[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…

[…] faults, and very apparent to those which understand what sacraments are, and do know the nature of them, and also that of the body and of the blood of Jesus Christ, and of the union and the distinction of his divine & human natures in the person of him. The first is, touching the manner of expounding the sacramental words of the supper. The 2. concerning the signs of the same, and the abolishing of them. The 3. concerning the things that they signify. For the first they give to the sacramental words, by Jesus Christ pronounced in the Supper, an exposition altogether new and strange, which cannot in any wise agree with any kind of sacramental speech, that is in all the holy scripture, like unto that which Jesus Christ hath used in the Supper. For first of a sacramental proposition, they will make a natural proposition.¹ By mean whereof they have already overthrown the nature of the Sacraments. For if I say of the bread of the Supper, This bread is the body of Christ, there is no appearance to take it naturally so, as when I say, Jesus Christ is man, and Jesus Christ is God: but this proposition must be taken sacramentally, forsomuch as we must always take the signification of the terms & words which men do use, according to the matter whereof men speak & the nature of the same. Wherefore if men speak of natural things, ⟨image 33⟩the words must be taken naturally, but if men speak of spiritual and sacramental things, they must be understood spiritually and sacramentally.² If there be then sundry sorts of sacramental speeches in the scripture, like to that which Jesus Christ did use in the Supper, there is no reason to take them in one sense in some sacraments, and in an other clean contrary in some others, for so much as the matter is always sacramental, and the manners of speech always like. And on the other side, it is a great fault to take the words in their proper and natural signification, when they should be understood by figure, and that the meaning of them cannot be true otherwise, as they ought to be understood chiefly for two causes in the speech of Jesus Christ in the Supper, which words are at this day in controversy. The first is because that all other manners of sacramental speeches like unto this may not be otherwise understood, nor also divers others which resemble them.