Dilucida explicatio sanae doctrinae de vera participatione carnis & sanguinis Christi in sacra coena, ad discutiendas Heshusii nebulas

CHRISTI IN COENA.

our [thoughts] ...

to throw. Yet he assigns causes why he compares us to the Manichaeans, but those which he borrowed partly from some sodomite, partly from a cynic buffoon. Since therefore he vomits out most vain inventions, what is the point of laboring to clear myself? Yet I am pleased with the condition finally added by him: namely, that my book on Predestination should settle the controversy, because from there it will be easy to perceive what sorts of things are born from the wild grape of Staphylus.

I come now to the Frenchman, or the "Bubo" an owl or a derogatory term for a swollen growth, who in his mad speech declares me a corrupter of the Augsburg Confession, because I deny that in the holy Supper we are made participants of the substance of the flesh and blood of Christ. Yet it occurs more than a hundred times in my writings, so much do I not reject the name of "Substance," that I ingenuously and willingly profess that spiritual life is diffused into us from the substance of Christ’s flesh by the incomprehensible power of the Spirit. Everywhere I also admit that we are substantially fed by the flesh and blood of Christ, provided that the gross invention concerning local mixing is removed. What then? Because the rooster chose to raise his comb at me, will the minds of all be struck with terror, so that they judge nothing? I, indeed, so that I may not be ridiculous, refrain from a long refutation of that writing, which reveals its author to be no less insipid than he is drunk with stupid audacity. It loudly proclaims that he was certainly not in his right mind at that time.

But what shall I do with Tilemann Heshusius, who, magnificently equipped with a proud and sonorous abundance of words, trusts that whatever resists his attack will be prostrated by his breath? Good men, to whom he is known more closely, even say that he is inflated with a different confidence, because he chiefly seeks glory for himself from paradoxes and the absurdity of opinions.