A68658:45
A brief declaration of the Lords Supper, writtenA brief declaracion of the Lordes Supper, written
A brief declaration of the Lords Supper, written by the singular learned man, and most constant martyr of Jesus Christ, Nicholas Ridley Bishop of London prisoner in Oxford, a little before he suffered death for the true testimony of ChristA brief declaracion of the Lordes Supper, written by the syngular learned man, and most constaunt martir of Iesus Christ, Nicholas Ridley Bishop of London prisoner in Oxforde, a litel before he suffred deathe for the true testimonie of Christ
Emden: printed by E. van der Erve, 1555
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
and so demonstrating and showing that bread which he had in his hands, to say than, This is my body: & to have said, This bread is my body. As it were all one, if a man lacking a knife, & going to his oysters, would say unto an other, whom he saw to have two knives, Sir, I pray you lend me the one of your knives. Were it not now all one to answer him, Sir, hold I will lend you this to eat your meat, but not to open oysters withal: and hold, I will lend you this knife to eat your meat, but not to open oysters. This similitude serveth but for this purpose, to declare the nature of speech withal, where as the thing that is demonstrated and showed, is evidently perceived, and openly known to the eye. But O good Lord, what a wonderful thing is it to see, how some men do labour to teach, what is demonstrated ⟨image 23⟩and showed by the pronoun demonstrative, this, in Christs words when he sayeth: This is my body: This is my blood: how they labour (I say) to teach, what that (this) was than in deed, wham Christ spake in the beginning of the sentence the word (this) before he had pronounced the rest of the words,1 that followed in the same sentence: so that their doctrine may agree with their Transubstantiation: which in deed is the very foundation, wherein all their erroneous doctrine doth stand.2 And here the Transubstantiators do not agree among them selves, no more than they do in the words which wrought the Transubstantiation, when Christ did first institute his Sacrament: Wherein Innocentius a bishop of Rome of the later days, and Duns (as was noted before) do attribute the work unto the word (Benedixit) Blessed: but the rest for the most parte, to Hoc est corpus meum, This is my body. &c. Duns therefore with his sect, because he putteth the change before, must needs say, that (this) when Christ spake it in the beginning of the sentence, was in deed Christs body. For in the change, the substance ⟨image 23⟩of bread did depart, and the change was now done in Benedixit (sayeth he) that went before: and therefore after him and his, that (this) was than in deed Christs body, though the word did not import so much, but only one thing in substance: which substance after Duns (the bread being gone) must needs be the substance of Christs body. But they that put their Tran substantiation to be wrought by these words of Christ, This is my body: