For

happened on the destruction of Jerusalem,
when the Jews were dispersed, and their
Church, as a national one, done away.
the coming of Christ and the end of the
world have been considered as taking place
at the same time. Thus, the early Christians
believed that Jesus Christ, even after his
death and resurrection, would come again,
even in their own lifetime, and that the end
of the world would then be. These events
they coupled in their minds*;, "for they
asked him privately, saying, Tell us when
these things shall be, and what shall be the
sign of thy coming, and of the end of the
world." Jesus told them in reply, that the
end of the world and his coming would be,
when there were wars, and rumours of wars,
and earthquakes, and famine, and pestilence,
and tribulations on the earth; and that these
calamities would happen even before the ge-
neration, then alive, would pass away. Now
all these things actually happened in the same
generation; for they happened at the de-
struction of Jerusalem. Jesus Christ there-
fore meant by the end of the world the end
of the Jewish world, or of the world of types,

* Matt. xxiv.

8

figures,

1

any,

figures, and ordinances: and he coupled naturally his own coming with this event; because he could not come fully into the hearts of till these externals were done away. He alluded, in short, to the end of the Jewish dispensation, and the beginning of his own spiritual kingdom, or to the end of the ceremonial and the beginning of the Gospel-world.

Those, therefore, who interpret the words "till he come" to mean the end of the typical world, are of opinion that the Passover, as spiritualized by Jesus Christ, was allowed to the disciples while they lived among a people so wedded to religious ceremonies as the Jews, with whom it would have been a stumbling-block in the way of their conver sion if they had seen the apostles, who were their countrymen, rejecting it all at once; but that it was permitted them till the destruction of Jerusalem; after which event the Jews being annihilated as a nation, and being dispersed and mixed among the infinitely greater body of the Gentiles, the custom was to be laid aside, as the disuse of it could not be then prejudicial to the propagation of the Gospel among the community at large.

The Quakers, however, understand the words "till he come" to mean simply the coming of Christ substantially in the heart. Giving the words this meaning, they limit the duration of this spiritualized Passover, but do not specify the time. It might have ceased with some of them, they say, on the day of Pentecost, when they began to discover the nature of Christ's kingdom; and they think it probable, that it ceased with. all of them when they found this kingdom realized in their hearts. For it is remarkable that those who became Gospel-writers, and it is to be presumed that they had attained great spiritual growth when they wrote their respective works, give no instruction to others, whether Jews or Gentiles, to observe the ceremonial permitted to the disciples by Jesus, as any ordinance of the Christian. Church. And in the same manner as the Quakers conceive the duration of the spiritualized Passover to have been limited to the disciples, they conceive it to have been limited to all other Jewish converts, who might have adopted it in those times; that is, till they should find, by the substantial enjoyment of Christ in their hearts, that ce

remonial

remonial ordinances belonged to the old, but that they were not constituent parts of the new kingdom.

SECTION VI.

Quakers believe, from the preceding evidence, that` Jesus Christ intended no ceremonial for the Christian Church-for, if the custom enjoined was the Passover spiritualized, it was more suitable for Jews than Gentiles-If intended as a ceremonial, it would have been commanded by Jesus to others besides the disciples, and by these to the Christian world—and its duration would not have been limited-Quakers believe St. Paul thought it no Christian ordinance—three reasons taken from his own writings.

THE Quakers, then, on an examination of the preceding evidence, are of opinion that Jesus Christ, at the Passover-supper, never intended to institute any new supper distinct from that of the Passover, or from that enjoined at Capernaum to be observed as a ceremonial by Christians.

For, in the first place, St. Matthew, who

was

was at the supper, makes no mention of the words "Do this in remembrance of me.'

Neither are these words, nor any of a si milar import, recorded by St. Mark. It is true, indeed, that St. Mark was not at this supper. But it is clear he never understood from those who were, either that they were spoken, or that they bore this meaning, or he would have inserted them in his Gospel.

Nor is any mention made of such words by St. John. This was the beloved disciple, who was more intimate with Jesus, and who knew more of the mind of his master, than any of the others. This was he who leaned upon his bosom at the Passover-supper, and who must have been so near him as to have heard all that passed there; and yet this disciple did not think it worth his while, except manuscripts have been mutilated, to mention even the bread and the wine that were used upon this occasion.

Neither does St. Luke, who mentions the words "Do this in remembrance of me," establish any thing, in the opinion of the Quakers, material on this point. For it appears from him, that Jesus, to make the most of his words, only spiritualized the old

Passover