Section III.
James Dodson
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SECT. III.
APPLICATION OF THE CONCLUSIONS TO REGULATE OBSERVANCE.
The observance of the Lord’s Supper among Christians ought to correspond to the nature and design of that sacred institution. A due regard must therefore be had to its importance, its solemnity, and its general use in the visible church, as an ordinance provided for manifesting the unity of the body in faith and profession.
I. A due regard must be had to its SPIRITUAL UTILITY AND GREAT IMPORTANCE. This must be obvious. It is a point that does not require the laboured proof and illustrations which have been bestowed upon it. Such proof and illustrations might indeed be proper in an attempt to awaken the negligent, and excite them to their duty. Let every habile and warranted method be used to stir them up to embrace the opportunities afforded in providence, for shewing forth the death of Jesus. Let their consciences be enlightened, that they may feel themselves constrained to comply with every call to engage in this at once pleasant and profitable service. And, considering the state of the Presbyterian churches, particularly the direliction of first love which generally prevails, it will be found that even according to the plan of occasional dispensation, there is both sufficient ground and abundant scope for exhortation to frequent communicating. But we must not confound the duty of church-members with the proper order of church-procedure. Christians may frequently partake, though the ordinance be not dispensed every
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Sabbath, or once a month, in the same place. And no plan of observance ought to be established merely to accommodate the negligent, and as it were compel them to their duty*, which would set aside, or have a native tendency to defeat any of the great ends for which the Supper was appointed. For,
II. A due regard must also be had to the SOLEMNITY of the ordinance, and the grand purposes it was intended to serve, particularly that one according to which its dispensation specially AFFECTS THE VISIBLE CHURCH. Let us consider what it would be to frustrate any of the ends God had in view, much more to bury by our inconsiderate plans of procedure one of the great objects for which we have seen the Supper was expressly designed, and to which, even according to its spiritual import as well as external form, it is peculiarly adapted,—that of manifesting and confirming the unity of a religious body in faith and profession. Whatever method of observance shall lay a bar in the way of visible communion, and of a circulation of this throughout the body, must militate in so far against the purposed utility of the ordinance, even though spiritual advantage should be consulted.—Let us consider also what it would be to efface those marks of importance which God has impressed upon this, as he did on various institutions of the law, in the solemnity of its nature and form. And let us remember, that if, in tampering with our own supposed spiritual capacity of preserving the idea of solemnity amid the utmost familiarity with sacred things, we shall overlook that regard God hath had to our weak-
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* While weekly communion existed in the Greek church, those who neglected to observe the Supper three weeks successively, were excommunicated. ERSKINE’S Dissert. 271.
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ness in constituting certain ordinances more solemn than others, we are in danger of counteracting even the spiritual utility of these ordinances, in so far as it may be connected with the solemnity impressed upon them. God, we have seen, who knows the proper way of managing his people in this imperfect state, had a regard to their condition as yet in the body and liable to be affected by sensible signs, when he appointed these to be used in the seals of his covenant. On the same principle did he proceed in annexing peculiar solemnity to some of the legal institutions, and for the sake of this solemnity appointing them to be observed less frequently than others. The church is now exalted to a state of greater spirituality, she is more able to bear the mysteries of the kingdom, but her members are not glorified, and we must take care of establishing modes of procedure which might seem to imply that no familiarity with holy things in the most solemn exhibitions of them, could defeat the very end of such exhibitions. Declamation here on want of piety and heavenly fervour, as if the ideas now stated could not be entertained by any warm and zealous Christian, is of no avail. There may be a zeal which is not according to knowledge. Its language is, “My mountain stands strong, I shall never be moved: Lord, it is good to be here.” But what is the indication of God’s mind? This is the question. He hath not limited the whole dispensation of grace to the symbolical ordinance under consideration. Were this the case, and were there no opportunity of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God but in it, there might be some reason for requiring a constant observance. But he hath, for certain reasons connected with our present state, appointed this ordinance to be a solemn exhibition of
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the whole dispensation of grace, and these reasons demand respect in settling our method of procedure.
