| |
| PRIEST 1 make their Maker Christ, yee must not doubt; | |
| They eat, drink, box him vp, and beare about: | |
| Substance of things they turne; nor is this all, | |
| For both the signes must hold him severall: | |
| Hee’s whole 2 ith’ bread, whole ith’ cuppe; | 5 |
| Theye eat him whole, whole they suppe; | |
| Whole ith’ cake, and whole ith’ cuppe. | |
| |
| This with you all doeth goe for veritie; | |
| To hold contrary is meer heresie: | |
| This is pure catholique, pure divine. | 10 |
| And thus feast ye; he with his Christ, thou with thine: | |
| Without bread and wine, indeed, | |
| For this is your Roman creed; | |
| Whom ye make, on him ye feed. | |
| |
| The bread and wine themselves away are gone, | 15 |
| Shewes of them tarry still, but substance none: | |
| They make their God, and they eat him vp; | |
| They swallow down his flesh, and blood vp sup. | |
| They’ll taste no flesh on frydayes (that’s not good); | |
| But of their new-mad God, and of his blood. | 20 |
| And as the whale did Jonas, so they eat | |
| Him up alive, body and soule, as meat. | |
| As men eat oysters, so on him they feed, | |
| Whole and alive, and raw, and yet not bleed. | |
| This cookerie, voyd of humanitie, | 25 |
| Is held in Rome for sound divinitie. | |
| And is not this strange to heare, | |
| That God, whom ye say ye feare, | |
| Ye should eat as bely-cheare? | |
| |
| The graver, painter, baker, even these three, | 30 |
| Your priest have reason for to magnifie: | |
| Perhaps the baker thinks he merits more, | |
| Yet both advance their honor and their store; | |
| For they, with their gentle feat, | |
| Help them to money and to meat, | 35 |
| Making gods to begge and eat. | |
| |
| And now, me thinks, I heare old Laban say, 3 | |
| “See, they have stoln and born my gods away.” | |
| Me thinks, I heare and see that mountineer, | |
| Micha of Ephraim, 4 who did idols feare, | 40 |
| Chiding with the Danits, for that they had | |
| Took’s priest and gods away, which made him mad. | |
| Mee thinks I see the Philistins bereft | |
| Of their vaine gods, which they to David left, 5 | |
| And how that noble worthy made them bee | 45 |
| Destroyed of his souljers presentlie. 6 | |
| Both men and beasts (a thing to be deplored) | |
| May bear away the things you adored: | |
| The things you worship with your heart and minde, | |
| Men like yourselves can burne, can melt, can grinde. | 50 |
| Baruch’s base things 7 (a shame it is to thinck) | |
| Can marre the things ye worship, and make stinck. | |
| And is not this great folly, | |
| More than childish vanity, | |
| To dote on things so silly? | 55 |
| |
| The foolish heathens were not all so mad, | |
| For they devoured not the gods they had: | |
| The wiser knew their vanities were wood, | |
| Or such like stuffe; not gods, nor flesh and blood. 8 | |
| But yee, as if bewitcht, do count and call | 60 |
| That poore thing God, Maker and Lord of all, | |
| Which is plaine bread, in substance very bread, | |
| Made of wheat-flower, ground with man’s hand, and knead. | |
