Canopy municate of the same upon the other week-days1. For the end of this reservanot com- tion in old times was, not that the sacrament should be adored, but that it should menda- be received of the people; and specially that persons excommunicate, for whose ble. Hieron. in sake it was reserved, being suddenly called out of this life, upon their repentance might at all times receive the communion, and depart with comfort, as the members of the church of God. But methinketh M. Harding doth herein as Apelles the painter sometime did in setting out king Antigonus' physiognomy. For, understanding that Antigonus was blind of the one side, he thought it best to paint him out only with half face, and so he cunningly shadowed the deformity of the other eye. Even so M. Harding sheweth us certain variety of keeping the sacrament, and other small matters of like weight; but the danger of idolatry, and other like horrible deformities, he dissembleth cunningly and turneth from us. Loth I am to use the comparison, but St Hierome saith it: Diabolus nunquam se prodit aperta facie2: "The devil never sheweth himself openly with his whole face." In the old times, when the sacrament was kept in chests, in napkins, in baskets, and in private houses, there was no danger of adoration. But under the canopy we see not only that the effect hath fallen out far otherwise, but also that the very cause thereof was at the first to the contrary. For so saith Linwood himself: Citius repræsentatur nostris aspectibus adoranda3: "It is the rather offered unto our sights to be worshipped." If there were no cause else, yet is this itself cause sufficient to abolish this new order of hanging up the 2 Kings xviii. sacrament under a canopy. For therefore the king Ezechias took down the brasen serpent and brake it in pieces, notwithstanding God had specially commanded Moses to erect it up; because he saw it abused to idolatry. Gul. Linw. Lib. iii. de Custod. Euch. &c. vi. cap. xliii. Ambros. de Again, they themselves, upon smaller considerations, have utterly abolished the manner of reservation that was used in the primitive church. For they will not now suffer neither lay people nor women to keep it in their houses; nor boys Euseb. Lib. to carry it to the sick, as then the boy did to Serapion1; nor infidels, or men not christened, to wear it about them, as then did St Ambrose's brother Satyrus5. I Obit. Satyr. leave the rust, the mould, the canker, and the breeding of worms, whereby that holy and reverend mystery of Christ's death is oftentimes made loathsome, and brought into contempt. They themselves do testify that such things not only may happen, but also have often happened. It is said that Alphonsus the king of Arragon, for the preservation of his honour and safety, so long kept the sacrament about him, that at last it putrefied, and bred worms; which when they had eaten up and consumed one another, in the end there remained only one great worm, that was the last, and had eaten all his fellows. In such cases they command that the worms be burnt, and the ashes buried in the altar7. The gloss itself upon the decrees saith thus: "It is not necessary to keep the wine." And De Consecr. the reason is this: Quia opus esset nimia cautela3: "Because we should need to have too much ado with the keeping of it." Gers. contr. Dist. ii. Presb. in Gloss. Concil. Lat. sub Innoc. In the council of Lateran it is confessed, that the sacrament so kept hath III. can. 20. been abused ad horribilia et nefaria facinora: "to work horrible and wicked ['Concil. Quinisext. can. 52. in Concil. Stud. Labb. et Cossart. Lut. Par. 1671-2. Tom. VI. cols. 1166, 7. See before, page 129, note 6.] dere. ... numquam diabolum aperta fronte se pro- [3 Lyndew. Provincial. seu Const. Angl. Antw. [5 Ambros. Op. Par. 1686-90. De Excess. Fratr. [This story may be found Ant. Panorm. de Dict. et Fact. Alphons. Basil. 1538. Æn. Silv. Comm. Lib. 1. 39. p. 251. But the king does not there say that such a thing occurred to himself: Vas aureum aperuit quispiam in quo ante mensem eucharistiam condiderat, nihil ibi præter vermiculum reperit.] [ Sed quæritur quid fiendum, si ex illis speciebus generentur vermes. Solu. Dicendum est quod vermes debent comburi et cineres intra altare recondi.Floret. Lib. Lugd. 1499. Lib. IV. fol. 99. 2. Ex Concil. Aurel. capp. 5, 6. in Burchard. Decret. Lib. xx. Par. 1549. Lib. v. capp. 1. li. foll. 140, 1.] [8 Corp. Jur. Canon. Lugd. 1624. Decret. Gratian. Decr. Tert. Pars, Dist. ii. Gloss. in can. 93. cols. 963, 4.] [9 Statuimus...ut chrisma et eucharistia sub fideli custodia clavibus adhibitis conserventur, ut non possit ad illa temeraria manus extendi, ad aliqua horribilia vel nefaria exercenda.