What would we have thought of the Jews, if, in the way of magnifying the spiritual utility of the passover, they had condemned the wisdom of God who appointed it only for an annual feast, or supplicated through the medium of Moses its more frequent celebration? They had been unfriendly to themselves, it may be said, since their request, if granted, would have required them often to travel up to Jerusalem. But, according to the views now entertained by the advocates for frequent communion, this solemn convocation was something that might have been easily dispensed with. The Jew might have said, ‘This is an ordinance of great spiritual benefit; it is a sacrament as well as a sacrifice; it is different in this respect from our other feasts; intreat God for us, that we may have it more frequently, and at home in our families apart, as was the case at its first institution in the land of Egypt.’ They might thus, under a very spiritual pretence, have been saved the trouble of solemn convocation, and the expence of going up to Jerusalem to testify in this ordinance the unity of the body. And when we consider that they had other feasts of solemn convocation, it may seem that the plea would have had more weight in regard to the passover, than it can have in regard to its substitute, which is the only feast of communion in the New Testament state. But God had no such respect of old to frequency at the expence of all other considerations, as these apparently very pious sentiments seem to imply.
III. The solemnity and the use of the Lord’s Supper, as the intended pledge of unity, CLAIM TO REGULATE OBSERVANCE both with respect to frequency
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and mode. This ought to be admitted unless something to the contrary can be pointed out in the nature of the ordinance, or some positive injunction produced determining the number of times. That there is any such injunction will not be pretended; And we have endeavoured to shew, that there is nothing in the nature or ends of the ordinance that requires more than occasional observance. Now its spiritual utility cannot alone regulate the frequency of dispensation. For the maxim which many have got into their mouths, “the oftener the better,” proves more than they would be disposed to admit. If the idea of utility is solely to be attended to, why not twice, thrice, four times a-week, and why not, to render this convenient, private dispensations? But, say the advocates for frequency, the feast must be kept after the due order, publicly in a church-assembly, under the proper administrators, &c. The frequency then, it seems, is not to be regulated entirely by the idea of spiritual importance; other considerations are to be taken into view. And if the ordinance really possess the solemnity stated, if it was also designed visibly to display and confirm the unity of a religious body, to declare their fellowship in faith and profession,—these are considerations which specially affect its dispensation, and thus hold out a peculiar claim to regulate as to frequency and mode.
These three positions are general principles relative to the conclusions deduced from our view of the Lord’s Supper. Let us mark more particularly their application in a few instances.
1. Annual communicating, or the conduct of those who communicate but once in the year, must, from what has been stated, appear to be very reprehensible. Such persons shew little regard to the importance and
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spiritual utility of the ordinance. They are guilty also of disrespecting the liberty of more than annual and paschal-like dispensation granted to the New Testament church, and of disobeying the calls of divine providence in the many opportunities afforded according to this liberty.
