sanctis literis nam ut non haberent haeretici justam excusationem sustulit eis omnem tergiversando occasionem Nam Lucas illud Hoc facite posuit post datum Sacramentum Sub specie panis post datum autem calicem illud non repetivit ut intelligeremus jussisse Dominum ut sub specie panis omnibus distribueretur Sacramentum sub specie autem vini non utrem Bellarm. de Sacram. Euchar. l. 4. c. 25. that to take away all Heretical Tergiversation this should so happen that it might be plainly understood that the Wine was not to be given to all and that this command did not belong to that but onely to the Bread But this shews how over-hasty he was to catch at any thing though by the plainest mistake in the World that might help him in his straights and how over-glad to find any thing that might seem to favour and relieve him in his distressed cause and how his zeal and forwardness out run not onely his judgement but even his memory for if he had but turned to St. Paul and had but thought of this passage in him where he addes these very words Do this in remembrance of me to the Cup as well as to the Bread it would have quite spoiled his mighty Observation and made him ashamed of it and not have suffered him to be guilty of so horrid a flip But the Bishop of Meaux espied this †P. 255. as it is hard to miss it and what way has he to put by the force of those words which so undeniably belong to the Cup as well as the Bread He says They import onely a conditional order to do this in remembrance of Christ as often as one shall do it and not an order absolute to do it But does not this conditional order imply an absolute one to do it often and virtually forbid the not doing it at all if he had gone on but to the very next verse would he not have found that St. Paul gives the same conditional order concerning eating the Bread as both here and there concerning drinking the Cup As often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew forth or do ye shew forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord's death till he come And do not those words though spoke conditionally of the Bread yet absolutely order the eating of it when we received the Sacrament if they do as sure no body will deny then they as well absolutely order the drinking the Cup too when we do so Affirmative precepts such as this is oblige us not absolutely at all times as when ye pray when ye fast are onely conditional commands but yet they import an absolute command to perform those duties and when we do so to perform them so as Christ has appointed us to do and thus we have an absolute precept in the Gospel to receive the Sacrament which he is very willing we should not have ‖ P. 256. and when we do so we are to receive it as Christ commanded we should by eating Bread and drinking Wine and doing both those in remembrance of him 3. Christ's own Institution had there been no such particular Commands to Drink as well as to Eat and to Do both in remembrance of him I say his own Institution of the Sacrament both by Bread and Wine should suffice methinks to show us what we should do when we Celebrate the same Sacrament that he did namely use both Bread and Wine and eat and drink it as was done then if it be the same Sacrament that he celebrated with his Disciples why do not we celebrate it as he did why should we not observe his own Institution but without any order from him and contrary to what he did leave out part of it and that part of it which is as considerable and as remarkable in his Institution as the other If from the bare Institution of Christ all Christians are bound to receive this Sacrament which surely they are then from thence they are bound as much to drink the Cup as to eat the Bread for both are equally instituted If the Institution for of that I speak now as 't is in St. Matthew and St. Mark without the additional command of Do this if that do not oblige to drink the Cup neither does it oblige to eat the Bread for that is no more in the Institution then the other And if the Church has such a power as to take away the Cup notwithstanding the Institution it may have a power to take away the Bread too notwithstanding the Institution for the one is as much in the Institution as the other and if the Cup be not an Essential part of the Sacrament which is the other thing they say and which the Bishop of Meaux insists on which I shall examine afterwards then neither is the Bread so far as appears by the Institution and so neither of them may be necessary and both of them may be taken away notwithstanding Christ's own Institution of both Which though it be the most presumptuous boldness and the most horrid Sacriledge that can be yet shall I say no more to it at present but what St. Cyprian does upon the like case of those who would omit the Wine in the Sacrament and use water instead of it ‖ Quod si nec minima demandatis Christi licet solvere quanto magis tam magna tam grandia tam ad ipsum dominicae passionis nostrae Redemptionis Sacramentum pertinentia fas non est infringere aut in aliud quam quod divinitùs institutum sit humanâ institutione mutare Cyprian ep 63. ad Caecilium But if it be not lawful to loose any one of the least Commands of Christ how much more is it not lawful to infringe so great and so weighty ones and such as the very Sacrament of our Lord's Passion and our Redemption and to change it by Humane Institution into quite another thing then what it is by Divine Institution 4. The reason added by our Saviour to his Institution and Command of Drink ye all of it * Matth. 