tooke his leaue of the kynges highnesse for that night On the morow about ix of the clocke before noone the Counsaile sent a Gentleman busher for the Archbishop who when he came to the Counsaile chamber doore could not be let in but of purpose as it séemed was compelled there to waite among the pages lackeys and seruyngmen all alone Doct. Buttes the kynges Phisition resortyng that way and espying how my Lord of Canterbury was handled went to the kynges highnes and sayd My Lord of Canterbury if it please your Grace is well promoted for now he is become a lackey or a seruyngman for yonder he standeth this halfe houre without the Counsaile chamber doore amongest them It is not so quoth the kyng I trow nor the Counsaile hath not so litle discretion as to vse the Metropolitane of the Realme in that sorte specially beyng one of their owne number but let them alone sayd the kyng and we shall here more soone Anone the Archbishop was called into the Counsaile Chamber to whom was alledged as before is rehearsed The Archbyshop aunswered in like sort as the kyng had aduised him and in the ende when he perceiued that no maner of perswasion or intreatie could serue he deliuered to them the kyngs ryng reuokyng his cause into the kynges handes The whole Counsaile beyng thereat somewhat amased the Earle of Bedford with a loude voyce confirmyng his wordes with a solemne oth sayd When you first began this matter my Lordes I told you what would come of it Do you thinke that the kyng will suffer this mans finger to ake much more I warrant you will he defend his life agaynst brablyng varlets You do but comber your selues to heare tales and fables agaynst him And so incontinently vpon the recept of the kynges token they all rose and caryed to the kyng his ryng surrenderyng that matter as the order and vse was into his owne handes When they were all come to the kynges presence his highnesse with a seuere countenaunce sayd vnto theÌ„ Ah my Lordes I thought I had had wiser men of my Counsaile then now I finde you What discretion was this in you thus to make the Primate of the Realme one of you in office to waite at the Counsaile Chamber doore amongest seruyngmen You might haue considered that he was a Counseller as well as you and you had no such CoÌ„mission of me so to handle him I was coÌ„tent that you should try him as a Counseller not as a meane subiect But now I well perceiue that things be done agaynst him malitiously if some of you might haue had your myndes you would haue tried him to the vttermost But I doe you all to witte protest that if a Prince may be beholdyng vnto his subiect and so solemly laying his haÌ„d vpon his brest sayd by the fayth I owe to God I take this man here my Lord of Caunterbury to bee of all other a most faythfull subiect vnto vs and one to whom we are much beholdyng giuyng him great commendations otherwise And with that one or two of the chiefest of the Counsaile makyng their excuse declared that in requestyng his induraunce it was rather ment for his triall and his purgation agaynst the common fame and sclaunder of the world then for any malice conceiued agaynst him Well well my Lordes quoth the king take him and well vse him as he is worthy to be and make no more ado And with that euery man caught him by the hand and made fayre wether of altogethers whiche might easely be done with that man And it was much to bee marueiled that they would goe so farre with him thus to séeke his vndoyng this well vnderstandyng before that the kyng most entirely loued him and alwayes would stand in his defence who soeuer spake agaynst him as many other tymes the kynges patience was by sinister informations agaynst him tryed In so much that the Lord Cromwell was euermore wont to say vnto him My Lord of Canterbury you are most happy of all men for you may do and speake what you lifte and say what all men can agaynst you the kyng will neuer beleue one word to your detriment or hinderaunce After the death of kyng Henry immediatly succéeded his sonne kyng Edward vnder whose gouernement and protection the state of this Archbyshop beyng his Godfather was nothyng appaired but rather more aduaunced Duryng all this meane tyme of kyng Henry aforesayd vntill the entryng of kyng Edward it séemeth that Cranmer was scarsely yet throughly perswaded in the right knowledge of the Sacrament or at least was not yet fully rypened in the same wherein shortly after he beyng more groundly confirmed by conference with Byshop Ridley in processe of tyme did so profite in more ryper knowledge that at last he tooke vpon him the defence of that whole doctrine that is to refute and throw downe first the corporall presence secondly the phantasticall transubstantiation thirdly the Idolatrous adoration fourthly the false errour of the Papistes that wicked men do eate the naturall body of Christ and lastly the blasphemous sacrifice of the Masse Whereupon in conclusion he wrote fiue bookes for the publicke instructioÌ„ of the Church of England which instruction yet to this day standeth and is receaued in this Church of England Agaynst these fiue bookes of the Archbyshop Stephen Gardiner the Archenemy to Christ and his Gospell beyng then in the Tower slubbereth vp a certaine aunswere such as it was which he in open Court exhibited vp at Lambeth beyng there examined by the Archbyshop aforesayd and other the kynges Commissioners in kyng Edwardes dayes whiche booke was intitled An Explication and assertion of the true Catholicke fayth touchyng the blessed Sacrament of the aultar with a confutation of a booke written agaynst the same Agaynst this Explication or rather a caâ—illyng Sophistication of Stephens Gardiner Doctour of Law the sayd Archbyshop of Canterbury learnedly and copiously replying agayne maketh aunswere as by the discourse therof renewed in Print is euident to be sene to all such as with indifferent eye will Read and peruse the same Besides these bookes aboue recited of this Archbishop diuers other things there were also of his doing as the booke of Reformation with the booke of Homelies whereof part was by him contriued part by his procurement approued and published Wherunto also may be adioyned an other writing or confutation of his agaynst 88. Articles by the CoÌ„uocation deuised and propounded but yet not ratified nor receaued in the reigne and time of king Henry And thus much hetherto concernyng the deynges and trauailes of this Archbyshop of Caunterbury duryng the lines both of kyng Henry and of kyng Edward his sonne Which two kynges so long as they continued this Archbyshop lacked no stay of maintenaunce agaynst all his maligners After the death of king Edward Quéene Mary comming now to the Crowne and being established in
seing that he wrote of the sacrament at king Charles request it is not like that he would write against the receiued doctrine of the church in those daies And if he had it is without all doubt that some learned man either in his tyme or fithens would haue written against him or at the least not haue commended him so much as they haue done Berengarius of himselfe had a godly iudgement in this matter but by the tiranity of Nicholas the 2. he was constrained to make a diuelish recantation as I haue declared in my first booke the 17. chapter And as for Iohn Wicklif he was a singuler instrument of God in his tyme to set forth the truth of christes gospell but Antichrist that sitteth in gods temple boasting himselfe as god hath by gods sufferance preuayled against many holy men and sucked the bloud of martirs these late yeres And as touching Martin Luther it semeth you be sore pressed that be faine to pray aide of him whom you haue hitherto euer detested The foxe is sore hunted that is faine to take his borow and the wolfe that is fayne to take the lions den for a shift or to run for succour vnto a beast which he most hateth And no man condemneth your doctrine of Transubstantiation and of the propiciatory sacrifice of the masse more seuerely and earnestly then doth Martin Luther But it appeareth by your conclusion that you haue waded so farre in rhetorike that you haue forgotten your logike For this is your argumeÌ„t Bertrame taught this doctrine and preuailed not Berengarius attempted the same and failed in his purpose Wickliffe enterprised the same whose teaching god prospered not therefore god hath not prospered fauoured it to be receiued at any tyme openly as his true teaching I will make the like reason The Prophete Osee taught in Samaria to the ten tribes the true doctrine of god to bring them from their abhominable superstitions and idolatry Ioell Amâ—s and Mitheas attempted the same whose doctrine preuailed not god prospered not their teaching among those people but they were condemned with their doctrine therefore god hath not prospered and fauoured it to be receiued at any tyme openly as his true teaching If you will aunswer as you must nedes do that the cause why that among those people the true teaching preuailed not was by reason of the aboundant superstition idolatry that blinded their eies you haue fully answered your own argument and haue plainly declared the cause why the true doctrine in this matter hath not preuailed these 500. yeares the church of Rome which all that time hath borne the chiefe swinge being ouerflowen and drowned in all kind of superstition and idolatry therfore might not abide to heare of the truth And the true doctrine of the sacrament which I haue set out plainly in my booke was neuer condemned by no councell nor your false papisticall doctrine allowed vntill the deuill caused Antichrist his sonne and heire Pope Nicholas the second with his monkes and friers to condemne the truth and confirme these your heresies And where of Gamaliels wordes you make an argument of prosperous successe in this matter the scripture testifieth how Antichrist shall prosper and preuaile against saintes no short while persecute the truth And yet the counsail of Gamaliel was very discrete and wife For he perceiued that God went about the reformation of religion growen in those dayes to idolatry hypocrisie and superstition through traditions of Phariseis and therfore he moued the rest of the Councell to beware that they did not rashly and vnaduisedly condemne that doctrine religion which was approued by God least in so doing they should not onely resist the Apostles but God himselfe which counsail if you had marked followed you would not haue done so vnsoberly in many things as you haue done And as for the prosperitie of them that haue professed Christ his true doctrine they prospered with the Papistes as S. Iohn Baptist prospered with Herode and our sauiour Christ with Pilate Annas and Caiphas Now which of these prospered best say you Was as the doctrine of Christ and S. Iohn any whit the worse because the cruell tirantes and Iewes put them to death for the same Winchester But all this set apart and putting aside all testimonies of the olde church and resortyng onely to the letter of the scripture there to search out an vnderstanding and in doyng therof to forget what hath bene taught hitherto How shall this author establish vpon scripture that he would haue beleued What other text is there in scripture that enâ—ountreth with these wordes of scripture This is my body wherby to alter the signification of them There is no scripture sayth Christ did not geue his body but the figure of his body nor the geuing of Christes body in his supper verily and really so vnderstaÌ„ded doth not necessarily impugne and contrary any other speach or doyng of Christ expressed in scripture For the great power and omnipotencie of God exclodeth that repugnance which mans reason would déeme of Christes departyng from this world and placing his humanitie in the glory of his Father Caunterbury THe Scripture is playne and you confesse also that it was bread that Christ spake of when he sayd This is my body And what nede we any other scripture to encounter with these words seyng that all men know that bread is not Christes body the one hauing sense and reason the other none at all Wherfore in that speach must nedes be sought an other sence meanyng then the wordes of themselues do geue which is as all olde writers do teach and the circumstances of the text declare that the bread is a figure and sacrament of Christes body And yet as he geueth the bread to be eaten with our mouthes so geueth he his very body to be eaten with our faith And therfore I say that Christ geueth himselfe truely to be eaten chawed and digested but all is spiritually with fayth not with mouth And yet you would beare me in hand that I say that thing which I say not that is to say that Christ did not geue his body but the figure of his body And because you be not able to confute that I say you would make me to say that you can confute As for the great power and omnipotency of God it is no place here to dispute what God can do but what he doth I know that he can do what he will both in heauen and in earth no man is able to resist his wil. But the question here is of his will not of his power And yet if you caÌ„ ioyne together these two that one nature singuler shal be here and not here both at one time and that it shal be gone hence when it is here you haue some stroÌ„g syment and be a cunning Geometrician but yet you shall neuer be good Logician that woulde
and manifest vntruth and that I vntruely charge you with the enuious name of a papisticall faith But in your issue you terme the wordes at your pleasure and reporte mee otherwise then I doe say for I doe not say that the doctrine of the reall presence is the papistes faith onely but that it was the papists faith for it was their deuise And herein will I ioyne with you an issue that the papisticall church is the mother of transubstantiation and of all the foure principall errors which I impugne in my booke Winchester It shal be now to purpose to consider the scriptures touching the matter of the Sacrament which the author pretending to bring forth faithfully as the maiesty therof requireth in the rehearsall of the wordes of Christ out of the gospel of S. Iohn he beginneth a litle to low and passeth ouer that pertaineth to the matter and therfore should haue begun a litle higher at this clause and the bread which I shall geue you is my flesh which I will geue for the life of the worlde The Iewes therfore striued between themselues saying How can this man geue his flesh to be eaten Iesus therfore sayd vnto theÌ„ Uerely verely I say vnto you except ye eat the flesh of the sonne of man drink his bloud ye haue no life in you who so eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternall life I will rayse him vp at the last day For my flesh is very meat and my bloud very drink He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him As the lyuing father hath sent me and I liue by the father Euen so he that eateth me shall liue by me This is the bread which came downe from heauen Not as your fathers did eate Manna and are dead He that eateth this bread shall liue for euer Here is also a faulte in the translation of the text which should be thus in one place For my flesh is verely meate and my bloud is verely drinke In which speach the verbe that coupeleth the words flesh and meate together knitteth them together in their proper signification so as the flesh of Christ is verely meate and not figuratiuely meate as the author would perswade And in these wordes of Christ may appeare plainly how Christ taught the mistery of the food of his humanity which he promised to geue for food euen the same flesh that he sayd he would geue for the life of the world and so expresseth the first sentence of this scripture here by me wholy brought forth that is to say and the bread which I shall geue you is my flesh which I shall geue for the life of the world and so is it plain that Christ spake of flesh in the same sence that S. Iohn speaketh in saying The word was made flesh signifying by flesh the whol humanity And so did Cyril agrée to Nestorius when he vpon these textes reasoned how this eating is to be vnderstanded of Christes humanitye to which nature in Christes person is properly attribute to be eaten as meat spiritually to nourish man dispenced and geuen in the Sacrament And betwéene Nestorius and Cyrill was this diuersitie in vnderstanding the misterye that Nestorius estéeming of ech nature in Christ a seuerall person as it was obiected to him and so dissoluinge the ineffable Unitie did so repute the body of Christ to be eaten as the body of a man seperate Cyrill maintayned the body of Christ to be eaten as a body inseperable vnited to the Godhead and for the ineffable mistery of that Union the same to be a flesh that geueth life And then as Christ sayth If we eate not the fleshe of the Sonne of man we haue not life in vs because Christ hath ordered the Sacrament of his most precious body and bloud to nourish such as be by his holy Spirite regenerate And as in Baptisme we receaue the Spirite of Christe for the renuinge of our lyfe so doe wer in this Sacrament of Christes most precious body and bloud receaue Christes very flesh and drinke his very bloud to continue and preserue increase and augment the life receaued And therefore in the same forme of wordes Christ spake to Nichodemus of baptisme that he speaketh here of the eating of his body and drinking of his bloud and in both Sacramentes geueth dispenseth and exhibiteth in déede those celestiall giftes in sensible elementes as Chrisostome sayth And because the true faithfull beléeuing men doe only by fayth know the sonne of man to be in vnity of person the sonne of God so as for the vnitie of the two natures in Christ in one person the flesh of the Sonne of man is the proper flesh of the sonne of God Saint Augustine sayd well when he noted these wordes of Christ Uerely verely vnlesse ye eate the flesh of the sonne of man c. to be a figuratiue speach because after the bare letter it séemeth vnprofitable considering that flesh profiteth nothing in it self estemed in the own nature alone but as the same flesh in Christ is vnited to the diuine nature so is it as Christ sayd after Cyrilles exposition spirite and life not chaunged into the diuine nature of the spirite but for the ineffable vnion in the person of Christ therunto It is viuificatrix as Cyrill sayde and as the holy Ephcâ—ine Councell decreed A flesh geuing life according to Christes wordes Who eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternall life and I will rayse him vp at the later day And then to declare vnto vs how in géeuinge this life to vs Christe vseth the instrument of his very humayne body it followeth For my flesh is verely meate and my bloud is verely drinke So like as Christ sanctifieth by his godly spirite so doth he sanctifie vs by his godly flesh and therefore repeteth agayn to inculcate the celestiall thing of this mistery and saieth He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth to me and I in him which is the naturall and corporall vnion betwéene vs and Christ. Whereupon followeth that as Christ is naturally in his Father and his Father in him so he that eateth verely the fleshe of Christ he is by nature in Christ and Christ is naturally in him and the worthy receauer hath life increase augmented and confirmed by the participation of the flesh of Christ. And because of the ineffable vnion of the two natures Christ sayd This is the food that came downe from heauen because God whose proper flesh it is came downe from heauen and hath an other vertue then Manna had because this geueth life to them that worthely receaue it which Manna being but a figure thereof did not but being in this foode Christes very flesh inseparably vnited to the Godhead the same is of such efficacye as he that worthely eateth of it shall liue for euer And thus I haue declared the sence of Christes wordes brought forth out of the
