Wnurw Christ saw those gluttons, seeking their bellies, flocking so fast unto him, after his wonted manner (the occasion taken, to teach and preach unto them, of the things now moved) he said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek me not because ye have seen my miracles, but because ye have eaten of the loaves and were well filled.” But as for me, I am not come into this world only to fill men’s bellies, but to feed and satisfy their souls. Ye take great pains to follow me for the meat of your bellies; but, O sluggards, work, take pains, and labour rather to get that meat that shall never perish. For this meat that ye have sought of me hitherto, perisheth with your bellies; but the meat that I shall give you, is spiritual, and may not perish, but abideth for ever, giving life everlasting. For my Father hath consigned and confirmed me, with his assured testimony, to be that assured saving health and earnest-penny of everlasting life.” When the Jews understood not what Christ meant, bidding them to work and labour for that meat that Should never perish,” they asked him, What shall we do, ” that we might work the works of God?”—supposing that he had spoken of some outward work required of them. Wherefore Jesus answered, saying, Even this is the work of God, to believe and trust in him whom the Father hath sent.” Lo, here may ye see that work of God which he requireth of us, even to believe in Christ. Also consider again what this meat is, whieh he bade them here prepare and seek for, saying, Work, take pains, and seek for that meat, ὅσο” and thou shalt see it none other meat than the belief in Christ: wherefore he concludeth, that this meat so often mentioned, is faith; ii. Οὗ the which meat (saith the prophet) the just liveth. Faith in him is therefore the meat which Christ prepareth and dresseth so purely; pouldering! and spicing it with spiritual allegories in all this chapter following, to give us everlasting life through it. n Then said the Jews unto him, What token doest thou, — whereby we might know that we should believe in thee?
[1 Pouldering: powdering.]
Do somewhat that we might believe in thee. What thing workest thou that we might know thee to be God? Thou knowest well enough that our fathers did eat bread or manna in the desert, as it is written He gave them bread from above. Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave ye not that bread from heaven; for though it fell down from the air, yet was it not heavenly food, for it did but feed the belly: but this bread of God that is descended from heaven, whom my Father giveth, refresheth the soul so abundantly, that it giveth life unto the world When the Jews understood not this saying, which was nought else than the declaring of the gospel (for by the eating of this bread he meant that belief of this his gospel, they said, “Sir, give us this bread evermore.” Jesus said unto them, “1 am the bread of life; and whoso come to me shall not hunger, and whoso believe in me shall never thirst.” When the Jews heard Christ say, the bread that descended from heaven should give life to the world; they desired to have this bread given them for ever. And Jesus perceiving that they understood not the sense of this gospel, he expounded unto them who was this so lively bread that giveth life to all the world, saying, “I am the bread of life, and whoso cometh to me,” that is to say, whoso is grafted and joined to me by faith, “shall never hunger;” that is, whoso believeth in me is satisfed? It is faith, therefore, that stauncheth this hunger and thirst of the soul. Faith it is, therefore, in Christ that filleth our hungry hearts, so that we can desire none other, if we once eat and drink him by faith; that is to say, if we believe his flesh and body to have been broken, and his blood shed, for our sins. For then are our souls satisfied, and we be justified.
Over this it followeth: But I have told you this, because ye look upon me, and believe me not; that is, ye be offended that I said, He that eometh to me shall neither hunger nor thirst, seeing that yourselves, being present, be yet both hungry and thirsty. But this cometh because ye have seen me with your bodily eyes, and yet see me, and believe not in me: but I speak not of such sight nor coming, but of the sight of faith, which whoso hath, he shall? none other desire; he shall not seek by night to love another, before whom he
[2 So but in shall Aave none.]
would lay his grief. He shall not run wandering here and there, to seek dead stocks and stones: for he is certified by his faith to whom he shall cleave; he is coupled by faith unto me, his very spouse and lively food, the only treasure of his soul, never more to thirst for any other. This light of faith ye have not, for ye believe not nor trust in me: wherefore ye understand not how I am the very bread and meat of the your souls, that is to say, your faith and hope. And the cause of this your blindness is, (I will not say over hardly to you,) that the Father hath not drawn youinto the knowledge of me, or else ye had received me: for all that the Father giveth me, must come unto me. And as for me, I cast out no man that cometh to me; for I am not come down from heaven to do my will, which ye attribute unto me as unto another! man; for I am verily a very man, and according to that nature, I have a special proper will; but much more came obedient to my Father than one of you. For your will oft to resisteth and repugneth God’s will; but so doth mine never. 1 am therefore come down to do his will that hath sent me, and to do you to wit what his will is. This (I say) is my Father’s will that hath sent me, that of all that he hath given me I lose none; but must raise him up again in the last day. And, to be plain, this is his will that sent me, that whoso seeth, that is, knoweth the Son, and believeth in him, he shall have life everlasting, and I shall stir him up in the last day. Here may ye see what meat he speaketh of. God sent his Son into this world, that we might live through him. Who liveth by him? They that eat his flesh and drink his — blood. Who eat his flesh and drink his blood? They that tobe believe his body crucified and his blood shed for their sins: these cleave unto his gracious favour. But how could they cleave thus unto him, except they knew him? And therefore the he added, saying, Every man that seeth the Son,” that is to say, understandeth wherefore the Son was sent into this world, and believeth in him, shall have everlasting life.” of. Here it appeared to the carnal Jews, that Christ had taken too much upon himself, to say, “I am the bread of life, which am come down from heaven to give life to the world:” wherefore the flesh, that is to say? the Jews, now murmured,
[1 So L. but D. has each any other.) [? So B., but D. that is to know.]]
(and not marvelled, as M. More sheweth his own dream to another text following, which I shall touch anon); they murmured at this saying of Christ, “I am the bread which am come from heaven,” saying, Is not this Jesus, Joseph’s son, whose father and mother we know well enough? How then saith he, I am come from heaven?” Jesus answered, saying, Murmur not among yourselves:” heard ye not what I told you even now? All that my Father giveth me come to me:” your unbelief (whereof followeth this false understanding of my words spiritually spoken) compelleth me to tell you one thing more than once or twice. This therefore it is: No man may come to me,” the only earnest-penny and pledge of your salvation, unless my Father that sent me draw him;” and whom he draweth unto me, that is, joineth unto me by faith, him shall I stir up in the last day.” I wonder ye take my words so strangely, believing them to be some hard riddles, or dark parables; when I say nothing else than that is written in your own prophets, both in Isaiah and Jeremiah, saying, that All shall be taught of the Lord.” Since even your prophets testify this knowledge to be given you of my Father, what can be spoken more plainly than to say, What my Father giveth.me, that cometh to me;” or this, No man may come to me, except my Father draw him?” And yet have it more manifestly: Whoso hath heard my Father, and is learned of him, he cometh to me as unto the very only anchor of his salvation. “Not that any man hath seen the Father:” lest peradventure ye mistake these words to hear and to learn, as though they pertained to the outward senses, and not rather to the mind and inward illumining of the soul. For no man ever saw the Father, although he work secretly upon his heart, so that whatsoever he willeth, we must hear and learn. No man (I say) seeth him, but he that is sent of God, as I said before of myself, he it is that seeth the Father. Now therefore say I unto you, “Verily, verily,” (as plainly plainly?) that whoso believeth and trusteth in me, he hath life everlasting.” Now have ye the sum of this my doctrine, even my very gospel, the whole tale of all my legacy and message, wherefore I am sent into the world.” Had M. More understood this short sentence, Whoso believeth in me hath life everlasting,” and known what Paul with the other apostles preached, especially
[3 So B. and L. In D. plainly occurs but once.] 55215 [TYNDALE, 111]]
had Paul, being a year and a half among the Corinthians, determining not neither presuming to have known any other thing to be preached them (as himself saith) than Jesus ^ Christ, and that he was crucified; had M. More understood this point, he should never have thus blasphemed Christ and his sufficient scriptures, neither have so belied his evangelists and holy apostles, as to say, They wrote not all things necessary for our salvation, but left out things of necessity to be believed!, making God’s holy testament insufficient and imperfect; first revealed unto our fathers, written oft since? by Moses, and then by his prophets, and at last written both by his holy evangelists and apostles too.
But turn we to John again, and let More mock still, and lie too. “1 am the bread of life,” saith Christ. And no man - denieth that our fathers and elders did eat manna in the desert, and yet are they dead. But he that eateth of this bread,” that is to say, believeth in me, he hath life everlast- ing. For it is I that am this lively bread, which am come is down from heaven, of whom whoso eat by faith shall never die.” Here therefore it is to be noted diligently, that Christ meaneth, as every man may see, by the eating of this bread, none other thing than the belief in himself offered up for our sins,. which faith only justifieth us: which sentence to declare more plainly, and that he would have it noted more diligently, he repeateth it yet again, saying, “It is I that am the lively bread which am come down from heaven; whoso eateth of this bread shall live everlastingly.” And to put you clear out of doubt, I shall shew you in few words what this matter is, and by what ways I must be the Saviour and Redeemer of the world, to give it this life so often rehearsed; and therefore now take good heed. This bread which I speak of so much, and shall give it you, it is “mine own flesh, which I must lay
[1 In sir T. More’s Confutacion, published the year before this]
[Treatise on the Supper, above sixty pages are devoted to the question,]
[Whether the Apostles left aught unwritten, that is of necessity to be]
[believed; and More concludes one of his arguments by affirming &]
[notion, collected from legends, to be so sure a point of Christian faith,’]
[that the contrary has ever been condemned for a heresy; and there-]
[fore, says he, “1 may and do, against Tyndale and his fellows, well and]
[fully conclude that there is something necessary to be believed, that]
[yet is not written in scripture. Works, p. 488, col. 1.] [2 More quotes this passage, p. 1082. col. 2; where he has o/te sones.]]
forth and pay for the life of the world.” Here is it now manifest that he should suffer death in his own flesh, for our redemption, to give us this life everlasting. Thus now may ye see how Christ’s flesh, which he called bread, is the spiritual food and meat of our souls when our souls by faith see God the Father not to have spared his only so dear beloved Son, but to have delivered him to suffer that ignominious and so painful death, to restore us to life: then have we eaten his flesh, and drunk his blood, assured firmly of the favour of God, satisfied and certified of our salvation.
After this communication that he said, The bread which I shall give you is my flesh, which I shall pay for the life of the world;” yet were the carnal Jews never the wiser. For their unbelief and sturdy hatred would not suffer the very spiritual sense and mind of Christ’s words to enter into their hearts. They could not see that Christ’s flesh, broken and crucified, and not bodily eaten, should be our salvation and this spiritual meat; as our souls be fed and certified of the merey of God and forgiveness of our sins through his passion, and not for any eating of his flesh with our teeth. The more ignorant, therefore, and fleshly they were, the more fierce were they, full of indignation, striving one against another, saying, How may this fellow give us his flesh to eat it?” They stuck fast yet in his flesh before their eyes, these fleshly Jews: wherefore no marvel though they abhorred the bodily eating thereof; although our fleshly papists (being of the Jews’ carnal opinion) yet abhor it not, neither cease they daily to crucify and offer him up again, which was once for ever and all offered, as Paul testifieth. And even here, since Christ came to teach, to take away all doubt and to break strife, he might (his words otherwise declared, than he hath declared 3, and will hereafter expound them,) have solved their question, saying, (if he had so meant as More meaneth,) that he would have been conveyed and converted (as our jugglers slightly can convey him with a few words) into a singing loaf; or else (as the Thomistieal papists say) been invisible with
[3 So B., but D. omits declared. ] [4 He calls them Thomistical to indicate that they took their faith]
[on these subjects, from Thomas Aquinas, whose statement of the matter]
[will be found in his Opusc. lix. De Sacram, Eucharist. cap. 2. Opusc.]
