And when we come to the Holy Eucharist, here, too, _the degree of frequency_, as a law and as a _minimum_, of celebration, is defined for us no less certainly. That this was, by universal consent and practice, _weekly_,--namely, on every Lord's Day or Sunday--cannot be gainsaid. That it was on occasion administered more frequently still; that in some churches it became, we will not define how early, even daily; that, according to some, the apostles, at the very first, used it daily,--is beside the present question. The point before us is, that there was no Church throughout the world which failed, for the first three or four hundred years, to have _everywhere a weekly celebration on the Sunday_, and to expect the attendance of all Christians at that ordinance. Of this, I say, there is no doubt. The custom of apostolic days is perfectly clear from Acts xx. 7, and other passages. The testimony of Pliny, at the beginning of the second century, is that the first Christians met "on a stated day" for the Eucharist; while Justin Martyr (an. 150) makes it certain that that day was Sunday. And the testimony of various subsequent writers proves that the practice continued unbroken for three centuries. The Council of Elvira,[1] A.D. 305, first inflicted the penalty of suspension from church privileges on all who failed to be present for three successive Sundays; and we know from our own Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus, A.D. 668, that in the East that rule was still adhered to, though in the West the penalty had ceased to be inflicted. [1] Can. 21. It is referred to by Hosius at the Council of Sardica, A.D. 347.