Answer unto a Crafy and Sophistical Cavillation, Debate · Confutation of book 4 · Section 11 – Section 12
Caunterbury.
HErefor lacke of good matter to answere, you fall agayne to your accustomed maner, tryfling away the matter with mocking and mowing. But if you thought your doctrine good, and myne erronious, and had a zeale to the truth, and to quiet mens conciences, you should hauehave made a substanciall and learned answere vntounto my wordes. For daliyng and playing, scoulding and mowing, make no quietnes in mens consciences. And all men that know your conditions know right well, that if you had good matter to answere, you would not hauehave hid it, and passed ouer the matter with such trifles as you vse in this place. And S. Ihon Chrisostom you scip ouer, eyther as you saw him not, or as you cared not how sclenderly you left the matter.
And as cōcerning the Catechisme,The Catechisme. I hauehave sufficiently answered in my former booke. But in this place may apeare to them that hauehave any iudgement, what pithy arguments you make, and what dexteritie you hauehave in gathering of authors myndes, that would gather my mynd and make an argument here of a picture, neyther put in my booke, nor by me deuised, but inuented by some fond paynter or caruer, which paynt and graue whatsoeuer theyr idle heades can fansy. You should rather hauehave gathered your argument vponupon the other side, that I mislike the matter, bycause I left out of my booke the picture that was in the originall before. And I meruayle you be not ashamed to alleadge so vayne a matter agaynst me, which in dede is not in my booke, and if it were, yet were it nothing to the purpose. And in that Catechisme I teach not (as you do) that the body and bloud of Christ is conteined in the sacrament being reserued, but that in the ministration therof we receaue the body and bloud of Christ, whervnto if it may please you to adde or vnderstand this word (spiritually) thē is the doctrine of my Catechisme sound and good in all mens eares, which know the true doctrine of the sacraments.
As for Emissen you agree here with me,Emesserie. that he speaketh not of any receauing of Christes body and bloud with our mouthes, but only with our hartes. And where you say, that you hauehave entreated before, how the inuisible priest with his secret power doth conuert the visible creatures into the substaunce of his body and bloud. I hauehave in that same place made answere to those wordes of Emissene, but most playnly of all in my former booke the xxv. leafe. And Emissene sayth not, that Christ is corporally present in the sacrament, and therof you be not ignoraunt, although you doe pretend the contrary, which is somewhat worse then ignoraunce.
And what this word (corporall) meaneth,Corporall. I am not ignorant, Mary what you meane by corporall I know not, and the opening therof shall discusse the whole matter. Tell therfore playnly without dissimulation or colored wordes, what manner of body it is that Christ hath in the Sacrament? Whether it be a very and perfect mans body, with all the members therof, distinct one from an other or no? For that vnderstand I to be a mans corporall body, that hath all such partes, without which may be a body, but no perfect mans body. So that the lacke of a finger maketh a lacke in the perfection of a mans body. Mary if you will make Christ such a body as bread and cheese is (wherin eueryevery part is bread and cheese without forme and distinction of one part from an other) I confesse myne ignoraunce, that I know no such body to be a mans body. Now hauehave I shewed myne ignoraunce, declare now your wit and learning. For sure I am, that Christ hath all those partes in heauen, and if he lacke them in the Sacramēt, then lacketh he not a litle of his perfectiō. And then it can not be one body, that hath partes and hath no partes.
Reuerend aultar.And as concerning the wordes of Emissen, calling the aulter I reuerend aulter, those wordes proue no more the reall presence of Christ in the aulter, then the calling of the font of Baptisme A reuerend font, or the calling of mariage Reuerend Matrimony, should conclude that Christ were corporally present in the water of Baptisme, or in the celebratiō of matrimony. And yet is not Christ clearly absent in the godly administration of his holy supper, nor present onelyonly in a figure (as euer you vntruely report me to say) but by his omnipotent power he is effectually present by spirituall nourishment and feeding, as in Baptisme he is likewise present by spirituall renuing and regenerating. Therfore where you would proue the corporall presence of Christ, by the reuerence that is to be vsed at the aulter (as Emissene teacheth) with no lesse reuerence ought he that is baptised to come to the font, then he that receaueth the Cōmunion commeth to the aulter. And yet is that no profe, that Christ is corporally in the font. And what so euer you hauehave here sayd of the comming to the aulter, the like may be sayd of comming to the font. For although Christ be not corporally there,Hieronimus in Malachiā ca. 1. yet (as S. Hierome sayth) if the Sacraments be violated, then is he violated whose Sacramētes they be. Now followeth after in my booke, the maner of adoration in the Sacranent.
