect this authority which carryes with it in the Tradition of all ages the true meaning of the Scripture and as this authority has taught us that he who is baptised wants not any thing necessary to salvation so dos it also teach us that he who receives one sole species wants none of those effects which the Eucharist ought to produce in us From hence in the very primitive times they communicated either under one or under both species without believing they hazarded any thing of that grace which they ought to receive in the Sacrament Wherefore though it be writt If you do not eate my Body and drinke my Blood John 6.54 you shall have no life in you it is also writt after the same manner John 3.8 If a man be not regenerated of water and the Holy Ghost he shall not enter into the Kingdome of God The Church hath not understoud an equall necessity in these two Sentences on the contrary she alwayes understood that Baptisme which gives life is more necessary then the Eucharist