A Key (Penn)/Section X
OF WATER BAPTISM AND THE SUPPER
[edit]Perversion 14: The Quakers deny the two great sacraments or ordinances of the Gospel, Baptism and the Supper.
Principle: Whatever is truly a Gospel ordinance, they desire to own and practice. But they observe no such language in the Scriptures as in the reflection. They do confess the practice of John's baptism and the Supper is to be found there; but practice only is no institution, nor a sufficient reason for continuation. That they were then proper, they believe, when the mysteries lay yet couched in figures and shadows. But it is their belief that no figures or signs are perpetual or of institution under the Gospel administration, when Christ, Who is the Substance of them, is come.
It were to overthrow the whole Gospel dispensation, and to make the coming of Christ of no effect, to render signs and figures of the nature of the Gospel, which is inward, spiritual and eternal. If it be said, but they were used after the coming of Christ, and His ascension too: they answer, so were many Jewish ceremonies. It is sufficient to them that water baptism was John's, and not Christ's; that Jesus never used it; that it was no part of Paul's commission, which if it were evangelical and of duration, it certainly would have been; that there is but one baptism, as well as one faith, and one Lord; and that baptism ought to be of the same nature with the kingdom of which it is an ordinance, and that is spiritual The same holds also as to the supper, both alluding to old Jewish practices, and used as a signification of a near and accomplishing work, namely, the Substance they represented.
If any say, but Christ commanded that one of them should continue in remembrance of Him, which the apostle to the Church of Corinth explains thus: that thereby they do show forth the Lord's death till He comes. We allege that He said so. told His disciples also He would come to them again; that some should not taste death till they saw Him coming in the kingdom: and that He Who dwelleth with them, should be in them; and that He would drink no more of this fruit till He should drink it anew with them in the kingdom of God, which is within. He was the heavenly bread that they had not yet known, nor His flesh and blood as they were to know them. So that though Christ came to end all signs, yet till He was known as the Great Bread of life from heaven, signs had their service to show forth in remembrance of Christ. Paul says expressly of the Jewish observations, that they were shadows of the good things to come, but the Substance was of Christ.
Hence it is that the Quakers cannot be said to deny them, but they, truly feeling in themselves the very thing which the outward water, bread and wine signify, leave them off, as fulfilled in Christ, Who is in them the hope of their glory, and henceforth they have but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one bread, and one cup of blessing, and that is of the kingdom of God, which is within.