APPENDIX, CONTAINING A COMPARISON OF SOME OF THE DOCTRINAL VIEWS OF J.J. GURNEY, WITH THOSE OF SEVERAL STANDARD WRITERS AMONG THE EARLY FRIENDS, AND SEVERAL TESTIMONIES AND LETTERS RELATIVE TO THE DOCTRINES AND CONDITION OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

[17: OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST, PAGES 319-321]


John Wilbur

Wilbur, John. A Narrative and Exposition of the Late Proceedings of New England Yearly Meeting, With Some of its Subordinate Meetings & Their committees, in Relation to the Doctrinal Controversy Now Existing in the Society of Friends: Prefaced by a Concise View of the Church, Showing the Occasion of its Apostacy, both Under the Former and Present Dispensations, With an Appendix. Edited from Record Kept, From Time to Time, of Those Proceedings, and Interspersed With Occasional Remarks and Observations. Addressed to the Members of the Said Yearly Meeting. New York: Piercy & Reed, Printers, 1854, pages 277-325.

(All italics added by J.W. for emphasis. All words supplied in [Square Brackets] by J.W.
Page numbers from original publication by -pds in {Set Brackets.}

This Document is on The Quaker Writings Home Page.


J.J. Gurney (Brief Remarks, p. 13.): After commenting at large on John he says--" Hence it follows, that the bread which Christ gives us to eat is his flesh, which he offered upon the cross for the sins of the whole world. As eating the bread of life is identical with believing in Christ, the incarnate Son of God, so {p. 320} eating his flesh is identical with such a belief in him as is especially directed to his atoning sacrifice.
"Our Lord's meaning becomes yet more indisputable, when he pursues his use of this expressive figure, and adds to the eating of his flesh, thc drinking of his blood: '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. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him,' ver. 53--56. That the flesh and blood of Christ are here spoken of in relation to his incarnation and atoning sacrifice, is made abundantly clear by the comparison of all the other passages in tim New Testament, and especially in the writings of this apostle, in which mention is made of that flesh or of that blood.
These passages are numerous; and on a careful examination of them, it will be found that the flesh always means his Human body--that body which was born, died, and rose again--and that his blood always means his very blood, which was his natural life, and which was naturally shed on the cross for the remission of sin."

Contrast with

Barclay (Apology, p. 446:): "The body then of Christ, which believers partake of, is spiritual, and not carnal; and his blood, which they drink of, is pure and heavenly, and not human or elementary, as Augustine also affirms of the body of Christ, wisich is eaten, in his Tractat. Psalm 98. Exert a man eat my flesh, he hath not in him life eternal: and he saith, The words which I speak unto you are Spirit and life; understand spiritually what I have spoken.
Ye shall not eat of this body which ye see, and drink this blood which they shall spill, which crucify me--I am the living blead, who have descended from heaven. He calls himself tho bread, who descended from heaven, exhorting that we might believe in him, &c.
If it be asked then, What that body, what that flesh and blood is?
I answer; It is that heavenly seed, that divine, spiritual {p. 321} celestial substance, of which we spake before in the fifth and sixth propositions. This is that spiritual body of Christ, whereby and through which he communicateth life to men, and salvation to as many as believe in him, and receive him; and whereby also man comes to have fellowship and communion with God."
 

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