[p. 405, col. 1. and 11.] 15—2]
be all his dimensioned body under the form of bread transub- — stantiated into it: and after a like Thomistical mystery, the wine transubstantiated too into his blood, so that they should eat his flesh and drink his blood after their own carnal understanding, but yet in another form, to put away all grudge of stomach: or, since St John (if he had thus! understood his master’s mind, and took upon him to write his words,) would leave this sermon unto the world to be read, he might now have delivered us and them from this doubt. But Christ would not so satisfy their question, but answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye shall not have that life in yourin selves, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath. ” ”.. life everlasting, and I shall stir him up in the last day; for say my flesh is very meat and my blood the very drink.” He fran- saith not here that bread shall be transubstantiated, or conflesh. verted, into his body; nor yet the wine into his blood.
But now confer this saying to his purpose at the beginning, where he bade them work for that meat that should never perish, telling them that to believe in him whom God hath sent was the work of God; and whoso believeth in him, should never thirst nor hunger, but have life everlasting. Confer also this that followeth, and thou shalt see it plain, that his words ^ be understood spiritually of the belief in his flesh crucified, and his blood shed; for which belief we be promised everlasting life, himself saying, Whoso believeth in me hath life everlasting.” Here, therefore, their question, “How may this man give us his flesh to eat it 2”—Às solved; even when he gave his body to be broken, and his blood to be shed. And we eat and drink it indeed, when we believe stedfastly that he died for the remission of our sins: Austin and Tertullian to witness?,
τ So in B., and More’s quotation, p. 1092, col. 1. D. and L. want thus.
[2 Hoc est opus Dei, ut credatis in ewm quem misit ille. Hoc est, ergo, manducare cibum, flon qui perit, sed qui permanet in vitam ceternam. Ut quid pares dentes et ventrem?. Crede et manducasti. Dixit se panem qui de coelo descendit, hortans ut credamus in eum. Credere enim in eum, hoc est manducare panem vivum.—August. Op. Paris. 1769, &c. Tom. nr. pars 2, col. 489, e. 494, d.—In Evang. Joan. cap. vI.—Quia durum et intolerabilem existimaverunt sermonem ojus, quasi vere carnem suam illis edendum determinasset, ut in spiritu disponeret
But here maketh More his argument against the young man?, Because the Jews marvelled at this saying, My flesh is very meat, and my blood drink; and not at this, I am the door, and the very vine; therefore this text, (saith he) My flesh is,” &e. must be understood after the literal sense;’ that is to wit, even as the carnal Jews understood it, murmuring at. it, being offended, going their ways from Christ, for their so carnal understanding thereof: and the other texts, I am the. oe door,” &e. must be understood in an allegorical and spiritual sense, because his hearers marvelled nothing at the manner of the speech. Lo, christian reader! here hast thou not a taste, but a great tun full, of More’s mischief and pernicious perverting of God’s holy word; and as thou seest him here falsely and pestilently destroy the pure sense in God’s word, so doth he in all other places of his books. First, where he saith they marvelled at this Christ’s saying, My flesh is very meat,” &c. that is not so, neither is there any such word in the text; except More will expound Murmurabant, id est, mirabantur,
‘ They murmured, that is to say, they marvelled;’ as he expoundeth, Oportet, id est, expedit et convenit, He must die, or it behoveth him to die; that is to say, it was expedient and of good congruence that he should die,” &c. Thus this poet may make a man to signify an ass, and black white; to blear the simple eyes. But yet, for his lordly pleasure, let us grant him that they murmured is as much to say as they marvelled; because perchance the one may follow at the other. And then do I ask him, whether Christ’s disciples and his apostles heard him not, and understood him not, when he said, “1 am the door and the vine,” and when he said, My flesh,” &e. If he say no, or nay; the scripture is plain against him. If he say yea, or yes; then yet do I ask him, whether his disciples and apostles, thus hearing and under-
[statum salutis, preemisit, Spiritus est qui vivificat. Atque ita subjunxit,]
[Caro nihil prodest, ad vivificandum scilicet. Exequitur etiam quid velit]
[spiritus et vita sermo, eundem etiam carnem suam dixit; quia et sermo]
[caro erat factus, proinde in causam vite appetendus, et devorandus]
[auditu, et ruminandus intellectu, et fide digerendus.— Tertull. Opp.]
[Lib. de Res. Carn. cap. 37. p. 332. Ed. Pamel. Franekerse. 1597.] [3 John Frith.] [+ Alluding to More’s critical remarks on the distinction between]
[no and nay, &c. See note to p. 25.]]
standing his words, in all these three chapters, wondered and marvelled, (as More saith,) or murmured, (as hath the text,) at their master’s speech. What think ye More must answer here? Here may ye see whither this old holy upholder of the pope’s church is brought; even to be taken in his own — irap. For the disciples, and his apostles, neither murmured,
nor marvelled, nor yet were offended with this their master Christs words, and manner of speech: for they were well acquainted with such phrases; and answered their master Christ, when he asked them, Will ye too go hence from me?^ Lord,” said they, “to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life; and we believe that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” Lo! M. More, they neither — marveled nor murmured. And why? For because, as ye say, they understood it in an allegory sense; and perceived ^ wellthat he meant not of his material body to be eaten with their teeth; but he meant it of himself, to be believed to be very God and very man, having flesh and blood as they had, and yet was he the Son of the living God. This belief gathered they of all his spiritual sayings; as himself expounded his own words, saying, My flesh profiteth nothing,” meaning to be eaten; but it is the Spirit that giveth this life. And the words that I speak unto you are spirit and. life;” so that whoso believeth my flesh to be crucified and broken, and my blood to be shed for his sins, he eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, and hath life everlasting. And ii. this is the life wherewith the righteous live, even by faith.
The second argument of More
After this text thus wisely proved to be understood in the literal sense, with the carnal Jews, and not in the allegorie or spiritual sense with Christ and his apostles; the whole sum of More’s confutation of the young man standeth upon this argument, A posse ad esse!; that is to wit, God may do it; €rgo, It is done. God? may make his body in many, or in all places at once; ergo, it is in many or in all places at once. Which manner of argumentation, how false and naught it is, every sophister and every man that hath wit perceiveth.
From the possibility to prove the existence.] [2 So and More; but has Christ
A like argument: God may shew More the truth and call him to repentance, as he did Paul for persecuting his church: ergo, More is converted to God. Or, God may let him run of an indurate heart with Pharaoh; and at last take an open and sudden vengeance upon him, for persecuting his word, and burning his poor members?: ergo, It is done already. M. More must first prove it us by express words of holy seripture, and not by his own unwritten dreams, that Christ’s body is in many places or in all places at once: and then, though our reason cannot reach it, yet our faith, measured and directed with the word of faith, will both reach it, receive it, and hold it fast too; not because it is possible to God and impossible to reason, but because the written word of our faith saith it. But when we read God’s word, in more than twenty places, contrary that his body should be here, More must give us leave to believe his unwritten vanities (verities, I should say) at leisure. Here mayest thou see, christian reader, wherefore More would so fain make thee believe, that the apostles left aught unwritten, of necessity to be believed; even to stablish the pope’s kingdom, which standeth of More’s unwritten vanities; as of the presence of Christs body and making thereof in the bread, of purgatory, of invocation of saints, worshipping of stones and stocks, pilgrimages, hallowing of boughs and bells, and creeping to the cross, &c. If ye will believe whatsoever More can feign without the scripture, then can this poet feign you another church than Christ’s, and that ye must believe it whatsoever it teacheth you; for he hath feigned too, that it cannot err, though ye see it err and fight against itself a thousand times: yea, if it tell you black is white, good is bad, and the devil is God; yet must ye believe it, or else be burned as heretics. But let us return to our purpose.
To dispute of God’s almighty absolute power, what God
may do with his body, it is great folly, and no less presumption to More, since the pope, which is no whole God, but half a God by their own decrees5, hath decreed no man to dispute
[3 This passage did not escape More’s notice. He has commented]
[upon it through five pages. ] (4^ So B., L., and More, but D. has out certain things.] [^ Satis evidenter ostenditur, a seculari potestate nec ligari prorsus,]
[nec solvi posse Pontificem, quem constat a pio principe Constantino]
of his power! But, christian reader, be thou content to a know that God’s will, his word, and his power, be all one, and repugn not. And neither willeth he, nor may not do, any thing including repugnance, imperfection, or that should derogate, minish, or hurt his glory and his name. The glory of his Godhead is to be present and to fill all places at once essentially, presently? with his almighty power; which glory is denied to any other creature, himself saying by his prophet, Ι wil not give my glory to any other” creature. Now, therefore, since his manhood is a creature, it cannot have this glory only which is appropried to the Godhead. To attribute to his manhood that property which only is appropried to his Godhead, is to eonfound both the natures of? Christ. What thing soever is everywhere after the said manner, that must needs be infinite, without beginning and end; it must be one as alone, and almighty; which properties only are appropried unto the glorious majesty of the Godhead. Wherefore Christ’s but body may not be in all, or in many places, at once: Christ God- himself saying, as concerning his manhood, he is less than the — Father, but as touching his Godhead, “The Father and I be both one thing;” and Paul, reciting the psalm, affirmeth Christ, as concerning his manhood, to be less than God, or less than angels, as some text hath it. Here is it plain that all things that More imagineth and feigneth are not possible to God; for it is not possible for God to make a creature equal unto himself: for it includeth repugnance, and derogateth his glory. God promised and swore, that all nations should be blessed in the death of that promised Seed, which was Christ. God had determined and decreed it before the world was made: ergo, Christ must needs have died; and not to expound this word oportet as More minceth it: for it was so necessary, that
[Deum appellatum: nec posse Deum ab hominibus judicari manifestum]
[est.—Decreti Prima pars, Distinct. 96. Satis. (i.e. cap. 7.) Corp. Jur.]
[Canon. Thielman Kerver, 15106.] [! Nemo judicabit primam sedem justitiam temperare desideran-]
[tem. Neque enim ab Augusto, neque ab omni clero, neque a regibus,]
[neque a populo judex judieabitur.— Decreti Secunda pars, Caus. 1x.]
[Qu. 3. Nemo (cap. 13).] [2 More says, ‘I let pass here this word presently, whose presence]
[needeth not in that place. For how can he be present, and essentially]
[fill the place, and not presently?—B. 1v. chap. 14 of More’s Answer. [3 More has in.]]
the contrary was impossible; except More would make God a liar, which is impossible. Paul concludeth that Christ must needs have died, using this Latin term, necesse; saying, “Wheresoever is a testament, there must the death of the testament-maker go between; or else the testament is not ratified and sure:” but righteousness and remission of sins in Christ’s blood is his new testament, whereof he is mediator; ergo, the testament-maker must needs have died. Wrest not therefore, M. More, this word oportet (though ye find potest for oportet in some corrupt copy) unto your unsavoury sense. But let oportet signify, he must,” or it behoveth him to die.” For he took our very mortal nature for the same decreed counsel, himself saying, Oportet exaltari Filium hominis, &c.; It behoveth that the Son of man must die; that every one that believeth in him perish not,” &c. Here may ye see also, that it is impossible for God to break his promise. It is impossible to God, which is that verity, to be found contrary in his deeds and words: as to save them whom he hath damned, or to damn them whom he hath saved. Wherefore all things imagined of M. More’s brain are not possible to God.
