communion tablen.

1549 Melton Mowbray Churchwardens' Accts. in Trans. Leics. Archit. & Archæol. Soc. (1874) 3 186 P^d to John Gadder for making the Comunion table and o^r. things in the churche.

1590 H. Barrow Brief Disc. False Church 240 With what sense they can thus popishly vnderstand yt of & applie yt to their communion table only.

a1631 J. Donne Serm. (1954) VII. 286 Consider then, that to come to the Communion Table, is to take Orders; Every man should come to that Altar, as holy as the Priest, for there he is a Priest.

a1661 W. Brereton Trav. (1844) 82 It was not to be accounted an altar, but the communion-table.

1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 112. ¶2 Sir Roger..has likewise given a handsome Pulpit-Cloth and railed in the Communion-Table at his own Expence.

1742 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. at Altar The Christians call the Communion Table their Altar, because they offer up thereon a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving, in Memory of the Death and Passion of Jesus Christ.

1854 Ecclesiologist 15 341 He..talks of the ‘communion-table’ as if this were a correct or authorized term, and at the same time argues for the use of the proper eucharistic vestments.

1936 Church Hist. 5 145 Calvin came down slowly from the pulpit and placed himself behind the communion table.

1986 P. Leigh Fermor Between Woods & Water (1988) vi. 142 The Calvinist church..was as severe as a conventicle, with the Decalogue inscribed..over the Communion table.

2004 Cornish Guardian (Nexis) 30 Dec. 45 The Christmas Nativity scene and Crib [were] placed on the communion table and inside the pulpit rails.