Chap 9.Now it is requisite, to speake some thing of the maner and forme of worshipping of Christ, by them that receaue this sacramēt, least that in the stede of Christ himselfe be worshipped the sacrament.The adoration in the sacramēt. For as his humanity, ioyned to his diuinity, and exalted to the right hand of his father, is to be worshipped of all creatures, in heauen, earth, and vnderunder the earth:De adoratione lege Rossen. & Occol. lib. 3. ca. 4. & 5. euen so if in the stead therof, we worship the signes and sacraments, we commit as great idolatry as euer was, or shall to the worldes ende.
The simple people be deceaued.And yet hauehave the very Antichristes (the subtilest enemyes that Christ hath) by theyr fine inuentions and crafty scolasticall diuinity, deluded many simple soules, and brought them to this horrible idolatry, to worship thinges visible, and made with theyr owne handes, perswading them, that creatures were their Creatour, theyr God and theyr maker.
For els what made the people to runne from theyr seates to the aulter, and from aulter to aulter, and from sakering (as they called it) to sakering, peeping, tooting, and gasing at that thing which the priest held vp in his handes, if they thought not to honor that thing which they saw? What moued the priestes to lift vp the sacrament so hye ouer theyr heades? or the people to cry to the priest, Hold vp, hold vp: and one man to say to an other, Stoupe downe before, or to say: This day hauehave I seene my maker. And, I cannot be quiet, except I see my maker once a day? What was the cause of all these, and that as well the priest as the people so deuoutly did knocke and kneele at eueryevery sight of the sacrament? but that they worshiped that visible thing, which they saw with theyr eyes, and tooke it for very God? For if they worshiped in spirit onelyonly Christ, sitting in heauen with his father, what neded they to remoue out of theyr seates to toote and gase? as the Apostles did after Christ, when he was gone vp into heauē? If they worshiped nothing that they sawe, why did they rise vp to see? Doubtlesse many of the simple people worshiped that thing which they saw with theyr eyes.
And although the subtill Papistes do colour and cloke the matter neuer so finely, saying that they worship not the sacraments which they see with theyr eyes, but that thing which they beleue with their fayth to be really and corporally in the sacraments, yet why do they then runne from place to place, to gase at the things which they see, if they worship them not? giuing therby occasion to them that be ignorant, to worship that which they see. Why doe they not rather quietly sit still in their seates, and moue the people to do the like, worshiping God in hart and in spirite, than to gadde about from place to place, to see that thing, which they confesse them selues, is not to be worshipped.
And yet to eschew one inconuenience (that is to say, the worshipping of the sacrament) they fall into an other as euell, and worship nothing there at all. For they worship that thing (as they say) which is really and corporally, and yet inuisibly present vnderunder the kindes of bread and wine, which (as before is expressed and proued) is vtterly nothing. And so they geue vntounto the ignorant occasion, to worship bread and wine, and they them selues worship nothing there at all.
Winchester.
As touching the adoration of Christes flesh in the sacrament, which adoration is a true confession of the whole man soule and body,Adoration. What true adoration is. if there be oportunity of the truth of God in his worke, is in my iudgement well set forth in the booke of Common prayer, where the priest is ordered to knele and make a prayer in his owne, and the name of all that shall communicate, confessing therin that is prepared there, at which tyme neuerthelesse, that is not adored that the bodely eye séeth, but that which fayth knoweth to be there inuisibly present, which and there be nothing, as this author now teacheth, it were not well. I will not aunswere this authors eloquence, but his matter where it might hurt.