Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/321

 professions." Here is the Confession as given by Knyghton—and apparently by him alone.

"I knowleche that the Sacrament of the autar is verry Goddus body in fourme of brede: but it is in another maner Goddus body then it is in hevene. For in heven it is sene fote (seven feet high) in fourme and figure, of fleshe and blode. But in the Sacrament Goddus body is be (by) myracle of God in fourme of brede, and is he nouther of sene fote, ne in mannes figure. But as a man leeves for to thenk the kynde of an ymage, whether it be of oke or of asshe, and settys his thought in him of whom is the ymage, so myche more schuld a man leve to thenk on the kynde of brede, but thenk upon Christ, for his body is the same brede that is the Sacrament of the Autere, and with alle clennes, alle divocion, and alle charite that God wolde gif him, worshippe he Christ; and then he receyves God gostly, more medefully than the Prist that syngus the Masse in lesse charite. For the bodely etyng ne profytes nouth to soule, but in als mykul as the soule is fedde with charite. This sentence is provyde be Crist that may nought lye. For as the Gospel says, ' Crist, that night that he was betraiede of Judas Scarioth, he tok brede in hise hondes, and blesside it, brak it, and gaf it to hise disciplus to ete.' For he says, and may not lye, 'This is my body.'"

Clearly, however, this is no retractation at all, but only a statement of belief in general terms, such as might be used by men almost as opposite in their ultimate conclusions as Wyclif and Courtenay. It is not so much on the symbols of faith that devotees