one
candle, as long as they burn there will be many candles lighted, and as
well the last candle as the first; and so by this reason, if ye shall
fetch your word at God, and make God, there must needs be many gods, and
that is forbidden in the first commandment, Exod. xx. And as for making
more, either making less, of Christ's manhood, it lieth not in your
power to come there nigh, neither to touch it, for it is ascended into
heaven in a spiritual body, which He suffered not Mary Magdalen to
touch, when her sins were forgiven to her.

Therefore all the sacraments that are left here in earth are but minds
of the body of Christ, for a sacrament is no more to say but a sign or
mind of a thing passed, or a thing to come; for when Jesus spake of the
bread, and said to His disciples, As ye do this thing, do it in mind of
me, it was set for a mind of good things passed of Christ's body; but
when the angel showed to John the sacraments of the woman and of the
beast that bare her, it was set for a mind of evil things to come on the
face of the earth, and great destroying of the people of God. And in
the old law there were many figures or minds of things to come. For
before Christ, circumcision was commanded by a law; and he that kept not
the law was slain. And yet St. Paul saith, "And neither is it
circumcision that is openly in the flesh, but he that is circumcised of
heart in spirit, not the letter whose praising is not of men, but of
God." Peter saith in the third chapter of his epistle, "And so baptism
of like form maketh not us safe, but the putting away of the filthiness
of the flesh, and the having of good conscience in God by the rising
again of our Lord Jesus Christ from death, that we should be made heirs
of everlasting life, He went up into heaven, and angels, and powers, and
virtues, are made subjects to Him."

And also the Scripture saith of John Baptist, that he preached in the
wilderness and said, "A stronger than I shall come after me, and I am
not worthy to kneel down and unlace His shoe;" and yet Christ said that
he was more than a prophet. See also Isaiah xl., Matt. xi. How may ye
then say that ye are worthy to make His body, and yet your works bear
witness that ye are less than the prophets? for if ye were not, ye
should not teach the people to worship the sacraments or minds of Christ
for Christ himself; which sacraments or figures are lawful as God taught
them and left them unto us, as the sacrifices or mi