2. A mere anniversary dispensation would be condemnable. To celebrate the Supper but once a year on a set day, (suppose Easter, or what is styled Christmas, or any other day,) throughout the Christian church, might seem to favour the idea of solemnity; but it would do so at the expence of what ought also to be kept in view, the importance of the ordinance, and its use as the medium of visible communion. 1st, Its spiritual utility would be equally disrespected as by annual communicating; and the disrespect would be more public and glaring. If the conduct of annual communicants be censurable on the ground specified, on the same ground the church behoved to be condemned for sanctioning their conduct by a law. Such a law would infringe on the prerogative of Jesus, to whom alone it belongs to appoint sacred days, and months, and years, as in the legal economy; and who, if he had intended any such peculiarly sacred seasons under the present dispensation, would have marked the times, and prohibited the employment of any other. He hath sanctioned no day, but that in the seven which takes its designation from himself. This day he has sanctioned for all the parts of public service, without discriminating among his Sabbaths which ought to be appropriated to the ordinance of the Supper. Nor was there any distinction known in the apostolic age. Paul, it is likely, when he visited the churches to confirm them, dispensed the Supper wherever he happened to be pre-
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sent among Christians in an organized state, and on whatever Sabbath was most convenient. Thus, while he was at Troas, “the disciples came together to break bread,” or to have the ordinance dispensed by him ere he departed; and for this end they honoured “the first day of the week,” the usual day of public worship. Neither they, nor he though in haste to depart, chose to have it on any other day. But had an anniversary day, as in the case of the passover, been the fixed season, whether it fell on the first day of the week or not, it behoved to have been kept, and the apostles had also been deprived of many opportunities of confirming the churches by solemn dispensations of the Supper. There was no law in existence against selecting any Sabbath. Besides, the Supper is not like the passover—one of many sacred feasts; it is the only one pertaining to the New Testament state. Were we in imitation of the passover to fix an anniversary day for its celebration, we would render the privileges of that state inferior to those of the legal economy, under which three times a-year the tribes were assembled in holy communion.—2dly, The plan of annual dispensation on one day throughout the Christian church would destroy the use of the ordinance as the medium of visible fellowship, provided for the manifestation of unity in privilege and profession. On this plan there could be no association of different congregations, no circulation of communion among them; in the case of divisions, (which have taken place,) no discrimination of fellowship, except perhaps what was merely accidental in the distinction that might be made by the different sects as to the admission of strangers or travellers. Let us recollect that the ancient church was one people. A stated day for their annual feasts, the return of which
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became the signal for solemn convocation to one place, was the very plan for securing a display of the unity of the body. But it must be obvious that this plan would have had a contrary effect in the Christian church. Her members could not all assemble in solemn convocation like the Jews. While this behoved to be impracticable, to have appointed an anniversary day for the observance of the Supper, would have effectually established an independency of communion, contrary to the very principle of the ancient plan. Christians met in their respective congregations, but denied fellowship with any but their brethren in these congregations, would have resembled the Jews merely in their synagogal meetings. The plan of the synagogues would seem to have been the only part of the ancient method of worship adopted in the New Testament church; no respect had to the divinely instituted ordinances and solemn convocations, which also existed among the Jews, and were manifestative of God’s regard to the visible communion of saints*. But when Jesus substituted the Supper for
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* As there was no harm in the appointment of synagogues, because they could not establish independency of government and communion in the ancient church, so long as the divinely appointed government and convocations remained to preserve the idea of her unity, they were permitted, and were even sanctioned by Jesus. The model of the synagogues behoved to be in so far adopted under an extended and designed universal religion, but shall we suppose the demonstration of the unity of the church formerly connected with them is set aside; that now, when more necessary than of old, no provision is made for it? No; we find the same principle on this head recognized, and that in regard to the same plans of demonstration,—government and communion. In these respects, though congregations must meet separately for stated worship, unity shall still be displayed. Hence the correspondence in point of government intimated by the allusions to the sanhedrim in the choice of the seventy disciples, and
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the passover feast, he recognized the principle on which these convocations were appointed. In order that the same end might be gained, it was necessary that the times of observance should be left free, particularly that the idea of an anniversary feast which pertained to the passover, should not be transferred to our ordinance of communion. Accordingly no stated day of universal observance was appointed; no intimation of the kind was given by Jesus; evidence to the contrary occurs in the practice of the apostles. For the very same reason for which the passover was ordained to be kept once a-year on a stated day, the sacrament of the Supper was not; and that reason is obviously the designed end of both institutions—for manifesting and confirming the unity of the body of Christ; an end which, while the church was limited to one nation, so that her members might easily all gather together to one place, was fitly accomplished by an anniversary day of solemn convocation, but which now, in the diffused state of the church, would have been completely counteracted by a similar appointment.
