The second tome of homilies of such matters as were promised, and entitled in…The second tome of homilees of such matters as were promised, and intituled in…

Now it followeth to have with this knowledge a sure and constant faith, not only that the death of Christ is available for the redemption of all the world, for the remission of sins, and reconciliation with God the father: but also that he hath made upon his cross a full and sufficient sacrifice for thee, a perfect cleansing of thy sins, so that thou acknowledgest no other Saviour, redeemer, mediator, advocate, intercessor, but Christ only, and that thou mayst say with the Apostle, that he loved thee, and gave him self for thee. For this is to stick fast to Christs promise made in his institution, to make Christ thine own, and to applicate his merits unto thy self. Herein thou needest no other mans help, no other sacrifice or oblation, no sacrificing Priest, no mass, no means established by mans invention. That faith is a necessary instrument in all these holy ceremonies, we may thus assure our selves, for that as Saint Paul saith, without faith it is unpossible to please god. When a great ¹number of the Israelites were overthrown in the wilderness, Moses, Aaron, and Phinehas did eat Manna, and pleased God, for that they understood (saith Saint Augustine) the visible ²meat spiritually. Spiritually they hungered it, ⟨p. 405⟩spiritually they tasted it, that they might be spiritually satisfied. And truly as the bodily meat can not feed the outward man, unless it be let into a stomach to be digested, which is healthsome and sound: No more can thy inward man be fed, except his meat be received into his•oule, and hart sound & whole in faith. Therefore (saith ³Cyprian) when we do these things, we need not to whet our teethe: but with sincere faith we break and divide that holy bread. It is well known, that the meat we seek for in this supper, is spiritual food, the nourishment of our soul a heavenly refection, and not earthly, an invisible meat, and not bodily, a ghostly substance, and not carnal, so that to think that without faith we may enjoy the eating and drinking thereof, or that that is the fruition of it, is •ut to dream a gross carnal feeding, basely objecting and binding our selves to the elements and creatures: Whereas by the advice of the counsel of Nicene, we ought to lift up our minds by