he can upon this impossibility so often repeted at last concludes that the party mentioned to whom the Bread alone is given p. 264. to speake properly dos not take with the mouth the Sacrament of JESUS-CHRIST because this Sacrament is composed of two parts and he receives but one Exam. de l'Euch Tr. 6. sect 7. this he likewise confirmes in the last booke he set forth This is what the Pretended Reformers durst nost that I know of hetherto affirme Verily a Communion which is not a Sacrament is a strange mystery and the Pretended Reformers who are at last obliged to acknowledge it would do as well to grant the consequence wee draw from their discipline seing they can finde no other way to unty this knott but by a prodigy never heard of in the Church But the doctrine of this Author appeares yet more strange when considered with all its circumstances Préservatif p. 266. 267. According to him the Church presents in this case the true Sacrament but neverthelesse what is received is not the true Sacrament or raither it is not a true Sacrament as to the signe but it is a true Sacrament as to the thing signifyed because the faithfull receive JESUS-CHRIST signifyed by the Sacrament and receive as many Graces as those who communicate under the Sacrament it selfe because the Sacrament is presented to him whole and entire because he receives it with heart and affection and because the sole insuperable impossibility hinders him to communicate under the signe What do these subtilityes availe him He might conclude from his arguments that the faithfull who cannot according to his principles receive the true Sacrament of JESUS-CHRIST seeing he cannot receive an essentiall part is excused by his inability from the obligation to receive at all and that the desire he has to receive the Sacrament supplyes the effect But that upon this account wee should be obliged to seperate that which is inseperable by its institution and to give a man a Sacrament which he cannot receive or rather to give him solemnly that which being not the true Sacrament of JESUS-CHRIST can be nothing else but meere bread is to invent a new mystery in Christian Religion and to deceive in the face of the Church à Christian who beleeves he receives that which in reality he do's not Behold neverthelesse the last refuge of our Reformers behold what he has writ who writ against me the last of any whose booke is so much spread by the Protestants through France Holland and other parts in divers languages with a magnificent Preface as the most efficacious antidote the new Reforme could invent against this Exposition so often attaqued He has found out by his way of improving and refining of others this new absurdity that what is received amongst them with so much solemnity when they cannot drinke wine is not the Sacrament of our Lord and that it is by consequence a meere invention of humain wi lt which a Church who sayes she is founded upon the pure word of God is not afraid to establish without so much as finding one syllable of it in that word To conclude JESUS-CHRIST has not made a particular law for those wee here speake of Man could not dispense with them in an expresse precept of our Lord nor allow them any thing he did not institute Wherefore either nothing must be given them or if one species be given them it must be beleeved that by the institution of our Lord this single species containes the whole essence of the Sacrament and that the receiving of the other can add nothing but what is accidentall to it §. IV. The third Principle The law ought to be explained by constant and perpetuall Practise An exposition of this Principle by the example of the civill law BUT to come to our third Principle which alone carryes along with it the decision of this question This is it To know what appertaines or do's not appertaine to the substance of the Sacraments wee must consult the practise and sentiment of the Church Let us speake more generally In all practicall matters wee must alwayes regard what has been understood and practised by the Church and as herein consists the true spirit of the law I write this for an intelligent and clearsighted Judge who is sensible that to understand an Ordonance and to discerne the meaning of it aright hee must know after what manner it was alwayes understood and practised otherwise since every man argues after his owne fashon the law would become arbitrary The rule then is to examin how it has been understood and how practised in following which a man shall not be deceived God to honour his Church and to oblige particuler persons to her holy decisions would that this rule should have place in his law as it has in humain lawes and the true manner to understand this holy law is to consider in what manner it has alwayes been understood and observed in the Church The reason of this is that there appeares in this interpretation and perpetuall practise a Tradition which cannot come but from God himselfe according to this doctrine of the Fathers that what is seene alwayes and in all places of the Church cannot come but from the Apostles who learned it from JESUS-CHRIST and from that Spirit of truth which he has given for a teacher And for feare any one should be deceived by the different significations of the word Tradition I declare that the Tradition I alledge here as a necessary interpreter of the law of God is an unwritten doctrine procedeng from God himselfe and conserved in the judgement and practise of the universall Church I have no neede here to prove this Tradition and what followes will make it appeare that our Reformers are forced to acknowledge it at least in this matter But it will not be amisse to remove in few words the false ideas which they ordinarily apply to this word of Tradition They tell us that the authority which wee give to Tradition subjects the Scripture to the thoughts of men and declares it imperfect They are palpably deceived Scripture and Tradition make togeather but one and the same body of doctrine revealed by God and so far is it that the obligation of interpreting Scripture by Tradition subjects the Scripture to the thoughts of men that there is nothing can give it more preeminence above them When particular persons are permitted as it is amongst our Pretended Reformers to interpret Scripture every one according to his own fancy there is liberty necessarily given to arbitrary interpretations and in effect scripture is subjected to the thoughts of men who interpret it each one according to his own mode but when every one in particular is obliged to receive it in the sense the Church doth receive and alwayes hath received it there is nothing elevates the authority of Scripture more nor renders it more independent of all particular opinions A man is never