3. Private communicating and private administrations, are also condemnable. Much respect may seem to be shewn to the spiritual utility of the Supper, by the practice of administering it to the sick or the dying, and to malefactors before execution, not to mention the Catholic custom of carrying the host or portions of the consecrated bread to persons in such situations, or detained at home. The practice however is incompatible, not only, 1st, With the form and
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[continued from p. 61] when specifying the character of the apostles, Psal. lxviii. 27. Matt. xix. 28. or the office of ordinary rulers, Matt. xviii. 17. And hence in regard to communion, the substitution of the Supper for the passover, a feast of convocation.
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attendant circumstances required by the solemnity of the ordinance; but, 2dly, And chiefly, with its great design as to the visible church—the manifestation of fellowship in the unity of the spirit. This design is inseparably connected with observance; and indeed unless it be kept in view, scarcely any argument can be brought against private communions that will stand before the general reasoning from spiritual utility. We might allege that the practice referred to seems to imply, that the ordinance is essential to salvation. But this would be instantly disclaimed, and a defence stated merely on the ground of its importance to the Christian life, the assurance and comfort it is calculated to afford. This sacrament, however, cannot fulfil the design specified, by private dispensation to individuals; and we are not warranted to overlook that design on any occasion. Were it lawful to hold the Supper for any one of the purposes it was intended to serve, abstract from the others, or in the way of neglecting them, then communicants might observe it simply as a memorial of Christ’s death, or (like some Socinians) as a love feast, without improving it as an ordinance of salvation; nay, might not the mere exhibition of the symbols in the church, as of the host among Papists, answer the purpose of a memorial without participation? If we may not overlook on any occasion its use as a seal of God’s covenant to our faith, neither may we, in any instance of observance, neglect its design as an ordinance of fellowship, nor set aside the manner in which it was intended to be so. There must be a convocation, and communion visibly expressed among many. Private masses in which, while the people look on, the priest alone eats sacramentally, are on this ground contrary to the nature of the ordinance. The idea of the
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priest’s representing the people, though resorted to by the council of Trent, is of no avail for their vindication*. The Supper is not even a token of fellowship like the symbola employed in the pagan mysteries, or the masonic word and signs. It is in its form the celebration of a feast, and requires to be kept as such, in order to fulfil its design in being an ordinance of communion. Our Lord as he did not intend it to be a test of qualification for those civil offices of power and trust to which some of his disciples looked forward with great anxiety, so he did not chose to administer it to them separately, as if thus it could have answered the purpose of testifying their being members of one body. It is adapted to this purpose in another way than the ordinance of baptism; the difference ought to be clearly marked and sacredly observed. When our Lord dispensed the Supper the apostles were convened, and on giving the cup, he said, “Drink ye all, (or, let all drink) of it†.” The
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* Sess. xxii. Can. viii.
† The Papists hold that “the bread” is enough for the people. They well know that the words which attended the cup militate against their private administrations and masses. Yet in announcing these very words our Lord, as he foresaw it, seems to have condemned the denial of the cup.—The alleged privacy of the first dispensation has been noticed already. It is accounted for from circumstances. Our Lord had taken leave of the Jews. Matt. xxiii. 39. But there was a company with him, and that company the apostles of the New Testament church. There was no more a private dispensation at that time, nay, far less so, than among Christians when afterwards in days of persecution they had to meet secretly to enjoy their privileges. As to none being present but communicants at the first dispensation, this furnished no warrant for the practice which afterwards crept in of expelling all but members, when the ordinance was to be observed. It might with equal reason have been argued that none but official men should partake, as the only persons present
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Corinthians even though they “came together into one place,” yet counteracted their design of eating the Lord’s Supper, by taking “each of his own Supper” apart. There was no visibly expressed communion; feasting in the same house, did not fulfil the import of the ordinance; they behoved all to eat the same bread and drink into one cup. Hence the apostle reprehends them, declaring that though they shewed their intention of holding communion by coming together into one place, yet they mistook the manner in which that communion was to be expressed, as well as gave into gross abuses: “When ye come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s Supper*.”
