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further but good men do eat the very true Body both sacramentally and spiritually by grace.'

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On the next morning, Wednesday, at eight of the clock, in the same place appeared the third of the insuperable cohort. Latimer's great age, for he was eighty, his poor condition, for he was ill clad, his weakness, for he was faint, moved to compassion; his petition that he might not tarry long, to brevity: and in less than three hours his examination was at an end. He aimed, according to the purpose that he had previously expressed to Ridley, less to maintain by argument than to exhibit in a sufficient exposition his faith: and he termed his written answers to the three Articles a Protestation, not an Explication. He had written at considerable length, putting forth some lively sallies, some verbal play, some familiarities of expression, that were characteristic. It was part Latin, part English: it contained some things that were in his Conferences with Ridley: he took the opportunity of explaining that by the four marrowbones of the mass, the phrase that had caused so much offence at his preliminary examination on the Saturday before, he meant, "the popish consecration," transubstantiation, "the missal oblation," and the adoration. Alluding, it would seem, to some of the recent severities, he observed that if "the transubstantiators" had a nail driven through one of their ears every time they offered, they would soon cease offering: that if offering brought no gain, it would not be done so often, for that they said, No penny, no paternoster: that they who preached the Gospel might live of the Gospel, as St. Paul said: but that there was no mention made of a new kind of sacrificing priest, nor a living provided for sacrificing priests in Christ's Will: and that therefore sacrificing priests should now cease for ever that sacrileging, he should have said sacrificing, priests should stand from the altar, having no authority

to offer Christ: that nevertheless, lest he should be thought to make the Sacrament nothing else but a bare sign, he acknowledged therein a spiritual presence, which was sufficient for a Christian man: and that this might be called a real Presence. He said besides that Weston might come to be of the age and weakness that he was himself, and would be loth to be used as he was, with no one to help him to mend his hose or his coat; that he who had but one pair of hose had need sometimes to have them mended: that he had spoken in his time before two kings more than once, two or three hours together without interruption, but that on Saturday he had not been suffered to declare his faith for a quarter of an hour without interruption such as he had never heard the like but that this trouble had brought him to one thing, and that was to be acquainted with Doctor Weston, whom he had never seen before, nor thought to be so great a clerk for that in all King Edward's time he was a curate beside Bishopgate, and content to feed his flock with the doctrine that he now called heresy: and now that he was sent to judge them of the same! You," he exclaimed, "that be here sent to judge our faith, be not learned indeed, I mean not aright, because ye know not Christ and His pure word. It is nothing but plain ignorance to know many things without Christ and His Gospel."

*

66

There are several considerably variant originals of this Protestation. The longest is given by Strype (vi. 288, Originals, No. XXXIV.) from the Foxii MSS. This is reprinted by the Parker Soc. in Latimer's Remains. It is said to have been "faithfully translated out of Latin into English." Fox also published the Protestation, but not so fully, and with considerable variations. If Fox translated from the Harleian manuscript 422, No. 16 (which is one of the Foxii MSS.), he did not follow it exactly. And it is observable that in a subsequent edition of Fox in the next century, of the year 1684, Fox's first version has been altered into an exact translation of the Harleian manuscript. The Harleian manuscript itself, which is mostly Latin, has been published in Latimer's Remains, Park. Soc. p. 479. It

Of this Protestation a part only was read by the Prolocutor, who then asked Latimer, since he would not dispute, whether he would subscribe. Upon his refusal, there ensued nevertheless a sort of disputation; of which some particulars, that are of historical concernment, may be given. Latimer denied that there was a mass in the English service book, but a communion. Being asked which communion, the first or the last, he said that he found no diversity in them, but liked the last very well, and could not remember wherein they differed. "Then," said Weston, "cake bread and loaf bread are all one with you." The Prolocutor finished a passage, in which no great learning was displayed on either side, by remarking that "throughout the whole heretical translated Bible" there was no mention made of priests save in the putting of the Saviour to death. He then called on the opponent, who was Doctor Smith, to fall to argument and Smith began with a question on the Presence. Latimer replied that he had already given his mind in writing to the Prolocutor: and that, as for disputing, his memory was clean gone and marvellously weakened. He added with truth that he had not been long in his present opinion of the Sacrament, not above seven years that he had been a papist, but never a Lutheran; for that he could never perceive how Luther could defend his opinion without transubstantiation: and that he had been especially confirmed by Cranmer's seems likely that this contains the Protestation which Latimer produced at the disputation. The Parker Editor has collated two other MSS. in Cambridge college libraries (p. 250): and has also carefully noted the differences between the former and the latter. Fox.