-Concil. Lat. sub Innoc. III. cap. 20. in Crabb. Concil. Col. Agrip. 1551. Tom. II. p. 953.] Canopy not com Concil. deeds." And M. Harding himself confesseth that, for certain like abuses, the same reservation was in some part abolished in the council of Bracara 1o. To be short, touching the canopy, Linwood himself findeth fault with it, as it mendappeareth in the Provincial. For thus he writeth: Dicitur, quod in loco mundo able. et singulari debet servari11: "It is said, the sacrament ought to be kept in a clean several place sequestered from other." Whereunto he addeth thus: Ex hoc Brac. 111. videtur, quod usus observatus in Anglia, ut...in canopœo pendeat,... non est com- Extr. de Cel. mendabilis 12: “Hereby it appeareth that the order that is used in England, of Gul. Linw. hanging up the sacrament in a canopy, is not commendable." Here M. Harding Custod. hath causes, both in general, why all manner such reservation ought to be misliked, and also in special, why the canopy cannot be liked. can. 5. Missar. Sane. Lib. iii, de Euch. and seventy truth. For saith: "In verum If princes be honoured with cloth of estate, bishops with solemn thrones in their churches, and deans with canopies of tapestry, silk, and arras (as we see in sundry cathedral churches), and no man find fault with it; why should M. Jewel mislike the canopy that is used for honour of that blessed sacrament, (172) wherein is contained The hundred the very body of Christ, and, through the inseparable joining together of both second unnatures in unity of person, Christ himself, very God, and very' 13 man? With what Chrysostom face speaketh he against the canopy used to the honour of Christ in the sacrament, vasis sanctis that, sitting in the bishop's seat at Sarisbury, can abide the sight of a solemn canopy conver made of painted boards spread over his head? If he had been of counsel with Moses, Christi, sed David, and Salomon, it is like he would have reproved their judgments, for the great corporis honour they used, and caused to be15 continued towards the ark, wherein was con- tinetur14 ̧” tained nothing but the tables of the law, Aaron's rod, and a pot full of manna. [2 Sam. vii. H.A. King David thought it very unfitting, and felt great remorse in heart, 1564.] that he dwelt in a house of cedars, and the ark of God was put in the midst of skins, that is, of the tabernacle, whose outward parts were covered with beasts' skins. mysterium Christi con "Let your modesty be men." Phil. And now there is one found, among other *monstrous and strange forms of• creatures, manners, and doctrines, who, being but dust and ashes, as Abraham said known to all of himself, promoted to the name of a bishop, and not chosen, I ween, to do high iv. service of a man according to God's own heart, as David was, thinketh not himself unworthy to sit in a bishop's chair under a gorgeous testure or canopy of gilted boards, and cannot suffer the precious body of Christ, whereby we are redeemed, to have, for remembrance of honour done of our part, so much as a little canopy, a thing of small price. (173) Yet was the ark but a shadow, and this the body; that The hundred the figure, this the truth; that the type or sign, this the very thing itself. As third unI do not envy M. Jewel that honour, by what right soever he enjoyeth it, so I cannot but blame him for* bereaving Christ of his honour in this blessed sacra ment. THE BISHOP OF SARISBURY. and seventy truth. For both are • Christ will Princes use to sit under a cloth of estate; bishops and deans under painted thrones, or cloth of arras; ergo, (saith M. Harding), the sacrament me," &c. ought to be hanged up under a canopy. I trow, it is not lawful for all men to Matt. xv. use such arguments. In such sort Durandus reasoneth: "The ark of the cove- Durand. nant was carried by the Levites; ergo, the pope must be carried aloft upon the deacons' shoulders 17" And again, they seem by practice further to reason thus: [10 Concil. Brac. III. cap. 5. in eod. Tom. II. p. 273. See before, page 555, note 16.] ["Lyndew. Provincial. seu Const. Angl. Lib. III. De Custod. Euch. fol. 179; where singulari mundo et signato debet. See Corp. Jur. Canon. Decretal. Gregor. IX. Lib. 111. Tit. xli. cap. 10. col. 1378.] [12 Id. ibid.] [13 H. A. 1564 omits very.] [14... in quibus non est verum corpus Christi, sed mysterium corporis ejus continetur.-Chrysost. Op. Par. 1718-38. Op. Imperf. in Matt. ex cap. v. Hom. [15 So to be, H. A. 1564.] [16 Τὸ γὰρ νομικὸν πάσχα...