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V.68. Of faults noted in the Form of administering the Holy Communion.

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LXVIII. In administering the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, the supposed faults of the Church of England are not greatly material, and therefore it shall suffice to touch them in few words. “The first is that we do not use in a generality once for all to say to communicants ‘take eat, and drink,’ but unto every particular person, ‘eat thou, drink thou,’ which is according to the popish manner and not the form that our Saviour did use1. Our second oversight is by gesture. For in kneeling there hath been superstition; sitting agreeth better to the action of a supper2; and our Saviour using that which was most fit did himself not kneel3. A third accusation is for not examining all communicants, whose knowledge in the mystery of the Gospel should that way be made manifest, a thing every where they say used in the Apostles’ times4, because all things necessary were used, and this in their opinion is necessary, yea it is commanded inasmuch as the Levites5 are commanded to prepare the people for the Passover, and examination is a part of their preparation, our Lord’s Supper in place of the Passover. The fourth thing misliked is that against the Apostle’s prohibition6 to have any familiarity at all with notorious offenders, papists being not of the Church are admitted to our very communion before they have by their religious and gospel-like behaviour purged themselves of that suspicion of popery which their former life hath caused. They are dogs, swine, unclean beasts, foreigners and strangers from the Church of God, and therefore ought not to be admitted though they offer themselves7. We are fifthly condemned, inasmuch as when there have been store of people to hear sermon and service in the church we suffer the communion to be ministered to a few. It is not enough that our book of common prayer hath godly exhortations to move all thereunto which are present. For it should not suffer a few to communicate, it should by ecclesiastical discipline and civil punishment provide that such as would withdraw themselves might be brought to communicate, according both to the 8law of God and the ancient church canons. In the sixth and last place cometh the enormity of imparting this sacrament privately unto the sick9.”

Thus far accused we answer briefly to the first10 that seeing God by sacraments doth apply in particular unto every man’s person the grace which himself hath provided for the benefit of all mankind, there is no cause why administering the sacraments we should forbear to express that in our forms of speech, which he by his word and gospel teacheth all to believe. In the one sacrament “I baptize thee” displeaseth them not. If “eat thou” in the other offend them, their fancies are no rules for churches to follow.

Whether Christ at his last supper did speak generally once to all, or to every one in particular, is a thing uncertain. His words are recorded in that form which serveth best for the setting down with historical brevity what was spoken, they are no manifest proof that he spake but once unto all which did then communicate, much less that we in speaking unto every communicant severally do amiss, although it were clear that we herein do otherwise than Christ did. Our imitation of him consisteth not in tying scrupulously ourselves unto his syllables, but rather in speaking by the heavenly direction of that inspired divine wisdom which teacheth divers ways to one end, and doth therein control their boldness by whom any profitable way is censured as reprovable only under colour of some small difference from great examples going before. To do throughout every the like circumstance the same which Christ did in this action were by following his footsteps in that sort to err more from the purpose he aimed at than we now do by not following them with so nice and severe strictness.

They little weigh with themselves how dull, how heavy and almost how without sense the greatest part of the common multitude every where is, who think it either unmeet or unnecessary to put them even man by man especially at that time in mind whereabout they are. It is true that in sermons we do not use to repeat our sentences severally to every particular hearer, a strange madness it were if we should. The softness of wax may induce a wise man to set his stamp or image therein; it persuadeth no man that because wool hath the like quality it may therefore receive the like impression. So the reason taken from the use of sacraments in that they are instruments of grace unto every particular man may with good congruity lead the Church to frame accordingly her words in administration of sacraments, because they easily admit this form, which being in sermons a thing impossible without apparent ridiculous absurdity, agreement of sacraments with sermons in that which is alleged as a reasonable proof of conveniency for the one proveth not the same allegation impertinent because it doth not enforce the other to be administered in like sort. For equal principles do then avail unto equal conclusions when the matter whereunto we apply them is equal, and not else.

Our kneeling at Communions is the gesture of piety11. If we did there present ourselves but to make some show or dumb resemblance of a spiritual feast12, it may be that sitting were the fitter ceremony; but coming as receivers of inestimable grace at the hands of God, what doth better beseem our bodies at that hour than to be sensible witnesses of minds unfeignedly humbled? Our Lord himself did that which custom and long usage had made fit; we that which fitness and great decency hath made usual.

The trial of ourselves before we eat of this bread and drink of this cup is by express commandment every man’s precise duty. As for necessity of calling others unto account13 besides ourselves, albeit we be not thereunto drawn by any great strength which is in their arguments, who first press us with it as a thing necessary by affirming that the Apostles did use it14, and then prove the Apostles to have used it by affirming it to be necessary; again15 albeit we greatly muse how they can avouch that God did command the Levites to prepare their brethren against the feast of the Passover, and that the examination of them was a part of their preparation, when the place alleged to this purpose doth but charge the Levites saying, “make ready Laahhechem for your brethren,” to the end they may do according to the word of the Lord by Moses:—wherefore in the selfsame place it followeth how lambs and kids and sheep and bullocks were delivered unto the Levites, and that thus “the service was made ready16;” it followeth likewise how the Levites having in such sort provided for the people, they made provision for “themselves and for the priests the sons of Aaron17;” so that confidently from hence to conclude the necessity of examination argueth their wonderful great forwardness in framing all things to serve their turn:—nevertheless the examination of communicants when need requireth, for the profitable use it may have in such cases, we reject not.