* I need hardly remind the reader that in the First Book of Edward the bread was ordered to be unleavened and round, as it was used to be, but something thicker than it was: and that in the Second Book, "to take away the superstition which any person had or might have in the bread," it was ordered to be ordinary bread of the finest and purest wheat flour.

book. In truth Latimer was one of the survivors of the band of the earlier Gospellers, to which such men as Bilney and Barnes belonged, whose zeal was awakened by the various abuses of the old system, rather than by the Sacramental question.* He seems at one time to have been rather conspicuous for his maintenance of the corporal Presence. "Ye have said Mass at Greenwich full devoutly," said Weston to him: and Tresham, “I myself have heard you preaching at Greenwich before King Henry, where ye did openly affirm that no Christian man ought to doubt of the true and real Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament." Latimer now gave utterance to the same opinion that had been alleged by Cranmer and Ridley: of the Real Presence in the sacramental sense: and Weston, for Weston again chiefly maintained the conversation, sharply asked whether he (who had avowed himself once a papist) were not still a papist, bringing in unscriptural terms: "Where find you that sacramentaliter in God's word? This was a fair retort. He then called on Cartwright to dispute, as one who had once been of the same mind with the respondent: on Nicholas Cartwright, who in the last reign had stood in the same place against his present allies, when he voluntarily auxiliated Peter Martyr: but who on the accession of Mary had abjured. He being now put forward addressed Latimer in Latin thus: "Reverend father, because it is given me in commandment to dispute with you, I will do it gladly. But first understand, before we go any further, that I was once in the same error that you are in: but I am sorry

* See Vol. I. p. 118 huj. oper.

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† On the other side Peter Martyr had formerly objected to the words matter and substance, as not being Scriptural. Vol. III. p. 115 huj. oper.

The "Original Abjuration of Nic. Cartwright, Vicar of Nuneaton," is in the Foxii MSS. in the Harleian Libr. vol. 421, No. 42.

for it, and do confess myself to have erred: I acknowledge mine offence, and wish and pray that you also may repent with me." Latimer replied with blunt scorn that it was pain of the law, or poena legis, that had brought back Doctor Cartwright, converted him, made him recant that the same argument had converted many others that it was a great argument, which few that were there present could dissolve. "That is not my case," answered Cartwright, "the argument that converted me is that if the true Body of Christ be not really in the Sacrament, all the whole Church hath erred from the apostles' time "-"Ecclesia papistica erravit et errat"; replied Latimer in his mingled Latin English, “I think for the space of six or seven hundred years there was no mention made of any eating but spiritually: for before these five hundred years the Church did ever confess a spiritual manducation. But Ecclesia Romana peperit errorem transubstantiationis. My lord of Canterbury's book handleth that very well, and by him I could answer you, if I had him :" Cartwright said that "Linus and all the rest" were on his side; alleged one passage from St. Augustine: and said no more. Smith returned to the field with a passage of St. Cyril: " of which,” said Latimer, "the solution is in my lord of Canterbury's book."-" Cyril was no papist," persisted Smith, "and yet he saith that Christ dwelleth in us corporally: but you say spiritually."-"I say both," answered Latimer: "spiritually by faith, and corporally by taking our flesh upon him. I remember I have read this in my lord of Canterbury's book."-"Your learning," broke in Weston, "is let out to farm, and shut up in my lord of Canterbury's book. So here is a place of St. Ambrose for you, and another out of Chrysostom."-"I am not ashamed to acknowledge mine ignorance," replied Latimer, "and these testimonies are more than I can

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