And when More saith, that Christ had power to let his life and to take it again, and therefore not to have died of necessity; I wonder me, that his schoolmaster here failed him, so eunning as he maketh himself therein; which granteth and affirmeth (as true it is), that with the necessary decreed works of God’s foresight and providence standeth right well his free liberty. But M. More saith at last: If God would tell me that he would make each of both their bodies two, (meaning the young man’s body and Christ’s$,) to be in fifteen places at once, I would believe him, 17, that he were able to make his word true in the bodies of both twain; and never would I so much as ask him whether he would glorify them both first or not: but I am sure, glorified or unglorified, if he said it, he is able to do it.” Lo! here may ye see what a
[[ Meaning, Truth itself.) [5 He means Erasmus, who had a controversy with Luther on the]
[topic of free-will, De libero arbitrio.] [6 So B., and More quoting this, p. 1124, col. 2. D. has his.] [7 So More, in copying this quotation from himself; and this read-]
[ingis confirmed, where his words are imitated in a passage which will]
[soon occur. D. omits this 7.]]
fervent faith this old man hath, and what an earnest mind to believe Christ’s words, if he had told him. But, I pray you, M. More, what and if Christ never told it you, nor said it, nor never would; would ye not be as hasty to not! believe it? If he told it you, I pray you tell us where you spake with him, and who was by to bear ye record; and if you bring as false a shrew as yourself to testify this thing, yet, by your own doctrine, must ye make us a miracle to confirm your tale, ere we be bound to believe you, or yet to admit this your argument, God may make his body in many places at once; ergo, it is so.” Sir, ye be too busy with God’s almighty power; and have taken too great a burden upon your weak shoulders: ye have overladen yourself with your own harness and weapons; and young David is likely to prevail against you with his sling and stone. God hath infatuated your high subtle wisdom. Your crafty conveyance is espied. God hath sent your church a meet cover for such a cup, even such a defender as ye take upon yourself to be; that shall let all their whole cause fall flat in the mire, unto both your shames and utter confusion. God therefore be praised ever! Amen.
Then saith M. More, though it seemeth repugnant both to him and to me, one body to be in two places at once; yet God seeth how to make them stand together well enough. This man, with his old eyes and spectacles, seeth far in God’s sight, and is of his privy-council, that knoweth belike by some secret revelation, how God seeth one body to be in many places at once includeth? no repugnance: for word hath he none for him in all scripture, no more than one body to be in all places at once. It implieth, first, repugnance (o my sight and reason, that all this world should be made of nothing, and that a virgin should bring forth a child: but yet, when I see it written with the words of my faith, which God spake, and brought it so to pass; then implieth it no repugnance to me at all: for my faith reacheth it, and receiveth it stedfastly. For I know the voice of my herdsman; which if he said, in any place of scripture, that his body should have been contained under the form of bread, and so.
[1 So B. and More. D. has not to.] [2 More shouldren; B. shoulder.] [3 So B. and More. D. has íncluding.].]
in many places at once here in earth, and also abiding yet still in heaven too; verily I would have believed him, I4, as soon and as firmly as M. More. And therefore even yet, if he can shew us but one sentence, truly taken for his part, as we can do many for the contrary, we must give place: for, as for his unwritten verities and the authority of his antichristian? synagogue, unto which (the scripture forsaken) he is now at last, with shame enough, compelled to flee; they be proved stark lies and very devilry.
Then saith he, that Ye wot well that many good folk have used in this matter many good fruitful examples of God’s other works; not only miracles, written in scripture, (Unde versus? where one, I pray ye?) but also done by the common course of nature here in earth. If they be done by the common course of nature, so be they no miracles. And some things made also by man’s hand; as one face beheld in divers glasses, and in every piece of one glass broken into twenty,’ &c. Lord, how this pontifical poet playeth his part! Because (as he saith) we see many faces in many glasses, therefore may one body be in many places; as though every shadow and similitude, representing the body, were a bodily substance”. But I ask More, when he seeth his own face in so many glasses, whether all those faces that appear in the glasses be his own very face, having bodily substance, skin, flesh, and bone, as hath that face which hath his very mouth, nose, eyes, ὅσο. wherewith he faceth us out the truth, thus falsely, with lies? And if they be all his very faces, then in very deed there is one body in many places, and he himself beareth as many faces in one hood. But, according to his purpose, even as they be no very faces, nor those so many voices, sounds, and similitudes, multiplied in the air between the glass or other object and the body (as the philosopher proveth by natural reason), be no very bodies; no more is it Christ’s very body,
[4 B., L., and More have I here, though omitted by Day.] [> So B. and More. D. has antichrist’s.] [6 So B., but D. omits in. ] [7 See Thomas Aquin. Opusc. lviii. De sacr. altaris, cap. xiii. Nam]
[si faciei tus plura proponas specula, in omnibus zequaliter et integraliter]
[una apparebit facies: et si unum speculum in plura frusta etiam parva]
[confringas, perfecta tua facies in singulis erit. Et licet speculum]
[infringatur in plura, facies tua tamen manet in omnibus una, nec muta-]
[tur. Sic est re vera in sacramento Christi, &c.—Opusc. p. 388. col. 2.]]
as they would make thee believe, in the bread, in so many we places at once. But the bread, broken and eaten in the Supper, monisheth and putteth us in remembrance of his death, and so exciteth us to thanksgiving, to laud and praise, for the benefit of our redemption; and thus we there have - Christ present, in the inward eye and sight of our faith. We eat his body and drink his blood; that is, we believe surely that his body was crucified for our sins, and his blood shed for our salvation.
At last note, Christian reader, that M. More in the third book of his Confutation of Tyndale, the two hundred and forty-ninth side, to prove St John’s gospel imperfect and insufficient (for leaving out of so necessary a point of our faith, as he calleth the last supper of Christ, his maundy), saith, that John spake nothing at all of this sacrament! And now, see again, in these his letters against Frith, how himself bringeth in John the sixth chapter, to impugn Frith’s writing, and to make all for the sacrament, even thus: My flesh is verily meat, and my blood drink.” Belike the man had there overshot himself foul; the young man here causing him to put on his spectacles, and pore better and more wisely with his old eyes upon St John’s gospel, to find that thing there now written, which before he would have made one of his unwritten verities. As yet, if he look nar-
[1 In page 259 of More’s Confutation (incorrectly headed cexlix.)]
[occurs the following passage: “If a man seek among the other evan-]
[gelists, he shall find mo necessary things than one left out in Saint]
[John. But now, because of Tyndale, let us takesome one. And what]
[thing rather than the last supper of Christ, his maundy with his apos-]
[tles, in which he instituted the blessed sacrament of the altar, his own]
[blessed body and blood. Is this no necessary point of faith? Tyndale]
[cannot deny it for a necessary point of faith, although it were but of]
[his own false faith, agreeing with Luther, Huskyn, or Zuinglius. And]
[he cannot say that St John speaketh any thing thereof, specially not]
[of the institution. Nor he cannot say that St John speaketh any thing]
[of the sacrament at all, sith that his sect expressly denieth that St John]
[meant the sacrament in his words, where he speaketh expressly thereof]
[in the sixth chapter of his gospel.” In his answer to the present treatise, More tells a tale of a certain —]
[gentlewoman, asking him in reference to this passage, Have you con-]
[sidered well the place in your book, and seen that he saith truth?]
[Nay, by my truth, quod I, that I have not.” Afterwards she sent for]
[the book, and turned to the very 249th side, and with that number]
rowly, he shall espy that himself hath proved us by scripture (in the thirty-seventh leaf of his dialogue of Quoth he and quoth I), our lady’s perpetual virginity, expounding non cognosco, id est, non cognoscam, which now written unwritten verity he numbereth a little before among his unwritten vanities. Thus may ye see how this old holy upholder of the pope’s church, his words fight against themselves into his own confusion, in finding us forth his unwritten written vanities,—verities I should say.
But return we unto the exposition of St John. When the Jews would not understand the? spiritual saying of the eating of Christ’s flesh and drinking of his blood, so oft and so plainly declared, he gave them a strong stripe? and made them more blind (for they so deserved it,——such are the secret judgments of God), adding unto all his sayings thus, Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in him.” These words were spoken unto these unbelievers into their farther obstination; but unto the faithful, for their better instruction. Now gather of this the contrary, and say, Whoso eateth not my flesh and drinketh not my blood, abideth not in me, nor I in him;’ and join this to the foresaid sentence, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” Let it never fall from thy mind, christian reader, that faith is the life of the righteous; and that Christ is this living bread whom thou eatest, that is,. ” ᾿ to say, in whom thou believest. For if our papists take eating and drinking here bodily, as to eat the natural body of Christ under the form of bread, and to drink his blood under the
[marked also. And in good faith, good reader, there found we no such]
[manner matter, neither on the tone side of the leaf, nor on the tother.]
[Howbeit of truth I cannot deny but that in a side after, mismarked]
[with the No. of 249, which should have been marked with the No. of]
[259 there we found the matter in that place. But therein found we]
[the most shameful either folly or falsehood of master Masker, that ever]
[I saw lightly in any man in my life.” More’s Works, p. 1135, col. 1.] [2 So D., but More’s quotation has this. ] (3 So D., but More has tryppe, i.e. trip. Some of the following]
[paragraphs had been previously noticed and quoted by More; but]
[after discussing the present paragraph, for a while, he brings his answer]
[to an abrupt conclusion, in p. 1137, deferring any further remarks on]
[Tyndale till he should have replied to the pestilent, peevish book of]
[John Frith.”]]
form of wine; then must all young children (that never came to God’s board) departed, and all laymen that never drank his blood, be damned. By love we abide in God, and he in us: love followeth faith in the order of our understanding, and not in order of succession of time, if thou lookest upon the self gifts, and not on their fruits. So that principally drink # by faith, whereby we cleave to God’s goodness and mercy, we abide in God, and God in us; as declare his words fol- Jowing, saying, “As the living Father sent me, so live I by my Father!; and even so he that eateth me shall live because of me,” or for my sake. My Father sent me, whose will in all things I obey; for I am his Son: and even so verily must they that eat me, that is, believe in me, form and fashion them after my example, mortifying their flesh, and changing their living; or else they eat me in vain, and dissemble their belief. For I am not come to redeem the world only, but also to change their life. They, therefore, that believe in me shall transform their life after my example and doctrine, and not after any man’s traditions. This is the bread that came from heaven, as the effect itself declareth, whom whoso eateth shall live ever. But he that eateth bodily bread liveth not ever, as ye may see of your fathers that ate manna, and yet are they dead. It is not, therefore, any? material bread, nor bodily food, that may give you life eternal. These words did not only offend them that hated Christ, but also some of his disciples They were offended,” said the text, (and not marvelled, as More trifleth out the truth,) which said, This is an hard saying; who may hear this?” These disciples, yet, stuck no less in Christ’s visible flesh, and in the bark of his words, than did the other Jews, and as doth now More, believing him to have spoken of his natural body to be eaten with their teeth: which offence — Christ seeing, said, Doth this offend you? What then - the.:. will ye say, if ye see the Son of man ascend thither where he was before?” If it offend you to eat my flesh while I am here, it shall much more offend you to eat it when my body shall be gone out of your sight, ascended into heaven,
[Tyndale’s translation of John vi. 57, has even so, and inserts my]
[as here. [2 So D., but B. has no.]]
there sitting on the right hand of my Father, until I come again, as I went, that is, to judgment.’ Here might Christ have instructed his disciples in? the truth of the eating of his flesh in form of bread, had this been his meaning. For he left them never in any perplexity or doubt; but sought all the ways, by similitudes and familiar examples, to teach them plainly. He never spake them so hard a parable, but where he perceived their feeble ignorance, anon he helped them and declared it them: yea, and sometimes he prevented their asking with his own declaration; and think ye that he did not so here? Yes, verily: for he came to teach us, and not to leave us in any doubt and ignorance, especially in the chief point of our salvation; which standeth in the belief in his death for our sins. Wherefore, to put them out of all doubt as concerning this eating of his flesh, and drinking of his blood, that should give everlasting life; where they took it for his very body to be eaten with their teeth, he said, It is the Spirit that giveth this life, my flesh profiteth nothing at all, to be eaten as ye mean so carnally. It is spiritual meat that I here speak of. It is my Spirit that draweth the hearts of men to me by faith, and so refresheth them ghostly. Ye be therefore carnal, to think that I speak of my flesh to be eaten bodily; for so it profiteth you nothing at all. How long will ye be without understanding? It is my Spirit, I tell you, that giveth life. My flesh profiteth you nothing to eat it; but to believe that it shall be crucified and suffer for the redemption of the world, it profiteth. And when ye thus believe, then eat ye my flesh and drink my blood; that is, ye believe in me, to suffer for your sins.” The Verity hath spoken these words, My flesh profiteth nothing at all; it cannot therefore be false. For both the Jews and his disciples murmured and disputed of his flesh, how it should be eaten, and not of the offering thereof for our sins, as Christ meant. This, therefore, is the sure anchor to hold us by, against all the objections of the papists for the eating of Christ’s body (as they say) in form of bread. Christ said, My flesh profiteth nothing;” meaning, to eat it bodily. This is the key that solveth all their arguments, and openeth the way to shew us all their false and abominable blasphemous lies upon
[3 So but wants in
Christ’s words, and uttereth their sly! juggling over the bread, to maintain antichrist’s kingdom therewith. And thus when Christ had declared it, and taught them that it was not the bodily eating of his material body, but the eating of with the spirit of faith, he added, saying, The words — which I here speak unto you are spirit and life;” that is to say, this matter that I here have spoken of, with so many words, must be spiritually understood to give you this life everlasting: wherefore the cause, why ye understand me not, is, that ye believe not.