Our fault in admitting popish communicants, is it in that we are forbidden18 to eat and therefore much more to communicate with notorious malefactors19? The name of a papist is not given unto any man for being a notorious male-factor. And the crime wherewith we are charged is suffering of papists to communicate, so that be their life and conversation whatsoever in the sight of men, their popish opinions are in this case laid as bars and exceptions against them, yea those opinions which they have held in former times although they now both profess by word and offer to shew by fact the contrary20. All this doth not justify us, which ought not (they say) to admit them in any wise, till their gospel-like behaviour have removed all suspicion of popery from them, because papists are “dogs, swine, beasts, foreigners and strangers” from the house of God; in a word, they are “not of the Church.”

What the terms of “gospel-like behaviour” may include is obscure and doubtful. But of the Visible Church of Christ in this present world, from which they separate all papists, we are thus persuaded: Church is a word which art hath devised thereby to sever and distinguish that society of men which professeth the true religion from the rest which profess it not. There have been in the world from the very first foundation thereof but three religions, Paganism which lived in the blindness of corrupt and depraved nature; Judaism embracing the Law which reformed heathenish impiety, and taught salvation to be looked for through one whom God in the last days would send and exalt to be Lord of all; finally Christian belief which yieldeth obedience to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and acknowledgeth him the Saviour whom God did promise. Seeing then that the Church is a name which art hath given to professors of true religion, as they which will define a man are to pass by those qualities wherein one man doth excel another, and to take only those essential properties whereby a man doth differ from creatures of other kinds, so he that will teach what the Church is shall never rightly perform the work whereabout he goeth, till in matter of religion he touch that difference which severeth the Church’s Religion from theirs who are not the Church. Religion being therefore a matter partly of contemplation partly of action, we must define the Church which is a religious society by such differences as do properly explain the essence of such things, that is to say, by the object or matter whereabout the contemplations and actions of the Church are properly conversant. For so all knowledges and all virtues are defined. Whereupon because the only object which separateth ours from other religions is Jesus Christ, in whom none but the Church doth believe and whom none but the Church doth worship, we find that accordingly the Apostles do every where distinguish hereby the Church from infidels and from Jews, accounting “them which call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to be his Church.”

If we go lower, we shall but add unto this certain casual and variable accidents, which are not properly of the being, but make only for the happier and better being of the Church of God, either in deed, or in men’s opinions and conceits. This is the error of all popish definitions that hitherto have been brought. They define not the Church by that which the Church essentially is, but by that wherein they imagine their own more perfect than the rest are. Touching parts of eminency and perfection, parts likewise of imperfection and defect in the Church of God, they are infinite, their degrees and differences no way possible to be drawn unto any certain account. There is not the least contention and variance, but it blemisheth somewhat the unity that ought to be in the Church of Christ21, which notwithstanding may have not only without offence or breach of concord her manifold varieties in rites and ceremonies of religion, but also her strifes and contentions many times and that about matters of no small importance, yea her schisms, factions and such other evils whereunto the body of the Church is subject, sound and sick remaining both of the same body, as long as both parts retain by outward profession that vital substance of truth which maketh Christian religion to differ from theirs which acknowledge not our Lord Jesus Christ the blessed Saviour of mankind, give no credit to his glorious gospel, and have his sacraments the seals of eternal life in derision22.

Now the privilege of the visible Church of God (for of that we speak) is to be herein like the ark of Noah, that, for any thing we know to the contrary, all without it are lost sheep; yet in this was the ark of Noah privileged above the Church that whereas none of them which were in the one could perish, numbers in the other are cast away, because to eternal life our profession is not enough. Many things exclude from the kingdom of God although from the Church they separate not.

In the Church there arise sundry grievous storms, by means whereof whole kingdoms and nations professing Christ both have been heretofore and are at this present day divided about Christ. During which divisions and contentions amongst men albeit each part do justify itself, yet the one of necessity must needs err if there be any contradiction between them be it great or little, and what side soever it be that hath the truth, the same we must also acknowledge alone to hold with the true Church in that point, and consequently reject the other as an enemy in that case fallen away from the true Church.

Wherefore of hypocrites and dissemblers23 whose profession at the first was but only from the teeth outward, when they afterwards took occasion to oppugn certain principal articles of faith, the Apostles which defended the truth against them pronounce them “gone out” from the fellowship of sound and sincere believers, when as yet the Christian religion they had not utterly cast off.

In like sense and meaning throughout all ages heretics have justly been hated as branches cut off from the body of the true Vine, yet only so far forth cut off as their heresies have extended. Both heresy and many other crimes which wholly sever from God do sever from the Church of God in part only. “The mystery of piety” saith the Apostle “is without peradventure great, God hath been manifested in the flesh, hath been justified in the Spirit, hath been seen of Angels, hath been preached to nations, hath been believed on in the world, hath been taken up into glory24.” The Church a pillar and foundation of this truth, which no where is known or professed but only within the Church, and they all of the Church that profess it. In the meanwhile it cannot be denied that many profess this who are not therefore cleared simply from all either faults or errors which make separation between us and the wellspring of our happiness. Idolatry severed of old the Israelites, iniquity those scribes and Pharisees from God, who notwithstanding were a part of the seed of Abraham, a part of that very seed which God did himself acknowledge to be his Church. The Church of God may therefore contain both them which indeed are not his yet must be reputed his by us that know not their inward thoughts, and them whose apparent wickedness testifieth even in the sight of the whole world that God abhorreth them. For to this and no other purpose are meant those parables which our Saviour in the Gospel25 hath concerning mixture of vice with virtue, light with darkness, truth with error, as well an openly known and seen as a cunningly cloked mixture.

