and Blood of Christ. The Princes of Germany saw what mischief was like to follow on the diversity of Opinions in explaining the Sacrament and as Luther being impatient in his temper and too much given to dictate took it very ill to see his Doctrine so rejected so by the undecent way of writing in matters of Controversie to which the Germans are too much inclined this difference turned to a direct breach among them The Landgrave of Hesse had laboured much to have these diversities of Opinion laid asleep since nothing gave their common Enemies such advantage as their quarrelling among themselves Martin Bucer was of a moderate temper and had found a middle Opinion in this matter though not so easie to be understood He thought there was more than a Remembrance to wit a Communication of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament that in general a Real Presence ought to be asserted and that the way of explaining it ought not to be anxiously enquired into and with him Calvin agreed that it was truly the Body and Blood of Christ not figuratively but really present The advantage of these general Expressions was that thereby they hoped to have silenced the Debates between the German and Helvetian Divines whose Doctrine came likewise to be received by many of the Cities of the Empire and by the Elector Palatine And among Martin Bucers Papers I met with an Original Paper of Luthers Collection Number 34. which will be found in the Collection in which he was willing to have that difference thus setled Those of the Ausburg Confession should declare that in the Sacrament there was truly Bread and Wine and those of the Helvetian Confession should declare that Christs Body was truly present and so without any further curiosities in the way of explaining it in which Divines might use their liberty the difference should end But how this came to take no effect I do not understand It was also thought that this way of expressing the Doctrine would give least offence for the People were scarce able to bear the Opinion of the Sacraments being only a Figure but wherein this Real Presence consisted was not so easie to be made out Some explained it more intelligibly in a sense of Law that in the Sacrament there was a real application of the Merit of Christs Death to those who received it worthily so that Christ as crucified was really present and these had this to say for themselves that the Words of the Institution do not call the Elements simply Christs Body and Blood but his Body broken and his Blood shed and that therefore Christ was really present as he was crucified so that the importance of Really was Effectually Others thought all ways of explaining the manner of the Presence were needless curiosities and apt to beget differences that therefore the Doctrine was to be established in general words and to save the labour both of explaining and understanding it it was to be esteemed a Mystery This seems to have been Bucers Opinion but Peter Martyr inclined more to the Helvetians There were publick Disputations held this Year both at Oxford and Cambridge upon this Matter Publick Disputations about it At Oxford the Popish Party did so encourage themselves by the Indulgence of the Government and the gentleness of Cranmers temper that they became upon this Head insolent out of measure Peter Martyr had read in the Chair concerning the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament which he explained according to the Doctrine of the Helvetian Churches Dr. Smith did upon this resolve to contradict him openly in the Schools and challenge him to dispute on these Points and had brought many thither who should by their Clamours and Applauses run him down yet this was not so secretly laid but a friend of P. Martyrs brought him word of it before he had come from his House and perswaded him not to go to the Schools that day Antiq. Oxon. and so disappoint Smith But he looked on that as so mean a thing that he would by no means comply with it So he went to the Divinity Schools on his way one brought him a Challenge from Smith to dispute with him concerning the Eucharist He went on and took his place in the Chair where he behaved himself with an equal measure of courage and discretion he gravely check'd Smiths presumption and said he did not decline a dispute but was resolved to have his Reading that day nor would he engage in a publick Dispute without leave from the Kings Council Upon this a Tumult was like to rise so the Vice-Chancellor sent for them before him P. Martyr said he was ready to defend every thing that he had read in the Chair in a Dispute but he would manage it only in Scripture-Terms and not in the Terms of the Schools This was the beating the Popish Doctors out of that which was their chief strength for they had little other Learning but a slight of tossing some Arguments from hand to hand with a gibberish kind of Language that sounded like somewhat that was sublime but had really nothing under it By constant practise they were very nimble at this sort of Legerdemain of which both Erasmus and Sir Tho. More with the other learned Men of that Age had made such sport that it was become sufficiently ridiculous and the Protestants laid hold on that advantage which such great Authorities gave them to disparage it They set up another way of disputing from the Original Text of the Scripture in Greek and Hebrew which seemed a more proper thing in matters of Divinity than the Metaphysical Language of the School-men This whole Matter being referred to the Privy-Council they appointed some Delegates to hear and preside in the Disputation but Dr. Smith being brought in some trouble either for this Tumult or upon some other account was forced to put in Sureties for his good behaviour he desiring that he might be discharged of any further prosecution made the most humble submission to Cranmer that was possible and being thereupon set at liberty he fled out of the Kingdom it is said he went first to Scotland and from thence to Flanders But not long after this Peter Martyr had a Disputation before the Commissioners sent by the King who were the Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Cox then Chancellor of the University and some others in which Tresham Chadsey and Morgan disputed against those three Propositions 1. In the Sacrament of Thanksgiving there is no Transubstantiation of Bread and Wine in the Body and Blood of Christ. 2. The Body or Blood of Christ is not Carnally or Corporally in the Bread and Wine nor as others use to say under the Bread and Wine 3. The Body and Blood of Christ are united to the Bread and Wine Sacramentally Ridley was sent also to Cambridge with some others of the Kings Commissioners where on the 20th 24th and 27th of June there were publick Disputations on these
had yet received of him only 300000 Crowns but he had good security for the rest and the Merchants were bound to pay him 100000 lib. Sterling and therefore he demanded a little more time of them All this was printed soon after at Strasburgh by the English there in a Book which they sent over to England in which both the Address made by the Commons in Parliament and this Answer of the Emperour 's to the Towns is mentioned And that whole Discourse which is in the form of an Address to the Queen the Nobility and the Commons is written with such gravity and simplicity of Stile that as it is by much the best I have seen of this time so in these publick Transactions there is no reason to think it untrue For the things which it relates are credible of themselves and though the sum there mentioned was very great yet he that considers that England was to be bought with it will not think it an extraordinary price In that Discourse it is further said that as Gardiner corrupted many by Bribes so in the Court of Chancery Common Justice was denied to all but those who came into these Designs Having thus given an account of what was done in the Parliament I shall next shew how the Convocation proceeded The Proceedings of the Convocation Bonner being to preside in it as being the first Bishop of the Province of Canterbury appointed John Harpsfield his Chaplain to preach who took his Text out of the twentieth of the Acts verse 20 Feed the Flock He run out in his bidding Prayers most profusely on the Queens Praises comparing her to Deborah and Esther with all the servilest flatteries he could invent next he bid them pray for the Lady Elizabeth but when he came to mention the Clergy he enlarged in the praises of Bonner Gardiner Tonstal Heath and Day so grosly that it seems the strains of flattering Church-men at that time were very course and he run out so copiously in them as if he had been to deliver a Panegyrick and not to bid the Beads In his Sermon he inveighed against the late Preachers for not observing Fasts nor keeping Lent and for their Marriages which he severely condemned Weston Dean of Westminster was presented Prolocutor by the lower House Disputes concerning the Sacrament and approved of by Bonner Whether any of the Bishops that had been made in King Edwards time sat among them I do not know But in the lower House there was great opposition made There had been care taken that there should be none returned to the Convocation but such as would comply in all points But yet there came six Non-compliers who being Deans or Arch-Deacons had a right to sit in the Convocation These were Philpot Archdeacon of Winchester Philips Dean of Rochester Haddon Dean of Exeter Cheyney Arch-deacon of Hereford Ailmer Arch-deacon of Stow and Young Chanter of St. Davids Weston the Prolocuter proposed to them on the 18th of October that there had been a Catechism printed in the last year of King Edwards Reign in the name of that Synod and as he understood it was done without their consents which was a pestiferous Book and full of Heresies There was likewise a very abominable Book of Common Prayer set out it was therefore the Queens pleasure that they should prepare such Laws about Religion as she would ratifie with her Parliament So he proposed that they should begin with condemning those Books particularly the Articles in them contrary to the Sacrament of the Altar and he gave out two questions about it Whether in the Sacrament upon the Sanctification of the Bread and Wine all their substance did not vanish being changed into the Body and Blood of Christ and Whether the natural Body of Christ was not corporally present in the Eucharist either by the Transubstantiation of the Elements into his Body and Blood or by the Conjunction of Concomitance as some expressed it The House was adjourned till the 20th on which day every Man was appointed to give in his Answer to these Questions All answered and subscribed in the affirmative except the six before mentioned Philpot said whereas it was given out that the Catechism was was not approved by the Convocation though it was printed in their name it was a mistake for the Convocation had authorised a number of Persons to set forth Ecclesiastical Laws to whom they had committed their Synodal Authority So that they might well set out such Books in the name of the Convocation He also said that it was against all order to move Men to subscribe in such points before they were examined and since the number of these on the one side was so unequal to those on the other side he desired that Dr. Ridley Mr. Rogers and two or three more might be allowed to come to the Convocation This seemed very reasonable So the lower House proposed it to the Bishops They answered that these persons being Prisoners they could not bring them but they should move the Council about it A Message also was sent from some great Lords that they intended to hear the Disputation so the House adjourned till the 23d There was then a great appearance of Noblemen and others The Prolocutor began with a Protestation that by this Dispute they did not intend to call the Truth in doubt to which they had all subscribed but they did it only to satisfie the objections of those few who refused to concur wtih them But it was denied to let any Prisoners or others assist them for it was said that that being a Dispute among those of the Convocation none but Members were to be heard in it Haddon and Ailmer foreseeing they should be run down with clamour and noise refused to dispute Young went away Cheyney being next spoke to did propose his Objections that St. Paul calls the Sacrament Bread after the Consecration that Origen said it went into the Excrement and Theodoret said the Bread and Wine did not in the Sacrament depart from their former Substance Form and Shape Moreman was called on to answer him He said that St. Paul calling it Bread was to be understood thus the Sacrament or Form of Bread To Origens Authority he answered nothing but to Theodoret he said the word they render Substance stood in a more general signification and so might signifie accidental Substance Upon this Ailmer who had resolved not to Dispute could not contain himself but said the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not be so understood for the following words of Form and Shape belonged to the Accidents but that only belonged to the Substance of the Elements Upon this there followed a Contest about the signification of that word Then Philpot struck in and said the occasion of Theodorets writing plainly shewed that was a vain Cavil for the Dispute was with the Eutychians whether the Body and humane Nature of Christ had yet an Existence distinct from the Divine
in Controversies of Faith It is not lawful for the Church c. It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another Wherefore although the Church be a Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation XXI Of the Authority of General Councils General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when they are gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining unto God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture XXIII Of Purgatory The Doctrine of the School-men concerning Purgatory Pardons Worshipping and Adoration as well of Images as of Reliques and also Invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather perniciously repugnant to the Word of God XXIV No Man to minister in the Church except he be called It is not lawful for any Man to take upon him the Office of publick Preaching or ministring the Sacraments in the Congregation before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same And those we ought to judg lawfully called and sent which be chosen and called to this Work by Men who have publick Authority given unto them in the Congregation to call and send Ministers into the Lord's Vineyard XXV All things to be done in the Congregation in such a Tongue as is understood by the People It is most fit It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God and the custom of the Primitive Church to have publick Prayers in the Church or to minister the Sacraments in a Tongue not understood by the People and most agreeable to the Word of God that nothing be read or rehearsed in the Congregation in a Tongue not known unto the People which Paul hath forbidden to be done unless some be present to interpret XXVI Of the Sacraments Our Lord Jesus Christ gathered his People into a Society Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only Badges and Tokens of Christian Mens Profession but rather they be certain sure Witnesses and effectual signs of Grace and God's good Will towards us by the which he doth work invisibly in us and doth not only quicken but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel that is to say Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Those five commonly called Sacraments That is to say Confirmation Penance Orders Matrimony and Extream Vnction are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism and the Lord's Supper for that they have not any visible Sign or Ceremony ordained of God The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed on or to be carried about but that we should duly use them And in such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholesome effect or operation but they that receive them unworthily purchase to themselves damnation as St. Paul saith by Sacraments very few in number most easie to be kept and of most excellent signification that is to say Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon or to be carried about but that we should duly use them And in such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholesome effect or operation not as some say Ex opere operato which terms as they are strange and utterly unknown to the Holy Scripture so do they yield a sense which savoureth of little Piety but of much Superstition but they that receive them unworthily receive to themselves damnation The Sacraments ordained by the word of God be not only Badges or Tokens of Christian Mens Profession but rather they be certain sure Witnesses effectual signs of Grace and God's good Will towards us by the which he doth work invisibly in us and doth not only quicken but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him XXVII The Wickedness of the Ministers takes not away the Efficacy of Divine Institutions Although in the Visible Church the Evil be ever mingled with the Good and sometimes the Evil have chief Authority in the ministration of the Word and Sacraments yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own Name but in Christ's and do minister by his Commission and Authority we may use their Ministry both in hearing the Word of God and in receiving of the Sacraments Neither is the effect of Christ's Ordinance taken away by their wickedness nor the Grace of God's Gifts diminished from such as by Faith rightly do receive the Sacrament ministred unto them which be effectual because of Christ's Institution and Promise although they be ministred by evil Men. Nevertheless it appertaineth to the Discipline of the Church that inquiry be made after * Evil Ministers them and that they be accused by those that have knowledg of their Offences and finally being found guilty by just judgment be deposed XXVIII Of Baptism Baptism is not only a sign of Profession and mark of Difference whereby Christian Men are discerned from others that be not Christned but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New Birth whereby as by an Instrument they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church the Promises of forgiveness of sin and of our Adoption to be the Sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed Faith is confirmed and Grace increased by virtue of Prayer unto God * The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church as most agreeable to the Institution of Christ The Custom of the Church for baptising young Children is both to be commended and by all means to be retained in the Church XXIX Of the Lord's Supper The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the Love that Christians ought to have amongst themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's Death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with Faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ Transubstantiation or the change of the Substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ * but is repugnant to the
be eaten therefore they saw no necessity because of a former abuse to throw away Habits that had so much decency in them and had been formerly in use In the compiling the Offices they began with Morning and Evening Prayer These were put in the same Form they are now only there was no Confession nor Absolution the Office beginning with the Lords Prayer In the Communion Service the Ten Commandements were not said as they are now but in other things it was very near what it is now All that had been in the Order of the Communion formerly mentioned was put into it The Offertory was to be made of Bread and Wine mixed with Water Then was said the Prayer for the state of Christs Church in which they gave thanks to God for his wonderful Grace declared in his Saints in the Blessed Virgin the Patriarchs Apostles Prophets and Martyrs and they commended the Saints departed to Gods Mercy and Peace that at the day of the Resurrection we with them might be set on Christs Right Hand To this the consecratory Prayer which we now use was joyned as a part of it only with these words that are since left out With thy Holy Spirit vouchsafe to Ble †ss and Sanc †tifie these thy Gifts and Creatures of Bread and Wine that they may be unto us the Body and Blood of thy most dearly beloved Son c. To the Consecration was also joyned the Prayer of Thanksgiving now used After the Consecration all Elevation was forbidden which had been first used as a Rite expressing how Christ was lifted up on the Cross but was after the belief of the Corporal Presence made use of to shew the Sacrament that the People might all fall down and worship it And it was ordered That the whole Office of the Communion except the Consecratory Prayer should be used on all Holy-days when there was no Communion to put People in mind of it and of the Sufferings of Christ The Bread was to be unleavened round but no print on it and somewhat thicker than it was formerly And though it was anciently put in the Peoples Hands yet because some might carry it away and apply it to superstitious uses it was ordered to be put by the Priest into their Mouths It is clear that Christ delivered it into the Hands of the Apostles and it so continued for many Ages as appears by several remarkable Stories of Holy Men carrying it with them in their Journeys In the Greek Church where the Bread and Wine were mingled together some began to think it more decent to receive it in little Spoons of Gold than in their Hands but that was condemned by the Council in Trullo Yet soon after they began in the Latin Church to appoint Men to receive it with their Hands but Women to take it in a Linnen Cloath which was called their Dominical But when the belief of the Corporeal Presence was received then a new way of receiving was invented among other things to support it The People were now no more to touch that which was conceived to be the Flesh of their Saviour and therefore the Priests Thumb and Fingers were particularly anointed as a necessary disposition for so holy a Contact and so it was by them put into the Mouths of the People A Letany was also gathered consisting of many short Petitions interrupted by Suffrages between them and was the same that we still use only they had one Suffrage that we have not to be delivered from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities In Baptism there was besides the Forms which we still retain a Cross at first made on the Childs Forehead and Breast with an adjuration of the Devil to go out of him and come at him no more Then the Priest was to take the Child by the Right Hand and to place him within the Font there he was to be dipt thrice once on the right side once on the left and once on the Breast which was to be discreetly done but if the Child were weak it was sufficient to sprinkle Water on his Face Then was the Priest to put a White Vestment or Chrisome on him for a token of Innocence and to anoint him on the Head with a Prayer for the Unction of the Holy Ghost In Confirmation those that came were to be Catechised which having in it a formal engagement to make good the Baptismal Vow was all that was asked The Catechism then was the same that is now only there is since added an Explanation of the Sacraments This being said the Bishop was to Sign them with the Cross and to lay his Hands on them and say I Sign thee with the Sign of the Cross and lay my Hands on thee in the Name of the Father c. The Sick who desired to be anointed might have the Unction on their Forehead or their Breast only with a Prayer that as their Body was outwardly anointed with Oyl so they might receive the Holy Ghost with Health and victory over Sin and Death At Funerals they recommended the Soul departed to Gods Mercy and prayed that his sins might be pardoned that he might be delivered from Hell and carried to Heaven and that his Body might be raised at the last day They also took care that those who could not come or be brought to Church should not therefore be deprived of the use of the Sacraments The Church of Rome had raised the belief of the indispensable necessity of the Sacraments so high that they taught they did ex opere operato by the very action it self without inward acts justifie and confer Grace unless there were a barr put to it by the Receiver and the first rise of the Questions about Justification seems to have come from this For that Church teaching that Men were justified by Sacramental Actions the Reformers opposed this and thought Men were justified by the Internal Acts of the Mind If they had held at this the Controversie might have been managed with much greater advantages which they lost in a great measure by descending to some minuter subtleties In the Church of Rome pursuant to their belief concerning the necessity of the Sacraments Women were allowed in extream Cases to Baptize and the Midwives commonly did it which might be the beginning of their being licensed by Bishops to exercise that Calling And they also believed that a simple attrition with the Sacraments was sufficient for Salvation in those who were grown up and upon these Grounds the Sacraments were administred to the Sick In the Primitive Church they sent Portions of the Sacrament to those who were sick or in Prison and did it not only without Pomp or Processions but sent it often by the hands of Boys and other Laicks as appears from the famed Story of Serapion which as it shews they did not then believe it was the very Flesh and Blood of Christ so when that Doctrine was received it was
