Traité de la communion sous les deux especes

First edition, quite rare. A title vignette and one text figure.
Full straight-grained chocolate brown morocco binding ca 1860. Spine with raised bands decorated. Red morocco title and volume labels. Covers decorated with several framing fillets and rolls and a wide floral frieze. Interior frieze. Edges gilt. Paper of perfect freshness, possibly washed. Very handsome copy in unsigned master binding.
The single species designates communion by bread or wine. It was in 1681 that Pierre Jurieu published his treatise on communion in a single species in the name of Protestantism. One year later, Bossuet wrote a rigorous treatise proving by certain causes that the church practiced the Eucharist under one or two species without anyone ever thinking that the withdrawal of one or the other harmed the integrity of the sacrament. The author shows that there is nothing indispensable in the sacraments except what pertains to their substance; that thus one is not obliged to do in administering them everything that the Savior did in instituting them. The Treatise on Communion, says Bayle, "appeared to me very delicate, very spiritual, and of a courtesy toward us that cannot be praised enough; tight, judicious, it is cleared of everything that does not bear on the question." It nonetheless results that Bossuet was subsequently attacked by several Protestant writings, and that there was in the 17th century a veritable quarrel around this practical question of the sacrament.