Historical Sources Concerning Lord's Supper

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Romans922

Puritan Board Professor
I'm looking for (NOT YOUR OPINION) historical books/articles that would work to answer the following questions:


1) Administration (Besides the need to have the Institution and Setting apart for holy purpose...)
2) Frequency (how often should we?)
3) Elements (leavened/unleavened bread; wine/grape juice?)
4) Actions (How to go about Eating/Drinking; Individual; Feast?; tables or passing out,etc)


Again, not looking for discussion, your opinion/thoughts. I'm only looking for books/articles. Thanks.
 
Calvin's Institutes might be a good place to start. Book IV, Ch XVII 43 = On the proper celebration of the Lord's Supper seems to address your first and particularly fourth questions. 44 addresses frequency.
 
A couple of questions: What do you mean by 'historical'? Certainly there won't be anything about pasteurized grape juice before 1869. And are you looking for Reformed materials, or is it a broader study?
 
Calvin's Institutes might be a good place to start. Book IV, Ch XVII 43 = On the proper celebration of the Lord's Supper seems to address your first and particularly fourth questions. 44 addresses frequency.

Thanks, basic foundational documents I'm not looking for. Calvin is obvious. :) Sorry if I didn't make that clear. Systematics are not needed to be referenced to me.
 
James Begg, The Use of the Communion Table in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. This is serialized in The Blue Banner but the original in full should be online too.
Warfield also has a piece on this (posture at communion) that gives all the histories and reasons for it and then gives up on the whole matter in the end. Select Writings, vol 2. p. 351-369.
On frequency, see Gillespie's notes on the Assembly, the subcommittee notes (some of the few that survive on the subcommittees' work) in his Works.
Also someone may know historical sources on the Independents' view of monthly communion which they eventually gave up on apparently due to scandal (I'm thinking Matthew Winzer told me this; don't have a source).
On greater frequency see John Mitchell Mason's piece, and a generation before that John Erskine's An attempt to promote the frequent dispensing the Lord's Supper.
On infrequent communion see I think a chapter in the modern work, Holy Fairs: Scotland and the Making of American Revivalism which is in two editions now I think (1990 and 2001).
Ken mentioned Robert Bruce's sermons. http://www.prdl.org/author_view.php?a_id=169
See Gillespie's arguments on the nature of things indifferent which he applies to various practices regarding the Lord's Supper in part four of Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies (if you want to know such things as his opinion of pre cutting the bread up into pieces and such, which he was against, words of institution, etc.).
 
I have a paper by Glen Clary on Warfield and the Lord's Supper (lots of sources); Glen has also worked on the Didache. You might contact him about both.
 
If you really want to do some digging, you can look through early writings collated in Ante-Nicene Fathers and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. For example, the Didache addresses the Lord's Supper and includes some of the early prayers used in connection with it. Justin Martyr addresses the sacraments in his First Apology (Ch. 61-67). I believe Tertullian also addresses his the topic in his Apology, as no doubt many other early church fathers.
 
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