press you by these two Arguments and so conclude I. The first is the great concern we have made show of about our Religion and the fears we have pretended lest we should be so unhappy as to lose it If we be in good earnest concerned for it why then I beseech you do we not take care to keep it by being truly Religious Is there any reason to think that they are troubled with fears of losing one half of the Communion who can be content with none at all Or with what Conscience do they find fault with the Church of Rome for taking away the Cup from the People when they themselves live as if the whole Sacrament were unnecessary It is a false zeal which declaims against the Priests receiving alone and doth not bring men to receive with him when they may but suffers him still to remain at the Altar with a very small Company In these things we accuse and reproach our selves demonstrating we are not led by Religion but by humour Worldly Interest or Faction For no man can be thought to be truly solicitous for the preservation of Religion when he makes no use of it nor receives any benefit by it Cannot he live without the name who lives without the thing It we be unseignedly desirous to maintain the estate of Religion here established let us seriously comply with its Institutions and serve God duly in all its Offices being afraid of this above all other things lest God should therefore remove our Candlestick out of its place because we will not walk in the light thereof therefore deprive us of the opportunities of the Holy Communion because we have no list to Communicate Unto which duty let us stir up our selves that it may stir us up to all other For what other way do we know like this nay what other way but this for our preservation II. That 's the second thing We of the Church of England profess to depend wholly upon Heaven in the use of spiritual Weapons alone for our protection in times of danger disclaiming the Lawfulness of taking up Arms to resist the Supreme Power upon the account of Religion Are we not strangely forgetful then if we accustom not our selves to the use of these spiritual means for our safety and security especially this of which I may say as David of the Sword of Goliah there is none like it What account can we give of such foul neglect of him unto whom we say every day there is none that fighteth for us but only thou O God Is not this to expose our selves to be a prey unto our Enemies if ever they have as much power as will to devour us For we openly declare by not seeking aid continually from above in that way wherein we are more likely to obtain it that we depend upon nothing at all but are the most defenceless of all Mankind So they would have thought in ancient dayes when they look'd upon those as left unarmed and naked who were not fortified with the protection of the body and blood of Christ. Which are the words of St. Cyprian who argues thus in his 57. Epistle since the Eucharist is made on purpose that it may be a defence and safeguard unto those who receive it let us arm those whom we would have to be safe against the Adversary speaking of the fight of affliction they were to encounter with the munition of the Lords plenteous fullness For how can we teach or provoke them to shed their blood for the Confession of his Name if entring the Combate we deny them the blood of Christ Or how shall we make them fit for the Cup of Martyrdom if we admit them not first to drink in the Church the Cup of the Lord Consider I beseech you how we in this Church profess to lean only upon the hope of his heavenly grace which is so necessary for us that we acknowledge in another Collect that the Church cannot continue in safety without his succour and therefore pray him to preserve it by his help and goodness Shall we not then seek this succour most solicitously shall we not implore this Heavenly Grace with ardent cries especially in this powerful way of prevailing with him by representing to him what Christ hath done and suffered for his Church which he purchased with his own most pretious blood We abandon all care of our selves when we thus forsake the only help we have to rest upon Nay it is to contradict our Prayers when we say we have no other Hope and yet do not flee to him our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble It is at least a vain and sensless leaning on him which makes us neglect him and lay aside the principal support which he hath left us for our incouragement and comfort in all our distresses If we really depend on him alone we had need apply our selves unto him with warmth of affection and great diligence If we rely on his help and goodness let us take care to please him in all things that so we may obtain the favour either to have the evils turned away from us which we have deserved or to be fortified against them with such a pious constancy that they may be stedfastly indured If we do not thus study to approve our selves his faithful Servants we foolishly confide in him against his own express Declarations that he will not patronize us in Irreligion and contempt of his Authority But if we faithfully obey him then we surely trusting in his Defence need not