s,
through which (if God remedy not speedily the evil) the world will be
wholly desolated, destroyed, and ruined. For therein is our Lord so
outrageously blasphemed and the people so blinded and seduced, that it
ought no longer to be suffered or endured." Every Christian must needs
be assured that the one sacrifice of Christ, being perfect, demands no
repetition. Still the world has long been, and now is, flooded with
wretched sacrificing priests, who yet proclaim themselves liars,
inasmuch as they chant every Sunday in their vespers, that Christ is a
priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. Wherefore not only every
man of sound understanding, but "they themselves, in spite of
themselves, must admit that the Pope and all his brood of cardinals,
bishops, monks, and canting mass-priests, with all who consent
thereunto, are false prophets, damnable deceivers, apostates, wolves,
false shepherds, idolaters, seducers, liars and execrable blasphemers,
murderers of souls, renouncers of Jesus Christ, of his death and
passion, false witnesses, traitors, thieves, and robbers of the honor
of God, and more detestable than devils." After citing from the book of
Hebrews some passages to establish the sufficiency of Christ, the writer
addresses his opponents: "I demand then of all sacrificing priests,
whether their sacrifice be perfect or imperfect? If imperfect, why do
they deceive the poor people? If perfect, why need it be repeated? Come
forward, priests, and reply if you can!"

The body of Christ cannot, it is argued, be contained in the host. It is
_above_, whither also we are bidden raise our hearts and look for the
Lord. To breathe or mutter over the bread and wine, and then adore them,
is idolatry. To enjoin this adoration on others is a doctrine of devils.
But these impudent heretics, not ashamed of attempting to imprison the
body of Jesus in their wafer, have even dared to place this caution in
the rubric of their missals, "If the body of our Lord, being devoured of
mice or spiders, has been destroyed or much gnawed, or if the worm be
found altogether within, let it be burned and placed in the reliquary."
"O Earth! How dost thou not open and swallow up these horrible
blasphemers! Wretched men, is this the body of the Lord Jesus, the true
Son of God? Doth he suffer himself to be eaten of mice and spiders? He
who is the bread of angels and of all the children of God, is he given
to us to become the food of animals? Will y