This silence with respect to any command for any new institution is considered by the Quakers as a proof, as far as these Evangelists are concerned, that none was ever intended.  For if the sacrament of the supper was to be such a great and essential rite as Christians make it, they would have been deficient in their duty, if they had failed to record it.  St. Matthew, who was at the supper, and St. Mark, who heard of what had passed there, both agree that Jesus used the ceremony of the bread and the wine, and also that he made an allusion from thence to his own body and blood; but it is clear, the Quakers say, whatever they might have heard as spoken by him, they did not understand him as enjoining a new thing.  But the silence of John, upon this occasion, the Quakers consider as the most impressive in the present case.  For St. John was the disciple, who leaned upon the bosom of Jesus at this festival, and who of course must have heard all that he said.  He was the disciple again, whom Jesus loved, and who would have been anxious to have perpetuated all that he required to be done.  He was the disciple again, who so particularly related the spiritual supper which Jesus enjoined at Capernaum, and in this strong language, that, “except a man eat his flesh, and drink his blood, he has no life in him.”  Notwithstanding this, St. John does not even mention what took place on the passover night, believing, as the Quakers suppose, that it was not necessary to record the particulars of a Jewish ceremony, which, being a type, was to end when its antitype was realized, and which he considered to be unnecessary for those of the Christian name.

SECT.  IV.

Account of St. Luke examined—­According to him Jesus celebrated only the old Jewish passover—­Signified all future passovers with him were to be spiritual—­Hence he turned the attention of those present from the type to the antitype—­He recommended them to take their meals occasionally together in remembrance of their last supper with him; or if, as Jews, they could not relinquish the passover, to celebrate it with a new meaning.

St. Luke, who speaks of the transactions which took place at the passover-supper, is the only one of the Evangelists who records the remarkable words, “do this in remembrance of me.”  St. Luke, however, was not himself at this supper.  Whatever he has related concerning it, was from the report of others.

But though the Quakers are aware of this circumstance, and that neither Matthew, Mark, nor John, give an account of such words, yet they do not question the authority of St. Luke concerning them.  They admit them, on the other hand, to have been spoken; they believe however, on an examination of the whole of the narrative of St. Luke upon this occasion, that no new institution of a religious nature was intended.  They believe that Jesus Christ did nothing more than celebrate the old passover; that he intimated to his disciples, at the time he celebrated it, that it was to cease; that he advised them, however, to take their meals occasionally, in a friendly manner, together, in remembrance of him; or if, as Jews, they could not all at once relinquish the passover, he permitted them to celebrate it with a new meaning.