fear the power of any Adversaries but rest assured that he will keep his Church and Houshold continually in his true Religion that they who do lean only upon the hope of his heavenly grace may evermore be defended by his mighty power through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen FINIS Books Written by the Reverend Dr Patrick and sold by Richard Royston THE Christian Sacrifice A Treatise shewing the Necessity End and Manner of Receiving the Holy Communion together with sutable Prayers and Meditations for every Month in the Year and for the Principal Festivals in Memory of our Blessed Saviour The Sixth Edition The Devout Christian instructed how to pray and give thanks to God or a Book of Devotion for Families and particular persons in most of the concerns of Humane Life The Fifth Edition in Twelves An Advice to a Friend The Fourth Edition in Twelves Jesus and the Resurrection justified by Witnesses in Heaven and in Earth In two Parts in Octavo The Book of Job Paraphrased in Octavo New The Book of Psalms In two Parts Paraphrased in Octavo The Proverbs of Solomon Paraphrased with the Arguments of each Chapter which supply the place of Commenting A Paraphrase upon the Books of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon With Arguments to each Chapter and Annotations thereupon in Octavo New The truth of Christian Religion in Octavo New The Glorious Epiphany with the devout Christians love to it in Octavo A Book for Beginners or a Help to young Communicants that they may be fitted for the Holy Communion and receive it with profit The Sixth Edition The Works of Dr Hammond in Four large Volumes viz. Vol. I. A Collection of Discourses chiefly Practical Vol. II. A Collection of Discourses in Defence of the Church of England 1. Against the Romanists 2. Against other Adversaries Vol. III. A Paraphrase and Annotations upon all the Books of the New Testament Vol. IV. A Paraphrase and Annotations upon the Books of the Psalms A Paraphrase and Annotations upon the ten first Chapters of the Proverbs MS. Thirty one Sermons Preach'd upon several Occasions With an Appendix to Vol. 2.
account be given why they did this as constantly as they assembled themselves for Divine Service but because they took that to be our Saviours meaning and intention when he said This do in remembrance of me Now there is nothing more apparent in the holy story than this that the Apostles and those whom they first converted made this a daily part of the offices of Religion For we read that when three thousand Souls joined themselves to the Church upon the day of Pentecost they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and fellowship and breaking of Bread and Prayers Act. ii 42. Where breaking of Bread I proved before signifies their receiving the Eucharist and now observe that the words we translate continued stedfastly which in the Greek are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signify that they were constant and assiduous in this holy action For the word imports frequency as appears from other places particularly from Rom. xii 12. Where there is the same word in the Apostles Command for Prayer and we translate it continuing instant in Prayer And Coloss iv 2. it is joined with watching thereunto with thanksgiving From which Observations we gain this that as frequent and instant as they were in Prayer so frequent and instant they were in breaking of Bread for they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 constant and unwearied in them both alike Now what this constancy or frequency was is expounded in the 46. verse where St. Luke saith they continued the same word again daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking Bread from house to house or at home as the word is better translated in the Margin of our Bibles Where we see that breaking of Bread at home in their own private Houses was as daily as their going to the Temple publickly and can be meant of nothing but their receiving the holy Communion every day For no man can so much as imagine a reason why breaking of Bread should be mentioned as their daily practice at home together with their resort to the Temple service abroad but to signify that they communicated among themselves in the service of the Eucharist or Holy Communion proper to the Faith of Christians as they communicated with the Jews in the service of the Temple common to all the Disciples of Moses You may impute this it is possible to the warmth of their zeal but remember withal that this zeal was grounded upon knowledge which they wanted not in those dayes And the knowledge they had of Christian Religion taught them that when our blessed Saviour commanded them to do this in remembrance of him naming no time when it should be done he meant it should be done always in their Christian Assemblies as the perfection and Crown of that Service for which they Assembled III. And indeed if we had not had these records of the practice of the Apostles and of the first Christians to explain the meaning of our Saviours Institution yet we should have had reason to think it was so in the Apostles days and therefore the meaning of our Saviour because this