That which separateth therefore utterly, that which cutteth off clean from the visible Church of Christ is plain Apostasy, direct denial, utter rejection of the whole Christian faith as far as the same is professedly different from infidelity. Heretics as touching those points of doctrine wherein they fail; schismatics as touching the quarrels for which or the duties wherein they divide themselves from their brethren; loose, licentious and wicked persons as touching their several offences or crimes, have all forsaken the true Church of God, the Church which is sound and sincere in the doctrine that they corrupt, the Church that keepeth the bond of unity which they violate, the Church that walketh in the laws of righteousness which they transgress, this very true Church of Christ they have left, howbeit not altogether left nor forsaken simply the Church upon the main foundations whereof they continue built, notwithstanding these breaches whereby they are rent at the top asunder.

Now because for redress of professed errors and open schisms it is and must be the Church’s care that all may in outward conformity be one, as the laudable polity of former ages even so our own to that end and purpose hath established divers laws, the moderate severity whereof is a mean both to stay the rest and to reclaim such as heretofore have been led awry26. But seeing that the offices which laws require are always definite, and when that they require is done they go no farther, whereupon sundry ill-affected persons to save themselves from danger of laws pretend obedience, albeit inwardly they carry still the same hearts which they did before, by means whereof it falleth out that receiving unworthily the blessed sacrament at our hands, they eat and drink their own damnation; it is for remedy of this mischief here determined27, that whom the law of the realm doth punish unless they communicate, such if they offer to obey law, the Church notwithstanding should not admit without probation before had of their gospel-like behaviour.

Wherein they first set no time how long this supposed probation must continue; again they nominate no certain judgment the verdict whereof shall approve men’s behaviour to be gospel-like; and that which is most material, whereas they seek to make it more hard for dissemblers to be received into the Church than law and polity as yet hath done, they make it in truth more easy for such kind of persons to wind themselves out of the law and to continue the same they were. The law requireth at their hands that duty which in conscience doth touch them nearest, because the greatest difference between us and them is the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, whose name in the service of our communion we celebrate with due honour, which they in the error of their mass profane. As therefore on our part to hear mass were an open departure from that sincere profession wherein we stand, so if they on the other side receive our communion, they give us the strongest pledge of fidelity that man can demand. What their hearts are God doth know. But if they which mind treachery to God and man28 shall once apprehend this advantage given them, whereby they may satisfy law in pretending themselves conformable (for what can law with reason or justice require more?) and yet be sure the Church will accept no such offer, till their gospel-like behaviour be allowed; after that our own simplicity hath once thus fairly eased them from sting of law, it is to be thought they will learn the mystery of gospel-like behaviour when leisure serveth them. And so while without any cause we fear to profane sacraments, we shall not only defeat the purpose of most wholesome laws, but lose or wilfully hazard those souls from which the likeliest means of full and perfect recovery are by our indiscretion withheld.

For neither doth God thus bind us to dive into men’s consciences, nor can their fraud and deceit hurt any man but themselves. To him they seem such as they are, but to us they must be taken for such as they seem. In the eye of God they are against Christ that are not truly and sincerely with him, in our eyes they must be received as with Christ that are not to outward show against him.

The case of impenitent and notorious sinners is not like unto theirs whose only imperfection is error severed from pertinacy, error in appearance content to submit itself to better instruction, error so far already cured as to crave at our hands that sacrament the hatred and utter refusal whereof was the weightiest point wherein heretofore they swerved and went astray.

In this case therefore they cannot reasonably charge us with remiss dealing, or with carelessness to whom we impart the mysteries of Christ, but they have given us manifest occasion to think it requisite that we earnestly advise rather and exhort them to consider as they ought their sundry oversights, first in equalling undistinctly crimes with errors as touching force to make uncapable of this sacrament; secondly in suffering indignation at the faults of the church of Rome to blind and withhold their judgments from seeing that which withal they should acknowledge, concerning so much nevertheless still due to the same church, as to be held and reputed a part of the house of God, a limb of the visible Church of Christ; thirdly in imposing upon the Church a burden to enter farther into men’s hearts and to make a deeper search of their consciences than any law of God or reason of man enforceth; fourthly and lastly in repelling under colour of longer trial such from the mysteries of heavenly grace, as are both capable thereof by the laws of God for any thing we hear to the contrary, and should in divers considerations be cherished according to the merciful examples and precepts whereby the gospel of Christ hath taught us towards such to shew compassion, to receive them with lenity and all meekness, if any thing be shaken in them to strengthen it, not to quench with delays and jealousies that feeble smoke of conformity which seemeth to breathe from them, but to build wheresoever there is any foundation, to add perfection unto slender beginnings, and that as by other offices of piety even so by this very food of life which Christ hath left in his Church not only for preservation of strength but also for relief of weakness.

But to return to our own selves in whom the next thing severely reproved is the paucity29 of communicants; if they require at communions frequency we wish the same, knowing how acceptable unto God such service is when multitudes cheerfully concur unto it30; if they encourage men thereunto, we also (themselves acknowledge it31) are not utterly forgetful to do the like; if they require some public coaction32 for remedy of that wherein by milder and softer means little good is done, they know our laws and statutes provided in that behalf, whereunto whatsoever convenient help may be added more by the wisdom of man, what cause have we given the world to think that we are not ready to hearken to it, and to use any good mean of sweet compulsion33 to have this high and heavenly banquet largely furnished? Only we cannot so far yield as to judge it convenient that the holy desire of a competent number should be unsatisfied, because the greater part is careless and undisposed to join with them.