By this sketch of the application of the conclusions deduced from the institution, nature, and use of the ordinance, we are happily saved the necessity of much reasoning on the subject of WEEKLY COMMUNION. Every unprejudiced mind must perceive that they admit the same application to it as to anniversary observance, and private dispensations.
In treating these points, the danger of exclusive respect to spiritual utility has been sufficiently evinced.—On the head of solemnity, weekly administration has not much in its favour. The proper form may indeed be observed; it cannot well be curtailed. The expedient of having but one service of the table has usually been adopted to shorten the administration. This, where convenient, may be laudable enough; although much benefit has frequently been reaped, both by spectators and communicants, from the di-
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[continued from p. 64] at the institution were apostles. But how could spectators be there, after Christ had taken leave of the Jews?
* 1 Cor. xi. 20.
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rections and consolatory advice for which several services afford an opportunity. To secure as much as possible the sense of solemnity, a deep silence may be observed, like that which seems to have obtained during the hours of darkness while Jesus hung on the cross*. Nothing may be said in imitation of the consolatory words spoken while the first recipients had the symbols among their hands, or of those precious discourses with which, ere they removed from the table, the participation was followed up by the Great Administrator†. Yet after all, we are not deterred by the charge of irreligion from maintaining, that according to human infirmity great familiarity with solemn institutions will ever tend gradually to remove the impression God designed they should make, and with it much of the peculiar effect they were framed to produce. Though left at liberty with regard to the periods of dispensation, we should take care lest in our zeal we overdo the matter, perhaps overlook the very principle recognized by God him-
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* The Papists defend their low muttering in celebrating what they call the unbloody sacrifice, from the silence of Christ on the cross. Bellarm. lib. ii. de Missa, cap. xii.
† Our Lord on delivering the cup, besides the words of institution, accompanied it with a gracious invitation, “Let all of you drink of it;” as if he had said, “Eat, O friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved.” He added an assurance that he was then holding communion with them, and that this communion would ere long be crowned with a glorious state of fellowship, Matt. xxvi. 29. The words seem to have been spoken during the time of participation. It was succeeded by a consolatory discourse on the future events relative both to him and them, and about what they might expect ere such another period of communion, distant many weeks, would arrive. The usual Presbyterian method of dispensation is formed on this pattern set by Jesus himself. Though other modes may not be condemnable, it has certainly much in its favour.
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self, and adopt a plan of observance, even in its tendencies unfriendly to the purpose he had in view, or to the manner of accomplishing that purpose. Let us beware lest we forget the state in which we are—forget that we have infirmities which God would counteract, and thus in some fervour of piety think of “making tabernacles,” and retaining the ordinance in continued dispensation*.
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* The boasted argument of spiritual utility led some of the ancients to a daily observance of the Supper. In this they outstrip their posterity who contend only for weekly communion. “Our ancestors,” says POLYDORE VIRGIL, “were wont to receive the eucharist every day.” De Rerum Invent. lib. v. cap. xi. BINGHAM in his Origines shews that this was the case in some places, though not universally. VOSSIUS has a curious passage on the subject, from which it appears that private masses rose out of the practice. “When Christians were few in number and fervent in zeal, they partook of the eucharist daily; but afterwards as their number increased and piety began to wax cold, the priests were left to keep up the custom, while the people satisfied themselves with communicating once a-week.” Disp. xxi. De Coena Thes. 3.—No doubt the defence of daily participation was good. They found it in the Lord’s prayer! “Give us this day our daily bread.” Arguing from the less to the greater, it was easy to reason thus, ‘If natural food be so necessary, much more the food of our souls.’ To no purpose would we have urged, that the food of the soul is not restricted to the ordinance of the Supper, that Jesus spake of eating his flesh and drinking his blood ere it was appointed, and that this is the eating and drinking he declared to be absolutely necessary;—such reasoning could not stand before the argument from the high spiritual utility of the ordinance. But the ancients found the Supper to be directly meant in the prayer, doubtless by anticipation. To the Greek word which we render “daily,” and which properly signifies necessary for subsistence, they gave a very forcible meaning. With them it denoted “substantial” bread, and was an epithet which could not apply to common food. Some scholastic divines were afterwards able to prove that it signified supersubstantial bread, and was therefore fitly descriptive of the sacramental bread as converted into the real body of Christ, and, without the cup, enough for the people. Fitly descriptive indeed, since