two Positions Transubstantiation cannot be proved by the plain and manifest words of Scripture nor can it be necessarily collected from it nor yet confirmed by the consent of the Ancient Fathers In the Lords Supper there is none other Oblation and Sacrifice than of a Remembrance of Christs Death and of Thanksgiving Dr. Madew defended these and Glyn Langdale Sedgewick and Young disputed against them the first day and the second day Glyn defended the contrary Propositions and Peru Grindal Gest and Pilkington disputed against them On the third day the Dispute went on and was summed up in a learned Determination by Ridley against the Corporal Presence There had been also a long Disputation in the Parliament on the same Subject but of this we have nothing remaining but what King Edward writ in his Journal Ridley had by reading Bertrams Book of the Body and Blood of Christ been first set on to examine well the old Opinion concerning the Presence of Christs very Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament and wondering to find that in the 9th Century that Opinion was so much controverted and so learnedly writ against by one of the most esteemed Men of that Age began to conclude that it was none of the ancient Doctrines of the Church but lately brought in and not fully received till after Bertrams Age. He communicated the Matter with Cranmer and they set themselves to examine it with more than ordinary care Cranmer afterwards gathered all the Arguments about it into the Book which he writ on that Subject to which Gardiner set out an Answer under the disguised Name of Marcus Constantius and Cranmer replied to it I shall offer the Reader in short the Substance of what was in these Books and of the Arguments used in the Disputations and in many other Books which were at that time written on this Subject Christ in the Institution took Bread and gave it So that his words The manner of the Presence explained according to the Scripture This is my Body could only be meant of the Bread Now the Bread could not be his Body literally He himself also calls the Cup The Fruit of the Vine St. Paul calls it The Bread that we break and the Cup that we bless and speaking of it after it was blessed calls it That Bread and that Cup. For the Reason of that Expression This is my Body it was considered that the Disciples to whom Christ spoke thus were Jews and that they being accustomed to the Mosaical Rites must needs have understood his words in the same sense they did Moses's words concerning the Paschal Lamb which is called the Lords Passover It was not that literally for the Lords Passover was the Angels passing by the Israelites when he smote the first-born of the Egyptians so the Lamb was only the Lords Passover as it was the Memorial of it and thus Christ substituting the Eucharist to the Paschal Lamb used such an Expression calling it his Body in the same manner of speaking as the Lamb was called the Lords Passover This was plain enough for his Disciples could not well understand him in any other sense than that to which they had been formerly accustomed In the Scripture many such Figurative Expressions occurre frequently In Baptism the other Sacrament instituted by Christ he is said to Baptize with the Holy Ghost and with Fire and such as are Baptized are said to put on Christ which were Figurative Expressions As also in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the Cup is called the New Testament in Christs Blood which is an Expression full of Figure Farther it was observed that that Sacrament was Instituted for a Remembrance of Christ and of his death which implied that he was to be absent at the time when he was to be remembred Nor was it simply said that the Elements were his Body and Blood but that they were his Body broken and his Blood shed that is they were these as suffering on the Cross which as they could not be understood literally for Christ did Institute this Sacrament before he had suffered on the Cross so now Christ must be present in the Sacrament not as glorified in Heaven but as suffering on his Cross From those Places where it is said that Christ is in Heaven and that he is to continue there they argued that he was not to be any more upon Earth And those words in the 6th of St. John of eating Christs Flesh and drinking his Blood they said were to be understood not of the Sacrament since many receive the Sacrament unworthily and of them it cannot be said that they have Eternal Life in them but Christ there said of them that received him in the sense that was meant in that Chapter that all that did so eat his Flesh had Eternal Life in them therefore these words can only be understood Figuratively of receiving him by Faith as himself there explains it And so in the end of that Discourse finding some were startled at that way of expressing himself he gave a Key to the whole when he said his Words were Spirit and Life and that the Flesh profited nothing it was the Spirit that quickned It was ordinary for him to teach in Parables and the receiving of any Doctrine being oft expressed by the Prophets by the Figure of eating and drinking he upon the occasion of the Peoples coming to him after he had fed them with a few Loaves did discourse of their believing in these dark Expressions which did not seem to relate to the Sacrament since it was not then Instituted They also argued from Christs appealing to the Senses of his Hearers in his Miracles and especially in his discourses upon his Resurrection that the Testimony of Sense was to be received where the Object was duly applied and the Sense not vitiated They also alledged natural Reasons against a Bodies being in more places than one or being in a Place in the manner of a Spirit so that the Substance of a compleat Body could be in a crumb of Bread or drop of Wine and argued that since the Elements after Consecration would nourish might putrifie or could be poisoned these things clearly evinced That the Substance of Bread and Wine remained in the Sacrament And from the Fathers From this they went to examine the Ancient Fathers Some of them called it Bread and Wine others said it nourished the Body as Justin Martyr others that it was digested in the Stomach and went into the draught as Origen Some called it a Figure of Christs Body so Tertullian and St. Austin others called the Elements Types and Signs so almost all the Ancient Liturgies and the Greek Fathers generally In the Creeds of the Church it was professed that Christ still sate on the Right Hand of God the Fathers argued from thence that he was in Heaven and not on Earth And the Marcionites and other Hereticks denying that Christ had a true Body or did really suffer the Fathers
appealed in that to the Testimony of Sense as Infallible And St. Austin giving Rules concerning Figurative Speeches in Scripture one is this that they must be taken Figuratively where in the literal sense the thing were a Crime which he applies to these Words of eating Christs Flesh and drinking his Blood But that on which they put the stress of the whole cause as to the Doctrine of the Fathers was the reasoning that they used against the Eutychians who said that Christs Body and Humane Nature was swallowed up by his Divinity The Eutychians arguing from the Eucharists being called Christs Body and Blood in which they said Christs Presence did convert the Substance of the Bread and Wine into his own Flesh and Blood so in like manner said they his Godhead had converted the Manhood into it self Against this Gelasius Bishop of Rome and Theodoret one of the learnedest Fathers of his Age argue in plain words That the Substance of the Bread and Wine remained as it was formerly in its own Nature and Form and from their Opinion of the Presence of Christs Body in it without converting the Elements they turned the Argument to shew how the Divine and Humane Nature can be together in Christ without the ones being changed by the other Peter Martyr had brought over with him the Copy of a Letter of St. Chrysostomes which he found in a MS. at Florence written to the same purpose and on the same Argument which was the more remarkable because that Chrysostome had said higher things in his Sermons and Commentaries concerning Christs being present in the Sacrament than any of all the Fathers but it appeared by this Letter that those high Expressions were no other than Rhetorical Figures of Speech to beget a great reverence to this Institution and from hence it was reasonable to judge that such were the like Expressions in other Fathers and that they were nevertheless of Chrysostomes mind touching the Presence of Christ in this Sacrament That Epistle of his does lie still unpublished though a very learned Man now in France has procured a Copy of it but those of that Church know the consequence that the printing of it would have and so it seems are resolved to suppress it if they can From all these things it was plain that though the Fathers believed there was an extraordinary Vertue in the Sacrament and an unaccountable Presence of Christ in it yet they thought not of Transubstantiation nor any thing like it But when darkness and ignorance crept into the Church the People were apt to believe any thing that was incredible and were willing enough to support such Opinions as turned Religion into external Pageantry The Priests also knowing little of the Scriptures and being only or chiefly conversant in those Writings of the Ancients that had highly extolled the Sacrament came generally to take up the Opinion of the Corporal Presence and being soon apprehensive of the great esteem it would bring to them cherished it much In the 9th Century Bertram Rabanus Maurus Amalarius Alcuinus and Joannes Scotus all writ against it nor were any of them censured or condemned for these Opinions It was plainly and strongly contradicted by some Homilies that were in the Saxon Tongue in which not a few of Bertrams words occur particularly in that which was to be read in the Churches on Easter day But in the 11th or 12th Century it came to be universally received as indeed any thing would have been that much advanced the Dignity of Priesthood And it was farther advanced by Pope Innocent the third and so established in the fourth Council of Lateran That same Council in which the rooting out of Hereticks and the Popes Power of deposing Heretical Princes and giving their Dominions to others were also decreed But there was another curious Remark made of the Progress of this Opinion When the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence was first received in the Western Church they believed that the whole Loaf was turned into one entire Body of Jesus Christ so that in the distribution one had an Eye a Nose or an Ear another a Tooth a Finger or a Toe a third a Collop or a piece of Tripe and this was supported by pretended Miracles suited to that Opinion for sometimes the Host was said to bleed Parts of it were also said to be turned to pieces of Flesh This continued to be the Doctrine of the Church of Rome for near 300 Years It appears clearly in the Renunciation which they made Berengarius swear But when the School-men began to form the Tenets of that Church by more artificial and subtil Rules as they thought it an ungentle way of treating Christ to be thus mangling his Body and eating it up in Gobbets so the Maximes they set up about the Extension of matter and of the manner of Spirits filling a space made them think of a more decent way of explaining this Prodigious Mystery They taught that Christ was so in the Host and Chalice that there was one entire Body in every crumb and drop so that the Body was no more broken but upon every breaking of the Host a new whole Body flew off from the other parts which yet remained an entire Body notwithstanding that diminution And then the former Miracles being contrary to this conceit were laid aside and new ones invented fitted for this Explanation by which Christs Body was believed present after the manner of a Spirit It was given out that he sometimes appeared as a Child all in Raies upon the Host sometimes with Angels about him or sometimes in his Mothers Arms. And that the Senses might give as little contradiction as was possible instead of a Loaf they blessed then only Wafers which are such a shadow of Bread as might more easily agree with their Doctrine of the accidents of Bread being only present and least a larger measure of Wine might have encouraged the People to have thought it was Wine still by the sensible effects of it that came also to be denied them This was the Substance of the Arguments that were in those Writings But an Opinion that had been so generally received was not of a sudden to be altered Therefore they went on slowly in discussing it and thereby did the better dispose the People to receive what they intended afterwards to establish concerning it And this was the state of Religion for this Year At this time there were many Anabaptists in several parts of England They were generally Germans Proceedings against Anabaptists whom the Revolutions there had forced to change their Seats Upon Luthers first preaching in Germany there arose many who building on some of his Principles carried things much further than he did The chief Foundation he laid down was That the Scripture was to be the only Rule of Christians Upon this many argued that the Mysteries of the Trinity and Christs Incarnation and Sufferings of the Fall of Man and the Aids of Grace were indeed
de Hopero ad me scribis non potuerunt non videri mira Certè illis auditis obstupui Sed bene habet quid Episcopi Literas meas viderunt unde invidia ego quidem sum liberatus Ecce illius causa sic jacet ut melioribus pijs nequaquam probetur Dolet dolet idque mihi gravissimè talia inter Evangelij professores contingere Ille toto hoc tempore cum illi sit interdicta concio non videtur posse quiescere suae fidei confessionem edidit qua rursus multorum animos exacerbavit deinde queritur de Consiliarijs fortasse quod mihi non refert de nobis Deus foelicem Catastrophen non laetis actibus imponat In English What you wrote to me about Hooper could not but seem wonderful to me when I heard it I was struck with it It was well that the Bishops saw my Letters by which I am freed from their displeasure His business is now at that pass that the best and most pious disprove of it I am grieved and sadly grieved that such things should fall out among the Professors of the Gospel All this while in which he is suspended from preaching he cannot be at rest he has set out a profession of his Faith by which he has provoked many he complains of the Privy-Councellors and perhaps of us too of which he says nothing to me God give an happy issue to these uncomfortable beginnings This I set down more fully that it may appear how far either of these Divines were from cherishing such stiffness in Hooper He had been Chaplain to the Duke of Somerset as appear'd by his defence of himself in Bonners Process yet he obtained so much favour of the Earl of Warwick that he writ earnestly in his behalf to the Arch-bishop to dispence with the use of the Garments and the Oath of Canonical Obedience at his Consecration Cranmer wrote back That he could not do it without incurring a Praemunire So the King was moved to write to him warranting him to do it without any danger which the Law could bring on him for such an omission But though this was was done on the 4th of August yet he was not consecrated till March next year and in the mean while it appears by Peter Martyrs Letters that he was suspended from Preaching A Congregation of Germans in London This Summer John a Lasco with a Congregation of Germans that fled from their Country upon the persecution raised there for not receiving the Interim was allowed to hold his Assembly at St. Austins in London The Congregation was erected into a Corporation John a Lasco was to be Superintendent and there were four other Ministers associated with him For the curiosity of the thing I have put the Patents in the Collection Collection Number 51. There were also 380 of the Congregation made Denizens of England as appears by the Records of their Patents But a Lasco did not carry himself with that decency that became a Stranger who was so kindly received for he wrote against the Orders of this Church both in the matter of the Habits and about the Posture in the Sacrament being for sitting rather than kneeling Polidore Virgil leaves England This Year Polidore Virgil who had been now almost forty years in England growing old desired leave to go nearer the Sun It was granted him on the second of June and in consideration of the publick Service he was thought to have done the Nation by his History Rot. Pat. 4 Ed. 6. 2. Part. he was permitted to hold his Archdeaconry of Wells and his Prebend of Nonnington notwithstanding his absence out of the Kingdom On the 26th of June Poinet was declared Bishop of Rochester and Coverdale was made Coadjutor to Veysy Bishop of Exeter About the end of this Year or the beginning of the next A Review of the Common-Prayer-Book there was a review made of the Common-Prayer-Book Several things had been continued in it either to draw in some of the Bishops who by such yielding might be prevailed on to concurre in it or in compliance with the People who were fond of their old Superstitions So now a review of it was set about Martin Bucer was consulted in it and Aleffe the Scotch Divine mentioned in the former part translated it into Latin for his use Upon which Bucer writ his Opinion which he finished Bucers Advice concerning it the fifth of January in the Year following The Substance of it was That he found all things in the Common-Service and daily Prayers were clearly according to the Scriptures He advised that in Cathedrals the Quire might not be too far separated from the Congregation since in some Places the People could not hear them read Prayers He wished there were a strict discipline to exclude scandalous Livers from the Sacrament He wished the old Habits might be laid aside since some used them superstitiously and others contended much about them He did not like the half Office of Communion or Second-Service to be said at the Altar when there was no Sacrament He was offended with the requiring the People to receive at least once a year and would have them press'd to it much more frequently He disliked that the Priests generally read Prayers with no devotion and in such a Voice that the People understood not what they said He would have the Sacrament delivered into the Hands and not put into the Mouths of the People He censured praying for the dead of which no mention is made in the Scripture nor by Justin Martyr an Age after He thought that the Prayer that the Elements might be to us the Body and Blood of Christ favoured Transubstantiation too much a small variation might bring it nearer to a Scripture Form He complained that Baptism was generally in Houses which being the receiving Infants into the Church ought to be done more publickly The Hallowing of the Water the Chrisme and the White Garment he censured as being too Scenical He excepted to the exorcising the Devil and would have it turned to a Prayer to God that authoritative way of saying I adjure not being so decent He thought the God-fathers answering in the Childs Name not so well as to answer in their own that they should take care in these things all they could He would not have Confirmation given upon a bare recital of the Catechisme but would have it delayed till the Persons did really desire to renew the Baptismal Vow He would have Catechising every Holy-day and not every sixth Sunday and that People should be still Catechized after they were Confirmed to preserve them from ignorance He would have all Marriages to be made in the full Congregation He would have the giving Unction to the Sick and praying for the Dead to be quite laid aside as also the offering the Chrisomes at the Churching of Women He advised that the Communion should be celebrated four times a year He sadly lamented
