A07146:1287
The relics of Rome containing all such matters of religion, as have in times…The reliques of Rome contayning all such matters of religion, as haue in times…
The relics of Rome containing all such matters of religion, as have in times past been brought into the Church by the Pope and his adherents: faithfully gathered out of the most faithful writers of chronicles and histories, and now newly both diligently corrected & greatly augmented, to the singular profit of the readers, by Thomas Becon. 1563.The reliques of Rome contayning all such matters of religion, as haue in times past bene brought into the Church by the Pope and his adherentes: faithfully gathered out of the moste faithful writers of chronicles and histories, and nowe newly both diligently corrected & greatly augmented, to the singuler profit of the readers, by Thomas Becon. 1563.
London: printed by John Day, 1563London: printed by Iohn Day, 1563
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
When the priest pronounceth these words of Christ, Hoc est corpus meum. Hic est sanguis meus. This is my body. This is blood: the bread and wine are converted and turned into flesh & blood, with the power of the word wherewith the word was made flesh,1 & dwelled among us: wherewith he spake, & it was done: he commanded, & they were made: wherewith he changed a woman into a pillar of salt, & turned a rod into a serpent: wherewith he changed the fountains into blood, & turned the water into wine For if the word of Elijah could bring down fire from heaven: shall not the ⟨image 288⟩word of Christ then be able to change bread into flesh? Verily it is a greater thing of nothing to make that is not, than to change that, which already is, into an other thing. Yea it is a greater thing without all comparison, that God is made man, and yet continueth still God, than the bread is so made flesh that it ceaseth to be bread. That was once done by incarnation: but this is continually done by consecration. At the pronouncing therefore of the words of the bread is by the mighty power of god transubstantiated & changed into the substance of flesh. The divine & material substance of this sacrifice is the word, which joined unto the element, maketh a sacrament, as the word united to flesh maketh christ man.2 For it is to be noted, that in the body of christ (he speaketh of the sacrament) xi. miracles are considered, of the which no evident reason can be rendered and showed, although reasons made by similitudes may serve for this purpose. The first is, the bread & wine are turned into the substance into the body & blood of Christ: whereof we already showed certain reasons. An other reason also serveth ⟨p. 260⟩for this purpose. For both corporal meat & drink is made flesh and blood by the means of nature, It followeth therefore much more strongly, that the self nature, that is to say, God is able immediately to make, ye bread should be turned into his body, and the wine into his blood.3 The second miracle is, that the bread is daily transubstantiated into the body of God, & yet there is no augmentation or increasing in God. Reason proveth this thing to be true. For all though I know any secret matter, which I publish to many: although all they through my declaration know it: yet in me alone or in my mind there is never the more augmentation for all this.