PRAYER BOOK NOT CLEAR ON THE EUCHARIST. 279 firmed the doctrine to be that of the existing Church of Rome—and, therefore, it is that another of my dear friends, the late Professor Keble, is right when he observes, "that persons imbued with Catholic principles, are, in some points, staggered by the tone and wording of the articles."* No mistake is so great as the imagination that the formularies of the existing Church of England were drawn up in opposition only to the Council of Trent and I fear, therefore, that I cannot quite agree with my brother who wrote Tract 90, that the Articles may be signed by those who disapprove of the Council of Trent only. None ought to sign them, who believed in the doctrines which were held by the accusers and Anti-Protestant burners of the Marian victims and my friends, less bold than I am, in the carrying out of their principles, will not act consistently till they leave the Communion which they cannot deny to be Protestant, and form a Communion of their own: and I rejoice to hear my dear friend Keble boldly affirms that the time has come, when we must retire as the non-jurors did from the Church, and form another Communion, unless we can obtain a dispensation from explaining the Thirty-nine Articles in the sense in which they are held by the Bishops who oppose our present interpretation—or if we do not form al : * See the case of Catholic Subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles considered with especial reference to the duties and difficulties of English Catholics in the present crisis-in a letter to Judge Coleridge-by the Rev. John Keble, pp. 6-7. 280 BONNER'S QUESTIONS ON THE EUCHARIST. together a new Communion, we must retire into a diocese where we may teach them in our own, and not in the generally received sense.* It certainly does not seem to me (as one anxious to follow out my principles, and not to disguise them) to be possible for any Christian who believes either that there is an actual sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, or that prayers are to be offered for the dead, or that the Prayer-book of King Edward is an inadequate liturgy for the devotions of the people; to remain in the present Church of England, which was reformed by the rejection of the two first, and by the adoption of the last of these; at the risk, or at the expence of the lives of the Ultra-Protestant Reformers; whom, in common with the Church of Rome, both before, during, and after the Council of Trent, we despise, deride, and abhor. I am sure that I shall be supported in this opinion, by all who consider the exceedingly energetic language in which my dear Bonner, and his coadjutors, uniformly urged upon their absurd victims, the doctrines which he, and I, and my brethren, now approve; but which the martyrs, if I must call them so, with the present Church, in which we still linger, condemned and opposed. All these, from Rogers or Matthews, the translator of the Bible, the first who was burnt in Smithfield, to the last who was burnt at Smithfield, and to the last who were burnt at Canterbury, immediately before the death of Mary, * Keble's Letter, pp. 27-31. ULTRA-PROTESTANTS ON THE EUCHARIST. 281 were questioned on the subject, not of Transubstantiation, as the Council of Trent defined it; but of the sacrifice of the body of Christ, as the Catholic Church received it, and as the existing Church of England condemns the doctrine. "Do you believe," said the Bishop of Carlisle,* to Rogers, the protomartyr, “that in the sacrament is the very body and "blood of Christ? What is our doctrine of the sa"crament?" "False," quoth the martyr. "Do "you believe," said Bonner, to Holland, the last who was burnt at Smithfield, "that after the words of consecration, there remaineth the body of Christ, "really and corporeally under the forms of bread "and wine?-wilt thou confess the real and corpo"real presence of Christ's body in the sacrament?" Much conversation followed: at length said Holland, "I believe the mass, transubstantiation, and the worshipping of the sacrament, to be mere impiety, and "horrible idolatry :" and the Ultra-Protestant was burnt. So also, with the last who were burnt at Canterbury. "They were adjudged to the fire," says the hateful Martyrologist, "for believing the body "of Christ not to be in the sacrament of the altar :"§ and it would be tedious to go through the list, and extract the same accusations in the indictments, or the same sentence pronounced against the delin * Aldrich. † Foxe, vol. vi., pp. 598, 599. Foxe, vol. viii., p. 478. § Foxe, vol. viii., p. 504. 282 BONNER BURNS THE ULTRA-PROTESTANTS FOR quents. "He did not believe," was a part of the sentence against Rogers, "that in the sacrament of "the altar is substantially and really the natural body "and blood of Christ."* "Thou deniest the verity of "Christ's body and blood in the sacrament of the "altar," said Bonner to Causton and Higbed, before he burnt them.† "Is it true that ye speak against "the true presence of Christ's natural body in the "sacrament of the altar ?" said Bonner, to Pigot, Knight, and Lawrence, and they were burnt. "Thou "art of opinion," was alleged against the fanatic who struck the Priest as he was holding the chalice-"that in the sacrament of the altar, after the "words of the consecration, there is not really, "and truly, and in very deed, contained, under the "form of bread, the very true and natural body "of our Saviour,”—and for this, as well as for his indefensible assault, William Flower was burnt.§ "He believeth that the substance of material bread "and wine doth remain in the sacrament of the altar, "after the consecration," was the charge of Bonner against Wats. "He believes," said the Earl of Oxford, when he sent a prisoner to Bonner,"that in the sacrament of the altar, under the forms "of bread and wine, there is not the very substance *Foxe, vol. vi., p. 601. THEIR OPINIONS ON THE Eucharist. 283 "of Christ's body and blood, but only the substance "of material and common bread and wine;"* and the prisoners were burnt. "He hath maintained "heresy, against the blessed sacrament of the altar," said Bonner of Philpotts, and he pulled off his cap with reverence, "he would not allow the real pre"sence of the body and blood of Christ in the same,"† and the learned, eloquent, and unanswerable theologian was consigned to the flames. "Yehave affirmed," said Bonner to seven criminals who were afterwards burned in one fire, "that in the sacrament of the altar "there is none other substance, but only material "bread and wine; and that the substance of Christ's "body and blood is in nowise in the said sacrament "of the altar."‡ "How say you, sirrah," said Bonner to another whom he burnt, "after the words of "consecration, be spoken by the priest, there remain“eth no bread, but the very body of our Saviour Jesus "Christ, God and man, and none other substance "under the form of bread."§ Then followed a conversation on the nature of Christ's body, resembling former conversations on accidents and substances, and the various unintelligibilities which, from Radbert to Newman, now of Oriel College, Oxford, have characterized the disputants on this topic. All these I omit, as well as my dear Bonner's illus *Foxe, vol. vii., p. 140. § Foxe, vol. viii., p. 410. |