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The observance of the Supper every Lord’s day necessarily precludes circulation of communion throughout the body, and thus knocks up that display of fellowship in faith and profession, that demonstration of unity for which the ordinance was intended. According to the plan specified, the celebration of the feast is no pledge of union but among the members of the congregation where it takes place. The plan therefore as really establishes an independency of communion, contrary to the very design of the ordinance, as the scheme of anniversary observance. The same reasoning mutatis mutandis lies against the one and the other. By both, that extended fellowship in which different congregations ought to prove that they are one body, as partakers of one bread, must be completely prevented. Whatever discrimination of communion may obtain can be only circumstantial; the ordinance itself is not according to its nature purposely observed for the manifestation of unity. Nor is this all, weekly dispensation will be found to coincide on this head also with private observance. Why should the latter practice be condemned but because it is contrary to a leading idea of the ordinance,—the very same that weekly communion operates against, though perhaps not to equal extent. Unless there be a convocation and visibly expressed fellowship, unless the members of the body of Christ join together in testifying that they are one in the Lord, we have seen there must be a direliction of the design for which the Supper was appointed, and which
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[continued from p. 67] supersubstantial and transubstantiated bread are equally unintelligible, and alike nonsensical.—Such however may be the shifts of an ill-regulated piety to support the practices it genders, and similar too may be the consequences.
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according to its use, whether in regard to spiritual import or public profession, it is calculated to serve. Let it be granted then, that the body of Christ is not confined within the bounds of any single congregation, it will follow that different congregations are as really members of his visible body, as different individuals are members of their respective congregations. On this principle, the same reasoning applies against weekly administrations that has been advanced against private observance. And till this principle be proved a πρῶτον ψεῦδος, or prime fallacy, as exclusive respect to spiritual utility has been, no friend of weekly communion can argue against private dispensation, without to a certain degree implicating and condemning himself*.
Here we may expect to be posed with the question, ‘Has not each congregation a right in itself, and independent of others, to the enjoyment of all divine ordinances?’ Abstracting, on this question, from the idea of a complete church supposed to exist in each congregation, we only ask in our turn, Can there be no ordinance, like the passover for instance, of a general nature, the observance of which might be designed to affect the unity of congregations otherwise distinct, and to demonstrate this to the world? If the Lord’s Supper be an ordinance of this description, and our proof has gone that way, then whatever be the rights of single congregations, it ought to be
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* The writer of these sheets knows well the disadvantage under which he labours in arguing against weekly communion without entering at large on the independent scheme. He can only take general ground. But he apprehends such general principles are afforded on the subject of communion connected with the ordinance of the Supper, as are sufficient for his purpose, and even militate against the whole of that scheme.
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observed, (when circumstances permit) so as to answer the purpose for which it was intended. No congregation has a right in this case to adopt such a plan of observance, nor ought such a plan to be established by general consent, as would in any respect counteract the nature and use of the ordinance in its bearing on the visible church. “We being many,” whether individuals or churches—many members, “are one body and one bread; for we are all partakers of that one bread.”
