Page:The New Testament of Iesvs Christ faithfvlly translated into English, ovt of the authentical Latin, diligently conferred with the Greek, & other Editions in diuers languages.pdf/240

Rh put in use, that the Priest saying Masse, should alwayes both consecrate and also receive both kinds, because he must expresse lively the Passion of Christ, and the separation of his bloud from his bodie in the same, and for to imitate the whole action and institution as wel in sacrificing as receiving, as to whom properly it was said: Doe this; for that was spoken onely to such as have power thereby to offer and consecrate: But the Lay men, and the Clergie also when they do not execute or say Masse themselves, should receive in one kind, being thereby no lesse partakers of Christs whole Person and grace, then if they received both. For (as S. Paul saith) He that eateth the hostes, is partaker of the Altar. He that eateth, saith he: for though there were drink-offerings or libaments joyned lightly to every Sacrifice, yet it was enough to eate only of one kind, for to be partaker of the whole.

62. If you shal see.) Our Saviour seemeth to insinuate, that such as beleeve not his words touching the holy Sacrament, and thinke it impossible for him to give his Body to be eaten in so many places at once, being yet in earth, should be much more scandalized and tempted after they saw or knew him to be ascended into Heaven. Which is proved true in the Capharnaites of this time. Whose principal reason against Christs presence in the Sacrament is, that he is ascended into Heaven: yea, who are so bold as to expound this same sentence for themselves thus, It is not this body or flesh which I wil give you, for that I wil carie with me to Heaven. Whereby if they meant only that the condition and qualities of his body in Heaven should be other then in the Sacrament, it were tolerable: for S. Augustin speaketh sometime in that sense. But to deny the substance of the body to be the same, that is wicked.

63. The flesh profiteth nothing.) If this speach were spoken in the sense of the Sacramentaries, it would take away Christs Incarnation, manhood, and death, no lesse then his corporal presence in the Sacrament. For if his flesh were not profitable, al these things were vaine. Therfore CHRIST denieth not his owne flesh to be profitable, but that their grosse and carnal conceiving of his words, of his flesh, and of the manner of eating the same, was unprofitable: which is plaine by the sentence folowing, where he warneth them, that his words be spirit and life, of high Mystical meaning, and not vulgarly and grosly to be taken, as they tooke them. And it is the use of the Scripture to call mans natural sense, reason, and carnal resisting or not reaching supernatural truths, flesh or bloud, as, Flesh and bloud revealed not this to thee &c. Mat. 16.

This carnalitie then of theirs, stood in two points specially: first, that they imagined that he would kil himself, and cut and mangle his flesh into parts, and so give it them raw or rost to be eaten among them. Which could not be meant, saith S. Augustin: for that had conteined an heinous and barbarous fact; and therfore they might and should have been assured, that he would command no such thing: but some other sweet sense to be of his hard, mystical, or figurative words, and to be fulfilled in a Sacrament, mysterie, and a marvelous divine sort, otherwise then they could comprehend. Secondly, they did erre touching his flesh, in that they tooke it to be the flesh of a mere man, and of a dead man also, when it should come to be eaten: of which kind of flesh Christ here pronounceth, that it profiteth nothing. Whereupon S. Cyril saith: This body is not of Peter or Paul or any other like, but of Christ JESUS who is the life itself: and therfore this Body giveth life, the very fulnes of the Divinitie dwelling in it. And the holy Councel of Ephesus in the 11. Anathematisme expounded also by the said S. Cyril: ''The Eucharist is not the body of any common person (for the flesh of a common man could not quicken) but of the WORD itself. But the Heretike Nestorius dissolveth the vertue of this Mysterie, holding mans flesh only to be in the Eucharist''. Thus there. And S. Ignatius cited of Theodorete, and many other Fathers have the like. Whereby we may see that it commeth of the Divinitie and Spirit (without which Christs flesh can not be) that this Sacrament giveth life.

64. That beleeve not.) It is lacke of faith, you see here, that causeth men to spurne against this high truth of the Sacrament: as also it may be learned here, that it is the great and merciful guift of God that Catholike men do against their senses and carnal reasons, beleeve and submit themselves to the humble acknowledging of this Mysterie: lastly, that it may wel * by Christs insinuation of Judas, be gathered, that he specially spurned against our Maisters speaches of the holy Sacrament.

66. Went back.) It can be no marvel to us now that so many revolt from the Church, by offense or scandal unjustly taken at Christs body and bloud in the Sacrament: seeing many of his Disciples that saw his wonderful life, doctrine, and miracles, forsooke Rh