quam perimere; et sanguinem humanum5 bibere, quam fundere: "It is a more horrible thing to eat man's flesh, than it is to kill it; and to drink man's blood, than it is to shed it." For this cause he concludeth: Figura ergo est: "There- August. de fore it is a figure." And in like manner Cyrillus saith: Sacramentum nostrum non Lib. iii. cap. asseverat hominis manducationem: "Our sacrament avoucheth not the eating of Cyril. contr. Object. a man."

6. Again, in these words of Christ we find duo disparata, that is, two sundry terms of sundry significations and natures, panis and corpus; which, as the learned know, cannot possibly be verified the one of the other without a figure. Besides all this, in every of these clauses, which so nearly touch Christ's institution, there 7. is a figure: "To drink the cup of the Lord," instead of the wine in the cup, it is 8. a figure. "To drink judgment:" judgment is a spiritual thing, and cannot be 9. drunken with the mouth; therefore it is a figure. "My body that is given, that is broken," instead of, That shall be given, and that shall be broken, is a figure. 10. “I am bread:" Christ really and indeed was no material bread; it is a figure. 11. “The bread is the communication of the Lord's body," instead of these words, 12. It representeth the communication of the Lord's body; it is a figure. "The cup is the new testament:" the cup indeed and verily is not the new testament; therefore it is a figure. In every of these clauses M. Harding must needs see and confess a figure; and so it appeareth that, in the very institution of Christ's holy mysteries, there are used a great many and sundry figures; all notwithstanding both consonant to reason, and also agreeable to God's holy word.

1.

2.

But now, mark well, I beseech thee, good christian reader, how many and what kinds of figures M. Harding and the rest of his company have been forced to imagine in these cases.

First, they say this pronoun hoc, "this," signifieth not "this bread," as all the old writers understand it, but individuum vagum, which is neither bread nor any certain determinate thing else, but only one certain thing at large in generality.

This verb est they expound thus: Est, hoc est, transubstantiatur; such a figure as never was used of any old author, either holy or profane, or heretic or 3. catholic, or Greek or Latin. In these words, "Take ye, eat ye: this is my body," they have found a figure called hysteron proteron, which is, when the whole speech is out of order, and that set behind that should go before. For thus they are driven to shift it and turn it: "This is my body: take ye, eat ye."

In these four words, lying in order all together, "he took," "he blessed," "he brake,” “he gave," they imagine three sundry figures, and expound the same in 4. this wise: "He took" the bread: "he blessed," he transubstantiated or turned the 5. bread: "he brake" the accidents or shews: "he gave" his body. Hoc facite, 6. "Do ye this in remembrance of me," they expound thus: Sacrifice this. Which 7. also they flourish out with other figures in this wise: "Sacrifice me in remem8. brance of me." In this one word panis, "bread," they have found a swarm of figures. 9. Sometimes, they say, it is called bread, because it was bread before; sometimes, 10. because the infidel taketh it to be bread; sometimes, because there remain still 11. the accidents and forms of bread; sometimes, because the same accidents feed 12. the body miraculously, as it were bread; sometimes, because it is that supernatural bread that came from heaven.

Likewise in this one word frangimus, or frangitur, they have a number of 13. figures. For sometimes they expound it thus: "The bread that we break," that 14. is, the accidents that we break; sometimes, "the bread that we break," that is to say, the bread that we take to be broken; sometimes this word frangere is not 15. "to break," but only to make a feast. In their masses they say, Frangitur, id 16. est, frangebatur, "It is broken, that is to say, it was broken;" sometimes they 17. say, Frangitur, id est, videtur frangi, "It is broken, that is to say, it seemeth

[ Humanam, 1609, 1611.]

[ Id. Contr. Advers. Leg. et Proph. Lib. 11. cap. ix. 33. Tom. VIII. col. 599; where videatur for est, and humanum sanguinem potare.]

[ Cyril. Alex. Op. Lut. 1638. Apolog, adv.

Orient. Anath. xi. Def. Cyril. Tom. VI. p. 193.
See before, page 454.]

[8 Determined, 1565.]

[As if it, 1565.]

Doctr.Christ.

xvi.

Theodor.

Tertull. contr. Marcion.

Lib. iv.

to be broken." The meaning whereof is this, Frangitur, id est, non frangitur, "It 18. is broken, that is to say, it is not broken."

