Answer unto a Crafy and Sophistical Cavillation, Debate · Confutation of book 3 · Section 18
Winchester.
A riddle may cō taine truth of nay, and pea. being in appearāce two contraries.This comparison of difference is clerkly conueyed, as it were of a riddle, wherin, nay and yea, when they be opened, agrée and consent. The fathers did eat Christes body and drinke his bloud in the truth of promise, which was effectuall to them of redemption to be wrought, not in trueth of presence, (as we do) for confirmation of redemption already wrought. They had a certayn promyse, and we a certayne present payment: they did eat Christ spiritually, beleeuing in him that was to come, but they did not eat Christes body present in the Sacrament, sacramentally and spiritually, as we do. Their Sacramentes were figures of the thinges, but ours conteyn the very things. And therefore albeit in a sense to the learned mē, it may be verefied, that the fathers did eat the body of Christ, and drink his bloud, yet there is no such forme of words in scripture, and it is more agreeable to the simplicitie of scripture, to say the fathers before Christes natiuitie, did not eat the body and bloud of Christ, which body and bloud, Christ himselfe truely tooke of the body of the virgin Mary. For although S. Paule in the tenth to the Corrinthians, be so vnderstanded of some, as the fathers should eat the same spirituall meat, and drink the same spirituall drink that we do, to which vnderstanding, all doe not agrée, yet following that vnderstanding, we may not so presse the words, as there should be no difference at al, and this one difference S. Augustine noteth how their sacraments conteined the promise of that, which in our sacrament is geuen.Augustinus. I speciall difference in S. Augustine. Thus he sayth: And this is euident of it selfe, how to vsus in the holy supper (Christ saith) This is my body that shalbe betraied for you, take eat) which was neuer said to the fathers, although their faith in substaunce agréed with ours, hauing al one Christ and mediator, which they looked for to come, and we acknowledge to be already come (come, and to come,) as S. August. saith, differeth. But Christ is one, by whom all was created, and mans fall repayred, from whom is all féeding corporal & spiritual, & in whom all is restored in heauē & in earth. In this faith of Christ, the fathers were fed with heauenly spirituall food, which was the same with ours in respect of the restitution by Christ, and redemption by them hoped, which is atchieued by the mistery of the body and bloud of Christ, by reason wherof I deny not, but it may be said in a good sense, how they did eat the body and bloud of Christ, before he was incarnat, but as I sayd before, Scripture speaketh not so, and it is no holsome fashion of spéech at this time, which furthereth in sound to the eares of the rude, the pestilent heresie wherin Ione of Kent obstinately dyed,…ne of Kentes …. that is to say, that Christ tooke nothing of the Uirgine, but brought his body with him from aboue, beyng a thing worthy to be noted, how the olde heresy, denying the true taking of the flesh of Christ in the virgins wombe, at the same tyme to reuiue. When the true deliuerance of Christs flesh in the holy supper to be of vsus eaten, is also denied. For as it is a meere trueth without figure, and yet an high mistery, Gods worke in the incarnation of Christ, wherein our flesh was of Christ truely taken of the virgins substance: So is it a meere trueth, without figure in the substance of the celestiall thing, & yet an high mistery and Gods worke, in the geuing of the same true flesh, truely to be in the supper eaten. When I exclude figure in the sacrament, I mene not of the visible part which is called a figure of the celestial inuisible part, which is truely there without figure,Nouelty of speech. so as by that figure is not impayred the truth of that presence, which I ad to auoyd cauilation. And make an end of this comparison, this I say, that this article declareth wantonnes to make a difference in words, where none is in the sence rightly taken, with a noueltie of spéech not necessary to be vttered now.