are two Sacraments which are not bare Tokens of our Profession but effectual Signs of Gods good Will to us which strengthen our Faith yet not by vertue only of the Work wrought but in those who receive them worthily The 27th That the vertue of these does not depend on the Minster of them The 28th That by Baptism we are the adopted Sons of God and that Infant Baptism is to be commended and in any ways to be retained The 29th That the Lords Supper is not a bare Token of love among Christians but is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is contrary to Scripture and hath given occasion to much Superstition that a Body being only in one place and Christs Body being in Heaven therefore there cannot be a real and bodily Presence of his Flesh and Blood in it and that this Sacrament is not to be kept carried about lifted up nor worshiped The 30th That there is no other Propitiatory Sacrifice but that which Christ offered on the Cross The 31st That the Clergy are not by Gods command obliged to abstain from Marriage The 32d That Persons rightly excommunicated are to be looked on as Heathens till they are by Penance reconciled and received by a Judge competent The 33d It is not necessary that Ceremonies should be the same at all times but such as refuse to obey lawful Ceremonies ought to be openly reproved as offending against Law and Order giving scandal to the weak The 34th That the Homilies are godly and wholesom and ought to be read The 35th That the Book of Common-Prayer is not repugnant but agreeable to the Gospel and ought to be received by all The 36th That the King is Supream Head under Christ that the Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in England that the Civil Magistrate is to be obeyed for Conscience sake that Men may be put to death for great offences and that it is lawful for Christians to make War The 37th That there is not to be a community of all Mens Goods but yet every Man ought to give to the Poor according to his ability The 38th That though rash swearing is condemned yet such as are required by the Magistrate may take an Oath The 39th That the Resurrection is not already past but at the last day Men shall rise with the same Bodies they now have The 40th That departed Souls do not die nor sleep with their Bodies and continue without sense till the last day The 41st That the Fable of the Millenaries is contrary to Scripture and a Jewish dotage The last condemned those who believe that the damned after some time of suffering shall be saved Thus was the Doctrine of the Church cast into a short and plain Form in which they took care both to establish the positive Articles of Religion and to cut off the errors formerly introduced in the time of Popery or of late broached by the Anabaptists and Enthusiasts of Germany avoiding the niceties of School-men or the peremptoriness of the Writers of Controversie leaving in matters that are more justly controvertible a liberty to Divines to follow their private Opinions without thereby disturbing the Peace of the Church There was in the Ancient Church a great simplicity in their Creeds and the Exposition of the Doctrine But afterwards upon the breaking out of the Arrian and other Heresies concerning the Person of Jesus Christ as the Orthodox Fathers were put to find out new Terms to drive the Hereticks out of the equivocal use of these formerly received so they too soon grew to love niceties and to explain Mysteries with Similies and other subtilties which they invented and Councils afterwards were very liberal in their Anathematismes against any who did not agree in all Points to their Terms or ways of Explanation And though the Council of Ephesus decreed That there should be no Additions made to the Creed they understood that not of the whole Belief of Christians but only of the Creed it self and did also load the Christian Doctrine with many Curiosities But though they had exceeded much yet the School-men getting the management of the Doctrine spun their Thread much finer and did easily procure Condemnations either by Papal Bulls or the Decrees of such Councils as met in these times of all that differed from them in the least matter Upon the progress of the Reformation the German Writers particularly Osiander Illiricus and Amstorfius grew too peremptory and not only condemned the Helvetian Churches for differing from them in the manner of Christs Presence in the Sacrament but were severe to one another for lesser Punctilio's and were at this time exercising the patience of the great and learned Melancton because he thought that in things of their own Nature indifferent they ought to have complied with the Emperor This made those in England resolve on composing these Articles with great temper in many such Points Only one Notion that has been since taken up by some seems not to have been then thought of which is That these were rather Articles of Peace than of Belief so that the subscribing was rather a Compromise not to teach any Doctrine contrary to them than a Declaration that they believed according to them There appears no reason for this conceit no such thing being then declared so that those who subscribed did either believe them to be true or else they did grosly prevaricate The next Business in which the Reformers were employed this Year Some Corrections made in the Common-Prayer-Book was the correcting the Common-Prayer-Book and the making some Additions with the changing of such Particulars as had been retained only for a time The most considerable Additions were That in the daily Service they prepared a short but most simple and grave Form of a general Confession of sins in the use of which they intended that those who made this Confession should not content themselves with a bare recital of the Words but should joyn with them in their Hearts a particular Confession of their private sins to God To this was added a General Absolution or Pronouncing in the Name of God the pardon of sin to all those who did truly repent and unfeignedly believe the Gospel For they judged that if the People did seriously practise this it would keep up in their thoughts frequent reflections on their sins and it was thought that the pronouncing a Pardon upon these Conditions might have a better effect on the People than that absolute and unqualified Pardon which their Priests were wont to give in Confession By which Absolution in times of Popery the People were made to believe that their sins were thereupon certainly forgiven than which nothing could be invented that would harden them into a more fatal security when they thought a full Pardon could be so readily purchased But now they heard the terms on which they could only expect it every day promulgated to them The other
Man Elien doth not avail or profit any other but as all good Deeds profit the Congregation and as one Member healed or taking nourishment profiteth another Member And I suppose also Covent Litchfield that the Receiving of one Man doth not avail or profit another but as every good Act or Deed of one Member doth profit to the whole Body The Receiving of the Sacrament Carliolen as it noteth the Act of him who receiveth it may be that it neither availeth or profiteth him who receiveth nor any other but also hurts the Receiver if he presume to take it rashly or unworthily But as touching the thing which is Sacred offered and distributed by the Common Minister in the Mass representing the Holy Church or Mystical Body of Christ and is received both of him and other that will whatsoever the Receiving or Receiver be it availeth and profiteth all present absent Living and Dead No but as the receipt of wholsome Doctrine Roffen the receipt of the Fear of God the receipt of any Godly Gift that is profitable to any one Member of Christ's mystical Body may be said generally to profit the whole Body because there is a mystical Communion and a spiritual Participation amongst all the Members of Christ in all Godliness as there is in the natural Body a natural participation of all natural Affections both good and evil It appeareth by the words of St. Cyprian Bristollen Epist 6. Lib. 3. that it should be profitable and available to others forasmuch as he wrote these words of the faithful Christians which departed this World in Prison and said Quanquam fidelissimus devotissimus frater noster inter caetera solicitudinem curam suam cum fratribus in omni obsequio operationis impertitur qui nec illic curam corporum scripserit ac scribat ac significat mihi dies quibus in carcere beati fratres nostri ad immortalitatem gloriosae mortis exitu transeant celebrentur hic a nobis Oblationes Sacrificia ob commemorationes eorum quae cito vobiscum domine prosperante celebrabimus Ita enim docuit Apostolus Christi unus Panis unum Corpus multi sumus omnes 1 Cor. 1. qul de uno Pane de uno Calice participamus Nec loquitur de his solis qui eo tempore Corinthi conveniebant Sacramentum ab unius Sacerdotis manu recipiebant Verum potius de seipso tunc procul a Corintho agente Corinthiis ipsis omnibusque in Christum credentibus ubi tandem constituti essent quos omnes significat unum esse Corpus qui toto orbe de uno Pane communicantes participarent Meneven The Sacrament profiteth him only that receiveth it worthily like-as it damnifieth him only that receiveth it unworthily Nam qui edit aut bibit indigne judicium sibi ipsi edit ac bibit 1 Cor. 11. Dr. Cox The Receiving of the said Sacrament doth avail and profit the Receiver only and none other but by occasion to do the like Dr. Tyler So much as the Christening of Man profiteth another which after my Opinion profiteth nothing Quest 3. What is the Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass Answers Cantuarien THe Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass is not so called because Christ indeed is there offered and sacrificed by the Priest and the People for that was done but once by himself upon the Cross but it is so called because it is a Memory and Representation of that very true Sacrifice and Immolation which before was made upon the Cross Eboracen The Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass is the presenting of the very Body and Blood of Christ to the Heavenly Father under the Forms of Bread and Wine consecrated in the Remembrance of his Passion with Prayer and Thanksgiving for the Universal Church London Worcester Hereford Norvicen Cicestren Assaven I think it is the Presentation of the very Body and Blood of Christ being really present in the Sacrament which Presentation the Priest maketh at the Mass in the Name of the Church unto God the Father in memory of Christ's Passion and Death upon the Cross with thanksgiving therefore and devout Prayer that all Christian People and namely they which spiritually join with the Priest in the said Oblation and of whom he maketh special remembrance may attain the benefit of the said Passion Dunelm The Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass is the presenting of Christ by the Priest in commemoration of his Passion being our eternal and permanent Sacrifice present in the Sacrament by his Omnipotent Word left to us to have his Death and Passion in remembrance with giving thanks for the same and Prayer of the Minister and them which be present that the same may be available to the whole Church of Christ both Quick and Dead in the Faith of Christ Which Oblation commemoration of Christ's Passion Sarisburie giving of Thanks and Prayer taketh effect only in them which by their own proper Faith shall receive the same effect There is properly no Oblation nor Sacrifice Lincoln but a remembrance of the One Oblation of Christ upon the Cross made once for all a giving of Thanks for the same and the Prayer of the publick Minister for the whole Congregation which Prayer only taketh effect in them who by their own proper Faith receive the benefit of Christ And where many of those Authors do say there is an Oblation and Sacrifice they spoke so because in this Sacrament we be admonished of the Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross If Oblation be taken pro re Oblata then Elien as old Ancient Doctors write it Is Corpus Sanguis scil Verum Corpus scil Mysticum If ye take it pro actu offerendi it is a Commemoration and Representation of Christ's Death once suffered upon the Cross with Thanksgiving for the same I suppose the very Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass Covent Litchfield is this That after the Benediction that is to say the words of Consecration spoken by the Priest and the divine working of Christ presently by the which there is the very precious Body and the precious Blood of Christ present to be so received then the Priest offereth up the holy Memory of our Redemption to God the Father most humbly praying That as it was once offered up by Christ upon the Cross for the Redemption of Man-kind so it may take effect now and at all times especially in those that with a true Faith with a full Trust and hope shall so worthily receive it The Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass is Carliolen even the same which was offered by Christ on the Cross ever and every-where abiding and enduring of like strength virtue and power The difference is That on the Cross Christ being there both Priest and Sacrifice
offered himself visibly and in the Mass being likewise both Priest and Sacrifice offereth himself invisibly by the common Minister of the Church who in the name and stead of the whole faithful Congregation offereth and presenteth as he bid and commanded by Christ The Representation and Commemoration of Christ's Death and Passion said and done in the Mass is called the Sacrifice Oblation Roffen or Immolation of Christ Non rei veritate as learned Men do write sed significandi Mysterio It is in giving Thanks unto the Father Bristollen as Christ did himself at his Supper taking the Bread and Wine into his hands and with the words of Consecration consecrating the same and then making presentation of the very Body and Blood of Christ unto God the Father in the Name of the Church in the memory of Christ's most painful Passion and Death suffered upon the Cross and so worthily receiving the same and with giving thanks again for the same at the latter end as the Gospel saith Hymno dicto but what this Hymn or Prayer was I find no mention Meneven The Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ mentioned in the Mass is a memorial of Christ's only Sacrifice upon the Cross once offered for ever Vnica enim Oblatione perfectos effecit in perpetuum eos qui sanctificantur Heb. 10. Dr. Cox The Oblation of the Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass is the Prayer the Praise the Thanksgiving and the remembrance of Christ's Passion and Death Dr. Tyler There is no Oblation speaking properly but some Ancient Doctors and the use of the Church calleth the receiving of it with the Circumstances then done an Oblation that is to say a Memorial and Remembrance of Christ's most precious Oblation upon the Cross Quest 4. Wherein consisteth the Mass by Christ's Institution Answers Cantuarien THe Mass by Christ's Institution consisteth in those things which be set forth in the Evangelists Matth. 26. Mark 14. Luke 22. 1 Cor. 10 11. Eboracen The Mass by Christ's Institution consisteth in the Consecration and Oblation of the very Body and Blood of Christ with Prayer Thanksgiving and Receiving of the same as appeareth in the Evangelists Matth. 26.27 Mark 14. 15. Luke 22. 23. John 6. 1 Cor. 10 11. Acts 2. London Worcester Hereford Norvicen Cicestren Assaven I think it consisteth principally in the Consecration Oblation and Receiving of the Body and Blood of Christ with Prayers and Thanksgiving but what the Prayers were and what Rites Christ used or commanded at the first institution of the Mass the Scripture declareth not Dunelm The Mass by Christ's Institution consisteth in those things which be set forth by the Evangelists Mat. 26. Mark 19. Luke 22. and Paul 1 Cor. 10 11 12. and Acts 2. with humble and contrite Confession the Oblation of Christ as before the Receiving of the Sacrament giving of Thanks therefore and Common Prayer for the Mystical Body of Christ The Mass by Christ's Institution Sarisburien consisteth in those things which be set forth in the Evangelists Matth. 26. Mark 14. Luke 22. 1 Cor. 10 11. Acts 2 and 13. It consisteth in these things which be set forth Matth. 26. Mark 19. Luke 22. 1 Cor. 10.11 Acts 2. Lincoln The Mass by Christ's Institution Elien consisteth in those things which be set forth in the Evangelists Matth. 26. Luke 22. and 1 Cor. 10.11 and Acts 2. The Mass by Christ's Institution Covent Litchfield only expressing the Form of Christ by the Scripture consisteth in the taking of the Bread and giving thanks to God the Father in the Benediction and Consecration in the receiving or distribution and receiving of them to whom the distribution is made by the hands of the Priest as the Eldest Authors affirme in the renewing of the memory of our Redemption by an undoubted Faith and for that to give most humble thanks so calling to remembrance as often as it is thus done the inestimable benefit of our Redemption What Thanks that Christ gave before this most holy Action or what Thanks that he gave after it by the general words of Matthew Hymno dicto are not expressed Chap. 24. So that there appeareth both before this most Holy Action and also after to be a certain Ceremony appointed by Christ more than is expressed Moreover 1 Cor. 11. by the Doctrine of the Apostle it behoveth every Man to be wise and circumspect that he receive not this most blessed Sacrament unworthily and unreverently not making difference betwixt the receiving of the most blessed Body of Christ and other Meats The Mass by Christ's Institution consisteth in Consecrating Carliolen Offering Receiving and Distributing of the blessed Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ according to that he himself did willed and commanded to be done This we have manifested by the Evangelists St. Paul and St. Luke in the Acts. But because Christ was after his Resurrection long with his Disciples communicating and treating of the Kingdom of God what should be done here to come thither it may be well thought that whatsoever he or his Holy Spirit left with the Apostles and they with others after which also the whole Universal Congregation of Christian People useth and observeth most ancient and holy Doctors in like form noteth may likewise be said and taken as of Christ's Institution I am not able to say Roffen that the Mass consisteth by Christ's Institution in other things than in those which be set forth in the Evangelists Matthew Mark and Luke in the Acts and 1 Cor. 10. 11. As I take it the Mass by Christ's Institution Bristollen consisteth in those Things and Rites which be set forth unto us in the 26th of St. Matthew the 14th of St. Mark and the 22 of St. Luke and also as mention is made in the first Epistle to the Corinthians Chap. 10. and 11. and Acts 11. any other Institution I read not of by Scripture Meneven Christ's Institution compriseth no more in the Mass than the Communion of the Body and Blood to be ministred and received under both kinds of Bread and Wine according as is declared by the Evangelists Mat. 26. Mark 14. Luke in the Acts 2. Dr. Cox The Mass by Christ's Institution consisteth in Thanksgiving to the Father in distributing of the Body and Blood of Christ to the Congregation to have the Death and Passion of Christ in remembrance and in the end to laud and praise God Dr. Tyler In giving of Thanks to God the Father and blessing and breaking it and reverently receiving the Holy Sacraments with all such Rites and Circumstances as Christ did in both the kinds Quest 5. What time the accustomed Order began first in the Church that the Priest alone should receive the Sacrament Answers Cantuarien I Think the use that the Priest alone did receive the Sacrament without the People began
Judges on the 7th it was read again and joyned to the other Bill about the Sacrament And on the 10th the whole Bill was agreed to by all the Peers except the Bishops of London Hereford Norwich Worcester and Chichester and sent down to the Commons On the 17th a Proviso was sent after it but was rejected by the Commons since the Lords had not agreed to it On the 20th it was sent up agreed to and had afterwards the Royal Assent By it first the value of the Holy Sacrament commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar and in the Scripture the Supper and Table of the Lord was set forth together with its first Institution but it having been of late marvellously abused some had been thereby brought to a contempt of it which they had expressed in Sermons Discourses and Songs in words not fit to be repeated therefore whosoever should so offend after the first of May next was to suffer Fine and Imprisonment at the Kings Pleasure and the Justices of the Peace were to take Information and make Presentments of Persons so offending within three Months after the offences so committed allowing them Witnesses for their own purgation And it being more agreeable to Christs first Institution And the practice of the Church for 500 years after Christ that the Sacrament should be given in both the kinds of Bread and Wine rather than in one kind only Therefore it was Enacted That it should be commonly given in both kinds except necessity did otherwise require it And it being also more agreeable to the first Institution and the primitive Practice that the People should receive with the Priest than that the Priest should receive it alone therefore the day before every Sacrament an Exhortation was to be made to the People to prepare themselves for it in which the benefits and danger of worthy and unworthy receiving were to be expressed and the Priests were not without a lawful cause to deny it to any who humbly askt it This was an Act of great consequence Communion appointed in both kinds since it reformed two abuses that had crept into the Church The one was the denying the Cup to the Laity the other was the Priests communicating alone In the first Institution it is plain that as Christ bad all drink of the Cup and his Disciples all drank of it so St. Paul directed every one to examine himself that he might eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. From thence the Church for many Ages continued this practice and the Superstition of some who received only in one kind was severely censured and such were appointed either to receive the whole Sacrament or to abstain wholly It continued thus till the belief of the Corporal Presence of Christ was set up and then the keeping and carrying about the Cup in Processions not being so easily done some began to lay it aside For a great while the Bread was given dipt in the Cup to represent a bleeding Christ as it is in the Greek Church to this day In other Places the Laity had the Cup given them but they were to suck it through Pipes that nothing of it should fall to the ground But since they believed that Christ was in every crumb of Bread it was thought needless to give the Sacrament in both kinds So in the Council of Constance the Cup was ordered to be denied the Laity though they acknowledged it to have been instituted and practised otherwise To this the Bohemians would never submit though to compel them to it much Blood was shed in this Quarrel And now in the Reformation this was every where one of the first things with which the People were possessed the opposition of the Roman Church herein to the Institution of Christ being so manifest And all private Masses put down At first this Sacrament was also understood to be a Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ of which many were to be partakers while the fervor of devotion lasted it was thought a scandalous and censurable thing if any had come unto the Christian Assemblies and had not stayed to receive these Holy Mysteries and the denying to give any one the Sacrament was accounted a very great punishment So sensible were the Christians of their ill condition when they were hindred to participate of it But afterwards the former Devotion slackening the good Bishops in the 4th and 5th Centuries complained oft of it that so few came to Receive yet the Custom being to make Oblations before the Sacrament out of which the Clergy had been maintained during the poverty of the Church the Priests had a great mind to keep up the constant use of these Oblations and so perswaded the Laity to continue them and to come to the Sacrament though they did not receive it and in process of time they were made to believe that the Priest received in behalf of the whole People And whereas this Sacrament was the Commemoration of Christs Sacrifice on the Cross and so by a Phrase of Speech was called a Sacrifice they came afterwards to fancy that the Priests consecrating and consuming the Sacrament was an Action of it self expiatory and that both for the Dead and the Living And there rose an infinite number of several sorts of Masses some were for commemorating the Saints and those were called the Masses of such Saints others for a particular Blessing for Rain Health c. and indeed for all the accidents of Humane Life where the addition or variation of a Collect made the difference So that all that Trade of Massing was now removed An Intimation was also made of Exhortations to be read in it which they intended next to set about These abuses in the Mass gave great advantages to those who intended to change it into a Communion But many in stead of managing them prudently made unseemly Jests about them and were carried by a lightness of temper to make Songs and Plays of the Mass for now the Press went quick and many Books were printed this year about matters of Religion the greatest number of them being concerning the Mass which were not written in so decent and grave a style as the matter required Against this Act only five Bishops protested Many of that Order were absent from the Parliament so the opposition made to it was not considerable The next Bill brought into the House of Lords An Act about the Admission of Bishops was concerning the admission of Bishops to their Sees by the Kings Letters Patents Which being read was committed to the Arch-bishop of Canterburies care on the fifth of November and was read the second time on the 10th and committed to some of the Judges and was read the third time on the 28th of November and sent down to the Commons on the 5th of December There was also another Bill brought in concerning the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Bishops Courts on the 17th of November and pass'd and sent
