font-water, that is called the well-spring of life, is like in shape to other waters, and is subject to corruption: but the Holy Ghost's might cometh to the corruptible water through the priest's blessing; and it may after wash the body and soul from all sin, by spiritual virtue. Behold now we see two things in this one creature: in true nature that water is corruptible moisture, and in spiritual mystery hath healing virtue. So also if we behold that holy housel after bodily sense, then see we that it is a creature corruptible and mutable. If we acknowledge therein spiritual virtue, then understand we that life is therein, and that it giveth immortality to them that eat it with belief. Much is betwixt the body Christ suffered in, and the body that is hallowed to housel. The body truly that Christ suffered in was born of the flesh of Mary, with blood and with bone, with skin and with sinews, in human limbs, with a reasonable soul living: and his spiritual body, which we call the housel, is gathered of many corns; without blood and bone, without limb, without soul; and therefore nothing is to be understood therein bodily, but spiritually. Whatsoever is in that housel, which giveth substance of life, that is spiritual virtue, and invisible doing. Certainlyf Christ's body, which suffered death and

duo videmus inesse sibi resistentia, &c. Igitur in proprietate humor corruptibilis, in mysterio vero virtus sanabilis. Sic itaque Christi corpus et sanguis, superficie tenus considerata, creatura est, mutabilitati corruptelæque subjecta: si mysterii vero perpendis virtutem, vita est, participantibus se tribuens immortalitem. Ibid. pag. 187, 188.

d Multa differentia separantur corpus, in quo passus est Christus, et hoc corpus, quod in mysterio passionis Christi quotidie a fidelibus celebratur. Ibid. pag. 212, et 222.

e Illa namque caro, quæ crucifixa est, de virginis carne facta est, ossibus et nervis compacta, et humanorum membrorum lineamentis distincta, rationalis animæ spiritu vivificata in propriam vitam et congruentes motus. At vero caro spiritualis, quæ populum credentem spiritualiter pascit, secundum speciem quam gerit exterius, frumenti granis manu artificis consistit, nullis nervis ossibusque compacta, nulla membrorum varietate distincta, nulla rationali substantia vegetata, nullos proprios potens motus exercere. Quicquid enim in ea vitæ præbet substantiam, spiritualis est potentiæ, et invisibilis efficientiæ, divinæque virtutis. Ibid. pag. 214.

Corpus Christi, quod mortuum est et resurrexit, et immortale fanctum, jam non moritur, et mors illi ultra non dominabitur: æternum est, nec jam passibile.

rose from death, shall never die henceforth, but is eternal and impassible. That housel is temporal, not eternal, corruptible and dealed into sundry parts, chewed between teeth, and sent into the belly. This mystery is a pledge and a figure: Christ's body is truth itself. This pledge we do keep mystically, until that we be come to the truth itself; and then is this pledge ended. Christ hallowed bread and wine to housel before his suffering, and said: This is my body and my blood. Yet he had not then suffered: but so notwithstanding he turned, through invisible virtue, the bread to his own body, and that wine to his blood; as he before did in the wilderness, before that he was born to men, when he turned that heavenly meat to his flesh, and the flowing water from that stone to his own blood. Moses and Aaron, and many other of that people which pleased God, did eat that heavenly bread; and they died not the everlasting death, though they died the common. They saw that the heavenly meat was visible and corruptible: and they spiritually understood by that visible thing, and spiritually received it.”

This homily was appointed publicly to be read to the people in England, on Easter-day, before they did receive the communion. The like matter also was delivered to the clergy by the bishops at their synods, out of two or

Hoc autem, quod in Ecclesia celebratur, temporale est, non æternum; corruptibile est, non incorruptum, &c. dispartitur ad sumendum, et, dentibus commolitum, in corpus trajicitur. Ibid. pag. 216, 217.

8 Et hoc corpus pignus est et species: illud vero ipsa veritas. Hoc enim geritur, donec ad illud perveniatur. ubi vero ad illud perventum fuerit, hoc removebitur. Ib. pag. 222.

b Videmus nondum passum esse Christum, &c. Sicut ergo paulo antequam pateretur, panis substantiam et vini creaturam convertere potuit in proprium corpus quod passurum erat, et in suum sanguinem qui post fundendus extabat : sic etiam in deserto manna et aquam de petra in suam carnem et sanguinem convertere prævaluit, &c. Ib. pag. 193.

