Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

thus : 'On our Lords body I doe not lie,7. PERES THE PLOWMANS CREDE. 369785. Compare'Had they been out of religion,They must have hanged at the plowe,Threshing and diking fro toune to touneWith sorrie meat, and not halfe ynowe.'Ploughman's Complaint, Political Poems, i. 335.808. When Christ descended into hell, he fetched out Adam and thepatriarchs, and led them with him to heaven. This vi'as called the Harrowingof Hell. The story is given in the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus,and is repeated at great length in Piers Plowman, B. xviii.810. Siei^, ascended.816. Generall, i.e. Catholic, universal. So in p. i of the Apologyattributed to Wyclif, we find the ' general feith' meaning the Catholicfaith.817-821. Here occur five spurious lines, only found in the early printededition, and not in the MSS.822. 'And I believe in the sacrament too, that the very God is in,both flesh and blood fully, who suffered death for us.'0« = upon, in ; A.S. on. Cf. the phrases leuest on, believest in, 1. 342 ;hue on, believe in, 1.795. The word in in 1. 815 is exactly equivalent tothe word on in 1.799.As we know the author of the Crede to have written the Complaintof the Ploughman, we find his views concerning the Eucharist expressedI say sooth through true rede.His flesh and blood through his misterieIs there, in the foraie of bredeHow is it there it needeth not strive.Whether it be subget or accident,But as Christ was when he was on-live.So is he there verament.'—Political Poems, i. 341.Such was the position of the Wyclifites.They denied the extreme formof the doctrine as declared by the friars, maintaining that whilst Christwas bodily present, the bread never ceased to remain bread; how thiscould be was a thing, they said, not to be explained. See Wyclif 's'Wicket.'Bb