John Knox’s (ca. 1505–1572) Liturgy of 1556, reflecting the practice of the congregation of English exiles in Geneva, includes a rubric, ‘The Lord’s Supper is commonly administered once a month, or so oft as the congregation shall think expedient.’ However, the First Book of Discipline of 1560, while recognising the sufficiency of the order of Geneva (II.2), added more specific instruction: ‘Four times a year we think sufficient for the administration of the Lord’s table, which we desire to be distincted [distinguished/specified], that the superstitions of times may be avoided as far as may be…’ (XI.5). Anxious to avoid the observance of the Supper at Easter, which many thought gave special virtue to it, the Book of Discipline specified the first Sunday in each of March, June, September and December. [This is what is common in most Australian Presbyterian churches to this day.] It added, ‘We do not deny but any several kirk for reasonable causes may change the time, and may minister more often, but we study to repress superstition.’

In 1562 the Scottish General Assembly ordained that the Communion be celebrated four times in the year within towns, and twice in the year in the country. Even so, with the shortage of ministers, frequency was often far less, even once a year, sometimes spread over several Sundays if the population was large.

The usage of the Independents of the 1640s of a weekly or monthly communion was one which did not impact in Scotland, and frequency in Scotland was commonly annual for a considerable period. [There was also the factor of cost. Wine, a good mouthful per person, was expensive for a poor country like Scotland given the congregation might number many hundreds.]

Practice in the Church of England could accommodate a greater frequency. The Prayer Book (1559) and Canons (1603) were for at least three times a year, but in practice few communicated more than once, and then at Easter. William Pemble (1591–1623) wrote: “…Satan hath done much by his malicious policy to corrupt men’s hearts in the observance of it: when the Sacrament was administered often he brought it into contempt by the commonness of it; now that it is administered seldom through ignorance, it is abused and neglected as unnecessary.”

Pemble lamented that if there had been no civil law requiring attendance at least once a year, the Lord’s Table would be left without guests. Communion practice declined with the ejection of non-conformists to the new order of 1662, as they were often the more committed people, and monthly communion was found among them.

In the Directory of the Westminster Assembly the term “frequently” has enough elasticity to allow for the quarterly or half yearly practice of the Scots, and the more frequent practice in (some) English Puritan circles. George Gillespie (1613–1648) records: “But the Committee went through in order; and first, objection was made against that first section, which leaves to the discretion of the pastor and elders of each congregation how oft the communion is to be celebrated. It was desired that they might be tied, at least, to four times a-year, since the Apostle and Christ speak of often celebration. I said, There is no ground from Scripture or otherwise to determine four times a year, for this should resolve in the arbitrement of men. If congregations abuse this liberty, the presbytery at visitation of churches can help it. Mr Newcomen declared that all the new gathered churches have the sacrament every Lord’s day in the afternoon. To avoid this debate of the time, it was added in the beginning, The Lord’s Supper is to be administered frequently.” [Notes of Proceedings of the Assembly, 102.]

In the recent Volume 3 of Ligon Duncan (ed.), Westminster Confession into the 21st Century (2009), Wayne Spear has two interesting articles that suggest the general mind of the Assembly was not quite along Calvin’s line where Cavin seems to suggest a Real Presence of a nature that means we get something extra that we do not have in the ordinary preaching. A more general Reformed view would be that we receive in the Supper what we receive in the ordinary ministry but in a different way that stoops to our weak capacity.

Q. 40. How often is that ordinance to be administered?

A. Every first day of the week, or at least as often as opportunity and conveniency may be obtained.—1 Cor. xi.26; Acts xx.7 (Works 15, 512).

What’s fascinating to me is that Owen did not cite Acts 2:42, contra Calvin, Goodwin, et al, as a proof-text for his position.

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?