sub altera:" and in another place he says to receive under both kinds is "majoris meriti tum ratione augmentationis devotionis, tum ratione fidei dilatationis actualis, tum ratione sumptionis completioris:" "it is of greater merit or value, there is a greater mystical union between the head and the members, a greater increase of devotion, a larger and more actual extent of faith, and a more complete sacramental reception of Christ himself.”—To the same purpose there are good things spoken in Albertus Magnus" and in Thomas Aquinas *, Bonaventure, and Petrus de Palude", and divers others, all agreeing that one alone does not make a sacrament, but a piece of one; and that there is advantage by both kinds, which is not to be had in one: which advantage if it be spiritual (as it is, if it be at all), then he that robs the people of a spiritual good, which our blessed Lord hath designed for them and left unto them, is sacrilegious and profane; it is uncharitable and it is impious. I say, it is impious.

31. For it is not to be despised, that our blessed Lord gave this sacrament as his last will and testament; and though he gave it in his body and blood, yet he expressed only the new testament in his blood;' and for any church to violate the testament of our blessed Lord, however men may make no great matter of it; yet it will receive a punishment, according as God sets a value upon it: and he that shall pluck one seal from a testament, and say that one is as good as two, when two were put to it by the testator, cannot be excused by saying it was nothing but a formality and a ceremony. God's ceremonies are bound upon us by God's commandment; and what he hath made to be a sign, does signify and exhibit too and as the brazen serpent, though it was but a type or shadow of the holy crucifix; yet did real cures; so can the symbols and sacraments of the crucifixion, being hallowed by the divine institution, and confirmed by his power; and therefore a violation here is not to be called only a question in a ceremony: it is a substantial part of the Christian religion, it is the sanction of the New Testament, the last will of our dying Lord. "Now if it be but a man's testament," saith St. Paul, " yet no man disannulleth or addeth thereto," and therefore to disannul or lessen a portion Quæst. 55.

3. part. Sum. q. 66. art. 2. z Dist. 11. art. 1.

u 4. Sent. dist. 8. art. 13.

y Dist. 8. q. 2.

a Gal. iii, 15.

of the testament of the Son of God must needs be a high impiety. "Testamentum, quia individuum est, pro parte agnosci et pro parte repudiari non possit," says the law. If you repudiate a part of the will, you must renounce it all; If you permit not to the people the blood of Christ, you hinder them from having a part in the death of Christ, so far as lies in you. Add to this; that this holy mystery being acknowledged by all to be the most mysterious solemnity of the religion, and, by the church of Rome, affirmed to be a proper sacrifice, and so contended for; it would be remembered that our blessed Saviour did adapt and fit this rite to the usages and customs both of Jews and Gentiles; amongst whom laws, and societies, and contracts, and sacrifices, were made solemn by effusion and drinking of blood; and instead of blood, amongst the more civil nations, they drank wine: and by that were supposed partakers even of the blood of the sacrifice. ̓Απὸ τούτου γε φασὶ μεθύειν ὠνομάσθαι (says Philo), ὅτι μετὰ τὸ θύειν ἔθος ἦν τοῖς προτέροις οἰνοῦσθαι. «Το be drunk," viz. in the Greek, "hath its name from their drinking wine after their sacrifices:" and with this custom among the Gentiles, and with the paschal ceremony of this nature amongst the Jews, our blessed Lord, complying, loses the wisdom and prudence of it, if the priest shall sacrifice, and the people drink none of the blood of the sacrifice, or that which ritually and sacramentally represents it. The covenant of the gospel, the covenant which God made with us, our blessed Saviour established and ratified with blood: wine was made to represent and exhibit it; he therefore that takes this away, takes away the very sacramentality of the mystery, and "without blood there is no remission." For as he that gives bread and no water, does not nourish the body but destroy it; so it is in the blessed sacrament: for (that I may use St. Austin's expression which Paschasius and Algerus in this article did much insist upon) "nec caro sine sanguine, nec sanguis sine carne jure communicatur. Totus enim homo ex duabus constans substantiis redimitur, et ideo carne sinul et sanguine saginatur:" "neither the flesh without the blood, nor the blood without the flesh, is rightly communicated. For the whole man consisting of two substances, is redeemed, and therefore nourished both with the flesh and

b Lib. 7. Jus nostr. Dom. de Reg. Jur.

the blood.” Καὶ οὐ καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῆς παλαιᾶς, τὰ μὲν ὁ ἱερεὺς ἤσθιε, τὰ δὲ ὁ ἀρχόμενος, καὶ θέμις οὐκ ἦν τῷ λαῷ μετέχειν ω μετεῖχεν ὁ ἱερεὺς, ἀλλὰ πᾶσιν ἓν σῶμα πρόκειται καὶ ποτήριον ἕν. "It is not now as it was in the Old Testament, where the priest ate one portion, the prince another, and the people another; here it is alike to all, the same body and the same chalice is to all." I end this inquiry with the saying of St. Cypriand: "Si ne unum quidem ex minimis mandatis legis solvere debemus, multo minus ex his magnis mandatis, pertinentibus ad ipsum Dominicæ passionis et nostræ redemptionis sacramentum, fas est ullum infringere, vel humana traditione mutare:""If it be not permitted to break one of the least commandments of the law, much less is it to be endured, to break any one, or by human tradition to change any, belonging to the sacrament of our Lord's passion and of our redemption:" and therefore if ever any sect or any single person was guilty of the charge, it is highly to be imputed to the church of Rome, that "they teach for doctrine the commandments of men; and make the commandment of God of none effect by their tradition."

