for ye give us after the
bread, wine and water, and sometimes clean water unblest, or rather
conjured, by the virtue of your craft; and yet ye say, under the host of
bread is the full manhood of Christ. Then by your own confession must it
needs be that we worship a false god in the chalice, which is unconjured
when we worship the bread, and worship the one as the other; but where
find ye that ever Christ or any of His disciples taught any man to
worship this bread or wine?
Therefore, what shall we say of the apostles that were so much with
Christ, and were called by the Holy Ghost; had they forgotten to set it
in the creed when they made it, which is Christian men's belief? Or else
we might say that they knew no such God, for they believe in no more
gods but in Him that was at the beginning, and made of naught all
things visible and invisible, which Lord took flesh and blood, being in
the Virgin, the same God. But ye have many false ways, to beguile the
innocent people with sleights of the fiend.
For ye say that in every host each piece is the whole manhood of Christ,
or full substance of Him. For ye say as a man may take a glass, and
break the glass into many pieces, and in every piece properly thou
mayest see thy face, and yet thy face is not parted; so ye say the
Lord's body is in each host or piece, and His body is not parted. And
this is a full subtle question to beguile an innocent fool, but will ye
take heed of this subtle question, how a man may take a glass and behold
the very likeness of his own face, and yet it is not his face, but the
likeness of his face; for if it were his very face, then he must needs
have two faces, one on his body and another in the glass. And if the
glass were broken in many places, so there should be many faces more by
the glass than by the body, and each man shall make as many faces to
them as they would; but as ye may see the mind or likeness of your face,
which is not the very face; but the figure thereof, so the bread is the
figure or mind of Christ's body in earth, and therefore Christ said, As
oft as ye do this thing do it in mind of me.
Also ye say this, As a man may light many candles at one candle, and
yet the light of that candle is never the more nor ever the less; so ye
say that the manhood of Christ descendeth into each part of every host,
and the manhood of Christ is never the more nor less. Where then
becometh your ministrations? For if a man light many candles at
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