lay down their lives one for another now we kill and destroy at least hate and bite and are ready to devour one another Then they were for doing all the good they could to others now we are all for our selves and it is well if we be not contriving mischief and doing injuries or ill offices to our Neighbours Then they feared no dangers but now we are unwilling to suffer any thing Then they lived in absolute obedience to the worst of Governours but now we are apt to quarrel with just Authority and to find fault with every thing that is done by our Prince and our Superiours Unto what can we more probably ascribe this difference than to their frequenting and our neglecting of the Holy Communion In which opinion I am not singular for Dr. Jackson I remember sometime Dean of this Church thought it very likely that the Wars of Kingdoms the Contentions in Families the infinite multitude of Law-Sutes the personal hatreds and the universal want of Charity which hath made the World so miserable and so wicked may in a great degree be attributed to the neglect of this great Symbol and Instrument of Charity Which could not but closely knit us together in Brotherly love and affection if the nature of it were duly considered For that is such saith Mr. Calvin in the place before-named as shows it was not intended to be received once a Year only but to be in frequent use among Christians that in a frequent memory they might repeat the Passion of Christ and by that Commemoration support and strengthen their Faith praise the loving kindness of God and cherish mutual Charity among themselves nay give a testimony of that one to another whose Bond they beheld in the unity of the Body of Christ For as oft as we communicate of the Symbol of Christs Body we strictly ty our selves mutually one to another by giving as it were and receiving a token and pledge thereof to perform all the offices of love and kindness so that none of us will do any thing whereby our Brother may receive any harm nor omit any thing whereby we may be helpful to him when his necessities require and our abilities are sufficient VIII And now in the last place I shall further show the great necessity of this duty by representing to you this sad truth that as the seldom Celebration of the Holy Communion was attended with a lamentable decay of holy Living so thereby the Christian Worship it self was no less wofully corrupted and depraved For from hence have risen I can clearly show sundry dangerous corruptions in the Roman Church of which we complain very justly but do not charge upon the right cause I will mention three or four I. First The Priest's communicating alone by himself which in truth is no Communion arose from that gross negligence which I am now perswading you to amend The Church of Rome hath thus far preserved a right notion of the holy Communion as to conceive it to be a part of the daily Service upon which the people as you have heard attended more or less for some Ages But in process of time they growing cold left only the Priests and Deacons to communicate with him that ministred and the Priests and Deacons also growing remiss he was at last left alone Who in some places continued to say all the Prayers and read the Epistle and Gospel and all things else belonging to this Service until he came to the Consecration and there broke off but in other places he ventured to proceed further and consecrated and received the holy Communion by himself alone Which last way of proceeding being found most for the profit of the Priests it grew to be a custom in the Roman Church for the Priest that officiated to communicate alone when there was no Body to receive with him For if there had been no Communion there would have been no offerings and therefore they continued the Communion though there were none to communicate nay multiplied private Masses that there might be as many oblations as ever This is one corruption which hath most certainly sprung from the indevotion of Christian People II. Another as bad or worse is this the giving the holy Communion in a Wafer For the ancient custom being as we read in Honorius Augustodunensis for the several Families in a Town to bring to the Priest the flower with which the panis Dominicus as he calls it the Lords Bread was made or else to join together to bring a Loaf ready made by a common contribution to it which was called their oblation and the Host being for the representation of our Saviours Sacrifice on the Cross when the Church was increased in number but grew less in sanctity as his words are this Loaf dwindled from a great one into a little one according to the small number of Communicants till at last there being no Communicants at all it shrunk up into a Wafer that is a little thin bit of Bread in the form of a small piece of money the people offering such pieces of money in stead of Meal being just so much as the Priest could eat himself when there was no body to receive with him This is the Original of Wafers which still retained the name of the Host after it was no longer the offering of the people nor a representation of Christs Sacrifice these Wafers having brought in this corruption that now there is no breaking of the Bread in representation of the breaking of Christs Body Though it be expresly mentioned in the Institution of this Sacrament where we read that Christ took Bread and brake it c. and is so much belonging to the essence as we speak of the Sacrament that the Sacrament took its name from hence and is called in Scripture breaking of Bread Behold here again what Christian people have done by their indevotion Which hath given occasion to such a considerable depravation as this For St. Paul speaking of this part of the Eucharist calls it the bread that we break 1 Cor. x. 16. and our Lord himself explaining the Mystery of this Bread saith positively this is my body which is broken for you xi 24. Which evidently shows that the Bread ought then to be broken or else it cannot be Christs Body broken for us and therefore that this breaking of the Bread is not such a superfluous thing as the Church of Rome now makes it for the Bread is not broken there but such a part of this Sacrament as without it the sufferings of Christ upon the Cross are not fully represented to us But thus as I said the negligence of Christian People in not frequenting the Holy Communion hath maimed this Sacrament Nay III. The Doctrine of Transubstantiation in all probability came from the same original For the Priest being left alone at the Communion they found it necessary to magnify what he did there as much as it was possible that so the
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
