III

Cranmer’s treatises of 1550 and 1551, the Prayer Book of 1552, the Forty-two Articles of 1553, and the Short Catechism published in 1553, may be taken as illustrating the opinions about the Eucharist which were in favour at the court during the last part of the reign of King Edward VI. The same facts may be illustrated in a different manner from the history and writings of Stephen Gardiner. Gardiner, after being private secretary to Cardinal Wolsey and in the service of King Henry VIII. became Bishop of Winchester in 1531. After the accession of Edward VI. his opposition to the removal of images from churches and to the Injunctions and Homilies of 1547 led to his committal to the Fleet prison on 25th September, 1547. From that imprisonment he was released on 8th January, 1548; but a little later was confined as a prisoner in his own house. After being again at liberty various charges of resistance or disrespect to the Council were brought against him; and to afford him an opportunity of showing his innocence he was ordered to preach before the king. Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh in Elizabeth’s reign, was sent to him by the Duke of Somerset to try to induce him not to speak of Transubstantiation or the Mass. To this Gardiner replied, according to his own account of his words:—

“I will preach the very presence of Christ’s most precious body and blood in the Sacrament, which is the Catholic faith, and no doubtful matter, nor yet in controversy, saving that certain unlearned speak of it they wot not what.”

On receiving from Cecil a report of his interview, Somerset wrote a letter to Gardiner on 28th June, 1548, in which, after referring to his prohibition “to entreat upon those principal questions which remain amongst the number of learned men in this realm as yet in controversy concerning the Sacrament of the altar and the Mass,” he went on to say:—

“Your answer hereunto our said servant hath declared unto us in this manner, Ye can nowise forbear to speak of the Sacrament, neither of the Mass, this last being the chief foundation, as you say, of our religion, and that without it we cannot know that Christ is our sacrifice.… We reply very shortly … charging you … to abstain in your said sermon from treating of any matter in controversy concerning the said Sacrament and the Mass.”

On the following day, St. Peter’s Day, Gardiner preached his sermon in the presence of the king. In the course of it he made the following references to the Holy Eucharist:—

“Christ was sent to be our Messias, our Saviour, He was sent to be our Bishop and also our Sacrifice. He was sent from the Trinity, to be our Mediator between God and us, and to reconcile us to the favour of God the Father. He was the Bishop that offered for our sins, and the Sacrifice that was offered. And as He is our Bishop, so is He our mean to pacify God for us.… And as He was our sacrifice, so is He our reconciliation to God again. But we must confess and believe Him thoroughly, I say, for as He was our Bishop then, so is it He that still keepeth us in favour with God. And like as His sacrifice then made was sufficient for us, to deliver us from our sins and bring us in favour with God, so, to continue us in the same favour of God, He ordained a perpetual remembrance of Himself. He ordained Himself for a memory of Himself at His Last Supper, when He instituted the Sacrament of the altar. Not for another redemption, as though the first had not been sufficient, nor as though the world needed a new redemption from sin; but that we might thoroughly remember His passion, He instituted this Sacrament by His most holy word, saying, ‘This is My body,’ which word is sufficient to prove the Sacrament, and maketh sufficiently for the substance thereof. And this daily sacrifice He instituted to be continued among Christian men, not for need of another redemption or satisfaction for the sins of the world (for that was sufficiently performed by His sacrifice of His body and blood, done upon the cross), neither that He be now our Bishop for need of any further sacrifice to be made for sin, but to continue us in the remembrance of His passion suffered for us, to make us strong in believing the fruit of His passion, to make us diligent in thanksgiving for the benefit of His passion, to establish our faith, and to make us strong in acknowledging the efficacy of His death and passion suffered for us. And this is the true understanding of the Mass, not for another redemption, but that we may be strong in believing the benefit of Christ’s death and bloodshedding for us upon the cross.… Where I said of the Mass that it was a sacrifice ordained to make us the more strong in the faith and remembrance of Christ’s passion, and for commending unto God the souls of such as be dead in Christ (for these two things are the special causes why the Mass was instituted), the Parliament very well ordained Mass to be kept; and because we should be the more strong in the faith and devotion towards God, it was well done of the Parliament, for moving the people more and more with devotion, to ordain that this Sacrament should be received in both kinds. Therefore I say that the Act of Parliament for receiving of the Sacrament of the altar in both kinds was well made. I said also that the proclamation which was made that no man should unreverently speak of the Sacrament, or otherwise speak of it than Scripture teacheth them, was well made; for this proclamation stoppeth the mouths of all such as will unreverently speak of the Sacrament. For in Scripture there is nothing to be found that maketh anything against the Sacrament, but all maketh with it.… But here it may be said unto me, ‘Why, Sir, is this your opinion? It is good, you speak plainly in this matter, and halt nothing, but declare your mind plainly without any colouring or covert speaking. The Act for the dissolving and suppressing of the chantries seemeth to make against the Mass, how like you that Act? What say you of it? Or, what would you say of it, if you were alone?’ I will speak what I think of it. I will use no colourable or covert words. I will not use a devised speech for a time and afterward go from it again. If chantries were abused by applying the Mass for the satisfaction of sin, or to bring men to heaven, or to take away sin, or to make men, if wicked, just, I like the Act well; and they might well be dissolved; for the Mass was not instituted for any such purpose.… As for the chantries themselves, if there were any such abuse in them concerning the Mass, it is no matter if they be taken away. King Henry VIII., a noble and wise prince, not without a great pain maintained the Mass; and yet in his doctrine it was confessed that Masses of Scala coeli were not to be used or allowed, because they did pervert the right use and institution of the Mass. For when men add unto the Mass an opinion of satisfaction, or of a new redemption, then do they put it to another use than it was ordained for. I, that allow Mass so well, and I, that allow praying for the dead, as indeed the dead are of Christian charity to be prayed for, yet can agree with the realm in that matter of putting down chantries. But yet ye would say unto me, ‘There be fewer Masses by putting away the chantries’. So were there when abbeys were dissolved; so be there when ye unite many churches in one. So this is no injury nor prejudice to the Mass. It consisteth not in the number, nor in the multitude, but in the thing itself.… I like well the Communion, because it provoketh men more and more to devotion. I like well the proclamation, because it stoppeth the mouths of all such as unreverently speak or rail against the Sacrament. I like well the rest of the king’s majesty’s proceedings concerning the Sacrament. I have now told you what I like; but shall I speak nothing of that I mislike? Ye will then say I speak not plainly. I will therefore show my conscience plainly. I mislike that preachers which preach by the king’s licence, and those readers which by the king’s permission and sufferance do read open lectures, do openly and blasphemously talk against the Mass and against the Sacrament.”

