essence of the body. Insomuch, as Cyril can say, “If the Deity itself were capable of partition, it must be a body: and if it were a body, it must needs be in a place, and have quantity and magnitude; and, thereupon, should not avoid circumscription." It gives a false body to the Son of God: making that, every day, of bread, by the power of words, which was made once, of the substance of the Virgin, by the Holy Ghost. It so separates accidents from their subjects, that they not only can subsist without them, but can produce the full effects of substances: so as bare accidents are capable of accidents; so as, of them, substances may be either made or nourished. It utterly overthrows, which learned Cameron makes the strongest of all reasons, the nature of a Sacrament: in that it takes away, at once, the sign, and the analogy betwixt the sign and the thing signified: the sign, in that it is no more bread, but accidents; the analogy, in that it makes the sign to be the thing signified. Lastly, it puts into the hands of every priest, power to do, every day, a greater miracle, than God did in the creation of the world: for, in that, the Creator made the creature; but, in this, the creature daily makes the Creator. Since, then, this opinion is both new, and convinced to be grossly erroneous by Scripture and Reason, justly have we professed our detestation of it; and, for that, are unjustly ejected. CHAP. IV. ON THE HALF-COMMUNION. SECT. 1. The Newness of the Half-Communion. THE Novelty of the HALF SACRAMENT, or DRY COMMUNION, delivered to the Laity, is so palpable, as that the patrons of it, in the presumptuous Council of Constance, profess no less. Licet Christus &c.: "Although Christ," say they, "after his a Nam si verè sectionem et partitionem Divina Natura reciperet, &c. Cyril. Alex. Tom. ii. Dialog. de Trin. lib. ii. c Const. Synod. sess. 13. Resp. ad Epist. Viri Docti, Supper, instituted and administered this venerable Sacrament, under both kinds of bread and wine, &c. :" Licet, in primitivá &c. "Although, in the Primitive Church, this Sacrament were received by the faithful under both kinds :" Non obstante, &c. "Yet this custom, for the avoiding of some dangers and scandals, was, upon just reason, brought in, that Laics should receive only under one kind; and those, that stubbornly oppose themselves against it, shall be ejected, and punished as heretics." Now this Council was but in the year of our Lord God, 1453. Yea, but these Fathers of Constance, however they are bold to control Christ's law by custom; yet, they say it was consuetudo diutissimè observata; "a custom very long observed:"- True: but the full age of this diutissimè is openly and freely calculated by their Cassander'. Satis constat &c.: "It is apparent enough, that the Western or Roman Church, for a thousand years after Christ, in the solemn and ordinary dispensation of this sacrament, gave both kinds of bread and wine to all the members of the Church: a point, which is manifest by innumerable ancient testimonies, both of Greeks and Latins; and this they were induced to do by the example of Christ's institution." Quare non temerè, &c.: "It is not, therefore," saith he, "without cause, that most of the best Catholics, and most conversant in the reading of ecclesiastical writers, are inflamed with an earnest desire of obtaining the cup of the Lord; that the sacrament may be reduced to that ancient custom and use, which hath been, for many ages, perpetuated in the Universal Church." Thus he. We need no other advocate. Yea, their Vasquez draws it yet lower; Negare non &c.: "We cannot deny, that, in the Latin Church, there was the use of both kinds; and, that it so continued, until the days of St. Thomas; which was about the year of God 1260." Thus it was in the Roman Church. But, as for the Greek, the world knows it did never but communicate under both kinds. These open confessions spare us the labour of quoting the several testimonies of all ages. Else it had been easy to shew in the Liturgy of St. Basil and Chrysostom, the Priest was wont to pray, "Vouchsafe, O Lord, to give us thy Body and thy Blood; and, by us, to thy people:" how, in the Order of Rome", the Archdeacon, taking the chalice from the Bishop's hand, confirmeth all the receivers with the Blood of our Lord: and, from Ignatius's' èv d Inter alia, propter periculum effusiones. Jo. de Burgo. 4. partis cap. 8. e Ibid. Liturg. Basil. et Chrysost. VOL. IX. Ꮓ 66 ποτήριον τοῖς ὅλοις, Ione cup distributed to all," to have descended along through the clear records of St. Cyprian, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustin, Leo, Gelasius, Paschasius, and others, to the very time of Hugo and Lombard, and our Halensis; and, to shew, how St. Cyprian would not deny the Blood of Christ to those, that should shed their blood for Christ; how St. Austin', with him, makes a comparison, betwixt the blood of the legal sacrifices which might not be eaten, and this blood of our Saviour's sacrifice which all must drink. But, what need allegations, to prove a yielded truth? so as this halving of the sacrament is a mere Novelty of Rome; and such a one, as their own Pope Gelasius sticks not to accuse of no less than sacrilege ". SECT. 2. Half-Communion, against Scripture. NEITHER shall we need to urge Scripture, when it is plainly confessed by the late Councils of Lateran and Trent, that this practice varies from Christ's institution. Yet the Tridentine Fathers have left themselves this evasion", That, "however