practice of receiving the holy Communion every Day continued in the Church for some Ages I cannot say in every place for we have no Records of that but rather of the contrary but in many places and in the most famous that are come to our notice and where the vigour of Christian Religion remained and where they were awakened by more than ordinary dangers to consider their obligation Thus we find St. Cyprian in his Exposition of the Lords Prayer takes that Petition give us this day our daily Bread to signify in the spiritual sense our desire to be fit to receive the Eucharist every day for the food of Salvation And in his Epistle to the Church of Thibaris speaking of a more grievous and fiercer fight of persecution hanging then over their heads he tell them therefore the Souldiers of Jesus Christ ought to fortify and arm themselves well against it with an uncorrupt Faith and robust Vertue considering that they did for this end quotidie calicem Christi sanguinis bibere c. every day drink the Cup of Christs blood that they might also be able to shed their own blood for Christs sake In which words he addresses his Discourse to the Laicks as well as the Clergy exhorting all the faithful unto the constancy of Martyrdom which Men Women and Children indured Nay long after this we learn from St. Hierom in his Apology to Pammachius for his Books against Jovinian and other places that this Custom continued at Rome and in Spain as well as in Africk where St. Austin tell us in his famous Epistle to Januarius that in his time some did quotidie communicare c. daily communicate of the body and blood of our Lord though others he acknowledges did it only on certain days St. Basil also begins his Epistle to Caesaria Patritia in this manner to communicate every day and partake of the holy body and blood of our Lord Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a commendable and profitable thing and then adds that they did communicate four times a Week in his Church on the Lords day Wednesday Friday and the Sabbath that is Saturday and on other dayes if the memory of any Martyr fell upon them Nay three or four Ages more after this such a sense of this Devotion remained that Walafridus Strabo in his Book of Ecclesiastical Affairs c. 20. sayes it seems to be very full of reason that Christians especially Clergymen should every day be imployed in divine Offices and when some very grievous spot of mind or body doth not hinder receive the Lords Bread and Blood without which we cannot live imitating the wholsome diligence of the primitive Church concerning whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles that they persevered in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread and Prayers and a little after they continued daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking Bread from House to House c. quoting the words I named before All which and much more that might be said make it apparent that the Church in the best times and the best men in the Church in after Ages lookt upon this as an ordinary part of Christian Worship which Christ intended should be performed in his Church as oft as they Assembled for Divine Service And what other ground could they have for it but this that Christ having confined it to no time they thought in reason it should be taken for a duty he expected from them at all times when they came to worship him and make their thankful acknowledgments unto him IV. And truly we can gather no less from the very nature of this holy action which sufficiently shows it was our Saviours meaning that it should be a daily part of the Churches Service It being as all know a solemn Thanksgiving unto God and a Form of Prayer and Petitioning which every one
against what I have said that surely it is sufficient if we every day pray to God in Christs name and for his sake desire our Prayers may find a gracious Audience praising him also as our Saviour and Redeemer and Intercessor at Gods right hand though we do not use these visible signs which he hath appointed But if this be intirely sufficient so that our Christian worship may be justly thought intire compleat and perfect without doing this in remembrance of Christ then for what end was it instituted by him Why did he appoint it if our worship be compleat without it Then it is as needless and superfluous an addition to the Christian Service as we seem now by our intire neglect of it or seldom performance to imagine it to be Which since no Christian dare say because it disparages the wisdom of our Saviour in appointing it if all be perfect without it we must therefore to our shame take the other course and say that we are faln into a state of imperfection but hope our less perfect services will be accepted by vertue of that most perfect Sacrifice of Christ which we commemorate publickly as oft as we are able V. And that might very well be oftner than we do commemorate it for I shall now proceed to tell you as an Introduction to the account I am about to give how the Service of the Church came to be so defective that when Christian people grew less devout yet still they did not fail to perform this peculiar service to Christ every Lords