τύπου τύπος ἦν ȧμvôρóτepоs. Gregor. Nazianz. Op. Par. 17781840. In Sanct. Pasch. Orat. xlv. 23. Tom. I. p. 863.] [17 A quinquagesimo autem anno jussi sunt Levita vasa custodire: et a xxv. annis et supra jussi sunt in tabernaculo deservire, tanquam ætatis ad onera portanda robustæ: qui possent arcam fœderis, mensam Lib. ii. Exod. xxv. & xxvii. 2 Sam. vii. 1 Chron. xxviii. Isai. lv. Rom. i. Gen. xxxi. "The pope is carried upon men's shoulders; ergo, the sacrament must be carried before him, whithersoever he go, upon a fair white jennet." And whereas it liketh M. Harding thus merrily to sport himself with bishops sitting under painted boards; certainly, I reckon it much fitter for the church of God to have painted boards than painted bishops, such as he is that claimeth to be the bishop of all bishops, and yet doth not indeed any part of the office of one bishop. The bishop's chair or stall was appointed at the first as a place most convenient for him to read and to preach in. But what needeth more? Such vanity of words should not be answered. For the rest, God himself commanded Moses to make the tabernacle, and also shewed him in the mount in what order and form it should be made. Neither durst Moses, or his workmen, to add, or to minish, or to alter any one thing of their device, or to do any thing more or less, otherwise than God had appointed him. When David of his devotion would have built a temple unto God, God forbade him by the mouth of his prophet Nathan, and said: "Thou shalt build me no temple." Afterward Salomon set upon to build the temple; not when he would himself, but only when God had so willed him. Neither followed he therein any part of his own fantasy, but only that self-same plat and proportion that God had given to his father. For so saith David himself: "All this pattern was sent to me in writing by the hand of the Lord, which made me understand all the workmanship of the pattern." Here mark, good christian reader, in every of these examples, God hath bridled our devotion, and hath taught us to worship him, not in such sort as may seem good in our eyes, but only as he hath commanded us. Yet can M. Harding by his cunning apply every of these same examples to prove thereby, that we may honour God in such sort as we of ourselves can best devise. This was evermore the very root of all superstition. And therefore Almighty God saith: "My thoughts be not as your thoughts, nor my ways as your ways. Who ever required these things at your hands?" M. Harding would fain, in all that he taketh in hand, be called catholic; and yet nevertheless maintaineth a mere particular devotion, only used within this realm, and that only within these few late years, and never either used or known in any other christian country else, and therefore such as can in no wise be called catholic. But he saith: "There is now found one among other monstrous and strange forms," &c. This, I trow, is not that sobriety and modesty that was promised at the beginning. Such eloquence would better become some other person than a man professing learning and gravity. Herein I will gladly give place to M. Harding. It is rather a testimony of his impatience and inordinate choler than good proof of the cause. Certainly, if the sacrament be both God and man, as here, I know not how godly, it is avouched, then is this but a very simple honour for so great a majesty. Undoubtedly this is a very strange and monstrous doctrine, to teach the people, that Christ, being both God and man, and now immortal and glorious, may canker and putrefy and breed worms. The time was, when whoso had uttered such words of blasphemy had been reckoned a monster among the faithful. But this is the just judgment of God. He giveth men up "into a reprobate mind, to turn God's truth into a lie, and to worship and serve a creature, forsaking the Creator, which is God blessed for ever." I trust, our doctrine abridgeth not any part of Christ's glory. We adore him, as he hath commanded us, sitting in heaven at the right hand of the power of God. And therefore, O M. Harding, ye have burnt your brethren, and scattered their bones upon the face of the earth, and wrought upon them what your pleasure was, only because they would not be traitors unto God, and give his glory unto a creature. Chrysostom, expounding the complaint of Laban against Jacob for stealing away of his gods, writeth thus: Quare deos meos furatus es? O excellentem insi propositionis, et vasa tabernaculi deportare... Hinc cem velut arcam fœderis deportant.