In these words, Non bibam amplius de hoc fructu vitis, “I will drink no more 19. of this fruit of the vine;" the fruit of the vine, which is a substance, they expound the accidents. And, to leave that miraculous figure of all figures, concomitantia, 20. whereby one is made two, and two are made one; consider, good reader, the strangeness of the figures, and the wonderful shifts that M. Harding hath imagined in this little treaty, to defeat and avoid the manifest words of the holy fathers. Sometimes the forms and accidents are the sacrament; sometimes Christ's body 21. itself is the sacrament; sometimes both together are the sacrament; sometimes 22. the bread is a figure of Christ's body before consecration; and so, by mean of 23. M. Harding's figures, there is a sacrament before it be a sacrament, and a figure 24. before it be a figure. Sometimes the holy accidents and outward holy shews are 25. a figure of Christ's body invisible, under them secretly contained; sometimes the 26. same body invisible is a figure of the body of Christ visible. And so there is figure upon figure, and a kind of demonstration, which they call notum per ignotum, or rather verum per falsum. Sometimes the sacrament is a figure of the 27. life to come; and sometimes, as Hosius fancieth, it is a figure of the church1; 28. sometimes Tertullian understood not, no, not so much as the grammatical sense of 29. Christ's words; sometimes Christ's very body is not aptly and fitly called the 30. body of Christ, but only improprie, and after a manner.

Thus M. Harding roameth and wandereth up and down, as a man that had lost his way. Such shadows and colours he can cast; into so many forms and shapes and figures he can turn himself. So many and so monstrous figures may he forge in the institution of the holy sacrament, only to avoid one simple, plain, usual, and known figure. And yet he abuseth not the simplicity of the people! There he forceth his figures, where as is no need of figures; and without such vain figures this vain doctrine cannot hold. That one figure that we use is plain and clear, used by all the ancient learned fathers, and agreeable to the tenor of God's word. But M. Harding's figures, as they be many, so be they unnecessary and fantastical, never used or once mentioned by any ancient doctor of the church, and serve only to breed darkness, and to dim the light.

...

How much better were it for him to leave these shifts and childish fables, and plainly and simply to say, as Tertullian saith: Hoc est corpus meum,. hoc est, figura corporis mei2: "This is my body; that is to say, this is a figure of my Max. Schol. body." Or, as Maximus the Greek scholiast saith: Zúμßoda raûta, ádλà oùr ádýðeia3: "These be tokens, but not the truth." Or, as St Augustine saith: Figura est, ... præcipiens passioni Domini communicandum [esse,] et suaviter atque utiliter Doctr. Christ. recondendum in memoria, quod pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit1: “It is a figure, commanding us to communicate with the passion of Christ, and comfortably and profitably to lay up in our remembrance, that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us."

in Eccles. Hierarch. cap. ii.

August. de

Lib. iii. cap.

xvi.

[Ecce quomodo cibum et potum altaris dixit esse quodammodo societatem corporis, quod est ecclesia: non quod ipse cibus et potus sit ipsa societas, sed ipsius societatis sacramentum, &c.-Hos. Op. Col. 1584. Confess. Cath. Fid. cap. xxxix. Tom. I. p. 99. See also before, page 593.]

[

Tertull. Op. Lut. 1641. Adv. Marcion. Lib.

Iv. 40. p. 571; where id for hoc.]

[3 Max. Schol. in Dionys. Areop. Op. Antv. 1634. De Eccles. Hierarch. cap. iii. 3. Tom. I. p. 306. See before, page 611, note 10.]

[* August. Op. Par. 1679-1700. De Doctr. Christ. Lib. III. cap. xvi. 24. Tom. III. Pars I. col. where passioni dominicæ.]

52;

OF PLURALITY OF MASSES.

THE THIRTEENTH ARTICLE.

THE BISHOP OF SARISBURY.

OR that it was lawful then to have thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten, or five masses said in one church in one day.

[OF PLURALITY OF MASSES IN ONE CHURCH IN ONE DAY.-
ARTICLE XIII. H. A. 1564.]

M. HARDING. THE FIRST DIVISION.

in one day,

offereth to

As M. Jewel here descendeth by divers proportions and degrees from thirty to five, first by taking away ten, the third part of the whole, and then five from the rest three times; so it might have pleased him also to have taken away three from five, the last remnant, and so to have left but two 'in all. Which if he had done, Two masses then should we have made up that number, as in this audit he might not otherwise M. Harding do, in regard of his own free promise, but allow our account for good and sufficient. For that number we are well able to make good. And what reason hath moved the no more. ancient fathers, governors of the church, to think it a godly and a necessary thing to have two masses in one church in one day, the same reason in cases either hath or might have moved them, and their successors after them likewise, to allow three or four A simple masses, and in some cases five or more.

THE BISHOP OF SARISBURY.

prove, but

guess.

de Sacrif.

