XXX. mention the drinking the cup as well as eating the bread, ART. that it is plain from him how the Apostles understood the words and intent of Christ, and how this Sacrament was received in that time. From the institution and command, which are express and positive, we go next to consider the nature of Sacramental actions. They have no virtue in them, as charms tied either to elements, or to words; they are only good because commanded. A different state of things may indeed justify an alteration as to circumstances: the danger of dipping in cold climates, may be a very good reason for changing the form of Baptism to sprinkling; and if climates were inhabited by Christians to which wine could not be brought, we should not doubt but that whensoever God makes a real necessity of departing from any institution of his, he does thereby allow of such a change, as that necessity must draw after it: so we do not condemn the licence that is said to have been granted by Pope Innocent the Eighth, to celebrate without wine in Norway; nor should we deny a man the Sacrament who had a natural and unconquerable aversion to wine, or that communicated being near his last agonies, and that should have the like aversion to either of the elements. When those things are real and not pretended, mercy is better than sacrifice. The punctual observance of a sacramental institution does only oblige us to the essential parts of it, and in ordinary cases: the pretence of what may be done, or has been done upon extraordinary occasions, can never justify the deliberate and unnecessary alteration of an essential part of the Sacrament. The whole institution shews very plainly, that our Saviour meant that the cup should be considered every whit as essential as bread; and therefore we cannot but conclude from the nature of things, that since the Sacraments have only their effects from their institution, therefore so total a change of this Sacrament does plainly evacuate the institution, and by consequence destroy the effect of it. All reasoning upon this head is an arguing against the institution; as if Christ and his Apostles had not well enough considered it; but that 1200 years after them, a consequence should be observed that till then had not been thought of, which made it reasonable to alter the manner of it. The Concomitance is the great thing that is here urged; since it is believed that Christ is entirely under each of the elements; and therefore it is not necessary that both ART. should be received, because Christ is fully received in any XXX. one. But this subsists on the doctrine of Transubstantiation; so if that is false, then here, upon a controverted opinion, an uncontroverted piece of the institution is altered. And if Concomitance is a certain consequence of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, then it is a very strong argument against the antiquity of that doctrine, that the world was so long without the notion of Concomitance; and therefore, if Transubstantiation had been sooner received, the Concomitance would have been more easily observed. The institution of the Sacrament seems to be so laid down, as rather to make us consider the body and blood as in a state of separation, than of concomitance; the body being represented apart, and the blood apart; and the body as broken, and the blood as shed. Therefore we consider the design of the Sacrament is, to represent Christ to us as dead, and in his crucified, but not in his glorified state. And if the opinion be true, that the glorified bodies are of another texture, than that of flesh and blood, which seems to be very plainly asserted by St. Paul, in a discourse intended to describe the nature of the glorified bodies, then this theory of concomitance will fail upon that account. But whatsoever may be in that, an institution of Christ's must not be altered or violated, upon the account of an inference that is drawn to conclude it needless. He who instituted it knew best what was most fitting and most reasonable; and we must choose rather to acquiesce in his commands, than in our own rea sonings. Apol. 2, If, next to the institution and the theory that arises from the nature of a Sacrament, we consider the practice of the Christian Church in all ages, there is not any one point in which the tradition of the Church is more express, and more universal, than in this particular, for above a thousand years after Christ. All the accounts that we have of the ancient rituals, both in Justin Martyr, Cyril of Jerusalem, the Constitutions, and the pretended Areopagite, do expressly mention both kinds as Apost. 1. ii, given separately in the Sacrament. All the ancient liturgies, as well these that go under the names of the Apostles, as those which are ascribed to St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, do mention this very expressly; all the of fices of the Western Church, both Roman and others; the missals of the latter ages, I mean down to the twelfth century, even the Ordo Romanus, believed by some to be a work of the ninth, and by others of the eleventh cen c. 57. Eccles. Hiera, c. 3. ART. XXX. tury, are express in mentioning the distribution of both kinds. All the Fathers, without excepting one, do speak of it very clearly, as the universal practice of their time. They do not so much as give a hint of any difference about it. So that from Ignatius down to Thomas Aqui- Aquin. nas, there is not any one writer that differs from the rest Com. in in this point; and even Aquinas speaks of the taking 53. In Sumaway the chalice as the practice only of some Churches; ma. par. 9. other writers of his time had not heard of any of these quæst. 80. Churches; for they speak of both kinds as the universal art. 12. practice. 