Animadversions on a treatise entitled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…Animadversions on a treatise intituled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…

He pretends, after this loose Harangue, to speak to the thing it self; and tells us, that the consecrated CHALICE is not ordinarily given to people by the Priest in private Communion; as though in some cases, it were given amongst them to the body of the people, or that they had some public communion wherein it was ordinarily so given; both which he knows to be untrue. So impossible it seems for him to speak plainly and directly to what he treats on. But it is a thing which hath need of these artifices; If one falsity be not covered with another, it will quickly rain through all. However, he tells us, that they should do so, is neither expedient nor necessary as to any effects of the Sacrament. ⟨p. 374⟩I wish, for his own sake, some course might be found to take him off this confidence of setting himself against the Apostles, and the whole primitive Church at once; that he might apprehend the task too difficult for him to undertake, and meddle with it no more. All expediency in the administration of this great Ordinance, and all the effects of it, depend solely on the institution and blessing of Christ; If he have appointed the use of both elements, what are we, poor worms, that we should come, now in the end of the world, and say, the use of one of them is not expedient nor necessary to any effects of Communion? Are we wiser then he? Have we more care of his Church then he had? or, Do we think, that it becomes us thus arbitrarily to choose, and refuse in the institutions of our Lord and Master? What is it to us, what Cavils soever men can lay, that it is not necessary in the way of Protestants, nor in the way of Catholics; we know it is necessary in the way of Christ. And if either Protestants or Catholics leave that way, for me they shall walk in their own ways by themselves. But why is it ⟨p. 375⟩not necessary in the way of Protestants? Because they place the effect of the Communion in the operation of faith, and therefore, according to them, one kind is enough; nay, if we have neither kind, there is no loss but of a Ceremony, which may be well enough supplied at our ordinary Tables. This is pretty Logic, which, it seems, our Author learned out of Smith and Seaton. Protestants generally think, that men see with their eyes; and yet they think the light of the Sun necessary to the exercising of their sight;

He pretends, after this loose Harangue, to speak to the thing it self; and tells us, that the consecrated CHALICE is not ordinarily given to people by the Priest in private Communion; as though in some cases, it were given amongst them to the body of the people, or that they had some publick communion wherein it was ordinarily so given; both which he knows to be untrue. So impossible it seems for him to speak plainly and directly to what he treats on. But it is a thing which hath need of these artifices; If one falsity be not covered with another, it will quickly rain through all. However, he tells us, that they should do so, is neither expedient nor necessary as to any effects of the Sacrament.