Master

come to that water with such fear, reverence, and humility, as we would come to the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and of Jesus Christ himself both God and man; although he be not corporally in the water, but in heaven above: and whosoever cometh to that water, being of the age of discretion, must examine himself duly, lest if he come unworthily, (none otherwise than he would come unto other common waters,) he be not renewed in Christ, but in the stead of salvation receive his damnation:

Even so it is of the bread and wine in the Lord's holy Supper. Wherefore every man, as St. Paul saith, must examine himself when he shall approach to that holy table, and not come to God's board as he would do to common feasts and banquets, but must consider that it is a mystical table, where the bread is mystical, and the wine also mystical, wherein we be taught that we spiritually feed upon Christ, eating him and drinking him, and as it were sucking out of his side the blood of our redemption and food of eternal salvation, although he be in heaven at his Father's right hand. And whosoever cometh unto this heavenly table, not having regard to Christ's flesh and blood, who should be there our spiritual food, but cometh thereto without faith, fear, humility, and reverence, as it were but to carnal feeding, he doth not there feed upon Christ, but the Devil doth feed upon him, and devoureth him, as he did Judas.

And now may every man perceive, how fondly and falsely Mr. Smyth concludeth of these words of St. Paul, that our Saviour Christ's body and blood is really and corporally in the sacrament.

AFTER this he falleth to railing, lying, and slandering of Peter Mar- Mr. Peter Martyr, a man of that excellent learning and godly living, that he passeth Dr. Smyth as far as the sun in his clear light passeth the moon being in the eclipse.

tyr.

"Peter Martyr," saith he, " at his first coming to Oxford, "when he was but a Lutheran in this matter, taught as Dr. Smyth now doth. But when he came once to the Court,

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"and saw that doctrine misliked them, that might do him "hurt in his living, he anon after turned his tippet and "sang another song."

Of Mr. Peter Martyr his opinion and judgment in this matter no man can better testify than I.

Forasmuch as he

came to Oxford;

lodged within my house long before he and I had with him many conferences in that matter, and know that he was then of the same mind that he is now, and as he defended after openly in Oxford, and hath written in his book. And if Dr. Smyth understood him 'otherwise in his lectures at the beginning, it was for lack of knowledge, for that then Dr. Smyth understood not the matter, nor yet doth not, as it appeareth by this foolish and unlearned book which he hath now set out.

No more than he understood my book of the Catechism, and therefore reporteth untruly of me, that I in that book did set forth the real presence of Christ's body in the sacrament. Unto which false report I have answered in my fourth book the eighth chapter.

But this I confess of myself, that not long before I wrote the said Catechism, I was in that error of the real presence, as I was many years past in divers other errors, as of transubstantiation, of the sacrifice propitiatory of the priests in the mass, of pilgrimages, purgatory, pardons, and many other superstitions and errors that came from Rome, being brought up from youth in them, and nouseled therein for lack of good instruction from my youth, the outrageous floods of papistical errors at that time overflowing the world. For the which and other mine offences in youth, I do daily pray unto God for mercy and pardon, saying: Delicta juventutis meæ et ignorantias meas, ne memineris, Domine. Good Lord, remember not mine ignorances and offences of my youth.

But after it had pleased God to show unto me by his holy word a more perfect knowledge of his son Jesus Christ, from time to time as I grew in knowledge of him, by little and little I put away my former ignorance. And as God of his mercy gave me light, so through his grace I opened

mine eyes to receive it, and did not wilfully repugn unto God, and remain in darkness. And I trust in God's mercy and pardon for my former errors, because I erred but of frailness and ignorance. And now I may say of myself as St. Paul said; When I was like a babe or child in the know1 Cor. xiii. ledge of Christ, I spake like a child and understood like a child; but now that I am come to man's estate, and growing in Christ through his grace and mercy, I have put away

that childishness.

Now after that Doctor Smith hath thus untruly belied both me and Master Peter Martyr, he falleth into his exclamations, saying: "O Lord! what man is so mad to believe "such mutable teachers, which change their doctrine at "men's pleasure, as they see advantage and profit? They "turn and will turn as the wind turneth."

