¶ A CAVEAT for the Christians against the Archpapist. Ioh, iii. This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness more than light, because their deeds were evil. Mat. xvi. Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. 1548 illustrated border O english men, that run so well, let no man you forspeake. For God (no doubt) shall judge the man, that you to stop shall seek. Temper yourselves, 1. Cor. 14. than run the race, that ye may win the crown. And not the crown the perisheth, but that shall never down. ¶ An admonition for all Christians to beware of the Pharisaical leaven, of the Archepapist, Hereis not half his worthy style. the glorious Hypocrite the subtle Sophester, and the fraudulent coum trefeyctour of God's holy word: Where the absurdity of his late abused terms of consecrating himself in remembrance of himself is merely well refelled, confuted and audyded: And at the last the self words (thorough the conference of tongues) restored to these old sincere and true meaning. surely good Christian brother I can do no less of Christian charity than toad monish you of a certain notable Papist who (according to his accustomed manner) did privily trust in to a great lump of dough even a little leaven but truly no less than leavened the whole dough. The confection and making of the leaven was after this sort, Consecrating himself in remembrance of himself. Now you may se the leaven is a very little piece in quantity but yet very great in qualitte (I mean of sourness. For it was digged up of the slimy pits of man's doctrine, and seasoned not with the water of life but with very poddel water which hath been so long kept in the Popeg filthy cisterns that now it stinketh again, not in the Papists noseg (who have ever be brought up with it, and have seasoned even their most delicate wafrons therewith) but in the christians sense that live on the new water of the wellspring that so sweetly savoureth of Christ. Therefore (I save) let us with all endeavour go about to avoid this unsavoury leaven, for it is nothing worth but to be eject and cast out and trodden down of men underfoot. For it hath in it no whit of the salt of true wisdom, but altogether smelling of carnal wit, worldly invention, and duly she imagination. purge therefore the old leaven, that ye may be new dough, as ye are sweet bread. But I pray you where shall a man find such words or any equiva lent to those levenouse words of his, among all the words of Christ spoken at his last supper: And verily I would never have thought that a man being no less politic than learned would so pertly and so portly, so openly and so opiniously utter his Phransye and disclose either his heresy or ignorancy after such sort as he did, and that before the chief in earth of Christ's church, and before the eyes & wisdom of all the wholeroialme. But yet I pray you hold the mancxcused for he needs must so do, else his perled mitre should have maxed like a Christenmans cap: his pontifical majesty should have been more ministerlyke, his holy crochear must have be more sheephook like. Else the God of the Altar should be remetamorphosed, uniuggled, and unconiured again into a wafron cake: The jewish stony altar should have no longer stand in stead. The levitical disguised vestiments with the Relics of the Hopysh churches ceremonies, should clean have vanished away, and the whole flock of popish secre (of whom he was the chief and surest leaning post) should have fall down into a deadly swoon: and all Eardiners' guard should never be regarded. But yet I say I would never have expected such new found terms to have gushed out at his mouth being a man no less ware, than wily, no less wily, than circomspecte, no less circomspecte than worldly wise: saving only the sacred Scripture must be true, and needs must be fulfilled which saith. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise/ and wilcast a way the understanding of the prudent. Esa. xxix. Therefore let us give thanks with our Lord jesus unto God the father, that he hath hid his divine inisteries from the wise and showeth them unto babes: verily we see now that it so pleaseth his most divine majesty. But to you master Crafty (and pleaseth your consecration) me thinketh ye were a little to foolish hardy to brag out yourself before so courageous a Lion who could dasihe, quail, & hwisht all your braggings with the lest roaring of his mouth. Prou. 20. Me thinketh, ye took a little to much pain, to go about to cast dust into such men's eyes as there were: for they could clearly force whether tended your dusty endeavour with out any foreign spectacles. O syg (I am sorry for your chance) ye were a little over seen that ye would play the Sophester so kindly, before so many perfect Logicians (as there were) who cold espy out your solemn subtle sophesmes, and entryp you at their will and pleasure. But you knew well enough that ye should not be disputed nor reasoned with all, nor yet interrupted for the while, and that by like made you so bold to lash out what soever came upon your tongues end. But sirrah shall I be sorry or you and the Papists that ye spent so vainly your Rhetorical colours? for there were in that auditory to great a number that could espy thorough (for all your fresh colours and dark shadowynges) the rotten posts of the