1 Manducavit et Moses manna, manducavit et Aaron, manducavit et Phinees, manducaverunt ibi multi qui Deo placuerunt; et mortui non sunt. Quare? Quia visibilem cibum spiritualiter intellexerunt, spiritualiter esurierunt, spiritualiter gustaverunt, ut spiritualiter satiarentur. Ibid. pag. 217. ex Augustin. in evang. Johan. tractat. 26.

three writings of the same Ælfrick: in the one whereof, directed to Wulffine bishop of Shyrburne, we read thus: "That housel is Christ's body, not bodily but spiritually. Not the body which he suffered in, but the body of which he spake, when he blessed bread and wine to housel, the night before his suffering; and said by the blessed bread, This is my body: and again by the holy wine, This is my blood, which is shed for many in forgiveness of sins." In the other, written to Wulfstane Archbishop of York, thus: "The Lord, which hallowed housel before his suffering, and saith that the bread was his own body, and that the wine was truly his blood, halloweth daily, by the hands of the priest, bread to his body and wine to his blood, in spiritual mystery, as we read in books. And yet notwithstanding, that lively bread is not bodily so, nor the selfsame body that Christ suffered in: nor that holy wine is the Saviour's blood which was shed for us, in bodily thing, but in spiritual understanding. Both be truly, that bread his body, and that wine also his blood: as was the heavenly bread, which we call manna, that fed forty years God's people; and the clear water, which did then run from the stone in the wilderness, was truly his blood: as Paul wrote in one of his epistles."

Thus was priest and people taught to believe, in the Church of England, toward the end of the tenth, and the beginning of the eleventh age after the incarnation of our Saviour Christ. And therefore it is not to be wondered, that, when Berengarius shortly after stood to maintain this doctrine, many both by word and writing disputed for him and not only the English, but also the French almost and the Italians, as Matthew of Westminster reporteth, were so ready to entertain that which he delivered. Who, though they were so borne down by the power of the pope, who now was grown to his height,

k Impress. Londini cum homilia paschali: et MS. in publica Oxoniensis academiæ bibliotheca, et colleg. S. Benedict. Cantabrig.

Sigebert. Gemblac. et Guiliel. Nangiac. in chronic. ann. 1051. Conrad. Bruwilerens. in vita Wolphelmi, apud Surium, April. 22.

Flor. histor. ann. 1087.

that they durst not make open profession of that which they believed: yet many continued, even there where Satan had his throne, who privately employed both their tongues and their pens in defence of the truth; as out of Zacharias Chrysopolitanus, Rupertus Tuitisensis, and others I have elsewhere" shewed. Until at length, in the year 1215. pope Innocent the third, in the council of Lateran, published it to the Church for an oracle: that "the body and blood of Jesus Christ are truly contained under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being transubstantiated into the body, and the wine into the blood, by the power of God." And so are we now come to the the original and progress whereof I have prosecuted the more at large, because it is of greatest importance; the very life of the mass and all massing priests depending thereupon. There followeth the third point; which is

end of this controversy:

n De Christian. Eccles. success. et stat. vol. 2. pag. 209, 210, 211, 229. • Cujus corpus et sanguis, in sacramento altaris, sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continentur; transubstantiatis pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem, potestate divina. Concil. Lateran. cap. 1.

OF CONFESSION.

OUR challenger here telleth us, that the doctors, pastors and fathers, of the primitive Church, "exhorted the people to confess their sins unto their ghostly fathers." And we tell him again, that by the public order prescribed in our Church, before the administration of the holy communion, the minister likewise doth exhort the people, that, "if there be any of them, which cannot quiet his own conscience, but requireth further comfort or counsel; he should come to him, or some other discreet and learned minister of God's word, and open his grief: that he may receive such ghostly counsel, advice and comfort, as his conscience may be relieved; and that by the ministry of God's word he may receive comfort, and the benefit of absolution, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness." Whereby it appeareth, that the exhorting of the people to confess their sins unto their ghostly fathers, maketh no such wall of separation betwixt the ancient doctors and us, but we may well for all this be of the same religion that they were of: and consequently, that this doughty champion hath more will than skill to manage controversies, who could make no wiser choice of points of differences to be insisted upon.

Be it therefore known unto him, that no kind of confession, either public or private, is disallowed by us, that is any way requisite for the due execution of that ancient power of the keys, which Christ bestowed upon his Church: the thing which we reject is that new pick-lock of sacramental confession, obtruded upon men's consciences, as a matter necessary to salvation, by the canons of the late conventicle of Trent, where those good fathers put their