Here is, lo! the conclusion of all this sermon. Christ, very God and man, had set his flesh before them to be received with faith, that it should be broken and suffer for their sins; but they could not eat it spiritually, because they believed not in him: wherefore many of his disciples fell from him, and walked no more with him. And then he said to the twelve, Will ye go away too? And Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life: and we believe and are sure that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” Here is it manifest, what Peter and his fellows understood by this eating and drinking of Christ; for they were perfectly taught, that it stood all in the belief in Christ, as their answer here testifieth. If this matter had stood upon so deep a. miracle as our papists feign without any word of God, not comprehended under any of their common senses, that they should eat his body, being under the form of bread, as long, deep, thick, and as broad, as it hanged upon the cross; they being yet but feeble of faith, not confirmed with the Holy Ghost, must here needs have wondered, stunned and staggered, and have been more inquisitive in and of so strange a matter, than they were. But they neither doubted, nor marvelled, nor murmured, nor were anything a offended with this manner of speech, as were the other that glipped away; but they answered firmly, Thou hast the words of everlasting life, and we believe,” &e.
Now to the exposition of the words of our Lord’s supper. Among the holy evangelists, writing the story of Christ’s supper, John, because the other three had written it at large,. did but make a mention thereof in his thirteenth chapter;
[1 Uttereth: detects, or exposes. B. and D. have sleighe, i. e. sly; but]
[More appears to have read the word sleight, i.e. slight, without strength. ]]
Matthew, Mark and Luke declaring it clearly, orderly, and with just number of words; with whom Paul agreeth, thus writing unto the Corinthians: Our Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed, he took the bread, and after he had given thanks, he brake it, saying, Take ye it, eat it: this is my body which is for you broken.” Here is now to be noted the order of this action or act. First, Christ took the bread in his hands; secondarily, he gave thanks; thirdly, he broke it; fourthly, he raught! it them, saying, Take it; fifthly, he bade them eat it: and last after all this he said, “This is my body, which is for you broken: this thing do ye into the remembrance of me.” Here ye see that this bread was first broken, delivered them, and they were commanded to eat it too, ere Christ said, This is my body.” And for because it is to suppose verily, that they took it at his hand as he bade them, and did eat it too, when they had it in their hands, their master (whose words they did ever obey) commanding them; it must needs follow (if these be the words of the consecration), that they were houseled with unconsecrated bread, or else now eaten, or at leastwise part of it, ere Christ consecrated it: yea, it followeth, that it was out of Christ’s hands, and in their mouths, when Christ consecrated it; and so to have consecrated it, when it was now in his disciples’ hands, or in their mouths, or rather in their bellies.
Here it is manifest that Christ consecrated no bread, but delivered it to his disciples, and bade them eat it: insomuch that St Thomas, their own doctor, that made their transubstantiation, confesseth that some there were that said that Christ did first consecrate with other words, ere he, now reaching the bread to his disciples, said, “This is my body,” &e.; and yet calleth he it no heresy so to say. Now since
[1 Raught, old preterite of verb reach; D. has taugAt.] [2 Videtur hoe esse contrarium usui ecclesise, secundum quem prius]
[consecratur corpus Christi, et postea frangitur. Hic autem dicitur]
[quod prius fregit, postea protulit verba consecrationis. Etideoquidam]
[dixerunt, quod Christus prius consecravit verbis aliis, et postea protulit]
[verba quibus nos consecramus. Sed hoc non potest esse; quia]
[sacerdos, dum consecrat, non profert ista verba quasi ex persona sua,]
[sed quasi ex persona Christi consecrantis. Unde manifestum est quod]
[eisdem verbis quibus nos consecramus et Christus consecravit.— Thom.]
[Aquin. Comm. in Epist. Paulin. in 1 Cor. xi. 24. fol. 77. See also his 16 [TYNDALE, 11.]]
in all this act and supper, there be no words of consecration, but of the delivering of the bread broken after thanksgiving, with a commandment to eat it; bring us your words of consecration, and shew us by what words God promised you, and gave you power to make his body. There is neither commandment, nor yet any words left, in all the scripture, we” to make or to consecrate Christ’s body, to bring it into the bread, But there be the words of God left in the first chapter of Genesis, whereby he made all the world; with which words, albeit we yet have them, yet is it denied us to make that thing that he made with them. Now since we, having his words of the creation, cannot yet make any new creature of nothing; how then shall we, without any words of consecration and making, make the Maker of all things? Unto this action, or supper, or deliverance of the bread, he added a reason and signification of this sign or sacrament, and what also is the use thereof; as though any should ask them thereafter, What sacrament, religion, or rite is this? they should answer, even in a like manner of speech as it was commanded their fathers to make answer to their children at the eating of the old passover, whereof this new passover was the verity, and that the figure, saying, When your children ask you what religion is this? ye shall answer them, It is the sacrifice of the passing by of the. Lord,” &oc. Lo! here the lamb, that signified and did put them in remembrance of that passing by in Egypt (the Israelites spared, and the Egyptians smitten,) was called in like phrase the self thing that it represented, signified, and did put them in remembrance of: none otherwise than if Christ’s disciples, or any man else, seeing.in that supper the bread taken, thanks given, the bread broken, distributed, and eaten, should have asked him, What sacrament or religion is this? he had to answer them, that Christ said, This is my body, which is for you broken: this thing do ye in! remembrance ma Of me;” that is to say, So oft as ye celebrate this supper, give thanks to me for your redemption: in which answer he calleth the outward sensible sign or sacrament, that is,
[Lib. rv. Sentent. Dist. vir. Qu. 2. Art. 1; and in Tert. pars Summ.]
[Theol. Qu. 75. Art. 7.] [! So D., but B. has into the.]]
hihi
“m ” EXPOSITION OF JOHN VI.; 243 the bread with all the other action, even the same thing that it signifieth, representeth, and putteth such eaters of the Lord’s supper in remembrance of. For when he said, “Which is broken for you,” every one of them saw that then it was not his body that was there broken, but the bread; for as yet he had not suffered, but the bread broken was divided into pieces, every one of the twelve taking and eating a piece, before he said, This is my body,” &e.
Now since M. More will stick so fast in his literal sense upon these words, This is my body,” &c., then do I ask him what thing he sheweth us by this firs& word and pronoun demonstrative, Aoc; in English, this. If he? shew us the bread, so is the bread Christ’s body, and Christ’s body the bread; which saying, in the literal sense, is an high heresy after them. And for this saying they burned the lord Cobham? Also I ask, whether Christ, speaking these words, “This is my body,” &ec., had then the bread in his hands, wherewith he houseled his disciples, or no? That he had it not, but had now delivered it them, and had commanded them to eat it too, the order and words of the text plainly prove it, as is declared before. And St Mark telleth the story also in this order: The cup taken in his hands, after he had given thanks, he gave it them, and they all drank thereof. And he said to them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.” Here is it manifest that they had all drunken thereof first, ere he said the words of consecration; if they be the words of any consecration. Besides this, if ye be so sworn to the literal sense in this matter, that ye will not in these words of Christ, This is my body,” &e., admit in so plain a speech ποῦ trope, (for allegory there is none, if ye knew the proper difference of them both, which every grammarian can teach you;) then do I lay before your old eyes and spectacles too Christ’s words spoken of the cup, both in Luke and Paul, saying, This cup
[[? So B., but D. has ye.] [8 At his examination before Abp. Arundel and other prelates in]
[1413, Lord Cobham said, I say now again, as our Lord Jesus Christ]
[is very God and very man, so in the most blessed sacrament of the]
[altar is Christ’s very body and bread. Then said they all with one voice,]
[It is a heresy.” Foxe, Acts and Mon. Vol. ui. p. 331. Lond. 1837.] [ So B., but D. has any.] 16—2]
is the new testament through my blood, which is shed for you.” Here Christ calleth the wine in the cup the self cup; which every man knoweth is not the wine. Also he calleth the cup the new testament; and yet was not the cup, nor yet the wine contained therein, the new testament; and yet he calleth it the new testament, established and confirmed with his blood. Here ye see he called not the cup his blood, but the testament. Where is now your literal sense, that ye would so fain frame for your papists pleasure? If ye will so sore stick.to the letter, why do your faction leave here the plain letter, saying that the letter slayeth; going about the bush with this exposition and circumlocution, expounding This is my body,” that is to say, this is converted or and turned into my body, and this bread is transubstantiated my body? How far, lo! M. More, is this your strange Thomistical sense from the flat letter? If ye be so addicted to the letter, why fray ye the common people from the literal sense with this bug, telling them, the letter slayeth? But there is neither letter nor spirit that may bridle and hold your stiff-necked heads.
Also ye shall understand that Christ rebuked the Jews for their literal sense and carnal understanding of his spiritual words, saying, My flesh profiteth you nothing at all to eat it,” &c. And their literal taking of his spiritual words was the cause of their murmur, &c.: for even there (as also like in other places) to eat Christ’s flesh, &c., after the common phrase of the scripture, is nought else than to believe. that Christ suffered death and shed his blood for us. Read ye 1 Cor. x. that “our fathers all did eat the same spiritual meat, and drank the same spiritual drink,” that we now eat and drink. Here I think M. More must leave his literal sense and material meat, or else deny Paul; and deny too, that our fathers did eat Christ, and drank his blood, which all here Paul saith: for to eat and to drink this spiritual meat and drink was, as himself declareth, to eat and drink Christ. “They drank of the stone (saith Paul) that went — with them; which stone was Christ. And we eat and drink the very same stone: which is nought! else than to believe in Christ. They believed in Christ to come; and we believe. in him comen, and having suffered. Where is now, think ye,
So but has ncthing.]