‘But the design of the ordinance,’ we are told, ‘is not counteracted; for though weekly dispensation separate each congregation from fellowship with others of the same profession or body, yet, while the Supper is dispensed throughout the body, there is a spiritual communion of all the members, according to which they may be said to be one body and one bread; they all at least enjoy it under the same banner, and as bearing in its celebration among them on the same system of doctrine and duty.’—The Supper, according to these ideas, is no more a peculiar ordinance of communion, than the preaching of the gospel, or public prayer and praise. The clergy of any particular denomination have either all subscribed the same creed, or done what is equivalent. And in prayer, Christians approach the throne of God with direct supplications in behalf of each other, nay, of all the churches of Christ.—Spiritual communion is nowise manifestative of unity in a pure and consistent profession; and as the common public exercises, which must necessarily be performed in separate congregations, could not afford a proper demonstration of this unity, God, we have found, provided for such a demonstration in the ordinance of the Supper. Any plan of observance therefore, that
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would reduce it to a level with other institutions, and require us to take refuge in the simple idea of spiritual communion, may justly be viewed as in so far destructive of its characteristic design.—But might not the friend of private administration also insist upon it, that though he does not partake with his brethren, there is spiritual communion; and that such communion must be considered as obtaining among all the individuals who separately receive the ordinance, especially if dispensed to them by the office-bearers of the same church? There is even something more directly apposite to the apostle’s language, “We are one body and one bread; for we are all partakers of that one bread,”—in administration to the dying, or in conveying portions of the consecrated bread to persons in private, than in the abstract idea of spiritual communion. If by either of the former, the design of the ordinance, so far as dependent on the true method of observance, be set aside, it cannot surely be fulfilled by the latter. Suppose spiritual communion all that is requisite for the fellowship of congregations in the Lord, and why may it not suffice also for individuals? Why might not the dispensation of the Supper in one congregation suffice for a whole body of Christians? Or why might not the observance of the institution by a few members in any congregation, (not to say by the minister and elders, as by the priest and his clergy in the Roman church) suffice for that congregation; all the members of which, if saints, would have fellowship with these few, and though not saints, yet, if of the same principles, would have it as far as public profession was concerned*? If in these instances spiritual
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* The council of Trent defended masses in which the priest alone eats sacramentally, on the ground of spiritual communion. “Vere
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communion cannot fulfil the design of the ordinance, upon what ground is it resorted to as sufficiently verifying that design in regard to the fellowship of different congregations, which are no less members of one body, than individuals are of one congregation?
That the plan of observance followed among Presbyterians is suited at once to the importance of the Supper, to its solemnity, and, by promoting an enlarged fellowship, to its use in regard to the demonstration of unity, has never yet been disproved; but weekly communion, and every plan that approaches to it, seems to be founded on a partial view of the ordinance. If Presbyterians shall conform to the schemes so vigorously of late pushed into public notice, by the erection of a certain society, and even by some of themselves, they may anticipate the effect. Too frequent dispensation, though it may compel to frequent communicating, will be found in the end to establish an independency of communion. Satisfied with what may be enjoyed in their own congregations, the people will become careless of association with their brethren; the prevailing disrespect to enlarged testification of fellowship will be fostered; the very face of our church will be changed, and many of our “pleasant things” utterly marred. We may
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[continued from p. 71] “communes censeri debent; partim quod in eis populus spiritualiter communicet; partim quod a publico ecclesiæ ministro, non pro se tantum, sed pro omnibus fidelibus qui ad corpus Christi pertinent, celebrentur.” Sess. xxii. cap. vi. To this VOSSIUS (Disp. antea cit. Thes. 1.) replies, “That spiritual communion does not come up to the command of Christ, nor the design of the ordinance.” And if it does not with respect to the members of one congregation, neither does it with respect to those of different congregations, who are equally bound to testify by means of this ordinance that they are one in the Lord.
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then remember the days when we went with the multitude to the house of God, with the multitude that kept the holy solemnity, and remember them only to lament that such days are no more. Christians will no longer see their brethren gathering from different quarters, to strengthen their hands in the good way and work of the Lord. Often they may have entertained them as angels of God, and found their hospitality amply repaid by refreshing, elevating spiritual conversation, and by the mutually endearing intercourse of brotherly love. It was “as life from the dead,” as when many people should say, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord: O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of our God, let us sing together in the heights of Zion.” But soon every vestige of such associations will vanish; these blissful fruits of enlarged communion will cease to be known; the ordinance, moved from its sphere and spoiled of its honours, will languish under defective, obscure dispensations.