Noticeable features of this sermon of Gardiner’s are its great care and restraint, the recognition of abuses and the expression of willingness for the reform of them, the approval of the provision for the reception of Communion in both kinds, and the assertion of the Eucharistic sacrifice in such a way as to avoid any risk of impairing the efficacy and sufficiency of the sacrifice of the cross. But it was regarded by the council as the climax of all his offences; and on the following day, 30th June, 1548, he was committed to the Tower.

During the earlier years of his imprisonment Gardiner was allowed the use of his pen; and on the publication of Cranmer’s A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ in 1550, he quickly produced an answer entitled An Explication and Assertion of the True Catholic Faith touching the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, with Confutation of a Book Written against the Same, which was published in France. In this treatise Gardiner asserted “the truth of the presence of the substance of Christ’s body, as the true Catholic faith teacheth”; and as a “consequent” and “necessity” thereof the doctrine of Transubstantiation. In regard to the Eucharistic sacrifice he taught that—

“The oblation and sacrifice of our Saviour Christ was, and is, a perfect work, once consummate in perfection without necessity of reiteration, as it was never taught to be reiterate, but a mere blasphemy to presuppose it. It is also in the Catholic teaching, grounded upon the Scripture, agreed that the same sacrifice once consummate was ordained by Christ’s institution in His most holy Supper to be in the Church often remembered and showed forth in such sort of showing as to the faithful is seen present the most precious body and blood of our Saviour Christ under the forms of bread and wine, which body and blood the faithful Church of Christian people grant and profess, according to Christ’s words, to have been betrayed and shed for the sins of the world, and so in the same Supper represented and delivered unto them, to eat and feed of it according to Christ’s commandment, as of a most precious and acceptable sacrifice, acknowledging the same precious body and blood to be the sacrifice propitiatory for all the sins of the world, whereunto they only resort and only account that their very perfect oblation and sacrifice of Christian people, through which all other sacrifices necessary on our part be accepted and pleasant in the sight of God. And this manner of showing Christ’s death and keeping the memory of it is grounded upon the Scriptures, written by the evangelists and St. Paul, and according thereunto preached, believed, used, and frequented in the Church of Christ universally and from the beginning.”