who used auricular Confession to a Priest but that all should keep the Rule of Charity every Man being satisfied to follow his own Conscience and not judging another Mans in things not appointed by God After the Priest had received the Sacrament he was to turn to the People and read an Exhortation to them the same we now use only a little varied in words After that followed a Denunciation against Sinners requiring them who were such and had not repented to withdraw lest the Devil should enter into them as he did into Judas Then after a little pause to see if any would withdraw there was to follow a short Exhortation with a Confession of sins and Absolution the very same which we do yet retain Then those Texts of Scripture were read which we yet read followed with the Prayer We do not presume c. After this the Sacrament was to be given in both kinds first to the Ministers then present and then to all the People with these words The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body unto Everlasting Life and The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee preserve thy Soul unto Everlasting Life When all was done the Congregation was to be dismissed with a Blessing The Bread was to be such as had been formerly used and every one of the Breads so consecrated was to be broken in two or more pieces and the People were to be taught that there was no difference in the quantity they received whether it were small or great but that in each of them they received the whole Body of Christ If the Wine that was at first consecrated did not serve the Priest was to consecrate more but all to be without any Elevation This Office being thus finished was set forth with a Proclamation reciting That whereas the Parliament had Enacted that the Communion should be given in both kinds to all the Kings Subjects it was now ordered to be given in the Form here set forth and all were required to receive it with due reverence and Christian behaviour and with such uniformity as might encourage the King to go on in the setting forth godly Orders for Reformation which he intended most earnestly to bring to effect by the help of God Willing his Subjects not to run before his direction and so by their rashness to hinder such things assuring them of the earnest zeal he had to set them forth hoping they would quietly and reverently tarry for it This was published on the 8th of March and on the 13th Books were sent to all the Bishops of England requiring them to send them to every Parish in their Diocess that the Curates might have time both to instruct themselves about it and to acquaint their People with it so that by the next Easter it might be universally received in all the Churches of the Nation This was variously censured It is variously censured Those that were for the old Superstition were much troubled to have Confession thus left indifferent and a general Confession of sins to be used with which they apprehended the People would for the most part content themselves Chiefly that Auricular Confession was laid down In the Scripture there was a Power of Binding and Loosing sins given to the Apostles And St. James exhorted those to whom he wrote to confess their faults to one another Afterwards Penitents came to be reconciled to the Church when they had given publick scandal either by their Apostacy or ill Life by an open Confession of their sins and after some time of separation from the other pure Christians in Worship and an abstention from the Sacrament they were admitted again to their share of all the Priviledges that were given in common to Christians But according to the nature of their sins they were besides the publick Confession put under such Rules as might be most proper for curing these ill Inclinations in them and according to the several Ranks of sins the time and degrees of this Penitence was proportioned And the Councils that met in the fourth and fifth Centuries made the regulating these penitentiary Canons the chief Subject of their Consultations In many Churches there were penitentiary Priests who were more expert in the knowledge of these Rules and gave directions about them which were taken away in Constantinople upon the indiscretion of which one of them had been guilty For secret sins there was no obligation to confess since all the Canons were about publick scandals yet for these the devout People generally went to their Priests for their Counsel but were not obliged to it and so went to them for the distempers of their Minds as they did to Physicians for the Diseases of their Bodies About the end of the 5th Century they began in some Places to have secret Penances either within Monasteries or other Places which the Priests had appointed and upon a secret Confession and performing the Penance imposed Absolution was also given secretly whereas in former times Confession and Absolution had been performed openly in the Church In the 7th Century it was every where practised that there should be secret Penance for secret sins which Theodore Arch-bishop of Canterbury did first bring into a Method and under Rules But about the end of the 8th Century the commutation of Penance and exchanging it for Money or other Services to the Church came to be practised and then began Pilgrimages to Holy Places and afterwards the going to the Holy War and all the severities of Penance were dispensed with to such as undertook these This brought on a great Relaxation of all Ecclesiastical Discipline Afterwards Croisadoes came in use against such Princes as were deposed by Popes and to these was likewise added to encourage all to enter into them that all Rules of Penitence were dispensed with to such as put on that Cross But Penitence being now no more publick but only private the Priests managed it as they pleased and so by Confession entred into all Mens secrets and by Absolution had their Consciences so entirely in their Power that the People were generally governed by them Yet because the Secular Priests were commonly very ignorant and were not put under such an association as was needful to manage those designs for which this was thought an excellent Engine therefore the Friars were employed every where to hear Confessions and to give Absolutions And to bring in Customers to them two new things were invented The one was a Reserving of certain Cases in which such as were guilty of them could not be absolved but by the Popes or those deputed by them and the Friars had faculties in the Popes Name to absolve in these Cases The other was on some occasion the use of certain new Secrets by which Men were to obtain great Indulgences either by saying such Prayers or performing such Impositions and these were all trusted to the Friars who were to
trade with them and bring all the Money they could gather by that means to Rome They being bred up to a voluntary Poverty and expecting great Rewards for their Industry sold those Secrets with as much cunning as Mounte-banks use in selling their Tricks only here was the difference that the ineffectualness of the Mountebanks Medicines was soon discovered so their Trade must be but short in one Place whereas the other could not be so easily found out The chief Piece of the Religion of those Ages being to believe all that their Priests taught them Of this sort the Reader will find in the Collection an Essay of Indulgences as they were printed in the Hours after the use of Sarum Collection Number 26. which were set down in English though the Prayers be all Latine that so all the People might know the value of such Ware Those had been all by degrees brought from Rome and put into Peoples Hands and afterwards laid together in their Offices By them Indulgences of many years Hundreds Thousands and Millions of years and of all sins whatsoever were granted to such as devoutly said such Collects but it was always understood that they must confess and be absolved which is the meaning of those Expressions concerning their being in a state of Grace And so the whole Business was a Cheat. And now all this Trade was laid aside and Confession of secret sins was left to all Mens free choice since it was certain that the Confession to a Priest was no where enjoyned in the Scriptures It was a reasonable Objection that as secret Confession and private Penance had worn out the primitive practice of the publick censuring of scandalous Persons so it had been well if the reviving of that Discipline had driven out these later Abuses but to let that lie unrestored and yet to let Confession wear out was to discharge the World of all outward restraints and to leave them to their full liberty and so to throw up that Power of Binding and Loosing which ought to take place chiefly in admitting them to the Sacrament This was confessed to be a great defect and effectual endeavours were used to retrieve it though without success and it was openly declared to be a thing which they would study to repair But the total disuse of all publick censure had made the Nation so unacquainted with it that without the effectual concurrence of the Civil Authority they could not compass it And though it was acknowledged to be a great disorder in the Church yet as they could not keep up the necessity of private Confession since it was not commanded in the Gospel so the generality of the Clergy being superstitious Men whose chief influence on the People was by those secret Practices in Confession they judged it necessary to leave that free to all People and to represent it as a thing to which they were not obliged and in the place of that ordered the general Confession to be made in the Church with the Absolution added to it For the Power of Binding and Loosing it was by many thought to be only Declarative and so to be exercised when the Gospel was preached and a General Absolution granted according to the Ancient Forms In which Forms the Absolution was a Prayer that God would absolve and so it had been still used in the Absolution which was given on Maundy-Thursday but the Formal Absolution given by the Priest in his own Name I absolve thee was a late invention to raise their Authority higher and signified nothing distinct from those other Forms that were anciently used in the Church Others censured the Words in distributing the two kinds in the Lords Supper the Body being given for the preserving the Body and the Blood of Christ for preserving the Soul This was thought done on design to possess the People with an high value of the Chalice as that which preserved their Souls whereas the Bread was only for the preservation of their Bodies But Cranmer being ready to change any thing for which he saw good reason did afterwards so alter it that in both it was said Preserve thy Body and Soul And yet it stands so in the Prayer We do not presume c. On all this I have digressed so long because of the importance of the matter and for satisfying the Scruples that many still have upon the laying aside of Confession in our Reformation Commissions were next given to examine the state of the Chantries and Guildable Lands The Instruction about them will be found in the Collection of which I need give no abstract here Collection Number 27. for they were only about the Methods of enquiring into their value and how they were possessed or what Alienations had been made of them The Protector and Council were now in much trouble The War with Scotland they found was like to grow chargeable since they saw it was supported from France There was a Rebellion also broke out in Ireland and the King was much indebted nor could they expect any Subsidies from the Parliament in which it had been said that they gave the Chantry Lands that they might be delivered from all Subsidies Therefore the Parliament was prorogued till Winter Upon this the whole Council did on the 17th of April unanimously resolve that it was necessary to sell 5000 l. a year of Chantry Lands for raising such a Sum as the Kings occasions required and Sir Hen. Mildmay was appointed to treat about the Sale of them Gardiner falls into new Troubles The new Communion-Book was received over England without any opposition Only complaints were brought of Gardiner that he did secretly detract from the Kings Proceedings Upon which the Council took occasion to reflect on all his former behaviour And here it was remembred how at first upon his refusing to receive the Kings Injunctions he had been put in the Fleet where he had been as well used as if it had been his own House which is far contrary to his Letters to the Protector of which mention has been already made and that he upon promise of Conformity had been discharged But when he was come home being forgetful of his Promises he had raised much strife and contention and had caused all his Servants to be secretly armed and harnessed and had put publick affronts on those whom the Council sent down to preach in his Diocess for in some Places to disgrace them he went into the Pulpit before them and warned the People to beware of such Teachers and to receive no other Doctrine but what he had taught them Upon this he had been sent for a second time but again upon his Promise of Conformity was discharged and ordered to stay at his own House in London That there he had continued still to meddle in publick Matters of which being again admonished he desired that he might be suffered to clear himself of all misrepresentations that had been made of him in a Sermon
examine that matter They or any two of them had full power by this Commission to suspend imprison or deprive him as they should see cause They were to proceed in the Summary way called in their Courts De plano On the 10th of September Bonner was summoned to appear before them at Lambeth He is proceeded against As he came into the place where they sate he carried himself as if he had not seen them till one pulled him by the sleeve to put off his Cap to the Kings Commissioners upon which he protested he had not seen them which none of them could believe He spake slightingly to them of the whole matter and turned the discourse off to the Mass which he wished were had in more reverence When the Witnesses were brought against him Regist Bonner he jeered them very undecently and said the one talked like a Goose and the other like a Woodcock and denied all they said The Arch-bishop asked him whether he would refer the matter in proof to the People that heard him and so asked whether any there present had heard him speak of the Kings Authority when under Age His insolent behaviour Many answered No No. Bonner looked about and laughed saying Will you believe this fond People Some he called Dunces and others Fools and behaved himself more like a Mad-man than a Bishop The next day he was again brought before them Then the Commission was read The Arch-bishop opened the Matter and desired Bonner to answer for himself He read a Protestation which he had prepared setting forth that since he had not seen the Commission he reserved to himself power to except either to his Judges or to any other Branch of the Commission as he should afterwards see cause In this he called it a pretended Commission and them pretended Judges which was taxed as irreverent but he excused it alledging that these were terms of Law which he must use and so not be precluded from any Objections he might afterwards make use of The Bill of Complaint was next read and the two Informers appeared with their Witnesses to make it good But Bonner objected against them that they were notorious Hereticks and that the ill Will they bore him was because he had asserted the true Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar that Hooper in particular had in his Sermon that very day on which he had preached denied it and had refuted and mis-recited his Sayings like an Asse as he was an Asse indeed so ill did he govern his Tongue Upon this Cranmer asked him whether he thought Christ was in the Sacrament with Face Mouth Eyes Nose and the other Lineaments of his Body and there passed some words between them on that Head but Cranmer told him that was not a time and place to dispute they were come to execute the Kings Commission So Bonner desired to see both it and the denunciation which were given him and the Court adjourned till the 13th Secretary Smith sate with them at their next Meeting which he had not done the former day though his Name was in the Commission Upon this Bonner protested that according to the Canon Law none could act in a Commission but those who were present the first day in which it was read But to this it was alledged that the constant practice of the Kingdom had been to the contrary that all whose Names were in any Commission might sit and judge though they had not been present at the first opening of it This Protestation being rejected he read his Answer in writing to the Accusation He first objected to his Accusers His Defences that they were Hereticks in the matter of the Sacrament and so were according to the Laws of the Catholick Church under Excommunication and therefore ought not to be admitted into any Christian Company Then he denied that the Injunctions given to him had been signed either with the Kings Hand or Signet or by any of his Council But upon the whole matter he said he had in his Sermon condemned the late Rebellion in Cornwall Devon-shire and Norfolk and had set forth the Sin of Rebellion according to several Texts of Scripture He had also preached for obedience to the Kings Commands and that no Ceremonies that were contrary to them ought to be used in particular he had exhorted the People to come to Prayers and to the Communion as it was appointed by the King and wondered to see them so slack in coming to it which he believed flowed from a false opinion they had of it And therefore he taught according to that which he conceived to be the duty of a faithful Pastor the true Presence of Christs Body and Blood in the Sacrament which was the true Motive of his Accusers in their prosecuting him thus But though he had forgot to speak of the Kings Power under Age yet he had said that which necessarily inferred it for he had condemned the late Rebels for rising against their lawful King and had applied many Texts of Scripture to them which clearly implied that the Kings Power was then entire otherwise they could not be Rebels These are rejected But to all this it was answered That it was of no great consequence who were the Informers if the Witnesses were such that he could not except against them besides they were impow'red by their Commission to proceed ex Officio so that it was not necessary for them to have any to accuse He was told that the Injunctions were read to him in Council by one of the Secretaries and then were given to him by the Protector himself that afterwards they were called for and that Article concerning the Kings Power before he came to be of Age being added they were given him again by Secretary Smith and he promised to execute them He was also told that it was no just excuse for him to say he had forgot that about the Kings Power since it was the chief thing pretended by the late Rebels and was mainly intended by the Council in their Injunctions so that it was a poor shift for him to pretend he had forgot it or had spoken of it by a consequence The Court adjourned to the 16th day And then Latimer and Hooper offered to purge themselves of the Charge of Heresie since they had never spoken nor written of the Sacrament but according to the Scripture and whereas Bonner had charged them that on the first of September they had entred into consultation and confederacy against him they protested they had not seen each other that day nor been known to one another till some days after Bonner upon this read some Passages of the Sacrament out of a Book of Hoopers whom he called that Varlet But Cranmer cut off the discourse and said it was not their business to determine that Point and said to the People that the Bishop of London was not accused for any thing he had said about the Sacrament Then
