CHAPTER XVIII. THE ARCHBISHOP'S JUDGMENT OF THE EUCHARIST. zealous for BUT to return to Cranmer, whose opinion in the point Cranmer of the sacrament we will stay a little upon. He was now the corporal a strong stickler for the carnal presence, and seemed presence. greatly prejudiced to that opinion. There was one Joachim Vadianus, a learned man of St. Gall in Helvetia, and an acquaintance of the archbishop's". He had framed a treatise intituled, "Aphorisms upon the consideration of the Eucharist," in six books; which were intended to prove no corporal presence. This book he presented to the archbishop: but though he loved him as a learned man, yet he declared himself much displeased with his argument; and wrote to him, "that he wished he had employed his study to better purpose, and that he had begun his correspondence with him in some better and more approved subject adding, that he would be neither patron nor approver of that doctrine, until he saw stronger proofs for it." And so much did he dislike Ecolampadius and Zuinglius their opinion in this matter, that he applied that censure of St. Hierome concerning Origen to them; "That where they wrote well, nobody writ better; and where 67 d [Joachim Vadian was born at St. Gall, Switzerland, A. D. 1484, and was celebrated as a scholar and mathematician.] e [Cranmer held this doctrine till A. D. 1546, "when by more mature and calm deliberation, and considering the point with less prejudice, and the sense of the Fathers more closely, in conference with His reasons for it. ill, nobody worse." And he wished those learned men had gone no further than to confute papistical errors and abuses, and had not sown their tares with their good corn." That which detained our archbishop in this error was the veneration he had for the ancient doctors of the church, whose writings, as he then thought, approved the doctrine of this gross presence; judging that none could ever reconcile those authors to the contrary opinion. Indeed he judged it the very doctrine of the Fathers from the beginning of the church: and he reckoned that it must be a truth, because otherwise it could not consist with God's goodness to his spouse, to leave her in such blindness so long. It seemed also that he built this his error upon the words of Scripture, taking the sense of "This is my body" literally. Vadian, by this book, had intended to have brought Cranmer off from this opinion. And before him several attempts had been made that way; but he remained so rooted therein, that he seemed to be ever unmovable. He supposed also, that the giving up this doctrine would prove a great impediment to the work of the Gospel, that now proceeded well in the nation. He advised and beseeched all, both Lutherans and Zuinglians, that the churches of Christ would lay aside their controversies in that matter, and agree and unite in a Christian concord together, that they might propagate one sound pure doctrine, consonant to the discipline of the primitive church; and this would be the way to convert even Turks themselves to the obedience of the Gospel. But I recommend the reader to the archbishop's own letter to the said Vadianus; wherein he may see how fast and firm he stuck to this doctrine in these days. He No. XXV. will find it in the Appendix. Sanders' Sanders, in his lying book of the English schism, would : the arch opinion in ment. make his reader believe that Cranmer was of this opinion slanders of for another reason, namely, because his master king bishop conHenry, thought so: and that he had so devoted himself cerning his to him, that he in all things whatsoever believed, and the sacradid, in conformity to him: giving Cranmer therefore the nickname of Henricianus. But we must attribute that suggestion to the well-known venomous pen of that man, who cared not what he writ, so he might but throw his dirt upon the reformation, and the reformers. The said author with the same malice would have it, that Cranmer was very variable and inconstant, having been first for a corporeal presence, afterwards a Lutheran, and then a Calvinist and that he thus changed his opinion, as a sycophant and flatterer, to comply with every man's humour that was uppermost. That all the time of king Henry, he remained of that king's opinion, who was a vehement enemy to Luther; but when he was dead, he became wholly Lutheran, and put forth a catechism, dedicated to king Edward, and printed it; in which he taught, that every Christian that received the sacrament, either under the bread or in the bread or with the bread, certainly received into his mouth the very true body and blood of Christ. But that scarce a month passed, when the wretch (that is his word) understood that the duke of Somerset, the king's governor, was a Calvinist, and not a Lutheran; what should he do? He printed his 68 catechism again, changed the word; and of an Henrician and a Lutheran became a Calvinistf. f["Atque nunc tempus et patrocinium opportunum ad rem suam bene factitandam nacti hæretici, undique, qui antea se sententiamve suam occultabant, in publicum prodeunt, et imprimis Thomas Cranmerus,―hic vir hactenus Henricianum, id est, When Cranmer But to give a more true and respectful account of our changed his archbishop, as to his continuance in this opinion, and his opinion. change of it. Hitherto we have seen his opinion for a corporeal presence. In the next year, (viz. 1539,) I find one Adam Damplip of Calais, a learned preacher, convented before him, and several other bishops, for not holding the real presences. From which opinion the archbishop, with the rest, did endeavour to bring him. off: though then he marvelled much at the answers that Damplip made, and confessed openly and plainly, that the Scripture knew no such term as transubstantiation". In the year 1541, he had one Barber, a master of arts -iste ergo jam desiit esse Hen- g [For a full account of the persecutions at Calais, in which George Bucker, alias Adam Damplip, was concerned, see Foxe's Acts and Monuments, p. 1223, et sqq. ed. Lond. 1583. A part of an "Original letter from the deputy of Calais and others, touching the examination of one Damplip and Stevens, touching cardinal Poole," anno 30 Hen. VIII. is preserved in the Harl. MSS. 283. fol. 89. British Museum.] h["So that within eight or ten days after, the said Damlip was sent for to appear before the bishop of Canterbury, with whom was assistant Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, D. Sampson, bishop of Chichester, and divers other, before whom he most constantly affirmed and defended the doctrine, which he had taught, in such sort answering, confuting, and soluting the objections, as his adversaries, yea, even among other, the learned, godly, and blessed martyr Cranmer, then yet but a Lutheran, marvelled at it, and said plainly that the Scripture knew no such term of transubstantiation.”Foxe's Acts and Monuments, p. 1224. ed. Lond. 1583.] Mon. p. of Oxford, brought before him for denying the said corporeal presence: the archbishop disputed again earnestly for that doctrine against this man, yet could not but admire at his readiness in citing his places out of St. Augustin, nor could tell how to confute them, as Mr. Ralph Morice, his secretary, related afterward to John Foxe. And this tenet he held to the very last year of Acts and king Henry, that is, to the year 1546: when, by more 1101. mature and calm deliberation, and considering the point with less prejudice, and the sense of the Fathers more closely, in conference with Dr. Ridley, afterwards bishop of Rochester, and his fellow-martyr, he at last quitted and freed himself from the fetters of that unsound doctrine; as appears by the epistle dedicatory before his book of the Sacrament in Latin, printed by the exiles at Embden. Which epistle we may give credit to, being i ["In Oxford also the same time, (A. D. 1541), or much thereabout, recanted one M. Barber, master of arts of that university, a man excellently learned, who, being called up to Lambeth before the archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, was in his examination so stout in the cause of the sacrament, and so learnedly defended himself therein, that, (as it is credibly affirmed of them, which yet be alive, and were present thereat), neither Cranmer himself, nor all they could well answer to his allegations brought out of Austin; wherein he was so prompt and ripe of himself, that the archbishop, with the residue of his company, were brought in great admiration of him. Notwithstanding by compulsion of the time, and j["Ne quis autem putet, hunc |