“Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.  Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life…  For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed…  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.  But there are some of you that believe not.”

Jn. 6:53-64

“I am the door…”

Jn. 10:9

“I am the vine, ye are the branches…”

Jn. 15:5

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Subsection

Works Against the Roman Apologist Bellarmine  (who defended the Mass)

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Order of Contents

Articles
Works of the Westminster Divines
The Lord’s Supper is Not a Literal Sacrifice
On Attending the Mass
Romanists’ Taking the Cup Away from the People

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Articles

1500’s

Calvin, John – Of the Popish Mass, how it not only profanes, but annihilates the Supper, in Institutes, book 4, chapter 18

Knox, John – A Vindication of the Doctrine that the Sacrifice of the Mass Is Idolatry  1550, in The Works of John Knox, ed. David Laing, 3:29-70

Ridley, Nicholas 

Brief Declaration, or Treatise Against Transubstantiation, in Works of Nicholas Ridley, pp. 1-46

Answer to Certain Queries Touching the Abuses of the Mass, in Works of Nicholas Ridley, pp. 316-318

Ridley (d. 1555) was one of the English Reformers burned at the stake by Bloody Mary.

Beza, Theodore & Antoine de la Faye – Ch. 61, ‘Principles Touching the Popish Mass’  in Propositions and Principles of Divinity Propounded & Disputed in the University of Geneva by Students…  (1586)

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1600’s

Cunningham, William – The Popish View of the Lord’s Supper, p. 142, two pages, from his Historical Theology, vol. 2

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Works of the Westminster Divines 

Featley, Daniel

Transubstantiation Exploded: or an Encounter with Richard the Titulary Bishop of Chalcedon concerning Christ’s presence at his holy table.  Faithfully related in a letter sent to D. Smith the Sorbonist, styled by the Pope Ordinary of England and Scotland, Whereunto is annexed a public and solemn disputation held at Paris with Christopher Bagshaw D. in Theology, and rector of Ave Marie College, 1638  276 pp.

A True Relation of that which passed in a conference, at the end of Paternoster-Rowe, called, Amen, Touching Transubstantiation, April 18, 1623, 1624, 32 pages, the pages are numbered: 117-149.

Gataker, Thomas – A Discussion of the Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation wherein the same is declared by the confession of their own writers, to have no necessary ground in God’s Word: as also it is further demonstrated to be against Scripture, nature, sense, reason, religion, and the judgment of the ancients, and the faith of our ancestors, 1624  13 pp.

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The Lord’s Supper is Not a Literal Sacrifice

Protestants held rightly, along with Scripture and the Early & Medieval Churches, that the Lord’s Supper may be considered a figurative sacrifice.

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Article

Davenant, John – ‘The Popish Mass is Not a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Living & the Dead’  in The Determinations, or Resolutions of Certain Theological Questions, Publicly Discussed in the University of Cambridge  trans. Josiah Allport  (1634; 1846), pp. 283-290  bound at the end of John Davenant, A Treatise on Justification, or the Disputatio de Justitia...  trans. Josiah Allport  (1631; London, 1846), vol. 2

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On Attending the Mass

1500’s

Bradford, John – The Harm of Attending the Mass, pt. 1 (How Evil the Mass is), 2 (Why it is Sinful), 3 (Objections Answered)  (d. 1555; 1561)  See the unabridged work here.

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1600’s

Davenant, John – Question 7, ‘Protestants Cannot with a Safe Conscience Attend the Mass’  in The Determinations, or Resolutions of Certain Theological Questions, Publicly Discussed in the University of Cambridge  trans. Josiah Allport  (1634; 1846), pp. 257-62  bound at the end of John Davenant, A Treatise on Justification, or the Disputatio de Justitia...  trans. Josiah Allport  (1631; London, 1846), vol. 2

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Romanists’ Taking the Cup Away From the People

1600’s

Featley, Daniel – The Grand Sacrilege of the Church of Rome in taking away the sacred cup from the laity at the Lord’s Table: detected and convinced by the evidence of holy Scripture and testimonies of all ages successively from the first propagation of the catholic Christian faith to this present, together with two conferences: the former at Paris with D. Smith, now styled by the Romanists B of Calcedon; the later at London with M Euerard, priest  1630  306 pp.

Ley, John – A Comparison of the Parliamentary Protestation with the Late Canonical Oath and the Difference between them as also the Opposition between the doctrine of the Church of England and that of Rome, so cleared that they who made scruple of the oath may cheerfully and without doubt address themselves to take the protestation, as also a further discussion of the case of conscience touching receiving the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper when either bread or wine is wanting [lacking] or when by antipathy or impotence the party that desires it cannot take it, wherein the impiety, injury and absurdity of the popish half-communion is more fully declared and confuted  1641  59 pp.

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Related Pages

The Lord’s Supper

All the Works of the Westminster Divines on the Lord’s Supper