the Lords but laid aside at that time assurance being given that the Owners of those Lands should be fully secured The Reason of laying it aside was that since by Law the Bishop of Rome had no Authority at all in England it was needless to pass an Act against his Power in that particular for that seemed to assert his Power in other things and since they were resolved to reconcile the Nation to him it was said that it would be indecent to pass an Act that should call him only Bishop of Rome which was the Compellation given him during the Schism and it was preposterous to begin with a Limitation of his Power before they had acknowledged his Authority So this was laid aside and the Parliament ended on the 25th of May. But the Matters of the Convocation are next to be related Those of the Reformation complained every-where that the Disputes of the last Convocation had not been fairly carried that the most eminent Men of their Persuasion were detained in Prison and not admitted to it that only a few of them that had a right to be in the House were admitted to speak and that these were much interrupted So that it was now resolved to adjourn the Convocation for some time and to send the Prolocutor with some of their number to Oxford that the Disputations might be in the presence of that whole University And since Cranmer and Ridley were esteemed the most Learned Men of that Persuasion they were by a Warrant from the Queen removed from the Tower of London to the Prisons at Oxford And though Latimer was never accounted very Learned and was then about eighty Years of Age yet he having been a celebrated Preacher who had done the Reformation no less Service by his Labours in the Pulpit than others had done by their abler Pens he was also sent thither to bear his share in the Debates Some sent to Oxford to disput with Reformeed Bishops Those who were sent from the Convocation came to Oxford on the 13th of April being Friday They sent for those Bishops on Saturday and assigned them Monday Tuesday and Wednesday every one of them his day for the defending of their Doctrine but ordered them to be kept apart And that all Books and Notes should be taken from them Three Questions were to be disputed 1. Whether the natural Body of Christ was really in the Sacrament 2. Whether any other Substance did remain but the Body and Blood of Christ 3. Whetter in the Mass there was a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the Dead and Living When Cranmer was first brought before them the Prolocutor made an Exhortation to him to return to the Unity of the Church To which he answered with such gravity and modesty that many were observed to weep He said He was as much for Unity as any but it must be an Unity in Christ and according to the Truth The Articles being shewed him he asked Whether by the Body of Christ they meant an Organical Body They answering It was the Body that was born of the Virgin Then he said he would maintain the Negative of these Questions On the 16th when the Dispute with Cranmer Cranmer Disputes was to begin Weston that was Prolocutor made a stumble in the beginning of his Speech for he said Ye are this day assembled to confound the detestable Heresie of the Verity of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament This Mistake set the whole Assembly a laughing but he recovered himself and went on he said It was not lawful to call these things in doubt since Christ had so expresly affirmed them that to doubt of them vvas to deny the Truth and Power of God Then Chedsey urged Cranmer with the words This is my Body To vvhich he answered That the Sacrament vvas effectually Christ's Body as broken on the Cross that is His Passion effectually applyed For the explanation of this he offered a large Paper containing his Opinion of which I need say nothing since it is a short abstract of what he writ on that Head formerly and of that a full account was given in the former Book There followed a long Debate about these words Oglethorp Weston and others urged him much that Christ making his Testament must be supposed to speak Truth and plain Truth and they run out largely on that Cranmer answered That figurative Speeches are true and when the Figures are clearly understood they are then plain likewise Many of Chrysostom's high Expressions about the Sacrament were also cited vvhich Cranmer said vvere to be understood of the Spiritual Presence received by Faith Uponthis much time was spent the Prolocutor carrying himself very undecently towards him calling him an unlearned unskilful and impudent Man There were also many in the Assembly that often hissed him down so that he could not be heard at all which he seemed to take no notice of but went on as often as the noise ceased Then they cited Tertullian's words The Flesh is fed by the Body and Blood of Christ that so the Soul may be nourished by God But he turned this against them and said hereby it was plain the Body as well as the Soul received Food in the Sacrament therefore the Substance of Bread and Wine must remain since the Body could not be fed by that Spiritual Presence of the Body of Christ Tresham put this Argument to him Christ said as he lived by the Father so they that eat his Flesh should live by him but he is by his Substance united to his Father therefore Christians must be united to his Substance To this Cranmer answered That the Similitude did not import an equality but a likeness of some sort Christ is essentially united to his Father but Believers are united to him by Grace and that in Baptism as well as in the Eucharist Then they talked long of some words of Hilary's Ambrose's and Justin's Then they charged him as having mistranslated some of the Passages of the Fathers in his Book from which he vindicated himself saying that he had all his Life in all manner of things hated falshood After the Dispute had lasted from the Morning till two of the Clock it was broke up and there was no small Triumph as if Cranmer had been confounded in the Opinion of all the Hearers which they had expressed by their Laughter and Hissing There were Notaries that took every thing that was said from whose Books Fox did afterwards print the account of it that is in his great Volume The next day Ridley And Ridley was brought out and Smith who was spoke of in the former Book was now very zealous to redeem the prejudice which that compliance vvas like to be to him in his Preferment So he undertook to dispute this day Ridley began with a Protestation declaring That vvhereas he had been formerly of another mind from vvhat he vvas then to maintain he had changed upon no worldly consideration but
St. Fridiswides Bones that she might run the same Fortune with her in all Times coming While these things were doing there was great Complaints made that the Inferior Magistrates grew every where slack in the searching after and presenting of Hereticks Great Endeavours used to set forward the Persecution most vigorously they could not find in the Counties a sufficient number of Justices of Peace that would carefully look after it and in Towns they were generally harboured Letters were written to some Towns as Coventry and Rye which are entred in the Council-Books recommending some to be chosen their Majors who were zealous Catholicks It is probable that the like Letters might have been written to other Towns for the Council-Books for this Reign are very imperfect and defective But all this did not advance their design The Queen understood that the Numbers of the Hereticks rather encreased than abated so new Councils were to be taken I find it said That some advised that Courts of Inquisition like those in Spain might be set up in England In Spain the Inquisitors who were then all Dominicans received private Informations and upon these laid hold on any that were delated or suspected of Heresie and kept them close in their Prisons till they formed their Processes and by all the ways of torture they could invent forced from them Confessions either against themselves or others whom they had a mind to draw within their Toils They had so unlimited a Jurisdiction that there was no Sanctuary that could secure any from their Warrants nor could Princes preserve or deliver Men out of their Hands nor were their Prisoners brought to any publick Trial but tried in secret one of the Advocates of the Court was for Forms sake assigned to plead for them but was always more careful to please the Court than to save his Client They proceeded against them both by Articles which they were to answer and upon Presumptions and it was a rare thing for any to escape out of their Hands unless they redeemed themselves either by great Presents or by the discovery of others These had been set up first in the County of Tholouse for the extirpation of the Albigenses and were afterwards brought into Spain upon Ferdinand of Arragons driving the Moors out of it that so none of those might any longer conceal themselves in that Kingdom who being a false and crafty sort of Men and certainly Enemies to the Government it seemed necessary to use more than ordinary severity to drive them out But now those Courts examined Men suspected of Heresie as well as of Mahometanisme and had indeed effectually preserved Spain from any change in Religion This made the present Pope earnest with all the Princes of Christendome to set up such Courts in their Dominions and Philip was so much of the same mind that he resolved to have them set up in Flanders which gave the first Rise to those Wars that followed afterwards there and ended in the loss of the seven Provinces In England they made now in February a good step towards it A Design to set up the Inquisition in England For a Commission was given to the Bishops of London and Ely the Lord North Secretary Bourne Sir John Mordant Sir Francis Englefield Sir Edward Walgrave Sir Nicholas Hare Sir Tho. Pope Sir Roger Cholmly Sir Richard Read Sir Tho. Stradling Sir Rowland Hall and Serjeant Rastall Cole Dean of Pauls William Roper Randulph Cholmley and William Cook Tho. Martin John Story and John Vaughan Doctors of the Law That since many false Rumors were published among the Subjects and many Heretical Opinions were also spread among them therefore they or any three of them were to enquire into those either by Presentments by Witnesses or any other politick way they could devise and to search after all Heresies the Bringers in the Sellers or Readers of all Heretical Books they were to examine and punish all misbehaviours or negligences in any Church or Chappel and to try all Priests that did not preach of the Sacrament of the Altar all Persons that did not hear Mass or come to their Parish-Church to Service that would not go in Processions or did not take Holy Bread or Holy Water and if they found any that did obstinately persist in such Heresies they were to put them into the Hands of their Ordinaries to be proceeded against according to the Laws giving them full Power to proceed as their Discretions and Consciences should direct them and to use all such means as they could invent for the searching of the Premisses empow'ring them also to call before them such Witnesses as they pleased and to force them to make Oath of such things as might discover what they sought after This Commission I have put in the Collection Collection Number 33. It will shew how high they intended to raise the Persecution when a Power of such a nature was put into the Hands of any three of a number so selected Besides this there were many subordinate Commissions issued out This Commission seems to have been granted the former Year and only renewed now for in the Rolls of that Year I have met with many of those subaltern Commissions relating to this as superior to them And on the eighth of March after this a Commission was given to the Arch-bishop of York the Bishop Suffragan of Hull and divers others to the same effect but with this limitation that if any thing appeared to them so intricate that they could not determine it they were to refer it to the Bishop of London and his Colleagues who had a larger Commission So now all was done that could be devised for extirpating of Heresie except Courts of Inquisition had been set up to which whether this was not a previous step to dispose the Nation to it the Reader may judge I shall next give an account of the Burnings this Year On the 15th of January six Men were burnt in one Fire at Canterbury and at the same time Proceedings against the Hereticks two were burnt at Wye and two at Ashford that were condemned with the other six Soon after the fore-mentioned Commission two and twenty were sent up from Colchester to London yet Bonner though seldom guilty of such gentleness was content to discharge them As they were led through London the People did openly shew their affection to them above a thousand following them Bonner upon this writ to the Cardinal that he found they were obstinate Hereticks yet since he had been offended with him for his former Proceedings he would do nothing till he knew his pleasure This Letter is to be found in Fox But the Cardinal stopt him and made some deal with the Prisoners to Sign a Paper of their professing that they believed that Christs Body and Blood was in the Sacrament without any further explanation and that they did submit to the Catholick Church of Christ and should be faithful Subjects to the King
were declared to be Heresies by the express and plain Words of Scripture All other Points not so decided were to be judged by the Parliament with the assent of the Clergy in their Convocation This Act was in many things short of the Authority that King Henry had claimed and the severity of the Laws he had made The Title of Supream Head was left out of the Oath This was done to mitigate the Opposition of the Popish Party but besides the Queen her self had a scruple about it which was put in her Head by one Lever a famous Preacher among those of the Reformation of which Sands afterwards Bishop of Worcester complained to Parker in a Letter that is in the Collection Collection Number 2. There was no other punishment inflicted on those that denied the Queens Supremacy but the loss of their Goods and such as refused to take the Oath did only lose their Imployments whereas to refuse the Oath in King Henry's time brought them into a Praemunire and to deny the Supremacy was Treason The Bishops oppose the Queens Supremacy But against this Bill the Bishops made Speeches in the House of Lords I have seen a Speech of this kind was said to have been made by Arch-bishop Heath but it must be forgery put out in his Name for he is made to speak of the Supremacy as a new and unheard of thing which he who had sworn it so oft in King Henry's and King Edwards times could not have the face to say The rest of the Bishops opposed it the rather because they had lately declared so high for the Pope that it had been very indecent for them to have revolted so soon The Bishop of Duresme came not to this Parliament There were some hopes of gaining him to concur in the Reformation for in the Warrant the Queen afterwards gave to some for Consecrating the new Bishops he is first named and I have seen a Letter of Secretary Cecils to Parker that gives him some hope that Tonstal would joyn with them He had been offended with the Cruelties of the late Reign and though the resentments he had of his ill usage in the end of King Edwards time had made him at first concur more heartily to the restoring of Popery yet he soon fell off and declared his dislike of those violent Courses and neither did he nor Heath bring any in trouble within their Diocesses upon the account of Religion though it is hardly credible that there was no occasion for their being severe if they had been otherwise enclined to it The Bishop of Ely was also absent at the passing of this Act for though he would not consent to it yet he had done all that was prescribed by it so often before that it seems he thought it more decent to be absent than either to consent to it or to oppose it The Power that was added for the Queens Commissionating some to Execute her Supremacy gave the Rise to that Court which was commonly called the High Commission Court The beginning of the High Commission and was to be in the room of a single Person to whom with the Title of Lord Vice-gerent King Henry did delegate his Authority It seems the Clergy-men with whom the Queen consulted at this time thought this too much to be put in one Mans Hand and therefore resolved to have it shared to more Persons of whom a great many would certainly be Church-men so that they should not be altogether kept under by the hard Hands of the Laity who having groaned long under the Tyranny of an Ecclesiastical Yoke seemed now disposed to revenge themselves by bringing the Clergy as much under them for so Extreams do commonly rise from one another The Popish Clergy were now every where beginning to declaim against Innovation and Heresie Harpsfield had in a Sermon at Canterbury in February stirred the People much to Sedition and the Members belonging to that Cathedral had openly said that Religion should not nor could not be altered The Council also heard that the Prebendaries there had bought up many Arms so a Letter was written to Sir Thomas Smith to examine that matter Harpsfield was not put in Prison but received only a Rebuke There came also complaints from many other Places of many Seditious Sermons So the Queen following the Precedent her Sister had set her did in the beginning of March forbid all Preaching except by such as had a Licence under the Great Seal But lest the Clergy might now in the Convocation set out Orders in opposition to what the Queen was about to do she sent and required them under the Pains of a Praemunire to make no Canons Yet Harpsfield that was Prolocutor with the rest of the lower House made an Address to the upper House to be by them presented to the Queen for the discharge of their Consciences They reduced the Particulars into five Articles 1. That Christ was corporally present in the Sacrament 2. That there was no other Substance there but his Body and Blood 3. That in the Mass there was a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living 4. That St. Peter and his lawful Successors had the Power of feeding and governing the Church 5. That the Power of treating about Doctrine the Sacraments and the Order of Divine Worship belonged only to the Pastors of the Church These they had sent to the two Universities from whence they were returned with the Hands of the greatest part in them to the first four but it seems they thought it not fit to sign the last For now the Queen had resolved to have a publick Conference about Religion in the Abby-Church of Westminster The Arch-bishop of York was continued still to be of the Council so the Conference being proposed to him he after he had Communicated it to his Brethren accepted of it though with some unwillingness It was appointed that there should be nine of a side who should confer about these three Points 1. Whether it was not against the Word of God and the Custom of the Ancient Church to use a Tongue unknown to the People in the Common-Prayers and the Administration of the Sacraments 2. Whether every Church had not Authority to appoint change and take away Ceremonies and Ecclesiastical Rites so the same were done to edification 3. Whether it could be proved by the Word of God that in the Mass there was a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead and the Living All was ordered to be done in Writing The Bishops as being actually in Office were to read their Papers first upon the first Point and the Reformed were to read theirs next and then they were to exchange their Papers without any discourse concerning them for the avoiding of jangling The next day they were to read their Papers upon the second and after that upon the third Head and then they were to answer one anothers Papers The Nine on both sides were the Bishops of Winchester
Litchfield Chester Carlisle and Lincoln and Doctors Cole Harpsfield Langdale and Chedsey on the Popish side and Scory late Bishop of Chichester Cox Whitehead Grindal Horn Sands Guest Almer and Jewel for the Protestants The last of March was appointed to be the first day of Conference where the Privy Council was to be present and the Lord Keeper was to see that they should not depart from the Rules to which they had agreed The noise of this drew vast numbers of People to so unusual a sight it being expected that there should be much fairer dealings now than had been in the Disputes in Queen Maries time The whole House of Commons came to hear it as no doubt the Lords did also though it is not marked in their Journal At their meeting the Bishop of Winchester said their Paper was not quite ready and pretended they had mistaken the Order But Dr. Cole should deliver what they had prepared though it was not yet in that order that they could copy it out The Secret of this was the Bishops had in their private Consultations agreed to read their Paper but not to give those they called Hereticks a Copy of it They could not decently refuse to give a publick account of their Doctrine but they were resolved not to enter into Disputes with any about it This seemed to be the giving up of the Faith if they should suffer it again to be brought into question Besides they look'd on it as the Highest Act of Supremacy for the Queen to appoint such Conferences for she and her Council would pretend to judge in these Points when they had done disputing For these Reasons they would not engage to make any Exchange of Papers The Lord Keeper took notice that this was contrary to the Order laid down at the Council Board to which the Arch-bishop of York had in their Names consented But they pretending they had mistaken the Order Cole was appointed to deliver their Minds which he did in a long Discourse the greatest part of which he read out of a Book that will be found in the Collection Collection Number 4. For though they refused to deliver a Copy of it yet Parker some way procured it among whose Papers I found it The Substance of it was Arguments for the Latin Service That although it might seem that the Scriptures had appointed the Worship of God to be in a known Tongue yet that might be changed by the Authority of the Church which had changed the Sabbath appointed in the Scripture without any Authority from thence Christ washed his Disciples Feet and bid them do the like yet this was not kept up Christ Instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood after Supper and yet the Church appointed it to be received fasting so had the Church also given it only in one kind though Christ himself gave it in both And whereas the Apostles by Authority from the Holy Ghost commanded all Believers to abstain from Blood yet that was not thought to oblige any now and though there was a Community of Goods in the Apostles times it was no obligation to Christians to set up that now so that this matter was in the Power of the Church And since the Church of Rome had appointed the Latin Service to be every where used it was Schismatical to separate from it for according to Ireneus all Churches ought to agree with her by reason of her great Preeminence Upon which they run out largely to shew the mischiefs of Schism both in France Spain Germany and in other Countries And for the Brittains and Saxons of England their first Apostles that converted them to Christianity were Men of other Nations and did never use any Service but that of their Native Language All the Vulgar Tongues did change much but the Latin was ever the same and it was not fit for the Church to be changing her Service The Queen of Ethiopia's Eunuch read Isaiah's Book though he understood it not upon which God sent Philip to him to expound it So the People are to come to their Teachers to have those things explained to them which they cannot understand of themselves There were many Rites in the Jewish Religion the signification whereof the People understood as little then as the Vulgar do the Latin now and yet they were commanded to use them The People were to use their private Prayers in what Tongue they pleased though the publick Prayers wâ—â—â— put up in Latin and such Prayers may be for their profit though they understand them not as absent Persons are the better for the Prayers which they do not hear much less understand They said it was not to be thought that the Holy Ghost had so long forsaken his Church and that a few lately risen up were to teach all the World They concluded that they could bring many more Authorities but they being to defend a Negative thought it needless and would refer these to the Answers they were to make Arguments against it When this was done the Lord Keeper turned to those of the other side and desired them to read their Paper Horn was appointed by them to do it He began with a short Prayer to God to enlighten their minds and with a Protestation that they were resolved to follow the Truth according to the Word of God Then he read his Paper which will be also found in the Collection Collection Number 3. They founded their Assertion on St. Pauls words who in the 14th Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians had treated on that Subject of set purpose and spake in it not only of Preaching but of Praying with the Understanding and said that the Unlearned were to say Amen at the giving of Thanks From that Chapter they argued that St. Paul commanded that all things should be done to Edification which could not be by an unknown Language He also charged them that nothing should be said that had an uncertain sound and that as the sound of a Trumpet must be distinct so the People must understand what is said that so they might say Amen at the giving of Thanks He also required those that spake in a strange Language and could not get one to interpret to hold their peace since it was an absurd thing for one to be a Barbarian to others in the Worship of God and though the speaking with strange Tongues was then an extraordinary Gift of God yet he ordered that it should not be used where there was no Interpreter They added that these things were so strictly commanded by St. Paul that it is plain they are not indifferent or within the Power of the Church In the Old Testament the Jews had their Worship in the Vulgar Tongue and yet the new Dispensation being more Internal and Spiritual it was absurd that the Worship of God should be less understood by Christians than it had been by the Jews The chief end of Worship is according to