water And when the rodde was tourned into a serpent and water into bloud the earth into a man and his ribbe into a woman Were not the woman man bloud and serpent made of the matter of the ribbe the earth the water and the rodde And is not euery thing made of that which is tourned into it As bread is made of Corne wine of grapes beare of water hoppes and mault and so of all thinges like And when you haue confessed your selues so many yeares passed that Christ is made of bread in the sacrament what moueth you now to say that Christ maketh not him selfe of the matter of bread except that eyther you will say that the priest doth it and not Christ which were an intollerable blaspheme or that the truth is of such a nature that euen the very aduersaries therof sometime vnwares acknowledge it or els that force of argumentes constrayneth you to confesse the truth agaynst your will whē you see none other shift to escape But if you take vpon you to defend the receaued doctrine of the Papistes you must affirme that doctrine which they affirme and say that bread in the Sacrament is the matter wherof Christes body is made wherof must than nedes follow ex consequenti that he hath from tyme to tyme a new body made of new bread besides the body which was incarnated and neuer but once made nor of none other substaunce but of his mother So that it is but a vayne cauilation onely to elude simple people or to shift of the matter to say as you do that Christ is not made of the breade but is made to be present there For than should he haue sayd There is my body and not This is my body And to be present requireth no new making but to be present by conuersion requireth a new making As the wine that was bought at the mariage in the Cane of Galilee if there were any such was present without conuertion and so without new making but the wine that was made of water was present by conuertion which could not be without new making And so must Christes body be newly made if it be present by corporall conuertion of the substaunce of bread into the substaunce of it And now I referre to euery indifferent reader to iudge betwene vs both which of vs is most snarled Now let vs examine the other authors following in my booke And the same is to be aunswered vnto all that the aduersaries bring of S. Augustine Sedulius Leo Fulgentius Cassiodorus Gregorius and other concerning the eating of Christ in the Sacrament Which thing can not be vnderstanded playnly as the wordes sound but figuratiuely and spiritually as before is sufficiently proued and hereafter shal be more fully declared in the fourth parte of this booke Winchester Bicause this author who hitherto hath answered none substancially would neuerthelesse be seene to aunswer all he windeth vp sixe of them in one fardell S. Augustine Sedulius Leo Fulgentius Cassiodorus and Gregorius and dispatcheth them all with an ut supra and among them I think he would haue knitte vp all the rest of the learned men of all ages amonges whome I know none that write as this Author doth of the Sacrament or impugneth the Catholique fayth as this author doth by the enuious name of Papistes Sence Christes time there is no memory more than of sixe that haue affirmed that doctrine which this author would haue called now the Catholike doctrine and yet not writtē by them of one sorte neither receiued in beleefe in publique profession But secretly when it hapned begunne by conspiration and in the ende euer hitherto extincte and quenched First was Bertrame then Berengarius then Wicleffe and in our time Decolampadius Zwinglius and Ioachimus Uadianus I will not recken Peter Martir bicause such as know him sayth he is not learned nor this author bycause he doth but as it were translate Peter Martir sauing he roueth at solutions as liketh his phantasie as I haue before declared Whyche mater being thus it is a strange title of this Booke to call it the trewe Catholique doctrine Caunterbury ALl that you haue these many yeres gathered togither for your purpose or that can be gathered may be well trussed vp in a very small fardell and very easely borne and caried away For any weight that is therin For your doinges bee like to him that would fayne seme to haue some thing and hauing nothing els filleth a great male full of strawe that men should thynke he caried some thing where indeed a litle bouget had ben sufficient for so much in value And as for your owne doctrine it is so straunge that neither it agreeth with the scripture nor with the old catholike churche nor yet with the later church or congregation of the Papistes but you stand poste alone after the fall of the Papisticall doctrine as sometime an old poste standeth when the building is ouerthrowen And where you say that since Christes tyme there is no mo but syxe that haue affirmed the doctrine that I haue taught all that haue been learned and haue redde the olde authors of the catholike church may euidently see the contrary That sithens Christes tyme the doctrine of my booke was euer the catholike and publike receaued fayth of the church vntill Nicholas the secondes tyme who cōpelled Berengarius to make such a deuilish recantation that the papistes thē selues be now ashamed of it And since that tyme haue many thousandes been cruelly persecuted onely for the profession of the true fayth For no maune myght speake one worde agaynst the byshope of Romes determination herein but he was taken for an heretike and so condemned as Wiclieffe Husse and an infinite numbre mo And as for Bertram he was neuer before this tyme detected of any errour that euer I redde but onely now by you For all other that haue written of him haue spoken much to his commendation and prayse But I know what the matter is he hath written against your mynde which is a fault and errour great inough As for Doctour Peter Martyr he is of age to aunswer for him selfe but concerning him that told you that he was not learned I would wish you to leaue this olde rooted fault in you to be light of credite For I suppose that if his lernyng that tolde you that lye and yours also wer set both togither you should be farre behind Master Peter Martyr Marye in wordes I think that you alone would ouerlay two Peter Martyrs he is so sobre a man and delighteth not in wasting of wordes in vayne And none do say that he is not lerned but such as know hym not or be not lerned themselues or els be so malicious or enuious that they wittingly speake agaynst theyr owne consciēce And no doubt that man bringeth hym selfe out of the estimation of a learned man which hath heard him reason and reade and sayth that he is
that the two natures in Christ his diuinity and his humanity be not confounded And for ignorance of confusion you confounde all togither Gelasius and Theodorete proue that the two natures in Christ be not confounded bicause they remayne both in their owne substances and properties so that the remayning declareth no confusion which should be confounded if they remayned not If a droppe of milke be put into a pot of wine by and by it looseth the first nature and substance and is confounded with the nature and substance of wine And if wine and milke be put togither in equale quantity then both be confounded bicause neyther remayneth neyther perfect wine with his substāce natural proprieties nor perfect milke with the substance proprieties of milke but a cōfusion an humble iomble or hotch potch a posset or sillabub is made of thē both togither like as in mans body the foure elemēts be cōfoūded to the cōstitutiō of the same not one of the elemēts remayning in his proper substāce forme pure naturall qualities So that if one nature remayne not the same is confounded And if there be more natures that lose their substance they be all confounded except there be an vtter consumption or adnihilation of the thing that looseth his substance and therfore the argument which all the old ecclesiasticall authors vse to saue the confusion of the two natures in Christ is to proue that they both remayne And if we may learne that by the similitude of the sacrament as Gelasius and Theodoret teach and you here confesse the same then must needes the substance of bread and wine remayne or els is there none example nor similitude of the remayning of two natures in Christ but of their confusion as by youre fayned doctrine the substance of bread is confounded with the body of Christ neyther being adnihilate nor remayning but transubstantiated confounded and conuerted into the substance of Christes body And thus with your well vnderstanding of the matter you confound all togither where as I with my ignorance not blaspheming that holy vnion and mistery of Christes incarnation doe saue all the natures whole without mixtion confusion or Transubstantiation either of the diuine humayne nature in Christ or of the soule and body in man or of the bread wine in the Sacramēt but all the substāce natures be saued remayne cleerly with their natural properties conditions that the proportiō in that poynt may be like and one to be the true Image and similitude of the other But surely more grosse ignoraunce or wilfull impiety then you haue shewed in this matter hath not lightly bene seene or red of And where you say that I by ouersight or the Printer by negligence haue left out a not if I should haue put in that not of myne owne head contrarye to the originall in Greeke and to all the translatours in Latine and the translation of Master Peter Martyr also I should haue bene as farre ouerseene as you bee whiche as it seemeth of purpose confound and corrupt you care not whether any Authors wordes or their meanyng And as for my forked dilemma you shall neuer be able to aunswer ther to but the more you trauayle therein the more you shall entangle your selfe For eyther you must graunt as vnwilling as you be that the nature and substance of bread and wine remayne after the consecration or els that the nature and substance of Christes humanity and diuinitie remayne not after his incarnation wherein erred not onely Eutiches whome you say I should haue put for Nestorius but also Martion Ebion Ualentinus Nestorius and other as in my booke I haue declared And one thing is principally to be noted in your answere to Theodoret how you can sophisticate and falsefy all mens sayinges be they neuer so playne For where betweene me and the Papistes the matter here in contention is this Whether the bread and wine remayne in their proper nature and substauce or no. I saying that they remayne and the Papistes saying that they remayne not the Issue being in this poynt whether they remayne or remayne not I bring for me Chrisostome who sayth the nature of bread remayneth I bring Gelasius who sayth that there ceaseth not the substance or nature of bread and wine I bring this Theodoret whose wordes be these The bread and wine after consecration lose not their proper nature but keepe their former substances forme and figure Now how can any man deuise to speake the truth in more playne wordes than these be For they say the very same wordes that I say And yet bicause the truth is not liked here must be deuised a crafty Lawyers glose of them that neuer sought other but to calumniate the truth and must be sayd agaynst all learning reason and speach that substance is taken for the visible and palpable qualities or accidents well yet then you confesse that those olde auncient Authors agree with me in wordes and say as I do that the bread and wine be not transubstantiated but remayne in their former substance And then the issue playnly passeth with me by the testimony of these three witnesses vntill such tyme as you can proue that these authors spake one thing and ment an other and that qualities and accidents be substances And if you vnderstoode whereunto the argument of Theodoret and Gelasius tendeth you would not say that they spake agaynst the Eutiches any more then they do agaynst the Nestorians For if the bread and wine remayne not as you say but be swallowed vp of the body and bloud of Christ then likewise in the principall mistery eyther the deity must be swallowed vp of the humanity or the humanity of the deity The contrary wherof is not onely agaynst the Eutichians but also agaynst the Nestorians Martionistes and all other that denied any of his two natures to remayne perfectly in Christ. And where as you with all the route of the Papistes both priuately and openly report me to be vnlearned and ignorant bycause you would therby impayre my credite in this weighty matter of our fayth my knowledge is not any whit the lesse bicause the Papistes say it is nothing nor yours any deale the more bicause the Papistes do say that you onely be learned whome for any thing that euer I could perceaue in you I haue found more full of wordes and talke then of learning And yet the note of ignorance I nothing passe of if therby the truth and Gods glory should not be hindered Now after the reproofe of your doctrine of Transubstantiation by all the old writers of Christes church I write in my booke after this māner Now forasmuch as it is proued sufficiently as well by the holy Scripture as by naturall operation by naturall reason by all our sences and by the most olde and best learned authors and holy martirs of Christes church that the substance of bread and wine do remayne and be receaued of
haue spoken it for my most bounden duetie to the crowne liberties lawes and customes of this Realme but most especially to discharge my conscience in vttering the truth to Gods glory castyng away all feare by the comfort whiche I haue in Christes wordes who sayth Feare not them that kill the body and can not kill the Soule but feare him that can cast both body and soule into hell He that for feare to lose this life will forsake the truth shall lose the euerlastyng life and he that for the truthes sake will spend his life shall finde euerlastyng life And Christ promiseth to stand fast with them before his Father which will stand fast with him here which comfort is so great that whosoeuer hath his eyes fixed vpon Christ can not greatly passe of this life knowing that he may be sure to haue Christ stand by him in the presence of his Father in heauen As touching the Sacramēt I sayd that forasmuch as the whole matter stādeth in the vnderstādyng of these wordes of Christ This is my body This is my bloud I say that Christ in these words made demōstration of the bread wine and speake figuratiuely calling bread his body wine his bloud bycause he ordeined them to be the Sacramētes of his body bloud And where the Papistes say in these two points cōtrary vnto me that Christ called not bread his body but a substaunce vncertaine nor spake figuratiuely herein I sayd I would be iudged by the old Churche and which doctrine could be proued the elder that I would stād vnto And forasmuch as I haue alledged in my booke many old Authors both Greekes Latins which about a M. yeares after Christ cōtinually taught as I do if they could bryng forth but one old Author that sayth in these two pointes as they say I offred vj. or vij yeares agoe do offer yet still that I will geue place to them But when I bring forth any Author that sayth in most playne termes as I do yet sayth the other part that the Authors meant not so as who should say that the Authours spake one thyng and meant cleane contrary And vpō the other part whē they cā not finde any one Authour that sayth in wordes as they say yet say they that the Authors meant as they say Now whether they or I speake more to the purpose herein I referre it to the iudgement of all indifferent hearers Yea the old Church of Rome about a thousand yeares together neither beleued nor vsed the Sacrament as the Church of Rome hath done of late yeares For in the begynnyng the Church of Rome taught a pure a sound doctrine of the Sacrament but that after the Church of Rome fell into a new doctrine of Trāsubstantiation and with the doctrine they chaunged the vse of the Sacrament cōtrary to that Christ commaunded and the old Church of Rome vsed aboue a M. yeares And yet to deface the old they say that the new is the old wherein for my part I am content to the triall to stād But their doctrine is so fonde and vncomfortable that I marueile that any man would allow it if he knew what it is what soeuer they beare the people in hād that which they write in their bookes hath neither truth nor comfort For by their doctrine of one body of Christ is made two bodies one naturall hauing distance of members with forme and proportion of a mans perfect body and this body is in heauen but the body of Christ in the Sacrament by their owne doctrine must needes be a monstruous body hauyng neither distance of members nor forme fashion or proportion of a mans naturall body and such a body is in the Sacrament teach they and goeth into the mouth with the forme of bread and entreth no farther then the forme of bread goeth nor tarieth no longer then the forme of bread is by naturall heate in digestyng so that when the forme of bread is digested that body of Christ is gone And for asmuch as euill men be as long in digestyng as good men the body of Christ by their doctrine entreth as farre and tarieth as long in wicked as in godly men And what comfort can be herein to any Christian man to receaue Christes vnshapen body and it to enter no farther than the stomacke and to depart by and by as soone as the bread is consumed It seemeth to me a more sound and comfortable doctrine that Christ hath but one body and that hath forme and fashion of a mans true body which body spiritually entreth into the whole man body and soule and though the Sacrament be consumed yet whole Christ remaineth and feedeth the receauer vnto eternall life if he continue in godlynes neuer depart vntill the receauer forsake him And as for the wicked they haue not Christ within them at all who can not be where Belial is And this is my fayth and as me seemeth a sound doctrine accordyng to Gods word and sufficient for a Christian to beleue in that matter And if it can be shewed vnto me that the Popes authoritie is not preiudiciall to the thyngs before mentioned or that my doctrine in the Sacrament is erroneous which I thinke cā not be shewed then I was neuer nor will be so peruerse to stand wilfully in myne owne opinion but I shall with all humilitie submit my selfe vnto the Pope not onely to kisse his feete but an other part also An other cause why I refused to take the Byshop of Gloucester for my Iudge was the respect of his owne person beyng more then once periured First for that he beyng diuers tymes sworne neuer to consent that the G. of Rome should haue any iurisdiction within this Realme but to take the kyng and his successours for supreme heades of this Realme as by Gods lawes they be contrary to this lawfull oth the sayd B. sate then in iudgement by authoritie from Rome wherein he was periured and not worthy to sit as a Iudge The second periurie was that he tooke his Byshopricke both of the Queenes Maiestie and of the Pope makyng to eche of them a solemne othe which othes be so contrary that in the one he must needes be periured And furthermore in swearyng to the Pope to maintayne his lawes decrees constitutions ordinaunces reseruations and prouisions he declareth him selfe an enemy to the Imperiall crowne and to the Lawes and state of this Realme whereby hee declared him selfe not woorthy to sit as a Iudge within this Realme and for these considerations I refused to take him for my Iudge This was written in an other Letter to the Queene I Learned by Doct. Martin that at the day of your Maiesties Coronation you tooke an othe of obedience to the Pope of Rome and the same tyme you tooke an other othe to this Realme to maintaine the lawes liberties customes of the same And if your Maiestie did make an othe to the
which doth not teach that Christ is in the bread and wine which was the doctrine of Luther but the true faith is that Christes most precious body and bloud is by the might of his word and determination of his will which he declareth by his word in his holy Supper present vnder forme of bread and wine The substance of which natures of bread and wine is conuerted into his most precious body bloud as it is truely beleeued taught in the Catholick church of which teaching this Author cannot be ignorant So as the Author of this booke reporteth an vntruth wittingly against his conscience to say they teach calling them papists that Christ is in the bread and wine but they agrée in forme of teaching with that the Church of England teacheth at this day in the distribution of the holy Communion in that it is there said the body and bloud of Christ to be vnder the forme of bread and wine And thus much serueth for declaration of the wrong vntrue report of the faith of the Catholick Church made of this Author in the setting forth of this difference on that parte which it pleaseth him to name Papistes And now to speake of the other parte of the difference on the Authors side when he would tell what he and his say he conueyeth a sence craftely in wordes to serue for a difference such as no Catholick man would deny For euery Catholick teacher graunteth that no man can receaue worthely Christes body and bloud in the Sacrament vnles he hath by faith and charity Christ dwelling in him For otherwise such one as hath not Christ in him receaueth Christs body in the Sacrament vnworthely to his condemnation Christ cannot be receued worthely but into his own temple which be ye S. Paul saith and yet he that hath not Christes Spirite in him is not his As for calling it bread and wine a Catholick man forbeareth not that name signifiyng what those creatures were before the consecration in substance Wherefore appeareth how the Author of this booke in the lieu and place of a difference which he pretendeth he would shew bringeth in that vnder a But which euery Catholick man must néedes confesse that Christ is in them who worthely eate and drinke the Sacrament of his body and bloud or the bread and wine as this Author speaketh But as this Author would haue speaken plainly and compared truely the difference of the two teachinges he should in the second parte haue said from what contrary to that the Catholick Church teacheth which he doth not and therfore as he sheweth vntruth in the first report so he sheweth a sleight and shifte in the declaration of the second parte to say that repugneth not to the first matter and that no Catholicke man will deny considering the said two teachinges be not of one matter nor shoote not as one might say to one marke For the first parte is of the substance of the Sacrament to be receaued where it is truth Christ to be present God and man The second parte is of Christes Spirituall presence in the man that receaueth which in déede must be in him before he receaue the Sacrament or he cannot receaue the Sacrament worthely as before is sayd which two partes may stand well together without any repugnancy so both the differences thus taught make but one Catholick doctrine Let vs sée what the Author saith further Caunterbury NOw the craftes wiles and vntruthes of the first booke being partly detected after I haue also answered to this booke I shall leaue to the indifferent Reader to iudge whether it be of the same sort or no. But before I make further answere I shall rehearse the wordes of mine owne thirde boke which you attēpt next out of order to impugne My words be these Now this matter of Transubstantiatiō being as I trust sufficiently resolued which is the first part before rehearsed wherein the Papisticall doctrine varieth from the Catholick truth order requireth next to intreate of the second part which is of the manner of the presence of the body and bloud of our Sauiour Christ in the Sacramēt thereof wherin is no lesse cōtentiō thē in the first part For a plain explication whereof it is not vnknowen to all true faithfull christian people that our Sauiour Christ being perfecte God and in all thinges equall and coeternall with his Father for our sakes became also a perfect man taking flesh and bloud of his blessed mother and virgin Mary sauing sinne being in all thinges like vnto vs adioyning vnto his diuinity a most perfect soul of man And his body being made of very flesh and bones not onely hauing all members of a perfect mannes body in due order and proportion but also being subiect to hunger thirst labour sweate werines cold heate and all other like infirmities and passions of a manne and vnto death also and that the most vile and painfull vpon the crosse and after his death he rose againe with the self same visible and palpable body and appeared therewith and shewed the same vnto his Apostles and specially to Thomas making him to put his handes into his side and to feele his woundes And with the selfe same body he forsooke this world and ascended into heauen the Apostles seeing and beholding his body when it ascended and now sitteth at the right hand of his Father there shall remaine vntill the last day when he shall come to iudge the quick dead This is the true Catholick faith which the Scripture teacheth and the vniuersall Church of Christ hath euer beleeued from the beginning vntill within these 4. or 5. hundreth yeares last passed that the Bishop of Rome with the assistance of his Papistes hath set vp a new faith and beleefe of their own deuising that the same body really corporally naturally and sensibly is in this worlde still and that in an hundred thousand places at one time being inclosed in euery pixe and bread consecrated And although we doe affirme according to Gods word that Christ is in all persons that truly beleeue in him in such sort that with his flesh and bloud he doth spiritually nourish and feede them and geueth them euerlasting life doth assure them thereof as well by the promise of his word as by the Sacramental bread and wine in his holy supper which he did institute for the same purpose yet we doe not a little vary from the hainous errors of the Papists For they teach that Christ is in the bread and wine but we say according to the truth that he is in them that worthely eate and drink the bread wine Here it pleaseth you to passe ouer all the rest of my sayinges and to aunswere onely to the difference betweene the Papists and the true Catholicke faith Where in the first ye finde fault that I haue vntruely reported the Papisticall faith which you
