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This question hath troubled very many; but to little purpose. For it is all one as if it were asked,
How often should a healthful man eat; or he that hath infirmities, take Physick? And if any man should say that a good man should do well to pray three times a day; he said true; and yet it were better to pray five times, and better yet to pray seven times; but if he does, yet he must leave spaces for other duties. But his best measures for publick and solemn prayer, is the custom of the Church in which he lives; and for private, he can take no measures but his own needs, and his own leisure, and his own desires, and the examples of the best and devoutest persons, in the same circum∣stances. And so it is in the frequenting the holy Communion. The laws of the Church must be his least measure. The custome of the Church may be his usual measure;* 1.1 But if he be a devout person; the spirit of devotion will be his certain measure; and although that will consult with prudence and reasonable opportunities, yet it consults with nothing else; but communicates by its own heights and degrees of excellency.* 1.2 St. Hierom advises Eustochium, a noble Virgin, and other religious persons to communicate twice every month; some did every Sunday; and this was so general a cu∣stome in the Ancient Church, that the Sunday was called, The day of bread;* 1.3 as we find in St. Chryso∣stome: and in consonancy to this the Church of England commands that the Priests resident in Collegiate or Cathedral Churches should do so: and they whose work and daily imployment is to Minister to religion, cannot in such circumstances pretend a reasonable excuse to the contrary. But I desire these things may be observed:
1. That when the Fathers make a question con∣cerning a frequent Communion, they do not dispute whether it be adviseable that good people should communicate every month, or every fortnight, or whether the more devout and less imploy'd may communicate every week; for of this they make no question; but whether every days Communion be fit to be advised, that they question: and I find, that as they are not earnest in that, so they indefi∣nitely give answer, that a frequent Communion is not to be neglected at any hand, if persons be wor∣thily prepared.
2. The frequency of Communion is to be esti∣mated by the measures of devout people in every Church respectively. And although in the Apo∣stolical Ages they who Communicated but once a fortnight were not esteemed to do it frequently; yet now they who communicate every month, and upon the great Festivals of the year besides, and upon other solemn or contingent occasions, and at marriages, and at visitations of the sick, may be said to communicate frequently, in such Churches where the Laws enjoyn but three or four times e∣very year, as in the Church of England, and the Lutheran Churches. But this way of estimating the frequency of Communion is only when the causes of inquiry are for the avoiding of scandal, or the preventing of scruples; but else, the inward hunger and thirst, and the spirit of devotion mar∣ried to opportunity, can give the truest measures.
3. They that communicate frequently, if they do it worthily, are charitable and spiritual persons, and therefore cannot judge or undervalue others
that do not. For no man knows concerning others by what secret principles and imperfect propositi∣ons they are guided. For although these measures we meet with in Antiquity are very reasonable, yet few do know them; and all of them do not rely upon them; and their own customs, or the private word of their own guides, or their fears, or the usages of the Church in which they live, or some leading example, or some secret impediment which ought not, but is thought sufficient; any of these, or many other things, may retard even good per∣sons from such a frequency as may please others; and that which one calls opportunity, others do not; but however, no man ought to be prejudiced in the opinion of others: For besides all this now reckoned, The receiving of the holy Sacrament is of that nature of good things which can be suppli∣ed by internal actions alone, or sometimes by other external actions in conjunction; and it hath a sup∣pletory of its own, viz. Spiritual Communion, (of which I am to give account in its proper place.) And when we consider that some men are of strict con∣sciences, and some Churches are of strict Commu∣nions, and will not admit Communicants but upon such terms which some men cannot admit, it will follow that as S. Austins expression is, Men should live in the peace of Christ, and do according to their Faith: but in these things no man should judge his Brother. In this no man can directly be said to do amiss, but he that loathes Manna, and despises the food of Angels, or neglects the Supper of the Lamb, or will not quit his sin, or contend towards perfection, or hath not the spirit of devotion, or does any way by implication say, That the Table of the Lord is contemptible.
4. These rules and measures now given, are such as relate to those who by themselves or o∣thers are discernably in, or discernably out of the state of grace. But there are some which are in the confines of both states, and neither themselves nor their guides can tell to what dominion they do belong. Concerning such, they are by all means to be thrust or invited forward, and told of the dan∣ger of a real or seeming neutrality in the service of God; of the hatefulnesse of tepidity, of the un∣comfortablenesse of such an indifference: and for the Communions of any such person, I can give no other advice, but that he take his measures of fre∣quency by the Laws of his Church, and add what he please to his numbers by the advice of a spiritual guide, who may consider whether his Penitent, by his conjugation of preparatory actions, and heaps of holy duties at that time usually conjoyn'd, do or is likely to receive any spiritual progresse: For this will be his best indication of life, and declare his uncertain state, if he thrive upon his spiritual nourishment. If it prove otherwise, all that can be said of such persons is, that they are members of the visible Church, they are in that net where there are fishes good and bad, they stand amongst the wheat and the tares, they are part of the lump, but whether leavened or unleavened, God only knows; and therefore they are such to whom the Church denies not the bread of Children; but whether it does them good or hurt, the day only will declare: for to such persons as these the Church hath made Laws for the set time of their Communion.* 1.4 Christ∣mas, Easter, and Whitsontide were appointed for all Christians that were not scandalous and openly cri∣minal, by P. Fabianus; and this Constitution is imitated by the best constituted Church in the
world, our dear Mo••her the Church of England: and they who do not at these times, or so frequent∣ly communicate, are censured by the Council of Agathon * 1.5 as unfit to be reckoned among Christi∣ans, or Members of the Catholick Church. Now by these Laws of the Church, it is intended indeed that all men should be called upon to discusse and shake off the yoke of their sins, and enter into the salutary state of repentance; and next to the per∣petual Sermons of the Church, she had no better means to ingage them into returns of piety; ho∣ping that by the grace of God and the blessings of the Sacrament, the repentance which at these times solemnly begins, may at one time or other fix and abide; these little institutions and disciplines being like the sudden heats in the body, which sometimes fix into a burning, though most commonly they go away without any further change. But the Church in this case does the best she can, but does not pre∣sume that things are well; and indeed as yet they are not: and therefore such persons must passe further, or else their hopes may become illusions, and make the men asham'd.
