[The Pentateuch]

And if a man allege Christ Johan in the. iij▪ chapter saying: Except a man be borne again of water and the holy ghost he can not see the kingdom of God, and will therefore that the holy ghost is present in the water and therefore the very dead or work doth put away sin: then I will send him unto Paul which axeth his Galatians whether they received the holy ghost by the dead of the law or by preaching of faith and there concludeth that the holy ghost accompanieth the preaching of faith, and with the word of faith, entereth the heart and purgeth it, which thou mayst also understand by saint Paul saying: ye are borne ⟨image 179⟩[…] ⟨image 179⟩[…] ⟨image 180⟩a new out of the water through the word. So now if baptism preach me the washing in christs blood, so doth the holy ghost accompany it and that dead of preaching through faith doth put away my since. For the holy ghost is no dome god nor no god that goeth a mumming. If a man say of the sacrament of Christs body and blood that it is a sacrifice as well for the dead as for the quick and therefore the very deed it self justifieth and putteth away sin. I answer that a sacrifice is the slaying off the body of a beest or a man: wherefore if it be a sacrifice, then is christs body there slain and his blood there shed: but that is not so. And therefore it is properly no sacrifice but a sacrament and a memorial of that everlasting sacrifice once for all which he offered upon the cross now upon a .xv. hundred years a go and preacheth only unto them that are alive. And as for them that be dead, it is as profitable unto them as is a candle in a lantern without light unto them that walk by the way in a dark night, and as the gospel song in latin is unto them that understand none at all, and as a sermon preached to him that is dead and hereth it not. It preacheth unto them that are a live only, for they that be dead, if they dyed in the faith which that sacrament preacheth, they ⟨image 180⟩be safe and are past all jeopardy. For when they were alive their hearts loved the law off God and therefore sinned not, and were sorry that their members sinned and ever moved to sin, and therefore through faith it was forgiven them. And now their sinful members be dead, so that they can now sin no more, wherefore it is unto them that be dead nether sacrament nor sacrifice: