Answer unto a Crafy and Sophistical Cavillation, Debate · Confutation of book 3 · Section 79 – Section 80
Caunterbury.
TO these wordes of S. Hierome I hauehave sufficiently aunswered in my former booke. And now to adde some thing therunto, I say that he meaneth not that Panis Propositionis, be figures of the sacrament, but of Christes very body. And yet the same body is not onelyonly in the sacrament figuratiuely, but it is also in the true ministration therof, spiritually present & spirituallye eaten, as in my booke I hauehave playnely declared. But how is it possible that Caius Vlpian or Sceuola, Batholus, Baldus or Curtius should hauehave knowledge what, is ment by the spirituall presence of Christ in the sacrament, and of the spirituall eating of his flesh and bloud, if they be voyde of a liuely fayth feeding and comforting theyr soules, with their owne workes and not with the breaking of the body and shedding of the bloud of our Sauiour Christ.
The meat that the Papistes liue, by is indulgences and pardons, and such other remission of sinnes, as cometh all from the Pope, which giueth no life, but infecteth and poysoneth: but the meate that the true Christian man lyueth by, is Christ him selfe, who is eaten onelyonly by fayth, and so eaten is life and spirite, giuing that life that endureth and continueth for euer. God graunt that we may learne this heauenly knowledge of the spirituall presence, that we may spiritually taste and feede of this heauenly foode.
Now where you say that there canne not be a more playne proofe to shew that Christes body is verely in the sacrament, and not figuratiuely onelyonly, than when S. Hierome noteth Panis propositionis, to be the figure and shadow of Christes body in the sacrament. For (as Tertulian sayth) the other were not to be called a figure, if that which aunswereth to it were not of truth. Here your (for) is a playne fallax à non causa vt causa, and a wonderous subtiltie is vsed therin. For where Tertulian proueth, that Christ had here in earth a very body (which Martion denied bicause that bread was instituted to be a figure therof, and there canne bee no figure of a thing that is not, you alleadge Tertulians wordes, as though he should say, that Christes body is in the sacrament vnderunder the forme of bread, whereof neyther Tertulian intreated in that place, nor it is not required, that the body should be corporally where the figure is, but rather it should be in vayne to hauehave a figure when ye thing it selfe is present. And therfore you vntruely reporte both of S. Hierome and Tertulian. For neyther of them both do say, as you would gather of theyr wordes, that Christes body is in the sacrament really and corporally.
And where you say that Christ maketh not him selfe of the matier of bread,Whether the body of Christ be made of the mattier of bread either you be very ignoraunt in the doctrine of the sacrament (as it hath bene taught these fiue hundred yeares) or els you dissemble the matter. Hath not this bene the teaching of the schole diuines, yea of Innocent him selfe, that the matter of this Sacrament is bread of wheat, and wine of grapes? Do they not say, that ye substaunce of bread is tourned into the substaunce of Christes flesh? and that his flesh is made of bread? And who worketh this, but Christ him selfe? And hauehave you not confessed all this in your booke of the Deuils sophistry? why do you then deny here that which you taught before, and which hath bene the common aproued doctrine of the Papistes so many yeares? And bycause it should hauehave the more authorite, was not this put into the masse bookes, and reade eueryevery yeare? Dognum datur christianis, quod in ca…nem transit panis, & uinum in sanguinem? Now seing that you hauehave taught so many yeares, that the matter and substaunce of bread is not consumed to nothing, but is chaunged and tourned into the body of Christ, so that the body of Christ is made of it, what meane you now to deny that Christ is made of the matier of bread?Ihon, 2. Exo. 7. Gen. 2. Whan water was tourned into wine, was not ye wine made of the water? And when the rodde was tourned into a serpent, and water into bloud, the earth into a man, and his ribbe into a woman, Were not the woman, man, bloud and serpent, made of the matter of the ribbe, the earth, the water and the rodde? And is not eueryevery thing made of that which is tourned into it? As bread is made of Corne, wine of grapes, beare of water, hoppes and mault, and so of all thinges like? And when you hauehave confessed your selues so many yeares passed, that Christ is made of bread in the sacrament, what moueth you now to say, that Christ maketh not him selfe of ye matter of bread? except yt eyther you will say, yt the priest doth it and not Christ (which were an intollerable blaspheme) or that the truth is of such a nature that euen the very aduersaries therof (sometime vnwares acknowledge it, or els that force of argumentes constrayneth you to confesse the truth agaynst your will, whē you see none other shift to escape? But if you take vponupon you to defend the receaued doctrine of the Papistes, you must affirme that doctrine which they affirme, and say that bread in the Sacrament is the matter wherof Christes body is made, wherof must than nedes follow ex consequenti, that he hath from tyme to tyme a new body, made of new bread, besides the body which was incarnated, and neuer but once made, nor of none other substaunce but of his mother. So that it is but a vayne cauilation (onelyonly to elude simple people, or to shift of the matter) to say (as you do) that Christ is not made of the breade, but is made to be present there. For than should he hauehave sayd, There is my body, and not, This is my body And to be present, requireth no new making: but to be present by conuersion, requireth a new making. As the wine that was bought at the mariage in the Cane of Galilee (if there were any such) was present without conuertion, and so without new making: but the wine that was made of water, was present by conuertion, which could not be without new making. And so must Christes body be newly made, if it be present by corporall conuertion of the substaunce of bread, into the substaunce of it. And now I referre to eueryevery indifferent reader, to iudge betwene vsus both, which of vsus is most snarled. Now let vsus examine the other authors following in my booke.
Augustinus Sedulius. Leo. Fulgentius. Cassiodorus. Gregorius,And the same is to be aunswered vntounto all that the aduersaries bring of S. Augustine, Sedulius, Leo, Fulgentius. Cassiodorus, Gregorius, and other, concerning the eating of Christ in the Sacrament.
Which thing can not be vnderstanded playnly as the wordes sound, but figuratiuely and spiritually, as before is sufficiently proued, and hereafter shal be more fully declared in the fourth parte of this booke.
Winchester.
Bicause this author who hitherto hath answered none substancially, would neuerthelesse be seene to aunswer all, he windeth vp sixe of them in one fardell, S. Augustine, Sedulius, Leo, Fulgentius, Cassiodorus, and Gregorius,Augustinus, Sedulius. Leo. Fulgentius. Cassiodorus, Gregorius. and dispatcheth them all with an (ut supra:) and among them I think he would hauehave knitte vp all the rest of the learned men of all ages, amonges whome I know none that write, as this Author doth of the Sacrament, or impugneth the Catholique fayth as this author doth by the enuious name of Papistes. Sence Christes time there is no memory more than of sixe, that hauehave affirmed that doctrine which this author would hauehave called now the Catholike doctrine, and yet not writtē by them of one sorte, neither receiued in beleefe in publique profession.
But secretly, when it hapned, begunne by conspiration, and in the ende euer hitherto extincte and quenched. First was Bertrame, then Berengarius, then Wicleffe, and in our time, Decolampadius, Zwinglius, and Ioachimus Uadianus. I will not recken Peter Martir,Peter Martyr. bicause such as know him, sayth he is not learned: nor this author, bycause he doth but as it were, translate Peter Martir, sauing he roueth at solutions, as liketh his phantasie, as I hauehave before declared. Whyche mater being thus, it is a strange title of this Booke, to call it the trewe Catholique doctrine.