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their regular perseverance in public worship to this ordinance of the Church; there is no one assuredly who having broken this ordinance, has afterwards by God's mercy been brought back to join more uniformly in the public worship of his God and Saviour, who has not been thankful for this restriction. This then is protection.[1]
The like has undoubtedly taken place even in the celebration of the Supper of our Lord. Individuals have been induced to join, and that beneficially to themselves, in the Communion even of their Saviour's body and blood, just so often in the year as their Church has prescribed to them. This is not so unusual a case as it might seem. One cannot doubt, that in many cases, where the Holy Communion is celebrated but three times in the year, this is so done, because such is the smallest number, of which the Church admits, and the Minister supposes that his flock would not join with him more frequently. Had the Church made no such regulation, many probably, who now partake three times a year, might not have joined even thus often; yet would it not be true to say that such persons in all cases partook without real devotion, or any love to their Saviour. Again, where there are opportunities of a monthly Communion, there may be some, who would not have desired the privilege unless the provision had been made for them, and they had been invited by the Church so to do; yet will it not of necessity follow that they partake coldly or unacceptably. A warmer love would indeed lead the one to a more frequent, the other to a more glad Communion; nor have such persons well
- ↑ "No doubt but penitency is as prayer, a thing acceptable to God, be it in public or in secret. Howbeit, as in the one, if men were only left to their own voluntary meditations in their closets, and not drawn by laws and orders unto the open assemblies of the Church, that there they may join with others in prayer, it may soon be conjectured what Christian devotion would that way come unto in a short time; even so in the other, we are by sufficient experience taught, how little it booteth to tell men of washing away their sins with tears of repentance, and so to leave them altogether to themselves. O Lord, what heaps of grievous transgressions have we committed, the best, the perfectest, the most righteous amongst us all, and yet clean past them over unsorrowed for, and unrepented of, only because the Church hath forgotten utterly how to bestow her wonted times of discipline, wherein the public example of all was unto every particular person a most effectual mean to put them often in mind, and even in a manner to draw them to that, which now we all quite and clean forget, as if penitency were no part of a Christian man's duty," Hooker, l. c.
