An apology, or answer in defence of the Church of England concerning the state…An apologie, or aunswer in defence of the Church of England concerninge the state…

¹We say that the bread and wine are holy and heavenly mysteries of the body and blood of Christ: and that ⟨p. 15⟩in them Christ himself, the true bread of eternal life, is so presently delivered unto us, that we do truly receive his body and blood through faith. Nevertheless we do not so speak it, as though we supposed that the natures of bread and wine were utterly changed and came to nothing, as many in these last ages have dreamed, though hitherto they could never well agree among themselves of their dream. For Christ never went about to make that a wheaten cake should cast away his own nature, and put upon hit a certain new Godhead, but rather for to change us,² and as Theophylactus speaketh, to transelement us into his body: What may be more plainly spoken, then that which Ambrose saith: The bread & wine are the same things,³ that they were, and are changed into an other thing. Or which Gelasius saith: It ceaseth not to be the substance of bread or nature of wine:⁴ or which Theodorete saith, After the sanctification, the mystical signs caste not away their own proper nature, for they remain in their own former substance,⁵ figure and kind: or which Augustine saith, That which you see, is the bread and the cup, the which thing even your eyes do tell you,⁶ but that which your faith coming to be instructed doth require, the bread is the body of Christ, the cup his blood. or which Origen saith,⁷ That bread which is sanctified by the word of God, as concerning the matter, goeth into the belly, and is cast into the withdrawing place. Or which Christ said,⁸ not only after the consecration, but also after the Communion ended: I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine: for it is certain that out of the vine cometh Wine, not blood. Neither yet in saying of these things do we take any thing from the dignity of the