26.28 for this is my blood of the new testament which is shed for you as in St. Luke for many as in St. Matthew and St. Mark for the remission of sins This shews the Cup not onely to have a peculiar use as well as the Bread and a particular mistical relation to his Blood shed or poured out but that it belongs to all those to drink of it for whom Christ's Blood was shed who are to have remission of sins by it and who have a right to the new Covenant which Christ has purchased and establisht in his Blood which I suppose are the Christian Laiety as well as the Priests though I do not think with Bellarmine †Dispute de Euch. l. 4. that all Turks and Infidels ought to have the Cup because Christ's Blood was shed for them too but I
the Bread and Wine St. Paul who wrote to the Laiety would no doubt have taken notice of it and told them their respective duties but he delivers the Institution to them just as Christ did to his Apostles says not a tittle of their not being to receive the Cup but on the contrary adds that command to it which is in none of the Evangolists Do this in remembrance of me Gives not the least intimation that this was given to the Apostles as Priests or that they were made Priests then but what is observable does not so much as mention the Apostles or take any notice of the persons that were present at the Institution and to whom the words Do this were spoken So that so far as appears from him they might be spoken to other Disciples to ordinary Laics nay to the women who might be present at this first Sacrament as well as the Apostles and so must have been made Priests by those words Hoc facite as well as they After the recital of the Institution in which he observes no difference between the Priests and Laics he tells the Faithful of the Church of Corinth that as often as they did eat this Bread and drink this Cup they shewed forth the Lord's death till he come So that they who were to shew forth Christ's death as well as the Priests were to do it both by eating the Bread and drinking the Cup and indeed one of them does not shew forth his death so well as both for it does not shew his Blood separated from his Body He goes on to shew 'um the guilt of unworthy eating and drinking for he all along joyns both those Acts as a phrase signifying the Communion and he expresly uses it no less than four times in that Chapter But in some Copies say they instead of and he uses the particle or in the 27 v. Whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup unworthily and here Monsieur Boileau would gladly find something for either Eating or Drinking without doing both which is such a shift and cavil as nothing would make a man catch at but such a desperate cause as has nothing else to be said for it If the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or were used in that place instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet he has but little skil either in Greek or Latine Authors who knows not that it is the commonest thing in both to use that disjunctive for a copulative as to Abraham or his seed for to Abraham and his seed ‖ Ro. 4.13 Of which it were easie to give innumerable instances both in the Bible and profane History The Apostle having used the copulative in all other Verses and all along in this Chapter and having joyned eating and drinking cannot be supposed here to use a disjunctive and to separate them but after all there are Copies of as great Credit and Authority for the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though I think no such weight bears upon the difference of these particles as to make it worth our while to examine them for if the Apostles did disjoyn them it was onely to lay a greater Emphasis upon the guilt of unworthy eating and drinking which though they both go together yet are both very great Sins and I see no manner of consequence that because a man may both eat and drink unworthily that therefore he should onely eat and not drink at all or that the Apostles supposed it lawful to eat without drinking or drink without eating But the Apostolical practice and the Institution of our Saviour for Communion in both kinds though it be very plain and clear in Scripture and being founded upon so full a Command and a Divine Institution I know no Power in the Church to alter it or vary from it yet it will be further confirmed and strengthened by the Universal Practice of the whole Christian Church and of the purest Ages after the Apostles and by the general consent of Antiquity for a thousand years and more after Christ in which I shall prove the Eucharist was always given to all the Faithful who came to the public Worship and to the Communion in both kinds without any difference made between the Priests and the Laiety as to this matter which was a thing never heard of in Antiquity nor ever so much as mentioned in any Author till after the Twelfth Century in which wretched times of Ignorance and Superstition the Doctrine of Transubstantiation being newly brought in struck men with such horror and Superstitious Reverence of the sacred Symbols which they believed to be turned into the very substance of Christ's Body and Blood that they begun to be afraid of taking that