M. More’s literal sense, for the eating of Christ’s material body? Our fathers were one and the same church with us, under the same testament and promise, and even of the same faith in Christ. And even as they ate him and drank his blood, even the same spiritual meat and drink that we do eat and drink; so do we now, in the same faith. For what else was signified by this manner of speech, Our fathers did eat and drink Christ, than that they believed in Christ to be incarnated, and to suffer death? What else meant the poor woman of Canaan by eating, than to believe, when she answered Christ, saying, Ye say sooth, my Lord; but yet do the little whelps eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table?” This did she answer in an allegory, according to Christ’s first answer unto her; she meaning, by the eating of the crumbs, the belief of his words and gospel to be scattered among the Gentiles; as Christ answering confirmed her meaning, saying, O woman, great is thy faith.” He said not, Thou art a great eater and devourer of bread. Here is it plain, that to eat in the scripture is taken to believe, as Christ himself expoundeth it so oft and: so plenteously. And I am here compelled to inculk and iterate it with so many words, to satisfy (if it were possible) this carnal flesh-vourer and fleshly Jew.
Now, to examine and to discuss this matter more deeply and plainly, I shall compare the old passover with the new, and supper of the Lord. And to shew you how the figures corre- Spond their verities, I will begin my comparison at baptism, comparing it with the Lord’s supper, which be the two sacraments left us now under the grace of the gospel; and afterward (to set forth both these sacraments plainly) I will compare circumcision with baptism, and the passe? lamb with Christ’s supper.
By baptism as we? testified unto the congregation our entering into the body of Christ, (take here Christ’s body, as doth Paul, for his congregation,) to die, to be buried, and to rise with him, to mortify our flesh, and to be revived in spirit, to cast off the old man, and to do upon us the new; even so by the thanksgiving (for so did the old Greek doctors call this [2 So B., L., and Day; for paschal.]
[3 80 B., but L. We by baptism testified: D. has We (by baptism) as we.
supper) at God’s board, or at the Lord’s supper, (for so doth Paul call it,) we testify the unity and communion of our hearts, glued unto the whole body of Christ in love: yea, and that in! such love as Christ at this his last supper expressed; what time he said, his body should be broken and his blood shed for the remission of our sins. And to be short, as baptism is the badge of our faith, so is the Lord’s supper the token of our love to God and our neighbours: whereupon standeth the law and the prophets. “For the end of the precept is love out of a pure heart, and good conscience and faith unfeigned.” So that by baptism we be initiated and consigned unto the worship of one God in one faith; and by the same faith and love at the Lord’s supper we shew ourselves to continue in our possession, to be incorporated and to be the very members of Christ’s body. was Both these sacraments were figured in Moses’ law. Baptism was figured by circumcision; and the Lord’s supper by the eating of the passe lamb: where like as by circumcision the people of Israel were reckoned to be God’s people, several from the Gentiles; so be we now by baptism reckoned to be consigned unto Christ’s church, several from Jews, paynims, ὅσο, And as their passover, that is to say, their solemn feast yearly, in eating their passe lamb, was an outward token of their perseverance in their religion, and in remembrance of their passage out of Egypt into the land of Canaan; so is now the eating of the Lord’s supper (which Christ and Paul ealled our passover) a token of our perseverance in our christian profession at baptism, and also thanksgiving, with that joyful of our redemption from sin, death, and hell, by Christ’s death. Of the figure of this supper, our new passover, thus is it written: “After ye be entered into that land, which the Lord God shall give you, according to his promise, ye shall keep this ceremony. And when your children ask you, what religion is this? ye shall answer them, It is the sacrifice of the passing over of the Lord, when the Lord passed foreby the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, smiting the Egyptians and delivering our houses.” This eating, therefore, of the passe lamb was the figure of the Lord’s supper; which. figure, when the hour was come that he would it to cease and give place unto the verity, as the shadow to vanish away
So but wants in
at the presence of the body, he said thus; “With a fervent desire do I long to eat this passover with you, ere I suffer.”
Again, let us compare the figure with the truth, the old passover with the new, and diligently consider the property ef speaking in and of either of them. Let us expend the succession, imitation, and time; how, the new succeeding the old, Christ sitting at the? supper, mediator between both, celebrating both with his presence, did put out the old and bring in the new. For there is in either of them such like composition of words, such affinity and proportion of speech, such similitude and property in them both, the new so corresponding in all things to the old, that the old declareth the new, what is it, wherefore it was instituted, and what is the
very use thereof. And, to begin at circumcision, the figure of baptism: ye shall understand, that in such rites and sacraments there are two things to be considered, that is to wit, the thing, and the sign of the thing. The thing is it wherefore the sign is instituted, to signify it: as in circumcision, the thing is the covenant to be of the people of God; and the sign is the cutting off the foreskin of the privy member. In the passover the thing was the remembrance, with thanksgiving, for the deliverance out of the hard servitude of Egypt; but the sign was the lamb roasted, with such ceremonies as were there prescribed them. So in baptism; the thing is the promise to be of the church of Christ: the sign is the dipping into the water, with the holy words. In our Lord’s supper, the very thing is Christ promised and crucified, and of faith with? thanksgiving unto the Father for his Son given to suffer for us: but the sign is the dealing and distributing, or reaching forth, of the bread and wine, with the holy words of our Lord spoken at his supper, after he had thus dealt the bread and wine unto his disciples.
And here is it diligently to be noted, that since in all these rites, ceremonies, or sacraments of God, thus instituted, these two things. (that is to wit, the thing signified, and the sign that signifieth) be concurrent and inseparable, it is the common use and property of speech in the scripture to
[2 So L., in D. the is wanting, and the arrangement different. ] [3 So D., but in B. and L. with is wanting.] [4 So B., but in D. that in all such.]]
call the sign the thing; as is circumcision called the covenant. Every man-child must be circumcised, that my covenant might be in your flesh for a perpetual bond. And yet was it only but the outward sign and seal of the covenant, that the seed of Abraham should be his especial chosen people, and that he would be their God. The lamb, that was but the sign, was called the passover; and yet was not the lamb the passing over, but the sign only, exciting and monishing them to remember that deliveranee by the angel passing by the Israelites in Egypt, smiting the Egyptians. And since the scripture did use? this trope or manner of speech with so great grace in the old rites and ceremonies that figured our sacraments; why may it not with like grace, for that analogy and proper congruence of the figures with their verities, use the same phrase and manner of speech in their verities? If the scripture called the the sign the thing, in circumcision and the passover, why thatit should we be offended with the same speech in our baptism and in the Lord’s supper? since such manner of speech has no less grace and fulness here than there, to bring the thing signified into our hearts by such outward sensible signs. For when that sign of cireumcision was given the child, then were they certified (as an outward token may certify, that the child was of the people of Israel. And therefore did the signs then, as they do now, bear the names of the things which they signified; as the lamb, eaten in the passover, was called the sacrifice and the self passover, none otherwise than in our new passover, that is, the Lord’s supper, the bread broken, &e. is called the body of Christ; and the wine, and poured forth and distributed to each man, the blood of Christ; because the bread, so broken and dealt, signifieth unto the receivers, and putteth them in remembrance of the sacrifice of his body on the altar of the cross, and of his blood poured forth for our redemption: so that this manner of speech, in the administration and use of the supper of our Lord, to say, “This is my body, and this my blood,’ is as much to say as, this signifieth my body, this signifieth my blood;’ which supper is here celebrated to put us in remembrance of Christ’s death, and to excite us to thanksgiving.
Neither let it offend thee, O christian reader, that est is
[1 So B., but D. band.] [2 So B. and L. In D. the arrangement of the words is different. ]]
taken for significat; that is to say, This is that, is as much to
us
say as, this signifieth that. For this is a common manner of speech in many places of scripture, and also in our mothertongue; as when we see many pictures or images, which ye know well are but signs to represent the bodies whom they be made like, yet we say of the image of our lady, This is our lady;’ and of St Katharine, This is St Katharine:’ and yet do they but represent and signify us our lady or St Katharine: and as it is written, The three branches are three days, the three baskets are three days;” which was nought else but, they signified three days. Also in the twenty-eighth chapter Jacob said, This stone, which I have set up an end, shall be God’s house;” which stone yet was never God’s house, nor never shall be, but only did signify God’s house, to be builded in that same place. Again Pharaoh dreamed to have seen seven fair fat oxen, and eftsoons seven poor lean oxen: which Joseph expounding said, The seven fat oxen are seven plenteous years;” in which phrase, or manner of speech, every man seeth that the oxen were no years, but they signified such years. Marvel not, therefore, though est likewise in this sentence, Hoc est corpus meum, be taken for significat; as much to say as, ‘This signifieth my body. And yet for because the scriptures, conferred together, expound themselves, as saith St Austin; and Peter, That we have before a firm and sure prophetical speech, unto which if ye attend, as unto a light set up in a dark place, ye do well;” I shall shew you alike phrase in Ezekiel, where the destruction of Jerusalem was thus figured: God commanding Ezekiel to take a sword as sharp as a razor, and shave of his head and beard, and then take a certain weight of the hairs divided into three parts; the one he should burn in the middle of the city, another he should cut round about, and cast the third up into the wind, ὅσο.; which done, he said, Thus saith the Lord [3 In the third book of Augustine’s treatise On Christian Doctrine, among the rules for the right exposition and understanding of the holy scriptures, the principle stated by Tyndale is laid down and exemplified in sections 37,38, and 39.—Aug. Op. Tom. rr. pars 1. [4 7 Tyndale’s New Test. it is, We have also a more sure word eol. 56.
[of prophecy, whereunto if ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth]
[in a dark place, ye do well.’] Ye]
God; This is Jerusalem:” which act and deed so done was not Jerusalem; but it signified and preached unto the be-. holders of it Jerusalem to be destroyed; none otherwise than the breaking and distributing of the bread and wine, called Christ’s body and blood, signifieth and preacheth us the death of Christ, the figure and sign bearing the name of the thing signified, as in the prophet’s speech, saying, This is Jerusalem,” which. did but signify Jerusalem. When Christ did — breathe into his disciples, saying, Take ye the Holy Ghost;” the same breath was not the Holy Ghost, but signified and represented them the Holy Ghost; with a thousand like manner of speech in the scripture. In the old passover thanks were given for the slaughter of the first-begotten, wherein the king’s posterity of Egypt fell away; whereby the Hebrews were spared, passed over, and delivered. But in the new passover thanks are! given that the only-begotten Son of the most Highest was crucified; whereby all faithful are spared, passed over, and not smitten with the sword of damnation, but delivered and saved in the lamb’s blood that hath taken away the sins of the world. In the old passover the lamb or feast is called the Lord’s passover, and yet was neither the lamb nor the feast his passing oven but the sign and commemoration of his passing by. And ^ even so is it now, in the new supper of our Lord: it is there ealed the body of our Lord; not that there is any thing wherein his very natural body is contained, so long and broad as it hanged on the cross, (for so is it ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;) but that thing that is there done in that supper, as the breaking and dealing? and eating of the bread, and the whole like action ef the wine, signifieth, representeth, and putteth into our hearts, by. the spirit of faith, this commemoration, joyful remembrance, and so to give thanks for that inestimable benefit of our re- —. demption, wherein we see with the eye of our faith, presently, — his body broken and his blood shed for our sins. This is no small sacrament, nor yet irreverently to be entreated; but it. 15 the most glorious and highest sacrament, with all reverence and worship, with? thanksgiving, to be ministered, used, received, —. preached, and solemnly in the face of the congregation to be } [1 So B., but D. were.] (? That is, dividing.] 1 [3 So B., but D. omits worship with.): J
celebrated: of whose holy administration and use I shall, peradventure, speak in the end of this supper.