Day and Holy Day at the least that is on those days of the Week as you heard out of St. Basil when the memory of any Martyr was celebrated Which in time becoming the practice of many Churches made an ancient Writer about Divine Offices mentioned by Cassander in his Book of Liturgies affirm that men imployed in secular businesses received the Communion even in the primitive times only on the Lords Days and other Festivals interpreting as many think the practice of the most antient times by the Customs of his own It is possible indeed that he had a better reason for what he affirmed because we find something in Scripture to countenance this opinion that very early some Christians did content themselves with so doing For in Acts xx 7. we read that at Troas upon the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break Bread i. e. to receive the Eucharist Paul preached unto them c. From whence it should seem saith our learned Mr. Thorndike that in this Church at Troas the Eucharist was celebrated even in the times of the Apostles not every day as it was at Jerusalem but only on the Lords Day For the first day of the Week being mentioned as the time when they came together to break Bread it seems saith he to stand against the rest in terms of difference as if upon other days they did it not And thus much I believe is certain that when the Church was multiplied all Christians could not meet together every day but some one day some another and all on the Lords Day Which being the principal day it came to pass in process of time that it was the only day of the Week when they celebrated the Eucharist but on that day none omitted it no more than they did the rest of the Christian Service And thus it seems to me most reasonable to understand the matter here at Troas where they did not omit the Communion on other days for I cannot perswade my self but that they were conformable to the Mother Church of Jerusalem but such as could assemble themselves and attend upon Divine Service daily ' did receive it and on the Lords Day all the Christians in the City came together for that purpose and whatsoever business they had which hindered them on other dayes it did not hinder them on this but they all came to do their duty to their Saviour and make a publick Commemoration of his love And in this they were so strict for a long time and it was accounted so great a fault to be absent that if any persons were found not to have Communicated for three Sundays together they were to be Excommunicated and separated from the Society of the Church by the Canons of three several Synods mentioned by Zonaras upon the eleventh Canon of the Apostles which orders them to be cast out as an offence to the Church who entred into the Church and heard the holy Scriptures but did not stay for the Prayers nor receive the Holy Communion Which was thought so necessary that the Deacon who before the Communion as you shall hear anon out of St. Chrysostom cryed all you who are under penance you who cannot pray i. e. with the faithful go out is appointed by the Constitutions called Apostolical to stand with the Sub-Deacon at the Door of the Church and hinder all the rest who were not under Pennance and so bound to Communicate that they should not go out till they had received the holy Sacrament And unto this pitch of perfection if not higher our first Reformers desired to bring the Service of the Church I say if not higher because in the first Communion Book of Edward VI. there is a Rubrick which supposeth daily Communion not only in Cathedrals but in other places as there is another which takes care the people should be admonished and quickned when they are negligent to come to the Communion upon the Sunday or Holy-Day Which shows as the learned person above-mentioned observes that they affected the frequentation of this Service according to the primitive pattern so far as they thought it attainable desiring that even upon other Holy Days as well as Sundays it should be celebrated in the Mother Churches at least as patterns and examples unto the rest And thus much Mr. Calvin himself roundly declares after he had commended the ancient custom of communicating daily and condemned the custom of communicating only once a Year as a Diabolical invention that the Table of the Lord ought to be prepared for Christian people at least once a Week and that all should be exhorted and stimulated and the slothful chidden to flock as hungry people unto such a Banquet As his words are in his IV. Book of Institutions C. xvii n. 46. And so it is still enjoined in one of our Rubricks that in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches and Colledges where there are many Priests and Deacons they shall receive the Communion every Sunday at least except they have a reasonable cause to the contrary Now nothing you have heard was thought a reasonable cause in ancient time to keep any of the people from the Communion except such sins as threw them into the number of the Penitents For none of the rest were suffered to go out of the Church but stayed to receive it Nay such was the devout affection of the primitive Christians while they remained one heart