M. Harding of his courtesy should give us leave to lay out our own reckonings, as we think best, having himself the advantage of controlment, if error happen to fall out. Of so great a number of masses as they have this day in their churches, and say they have had and continued from the beginning, even from the apostles' time, if I require of him only the proof of five, I offer him no wrong: but, if he of that whole number be able to shew but only two, and if the same two in the end be found no masses neither, but only public communions, such as be now used in reformed churches, then is he a great dissembler, and doth no right. Upon what occasion M. Harding's masses grew first to this plenty, and to so great waste, Cochlæus, one of the chief patrons of that cause, declareth it thus: Quod olim tam frequentes non fuerint missæ, neque tot sacer- Joan. Cochl. dotes, quot hodie, inde accidisse arbitror, quod olim omnes tum sacerdotes, tum laici, Missä. quicunque intererant sacrificio missæ, peracta oblatione, cum sacrificante communicabant: sicut ex canonibus apostolorum, et ex libris atque epistolis antiquissimorum ecclesiæ doctorum perspicue cognoscitur7: "That in old times there were not so many masses nor so many priests as be now, I reckon the cause thereof to be this, for that in old times all that were present at the sacrifice of the mass, as well priests as lay-men, did communicate together with the minister; as it is plain to be seen by the canons of the apostles, and by the books and letters of the most ancient doctors of the church." He addeth further: Nunc vero, &c.: But now, seeing the order of communion is no more observed amongst us, and that through the negligence and slothfulness as well of the lay-people as of the priests, the Holy Ghost, by the often saying of private masses, hath found out a godly remedy for this want." Here we see that negligence and slothfulness and

[ Remanent, 1565, and H. A. 1564.]

[ So have, 1565, and H. A. 1564.]

[7 Cochl. Sacerd. ac Sacrif. Nov. Leg. Def. Ingolst. 1544. cap. iii. De Applic. Miss. fol. Hh. iii. b.]

Canon.

Apost. can. 9.

De Sept.
Ordin. Eccles.
Grad. 6.

lack of devotion, both in the people and in the priest, is a good leare1 to breed masses. And that the priests, as many as were present, did then communicate with the priest that ministered, it is plain by the canons of the apostles2, and by sundry other good authorities, which now I purposely pass by. And to this purpose it is written thus in a little book set abroad under the name of St Hierome: Non debet episcopus repudiare eucharistiam presbyteri3: "The bishop ought not to refuse the sacrament of a priest." But M. Harding's priests utterly refuse to communicate one with another; and, be they never so many in one church together, yet will they say several masses at sundry altars. And not only Concil. Tolet. thus, but also (as it appeareth by the council of Toledo in Spain) one priest hath sometimes said four, five, or more masses in one day. Pope Leo said some days seven, some days eight masses, and some days more 5. The excess and outrage whereof was so great, that they have been forced to provide laws and Concil. Sales- canons to the contrary. For thus they have decreed: Presbyter in die non

xii. cap. 5.

Beat. Rhe

nan. in Annot. in Tertull. de

Cor. Mil.

gunstad. can. 5.

amplius quam tres missas celebrare præsumat: "Let not any one priest presume to say more than three masses in one day." We may well think that priests then said good store of masses, when it was thought sufficient to stint them at three. Leon. Epist. The cause, that moved Leo' and other ancient fathers to appoint two communions to be ministered in one day, was, as it shall well appear, that the whole people might communicate all together, quietly, and without disturbance. Which thing of itself utterly overthroweth the whole abuse of private masses.

81.

De Consecr.
Dist. 1.
Sufficit.

De Celebr.

Missar. et

aliis, &c.

But the causes that have increased the number of M. Harding's private masses, as they are alleged by Innocentius the third and others, are these: "That there may be one mass said of the day, and another for the dead; and that there may be regard had to honesty and profit." For so they say: Causa honestatis, vel utilitatis: ut si, dicta missa de die, superveniat aliqua magna persona, quæ velit audire missam3: "As if any notable personage happen to come to church, after that mass is done, and be disposed to hear mass.' These be very easy causes upon the same the priest may say twenty masses as well as three.

Now, if that reckoning could duly be made of our part, M. Jewel perhaps would then say, as commonly they say that confess their error in numbering, that he had mistold himself. Albeit, here it is to be marvelled that he appointeth us to prove a number of masses in one church in one day, that utterly denieth the mass, and would have no mass in any church any day at all. And standing in the denial of the whole so peremptorily as he doth, it may seem strange that he should thus frame this article. For what reason is it to challenge us for proof of so great a number, sith he taketh away all together?

THE BISHOP OF SARISBURY.

