12. CHAP. X. B. A short abridgement of the disputation which D. P. Martyr made as concerning the Eucharist against Garde
CHAP. X. B. A short abridgement of the disputation which D. P. Martyr made as concerning the Eucharist against Gardener, Bishop of Winchester.
T he matter of the Eucharist according as the Lord delivered the same unto us, is both plain and easy to be known: which, if it were handled according to the judgment and sense of the holy scriptures, and that there were a consideration had of the human nature of Christ, and of the received definition of the Sacrament, there should be no great pains taken either in the understanding or handling of the fame. Howbeit by reason of the contention and importunity of the adversaries, it is become more intricate than any blind labyrinth, and it is come in a manner to pass, that through contention we have well near forgone the truth: for they, rather than they would give place to the right and best opinion: yea that they may by all manner of means defend their monstrous devises rather than the truth, they have used all kind of counterfeiting cavillations and deceivable ways.
Whereupon when I of late days was diligent to encounter with the huge army of their cavils and sophistical Arguments, and should answer the same with as much diligence as I could, the volume grew in a manner to an exceeding greatness. Fearing therefore least godly men when they come to
take my book in hand, being overmuch tired with long reading, should return as uncertain as before (for seeing the reasons on both sides, and those sometimes but lately and newly devised, it is not possible but those which be the later should obscure the memory of those that went before, or in a manner make them to be quite forgotten) I minded straightway to set the matter before men's eyes in a certain abridgement or resolution, which the Grecians call ἀνάλυσιν, that those which shall read my writings, or be minded to read them, or have already read them, may have present and at their hand certain special notes no less plain than brief, whereunto they may easily refer as well the Arguments as the answers of the disputation. And this (if I be not deceived) will in such disputations be no less help unto the readers than an assured sight of the load star is unto the Mariners when they be tossed to and from the deep Sea. Which therefore being done of me with a good and faithful mind, I would have all good and godly men to take in good part, and most diligently consider the method so devised by me, and then courteously to give their judgment according to the word of God. But I will make no longer preface, since an abridgement requires as much shortness as is possible.
That the words of the Supper are to be understood figuratively.
First undoubtedly in the Sacrament of the Eucharist we affirm that the bread and the wine (which the holy scriptures, the fathers, and the sense itself do testify to be there present) be signs of the body and blood of the Lord: verily not profane or vulgar signs, but such as were wont to be assigned in other mysteries.
Contrariwise our adversaries affirm those signs to be properly and truly the body and blood of Christ. We demand how they know them so to be.
Because (say they) Christ said, This is my body. But we interpret the saying
of our savior by that form of speech or kind of figure, whereby chiefly in Sacraments, signs are wont to be called by the names of the things signified.
This opinion of ours do they withstand, and say that the words of Christ are not figurative, but altogether proper and simple.
I. It is objected by us, that there is no certain Argument to be gathered out of the history of the Gospel, to prove that those words must be absolutely understood. For the supper of the Lord is plainly set down by Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and Paul. In which places are perceived many figures. The cup is called the New Testament: and yet is not the cup itself nor the liquor contained therein the very New Testament in deed.
II. Those which receive unworthily are affirmed to eat and drink judgment unto themselves: and yet cannot judgment be properly either eaten or drunken.
III. Far is it from the body of the Lord to be truly eaten, for it is altogether a wicked thing that he should be broken, ground with the teeth, and dissolved.
IV. Our Savior said when he sat down at the same board, that he earnestly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples: but every man knoweth that Pesach itself, that is to say, the Passover of the Lord, was not wont to be eaten in that solemnity, but the Lamb.
V. So often (saith Paul) in the 1st to the Corin. the 11th as ye shall drink of this cup. Do we drink the cup or not rather that which is poured into the cup? Wherefore Paul spake in the most usual kind of figure. Seeing then in declaring the Supper of the Lord, the Penmen of the holy spirit, have used many figurative speeches: what doth now let but that the saying This is my body, which we entreat of, was spoken of them figuratively?
VI. I omit many other sentences of the holy scriptures, which evidently appear to be expounded by figures of all such as judge godly: for if I would reckon them up, I should now make no abridgement, but a large book:
Therefore when we thus interpret this sentence of ours, we bring in no new thing or that which is repugnant to the Scriptures.