David that we may shew forth Gods Praises which cannot be done if it is in a strange Tongue Prayer is the offering up of our desires to God which we cannot do if we understand not the Language they are in Baptisme and the Lords Supper are to contain Declarations of the Death and Resurrection of Christ which must be understood otherwise why are they made The use of Speech is to make known what one brings forth to another The most Barbarous Nations perform their Worship in a known Tongue which shews it to be a Law of Nature It is plain from Justin Martyrs Apology that the Worship was then in a known Tongue which appears also from all the Ancient Liturgies and a long Citation was brought out of St. Basil for the singing of Psalms duly weighing the Words with much attention and devotion which he says was practised in all Nations They concluded wondering how such an abuse could at first creep in and be still so stifly maintained and whâ—â—â—hose who would be thought the Guides and Pastors of the Church were so unwilling to return to the Rule of St. Paul and the Practise of the Primitive Times There was a great shout of Applause when they had done They gave their Paper signed with all their Hands to the Lord Keeper to be delivered to the other side as he should think fit But he kept it till the other side should bring him theirs The Papists upon this said they had more to add on that Head which was thought disingenuous by those that had heard them profess they had nothing to add to what Cole had said Thus the Meeting broke up for that day being Saturday and they were ordered to go forward on Munday and to prepare what they were to deliver on the other two Heads The Papists though they could complain of nothing that was done except the applause given to the Paper of the Reformers yet they saw by that how much more acceptable the other Doctrine was to the People and therefore resolved to go no further in that matter At the next meeting they desired that their Answer to the Paper read by the Reformed might be first heard To this the Lord Keeper said That they had delivered their mind the former day and so were not to be heard till they had gone through the other Points and then they were to return on both sides to the answering of Papers They said that what Cole had delivered the former day was Ex tempore and of himself but it had not been agreed on by them This appeared to all the Assembly to be very foul dealing so they were required to go on to the second Point Then they pressed that the other side might begin with their Paper and they would follow for they saw what an advantage the others had the former day by being heard last The Lord Keeper said the Order was that they should be heard first as being Bishops now in Office But both Winchester and Lincoln refused to go any further if the other side did not begin Upon which there followed a long debate Lincoln saying that the first Order which was that all should be in Latin was changed and that they had prepared a Writing in Latin But in this not only the Counsellors among whom sate the Arch-bishop of York but the rest of his own Party contradicted him In conclusion all except Fecknam refused to read any more Papers he said he was willing to have done it but he could not undertake such a thing alone and so the Meeting broke up But the Bishops of Winchester and of Lincoln said The Conference between the Papists and Protestants breaks up the Doctrine of the Catholick Church was already established and ought not to be disputed except it were in a Synod of Divines that it was too great an encouragement to Hereticks to hear them thus discourse against the Faith before the unlearned Multitude and that the Queen by so doing had incurred the Sentence of Excommunication and they talked of excommunicating her and her Council Upon this they were both sent to the Tower The Reformed took great advantage from the Issue of this Debate to say their Adversaries knew that upon a fair hearing the Truth was so manifestly on their side that they durst not put it to such hazard The whole World saw that this Disputation was managed with great Impartiality and without noise or disorder far different from what had been in Queen Maries time so they were generally much confirmed in their former belief by the Papists flying the Field They on the other hand said they saw the rude Multitude were now carried with a Fury against them the Lord Keeper was their professed Enemy the Laity would take on them to judge after they had heard them and they perceived they were already determined in their minds and that this Dispute was only to set off the changes that were to be made with the Pomp of a Victory and they blamed the Bishops for undertaking it at first but excused them for breaking it off in time And the Truth is the strength of their Cause in most Points of Controversie resting on the Authority of the Church of Rome that was now a thing of so odious a sound that all Arguments brought from thence were not like to have any great effect Upon this whole matter there was an Act of State made and Signed by many Privy Counsellors giving an account of all the steps that were made in it which will be found in the Collection Collection Number 5. This being over the Parliament was now in a better disposition to pass the Bill for the Uniformity of the Service of the Church Some of the Reformed Divines were appointed to review King Edwards Liturgie and to see if in any Particular it was fit to change it The only considerable Variation was made about the Lords Supper of which somewhat will appear from the Letter of Sandys to Parker It was proposed to have the Communion Book so contrived that it might not exclude the belief of the Corporal Presence for the chief design of the Queens Council was to unite the Nation in one Faith and the greatest part of the Nation continued to believe such a Presence Therefore it was recommended to the Divines to see that there should be no express definition made against it that so it might lie as a Speculative Opinion not determined in which every Man was left to the Freedom of his own Mind Hereupon the Rubrick that explained the reason for kneeling at the Sacrament That thereby no Adoration is intended to any Corporal Presence of Christs natural Flesh and Blood because that is only in Heaven which had been in King Edwards Liturgy was now left out And whereas at the delivery of the Elements in King Edwards first Liturgy there was to be said The Body or Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ Preserve thy Body and Soul to Everlasting Life which words
the good discreet Doctrine and Example of the Teachers and Spiritual Officers for as the good Husbandman maketh his Ground good and plentiful so doth the true Preacher with Doctrine and Example print and graft in the Peoples Mind the Word of God that they at length become plentiful Prayers also to God must be made continually of the People and Officers of the Church to assist them with his Grace And those Prayers must first with good consideration be set forth and Faults therein be amended Next being set forth the People must continually be allured to hear them For Discipline it were very good that it went forth and that those that did notably offend in Swearing Rioting neglecting of God's Word or such the like Vices were duly punished so that those that should be the Executors of this Discipline were Men of tried Honesty Wisdom and Judgment But because those Bishops who should execute it some for Papistry some for Ignorance some for Age some for their ill Name some for all these are Men unable to execute Discipline it is therefore a thing unmeet for these Men Wherefore it were necessary that those that were appointed to be Bishops or Preachers were honest in Life and learned in their Doctrine that by rewarding of such Men others might be allured to follow their good Life As for the Prayers and Divine Service it were meet the Faults were drawn out as it was appointed by-learned Men and so the Book to be established and all Men willed to come thereunto to hear the Service as I have put in Remembrances in Articles touching the Statutes of this Parliament But as for Discipline I would wish no Authority given generally to all Bishops but that Commission be given to those that be of the best sort of them to exercise it in their Diocesses Thus much generally for Religion Temporal Regiment The Temporal Regiment consisteth in well-ordering enriching and defending the whole Body Politick of the Common-Wealth and every part of the whole to one Part not the other The Example whereof may be best taken of a Man's Body for even as the Arm defendeth helpeth and aideth the whole Body chiefly the Head so ought Servingmen and Gentlemen chiefly and such-like kind of People be always ready to the defence of their Country and chiefly of their Superior and Governor and ought in all things to be vigilant and painful for the encreasing and aiding of their Country And forasmuch as they in serving their King and Country have divers great and manifold Charges even as the Arm doth many times bear great stresses for defence of the Head and Body having no kind of way to enrich themselves neither by Merchandize neither by Handicraft neither by Husbandry as the Arm doth decoct no Meat it self nor engendereth no Blood therefore even as the Stomach Liver and Lights which parts engender the Blood doth send nourishment to the Arms and Legs sufficient to strengthen the part even so must the Artificers so use their Gain in working and so truly and justly make that that they work The Merchants must so sell their Ware and so labour to bring in strange Commodities The Husbandmen must pay such Rent and so sell Things that come of the increase of the Ground that the Hands and the Legs that is to say the States of Gentlemen and of Servingmen may well do the Common-Wealth that Service they ought to do And as the Gentlemen and Servingmen ought to be provided for so ought not they neither to have so much as they have in France where the Peasantry is of no value neither yet meddle in other Occupations for the Arms and Legs doth never draw the whole Blood from the Liver but leaveth it sufficient to work on neither doth meddle in any kind of engendring of Blood No nor no one part of the Body doth serve for two Occupations even so neither the Gentleman ought to be a Farmer nor the Merchant an Artificer but to have his Art particularly Furthermore no Member in a well-fashioned and whole Body is too big for the proportion of the Body So must there be in a well-ordered Common-Wealth no Person that shall have more than the proportion of the Country will bear so it is hurtful immoderately to enrich any one Part. I think this Country can bear no Merchant to have more Land than 100 l. no Husbandman nor Farmer worth above 100 or 200 l. no Artifice above 100 Merks no Labourer much more than he spendeth I speak now generally and in such Cases may fail in one Particular but this is sure This Common-Wealth may not bear one Man to have more than two Farms than one Benefice than 2000 Sheep and one kind of Art to live by Wherefore as in the Body no part hath too much nor too little so in a Common-Wealth ought every part to have ad victum non ad saturitatem And there is no Part admitted in the Body that doth not work and take pains so ought there no part of the Common-Wealth to be but laboursome in his Vocation The Gentleman ought to labour in Service in his Country the Servingman ought to wait diligently on his Master the Artificer ought to labour in his Work the Husbandman in Tilling the Ground the Merchant in passing the Tempests but the Vagabonds ought clearly to be banished as is the superfluous Humour of the Body that is to say the Spittle and Filth which because it is for no use it is put out by the strength of Nature This is the true ordering of the state of a well-fashioned Common-Wealth That every Part do obey one Head one Governor one Law as all Parts of the Body obey the Head agree among themselves and one not to eat another up through greediness but that we see that Order Moderation and Reason bridle the Affections But this is most of all to be had in a Common-Wealth well-ordered That the Laws and Ordinances be well executed duly obeyed and ministred without corruption Now having seen how things ought to be let us first see how now they be ordered and in what state they stand now and then go forward to seek a Remedy The first Point in ordering the Common-Wealth we touched was That the Gentlemen Noblemen and Servingmen should stand stoutly to the defence of their Superior and Governor and should be painful in ordering their Country which thing although in some part and the most part be well thanks be to God yet in some parts is not absolutely which I shall shew hereafter particularly But the second Point for maintenance of the State of Landed Men is ill-looked to for that State of Gentlemen and Noblemen which is truly to be termed the State of Nobles hath alonely not exercised the Gain of living for Merchants have enhaunced their Ware Farmers have enhaunced their Corn and Cattel Labourers their Wages Artificers the price of their Wormanship and Mariners and Boatsmen their Hire for Service whereby they recompence
of Parliament the Injunctions Proclamations and Homilies the which things most earnestly it behoveth all Preachers in their Sermons to confirm and approve accordingly in other things which be not yet touched it behoveth him to think that either the Prince doth allow them or else suffer them and in those it is the part of a Godly Man not to think himself wiser than the King's Majesty and his Council but patiently to expect and to conform himself thereto and not to intermeddle further to the disturbance of a Realm the disquieting of the King's People the troubling of Mens Consciences and disorder of the King's Subjects These things we have thought good to admonish you of at this time because we think you will set the same so forward in your preaching and so instruct the King's Majesty's People accordingly to the most advancement of the Glory of God and the King's Majesty's most Godly Proceedings that we do not doubt but much profit shall ensue thereby and great conformity in the People the which you do instruct and so we pray you not to fail to do and having a special regard to the weakness of the People what they may bear and what is most convenient for the time in no case to intermeddle in your Sermons or otherwise with Matters in contention or controversion except it be to reduce the People in them also to Obedience and following of such Orders as the King's Majesty hath already set forth and no others as the King's Majesty and our Trust is in you and as you tender his Highness Will and Pleasure and will answer to the contrary at your Peril Fare you well Printed at London June 1. 1548. Number 25. Queries put concerning some Abuses of the Mass with the Answers that were made by many Bishops and Divines to them Quest 1. Whether the Sacrament of the Altar was instituted to be received of one Man for another Ex M. S. Dr. Stillingfleet or to be received of every Man for himself Answers THe Sacrament of the Altar was not instituted to be received of one Man for another Cantuarien but to be received by every Man for himself The Sacrament of the Altar was not instituted to be received of one Man for one other but of every Man for himself Eboracen I think that the Sacrament of Thanks was not instituted to be received of one Man for another London Hereford Cicestren Worcester Norvicen Assaven but of every Man for himself The Sacrament of the Altar was instituted Dunelm to be received of every Man by himself to make him a Member of Christ's Mystical Body and to knit and unite him to Christ our Head as St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 10. Vnus Panis unum Corpus multi sumus omnes qui de uno pane participamus The Sacrament of the Altar was not instituted to be received of one Man for another Sacramentally Sarisburien no more than one Man to be Christened for another notwithstanding the Grace received by him that is Housled or Christened is profitable and available to the whole Mystical Body of Christ and therefore to every lively Member thereof The Sacrament as they call it of the Altar Lincoln was not instituted to be received of one for another but of every Man for himself For Christ the Institutor of this Sacrament saith with manifest words Take eat c. Mat. 26. And also John 6. Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye have no Life in you Whoso eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal Life Nor the receiving of one Man doth avail or profit any other otherwise than by the way of Example whereby the People present are provoked to the imitation of the thing that is good Elien The Sacrament of the Altar was not instituted to be received of one Man for another but of every Man for himself Covent Litchfield I think and suppose that the Sacrament of the Altar was instituted to be received of every Man for himself for so are the words of Christ Comedite bibite speaking to them present and to every one of them Carliolen The Sacrament of the Altar was not ordained or instituted to be received of one Man alone but of all and for all because it is the General and continual Remedy help and succour of all which maketh no let or stop of themselves and their own unfaithful or sinful Life Roffen Of every Man for himself Bristollen The Sacrament of the Altar was not instituted to be received of one Man for another Sacramentally no more than one Man to be Christened for another but every Man to receive it in Faith and cleanliness of Life for himself Meneven The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ was not instituted that one Man should receive it for another but every Man for himself Probet autem seipsum homo sic de pane illo edat de poculo illo bibat Cor. 11. Dr. Cox The Sacrament of Thanks was instituted to be received of every Man for himself and not of one for another Dr. Tyler Of every Man for himself Quest 2. Whether the Receiving of the said Sacrament of one Man doth avail and profit any other Answers Cantuarien THe Receiving of the said Sacrament by one Man doth avail and profit only him that receiveth the same Eboracen The Receiving of the Sacrament only availeth the Receivers thereof except it be by reason of such Communion as is among the Members of the Mystical Body of Christ London Worcester Hereford Norvicen Cicestren Assaven I think that the Receiving of the said Sacrament doth not avail or profit any other but only as all other good Works done of any Member of Christ's Church be available to the whole Mystical Body of Christ and to every lively Member of the same by reason of mutual Participation and spiritual Communion between them And also it may be profitable to others as an Example whereby others may be stirred to Devotion and to like Receiving of the same The Receiving of the Sacrament of one Man doth profit another Dunelmen as the health and good-liking of one Member doth in part strengthen the Body and other Members of the same for St. Paul saith Multi unum corpus sumus in Christo singuli autem alter alterius membra Rom. 12. 1 Cor. 12. Si gaudet unum membrum cangaudent omnia membra And in a Mystical Body the good living of one Man stirreth another to the same The Oblation made after the Consecration in the Mass Sarisburien is the offering unto the Father of the Body and Blood of Christ by the Minister with the Commemoration of the Passion and with Thanksgiving for the same and with the Prayers of the Minister and People that it may be available to all Christian People The Receiving thereof of one
the Ministration of the Sacraments may take a Living for the same All Priests saying Mass be bound in the same Dunelmen to pray for the whole mystical Body of Christ Quick and Dead though they be not hired thereto and those that be deputed thereto if they say Mass must do the same though they were not hired And yet as St. Paul saith Those that be partakers of Spiritual Things with others ought to minister unto them temporal Things in recompence Rom. 15. St. Paul saith Heb. 10. Lincoln That we are made Holy by the Offering of the Body of Jesus once for all and Heb. 9. That Christ by his own Blood entred in once to the holy place and found eternal Redemption which Redemption and Satisfaction unless we think insufficient it were meet Masses Satisfactory to be taken away and not to count Christ and his Apostles either unlearned or unloving Teachers and who could not or would not teach a thing so necessary Nauclerus does write that Gregory the third gave commandment to Priests to pray and offer for the Dead And though ancient Writers make oft mention of Prayer for the Dead yet they never allow any Hireling to that purpose Lege August ad Aurel. de coercenda temulentia It is one thing to sing Satisfactory Eli. and another to be hired to sing Mass for the Souls departed for the first importeth that the Mass should be a Satisfaction for the sins of the Soul departed which is not so but the second that is to sing or pray for the Souls departed is a laudable custom and seemeth to have some ground in Scripture which custom hath been always continued from the Apostles time and hath been used in the Mass as appeareth by Ancient Doctors Aust Amb. Chrys and others and therefore this to continue I think it meet But to say Mass for Mony thinking it a Commutation or just Compensation betwixt the Prayer and the Mony that he is hired for I think it soundeth to Avarice and Simonie and yet dignus est operarius mercede sua Like-as Praedicans Evangelium sine sumptu debet ponere Evangelium tamen Dominus ordinavit his qui Evangelium annunciant de Evangelio vivere Carlile If by this be meant that any Thing or Action either of the Priest should be a full and perfect Satisfaction of Sins Venial and Mortal I know we read not of any such Satisfactory neither would I say that Priests be hired after that common fashion and contracts of the World to sing for Souls departed but rather that they as they be ordered to do do say and sing their Mass having in their remembrance both generally and specially as shall most appertain both to the Living and the Dead and then as they be worthy must have their Livings by the Altar which they serve as St. Paul at large declareth But as for the full and perfect Satisfaction of all manner of Sins that is to be attributed only to Christ his Passion and Justification yet after the mind of St. Austin St. Jerom with others Pro non valde malis propitiatones fiant de levioribus peccatis cum quibus obligati defuncti sunt possunt post mortem absolvi c. Roffen That Masses Satisfactory should continue to be sung for Souls departed by Priests hired thereunto I think it not convenient Bristol I think that the Word of God and St. Paul meant that all Priests may offer Gifts and Sacrifices unto God for the Offences of the People as it is written in the 5th of the Hebrews Omnis Pontifex c. and may receive and take ministring the Sacrament and Sacramentals in the Church to the Congregation a Living for the same Dr. Cox Masses to be said for satisfaction of Sin since Christ is the only Satisfaction for all Sin is an Abuse not to be continued and Priests to be hired only to sing for Souls departed seemeth to be a superfluous Function in Christ's Church Quest 8. Whether the Gospel ought to be taught at the time of the Mass to the understanding of the People being present Answers Cantab. I Think it very convenient that the Gospel concerning the Death of Christ and our Redemption should be taught to the People in the Mass York It is expedient that the Gospel be taught at the time of the Mass to the Understanding of the People being present London c. I think it not necessary to have a Sermon at every Mass but the oftner the same is done to the edifying of the People so that the service of their Vocation be not thereby defrauded the more it is to be commended It is much convenient that the Gospel be taught to the understanding of the People being present when it may be Howbeit Dunelm it is not so of the Substance of the Mass but the Mass may be done without it and it done at other times as well as at the Mass Christ distributing the Sacrament to his Disciples does say Lincoln as it is Luke 22. Hoc facite in meam commemorationem And if St. Paul doth thus write to the Corinthians Quotiescunque manducabitis panem hunc ac calicem bibitis mortem domini annunciabitis donec veniet The glad Tydings therefore the great Benefit that we receive by Christ's Death and Sufferings which we see as in a Glass in this Holy Sacrament ought to be set forth and preached to the People so oft as they come to the Holy Communion That the Gospel be read or taught at the time of the Mass Elien that the People there present may understand it is good and godly and convenient it should be so I think it convenient and necessary Carliolen that as the King 's most Excellent Majesty his most dear Uncle my Lord Protector 's Grace with the most honourable Council beside hath already appointed and enjoined to be done that at all such times as the People as they ought be most gathered together in the Principal and High Mass the Gospel be taught and declared to the best understanding of the People The Annunciation of Christ's Death and Passion Roffen and the Benefit of the same that the forgiveness of Sins to all the true and faithful Believers therein ought evermore to be set forth in the Mass to the edification of the People which thing cannot be done according to St. Paul's mind and meaning 1 Cor. 14. as I suppose except it be set forth to the Peoples understanding I think it is not against God's Word Bristollen but the oftner the same is done to the edifying of the People received with Devotion and intending redress of Life thereby the more it is to be affected and used In the Mass-time it were convenient to have some Doctrines Dr. Cox after the Example of the Primitive Church that at the Blessed Communion the people might be edified Quest 9. Whether in the Mass it were