I have kept my reckoning well enough, as, I trust, it will well appear. But if M. Harding, of so great a number of his masses, be able to prove no more but two, and the same two in the end be found public communions, and no private masses at all; then may we justly say, that he hath both much misreckoned the people, and also shamefully mistold himself.

As before I utterly denied that any private mass was ever used within six hundred years after Christ, so in this article, that the simple, that so long have

calc. Tertull. Op. Franek. 1597. p. 42.]

[ Concil. Salegunst. cap. 5. in Crabb. Concil. Tom. II. p. 800.]

[7 Leon. Magni Op. Lut. 1623. Ad Diosc. Epist. lxxxi. 2. col. 436.]

[ Alex. II. in Corp. Jur. Canon. Lugd. 1624. Decret. Gratian. Decr. Tert. Pars, De Consecr. Dist. i. can. 53. col. 1904.

Innoc. III. in eod. Decretal. Gregor. IX. Lib. 1 Tit. xli. cap. 3. et Gloss.; where missam audire.]

been deceived, might the better understand both the great disorder that M. Harding maintaineth, and also how far the church of Rome is grown from the primitive church of God, I thought it not amiss to set out the matter by parts, in such plain division. Therefore the marvel that M. Harding raiseth hereof is not so great. The matter considered, his reader will rather marvel at his marvel.

M. HARDING. THE THIRD DIVISION.

It appeareth that, being not unwitting how good proofs we have for the mass itself, he thinketh to blank us by putting us to the proof of his number of thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten, or five.

[Lydford law

Verily this kind of men fareth with the church much like unto strong thieves, who, having robbed an honest wealthy man of his money, say afterwards unto him uncourteously: Ah, carle, how camest thou by so much old gold? Or if it like not them to be compared with thieves, in regard of the room they have shuffled themselves into, they may not unfitly be likened to a judge of the stannary 10 used by the gos- at Lydford in Devonshire, who (as I have heard it commonly reported) hanged a felon among the tinners in the forenoon, and sat upon him in judgment at afternoon. And thereof to this day such wrongful dealing in a common proverb is in that country called Lydford law. Sith that you, M. Jewel, and your fellows that now sit on the bench, require of us the proof of more masses in one church in one day, as it were a verdict of twelve men, of equity and right ye should have heard our verdict ere ye had given sentence and condemned the mass.

pellers. H. A. 1564.]

THE BISHOP OF SARISBURY.

Mark iv.

How good cause M. Harding hath to make these vaunts of his proofs for his private mass, it may soon appear unto the discreet reader upon the view. But here he thought it proof sufficient for the multitude of his masses to call us thieves and wicked judges, and to charge us with the law of Lydford, and so to solace himself with an old wives' tale, and to make holy-day out of season. Howbeit, this comparison of his thieves is not so greatly agreeable to his purpose. For the coin that is taken from him was neither gold, nor so old as he maketh it, nor was it touched with Cæsar's stamp. We may rather say unto him: "Sometime ye had gold; but how is it now become dross! ye had good seed; Isai. i. but how is it now become cockle! thou wert 12 sometime a faithful city; how Isai. i. art thou now become an harlot! thou wert 12 sometime the house of God; how art thou now turned into a cave of thieves! how have ye lost the holy communion that the apostles had from Christ, and you from them! how came ye by your private masses, that the apostles had never?" Thus, thus, M. Harding, we may appose you. For it were but lost labour to trouble you with questions of your old gold. Ye are not that rich wealthy carle that ye would be taken for, but even as it is written in the Apocalypse of St John: Dicis, Dives sum, et ditatus, et nullius egeo; et nescis quod tu es miser, et miserabilis, et pauper, et cæcus, et nudus: "Thou sayest, I am rich and wealthy, and need nothing; and Rev. iii. thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

Neither are they always thieves that spoil a thief. Oftentimes the true man forceth the thief to lay down that he hath untruly gotten. Cicero saith: Fures Cicero. earum rerum, quas ceperunt, nomina commutant: "Thieves use to change the names of such things as they have stolen:" even as these thieves use to do, that call the communion the mass, and their mass the communion; private public, and public private; and, as the prophet Esay saith, good evil, and evil good; Isat. v. light darkness, and darkness light; and thus by subtle shift of words miserably spoil and rob the people. To be short, the thief flieth the trial of the light, even John iii. as you, M. Harding, and your fellows fly 13 the trial of God's holy word.

[ All his money, 1565, and H. A. 1564.] [10 Old editt. stemery.]

["See Nares, Gloss. "Lydford law." There is a reference to this in the works of a poet some

what later than Jewel. See Original Poems by
William Browne, edited by Sir Egerton Brydges,
Lee Priory Press, 1815, p. 9.]

[12 Were, 1565.]

[13 Flee, 1565.]