5. I find that amongst the holy Primitives they who contended for the best things, and lov'd God greatly, were curious even of little things; and if they were surpriz'd with any sudden undecency, or a storm of passion, they did not dare that day to communicate. [
When I am angry, or when I think any evil thought, or am abus'd with any il∣lusion or foul phansie of the night, intrare non audeo, I dare not enter, said St. Jerome,* 1.6 I am so full of horrour and dread, both in my body and my mind.] This was also the case of St. Chry∣sostom, who when Eusebius had unreasonably trou∣bled
him with an unseasonable demand of justice against Antonine, just as he was going to consecrate the blessed Sacrament, departed out of the Church, and desired one of the Bishops, who by chance was present,* 1.7 to do the office for him; for he would not offer the Sacrifice at that time, having some trouble in his Spirit.
2. To this are to be reduc'd all such great acti∣ons which in their whole constitution are great and lawful; but because so many things are involved in their transaction, whereof some unavoidably will be amiss, or may reasonably be suppos'd so, may have something in the whole and at the last to be deplor'd: In such cases as these, some great exam∣ples have been of advices to abstain from the Com∣munion, till by a general but a profound repentance for what hath been amiss, God is deprecated, and the causes of Christian hope and confidence do re∣turn. In the Ecclesiastical History we read, that when Theodosius had fought prosperously against Eug••nius the Usurper of the Empire, when his cause was just and approved by God, not only giving te∣stimony by the prediction and warranty of a religi∣ous Hermit, but also by prodigious events, by winds and tempests fighting for him, and by which he restored peace to the Church, and tranquility to the Empire: yet he by the advice of S. Ambrose abstain'd a while from the holy Sacrament, and would not carry blood upon his hands * 1.8, though justly shed, unto the Altar; not only following the president of David, who because he was a man of blood might not build a Temple, but for fear lest some unfit appendage should stick to the management of a just im∣ployment.
3. Of the same consideration it is, if a person whose life should be very exemplar, is guilty of such a single folly which it may be would not dis∣honour a meaner man, but is a great vanity and re∣proach to him; a little abstention, and a penitenti∣al separation (when it is quit from scandal) was sometimes practis'd in the Ancient Church, and is adviseable also now in fitting circumstances. Thus when Gerontius the Deacon had vainly talked that the Devil appear'd to him one night, and that he had bound him with a chain, St. Ambrose command∣ed him to abide in his house, and not to come to the Church, till by penances and sorrow he had expia∣ted such an indiscretion, which to a man had in re∣putation for wisdom, is as a fly in a box of oynt∣ment, not only uselesse, but mischievous. And S. Bernard commends S. Malachie because he reprov'd a Deacon for attending at the Altar the day af∣ter he had suffered an illusion in the night.* 1.9 It had been better he had abstain'd from the Altar one day, and by that intermediate ex∣piation and humility have the next day return'd to a more worthy ministery.
4. One degree of curious caution I find beyond all this, in an instance of St. Gregory the Great, in whose life we find, that he abstain'd some days from the holy Communion, because there was found in a Village neer to Rome a poor man dead, no man could tell how; but because the good Bishop fear'd he might have been starv'd, and that he died for want of provision; he supposing it might reflect
upon him as a defect in his Government, or of his personal Charity, thought it fit to deplore the ac∣cident, and to abstain from the Communion, till he might hope for pardon, in case he had done a∣miss.
If these things proceed from the sincerity of a well disposed spirit, that can suffer any trouble ra∣ther than that of sin, the product is well enough, and in all likelihood would always be well, if the case were conducted by a prudent spiritual guide; for then it would not change into scruples and su∣perstition. But these are but the fears and cauti∣ons and securities of a tender spirit; but are not an answer to the Question, Whether it be lawful for such persons to Communicate? For certainly they may, if all things else be right; and they may be right in the midst of such little accidents. But these belong to the questions of perfection and excellen∣cies of grace; these are the extraordinaries of them who never think they do well enough: and there∣fore they extended no further than to a single ab∣stention, or some little proportionable retirement; and may be useful when they are in the hands of prudent and excellent persons.
Metuebat Maria, ne amor Magistri sui in corpore suo refrigesceret, si corpus ejus non inveniret, quo viso re∣calescebat. Origen. homil. 1. ex variis.
Ad Eustoc. Virg. c. 9.
Hom. 5. de resurrect.
An. Chri∣sti 236. ut Sabellicus & Vola∣terranus referunt.
Can. 18.
Advers. Vigilant.
Palladius in vitâ S. Chrysost.
Tu genitor cape sacra ma∣nu, patriosque penatesMe bello è tanto digressum, & caede recentiAttrectare nefas: donec me flumine vivoAbluero —Aeneid. 1.
In vitâ S. Malachiae, Cui injungens poenitentiam, non debueras, inquit, hodiè mi∣nistrasse, sed verecundè te subtrahere sacris, & deferre tantis tamque Divinis my∣steriis, ut hâc humilitate purgatus, dignius exinde ministrares.