convenient to use such Speech as the People may understand Answers Cantuarien I Think it convenient to use the Vulgar Tongue in the Mass except in certain secret Mysteries whereof I doubt Eboracen It were convenient to use such Speech in the Mass as the People might understand London Hereford Cicestren Worcester Norvicen Assaven To have the whole Mass in English I think it neither expedient neither convenient Dunelm It is convenient that the common Latin Tongue to these West parts of Christendom be used in the Mass being the Common-Prayer of the whole Church namely in the Mysteries thereof lest rude People should vilely prophane the Holy Mysteries thereof by contempt Nevertheless certain Prayers might be in the Mother Tongue for the instruction and stirring of the Devotion of the People as shall be thought convenient Lincoln St. Paul would all things in the Congregation and Publick Assembly so to be spoken that they might edify and in such a Language that the People present might say Amen to our Thanksgiving And long after the Apostles times all the People present did answer the Priest he speaking in a Language that they did understand like-as the Clark or Boy doth now answer as he is taught in a Language that he understands not Cypri habet de Cons distinct 1. Ca. Quando Elien It was so used in Dalmatia in St. Hierom's time and in Sclavonia in Cyril's time who making suit to the Court of Rome for the same and the Matter being debated in the Consistory and having many Adversaries suddenly there was heard a Voice as it were from Heaven Omnis Spiritus laudet Dominum omnis Lingua confiteatur ei Whereupon Cyrillus had his Petition granted him Elien Haec jam mea est Opinio sed sic ut auditis melioribus cedam Carliolen This Question was deeply searched and tried for in the most excellent and of highest memory King Henry the Eighth his time by the best Clarks of his Realm in his presence and then and there concluded and upon that same by Proclamation commanded That Holy Scripture should not be evulgate in English Yet after it was otherwise seen and provided for Therefore therein I would wish that were most to the quiet edification of Christian People and shall submit my self to my Superiors and Betters submitting mine Understanding to their Judgments I think it not only convenient that such Speech should be used in the Mass as the People might understand Roffen but also to speak it with such an audible Voice that the People might hear it that they be not defrauded of their Own which Saint Paul teacheth to belong to them and also that they may answer as Cyprian saith the People did in his days Habemus ad Dominum Nevertheless as concerning that part that pertaineth to the Consecration Dionise and Basil moveth me to think it no inconvenience that part should be spoken in silence If the Mass should be wholly in English Bristollen I think we should differ from the Custom and Manner of all other Regions therefore if it may stand with the King's Majesty's Pleasure I think it not good to be said all in English Per me Paulum Episcopum Bristollensem Quest 10. When the Reservation of the Sacrament and the hanging up of the same first began Answers THe Reservation of the Sacrament began I think Cantuarien six or seven hundred Years after Christ The hanging up I think began of late time Polidore Virgil doth write Lincoln that Innocentius the Third decreed the Sacrament to be kept to be in a readiness for the Sick And Honorius the third confirmed the same adding that it ought to be reserved in loco singulari mundo signato Commanding also the Priests that they should often instruct the People reverently to bow down at the Elevation-Time and when it is born to the sick As for the hanging up of the Sacrament over or setting it upon the Altar is of a later time not yet received in divers places of Christendom Some Questions with Answers made to them by the Bishops of Worcester Chichester and Hereford The Question What or wherein John's Fasting giving Alms being Baptized or Receiving the Sacrament of Thanks in England doth profit and avail Thomas dwelling in Italy and not knowing what John in England doth The Answer Worcester Chichester Hereford THe distance of place doth not lett nor hinder the Spiritual Communion which is between one and another so that John and Thomas wheresoever they be far and sundry or near together being both lively Members of Christ receive either of others Goodness some Commodity although to limit what or wherein is unsearchable and only pertaineth to the Knowledg of God The Question Whether the said Acts in John do profit them that be in Heaven and wherein The Answer Luc. 15. Gaudium est in Coelo super uno peccatore poenitentiam agente c. The Question Whether it lieth in the said John to defraud any Member of Christ's Body of the benefit of his Fasting Alms-Deeds Baptism or Receiving of the Sacrament and to apply the same benefit to one Person more than to another The Answer Charity defraudeth no Man of any such benefit that might come to him and it lieth in God only to apply the same and not in any Man otherwise than by desire and prayer but the better the Man is the more available his Prayer is to them for whom he especially prayeth The Question What thing is the Presentation of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass which you call the Oblation and Sacrifice of Christ and wherein standeth it in Act Gesture or Words and in what Act Gesture or Words The Answer The Presentation c. standeth in such Words Prayers Supplications and Actions as the Priest useth at the Mass having the Body and Blood of Christ there present in the Sacrament The Question Is there any Rite or Prayer not expressed in the Scripture which Christ used or commanded at the first Institution of the Mass which we be now bound to use and what the same be The Answer That Christ used Rites and Prayers at the Institution and Distribution of the Sacrament the Scripture declareth But what Rites and Prayers they were we know not but I think we ought to use such Rites and Prayers as the Catholick Church hath and doth uniformly observe The Question Whether in the Primitive Church there were any Priests that lived by saying of Mass Mattins and Even-song and praying for Souls only And whether any such state of Priesthood be allowed in the Scripture or be meet to be allowed now The Answer There were Priests in the Primitive Church which preached not but exercised themselves in Prayer for the Quick and the Dead and other Spiritual Ministrations in the Church and accustomably used common Prayers both Morning and Evening and such state of Priesthood is not against the Scripture The
plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a â—acrament and hath given occasion to many Superâ—â—itions The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an Heavenly and Spiritual Manner And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture and hath given occasion to many Superstitions Since the very Being of humane Nature doth require that the Body of one and the same Man cannot be at one and the same time in many places but of necessity must be in some certain and determinate place therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present in many different places at the same time And since as the Holy Scriptures testify Christ hath been taken up into Heaven and there is to abide till the end of the World it becometh not any of the Faithful to believe or profess that there is a Real or Corporeal presence as they phrase it of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's Ordinance reserved carried about lifted up or worshipped XXIX Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the Lord's Supper The wicked and such as be void of a lively Faith altho they do carnally and visibly press with their Teeth as St. Augustine saith the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a thing XXX Of both Kinds The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people For both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament by Christ's Ordinance and Commandment ought not to be ministred to all Christian People alike XXX Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross The Offering of Christ once made is a perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the Sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for Sin but that alone Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in which it was commonly said That the Priests did offer Christ for the Quick and the Dead to have remission of Pain or Guilt were * blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits XXXI A single Life is imposed on none by the Word of God Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by God's Law either to vow the estate of a single Life or to abstain from Marriage Therefore it is lawful for them as for all other Christian Men to Marry at their own discretion as they shall judg thâ— same to serve better to Godliness XXXII Excommunicated Persons are to be avoided That Person which by open Denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the Unity of the Church and Excommunicated ought to be taken of the whole Multitude of the Faithful as an Heathen and Publican until he be openly reconciled by Penance and received into the Church by a Judg that hath Authority thereunto XXXIII Of the Tradition of the Church It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one and utterly alike for at all times they have been divers and may be changed according to the diversities of Countries Times and Mens Manners so that nothing be ordained against God's Word Whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the Word of God and be ordained and reproved by common Authority ought to be rebuked openly that others may fear to do the like as he that offendeth against the common Order of the Church and hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Consciences of the weak Brethren Every Particular or National Church hath Authority to ordain change or abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Man's Authority so that all things be done to edifying XXXIV Of the Homilies The second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine and necessary for the Times as doth the former Book of Homilies which were set forth in the time of Edward the 6th and therefore we judg them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People The Names of the Homilies Of the Right Use of the Church Of Repairing Churches Against the Peril of Idolatry Of Good Works c. The Homilies lately delivered and commended to the Church of England by the King's Injunctions do contain a godly and wholsome Doctrine and fit to be embraced by all Men and for that cause they are diligently plainly and distinctly to be read to the People XXXV Of the Book of Common Prayer and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England The Book lately delivered to the Church of England by the Authority of the King and Parliament containing the manner and form of publick Prayer and the Ministration of the Sacraments The Book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons lately set forth in the time of King Edward the Sixth and confirmed at the same time by Authority of Parliament doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering Neither hath it any thing that of it self is superstitious and ungodly And therefore whosoever are Consecrated and Ordered according to the Rites of that Book since the second Year of the afore-named King Edward unto this time or hereafter shall be Consecrated or Ordered according to the same Rites we decree all such to be rightly orderly and lawfully Consecrated and Ordered in the said Church of England as also the Book published by the same Authority for ordering Ministers in the Church are both of them very pious as to truth of Doctrine in nothing contrary but agreeable to the wholsome Doctrine of the Gospel which they do very much promote and illustrate And for that cause they are by all faithful Members of the Church of England but chiefly of the Ministers of the Word with all thankfulness and readiness of mind to be received approved and commended to the People of God XXXVI Of the Civil Magistrates The King of England is after Christ The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Cases doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any Forreign Jurisdiction Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous Folks to be offended We give not to our Princess the Ministry either of God's Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only Prerogative which we see to
two several times that is to say the Sundays next following Easterday and St. Michael the Arch-Angel or on some other Sunday within one month after those Feasts immediately after the Gospel FOrasmuch as it appertaineth to all Christian Men but especially to the Ministers and the Pastors of the Church being Teachers and Instructers of others to be ready to give a Reason of their Faith when they shall be thereunto required I for my part now appointed your Parson Vicar or Curat having before my Eyes the Fear of God and the Testimony of my Conscience do acknowledg for my self and require you to assent to the same I. First That there is but one living and true God of infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness the maker and preserver of all Things And that in Unity of this God-head there be three Persons of one Substance of equal Power and Eternity the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost II. I believe also whatsoever is contained in the Holy Canonical Scriptures In the which Scriptures are contained all things necessary to Salvation by the which also all Errors and Heresies may sufficiently be reproved and convicted and all Doctrine and Articles necessary to Salvation established I do also most firmly believe and confess all the Articles contained in the Three Creeds The Nicene Creed Athanasius Creed and our Common Creed called the Apostles Creed for these do briefly contain the principal Articles of our Faith which are at large set forth in the Holy Scriptures III. I do acknowledg also that Church to be the Spouse of Christ wherein the Word of God is truly taught the Sacraments orderly ministred according to Christ's Institution and the Authority of the Keys duly used And that every such particular Church hath authority to institute to change clean to put away Ceremonies and other Ecclesiastical Rites as they be superfluous or be abused and to constitute other making more to Seemliness to Order or Edification IV. Moreover I confess That it is not lawful for any Man to take upon him any Office or Ministry either Ecclesiastical or Secular but such only as are lawfully thereunto called by their High Authorities according to the Ordinances of this Realm V. Furthermore I do acknowledg the Queen's Majesty's Prerogative and Superiority of Government of all Estates and in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal within this Realm and other her Dominions and Countries to be agreable to God's Word and of right to appertain to her Highness in such sort as is in the late Act of Parliament expressed and sithence by her Majesty's Injunctions declared and expounded VI. Moreover touching the Bishop of Rome I do acknowledg and confess that by the Scriptures and Word of God he hath no more Authority than other Bishops have in their Provinces and Diocesses And therefore the Power which he now challengeth that is to be the Supream Head of the Universal Church of Christ and so to be above all Emperors Kings and Princes is an usurped Power contrary to the Scriptures and Word of God and contrary to the Example of the Primitive Church and therefore is for most just Causes taken away and abolished in this Realm VII Furthermore I do grant and confess That the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Holy Sacraments set sorth by the Authority of Parliament is agreeable to the Scriptures and that it is Catholick Apostolick and most for the advancing of God's Glory and the edifying of God's People both for that it is in a Tongue that may be understanded of the People and also for the Doctrine and Form of ministration contained in the same VIII And although in the Administration of Baptism there is neither Exorcism Oil Salt Spittle or hallowing of the Water now used and for that they were of late Years abused and esteemed necessary Where they pertain not to the substance and necessity of the Sacrament they be reasonably abolished and yet the Sacrament full and perfectly ministred to all intents and purposes agreeable to the Institution of our Saviour Christ IX Moreover I do not only acknowledg that Privat Masses were never used amongst the Fathers of the Primitive Church I mean publick Ministration and receiving of the Sacrament by the Priest alone without a just number of Communicants according to Christ's saying Take ye and eat ye c. But also that the Doctrine that maintaineth the Mass to be a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Quick and the Dead and a mean to deliver Souls out of Purgatory is neither agreeable to Christ's Ordinance nor grounded upon Doctrine Apostolick But contrary-wise most ungodly and most injurious to the precious Redemption of our Saviour Christ and his only-sufficient Sacrifice offered once for ever upon the Altar of the Cross X. I am of that mind also That the Holy Communion or Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ for the due obedience to Christ's Institution and to express the vertue of the same ought to be ministred unto the People under both kinds And that it is avouched by certain Fathers of the Church to be a plain Sacrilege to rob them of the Mystical Cup for whom Christ hath shed his most precious Blood seeing he himself hath said Drink ye all of this Considering also That in the time of the Ancient Doctors of the Church as Cyprian Hierom Augustine Gelasius and others six hundred Years after Christ and more both the Parts of the Sacrament were ministred to the People Last of all As I do utterly disallow the extolling of Images Reliques and feigned Miracles and also all kind of expressing God Invisible in the form of an Old Man or the Holy Ghost in form of a Dove and all other vain worshipping of God devised by Man's fantasy besides or contrary to the Scriptures As wandering on Pilgrimages setting up of Candles praying upon Beads and such-like Superstition which kind of Works have no promise of Reward in Scripture but contrary-wise Threatnings and Maledictions So I do exhort all Men to the Obedience of God's Law and to the Works of Faith as Charity Mercy Pity Alms devout and fervent Prayer with the affection of the Heart and not with the Mouth only Godly Abstinence and Fasting Chastity Obedience to the Rulers and Superior Powers with such-like Works and godliness of Life commanded by God in his Word which as St. Paul saith hath Promises both of this Life and of the Life to come and are Works only acceptable in God's sight These things above-rehearsed though they be appointed by common Order yet do I without all compulsion with freedom of Mind and Conscience from the bottom of my Heart and upon most sure persuasion acknowledg to be true and agreeable to God's Word And therefore I exhort you all of whom I have Cure heartily and obediently to embrace and receive the same That we all joining together in unity of Spirit Faith and Charity may also at length be joined together in the Kingdom of God and that
