368 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
You ask me in what sense these words I verify, 
When Christ of the bread said, ‘This is my body.’ 
For answer herein I ask you this question: 
Were Christ’s disciples into salt transformed 
When he said, ‘Ye are the salt of the earth every one,’ 
Or when the light of the world he them affirmed? (84) 
But in spite of his bold avowal of these truths before the hos- 
tile court, Philologus is ensnared by the picture of carnal pleasure 
that Sensual Suggestion exhibits in a mirror. Conscience, Spirit, 
and Terror seek to restrain him, and a controversy ensues between 
Conscience and Suggestion which, although reminiscent of the 
earlier plays, is greatly abbreviated to allow space for the twenty 
pages and more of exhortation that Theologus and Eusebius address 
to the sinner. They get him to state the belief that he once held 
through study of the epistles of Paul and James, and when he 
mentions the necessity of good works, they hasten to show him on 
Biblical authority the superiority of faith. It is such Protestant ex- 
hortation of the Puritan stamp that finally recalls Philologus from 
popery, and brings him to a Christian end.1 
Again in New Custom sectarian controversy makes up the bulk 
of the play. Perverse Doctrine, to be sure, is unexpectedly con- 
verted at the end, and becomes Sincere Doctrine; but the conflict 
has been used only as an occasion for disputation. Perverse Doc- 
trine, the old Popish priest, condemns in strongest terms the new 
theologians who read and discuss the Testament familiarly and deny 
the doctrine of transubstantiation. Such a one, Ignorance replies, 
is New Custom: 
I am sure he hath not been in the realm very many years, 
With a gathered frock, a polled head and a broad hat, 
An unshaved beard, a pale face; and he teacheth that 
All our doings are nought, and hath been many a day. 
He disalloweth our ceremonies and rites, and teacheth another way 
To serve God, than that which we do use. 
But he commands the service in English to be read, 
And for the Holy Legend the Bible to put in his stead, 
Every man to look thereon at his list and pleasure, 
Every man to study divinity at his convenient leisure. (163—64) 

* The plot was suggested by the conversion of Francis Spira, an 
Italian lawyer who lived in England about the middle of the century 
(Ward, 1. 138). 