6. Johan. v. But besides this general concurrence, there are some specialties in this matter: in St. Cyprian's time some thought it was not necessary to use wine in the Sacrament; they therefore used water only, and were from thence called Aquarii. It seems they found that their morning assemblies were smelled out by the wine used in the Sacrament; and Christians might be known by the smell of wine that was still about them; they therefore intended to avoid this, and so they had no wine among them, which was a much weightier reason, than that of the wine sticking upon the beards of the Laity. Yet St. Cyprian condemned this very severely, in a long Cyp.Ep.63. epistle writ upon that occasion. He makes this the ad Cecil. main argument, and goes over it frequently, that we ought to follow Christ, and do what he did: and he has those memorable words, If it be not lawful to loose any one of the least commands of Christ, how much more is it unlawful to break so great and so weighty a one; that does so very nearly relate to the Sacrament of our Lord's passion, and of our redemption; or by any human institution to change it, into that which is quite different from the divine institution. This is so full, that we cannot express ourselves more plainly. Decret. de Among the other profanations of the Manicheans, this was one, that they came among the assemblies of the Christians, and did receive the bread, but they would not take any wine: this is mentioned by Pope Leo in the Leo. Ser. 4. fifth century; upon which Pope Gelasius hearing of it in Quadrag. in his time, appointed that all persons should either Consecr. communicate in the Sacrament entirely, or be entirely dist. 2. excluded from it; for that such a dividing of one and the same Sacrament might not be done without a heinous sacrilege. In the seventh century a practice was begun of dipping the bread in the wine, and so giving both kinds together. This was condemned by the Council of Bracara, as plainly Consecr. Decret. de dist. 2. ART. contrary to the Gospel: Christ gave his body and blood XXX. to his Apostles distinctly, the bread by itself, and the cha lice by itself. This is, by a mistake of Gratian's, put in the Canon-Law, as a decree of Pope Julius to the Bishops of Egypt. It is probable, that it was thus given first to the sick, and to infants; but though this got among many of the Eastern Churches, and was, it seems, practised in some parts of the West; yet in the end of the eleventh Concil.Cla- century, Pope Urban in the Council of Clermont decreed, that none should communicate without taking the body apart, and the blood apart, except upon necessity, and with caution; to which some copies add, and that by reason of the heresy of Berengarius, that was lately condemned, which said that the figure was completed by one of the kinds. ramont. Can. 28. Eus. Hist. 1. vi. c. 44. We need not examine the importance or truth of these last words; it is enough for us to observe the continued practice of communicating in both kinds till the twelfth century; and even then, when the opinion of the corporal presence begot a superstition towards the elements, that had not been known in former ages, so that some drops sticking to men's beards, and the spilling some of it, its freezing or becoming sour, grew to be more considered than the institution of Christ; yet for a while they used to suck it up through small quills or pipes, (called Fistula, in the Ordo Romanus,) which answered the objection from the beards. In the twelfth century, the bread grew to be given generally dipt in wine. The writers of that time, though they justify this practice, yet they acknowledge it to be contrary to the institution. Ivo of Chartres says, the people did communicate with dipt bread, not by authority, but by necessity, for fear of spilling the blood of Christ. Pope Innocent the Fourth said, that all might have the chalice who were so cautious, that nothing of it should be spilt. In the ancient Church, the instance of Serapion is brought to shew that the bread alone was sent to the sick, which he that carried it was ordered to moisten beJust. Mart. fore he gave it him. Justin Martyr does plainly inApol. 2. sinuate that both kinds were sent to the absents; so some of the wine might be sent to Serapion with the bread; and it is much more reasonable to believe this, than that the bread was ordered to be dipt in water; there being no such instance in all history; whereas there are instances brought to shew that both kinds were carried to the sick. St. Ambrose received the bread, Paulinus in vita Am bros. but expired before he received the cup: this proves nothing but the weakness of the cause that needs such supports. Nor can any argument be brought from some words concerning the communicating of the sick, or of infants. Rules are made from ordinary, and not from extraordinary practices. The small portions of the Sacrament that some carried home, and reserved to other occasions, does not prove that they communicated only in one kind. They received in both, only they kept (out of too much superstition) some fragments of the one, which could be more easily, and with less observation, saved and preserved, than of the other: and yet there are instances that they carried off some portions of both kinds. The Greek Church communicates during most of the days in Lent, in bread dipt in wine; and in the Ordo Romanus, there is mention made of a particular communion on Good Friday; when some of the bread that had been formerly consecrated was put into a chalice with unconsecrated wine: this was a practice that was grounded on an opinion that the unconsecrated wine was sanctified and consecrated by the contact of the bread: and though they used not a formal consecration, yet they used other prayers, which was all that the primitive Church thought was necessary even to consecration; it being thought, even so late as Gregory the Great's time, that the Lord's Prayer was at first the prayer of con secration. ART. XXX. These are all the colours which the studies and the subtilties of this age have been able to produce for justifying the decree of the Council of Constance; that does acknow- Conc. ledge, that Christ did institute this Sacrament in both kinds, Const. and that the faithful in the primitive Church did receive Sess. 11. in both kinds: yet a practice being reasonably brought in to avoid some dangers and scandals, they appoint the custom to continue, of consecrating in both kinds, and of giving to the laity only in one kind: since Christ was entire and truly under each kind. They established this practice, and ordered that it should not be altered without the authority of the Church. So late a practice and so late a decree cannot make void the command of Christ, nor be set in opposition to such a clear and universal practice to the contrary. The wars of Bohemia that followed upon that decree, and all that scene of cruelty which was acted upon John Huss and Jerom of Prague, at the first establishment of it, shews what opposition was made to it even in dark ages, and by men that did not deny Transubstantiation. These prove that plain sense |