bread, a conuersa ad conuertentem, for of the materiall bread, spake Christ, those words by your confession. And why haue not these words of Christ (This is my body) an absurdity both in fayth and reason, aswell as these words, (This cup is the new Testament) seyng that these wordes were spoken by Christ, as well as the other, and the credite of him is all one whatsoeuer he sayth?
But if you will needes vnderstand these wordes of Christ (This is my body) as the playn wordes signify in their proper sence (as in the end you seeme to do, repugning therein to your owne former saying) you shall see how farre you go, not onely from reason, but also from the true profession of the christian fayth.
Christ spake of bread (say you) This is my body: appoynting by this word (this) the bread: whereof followeth (as I sayd before) If bread be his body, that his body is bread: And if his body be bread, it is a creature without sence and reason, hauing neither life nor soule: which is horrible of any christian man to be heard or spoken. Heare now what followeth further in my booke.
Now forasmuch as it is playnly declared & manifestly proued, that Christ called bread his body, and wine his bloud, and that these sentences be figura∣tiue speches, and that Christ, as concerning his humanity & bodily presence, is ascended into heauen with his whole flesh and bloud, and is not here vpon earth, and that the substance of bread and wine do remayne still, and be recea∣ued in the sacrament, and that although they remayne, yet they haue changed their names, so that the bread is called Christs body, and the wine his bloud, and that the cause why their names be changed is this, yt we should list vp our harts & minds frō the things which we se vnto the things which we beleue & be aboue in heauē: wherof ye bread & wine haue the names, although they be not the vey same things in deed: these things well considered and wayed, all the authorities and arguments, which the Papists fayn to serue for their pur¦pose, be clean wiped away.
For whether the authors (which they alleadge) say that we do eat Christes flesh and drink his bloud, or that the bread and wine is conuerted into the sub¦stance of his flesh and bloud, or that we be turned into his flesh, or that in the Lordes supper we do receiue his very flesh and bloud, or that in the bread and wine is receiued that which did hang vpon the crosse, or that Christ hath left his flesh with vs, or that Christ is in vs and we in him, or that he is whole here and whole in heauen, or that the same thing is in the Chalice, which flowed out of his side, or that the same thing is receiued with out mouth, which is be¦leued with our faith, or that the bread and wine after the Consecration be the body and bloud of Christ, or that we be nourished with the body and bloud of Christ or that Christ is both gone hence and is still here, or that Christ at his last supper, bare himselfe in his owne hands.
These and all other like sentences may be vnderstanded of Christes humani¦ty, litterally & carnally, as the words in cōmō spech do properly signifye (for so dooth no man eat Christs flesh, nor drinke his bloud, nor so is not the bread and wine after the consecration his flesh and bloud, nor so is not his flesh and bloud whole here in earth, eatē with our mouthes nor so did not Christ take, him selfe in his own hands:) But these and all other like sentences which de∣clare