1 Corinthians 11:34

34. Hunger The very name agape indicated that these love-feasts were for the cultivation of the affections, not the gratification of the appetite, or the sustenance of, at any rate, the well-off class.

The rest Referring, doubtless, to other matters in regard to the good order of their assemblages contained in the letter of the Corinthians. From this passage Romanists argue in favour of traditional customs added by them to the institutes of the Church, and especially to the Lord’s supper: such as having a thin wafer for bread, withholding the cup from the laity, and the worshipping the wafer as the body of Christ. We may easily concede that the apostles did make regulations in the Church. If any institute can be shown to have been established by apostles for the universal Church, it must, doubtless, be accepted as part of the Christian system. But of most of the peculiarities of Rome we know the date of their origin, and reject them as innovations and novelties. We have known in our own day, in the Romish enactments of the immaculacy of the Virgin, and the infallibility of the pope, how dogmas are manufactured. And in the last dogma we find the amplest power provided for the pope to enact, with a sentence a new Christian doctrine whenever he pleases.