Very interesting examples of Eucharistic teaching on the part of those in favour in the reign of Mary are supplied by the writing of Bishop Tunstall and Bishop Watson.
Cuthbert Tunstall or Tonstall was born at Hackforth in the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1474. In 1491 he entered the University of Oxford, possibly at Balliol College, but left Oxford because of the prevalence of the plague, and migrated to King’s Hall, which was afterwards merged in Trinity College, at Cambridge. He subsequently graduated as LL.D. at Padua. After filling various benefices and holding many offices, he became Bishop of London in 1522, and Bishop of Durham in 1530. The part played by him in the debate in the House of Lords in 1547 has already been mentioned. In 1552, after lengthy proceedings, he was deprived of his bishopric, and the bishopric of Durham itself was dissolved by Act of Parliament. Tunstall was a prisoner from the end of 1551 until the accession of Queen Mary in 1553. At Mary’s accession he was released; and in 1554 the bishopric of Durham was re-established by Act of Parliament, and he was restored to it. After the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1558, he refused to take the oath of supremacy, or to consecrate Parker. He was deprived of his bishopric on 28th September, 1559. On 18th November, 1559, he died. His treatise Concerning the Reality of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist was finished in 1551, as is shown by a note at the end of it and by the date of the preface; the first known edition is that printed at Paris in 1554. In this treatise very definite and explicit teaching that the consecrated bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ is united with some deprecating of too curious inquiries into the exact manner of the presence. A few extracts will show sufficiently the position which is consistently maintained.
“These words [that is, the words of Christ at the institution of the Sacrament], which from the first beginning of the Catholic Church after the passion of Christ have always been understood by the consent of all the orthodox without any allegory or metaphor or trope or figure, clearly declare that the body of Christ, not only figuratively, not only by way of representation (as the authors of perverse opinions say), but the very real and natural body of Christ, although now spiritual, is under the species of bread; and that the real and natural blood of Christ, although now spiritual, is present under the species of wine in fact, actually, and in reality. … This body after His resurrection is now a spiritual body.… And in the Sacrament the very spiritual body is given invisibly and spiritually, and is received by the faithful; in like manner also the blood which is now spiritual is given in the Sacrament in an invisible and spiritual way yet really, and is received by the faithful.”
“Those who are of opinion that the body of Christ in the Eucharist is not to be adored show themselves to the world as unbelievers, without faith in the words of Christ, since to their carnal eyes there seems to be nothing but bread and mingled wine.”
“From the beginning of the infant Church nowhere has any Catholic admitted to Baptism doubted concerning the presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist; but all, before being admitted to the font of the laver, have been so taught, and have confessed that they believe, as Justin Martyr bears witness in his Second Apology against the heathen. But in what way the bread which was common before the consecration becomes (transiret in) His body by the ineffable sanctification of the Spirit, the most learned of the ancients thought inscrutable, lest, with the people of Capernaum failing to believe the words of Christ but asking how this should be, they should try to be wise above what is right, transgressing soberness of mind. But it seemed to them enough and more than enough to believe firmly in the almighty power and the words of Christ, who is faithful in all His words, and who alone with the Father and the Holy Ghost knows the manner of the working of His wonderful works. Before the time of Innocent III., the Bishop of Rome, who presided at the Lateran Council, those who made somewhat curious inquiries thought that this might happen in three ways. Some thought that the body of Christ is present with the bread or in the bread, as fire in a mass of iron, which Luther seems to have followed. Others thought that the bread is reduced to nothing, or is corrupted. Others thought that the substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the body of Christ, which Innocent seems to have followed, rejecting the other methods at this council, although those who make somewhat curious investigations think that no fewer miracles but rather more result in this method than in those which he rejected. But those who with Innocent were present at this council thought that to the almighty power of God, to whom nothing is impossible, all miracles yield, and that this method is most in accordance with the words of Christ, ‘This is My body,’ ‘This is My blood’. For John Scotus in the fourth book of the Sentences, the eleventh distinction, the third question, referring to Innocent, says there were three opinions, one that the bread remains, and that yet the body of Christ is really with the bread; a second that the bread does not remain, and yet is not converted, but ceases to be, either by annihilation, or by being resolved into matter, or by corruption into something else; a third that the bread is transubstantiated into the body, and the wine into the blood. The intention of each of these was to preserve the common element, that the body of Christ is really there, because to deny that is clearly contrary to the faith. For it has been part of the verity of the faith expressed from the institution of the Eucharist that the body of Christ is really and actually contained there.… But whether it would have been better to have imposed silence on all curious persons, that they might not examine the method in which this happens, since the ways of the Lord are unsearchable, … or to have left each curious person to his own conjecture, as it was free before the council, provided he acknowledged that the reality of the body and blood of the Lord is in the Eucharist, … or out of the three methods mentioned above to choose the one which should agree best with the words of Christ, and to reject all the rest, lest in no other way should there be an end of the contentions among the too curious men of that age, since in no other way could silence be imposed on the curious tongues of that contentious time, I think it right that in matters of this kind, since the Church is the pillar of the truth, its definite decision should be wholly observed.”
