Jesu de procuranda salute omnium gentium. So that this matter of the practice of the ancient church is sufficiently cleared. Seeing therefore the ancient church did use this custom, and could have no other ground for it, but their belief, that this sacrament was necessary for infants; it follows necessarily, that the church then did believe it necessary.

But deductions, though never so evident, are superfluous, and may be set aside; where there is such abundance of direct and formal authentical testimonies; whereof some spoke in thesi, of the necessity of the eucharist for all men, others in hypothesi, of the necessity of it for infants.

My second argument, from the testimonies of the fathers of those times, I form thus: That doctrine in the affirmative whereof the most eminent fathers of the ancient church agree, and which none of their contemporaries have opposed or condemned, ought to be taken for the catholic doctrine* of the church of those times; but the most eminent fathers of the ancient church agree in the affirmation of this doctrine, that the eucharist is necessary for infants, and none of their contemporaries have opposed or condemned it; ergo, it ought to be taken for the catholic doctrine of the

* The reader, when he meets with the phrase, catholic doctrine, in this and the following discourse, must remember, that it does not signify articles of faith determined in any general councils, which might be looked upon as the faith of the whole church; but the current and common opinion of the age, which obtained in it without any known opposition and contradiction. Neither need this be wondered at, since they are about matters far removed from the common faith of Christians, and have no necessary influence upon good life and manners, whatsoever necessity by mistake of some scriptures might be put upon them.

church of their times. The major of this syllogism is delivered and fully proved by Cardinal Perron, in his letter to Casaubon, 5. obs. and is indeed so reasonable a postulate, that none but a contentious spirit can reject it.

For confirmation of the minor, I will allege, first, their sentences, which in thesi affirm the eucharist to be generally necessary for all, and therefore for infants; and then their suffrages, who in hypothesi avouch the necessity of it for infants.

The most pregnant testimonies of the first rank are these: of Irenæus, lib. iv. cont. hæres. c. 34. where he makes our union to Christ by the eucharist the foundation of the hope of our resurrection, in these words: "As the bread of earth, after the invocation of God, is now not common bread, but the eucharist, consisting of two things, an earthly, and a heavenly; so our bodies receiving the eucharist, are not now corruptible (for ever) but have hope of resurrection." The like he hath, lib. v. c. 2. And hence in probability it is, that the Nicene council styled this sacrament, Symbolum Resurrectionis, the pledge of our resurrection : and Ignatius, Ep. ad Eph.-Pharmacum immortalitatis, the medicine of immortality.

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Cyril. Aler. lib. iv. in Joan. They shall never partake, nor so much as taste the life of holiness and happiness, which receive not the Son in the mystical benediction." Cyril. lib. x. in Joan. c. xiii. &. lib. xi. c. 27. "This corruptible nature of our body could not otherwise be brought to life and immortality, unless this body of natural life were conjoined to it." The very same things saith Gregory Nyssen. Orat. Catech. c. 37.

And that they both speak of our conjunction with Christ by the eucharist, the antecedents and consequents do fully manifest, and it is a thing confessed by learned catholics.

Cyprian, De cana Domini, and Tertullian, De resur. carnis, speak to the same purpose: but I have not their books by me, and therefore cannot set down their words. St. Chrysostom, Hom. 47. in Joh. on these words: Nisi manducaveritis, has many pregnant and plain speeches to our purpose. As, "The words here spoken are very terrible: Verily, saith he, if a man eat not my flesh, and drink not my blood, he hath no life in him for whereas they said before, this could not be done, he shews it not only not impossible, but also very necessary." And, a little after: "He often iterates his speech concerning the holy mysteries, shewing the necessity of the thing, and that by all things it must be done." And again : "What means that, which he says, My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed: either that this is the true meat, that saves the soul; or to confirm them in the faith of what he had spoken, that they should not think he spoke enigmatically, or parabolically; but know, that by all means they must eat his body.'

But most clear and unanswerable is that place, lib. iii. De sacerdotio, where he saith, "If a man cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, unless he be born again of water and the Holy Spirit; and if he which eats not the flesh of our Lord, and drinks not his blood, is cast out of eternal life; and all these things cannot be done by any other, but only by those holy hands, the hands, I say, of the priest; how then, without their help, can any

man either avoid the fire of hell or obtain the

crowns laid up for us?"

Theophylact. in vi. Joan.

"When therefore

we hear, that unless we eat the flesh of the Son of man, we cannot have life, we must have faith without doubting in the receiving of the Divine mysteries, and never inquire how: for the natural man, that is, he which followeth human, that is, natural reasons, receives not the things which are above nature, and spiritual; as also he understands not the spiritual meat of the flesh of our Lord, which they that receive not, shall not be partakers of eternal life, as not receiving Jesus, who is the true life." S. Augustine De pec. mor. et remis. c. 24. "Very well do the puny Christians call baptism nothing else but salvation, and the sacrament of Christ's body nothing else but life. From whence should this be, but as I believe, from the ancient and apostolical tradition, by which this doctrine is implanted into the churches of Christ, that only by baptism and the participation of the Lord's table any man can attain either to the kingdom of God, or to salvation, or to eternal life."

Now we are taught by the learned Cardinal, that when the fathers speak not as doctors, but as witnesses of the customs of the church of their times; and do not say I believe this should be so holden, or so understood, or so observed; but that the church from one end of the earth to the other believes it so, or observes it so; then we no longer hold what they say, for a thing said by them, but as a thing said by the whole church; and principally when it is in points, whereof they could not be ignorant, either because of the condi

tion of the things, as in matters of fact; or because of the sufficiency of the persons: and, in this case, we argue no more upon their words probably, as we do when they speak in the quality of particular doctors, but we argue thereupon demonstratively.

For example: St. Augustine, the sufficientest person which the church of his time had, speaking of a point wherein he could not be ignorant, says: "Not that I believe the eucharist to be necessary to salvation; but the churches of Christ believe so, and have received this doctrine from apostolical tradition:" therefore I argue upon his words not probably, but demonstratively, that this was the catholic doctrine of the church of his time. And thus much for the thesis, that the eucharist was held generally necessary for all. Now for the hypothesis, that the eucharist was held necessary for infants in particular. Witnesses hereof are St. Cyprian, Pope Innocentius I. and Eusebius Emissenus, with St. Augustine, together with the author of the book, entitled Hypognostica.

Cyprian indeed does not in terms affirm it, but we have a very clear intimation of it in his Epistle to Fidus. For whereas he, and a council of bishops together with him, had ordered, that infants might be baptized and sacrificed, that is, communicated, before the eighth day, though that were the day appointed for circumcision by the old law; there he sets down this as the reason of their decree That the mercy and grace of God was to be denied to no man.

Pope Innocent I. in Ep. ad Episc. Conc. Milev. quæ est inter August. 93. concludes against the