A Defense of our Arguments Against Kneeling in Receiving the Lords Supper, Defense 11 – Defense 13
Defence of our eleventh Argument.
KNeeling in the act of receiving, is dangerous, being an occasion and provocation to idolatry. He sayth, we called it before idolatry, and now onelyonly an occasion or provocation to it. We call it so now in a new argument: first giving and not granting that it were not idolatry. Next, we say, it is dangerous, because it is a provocation to another kinde of idolatry, beside that we spake of before, to wit, the grossest sort of worshipping the transubstantiated bread, or Christ bodily present. He sayth, we are prone to prophannesse as well as idolatry. But we should not give dangerous provocations, either to the one, or to the other. He sayth, the Belgick Kirks making a Canon against kneeling for feare of bread worship, feared where there was no need of feare: for it hath been used in the Kirk of England without any such danger. Mr. Cartwrights(z) 1. Part. p. 164. report in a matter of fact, will get credit even with his adversaries. He sayth, That in divers places the people have knocked on their breasts, and holden up their hands, whilest the Minister was in giving of it, and not onelyonly those who received it, but also those who looked on, and were in the Kirk. Peter Martyr after the revolt of England in Queen Maries dayes, writing to the Polonian Ministers. (a) Let the evill seed and rotten (z) Loc. com. p. 1111. Averruncentur sub ipsis initijs mala semina & putres radices, nam si è principio negligantur (scio quod loquo▪ ) postea multo difficilius …lluntur, Idque providendum est ut in sacramentis, & praecipue in …ucharistia, quam sincerissime fiat. Ibi sint mihi crede idololatriae estifera semina, quae porro nisi sublata fuerint ecclesia Christi puro …ceroque cultu nunquam erit ornata. Non contemnantur sacramenta ut inania & vana signa, rursumque non illis plus tribuant omines quam ipsorum institutio ferat.roots be plucked up at the first beginning: for if they be neglected at the first (I know what I speak) they are more hard to be taken away afterward. And this is to be seen unto, as in the sacraments, so specially in the Eucharist, that it be most sincerely done. For there are there, beleeve me, pestilent seeds of …dolatry, which except they bee taken away, the Church of Christ will never be beautified with pure and sincere worship. Let not the sacraments be con…emned, as empty and voyd signes: and on the other … ▪ let not men give greater honour unto them, then their institution will suffer.
And before that time, even then when he wrote against Gardiner, he often fore warneth of the danger of it. bCol. 160Vt, quod mihi videtur, dicam, ad evitanda superstitionum pericula nolim hoc tempore. adorationis externae signa in Eucharistiae perceptione adhiberi, utut non ad symbola panis & vini, sed ad ipsum Christum in coelis regnantem derigerentur. Howbeit they should direct their worship, not to the symbols, but to Christ; yet he sayth there is danger of superstition in it. This was the best that ever Martyr could make of it, for throughly he could never digest it, and in that Epistle to the Polonians he is more free. Where he testifieth upon his own experience, what such pestilēt seeds of idolatry have wrought. I know what I spake, meaning no doubt the revolt of England: and who knoweth if there were the like triall, what the formalists would doe. So howbeit Papists are hardened, and increase to the feeling of all men, yet all the danger is not seen not felt, till the time of triall come. Beza sayth, cQuaest. 243. In ipsa panis sumptione adoratio apud nē sam quam sit periculosa, utpo…e quae artolatriae occasionem aperuerit, unde tandem homines ad metousian praecipitavit Satan, res ipsa demonstrant.Adoration in the very act of receiving, how dangero … it is, it being that which hath opened an occasion to breadworship, from whence at last Satan cast men down headlong to transubstantiation, the matter it selfe maketh manifest. And in his eight Epistle he sayth, that the event, and lamentable face of the Kirk, doth more then sufficiently teach us, how hurtfull it is; and commendeth these Churches which have abolished it, with no lesse care, then other apertas idolemanias manifest mad idolatry. What need I cite many testimonies, when as all the Divines in well reformed Kirks do think the same; and yet he will say, that the Belgick Kirks feared where there was no need of feare. At last he telleth us, that a Synod in Pole made standing or kneeling indifferent, but sitting they condemned. That Synod was a confused or mixt Synod of sundry sorts of professors, some adhering to the Augustane confession, some to the Helvetian, some to the Bohemian. Next, they thought that the Arrians had been the first authors of sitting after the reformation, when as both the Scottish and Belgick Churches at that same time, and many yeares before, did use the gesture of sitting; and as worthy a Polonian, as that Church bred in his time, Iohannes Alasco, a Polonian Baron, wrot before the holding of that synod many years more amply, and more earnestly for sitting, then any other man els, and did put it in practise in the kirkes, where he bare office. So it was in them a grosse ignorance in a matter of fact, which was so publick in the view of all men. Thirdly, howbeit there was at that mixt Synod a great number of Lutherans, yet they consent with the rest, that no man should be urged to kneel; because it was neither the will of God, nor custome of the purer Kirk to censure, or punish godly men for externall rites. The Lutheran, yee may see, is more favourable in this poynt, howbeit he maintain Christs bodily presence, then these who would seem to be of our own profession. dSol. pag. 36.It is to be marked, that in this place the Doctor esteemeth bread-worship to be no error in the foundation.