VII. That the words which are written in Paul and Luke as concerning the cup are spoken figuratively, as we have already taught, what attentive reader seeth not that it cannot be justly denied? Wherefore those things that Matthew and Mark wrote of that matter, must be understood figuratively, unless any will deny that the former sayings must be expounded by the later: but that Paul and Luke wrote after Matthew and Mark, no man doubteth.
VIII. Howbeit neither can that which Matthew and Mark teach as concerning the blood, be understood simply as it is spoken. Thus do they write τοῦτο ἐστί τό αἷμα μου. And now what else can this pronoun τοῦτο signify but the cup? For it is specified that Christ both took the same in his hands, and delivered it to his Apostles. Neither do Luke and Paul affirm any other thing when they write that Christ said: This cup is the New Testament:
But who dare teach that the cup is properly the blood? Wherefore let the words of Matthew and Mark be rightly weighed on the one part, and the words of Luke and Paul on the other, and then let them deny if they can that there is a figure.
IX. The adversaries themselves, although they be very desirous rather to follow their own opinion than the truth, cannot interpret the words of the Lord without the help of a figure. And I show that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist it is not lawful for them to pronounce of it, This is my body. Let them be ashamed therefore to blame us for the which they themselves may
justly and of due desert be accused. Moreover the very definition of a sacrament, that it is the sign of a holy thing, and a visible form of invisible grace doth most of all defend our opinion. For by that common received definition it is brought to pass that those things which be seen in the Eucharist be signs of the body and blood of the Lord, unless we will blot the Eucharist itself out of the number of the Sacraments.
X. Neither can the forms of speaking which the holy scripture useth, be otherwise expounded, since by the visible part of the sacrament he pronounceth the thing it self which is signified. For how should
Circumcision be called, The covenant of the Lord, unless we will say that the same is a sign thereof? Of this opinion is Paul the Author, who calleth
Circumcision σφραγίδα, that is a sign or seal of the righteousness obtained by faith. Baptism is also called The washing of the new birth: and in the Old
Testament, The Lamb is called the Passover, as we have already declared.
XI. Herewith all agree the Fathers, who in express words teach that Christ gave a sign of his body, That he gave a figure, That he represented his own body, That the things which are seen be figures and patterns of the body and blood of the Lord. Cyprian, Cyril, Augustine, Gelasius, and Theodoretus, do most manifestly teach, that these signs are called by the names of the things which they signify. Since therefore in the delivery of this sacrament the holy Scriptures do admit figures, and the very nature of a Sacrament requires the same, and that the Fathers do most manifestly receive them, shall we be blamed for using a figurative interpretation in expounding the words of the Lord? These reasons alleged, have prevailed so greatly with some of our adversaries, (such force hath the truth) as they grant that those things which be offered to the senses, namely the bread and wine, be signs of the body and blood of Christ, but yet in such sort, as they have present in
them the things that be signified: but this is showed by many reasons to be most far from the truth.
That the figurative speech of Christ's words require no real or substantial presence of his body and blood.
I. First the Scriptures of God do teach, that Christ as touching his human nature is gone from hence, they declare his ascension into heaven, as it is set forth in the Articles of the faith. They assure us that Christ said: that we shall not always have him with us, but that heaven shall contain him until the latter day: and that he shall from thence come at the length to judge the quick and the dead.
II. Again it is not agreeable for a human body to be in many places at one time. Neither yet can it be granted that it is present in the world without place: for these things are altogether repugnant with the definition of a human body, unless we will take away a very true body from Christ. We must beware that we affirm not the same to be scattered or present in many places at once.
III. Neither hath the essence (as I may say) of the Angels which are without bodies, such a property as it can be in many places at one time.
IV. Yea and to say the truth, it might not be eschewed, but that even the very nature of God, if it were bodily, should admit both division and limitation. Since therefore that these things be on this wise, even as the fathers do most fully testify, it is altogether proved, that the body of Christ is subject to these properties and qualities.