But in the mean season, christian reader, let these sensible signs signify and represent his death, and print it in thy heart; giving thanks incessantly unto God the Father for so incomparable a benefit, that hath given thee his own, only, so dearly-beloved Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to die for thy sins; yea, and that when we were not his children, but his enemies. Christ’s disciples said to the man, “Where is this guest-chamber, where I might eat the passing-by with my disciples?” And they prepared the passover: and yet Christ ate not the passover, but the lamb, with his disciples; where it is plain the sign to do on the name of the thing
At last, consider unto what end all things tended in that last supper; how the figure teached the verity, the shadow the body; and how the verity abolished the figure, and the shadow gave place to the body. Look also with what congruence, proportion, and similitude, both in the action and the speech, all things were consonant and finished; and all to lead us, by such sensible signs, from the figure unto the verity, from the flesh unto the spirit. And take thou here this infallible and assured saying of Christ, never to fall from thy mind, in this last supper, Do ye this into the remembrance of me;” and also of Paul, saying, So oft as ye shall eat this bread,” (lo!” this heretic calleth it bread, even after the words of the pope’s consecration) and “drink of this cup,” praise, declare, and give thanks for the death of the Lord, until he shall come again to judgment. Remember thou also what Christ said to the carnal Jews, taking the eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood so carnally, answering them, “My flesh profitethionn not,” (meaning, to eat it bodily;) but the Spirit maketh life.” And to this set the prophet Habakkuk’s sentence, The just liveth of his faith.”
And now, christian reader, to put thee clean out of doubt that Christ’s body is not here present under the form of bread, (as the papists have mocked us many a day,) but in heaven, even as he rose and ascended; thou shalt know that he told his disciples, almost twenty times between the thirteenth and eighteenth chapters of John, that he should and would go [ To do on is evidently used here, as elsewhere, for to put on.]
[5 So B., but D. consummate.]
hence, and leave this world: where, to comfort them again; for that they were so heavy for his bodily absence, he proin mised to send them his Holy Ghost, to be their comforter, defender, and teacher, in whom and by whom he would be present with them and all faithful unto the world’s end. He said unto his disciples, ‘I go hence; ‘I go to the Father;’ ‘I leave the world, and now shall I no more be in the world, isis but ye shall abide still in the world.” Father, I come to thee.’ Poor men have ye ever with ye; but me shall ye not always have with you And when he ascended unto heaven, they did behold him, and saw the cloud take his body out of their sight; and they fastening their eyes after him, the two men clothed in white said unto them, Ye men of Galilee, wherefore stand ye thus looking up into heaven? This is Jesus, that is taken up from you into heaven, which shall so come again, even as ye have seen him going hence.”
Here I would not More to flit from his literal plain sense. Ἰ] these so plain words be sufficient, I trow, to a christian man to certify his conscience that Christ went his way, bodily ascending into heaven. For when he had told his disciples so oft of his bodily departing from them, they were marvellous heavy and sad; unto whom Christ said, Because I told you “that I go hence, your hearts are full of heaviness.” If they had not believed him to have spoken of his very bodily absence, they would never have so mourned for his going away. And for because they so understood him, and he so meant as his words souned, he added, (as he should have said,) Be ye never so heavy, or how heavily soever ye take my going hence, yet do “I tell you truth: for it is expedient for you that I go hence. For if I should not go hence, that Comforter — Should not come unto you. But and if I go hence, I shall send s him unto you.” And again, in the same chapter, “I am come from the Father, and am come into the world; and shall leave the world again, and go to my Father.” What mystery, think ye, should be in these so manifest words? Did he speak them in any dark parables? Did he mean otherwise than he spake? Did he understand by going hence, so often repeated, to tarry here still? Or did he mean by forsaking and leaving the world, to be but invisible; being still in the world with his body? No, surely: for he meant as faithfully and as plainly as his words souned; and even so did his
disciples, without any more marvelling, understand him. For they answered him, saying, Lo, now speakest thou apertly, neither speakest thou any proverb.” But what a dark proverb and subtle riddle had it been, if he had meant, by. his going hence, to have tarried here still; and by forsaking the world, to abide still in the world; and by his going hence to his Father by his very bodily ascension, to be but invisible? Who would interpret this plain sentence thus? I go hence, that is to say, I tarry here still.” ‘I forsake the world and go to the Father; that is to say, I will be but invisible, and yet here abide still in the world bodily.” For as concerning his Godhead, which was ever with the Father, and in all places at once, he never spake such words of it. Christ said (his death now at hand) unto his disciples, Now again I forsake the world and go to my Father, but ye shall tarry still in the world.” If they will expound, by his forsaking the world, to tarry here still bodily, and to be but invisible; why do they not by like exposition interpret the tarrying here still of the disciples at that time, to be gone hence bodily and to be here visible? For Christ did set these contraries one against another, to declare each other: as, if to tarry here still, did signify to the disciples that they should abide in the world, as it doth indeed; then must needs his going hence, and forsaking the world, signify his bodily absence; as both the words plainly sound, Christ meant, and they understood them. But in so plain a matter, what need all these words? Be thou therefore sure, christian reader, that Christ’s glorified body is not in this world, but in heaven, as he thither ascended; in which body he shall come, even as he went, gloriously, with power and great majesty, to judge all the world in the last day. Be thou therefore assured, that he never thus juggled or mocked his so dearly-beloved disciples, so full of heaviness now for his bodily departing. For if he had so meant as our papists have perverted his sayings, his disciples would have wondered at so strange manner of speech; and he would have expressed his mind plainly, since at this time he was so full set to leave them in no doubt, but to comfort them with his plain and comfortable words. And if he would have been but invisible and still bodily present, he would never have covered himself with the cloud, shewing them, and testifying also by those two men, his very bodily
ascension out of their sights. We may not make, of his very: bodily ascension, such an invisible juggling cast as our papists feign, fashioning and feigning Christ a body now invisible, now in many places at once; and then so great, and yet in so little a place; not discerned of any of our senses; now glorified, now unglorified; now passible, and then impassible; and I wot ne er!’ what they imagine and make of their maker, and all without any word, yea, clean against all the words of holy scripture. For surely in this their imagination and so saying they bring in afresh the heresy of that great heretic Marcion; was. which said, that Christ took but a phantastical body, and so was neither verily born, nor suffered, nor rose, nor ascended verily, neither was he very man: which heresy Tertullian confuteth. Christ took verily our nature, such a passible and mortal body as we bear about with us; save that he was without all manner of sin. In such a body he suffered verily; and rose again from death in such a glorified body, now immortal, ὅσο. as every one of us shall rise at the general judgment. It is appropried only to his Godhead to be every where, and not to be circumscribed nor contained in no one? place. And as for our papists’ profane void voices, his body to be in many places at once, indefinitive, incircumseriptive; non per modum quanti, neque localiter?, &c. which includeth vi. in itself contradiction, of which Paul warned Timothy, calling ii. gt - ’ δ them the oppositions of ἃ false-named science, (for that their scholastical divinity must make objections against every truth, be it never so plain, with pro and conéra,) which science vi. many that profess it, saith Paul, have erred from the faith:” as for this contention and battle about words, profitable for nothing else but to subvert the hearers, I care not for them; for I have the almighty testimony of the everlasting word of God, ready to soil all their mad and unreasonable reasons, to wipe them clean away, and to turn them into their own eonfusion,
And for because they hold them so fast by Paul, I shall loose their hold; expounding the Lord’s supper after Paul, which addeth immediately unto the cup.this that Luke there
[1 B. ner, L. ne er, D. neare.] [? So D., but B. omits one.] Ἢ [8 Neither so as to have precise bounds, nor so as to be circum-]
[scribed; not after the manner of quantity, nor so as to occupy a place.] [4 So B. and L. D. has confession. ]]
left forth: “Do ye this into my remembrance.” This doth Paul repeat so often, to put us in mind that this thanksgiving and supper is the commemoration and the memorial of Christ’s death. Wherefore, after all, he repeateth it yet again the third time, saying, So oft as ye shall eat this bread” (he calleth it still bread even after the pope’s consecration,) “and drink the cup,” (he saith not drink this blood,) see that ye give thanks, be joyous, and ’ preach the death of the Lord,” (for so much signifieth annunciate in this place,) until he come; that is to say, from the time of his death and ascension until he come again to judgment. ^ Furthermore saith Paul, Whoso eateth this bread” (he calleth it still bread), or drinketh of the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” The body and blood of the Lord Paul calleth here the congregation assembled together to eat the Lord’s supper. For they are his body and blood, which are redeemed with his body and blood; as he said in the tenth chapter before: The cup of thanksgiving which we receive with thanks, is it not the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ? For we being many together are one bread, even? one body.” Lo, here Paul expounding himself useth the same form of speech that is used in these words: This is my body;” taking 4s, for signifieth: We are one bread, even one body; that is to say, we are signified by one loaf of bread to be one body: he sheweth the cause, adding, “because we be all partakers of one loaf” or piece of bread. And in the twelfth chapter following he saith plainly, Ye be the body of Christ and his particular members;” and in the first chapter to the Ephesians, “God did set Christ to be the head over all unto his congregation, which is his body,” &e.
And because the comparison in the tenth chapter between the Lord’s board and his cup, and the devil’s board and his cup, do declare this matter, I shall recite Paul’s words, saying, Ye may not drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of the devil both together. Ye may not be partakers of the Lord’s board and the devil’s board both at once.” The devil’s board, and his cup, was not his body and blood, but
[[^ Announce ye.] [6 Here and in the next sentence B. has even, where D. has and. ]]
the eating and drinking before their images and idols; as did the heathen in the worship and thanks of their gods: of which thing thou mayest gather what Paul meant by the Lord’s board and his cup. Now let us return to Paul in the eleventh chapter: They eat this bread and drink of this cup unworthily, that come not unto this board with such faith and love as they professed at their baptism. They eat v… unworthily, that thrust themselves in among this congregation, having not the love that this sacrament, and sign of unity, teacheth and signifieth: which manner of people Paul in this same chapter rebuketh, and bendeth all his sermon against them; for that they were contentious, and came together not for the better but for the worse: so that their coming together, which should have been a token of faith and love, was turned into the occasion and matter of dissenSion and strife; because every man did eat, as Paul saith, his own supper, and not the Lord’s supper; wherein the bread and drink is common, as well to the poor as to the rich. But here the rich disdained the poor, and would not tarry for them; so that some, as the rich, went their way drunken and full, and the poor departed hungry and dry: which was a token of no equal distribution of the bread and drink, and that the rich contemned the poor, and so became slanderous, and guilty of the body and blood of Christ; that is to wit, of the poor congregation, redeemed with Christ’s body and blood. Thus they that came together, appearing to have had that love which the supper signified, and had it not, uttered themselves by this contentious and unloving dealing not to be members of Christ’s body, but rather guilty and hurtful unto them: as, if a soldier of our adversaries’ part should come in among us with our Lord’s badge, having not that heart, faith and love to our captain that we have, we would (if we espied it by any token) take him for a spy and betrayer rather than one of us. _ Let a man therefore, saith Paul, prove himself well before, whether he hath this faith to Christ, and love to God and his neighbour, which all he professed at baptism, and this supper signified; and so come in among the congregation to eat of this bread and drink of this cup. He calleth it still bread and wine, and neither his body nor blood. “For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh his
own damnation, because he discerneth! not the Lord’s body.” He calleth still the Lord’s body the congregation redeemed with Christ’s body, as he did before, and also in the chapter following, fetching his analogy and similitude at the natural body; in which although there be divers members, one excelling another, one inferior, viler and more contemptible than another, yet may not the body want them, but must cover them reverently, and hold them in honour. Again, in the body, though there be divers members of divers offices, yet is there no discord among them; but every member, be it never so low and vile, yet doth it minister and serve another, and altogether hold up and help the whole body. This eonsideration with these comparisons so eloquently, so plenteously, so lively, doth Paul set forth in that twelfth chapter, that no man can desire any more; and allto bring us into the consideration and discretion of the body of Christ, which is his congregation; without which consideration and discretion if we thrust ourselves in, with his sign and cognisance?, feignedly, we be but hypocrites, and eat and drink our own judgment. For this cause many are sick among you, and many are asleep,” that is, are dead. Here it seemeth some plague to have been cast upon the Corinthians for this abuse in the eating of the Lord’s supper. For both the law and the prophets threatened us plagues, as pestilence, famine, and sword, for our sins. For if we had judged ourselves,” that is, if we had diligently examined our own living, and repented, we should not have been judged,” that is to say, punished of the Lord. But while we be punished, we be corrected of the Lord, lest we should be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.” Here is the cause of all this dissension, wherefore Paul rebuketh them.
