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

that forces us to change even one syllable in the words. Exod. 15. Because therefore Scripture openly attributes to God feet, hands, eyes, ears, a footstool, and the seat of His feet, it follows that He is corporeal. Because in the song of Mary He is called a man of war, it will not be right to mitigate this harsh mode of speaking with any elegant exposition. No matter how much Heshusius raises his buskins the high-soled shoes worn by tragic actors, here implying theatrical arrogance, it is nonetheless necessary to repress his insolence with such a valid and firm argument. The Ark of the Covenant is clearly called the God of Hosts, and indeed with such assertion that the Prophet emphatically exclaims, "Who is this King of Glory?" Pfal. 24. Jehovah Himself is the King of Hosts. Here we do not say that the Prophet thoughtlessly blathers what at first glance seems absurd, as this scoundrel wickedly barks: but after we have reverently embraced what he says, we interpret it no less piously than aptly, that the name of God is transferred to the symbol, because there is an inseparable connection of this with the thing and the truth. Indeed, that this general rule holds in all sacraments is compelled not only by human reason, but the sense of piety and the perpetual use of Scripture so dictate. No one is so rude or insipid as not to know that in all sacraments, the Spirit of God uses a peculiar form of speaking through the Prophets and Apostles. Whoever moves a controversy over this matter should be sent back to his first elements. Jacob saw the God of Hosts sitting upon the ladder. Moses saw Him both in the burning bush and in the flame of Mount Horeb. If the letter is retained tenaciously, how was God seen, who is invisible? Heshusius rejects inquiry: nor does he bring any other remedy than that, with closed eyes, we confess God to be visible and invisible. But the solution occurs spontaneously

and is clear, and consonant with piety, and finally necessary: that God was never seen as He is, but for the grasp of the faithful, He gave manifest signs of His presence. And so the presence of the divine essence is not at all excluded when the name of God is metonymically adapted to the symbol, by which God truly, and not only figuratively, but substantially represents Himself. The Holy Spirit is called a dove: is it properly so, as Christ elsewhere pronounces that God is Spirit? Certainly a manifest distinction presents itself: because although the Spirit was then truly and essentially present, He nevertheless exhibited the presence of His power and essence through a visible symbol. And how wickedly Heshusius accuses us of inventing a symbolic body, it is clear from this, that no one would shamefully conclude that the symbolic Spirit was seen in the baptism of Christ, because He appeared truly under a symbol, or an external form of a dove. We confess, therefore, that we eat the same body in the Supper that was crucified: although it is a metonymical expression regarding the bread, so that it can truly be said to be symbolically the true body of Christ, by whose immolation we are reconciled to God. And although there is some diversity in these words—whether it is a sign of the body, or a figure, or a metonymical, or a synecdochical appellation—nonetheless, concerning the sum of the matter, we agree perfectly: so that Westphal and Heshusius act like rotting triflers, searching for a knot in a bulrush searching for problems where none exist. And this jumper says a little later that no matter what the variety of words may be, we all feel exactly the same thing, and that I alone deceive the simple with wrappings. But where are these wrappings, by the rejection of which he wants my fallacy to be detected? Unless perhaps from his own eloquence he produces a new kind of perspicuity for us, by which it might better appear...