part which was fluid and might be spilt each drop of which they thought to be the same blood that flowed out of the side of Christ and the very substantial Blood that was running in his Veins and now by a miraculous way was conveyed into the Chalice Hence at first they used Pipes and Quils to suck it out of the Cup and some used intinction or dipping of the Bread in the Wine and afterwards the same superstition increasing they came to leave off and abstaine wholly from drinking the Cup which was reserved onely to the more sacred lips of the Priests who were willing to be hereby distinguisht from the more unworthy and prophane Laiety The Council of Constance first made this a Law in the Year 1415 which was before a new and superstitious custom used only in some few places and got by degrees into some particular Churches of the Latine Communion for it never was in any other nor is to this day of which we have the first mention in Thomas Aquinas who lived in the Thirteenth Age and who speaks of it thus faintly in his time * In aliquibus Ecclesiis servatur ut solus sacerdos communicetsanguine reliqui vero Corpore Comment in Johan c. 6. v. 53. In some Churches it is observed that onely the Priest Communicates of the blood and others of the Body †In quibusdam Ecclesiis observatur sum p. 3. q. 80. In quibusdam in Aliquibus Ecclesiis shows that it was then but creeping into a few particular Churches and very far from being generally observed in the Western Parts And that it was quite otherwise in the whole Primitive Church for above a thousand years who in all their assemblies kept to our Saviour's Institution of both kinds and never varied from what Christ and his Apostles had commanded and delivered to them as the Church of Rome now does I shall fully prove that so according to Vincentius Lirinensis his rule against all manner of Heresies the truth may be establisht First ‖ Primo scilicet divinae legis auctoritate tum deinde Ecclesiae Catholicae traditione by the authority of a divine Law and then by the Tradition of the Catholic Church which
is certainly as easie to know what Christ instituted and what he commanded as to know this and consequently what belongs to the essence of the Sacrament without which it would not be such a Sacrament as Christ celebrated and appointed as to know what it is to eat and to drink and yet Monsieur de Meaux is pleased to make this the great difficulty P. 239 257 349. To know what belongs to the essence of the Sacrament and what does not and to distinguish what is essential in it from what is not And by this means he endeavour to darken what is as clear as the light and so to avoid the plainest Institution and the clearest Command The Institution says he does not suffice since the question always returns to know what appertains to the essence of the Institution Jesus Christ not having distinguisht them Jesus Christ instituted this Sacrament in the evening at the beginning of the night in which he was to be delivered it was at this time he would leave us his Body given for us Does the time or the hour then belong to the Institution does this appertain to the essence of it and is it not as plainly and evidently a circumstance as night or noon is a circumstance to eating and drinking Does the command of Christ Do this belong to that or to the other circumstances of doing it when the same thing the same Sacramental action may be done without them is not this a plain rule to make a distinction between the act it self and the circumstances of performing it Because there were a great many things done by Jesus Christ in this Mystery which we do not believe our selves obliged to do such as being in an upper Room lying upon a Bed and the like which are not properly things done by Christ so much as circumstances of doing it for the thing done was taking Bread and Wine and blessing and distributing them does therefore Christ's command Do this belong no more to eating and drinking than it does to those other things or rather circumstances with which he performed those is drinking as much a circumstance as doing it after supper if it be eating may be so too Monsieur de Meaux is ashamed to say this but yet 't is what he aims at for else the Cup will necessarily appear to belong to the Sacrament as an essential and consequently an indispensible part of it and this may be plainly known to be so from the words of Christ and from Scripture without the help of Tradition though that also as I have shewn does fully agree with those but they are so plain as not to need it in this case Eating and drinking are so plainly the essential part of the Sacrament and so clearly distinguisht from the other circumstances in Scripture that St. Paul always speaks of those without any regard to the other The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ the Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ * 1 Cor. 10.16 For as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lord's death till he come †11.26 27 28 29. Whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup unworthily Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup for he that eateth and drinketh So that he must be wilfully blind who cannot see from Scripture what is essential to this Sacrament from what is not But Monsieur de Meaux thinks to find more advantage in the other Sacrament of Baptism and therefore