negligence in times of ignorance, or else forcibly imposed by tyranny and power, contrary to the usages of the ancient Church, and many times to the very design of divine-service, and the natural intent of holy institutions! As it is plain in the case of having divine service in an unknown tongue, and worshipping saints and angels, and images and crosses with divine worship, and dividing the sacrament, and ministering it only in one kind, and many other things of the like nature; which, as they contradict the very end of the divine ordinances, and the natural design of God's institutions; SO run counter to the whole practice of the ancient Church, as any one may see by considering the allegations produced in these collections, in which I have endeavoured to point out, as well the rise of errors, and the original of corruptions in latter ages, as the true ancient practice of the primitive Church in all the several parts of divine service relating to the ordinary worship of God. And here I should have put an end to this account, but that there are a few questions more, that may be asked concerning some appendages and circumstances of the communion, which it will be proper to answer in this place. As 1. How they were used to dispose of the remains of the eucharist after communicating? 2. What was their usage and practice in regard to their Agape, or feast of charity, so famous in ancient history? 3. What preparation they required as necessary to communicants, to qualify them for a worthy reception? 4. What time they administered the Lord's supper, and how often they exhorted or obliged all persons to receive it? I will give as short an answer as I can to these questions, and therewith put an end to this dis course. CHAP. VII. How the Remains of the Eucharist were disposed of. And of their common Entertainment, called, Agape, or Feast of Charity. SECT. 1.-Some Part of the Eucharist anciently reserved for particular Uses. We have observed before in several places of this book, that some part of the eucharist was commonly reserved for several particular uses, to be sent to the absent, and communicate the sick, and to testify the communion of distant Churches one with another. And this was one way of disposing of the remains of the consecrated elements when the communion was ended: to which, I conceive, the Author of the Constitutions had regard, when he orders the deacon' to carry what remained into the Pastophoria or Vestry, which was the repository for all holy things belonging to the church. SECT. 2.-The Rest divided among the Communicants. If any thing remained over and above what was necessary for these uses, then by other rules it was to be divided among the communicants. As appears from the canons of Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, one of which is to this purpose: "let the clergy and the faithful, (that is, the communicants,) divide among themselves the oblations of the eucharist, after all have participated, and let not a catechumen eat or drink of them." SECT. 3.-This Division of the consecrated Elements a distinct Thing from the Division of the other Oblations. Some learned persons confound this division or consumption of the consecrated elements with that other divi 1 Constit. lib. viii. cap. 13. * Theoph. can. viii. 3 Lestrange, Alliance of Div. Office, chap. vii. p. 213. sion of the oblations among the clergy, and allege the Author of the Constitutions for it, as if he intended this when he says, "let the deacons divide what remains of the mystical eulogiæ, by the orders of the bishop or resbyters, among the clergy; to the bishops four parts, to the presbyter three parts, to the deacon two parts, to the rest of the clergy, subdeacons, readers, singers, deaconesses, one part. For this is acceptable to God, that every one should be honoured according to his dignity." It is plain, he speaks not here of the consecrated elements, but of the division of the people's oblations among the clergy, as Cotelerius rightly expounds it. For this was one way of maintaining the clergy in those days, as has been more fully shewn in another place. And though he calls these by the name of the mystical eulogiæ, yet that does not determine it to the conseerated elements: for, as has been noted before, eulogiæ is a common name that signifies both. And Socrates takes it for the oblations in this very case, when, speaking of Chrysanthus, the Novatian bishop, he says, he never received any thing of the church save two loaves of the eulogia on the Lord's day. Where he certainly means, not two loaves of the eucharist, but of the other oblations of the people, which it was customary for the clergy to have their proportioned shares in. SECT. 4.