A57277:17
A brief declaration of the Lords Supper with some other determinations and disputations concerning…
A brief declaration of the Lords Supper with some other determinations and disputations concerning the same argument by the same author / written by Dr. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London during his imprisonment ; to which is annexed an extract of several passages to the same purpose out of a book entitled Diallacticon, written by Dr. John Poynet.A brief declaration of the Lords Supper with some other determinations and disputations concerning the same argument by the same author / written by Dr. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London during his imprisonment ; to which is annexed an extract of several passages to the same purpose out of a book intituled Diallacticon, written by Dr. John Poynet.
London: printed for Richard Chiswell, 1688
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Ridley, the notablest learned of that Opinion in this Realm, did set forth at Paul's Cross the real presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament, with these words, which I heard, staying then present; how that the Devil did believe the Sacrament of God was able to make of Stones Bread: And we English people, we do confess that Christ was the very Son of God, and yet will not believe that of Bread he made his very Body Flesh and Blood; wherefore we are worse than the Devil: since that our Saviour by express words did more plainly affirm the same, when at his last Supper he took Bread, and said unto his Disciples; Take ye, eat, this is my Body, which shall be given for you. And shortly after, the said Mr. Doctor Ridley notwithstanding this most plain and open Speech at Paul's Cross, did deny the same.
Whether Fecknam hath truly represented the words of Ridley, is uncertain. But from the last words of this passage it is manifest, that some, even in that time, taking occasion from this Sermon, had charged Bishop Ridley with asserting a Material Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament: ⟨image 5⟩and that he constantly denied himself to have meant or intended any such presence. In this therefore, and such like expressions, he intended only (as himself assures us) to oppose those, who so lightly esteemed the Sacrament, 1as to make of it but a figure. For that but maketh it a bare sign, without any more profit. But to clear his intention in this matter from all remaining suspicion of any kind of Material Presence, I will annex a larger explication of it in his own words, in his last examination before the Queens Commissioners, September 30. 1555.
- 1Ibid. vol. 3. p. 35.