An Epistle Unto Two Daughters of Warwick, Response to letter · Response 14 – Excerpt from letter 15
H. A.
That which is here sayd of the supper of Christ / if an honest faithful mā had written the same; might wel be yielded vntounto / for in the words ther would lurk no frawd. But coming from this old seducer / H. N. and being affixed to his former heresies / I deny that after such a like manner (as H. N. before treated of Bapisme) Paul witnesseth of the supper of Christ. For Paul sayth not that we ar one Being with Christ / but that we are the|1. Cor. 12. 17. body of Christ / and that the bread which we break / is the*1. Cor. 10. 16. communion of his body; which body we eat and have communion with / by|Iohn. 6. 35. 29. faith / not really and essentially as fleshly men imagine; and we ar caled the body of Christ, not properly but figuratively / by way of*1 Cor. 12. 12 similitude / and in|Eph. 5. 30. 32. great mystery; for as a man joyned to a woman / is one flesh, so‡1. Cor. 6. 16 17. he that is joyned vntounto the Lord is one Spirit. But as the woman / notwithstanding her conjunction / is not the man / neyther hath the Being of the man; so the church notwithstanding her conjunction / is not Christ / neyther hath the Being of Christ but by faith is coupled vntounto him / as he sayth by the prophet / |Hos. 2. 2….I will mary the vntounto me in faith.
Now that H. N. hath the like grosse understanding of the Lords supper / as he shewed before of Baptisme; appeareth not onelyonly by his entrance saying After such a like manner &c: but also by his words in his Gospel wher speaking of the Passover, he sayth|Evangel. reg. cap. 21. sect. 5. Christ gav his disciples to drink out of the cup, (which is his passion,) his true blood, which is his holy life of the New Testament. Thus applyeth he all things about Christ / to a holy life; even then and there / wher it is playnly spoken of death. For though blood whiles it is in the body / is the life of the same: yet when it is shed out of the body / (as Christ ther|Mark. 14. 24. sayth his was / ) it signifieth death & not the life of the party; as also the Apostle testifieth / †1. Cor. 11. 26.so oft as ye eat this bread / and drink this cup ye shew the Lords death til he come. And as David would not drink the water that came out of the well of Bethlehē / because it was|2. Sam. 2…. 17. the blood of the men that fetched it / that is / because they jeoparded their lives vntounto the death to fetch it; so we when we drink the wine out of the cup in the Lords supper / doe drink the blood of Christ, that is his death which for our synns he did vndergoe. But H. N. by the spirit of error that possessed him / he takes Christs death for vsus / to be a holy life in vsus; as before is more largely shewed.
Vnsound it is / and savoring of a fātastical spirit / that he opposeth in the end / the services and ceremonies which ar ministred through the comaundement of the holy Ghost out of a Christian like being, vntounto the service fashioned like to the scripture. For ther is no service commanded by the holy Ghost, but it is fashioned like to the scripture, and hath the ground and warrant therfrom; otherweise it cometh from the Spirit of Satan / and not from God. For Gods Spirit leadeth men into al truth / Iohn. 16. 13. and it is Gods word which is the truth. Iohn. 17. 17. The three that bear witnes in heaven / The Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost, as they ar in Being / so are they also in their testimony one. 1. Ioh. 5. 7. As the doctrin of Christ was not his own / †Iohn. 7. 16.but the Fathers that sent him: so neyther is the doctrine of the holy Ghost his own / but the sons that sent him / as Christ witnesseth saying|Iohn. 16. 13. he shal not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shal hear he shal speak; and agayn†Vers. 14. he shal glorify me, for he shal receiv of mine, and shal shew it vntounto yow. Now seing the holy Ghost teacheth no other doctrine then Christ / nor Christ then the Father; and seing Christ himself sendeth al men to serch the scriptures / as they which|Iohn. 5. 39. testify of him; and his Apostle hath taught vsus / that the knowledge of the scriptures is able†2. Tim. 3. 15 to make vsus wise vntounto salvation through the faith which is in Christ Jesus: we may veryly deem it to be a delusion of Satan / whatsoever any would teach vsus towching Gods service / that is not warranted by the scriptures; and that those are spirits of errour / which so disdeyn and scoff at scripture-learning, and boast of illumination by the holy Ghost.
Vnsound also it is / and contrary to the scriptures / that H. N. here would perswade vsus / that where it commeth not to passe, that the holy Ghost which is the pledge of the godly inheritance, is not received: vntounto them there is not the Christian service ministred. For the Apostle sheweth / that Israel had the true Christian service ministred to them / when they did|1. Cor. 10. 3. 4. al eat the same spiritual meat / and drink of the spiritual Rock which followed them / which Rock was Christ: yet received they not the Godly inheritance which is the holy Ghost; for with*Ver. 5. many of them God was not pleased / they were overthrown in the wildernes / and‡Heb 3. 19. could not enter into the Rest of God / because of their vnbeleef. The Christian service was rightly administred to†Act. 8. 13. Simon Magus, whē he was baptised: yet was not his|Vers 21. hart right in the sight of God; also vntounto Iudas, when he did sit and eat with the other Apostles; yet even then*Iohn. 13. 27. Satan / (and not the holy Ghost / ) entred into him. Even so with vsus / the true Christian service in the administration of the word / seales / and censures / is set forth and practised: though many receiv it into evil harts and vnfaithful / to their greater condemnation. But the elect of God / are edified / comforted and confirmed in his grace hereby: though these are not many; for many be called but few elected. Mat. 20. 16
Agayn / H. N. hath here set down that which overthroweth the whole scope of his writing; when he sayth / Those services & cerimonies which are ministred through the commandement of the holy Ghost, out of a Christian-like Being; they have the promises, whiles they are rightly obeyed &c. If thus it be; then ought all Christians to labour and seek for those services and ceremonies / (as he calleth them) that so they may obteyn the promises: then also must they shun and refreyn from al false and humane ceremonies or services / which have no promise / and are but the profaning of Gods name. And this is our cause / fayth and practise / which witnes against and absteyn from the Antichristian services and ceremonies of Popery / for which doing / the world hateth and persecuteth vsus: from which profession / practise / and patient suffering / this writer would diswade / and allure to communion with wickednes / by the vayn pretenses set forth in this Letter: as after more playnly foloweth.
H. N.
21. Oh, how wel should they doe, which do now extol themselves before the simple, and say that they are preachers of Christ, if they would first learn to know Christ, before they made themselves ministers of him. They wil preach the word of Christ, and yet they have not according to the Spirit, seen the fashion or shape of Christ, or heard of the same in any world. They say the scripture witnesseth vntounto vsus, that we for Christs cause should forsake our lives, the which according to the truth, is very true: but the most part which speaks so much thereof, they themselves vnderstand not the mind or meaning of God, in that which the scripture sayth: namely, how that we must hate and forsake our own life, or els we cannot be the disciples of Christ. Therfore mark wel therevpon; & not only vponupon that, but also vponupon al the witnessings of the scripture.
22, Oh vnderstand advisedly what I doe write, of the forsaking of our own life. When God had created the man, then was the man in subjection to the life of God, and not to his own life: for therevnto God had created the man, that he should be of one life, one being, one Spirit, and of one nature with God. But when the man desyred in his hart, to love some other thing beside the life of God, (namely the concupiscence of the syn,) then went he into his own life, and contentation, and forsook the life of God, and lived even so his own life, and the life of the Divil.
23. The whiles now that the office of Christ hath his ministration, for to bring the man agayn vntounto God the Father: so cannot Christ bring the man to the Father, vnlesse that the man forsake his own life, which he hath lived so long to the Divel and to himself, which is al that same wherin he hath sought, loved & lived to himself.
24. Is not this now a great overshooting or misunderstanding that the children of men, can say and teach, that Christ meant hereby, the natural or elementish man?