-The Remains of the Eucharist sometimes given to innocent Children. Sometimes what remained of the eucharist, was distributed among the innocent children of the church. For, as I have briefly hinted before, whilst the communion of infants continued in the Church, nothing was more usual in many places than both to give children the communion at the time of consecration, and also to reserve what remained unconsumed, for them to partake of some day in the week following. Thus it was appointed by the second Council of Mascon in France, Anno 588. "That if any remains of Constit. lib. viii. cap. 31. Socrat, lib. vii. cap. 12. Book v. chap. iv. sect. 1. the sacrifice, after the service was ended, were laid up in the vestry, he, who had the care of them, should, on Wednesday or Friday, bring the innocents to church fasting, and then sprinkling the remains with wine, make them all partake of them." And Evagrius' says, it was the custom of old at Constantinople to do the same: for when they had much remains of the body of Christ left, they were used to call in the children that went to school, and distribute among them. And he tells this remarkable story upon it, that the son of a certain Jew happening one day to be among them, and acquainting his father what he had done, his father was so enraged at the thing, that he cast him into his burning furnace, where he was used to make glass. But the boy was preserved untouched for some days, till his mother found him and the matter being related to Justinian, the Emperor, he ordered the mother and the child to be baptised; and the father, because he refused to become a Christian, to be crucified as a murderer of his son. The same thing is related by Gregory of Tours and Nicephorus Callistus,3 who also adds, that the custom continued at Constantinople to his own time, that is, the middle of the fourteenth century; for he says, when he was a child, he was often called to partake of the remains of the sacrament after this manner among other children. SECT. 5.-And sometimes burnt in the Fire. In some places they observed the rule given by God for disposing of the remainders of the sacrifices of peace-offerings and vows under the old law, which was to burn them with fire. Lev. vii. 17. This was the custom of the Church of Jerusalem in the fifth century, when Hesychius, a presbyter of that Church, wrote his Comment upon Leviticus, where he speaks of it in these words: "God reliquiæ sacrificiorum post peractam missam in sacrario supersederint, quartâ vel sextâ feriâ innocentes ab illo, cujus interest, ad ecclesiam adđu-cantur, et indicto eis jejunio, easdem reliquias conspersas vino percipiant. Evagr. lib. iv. cap. 36. Gregor. Turon. de Glor. Martyr. lib. i. cap. 10. Niceph. lib. xvii. cap. 25. • Hesych. in Levit. lib. ii. Quod reliquum est de carnibus et panibus, in igne incendi commanded the remainder of the flesh to be burned with fire. And we now see with our own eyes the same thing done in the Church whatever happens to remain of the eucharist unconsumed, we immediately burn with fire, and that not after one, two, or many days." From hence our learned writers' generally observe two things: 1. that it was not the custom of the Church of Jerusalem to reserve the eucharist so much as from one day to another, though they did in some other Churches. 2. That they certainly `did not believe it to be the natural body and substance of Christ, but only his typical or symbolical body: for what an horrible and sacrilegious thing must the very Jews and Heathens have thought it, for Christians to burn the living and glorified body of their God? And how must it have scandalised simple and plain Christians themselves, to have seen the God they worshipped burnt in fire? And with what face could they have objected this to the Heathen, that they worshipped such things as might be burnt, which 'is the common argument used by Arnobius, Lactantius, Athanasius, and most others, if they themselves had done the same thing? If there were no other argument against transubstantiation and host-worship, this one thing were enough to persuade any rational man, that such doctrines and practices were never countenanced by the ancient Church. SECT. 6.-The other Oblations partly disposed of in a Feast of Charity. Which all the Ancients reckon an Apostolical Rite accompanying the Communion. We have seen how they disposed of the consecrated elements; and are next to examine what they did with their other oblations. It has been already observed, that some part of these, by what distinction made, is not very easy to tell, went toward the maintenance of the clergy. præcepit. Quod nunc videmus etiam sensibiliter in ecclesiâ fieri, ignique tradi quæcunque remanere contigerit inconsumta, non omnino ea quæ unâ die, vel duabus aut multis servata sunt. Vid. Du Moulin. Novelty of Popery. lib. vii. Controv. 11. chap. xix. Albertin. de Euchar. p. 853. Whitby, Idolatry of Host-Worship, |