Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/241

 to receive it oftener, if it was necessary. This is a mistake that a great many have fallen into, and by that means have been kept from the Sacrament more than otherwise they would have been. I call it a mistake; for it is so, and a very great one. For as in all things else, so particularly in this, our Church keeps close to the pattern of the Apostolic and Primitive Church; when, as I have before observed, the Supper was administered and received commonly every day in the week, but most constantly upon the  Day. And our Church supposeth it to be so still, and therefore hath accordingly made provision for it. Which, that I may fully demonstrate to you, it will be necessary to enquire into the sense and practice of our Church in this point all along from the beginning of the Reformation, or, to speak more properly, from the time when she was restored to that Apostolical form which she is now of, as she was at first; which we date from the reign of King Edward VI.

For in the first year of that pious prince, the Liturgy, or Book of Common Prayer, was first compiled; and in the second it was settled by act of parliament. In which book it is ordered, that the Exhortation to those who are minded to receive the Sacrament, shall be read; which is there set down, much the same that we read now. But afterwards it is said, "in Cathedral Churches, or other places where there is daily Communion, it shall be sufficient to read this Exhortation above written once in a month. And in Parish Churches upon the week-days it may be left unsaid." Fol. 123. Where we may observe, first, that in those days there was daily Communion in Cathedral Churches, and other places, as there used to be in the Primitive Church. And accordingly I find, in the records of St. Paul's, that when the plate, jewels, &c. belonging to the said Cathedral, were delivered to the King's Commissioners, they, upon the Dean and Chapter's request, permitted to remain, among other things, "two pair of basyns for to bring the Communion Bread, and to receive the offerings for the poor; whereof one pair silver, for every day, the other for festivals, &c. gilt." (Dugdal Hist. of St. Paul's, page 274.) From whence it is plain, that the Communion was then celebrated in that Church every day. And so it was even in Parish Churches. For otherwise it needed not to be ordered as it is in the Rubric above mentioned, that in Parish Churches upon the week-days the said