Men should not (they say) be permitted a few by themselves to communicate when so many are gone away, because this sacrament is a token of our conjunction with our brethren34, and therefore by communicating apart from them we make an apparent show of distraction. I ask then on which side unity is broken, whether on theirs that depart or on theirs who being left behind do communicate? First in the one it is not denied but that they may have reasonable causes of departure, and that then even they are delivered from just blame. Of such kind of causes two are allowed35, namely danger of impairing health and necessary business requiring our presence otherwhere. And may not a third cause, which is unfitness at the present time, detain us as lawfully back as either of these two? True it is that we cannot hereby altogether excuse ourselves, for that we ought to prevent this and do not36. But if we have committed a fault in not preparing our minds before, shall we therefore aggravate the same with a worse, the crime of unworthy participation? He that abstaineth doth want for the time that grace and comfort which religious communicants have, but he that eateth and drinketh unworthily receiveth death, that which is life to others turneth in him to poison.

Notwithstanding whatsoever be the cause for which men abstain, were it reason that the fault of one part should any way abridge their benefit that are not faulty? There is in all the Scripture of God no one syllable which doth condemn communicating amongst a few when the rest are departed from them.

As for the last thing which is our imparting this sacrament privately unto the sick37, whereas there have been of old (they grant38) two kinds of necessity wherein this sacrament might be privately administered39, of which two the one being erroneously imagined, and the other (they say) continuing no longer in use, there remaineth unto us no necessity at all, for which that custom should be retained. The falsely surmised necessity is that whereby some have thought all such excluded from possibility of salvation as did depart this life and never were made partakers of the holy Eucharist40. The other case of necessity was, when men, which had fallen in time of persecution, and had afterwards repented them, but were not as yet received again unto the fellowship of this communion, did at the hour of their death request it, that so they might rest with greater quietness and comfort of mind, being thereby assured of departure in unity of Christ’s Church, which virtuous desire the Fathers did think it great impiety not to satisfy. This was Serapion’s case of necessity. Serapion a faithful aged person and always of very upright life till fear of persecution in the end caused him to shrink back, after long sorrow for his scandalous offence and suit oftentimes made to be pardoned of the Church, fell at length into grievous sickness, and being ready to yield up the ghost was then more instant than ever before to receive the sacrament. Which sacrament was necessary in this case, not that Serapion had been deprived of everlasting life without it, but that his end was thereby to him made the more comfortable41. And do we think, that all cases of such necessity are clean vanished? Suppose that some have by mis-persuasion lived in schism, withdrawn themselves from holy and public assemblies, hated the prayers, and loathed the sacraments of the Church, falsely presuming them to be fraught with impious and Antichristian corruptions, which error the God of mercy and truth opening at the length their eyes to see, they do not only repent them of the evil which they have done but also in token thereof desire to receive comfort by that whereunto they have offered disgrace, (which may be the case of many poor seduced souls even at this day), God forbid we should think that the Church doth sin in permitting the wounds of such to be suppled42 with that oil which this gracious Sacrament doth yield, and their bruised minds not only need but beg.

There is nothing which the soul of man doth desire in that last hour so much as comfort against the natural terrors of death and other scruples of conscience which commonly do then most trouble and perplex the weak, towards whom the very law of God doth exact at our hands all the helps that Christian lenity and indulgence can afford. Our general consolation departing this life is the hope of that glorious43 and blessed resurrection which the Apostle St. Paul44 nameth ἐξανάστασιν45, to note that as all men shall have their ἀνάστασιν and be raised again from the dead, so the just shall be taken up and exalted above the rest, whom the power of God doth but raise and not exalt. This life and this resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ is for all men as touching the sufficiency of that he hath done; but that which maketh us partakers thereof is our particular communion with Christ, and this sacrament a principal mean as well to strengthen the bond as to multiply in us the fruits of the same communion; for which cause St. Cyprian46 termeth it a joyful solemnity of expedite and speedy resurrection; Ignatius47 a medicine which procureth immortality and preventeth death; Irenæus48 the nourishment of our bodies to eternal life and their preservative from corruption. Now because that Sacrament which at all times we may receive unto this effect is then most acceptable and most fruitful, when any special extraordinary occasion nearly and presently urging kindleth our desires towards it, their severity, who cleave unto that alone which is generally fit to be done and so make all men’s condition alike, may add much affliction to divers troubled and grieved minds49, of whose particular estate particular respect being had, according to the charitable order of the church wherein we live, there ensueth unto God that glory which his righteous saints comforted in their greatest distresses do yield, and unto them which have their reasonable petitions satisfied the same contentment, tranquillity, and joy, that others before them by means of like satisfaction have reaped, and wherein we all are or should be desirous finally to take our leave of the world whensoever our own uncertain time of most assured departure shall come.

Concerning therefore both prayers and sacraments together with our usual and received form of administering the same in the church of England, let thus much suffice.

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Footnotes

  1. [Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 600. “Then it was delivered generally and indefinitely, ‘Take ye and eat ye:’ we particularly and singularly, ‘Take thou and eat thou.’ ”] ↩

  2. [T. C. i. 165. al. 131.] ↩

  3. [Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 596. “They received it sitting; we kneeling according to Honorius’ decree.”] ↩

  4. [Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 591. “There was then accustomed to be an examination of the communicants which now is neglected.”] ↩

  5. 2 Chron. xxxv. 6. ↩

  6. 1 Cor. v. 11. ↩

  7. [Adm. ap. Whitg. 603. “They shut men by reason of their sins from the Lord’s Supper: we thrust them in their sin to the Lord’s supper:” thus explained by T. C. i. 132. al. 167. “If the place of the 5 to the Corinth. do forbid that we should have any familiarity with notorious offenders, it doth much more forbid that they should be received to the Communion. And therefore Papists being such, as which are notoriously known to hold heretical opinions, ought not to be admitted, much less compelled to the Supper.”] ↩