call the faith of the Church which teacheth not say you that Christ is in the bread and wine but vnder the formes of bread and wine But to aunswere you I say that the Papists do teach that Christ is in the visible signes and whether they list to call them bread and wine or the formes of bread and wine all is one to me for the truth is that he is neither corporally in the bread and wine nor in or vnder the formes figures of them but is corporally in heauen and spiritually in his liuelye members which be his tēples where he inhabiteth And what vntrue reporte is this when I speake of bread and wine to the Papistes to speak of them in the fame sence that the Papistes meane taking bread and wine for the formes and accidences of bread and wine And your selfe also doe teach to vnderstand by the bread and wine not their substances but accidentes And what haue I offended then in speaking to you after your own māner of speach which your self doth approue and allow by and by after saying these wordes As for calling it bread and wine a Catholick man forbeareth not that name If a Catholick man forbeareth not that name and Catholick men be true men then true men forbeare not that name And why then charge you me with an vntruth for vsing that name which you vse your selfe and affirme Catholicke men to vse But that you be geuen altogether to finde faultes rather in other then to amend your own and to reprehend that in me which you allow in your selfe and other and purposely will not vnderstand my meaning because ye would seeke occasion to carpe and controll For els what man is so simple that readeth my booke but he may know well that I meane not to charge you for affirming of Christ to be in the very bread and wine For I know that you say ther is nether bread nor wine although you say vntruely therein but yet for as much as the accidents of bread and wine you call bread and wine and say that in them is Christ therfore I reporte of you that you say Christ is in the bread and wine meaning as you take bread and wine the accidentes thereof Yet D. Smith was a more indifferent Reader of my booke then you in this place who vnderstoode my wordes as I meante and as the Papistes vse and therefore would not purposely calūniate and reprehend that was well spoaken But there is no man so dull as he that will not vnderstand For men know that your witte is of as good capacitie as D. Smithes is if your will agreed to the same But as for any vntrue reporte made by me herein willingly against my conscience as you vntruely report of me by that time I haue ioyned with you throughout your booke you shall right well perceiue I trust that I haue sayd nothing wittingly but that my conscience shall be able to defend at the great day in the sight of the euerliuing God and that I am able before any learned and indifferent iudges to iustifie by holy Scriptures and the auncient Doctors of Christes church as I will appeale the consciences of all godly men that be any thing indifferent ready to yealde to the truth when they reade and consider my booke And as concerning the forme of doctrine vsed in this church of Englād in the holy Communiō that the body and bloud of Christ be vnder the formes of bread and wine whē you shall shew the place where this forme of words is expressed then shall you purge your selfe of that which in the meane time I take to be a plain vntruth Now for the second parte of the difference you graunt that our doctrine is true that Christ is in them that worthely eate and drunke the bread and wine and if it differ not from youres then let it passe as a thing agreed vpon by both partes And yet if I would captiously gather of your wordes I could as well prooue by this second parte that very bread and wine be eatē and drunken after consecration as you could prooue by the first that Christ is in the very bread and wine And if a Catholick man call the bread wine as you say in the second parte of the difference what ment you then in the first parte of this difference to charge me with so hainous a crime with a note to the Reader as though I had sinned against the holy Ghost because I said that the Papistes doe teach that Christ is in the bread and wine doe not you affirme here yourselfe the same that I reporte that the Papistes which you call the Catholickes doe not forbeare to call the Sacrament wherein they put the reall and corporall presence bread and wine Let the Reader now iudge whether you be caught in your own snare or no. But such is the successe of them that study to wrangle in wordes without any respecte of opening the truth But letting that matter passe yet we vary from you in this difference For we say not as you doe that the body of Christ is corporally naturally and carnally either in the bread and wine or formes of bread and wine or in them that eate and drinke thereof But we say that he is corporally in heauen onely and spiritually in them that worthely eate and drink the bread and wine But you make an article of the faith which the olde Church neuer beleeued nor heard of And where you note in this second parte of the difference a sleight and crafte as you note an vntruth in the first euen as much crafte is in the one as vntruth in the other being neither sleight nor vntruth in either of both But this sleight say you I vse putting that for a difference wherein is no difference at all but euery Catholick man must needes confesse Yet once againe there is no man so deafe as he that will not heare nor so blinde as he that will not see nor so dul as he that wil not vnderstand But if you had indifferent eares indifferent eyes and indifferent iudgement you might well gather of my wordes a plain and manifest difference although it be not in such tearmes as contenteth your mind But because you shall see that I meane no sleight nor crafte but goe plainly to worke I shall set out the difference truely as I ment and in such your own tearmes as I trust shall content you if it be possible Let this therfore be the difference They say that Christ is corporally vnder or in the formes of bread and wine We say that Christ is not there neither corporally nor spiritually but in them that worthely eate and drinke the bread and wine he is spiritually and corporally in heauen Here I trust I haue satisfied as well the vntrue report wittingly made as you say in the first parte of the difference against my conscience as the crafte and sleight vsed
bloud signifying to theÌ„ that worthely do eat that bread drink that cuppe that they be inwardly and inuisibly fed with Christes flesh and bloud as they outwardly and visibly receaue the sacraments of them To be short here in this processe you vse plenty of words at your pleasure to make the reader beleue that I should suppose confusion monstrousnes absurditie and vnseemelinesse to be in Gods holy sacraments where as I do no more but tel what monstrous absurdities and errors the Papists do teach in the sacraments But if the reader take good heede to your talk he shall finde that you lacking good matter to aunswere this comparison do fall vnto railing and enforce your pen to inuent such stuffe as might bring me into hatred vndeserued which kind of rhetorick is called Canma facunda and is vsed onely of them that hunt for their own praise by the dispraise of their aduersary which is yet an other trick of the deuils sophistry And because you would bring me into more extreme hatred you couple me with Sabellius and Arrius whose doctrines as you say were facile and easy as here you confesse mine for to be But if all such expositions as make the Scriptures plain should by and by be slaunderously compared to the doctrines of Arrius and Sabellius then should all the expositions of the doctors be brought in danger because that by their paines they haue made hard questions facile and easy And yet whether the doctrine which I set forth be easy to vnderstand or not I cannot define but it seemeth so hard that you cannot vnderstand it except you will put all the fault in your own wilfulnes that you can and wil not vnderstaÌ„d it Now followeth the sixt comparison Furthermore the Papistes say that a dog or a cat eateth the body of Christ if they by chaunce doe eate the Sacramentall bread We say That no earthly creature can eat the body of Christ nor drink his bloud but onely man Winchester I haue red that some intreate these chances of dogges and cattes but I neuer heard any of that opinion to say or write so as a doctrine that a dogge or a catte eateth the body of Christ and set it forth for a teaching as this author most impudently supposeth and I maruell much that such a worde and such a reporte can come out of a christian maÌ„nes mouth and therefore this is by the author a maruelous surmise Whereupon to take occasion to bring the aduersatiue But for the Authors parte being such a saying on that side as all christendome hath euer taught that no creature can eate the body and drinke the bloud of Christ but onely man But this abhominable surmysed no truth in the former parte of his comparison may be taken for a proofe whether such beastly asseuerations procéede from the spirite of truth or now And whether truth be there intended where such blasphemy is surmised But let vs see the rest Caunterbury YEt stil in these comparisons you grauÌ„t that part of the difference to be true which I affirme but you say that I reporte vntruely of the Papistes impudently bearing them in hand to say such abhominable beastly asseuerations as you neuer heard Whereby appeareth your impudent arrogancy in deniall of that thing which either you know the Papists do say or you are in doubt whether they say or saying hauing not read what it is that they say For why doe they reiect the Master of the sentences in this point that he said a mouse or bruite beast receaueth not the body of Christ although they seeme to receau it Wherin if you say as the Master did that the mouse receiueth not the body of Christ looke for no fauor at the papists hands but to be reiected as the Master was unles they forbeare you vpon fauour and because that in other matters you haue bene so good a captayne for them they will pardon you this one faulte Aâ—d so is this first parte of the difference no vntrue surmise of me but a determination of the Papistes condemning who so euer would say the contrary And this is a common proposition among the schoole diuines that the body of Christ remaineth so long as the forme of the bread is remayning where so euer it be whereof your S. Thomas wryteth thus Quidam vero dixerunt quod quaÌ„ primum Sacramentum sumitur à mure vel cane desinit ibi esse corpus Christi Sed hoc deregat veritati huius Sacramenti Substantia enim panis sumpta à peccatore I am diu manet dion per calorem naturalem est in digestione igitur tam diu manet corpus Christi sub speciebus Sacramentalibus And Perin in his booke printed and set abroad in this matter for all men to read saith That although the mouse or any other beast doe eate the Sacrament yet neuerthelesse the same is the very and reall body of Christ. And he asketh what inconuenience it is against the verity of Christs reall body in the Sacrament though the impassible body lye in the mouth or maw of the beast Is it not therfore the body of Christ Yes vndoubtedly saith he So that now these abhominable opinions and beastly asseuerations as you truely terme them meaning thereby to bite me as appeareth be fitte termes and meete for the Papists whose asseuerations they be Now followeth the seuenth comparyson They say that euery man good and euill eateth the body of Christ. We say that both doe eate the Sacramentall bread and drink the wine but none do eate the very body of Christ and drinke his bloud but only they that be liuely members of his body Winchester In this comparison the former part speaking of such men as be by baptisme receiued into Christes church is very true confirmed by S. Paule and euer since affirmed in the church in the proofe whereof here in this booke I wil not trauell but make it a demurre as it were in law whereupon to fly the truth of the hole matter if that doctrin called by this author the doctrine of the Papistes and is in déede the Catholick doctrine be not in this point true let all be so iudged for me If it be true as it is most true let that be a marke whereby to iudge the rest of this authors vntrue asseuerations For vndoubtedly S. Augustine sayth We may not of mens matters estéeme the Sacraments they be made by him whose they be but worthely vsed they bring reward vnworthely handled they bring iudgement He that dispenseth the Sacrament worthely and he that vseth it vnworthely lie not one but that thyng is one whether it be handled worthely or vnworthely so as if is neither better ne worse but life or death of them that vse it Thus saith S. Augustine and therefore be the receauers worthy or vnworthy good or euil the substance of Christs Sacrament is all one as beyng Gods worke
And yet it is not to be denied but that Christ is truely eaten as he was truly born but the one corporally and without figure and the other spiritually and with a figure Now followeth my 11 comparison They say that the body of Christ is euery day many tymes made as often as there be Masses sayd and that then and there he is made of bread and wine We say that Christes body was neuer but once made and then not of the nature substance of bread and wine but of the substance of his blessed mother Winchester The body of Christ is by Gods omnipotency who so worketh in his word made present vnto vs at such tyme as the church praye it may please him so to doe which prayer is ordred to be made in the booke of common prayer now set foorth Wherin we require of God the creatures of bread and wine to be sanctified and to be to vs the body and bloud of Christ which they can not be vnlesse God worketh it and make them so to be In which mistery it was neuer taught as this author willingly misreporteth that Christes most precious body is made of the matter of bread but in that order exhibited and made preset vnto vs by conuersion of the substaunce of bread into his precious body not a new body made of a new matter of bread and wine but a new presence of the body that is neuer old made present there where the substāce of bread and wine was before So as this comparison of difference is meere wrangling and so euident as it needeth no further aunswere but a note Lo how they be not ashamed to trifle in so great a matter and without cause by wrong termes to bring the truth in sclander if it were possible May not this be accompted as a part of Gods punishmēt for men of knowledge to write to the people such matter seriously as were not tolerable to be by a scoffer deuised in a play to supply when his fellow had forgotten his part Caunterbury Christ is present when so euer the church praieth vnto him and is gathered togither in his name And the bread and wine be made vnto vs the body and bloud of Christ as it is in the book of common praier but not by chaunging the substaunce of bread and wine into the substance of Christes naturall body and bloud but that in the godly vsing of thē they be vnto the receauers Christes body and bloud As of some the Scripture saith that their riches is their redemption and to some it is their damnatiō And as Gods word to some is life to some it is death and a snare as the prophet saith And Christ himself to some is a stone to stumble at to some is a raysing frō death not by conuersion of substances but by good or euill vse that thing which to the godly is saluation to the vngodly is damnation So is the water in baptism and the bread and wine in the Lords supper to the worthy receauers Christ himselfe and eternall life and to the vnworthy receauers euerlasting death and damnation not by conuersion of one substance into an other but by godly or vngodly vse thereof And therfore in the book of the holy communion we do not pray absolutely that the bread and wine may be made the body and bloud of Christ but that vnto vs in that holy mistery they may be so that is to say that we may so worthely receaue the same that we may be partakers of Christes body and bloud and that therwith in spirit and in truth we may be spiritually nourished And a like praier of old time were all the people wont to make at the communion of all such offerings as at that time all the people vsed to offer praying that their offerings might be vnto them the body and bloud of Christ. And where you say it was neuer taught as I say that Christs body is made of the matter of bread you knowingly and willingly misreport me For I say not of the matter of bread but of bread which when you deny that the Papists so say it semeth you be now ashamed of the doctrin which the Papistes haue taught thys 4. or 5. hundred yeres For is it not playnely written of all the Papists both lawyers and scholl authors that the body of Christ in the sacramēt is made of bread and his bloud of wine And they say not that his body is made present of bread wine but is made of bread and wine Be not their books in print ready to be shewed Do they not say that the substance of the bread neither remaineth still nor is turned into nothing but into the body of Christ And do not your selfe also say here in this place that the substance of bread is conuerted into Christes precious body And what is that els but the body of Christ to be made of bread and to be made of a new matter For if the bread doe not vanish away into nothing but be turned into Christes body then is Christs body made of it and then it must needes follow that Christes body is made of new and of an orher substance then it was made of in his mothers wombe For there it was made of her flesh and bloud and here it is made of bread and wine And the Papistes say not as you now would shift of the matter that Christes body is made present of bread but they say plainly without addition that it is made of bread Can you deny that this is the plain doctrine of the Papists Ex pane fit Corpus Christi of bread is made the body of Christ and that the substance of bread is turned into the substance therof◠And what reason sentence or english could be in this saying Christes body is made present of bread Marye to be present in bread might be some sentence but the speeche will you in no wise admitte And this your saying here if the reader mark it wel turneth ouer quite and cleane all the wholl Papisticall doctrine in this matter of the Sacrament as well touching transubstantiation as also the carnall presence For their doctrine with one whol consent and agreement is this That the substance of bread remaineth not but is turned into the substance of Christes body and so the body of Christ is made of it But this is false say you and not tollerable to be by a scoffer deuised in a place to supply when his fellow had forgotten his part And so the wholl doctrine of the papists which they haue taught these 4. or 5. hundreth yeares doe you condemne with condigne reproches as a teaching intollerable not to be deuised by a scoffer in a play Why doe you then take vpon you to defend the Papistical doctrine if it be so intollerable Why doe you not forsake those scoffers and players which haue iugled with the world so long and embrace the
