Add to
this, that the limitation of its duration for a time, seems a sufficient
argument against it as a Christian ordinance, because whatever is once,
most be for ever, an essential in the Christian church.
The Quakers believe, as a farther argument in their favour, that there
is reason to presume that St. Paul never looked upon the spiritualised
passover as any permanent and essential rite, which Christians were
enjoined to follow. For nothing can be more clear than that, when
speaking of the guilt and hazard of judging one another by meats and
drinks, he states it as a general and fundamental doctrine of
Christianity, that [189] "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
[Footnote 189: Romans 14. 17.]
It seems also by the mode of reasoning which the Apostle adopts in his
epistle to the Corinthians on this subject, that he had no other idea of
the observance of this rite, than he had of the observance of particular
days, namely, that if men thought they were bound in conscience to keep
them, they ought to keep them religiously. "He that regardeth a day,
says the Apostle, regardeth it to the Lord." That is, "as he that
esteemed a day, says Barclay, and placed conscience in keeping it, was
to regard it to the Lord, (and so it was to him, in so far as he
regarded it to the Lord, the Lord's day,) he was to do it worthily: and
if he were to do it unworthily, he would be guilty of the Lord's day,
and so keep it to his own condemnation.
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