mitting that "Christ administered under both kinds of bread and wine," and notwithstanding in the primitive church, the sacrament was received by the faithful under both kinds, decreed, that "the custom of communicating in one kind should be received as a law, which no one without the authority of the church might reject or alter." In the thirteenth session of that same Council, it was decreed, "that if any man should obstinately maintain, that it was unlawful or erroneous to receive in one kind, he ought to be punished and driven out as an heretic.' The reasons for this departure from the practice of Christ, of his apostle, and from that of the church, for many centuries, are thus stated by one formerly a member of the Romish church. Innovations," he says, "in the method of receiving the Eucharist, had paved the way for this arrogant decree. The Manichæans, Pope Leo in the fifth century informs us, received only the bread and rejected the wine. This Pope Gelasius forbad, declaring it a sacrilegious communion. In the seventh century, the bread was dipped in the wine, and thus both kinds given together. This became the general practice in the twelfth century. The people communicated thus, 'not by authority,' says Ivo of Chartres, but by necessity, for fear of spilling the blood of Christ.' A fear unknown to the purer ages of the church, suggested by the new doctrine of transubstantiation. From receiving

the bread dipped in the wine, a practice was taken up by degrees of receiving the bread alone, and this was the universal custom at the time of the Council of Constance, with this exception, that Jacobellus de Misa, curate of the parish of St. Michael at Prague, through the presumption of Peter at Dresden, administered the sacrament in both kinds to his parishioners; which example was followed by several other churches. Of this a complaint was made by a Bohemian bishop to the Council of Constance, which in consequence enacted this decree, that the communion should be administered to the laity, but in one kind, which has been a standing law in the church of Rome ever since. They pretend to have found out inconveniences in the administration of both kinds, as if our Saviour had not been aware of what he instituted and enjoined, but had exposed his own blood to irreverence and sacrilege. These fancied inconveniences, as Gerson enumerates them, are, the length of laymen's beards, the loathsomeness to drink after others, the costliness and difficulty of getting wine, the frosts in winter, the flies in summer, the burden of bearing, the danger of spilling, and the people's unworthiness to equal the priests in receiving in both kinds.'* The futility of these excuses for abolishing Christ's institution of receiving both kinds, is self-evident.” * Gerson, Tract. contra hæres. de commun. sub utraque specie.

The Council of Trent afterwards adopted and confirmed the decree of the Council of Constance. The Council of Trent thus declares on this subject: -"Holy mother church acknowledges its own authority in the administration of the sacraments; and although, from the commencement of the Christian religion, the use of it under both kinds was not infrequent, yet that custom having now widely changed, through the progression of time, the church, induced by grave and just causes, has approved and decreed as a law, the custom of communicating under one kind."* In justification of this decision, by which the cup was refused to the laity, the Council adds the following declaration: It, moreover, declares, that although our Redeemer, as has been before stated, in that his last supper, instituted this sacrament in two kinds, and delivered it to his apostles, yet, under each kind, the whole and entire Christ, and the true sacrament is received." The Council proceeds, in her third canon of the same session, to denounce its anathema against all who question or deny her dogma of communion in one kind.

It is unnecessary here to produce the testimony

* Sess. xxi. cap. iii.

Insurper declarat, quamvis Redemptor noster, ut antea dictum est, in supremâ illâ cœnâ hoc sacramentum in duabus speciebus instituerit, et apostolis tradiderit, tamen fatendum esse, etiam sub alterâ tantum specie tolum atque integrum Christum verumque sacramentum sumi.”—Sess. xxi. сар. iii.

of Scripture, or of the Fathers of the church, in vindication of the practice of the Protestant churches in administering the sacrament in both kinds to the people, seeing it is admitted both by the Council of Constance, as also by that of Trent, that Christ instituted the sacraments in both kinds, and that it was so received in the church. The refusal of the cup to the laity is contrary to Scripture; it is an innovation for which the church of Rome cannot even employ tradition to justify it. The following remarks comprise all that is necessary, in reply to the reasons by which the church of Rome attempts a justification of her antiscriptural practice. They pretend that the command of Christ, drink ye all of it,' was directed only to the apostles, as pastors. This is a newly invented comment, for the apostles were not constituted pastors till after Christ's resurrection. Besides, with as much reason, the preceding command of Christ, take eat,' might be restrained to the apostles under the quality of pastors, and so the laity be excluded from either kind. But the command is positive and universal, drink ye all of it.' The apostles had no notion of this restriction, devised by the schoolmen, unknown to antiquity. Hence, St. Paul, in pursuance of our Saviour's institution, enjoins that every man should eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. Although there is no comparison to be made between the value of the body and blood of Christ, as they are equally valuable

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and instrumental to our redemption; yet the expressions relative to the cup and blood of Christ, are more strong and emphatical than those which relate to the bread and body of Christ, as if they were intended to obviate this corruption of the Roman church. As to their second suggestion, that receiving under both kinds is unuseful, or superfluous; to give some shadow of plausibility to it, they say that Christ is entirely under each of the elements, and therefore to receive either is altogether sufficient. But this notion is built on transubstantiation, and therefore must fall with it. The conceit that the body and blood of Christ are both under each element, they express by the word concomitance. Were this doctrine of concomitance true, it would seem that Christ had superfluously instituted the sacrament in two kinds. The eating the bread cannot be said to be drinking the blood of Christ, which is expressly commanded. Neither is the communion in one kind a due representation of the death of Christ, the very end of this divine institution, which is only properly represented when the bread, denoting his body, and the wine, his blood, are separately taken. The design of this sacrament is manifestly to exhibit our Saviour to us in his crucified, not in his glorified state. Upon these considerations many learned writers in the church of Rome have owned, that communion in one kind is an imperfect sacrament.”*

* Smith's Errors of the Church of Rome, &c. p. 158-160.