and prayer If man should then waxe proud and glory as of him selfe and extoll his own deuotiō in these ministeries such men should bewray their own naughty hipocrisie yet therby empayr not the very dignity of the ministery ne the very true fruit and effect therof And therfore when the Church by the minister and with the minister prayeth that the creatures of bread and wine set on the aultar as the booke of common prayer in this Realme hath ordred may be vnto vs the body and bloud of our sauiour Christ we require then the celebration of the same Supper which Christ made to his Apostles for to be the continuall memory of his death with all fruite and effect such as the same had in the first institution Wherfore when the minister pronounceth Christes wordes as spoaken of his mouth it is to be beléeued that Christ doth now as he did then And it is to be noted that although in the Sacrament of Baptisme the minister saith I baptise thée yet in the celebration of his Supper the wordes be spoaken in Christes person as saying him selfe this is my body that is broaken for you which is to vs not onely a memory but an effectuall memory with the very presence of Christes body and bloud our very Sacrifice Who doing now as he did then offreth him selfe to his Father as he did then not to renue that offering as though it were imperfecte but continually to refresh vs that daily fall and decay And as S. Iohn saith Christ is our aduocate and intreateth for vs or pleadeth for vs not to supply any want on Gods behalfe but to relieue our wantes in edification wherein the ministery of the Church trauaileth to bring man to perfection in Christ which Christ himselfe doth assist and absolutely performe in his Church his misticall body Now whē we haue Christes body thus present in the celebration of the holy Supper and by Christes mouth present vnto vs saying this is my body which is betraied for you Then haue we Christes body recommended vnto vs as our Sacrifice and a Sacrifice propitiatory for all the sinnes of the world being the onely Sacrifice of Christes Church the pure and cleane Sacrifice wherof the Prophet Malachie spake and wherof the Fathers in Christs church haue since the beginning continually written the very true presence whereof most constantly beléeued hath encreased from time to time such ceremonies as haue béene vsed in the celebration of that Supper in which by Christes own mouth we be ascertained of his most glorious death and passion and the selfe same body that suffred deliuered vnto vs in mistery to be eaten of vs and therefore so to be worshipped and acknowledged of vs as our very onely Sacrifice in whom by whom and for whom our other priuate giftes and Sacrifices be acceptable and no otherwise And therfore as Christ declareth in the Supper himselfe an offering and Sacrifice for our sinne offering himselfe to his Father as our Mediator and so therewith recommendeth to his Father the Church his body for which he suffreth so the Church at the same Supper in their offering of laudes and thankes with such other giftes as they haue receaued from God ioyne them selues with their head Christ presenting and offering him as one by whom for whom and in whom all that by Gods grace man can doe well is auailable and acceptable and without whom nothing by vs done can be pleasaunt in the sight of God Wherupon this perswasion hath béen truely conceiued which is also in the booke of common prayer in the celebration of the holy supper retained that it is very profitable at that time when the memory of Christes death is solemnized to remember with prayer all estates of the Church and to recommend them to God which S. Paule to Timothy séemeth to require At which time as Christ signifieth vnto vs the certainty of his death and geueth vs to be eaten as it were in pledge the same his precious body that suffered So we for declaration of our confidence in the death and Sacrifice doe kindely remember with thankes his speciall giftes and charitably remember the rest of the mēbers of Christes church with praier and as we are able should with our bodely goodes remember at that time specyally to reléeue such as haue néede by pouerty And againe as Christ putteth vs in remembraunce of his great benefite so we should throughly remember him for our parte with the true confession of this mistery wherin is recapitulate a memoriall of all giftes and misteries that God in Christ hath wrought for vs. In the consideration and estimation wherof as there hath been a fault in the securitie of such as so their names were remembred in this holy time of memory they cared not how much they forgat themselues So there may be a fault in such as neglecting it care not whether they be remembred there at all therfore would haue it nothing but a plain eating and drinking How much the remembrance in prayer may auaile no man can prescribe but that it auaileth euery christen man must confesse Man may nothing arrogate to his deuotion But S. Iames said truely Multum valet oratio iusti assidua It is to be abhorred to haue hipocrites that counterfaite deuotion but true deuotion is to be wished of God and prayed for which is Gods gifte not to obscure his glory but to set it forth not that we should then trust in mennes merites and prayers but laude and glorifie God in them Qui talem potestatem dedit hominibus one to be iudged able to reléeue another with his prayer referring all to procéede from God by the mediation of our Sauiour and redéemer Iesus Christ. I haue taryed long in this matter to declare that for the effect of all celestiall or worldly giftes to be obteyned of God in the celebration of Christes holy Supper when we call it the communion is now prayed for to be present and is present and with Gods fauoure shalbée obtayned if we deuoutly reuerently charitably and quietly vse and frequents the same without other innouations then the order of the booke prescribeth Now to the last difference Caunterbury HOw is this comparison out of the matter of the presence of Christes most precious body in the Sacrament when the Papistes say that the masse is not a sacrifice propiciatory but because the presence of Christes most precious body beyng presently there And yet if this comparison be out of the matter as you say it is why doe you then wrastle and wrangle with it so much And doe I seeme to graunt the peesence of Christs body in the first part of my comparison when I do nothing there but rehearce what the Papists do say But because all this proceeds which you bring in here out of tune and time belōgeth to the last booke I wil passe it ouer vnto the propper place onely by the way touching shortly some
also in the middest of them that know him not and thus he reasoneth If he be here among vs still how can he be gone hence as a straunger departed into another countrey wherunto he answereth that Christ is both God and man hauing in him two natures And as a man he is not with vs vnto the worldes end nor is present with all his faihtfull that be gathered together in his name But his diuine power and spirite is euer with vs. Paule saith he was absent from the Corinthes in his body when he was present with thē in his spirite So is Christ sayth he gone hence and absent in his humanitie which in his diuine nature is euery where And in this saying sayth Origen we diuide not his humanitie ` for S. Iohn writeth that no spirite that deuideth Iesus can be of God but we reserue to both his natures their own properties In these wordes Origen hath playnly declared his mynd that Christes body is not both present here with vs and also gone hence and estranged from vs. For that were to make two natures of one body and to deuide the body of Iesus forasmuch as one nature can not at one tyme be both with vs and absēt from vs. And therefore sayth Origen that the presence must be vnderstanded of his diuinitie and the absence of his humanitie And according hereunto S. Austine writeth thus in a pistle Ad dardanum Doubt not but Iesus Christ as concerning the nature of his manhood is now there from whence he shall come And remember well and beleeue the profession of a christian man that he rose frō death ascended into heauen sitteth at the right hand of his father and from that place and none other shall he come to iudge the quicke and the dead And he shall come as the Aungels sayd as he was seene go into heauen that is to say in the same forme and substance vnto the which he gaue immortallytie but chaunged not nature After this forme sayth he meaning his mans nature we may not thynke that he is euery wher For we must beware that we doe not so stablish his diuinity that we take away the veritie of his body These be S. Augustines playne wordes And by and by after he addeth these wordes The Lord Iesus as God is euery where and as man is in heauen And finally he concludeth this matter in these few wordes Doubt not but our Lord Iesus Christ is euery where as God and as a dweller he is in man that is the temple of God and he is in a certain place in heauen because of the measure of a very body And agayne S. Augustin writeth vpon the Gospel of S. Iohn Our sauiour Iesus Christ sayth S. Augustine is aboue but yet his truth is here His body wherein he arose is in one place but his truth is spred euery where And in an other place of the same booke S. Augustine expounding these wordes of Christ. You shall euer haue poore men with you but me you shall not euer haue saith that Christ spake these words of the presence of his body For saith he as concerning his diuine maiesty as concerning his prouidence as concerning his infallible and inuisible grace these words be fulfilled which he spake I am with you vnto the worldes ende But as concerning the fleshe which he tooke in his carnation as concerning that which was borne of the virgine as concerning that which was apprehended by the Iewes and crucified vpon a tree and taken downe frō the crosse lapped in linnen clothes and buried and rose againe and appered after his resurrection as concerning that flesh he sayd You shall not euer haue me with you Wherefore senig that as concerning his flesh he was conuersant with his disciples forty dayes and they accompanying seeing and not following him he went vp into heauen both he is not here for he sitteth at the right hand of his father and yet he is here for he departed not hence as concerning the presence of his diuine Maiesty As concerning the presence of his Maiesty we haue Christ euer with vs but as concerning the presence of his flesh he said truely to his disciples ye shall not euer haue me with you For as concerning the presence of his flesh the church had Christ but a few dayes yet now it holdeth him fast by faith though it see him not with eyes All these be S. Augustines wordes Also in an other booke intitled to S. Augustine is written thus We must beleeue and confesse that the Sonne of God as concerning his diuinitie is inuisible without a body immortall and in circumscriptible but as concerning his humanitie we ought to beleeue and confesse that he is visible hath a body and it contayned in a certayn place and hath truely all the members of a man Of these wordes of S. Augustine it is most cleere that the profession of the catholick faith is that Christ as concerning his bodely substance and nature of man is in heauen and not present here with vs in earth For the nature and property of a very body is to be in one place and to occupy one place and not to be euery where or in many places at one time And though the body of Christ after his resurrectiō and ascention was made immortall yet this nature was not taken away for then as S. Augustine saith it were no very body And further S. August sheweth both the maner fourme how Christ is here present with vs in earth how he is absent saying that he is present by his diuine nature and maiesty by his prouidence by grace But by his humain nature and very body he is absent from this world and present in heauen Cyrillus likewise vpon the gospell of S. Iohn agreeth fully with S. Augustin saying Although Christ tooke away from hence the presence of his body yet in Maiestie of hys Godhead he is euer here as he promised to his disciples at his departing saying I am with you euer vnto the worldes end And in an other place of the same booke saynct Cyrill sayth thus Christian people must beleeue that although Christ be absent from vs as concerning hys body yet by his power he gouerneth vs and all thinges and is present with all them that loue hym Therfore he sayd Truely truely I say vnto you where so euer there be two or three gathered together in my name there am I in the middes of them For lyke as when he was conuersant here in earth as a man yet then he filled heauen and did not leaue the company of angelles euē so beyng now in heauen with hys flesh yet he filleth the earth and is in them that loue hym And it is to be marked that although Christ should go away onely as concerning hys flesh for he is euer present in the power of hys diuinitie yet for a little time he sayd he would be with hys disciples
reader the sayinges of these authors and see whether they say that one nature in Christ may be both in heauen and in earth both here with vs and absent from vs at one tyme and whether they resolue this matter of Christs being in heauen and in earth as Smith doth to be vnderstand of his māhoode in diuersitie of these respectes visible and inuisible And when thou hast well considered the authors sayinges then geue credite to Smith as thou shalt see cause But this allegation of these authors hath made the matter so hote that the Bishop of Winchester durste not once touch it and Smith as soone as he had touched it felt it so scawlding hote that he durst not abyde it but shranke away by and by for feare of burning his fingers Now here what followeth further in my booke But now seeing that it is so euident a matter both by the expresse words of Scripture and also by all the old authors of the same that our Sauiour Christ as concerning his bodely presence is ascended into heauen and is not here in earth And seeing that this hath been the true confession of the Catholicke faith euer since Christes ascention it is now to be considered what mooued the Papistes to make a new and contrary faith and what Scriptures haue they for their purpose What moued them I know not but their own iniquitie or the nature and condition of the sea of Rome which is of al other most contrary to Christ and therfore most worthy to be called the sea of Antichrist And as for Scripture they alleadge none but onely one and that not truely vnderstanded but to serue their purpose wrested out of tune wherby they make it to iarre and sound contrary to all other Scriptures pertaining to the matter Christ toke bread say they blessed brake it gaue it to his disciples saying This is my body These words they euer still repeate and beate vpon that Christ sayd this is my body And this saying they make their shooteanker to proue therby as well the reall and naturall presence of Christs body in the Sacrament as their imagined Transubstantiation For these words of Christ say they be most plain and most true Then for as much as he said This is my body it must needes be true that that thing which the Priest holdeth is his hands is Christs body And if it be Christes body then can it not be bread Whereof they gather by their reasoning that there is Christes body really present and noe bread Now forasmuch as all their proofe hangeth onely vpon these wordes this is my body the true sence and meaning of these wordes must be examined But say they what neede they any examination what wordes can be more plain then to say This is my body Truth it is in deed that the wordes be as plain as may be spoaken but that the sence is not so plain it is manifest to euery man that wayeth substantially the circumstances of the place For when Christ gaue bread to his disciples and said This is my body there is no man of any discretiō that vnderstandeth the english tongue but he may well know by the order of the speache that Christ spake those wordes of the bread callyng it his body as all the old authors also do affirme although some of the Papistes deny the same Wherfore this sentence can not meane as the wordes seeme and purport but there must needes be some figure or mistery in this speech more then appeareth in the playne wordes For by this manner of speeche plainly vnderstand without any figure as the wordes lye can be gathered none other sence but that bread is Christes body and that Christes body is bread which all Christian eares do abhorre to heare Wherefore in these wordes must needes be sought out another sence meaning then the words of themselues do beare And although the true sense and vnderstanding of these wordes be sufficiently declared before when I spake of Transubstantiation yet to make the matter so playne that no scrouple or doubt shall remayne here is occasion giuen more fully to intreate therof In whiche processe shal be shewed that these sentences of Christ This is my body This is my bloud be figuratiue speches And although it be manifest inough by the playn wordes of the gospel and proued before in the processe of Transubstantiation that Christ spake of bread when he sayd This is my body likewise that it was very wyne which he called his bloud yet least the Papistes should say that we sucke this out of our own fyngers the same shall be proued by testimony of the old authors to be the true and old fayth of the catholicke Church Where as the schole authors and Papistes shall not be able to shew so much as one word of any auncient author to the contrary First Ireneus writing against the Valentinians in his fourth booke sayeth that Christ confessed bread which is a creature to be his body and the cuppe to be his bloud And in the same booke he writeth thus also The bread wherin the thanks be geuen is the body of the Lord. And yet again in the same booke he saith that Christ taking bread of the same sort that our bread is of confessed that it was his body And that that thing which was tempered in the chalice was his bloud And in the fift booke he writeth further that of the chalice which is his body a man is nourished and doth grow by the bread which is his body These wordes of Ireneus be most plain that Christ taking very materiall bread a creature of God and of such sort as other bread is which we doe vse called that his body when he said this is my body and the wine also which doth feede and nourish vs he called his bloud Tertullian likewise in his booke written against the Iewes saith that Christ called bread his body And in his booke against Martian he oftentimes repeateth the selfe same wordes And S. Cipryan in the first booke of his epistles saith the same thing that Christ called such bread as is made of many cornes ioyned together his body and such wine he called his bloud as is pressed out of many grapes and made into mine And in his second booke he saith these wordes Water is not the bloud of Christ but wine And againe in the same epistle he saith that it was wine which Christ called hys bloud and that if wine be not in the chalice then we drinke not of the fruit of the vine And in the same Epistle he saith that meale alone or water clone is not the body of Christ except they be both ioyned together to make therof bread Epiphanius also saith that Christ speaking of a lofe which is round in fashion and cannot see heare nor feele said of it This is my body And S. Hierome wryting ad Hedibiam saith
writer among the Grekes hath more playnly spokeÌ„ for you then Theophilacte hath and yet when that shal be well examined it is nothing at all as I haue playnly declared shewing your vntruth aswell in allegation of the authors wordes as in falsefying his name And as for the Catechisme of Germany by me translated into English to this I haue aunswered before and truth it is that eyther you vnderstand not the phrase of the old authors of the church or els of purpose you will not vnderstand me But hereunto you shall haue a more full aunswer when I come to the proper place therof in the iiij part of my booke And as coÌ„cerning the wordes of Theophilact vpon the gospel of Iohn he speaketh to one effect and vseth much like termes vpon the gospels of Mathew Marke and Iohn wherunto I haue sufficiently aunswered in my former booke And because the aunswer may be the more present I shall rehearse some of my wordes here agayne Although sayd I Theophilactus spake of the eating of the very body of Christ and the drinking of his very bloud and not onely of the figures of them and of the conuersion of the bread and wine into the body and bloud of Christ yet he meaneth not of a grosse carnall corporall and sensible conuersion of the bread and wine nor of a like eating and drinking of his flesh and bloud for so not onely our stomackes would yerne our hartes abhorre to eate his flesh and to drink his bloud but also such eating and drinking could nothing profite and auayle vs but he spake of the celestiall and spirituall eating of Christ and of a sacramentall conuersion of the bread calling the bread not onely a figure but also the body of Christ geuing vs by those wordes to vnderstand that in the sacrament we do not onely eate corporally the bread which is a sacrament and figure of Christes body but spiritually we eate also his very body and drincke his very bloud And this doctrine of Theophilactus is both true godly and comfortable This I wrot in my former booke which is sufficient to aunswer vnto all that you haue here spoken And as concerning the bread that Christ did eate and feede vpon it was naturally eaten as other men eate naturally changed and caused a naturall nourishment and yet the very matter of the bread remayned although in an other forme but in them that duely receaue and â—at the Lordes holy supper all is spirituall aswell the eating as the change and nourishment which is none impediment to the nature of bread but that it may still remayne And where you come to the translation of this word species to signifie apparence this is a wonderfull kinde of translation to translat specie in apparence because apparet is truly translated appeareth with like reason aurum myght be translated meate because edâ—re signifieth to eate And your other translation is no lesse wonderfull where you turne the vertue of Christes body into the veritie And yet to cloke your folly therin and to cast a mist before the readers eyes that he should not see your vntruth therin you say that by vertue in that place must be vuderstanded verite First what soeuer be vnderstande by the worde vertue your fayth in translation is broken For the sense being ambiguous yoâ— ought in translation to haue kept the word as it is leauing the sense to be expended by the indifferent reader and not by altering the word to make such a sense as please you which is so foule a fault in a translatour that if Decolampadius had so done he should haue ben called a man faulty and gilthy a corruptour a deceauour an abuser of other men a peruerter a deprauer and a man without fayth As he might be called that would translate Verbum caro factum est The second person became man Which although it be true in meaning yet it is not true in translation nor declareth the fayth of the translatour But now as your translation is vntrue so is the meaning also vntrue and vnexcusable For what man is so far destitute of all his senses that he knoweth not a difference betwene the veritie of Christes body and the vertue therof Who can pretend ignoraunce in so manifest a thing Doth not all men know that of euery thing the vertue is one and the substance an other Except in God onely who is of that simplicitie without multiplication of any thing in him or diuersitie that his vertue his power his wisdome his iustice and all that is sayd to be in him be neyther qualites nor accidentes but all one thinge with his verie substauÌ„ce And neyther the right hand of God nor the vertue of God which you bring for an example and serueth to no purpose but to blind the ignorauÌ„t reader be any thing els but the very substaunce of God although indiuersitie of respectes and considerations they haue diuersitie of names except you will deuide the most single substaunce of God into corporall partes and members following the errour of the Aâ—cropomorphites But the like is not in the body of Christ which hath distinctioÌ„ of integrall partes and the vertue also and qualities distinct from the substance And yet if the example were like he should be an euill translator or rather a corrupter that for a dextris virtutis Dei would traÌ„slate a dextris Dei or coÌ„trary wise And therfore all traÌ„slators in those places folow the wordes as they be be not so arrogaÌ„t to alter one title in theÌ„ therby to make theÌ„ one in wordes although the thing in substaunce be one For wordes had not theyr signification of the substances or of thinges onely but of the qualities maners respectes and considerations And so may one word signifie diuers thinges one thing be signified by diuers wordes And therfore he that should for on word take an other because they be both referred to one substaunce as you haue done in this place should make a goodly yere of worke of it not much vnlike to him that should burne his house and say he made it because the making burning was both in one matter and substaunce It is much pitie that you haue not bestowed your tyme in translation of good authors that can skill so well of translation to make specieÌ„ to signifie apparence and that take vertue sometyme for veritie and somtime for nothing a dextris virtutis Dei to signifie no more but a dextris Dei and virtutem carnis to signifie no more but carnem and virtutem sanguinis sanguinem And why not seing that such wordes signifie ad placitum that is to say as please you to translate them And it seameth to be a strange thing that you haue so quicke an eye to espye other mens faultes and cannot see in Theophilact his playne aunswer but to take vpon you to teach him to aunswer For when he asketh the question why doth