romish church. But I promise you master Sophester and ye had bestowed the sane goodly ambiguous sermon of yours, in any place else in England (both the Universities excepted) you should have left your audience in a great doubt whether ye were an Archepapiste or a microchristian, and whether ye less favoured man's law or God's law. But in dead ye seemed than, rather to keep yourself within the prescript bounds of man's law, than to lean to the sure posts of God's law. Yea it was wittily done of you to keep you still with in the reach of your cavil, for thence you mought safely snarre and snatch at whom you would, if they did mislike your lordship: But I trust you will save one, if man's policy can prevail. But alas I am sorry that dead mens boves (I do not mean. Barns more than others) are now seen in your whited sepulchre: Yet I pray God (and his pleaser be not the contrary) to avert the vengeange of Saynetes prayers from you, Apoea. 6. and to direct yet your heart to cleave to the immaculate law of the Lord, & receive the head corner stone into your building. I pray God even heartily to make you a new Christian brother, of an old papistical Saul: I pray God that we may have just occasion to praise God of your godly conversion. And I pray God that ye have not the power to play the ii piked staff no more. For ye have dallied to long, ye have dissimuled to long, ye have haulted on both sides to long: I pray God that you may yet remember the comen proverb that affirmeth ever to be better than never: yet may you be Paul, if Christ will. And I pray you to be no more offended with this my writing than ye would have me to be offended with your sermon: I forgive you on my part and I pray God forgive you also: & I pray you to do likewise unto me. For surely if ye be so wise a man as ye are esteemed, ye will rather covet to look in a true glass, than in a flattering mirror: But thorough your good patience I must go about to purge out that same little leaven that you hid of late purposely in the dowghy lump of your pharasaical sermon. Why do not you yourself know (but every Christian knoweth) that it is a sour levenouse doctrine to alter the institution of the lords supper? And you knew well enough that all papists and all the unlearned people take this word (consecrating) for transubstantiating, changing, or altering of the sacramental bread and wine into the very natural body of Christ (and as they call it) flesh blood and bone: But I pray you was this well done of you? or where found you the word (Consecrating) of yours. But I am sure ye will say that it countervaileth benedixit which signifieth also in English (he blessed.) Well I will grant all that: but why than did you wrest the blessing into consecration? Marry because it was a more glad some evangely for your disciples & a more to the some swillig for your hoggish Massers: but (thanks be to the lord) the triumph was but short and the banquet but a dream. But peradventure you will relent some what, and yield so far (by cause ye can donone other) as to forego this word consecrating, so that ye may have blessing for it: Than ye will proceed and say that (he blessed himself) which (after your mind) is all one in effect, as the Evangelist, had said he consecrated himself: why than be it so, for a while yet. But than from whence conveyed you in, that word (himself) for there is no such word in the text: but than will you strait way say there is panis bread in the text: That do I grant also nevenrthelesse you spell to well, and put together to fast, if that ye will say (he blessed the bread). I pray you of whence have you the word (he blessed) Mary of benedixit but I pray you farther (by cause ye be learned in the tongues) tell me yet of whence had you that benedixit? you will say of eulogese the Greek word which betokeneth in Engloshe he blessed, he praised, or he spoke well of. Well in so much, that you told me what answered to benedixit in the Greek text: I will likewise tell you what answereth to it in the Hebrew. For I am assured, ye will not deny but Matthew wrote his Gospel in hebrewe: And writeth veievarech for et benedirit and he blessed. How be it the Hebrew verb barech betokeneth as well and as indifferently (gratias egit) he, gave thanks, as he blessed: when that soever the place may suffer to be so understand: And I pray you what place else in the whole scripture may better suffer yea or rather doth require 〈…〉 barech, to signify to give thanks more than this same place doth I pray you was not even the same jesus Christ before this time of his last supper, accustomed to give thanks unto his heavenly father at receiving of his bodily sustenance or not? you will peradventure say nay: No, but than on what shall we ground our godly custom of saying Grace or giving thanks unto God, at meat time? It seemeth to me that that laudable and godly ceremovye (as an imitation of Christ's own manner) came up, among the Christians even from his time. For the Evangelist Matthew in the. rxvi. cap, sayeth Wcheshamer weth-tehillah, that is: when they had said praise, when they said grace, or when they had given thanks: erge, there were more than Christ himself: And who should, they be but the Apostles which (as it becometh a disciple) followed their master's trade, & so successively the christians