[The principal points which are at this day in controversy, concerning the holly supper…[The principal points which are at this daye in controuersie, concerning the holly supper…

Chapter. 1.

Of the principal reasons whereupon they ground them selves which maintain the Mass, and of the weight of them.

Of the principal reasons whereupō they ground them selues which mainteine the Masse, and of the waight of them.

IT is no marvel if they which have been nourished under the Mass even from their childhood, are greatly offended when they hear the same blamed and condemned as a false service by the which God is dishonoured and blasphemed, seeing that the same hath been accounted heretofore for the most holy thing that ever was in the world, since the first creation thereof. And in deed they should have just cause to be offended in that behalf, if the reasons which cause them to have such opinion of the holiness thereof, were so certain & true as they think them to be, and cause them selves to believe, for so much as they have been so ⟨image 2⟩instructed. For first they have been taught that it was instituted and celebrated by Jesus Christ him self: and afterward continued by his Apostles, & consequently by all their successors from age to age, even from the first institution of the same even until our time. And then they do consider the matter whereof all the pieces of the same are composed, the which they do think to be all taken out of the holy Scripture, because that some of those pieces are taken from thence. And therefore they say, Have you not in it the Epistle & the Gospel, and the Pater noster, and the Credo? Are not these good things? Behold then three reasons of very great appearances which they do allege for them selves, of the which the first is taken of the institution of the Mass, and of the author of the same: and the second of his long continuance, which is as they think even from the death and passion of Jesus Christ until our age: & the third is taken of the matter of the good and holy words & things whereof it is composed. If all these reasons were true and well grounded upon trueth, they were worthy of great account. For, for the first, how great a crime is it to reject and condemn the ordinances of the Son of God? And afterward what a pride were it, to make so small account of the common consent of the whole Church of God, and of so many holy men, and of so long a time? And on the other