example and this that was prefigured So as if Christes body in the Sacrament should be there but figuratiuely as this author teacheth then were the bread of Proposition figure of a figure and shadow of a shadow which is ouer great an absurditie in our religion Therfore there can not be a more playne proofe to shew that by S. Hieromes mynd Christes body is verely in the Sacrament and not figuratiuely onely then wheÌ„ he noteth Panes propositionis to be the figure and the shadow of Christes body in the Sacrament For as Tertulian sayth Figura non esset nisi veritatis esses corpus The other were not to be called a figure if that answered vnto it wer not of truth which is the sence of Tertulians wordes And therfore S. Hierome could with no other wordes haue expressed his mynde so certaynly playnly as with these to confesse the truth of Christes body in the SacrameÌ„t And therfore regarde not reader what this author sayth For S. Hierome affirmeth playnly Christes true body to be in the Sacrament the consecration wherof although S. Hierom attributeth to the minister yet we must vnderstand him that he taketh God for the author and worker notwithstanding by reason of the minestry in the church the doing is ascribed to manne as minister bycause Christ sayd Hoc facite after which speach saluation remission of sinne and the worke in other SacrameÌ„tes is attribute to the minister being neuerthelesse the same the propre and speciall workes of God And this I adde bicause some be vniustly offended to heare that man should make the body of Christ. And this author findth fault before at the word making which religiousely heard and reuerently spoken should offend no man for man is but a minyster wherin he should not glory And Christ maketh not him selfe of the matter of bread nor maketh him selfe so oft of bread a new body but sitting in heauen dooth as our inuisible Priest worke in the mistery of the visible pristhood of his church and maketh present by his omnipotencie his glorified body and bloud in this high mistery by conuertion of the visible creatures of bread and wine as Emissen sayth into the same This author of this booke as thou reader mayst perceaue applieth the figure of the breades called Panes propositionis to the body of Christ to come where as S. Hierome calleth them the figure of Christes body in the Sacrament and therfore doth fashion his argument in this sence If those breades that were but a figure required so much cleanes in them that should eat them that they might not eate of them which a day or two before had lyen with theyr wiues what cleanes is required in him that should make the body of Christ Wherby thou mayst se how this author hath reserued this notable place of S. Hierom to the later ende that thou shouldest in the ende as well as in the middest see him euidently snarled for the better remembrance Caunterbury TO these wordes of S. Hierome I haue sufficiently aunswered in my former booke And now to adde some thing therunto I say that he meaneth not that Panis Propositionis be figures of the sacrament but of Christes very body And yet the same body is not onely in the sacrament figuratiuely but it is also in the true ministration therof spiritually present spirituallye eaten as in my booke I haue playnely declared But how is it possible that Caius Vlpian or Sceuola Batholus Baldus or Curtius should haue knowledge what is ment by the spirituall presence of Christ in the sacrament and of the spirituall eating of his flesh and bloud if they be voyde of a liuely fayth feeding and comforting theyr soules with their owne workes and not with the breaking of the body and shedding of the bloud of our Sauiour Christ. The meat that the Papistes liue by is indulgences and pardons and such other remission of sinnes as cometh all from the Pope which giueth no life but infecteth and poysoneth but the meate that the true Christian man lyueth by is Christ him selfe who is eaten onely by fayth and so eaten is life and spirite giuing that life that endureth and continueth for euer God graunt that we may learne this heauenly knowledge of the spirituall presence that we may spiritually taste and feede of this heauenly foode Now where you say that there canne not be a more playne proofe to shew that Christes body is verely in the sacrament and not figuratiuely onely than when S. Hierome noteth Panis propositionis to be the figure and shadow of Christes body in the sacrament For as Tertulian sayth the other were not to be called a figure if that which aunswereth to it were not of truth Here your for is a playne fallax à non causa vt causa and a wonderous subtiltie is vsed therin For where Tertulian proueth that Christ had here in earth a very body which Martion denied bicause that bread was instituted to be a figure therof and there canne bee no figure of a thing that is not you alleadge Tertulians wordes as though he should say that Christes body is in the sacrament vnder the forme of bread whereof neyther Tertulian intreated in that place nor it is not required that the body should be corporally where the figure is but rather it should be in vayne to haue a figure when the thing it selfe is present And therfore you vntruely reporte both of S. Hierome and Tertulian For neyther of them both do say as you would gather of theyr wordes that Christes body is in the sacrament really and corporally And where you say that Christ maketh not him selfe of the matier of bread either you be very ignoraunt in the doctrine of the sacrament as it hath bene taught these fiue hundred yeares or els you dissemble the matter Hath not this bene the teaching of the schole diuines yea of Innocent him selfe that the matter of this Sacrament is bread of wheat and wine of grapes Do they not say that the substaunce of bread is tourned into the substaunce of Christes flesh and that his flesh is made of bread And who worketh this but Christ him selfe And haue you not confessed all this in your booke of the Deuils sophistry why do you then deny here that which you taught before and which hath bene the common aproued doctrine of the Papistes so many yeares And bycause it should haue the more authorite was not this put into the masse bookes and reade euery yeare Dognum datur christianis quod in caâ—nem transit panis uinum in sanguinem Now seing that you haue taught so many yeares that the matter and substaunce of bread is not consumed to nothing but is chaunged and tourned into the body of Christ so that the body of Christ is made of it what meane you now to deny that Christ is made of the matier of bread Whan water was tourned into wine was not the wine made of the
present vnder the kindes of bread and wine which as before is expressed and proued is vtterly nothing And so they geue vnto the ignorant occasion to worship bread and wine and they them selues worship nothing there at all Winchester As touching the adoration of Christes flesh in the sacrament which adoration is a true confession of the whole man soule and body if there be oportunity of the truth of God in his worke is in my iudgement well set forth in the booke of Common prayer where the priest is ordered to knele and make a prayer in his owne and the name of all that shall communicate confessing therin that is prepared there at which tyme neuerthelesse that is not adored that the bodely eye séeth but that which fayth knoweth to be there inuisibly present which and there be nothing as this author now teacheth it were not well I will not aunswere this authors eloquence but his matter where it might hurt Caunterbury WHere as I haue shewed what idolatry was cōmitted by meanes of the Papisticall doctrine concerning adoration of the sacrament bicause that answere to my reasons you can not and confesse the truth you will not therfore you runne to your vsuall shift passing it ouer with a toy and scoffe saying that you will not answere myne eloquence but the matter and yet indede you answere neither of both but vnder pretence of myne eloquēce you shift of the matter also And yet other eloquence I vsed not but the accustomed speach of the homely people as such a matter requireth And where you say that it were not well to worship Christ in the Sacrament if nothing be there as you say I teach if you meane that Christ can not be worshipped but where he is corporally present as you must nedes meane if your reason should be to purpose then it followeth of your saying that we may not worship Christ in Baptisme in the fieldes in priuate houses nor in no place els where Christ is not corporally and naturally present But the true teaching of the holy catholike churche is that although Christ as concerning his corporall presence be continually resident in heauen yet he is to be worshiped not onely there but here in earth also of all faythfull people at all tymes in all places and in all theyr workes Heare now what followeth further in my Booke But the Papistes for theyr owne commodity to keepe the people still in idolatry do often alleadge a certayne place of S. Augustine vpon the Psalmes where he sayth that no man doth eate the flesh of Christ except he first worship it and that we do not offend in worshipping therof but we should offend if we should not worship it That is true which S. Augustine sayth in this place For who is he that professeth Christ and spiritually fedde and nourished with his flesh and bloud but he will honor and worship him sitting at the right hand of his father and render vnto him from the botome of his hart all laud prayse and thankes for his mercifull redemption And as this is most true which S. Augustine sayth so is that most false which the Papistes would perswade vpon S. Augustines wordes that the Sacramentall bread and wine or any visible thing is to be worshipped in the Sacrament For S. Augustines mynd was so farre from any such thought that he forbiddeth vtterly to worship Christes owne flesh and bloud alone but in consideration and as they be annexed and ioyned to his diuinity How much lesse then could he thinke or allow that we should worship the Sacramentall bread and wine or any outward or visible Sacrament which be shadowes figures and representations of Christes flesh and bloud And S. Augustine was afrayd least in worshiping Christes very body we should offend therfore he biddeth vs when we worship Christ that we should not tarry and fixe our myndes vpon his flesh which of it self auayleth nothing but that we should lift vp our myndes from the flesh to the spirite which geueth lyfe and yet the Papistes be not afrayd by crafty meanes to induce vs to worship those thinges which be signes and sacraments of Christes body But what will not the shamelesse Papistes alleadge for theyr purpose when they be not ashamed to mayntayne the adoration of the Sacrament by these wordes of S. Augustine Wherin he speaketh not one word of the adoration of the sacrament but onely of Christ him selfe And although he say that Christ gaue his flesh to be eaten of vs yet he ment not that his flesh is here corporally present and corporally eaten but onely spiritually As his word declare playnly which follow in the same place where S. Augustine as it were in the person of Christ speaketh these wordes It is the spirite that giueth lyfe but the flesh profiteth nothing The wordes which I haue spoken vnto you be spirite and life That which I haue spoken vnderstand you spiritually You shall not eate this body which you see and drincke that bloud which they shall shed that shall crucify me I haue commended vnto you a sacramēt vnderstand it spiritually and it shall geue you lyfe And although it must be visibly ministred yet it must be inuisibly vnderstand These wordes of S. Augustine with the other before recited do expresse his mynd playnly that Christ is not otherwise to be eaten than spiritually which spirituall eating requireth no corporal presence and that he entended not to teach here any adoration eyther of the visible sacramentes or of any thing that is corporally in them For in dede there is nothing really and corporally in the bread to be worshipped although the Papistes say that Christ is in euery consecrated bread Winchester As in the wrong report of S Augustine who speaking of the adoration of Christes flesh geuen to be eaten doth so fashion his speach as it can not with any violence be drawen to such an vnderstanding as though S. Augustine should meane of the adoring of Christes flesh in heauen as this author would haue it S. Augustine speaketh of the giuing of Christes flesh to vs to eate and declareth after that he meaneth in the visible Sacrament which must be inuisibly vnderstanded spiritually not as the Capernaites did vnderstand Christes wordes carnally to eate that body cut in peces and therfore there may be no such imaginations to eat Christes body after the manner he walked here nor drincke his bloud as it was shedde vpon the Crosse but it is a mystery and sacrament that is godly of godes worke supernaturall aboue mans vnderstanding and therfore spiritually vnderstanded shall geue life which life carnall vnderstanding must nedes exclude And by these my wordes I thincke I declare truely S. Augustines meaning of the truth of this sacrament wherin Christ giueth truly his flesh to be eaten the flesh he spake of before taken of the virgine For the spirituall vnderstanding that S. Augustine speaketh of is not to exclude the truth of
sometimes in Scripture a thing is told after that was done before But S. Augustine saith not that it is so in this matter nor I am not so presumptuous to say that all the three Euangelistes with S. Paule also disordered the truth of the story in a matter wherein the truth can not be knowen but by the order S. Augustine De consensu Euangelistarum saith That that which Luke rehearseth of the chalice before the giuing of the bread was spoken by Christ after the distribution of the bread as the other two Euangelistes report the same And if these woordes Hoc est corpus meum had bene put out of the right place in all the three Euangelistes and also in S. Paule would not S. Augustine haue giuen warning therof aswell as of the other And would all other authors expounding that place haue passed ouer the matter in silence and haue spoken not one word therof specially being a matter of such waight that the Catholicke faith and our saluatiō as you say hangeth therof Do not all the profes that you haue hang of these wordes Hoc est corpus meum This is my body And shall you say now that they be put out of their place And then you must needes confesse that you haue nothing to defend your selfe but onely one sentence and that put out of order and from his right place as you say your selfe where in deede the Euangelistes and Apostles being true rehearsers of the story in this matter did put those wordes in the right place But you hauing none other shift to defend your errour do remoue the wordes both out of the right place and the right sense And can any man that loueth the truth giue his eares to heare you that turne vp side downe both the order and sense of Christes wordes contrary to the true narration of the Euangelistes contrary to the interpretation of all the old authors and the approued faith of Christes Church euen from the beginning onely to mainteine your wilful assertions and Papisticall opinions So long as the Scripture was in the interpretation of learned Diuines it had the right sence but when it came to the handling of ignoraūt Lawyers and Sophisticall Papistes such godly men as were well exercised in holy Scripture and old Catholicke writers might declare and defend the truth at their perils but the Papisticall Sophisters and Lawyers would euer define and determine all matters as pleased them But all truthes agree to the truth and falsehode agreeth not with it selfe so it is a playne declaration of vntruth that the Papistes varie so among themselues For some say that Christ consecrated by his owne secret power without signe or wordes some say that his benediction was his cōsecration some say that he did consecrate with these wordes Hoc est corpus meum and yet those vary among themselues for some say that he spake these wordes twise once immediatly after benediction at what tyme they say he consecrated and agayne after when he commaunded them to eate it appointyng than to his Apostles the forme of consecration And lately came new Papistes with their v. egges and say that the consecration is made onely with these v. wordes Hoc est enim corpus meum And last of all come you and Smith with yet your newer deuises saying that Christ spake those wordes before he gaue the bread immediatly after the breakyng manifestly contrary to the order of the text as all the Euangelistes report and contrary to all old authours of the Catholicke Church which all with one consent say that Christ gaue bread to his Apostles and contrary to the booke of Common prayer by you allowed which rehearseth the wordes of the Euangelistes thus that Christ tooke bread and when he had blessed and geuen thankes he brake it and gaue it to his disciples where all the relation is made to the bread Is this your faythfull handling of Gods word for your pleasure to turne the wordes as you list Is it not a thing much to be lamented that such as should be the true setters fourth of Christes Gospell do trifle with Christes wordes after this sort to alter the order of the gospell after their owne phantasie Can there be any trifling with Christes wordes if this be not And shall any christen man geue credite to such corrupters of holy scripture Haue you put vpon you harlots faces that you be past all shame thus to abuse gods worde to your owne vanity And be you not ashamed likewise so manifestly to bely me that I phansy that the apostles should be so hasty to drincke or Christ had told them what he gaue where as by my wordes appeareth cleane contrary that they drancke not before all Christes wordes were spoken And where you say that Christ gaue that he had consecrated and that he made of bread here you graunt that Christes body which he gaue to his disciples at his last supper was made of bread And then it must folow that eyther Christ had two bodyes the one made of the flesh of the virgine Mary the other of bread or els that the selfe same body was made of two diuers matters and at diuers and sundry tymes Now what doctrine this is let them iudge that be learned And it is worthy a note how vnconstant they be that will take vppon them to defend an vntruth and how good memories they had nede to haue if they should not be taken with a lye For here you say that Christes body in the Sacrament is made of bread and in the xi comparison you sayd that this saying is so fond as were not tollerable to be by a scoffer deuised in a play to supply when his fellow had forgotten his part And where you say that S. Paule speaketh not of materiall bread but of Christes body when he sayth that we be partakers of one bread the wordes of the text be playne against you For he speaketh of the bread that is broken whereof euerye man taketh parte whiche is not Christes body excepte you wyll say that we eate Christes bodye deuided in peaces as the grose Capernaites imagined And S. Augustine with other olde authors do write that Paule spake of such bread as is made of a great multitude of graynes of corne gathered togither and vnited into one materiall lofe as the multitude of the spirituall members of Christ be ioyned to gither into one misticall body of Christ. And as concerning Theodorete and Chrisostome they say as playnly as can be spoken that the bread remayneth after consecration although we call it by a more excellent name of dignity that is to say by the name of Christes body But what estimation of wisedome or learning so euer you haue of yourselfe surely there appeareth neyther in you in this place whereuppon the alteration of the name of bread you would gather the alteration of the substaunce or Transubstantiation Be not kinges and
say the change in mans soule by Baptisme to be there made the sonne of God is but in figure and signification not true and reall in deede or els graunt the true catholique doctrine of the turne of the visible creatures into the body and bloud of Christ to be likewise not in figure and signification but truly really and indeede And for the thing changed as the soule of man mans inward nature is chaunged so the inward nature of the bread is changed And then is that euasion taken away which this author vseth in an other place of Sacramentall change which should be in the outward part of the visible creatures to the vse of signification This author noteth the age of Emissene and I note with all how playnly he writeth for confirmation of the Catholique teaching who indeede bicause of his auncient and playne writing for declaration of the matter in forme of teaching without contention is one whose authority the church hath much in allegation vsed to the conuiction of such as haue impugned the Sacrament eyther in the truth of the presence of Christes very body or Transubstantiation for the speaking of the inward change doth poynt as it were the change of the substance of bread with resembling therunto the soule of man changed in Baptisme This one author not being of any reproued and of so many approued and by this in the allegation after this manner corrupt might suffice for to conclude all brabling agaynst the Sacrament Caunterbury WHere I haue corrupted Emissene let the reader be iudge But when Emissene speaketh godly of the alteration change and turning of a man from the congregation of the wicked vnto the congregation of Christ which he calleth the body of the church and from the childe of death vnto the child of God this must be made a matter of scoffing to turne light fellowes out of the chancell into the body of the church Such trifling now a dayes becometh gayly well godly Bishoppes what if in the steede of turning I had sayd skipt ouer as the word transilisti signifieth which although peraduenture the bookes be false and should be transisti I haue translated turning should I haue so escaped a mocke trow you You would then haue sayd he that so doth goeth not out at the chancell dore into the body of the church but skippeth ouer the stalles But that Emissene ment of turning is cleare aswell by the wordes that go before as those which go after which I referre to the iudgement of the indifferent reader But forasmuch as you would perswade men that this author maketh so much for your purpose I shall set forth his minde playnly that it may appeare how much you be deceaued Emissenes mynd is this that although our sauiour Christ hath taken his body hence from our bodely sight Yet we see him by fayth and by grace he is here present with vs so that by him we be made new creatures regenerated by him and fedde and nourished by him which generation and nutrition in vs is spirituall without any mutation appearing outwardly but wrought within vs inuisibly by the omnipotent power of God And this alteration in vs is so wonderfull that we be made new creatures in Christ grafted into his body and of the same receaue our nourishment and encreasing And yet visibly with our bodely eyes we see not these thinges but they be manifest vnto our fayth by gods worde and sacraments And Emissene declareth none other reall presence of Christ in the sacrament of his body and bloud then in the Sacrament of baptisme but spiritually by fayth to be present in both And where Emissene speaketh of the conuersion of earthly creatures into the substance of Christ he speaketh that aswell of baptisme as of the lordes supper as his owne wordes playnly declare If thou wilt know sayth he how it ought not to seme to thee a new thing and impossible that earthly and corruptible thinges be turned into the substance of Christ looke vppon thy selfe which art made new in baptisme And yet he ment not that the water of baptisme in it selfe is really turned into the substance of Christ nor likewise bread and wine in the Lordes supper but that in the action water wine and bread as sacraments be sacramentally conuerted vnto him that duely receaueth them into the very substance of Christ. So that the sacramentall conuersion is in the Sacraments and the reall conuertion is in him that receaueth the sacraments which reall conuertion is inward inuisible and spirituall For the outward corporall substances aswell of the name as of the water remayne the same that they were before And therfore sayth Emissene Thou visibly diddest remayne in the same measure that thou haddest before but inuisibly thou wast made greater without any increase of thy body thou wast the selfe same person and yet by the encrease of fayth thou wast made an other man Outwardly nothing was added but all the change was inwardly In these wordes hath Emissene playnly declared that the conuersion in the sacraments wherof he spake when he sayd that earthly and corruptible thinges be turned into the substance of Christ is to be vnderstand in the receauours by their fayth and that in the sayd conuersion the outward substance remayneth the selfe same that was before And that Emissene ment this as well in the sacrament of the lordes supper as in the sacrament of baptisme his own wordes playnly declare So that the substance of Christ as well in baptisme as the Lordes supper is seene not with our eyes but with our fayth and touched not with our bodies but with our mindes and receaued not with our hands but with our hartes eaten and drunken not with our outward mouthes but with our inward man And where Emissene sayth that Christ hath taken his body from our sight into heauen and yet in the sacrament of his holy supper he is present with his grace through fayth he doth vs to vnderstand that he is not present in the formes of bread and wine out of the ministration except you will say that fayth and grace be in the bread when it is kept and hanged vp but when the bread and wine be eaten and drunken according to Christes institution then to them that so eate and drincke the bread and wine is the body and bloud of Christ according to Christes wordes Edite hoc est corpus meum Bibite hic est calix senguinis mei And therfore in the booke of the holy communion we do not pray that the creatures of bread and wine may be the body and bloud of Christ but that they may be to vs the body and bloud of Christ that is to say that we may so eate them and drincke them that we may be partakers of his body crucified and of his bloud shed for our redemption Thus haue I declared the truth of Emissenes mynd which is agreable to Gods word and the olde
and principally in the persons and in the sacramentall signes it is none otherwise but sacramentally and in significatiō And whether this be matter of trueth or a thing deuised onely for a shift let the reader iudge And where you say in your further aunswere here to S. Ambrose that the visible matter of the bread outwardly remayneth it seemeth you haue not well marked the wordes of S. Ambrose who sayth that the words of Christ chaungeth species elementorum And then if species as you haue sayd before in many places signify the visible matter then the visible matter remayneth not as you say but is changed as S. Ambrose sayth And so S. Ambrose wordes that species elementorum mutantur be cleane contrary to your wordes that the visible matter remayneth I will passe ouer here how you call accidents of bread the matter of bread agaynst all order of speach bicause I haue touched that matter sufficiently before And yet this is not to be passed ouer but to be noted by the way how playnly S. Ambrose speaketh agaynst the Papistes which say that the body and bloud of Christ remayne sub speciebus panis vini vnder the formes of bread and wine And S. Ambrose sayth that species elementorum mut antur the formes of bread and wine be changed Aud where you say that in the examples of mutation brought in by S. Ambrose although the substance remayne still the same yet that skilleth not your answer here seemeth very strange to say that that thing skilleth not which skilleth all togither and maketh the whole matter For if in the examples the substances remayne notwithstanding the mutation of the natures by benediction then do not these examples proue that the substance of bread and wine remayne not And if this were singuler from the examples as you say it is then were not the other examples of this For if the substances remayne in them how can they be brought for examples to proue that the substances of bread and wine remayne not when they be brought for examples and thinges that be like and not that the one should be singular and vnlike from the other And where you alleadge this place of S. Ambrose for you nothing can be spoken more directly agaynst you For the natures sayth S. Ambrose of bread and wine be changed And the nature say you is the outward visible formes and that that is changed remayneth not say you also and so followeth then that the substances of bread and wine remayne and not the outward visible formes which is directly agaynst your fayned Transubstantiation and agaynst all that you sayd hitherto cōcerning that matter And wher a sacramentall mutatiō is to you a new tearme it declareth nothing els but your ignorance in the matter And although you seeme to be ignorant in other authors yet if you had expended diligently but one chapter of S. Ambrose you should haue found three examples of this sacramentall mutation wherin the substances remayne entier and whole one is in the sacrament of Christes incarnation an other is in a person that is baptised and the third in the water of baptisme which three examples I alleadged in my booke but you thought it better slightly to passe them ouer then to trouble your brayne with answering to them And where you say that calling bread the body of Christ is making it in deed the body of Christ as Christ was called Iesus bicause he is the sauiour of all men in deed here it appeareth that you consider not the nature of a sacrament For when sacraments be named or called by the names of the thinges which they signifie yet they be not the same thinges indeed but be so called as S. Augustine sayth bicause they haue some similitude or likenes to the thinges which they be called But Christ was called Iesus our Sauiour as the very true Sauiour in deed not as a sacrament or figure of saluation as the bread is the sacrament of Christes flesh and wine the sacrament of his bloud by which names they be called and yet be not the very thinges in deed Thus haue I answered to the chiefe authors which you alleadge for Transubstantiation making your owne authors not onely to ouerthrow your building but to digge vp your foundation cleane from the botome and nothing is left yon but arrogancy of mynd and bosting of words as men say that you still phansye with your selfe and bragge that you be bishop of Winchester euen as a captayne that glorieth in his folly when he hath lost his castle with ordinaunce and all that he had And at length you be driuen to your church which you call the consent of christendome vniuersall when it is no more but the Papisticall church that defendeth your transubstantiation Now declareth my booke the absurdities that follow the errour of Transubstantiation And now I will reherse diuers difficulties absurdities and inconueniences which must needes follow vpon this errour of Transubstantiation wherof not one doth follow of the true right fayth which is according to Gods word First if the Papists be demaunded what thing it is that is broken what is eaten what is dronken and what is chawed with the teeth lippes and mouth in this sacrament they haue nothing to answere but the accidentes For as they say bread and wine be not the visible elements in this sacrament but onely their accidents And so they be forced to say that accidentes be broken eaten drunken chawen and swallowed without any substance at all which is not onely agaynst all reason but also agaynst the doctrine of all auncient authors Winchester In the second volume of the 43. leafe the author goeth about to note 6. absurdities in the doctrine of Transubstantiation which I entend also to peruse The first is this First if the Papistes be demaunded c. This is accompted by this author the first absurditie and inconuenience which is by him rhetorically set forth with lippes and mouth and chawing not substanciall termes to the matter but accidentall For opening of which matter I will repeate some part agayne of that I haue written before when I made the scholler answer the rude man in declaration of substance which is that albeit that sensible thing which in speach vttered after the capacity of common vnderstanding is called substance be comprehended of our sences yet the inward nature of euery thing which is in learning properly called substance is not so distinctly knowen of vs as we be able to shew it to the sences or by wordes of difference to distinct in diuers kindes of thinges one substance from an other And herin as Basill sayth if we should goe about by separation of all the accidents to discerne the substance by it selfe alone we should in the experience fayle of our purpose and ende in nothing indeede There is a naturall consideration of the abstract that can not be practised in experience And to me if it were
accepted and pleasaunt in the sight of God And this maner of shewyng Christes death and kèepyng the memorie of it is grounded vpon the Scriptures written by the Euangelistes and S. Paule and accordyng thereunto Preached beleued vsed and frequented in the Church of Christ vniuersally and from the beginnyng This authour vtteryng many wordes at large besides Scripture and agaynst Scripture to depraue the Catholike doctrine doth in a few wordes which be in déede good wordes and true confounde and ouerthrow all his enterprise and that issue will I ioyne with him which shall suffise for the confutation of this booke The fewe good wordes of the authour which wordes I say confounde the rest consist in these two pointes One in that the authour alloweth the Iudgement of Petrus Lombardus touchyng the oblation and sacrifice of the Church An other in that the authour confesseth the Councell of Nice to be holy Councell as it hath bene in déede confessed of all good Christen men Upon these two confessions I will declare the whole enterprise of this fift booke to be ouerthrowen Caunterbury MY fift booke hath so fully so playnly set out this matter of the sacrifice that for aūswere to all that you haue here brought to the cōfutation therof the reader neede to do no more but to looke ouer my booke agayne and he shall see you fully aunswered before hand Yet wyll I here and there adde some notes that your ignoraūce and craft may the better appeare This farre you agree to the truth that the sacrifice of Christ was a ful and a perfect sacrifice which needed not to be done no more but once and yet it is remembred and shewed forth dayly And this is the true doctrine accordyng to Gods word But as concernyng the reall presence in the accidents of bread and wine is an vntrue doctrine fayned onely by the Papistes as I haue most playnly declared and this is one of your errours here vttered An other is that you cast the most precious body and bloud of Christ the sacrifice Propitiatorie for all the sinnes of the world which of it selfe was not the sacrifice but the thyng whereof the sacrifice was made and the death of him vpon the Crosse was the true sacrifice propiciatorie that purchased the remission of sinne which sacrifice continued not long nor was made neuer but once where as his flesh and bloud continued euer in substaunce from his incarnation as well before the sayd sacrifice as euer sithens And that sacrifice propitiatorie made by him onely vpon the Crosse is of that effect to reconcile vs to Gods fauour that by it be accepted all our sacrifices of landes and thankes geuyng Now before I ioyne with you in your issue I shall rehearse the wordes of my booke which when the indifferent Reader seeth he shal be the more able to iudge truely betwene vs. My booke conteineth thus The fift Booke THe greatest blasphemy and iniurie that can be agaynst Christ and yet vniuersally vsed through the Popishe kyngdome is thys that the Priestes make their Masse a sacrifice propitiatorie to remit the sinnes as well of them selues as of other both quicke and dead to whom they list to apply the same Thus vnder pretence of holynes the Papistical priests haue taken vpon them to be Christes successours and to make such an oblation and sacrifice as neuer creature made but Christ alone neither he made the same any more tymes then once and that was by his death vpon the Crosse. For as S. Paule in his Epistle to the Hebrues witnesseth Although the high priestes of the old law offered many tymes at the least euery yeare once yet Christ offered not him selfe many tymes for then he should many tymes haue dyed But now he offered him selfe but once to take away sinne by that offering of him selfe And as men must dye once so was Christ offered once to take away the sinnes of many And furthermore S. Paul sayth That the sacrifices of the old law although they were continually offered from yeare to yeare yet could they not take away sinne nor make men perfect For if they could once haue quieted mens consciēces by taking away sinne they should haue ceassed and no more haue bene offered But Christ with once offering hath made perfect for euer them that be sanctified puttyng their sinnes cleane out of Gods remembraūce And where remission of sinnes is there is no more offering for sinne And yet further he sayth concernyng the old Testament that it was disanulled and taken away bicause of the feeblenesse and vnprofitablenesse therof for it brought nothyng to perfection And the priestes of that law were many bycause they liued not long and so the priesthode went from one to an other but Christ liueth euer and hath an euerlastyng priesthode that passeth not from him to any man els Wherfore he is able perfectly to saue them that come to God by him for asmuch as he liueth euer to make intercession for vs. For it was meete for vs to haue such an high priest that is holy innocent with out spot separated from sinners and exalted vp aboue heauen who needeth not dayly to offer vp sacrifice as Aarons priestes did first for his owne sinnes and then for the people For that he did once when he offered vp him selfe Here in his Epistle to the Hebrues S. Paule hath playnly and fully described vnto vs the difference betwene the priesthode and sacrifices of the old Testament and the most high and worthy priesthode of Christ his most perfect and necessary sacrifice and the benefite that commeth to vs thereby For Christ offered not the bloud of calues sheepe and goates as the priests of the old law haue vsed to do but he offered his own bloud vpon the Crosse. And he went not into an holy place made by mans hand as Aaron did but he ascended vp into heauen where his eternall Father dwelleth and before him he maketh continuall supplication for the sinnes of the whole world presentyng his owne body which was torne for vs and his precious bloud which of his most gracious and liberall charitie he shed for vs vpon the Crosse. And that sacrifice was of such force that it was no neede to renew it euery yeare as the Byshops did of the old Testament whose sacrifices were many tymes offered and yet were of no great effect or profite bycause they were sinners them selues that offered them and offered not their owne bloud but the bloud of brute beastes but Christes sacrifice ones offered was sufficient for euermore And that all men may the better vnderstand this sacrifice of Christ which he made for the great benefite of all men it is necessary to know the distinctiō and diuersitie of sacrifices One kynde of sacrifice there is which is called a Propitiatory or mercyfull sacrifice that is to say such a sacrifice as pacifieth Gods wrath and indignatiō and obteineth mercy and forgiuenes
to such as profes to beleue the determination of that counsell in the opening of the mistery of the Trinity with other words then Scripture vseth although they expres such sence as in the scriptures is contained Why should not all such like wise beleue the same counsel in explication of the Sacraments which to do the author hath bound himselfe graunting that counsell holy And then we must bebeleue the very presence of Christes body and bloud on gods bord and that Priestes doe there sacrifice and be therefore called and named sacrificers So as those names terms be to be honoured and religiously spoken of being in an holy counsell vttered and confessed because it was so séene to them and the holy ghost without whose present asistance and suggestion beleued to be there the counsell could not or ought not to be called holy Now if we conferre with that counsell of Nice the testimony of the Church beginning at S. Dionyse who was in the time of the Apostles and after him comming to Irene who was nere the apostles and then Tertullian and so S. Cyprian S. Chrisostome S. Cyrill S. Hierome S. Augustine and from that age to the tyme of Petrus Lombardus all spake of the sacrament to the same effect and termed it for the word sacrifice and oblation to be frequented in the church of the body and bloud of Christ as may be in particularity shewed whereof I make also an issue with the author Caunterbury FOr aunswere to Nicene councell it speaketh of a sacrifice of laudes and thankes giuing which is made by the Priest in the name of the whole church and is the sacrifice as well of the people as of the priest this sacrifice I say the counsell of Nice speaketh of but it speaketh not one word of the sacrifice propitiatory which neuer none made but onely Christ nor he neuer made it any more then once which was by his death And where so euer Christ shal be herafter in heauē or in earth he shal neuer be sacrificed agayne but the church continually in remembraunce of that sacrifice maketh a sacrifice of laud and prayse geuing euermore thanks vnto him for that propitiatory sacrifice And in the third chapter of my booke here recited the difference of these ii sacrifices is playnely set out And although Nicene counsell call Christ the lambe that taketh away the sins of the world yet doth it not mean that by the sacrifice of the priest in the Masse but by the sacrifice of himselfe vpon the crosse But here according to your accustomed maner you alter some wordes of the counsell and adde also some of your owne For the councell sayd not that the Lamb of God is sacrificed of the priests not after the manner of other sacrifices but that he is sacrificed not after the manner of a sacrifice And in saying that Christ is sacrificed of the priest not like a sacrifice or after the maner of a sacrifice the counsell in these wordes signified a difference betweene the sacrifice of the priest and the sacrifice of Christ which vpon the Crosse offered himselfe to be sacrificed after the manner of a very sacrifice that is to say vnto death for the sinnes of the world Christ made the bloudy sacrifice which tooke away sinne the priest with the church make a commemoration thereof with laudes and thanksgeuing offering also themselues obedient to God vnto death And yet this our sacrifice taketh not away our sinnes nor is not accepted but by his sacrifice The bleeding of him took away our sinnes not the eating of him And although that Counsell say that Christ is situate in that table yet it sayth not that he is really and corporally in the bread and wine For thē that counsell would not haue forbid vs to direct our mindes to the breade and cup if they had beleued that Christ had bene really there But forasmuch as the counsell commaundeth that we shall not direct our mindes downeward to the bread and cup but lift them vp to Christ by fayth they geue vs to vnderstand by those wordes that Christ is really and corporally ascended vp into heauen vnto which place we must lift vp our mindes and reach him there by our fayth and not looke downe to find him in the bread And yet he is in the bread sacramentally as the same counsel sayth that the holy ghost is in the water of baptisme And as Christ is in his supper present to feed vs so is he in baptisme present to clothe and apparell vs with his owne selfe as the same counsell declareth whose words be these He that is baptised goeth downe into the water being subiect to sinne and held in the bands of corruption but he riseth vp free from bōdage and sinne being made by the grace of God his sonne and heir and coinheritor with Christ and apparelled with Christ himself as it is written As many of you as be baptised vnto Christ you haue put Christ vpon you These wordes of the counsell I reherse onely in english because I wil not let nor encōber the reader with the greeke or latine as you do which is nothing els but to reherse one thing thrise without need or profit If I had list I could haue rehersed all the greek authors in greek and the latine writers in latine but vnto english men vnto whom onely I write it were a vain labour or glory without fruit or profyte or any other cause except I entended to make my booke long for gayne of the printer rather then for profit to the reader But to returne to the matter Christ is present in his holy supper as that holy Councell sayth euen as he is present in Baptisme but not really carnally corporally and naturally as you without ground imagine And if he were to present yet is he not there sacrificed agayne for sinne For then were his first sacrifice vpon the Crosse in vayne if it sufficed not therefore And as for Dionyse Irenee Tertullian with all your other authors I haue aunswered them in the thirtenth chapiter of this my laste booke And what need you make an issue in this thing which is not in controuersy and which I affirme in my whole last booke The matter in question is of the sacrifice propitiatory and you make your issue of the sacrifyce generally Now let vs see how you intreat Petrus Lombardus Winchester For the other poynt in that the author approueth the iudgemēt of Petrus Lombardus in the matter what should I more doe but write in the wordes of Petrus Lombardus as he hath them which he these in the fourth booke the xii chapter alleadged by the author Post haec quaeritur si quod gerit sacerdos proprie dicatur sacrisiciū vel immolatio si Christus quotidie vel immoletur semel tantum immolatus sit Ad hoc breuiter dici potest illud quod offertur consecratur a sacerdote vocari
is noted by Cyril the sacrifice of the church to do when he sayth it is vinificum which can be onely sayd of the very body and bloud of Christ. Nor our sacrifice of laudes and thankesgeuing cannot be sayd a pure and cleane Sacrifice whereby to fulfill the prophecy of Malachy and therefore the same prophecy was in the beginning of the Church vnderstanded to be spoken of the dayly offering of the body and bloud of Christ for the memory of Christes death according to Christes ordinaunce in his supper as may at more length be opened and declared Thinking to the effect of this booke sufficient to haue encountred the chiefe poyntes of the authors doctrine with such contradiction to thē as the Catholique doctrine doth of necessity require the more particuler confutation of that is vntrue on the aduersary part and confirmation of that is true in the Catholique doctrine requiring more tyme and leysure then I haue now and therefore offering my selfe ready by mouth or writing to say further in this matter as shal be required I shall here end for this time with prayer to almighty God to graunt his truth to be acknowledged and confessed and vniformely to be preached and beleued of al so as all contention for vnderstanding of religion auoyded which hindereth Charity we may geue suche light abroad as men may see our good workes and glorify our father who is in heauen with the sonne and holy ghost in one vnity of godhead reigning without end Amen Caunterbury HIpinus sayth that the old fathers called the Supper of our Lord a sacrifice but that the old fathers should call it a sacrifice propitiatory I will not beleue that Hipinus so sayd vntill you appoint me both the booke and place where he so sayth For the effect of his booke is cleane contrary which he wrote to reproue the propitiatory sacrifice which the Papistes fayne to be in the Masse Thus in deede Hipinus writeth in one place Veteres Eucharistiam propter corporis sanguinis Christipraesentiam primo vocauerunt sacrificium deinde propter oblationes munera quae in ipsa Eucharistia Deo consecrabantur conferebantur ad sacraministeria ad necessitatem credentium In which wordes Hipinus declareth that the old Fathers called the Supper of our Lord a sacrifice for two consideratiōs one was for the present of Christes flesh and bloud the other was for the offerynges which the people gaue there of their deuotion to the holy ministratiō and reliefe of the poore But Hipinus speaketh here not one word of corporall presence nor of propitiatory Sacrifice but generally of presence and sacrifice which maketh nothyng for your purpose nor agaynst me that graunt both a presence and a sacrifice But when you shall shew me the place where Hipinus sayth that the old Fathers called the Lordes Supper a propitiatory sacrifice I shall trust you the better and him the worse And as for Cyrill if you will say of his head that the Sacrifice of the Church giueth life how agreeth this with your late saying that the sacrifice of the Church increaseth lyfe as the sacrifice on the Crosse giueth lyfe And if the Sacrifice made by the Priest both geue lyfe and encrease lyfe then is the Priest both the mother and nurse and Christ hath nothyng to do with vs at all but as a straunger And the sacrifice that Malachie speaketh of is the sacrifice laud and thankes which all deuoute Christian people geue vnto God whether it be in the Lordes Supper in their priuate Prayers or in any worke they do at any tyme or place to the glory of God all which Sacrifices not of the Priestes onely but of all faythfull people be accepted of God through the sacrifice of Christ by whose bloud all their filthy and vnpurenes is cleane sponged away But in this last booke it seemeth you were so astonied and amased that you were at your wits end wist not where to become For now the Priest maketh a Sacrifice propitiatory now he doth not now he giueth lyfe now he giueth none now is Christ the full Sauiour and satisfaction now the Priest hath halfe part with him now the Priest doth all And thus you are so inconstant in your selfe as one that had bene netteled and could rest in no place or rather as one that had receaued such a stroke vpon his head that hee staggered with all and reeled here and there and could not tell where to become And your doctrine hath such ambiguities such perplexities such absurdities and such impieties in it and is so vncertaine so vncomfortable so contrary to Gods word and the old Catholicke Church so contrary to it selfe that it declareth from whose spirite it commeth which can be none other but Antichrist him selfe Where as on the other side the very true doctrine of Christ and his pure Church from the begynnyng is playne certaine without wrynkels without any inconuenience or absurditie so chearefull and comfortable to all Christen people that it must needes come from the spirite of God the spirite of truth and all consolation For what ought to be more certaine and knowen to all Christen people then that Christ dyed once and but once for the redemption of the world And what can be more true then that his onely death is our lyfe And what can be more comfortable to a penitent sinner that is sory for his sinne and returneth to God in his hart and whole mynde then to know that Christ dischargeth him of the heauy lode of his sinne and taketh the burden vpon his owne backe And if we shall ioyne the Priest herein to Christ in any part and giue a portion hereof to his sacrifice as you in your doctrine giue to the priest the one halfe at the least what a discourage is this to the penitent sinner that he may not hang wholly vpon Christ what perplexities and doubtes rise hereof in the sinners conscience And what an obscuryng and darkenyng is this of the benefite of Christ Yea what iniury and contumely is it to him And furthermore when we heare Christ speake vnto vs with his own mouth and shew him selfe to be seen with our eyes in such sorte as is conuenient for him of vs in this mortall lyfe to be heard and sene what comfort can we haue more The Minister of the Churche speaketh vnto vs Gods owne wordes whiche we must take as spoken from Gods owne mouth because that from his mouth it came and his word it is and not the Ministers Likewise when he ministreth to our sightes Christes holy Sacramentes we must thinke Christ crucified and presented before our eyes because the Sacraments so represent him and be his Sacraments and not the Priestes As in Baptisme we must thinke that as the Priest putteth his hand to the child outwardly and washeth him with water so must we thinke that God putteth to his hand inwardly and washeth the infant with his holy spirite and
moreouer that Christ him selfe commeth downe vpon the child apparelleth him with his own selfe And as at the Lordes holy Table the Priest distributeth wine bread to feede the body so we must thinke that inwardly by fayth we see Christ feedyng both body and soule to eternall lyfe What comfort can be deuised any more in this world for a Christē man And on the other side what discomfort is in your papisticall doctrine what doubtes what perplexities what absurdities what iniquities what auayleth it vs that there is no bread nor wyne or that Christ is really vnder the formes and figures of bread and wyne and not in vs or if he be in vs yet he is but in the lippes or the stomacke and tarieth not with vs. Or what benefite is it to a wicked man to eate Christ and to receaue death by him that is lyfe From this your obscure perplex vncertaine vncomfortable deuilish and Papisticall doctrine Christ defend all his and graunt that we may come often and worthely to Christes holy Table to comfort our feeble and weake fayth by remembraunce of his death who onely is the satisfaction and propitiation of our sinnes and our meate drinke and foode of euerlastyng lyfe Amen Here endeth the Aunswere of the most Reuerend Father in God Thomas Archbyshop of Canterbury c. vnto the crafty and Sophisticall cauillation of Doct. Steuen Gardiner deuised by him to obscure the true sincere and godly doctrine of the most holy Sacrament of the body and bloud of our Sauiour CHRIST THE Aunswere of Thomas Archebishop of Caunterbury c. agaynst the false calumniations of doctour Richard Smith who hath taken vpon him to confute the defence of the true catholik doctrine of the body and bloud of our Sauiour Christ. I Haue now obtayned gentle reader that thing which I haue much desired which was that if all men would not imbrace the truth lately set forth by me concerning the Sacrament of the body and bloud of our Sauiour Christ at the least some man would vouchsafe to take penne in hand and write against my booke bicause that therby the truth might both better be serched out and also more certaynly knowen to the world And herein I hartely thanke the late Bishop of Winchester and doctor Smith who partely haue satisfied my long desire sauing that I would haue wished aduersaries more substantially learned in holy scriptures more exercised in the olde auncient ecclesiasticall authors and hauing a more godly zeale to the triall out of the truth than are these two both being crafty sophisters the one by art and the other by nature both also being drowned in the dregges of papistry brought vp and confirmed in the same the one by Duns and Dorbell and such like Sophisters the other by the Popish Canon law wherof by his degree taken in the uniuersity he is a professor And as concerning the late bishop of Winchester I will declare his craftye Sophistications in myne aunswere vnto his booke But doctour Smith as it appeareth by the title of his preface hath craftely deuised an easy way to obtayne his purpose that the people being barred from the serching of the truth might be stil kept in blindnes and errour as wel in this as in al other matters wherin they haue bene in times past deceaued He seeth full well that the more diligently matters be serched out and discussed the more clearly the craft and falsehode of the subtill Papistes will appeare And therfore in the preface to the reader he exhorteth all men to leaue disputing and resoning of the fame by learning and to giue firme credite vnto the church as the title of the sayd preface declareth manifestly As who should say the truth of any matter that is in question might be tryed out without debating and reasoning by the word of God wherby as by the true touchstone all mens doctrines are to be tryed and examined But the truth is not ashamed to come to the light and to be tryed to the vttermost For as pure golde the more it is tryed the more pure it apeareth so is all manner of truth Where as on the other side all maskers counterfayters and false deceiuors abhorre the light and refuse the triall If all men without right or reason would geue credite vnto this Papist and his Romish church agaynst the most certayne word of God and the olde holye and Catholicke Churche of Christ the matter should be soone at an end and out of all controuersie But for as muche as the pure word of God and the first church of Christ from the beginning taught the true catholike fayth and Smith with his church of Rome do now teach the cleane contrary the chaffe can not be tryed out from the pure corne that is to say the vntruth discerned from the very truth without threshing windowing and fanning serching debating and reasoning As for me I ground my beleefe vpon gods word wherin can be no errour hauing also the consent of the primatiue church requiring no man to beleue me further then I hane gods word for me But these Papistes speake at their pleasure what they lift and would be beleeued without godes word bicause they beare men in hand that they be the church The church of Christ is not founded vpon it selfe but vppon Christ and his word but the Papistes build their church vpon them selues deuising new articles of the fayth from tyme to tyme without any scripture and founding the same vpon the Pope and his cleargy monkes and fryers and by that meanes they be both the makers and Iudges of their fayth themselues Wherfore this Papist like a politike man doth right wisely prouide for himselfe and his church in the first entry of his booke that all men should leaue searching for the truth and sticke hard and fast to the church meaning himselfe and the church of Rome For from the true catholike church the Romish church which he accomteth catholike hath varied and dissented many yeares passed as the blindest that this day do liue may well see and perceaue if they will not purposely winke and shut vp their eyes This I haue written to answere the title of his preface NOw in the beginning of the very preface it selfe when this great doctor should recite the wordes of Ephesine counsell he translateth them so vnlearnedly that if a young boy that had gone to the grammer schole but thre yeres had done no better he should scant haue escaped some scholemasters handes with sixierkes And beside that he doth it so craftily to serue his purpose that he cannot be excused of wilfull deprauation of the wordes calling celebration an offering and referring the participle made to Christ which should be referred to the word partakers and leauing out those wordes that should declare that the sayd counsell spake of no propiciatory sacrifice in the Masse but of a sacrifice of laud and thankes which christen people geue vnto God
viii chap. prouing by authority of the oldest authors in Christs church that he called bread his body and wine his bloud And agayne in the ix x. xi and xii chapters I haue so fully intreated of such figuratiue speaches that it should be but a superfluous labour here to speake of any more but I referre the reader to those places And if M. doctor require a further answere herein let him looke vpon the late bishop of Winchesters booke called the detection of the diuels sophistry where he writeth plainly that when Christ spake these wordes This is my body he made demonstration of the bread THan further in this prologue this Papist is not ashamed to say that I set the cart before the horses putting reason first and fayth after which lye is so manifest that it needeth no further proofe but onely to looke vpon my booke wherein it shall euidently appeare that in all my fiue bookes I ground my foūdation vpon gods word And least the Papistes should say that I make the expositions of the scripture my selfe as they commonly vse to do I haue fortified my foundation by the authority of all the best learned and most holy authors and martyrs that were in the beginning of the church and many yeares after vntill the Antichrist of Rome rose vp and corrupted altogither And as for naturall reason I make no mention therof in all my v. bookes but in one place onely which is in my second booke speaking of Transubstantiation And in that place I set not reason before fayth but as an handmayden haue appoynted her to do seruice vnto fayth and to wayte vpon her And in that place she hath done such seruice that D. Smith durst not once looke her in the face nor find any fault with her seruice but hath flylye and craftely stolen away by her as though he saw her not But in his owne booke he hath so impudently set the cart before the horses in Christes owne wordes putting the wordes behind that goe before the wordes before that goe behind that except a shameles Papist no man durst be so bolde to attempt any such thing of his owne head For where the Euangelist and S. Paule rehearse Christes wordes thus Take eate this is my body he in the confutation of my second booke turneth the order vpside downe and sayth This is my body take eate After this in his Preface hee rehearseth a great number of the wonderfull workes of God as that God made all the world of nought that he made Adam of the earth and Eue of his side the bush to flame with fire and burne not and many other like which be most manifestly expressed in holy scripture And vpon these he concludeth most vainly and vntruly that thing which in the scripture is neyther expressed nor vnderstanded that Christ is corporally in heauen and in earth and in euery place where the sacrament is And yet D. Smith sayth that Gods word doth teach this as playnly as the other vsing herein such a kind of sophisticall argumēt as all Logitiās do reprehend which is called petitio principij whē a mā taketh that thing for a supposition and an approued truth which is in controuersy And so doth he in this place when he sayth Doth not Gods word teach it thee as playnly as the other Here by this interrogatory he required that thing to be graunted him as a truth which he ought to proue and whereupon dependeth the whole matter that is in questiō that is to say whether it be as playnly set out in the scripture that Christes body is corporally in euery place where the sacrament is as that God created all thinges of nothing Adam of the earth and Eue of Adams side c. This is it that I deny and that he should proue But he taketh it for a supposition saying by interrogation doth not the word of God teach this as playnly as the other Which I affirme to be vtterly false as I haue shewed in my third boobe the xi and twelfe chap. where I haue most manifestly proued as well by Gods word as by aūcient authors that these wordes of Christ This is my body and This is my bloud be no playne speaches but figuratiue THen forth goeth this papist vnto the vi chap. of S. Thou saying Christ promised his disciples to geue them such bread as should be his owne very naturall flesh which he would geue to death for the life of the world Can this his promise sayth M. Smith be verified of common bread Was that giuen vpon the crosse for the life of the world Wherto I answer by his owne reason Can this his promise be verified of sacramentall bread was that geuen vpon the crosse for the life of the world I meruayle here not a little of M. Smithes eyther dulnes or maliciousnes that cannot or will not see that Christ in this chap. of S. Ihon spake not of Sacramentall bread but of heauenly bread nor of his flesh onely but also of his bloud and of his godhead calling them heauenly bread that giueth euerlasting life So that he spake of him selfe wholy saying I am the bread of life He that cōmeth to me shall not hunger and he that beleueth in me shall not thirst for euer And neyther spake he of common bread nor yet of sacramentall bread For neyther of them was giuen vpon the crosse for the life of the world And there can be nothing more manifest then that in this vi chap. of Ihon Christ spake not of the sacrament of his flesh but of his very flesh And that aswell for that the sacrament was not then instituted as also that Christ sayd not in the future tense the bread which I will giue shal be my flesh but in the present tense the bread which I will geue is my flesh which sacramentall bread was neyther then his flesh nor was then instituted for a Sacrament nor was after giuen to death for the life of the world But as Christ when he sayd vnto the woman of Samaria The water which I will geue shall spring into euerlasting life he ment neyther of materiall water nor of the accidents of water but of the holy ghost which is the heauenly fountayne that springeth vnto eternall life so likewise when he sayd The bread which I will geue is my flesh which I will geue for the life of the world he ment neyther of the materiall bread neither of the accidents of bread but of his owne flesh Which although of it selfe it auayleth nothing yet being in vnity of persō ioyned vnto his diuinity it is the same heauenly bread that he gaue to death vpon the crosse for the life of the world But here M. Smith asketh a question of the tyme saying thus When gaue Christ that bread which was his very flesh that he gaue for vs to death if he did it not at his last supper when he sayd This is my