he chiefly insists upon that under this head and his design is to make out that immersion or plunging under Water is meant and signified by the word Baptize in which he tells us the whole World agree ‖ P. 168. and that this is the onely manner of Baptizing we read of the Scriptures and that he can shew by the Acts of Councils and by ancient Rituals that for thirteen hundred years the whole Church Baptized after this manner as much as it was possible * P. 171. If it be so than it seems there is not only Scripture but Tradition for it which is the great principle he takes so much pains to establish And what then shall we have to say to the Anabaptists to whom de Meaux seems to have given up that cause that he may defend the other of Communion in one kind for his aim in all this is to make immersion as essential to Baptism as eating and drinking to the Lord's Supper and if Scripture and Tradition be both so fully for it I know not what can be against it P. 299. but de Meaux knows some Gentlemen who answer things as best pleases them the present difficulty transports them and being pressed by the objection they say at that moment what seems most to disentangle them from it without much reflecting whether it agree I do not say with truth but with their own thoughts The Institution of the Eucharist in Bread and Wine and the command to do this which belonged to both eating and drinking lay very heavy upon him and to ease himself of those which he could not do if it were always necessary to observe what Christ instituted and commanded he was willing to make Baptism by dipping to be as much commanded and instituted as this though it be not now observed as necessary either by those of the Church of Rome or the Reformed and besides his arguments to prove that from Scripture he makes an universal Tradition of the Church which he pretends all along in his Book is against Communion in both kinds and which is the great thing he goes upon yet to be for this sort of Baptism no less than 1300 years So that neither the law in Scripture nor Tradition as it explains that law is always it seems to be observed which is the thing ought openly to be said for Communion in one kind The Cause it self demands this and we must not expect that an errour can be defended after a consequent manner ‖ Ib. But is Scripture and Tradition both for Baptism by immersion Surely not the word Baptize in which the command is given signifies only to wash in general and not to plung all over as I have already shewn in this Treatise †P. 21. and as all Writers against the Anabaptists do sufficiently make out to whom I shall refer the Reader for further satisfaction in that Controversie which it is not my business to consider at present and so much is de Meaux out about Tradition being so wholly and universally for Baptism by immersion that Tertullian plainly speaks of it by intinction ‖ Omne praeterea cunctationis tergiversationis erga paenitentiam vitium praesumtio intinctionis importat Tertul. de paenir Cap. 6. and by sprinkling * Quis enim tibi tam infidae paenitentiae
separated from them and it makes us not to partake of Christ's Body as crucified upon the Cross but as glorified in Heaven as it is so indeed Christ's body cannot be divided from his bloud and his whole humanity soul and body are always united with his Divinity but we do not take it as such in the Sacrament but as his body was sacrificed and slain and wounded and his bloud as shed and separated from it They who can think of a crucified Saviour may think of receiving him thus in the Sacrament without horrour de Meaux owns That this mystical separation of Christ's body and bloud ought to be in the Eucharist as it is a Sacrifice †P. 180 181. And why not then as it is a Sacrament is there any more horror to have Christ's body thus consecrated then thus eaten and received The words of consecration he says do renew mystically as by a spiritual Sword together with all the wounds he received in his body the total effusion of his blood ‖ Ib. Why may we not then receive Christ's body as thus wounded and his bloud as thus poured out in this mystical Table and why must Concomitancy joyn those together which Consecration has thus separated and divided Christ's body and bloud we say ought to be thus mystically separated in the Sacramental reception of them and so ought to be taken separately and distinctly they own they ought to be thus mystically separated in the consecration though how that consists with Concomitancy is hard to understand but whatever they have to say against the separating them in the Reception may be as well said against their separating them in the Consecration Is Christ then divided P. 310. is his body then despoiled of bloud and blood actually separated from the body ought Christ to die often and often to shed his blood A thing unworthy the glorious state of his Resurrection where he ought to conserve eternally humane nature as entire as he had at first assumed it Why do they then make this separation of his body and bloud when they consecrate it if that be onely mystical and representative so is it in our reception much better for we do not pretend to receive Christ's natural body and bloud as they do to consecrate them but onely his mystical body and bloud which is always to conserve this figure of Death and the character of a Victim not onely when it is