RULE X.

If the Sense of a Law be dubious, we are sometimes to expound it by Liberty, sometimes by Restraint.

1. ALTHOUGH all the laws of Jesus Christ are so legible in the sense intended, that all good men, being placed in their proper circumstances, conducted by the Divine Providence, making use of all their prepared and ready instru ments, can certainly read the prime intention and design of God; yet because some laws are so combined with matter, and twisted with material cases, so intricated by the accidents of men and the investiture of actions, that they cast a cloud upon the light of God's word, and a veil upon the guide of our lives; and because the sense of words does change, and very often words cannot be equal with things, it comes to pass, that the laws are capable of differing senses: when, therefore, any thing of this nature happens, the first sense of Chrysost, Hom. 18. in 2 Cor.

d Lib. 2. e. 3.

the words is either to be enlarged or restrained according to the following measures.

In what Cases the stricter Sense of the Laws of Christ
is to be followed.

2. (1.) When the duty enjoined by the law is in deliberation, and is to be done, we are to use restraint, and take the severer sense of the law. The reason is, because that is the surer way, and hath in it no inconvenience or impossibility; but being it is the matter of choice, in all deliberation for the future we must give sentence for God, and for the interest of religion. Thus, when it is commanded we should "judge ourselves, that we be not judged of the Lord;" in the inquiry, which every penitent man makes concerning the extension of the duty of judging ourselves, if the question be whether judging ourselves means only to condemn' ourselves for having sinned, and to confess ourselves justly liable to the divine judgment; or does it also mean 'to punish' ourselves, and by putting our own sentence against our sin into a severe execution of that sentence upon ourselves by corporal inflictions? He that can no otherwise be determined in the question, can safely proceed by choosing the severer side; for there is no loss in it, no omission, it contains all that any man can think to be required; and therefore hath in it prudence and charity, caution and regard, to God and to himself.

3. (2.) This is not to be understood only in case there is a doubt no otherwise to be resolved, but by the collateral advantage of the surer side; but this severer sense of the law is of itself most reasonable to be chosen, as being the intended sense and design of the lawgiver, who certainly puts no positive measures to his own laws of love and duty. For since the great design of the law is such a perfection, which must for ever be growing in this world, and can never here arrive to its state and period, that sense which sets us most forward, is the most intended; and therefore this way is not only to quiet the doubt, but to govern and to rule the conscience: this is not only the surer way, but the only way that is directly intended. It is agreeable to the measures of charity, or the love of God, which is to have no other bounds, but even the best we can, in the measures of God and the infirmities and capacities of man.

4. (3.) In the interpretation of the laws of Christ, the strict sense is to be followed, when the laws relate to God and to religion, and contain in them direct matter of piety and glorifications of God, or charity to our neighbour; because in them the further we go, the nearer we are to God, and we are not at all to be stopped in that progression, till we are at our journey's end, till we are in the state of comprehension. To this purpose are those words of Ben Sirach, "When you glorify the Lord, exalt him as much as you can; for even yet will he far exceed; and when you exalt him, put forth all your strength, and be not weary, for you can never go far enough. Who hath seen him that he might tell us, and who can magnify him as he is? There are hid greater things yet than these be, for we have seen but a few of his works;" meaning, that although we cannot glorify God sufficiently for the works of power and mercy which we see and feel, yet because there are very many works, which we see not, and infinite numbers and seas of glories above the clouds, which we perceive not, and cannot understand,-the only measures of religion and the love of God which we are to take, are to "pray continually, to love God always, to serve him without end, to be zealous beyond all measures, excepting those of duty and prudence,-to be religious without a limit, always to desire, always to endeavour, never to rest as long as we can work, never to give over as long as any thing is unfinished;" and consequent or symbolical to all this, that in all disputes of religion we choose the sense of love, not of weariness; that we do not contend for the lesser measures, but strive in all our faculties and desire beyond their strength, and propound Christ for our precedent, and heaven for our reward, and infinity for our measures, towards which we are to set forth by our active and quick endeavour, and to which we are to reach by our constancy and desires, our love and the divine acceptance.

When the Laws of Christ are to be expounded to a Sense of Ease and Liberty.

5. If to the sense of the duty there be a collateral and indirect burden and evil appendage, the alleviating of that burden is to be an ingredient into the interpretation of the

e Ecclus. xliii. 30-32.