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The last of the sacred writers, who mentions the celebration of the
passover-supper, is St. Paul, whose account is now to be examined.
St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, reproves[187] the
latter for some irregularities committed by them in the course of their
religious meetings. What these meetings were is uncertain. They might
have been for the celebration of the passover-supper, for there was a
synagogue of Jews at Corinth, of whom some had been converted. Or they
might have been for the celebration of the passover as spiritualized by
Jesus Christ, or for the breaking of bread, which customs both the
Jewish and Gentile converts might have adopted. The custom, however, at
which these irregularities took place, is called by St. Paul, the Lord's
Supper. And this title was not inapplicable to it in either of the cases
supposed, because it must have been, in either of them, in
commemoration of the last supper, which Jesus Christ, or the Lord and
Master, ate with his disciples before he suffered.
[Footnote 187: Chap. 11.]
But whichever ceremonial it was that St. Paul alluded to, the
circumstances of the irregularities of the Corinthians, obliged him to
advert to and explain what was said and done by Jesus on the night of
the passover-supper. This explanation of the Apostle has thrown new
light upon the subject, and has induced the Quakers to believe, that no
new institution was intended to take place as a ceremonial to be
observed by the Christian world.
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