But it will and on either hand they are fallen into inconvenience. be more material to consider the question as it is in itself, and without relation to any schools of learning. Therefore, 3. It is certain that in scripture there is nothing which directly forbids the giving the holy communion to infants. For though we are commanded to examine and so to eat; yet this precept is not of itself necessary, but by reason of an introduced cause; just as they are commanded to believe and repent who are to be baptized; that is, persons that need it, and that can do it, they must: and infants without examination can as well receive the effect of the eucharist, as without repentance they can have the effect of baptism. For if they be communicated, they and the whole assembly do declare the Lord's death; for that is done by virtue of the whole solemnity, and it is done by the conjunct devotion of the whole community; it is done by the prayers and offices of the priest, and it is done by the action of every one that communicates: it is done in baptism; and yet they are baptized who cannot with their voices publish the confession. Infants indeed cannot discern the Lord's body; so neither can they discern truth from falsehood, an article of faith from an heretical doctrine; and yet to discern the one is as much required as to discern the other; but in both the case is equal; for they must discern when they can confound or dishonour; but till they can do evil, they cannot be tied to do good. And it were hard to suppose the whole church of God in her best and earliest times to have continued for above six hundred years in a practical error; it will not well become our modesty to judge them without further enquiry, and greater evidence. 4. But as there is no prohibition of it, so no command for it. For as for the words of our blessed Lord recited by S. John", upon which the holy fathers did principally rely; they were spoken before the institution of both the sacraments, and indifferently relate to either; that is indeed to them both, as they are the ministries of faith, but to neither in themselves directly, or in any other proportion, or for any other cause: for faith is the principal that is there intended; for the whole analogy of the discourse drawn forth of its cloud and allegory, infers only the necessity of being Christ's disciples, of living the life of grace, of feeding in our hearts on Christ, of living in Him, and by Him, and for Him, and to Him; which is the work of faith, and believing in Christ: as faith signifies the being of Christ's disciple. 5. The thing itself then being left in the midst, and undetermined, it is in the power of the church to give it or to deny it. For in all things where Christ hath made no law, the church hath liberty to do that which is most for the glory of God, and the edification of all christian people. And therefore although the primitive church did confirm newly baptized persons and communicate them; yet as with ப [John vi. 53.1 See chap. i. sect. 2 and 3. great reason she did change the time of Confirmation from their first baptism till they could give an account of their faith; so with equal authority, when she hath an equal reason, she may change and limit the time of ministering the communion. The church is tied to nothing but to the laws of the sacrament, and the laws of reason, and the laws of charity. But that either of them is reasonable enough may appear in the following considerations. For the primitive church had all this to justify their practice,That the sacraments of the gospel are the great channels of the grace of God; that this grace always descends upon them that do not hinder it, and therefore certainly to infants; and some do expressly affirm it, and none can with certainty deny, but that infants if they did receive the communion should also in so doing receive the fruits of it ;-that to baptism there are many acts of predisposition required as well as to the communion, and yet the church, who very well understands the obligation of these precepts, supposes no children to be obliged to those predispositions to either sacrament, but fits everycommandment to a capable subject;-that there is something done on God's part, and something on ours; that what belongs to us, obliges us then when we can hear and understand, but not before; but that what is on God's part is always ready to them that can receive it; that infants although they cannot alone come to Christ, yet the church their mother can bring them in her arms;-that they who are capable of the grace of the sacrament may also receive the sign, and therefore the same grace being conveyed to them in one sacrament, may also be imparted to them in the other;-that as they can be born again without their own consent, so they can be fed by the hands of others, and what begins without their own actual choice may be renewed without their own actual desire; and that therefore it may be feared lest, if upon the pretence of figurative speeches, allegories and allusions, and the injunction of certain dispositions, the holy communion be denied them, a gap be opened upon equal pretences to deny them baptism;-that since the Jewish infants being circumcised is used as an argument that they might be baptized, their eating of the paschal lamb may also be a competent warrant to eat of that sacrament in which also, as in the other, the sacrificed lamb is represented as offered and slain for them. Now the church having such fair probabilities and prudential motives and no prohibition, if she shall use her power to the purposes of kindnesses and charity, she is not easily to be reproved, lest without necessity we condemn all the primitive catholic church, and all the modern churches of the east and south to this day. Especially since without all dispositions infants are baptized; there is less reason why they may not be communicated, having already received some real dispositions towards this, even all the grace of the sacrament of baptism, which is certainly something towards the other. And after all, the refusing to communicate infants entered into the church upon an unwarrantable ground; for though it was confessed that the communion would do them benefit, yet it was denied to them then when the doctrine of transubstantiation entered, upon pretence lest by puking up the holy symbols the sacrament should be dishonoured: which indeed though that doctrine were true, were infinitely unreasonable; as supposing that Christ who suffered His body to be broken upon the cross that He might convey grace to them and us, would refuse to expose the symbols to the accidents of a child's stomach, and rather deny them that grace than endure that sight; who yet does daily suffer mice and mouldiness to do worse unto it. But on the other side, they that without interest and partiality deny to communicate infants, can consider,-That infants being in baptism admitted to the promises of the gospel, and their portion in the kingdom of Christ, can have upon them no necessity to be communicated; for by their first sacrament they are drawn from their mere natural state and