accustomed themselves after the manner until this day. Ye but than will you say the there be ii kind of Graces, one said after meat named Gratias actiorun a thanks giving: and an other said before meat called Consecratio mense the consecration of the table, the blessing or halwing of the meat. Now by all hallows it passeth my brains to avoid this blessing and hallowing of yours, unless I hallow out on the Angel of heaven who (and you will accept it) shall answer you with the same words as he spoke to Peter when he was of your opinion, his words were these: what God hath cleansed call not thou comun or unclean. To the which Saint Paul subscribeth on this wise: All the treatures of God are good: 1. Tim. iiii Than if all manner of fourfoted beasts of the earth, and vermin, Actuum ten and worms, and fowls of the air be clean: And if all the creatures of God be good, what need they than so much of our blessing and hallowing? but we ought in very deed to render most highest thanks unto God for his bounteous liberality of his creatures whom we have the fruition not only in our daily food but in the rest of our sustentation. Again Matthew writeth in the xu chapter of his gospel. That Christ took seven loves in his hands and seven fishes & gave thanks: But here the Evangelist did not use vaiebarech (which you expound always he blessed) but vaiomer todha which is after the Hebrew phrase) and saying knowledge, (and after the english speech) & he gave thanks: But peradventure you will english it, that he was confessed than, or said his confiteor. But what should I make so many words of the Hebrew phrase of barech? for have not we borrowed the same phrase of the hebrews and do even use it right well in the comen speech when we speak on this sort: Now we have dined blessed be God, or thus: My Lord Protectors grace hath had a fair day on our enemies (blessed be God) and send us still scoch news. And what do we mean by this (blessed be God) but thanks be given unto God for his benefits that he vouch saved to bestow them on us that so unworthily have deserved them at his hand? And therefore we can do no less at the rehearsal of so many benefits (seeing we acknowledge that that we received them all together of him) as it were in a recompense but say, blessed be God, or thanked be God, which is all one effect, saving the one is the phrase of the hebrews, and the other the very english phrase. And after this manner is the word (blessed) take in the xlvii chapter of: Genesis: where it is written: joseph brought in/ jacob his father & set him before Pharaoh: and blessed Pharaoh. which was as who say in english, he thanked Pharaoh for so many benefits showed unto his father. Like wise is it most evident that (bless) must be taken for giving thanks in the Psalm. C.iii which beginneth. Bless the lord (O my soul) and all that is with in me/ bless his holy name. Bless the Lord O my soul/ and forget not all his benefits. which forgiveth all thy sins/ and healeth all thine infirmities. Which saveth thy life from destruction/ and crowneth the with mercy & loving kindness. which satisfieth thy desire with good things/ making the young and lusty as an Egle. etc. woe therefore be to all the wresters of the word of God. And twice woe unto him the purposely depraveth the same. I pray you why would you not call the words of consecration, the words of christifieng? or the words of creating of Christ? or the words that make christ a new? No, no: ye were wiser than so for than dame hypocrisy could never so smoothly have crept in, nor so many hundredth years have continued. And even like sleight ye practised when ye used the strange vocable Exorcizo te: for coniuro te, I conjure the &c. for we should never have strayed so far (the conjuring term known) as to say. A qua benedicta sit nobis salus et vita. The holy water be our health and life. Alas alas what seas of mischiefs have we run headlong into by reason of your strange terms? which if I should prosecute to rehearse one by one I should rather be tedious unto the reader than persuade you to take your pen & to write for to redress the same. Such stiff obstinacy (the more to be pitied) is so evidetly seen in you. I pray God yet of his tender clemency to souple a little the Pharaoh hardness of your flinty heart. But away than with your papistical con secrating: away with your hypocritical Necromancia & conjuring? Away with all such coloured holiness: God can not be mocked. Galat. ut. Therefore it will not prevail you to prattle to him saycnge. Lord Lord have not we prophesied in thy name: have not we cast out devils thorough thy name? And done many miracles thorough thy name? For than will he answer you, even thus: For all your fantastical preaching for all your holy consecrating and for all your coloured conjuring. I never knew you depart from me, ye that work iniquity. But how long will you the void of the Lords feare-how long will you defy his loving kindness? And how long will you abuse his most holy word? But yet take heed, take heed, in the mean while, lest an evil spirit say unto you jesus I know & Paul I know: but who are ye? And with that (for depraving of their words) have power to run on you and wound you. But to return to the propose. Now peradventure for all this spelling of the matter, the papists be scant yet