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For these at least no terror could compel

To turn from being comrades on my way; The glory once of green and joyous youth, They comfort now my sad days of decay. For hasting Age, unlooked for, comes with ills, And Grief has claimed her turn of rule within; Gray hairs, too soon, are scattered on my head, On the spent frame quivers the wrinkled skin. Happy the Death that breaks not on man's years Of joy, and hastens when the mourner cries: Alas, his ears are deaf to the distressed! Cruel, he will not close the weeping eyes! When fickle Fortune blessed me with light good, Hardly a sad hour passed over my head; Now that her cloud has changed its doubtful face Unkindly life delays me from the dead. Why did you, friends, so often boast my bliss? He who has fallen, always stood amiss.

This is the version in First English :

Hwæt ic lióda fela lustlice geó

sang on sælum!

nu scéal siófigende

wópe gewæged

wreccea giómor singan sarcwidas.

Me thiós siccetung hafath agæled, thes geocsa, that ic tha ged ne mæg gefégean swa fægre, theáh ic fela gió tha sette sothewida,

thonne ic on sælum wæs. Oft ic nu miscyrre

cuthe spræce
and theáh uncuthre

ær hwílum fond!

Me thas world sæltha

welhwas blindne
on this dimme hol
dysigne forlæddon
and me berypton
rædes and frofre

for heora untreówum,
the ic him æfre betst
truwian sceolde:
hi me to wendon

Ecce mihi laceræ dictant scribenda Camena,
Et veris elegi fletibus ora rigant.
Has saltem nullus potuit pervincere terror,
Ne nostrum comites prosequerentur iter;
Gloria felicis olim viridisque juverstæ!
Solantur mæsti nunc mea fata senis.
Venit enim properata malis inopina senectus,
Et dolor ætatem jussit inesse suam.
Intempestivi funduntur vertice cani,

Et tremit effeto corpore laxa cutis.
Mors hominum felix, quæ se nec dulcibus annis
Inserit, et mæstis sæpè vocata venit.
Eheu, quàm surdâ miseros avertitur aure,
Et flenteis oculos claudere sæva negat!
Dùm levibus malefida bonis fortuna faveret,
Pænè caput tristis merserat hora meum.
Nunc, quia fallacem mutavit nubila vultum,
Protrahit ingratas impia vita moras.
Quid me felicem toties jactastis amici?
Qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu,

heora bacu bitere

and heora blisse from! Forhwam wolde ge weoruldfrýnd mine, secgan oththe singan, that ic gesællic mon wære on weorulde? Ne synt tha word soth, nu tha gesæltha ne magon simle gewunigan.

King Alfred died at the beginning of the tenth century, and not long after his time there was a remarkable effort for the revival of a strict monas ticism, led by two men of like age, born in or about the year 925-Ethelwold and Dunstan. Dunstan in the year 947, twenty-two years old, became Abbot of Glastonbury, and Ethelwold joined his establishment until he received charge over the small ruined Abbey of Abingdon, with means for its re-establishment. In the year 953, Ethelwold was consecrated Bishop of Winchester by Dunstan, who had become Archbishop of Canterbury. Ethelwold rebuilt his cathedral at Winchester, and Archbishop Dunstan dedicated the new structure to St. Swithin, who had been Bishop of Winchester between the years 852 and 862, and who had been buried, by his own desire, outside his old church of St. Peter and St. Paul, where "the feet of passengers and droppings from the eaves" should beat upon his grave. The removal of his relics into the cathedral consecrated in his name was preceded by miracles, of which an account, written about the year 985, appears upon three old leaves preserved in the library of Gloucester Cathedral. These and three other old leaves of First English on the story of Saint Maria Egyptiaca. which are also at Gloucester, have been copied by photo-zincography, and published, with elaborate elucidations and appendices, by the Rev. John Earle, under the name of "Gloucester Fragments." This is the record on the leaves detailing

MIRACLES OF ST. SWITHIN.