“The Catholic doctrine teacheth not the daily sacrifice of Christ’s most blessed body and blood to be an iteration of the once perfected sacrifice on the cross, but a sacrifice that representeth that sacrifice, and showeth it also before the faithful eyes, and refresheth the effectual memory of it; so as in the daily sacrifice, without shedding of blood, we may see with the eye of faith the very body and blood of Christ by God’s mighty power without division distinctly exhibit, the same body and blood that suffered and was shed for us, which is a lively memorial to stir up our faith, and to consider therein briefly the great charity of God towards us declared in Christ. The Catholic doctrine teacheth the daily sacrifice to be the same in essence that was offered on the cross once, assured thereof by Christ’s words when He said, ‘This is My body that shall be betrayed for you’. The offering on the cross was, and is, propitiatory and satisfactory for our redemption and remission of sin, whereby to destroy the tyranny of sin.… The daily offering is propitiatory also, but not in that degree of propitiation as for redemption, regeneration, or remission of deadly sin, which was once purchased, and by force thereof is in the Sacraments ministered, but for the increase of God’s favour, the mitigation of God’s displeasure provoked by our infirmities, the subduing of temptations, and the perfection of virtue in us. All good works, good thoughts, and good meditations may be called sacrifices, and the same be called sacrifices propitiatory also, for so much as in their degree God accepteth and taketh them through the effect and strength of the very sacrifice of Christ’s death, which is the reconciliation between God and man, ministered and dispensed particularly as God hath appointed, in such measure as He knoweth.… Because the priest in the daily sacrifice doth as Christ hath ordered to be done for showing forth and remembrance of Christ’s death, that act of the priest done according to God’s commandment must needs be propitiatory, and provoke God’s favour, and ought to be trusted on to have a propitiatory effect with God to the members of Christ’s body particularly, being the same done for the whole body in such wise as God knoweth the dispensation to be meet and convenient; according to which measure God worketh most justly and most mercifully, otherwise than man can by his judgment discuss and determine. To call the daily offering a ‘sacrifice satisfactory’ must have an understanding that signifieth not the action of the priest, but the presence of Christ’s most precious body and blood, the very sacrifice of the world once perfectly offered being propitiatory and satisfactory for all the world; or else the word ‘satisfactory’ must have a signification and meaning, as it hath sometime, that declareth the acceptation of the thing done, and not the proper contrevail of the action, after which sort man may satisfy God that is so merciful as He will take in good worth for Christ’s sake man’s imperfect endeavour, and so the daily offering may be called a sacrifice satisfactory because God is pleased with it, being a manner of worshipping Christ’s passion according to Christ’s institution. But otherwise the daily sacrifice, in respect of the action of the priest, cannot be called satisfactory; and it is a word indeed that soundeth not well so placed, although it might be saved by a signification, and therefore think that word rather to be well expounded than by captious understanding brought in slander when it is used, and this speech to be frequented that the only immolation of Christ in Himself upon the altar of the cross is the very satisfactory sacrifice for reconciliation of mankind to the favour of God.… Finally man by any of his action to presume to satisfy God by way of countervail is a very mad and furious blasphemy.… Christ liveth ever, and therefore is a perpetual everlasting Priest, by whose authority priesthood is now in this visible Church, … which priests, visible ministers to our invisible Priest, offer the daily sacrifice in Christ’s Church, that is to say, with the very presence, by God’s omnipotency wrought, of the most precious body and blood of our Saviour Christ, showing forth Christ’s death, and celebrating the memory of His Supper and death according to Christ’s institution, so with daily oblation and sacrifice of the self-same sacrifice to kindle in us a thankful remembrance of all Christ’s benefits unto us.”

Gardiner, while very distinctly affirming Transubstantiation and that the Eucharist is a sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, appears to have avoided possible misconceptions of these doctrines. His belief about the sacrifice, as the passages which have been quoted show, necessitates and does not impair the efficacy of the sacrifice of the cross. His teaching about the presence includes the repudiation of carnal ideas as well as the acceptance of Transubstantiation. Thus, he says:—

“When we acknowledge by faith Christ’s body present, although we say it is present truly, really, substantially, yet we say our senses be not privy to that presence, or the manner of it, but by instruction of faith; and therefore we say Christ’s body to be not locally present nor by manner of quantity, but invisible, and in no sensible manner, but marvellously in a Sacrament and mystery truly, and in such a spiritual manner as we cannot define and determine, and yet by faith we know His body present, the parts of which be in themselves distinct one from another in their own substance but not by circumscription of several places to be comprehended of our capacity; which parts we can by no demonstration place, nor by imagination displace, diminish, alter, or confound.”

