Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	ancient_a	church_n	doctrine_n	1,896	5	6.2759	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
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

bread which the faithfull tooke in secret before all other nourishement Lib. II. ad ux 5. and in a word before them all because they speake of it as of an established custome This consideration which alone was the reason why they gave the blood only to little children though never so strong in it selfe would have beene forcelesse against a divine command It was therefore most certainly believed that there was not any divine precept of uniting the two species togeather M. Hist Euch. I. p. ch 12. p. 145. de la Roque would gladly say though he dare not do it in plain tearmes that they mixed the body with the blood for infants and imagines it might be gathered from the words of Saint Cyprian though there is not one syllable as wee see which tends to it But besides that the discipline of that time did not suffer this mixture Saint Cyprian speakes only of the blood It is the blood says he that cannot stay in defiled entrals and the distribution of the sacred Chalice of which alone this infant had participated is too clearly expressed to leave the least place for that conjecture which M. de la Roque would make Thus the Example is precise the custome of giving the Communion to little children under the species of wine only cannot be contested and that doubt which they would raise in the minde without any ground shews only the perplexity they are thrown into by the great authority of Saint Cyprian and the Church in his time Certainly M. Hist Euch. I. p. ch 11. p. 136. ch 12. p. 150. de la Roque would have acted with more sincerity if he had kept himselfe to that Idee which first presented it selfe as it were naturally unto him The first time he had spoke of this passage of Saint Cyprian he told us that they powred by force into the mouth of the child some of the sacred Chalice that is without question some drops of the pretious blood pure and without any mixture just as it was presented to the rest of the people who had already received the body And on the other side wee have even now seen that this Minister does not blame the Pope Paschalis the II. who according to him permitted little children to communicate under the sole species of wine so much did his conscience dictate that this practise had no difficulty in it As for M. du Bourdieu Du Bourd I. rép p. 37. Et repliq ch 20. p. 341. this passage of Saint Cyprian had at the first also produced its effect in his minde And this passage having been objected to him by a Catholique this Minister easily accorded in his first answer that in effect nothing had been given to this childe but the consecrated wine alone He comes of in saying that the antients who beleeved the communion absolutely necessary for little infants gave it them as they could that it was for this reason Saint Cyprians Deacon beleeving this childe would be damned if it dyed without the Eucharist opened by force its mouth to poure into it a little wine and that a case of necessity a particular case cannot have the name of a custome What efforts are these to elude a thing so cleare Where are those extraordinary reasons this Minister would here imagine to himselfe Is there one single word in Saint Cyprian which shewes the danger of this infant as the motive of giving it the Communion Dos it not on the contrary appeare by the whole discourse that this blessed Sacrament was given to it only because it was the custome to give it to all children so often as they were brought to the assemblyes Why will M. du Bourdieu divine that this little girle had never communicated Ch. 20. p. 345. Was she not baptised Was it not the custome to give the communion togeather with baptisme even to infants To what purpose is it therefore to speake here of a feare they should have least she should be damned for not having received the Eucharist since they had already given her it in giving her baptisme Is it that they believed also in the antient Church that it did not suffise to the salvation of a child to have communicated once and that it should be damned if they dit not reiterate the Communion What chymeras do men invent rather then give place to truth and confesse their errors with sincerity But to what end do they throw us here upon the question of the necessity of the Eucharist and upon the errour they would have Saint Cyprian to have been incident to in this point Grant it were true that this holy Martyr and the Church in his time should have believed the Communion absolutely necessary to infants what advantage would M. du Bourdieu draw from thence and who dos not on the contrary see that if the two species be essentiall to Communion as the Pretended Reformers would have it the more one shall believe the Communion necessary to little children the lesse will he be dispenced with in giving them both these species M. du Bourdieu foresaw verry well this consequence so contrary to his pretentions and in his second reply he would divine though Saint Cyprian has sayd nothing of it and against the whole connection of his discourse that this little girle when she was so cruelly and so miraculously tormented after the taking of the Blood had already received the Body without receiving any prejudice thereby where is a man when he makes such answers But why do wee dispute any longer There is no better proofe nor better interpreter of a custome then the custome it selfe I would say that there is nothing which demonstrates more that a custome comes from the first ages then when it is seen to continue successively to the last This of communicating little children under the sole species of wine which wee finde established in the III. age and in the time of Saint Cyprian continued alwayes so common that it is found in all after ages It is found in the V. or VI. Jobius de Verb. incar lib. III. c. 18. Bibl. Phot. Cod. 222. age in the book of Jobius where that learned Religious speaking of the three Sacraments which were given togeather in a time when the Christian Religion being established very few others were baptised no more then at present but the children of the faithfull speakes thus They baptise us sayes he after that they anoint us that is they confirme us and lastly they give us the pretious Blood He makes no mention of the Body becaus it was not given to children And for this reason he takes great care in the same place to explaine how the Blood may be given even before the Body a thing which having no place in the communion of those of riper yeares was found only in that which the Faithfull had all of them received in receiving the Blood alone in their infancy So that this custome has already passed

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