Three years before the saint was brought into the church from the stone coffin, which now stands within the new building, came the venerable Swithin to an aged smith, appearing in dream worthily apparelled, and spoke these words to him: "Knowest thou the priest who is called Eadsige. who was driven out of the old minster with other priests for their misconduct by Bishop Athelwold?" The smith answered the venerable Swithin thus: "Sir, I knew him long ago, but he went hence, and I am not quite sure where he lives now." Then said again the holy man to the old smith: "Verily, he is now settled at Winchelcombe, and I now entreat, in the Lord's name, that you quickly deliver to him my message, and say to him, forsooth, that Bishop Swithin bade him go to Bishop Athelwold and say that he is himself to open my tomb and bring my bones within the church, because it is granted to him that in his time I be manifested to men." And the smith said to him, "O), sir, he will not believe my words." Then said the bishop again. "Let him go to my tomb, and pull a ring out of my coffin: and if the ring follow him at the first pull, then will he know for truth that I send you to him; if the ring will not up with his one pull, then shall he in no wise believe what you

tell him. Tell him, furthermore, to put himself right in his acts and manners, according to his Lord's will, and hasten with a single mind towards eternal life. Also tell all men that as soon as ever they open my tomb, they will find there such a precious hoard that their dear gold is worth naught as against the foresaid treasures." The holy Swithin then went up from the smith. And the smith durst not tell any man the vision, for he would not be known as a false-speaking messenger, so that the holy man spoke to him again, and yet the third time, and chid him severely, because he would not actively obey his orders. The smith next went to his tomb, and took a ring, though but timidly; and called to God speaking in words thus: "O thou Lord God, Creator of all creatures, grant to me sinful that I pull the ring up from this lid, if he lie here within who spoke to me three times in dream." He then drew the ring up from the stone as easily as if it were in sand, and he greatly wondered at that. He then set it again in the same hole and pressed it with his feet, and it stood so firm again that no man could pull it thence. Then the smith went from that place in awe, and met Eadsige's man in the market-place, and told him exactly what Swithin bade him, and earnestly begged that he would report it to him. He said that he would tell it to his master, and nevertheless durst not tell him at first, before he bethought him that it was not necessary for him to hide from his master the saint's command. He then told to the end what Swithin commanded him. At that time Eadsige shunned Bishop Athelwold, and all the monks that had been in the minster, because of the driving out that he had executed against them; and he would not obey the saint's bidding, though after the flesh he was related to him. Nevertheless, he turned back within two years to that same minster, and became a monk, by God's means, and dwelt there till he departed from life. Blessed be the Almighty who humbles the proud, and lifts up the lowly to high honours.

By report of this and other miracles honour was added to the name of Swithin when it was proposed to remove his bones and enshrine them in the new cathedral. The sick were said to be healed at the rate of from three to eighteen a day, and it was not easy to get into the new minster for the press of diseased people in the burial-ground.

Elfric, the son of a Kentish earl, was one of the first who had entered the monastic school at Abingdon when Æthelwold re-established it, and the reconstruction was complete, in the 950. year When Ethelwold went to Winchester, Elfric, who from pupil had become a teacher, went with him, managed the cathedral school, and laid foundations of the fame of the town as a place of education. He wrote for use of his school and of other schools, a LatinEnglish Dictionary and a book of Latin "Colloquies." He also translated into First English most of the books of the Old Testament. When the Abbey of Cerne, in Dorsetshire, was founded, Æthelmer, its founder, strongly desired the famous Elfric for its abbot, and he left Winchester to become Abbot of Cerne. In this office probably he died; though some have identified him with that Elfric who in the year 995 passed from the bishopric of Wilton to the archbishopric of Canterbury, and died in the year 1006; while others make him the Elfric who died Archbishop of York in the year 1051, though Abbot Elfric could hardly have been born later than A.D. 930, if he was one of Ethelwold's first monks

at Abingdon. Certain it is that when he produced the work by which he is especially remembered-the last important contribution to religious literature in First-English times-Elfric was Abbot of Cerne.

He completed, in the year 990, a series of forty Homilies, forming a harmony of the doctrinal opinions of the Fathers, as the English Church in his time accepted them, set forth in sermons, addressed to the understandings of the people. Sigeric, then Archbishop of Canterbury, issued these Homilies for general use, and Elfric compiled a second series of forty Sermons on the Saints, whose days were kept by the First-English Church.

