CHAPTER X.

1550 to 1551.

The archbishop's book upon the sacrament of the Lord's Supper-Frith's book upon the same subject-The answers of bishop Gardiner, now a prisoner in the Tower, and of Dr. Smith, to the archbishop's book—Proceedings against Gardiner-The archbishop's reply to him and to Smith-An explanation of Luther considered-Differently applied by

Cranmer.

WHILE the preceding controversies were agitated, Cranmer was employed upon a labour of loftier character and of more important effect, his " Defence of the true and catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ; with a confutation of sundry errors concerning the same; grounded and established upon God's Holy Word, and approved by the consent of the most ancient doctors of the Church." It

was first published in 1550. So eager was the demand for the work, that in the same year 'three impressions of it appeared; and many, who had hitherto opposed, were soon led by this invaluable book to embrace, the Protestant doctrine.

1

1 Herbert. See Dibdin's Typograph. Antiq. iv. 13.

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In the preface the archbishop refers to what was of late years the face of religion within this realm of England, and yet remaineth in divers realms;" the indulgences, beads, pardons, and pilgrimages; hypocrisy and superstition instead of true and sincere religion. "But thanks be to Almighty God," he continues," and to the king's Majesty with his father, a prince of most famous memory, the superstitious sects of monks and friars that were in this realm be clean taken away; the Scripture is restored unto the proper and true understanding; the people may daily read and hear God's heavenly Word, and pray their own language which they understand, so that their hearts and mouths may go together, and they be none of those people of whom Christ complained, saying, These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts be far from me. Thanks be to God, many corrupt weeds be plucked up, which were wont to rot the flock of Christ, and to let the growing of the Lord's harvest. But what availeth it to take away beads, pardons, pilgrimages, and such other like popery, so long as the chief roots remain unpulled up, whereof, so long as they remain, will spring again all former impediments of the Lord's harvest, and corruptions of his flock? The rest is but branches and leaves, the cutting away whereof is but like topping and lopping of a tree, or cutting down of weeds, leaving the body standing, and the roots

in the ground: but the very body of the tree, or rather the roots of the weeds, is the popish doctrine of transubstantiation, of the real presence of Christ's flesh and blood in the sacrament of the altar (as they call it,) and of the sacrifice and oblation of Christ, made by the priest for the salvation of the quick and the dead. Which roots, if they be suffered to grow in the Lord's vineyard, they will overspread all the ground again with the old errors and superstitions. These injuries to Christ. are so intolerable, that no Christian heart can willingly bear them. Wherefore seeing that many have set to their hands, and whetted their tools, to pluck up the weeds, and to cut down the tree. of error, I, not knowing otherwise how to excuse myself at the last day, have in this book set to my hand and axe with the rest to cut down this tree, and to pluck up the weeds and plants by the roots, which our heavenly Father never planted, but were grafted and sown in His vineyard by His adversary the devil, and antichrist his minister. The Lord grant that this my travail and labour in His vineyard be not in vain, but that it may prosper and bring forth good fruits to His honour and glory. For when I see His vineyard overgrown with thorns, brambles, and weeds, I know that everlasting woe appertaineth to me if I hold my peace, and put not to my hands and tongue to labour in purging His vineyard. God I take to witness, who seeth the

hearts of all men truly unto the bottom, that I take this labour for none other consideration but for the glory of His Name, and the discharge of my duty, and the zeal that I bear toward the flock of Christ. I know in what office God hath placed me, and to what purpose; that is to say, to set forth His Word truly unto His people, to the uttermost of my power, without respect of person, or regard of any thing in the world, but of Him alone. I know what account I shall make to Him hereof at the last day, when every man shall answer for his vocation, and receive for the same good or ill, according as he hath done."

This book is divided into five parts. The first treats of the abuse of the Lord's Supper, and then gives an account of the true Eucharistic doctrine; briefly referring to the Romish errors which are subjects of the following parts, transubstantiation, the presence of Christ in the sacrament, that evil men eat and drink the. very body and blood of Christ, and that Christ is offered every day for remission of sins.

The second, therefore, proceeds to confute at large the error of transubstantiation, shewing that it is contrary to God's Word, to reason, to our senses, and to the belief of the Fathers; with a luminous account of writings wrested against their meaning in support of the doctrine, and with an exposure of absurdities that the doctrine maintains.

"What Christian ears," he exclaims,

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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