consecrated but when it is eaten and drunk which it cannot otherwise be 'T is this errour of receiving Christ's natural body in the Sacrament which has led men into all those dark Mazes and Labyrinths wherein they have bewildred and entangled themselves in this matter and so by applying all the properties of Christ's natural body to his mystical body in the Sacrament they have run themselves into endless difficulties and destroyed the very notion as well as the nature of the Sacrament The third Principle of Monsieur de Meaux is this That the Law ought to be explained by constant and perpetual practice But cannot then a Law of God be so plain and clear as to be very well known and understood by all those to whom it is given without being thus explained Surely so wise a Law-Giver as our blessed Saviour would not give a Law to all Christians that was not easie to be understood by them it cannot be said without great reflection upon his infinite Wisdom that his Laws are so obscure and dark as they are delivered by himself and as they are necessary to be observed by us that we cannot know the meaning of them without a further explication If constant and perpetual practice be necessary to explain the Law how could they know it or understand it to whom it was first given and who were first to observe it before there was any such practice to explain it by This practice must begin some where and the Law of Christ must be known to those who begun it antecedent to their own practice There may be great danger if we make Practice to be the Rule of the Law and not the Law the Rule of Practice and God's Laws may be very fairly explained away if they are left wholly to the mercy of men to explain them For thus it was the Pharisees who were the great men of old for Tradition did thereby reject and lay aside the Commandment of God by making Tradition explain it contrary to its true sense and meaning This Principle therefore of Monsieur de Meaux's must not be admitted without some caution and though we are well assured of constant and perpetual practice for Communion in one kind yet the Law of Christ is so clear as not to need that to explain it and we may know what appertains or does not appertain to the substance of the Sacraments from the Law it self and from the divine Institution of them as I have all along shewn in this Treatise It would have been a great reflection upon the Church if its Practice had not agreed with the Law of Christ though so plain and express a Law ought neither to loose its force nor its meaning by any subsequent practice I have so great a regard and honour for the Catholic Church that I do not believe it can be guilty of any Practice so contrary to the Law of Christ as Communion in one kind and I have therefore fully shewn that its Practice has always agreed with this Law in opposition to de Meaux who falsely reproaches the Church with a practice contrary to it his design was to destroy the Law of Christ by the Practice of the Church mine is to defend the Practice of the Church as agreeable to and founded upon the Law of Christ but the Law of Christ ought to take place and is antecedent both to the Churches Practice and the Churches Authority As to Tradition which was the main thing which de Meaux appealed to I have joyned issue with him in that point and must leave it to those who are able to judge which of us have given in the better evidence and I do not doubt but we may venture the Cause upon the strength of that but there is another more considerable plea which is prior to Tradition and which as de Meaux owns †P. 201. Is the necessary ground work of it and that is Scripture or the Command and Institution of Christ contained in Scripture which is so plain and manifest that it may be very well understood by all without the help of Tradition I do not therefore make any manner of exceptions to Tradition in this case onely I would set it in its right place and not found the Law of Christ upon Tradition but Tradition upon the Law of Christ and I am willing to admit it as far as de Meaux pleases with this reasonable Proviso That it does not interprete us out of a plain Law nor make void any Command of God that may be known
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 that Tradition would excuse them from a Divine Law. All the instances which Monsieur de Meaux heaps up are very short of proving that and though I have examined every one of them except that pretended Jewish Tradition of Praying for the Dead which is both false and to no purpose yet it was not because there was any strength in them to the maintaining his sinking Cause but that I might take away every slender prop by which he endeavours in vain to keep it up and drive him out of every little hole in which he strives with so much labour to Earth himself when after all his turnings and windings he finds he must be run down If any instance could be found by de Meaux or others of any Tradition or any Practice of a Church contrary to a Divine Institution and to a plain Law of God they would deserve no other answer to be returned to it but what Christ gave to the Pharisees in the like case Why do ye transgress the commandment of God by your tradition ‖ Mar. 15.3 Our Saviour did not put the matter upon this issue Whether the Tradition by which they explained the Law so as to make it of none effect was truly ancient