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
although it be not consecrated by that solemn and particular consecration which changes it into the Blood of JESUS-CHRIST becomes notwithstanding sacred by tooching the sacred Body of our Lord yet of a quite different manner from that consecration which according to this Saint is made by the words taken out of the Gospel That it is of this imperfect and inferiour sort of consecration which these Authors wee explicate do here speake will be acknowledged an undeniable truth if wee finde that these Authors and in the sames places say there cannot be made a true consecration of the Blood of our Lord but by words and by the words even of JESUS-CHRIST himselfe Alcuinus is expresse herein when explicating the Canon of the Masse as wee have it to this day when he comes to the place where wee prononce the sacramentall words which are those of JESUS-CHRIST himselfe This is my Body this is my Blood he sayes these are the words by which they consecrated the Bread and the Chalice in the beginning by which they are consecrated at present and by which they shall be consecrated eternally because JESUS-CHRIST prononcing again his own words by the Priests renders his holy Body and his sacred Blood present by a celestiall bcnediction Amal. l. III. 24. ibid. And Amalarius upon the same part of the Canon sayes no lesse clearly that it is in this place and by the pronunciation of these words that the nature of the Bread and Wine is changed into the nature of the Body and Blood of JESUS-CHRIST Lib. I. 12. and he had said before in particular concerning the consecration of the Chalice that a simple liquor was changed by the benediction of the Priest into the Sacrament of the Blood of our Lord which shews how far he and Alcuinus were from beleeving that the only mixing them without any words could produce this effect When therefore they say that the pure wine is sanctifyed by the mixture of the Body of JESUS-CHRIST it appeares sufficiently their meaning is that by tooching the Holy of Holyes this wine ceases to be profane and becomes some thing of holy but that it should become the Sacrament of JESUS-CHRIST and that it should be changed into his Blood without prononcing the words of JESUS-CHRIST upon it is an errour inconsistent with their doctrine All those who have writ of the Divine Office and of that of the Masse use the same language these two Authors do Isaac Bishop of Langres their contemporary Isaac Lingâ—â—t Specil T. â— p. 151. in his explication of the Canon and place where they consecrate sayes that the Priest having thetherto done what he could to the end he may then do something more wonderfull borrows the words of JESUS-CHRIST himselfe that is to say these words This is my Body Powerfull words says he to which the Lord gives his vertue according to the expression of the Psalmist words which have allvayes their effect because the Word who is the power of God sayes and dos all at a time in so much that there is here made by these words contrary to all humain reason a new nourishment for a new man a new JESUS borne of the spirit an Hoste come downe fro heaven and the rest which makes nothing to our subject this being but too sufficient to shew that this great Bishop has placed consecration in the words of our Saviour Remigius Bishop of Auxerre in the booke which he composed of the Masse towards the end of the ninth age is visibly of the same judgement with Alcuinus seeing he has done nothing but transcribe word for word all that part of his booke where this matter is treated of Hildebertus Bishop of Mans Hildeb eod T. Bibl. PP and afterwards of Tours famous for his piety as well as for his eloquence and learning and commended even by the Protestants themselves because of the prayses he has given to Bengarius yet after he was returned or pretended to be retourned from his errours affirmes in expresse words that the Priest consecrates not by his own words but by those of JESUS-CHRIST that then under the signe of the crosse and the words the nature becomes changed that the Bread honours the Altar by becoming the Body and the Wine by becoming Blood which obliges the Priest to elevate at that time the Bread and the wine thereby to shew that by consecration they are elevated to some thing of a higher nature then what they were The Abbot Rupertus sayes the same thing Rup de Div. Off. l. II. c. 9. lib. V. c. 20. Hug. de S. Vict. erud Theol. l. III. c. 20. and after him Hugo de Sainto Victore Wee finde all these bookes collected in the Bibliotheca of Patrum in that tome which beares the title de Divinis Officiis This Tradition is so constant especially in the Latin Church that it cannot be imagined the contrary could be found in the Ordo Romanus nor that it could have entred into the thoughts of Alcuinus and Amalarius tho they had not explicated themselves so clearly as wee have seene they have But this Tradition came from a higher source These many fore cited French Authors as were preceded by a Bishop of the Gallican Church Euseb Gailic sive Euch. T. 6. Max. Bib. P P. hom V. de Pasch who said in the V. age that the creatures placed upon the holy Altars and blessed by the celestiallwords ceased to be the substance of Bread and Wine and became the Body and Blood of our Lord and Saint Ambrose before him understood by these celestiall words Amb. de init c. 9. the proper words of JESUS-CHRIST This is my Body this is my Blood adding that the consecration as well of the Body as of the Blood was made by the words of our Lord. And the Author of the booke of Sacraments be he whom he will Saint Ambrose or some other neere unto his time Amb. lib. IV. Sac. c. 5. who imitates him troughout who ever he be well known in antiquity speaks after the same manner and all the Fathers of the same time keepe the like conformity in their language and before them all Saint Ireneus laught that ordinary bread is made the Eucharist by the invocation of God which it receives over it Iren. IV. 34. and Saint Justin Just ap 2. whom he often cites said before him that the Eucharist was made by the prayer of the word which comes from JESUS-CHRIST and that it was by this word that the ordinary food which usvally by being changed nourisheth our flesh and our blood became the Body and the Blood of that JESUS-CHRIST incarnated for us and before all the Fathers the Apostle Saint Paul clearly remarked the particular benediction of the Chalice 1. Cor. 10.16 when he said the Chalice of benediction which wee blesse And to go to the very originall JESUS-CHRIST consecrates the Wine in saying This is my Blood as he
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