Do you not remember, Mr. Smith, the fable, how the old crab rebuked her young, that they went not straight forth ; and the common experience that those that look a squint, sometimes find fault with them that look right? You have turned twice, and retracted your errors, and the third time promised, and breaking your promise ran aways. And find you fault with me and Mr. Peter Martyr, as though we for men's pleasures turn like the wind, as we see advantage? Shall the weathercock of Paul's, that turneth about with every wind, lay the fault in the Church, and say that it turneth?

I will not here answer for myself, but leave the judgment to God, (who seeth the bottom of all men's hearts, and at whose only judgment I shall stand or fall,) saving that this I will say before God, who is every where present, and knoweth all things that be done, that as for seeking to please men in this matter, I think my conscience clear, that I never sought herein but only the pleasure and glory of God. And yet will I not judge myself herein, nor take Dr. Smyth for my judge, but will refer the judgment to him that is the rightful Judge of all men. But as for Dr. Peter Martyr, hath he sought to please men for advantage? [See Strype, Cranmer, pp. 172, 203.]

who having a great yearly revenue in his own country, forsook all for Christ's sake, and for the truth and glory of God came into strange countries where he had neither land nor friends, but as God of his goodness, who never forsaketh them that put their trust in him, provided for him.

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BUT after his exclamation, this papist returneth to the

ment of the

matter, saying, "Tell me, why may not Christ's body be The arguas well in the sacrament and in heaven both at once, as door and "that his body was in one proper place with the body of sepulchre. "the stone that lay still upon his grave, when he rose from

"death to life? and as his body was in one proper place at

once with the body of the door or gate, when, the same being shut, he entered into the house where the Apostles "were ?"

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Make you these two things all one, Mr. Smyth, divers bodies to be in one place, and one body to be in divers places? If Christ's body had been in one place with the substance of the stone or door and at the same time, then you might well have proved thereby, that his body may as well be in one place with the substance of bread and wine. But what availeth this to prove that his body may be in divers places at one time? which is nothing like to the other, but rather clean contrary. Marry, when Christ arose out of the sepulchre, or came into the house when the doors were shut, if you can prove that at the same time he was in heaven, then were that to some purpose, to prove that his body may be corporally in heaven and earth both at one time.

And yet the controversy here in this matter is not what may be, but what is. God can do many things, which he neither doth, nor will do. And to us his will, in things that appear not to our senses, is not known but by his word. Christ's body may be as well in the bread and wine as in the door and stone, and yet it may be also in the door and stone, and not in the bread and wine.

But if we will stretch out our faith no further than God's word doth lead us, neither is Christ's body corporally present in one proper place with the bread and wine, nor was

Matt. xxviii.

also with the stone or door. For the Scripture saith in no place that the body of Christ was in the door, or in the stone that covered the sepulchre, but it saith plainly, that an angel came down from heaven, and removed away the stone from the sepulchre, and the women that came to see the sepulchre found the stone removed away. And although Mark xvi. the Gospel say, that Christ came into the house when the door was shut, yet it sayeth not that Christ's body was within the door, so that the door and it occupied both but one place.

John xx.

Acts v.

The ap

pearing of Christ in

sion.

But peradventure Mr. Smyth will ask me this question, • How could Christ come into the house, the door being shut, 'except he came through the door? and that his body must 'be in the door.' To your wise question, Mr. Smyth, I will answer by another question: Could not Christ come as well into the house when the door was shut, as the Apostles could go out of prison the door being shut? Could not God work this thing, except the Apostles must go through the door, and occupy the same place that the door did? Or could not Christ do so much for his own self, as he did for his Apostles?

But Mr. Smith is so blind in his own phantasies, that he seeth not how much his own examples make against himself. For if it be like in the sacrament as it was in the stone and door, and Christ's body was in one proper place with the body and substance of the stone and door, then must Christ's body in the sacrament be in one proper place with the body and substance of bread and wine. And so he must then confess that there is no transubstantiation.

THEN from the door and sepulchre, Dr. Smyth cometh to the revelations of Peter and Paul, which saw Christ, as his ascen- he saith, bodily upon earth after his ascension. Which declareth, that although Christ departed hence at the time of his ascension into heaven, and there sitteth at the right hand of his Father, yet he may be also here in the blessed sacrament of the altar. I am not so ignorant but I know that Christh

h [See Cranmer's discussion of this point with Lambert, in a note to