One of the most interesting of the sermons in the first series is that on Easter Day, for the great prominence given to it early in Elizabeth's reign as evidence that upon one main point then in dispute, the ancient Church of England agreed with the Reformers. Elfric based the doctrinal part of this sermon on a treatise by Ratramnus,' a monk of the abbey of Corbie, who was contemporary with John Scotus Erigena in the time of Charles the Bald. The Queen's first archbishop, the learned Matthew Parker, sought to revive the study of First English, chiefly that men might find in Elfric's Homilies what opinions were really ancient in the English Church. John Day, the printer through whom the archbishop worked in such matters, had a fount of

1 Ratramnus, or Bertram, a French monk of Corbie, who died soon after the year 868, took active part in the discussions of his time, and acquired great reputation for his learning and his lively style. They won from him no promotion in the Church, and he had no very good will either to his own abbot, Paschasius Radbertus, or to Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims. He argued against Hincmar on the subject of predestination, and against Radbert upon transubstantiation. His argument, "De Corpore et Sanguine Domini," was in the form of a letter to Charles the Bald, said in the first printed edition of the work (at Cologne in 1532) to be Charlemagne, who had asked the monk for his opinion on the mystery of the sacrament. The doctrine of this little work is precisely followed by Ælfric when he speaks of the mystery of the housell, and in some parts the English Homilist is little more than a translator; but of that considerable part of the English sermon which treats of the Paschal Lamb there is, of course, nothing in the treatise of Ratramnus, and when Ælfric comes to take the argument of Ratramnus on the real presence he is repeating it in his own way more briefly, and with freshness of manner. Ratramnus quoted authorities in some detail-Augustine, Isidore, Ambrose, Jerome; thus sheltering himself against attack on the ground of heresy, and so effectually, that although afterwards assailed-he was in his own time appointed by the French Church to reply to the attacks of Photius upon the Catholic faith. Elfric, exposed to no such danger, simply adopted the view of the French monk, and gave in a homily the pith of the treatise of Ratramnus as the doctrine of the English Church upon the Eucharist. It may be added that this treatise of Ratramnus, "De Corpore et Sanguine Domini," first printed in 1532, had attracted the attention of English reformers before Matthew Parker caused the translation of Elfric's EasterDay Sermon. An English translation of Ratramnus, by Sir Humphrey Lynde, was "Imprynted at London in saynt Andrewes paryshe in the waredropt, by Thomas Raynalde and Anthony Kyngstone," entitled "The Boke of Barthram Priest intreatinge of the bodye and bloude of Christ, wryten to greate Charles the Emperour, and set forth vii.C. years agoo, and Imprinted An. dni. M.D.XLviii." When the argument between the Churches was again pressing, in the reign of James II., two years before the English Revolution, there was produced by William Hopkins, Prebend of Worcester, "The Book of Bertram, or Ratramnus, Priest and Monk of Corbey, concerning the Body and Blood of the Lord, in Latine: With a New English Translation, more exact than the former. Also, An Historical Dissertation concerning the Author and this Work; wherein both are vindicated from the Exceptions of the Writers of the Church of Rome." This version was made by Hopkins in 1681. It was published in 1686. The Dissertation was by Dr. Peter Allix.