Defence of our twelfth Argument.
KNeeling in the act of receiving, say we, is will-worship. He sayth it is no part of Gods worship properly; and therfore it cannot be will-worship. This followeth not: for will-worship is of sundry sorts; as when a man inuenteth a new kinde of service to God, which hee never commanded; or when he misplaceth that vvhichwhich God hath commanded, and useth it vvhere he will; or vvhen that, vvhichwhich is not in the own nature vvorship, the user maketh it worship in his own conceit and opinion. Next, it followeth not, because that kneeling is a signe of vvorship, that therefore it is not worship properly; or because sometime we use it, and sometime not: for howbeit it be a signe of the internall adoration, yet is it the matter it selfe of externall adoration; for by it we do not onelyonly signifie the affection of our heart, but also honoureth God, either in secret, or before men. For he that adoreth, honoureth; and we honour. God not onelyonly with our spirit, but also with our body. As the Doctor himselfe said before; we direct to God, not onelyonly the worship of our hearts, but of our body: When wee pray without kneeling we give spirituall vvorship, vvithout determination of that particular bodily vvorship at that time: but vvhen vve pray kneeling, vvee cojoyne the bodily, and spirituall worship. Thirdly, it is not the kneeling outward onelyonly, that we call will-worship, but that also wherupon kneeling doth usually attend, that is set and continued prayer. For we say, that in the act of receiving, there is not the proper time and place of set and continued prayer; wherof we shall intreat in the own place. To pray then, is Gods worship, but to pray in an unfit time, to displace any other part of God worship, is will-worship.
Defence of our thirteenth Argument.
VVEE say, that kneeling entred into the Kirk under Antichrist: whether Honorius was the first deviser of it, or not, we regard not as a point materiall. It appeareth that Honorius decreed onelyonly an inclination, or bowing of the super our bulk of the body at the elevation, but not kneeling. If he ordained so much to be done at the elevation, it is likely that in the act of receiving, kneeling was either then also ordained, or come in a little after. But whether before, or after, is not the chiefe question. It is sufficient, that it was not in use in the Kirk of God for a 1000. years, or before the time at least, when the Antichrist was at his height. For there is not one expresse testimony in all the ancient Writers for kneeling in the act of receiving, except some counterfeit worke; yea, not so much as in any counterfeit work, so farre as we have yet seen alledged, except in one Cyrillus. The censure of Moulins upon these Catechismes of Cyrillus is marked and set down already in Perth Assembly eP. A. p. 60.. I adde the censure of the Bishop of Spalato, who saith, fDe rep. eccl. li. …. c. 6. append. ad Hilarium …umer. 69.that the Catechismes which go abroad under the name of Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus, are to him greatly suspected, for they smell of farre posterior times: and he setteth down the reasons of his judgment. Beza saith, that kneeling in the act of receiving, brought in Popish bread-worship, and transubstantiation, because, it may be, he gave some credit to Cyrillus; but it is very likely that it came in after the opinion of the reall presence, and transubstantiation. For as I have said, there is not a testimony we can heare of, yet alledged for kneeling, within the space of a 1000. yeares. And suppose that kneeling went before the opinion of Reall Presence, or Transubstantion, yet even then it was, (and no other wayes it could be) the Formalists idolatry, preparing the way to, or rather drawing on the worshipping of Christ as bodily present, or the bread transubstantiated into his body. For I have already declared, that kneeling in the act of receiving, eating and drinking, cannot be but idolatrous. Many grosse corruptions were in the Kirk before the opinion of the Reall Presence, or Transubstantiation prevailed. Seeing then it came in under the Antichrist, whether should we follow the Antichrist, and his Lawes, or Christ his holy Institutions.