and authentic and derived to them from their fore-Fathers but he thought it sufficient to tell them that it made void and was contrary to a Divine Law. There is no Tradition nor no Church which has ever broke so plain a Law and so shamefully violated a Divine Institution as that which has set up Communion in One Kind the true reason why it did so was not Tradition no that was not so much as pretended at first for the doing of it but onely some imaginary dangers and inconveniencies which brought in a new custom contrary to ancient Tradition These were the onely things insisted on in its defence at first the danger of spilling the Wine and the difficulty of getting it in some places and the undecency of Laymens dipping their Beards in it These were the mighty reasons which Gerson brought of old against the Heresie as he calls it of Communicating in both Kinds †Tractatus Magistri Johannis de Gerson contra haeresin de communionae Laicorum sub utraque specie as if it were a new Heresie to believe that Wine might be spilt or that men wore Beards or as if the Sacrament were appointed only for those Countreys where there were Vines growing De Meaux was very sensible of the weakness and folly of those pretences though they are the pericula and the scandala meant by the Council of Constance and therefore he takes very little notice of them and indeed he has quite taken away all their arguments against the particular use of the Wine because he all along pleades for either of the Species and owns it to be indifferent which of them so ever is used in the Sacrament But I have shewn that both of them are necessary to make a true Sacrament because both are commanded and both instituted and both of them equally belong to the matter of the Sacrament and so to the essence of it and both are ordinarily necessary to the receiving the inward Grace and Vertue of the Sacrament because that is annext to both by the Institution and cannot warrantably be expected without both To conclude therefore Communion in One Kind is both contrary to the Institution and to the Command of Christ and to the Tradition and Practice of the Primitive Church grounded upon that Command and is no less in it self than a sacrilegious dividing and mangling of the most sacred Mystery of Christianity a destroying the very Nature of the Sacrament which is to represent the Death of Christ and his Blood separated from his Body a lessening the signification and reception of our compleat and entire spiritual Nourishment whereby we are Sacramentally to eat Christ's Body and drink his Bloud an unjust depriving the People of that most pretious Legacy which Christ left to all of them to wit His Sacrificial Bloud which was shed for us and which it is the peculiar priviledge of Christians thus mystically to partake of and lastly a robbing them of that Grace and Vertue and Benefit of the Sacrament which belongs not to any part but to the whole of it and cannot ordinarily be received without both kinds O that God would therefore put it into the hearts of those who are most concerned not to do so much injury to Christians and to Christianity and not to suffer any longer that Divine Majesty which is the great Foundation of all Spiritual Grace and Life to be tainted and poysoned with so many corruptions as we find it is above all other parts of Christianity And O that that blessed Sacrament which was designed by Christ to be the very Bond of Peace and the Cement of Unity among all Christians and to make them all one Bread and one Body may not by the perversness of men and the craft of the Devil be made a means to divide and separate them from each other and to break that Unity and Charity which it ought to preserve FINIS A CATALOGUE of some Discourses sold by Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pidgeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1. A Perswasive to an Ingenuous Tryal of Opinions in Religion 2. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England 3. A Discourse about the Charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 4. The Protestant Resolution of Faith being an Answer to Three Questions I. How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true Sence of Scripture II. Whether a vissible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this vissible Succession an Infallible Interpreter of Scripture and whether no Church which has not this visible Succession can teach the true
the Sumption for it is nothing so odd and strange to suppose the Bread to be turned into the Body and Bloud of Christ as to suppose that by eating that we both eat the Body and drink the Blood of Christ to make eating and drinking the same thing or to say we drink by eating and eat by drinking are very unaccountable and unintelligible expressions so that Concomitancy does wholly confound those two Sacramental Phrases and Sacramental Actions But is it not enough says de Meaux ‖ P. 323. for a Christian to receive Jesus Christ is it not a Sacrament where Jesus Christ is pleased to be in person But Jesus Christ is not received in the Sacrament in any other manner but by receiving his Body and Bloud nor is it his Person he bids us receive but his Body and Bloud and the way by which we are to receive them is by eating the one and drinking the other and we cannot be properly said to do that or to receive Christ or his Body and