The Grand Sacrilege of the Church of Rome, Chapter 11 · Section 10
SECT. X. The testimonies of the practise of the Church from 900. to 1000.
ARistole rightly obserueth, that it so yforeign. Aristot. Rhetor. lib. 2. cap. 15.falleth out in the descent of families, as it doth in diuers grounds, in which sometimes wee hauehave great plentie, sometime as great scarsitie: so, saith he, some families hauehave afforded store of noble personages; at other times scarse any of note or eminence. So it fareth here with vsus in the last Age wee had plentifull store of testimonies for the truth, but in this we are like to hauehave Penury. Although (if wee consider aright) this scarsity may be imputed rather vntounto the iniury of the time, and want of Records of History, which happily being extant might hauehave afforded vsus no lesse plentie of Testimonies, then the former Ages, as well in this, as in other points in question. The Poet wisely obserued: Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi, sed omnes vrgentur ignoti longâ Nocte: carent quia vate sacro. Dan. Chamier. after much inquiry can bring notice but of one witnesse, and him hee dares scarse avow. zBell. de Rom. pontis. cap. 12. & de Scriptor. Ecclesiast. p. 198Bellarmine brandeth with a note this ninth Age, as being the most obscure and darke, that the Sunne euer cast his beames vponupon: yet euen in this Age wee hauehave somewhat to shew for the right of Gods people to the holy Chalice of the Lords Table.
Anno 910.
aIn Leuiticum lib. 14. c. 4. Populus sacratum Christi corpus assumit, bibit & beatum ipsius sanguinis haustum.Rodolphus Tongrensis testifieth, that the people in his time tooke the sacred body of Christ, and drank a blessed draught of his blood.
Anno 920.
The Abbot of Prumes Regino teacheth vsus, Lib. de Eccles. disciplina, c. 119that what Rodolphus witnesseth of the practise of the people in his age, was not an abuse, or disorder in the people, but done in obedience to the sacred discipline of the Church, whose Canon he mentioneth: Let the soules of the weake be refreshed, and strengthned with the body and blood of our Lord.
Anno 950.
bDe sacr. alt. c. 17. Quotidie nobis haec dona praestantur, quando corpus & sanguis in altari sumitur. in quibusdam edit. cap. 14.Stephanus Edvensis; saith These gifts or benefits are dayly performed vntounto vsus, when the body and blood of Christ is taken at the Altar.
Anno 990.
cLib. 14. cap. 5.Vincentius writes of Elgifa, an old Matrone in this age, who being ready to giuegive vp the ghost, tooke the body and blood of our Lord.
Anno 995.
Aelfricus, first Abbot of Saint Albons, and after Archbishop of Canterbury, in his epistle to Woulfinus, and in his sermon translated of late out of the Saxon in die. S. Paschae, is as ful for the entire Communion, as hee is against Transubstantiation: the Howsell, or Hoste, saith he, is Christs body, not bodily, but Ghostly; not the body, which he suffered in, but the body of which he spoke, when hee blessed bread and wine to Howsel, ep. ad Wolfin. and in his sermon: Without, they be seene bread and wine, both in figure and in taste: and they be truly Christs body and blood after there halowing through ghostly mystery as a pledge and a figure. And a little after: All our fathers dranke the same ghostly drinke of the stone, which followed them, which stone was not bodily Christ, who calleth to vsus, to all beleeuing and faithful men: Whosoeuer thirsteth, let him come and drinke that heauenly liquor, which had signification of Christs blood. Now it is offered daily in Gods Church; it was the same, which we now offer not bodily, but ghostly.
I finde no answer made by any Romanist to the testimonies in this Age, which yet are very full and pregnant, both for the precept and practise of communicating in both kinds, both by men and women. If any except against the Authors in the words of the Orator, haurimus de foece, we draw out dregs and lees: I answer, where learning ran so low, as it did in this Age, we could do no other wise: yet the Reader may see, that out of these lees wee hauehave ex tracted some Aqua-vitae, whereof, though he hath but a taste now, he shal hauehave a ful draught in the next Age.