DISCOURSE II. Of the Time of Day for Administering the Lord's-supper ; or, an Answer to that uestion, "May it lawfully be administered at Noon ?" THERE have been some pious and devout persons, who would willingly fulfil all their duties of worship precisely according to the appointment of God, who have therefore scrupled to receive the Lord's supper at noon, because it is called a supper, and it was instituted and celebrated by our Lord Jesus Christ in the evening of the day. I will easily grant, that where the time of any duty is expressly instituted and commanded by God, it ought to be punctually observed ; but it doth not necessarily fol- low, that every circumstance of time or place, which happened to attend any part of worship, when the prophets, apostles, or Christ himself performed it. must be observed also whensoever we perform that worship. Johnpreached and instituted baptism at the river Jordan with a hairy garment upon him, anda leathern girdle; but it is not necessary that we should be baptised by the . river side, nor that the minister who preaches or performs it, should wear such vestments of hair or leather. Christ prayed at midnight, and on a mountain, he preached from a ship to those on the shore; and ordained his disciples to go forth and preach and pray ; but there was no necessity thatthey should al- ways, or at any time observe the samehour or place. In some other essays, I have shewn that there is a great difference betwixt religious ceremonies, and mere natura! cir- cumstances in worship. A religious ceremony is either an action, or a manner or circumstance of action by which some special honour is designed to be paid to God ; and therefore God alone can institute it, who alone can determine what shall be honour- able to himself : these religious ceremonies have generally a significationof some thing spiritual, inward and invisible belong- ing to them. Mere natural circumstances are such as are neces- sary, or at least convenient to theperformance of acts ofworship, considered merely as natural actions, and abstracted from their religious design : Such are time, place, habit, gesture, &c. for no natural action can be put forth but it must be in some time, in some place, in some posture of body ; and in public worship with some sort of garments on too. Now many of these, especially under the New Testament, are not precisely determined in chris- tian worship; they have no holy signification in them, and are left to the convenience of each single person, or of each single society or church of Christ. Now let us apply these things to the Lord's supper, and see how many circumstances attending r n
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=