“The word ‘corporally’ may have an ambiguity and doubleness in respect and relation; one is to the truth of the body present, and so it may be said, Christ is corporally present in the Sacrament; if the word ‘corporally’ be referred to the manner of the presence, then we should say, Christ’s body were present after a corporal manner, which we say not, but in a spiritual manner; and therefore not locally nor by manner of quantity, but in such manner as God only knoweth, and yet doth us to understand by faith the truth of the very presence, exceeding our capacity to comprehend the manner ‘how’.”

“No Catholic teaching is so framed with such terms as though we should eat Christ’s most precious body grossly, carnally, joining those words so together. For else ‘carnally’ alone may have a good signification, as Hilary useth it; but contrariwise, speaking in the Catholic teaching of the manner of Christ’s presence, they call it a spiritual manner of presence, and yet there is present by God’s power the very true natural body and blood of Christ, whole God and Man, without leaving His place in heaven; and in the holy Supper men use their mouths and teeth, following Christ’s commandment in the receiving of that holy Sacrament, being in faith sufficiently instruct that they cannot nor do not tear, consume, or violate that most precious body and blood, but unworthily receiving it are cause of their own judgment and condemnation.”

In the year 1551 Gardiner’s treatise was answered at length and paragraph by paragraph in Cranmer’s Answer unto a Crafty and Sophistical Cavillation; but before it appeared Gardiner had been tried, deprived of his bishopric, and again committed to the Tower, where he remained for the rest of the reign of Edward VI. In the course of his trial he put in his book as part of his case, and in general maintained the doctrines of the presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament and of the Eucharistic sacrifice. His defence of the lawfulness of the doctrines which he held included the following statement:—

“The Bishop of London that now is, then being Bishop of Rochester, did openly in his sermon made at Paul’s Cross in the month of November or December or thereabouts in the first year of the king’s majesty’s reign that now is, very earnestly and vehemently preach and teach the true presence of Christ’s most precious body and blood to be in the Sacrament of the altar.… Dr. Redman in a sermon which he preached before the king’s majesty in Lent, the second year of his majesty’s reign, did preach and teach to be believed for the true Catholic faith that the true presence of Christ’s body and blood was in the Sacrament of the altar.… My Lord Archbishop of Canterbury about the time that the Bishop of Winchester aforesaid preached a sermon on St. Peter’s Day at Westminster before the king’s majesty, in a book by him translated, called Catechism, did affirm, publish, and set forth the true presence of Christ’s most precious body and blood to be in the Sacrament of the altar.… In the months November and December in the second year of the king’s majesty’s reign the Bishops of Durham, Carlisle, London, Chichester, Worcester, Norwich, Hereford, and Westminster, being of the most ancient bishops and best learned in this realm, did openly in the Parliament then kept at Westminster defend the very and true presence of Christ’s body and blood to be in the Sacrament of the altar. … In sundry open and solemn disputations made as well in the University of Oxford as of Cambridge the third year of the king’s majesty’s reign the same true presence of the very body and blood to be in the Sacrament of the altar was maintained and defended by the great number of the chief and well learned of the said Universities.… The truth of Christ’s most precious body and blood in the Sacrament of the altar hath not been nor was impugned by any famous clerk or yet by any named learned man in any part of all Christendom, either in the Greek or in the Latin Church, by our time; specially at the time of the letters sent by the same Duke of Somerset to the said bishop mentioned in this matter aforesaid, but only by Oecolampadius, Zuinglius, Vadianus, and Carolostadius, the impugning whereof was most manifest error; and in England no learned man named had, or yet did, openly defend or favour that error.… The said bishop said not to Master Cecil that the Mass was the chief foundation of our religion, for Christ Himself is the only foundation; and in the Mass, as now in the Communion, is the showing forth of Christ’s death, which is a sacrifice recordative of that only sacrifice of the cross, used in the Church according to Christ’s institution till His coming, the substance of the sacrifice being all as one, and the manner of the offering only differing.”

The deprivation and imprisonment of Gardiner afford an additional proof to those already mentioned that in the later years of the reign of Edward VI. the opinions which were in favour in high quarters in Church and State did not allow a doctrine of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist other than of a receptionist or virtualist kind. Gardiner, though disliking some parts of the Prayer Book of 1549 and in particular the prohibition of the elevation of the Sacrament, was willing to accept that Book as containing “the most true Catholic doctrine of the substance of the Sacrament” and as being “not distant from the Catholic faith”. Between his beliefs and those openly expressed and embodied in formularies before the end of Edward’s reign the difference was serious and acute.