Saxon types, and this Easter sermon of Ælfric's having been translated was printed by him, the original text and translation upon opposite pages, in the year 1567, with a preface by J. Josseline, which dwelt on the archbishop's reason for giving it publicity. The preface, in supplying some account of Elfric, distinguishes the author of the Grammar and of the Homilies, whom he finds always called "Abbot," from Elfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, while admitting that they might be the same person. He says " Truly this Ælfric we here speak of was equal in time to Elfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, as may certainly appear to him that will well consider, when Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, and Wulfsine, Bishop of Sherborne, lived, unto whom Ælfric writeth the Saxon epistles from which the words concerning the Sacrament hereafter following be taken.' And the certainty of this consideration may well be had out of William of Malmesbury 'De Pontificibus,' and out of the subscription of bishops to the grants, letters patents, and charters of Æthelrede, who reigned king of England at this time. Howbeit whether this Elfricke and Ælfricke Archbishop of Canterbury was but one and the same man, I leave it to other men's judgments further to consider: for that, writing here to Wulfstane, he nameth himself but Abbot, and yet Elfricke, Archbishop of Canterbury, was promoted to his archbishop's stole six years before that Wulfstane was made Archbishop of York." It is evident that Archbishop Matthew Parker separated Abbot Elfric, the author, grammarian, and homilist, from that Elfric who was in the abbot's time Archbishop of Canterbury. The preface to the translation of Elfric's "Sermon on the Sacrament" was followed by a warranty for it, signed by the two archbishops and thirteen bishops of the English Church, "with divers other personages of honour and credit subscribing their names, the record whereof remains in the hands of the most reverend father Matthew, Archbishop of Canterbury."

This is the sermon:

EASTER-DAY.

SERMON of the Paschal Lamb, and of the
Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ our
Saviour, written in the old Saxon Tongue

before the Conquest, and appointed in the reign of the Saxons to be spoken unto the People at Easter before they should receive the Communion, and now first translated into our common English speech.

Men beloved, it hath been often said unto you about our Saviour's Resurrection, how he on this present day, after his suffering, mightily rose from death. Now will we open unto you through God's grace, of the holy housell,3 which ye

1 These passages, with "the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, in the Saxon and English Tongue," were given as an appendix to the Sermon.

Initial from a MS. of Bede's History. Cotton. MSS., Tiberius, C. ii.

Housell (First-English "húsl;" Icelandic "húsl "), the sacrament. The word was disused after the Reformation, but was familiar until then, and although of Teutonic origin, had never been applied to

should now go unto, and instruct your understanding about this mystery, both after the old covenant, and also after the new, that no doubting may trouble you about this lively

food. The Almighty God bade Moses, his captain in the land of Egypt, to command the people of Israel to take for every family a lamb of one year old, the night they departed out of the country to the Land of Promise, and to offer the lamb to God, and after to kill it, and to make the sign of the cross with the lamb's blood upon the side-posts and the upper posts of their door, and afterwards to eat the lamb's flesh roasted, and unleavened bread with wild lettuce. God saith unto Moses, Eat of the lamb nothing raw, nor sodden in water, but roasted with fire. Eat the head, and the feet, and the inwards, and let nothing of it be left, till the morning: if anything thereof remain, that shall you burn with fire. Eat it in this wise. Gird your loins, and do your shoes on your feet, have your staves in your hands, and eat it in haste. This time is the Lord's passover. And there was slain on that night in every house throughout Pharaoh's reign, the firstborn child: and God's people of Israel were delivered from the sudden death through the lamb's offering, and his blood's marking. Then said God unto Moses, Keep this day in your remembrance, and hold it a great feast in your kindreds with a perpetual observation, and eat unleavened bread always at this feast. After this deed God led the people of Israel over the Red Sea with dry foot, and drowned therein Pharaoh, and all his army, together with their possessions, and fed afterwards the Israelites forty years with heavenly food, and gave them water out of the hard rock, until they came to the promised land. Part of this story we have treated in another place, part we shall now declare, to wit, that which belongeth to the holy housell. Christian men may not now keep that old law bodily; but it behoveth them to know what it ghostly signifieth. 4 innocent lamb which the old Israelites did then kill, had signification after ghostly understanding of Christ's suffering, who unguilty shed his holy blood for our redemption. Hereof sing God's servants at every mass:

That

"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis." That is in our speech, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Those Israelites were delivered from that sudden death, and from Pharaoh's bondage, by the lamb's offering, which signified Christ's suffering through which we be delivered from everlasting death, and from the devil's cruel reign, if we rightly believe in the true redeemer of the whole world, Christ the Saviour. That lamb was offered in the evening, and our Saviour suffered in the sixth age of this world. This age of this corruptible world is reckoned unto the evening. They marked with the lamb's blood upon the doors, and the upper posts Tau, that is the sign of the cross, and were so defended from the angel that killed the Egyptians' first-born child. And we ought to mark our foreheads and our bodies with the token of

heathen sacrifices. The Mosogothic in Ulfilas is "hunsl," an offering; "hunsljan," to offer; "hunslastaths," the altar. The word "housell" is used in "Hamlet," act i., sc. 5:

"Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneled."

