Rites and Ritual. Freeman Philip
of Christ, should be done away. The minister should still be ready on all Sundays and holydays at the altar; but it would be left, awfully left, for the people to say whether Christ's ordinance should have place, or whether its continuity should be violated, and its benefits so far forfeited.
And who will deny that such a course was, though a choice of evils, the right one? What had the other practice done, but lull the Church of God into a fatal satisfaction with a state of things as widely different from primitive Eucharist and primitive Christianity, as any one thing can well be from another? And if those other sad results have followed, which we behold before our eyes, let not the blame be laid on the age which has inherited, but on the ages which had accumulated and transmitted, such an inveterate habit of neglect to receive the Holy Communion. Be it remembered, too, that (as has been well pointed out of late) the period of the Great Rebellion caused an entire suspension of the Church's proper rites. "The Sacrament was laid aside, in those distracting times, in many parishes in the kingdom, for near twenty years." (Bishop Patrick.) "This solemn part of religion was almost quite forgotten; the Remembrance of Christ's Death was soon lost among Christians." (Archbishop Tillotson.) "The Sacrament was laid aside, in Cromwell's days, in most parishes in the nation. In many churches there was no speaking of the Sacrament for fifteen or sixteen years; till it was feared the Lord's Supper would come to be ranked among those superstitious ceremonies that must be abolished." (Dr. Durell.) These testimonies considered, the real wonder would be if there had not been found very great difficulty in bringing back, at the time of the Restoration, the primitive habit of Weekly Celebration. And now that we have added two hundred years more of neglect, we have to face the mighty difficulty of awakening a whole nation, of clergy and laity alike, to a due sense of our very grievous departure from that Apostolic model, to which professedly we appeal as our standard of duty.
And the task would seem to be hopeless, were it not, 1st, that a great and powerful movement tending to this result has already for many years been going forward; and, 2nd, that there is reason for believing that vast numbers of the clergy are really anxious to restore the primitive practice, and are only held back by difficulties, either real or imagined. Of this latter fact it is in my power to speak with some confidence; since I have been frequently urged, by no inconsiderable number of my brethren, to set forth, as I have now very imperfectly endeavoured to do, the grounds for such a restoration.
What then, supposing the clergy to be really anxious for it, are the difficulties in the way? The first and most obvious is that of finding a sufficient number of Communicants. This is to be overcome in a great measure by careful heed to that pregnant charge given to the clergy at their Ordination, "So to sanctify the lives of them and theirs, and to fashion them after the Rule and Doctrine of Christ, that they" (that is the clergy and their households) "may be godly examples and patterns for the people to follow." And again they are charged "to frame the manners of them that specially pertain to them." These injunctions suggest, that in the families and dependences of the parochial clergy ought to be found a nucleus and centre of all Christian living. Frequent Communion, at the least – weekly, if possible – should be the normal condition of the Clergyman's household, and of all who are allowed any special part in, or connexion with, the Services of the Church. Care being taken of this, it may well be hoped that at least a gradual reform might be made: the stereotyped monthly Communions being exchanged for a fortnightly, and finally for the full "orbed round" of Weekly Celebration.
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