But here might some of them object and tell Paul, Sir, we come hither hungry and may not tarry so long?’ whereunto Paul answereth, as he did before, saying, Have ye not houses to eat and drink in? Do ye contemn the eongregation of God, and shame them that have none?” Here he calleth the poor the church of God, whom afterward he called the body of the Lord; and now at last he saith,
[1 So but and have discriveth.] [2 So but recognisance.]
17
[Tyndale, 111]
If any man be so hungry, let him eat somewhat at home,” and so delay his hunger, that he may the better tarry for the poor, “lest ye come together unto your condemnation. And as for other things, I shall dispose and set in order when 1 come.” These other things were concerning this supper, and such as were out of frame among them; which, if ye read the whole epistle, are easy to see, and that they were no necessary truths for their salvation: for all such truths Paul had preached them before, and written them too. Neither were these othér things Lent fast; the assumption of our lady; hallowing of boughs, bells, and ashes; hallowing of vestments, and creeping to the cross, with such other unwritten vanities, as M. More listeth to jest and trifle out the truth.
Now have ye the very pure sense of these Christ’s words, This is my body,” that is to say, This signifieth or representeth my body; taking est for significat: as M. More himself uttered it in his Dialogue put forth in William Barlow’s name, reciting the opinions of CEcolampadius and Zuinglius, saying, This is my body, is as much to say as, This signifieth my body;” where he saith that CEcolampadius allegeth for him Tertullian, Chrysostom, and Austin, but falsely, sometime adding more to their words, sometime taking away from their sentences: which saying is plain false, and he belieth the man now departed’. For first, his incomparable learning and very spiritual judgment would not suffer him to be ignorant in the understanding of these old
[[! (Ecolampadius had departed this life in Nov. 1531, or little more]
[than a year before the writing of this treatise. The greater part of]
[this paragraph is very obscure. In accordance with what was then the]
[ordinary use of the word witered, the writer may perhaps mean that]
[More had pointed out this signification in some remarks upon a dialogue]
[put forth in William Barlow’s name. We find in the sentence passed —]
[upon Richard Bayfield, a priest and monk of Edmonsbury, burntin —]
[London November 27, 1531, that he is charged with distributing a]
[work of CEcolampadius upon the words Hoc est corpus meum;? and also]
[‘A dialogue betwixt the gentleman and the ploughman;’ and of this]
[dialogue Strype says, It was composed by Barlow. Eccles. Mem.]
[chap. 23. Vol. 1. p. 225. Oxf. 1822. In the catalogue of books pro-]
[hibited by royal proclamation at the bishops’ procurement, says Foxe,]
[there occurs, Quid de eucharistia veteres tum Greci tum Latini sen-]
[serint dialogus; in quo epistole Phil. Melancthonis et Joh. XEcolam-]
[padii insertze sunt. Foxe, Vol. 1v. p. 668 and 685. Lond. 1837.]]
holy doctors, whom I dare say he understood as well as More: and his conscience and faithfulness would not suffer him falsely to pervert them, as M. More belieth and perverteth Christ, and Paul, and all holy scripture. And if this man had thus dealt with these doctors’ sayings, Luther, against whom he did contend in this matter, would not have left it untold him? But, christian reader, to put thee out of doubt, have here these doctors’ own words both in Latin and English. And first hear Tertullian; where thou must first understand that there was an heretic called Marcion, saying that Christ took not to him the very body of man, but an imagined and phantastical body, to put off and on when he listed, and so not to have been born verily of the Virgin Mary, nor yet to have suffered verily death, &ec.: against whom thus writeth Tertullian in his fourth book: Professus itaque se concupiscentia concupisse edere pascha, ut suum acceptum panem et distributum discipulis, corpus suum illum fecit, Hoc est corpus meum dicendo; id est, figura corporis mei. Figura autem non fuisset, nisi veritatis esset corpus. — Ceterum vacua ves, quod est phantasma, figuram capere non posset?. Which words are thus in English spoken of Christ: Which acknowledging himself with how fervent desire he longed to eat the passover, as his bread taken and distributed to his disciples, made it his body, saying, This is my body, that is to say, the figure of my body; for figure had it been none, except it were a very body: for a void thing, which is a phantasy, can receive no figure.” Here is it plain that This is my body,” after the old holy doctor, is as much to say as, This is the figure or sign that representeth or signifieth my body.
And thus said Austin: Lex dicit non esse manducandum sanguinem, quod anima sit sanguis. Quod lex dicit, sanguis est anima; esse positum dicimus, sicut alia multa, et pene
[[? The Lambeth edition has in the margin, Look more of this in]
[the epistle to the reader; being a reference to Crowley’s prefatory]
[address. Foxe allowed the same marginal note to stand in Day’s]
[edition, though it has no epistle to the reader. ] [? Tertull. adv. Marcion. Lib. 1v. cap. 40. The writer has omitted]
[the words, indignum enim ut quid alienum concupisceret Deus, which]
[are inclosed in a parenthesis between suum and acceptum, as being]
[irrelevant to the question between himself and the church of Rome.]
[See the bishop of Lincoln’s account of Tertullian’s writings against]
[Marcion; especially pp. 507-8 of 2nd edition. 17—2]
omnia scripturarum illarum sacramenta, signis et figuris plena future predicationis, que jam per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum declarata est, $c. Possum etiam énterpretari preceptum illud, in signo esse positum. Non enim dubitavit Dominus dicere,.Hoc est corpus meum, quum signum daret corporis sui. Sic est enim sanguis anima, quomodo petra erat Christus. Nec tamen quum hec diceret, ait, Petra significabat Christum; sed ait, Petra erat Christus. Que rursus me carnaliter acciperetur, spiritualem. illam vocat, id est, spiritualiter intelligà docet!. ^ Which words be thus in English: ‘The law sayeth that blood should not be eaten, because the life is blood; which precept of the law, and because that blood is life, we affirm it to be set like as many other almost innumerable sacraments of those scriptures, full of signs and figures of the preaching to come, which now is declared by our Lord Jesu Christ, &c. And I may interpret that precept to be laid in a sign, for the Lord doubted not to Say, This is my body, when he gave the sign of his body. ας And even so 15 the blood life, as? the stone was Christ. And yet, when he said these words, he said not the stone signified — Christ; but he said the stone was Christ, which, lest they should be taken carnally, he calleth it spiritual, that is to say, he teacheth it to be understood spiritually.” Where is now More’s literal sense and material meat?
Now shall ye hear Chrysostom: Nihil sensibile tradidit Christus; licet dederit panem et vinum: non quod panis et vinum non sint sensibilia, sed quod in illis mentem. herere noluit. Nam in suum corpus, quod est panis vite, subvehit dicens, Hoc est corpus meum; perinde ac dicat: Hoc licet panis sit, significat tamen tibi corpus. Thus it is in English: Christ, giving bread and wine, gave no sensible thing; not that bread and wine be not sensible, but that he would not our mind to stick still in them. For he lifted us up into his
[1 The above sentences are collected frem Augustine’s treatise,]
[Contra Adimantum, Manichsi discipulum; where they are not con-]
[tiguous; and where, consequently, the construction of the argument]
[was somewhat different. See cap. 12. Tom, vir. col. 123. $ 1. Bene- -.]
[dict. ed. col. 124. 3, and col. 126. 5.] [2 So B., but D. and.] (3 But the Opus Imperfectum, only existing in Latin, and only con- —]
[taining fifty-four homilies, is not considered to be a genuine work of]
[Chrysostom’s. ] 3]
body, which is the bread of life, saying, This is my body; as though he should say, Though this be but bread, yet it signifieth unto thee my body. Now judge thou, christian reader, whether M. More reporteth right of this man that alleged these holy doctors, or no.
Now have ye the pure understanding of the words of the Lord’s supper, confirmed with the old holy doctors; that, “This is my body,” is as much to say as, This signifieth my body; and, “This is my blood,” is, This signifieth my blood. But yet was there never such manner of speaking in the scripture, This is that;’ that is to say, This is converted and transubstantiated into that;’ or, This is contained in that;’ the thing converted and changed keeping still her form, qualities, quantity, &c.: as to say, This is my body, that is to say, This bread is converted into my body; the bread abiding stil in his fashion, taste, colour, weight, &c. For Christ, when he converted water into wine, did not leave the form, colour, and taste, still in the water; for so had it been no changing. But let our covetous converters chop and change bread and wine, till we there feel, see, and taste neither bread nor wine; and then will we believe them, so they bring for them the word of God. For as for their false juggling, we feel it at our fingers’ end; we see it, had we but half an eye; we taste it at our tongue’s end, and know it with all our wits and understanding so manifestly, that we perceived them openly long ago to be the very antichrists, of whom Christ and his apostles warned us to come in this last time.
And if they say that this conversion is made by miracle; then must every one of them, as oft as he say a mass, make us many a miracle, the very marks of M. More’s church. For it is one great miracle that Christ’s body should come so suddenly invisible and so oft out of heaven, and that such a miracle as the word of God never knew: another, that so great a body should be contained in so little a place, and that one body should be at once in so many places, and two bodies in one place: another, that it is eaten, neither the eater feeling it, nor the body eaten suffering, nor feeling the teeth of the eater; with as many more marvellous and like miracles, or rather absurdities, of the bread and wine, that there must. be the form, colour, taste, weight, broken, &c., and yet neither [ So B., but D. allegeth.] [6 So D., but B. cast.]
to be bread nor wine in our belief, except we will be burned of them, because we believe not their juggling casts. Ὁ mischievous miracle-makers! O cruel converters! ^O bloody vouchers!!
But hark, christian reader, and I shall learn thee to know Christ’s plain and true miracles from the sleighty juggling of these crafty conveyers. Christ would never have done miracle, had men believed him only by his words: but when he said first these words, “This is my body,” no man doubted at them; no man was in any unbelief of them; wherefore these words must needs be plain, single, and pure, without miracle, as these: “The three branches are three days;” without any subtle transubstantiation, such insensible conversion, — Or any false miracle. Christ wrought all his miracles for the glory of God, to declare himself both God and man; so that God. a]] Christ’s miracles were comprehended under man’s senses or common wits, which bring in such knowledge unto the — understanding: as, when he changed water into wine, the God miracle was first received with the sight, open at the eye, tasted with the mouth, and so conveyed unto the understanding; and now, though we neither see nor taste that miracle, yet we hear it, see it, read it, and so understand that it was once a miracle done of Christ. When he restored the sight to the blind, healed the lame, cleansed the leprous, reared the dead; all was seen, heard, and so comprehended under our were most surest? senses, that his very enemies were compelled to oonfess them for miracles. But our miracle-makers, that make daily so oft and so many, are so far from this clear point, that their miracles in this matter be not, nor never shall be, contained nor comprehended under any of our five wits; but they rather delude and deceive both sight, taste, feeling, hearing, and smelling, yea, our faith and understanding too. Beware, therefore, of those mischievous miracle-makers for their own glory and profit; and will kill thee too, if thou believest not their lies. Beware, I say, of those merchants, that will sell thee wares which they will not suffer thee to see, nor to taste, nor to touch; but when they shew thee white, thou must believe it is black. If they give thee bread, thou must believe it, without any word of thy faith, that it is Christ’s body, and that of their own making. If thou taste, see, and feel it bread, [1 So B., but D. butchers.] [2 So B., but D. sweet.]