* Ghostly, spiritually; First-English, "gást," the breath, a spirit. So the Holy Ghost - the Holy Spirit.

5 Here Matthew Parker's translator of Ælfric's sermon adds a sidenote-"No such sign commanded by God in that place of Scripture, but it was the blood that God did look upon.”- Exod. xii. 23.

"Understand this as that of St. Paul (Ephe. 2). Christ reconcried both to God in one body through his cross." Side-note of the Eliza bethan trauslator.

Christ's rood, that we may be also delivered from destruction, when we shall be marked both on forehead and also in heart with the blood of our Lord's suffering. Those Israelites ate the lamb's flesh at their Easter time, when they were delivered, and we receive ghostly Christ's body, and drink his blood, when we receive with true belief that holy housell. That time they kept with them at Easter seven days with great worship, when they were delivered from Pharaoh and went from that land. So also Christian men keep Christ's resurrection at the time of Easter these seven days, because through his suffering and rising we be delivered, and be made clean by going to this holy housell, as Christ saith in his gospel, Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye have no life in you except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him, and hath that everlasting life: and I shall raise him up in the last day. I am the lively bread, that came down from heaven, not so as your forefathers ate that heavenly bread in the wilderness, and afterward died. He that eateth this bread, he liveth for ever. He blessed bread before his suffering, and divided it to his disciples, thus saying, Eat this bread, it is my body, and do this in my remembrance. Also he blessed wine in one cup, and said, Drink ye all of this. This is my blood, that is shed for many, in forgiveness of sins. The Apostles did as Christ commanded, that is, they blessed bread and wine to housell again afterwards in his remembrance. Even so also since their departure all priests by Christ's commandment do bless bread and wine to housell in his name with the Apostolic blessing.

Now men have often searched, and do yet often search, how bread that is gathered of corn, and through fire's heat baked, may be turned to Christ's body; or how wine that is pressed out of many grapes is turned through one blessing to the Lord's blood.

Now say we to such men, that some things be spoken of Christ by signification, some thing by thing certain. True thing is and certain, that Christ was born of a maid, and suffered death of his own accord, and was buried, and on this day rose from death. He is said bread by signification, and a lamb, and a lion, and a mountain. He is called bread, because he is our life and angels' life. He is said to be a lamb for his innocency, a lion for strength, wherewith he overcame the strong devil. But Christ is not so, notwithstanding, after true nature; neither bread, nor a lamb, nor a lion. Why is then that holy housell called Christ's body or his blood, if it be not truly that it is called? Truly the bread and the wine, which by the mass of the priest is hallowed, shew one thing without to human understanding, and another thing they call within to believing minds. Without they be seen bread and wine, both in figure and in taste: and they be truly after their hallowing, Christ's body, and his blood through ghostly mystery. An heathen child is christened, yet he altereth not his shape without, though he be changed within. He is brought to the font-stone sinful through Adam's disobedience. Howbeit he is washed from all sin within, though he hath not changed his shape without. Even so the holy font-water, that is called the well-spring of life, is like in shape to other waters, and is subject to corruption; but the Holy Ghost's might cometh to the corruptible water, through the priest's blessing, and it may after wash the body and soul from all sin through ghostly might. Behold now we see two things in this one creature. After true nature that water is corruptible water, and after ghostly mystery, hath hallowing might. So also if we behold that holy housell after bodily understanding, then see we that it is a creature corruptible and mutable; if we acknowledge therein ghostly might, then understand we that life is

therein, and that it giveth immortality to them that eat it with belief.

