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"What Christian ears," he exclaims, tiently hear this doctrine, that Christ is every day made anew, and made of another substance than he was made of in his mother's womb. For whereas, at his incarnation he was made of the nature and substance of his Blessed Mother, now by these papists' opinion, he is made every day of the nature and substance of bread and wine, which, as they say, are turned into the substance of his body and blood."

The third part teaches the manner how Christ is present in his Holy Supper; that corporally he is ascended into heaven; that, at one time, one body cannot be in divers places; that Christ calling bread his body, and wine his blood, are figurative speeches; that to eat his flesh and drink his blood, are the same; that the bread represents his body, and the wine his blood; that figurative speeches are not strange; and that Christ himself uses them. When, in the following year, Cranmer reprinted his book, he thus perspicuously, in an additional preface, that his meaning might not be mistaken, condensed the reasonings that are urged in this third part of the Defence. "Where I use to speak sometimes as the old authors do, that Christ is in the sacraments, I mean the same as they did understand the matter; that is to say, not of Christ's carnal presence in the outward sacrament, but sometimes of his sacramental presence. And sometimes by

this word, sacrament, I mean the whole ministration and receiving of the sacraments, either of Baptism or of the Lord's Supper. And so the old writers many times do say, that Christ and the Holy Ghost be present in the sacraments, not meaning by that manner of speech that Christ and the Holy Ghost be present in the water, bread, or wine, which be only the outward visible sacraments; but that in the due ministration of the sacraments, according to Christ's ordinance and institution, Christ and his Holy Spirit be truly and indeed present by their mighty and sanctifying power, virtue, and grace, in all them that worthily receive the same. Moreover, when I say and repeat many times in my book, that the body of Christ is present in them that worthily receive the sacrament, lest any man should mistake my words, and think that I mean, that although Christ be not corporally in the outward visible signs, yet he is corporally in the persons that duly receive them; this is to advertise the reader, that I mean no such thing; but my meaning is, that the force, the grace, the virtue, and benefit of Christ's body that was crucified for us, and of his blood that was shed for us, be really and effectually present with all them that duly receive the sacraments. But all this I understand of his spiritual presence, of the which he saith, I will be with you unto the world's end; and Wheresoever two or three be gathered together in my

name, there am I in the midst of them; and He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. And no more truly is he corporally or really present in the due ministration of the Lord's Supper, than he is in the due ministration of Baptism."

The fourth part denies, in opposition to the Romish tenet, that evil men partake of the body and blood of Christ; and proceeds to combat another papistical error, when "in the stead of Christ himself, the sacrament is worshipped: For as his humanity, joined to his divinity, and exalted to the right hand of his Father, is to be worshipped of all creatures in heaven, in earth, and under the earth; even so, if in the stead thereof we worship the signs and sacraments, we commit as great idolatry as ever was, or shall be, to the world's end."

The fifth and last part attacks the sacrifice of the Romish mass; declares that in the Primitive Church there were no such masses; that "such priests as pretend to be Christ's successors, in making a sacrifice of him, are his most heinous adversaries, for no person ever made a sacrifice of Christ, but himself only;" that the death of Christ is the only oblation and sacrifice, whereby our sins are pardoned; that the Fathers of the Church, when they "called the mass, or supper of the Lord, a sacrifice, they meant that it was a sacrifice of laud and thanksgiving, (and so as well

the people as the priest do sacrifice,) or else that it was a remembrance of the very true sacrifice propitiatory of Christ; but they meant it in no wise that it is a very true sacrifice for sin, and applicable by the priest to the quick and dead ;" and that therefore "wicked are the inventions of a purgatory to torment souls after this life, and oblations of masses said by the priests to deliver them from the said torments."

Written as this book was by Cranmer in his mature age, after all his great reading, and all his diligent study of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, with whose judgments and opinions in the doctrine he thus became intimately acquainted; it is, as Strype has justly concluded, the more to be valued. With that ingenuousness, however, which was so distinguishing a part of his character, he acknowledged that from the "Book made in 1533, by John Frith, prisoner in the Tower of London, in answer to Sir Thomas More, concerning the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ," he had received great light, and derived several arguments, upon the subject. The answer of Frith to the illustrious champion of the Romish party, is indeed, to a small extent, an anticipation, as it were, of the archbishop's book; and is to be admired for its prudence and moderation, as well as for its acuteness and learn

1 Burnet. See also before, vol. i. p. 86.

1

ing. It is no wonder, therefore, awakening also, as it must have done, the remembrance that in former days he had endeavoured to draw the author from his belief, it should have engaged, amongst the numerous writings on the point before him, the attention of the archbishop. Frith, like Cranmer, admitted not the Lutheran tenet of consubstantiation; which indeed, in England, never made much progress. It is obvious, throughout his answer, that with Bertram, and Wicliffe, and Oecolampadius, and Zuinglius, not with those "2 Germans who think that the natural body of Christ is present in the sacrament, and take the words fleshly, as Martin Luther taught them," he concurred.

The discourse of the archbishop upon the sacrament was no sooner published, than it was attacked by bishop Gardiner, then a prisoner in the Tower, and by Dr. Smith, then a fugitive at Louvain. Gardiner had now been confined two years. Still he refused submission to what the Council required of him, and still they denied a legal trial which he of them demanded. Commissioners were at length appointed to examine him. These were the archbishop, the bishops of London, Ely, and Lincoln, secretary Petre, judge Hales, two civilians, and two masters of chancery.

1 See before, vol. i.
p. 86.

2 Frith's Answer to Sir T. More.