The Papists’ Glosses. 263
yet thou must say itis none; though the scripture calleth it bread twenty times. Beware, beware, I say, of antichrist! “whose coming,” saith Paul, (“he is come already,” saith John, now are there many antichrists,”) “shall be after the working of Satan, with an almighty power, with false signs and wonders, lying miracles, and with all deceit of unrighteousness, &c.” To be too curious in so plain a sacrament and sign; to cavil Christ’s clear words with sophistical sophisms; and to trifle out the truth with taunts and mocks, as M. More doth, is no christian manner. And if our papists and scholastical sophisters will object and make answer to this supper of the Lord, bringing in for them their unwritten words, dead dreams?, (for we have compelled More with shame to flit from the scripture,) strewed with their vain, strange terms, which Paul damneth, and giveth Timothy warning of; I shall, by God’s grace, so set the almighty word of God against them, that all Christen shall see falsehood and deceit in this sacrament; and so disclose their devilish doctrine and sleighty juggling, that all, that can read English, shall see the truth of God’s word openly bear down their unwritten lies. For it is verily the thing that I desire, even to be written against in this matter: for I have the solutions of all their objections ready, and know right well that the more they stir this sacrament, the broader shall their lies be spread, the more shall their falsehood appear, and the more gloriously shall the truth iriumph; as it is to see this day by the long contention, in this same and other like articles, which the papists have so long abused, and how More his lies utter the truth every day more and more. For had he not come begging for the clergy from purgatory with his supplication of souls; and Rastel and Rochester, had they not so wisely played their parts, purgatory, peradventure, had served them yet another year; neither had it so soon have been quenched, nor the poor soul and proctor there been, with his bloody bishop christen-catte, so far conjured into his own Utopia with a satchel about his neck, to gather for the proud priests 4n synagoga papistica’.
[3 So B., but D. has deeds and dreams.] [ The editor has not been able to discover to what this singular]
[name alludes.] [5 In the synagogue of papists.]]
- THE SUPPER OF THE LORD.
When Christ was ascended into heaven, and had sent his apostles the Spirit of truth, to lead them into all truth pertaining unto our salvation, even unto him that said, “I am the truth;” of which truth he instructed them after his resurrection, (Luke xxiv.) and they had preached the same truth now in Jerusalem (Acts ii.); at which preaching there were that did received their words, and were baptized, about three thousand; his apostles, remembering how their master Christ at his last supper did institute, and leave them this holy sacrament of his body and blood, to be celebrated and done in his remembrance among such as had received his gospel, were baptized, had professed his faith, and would persevere in his religion, did now in this first congregation celebrate the Lord’s supper; breaking the bread, and eating it, as Christ did teach them; which supper Luke and Paul called afterward the breaking of the bread; as Acts ii., saying, that “they which gladly had now received Peter’s act!, and were baptized, were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles, and in the communion, and in the breaking of the bread, and in prayer;” which sacrament was now a token of the perseverance in their christian religion now professed. Of this breaking of bread Luke, writing of Paul coming unto Troas, saith also that there upon a sabbath-day; “when the disciples were come together unto the breaking of the bread, Paul made a sermon, during? to midnight,” &e. And that this was no common nor profane use, but an heavenly sacrament, and a reverent rite and usage, the circumstances of the action declare, both in Luke and Paul, shewing it to be the very institution that Christ ordained at his supper; Paul thus reciting this breaking of the bread, saying, The bread which we break, is it not the fellowship of the body of Christ?” that is to say, Doth it not signify us to be the body of Christ; that is, his congregation and people?’ as do the words following declare, (Paul adding the cause,) saying, For we being many are altogether signified by the one loaf to be one body, for that we be partakers of the same bread.” Also before he calleth in the same supper the cup: of thanksgiving, the fellowship of the blood of Christ;” that is to say, the congregation redeemed with Christ’s blood.’
This holy sacrament therefore, would God it were re- [! An academic term for, The maintenance of any proposition. ]
[? Enduring, continuing.]
stored unto the pure use, as the apostles used it in their time! Would God the secular princes, which should be the very pastors and head rulers of their congregations, committed unto their cure, would first command or suffer the true preachers of God’s word to preach the gospel purely and plainly, with discreet liberty, and constitute over each particular parish such curates as can and would preach the word,. oad. and that once or twice in the week, appointing unto their flock certain days, after their discretion and zeal to God-ward, to come together to celebrate the Lord’s supper! At the which assembly the curate would propone and declare them, first, this text of Paul, 1 Cor. xi: So oft as ye shall eat this bread, and drink of this cup, see that ye be joyous, praise, and give thanks, preaching the death of the Lord,” &c.: which declared, and every one exhorted to prayer, he would preach them purely Christ to have died and been offered upon the altar of the cross for their redemption; which only oblation to be sufficient sacrifice, to peace the Father’s wrath, and to purge all the sins of the world. Then to excite them with all humble diligence, every man unto the knowledge of himself and his sins, and to believe and trust to the forgiveness in Christ’s blood; and for this so incomparable benefit of our redemption (which were sold bondmen to sin,) to give thanks unto God the Father for so merciful a deliverance through the death of Jesus Christ, every one, some singing, and some saying devoutly, some or other psalm, or prayer of thanksgiving, in the mother tongue. Then, the bread and wine set before them, in the face of the church, upon the table of the Lord, purely and honestly laid, let him declare to the people the significations of those sensible signs; what the action and deed moveth, teacheth, and exhorteth them unto; and that the bread and wine be no profane common signs, but holy sacraments, reveently to be considered, and received with a deep faith and remembrance of Christ’s death, and of the shedding of his blood for our sins; those sensible things to represent us the very body and blood of Christ, so that while every man beholdeth with his corporal eye those sensible sacraments, the inward eye of his faith may see, and believe stedfastly, Christ offered and dying upon the cross for his sins, how his body was broken and his blood shed for us, and hath given himself whole for us, himself to be all ours, and whatsoever he did
ATE ν Tu 266 THE SUPPER OF THE LORD. ἕο serve us, as to be made for us, of his Father, ourrighteousness, our wisdom, holiness, redemption, satisfaction, &e.
Then let this preacher exhort them lovingly to draw near unto this table of the Lord, and that not only bodily, but also, their hearts purged by faith, garnished with love and innocency, every man to forgive each other unfeignedly, and to express, or at leastwise to endeavour them to follow, that love which Christ did set before our eyes at his last supper, when he offered himself willingly to die for us his enemies; which incomparable love to commend, bring in Paul’s arguments, so that thus this flock may come together, and be joined into one body, one spirit, and one people. This done, let him come down, and, accompanied honestly minis with other ministers, come forth reverently unto the Lord’s is. table, the congregation now set round about it, and also in their other convenient seats, the pastor exhorting them all to pray for grace, faith, and love, which all this sacrament signifieth and putteth them in mind of. Then let there be read apertly and distinctly the sixth chapter of John, in their mother tongue; whereby they may clearly understand, what it is to eat Christ’s flesh and to drink his blood. This done, and some brief prayer and praise sung or read, let one or other minister read the eleventh chapter of the first to the Corinthians, that the people might perceive clearly, of those words, the mystery of this Christ’s supper, and wherefore he did institute it. and These with such like preparations and exhortations had, I would every man present should profess the articles of our faith openly in our mother tongue, and confess his sins secretly unto God; praying entirely that he would now vouchsafe to have mercy upon him, receive his prayers, glue his heart unto him by faith and love, increase his faith, give him grace to forgive and to love his neighbour as himself, to garnish his life with pureness and innocency, and to confirm him in all goodness and virtue. Then again it behoveth the curate to warn and exhort every man deeply to consider, and expend with himself, the signification and substance of this sacrament, so that he sit not down an hypocrite and a dis-.: sembler, since God is searcher of heart and reins, thoughts and affects; and see that he come not to the holy table of
[i So in effects.]
the Lord without that faith which he professed at his baptism, and also that love which the sacrament preacheth and testifieth unto his heart, lest he, now found guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, (that is to wit, a dissembler with Christ’s death, and slanderous to the congregation, the body and blood of Christ,) receive his own damnation. And here let every man fall down upon his knees, saying secretly with all devotion their Paternoster in English; their curate, as example, kneeling down before them: which done, let him take the bread and eft the wine in the sight of the people, hearing him with a loud voice, with godly gravity, and after a christian religious reverence, rehearsing distinctly the words of the Lord’s supper in their mother tongue; and then distribute it to the ministers, which, taking the bread with great reverence, will divide it to the congregation, every man breaking and reaching it forth to his next neighbour and member of the mystic body of Christ, other ministers fol-. lowing with the cups, pouring forth and dealing them the wine, all together thus being now partakers of one bread and one cup, the thing thereby signified and preached printed fast in their hearts. But in this meanwhile must the minister or pastor be reading the communication that Christ had with his disciples after his supper, beginning at the washing of their feet; so reading till the bread and wine be eaten and drunken, and all the action done: and then let them all fall down on their knees, giving thanks highly unto God the Father for this benefit and death of his Son, whereby now by faith every man is assured of remission of his sins; as this blessed sacrament had put them in mind, and preached it them in this outward action and supper. This done, let every man commend and give themselves whole to God, and depart.
I would have hereto put my name, good reader, but I know well that thou regardest not who writeth, but what is written: thou esteemest the word of the verity, and not of the author. And as for M. Mocke?, whom the verity most offendeth, and doth but mock it out when he cannot soil it, he knoweth my name well enough. For the devil, his
[2 So B., but in all subsequent editions Mocke has been changed]
[to More.]]
guardian, as himself saith, cometh every day into purgatory, (if there be any day at all), with his enmious’ and envious poor Jaughter, gnashing his teeth and grinning,” telling the proctor,. with his pope’s prisoners, whatsoever is here done or written against them, both his person and name too?, And he is now, I dare say, as great with his guardian as ever he was.
If any man tell you, Lo! here is Christ, or there is he, believe him not; for there shall arise false Christs, false anointed, giving great miracles. Take heed; I have told ye before: if they therefore tell ye, Lo! he is in the desert, go not forth; lo! he is in the privy pix?, believe it not.
[[! So B., but D. heinous.] [2 See Vol. 1. p. 237, and Vol. 11. p. 297. In More’s Supplication]
[of Souls, written to counteract the effect of Mr Simon Fish’s Sup-]
[plieation of Beggars, More continually calls Fish this beggar’s proc-]
[tor; and represents one of the souls in purgatory as saying of him,]
[He is named and boasted among us by the evil angel of his, our and]
[your ghostly enemy, the devil; which, as soon as he had set him at]
[work with that pernicious book, ceased not to come hither, and boast]
[it among us: but with his enmious and envious laughter, gnashing the]
[teeth and grinning, he told us that his people” [i.e. the reformers]]
[had by the advice and counsel of him” [i. e. the devil], and of some]
[hereties almost as evil as he, made such a book for beggars, that it]
[should make us beg long ere we got aught.” More’s Works, pp. 288-9.]
[The Supplication of Beggars’ is printed in Foxe, Vol. 1v. p. 529—604.]
[Ed. Lond. 1837. It was originally transmitted to England from the]
[continent, whither Fish had fled; so that More would suppose that]
[Tyndale and Joye were privy to its composition.] [? A small box, generally made of precious metal and richly orna-]
[mented, in which the consecrated wafer called the host, i. e. hostia or]
[victim, meaning the Lord Christ, was shut up and suspended over the]
[altar.]]
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