Much is betwixt the invisible might of the holy housell and the visible shape of his proper nature. It is1 naturally corruptible bread and corruptible wine, and is by might of God's word, truly Christ's body and his blood: not so notwithstanding bodily, but ghostly. Much is betwixt the body Christ suffered in, and the body that is hallowed to housell. The body truly that Christ suffered in was born of the flesh of Mary, with blood and with bone, with skin and with sinews, in human limbs, with a reasonable soul living; and his ghostly body, which we call the housell, is gathered of many corns: without blood and bone, without limb, without soul. And therefore nothing is to be understand therein bodily, but all is ghostly to be understand. Whatsoever is in that housell, which giveth substance of life, that is of the ghostly might and invisible doing. Therefore is that holy housell called a mystery, because there is one thing in it seen, and another thing understanded. That which is there seen hath bodily shape, and that we do there understand hath ghostly might. Certainly Christ's body, which suffered death and rose from death, never dicth henceforth, but is eternal and unpassible. That housell is temporal, not eternal. Corruptible, and dealed between sundry parts. Chewed between teeth, and sent into the belly: howbeit nevertheless, after ghostly might, it is all in every part. Many receive that holy body: and yet, notwithstanding, it is so all in every part after ghostly mystery. Though some chew less deal,3 yet is there no more might notwithstanding in the more part than in the less because it is in all men after the invisible might. This mystery is a pledge and a figure: Christ's body is truth itself. This pledge we do keep mystically, until that we be come to the truth itself: and then is this pledge ended. Truly it is so, as we have before said, Christ's body and his blood-not bodily, but ghostly. And ye should not search how it is done, but hold it in your belief that it is so done. We read in another book called Vita Patrum, that two monks desired of God some demonstration touching the holy housell, and after as they stood to hear mass, they saw a child lying on the altar, where the priest said mass, and God's angel stood with a sword, and abode looking until the priest brake the housell. Then the angel divided the child upon the dish, and shed his blood into the chalice. But when they did go to the housell, then it was turned to bread and wine, and they did eat it, giving God thanks for that shewing. Also St. Gregory desired of Christ that he would shew to a certain woman, doubting about his mystery, some great affirmation. She went to housell with doubting mind, and Gregory forthwith obtained of God, that to them both was shewed that part of the housell which the woman should receive, as if there lay in a dish a joint of a finger all be-blooded, and so the woman's doubting was then forthwith healed.

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But now hear the apostle's words about this mystery. Paul the apostle speaketh of the old Israelites thus, writing in his epistle to faithful men: All our forefathers were baptised in the cloud and in the sea, and all they ate the same ghostly meat and drank the same ghostly drink. They drank truly of the stone that followed them, and that stone was Christ. Neither was that stone then from which the water ran bodily Christ, but it signified Christ, that calleth thus to all believing and faithful men: Whosoever thirsteth let him come to me, and drink and from his bowels floweth living water. This he said of the Holy Ghost, whom he receiveth which believeth on him. The apostle Paul saith that the Israelites did eat the same ghostly meat, and drink the same ghostly drink: because that heavenly meat that fed them forty years, and that water which from the stone did flow, had signification of Christ's body, and his blood, that now be offered daily in God's Church. It was the same which we now offer; not bodily, but ghostly. We said unto you erewhile, that Christ hallowed bread and wine to housell before his suffering, and said: This is my body and my blood. Yet he had not then suffered; but so notwithstanding he turned through invisible might that bread to his own body, and that wine to his blood, as he before did in the wilderness before that he was born to men, when he turned that heavenly meat to his flesh, and the flowing water from that stone to his own blood. Very many ate of that heavenly meat in the wilderness, and drank that ghostly drink, and were nevertheless dead, as Christ said. And Christ meant not that death which none can escape: but that everlasting death, which some of that folk deserved for their unbelief. Moses and Aaron, and many other of that people which pleased God, ate of that heavenly bread, and they died not that everlasting death, though they died the common death. They saw that the heavenly meat was visible, and corruptible, and they ghostly understood by that visible thing, and ghostly received it. The Saviour sayeth: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life. And he bade them not eat that body which he was going about with, nor that blood to drink which he shed for us: but he meant with those words that holy housell, which ghostly is his body and his blood: and he that tasteth it with believing heart, hath that eternal life. In the old law faithful men offered to God divers sacrifices that had foresignification of Christ's body, which for our sins he himself to his heavenly Father hath since offered to sacrifice. Certainly this housell which we do now hallow at God's altar is a remembrance of Christ's body which he offered for us, and of his blood which he shed for us: so he himself commanded, Do this in my remembrance. Once suffered Christ by himself, but yet nevertheless his suffering is daily renewed at the mass through mystery of the holy housell. Therefore that holy mass is profitable both to the living and to the dead, as it hath been often declared.