lifted up to the adoption of sons, and by the second sacrament alone they can go no further ;-that although the first grace which is given in baptism be given them as their first being, yet the second graces are given to us upon other accounts, even for well using the first free grace;-that in baptism there were promises made which are to be personally accepted and verified before any new grace can be sacramentally imparted; that it was necessity which gave them baptism before their reason, and that necessity being served, there can be no profit in proceeding upon the same method without the same reason;-that baptism is the sacrament of the new-born, the beginning, the gate of the church, the entry of the kingdom, the birth of a Christian; but the holy eucharist is the sacrament of them that grow in grace, of them that are perfect in Christ Jesus ;-and lastly, to him that lists to be contentious we are to say as S. Paul' did, “ we have no such custom, nor the churches of God." : Now these probabilities on both sides may both of them be heard, and both of them prevail in the sense of the former determination for by the first it may appear that to communicate infants is lawful; but the second proves that it is not necessary: for having in baptism received sufficient title to the kingdom of heaven, they who before the use of reason cannot sin and cannot fall from the grace they have received, cannot be obliged to the use of that sacrament which is for their reparation and security and therefore in this case the present practice of the church is to be our rule and measure of peace, and determination of the article. : x Victoria, Relect. de eucharist. ubi supra. [p. 91, supra.] SECTION III. WHETHER INNOCENTS, FOOLS, AND MADMEN MAY BE ADMITTED TO To this I answer, that if fools can desire it, and can be kept innocent, the church never did deny it to them: but unless they be capable of love and obedience in some degree they must in no case be admitted. A vicious fool is intolerable; and he that knows nothing of it, nor can be taught any thing, must be permitted to the mercies of God and the prayers of the church: but he that is not capable of laws, can be no part of a society; and therefore hath nothing to do with communion. If he can but learn so much that it is good for his soul, if he can desire to go to God, and if he can in any degree believe in Christ, he will be judged according to what he hath, and not according to what he hath not but if he cannot discern between good and evil, but indifferently likes and does one and the other, though mercy is to be hoped for him in the last account, yet because he does that which is materially evil, and cannot discern what is spiritually good, he must not be admitted so much. as to the symbols of the divine mysteries. But concerning madmen the case is otherwise, and therefore I am to answer with a distinction. If from a state of sin and debauchery they entered into their madness, their case is sad and infinitely to be deplored; but their debt books are sealed up, they are like dead men; until they be restored to reason they cannot be restored to grace, and therefore not admitted to the sacrament. But if they were men of a good life, they may in their intervals,—that is, when they can desire it, and when they will not use the sacrament irreverently,-be communicated. For the seed of God abides within them, and no accident of nature can destroy the work of God and the impresses of the Spirit; nothing but their own wills can do that. be For in these cases it is a good rule, and of great use in the practice of the sacrament, whoever can communicate spiritually, may admitted to communicate sacramentally,' that is, they who are in a state of grace, and can desire it, must not be rejected: and therefore good men falling into this calamity, when they have any ease from their sadness, and that they can return to words of order and composed thoughts, though but for a while, though but in order to that ministry, are not to be rejected. But on the other side, whoever can hinder the effect of the sacrament, they are not to be admitted to it, unless they do not only not hinder it, but actually dispose themselves to it. For if they can. do evil, they can and ought to do good: and therefore vicious madmen having been and still remaining in a state of evil, cannot be admitted till they do good; and therefore never while their madness remains. The godly man that is so afflicted may; but yet not till the fire that was hidden makes some actual and bright emissions. : But then lastly for others who are of a 'probable' life, concerning whom no man can tell whether they be in the state of grace or no; because no man can tell whether he that comes with that sadness be capable or no, no man can tell whether he does well or ill; and therefore he must determine himself by accidents and circumstances and prudential considerations, having one eye upon the designs and compliances of charity, and the other upon the reverence of the sacrament. And the case is in all things alike with dying persons past the use of speech and reason. SECTION IV. OF ACTUAL FAITH AS IT IS A NECESSARY DISPOSITION TO THE SACRAMENT. BESIDES the faith that is previous to baptism, or is wrapped up in the offices of that sacrament, the church of God admitted only such persons to the sacrament whom she called fideles or 'faithful,' by a propriety or singularity and eminency of appellation. They accounted it not enough barely to believe or to be professors; for the penitents, and the lapsed, and the catechumens were so; but they meant, such persons whose faith was operative and alive and justifying; such men whose faith had overcome the world, and overcome their lusts, and conquered their spiritual enemy; such who by faith were real servants of Christ, disciples of His doctrine, subjects of His kingdom, and obedient to His institution. Such a faith as this is indeed necessary to every worthy communicant; because without such a faith a Christian is no more but a name; but the man is dead; and dead men eat not. Of this therefore we are to take strict and severe accounts: which we shall best do by the following measures. 1. Every true christian believer must consent to the articles of his belief by an assent firmer than can be naturally produced from the ordinary arguments of his persuasion. Men believe the resurrection; but it is because they are taught it in their childhood, ana they enquire no further in their age: their parents and their priests, the laws of the church and the religion of the country, make up the demonstration; but because their faith is no stronger than to be the daughter of such arguments, we find they commonly live at such a rate, as if they did neither believe nor care whether it were so or no. The confidence of the article makes them not to leave off violently to pursue the interests of this world, and to love and labour for the other. Before this faith can enable them to resist a temptation, they must derive their assent from principles of another nature; and therefore because few men can dispute it with arguments invincible |