  8. Num. ix. 13; Can. ix. Apost. [Coteler. PP. Apost. i. 443. Πάντας τοὺς εἰσιόντας πιστοὺς εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν Θεου̑ ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ τω̑ν ἱερω̑ν γραϕω̑ν ἀκούοντας, μὴ παραμένοντας δὲ τῃ̑ προσευχῃ̑ καὶ τῃ̑ ἁγίᾳ μεταλήψει, ὡς ἂν ἀταξίαν ἐμποιου̑ντας τῃ̑ ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἀϕορίζεσθαι χρή.] Concil. 2. Brac. cap. 83. [vid. Capitula Martini Episc. Bracar. cap. 83. apud Concil. v. 914. “Si quis intrat ecclesiam Dei, et sacras scripturas non audit, et pro luxuria sua avertit se a communione sacramenti, et in observandis mysteriis declinat constitutam regulam disciplinæ, istum talem ejiciendum de Ecclesia Catholica decernimus, donec pœnitentiam agat.”] ↩

  9. [Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 525. “A great number of things contrary to the law of God, as private Communion,” &c. T. C. 115. al. 146. “The private communion is found fault with, both for the place wherein it is ministered, and for the small number of communicants which are admitted by the book of service.” And p. 116. al. 147. “There is fault in the appointing of the service book, not only for that it admitteth in the time of plague, that one with the minister may celebrate the Supper of the Lord in the house, but for that it ordaineth a communion in the church, when of a great number which assemble there it admitteth three or four.”] ↩

  10. T. C. lib. i. p. 166. [131.] “Besides that it is good to leave the popish form in those things which we may so conveniently do, it is best to come as near the manner of celebration of the supper which our Saviour Christ used as may be. And if it be a good argument to prove that therefore we must rather say Take thou than Take ye, because the sacrament is an application of the benefits of Christ, it behoveth that the preacher should direct his admonitions particularly one after another unto all those which hear his sermon, which is a thing absurd.” ↩

  11. T. C. lib. i. p. 165. [131.] “Kneeling carrieth a show of worship, sitting agreeth better with the action of the Supper. Christ and his Apostles kneeled not.” ↩

  12. [Adm. ap. Wh. Def. 599. “In this book we are enjoined to receive the communion kneeling; which beside that it hath in it a shew of papistry, doth not so well express the mystery of this holy supper. For as in the old Testament eating the paschal lamb standing signified a readiness to pass, even so in the receiving of it now sitting according to the example of Christ, we signify rest: i. e. a full finishing through Christ of all the ceremonial law, and a perfect work of redemption wrought, that giveth rest for ever. And so we avoid also the danger of idolatry, which was in times past too common, and yet is in the hearts of many.” Wh. Def. “What? are you now come to allegories and to significations? Surely this is a very papistical reason: nay then we can give you a great deal better significations of the surplice, of crossing, of the ring in marriage, and many other ceremonies, than this is of sitting. I pray you in the whole Scripture where doth sitting signify a full finishing of the ceremonial law, and a perfect work of redemption that giveth rest for ever?” T. C. 132. al. 166. “Let it be that this is not so sound a reason, (as indeed for my part I will not defend it, and the authors themselves have corrected it,) yet M. Doctor might have dealt easilier withall than to call it a papistical reason, which is far from popery, and the reason of two notable learned and zealous men, Johannes Alasco” (marg. “in Liturgia Eccles. Peregr.” ‘Alienum id a nobis maxime esse oportet, ut observatum a Christo Domino, ejusque demum etiam Apostolis, Consessum in cœna Novi Testamenti ipsius, vanum, otiosum, omnique mysterio vacuum esse imaginemur. Sed est nobis summa religione observandum, longe præstantissimum illud plenumque summæ consolationis mysterium nostræ jam quietis in Christo, ipsiusmet Christi Domini verbis nobis commendatum.’ &c. p. 146.) “and of M. Hooper in his Commentary upon the Prophet Jonas.”] ↩

  13. [Whitg. Answer, 96. al. 140. “How prove you that there was then any examination of communicants? … . St. Paul saith, ‘Let a man examine himself.’ But he speaketh of no other examination.” T. C. i. 130. al. 164. “M. Doctor asketh how it is proved that there was any examination of the communicants. After this sort: all things necessary were used in the churches of God in the Apostles’ times; but examination of those whose knowledge of the mystery of the Gospel was not known, or doubted of, was a necessary thing; therefore it was used in the churches of God which were in the Apostles’ time.”] ↩

  14. T. C. lib. i. p. 164. [130. and iii. 149, 150.] All things necessary were used in the churches of God in the Apostles’ times, but examination was a necessary thing, therefore used. “In the Book of Chronicles (2 Chron. xxxv. 6.) the Levites were commanded to prepare the people to the receiving of the passover, in place whereof we have the Lord’s Supper. Now examination being a part of the preparation it followeth that here is commandment of the examination.” ↩

  15. [Whitg. ubi sup. “If there had been either commandment or example for it in Scriptures, I am sure you would not have left it unquoted in the margent.” T. C. ubi sup. “In the second book of the Chronicles he might have read, that the Levites were commanded &c.” Wh. Def. 592. “You betray the weakness of your cause too much, when you are constrained to run so far for a precept … especially when you are compelled for want of other to bring out ceremonial precepts long ago abrogated … . Why may not the Papists as well use the same for their auricular confession? … These words, ‘Prepare your brethren,’ &c. are thus expounded by learned interpreters: Exhort your brethren to examine themselves, that they may be ready to eat the passover. Look the marginal note in the Geneva Bible.”] ↩