We ought also to consider diligently how that this holy housell is both Christ's body and the body of all faithful men after ghostly mystery.

As the wise Augustine sayeth of it, If ye will understand of Christ's body, hear the apostle Paul thus speaking: Now is your mystery set on God's table, and ye receive your mystery, which mystery ye yourselves be. Be that which ye see on the altar, and receive that which ye yourselves be. Again the apostle Paul saith by it: We many be one bread and one body. Understand now and rejoice, many be one bread and one body in Christ. He is our head, and we be his limbs. And the bread is not of one corn, but of many. Nor the wine of one grape, but of many. So also we all should have one unity in our Lord, as it is written of the faithful army, how that they were in so great an unity: as though all

of them were one soul and one heart. Christ hallowed on his table the mystery of our peace, and of our unity: he which receiveth that mystery of unity, and keepeth not the bond of true peace, he receiveth no mystery for himself, but a witness against himself. It is very good for Christian men that they go often to housell, if they bring with them to the altar unguiltiness and innocency of heart. To an evil man it turneth to no good, but to destruction, if he receive unworthily that holy housell. Holy books command that water be mingled to that wine which shall be for housell: because the water signifieth the people, and the wine Christ's blood. And therefore shall neither the one without the other be offered at the holy mass: that Christ may be with us, and we with Christ: the head with the limbs, and the limbs with the head.

We would before have intreated of the lamb which the old Israelites offered at their Easter time, but that we desired first to declare unto you of this mystery, and after how we should receive it. That signifying lamb was offered at the Easter. And the apostle Paul sayeth in the epistle of this present day, that Christ is our Easter, who was offered for us, and on the third day rose from death. The Israelites did eat the lamb's flesh as God commanded with unleavened bread and wild lettuce: so we should receive that holy housell of Christ's body and blood without the leaven of sin and iniquity. As leaven turneth the creatures from their nature: so doth sin also change the nature of man from innocency to foul spots of guiltiness. The apostle hath taught how we should feast not in the leaven of evilness, but in the sweet dough of purity and truth. The herb which they should eat with the unleavened bread is called lettuce, and is bitter in taste. So we should with bitterness of unfeigned weeping purify our mind, if we will eat Christ's body. Those Israelites were not wont to eat raw flesh, although God forbad them to eat it raw, and sodden in water, but roasted in fire. He shall receive the body of God raw that shall think without reason that Christ was only man, like unto us, and was not God. And he that will after man's wisdom search of the mystery of Christ's incarnation, doth like unto him that doth seethe lamb's flesh in water: because that water in this same place signifieth man's understanding: but we should understand that all the mystery of Christ's humanity was ordered by the power of the Holy Ghost. And then eat we his body roasted with fire; because the Holy Ghost came in fiery likeness to the apostles in diverse tongues. Israelites should eat the lamb's head, and the feet, and the purtenance and nothing thereof must be left overnight. If anything thereof were left, they did burn that in the fire: and they brake not the bones. After ghostly understanding we do then eat the lamb's head, when we take hold of Christ's divinity in our belief. Again, when we take hold of his humanity with love, then eat we the lamb's feet; because that Christ is the beginning and end, God before all world, and man in the end of this world. What be the lamb's purtenance, but Christ's secret precepts, and these we eat when we receive with greediness the Word of Life. There must nothing of the lamb be left unto the morning, because that all God's sayings are to be searched with great carefulness: so that all his precepts may be known in understanding and deed in the night of this present life, before that the last day of the universal resurrection do appear. If we cannot search out thoroughly all the mystery of Christ's incarnation, then ought we to betake the rest unto the might of the Holy Ghost with true humility: and not to search

The

1 Betake (First-English, "betacan"), to commit, assign, put in

trust.

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