V. Neither doeth the very nature of sacraments require that they should have the things signified either to be joined unto themselves or to contain them in themselves. But was the covenant of God included in the Circumcision? Truly the covenant was past, and it was already made with
the Fathers, before that Circumcision was commanded to Abraham: and, if any of that covenant remained, that was wholly kept in the mind of God, and of faithful men: but in the flesh was borne not the covenant itself but the sign thereof commanded by God. Again the paschal Lamb did not verily include in itself the Passover of the Lord. Also what man in his right mind would say that the flesh and blood of the Lord were included either in the water of the desert or in the Manna: and that in the water of the Baptism the spirit and grace are invisibly hidden? But and if in other Sacraments it be not given, and that of their own nature, that they should have the things present either to be cleaving to them or to be included in them: neither are we otherwise to determine as concerning the Eucharist, if the nature or property thereof ought to appear unto us to be the self-same with other sacraments, especially since the word of God hath spoken nothing at all of the matter which we have now in hand.
VI. Moreover since that Paul in the first to the Corinthians writeth that the old fathers did eat the same spiritual meat with us, and drank the same spiritual drink: and yet had they not present with them the flesh and blood of Christ, since as yet they were not extant: and since these men affirm these things to be present in the Eucharist, undoubtedly it followeth that against the saying of Paul, the old Fathers and we had not all the selfsame
Sacraments. In signs they do not agree: for they had Manna and water, but we bread and wine. In the things signified they be also diverse: for they by faith received the things signified being absent, as those which were afterward to come: but these men say that they receive the things present together with the signs. Verily there can be imagined no greater difference in these Sacraments, than is to disagree as well in the signs, as in the things signified. And therefore let us rather say with Paul that the sacraments of
the old Fathers, in the things signified are the selfsame that ours be, although that their signs be diverse, and that they are received both of us and them all after one manner, namely by faith. For they by faith received the flesh and blood of Christ which were to be given for our salvation, and we by faith and the spirit do embrace them as already given.
VII. Also if our adversaries opinion should be admitted, it might not be avoided, but that as well the wicked as the godly should eat and drink the flesh and blood of the Lord. But this doeth Christ the Author of the sacraments manifestly refute in the 6th of John, where he saith that his flesh and blood is eaten and drunken by faith. See then (I pray you) that when the wicked are destitute of faith, and be strangers from Christ, what communion have they with the flesh and blood of Christ? Doubtless they have only the signs to be received, and that to their own condemnation: for neither is
Christ in them, neither do they abide in Christ.
VIII. They are to be demanded also which affirm that the blood of the Lord is present in this sacrament, for what cause or under what color they dare name that their sacrifice an unbloody sacrifice as they term it. Surely if they will have the blood of the Lord flowing from the Lord's side to be received in their Cup as Chrysostom said, by an excessive kind of speech, let them endeavor the same as much as they will, as they know and as they can: yet shall they never bring to pass but that they must needs drink bloody drink.
IX. Truly such is the nature of things repugnant as they can never be affirmed both at once, that is, at the self-same time of one and the self-same sacrament. Wherefore the body of Christ cannot be together and at one time both above and beneath, visible and invisible, one and many, mortal and immortal, broken and whole. This reason have not we feigned to ourselves,
but we have taken it from Christ, from the Angels, from the Apostles, from the fathers, and from nature itself. For all these do testify that this cannot be all at once. Moreover it were too long to rehearse in how many places and writings of the fathers they have affirmed this absence of the Lord according to the flesh.
X. As though forsooth this presence of the flesh and blood of the Lord, boasted of and defended by these men in the Eucharist, can, while the same is performed, bring any other profit than we have by a spiritual receiving, which (as we have said) is performed by faith and by the mind.
XI. This finally we demand of our adversaries, whether they judge that there is the body of the Lord in the bread without blood, and whether there is blood in the wine without the body? If they say, there is, they divide the human nature by the two parts of the mystery, which cannot be committed without impiety, since the blood and body and human nature of Christ are united by a perpetual conjunction. But if they will say that these things be together, and will feign those strange Concomitancy's of theirs, this at the leastwise they cannot escape but that they shall double the body of Christ, to wit, wholly under the wine, and wholly under the bread, appointing the same (as they will have it) under their Accidents.
XII. Lastly there happeneth unto the words of Christ less than is pronounced by them in the parts of the Sacrament, since they affirm the bread to be the body alone, and the wine to be the blood alone.
These be the principal and chief points which are contained in my book of confession against Gardener, as far as concern the Arguments and confirmations of our part. And now this remaineth, that I lay before the courteous reader some sayings, as it were certain sentences, out of the which not only all our Arguments in a manner are drawn, but whereby also
the reasons of our adversaries may easily be confuted. And so all this disputation will become both plain and easy.
Sayings or sentences out of which &c.
I. Christ in the holy supper called the very bread, his body, and the very wine his blood: whereupon it cometh that they cannot understand his words
This is my body simply and without a figure, since neither the bread nor the wine can properly and truly be the body and blood of Christ.
II. These words This is my body, and This is my blood be figurative forms of speech, whereby God pronounced of the outward signs the things which are signified.
III. To eat the flesh or the body of the Lord, and to drink his blood, is to believe that these things were given for us as a price of our redemption, and that unto these are joined those things which for our sakes were taken away upon the cross.
IV. The human nature of Christ from his ascension into heaven until his last coming when he shall judge the world, is nowhere else but in heaven.
V. In the faithful receiving of the Eucharist, we are not only in soul or mind through faith joined to the body and blood of Christ, but we become partakers, of the spirit, grace, and virtue of the Lord, not in deed by the power of the work, but through his goodness and faithful promise.
VI. Wicked men do not eat the very flesh and blood of Christ, except so far forth as they use the outward signs, the bread I mean and the wine, which in their kind of manner be, and are called, the body and blood of Christ.
VII. We are no less joined to Christ in baptism, than we be in the Eucharist: Wherefore the presence of him and the receiving of him, which is spiritual, is to be affirmed alike in both.
VIII. The fathers in the Old Testament did eat the body and blood of Christ as touching the matter itself no otherwise than we do.
IX. Only the faithful do truly and spiritually receive the body and blood of the Lord, and that by faith, inasmuch as it is the only instrument of joining us unto Christ.
X. Our bodies after a certain manner are nourished and restored to eternal life by the body and blood of Christ.
XI. We ourselves by a faithful participation of the Lord's supper, are fed up, and in a manner transelementated by a certain kind of spiritual change into the body of Christ.
XII. By the incarnation of the son of God, we communicate with him in flesh and blood, forsomuch as we believe he took our flesh upon him: and on the other side while in communicating we embrace through faith his body and blood which were given for us unto death, we are spiritually made partakers of them.
XIII. The word of the holy scriptures, or the hearing, or sense [of them] in as much as it is received by faith, is the body of Christ, and the bread whereby our minds are nourished.
XIV. The congregation of believers is the body of Christ, whereof he himself is the head, and we also both are and are called his members.
XV. The poor and those which be oppressed for the name of Christ be his body: Thereupon came that voice unto Paul: Why doest thou persecute me?
XVI. Miracles that have otherwhile been showed about the signs of the Eucharist, do neither prove a change of the substance of the Elements thereof, neither yet a real and substantial presence of the body.
XVII. A spiritual presence of the body unto them which do communicate without doubt signifieth not, to be invisibly, but yet properly present as the
Papists say: but that it be present to our faith and spirit no otherwise than his death which we truly believe, and then the good things of the life to come which we expect with a most assured hope, the presence whereof can only be referred to our faith and spirit.
XVIII. Truly our adversaries speak many things of the consecration of the bread and wine, but whether it be performed by prayers or by words, that they cannot determine.
XIX. In the Eucharist we admit no other sacrifice than the sacrifice of thanksgiving, of prayers, and of offering up of our own selves: and these sacrifices must not only be offered up of the Minister, but also of the people that communicate.
XX. Also we grant that a sacrifice is there, in respect that there is a commemoration of the true sacrifice: and the sacraments, that is the outward signs which are proposed, are signs of the same true sacrifice, and by the institution of the Lord, do set forth the same unto the Communicants.
The sentences which I have now rehearsed, the prudent and gentle reader of my Book shall find not only to be handled therein, but also to be confirmed by many testimonies as well of the Scripture as of the Fathers.
Wherefore, if it shall like him to have all this whole controversy plainly and evidently described as it were in a certain table, let him with an attentive mind and often repetition make himself well acquainted, first with these sentences, and then with the reasons which I have brought in this
Abridgement: for in so doing, I hope he shall both reap profit, and it shall never repent him of the labor he hath bestowed. 1561.