for it but the Author's word and Poets must make Circumstances as well as more signal Contrivances to set off their Fables But there was no occasion for Bucer's saying this since he never declared against the Corporal Presence but was for taking up that Controversy in some general Expressions So it was not suitable to his Opinion in that Matter for him to talk so loosely of the Scriptures And is it credible that a Story of this nature should not have been published in Queen Mary's Time and been made use of when he was condemned for an Heretick and his Body raised and burnt But our Author perhaps did not think of that 15. He says Pag. 191. Peter Martyr was a while in suspence concerning the Eucharist and stayed till he should see what the Parliament should appoint in that Matter P. Martyr argued and read in the Chair against the Corporal Presence four Years before the Parliament medled with it For the second Common-Prayer Book which contained the first publick Declaration that the Parliament made in this Matter was enacted in the fifth Year of King Edward and Peter Martyr from his first coming to England had appeared against it 16. He said The first Parliament under King Edward Pag. 193. appointed a new Form to be used in ordaining Priests and Bishops who till that time had been Ordained according to the Old Rites save only that they did not swear Obedience to the Pope This is a further Evidence of our Author's care in searching the printed Statutes since what was done in the Fifth Year of this Reign he represents as done in the First His Design in this was clear he had a mind to possess all his own Party with an Opinion that the Orders given in this Church were of no force and therefore he thought it a decent piece of his Poem to set down this Change as done so early since if he had mentioned it in its proper place he knew not how to deny the validity of the Orders that were given the first four Years of this Reign which continued to be conferred according to the old Forms 17. He says The Parliament did also at the same time Ibid. confirm a new Book of Common-Prayer and of the Administration of the Sacraments This is of a piece with the former for the Act confirming the Common-Prayer Book which is also among the Printed Statutes passed not in this Session of Parliament but in a second Session a Year after this These are Indications sufficient to shew what an Historian Sanders was that did not so much as read the Publick Acts of the Time concerning which he writ 18. He says They ordered all Images to be removed Ibid. and sent some lewd Men over England for that effect who either brake or burnt the Images of our Saviour the Blessed Virgin and the Saints therein declaring against whom they made War and they ordered the King's Arms three Leopards and three Lillies with the Supporters a Dog and a Serpent to be set in the place where the Cross of Christ stood thereby owning that they were no longer to worship Jesus Christ whose Images they broke but the King whose Arms they set up in the room of those Images In this Period there is an equal mixture of Falshood and Malice 1. The Parliament did not order the removal of Images It was done by the King's Visitors before the Parliament sat 2. The total removal of Images was not done the first Year only those Images that were abused to Superstition were taken down and a Year after the total removal followed 3. They took care that this should be done regularly not by the Visitors who only carried the King's Injunctions about it but by the Curats themselves 4. They did not order the King's Arms to be put in the place where the Cross had stood It grew indeed to be a custom to set them up in all Churches thereby expressing that they acknowledged the King's Authority reached even to their Churches but there was no Order made about it 5. I leave him to the Correction of the Heraulds for saying the King's Arms are Three Leopards when every Body knows they are three Lions and a Lion not a Dog is one Supporter and the other is a Dragon not a Serpent 6. By their setting up the King's Arms and not his Picture it is plain they had no thought of worshipping their King but did only acknowledg his Authority 7. It was no less clear that they had no design against the Worship due to Jesus Christ nor that inferiour respect due to the Blessed Virgin and Saints but intended only to wean the People from that which at best was but Pageantry but as it was practised was manifest Idolatry And the painting on the Walls of the Churches the Ten Commandments the Creed the Lord's Prayer with many other passages of Scripture that were of most general use shewed they intended only to cleanse their Churches from those mixtures of Heathenism that had been brought into the Christian Religion Pag. 193. 19. He says They took away the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ that they might thereby give some colour to the converting of the Sacred Vessels to the King's use They took away no part of the Institution of Christ for they set it down in the Act past about it and recited all the words of the first Institution of the Sacrament they only condemned private Masses as contrary to Christ's Institution They did not convert the Holy Vessels to the King's use nor were they taken out of the Churches till five Years after this that the Necessities of the Government either real or pretended were alleged to excuse the taking away the superfluous Plate that was in Churches But this was not done by Act of Parliament but by Commissioners empowred by the King who were ordered to leave in every Church such Vessels as were necessary for the Administration of the Sacraments Ibid. 20. He says The Parliament ordered the Prayers to be in the Vulgar Tongue and upon that he infers that the Irish the Welsh and the Cornish-men were now in a much worse condition than before since they understood no English so that the Worship was to them in a Tongue more unknown than it had formerly been The Parliament made no such Order at this Time the Book of Common Prayer was set out first by the King's Authority and ratified by the subsequent Session of Parliament There was also a Design which though it was then accomplished yet it was done afterwards of translating the Liturgy into these Tongues but still the English was much more understood by all sorts of Men among them than the Latin had been 21. He says The Office of the Communion Pag. 194. appointed by this Parliament differed very little from the Mass save that it was in English The Error of the Parliaments appointing the new Offices runs through all he says on this
and indeed all England over the Book was so universally received that the Visitors did return no complaint from any corner of the whole Kingdom All received the new Service except the Lady Mary Only the Lady Mary continued to have Mass said in her House of which the Council being advertised writ to her to conform her self to the Laws and not to cast a reproach on the Kings Government for the nearer she was to him in Blood she was to give the better example to others and her disobedience might encourage others to follow her in that contempt of the Kings Authority So they desired her to send to them her Comptroller and Dr. Hopton her Chaplain by whom she should be more fully advertised of the King and Councils Pleasure Upon this she sent one to the Emperor to interpose for her that she might not be forced to any thing against her Conscience At this time there was a Complaint made at the Emperours Court The Ambassador at the Emperors Court not suffered to use it of the English Ambassador Sir Philip Hobby for using the new Common-Prayer-Book there To which he answered He was to be obedient to the Laws of his own Prince and Country and as the Emperors Ambassador had Mass at his Chappel at London without disturbance though it was contrary to the Law of England so he had the same reason to expect the like liberty But the Emperor espousing the Interest of the Lady Mary both Paget who was sent over Ambassador Extraordinary to him upon his coming into Flanders and Hobby promised in the Kings Name that he should dispense with her for some time as they afterwards declared upon their Honours when the thing was further questioned though the Emperor and his Ministers pretended that without any Qualification it was promised that she should enjoy the free exercise of her Religion The Emperor was now grown so high with his success in Germany A Treaty of Marriage for the Lady Mary and that at a time when a War was coming on with France that it was not thought advisable to give him any offence There was likewise a Proposition sent over by him to the Protector and Council Cotton lib. Galba B. 12. for the Lady Mary to be married to Alphonso Brother to the King of Portugal The Council entertained it and though the late King had left his Daughters but 10000 l. a-piece yet they offered to give with her 100000 Crowns in Money and 20000 Crowns worth of Jewels The Infant of Portugal was about her own Age and offered 20000 Crowns Jointure But this Proposition fell on what hand I do not know She writ to the Council concerning the new Service The Lady Mary writ on the 22d of June to the Council that she could not obey their late Laws and that she did not esteem them Laws as made when the King was not of Age and contrary to those made by her Father which they were all bound by Oath to maintain She excused the not sending her Comptroller Mr. Arundel and her Priest the one did all her business so that she could not well be without him the other was then so ill that he could not travel Upon this the Council sent a peremptory Command to these requiring them to come up and receive their Orders The Lady Mary wrote a second Letter to them on the 27th of June in which she expostulated the matter with the Council She said She was subject to none of them and would obey none of the Laws they made but protested great Obedience and Subjection to the King When her Officers came to Court they were commanded to declare to the Lady Mary that though the King was young in Person yet his Authority was now as great as ever that those who have his Authority and act in his Name are to be obeyed and though they as single Persons were her humble Servants yet when they met in Council they acted in the Kings Name Who required her to obey as other Subjects did and so were to be considered by all the Kings Subjects as if they were the King himself they had indeed sworn to obey the late Kings Laws but that could bind them no longer than they were in force and being now repealed they were no more Laws other Laws being made in their room There was no exception in the Laws all the Kings Subjects were included in them and for a Reformation of Religion made when a King was under Age one of the most perfect that was recorded in Scripture was so carried on when Josiah was much younger than their King was therefore they gave them in charge to perswade her Grace for that was her Title to be a good example of obedience and not to encourage peevish and obstinate Persons by her stiffness But this Business was for some time laid aside And now the Reformation was to be carried on to the establishing of a Form of Doctrine which should contain the chief Points of Religion In order to which there was this Year great enquiry made into many particular Opinions The manner of Christs Presence in the Sacrament examined and chiefly concerning the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament There was no Opinion for which the Priests contended more ignorantly and eagerly and that the People generally believed more blindly and firmly as if a strong Belief were nothing else but winking very hard The Priests because they accounted it the chief support now left of their falling Dominion which being kept up might in time retrieve all the rest For while it was believed that their Character qualified them for so strange and mighty a Performance they must needs be held in great reverence The People because they thought they received the very Flesh of Christ and so notwithstanding our Saviours express Declaration to the contrary that the Flesh profiteth nothing looked on those who went about to perswade them otherwise as Men that intended to rob them of the greatest Priviledge they had And therefore it was thought necessary to open this fully before there should be any change made in the Doctrine of the Church The Lutherans seemed to agree with that which had been the Doctrine of the Greek Church that in the Sacrament there was both the Substance of Bread and Wine and Christs Body likewise Only many of them defended it by an Opinion that was thought a-kin to the Eutychian Heresie that his humane Nature by vertue of the union of the God-head was every where though even in this way it did not appear that there was any special Presence in the Sacrament more than in other things Those of Switzerland had on the other hand taught that the Sacrament was only an Institution to commemorate the Sufferings of Christ This because it was intelligible was thought by many too low and mean a thing and not equal to the high expressions that are in the Scripture of its being the Communion of the Body
enabling of their own Judgments to treat and conclude of such Laws as might depend thereupon This also being thought very reasonable was signified to both Parties and so fully agreed upon And the day appointed for the first Meeting to be the Friday in the Forenoon being the last of March at Westminster Church where both for good Order and for Honour of the Conferences by the Queen's Majesty's Commandment the Lords and others of the Privy-Council were present and a great part of the Nobility also And notwithstanding the former Order appointed and consented unto by both Parties yet the Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues alleadging that they had mistaken that their Assertions and Reasons should be written and so only recited out of the Book said Their Book was not then ready written but they were ready to Argue and Dispute and therefore they would for that time repeat in Speech that which they had to say to the first Proposition This variation from the former Order and specially from that which themselves had by the said Arch-Bishop in writing before required adding thereto the Reason of the Apostle that to contend with words is profitable to nothing but to the subversion of the Hearer seemed to the Queen's Majesty somewhat strange and yet was it permitted without any great reprehension because they excused themselves with mistaking the Order and argued that they would not fail but put it in writing and according to the former Order deliver it to the other Part. And so the said Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues appointed Dr. Cole Dean of Pauls to be their Utterer of their Minds who partly by Speech only and partly by reading of Authorities written and at certain times being informed of his Colleagues what to say made a declaration of their Meanings and their Reasons to the first Proposition Which being ended they were asked by the Privy Council If any of them had any more to be said and they said No. So as then the other Part was licensed to shew their Minds which they did accordingly to the first Order exhibiting all that which they meant to propound in a Book written Which after a Prayer and Invocation made most humbly to Almighty God for the enduing of them with his Holy Spirit and a Protestation also to stand to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church builded upon the Scriptures and the Doctrine of the Prophets and the Apostles was distinctly read by one Robert Horn Batchelor in Divinity late Dean of Duresm And the same being ended with some likelyhood as it seemed that the same was much allowable to the Audience certain of the Bishops began to say contrary to their former Answer that they had now much more to say to this Matter wherein although they might have been well reprehended for such manner of cavillation yet for avoiding any more mistaking of Orders in this Colloquie or Conference and for that they should utter all that which they had to say it was both ordered and thus openly agreed upon of both Parts in the full Audience that upon the Monday following the Bishops should bring their Minds and Reasons in Writing to the second Assertion and the last also if they could and first read the same and that done the other Part should bring likewise theirs to the same and being read each of them should deliver to other the same Writings And in the mean time the Bishops should put in writing not only all that which Doctor Cole had that day uttered but all such other Matters as they any otherwise could think of for the same and as soon as might possible to send the same Book touching the first Assertion to the other part and they should receive of them that Writing which Master Horn had there read that day and upon Monday it should be agreed what day they should exhibit their Answer touching the first Proposition Thus both parts assented thereto and the Assembly was quietly dismissed And therefore upon Monday the like Assembly began again at the Place and Hour appointed and there upon what sinister or disordered meaning is not yet fully known though in some part it be understanded the Bishop of Winchester and his Colleagues and specially Lincoln refused to exhibit or read according to the former notorious Order on Friday that which they had prepared for the second Assertion and thereupon by the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal they being first gently and favourably required to keep the Order appointed and that taking no place being secondly as it behoved pressed with the more earnest request they neither regarding the Authority of that Place nor their own Reputation nor the Credit of the Cause utterly refused that to do And finally being again particularly every one of them apart distinctly by Name required to understand their Opinions therein they all saving one which was the Abbot of Westminster having some more consideration of Order and his Duty of Obedience than the other utterly and plainly denied to have their Book read some of them as more earnestly than other some so also some others more indiscreetly and irreverently than others Whereupon giving such Example of Disorders Stubbornness and Self-will as hath not been seen and suffered in such an Honourable Assembly being of the two Estates of this Realm the Nobilities and Commons besides the Persons of the Queen's Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council the same Assembly was dismissed and the Godly and most Christian Purpose of the Queen's Majesty made frustrate And afterwards for the contempt so notoriously made the Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln who have most obstinately disobeyed both Common Authority and varied manifestly from their own Order specially Lincoln who shewed more folly than the other were condignly committed to the Tower of London and the rest saving the Abbot of VVestminster stand bound to make daily their personal appearance before the Council and not to depart the City of London and VVestminster until further Order be taken with them for their Disobedience and Contempt N. Bacon Cust Sigill F. Shrewsbury F. Bedford Pembrok E. Clynton G. Rogers F. Knollys W. Cecill A. Cave Number 6. An Address made by some Bishops and Divines to Queen Elizabeth against the Use of Images To the Queen 's most Excellent Majesty WE knowing your gracious Clemency and considering the necessity of the Matter that we have to move the one doth encourage us and the other compel us as before to make our humble Petition unto your Highness and to renew our former Suit not in any respect of self-will stoutness or striving against your Majesty God we take to Witness for with David we confess that we are but as Canes mortui aut Pulices in comparison But we do it only for that fear and reverence which we bear to the Majesty of Almighty God in whose Hands to fall 't is terrible for it lieth in his Power to destroy for ever and to cast both Body and Soul into Hell Fire
And lest in giving just offence to the little Ones in setting a Trap of Errors for the Ignorant and digging a Pit for the Blind to fall into we should not only be guilty of the Blood of our Brethren and deserve the wrathful Vae and Vengeance of God but also procure to our reclaiming Consciences the biting Worm that never dieth for our endless confusion For in what thing soever we may serve your Excellent Majesty not offending the Divine Majesty of God we shall with all humble Obedience be most ready thereunto if it be even to the loss of our Life for so God commandeth of us Duty requireth of us and we with all conformity have put in proof And as God through your gracious Government hath delivered unto us innumerable Benefits which we most humbly acknowledg and with due Reverence daily give him Thanks So we do not doubt but that of his Mercy He will happily finish in your Majesty that good Work which of His free Favour He hath most graciously begun that following the Examples of the Godly Princes which have gone before you may clearly purge the polluted Church and remove all occasions of Evil. And for so much as we have heretofore at sundry times made Petition to your Majesty concerning the Matter of Images but at no time exhibited any Reasons for the removing of the same Now lest we should seem to say much and prove little to alleage Consciences without the Warrant of God and unreasonably require that for the which we can give no Reason we have at this time put in writing and do most humbly exhibit to your gracious Consideration those Authorities of the Scriptures Reasons and pithy Persuasions which as they have moved all such our Brethren as now bear the Office of Bishops to think and affirm Images not expedient for the Church of Christ so will they not suffer us without the great offending of God and grievous wounding of our own Consciences which God deliver us from to consent to the erecting or retaining of the same in the place of Worshipping and we trust and most earnestly ask it of God that they may also persuade your Majesty by your Regal Authority and in the Zeal of God utterly to remove this Offensive Evil out of the Church of England to God's great Glory and our great Comfort Here follow the Reasons against them of which I have given a full Abstract in the History and therefore do not set them down here for they are very large The Address concludes in these words Having thus declared unto your Highness a few Causes of many which do move our Consciences in this Matter we beseech your Highness most humbly not to strain us any further but to consider that God's Word doth threaten a terrible Judgment unto us if we being Pastors and Ministers in His Church should assent unto the thing which in our Learning and Conscience we are persuaded doth tend to the confirmation of Error Superstition and Idolatry and finally Heb. 13. 1 Pet. 5. to the ruins of the Souls committed to our Charge for the which we must give an account to the Prince of Pastors at the last Day We pray your Majesty also not to be offended with this our Plainness and Liberty which all good and Christian Princes have ever taken in good part at the hands of Godly Bishops St. Ambrose writing to Theodosius the Emperor uses these words Sed neque Imperiale est libertatem dicendi negare Epist lib. 5. Epist 29. neque Sacerdotale quod sentiat non dicere And again In causa vero Dei quem audies si Sacerdotem non audies Ibidem cujus Majore peccatur periculo Quis tibi verum audebit dicere si Sacerdos non audeat These and such-like Speeches of St. Ambrose Theodosius and Valentinianus the Emperors did take in good part and we doubt not but your Grace will do the like of whose not only Clemency but also Beneficence we have largely tasted We beseech your Majesty also in these and such-like Controversies of Religion to refer the discusement and deciding of them to a Synod of the Bishops and other Godly Learned Men according to the Example of Constantinus Magnus and other Christian Emperors that the Reasons of both Parties being examined by them the Judgment may be given uprightly in all doubtful Matters And to return to this present Matter We most humbly beseech your Majesty to consider That besides weighty Causes in Policy which we leave to the Wisdom of the Honourable Counsellors the establishing of Images by your Authority shall not only utterly discredit our Ministries as builders of the thing which we have destroyed but also blemish the Fame of your most Godly Brother and such notable Fathers as have given their Lives for the Testimony of God's Truth who by publick Law removed all Images The Almighty and Everliving God plentifully endue your Majesty with His Spirit and Heavenly Wisdom and long preserve your most gracious Reign and prosperous Government over us to the advancement of his Glory to the overthrow of Superstition and to the Benefit and Comfort of all your Hignesses loving Subjects Amen Number 7. The Queen's Commissions to the Visitors that were sent to the Northern Parts ELizabetha Dei Gratia Angliae Franciae Hiberniae Regina Fidei Defensor c. Charissimis Consanguineis Consiliariis nostris Francisco Comiti Salop. Domino Praesidenti Consilii nostri in partibus Borealibus Edwardo Comiti de Darbia ac charissimo consanguineo nostro Thomae Comiti Northumb. Domino Guardiano sive custodi Marchiarum nostrarum de Le East March midle March versus Scotiam ac perdilecto fideli nostro Willielmo Domino Evers ac etiam dilectis fidelibus nostris Henrico Piercy Thomae Gargrave Jacobo Crofts Henrico Gates Militibus necnon dilectis nobis Edwino Sandys Sacrae Theologiae Professori Henrico Harvy Legum Doctori Richardo Bowes Georgio Brown Chistophero Estcot Richardo Kingsmell Armigeris Salutem Quoniam Deus Populum suum Anglicanum imperio nostro subjecit cujus regalis suscepti muneris rationem perfecte reddere non possumus nisi veram religionem sincerum numinis divini cultum in omnibus Regni nostri partibus propagaverimus Nos igitur regalis absolutae potestatis nostrae nobis in hoc Regno nostro commissae respectu quoniam utrumque Regni nostri statum tam Ecclesiasticum quam Laicum visitare certas pietatis ac virtutis regulas illis praescribere constituimus praefatum Franciscum Comitem Salop. Edwardum Comitem de Darbia Thomam Comitem Northumb Willielmum Dominum Evers Henricum Piercy Thomam Gargrave Jacobum Crofts Henricum Gates Milites Edwinum Sandys Henricum Harvy Georgium Brown Christophorum Estcot Richardum Bowes Richardum Kingsmell Armigeros ad infrascriptum vice nomine Authoritate nostris exequendum vos quatuor tres aut duo vestrum ad minimum deputavimus substituimus ad