Wesley Corpus

But this proves neither more nor less than that the baptism of John differed from the baptism of Christ. And so doubt less it did; not indeed as to the outward sign, but as to the inward grace. “13. The breaking of bread by Christ with his disciples was but a figure, and ceases in such as have obtained the substance.” Here is another manifest difference between Quakerism and Christianity. From the very time that our Lord gave that command, “Do this in remembrance of me,” all Christians throughout the habitable world did eat bread and drink wine in remem brance of him. Allowing, therefore, all that Robert Barclay affirms for eighteen or twenty pages together, viz., (1.) That believers partake of the body and blood of Christ in a spiritual manner: (2.) That this may be done, in some sense, when we are not eating bread and drinking wine : (3.) That the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Papists, differ from each other with regard to the Lord’s supper: And, (4.) That many of them have spoken wildly and absurdly concerning it: Yet all this will never prove, that we need not do what Christ has expressly commanded to be done; and what the whole body of Christians in all ages have done, in obedience to that command. That there was such a command, you cannot deny. But you say, “It is ceased in such as have obtained the substance.” St. Paul knew nothing of this. He says nothing of its ceasing in all he writes of it to the Corinthians. Nay, quite the contrary. He says, “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come.” O, say you, the Apostle means “his inward coming, which some of the Corinthians had not yet known.” Nay, this cannot be his meaning. For he saith to all the Corinthian communicants, “Ye do show the Lord's death till he come.” Now, if He was not come (spiritually) in some of these, undoubtedly he was in others. Consequently, he cannot be speaking here of that coming which, in many of them at least, was already past. It remains, that he speaks of his coming in the clouds, to judge both the quick and dead.