death?  And if they say also that they make the spiritual body of Christ, it may not be so, for what Christ said and did, He did as He was at supper before He suffered His passion; as it is written that the spiritual body of Christ rose again from death to life.  Also that He ascended up to heaven, and that He will abide there till He come to judge the quick and the dead.  And if they say that they make Christ’s body as it was before He had suffered His passion, then must they needs grant that Christ is to die yet.  For by all Holy Scriptures He was promised to die, and that He should give lordship of everlasting life.

Furthermore, if they say that Christ made His body of bread, I ask, With what words made He it?  Not with these words, Hoc est corpus meum; that is to say in English, “This is my body,” for they are the words of giving, and not of making, which He said after that He brake the bread; then parting it among His disciples and apostles.  Therefore if Christ had made of that bread His body, [He] had made it in His blessing, or else in giving of thanks, and not in the words of giving; for if Christ had spoken of the material bread that He had in His hands when He said, Hoc est corpus meum, “This is my body,” it was made before, or else the word had been a lie.  For if I say, This is my hand, and if it be not a hand, then am I a liar; therefore seek carefully if ye can find two words of blessing, or of giving of thanks, wherewith Christ made his body and blood of the bread and wine.  And that all the clerks of the earth know not, for if ye might find or know those words, then should ye wax great masters above Christ, and then ye might be givers of His substance, and as fathers and makers of Him, and that He should worship you, as it is written, Thou shalt worship thy father and mother.  Of such as desire such worship against God’s law, speaketh St. Paul of the man of sin, that enhanceth himself as if he were God.  And he is worshiped over all things as God, and showeth himself as he were God.  Where our clergy are guilty in this, judge ye or they that know most, for they say that when ye have said, Hoc est corpus meum, that is to say, “This is my body;” which ye call the words of consecration, or else of making; and when they are said over the bread, ye say that there is left no bread, but it is the body of the Lord.  So that in the bread there remaineth nothing but a heap of accidents, as witness ruggedness, roundness, savor, touching, and tasting, and such other accidents.  Then, if thou sayest that the flesh and blood of Christ, that is to say, his manhood, is made more, or increased by so much as the ministration of bread and wine is, the which ye minister—­if ye say it is so—­then thou must needs consent that the thing which is not God today shall be God tomorrow; yea, and that the thing which is without spirit of life, but groweth in the field by kind, shall be God at another time.  And we all ought to believe that He was without beginning, and without ending; and not made, for if the manhood of Christ were increased every day by so much as the bread and wine draweth to that ye minister, He should increase more in one day by cart-loads than He did in thirty-two years when He was here in earth.