Thomas Watson was born in the diocese of Durham in 1513. He graduated from St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1534, and was afterwards Fellow, and later Master. He filled several benefices, and became Dean of Durham in 1553, and Bishop of Lincoln in 1556. He was one of the commissioners sent by the University of Cambridge in 1534 to dispute with Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer at Oxford, where he was incorporated D.D. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth he refused to take the oath of supremacy, and was deprived of his bishopric. He was several times committed to the Tower; and, after being in custody in various places, died at Wisbech Castle on 27th September, 1584. He took part in the conference about the Eucharist which was held at Sir Richard Morison’s house on 3rd December, 1551, and maintained that communicants receive the “true substance” of the flesh of Christ, and are “naturally united” to Him, being partakers of His “natural flesh”. He took part also in the debate in Convocation in October, 1553, in which he appears to have maintained the doctrine of Transubstantiation. His belief about the Eucharist is more fully set out in his work Wholesome and Catholic Doctrine concerning the Seven Sacraments of Christ’s Church, expedient to be known of all men set forth in manner of Short Sermons to be made to the people, which was published in 1558. This book consists of thirty sermons, of which the seventh to the thirteenth are entitled “Of the Real Presence of Christ’s Body in the Sacrament of the Altar,” “Of the Change of the Bread and Wine, that is to say, of Transubstantiation,” “Of the Effects of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Worthy Receiver,” “An Exhortation for the Worthy Receiving of the Holy Sacrament,” “How a Man may Come Worthily to Receive the Blessed Sacrament,” “Of the Sacrifice of the New Testament, which is Called the Mass,” “Of the Godly Prayers and Ceremonies used in the Sacrifice of the Mass”. In these sermons the doctrines of Transubstantiation and of the Eucharistic sacrifice are carefully expounded in their bearings on spiritual life with the aim of making them popularly understood and devotionally helpful. Features which may be noticed are the references to the spiritual character of our Lord’s body in its glorified state, the contrast between the being of Christ’s body in heaven and its presence in the Sacrament, the emphasis on the need of communicating worthily and the advantage of frequent Communion, the distinction that adoration is of the body and blood of Christ and not of the visible qualities of the bread, and the representation of the Eucharistic sacrifice as the commemoration of the death of Christ and the same act on the part of the Church on earth as is performed by Christ Himself in heaven.