  16. [2 Chr. xxxv. 10.] ↩

  17. [Ibid. 14. The same phrase occurs Gen. xliii. 16. where Joseph bids his servant “slay and make ready.” Comp. Josh. i. 11. Cartwright was probably misled by the Vulgate, which reads, “Et fratres vestros … . præparate.”] ↩

  18. 1 Cor. v. 11; T. C. lib. i. p. 167. [132.] ↩

  19. [The phrase in T. C. is “notorious offenders.”] ↩

  20. [T. C. lib. i. p. 167. [133.] “Although they would receive the communion, yet they ought to be kept back until such time as by their religious and Gospel-like behaviour they have purged themselves of that suspicion of popery which their former life and conversation hath caused to be conceived.” [Eccles. Disc. fol. 129. “Cur sacra Dei mysteria Papistis communicamus, nec ante, apertam, publicam, sinceram veræ religionis professionem exigimus? Sacra Dei mysteria profanantur, gentes in templa Dei ingrediuntur, sacra cum incircumcisis et immundis communicantur, nec custodes ad portas adhibemus, neque immundos claustris circumscribimus.”] ↩

  21. Rom. xv. 5; 1 Cor. i. 10. ↩

  22. [Comp. b. iii. c. 1.] ↩

  23. 1 John ii. 19. ↩

  24. 1 Tim. iii. 16. ↩

  25. [Matt. xiii. 24, 47.] ↩

  26. [Namely, the Act of Uniformity: that under which the High Commission acted and the Queen’s Injunctions were issued from time to time: other acts in 1562, 1581, 1593. Of interference with regard to the Communion in particular two instances occur in Strype: one in Park. i. 568: where a person of the Temple is interrogated, “Whether he had received the Communion in the Temple church, accustomably, as others of the house had done:” the other, Ann. I. ii. 347; a circular signed by the magistrates, pledging themselves to “receive the holy Sacrament from time to time, according to the tenor of the Act of Uniformity:” both dated 1569, when the rebellion in the north was yet rife. The act of 1581 appears to have been thought necessary on account of certain doubts which existed as to the construction of the previous general enactments, and consequent lawfulness of the pecuniary penalties which the court of High Commission had been in the habit of occasionally enforcing. Strype, Grind. 345. ad 1577.] ↩

  27. T. C. lib. i. p. 167. [132, 133.] “If the place of the fifth to the Corinthians do forbid that we should have any familiarity with notorious offenders, it doth much more forbid that they should be received to the Communion. And therefore papists being such as which are notoriously known to hold heretical opinions ought not to be admitted much less compelled to the Supper. For seeing that our Saviour Christ did institute his supper amongst his disciples and those only which were as St. Paul speaketh within, it is evident that the papists being without, and foreigners and strangers from the Church of God ought not to be received if they would offer themselves: and that minister that shall give the Supper of the Lord to him which is known to be a papist and which hath never made any clear renouncing of popery with which he hath been defiled doth profane the table of the Lord, and doth give the meat that is prepared for the children unto dogs, and he bringeth into the pasture which is provided for the sheep, swine and unclean beasts, contrary to the faith and trust that ought to be in a steward of the Lord’s house as he is. For albeit that I doubt not but many of those which are now papists pertain to the election of God, which God also in his good time will call to the knowledge of his truth: yet notwithstanding they ought to be unto the minister and unto the Church touching the ministering of sacraments as strangers and as unclean beasts … . . The ministering of the holy sacraments unto them is a declaration and seal of God’s favour and reconciliation with them, and a plain preaching partly that they be washed already from their sins, partly that they are of the household of God and such as the Lord will feed to eternal life, which is not lawful to be done unto those which are not of the household of faith. And therefore I conclude that the compelling of papists unto the communion, and the dismissing and letting of them go when as they be to be punished for their stubbornness in popery (with this condition, if they will receive the communion) is very unlawful, when as although they would receive it yet they ought to be kept back till such time as by their religious and gospel like behaviour,” &c. [Comp. T. C. i. 34. ap. Whitg. Def. 178. Whitgift in his answer had pleaded against popular election of bishops, that “the Church is now full of papists, atheists, and such like.” T. C. replies, “Now you bring in papists, idolaters, and atheists, which are not only filthy but also poisoned and venomed beasts. I am not ignorant of that distinction which saith that there be in the Church which are not of the Church; and those are hypocrites as is before said: but I would gladly learn of you, what scripture there is to prove that idolaters and papists and atheists are in the Church, when St. Paul calleth all such without the Church, and with whom the Church hath nothing to do, nor they with the Church. You might as well have placed in the Church, wolves, tigers, lions and bears, i. e. tyrants and persecutors … But now I hear you ask me what then shall become of the papists and atheists, if you will not have them to be of the Church? I answer that they may be of and in the Commonwealth, which neither may, nor can be, of or in the Church. And therefore the Church having nothing to do with such, the magistrate ought to see that they join to hear the sermons in the place where they are made, . . .and cause them to be examined, how they profit; and if they profit not, to punish them; and as their contempt groweth, so to increase the punishment, until such time as they declare manifest tokens of unrepentantness, and then as rotten members. . .cut them off.”] ↩

