Why doth your mastershyppe graunte a necessarye allegorye, whē Paule sayeth, CHRISTE is a stone, or when Christ sayeth, that he is a dore? The scrypture sayeth he is both twayne. And syth God so sayth, he is able so to make it. And therfore by your reason we shall neade none allegorye in all scrypture, & thē he that is moste symple ād folyshe, may be counted moste faythfull. And so shall we neade no faythfull Fathers to expounde the texte, but it shalbe moste meryte, to beleue the letter. This I denye not, but that God coulde haue done yt, yf he had so entēded, when he spake the wordes: But nowe the scrypture stondynge as it doth, I thynke he can not do it. As by exāple. I thynke that God by the bloode of hys sone Christe myght haue saued all men, both faythfull and vnfaythfull, yf he had so intēded, ād that yt had so pleased hym. But nowe the scrypture stōdynge as it doth, I saye he can not do yt, and that it is impossyble for hym. For then he myght make hys sone a lyer which sayeth, [Sidenote: Ioan. 3.] he that beleueth not is dampned. And agayne, he that beleueth not shall not see lyfe, but the wrathe of God abydeth vpon hym. And euen as it is impossyble to stonde with the processe of scriptures (wherin God hath declared hys wyll) that the vnfaythfull shulde be saued, although God myght haue done it at the fyrst yf he had so wolde. Lykewyse it is impossyble the scryptures stondynge as they do, that the naturall bodye of Christ shulde be presente to our teth in the sacrament. And as for our faythe, yt neadeth not to haue hym presente in the breade. For I maye as well eate hym ād drynke hym through faythe, that is to saye: beleue in hym, as though he were as presente in the sacramēte, as he was hangynge vpon the crosse. And because you saye, that my naturall reasons be not worth the reasonynge, I wyll alleage you some mo, to see what you can saye to them. Fyrste euery sacrament is the sygne of an holye thynge: but the sacramente of the aulter is a sacramēt (as all faythfull men confesse) ergo it muste folowe that the sacrament of the aulter is the sygne of an holye thynge. Nowe yf it be the sygne of an holye thynge, then it is not the holye thynge yt selfe which yt doth sygnyfye & represent. Why shulde we then feare, to call that breade a fygure, that is to saye: a sacrament of that holye bodye of our Lorde and Sauyoure. Besydes that I wolde knowe of what necessyte or profyte hys fleshe muste be present in the sacrament. For the presence of hys fleshe can no more profyte vs, thē doth the remembraunce of hys bodye, but this remembraunce maye as well be done by the sacrament, as though hys bodye were present. And therfore syth God and nature make nought in vayne, it foloweth consequentlye, that his naturall fleshe is not there, but onelye a memoryall therof.