-Durand. Rat. Div. Offic. Lugd. 1565. Lib. 11. cap. ix. 2. foll. 55, 6.] pientiam! Tales sunt dii tui, ut quis eos furari queat? Non erubescis dicere, Quare furatus es deos meos1? "Wherefore hast thou stolen away my gods?' O what a passing folly is this! Be thy gods such ones, that a man may steal them? And art thou not ashamed to say, 'Wherefore hast thou stolen away my gods?"" This matter needeth no farther application. Verily, the thing that M. Harding calleth God and man may soon be stolen away, with pix, and canopy, and all together. If Chrysostom were now alive, he would say to M. Harding, as he said to Laban: "Art thou not ashamed," &c. And, touching the honouring of Christ, he saith: Discamus.... Christum, prout ipse vult, venerari. Honorato Chrysost. ad namque jucundissimus [est] honor, quem ipse vult, non quem nos putamus. Nam Hom. 60. et.... Petrus eum honorare putabat, cum sibi pedes eum lavare prohibebat: sed non erat honor, quod agebat, sed contrarium2 : "Let us learn to honour Christ, as he hath willed us. For to him that is honoured that honour is most pleasant that he himself would have, not that we imagine. For Peter thought to honour Christ, when he forbade him to wash his feet: howbeit, that was no honour unto Christ, but, contrariwise, it was dishonour." To conclude, whereas M. Harding, in the impatience of his heat, demandeth of us, with what face we can find fault with the hanging up of the sacrament under a canopy, we may easily answer him thus: Even with the same face wherewith Linwood found fault with the same; and with the same face wherewith all Christendom, England only excepted, hath evermore refused to do the same. M. HARDING. THE FOURTH DIVISION. Pop. Ant. Now concerning this article itself, if it may be called an article, wherein M. Jewel thinketh to have great advantage against us, as though nothing could be brought for it* (though it be not one of the greatest keys, nor of the highest⚫ Before it mysteries of our religion, as he reporteth it to be, the more to deface it), of canopy what may be found, I leave to others, neither it forceth greatly. [Hanging up of the sacrament in a pix over the altar is ancient. H. A. 1564.] was the the honouring of But is no great key of reli ish fable name of Am of the hanging up of the sacrament over the altar, we find plain men- gion. tion in St Basil's life, written by Amphilochius, that worthy bishop of A vain childIconium; who telleth that St Basil at his mass, having divided under the the sacrament in three parts, did put the one into the golden dove philochius. (after which form the pix was then commonly made) hanging over the altar. His words be these: Imposuerunt3 columbæ aureæ pendenti super altare1. And for further evidence that such pixes, made in form of a dove in remembrance of the Holy Ghost that appeared like a dove, were hanged up over the altar, we find in the acts of the general council holden at Constantinople, that the clergy of Antioch accused one Severus, an heretic, before John the patriarch and the council there, that he had rifled and spoiled the holy altars, and molted the consecrated vessels, and had made away with some of them to his companions: Præsumpsisset etiam columbas aureas et argenteas in formam Spiritus sancti, super divina Here be doves lavacra et altaria appensas, una cum aliis sibi appropriare, dicens, non opor- no mention tere in specie columbæ Spiritum sanctum nominare 5. Which is to say, that ment. "he had presumed also to convert to his own use, beside other things, the golden and silver doves made to represent the Holy Ghost, that were hanged up over the holy fonts and altars, saying, that no man ought to speak of the Holy Ghost in the shape of a dove." Neither hath the sacrament been kept in all places and in all times in one manner of vessels. So it be reverently kept for the voyage-provision for the sick, no catholic man will maintain strife for the manner and order of keeping. Symmachus, a very worthy bishop of Rome, in the time of Anastasius the emperor, [Chrysost. Op. Par. 1718-38. In cap. xxxi. Gen. Hom. Ivii. Tom. IV. p. 556.] [ Id. Op. Lat. Basil. 1547. Ad Pop. Ant. Hom. lx. Tom. V. col. 398; where prohiberet.] [3 Imposuerit, H. A. 1564.] [ Amphiloch. Op. Par. 1644. In Vit. S. Basil. pp. 175, 6. See before, page 188.] [ Suppl. Cler. Ant. ad Joan. Patr. contr. Sever. in Concil. Constant. sub Menna, Act. v. in Concil. Stud. Labb, et Cossart. Lut. Par. 1671-2. Tom. V. col. 160. See also Crabb. Concil. Col. Agrip. 