“Our Saviour Christ … doth still vouchsafe to nourish us so redeemed and brought to life with the sweet and wholesome milk of His own blood, and giveth us His flesh to eat, and His blood to drink, that we might be fed and nourished for the continuance of our spiritual life with the same precious things that we were redeemed withal before. And because our souls be as yet joined with our bodies, therefore for the time of this life our Saviour Christ giveth unto us His invisible graces in sensible Sacraments.… In the Sacrament of the altar under the visible forms of bread and wine is given unto us the substance of all grace, which is Christ Himself, that is to say, His body and His blood, which, though they be corporal things in their own nature, yet now being glorified they be spiritual, and therefore not sensible, but where it pleaseth our Saviour by miracle to have them appear. This is then most certainly and constantly to be believed of us all upon pain of damnation that in this blessed Sacrament of the altar … is verily and really present the true body and blood of our Saviour Christ which suffered upon the cross for us, and is received there corporally by the services of our mouths, not in the same form of His body as it was upon the cross, but in the forms of our daily and special nutriments of bread and wine, the substance of which bread and wine is converted and changed into the substance of Christ’s body and blood by the omnipotent and secret power of His word assisting the due administration of His minister.… After the speaking of those words by Christ or by His minister in His person sufficiently authorised so to do by His commandment is made present the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ, there to be received of His faithful people, to the increase of all grace and immortality both of body and soul.… The oblations be consecrate by God’s power and grace, who is now there present, and sanctifieth the creatures, and changeth them, by the invisible working of the Holy Ghost, which miraculous change must be imputed to Christ.”
“In the Sacrament there be two graces to be considered, the one is the substantial grace of Christ’s body there present and contained, the other is the accidental grace only signified and not contained, which is wrought in the soul of the worthy receiver, whereby he is more inwardly joined to Christ’s mystical body, not only spiritually by faith and charity, but also by natural and corporal participation with Christ and His Church.”
“Ye ought to mark diligently that I have said concerning the two manners of being of Christ’s body, the one in heaven at the right hand of His Father manifestly without all cover of Sacrament, the other the same moment of time here in earth among us in a Sacrament, to be received of us for our spiritual sustenance, in which thing we may not consider the nature of a man’s body, but the invisible power of God that can do with His body what He will, and doth with it what He saith.”
“The inward substance of bread and wine is changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, the outward forms of the said bread and wine with the quantity and qualities of the same still remaining unchanged.… The Holy Ghost overshadoweth this mystery, and maketh present the body of Christ above the speech and reason of man, and changeth the bread and the wine into Christ’s body and blood, the outward forms remaining still, so that now there be not two substances remaining, but one and the self same that was given for our redemption, otherwise the manner of it is not searchable.… It is most certain that the whole body and blood of Christ is as truly contained under the one kind of bread as under both the kinds of bread and wine, seeing that Christ’s living body cannot be without His blood, nor His lively blood without His body. And it is also most certainly true that, if the outward element of bread be divided into small parts, there is the whole body of Christ contained in every part as it was in the whole element before it was divided, even as the soul of man is but one and whole in the whole body, and is likewise one and whole in every part of the body.”
“This spiritual meat of Christ’s body and blood may not be given to him that is spiritually dead in his soul by deadly sin, for then he receiveth it unworthily to his further judgment and condemnation, being guilty as Judas was of the body and blood of Christ.… Because a man doth daily offend, and so decayeth in his spiritual life, therefore ought he often to receive this spiritual medicine, which is called our daily bread, and thereby to recover that health and strength he had lost before.… The oftener he cometh, the better it is, and the more is he nourished to everlasting life. And the better a man is, the more desirous is he to be joined to God corporally by this Sacrament.… The body of our Saviour Christ, which is every day both offered to God the Father for the sins and infirmities of the people, and also is prepared and offered to all them that will with a pure heart receive it.”
“Let every man or woman, when he seeth this Sacrament in the priest’s hands, direct the eye of his faith and his intent to honour only that substance of Christ, God and Man, which he seeth not with his bodily eyes, but believeth it most certainly to be there present, and let him not fix his thought upon the visible whiteness or roundness of the bread, which be sensible creatures reserved there for the use of this mystery, and may in no wise be adored and worshipped with godly honour, but let him intend to honour the body and blood of Christ, and yet not those as only creatures, but as they be united to the Godhead and made one Person in divinity, for only God is to be honoured with godly honour, which we do when we honour Christ, God and Man, present in the blessed Sacrament.”