  28. [This expression refers perhaps to the Jesuits and seminary priests especially: who were very busy in England about 1596. See Strype, Ann. iv. 422. Compare in the same vol. p. 53, Topclyff’s statement in a letter to Burghley: “There is a great danger in many others, who sometimes do come to the church, and yet be papists both in their inward hearts, and in their outward actions and conversations, refusing to receive the communion; and in every thing else as ill as the worst. Of which there be also two sorts. The one goeth to the church for saving of the penalties of thirteen score pounds a year: yet his wife and whole family, or most of them, continue resolute recusants and harbour traitors. The other sort go to the church because they may avoid suspicion of the magistrates the better, and is dispensed withal by some secret dispensation of a delegate or such a great priest as hath episcopal authority, to the end they may the better, and with the less suspicion, serve the turn of their cause catholic.”] ↩

  29. T. C. lib. i. p. 147. [116.] ↩

  30. 2 Chron. xxx. 13; Psalm cxxii. 1. ↩

  31. [T. C. i. 117. al. 148. “It may be objected, that in this point the Book of Common Prayer is not in fault, which doth not only not forbid that all the Church should receive together, but also by a good and godly exhortation moveth those that be present that they should not depart … . It is true that it doth not forbid, and that there is godly exhortation for that purpose.”] ↩

  32. [T. C. i. 117. al. 149. “It” (the Prayer Book) “ought to provide that those which would withdraw themselves should be by ecclesiastical discipline at all times, and now also under a godly prince by civil punishment brought to communicate… . This is the law of God, (Numbers ix. 13.) and this is now and hath been heretofore the practice of the churches reformed.”] ↩

  33. Luke xiv. 23. ↩

  34. [T. C. i. 116. al. 147. “The holy Sacrament of the Supper of the Lord is not only a seal and confirmation of the promises of God unto us, but also a profession of our conjunction as well with Christ our Saviour and with God, as also (as St. Paul teacheth) a declaration and profession that we are at one with our brethren… . The departing therefore of the rest of the Church from those three or four is an open profession that they have no communion, fellowship, nor unity, with them that do communicate; and likewise of those three or four, that they have none with the rest … . Therefore St. Paul driving thereunto wisheth that one should tarry for another.” Whitg. Def. 528. “If the book should appoint that three or four should communicate together, and no more; or if it did not allow that communion best wherein most of the church do participate; then were your reasoning to some end. But seeing that it is appointed that there should not be fewer than three or four, to the end that it might be a communion, and have no similitude with the papistical mass, there is no cause why you should take this pains… . Shall none communicate because all will not? Or shall not three or four because the rest refuse? Or is it lack of love towards our neighbour, or any token thereof, if we resort to the Lord’s table when other will not? Where learn you that?”] ↩

  35. [By T. C. i. 117.] ↩

  36. [Id. i. 118. al. 149. “Here may rise another doubt of the words of Moses in the Book of Numbers. For seeing he maketh this exception, ‘if they be clean,’ it may be said that those that depart do not feel themselves meet to receive … For answer whereunto … … the uncleanness which Moses speaketh of was such as men could not easily avoid: and whereunto they might fall sometimes by necessary duty… . which thing cannot be alleged in those that are now of the Church. For if they will say, they be not meet, it may be answered unto them that it is their own fault; and further, if they be not meet to receive the holy Sacrament of the Supper, they are not meet to hear the word of God, they are not meet to be partakers of the prayers of the Church … . To whomsoever of them the Lord will communicate himself by preaching the word, to the same he will not refuse to communicate himself by receiving of the sacraments.”] ↩

  37. [Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 529. “In this book three or four are allowed for a fit number to receive the Communion, and the priest alone together with one more, or with the sick man alone, may in time of necessity, that is when there is any common plague, or in time of other visitation minister it to the sick man, and if he require it it may not be denied. This is not I am sure like in effect to a private mass: that Scripture, ‘Drink ye all of this,’ maketh not against this, and private Communion is not against the Scriptures.” Whitg. Answer, 185. “ ‘Drink ye all of this’ may as well be applied to prove that ten, twenty, forty, is no sufficient number … . I know there be some of the old Fathers, as Basilius Magnus, which would not have fewer communicants than twelve.” (t. ii. 320. D.) “But of the number of communicants there is nothing determined in Scripture.”] ↩

  38. [T. C. quotes Justin Martyr, Apol. c. 85. Οἱ καλούμενοι παρ’ ἡμι̑ν διάκονοι, διδόασιν ἑκάστῳ τω̑ν παρόντων μεταλαβει̑ν ἀπὸ του̑ εὐχαριστηθέντος ἄρτου καὶ οἴνου καὶ ὕδατος, καὶ τοι̑ς οὐ παρου̑σιν ἀποϕέρουσι. Tertull. de Orat. c. xix. (speaking of the scruple which some persons felt of breaking their fast on a day of humiliation, by participation of the Eucharist:) “Accepto corpore Domini, et reservato, utrumque salvum est: et participatio sacrificii, et executio officii.” And Cyprian, de Lapsis, p. 132. “Cum quædam arcam suam, in qua Domini Sanctum fuit, manibus indignis tentasset aperire, igne inde surgente deterrita est, ne auderet attingere.”] ↩

  39. T. C. i. 146. [al. 115. “It is not to be denied that this abuse is very ancient, and was in Justin Martyr’s time, in Tertullian and Cyprian’s time, even as also there were other abuses … . First of all in the primitive Church the discipline of the Church was so severe, and so extreme, that if any one who professed the truth and were of the body of the Church did through infirmity deny the truth, and joined himself unto the idolatrous service, although he repenting came again unto the Church, yet was he not received to the communion of the Lord’s Supper any more. And yet lying in extremity of sickness, and ready to depart this life, if they did require the Communion in token that the Church had forgiven the fault, … . they granted that he might be partaker of it: as may appear by the story of Serapion. Another cause was that which was before alleged: which is the false opinion they had conceived that all those were condemned that received not the Supper of the Lord. And therefore when catechumens or young children fell sick dangerously they ministered the Supper of the Lord unto them, lest they should want their voyage victual (as they termed it).”] ↩

