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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56710	A treatise of the nesssity and frequency of receiving the Holy Communion With a resolution of doubts about it. In three discourses begun upon Whit-Sunday in the cathedral church of Peterburgh. To press the observation of the fourth Rubrick after the communion office. By Symon Patrick, D.D. Dean of Peterburgh, and one of Hi [sic] Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1685 (1685)	Wing P859; ESTC R216671	69,078	263

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

reason to be scrupulous about this unfitness whereof they complain that there is to be so about their unworthy receiving And yet they take no notice of the one any further than only to make it an excuse for the other What unjust what partial dealing is this What kind of Christians are these who if they were serious and in good earnest religious as some of this sort would be thought to be would be as afraid to remain unfit as they are to receive while they so continue They would be as scrupulous lest they should offend God by staying away as they seem to be lest they should offend him by coming to the Communion For they would see that it is very unequal dealing with God and with their own Souls to be very nice about the doing that which God hath commanded and to have little or no scruple about the omission of it What is this but to fancy that when God commands a thing to be done by us we may safely let it alone if our not doing it proceed from a fear of doing it wrong As if we did not offend him by not doing what he bids us as much as by doing it amiss and our total neglect of a duty were not as great a provocation as an undue performance Do but consider it thoroughly and you will find there is as much cause to be solicitous about the one as about the other And if all they that are now full of fears about unworthy receiving would but be fearful also of continuing unworthy to receive i. e. of sinful neglect of the holy Communion this equal fear on both sides would make them solicitously diligent in fitting themselves to be worthy guests at the Lord's Table That so they may neither offend by coming nor by staying away but approach in a becoming and well-prepared manner and find grace and favour with God to come every day more and more prepared For by coming as well prepared as our affairs in this World will admit with serious resolutions to amend our lives we grow still more fit if we frequent it to come better disposed to the Table of the Lord with stronger resolutions and consequently with more fruits meet for repentance of amendment of life For by doing our duty as well as we can we learn to do it with greater perfection especially if we continue to do it though for the present with many imperfections But alas will some say we are not only utterly unfit and unprepared for the present but it is not in our power to fit and prepare our selves in any sort to be meet partakers of these holy mysteries for the future To which it is necessary that I say something before I proceed further because if this be true all my labour will be lost in perswading men to dispose themselves for the performance of this holy duty 1. And here the same question might be askt such persons which I askt at the first how comes it not to be in your power and whose fault is it that you are not able to fit your selves But I omit this because it only throws the guilt upon such complainers but doth not convince them of the falseness of their Plea Therefore I rather demand of such men how they can pretend to Christianity and say that they cannot leave off their habitual course of sinning What Is there no power in the Christian Religion to alter a mans heart and to bring him to repentance and reformation of life Cannot he who by being made a Christian is regenerate with the holy Spirit cease to follow and to be led by those carnal Lusts and Worldly desires which at his Baptism he renounced Cannot he for instance forbear habitual Drunkenness Swearing Extortion and Prophaneness Is it impossible for him to be at peace with his Neighbours to lay aside all wrath bitterness and wilful animosities How is he then born again of the Spirit By what power were men changed and renewed in the beginning of our Religion which we have not now since we have the same Religion Or to what purpose are we exhorted every day to beseech God to grant us true repentance and his holy spirit that those things which we do at that present may please him and the rest of our life be pure and holy if no such thing can be obtained from our Heavenly Father no not by importunate Prayers unto him for it Do not for shame say any longer you have no power to fit your selves for the holy Communion that is to become better unless you will renounce Christianity and declare there is nothing in it but vain words empty shows and appearances 2. Which this sort of men I am sure cannot do having something in them which will satisfy them if they attend unto it that they do not say true when they pretend they cannot leave off those sins which keep them from the Communion For how can they be called sins if it be impossible to do otherways And if they be no sins how can they hinder you from Communicating Why do your Consciences accuse you of doing amiss if you could not but do as you did They never accuse you in other cases where there is an utter impossibility under which you labour For instance if a Neighbours House be on fire you do not accuse your self for not running to help to quench it when you lay lame in Bed and disabled to move out of it But if you set the House on fire you could not but think you did him a great injury or if you stood by in perfect health and soundness when it took fire and would not stir hand or foot to help him you could not but look upon your self as unneighbourly unkind and cruel In like manner if it were as impossible to forbear a sin as it is to stir when you are bound hand and foot your Consciences would never accuse you But the upbraidings you feel there the secret checks and remorse the suspitions and fears which your Consciences are troubled withal plainly declare that it was in your power and that you lie and do not the truth as St. John speaks when you pretend the contrary In short if you cannot possibly reform those sins which make you unfit for the Communion how come you to charge them upon your selves as sins If they be sins your own Consciences tell you that you can avoid them and if you can why do you not go about it and by doing this prepare your selves to do the other I mean to receive the holy Communion for which you will be fit when you have quitted those sins wherein you live 3. For the sins which you say you cannot reform are either sins of weakness or sins of willfulness If they be only such weaknesses as can scarce possibly be avoided by the care and watchfulness of good men but they are upon some occasions surprized with them surely these do not make you unfit for the holy Communion for