" The Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying, How
can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them,
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whosoever eateth my
flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up
at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink
indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me,
and I in him. As the living father hath sent me, and I live by the
father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that
bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and
are dead. He that eateth of this bread, shall live forever."
As the Jews were still unable to comprehend the meaning of his words,
which they discovered by murmuring and pronouncing them to be hard
sayings, Jesus Christ closes his address to them in the following words:
"It is the spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing: the
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
It appears from hence, according to the Quakers, that Jesus Christ, in
mentioning the loaves, took occasion to spiritualize, as he did on all
other fit occasions, and to direct the attention of his followers from
natural to spiritual food, or from the food that perisheth, to that
which giveth eternal life.
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