Rites and Ritual. Freeman Philip
powers, in the New. We cannot, therefore, assume with certainty that the seventh-day recurrence of any feast of the Old Law, however close its resemblance to the Eucharist in other respects, enforces of necessity a like seventh-day recurrence of the Christian Ordinance. But thus much may be observed, as a law pervading the transference of the old ways of service to the new system, that there was to be no going back, or falling short, in this point of frequency, but an equality at the lowest, and even some advance in that respect. Thus, the great Continual Sacrifice of the Tabernacle and Temple, consisting in the renewal, morning and evening, of a lamb as a burnt offering, has passed on into the really continual, and not merely renewed, Offering and Presentation in Heaven of the true Lamb once for all slain. The eucharistic or peace-offerings, again, personal or congregational, which bear so close an analogy to the Holy Eucharist, were only offered and partaken of, as an absolute rule, three times in the year, though they might be, and were, offered and eaten more frequently. So that the frequency of the Christian Eucharist, once a week as a minimum, was a clear advance upon this. – But there was another Ordinance very closely resembling the Eucharist. This was the Shewbread. The materials of it were bread and wine; it was offered and eaten as a memorial of the one continual sacrifice, and as a means of presenting before God the Church of that day, the twelve tribes of Israel. The analogy, therefore, is perfect; especially in that no part of the offering was consumed by fire, but the whole of that which was offered was also eaten, exactly as in the Eucharist. That this particular Ordinance was to survive, accordingly, with the least possible amount of transformation, in the Gospel economy, was foretold, apparently, by Malachi. For to this we may most safely refer his prediction, that "in every place incense should be offered, and a pure offering;" the terms "pure offering," and "incense," being especially applied to this rite; and the subject treated of being the negligence of the priests, to whom this ordinance was confined. How often, then, was this offering presented and partaken of? weekly – neither more nor less; namely, on the Sabbath morning; it having been placed on the Table of Shewbread the Sabbath before, and being now consecrated, or offered, by burning, upon the altar of incense, the frankincense which had been placed on the top of the loaves for that purpose. This "Weekly Celebration and Communion," then, as it may rightly be called, certifies to us, on the principle above laid down, that the Christian Eucharist, its very counterpart or continuation, was to be weekly as a minimum. The same analogy would suggest, what we know to have been the case from very early times, that the Christian rite was not, like the Jewish, to be limited to a weekly performance. In this respect, as well as in the extension of the rite to all Christians, now become "Priests unto God," the antitype was to rise, on occasion at least, above the type; even to the degree, at high seasons, or under special circumstances, of a daily celebration. And the fact that the bread and wine offered on each Sabbath had already lain there a week, gives much countenance to the view advocated above, that the Christian rite is, on the Lord's Day, retrospective, inclusive of the memories of the preceding week. For the idea manifestly was that, in the twelve loaves, the twelve tribes lay in a mystery all the week long, with all their actions, before the Divine Majesty.
But we may, with much probability, go one step further, and say that Our Lord himself, in the very words of the Institution, gave no obscure intimation that the law of recurrence of the Ordinance was to be that which is here contended for. Among those words there is one, though but one, which bears upon the question of frequency. It is, "Do this, as oft as ye drink, for My memorial" (ὃσακις αν πινητε]). What is the allusion here? Had the Jews any custom at that time of "drinking" wine in solemn religious "memorial" of national mercies; for which this greater "Memorial," of world-wide meaning, was henceforth to be substituted? and if so, how often did that rite recur, and what law would thus be suggested or prescribed for the New "Memorial"?
Now, that they had such a rite6 at that time, is rendered infinitely probable by the fact that they have such a one at this day; and of such a structure, and involving such reference to the ancient system of sacrifice, as though actually going on, that it is inconceivable but that it must have existed before the destruction of the temple, and abolition of the law. It consisted of offering and consecrating, at the Synagogue Service, on the eve of every Sabbath, a cup of wine, which was then drunk of, first by the consecrator, and then by the orphan children there present: – a touching rite, signifying (as appears by the prayers accompanying it) the fatherless condition of the nation when in Egypt, and God's mercy in bringing them out of it, to drink of the fruit of the vine in their own land. There were also prayers for the acceptance of the great continual sacrifice of the nation, then lying on the altar in the temple; for peace; for grace to keep the commandments. In all respects, therefore, this rite bore a very close resemblance, in its own sphere, to that which our Lord was instituting: He, too, having offered a cup of wine, presenting thereby the Sacrifice of His Blood, and enjoined that it should be then and ever after drunk of in thankful memorial and all-powerful pleading of that sacrificial deliverance. And there was yet another Sabbath-eve rite, nearly akin to this one, only that it was a domestic rite, and performed at supper, and with bread as well as wine; features which, of course, assimilated this latter form of the rite still more closely to what our Lord was doing.
Let it be supposed then, – and it seems to be incontestable, if the existence of the rites at that time may be safely assumed, – that to these rites our Lord alluded, both generally in the whole Institution (though of course he referred to many other and greater rites too), and specially in the words – "As oft as ye drink." We then have from Himself a plain intimation as to the degree of frequency of Celebration. Such an intimation would, apart from subsequent instructions during the Forty Days, account for the "First day of the week" being mentioned for celebration, as if a fixed habit, in the Acts of the Apostles.
These things considered then; – the deep mystery for good attaching, from the very Creation downwards, to the seventh-day recurrence of religious ordinances; the special fitness of such a law of recurrence in the case of the Holy Eucharist, because it is the summing up of a Divine Week's Work of Redemption and Salvation; the sharply defined presignification, by means of the Law and the Prophets, the shewbread and Malachi, of a seventh-day rite of universal obligation, and blessedness yet to come; lastly, and chief of all, the brief but pregnant command of Our Lord Himself, gathered with the utmost probability from the very words of the Institution; and all this, not left to our inference, but actually countersigned by the unvarying practice of the Church throughout the world for three hundred years: – all this considered, I conceive that we have very strong grounds indeed for affirming the proper obligation of this law of recurrence, and for earnestly desiring that it might please the Great Head of the Church to put it into the mind of this branch of it to return, with all her heart, to the discharge of this most bounden duty.
I have preferred, in what has been said, to place this duty on the lofty ground of zeal for the integrity of the great Mystery of our religion, and of reverence for the commands of Christ, and the practice of His Apostles, rather than on the lower ones of expediency and advantage. And in this light I would earnestly desire that it may be primarily regarded. The only question for any branch of God's Church ought to be, What is commanded? What did God Almighty intend, and types foreshadow, and Christ enjoin, and the Apostles practise? Whatever that was, it must be right for us to aim at, and to strive for it with all our hearts.
Yet I would not have it supposed but that there is every reason to hope for the largest measures of blessing, and of spiritual results, from a return to this practice. I will mention one very great scandal, the very canker and weakness of our whole parochial system, which has a fair likelihood of being removed by this means. Next to the infrequency of our Communions, the fewness of our communicants, – that is, in fact, of our bonâ fide members of the Church, – is our greatest and most inveterate evil. When this fewness is allowed its due significance, we must see and confess that the nominally Christian condition of this country is but an illusion and an untruth after all. Judged by our own Church's rule (which is the rule of Christ Himself), our communicants, and they only, are our people. The rest may call themselves what they will; or we may for euphony call them "our flocks," or God's people. But one thing is certain, that in those apostolic or early days to which we ever appeal, and rightly, as our standard, they would have been held to be reprobates, and no faithful members of Christ's body at all. Such then
See 'Principles of Divine Service,' vol. ii., pp. 284-298.