took bread and blest, and
yet what blest He? The Scripture saith not that Christ took the bread
and blest it, or that He blest the bread which He had taken. Therefore
it seemeth more that He blest His disciples and apostles, whom He had
ordained witnesses of His passion; and in them He left His blest word,
which is the bread of life, as it is written, "Not only in bread liveth
man, but in every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Also
Christ saith, "I am the bread of life that came down from heaven." And
Christ saith also in John, "The words that I have spoken to you are
spirit and life." Therefore it seemeth more that He blest His disciples,
and also His apostles, in whom the bread of life was left more than in
material bread, for the material bread hath an end. As it is written in
the Gospel of Matthew xv. that Christ said, "All things that a man
eateth go down into the belly, and are sent down into the draught;" but
the blessing of Christ kept His disciples and apostles, both bodily and
[ghostly] spiritual. As it is written, that none of them perished but
the son of perdition, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, and often
the Scripture saith that Jesus took bread and brake it, and gave it to
his disciples, and said, "Take ye, eat ye, this is my body that shall be
given for you." But He said not this bread is my body, or that bread
should be given for the life of the world. For Christ saith, What and if
ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before? "It is the
Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." Also Christ saith
in the Gospel, "Verily, verily I say unto you except the wheat corn fall
into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth
forth much fruit"

Here men may see by the words of Christ that it behooved that He died in
the flesh, and that in His death was made the fruit of everlasting life
for all them that believe on Him, as it is written "For as by Adam they
all die, even so by Christ shall all live, and every man in his own
order; for as one clearness is in the sun, another in the moon, and a
star in clearness is nothing in comparison to the sun; even so is the
rising again of the dead for we are sown in corruption and shall rise
again incorruptible, we are sown in infirmity, and shall rise again in
strength; we are sown in natural bodies, and shall rise again spiritual
bodies." Then if Christ shall change thus our deadly bodies by death,
and God