. vain And I trust I have either broken your pieces, or pegged
them, that you shall be able to shoot no more: or if you shoot, the shot shall be so faint that it shall not be able to pierce through a paper leaf. And the like I trust to do to all the munition and ordinance laid against my fourth
[[^ The same, Orig. ed. Winch.] E]
Τ 4,
wixcHESTER
i THUS having perused the effect of the third book, I will likewise peruse the fourth, and then shall follow in direct course to speak of the matter of transubstantiation. In this fourth book the author entreateth eating and drinking of Christ’s body and blood: and in the first part thereof travaileth to confirm his purpose, and in the second part answereth as he can. to his adversaries, and so taketh occasion to speak of adoration.
His chief purpose is to prove that evil men receive not the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, which after this author’s doctrine is a very superfluous matter. For if the sacrament be only a figure, and the body and blood of Christ be there only figuratively, whereto should this author dispute of evil men’s eating, when good men cannot eat Christ in the sacrament, because he is mot there? For by the effect of this author’s doctrine the sacrament is but a visible preaching by the tokens and signs of bread and wine; that in believing nd remembering Christ’s benefits, with revolving them in our mind, we should in faith Jeed upon Christ spiritually, believing that, as the bread and wine Jeedeth and nourisheth our bodies, so Christ feedeth and nourisheth our souls: which be good words, but such as the words in Christ’s - supper do not learn us, and yet may be well gathered, not to limit the mystery of the supper, but to be spoken and taught touching the believing and remembering Christ’s benefits, with the revolving of them in our mind, thereby to learn us how to feed upon. Christ continually ment, wherein by faith we be nourished with the word of God and the virtue of Christ’s without the use of the visible sacrament; being called? of St Augustine “the invisible sacra. body and blood, which the true teachWmg of the church calleth spiritual manducation only, without which no man is to be accompted a true member of the mystical body of Christ. And therefore whoso feedeth upon Christ thus spiritually, must needs be a good man, for only good men be true members of Christ’s mystical body: which spiritual eating is so good a fruit as L it declareth the tree necessarily to be good; and therefore it must be and is a certain conclusion, that only good men do eat and drink the body and blood of Christ spiritually, that ds to say, effectually to life. So as this author shall have of me no adversary therein. And if this author had proved that to be the true doctrine, that Christ’s very body and blood is not present in the visible sacrament, then might he have left this fourth book wnwritten. For «fter his doctrine, as I said before, good men do mot eat Christ’s body in the sacrament under - the visible signs, for because it is mot there, and then much less should evil men reach it. LJ the catholic teaching, all the doctrine of eating of Christ is concluded in two manner - of eatings; one in the visible sacrament sacramental, another spiritual without the sacrament. And because in the eating of the visible sacrament St Paul speaketh of unworthy, the same - rue teaching, to open the matter more clearly according to seripture, noteth wnto us three - manner of eatings, one spiritual only, which only good men do, feeding in faith without the visible sacrament. Another is both spiritual and sacramental, which also good men only do, - weceiving the visible sacrament with a true sincere charitable faith. The third manner of eating is sacramental only, which (after St Paul) evil men do wnworthily, and therefore have judgment and condemnation, and be guilty of our Lord’s body, not esteeming our Lord’s body there. And here ariseth the knot of contention with this author, who saith, “evil men eat but us the sacramental bread:” whereunto I reply, No more do good men neither, if this author’s doctrine of the sacrament be true, seeing he will have it but a figure: if this author will say