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
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
strangers did no lesse seduce them then the Chananites they beleeved they ought equally to exclude them all not so much by the letter and propper tearmes as by the spirit of the law which they also interpreted contrary to the precedent practise in respect of the Moabites the Synagogue alwayes beleeving herselfe to have received from God himselfe a right to give decisions according to occurring necessityes I do not beleeve that any one will persuade himselfe that they observed according to the letter and in all sorts of cases Exod. 21.24.28 Lev. 24.19.20 Dont 19.21 that severe law of Talionis so often repeated in the Bookes of Moyses For even to regard these tearmes only eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand bruse for bruse wound for wound nothing dos appeare to establish a more perfect and a more just compensation yet nothing is in reality further from it if wee weigh the circumstances and nothing in fine would have been more unequall then such an equality nor indeed is it alwayes possible to give to a malefactor a wound altogeather proportionable to that he had given his brother Practise taught the Jewes that the true dessigne of the law was to make them sensible there ought to be a reasonable compensation profitable both to particulars and to the publick which as it consists not in a precise point nor in a certain measure the same practise determined it by a just estimation It would not be hard to alledge many other Traditions of the antient people as much approved of as these The ablest writers of the new reforme do grand it When therefore they would destroy all unwritten Traditions in generall under pretense of the words of our Lord where he condemnes those Traditions which were contrary to the tearmes or to the sense and intent of the law Math. 15.3 Mark 7.7 c. and in short those which had not a sufficiently sollid foundation there is no sincerity in their discourses and all men of sence will agree that there was lawfull traditions though not written without which the practise it selfe of the law was impossible in so much that it cannot be denyed but that they obliged in conscience Will the Gentlemen of the Pretended Reformed Religion permit me to mention in this place the Tradition of prayer for the dead This prayer is manifest by the Book of Machabees 2. Mach. 11.43.46 neither neede wee here enter into dispute with these Gentlemen whether this Booke be canonicall or no seeing it suffices as to this point that it was certainly writ before the Gospell This custome remaines to this day amongst the Jewes and the tradition of it my be asserted by these words of Saint Paul 1. Cor. 15.29 What shall they do else who are baptised that is to say purifyed and mortifyed for the dead if the dead rise not at all JESUS-CHRIST and his Apostles had found amongst the Jewes this Tradition of praying for the dead without reprehending them for it on the contrary it passed immediately from the Judaicall to the Christian Church and Protestants who have writ bookes where they shew this Tradition was establised in the primitive times of Christianity could yet never shew the beginning of it Notwithstanding it is certain there was nothing of it in the law It came to the Jewes by the same way which handed to them so many other unviolable Traditions But if a law which descendes to so minute particulars and which is as I may say wholy literall stood in need that it might be rightly understood according to its true sence of being interpreted by the practise and declarations of the Synagogue how much more need have wee in the law of the Gospell where there is a greater liberty in the observances and where the practises are lesse circumstanced A hundred examples will manifest the truth of what I say I will draw them from the very practises of the Pretended Reformers themselves and I will not stick at the same time to relate togeather with them as a thing which will decide the matter what passed for current in the antient Church because I cannot imagine that these Gentlemen can with sincerity reject it § VI. A proofe from the observances of the New Testament THE institution of the Sabaoth day preceded the law of Moyses and had its ground from the creation and neverthelesse these Gentlemen dispense as well as wee with that observance without any other foundation then that of Tradition and the practise of the Church which cannot be dirived from other then divine authority The allegation that the first day of the weeke consecrated by the Resurrection of JESUS-CHRIST Act. 20.7 1. Cor. 16.2 is mentioned in the writings of the Apostles as a day of assembly for Christians and that it is also called in the Revelations Apoc. 1.10 the day of the Lord or Sunday Is vaine for besides that there is no mention made in the New Testament of that rest annexed to the Sunday it is moreover manifest that the addition of a new day dit not suffise to take away the solemnity of the old nor to make us change the Preceps of the Decalogue togeather with humain Tradition The prohibition of eating Blood and that of eating the flesh of strangled creatures was given to all the children of Noe before the establishment of legal observances from which wee are freed by the Gospel and the Apostles have confirmed it in the Council of Jerusalem in joyning it to two unchangeable observances of which the one is the prohibition to participate of sacrifices to Idols and the other the condemnation of the sin of fornication But because the Church alwayes beleeved that this law though observed during many ages was not essentiall to Christianity the Pretended Reformers as well as we dispence with themselves about it though the Scriptures have no where derogated from so precise and so solemne a decision of the Apostles expressely registred in their Acts by Saint Luke But to shew how necessary it is to know the Tradition and practise of the Church in what regards the Sacraments let us consider what is practised in the Sacrament of Baptisme and that of the Eucharist which are the two Sacraments our adversaryes acknowledge with one accord It is to the Apostles that is to the heads of the flock Math. 28.19 that JESUS-CHRIST gave the charge of administring Baptisme Tertull. de Bapt. Concil Illid c. 38. c. notwithstanding the whole Church has understood not only that Priests but Deacons also yea even all the faithfull in cases of necessity were the Ministers of this Sacrament Tradition alone has interpreted that Baptisme which JESUS-CHRIST committed only into the hands of his Church and of his Apostles could be validly administred by Hereticks and out of the communion of the truly faithfull In the XI chapter of the Discipline of the Pretended Reformers and first article it is said that Baptisme administred by him who
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