1551. Tom. II. p. 34.] [ Sylvern, 1565, and H. A. 1564.] indeed, but of any sacra Dove. and seventyfourth untruth, stand translation. as it is written in his life, made two vessels of silver to reserve the sacrament in, and set them on the altars of two churches in Rome, of St Sylvester and of St Andrew1. These vessels they call commonly ciboria2. We find likewise in the life of St Gregory, that he also like Symmachus made such a vessel, which they call ciborium, for the sacrament, with four pillars of pure silver, and set it on the altar at St Peter's in Rome3. In a work of Gregorius Turonensis, this vessel is called turris....in qua The hundred mysterium dominici corporis habebatur: "a tower wherein (174) our Lord's body was kept." In an old book, De Pœnitentia, of Theodorus the Greek of ing in untrue Tarsus in Cilicia, sometime archbishop of Canterbury, before Beda his time, it is called pixis cum corpore Domini ad viaticum pro infirmis: "the pix with our Lord's body for the voyage-provision for the sick." In that book, in an admonition of a bishop to his clergy in a synod, warning is given, that nothing be put upon the altar in time of the sacrifice, but the coffer of reliques, the book of the four evangelists, and the pix with our Lord's body5. In the fable of Amphilochius, and nowhere else. Thus we find that the blessed sacrament hath always been kept, in some places in a pix hanged up over the altar, in some other places otherwise, every where and in all times safely and reverently, as is declared, to be always in a readiness for the voyage-provision of the sick. Which keeping of it for that godly purpose, and with like due reverence, if M. Jewel and the sacramentaries would admit, no man would be either so scrupulous or so contentious as to strive with them either for the hanging up of it, or for the canopy. THE BISHOP OF SARISBURY. It is marvel that M. Harding in so short a tale cannot avoid manifest contradiction. He holdeth and teacheth, that this is the honouring of Christ, God and man; and yet he saith, it is no great key of his religion. Verily, whatsoever key he now make of it, great or small, he bringeth in very small authorities and proofs to make it good. Concerning the canopy, wherein all this question standeth, he is well contented to yield in the whole, as being not able to find it once mentioned in any manner old writer. But the hanging up of the sacrament, and that even over the altar, he is certain may well be proved by that solemn fable that we have so often heard under the name of Amphilochius; concerning which fable (for a very childish fable it is, and no better) I must for shortness refer thee, gentle reader, to that is written before in the first article of this book, and in the thirty-third division, as answer to the same. Yet thus much shortly, and by the way: first, M. Harding's Amphilochius saith that St Basil, after he had said mass to Christ and his twelve apostles, immediately, the same night, put one portion of the sacrament in the dove, that was then hanging over the altar; and the next day following sent for a goldsmith, and caused the same dove to be made, the same dove, I say, that he put the sacrament in the night before. And so M. Harding's dove was a dove before it was made. But dreams and fables are worthy of privilege. Yet, lest this tale should pass alone, it is accompanied with a miracle. For after that time, whensoever St Basil was at mass, and lifted [ Hic fecit basilicam S. Andræ apostoli... ubi fecit ciborium ex argento...basilicam S. Sylvestri et Martini ... construxit... ubi et super altare ciborium argenteum fecit.-Ex Lib. Pontif. in Crabb. Concil. Col. Agrip. 1551. Tom. I. pp. 999, 1000.] [2 Bingham produces authorities to shew that the ciborium ought not to be confounded with the pix; for that anciently it was quite another thing, viz. an ornamental erection over the altar.-Bingham, Orig. Eccles. Book VIII. chap. vi. 18, 19.] [3 Hic fecit ad beatum Petrum apostolum super altare ciborium cum columnis quatuor ex argento puro. Ex eod. in eod. Tom. II. p. 180.] [Gregor. Turon. Op. Lut. Par. 1699. De Glor. Mart. Lib. 1. cap. lxxxvi. cols. 818, 9; where turre.] [5 The editor has not succeeded in discovering this passage in the Penitential of Theodore; but it occurs in a treatise De Cur. Past. attributed to Leo IV. in Concil. Stud. Labb. et Cossart. Lut. Par. 1671-2. Tom. VIII. col. 34, as follows: Super altare nihil ponatur nisi capsæ cum reliquiis sanctorum, aut forte quatuor sancta Dei evangelia, aut pyxis cum corpore Domini ad viaticum pro infirmis. See, however, Not. in Cave, Script. Eccles. Hist. Lit. Oxon. 1740-3. Vol. II. p. 40; also Fabric. Biblioth. Lat. Med. et Inf. Ætat. Hamb. 1734-46. Tom. IV. p. 761.] [ H. A. 1564 omits a.] [7 Will, 1565, and H. A. 1564.] |