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Half-Communion

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Hales, Wiliam, D.D.

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the withholding the cup from the laity in the Lord's Supper. "This practice of the Church of Rome was first authorized by Innocent III, and then made obligatory by the Council of Constance; and one motive for the innovation appears to have been to exalt the priesthood by giving them some exclusive privilege even in communion at the Lord's Table. Transubstantiation and half-communion, or communion in one kind only, are ingeniously linked together. Romanists believe that Christ, whole and entire, his soul, body, and divinity, is contained in either species, and in the smallest particle of each. Hence they infer that, whether the communicant receive the bread or the wine, he enjoys the full benefit of the sacrament. Therefore, to support the monstrous dogma, the sacrament is divided in two: transubstantiation justifies communion in one kind, and communion in one kind proves the truth of transubstantiation. In thus denying the cup to the laity, the institution of Christ is mutilated, the express law of the Gospel perverted, and the practice of the apostles abandoned. The withholding the cup was one of the grievances which induced the Hussites to resist the usurpations of the Church of Rome" (Farrar, Eccles. Dict. s.v.). (See LORD'S SUPPER).