wholly resolved: wherefore we must divine by what means Christ words at his last supper, began to be called, nerba consecrationis the works of consecration: And I say they mought well be called so if they were understand, meant, and construed, after the true meaning of the Hebrew speech, that is: verba consecrationis i verba consecrata hoc est verba sacra: the sacred words: And So ought all the words of the holy scripture be named, as well as they. But now to confirm that the hebrews used such manner of speech needeth no probation: But yet, for their sake that be not much conversant in reading of the holy scripture (which every where is even full of such phrases (we will add an example or two: Math. xxiiii. When ye shall see the abomination of desolation. Which should be englished when ye shall see the abominable desolation. And after the manner of the same language spoke Paul (though he wrote in an other tongue) to the Romans. cap. seven. O wretched man that I am (sayeth he) who shall deliver me from this body of death: That is from this deadly or mortal body. So David hath in the first verse of the xu Psalm. Lord who shallbe receined into thy pavilion: or who shall dwell in the mountain of thy holiness. Where the english tongue would require it to be translated, in thy holy mountain. But yet in as much as every man (for whose behoof the holy scripture is indifferently written and preanched) doth not understand the same Hebrew phrase: let us no more chop & change with speeches: Let us no more make the vocables and terms of the high mysteries of our Religion more mystical & and confuse than Christ hymsel ever made them. Let us neither add nor take aught away from the word of God, lest we shallbe accursed not of the Pope (which is not wont to accurse for such matters) but of GOD. Therefore I pray you for the reverence that ye own unto the truth (I mean) unto jesus Christ the very truth, that ye will no longer usurp nor practise the dark terms and (as they be commonly taken) wicked, the terms I say of consecrating, (or as (you commonly call them) the words of consecration. I pray you even for jesus Christ's sake to forego such popish terming. And call them when need shall require to talk of them) whether soever ye will, the holy words, or the words of holy scripture. And if ye must need yet a while name them by a diffuse and a strange term, call them the Sacred words: and I am assured ye may away with Sacred because he seemeth to be near of kin to master Sacring your good lord. The Pope's own dearly beloved country papists who made and set fourth of late the romish Constitutions (called for the mean season) were even ashamed to usurp any longer the terms of verba concecrationis in their book, * Called Interim. but the same have they (as it were) abolished & abrogated naming them by a new term, but more tolerable & less audible to christian men's ears. Yet are not these popish priestlynges nothing abashed to term Christ's words as they will themselves. Therefore O ye all godly pry stes that pretend to be of Christ's congregation, do away such fond terms: Play no more the popish pry stes with so many external blessing & crossing, & with your outward wassing & shaving. Cease of your mumbling of straungelangages before the congregation. Play no more (I say) Aaron's priests with your dedicated temples, with severed chancels, with your carnal frequented sacrifices: with your prescrpition of vestures, of time, of meats, of fasting, & fasting days, Hebre. x. for these were but shadows of good things to come which be also come already: the cloudi night is passed the gladsome day is sprung, john. xii. let us walk in the light while we have the light among us, lest the darkness come on us. For he that walketh in darnes, woteth not whether he goeth. And while we have light, let us believe in the light, that we may be children of light. And this is the condemnation that after the light hath come into the world men have yet still loved darkness rather than light. We be passed childhood, away than with childish fantasies. For the hour, cometh and now is, john. iiii. when the true worshippers worship the father in spirit, and in truth. For he as a spirit: and therefore loveth he no carnal things, nor outward things, but spiritual things, and inward things. Therefore all you that be called and chosen to be the ministers of Christ, and the Stewards of his secrets: 1. Cor. iiii. when you shall ministre the Lords supper, you may teherse and allege Christ's holy words unto them after this manner: Good Christian brethren this godly Institution of eating the lords supper: came not up at the first of man's invention, nor was not maintained bymamnes policy nor continued so many years (as diverse other blind cetemoniall customs did) without plain authority of GOD'S most holy word. Therefore dare not I no more than Saint Paul (for fear of being found an unfaytheful steward, and a counterfeit executor of the Lords new Testament and last will) allege and bring in, for thastablyshment of receiving this most comfortable supper, any words imagined of man's brains, (appear never so eloquent, never so holylyke, or never so glorious) but even the very pure and holy words spoken of Christ himself, (the same night that he was betrayed) and afterward most faithfully written