may be also here in the blessed Sacrament of the aultar I am not so ignorant but I know that Christ appeared to S. Paule and sayd to him Saule Saule why doest thou persecute me But S. Augustin sayth that Christ at his Ascention spake the last wordes that euer he speake vpon earth And yet we finde that Christ speaketh sayth he but in heauen and from heauen and not vpon earth For he spake to Paule from aboue saying Saule Saule why doest thou persecute me The head was in heauen and yet he sayd why doest thou persecute me bycause he persecuted his members vpon earth And if this please not Maister Smith let him blame S. Augustin and not me for I fayne not this my selfe but onely alledge S. Augustin And as the father spake from heauen whan he sayd This is my beloued sonne in whom I am pleased and also S. Stephen saw Christ sittyng in heauen at his fathers right hand euen so ment S. Augustin that S. Paule and all other that haue sene and heard Christ speake since his Ascention haue sene and heard him from heauen NOw when this Papist goyng forward with his woorkes seeth his building so feeble weake that it is not able to stand he returneth to his chief foūdation the Church and Councels generall willyng all men to stay thereupon to leaue disputyng reasonyng And chiefly he shoareth vp his house with the Councell Lateranence whereat sayth he were xiij hundred Fathers xv But he telleth not that viij hundred of them were Monkes Friers and Chanons the Byshop of Romes owne deare deare-lynges chief champions called together in his name not in Christes From which broode of vypers Serpentes what thyng can be thought to come but that dyd proceede frō the spirite of their most holy father that first begat them that is to say from the spirite of Antichrist And yet I know this to bee true that Christ is present with his holy Churche whiche is his holy elected people and shall be with them to the worldes end leadyng gouernyng them with his holy spirite teachyng them all truth necessary for their saluation And when so euer any such be gathered together in his name there is he among them he shall not suffer the gates of hell to preuaile agaynst them For although he may suffer them by their owne frailenes for a tyme to erre fall and to dye yet finally neither sathan hell sinne nor eternall death shall preuaile agaynst them But it is not so of the Church and sea of Rome whiche accompteth it selfe to be the holy Catholicke Churche and the Byshop therof to be most holy of all other For many yeares ago Sathan hath so preuailed agaynst that stinkyng whore of Babylon that her abhominations be knowen to the whole world the name of God is by her blasphemed and of the cup of her dronkennes and poyson haue all nations tasted AFter this cōmeth Smith to Berēgarius Almericus Carolostadius Oecolampadius Zuinglius affirmyng that the Church euer sithens Christes tymes a thousand fiue hūdreth yeares and moe hath beleued that Christ is bodily in the Sacrament and neuer taught otherwise vntill Berengarius came about a thousand yeares after Christ whom the other folowed But in my booke I haue proued by Gods word the old auncient Authors that Christ is not in the sacrament corporally but is bodily corporally ascended into heauen there shall remaine vnto the worldes end And so the true Church of Christ euer beleued from the beginnyng with out repugnaunce vntill Sathan was let louse and Antichrist came with his Papistes which fayned a new and false doctrine contrary to Gods word and the true Catholicke doctrine And this true fayth God preserueth in his holy church still and will doe vnto the worldes end maugre the wicked Antichrist and all the gates of hell And almighty God from time to time hath strēgthened many holy Martirs for this fayth to suffer death by Antichrist and the great harlot Babilon who hath embrewed her handes and is made drunken with the bloud of Martyrs Whose bloud God will reuēge at length although in the meane time he suffer the patiēce and fayth of his holy Saynts to be tried ALl the rest of his Preface contayneth nothing els but the authority of the Church which Smith sayth cannot wholy erre and he so setteth forth and extolleth the same that he preferreth it aboue Gods word affirming not onely that it is the piller of truth and no lesse to bee beleued then holy scripture but also that we should not beleue holy scripture but for it So that he maketh the word of men equall or aboue the word of God And truth it is in deed that the church doth neuer wholy erre for euer in most darcknes God shineth vnto his elect and in the midst of all iniquity he gouerneth them so with his holy word and spirite that the gates of hell preuayle not agaynst them And these be knowne to him although the world many times know them not but hath them in derision and hatred as it had Christ and his Apostles Neuerthelesse at the last day they shal be knowen to all the whole world when the wicked shal wonder at their felicity and say These be they whom we sometime had in verision and mocked We fooles thought their liues very madnes and their end to be without honour But now loe how they be accounted among the children of God and theyr portion is among the sayntes Therfore we haue erred frō the way of truth the light of righteousnesse hath not shined vnto vs we haue wearyed our selues in the way of wickednes and destruction But this holy church is so vnknowne to the world that no mā can discerne it but God alone who onely searcheth the hartes of all men knoweth his true children from other that be but bastardes This church is the piller of trueth because it resteth vpon Gods word which is the true and sure foundation wil not suffer it to erre fall But as for the opē knowne church the outward face therof it is not the piller of truth otherwise thē that it is as it were a register or treasory to keepe the bookes of Gods holy will testament to rest onely thereupon as S. Augustine and Tertullian meane in the place by M. Smith alleadged And as the register keepeth all mens wils and yet hath none authority to adde change or take away any thing nor yet to expound the wils further then the very words of the will extend vnto so that he hath no power ouer the will but by the will euen so hath the church no further power ouer the holy scripture which conteyneth the will and testamēt of god but onely to keepe it and to see it obserued and kept For if the Church proceede further to make any new Articles of the fayth besides the Scripture
or contrary to the Scripture or direct not the forme of life accordyng to the same then it is not the piller of truth nor the Church of Christ but the sinagogue of Sathan and the temple of Antichrist which both erreth it selfe and bringeth into errour as many as do folow it And the holy Church of Christ is but a small herd or flocke in comparison to the great multitude of them that folow Sathan and Antichrist as Christ him selfe sayth and the word of God and the course of the world from the begynnyng vntill this day hath declared For from the creation of the world vntill Noes floud what was then the open face of the Church How many godly men were in those thousand and sixe hundred yeares and moe Dyd not iniquitie begyn at Cain to rule the worlde and so encreased more and more that at the length God could no lenger suffer but drowned all the world for sinne except viij persons which onely were left vpon the whole earth And after the world was purged by the floud fell it not by and by to the former iniquitie agayne so that within few yeares after Abraham could find no place where he might be suffered to worshyp the true liuyng God but that God appointed him a straunge countrey almost clearely desolate and vnhabited where hee and a fewe other contrary to the vsage of the world honored one God And after the great benefites of God shewed vnto his people of Israell and the law also geuen vnto them wherby they were taught to know him and honor him yet how many tymes did they fal from him Did they not from tyme to tyme make them new Gods worshyp them Was not the open face of the Church so miserably deformed not onely in the wildernesse and in the tyme of the Iudges but also in tyme of the kynges that after the diuision of the kyngdome amongest all the kyngs of Iuda there was but onely three in whose tymes the true Religion was restored among all the kynges of Israell not somuch as one Were not all that tyme the true Priestes of God a few in number Did not all the rest maintaine Idolatry and all abhominatiōs in groues and mountaines worshippyng Baal and other false Gods And did they not murther and slea all the true Prophetes that taught them to worshyp the true God In so much that Helias the Prophet knowyng no mo of all the whole people that folowed the right trade but him selfe alone made his complaint vnto almightie God saying O Lord they haue slayne thy Prophetes and ouerthrowen thine aultars there is no mo left but I alone and yet they lye in wayte to flea me also So that although almighty God suffered thē in their captiuitie at Babylon no more but lxx yeares yet he suffered them in their Idolatry folowyng their owne wayes and inuentions many hundred yeares the mercy of God beyng so great that their punishment was short and small in respect of their long and greeuous offences And at the tyme of Christes cōmyng the hygh Priests came to their offices by such fraude simony murther and poysonyng that the like hath not bene often read nor heard of except onely at Rome And when Christ was come what godly religion found he What Annasses and Cayphasses what hypocrisie superstition and abhomination before God although to mens eyes thyngs appeared holy and godly Was not then Christ alone his Apostles with other that beleued his doctrine the holy true Church Although they were not so takē but for heretickes seditious persons blasphemers of God were extremely persecuted and put to vilanous death by such as accompted them selues were taken for the Church which fulfilled the measure of their fathers that persecuted the Prophets Upon whō came al the righteous bloud that was shed vpon the earth from the bloud of iust Abell vnto the bloud of Zachary the sonne of Barachie whom they slew betwene the Temple and the aultar And how many persons remayned constantly in the true liuely fayth at the tyme of Christes passion I thinke M. Smith will say but a very fewe seyng that Peter denyed Christ his Maister three tymes and all his Apostles fled away and one for hast without his clothes What wonder is it then that the open church is now of late yeares fallen into many errours and corruption and the holy church of Christ is secret and vnknowne seing that Sathan these 500. yeares hath beene let lose and Antichrist raigneth spoyling and deuouring the simple flocke of Christ. But as almighty God sayd vnto Helias I haue reserued and kept for mine ownne selfe seuen thousand which neuer bowed their knee to Baall so it is at this present For although almighty God hath suffered these foure or fiue hundred yeares the open face of his church to be vggely deformed and shamefullye defiled by the sects of the Papistes which is so manifest that now all the world knoweth it yet hath God of his manifold mercy euer preserued a good number secret to himselfe in his true religion although Antichrist hath bathed himselfe in the bloud of no small number of them And although the Papistes haue ledde innumerable people out of the right way yet the church is to be folowed but the Church of Christ not of Antichrist the church that concerning the fayth contayneth it selfe with in gods word not that deuiseth daily new artcles contrary to gods word The church that by the true interpretation of scripture and good example gathereth people vnto Christ not that by wrasting of the scripture and euill example of corrupt liuing draweth them away from Christ. And now forasmuch as the wicked church of Rome counterfayting the church of Christ hath in this matter of the sacrament of the blessed bodie and bloud of our sauior Christ varied from the pure and holy Church in the Apostles tyme and many hundred yeares after as in my booke I haue plainely declared manifestly proued it is an easy matter to discerne which church is to be folowed And I cannot but maruaile that Smith alleadgeth for for him Vincentius Lirenensis who contrary to D. Smith teacheth playnly that the canon of the Bible is perfect and fufficient of it selfe for the truth of the Catholicke fayth and that the whole church cannot make one article of the fayth although it may be taken as a necessary witnes for the receiuing and establishing of the same with these three conditions that the thing which we would establish thereby hath bene beleued in all places euer and of al men Which the Papistical doctrine in this matter hath not bene but came from Rome sins Beringarius time by Nicolas the ii Innocentius the third and other of their sort where as the doctrine which I haue set forth came from Christ and his Apostles and was of all men euery where with one consent taught and beleued as my book sheweth plainly
subiectes but they must seeke it at a straungers hands in a straunge land the like whereof I thinke was neuer seene I would haue wished to haue had some meaner aduersaryes I thinke that death shall not greeue me much more then to haue my most dread and most gratious soueraygne Lord and Lady to whom vnder God I do owe all obedience to be mine accusers in iudgement within their owne realme before any straunger and outward power But forasmuch as in the time of the Prince of most famous memory King Henry the 8. your graces father I was sworne neuer to consent that the byshop of Rome should haue or exercise any authoritie or iurisdiction in this realme of England therefore least I should allow his authority contrary to mine oth I refused to make aunswere to the Byshop of Gloucester sitting here in iudgemēt by the Popes authority least I should runne into periury An other cause why I refused the popes authority is this that his authority as he claimeth it repugneth to the crowne imperiall of this realme and to the lawes of the same which euery true subiect is bound to defend Fyrst for that the Pope sayth that all manner of power aswell temporall as spirituall is geuen first to him of God and that the temporall power he geueth vnto Emperours and Kinges to vse it vnder him but so as it be alwayes at his cōmaundement becke But contrary to this clayme the Emperial crowne and iurisdiction temporall of this Realme is taken immediately from God to be vsed vnder him onely and is subiect vnto none but to God alone Moreouer the imperiall lawes and customes of this realme the king in his Coronation and all Iustices when they receiue their offices be sworne and all the whole realme is bound to defend and maintayne But contrary hereunto the pope by his authority maketh voyd and commaundeth to blot out of our bookes all lawes and customes being repugnant to his lawes and declareth accursed all rulers and gouernours all the makers writers executors of such lawes or customes as it appeareth by many of the Popes lawes whereof one or two I shall rehearse In the decrees distin x. is written thus Constitutione contra canones decreta praesulum Romanorum vel bonos mores nullius sunt momenti That is the constitutions or statutes enacted agaynst the Canons and decrees of the Bishops of Rome or their good customes are of none effect Also Extra de sententia excommunicationis merit Excōmunicamus omnes hareticos vtriusque sexus quocumque nomine censeantur fautores receptatores defensores eorum nec non qui de catero sernari fecerint statuta edita consuetudines contra ecclesia libertatem nisiea de capitularibus suis intra duos menses post huiusmodi publicationem sentencia fecerint amoueri Item excōmunicamus statutarios scriptores statutorum ipsorum nec non potestates consules rectores consiliarios locorum vbi de catero huiusmodi statuta consuetudines edita fuerint velseruatae nec non illos qui secundum ea praesumpserint iudicarem vel in publicam formam scribere iudicata That is to say we excōmunicate all heretickes of both sexes what name so euer they be called by and their fauourers and receptours and defenders and also them that shall hereafter cause to be obserued statutes and customes made agaynst the liberty of the Church except they cause the same to be put out of their bookes or recordes within two monethes after the publication of this sentence Also we excommunicate the statute makers and writers of those statutes and also the potestates consuls gouernors and counsellors of places where such statutes and customes shall be made or kept and also those that shall presume to geue iudgement according to them or put into publike forme of writing the maners so iudged Now by these lawes if the Byshop of Romes authority which be claymeth by God bee lawfull of your graces lawes and customes of your Realme being contrary to the Popes lawes be naught and aswell your maiesty as your iudges iustices and all other executors of the same stand accursed among heretickes which God forbid And yet this curse can neuer be auoyded if the Pope haue such power as he claymeth vntil such times as the lawes and customes of this Realme beyng contrary to his lawes bee taken away and blotted out of the law bookes And although there bee many lawes of this Realme contrary to the lawes of Rome yet I named but a few as to conuict a Clarke before any temporall Iudge of this Realme for debt felony murther or for any other crime which Clarkes by the Popes lawes be so exempt from the Kynges lawes that they can be no where sued but before their Ordinary Also the pope by his lawes may geue all byshoprickes and benefices sprituall which by the lawes of this Realme can be geuen but onely by the Kinges and other patrones of the same except they fall into the lapse By the Popes lawes ius patronatus shal be sued onely before the ecclesiasticall iudge but by the lawes of this realme it shall be sued before the temporall iudge and to be short the lawes of this realme do agree with the Popes lawes like fire and water And yet the Kinges of this Realme haue prouided for their lawes by the premunire so that if any man haue let the excution of the lawes of this Realme by any authority from the sea of Rome he falleth into the premunire But to meete with this the popes haue prouided for their lawes by cursing For whosoeuer letteth the Popes lawes to haue full course within this realme by the Popes power standeth accursed So that the popes power treadeth all the lawes and customes of this Realme vnder his feete cursing all that execute them vntill such time as they geue place vnto his lawes But it may be said that notwithstanding all the popes decrees yet we do execute still the lawes and customes of this Realme Nay not all quietly without interruption of the Pope And where we do execute them yet we do it vniustly if the popes power be of force and for the same we stand excommunicate and shall doe vntill we leaue the execution of our owne lawes and customes Thus we be wel recōciled to Rome allowing such authority wherby the Realme standeth accursed before God if the Pope haue any such authority These thinges as I suppose were not fully opened in the parliament house when the popes authority was receiued agayne within this Realme for if they had I do not beleue that either the King or Queenes maiesty or the nobles of this Realme or the commons of the same would euer haue consented to receiue agayne such a forrayne authority so iniurious hurtfull and preiudiciall aswel to the crowne as to the lawes and customes and state of this realme as whereby they must needes acknowledge themselues to