A reply to an answer made of M. Doctor Whitgifte Against the admonition to…A replye to an ansvvere made of M. Doctor VVhitgifte Against the admonition to…

Also in the council of Braccara it ¹was decreed / that if any entering into the church of God / heard the Scriptures / and afterward of wantonness or looseness / withdrew him self from the communion of the sacrament / and so brake the rule of discipline in the reverend sacraments / should be put out of the church / till such time as he had by good fruits declared his repentance.

Also in the councell of Braccara it ¹was decreed / that if any entring into the church of God / heard the Scriptures / and afterward of wantonnes or losenes / wythdrewe hym selfe from the communion of the sacrament / and so brake the rule of discipline in the reuerende sacraments / should be put out of the church / till such time as he had by good frutes declared hys repentaunce.

1. 1Conc. 2. Bracca cap. 83. tom. 2.

But here also may rise an other doubt of the former words of Moses in the book of Numbers / for seeing that he maketh this exception (if they be clean) it may be said / that those that depart / do not feel themselves mete to receive / and therefore depart / the other .iij. or .iiij. or moe / feel themselves meet and disposed for that purpose: whereupon it may seem that it is neither reason to compel those to come / which feel not themselves meet / nor to reject them that feel that good disposition and preparation in themselves. For answer whereunto / we must understand that the uncleanness which Moses speaketh of / was such as men could not easily avoid / and whereunto they might fall sometimes by necessary duty / as by handling their dead / which they were by the rule of charity bound to bury / sometimes by touching at unawares a dead body / or by sitting in the place where some unclean body had sitten / or by touching such things which the law judged unclean / which thing cannot be alleged in those that are now of the church. For as many as be of it / and withal of such discretion as are able to prove and examine themselves / can have no excuse at all / if they may be at the church / to withdraw themselves from the holy supper of the Lord. For if they will say that they be not meet / it may be answered unto them / that it is their own fault: and further / if they be not meet to receive the holy sacrament of the supper / they are not meet to hear the word of God / they are not meet to be partakers of the prayers of the church / and if they be for one / they are also for the other. For with that boldness / and with that duty or lawfulness (I speak of those which are of the church / and of discretion to examine themselves) I say with what lawfulness they may offer themselves to the prayers / and to the hearing of the word of God /