Case Study 1.19
Cosin
John Cosin
1594 - 1672
Bishop of Durham
John Cosin, like Jeremy Taylor, seems to have modified his views on the Eucharist over a period of years. Cosin earlier in his life was associated with high church beliefs in regard to the Eucharist, but he seems to have become more associated with central church views in his later years (Dugmore, 1942: 70). Despite this he continues to present a moderate realist theology of the Eucharist.
In the Articles of Enquiry used in his visitation of the Archdeaconry of East Riding of York in 1627, Cosin, as Archdeacon, asked this question regarding the action of the priest in relation to the consecrated elements of the Eucharist:
“Doth he deliver the body and blood of our Lord to every communicant severally.” (Cosin, Works, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855: ii, 12).
Here it seems that Cosin considered the body and blood of Christ was given to the communicant in the Eucharist. Since the bread and wine were the things delivered, it seems probable to conclude that Cosin meant that the body and blood of Christ were delivered to the communicant in or with the bread and wine. At the very least Cosin was suggesting a strong identification between the bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ. Such a view is that of the high church party and is distinguished from that of the central church party, where receptionism was prominent. Receptionism suggests that the body and blood of Christ is present more in the act of communion and less objectively in relation to the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Both views are based on moderate realism, however receptionism limits the presence to a particular point in time.
Other evidence suggests that Cosin’s early views on the Eucharist were those of the high church party. Cosin’s defence of Montague’s realist views on the Eucharist (Cosin, Works, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855, ii, 17-81) expressed in Montague’s books, A Gagg for the New Gospel? No. A New Gagg for an Old Goose, and Appello Caesarem: A Just Appeal from the Two Unjust Informers (see Montague case study) suggests an association with high church views. Montague has been identified with the high church party (Dugmore, 1942: 46). Cosin also prepared in 1627 a Book of Hours for the ladies at the Court of Queen Henrietta, that had elements suggesting a high church view of the Eucharist (A Collection of Private Devotions: in the Practice of the Ancient Church, called the Hours of Prayer: as they were after this Manner published by Authority of Queen Elizabeth – 1560, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855, ii, 83-331). Horton Davies comments that the Collection was both notable and controversial and pointed towards the rapid growth of the high church movement in the Church of England during the early years of the reign of Charles I (Davies, 1996a: II, 93). In general the Collection contained material suggestive of the high church position, including:
“ … practical instruction on prayer, forms of prayer, the Calendar, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Decalogue, the Seven Sacraments (while insisting that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ‘the two principal and true Sacraments’), and it lists the Spiritual Works of Mercy, and the Corporal Works of Mercy. It also contains abbreviated forms of the seven canonical hours of prayer, collects for the major festivals, the Seven Penitential Psalms, prayers before and after receiving the ‘Blessed Sacrament’ and prayers to be used at Confession and Absolution, as well as forms for the sick and dying.” (Davies, 1996a: II, 94-95).
As a specific example, the Collection contained a hymn to be used at the consecration that said in part:
“Christians are by faith assured
That by faith Christ is received,
Flesh and blood most precious:
What no duller sense conceiveth,
Firm and grounded faith believeth,
In strange effects not curious.
Guided by His sacred orders,
Heavenly food upon our altars
For our souls we sanctify.”
(Cosin, Collection of Private Devotions, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855, ii, 273).
The hymn suggests a strong view of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. The language used is realist, suggesting that the presence of Christ in the heavenly food is on the altar and that this is sanctified in the Eucharist.
The contents of the Collection were strenuously criticised by the Puritans, who viewed the material as indicative of Cosin’s desire to turn the Church of England back to the Roman Catholic Church (Davies, 1996a: II, 96).
In 1635 Cosin became Master of Peterhouse at Cambridge. Here he began a program of introducing ceremonial and furnishings that brought the worship of the chapel to the Laudian level of outward or ‘bodily’ devotion. The Puritan William Prynne described Cosin’s innovations in this way:
“A glorious new altar was set up, mounted on steps, to which the master, fellows, schollers bowed, and were enjoined to bow by Dr Cosins, the master who set it up. There were basons, candlesticks, tapers standing on it, and a great crucifix hanging over it.” (Prynne, Canterburies Doom, 73, 74, in Dugmore, 1942: 104).
These innovations all suggest a high church view of the Eucharist and as such brought Cosin into conflict with the Puritans. As a result, following petition to the House of Commons, he was sequestered from all his benefices (Dugmore, 1942: 104). He subsequently left England and by order of the king became chaplain to the members of Queen Henrietta’s household in France who were members of the Church of England.
Later in his life however, Cosin seems to have moved more towards a central church position in relation to the Eucharist, associating the body and blood of Christ with the use and office of the Eucharist, and less obviously with the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Cyril Dugmore suggests that after the Puritan Revolution and during the period of the Restoration following 1660, Cosin adopted central church views on the Eucharist (Dugmore, 1942: 91). Horton Davies describes Cosin’s views on the Eucharist in the period after the Restoration as that of ‘dynamic receptionism’ (Davies, 1996a: II, 297). Christ was certainly present in the Eucharist in a dynamic manner, but the presence was associated more with the use and the reception than with the elements of bread and wine.
