1 Corinthians 11:26 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

As often as ye eat this bread— It is no wonder that a text, in which this element is so plainly called bread, after consecration, should be urged against the popish doctrine of transubstantiation: it signifies little for the favourers of that opinion to plead, that the Scriptures sometimes call things changed by the name of the thing out of which they were made, (as Adam is called dust, Gen. iii 19. Aaron's serpent a rod, Exodus 7:12.) or call them according to their sensible appearance (as Joshua 5:13.Mark 16:5.); for these instances rather turn against them, by proving that where the literal interpretation is evidently absurd, we must have recourse to the figurative. Nothing can be more unreasonable than to refer the last clause of this verse, as the Quakers do, to the time when Christ should come, by his spiritual illumination on their minds, to take them off from carnal ordinances; for, not to insist upon it, that we have at least as much need of the Lord's supper as the primitive Christians had,—not having many advantages which they had, such as the miraculous gifts, &c.—it is evident that the grand coming of Christ by the Spirit was, when it was poured out on the day of Pentecost; an event many years prior to the date of this Epistle. See Doddridge, Stillingfleet, and Tillotson.