by his own disciples & our Evangelists: and now at the last (by GOD'S grace) by me pronounced word for word as the text of the Lord jesus Christ's new Testament declareth them: Therefore good Christians, life up your hearts to Godward, that ye may hear his holy words with the ear of faith: and that you may take them for the steadfast ground-werke of your building, for the original authority, for the true report, the direct line that just squiere, the undeceivable compass and the very limits of the true understanding and sincere meaning of the effectualll signification of eating the lords supper. But hearken now to the holy words of the authority, which ye shall find written in the xxvi chapter of Matthew, the xiiii of Mark: the xxii of Luke, the vi of john and in the eleventh chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthi, 〈…〉 And as they did eat/ jesus took bread: & when he had given thanks he broke it/ & gave it to the disciples/ & said: Take/ eat/ this is my body/ which is given for you. This do/ in the remembrance of me. Likewise also when he had supped/ he took the cup & thanked/ saying: drink ye all of this. For this cup is the new testament in my blood/ which is shed for many/ for the remission of sins. Verily I say unto you I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine tree: until that day I drink it new in the kingdom of God. Verily verily he that putteth his trust in me/ hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life/ which came down from heaven: If any man eat of this bread he shall not die/ but shall have life for ever. And the bread that I will give/ is my flesh/ which I will give for the life of the world. Verily verily I say unto you/ except ye eat the flesh of the son of man/ and drink his blood/ ye have no life in you. whosoever eateth my flesh/ & drinketh my blood/ hath eternal life/ and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat in deed/ and my blood is drink in deed: He that eateth my flesh/ & drinketh my blood/ dwelleth in me/ & I in him. Doth this offend you? What & if ye see the son of man ascend up thither where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth/ the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you/ be spirit and life. But there are some of you/ that believe not. Hitherto have I rehearsed unto you the very words of the Lord, as for most infallible principles of the chief Authore of the Christians doctrine: as a very testimonial of his inestimable love toward mankind: and as the words of Christ's commission whereby we dare enterprise to approach to the lords table, and there to eat the lords body as it was crucified on the cross: and drink his very blood the was shed for our redemption who were borne by nature the children of wrath and his very enemies. This must we do for the remembrance of his most beneficial death: and never cease until the Lord come. For there is not a more odious, nor so hateful a thing: either unto God or man, as the vice of ingratitude & beastly unkindness which is nothing else but the forgetfulness of benefits employed? & the unthankfulness for good turns undeservedly showed. And as he that yet banketeth being not anhungered happeneth some time to take surfeit until the death of his body: Even so he that eateth this supper not driven to with spiritual hunger taketh deadly surfeit of his soul And contrarily as the bodily meat eaten of our hungry stomachs is soon digested and nourisheth our bodies: so the flesh and blood of Christ eaten of us with a spiritual hungry desire nourisheth our souls into everlasting life. Amen. Here have I treacted somewhat largier of the lords supper than I had intended, for I proposed nothing else but to touch a little even superficially of the terms that were so impudently and unshamefastly abused of the Archepapist, which terms the preacher at Paul's Cross (as I heard say) pretermitted to speak of, though he (questionless) full entirely & pyththely handled and confounded the rest of his sermon. But by like either the prescription of the accustomed time being scarce for to repeat in, the whole rabblement of that papistical sermon & the same utterly to confute: either else the childyshe and unlearned rudeness of the said terms made him (as he is verily a man so highly learned) rather to wink at them, & neglect them, than unworthily to spend any time in disputing about so gross, so plain, and so trifling a matter. Therefore I pray God send us less acquaintance with such preachers as the fourther was: and more familiarity with all those that be of that christian crudition and godly conversation as the later was Amen. FINIS. O ye foolish Galathians/ who hathbe witched yond/ that ye should not believe the truth: Gala. 3.5. ye ran well/ who was a let unto you/ that ye should not obey the truth: Such counsel is not of him that called you. A little leaven soureth the wholelompe of dough. I have trust toward the Lord that ye willbe none otherwise minded. But he that troubleth you shall bear his judgement/ what so ever he be. Whatsoever things are written afore time/ they are written for our learning. Rome xu Beware of false prophets/ which come to you in sheeps clothing/ but in wardli they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. ¶ Imprinted at London in Foster lane by john waly.