[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 xx.

Of the ground of the error of transubstantiation, & of the absurdities which follow the same, and of the application of the sacramental words to those persons which are capable, and what faith there is there required.

Of the ground of the errour of transsubstanciation, & of the absurdities which followe the same, and of the application of the sacramental words to those persons which are capablc, and what faith there is there required.

But the Romaine doctors, having not well understood the meaning nor the manners of speech of the ancient doctors, have taken them for a change of one substance into an other in stead of taking them for the change which is in the use thereof.¹ It is no marvel at all if they be fallen into that error, seeing that they have so il understood the nature of the sacrament of the supper, that not only they have converted it into a sacrifice in their mass, but also they have made it a sacrament of the altar, the which they account for a sacrament, yea when it is out of the use thereof. Wherefore seeing they know not what the true use of the supper is, no more have they well understood what was the change of the signs in the same, in respect of their proper use. For that cause even as they have changed their use into an other wholly new and strange, by their doctrine and invention, even so have they found out an other new sort of change, of the substance of the signs of the supper, into the substance of the thing signified by them, against the doctrine and the usage of all the ancient Church. This ignorance and new invention hath been the cause of great and filthy errors and abuses of the transubstantiation, and of the infinite absurdities that the same draweth after it. We must then first note, Note. in what sort the word is adjoined to the matter of the signs,