Answer unto a Crafy and Sophistical Cavillation, Debate · Confutation of book 2 · Section 37 – Section 38
Caunterbury.
AS for my solution to the second reasō it is able to stand agaynst your confutation therof, and to ouerthrow it quite. For no more is Christ in the bread and wine, in the Lordes supper, then the holy Ghost is in the water of baptisme. And therfore if the holy Ghost be not inaquate, no more is Christ impanate. And when the scripture sayth, Upon whome soeuer thou shalt see the Ghost coming downe: And also when S. Iohn sayd,Ihon. 1. I saw the holy Ghost come downe like a doue: did he see any thing but the doue? And yet that which he sawe, the scripture there, as well by the voyce of God, as by the wordes of S. Ihon, calleth the holy Ghost. Wherfore the scripture calleth the doue the holy Ghost. For the speach was as much to say, as this which I see come downe, is the holy Ghost. and yet was that ye doue, which he saw. And that the doue which he saw was the holy ghost, was as true a speach, as we, looking vponupon the bread which we see, do say, This is the body of Christ. And yet as that speach meaneth not that the holy Ghost is made a doue, so this speach meaneth not that the body of Christ is impanate, No more then these wordes of Christ spoken vntounto his mother Mary,Ihon. 19. and to S. Ihon, loe thy sonne. And loe thy mother, meane not that Ihon was made Christ, nor that Mary his mother, was made Ihons naturall mother.
But of your saying it followeth, that the bread is humanate or incarnate. For if these wordes of Christ,Ihon. 1. This is my body, meane as you say, that bread is made Christes flesh, then as Verbum caro factum est, The word was made flesh, concludeth, that Christ was incarnate: So Panis caro factus est. The bread is made flesh, concludeth that the bread is incarnate, seing (as you say) it is not adnihilate.
But of adnihilation you write so strangely,Adnihilation. that it seemeth you hauehave written what you dreamed in your slepe, rather then what you learned of any author catholike or infidele. For who euer heard that adnihilation could be wrought but by the onelyonly power of God? For the gentill philosophers write according to the nature, that Sicut exnihilo nihil sit, Ita nihil in nihilum redigitur. Asnothing can be made of nought, so nothing can be tourned into nought: So that as it is the worke of God onelyonly, to make of nought, so it can be but onelyonly his worke also, to turne thinges into nought. And what man beeing neuer so rude or popular, hauing any discretion at all, would define adnihilation (as you do) that a defection of a creature from God, should be adnihilatiō and tourning into nothing? For so should all the angels that fell from God be adnihilate, and so should likewise all apostatase, and all other that by sinne relinquishe the army of God, and follow his aduersary the deuill,Math. 26. and all Papistes, that abandoning Christ (as Iudas did) runne to Antechrist, to whome it were better to be adnihilate, or neuer to be borne, then eternally to remayne in gods indignation. Now followeth the last reason.
Chap. 10.Yet a third reason they hauehave, which they gather out of the sixt of Ihon, where Christ sayth:The third reason. Iohn. 6. I am liuely bread, which came from heauen: If any man eate of this bread, he shall liue for euer. And the bread which I will geue is my flesh, which I will geue for the life of the world.
Then reason they after this fashion. If the bread which Christ gaue, be his flesh, than it can not also be materiall bread, and so it must needes follow, that the materiall bread is gone, and that none other substance remayneth, but the flesh of Christ onelyonly.
To this is soone made answer,The aunswere. that Christ in that place of Ihon, spake not of the materiall and sacramentall bread, nor of the sacramentall eating (for that was spoken two or three yeares before the sacrament was first ordayned) but he spake of spirituall bread (many times repeating,Iohn. 6. I am the bread of life, which came from heauen) and of spirituall eating by fayth, after which sorte, he was at the same present tyme eaten of as many as beleued on him, although the sacrament was not at that tyme made and instituted. And therfore he sayd: Your fathers did eate Manna in the desert, and dyed, but he that eateth this bread shall liue for euer.Iohn. 6. Therfore this place of S. Ihon can in no wise be vnderstande of the sacramentall bread, which neither came from heauen, neither giueth life to all that eate. Nor of such bread Christ could hauehave then presently sayd, This is my flesh, except they will say, that Christ did than consecrate so many yeares before the institution of his holy Supper.
Winchester.
A third reason this author frameth himselfe, wherby to take occasion to affirme how the vi. chapiter of S. Ihon should not appertayne to the Sacramentall manducation the contrary wherof appeareth aswell by the wordes of Christ in that vi. chapiter, saying, I will geue, not I doe giuegive, which promise was fulfilled in the supper, as also by the catholique writers and specially by Cirill, and therfore I will not further striue with this author in that matter, but see how he can assoyle the authorities wherunto he entreth with great confidence.