Meet The Puritans

Goodwin on Weekly Communion

Posted on 10. Sep, 2009 by Mark Jones in Thomas Goodwin

The question of the Lord’s Supper interests me on a number of levels (e.g. pastoral, personal, theological, and Christological).  The “Calvin versus the Calvinists” issue on the Lord’s Supper is admittedly complex.  I’m not personally persuaded that the Westminster divines shared the same view of the Lord’s Supper as Calvin.  That may surprise some, but there has been some diversity in the Reformed tradition on this question.  But, one area where there is complete unanimity with Calvin and the Puritans is on the frequency of Communion.

Both Thomas Goodwin and John Owen held to weekly communion.  In Owen’s work, Brief Instruction in the Worship of God (1667), he writes: ‘How often is that ordinance to be administered? …. Every first day of the week, or at least as often as opportunity and conveniency may be obtained’ (Works, 15:512).  For the most part, however, the Supper was administered once a month where Owen ministered.

Goodwin’s point of departure for discussing the how often the Lord’s Supper ought to be administered is Acts 2:42. The ‘breaking of bread’ is a reference to the Lord’s Supper. Acts 2:42ff speaks of the customs of Christians, that is, what they did continually (Works, 11:390). Goodwin’s argument proceeds along the lines of the regulative principle. He makes the distinction between the elements of worship (e.g. prayer, reading of Scripture, preaching, sacraments) and the circumstances (time, place, etc.). Regarding the circumstances, in his time, 9am was the best time for meeting on the Lord’s day to allow for preparation before.

The congregation should also meet in the afternoon (after meals), ‘to prevent dulness, or hurt by indigestion’ (Ibid, 391). The question Goodwin sets before the reader is whether the Lord’s Supper falls under an element or a circumstance of worship. And this has constitutive significance, for ‘when God hath once stamped his institution on a thing, about his worship, man is not to stamp his, for it were a false coinage, which is against God’s prerogative’ (Ibid, 393).

Regarding how often the Lord’s Supper should be administered, ‘there must necessarily be an institution somewhere in Scripture left and to be found. This has reference to many aspects of congregational life, like the Lord’s day. God commands the setting apart of the Lord’s day because if it were left to man, ‘the public worship of God would soon have fallen to the ground’ (Ibid, 398). Another point of interest concerns ‘… the papists, who alone bore the face of the church many hundred years, … because they thought the institution thereof every week to be apostolical (being sounder in the point than many of our divines), therefore they have transmitted the observation of it every week, down unto our times’ (Ibid). The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a continual standing ordinance that finds its root in the Lord’s day itself which gives rise to the ordinances of God.

The Lord’s Supper is the ‘only proper badge of the church’s communion; and in this respect church members are called ‘one bread,’ as well as ‘one body,’ and therefore they are to take it together’ (Ibid, 402). But does this mean ‘every week’? After all, as Goodwin recognizes, ‘The Apostle seems there (1 Cor. 11:26) to speak of it as an indefinite ordinance, and not as a continual …’ (Ibid, 403). However, 1 Cor. 11:26 does not refer to the frequency of the supper, ‘but only to inform them of the high end, and nature, and intention of this ordinance …. It is a manner of speech’ explaining to them what actually happens when they partake of the Lord. Therefore, Acts 2:42 is determinative for the life of the church and has pointed application (demands) for the church and how, each Lord’s day, she is to conduct herself. The logical result, then, is that God commands the ‘breaking of bread’ as an ordinance of perpetual administration for the building of his church.

Further, if the Lord’s Supper is not to be administered each week, , ‘there would be nothing to determine and call for ordinances, so as to oblige the conscience. And so such ordinances … should have become the most uncertain …’ (Ibid, 406). And the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper is for the good of the church:

As good housekeepers have some constant provision of store, as corn, beef, and the like, beside all occasional dainties that, like fowl and fish, come in to their tables, so God hath laid up all spiritual provisions for us; and to be sure you have Christ himself for one standing dish continually served up to you … a dish that fills all, and serves all tastes … Many things in a sermon thou understandest not … but here to be sure (in the Lord’s Supper) thou mayest … Of sermons, some are for comfort, some to inform, and some to excite; but here in the sacrament is all thou canst expect’ (Ibid, 408).

Goodwin, who is usually quite irenic in his writings, becomes rather polemic in suggesting that those who determine when the Lord’s Supper should be, whether yearly, as the papists, or quarterly, are arrogant.

‘I will never believe that God would trust officers with settling such circumstances of worship … No; God would never have left matters of so great importance at uncertainties; he would never have left the revenues of his crown lands to those landlords … And the fruit of their assuming power you may see in the Lord’s Supper, which is absolutely by them commanded to be received at some certain times of the year, no oftener than necessary to be received, which is their poor allowance for that ordinance’ (408).

Incidentally, in the church where I minister we only observe the Lord’s Supper monthly.  But, clearly, the desire of Goodwin and Owen was for weekly observance.  The question I have for those who practice weekly communion is this: if Word and Sacrament must go together, then why don’t you practice communion twice on Sundays, assuming you have a morning and evening service?

Tags: communion, Goodwin, Lord's Supper, Lord's Table, polity, worship