'O earth! why openest thou not to swallow up these horrible blasphemers? O hateful men! Is that gnawed body really the body of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?... Would the Lord suffer Himself to be eaten by mice and spiders? He who is the bread of angels and of all the children of God, has been given us to feed vermin? Him, who is incorruptible, at the right hand of God, will you make liable to worms and rottenness? Did not David write the contrary, prophesying his own resurrection?... Wretches! were there no other evil in all your infernal theology than the irreverence with which you speak of the precious body of Jesus, are you not blasphemers and heretics?... yea, the greatest and most enormous the world has ever seen.
'Kindle, yes, kindle your faggots, but let it be to burn and roast yourselves.... Why should you kindle them for us? Because we will not believe in your idols, in your new Gods, in your new Christs, who let themselves be eaten by vermin, and in you also, who are worse than vermin.
'What mean all these games you play round your God of dough, toying with him like a cat with a mouse? You break him into three pieces ... and then you put on a piteous look as if you were very sorrowful; you beat your breasts ... you call him the Lamb of God, and pray to him for peace. St. John showed Jesus Christ ever present, ever living, living all in one—an adorable truth! but you show your wafer divided into pieces, and then you eat it, calling for something to drink.... What would any man say who had never witnessed such monkey tricks?... Did St. Paul or St. John ever eat Christ in that manner? and would they acknowledge such mountebanks as the servants of God?
'Finally the practice of your mass is very contrary to the practice of the Holy Supper of Jesus Christ!... Certainly, there is no marvel in that, for there is nothing common between Christ and Belial.
'The Holy Supper of Jesus Christ reminds us of the great love with which He loved us so that He washed us in His blood. It presents to us on the part of the Lord the body and blood of His Son, in order that we should communicate in the sacrifice of His death, and that Jesus should be our everlasting food. It calls us to make protest of our faith, and of the certain confidence we have of being saved, Jesus having ransomed us. By giving to all of us only one bread it reminds us of the charity in which we, being all of the same spirit, ought to live. That Holy Supper, being thus fully understood, rejoices the believer's soul, in all humility, and imparts to him all gentle kindness and loving charity.
'But the fruit of the mass is very different. By it the preaching of the Gospel is prevented. The time is occupied with bell-ringing, howling, chanting, empty ceremonies, candles, incense, disguises, and all manner of conjuration. And the poor world, looked upon as a lamb or as sheep, is miserably deceived, cajoled, led astray—what do I say? bitten, gnawed, and devoured as if by ravening wolves.
'By means of this mass they have laid hands on everything, destroyed everything, swallowed up everything. By its means they have disinherited princes and kings, lords and shopkeepers, and all whom we could name, dead or alive.... O false witnesses, traitors, robbers of the honour of God, and more hateful than the devils themselves!
'In short, the truth chases them, the truth alarms them, and by truth shall their reign shortly be destroyed for ever.'
Such was the proclamation posted up in Paris and all over France. We trace in it, we must confess, the coarseness of the language of the sixteenth century, and especially in a passage which must have greatly stirred the anger of the clergy, where the placard, in speaking of the pope and cardinals, priests and monks, calls them false prophets, wolves, seducers, and gives them other names besides, which are rarely employed in our days except in the bulls of the Roman pontiffs. We discover in this writing the antipapistical spirit in all its unreflecting force. Certainly, when it says that the true Supper of Christ 'rejoices the believer's soul, and imparts to him all gentle kindness and loving charity,' we taste the savour of the Gospel; but, generally speaking, this manifesto is an engine of war with a brazen head. If we transport ourselves to the early days of the Reformation, we can understand that it was necessary to employ vigorous battering-rams to beat down the old and apparently unshakeable walls of popery. Every line in this placard reveals to us the warm-hearted, but also 'the impetuous and eloquent Farel, frank, decisive, intrepid among men, who had the admirable heart of the knight without reproach, with his thirst for danger, and was the Bayard of the battles of God.'[208] The work resembles the workman.