our Saviour ordained it in both kinds, and so delivered it to his Apostles; notwithstanding, he hath not, by any command, enjoined it to be so received of the Laity:" not considering, that the charge of our Saviour is equally universal in both: to whom he said Take, and eat; to the same also he said Drink ye all of this; so as, by the same reason, our Saviour hath given no command at all unto the Laity to eat or drink; and so this Blessed Sacrament should be to all God's people, the Priests only excepted, arbitrary and unnecessary. But the great Doctor of the Gentiles is the best commenter upon his Master; who, writing to the Church of God at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. i. 2. so delivers the institution of Christ, as that, in the use of the cup, he makes no difference; six times conjoining the mention of drinking with eating; and, fetching it in with an wσaúτws, * Lib. i. Ep. 2. m Grat. Decret. de Consecrat. Dist. 2. chap. 12. Comperimus. Divisio unius ejusdem mysterii non sine grundi sacrilegio potest pervenire. 1 Lib. de Cœnâ Dom. Quæst. in Levit. 57. Etsi Christus Dominus &c. non tamen illa institutio et traditio eò tendunt, ut omnes Christi fideles statuto Domini ad utramque speciem accipiendam astringantur, &c. Conc. Trid. sess. 5. sub Pio. anno 1562. cap. 1. Nihil differt sacerdos à subdito, quando fruendum est mysteriis. Chrys. equality of the manner and necessity of both, charges all Christians indifferently, Probet seipsum, Let every man examine himself, &c. and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup; 1 Cor. xi. 28. SECT. 3. Half-Communion against Reason. In this practice, Reason is no less their enemy. Though it be but a man's testament; yet, if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth it, saith St. Paul; Gal. iii. 15. How much less shall flesh and blood presume to alter the last will of the Son of God; and that, in so material a point, as utterly destroys the institution! For, as our learned Bishop of Carlisle argues truly P, half a man is no man, half a sacrament is no sacrament. And, as well might they take away the bread as the cup: both depend upon the same ordination. It is only the command of Christ that makes the bread necessary: the same command of Christ equally enjoins the cup both do either stand or fall, upon the same ground. The pretence of concomitancy is so poor a shift, that it hurts them rather: for if, by virtue thereof, the Body of Christ is no less in the wine than the Blood is in the bread, it will necessarily follow, that they might as well hold back the bread and give the cup, as hold back the cup and give the bread. And could this mystery be hid from the eyes of the Blessed Author of this Sacrament? Will these men be wiser, than the Wisdom of his Father? If he knew this, and saw the wine yet useful, who dares abrogate it; and if he had not seen it useful, why did he not then spare the labour and cost of so needless an element? Lastly, the Blood, that is here offered unto us, is that, which was shed for us: that, which was shed from the Body, is not in the Body: in vain, therefore, is concomitancy pleaded for a separated Blood. Shortly, then, this mutilation of the sacrament, being both confessedly late and extremely injurious to God and his people, and contrary to Scripture and Reason, is justly abandoned by us; and we, for abandoning it, unjustly censured. P Doct. White contra Fisher. CHAP. V. ON THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. SECT. 1. The Newness of the Missal Sacrifice. It sounds not more prodigiously, that a Priest should every day make his God, than that he should SACRIFICE him. Antiquity would have as much abhorred the sense, as it hath allowed the word. Nothing is more ordinary with the Fathers, than to call God's table an Altar; the holy elements, an Oblation; the act of celebration, an Immolation; the actor a Priest. St. Chrysostom reckons ten kinds of sacrifice; and, at last, as having forgotten it, adds the eleventh: all which we well allow. And, indeed many sacrifices are offered to God, in this one: but, "a true, proper, propitiatory sacrifice for quick and dead," which the Tridentine Fathers would force upon our belief, would have seemed no less strange a solecism to the ears of the Ancients, than it doth to ours. St. Augustin calls it a Designation of Christ's Offering upon the Cross; St. Chrysostom", and Theophylact after him, a Remembrance of his Sacrifice; Emissenus, a Daily Celebration in Mystery of that which was once offered in payment; and Lombard himself*, a Memorial and Representation of the True Sacrifice upon the Cross. That, which Cassander cites from St. Ambrose or Chrysostom, may be instead of all. "In Christ, is the sacrifice once offered, able to give salvation. What do we, therefore? Do we not offer every day? Surely, if we offer daily, it is done for a recordation of his death." This is the language and meaning of Antiquity: the very same which the Tridentine Synod condemneth in us": "If any Macarium in altare insultasse, mensam Domini evertisse. Socr. 1. i. c. 10. • Conc. Trid. sess. 6. c. 2. can. 1. Verum, proprium, propitiatorium, &c. t In lib. Sent. Prosp. u Hom. 17. ad Hebr. Prece mystica consecratur nobis, in memoriá Dominicæ passionis. Lomb. Sent. 1. iv. d. 12. y Cassand. Consult. de Sacrificio. Et ibid. Hoc autem sacrificium exemplar est illius. Chryst. ubi suprà. 2 Si quis dixerit, Missa Sacrificium tantùm esse laudis et gratiarum actionis, &c. Sess. 6. c. 9. |