Blood Sacramentally but this way Though the Body and Blood of Christ therefore should be both in one Species and both received by one Species yet this would not be the eating the Body and the drinking the Blood for as one of their own Popes Innocent the Third says and Durandus from him Neither is the Blood drunk under the Species of Bread nor the Body eaten under the Species of Wine for as the Blood is not eaten nor the Body drank so neither is drunk under the Species of Bread nor eat under the Species of Wine * Nec sanguis sub specie panis nec Corpus sub specie vini bibitur aut comeditur quia sicut nec sanguis comeditur nec Corpus bibitur ita neutrum sub species panis bibitur aut sub specie vini comeditur Durand Rational l. 4. c. 42. And therefore though they should be both received according to them by one Species yet they would not be both eat and drank that is received Sacramentally eating and drinking are distinct things and both belong to the Sacrament and though eating and drinking spiritually be as de Meaux says The same thing †P. 184. and both the one and the other is to believe Yet eating and drinking Sacramentally are not but are to be two distinct outward actions that are to go along in the Sacrament with our inward Faith. This Doctrine of Concomitancy and of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ together in that gross manner which is believed in the Roman Church does quite spoile the Sacramental reception of Christ's Body and Bloud for according to that they can never be received separate and apart no not by the two Species but they must be always received together in either of them so that though by the Institution the Species of Bread seems particularly to contain or rather give the Body and the Species of Wine the Bloud and as St. Paul says ‖ 1 Cor. 10.16 The bread which we bless is it not the communion of the body of Christ and the cup which we bless is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ Yet hereby either of them is made the Communion of both and it is made impossible to receive them asunder as Christ instituted and appointed and as is plainly implied by eating and drinking and seems to be the very nature of a Sacramental reception But Fourthly This Concomitancy makes us to receive Christ's Body and Bloud not as sacrificed and shed for us upon the Cross but as they are now living and both joyned together in Heaven whereas Christ's Body and Bloud is given in the Sacrament not as in the state of life and glory but as under the state of death for so he tells us This is my body which is given for you that is to God as a Sacrifice and Oblation and This is my blood which is shed for the remission of sins So that we are to take Christ's Body in the Sacrament as it was crucified for us and offered up upon the Cross and his Bloud as it was shed and poured out not as joyned with his Body but as separated from it the Vertue of Christ's Body and Bloud cometh from his Death and from its being a Sacrifice which was slain and whose Blood was poured out for to make expiation for our Sins and as such we are to take Christ's Body and Bloud that is the vertue and benefits of them in the Sacrament for as de Meaux says * P. 311. This Body and this Blood with which he nourisheth and quickneth us would not have the vertue if they had not been once actually separated and if this separation had not caused the violent Death of our Saviour by which he became our Victim So neither will it have that vertue in the Sacrament if the Body be not taken as broken and sacrificed and the Bloud as shed or poured out and both as separated from one another De Meaux owns We ought to have our living Victim under an image of Death otherwise we should not be enlivened †P. 312. I do not well understand the meaning of a living Victim for though Christ who was our Victim is alive yet he was a Victim onely as he died so that a living Victim is perhaps as improper a phrase as a dead Animal If we are to receive Christ then in the Sacrament as a Victim or Sacrifice we are to receive him not as living but as dead I would not have de Meaux or any else mistake me as if I asserted that we received a dead Body a dead flesh a carcase as he calls it ‖ P. 309. in the Sacrament for he knows we do not believe that we receive any real flesh or any proper natural Body at all but onely the mystical or sacramental Body of Christ or to speak plainer the true and real Vertue of Christ's Body and Bloud offered for us and we are not onely to have this under an image of death that is to have the two Species set before us to look upon but we are to receive it under this image and to eat the Body as broken and the Bloud as poured out and so to partake of Christ's death in the very partaking of the Sacrament de Meaux speaks very well when he says * P. 312. The Vertue of Christ's Body and his Blood coming from his Death he would conserve the image of his Death when he gave us them in his holy Supper and by so lively a representation keep us always in mind to the cause of our Salvation that is to say the Sacrifice of the Cross But how is this image of his Death conserved in his holy Supper if Christ be there given not as dead but living Concomitancy does rather mind us of Christ's Resurrection when his Body was made alive again and reunited to his Soul and to his Divinity than of his death when it was divided and