Cosin’s views on the Eucharist seem to have moderated from the high church to the central church view while he was in France during the period of the Commonwealth (Dugmore, 1942: 105). Evidence for this is found in a sermon preached in France on the Sunday after Ascension in 1651 where Cosin speaks of the nature of Christ’s presence after the ascension. In this sermon he says:
“ … a cloud came over Him and took Him out of their sight. … it parts Christ’s presence clean from us … this cloud has taken His bodily and fleshly manner of being here, from among us all. It is His spiritual presence that we must hold to now, and that is as real a presence as any His body or His flesh ever was, or ever can be. … by His spirit He can be everywhere, truly and really everywhere, where it pleaseth Him; and so with us.” (Cosin, Sermon XIX, Works, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855, i, 270-271, 274).
There seems to be some change in thinking evident here, as compared with earlier statements regarding the Eucharist and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Earlier, in the Visitation Articles and in the Collection, Cosin spoke of a real presence strongly associated with the bread and wine in an objective and localised manner. This may be as Geoffrey Cuming suggests because in his early life Cosin “leant decidedly towards to the Roman Church” (Cuming, 1961: xv). In the quoted sermon however, he seems to place greater weight on a spiritual real presence and avoids associating the real presence with the elements in a localised and given manner. This is suggestive of a movement away from high church to central church thinking. It may be that Cosin’s experience of life in France during the period of his exile and “his discovery of Continental Protestantism led to a marked change in his position, and he returned to England in 1660 a central churchman.” (Cuming, 1961: xv). It should be noted that there is no suggestion of an immoderate realist presence in either the earlier or later writings, but there is a change suggested in the manner of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, from the high church real presence associated closely with the elements on the altar, to the central church position of dynamic receptionism where the presence of Christ is more associated with the use and office of the Eucharist and less with the elements of bread and wine. Both the earlier and later period it should be noted are suggestive of a moderate real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, however the later period is a less localised presence than the earlier.
Cosin wrote in 1652 while in France a work entitled Regni Angliae Religio Catholica. This work was intended to provide a description of the Church of England’s doctrine for those living outside England. In this work Cosin says that the Church of England rejects:
“… the fable of Transubstantiation” and “the repeated sacrifice of Christ to be offered daily by each priest for the living and the departed.” (Cosin, Works, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855: iv, 347).
In describing the Eucharist in the Church of England he says that the ancient ceremonies, prayers and vestments are retained and that when the priest says the Prayer of Consecration he “blesses each symbol, and consecrates them to be the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ” and that the kneeling communicants “adore Christ, not the Sacrament”. The Eucharist is described as “the solemn Eucharist or sacrifice of praise of the Church, offered to God Most High as a commemoration of the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ once for all offered on the cross.” (Cosin, Works, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855: iv, 357-360). Immoderate notions of presence and sacrifice seem to be rejected but moderate notions of a real presence and sacrifice in the Eucharist are affirmed. Horton Davies argues that even though there was some movement in Cosin’s views, from a high church to a more central church position, there was a desire in him for more than the position of dynamic receptionism allowed. This ‘more’ he suggests is focused on the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice (Davies, 1996a: II, 298). The moderate realist views on eucharistic sacrifice expressed by Cosin in the quotations cited in this paragraph suggest that this may well be the case.
In another work entitled A Paper Concerning the Differences in the Chief Points of Religion betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England, not published until 1705, Cosin, in referring to the differences between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, said in relation to the Church of Rome:
“That the priests offer up our Saviour in the Mass as a real, proper and propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead; and that whosoever believes it not is eternally damned:
That in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the whole substance of bread is converted into the substance of Christ’s body, and the whole substance of wine into His blood, so truly and properly as that after consecration there is neither any bread nor wine remaining there, which they call Transubstantiation and impose upon all persons under pain of damnation to believed.” (Cosin, Works, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855: iv, 333).
When he speaks of the agreements between the Church of Rome and the Church of England Cosin says that the two churches are in accord:
“In commemorating at the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood once truly offered for us:
In acknowledging His sacramental, spiritual, true, and real presence there to the souls of all them that come faithfully and devoutly to receive Him according to His own institution in that holy Sacrament.” (Cosin, Works, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855: iv, 336).
Cosin is in these differences and agreements denying immoderate realism in relation to the eucharistic presence and sacrifice and affirming moderate realism in relation to both eucharistic presence and sacrifice. He denies that the Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice but not that there is a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice in the Eucharist. He denies the doctrine of transubstantiation but not the doctrine of a spiritual, true and real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
In 1656, while still in France, Cosin wrote a work called Historia Transubstantiationis Papalis. This work was not published until 1675, three years after his death. In this work Cosin presents what he sees as the doctrine of the Church of England regarding the Eucharist in opposition to that of the Church of Rome. Several quotations will be used to show his views.
“The bread and the cup are in no way changed in substance, or removed, or destroyed; but they are solemnly consecrated by the words of Christ for this purpose, that they may most surely serve for the communication of His body and blood. … The words both of Christ and of the Apostles are to be understood sacramentally and mystically, and no gross or carnal presence of the body and blood can be supported by them. … It was the design of Christ to teach not so much what the elements of bread and wine are in their nature and substance as what they are in signification and use and office in this mystery; since not only are the body and blood of Christ most suitably represented by these elements, but also through their instrumentality Christ Himself by His own institution is most really presented (exhibiteatur) to all, and is sacramentally or mystically eaten by the faithful. … None of the Protestant Churches doubt the actual (reali), that is, the real (vera) and not imaginary presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist; nor is there any reason for suspicion that in this matter they have the smallest degree departed from the Catholic faith. For it is easy to produce the consent of reformed writers and Churches by which it can be most clearly shown to all who have intellects and eyes that they are all most tenacious of this truth and that they have not in any way departed from the ancient and Catholic faith.” (Cosin, Works, edn. Sansom, 1843-1855: iv, 16-19).