“We believe to be saved only by the merits of our Saviour Christ, and that He bearing our sins in His body upon the cross, and being the innocent Lamb of God without all sin Himself, shed His most innocent blood for us sinners, and by the voluntary sacrifice of His own body and blood made satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, and reconciled the wicked world to the favour of God again. This bloody sacrifice made Christ our Saviour upon the altar of His cross but once, and never but once, and it is the propitiatory sacrifice and a sufficient price and ransom for the sins of all people from the beginning of the world to the last end.… Christ our Saviour willeth that the sacrifice of this redemption should never cease, but be always to all men present in grace, and always be kept in perpetual memory. For which cause He hath given and committed unto His Church the most clean and pure sacrifice of His body and blood under the forms of bread and wine, and hath commanded it to be offered to God, and received of us in the remembrance of His passion till His last coming. Which thing the Church most faithfully and obediently observeth and useth, not by presumption taking upon itself to offer that sacrifice of our Saviour which is far above the dignity of man, but by commission and warrant of His most holy word authorised to offer Christ, God’s Son to God the Father, that is to say, to represent to the Father the body and blood of Christ, which by His omnipotent word He hath there made present, and thereby to renew His passion, not by suffering of death again, but after an unbloody manner, not for this end that we should thereby deserve remission of sins, and deliverance from the power of the devil, which is the proper effect of Christ’s passion, but that we should by our faith, devotion, and this representation of His passion obtain the remission and grace already deserved by His passion, to be now applied unto our profit and salvation, not that the passion of Christ is imperfect, or needeth any work of ours to be added to supply the imperfection of it, but to comfort and relieve our imperfection, that some drop of grace may be drawn and brought unto us out of the fountain of all grace, and wellspring of His passion, not that we can apply the merits of Christ’s death as we list, and to whom we list, but that we by this representing of His passion, most humbly make petition and prayer to Almighty God to apply unto us that remission and grace which was purchased and deserved by Christ’s passion before, after the measure of His goodness, to all those whose faith and devotion be known unto Him. So that the host or the thing that is offered both in the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross and in the sacrifice of the Church upon the altar is all one in substance, being the natural body of Christ our High Priest, and the price or ransom of our redemption; but the manner and the effects of these two offerings be diverse; the one is by shedding of Christ’s blood extending to the death of Christ, the Offerer, for the redemption of all mankind; the other is without shedding of His blood, only representing His death, whereby the faithful and devout people are made partakers of the merits of Christ’s passion and divinity.… As Christ upon the cross, being the Head of all us His mystical body, the Church, offering there Himself, did also offer all us that be of the Church to God the Father for the pacifying of His wrath and indignation against our sin, so we, being His mystical body, do use to offer to God the Father Christ our Head, and by His merits do beg pardon for our offences, knowing that God, who spared not His only begotten Son but gave Him to us for our redemption, will now deny us nothing for His sake that we have need upon, who is now also at the right hand of God, and maketh intercession for us. So that Christ in heaven and all we, His mystical body in earth, do both but one thing. For Christ, being a Priest for evermore, after His passion and resurrection entered into heaven, and there appeareth now to the countenance of God for us, offering Himself for us, to pacify the anger of God with us, and representing His passion and all that He suffered for us, that we might be reconciled to God by Him. Even so the Church, our Mother, being careful for all us her children that have offended our Father in heaven, useth continually by her public minister to pray and to offer unto God the body and blood of her Husband Christ, representing and renewing His passion and death before God, that we thereby might be renewed in grace, and receive life, perfection, and salvation.… Whereas sacrifice is the greatest and chiefest kind of adoration that can be, pertaining to godly honour called Latria, therefore we do make sacrifice to no creature, neither to saint nor angel, but only to the Holy Trinity, which is the only and true God.”
“The special and substantial part of the Mass consisteth in these three points, in consecrating the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, in offering of the same body and blood of Christ to God the Father, and in receiving of the same by the devout and faithful people.”
“Thus doth the Church offer Christ her Head to God the Father as a worthy sacrifice of praise and thanks for her redemption, for the hope of health and salvation, and for all His other benefits; and also it offereth Him as a sacrifice propitiatory by the virtue of His passion, for all her sins and offences, that we in this world might live in peace with God, and afterward be delivered from eternal damnation, and with His elect be rewarded in the kingdom of heaven.”