ABSTRACT
This chapter considers generalised interpretations of baptism, eucharist, and the ministry as an attempt to understand Church teaching on liturgy, and in particular the eucharistic liturgy given such emphasis by most of the Church. The first Quakers may have been consciously re-enacting the half hour of silence in heaven following the opening of the seventh seal. Timothy Peat has characterised this early Quaker combination of experiential and theological certainties as the fulfilment of Paul’s prophecy. The revelation of Christ comes after the breaking of the seventh seal that is followed by half an hour of silence in heaven. In the silence, the old world passes away and the new is born. Those living in this encounter with Christ experience this transition out of time into the kingdom. Early Quakers found their communion realised inwardly, and understood it as the communion with Christ foretold in Revelation, not the one instructed by Corinthians which was now superseded.
