at we should be praying all the while we are hearing and receiving
it, for then could not our minds be attentive. His proposition therefore
is false; for though prayer should go before the receiving of such a
spiritual benefit as the word or the sacrament, yet we should not pray in
the act of receiving. For how can the heart attend, by serious
consideration, to what we hear in the word, or what is signified and given
to us in the sacrament, if in the actions of hearing the word and
receiving the sacrament, it should be elevated out of the world by prayer?

2. Why saith he that prayer is nothing else but a spiritual appetite or
desire? He thought hereby to strengthen his proposition, but we deny all.
He said before,(762) that every prayer is a meditation, and here he saith,
that prayer is nothing else but a spiritual desire. These are uncouth
descriptions of prayer. Prayer is not meditation, because meditation is a
communing with our own souls, prayer a communing with God. Nor yet can it
be said that prayer is nothing else but a spiritual desire; for prayer is
the sending up of our desires to God, being put in order.

_Sect._ 24. He speeds no better in proving that we should receive the
sacrament with thanksgiving. "Whatsoever benefit (saith he) we should
receive by extolling, and preaching, and magnifying, and praising the
inestimable worth and excellency thereof, the same we ought to receive
with thanksgiving. But in the sacrament we should receive the blood of
Christ with extolling and preaching," &c. The assumption he confirms by
the words of our Saviour, "Do this in remembrance of me," and by the words
of St. Paul, "So oft as ye shall eat this bread and drink this cup, ye
shall declare, that is, extol, magnify, and praise the Lord's death, till
he come again."

_Ans._ His assumption is false, neither can his proofs make it true.

1. We remember Christ in the act of receiving by meditation, and not by
praise.

2. We show forth the Lord's death in the act of receiving, by using the
signs and symbols of his body broken, and his blood shed for us, and by
meditating upon his death thereby represented.

3. We deny not that by praise we show forth the Lord's death also, but
this is not in the act of receiving. It is to be marked with Pareus,(763)
that the showing forth of the Lord's death, must not be restricted to the
act of receiving the sacrament, because we do also show forth his death by
the preaching of the gosp