people might bring their offerings more freely though they did not receive together with him And they magnified his operation so much till at last it brought forth this prodigious conceit that he held the very natural Body and Blood of Christ in his hands after the Consecration Which fancy obtained the more easily by the help of the Wafers now mentioned which having neither the form nor figure of Bread nor being like any sort of food used in the World served to banish out of peoples minds the thoughts of any such thing as Bread which they received in the Holy Communion See here again how men have spoiled our most excellent Religion by neglecting the constant practice of it For this Doctrine of transubstantiating the Bread into the very natural Body of Christ is the more absurd because in reality there is not so much as true Bread presented unto the Priest to transubstantiate if such a feat could possibly be wrought For the best Christians after these Wafers were introduced lookt upon them as unfit for consecration being unworthy of the name of Bread and not being at all broken and therefore did ad Christum Ecclesiam nihil pertinere not at all belong to Christ or his Church as Bernoldus a Priest of Constance adventured to speak in the Eleventh Century For he is that ancient Writer whom Cassander mentions as the Expounder of the Roman Order and commends as a pious prudent person and well skilled in the Ecclesiastical Traditions excepting only the indignation he expressed at the reducing of the oblations of Bread for the use of the Sacrifice into this form of Wafers much different from the form of true Bread which he called therefore in contempt mites of nummulary oblations being in the form of little pieces of money and ascribes to them an imaginary shadowy lightness which deserve not the name of Bread they are so thin and inveighs against them in more and sharper words than these which Cassander in his Book of Liturgicks cap. 27. saith he thought it not expedient to transcribe in that place But what he hath transcribed abundantly shows how wise and good men resented this change in the Sacrament by reason of which the Divine Service and the Religion of the Ecclesiastical office as that Author speaks was much every way confounded IV. Lastly This very thing hath turned the holy Communion in that Church into a propitiatory Sacrifice offered up to God both for the quick and the dead Which hath proved a most horrible abuse having no other original than that now named the people 's not communicating but leaving the Priest alone at the Altar Who being loth to lose the oblations as well as the peoples Company began to speak very high things of the saving efficacy which from this action of the Priest alone redounded even unto those who did not Communicate with him Which opinion being once received as a popular conceit men gave money freely and abundantly for private Masses out of a perswasion that thereby they should procure remission of sins both for themselves and for others both for those alive and those who were dead By which things I hope you see the great mischief of neglecting the holy Communion which hath even undone the Christian World for it hath spoil'd Christs holy Religion and turned it into quite another thing by most gross depravations of it Which have had this effect even upon us who are called Reformed that they have rooted out the principal part of Gods Service from among us and made it lame and imperfect For the Church of Rome having retained the custom of celebrating the Communion every day but turned it into a Sacrifice for the quick and the dead though none but the Priest partake of it this is the use which the Enemy of Mankind hath tempted us to make of their abuses to perswade our selves that so long as private Masses are abolished we need not trouble our selves to be frequent in the Celebration and Communion of the Eucharist Now this is even according to the hearts desire of our grand Adversary the Devil who can be content with such a Reformation as this while we retain the very root and foundation of all the abuses which we have reformed viz. Negligence in frequenting this Holy Sacrament Which I hope we shall be careful also to reform at last if men will but lay to heart such things as I have laid before their Eyes Which let us see that though the particular time of communicating be not named in Christs Institution yet that is no argument we may take our own time for it and do not offend God so it be done some time or other but quite contrary that our Lord intended it should be performed at all times when we assemble for Divine Service Thus the first and best Christians understood it thus they practised and transmitted this practice unto Posterity who for some Ages continued it and though it be not continued till these times yet we are forced to acknowledge that the remembrance it importeth as that excellent man Mr. Thorndike speaks is so proper so peculiar to the profession we make that our Assemblies never look so like the Assemblies of Christians as when it is celebrated But are really naked without it or at least want the Crown of that Service for which we assemble that most excellent piece of Service which is peculiarly appropriated to the worship of our blessed Lord and Saviour By the neglect of which the love of God and the love of one another is deplorably decayed and the Christian Religion also so depraved that they who reformed it in many things have not been able to restore it to its integrity And therefore now that God hath put it into the heart of our pious Metropolitan to call upon us and enjoin us to live more strictly according to the Rules and Orders of our Religion by celebrating the holy Communion at all our more solemn Assemblies I hope none of us will be any longer disobedient and refractory to so godly a motion but rather forward to comply with the Command of God and of our Governours It may not be in the power of man perhaps so to command the occasions of this World as that all should be always disposed to communicate yet in so great a number as here come together to worship God there cannot but always some persons or other be found who are not so encumbred but they may be fit if they please to receive the holy Communion with us Certain I am it ought so to be and what ought to be may be and will be if the reason upon which it depends be duly considered If it be not so that for want of persons disposed to communicate the holy Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood cannot be celebrated every Sunday it is a wilful neglect for which nothing can be alledged but too much love of this World which arises from too little a sense of the