Chapter Twenty Two.
Gently handled.
When the Commissioners had tormented the priest’s widow as long as they thought proper, they called on her to answer the charges brought against her.
“Dost thou believe that in the blessed Sacrament of the altar the bread and wine becometh the very body and blood of Christ, so soon as the word of consecration be pronounced?”
“Nay: it is but bread and wine before it is received; and when it is received in faith and ministered by a worthy minister, then it is Christ flesh and blood spiritually, and not otherwise.”
“Dost though worship the blessed Sacrament?”
“Truly, nay: for ye make the Sacrament an idol. It ought not to be worshipped with knocking, kneeling or holding up of hands.”
“Wilt thou come to church and hear mass?”
“That will I not, so long as ye do worship to other than God Almighty. Nothing that is made can be the same thing as he that made it. They must needs be idolators, and of the meanest sort, that worship the works of their own hands.”
“Aroint thee, old witch! Wilt thou go to confession?”