  40. [On this point so far as regards Infant Communion see especially Waterland’s Inquiry concerning that practice. Works, ix. 473, &c. (vol. vi. p. 41. ed. 1844.)] ↩

  41. [S. Dionys. Alex. ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 44. Σαραπίων τις ἠ̑ν παρ’ ἡμι̑ν πιστὸς γέρων, ἀμέμπτως μὲν τὸν πολὺν διαβιώσας χρόνον, ἐν δὲ τῳ̑ πειρασμῳ̑ πεσών· οὑ̑τος πολλάκις ἐδει̑το, καὶ οὐδεὶς προσει̑χεν αὐτῳ̑, καὶ γὰρ ἐτεθύκει, ἐν νόσῳ δὲ γενόμενος, τριω̑ν ἑξη̑ς ἡμερω̑ν ἄϕωνος καὶ ἀναίσθητος διετέλεσε· βραχὺ δὲ ἀνασϕήλας τῃ̑ τετάρτῃ, προσεκαλέσατο τὸν θυγατριδου̑ν· καὶ, μέχρι τίνος, ϕησὶν, ὡ̑ τέκνον, με κατέχετε; δέομαι, σπεύσατε, καί με θα̑ττον ἀπολύσατε, τω̑ν πρεσβυτέρων μοί τινα κάλεσον· καὶ ταυ̑τα εἰπὼν, πάλιν ἠ̑ν ἄϕωνος. ἔδραμεν ὁ παι̑ς ἐπὶ τὸν πρεσβύτερον· νὺξ δὲ ἠ̑ν· κᾀκει̑νος ἠσθένει· ἀϕικέσθαι μὲν οὐ̑ν οὐκ ἐδυνήθη· ἐντολη̑ς δὲ ὑπ’ ἐμου̑ δεδομένης, τοὺς ἀπαλλαττομένους του̑ βίου, εἰ δέοιντο, καὶ μάλιστα εἰ καὶ πρότερον ἱκετεύσαντες τύχοιεν, ἀϕίεσθαι, ἵν’ εὐέλπιδες ἀπαλλάττωνται, βραχὺ τη̑ς εὐχαριστίας ἐπέδωκε τῳ̑ παιδαρίῳ, ἀποβρέξαι κελεύσας, καὶ τῳ̑ πρεσβύτῃ κατὰ του̑ στόματος ἐπιστάξαι· ἐπανη̑κεν ὁ παι̑ς ϕέρων· ἐγγύς τε γενομένου, πρὶν εἰσελθει̑ν, ἀνενέγκας πάλιν ὁ Σαραπίων, Ἡ̑κες, ἔϕη, τέκνον; καὶ ὁ μὲν πρεσβύτερος ἐλθει̑ν οὐκ ἠδυνήθη, σὺ δὲ ποίησον ταχέως τὸ προσταχθὲν, καὶ ἀπάλλαττέ με· ἀπέβρεξέν τε ὁ παι̑ς, καὶ ἅμα τε ἐνέχεε τῳ̑ στόματι· καὶ μικρὸν ἐκει̑νος καταβροχθίσας, εὐθέως ἀπέδωκε τὸ πνευ̑μα. Ἀ̑ρ’ οὐκ ἐναργω̑ς διετηρήθη καὶ παρέμεινεν ἕως λυθῃ̑, καὶ τη̑ς ἁμαρτίας ἐξαλειϕθείσης, ἐπὶ πολλοι̑ς οἷς ἔπραξε καλοι̑ς ὁμολογηθη̑ναι δυνηθῃ̑;] ↩

  42. [So Bodl. MS. A. 1616, 1662, K. 1836-1863. Cf. p. 481, note 3; Bale’s Kynge Johan, p. 62, “No salve that sore can suppell,” (quoted s. v. in Halliwell’s Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words;) and G. Eliot, Middlemarch, ch. xlv. p. 332.—Supplied, edd. 1793, and 1865.] 1887. ↩

  43. 1 Cor. xv. 21. ↩

  44. Phil. iii. 11. ↩

  45. Διὰ τὴν ἐκ τη̑ς γη̑ς ἔπαρσιν. Theophyl. [in Phil. iii. 11. ἐξανάστασιν ἐνταυ̑θα νοει̑ τὴν ἔνδοξον τὴν ἐν νεϕέλαις ἔπαρσιν.] Πάντες οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἀνίστανται, μόνοι δὲ πιστοὶ ἀξιοι̑νται τω̑ν ἀγαθω̑ν. Ammon. Vide 1 Thess. iv. 17. ↩

  46. “Maturatæ resurrectionis lætabunda solemnia.” Cypr. (i.e. Arnold of Chartres, v. supr. p. 251) de Cœn. Dom. cap. 10. ↩

  47. Φάρμακον ἀθανασίας, ἀντίδοτον μὴ θανει̑ν. [ἀντίδοτος του̑ μὴ ἀποθανει̑ν, ἀλλὰ ζῃ̑ν ἐν ’Ιησου̑ Χριστῳ̑ διὰ παντός.] Ignat. Epist. ad Ephes. [c. 20.] ↩

  48. Iren. lib. iv. cap. 34. [al. c. 18. in substance.] ↩

  49. “Etsi nihil facile mutandum est ex solemnibus, tamen ubi æquitas evidens poscit subveniendum est.” l. clxxxiii. ff. de Reg. Jur. [lib. l. tit. 17. p. 795.] ↩

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