A Defense of our Arguments Against Kneeling in Receiving the Lords Supper, Answer
Answer to his ten Arguments for kneeling
I Have no will to spend another sheet of paper on them, therefore I will be short. To the first: All our former arguments proue this kneeling not to be indifferent. Sitting we think not so necessary, as that there could not be a sacrament without it, but to the due ministration of the sacrament we think a table-gesture necessary. As for the gesture of sitting, we think that the example of the first supper, seconded with the practise following, should be equivalent to a precept, seeing it is so taken in other matters of policie. Howbeit to sit be not in the Categorie of actions, yet it necessarily presupposeth local motion, vvhichwhich is an action. And Christ cōmanding them in these words, Doe this, comprehended not onelyonly deeds, but also words, and the whole forme of the celebration, as if he hadisayd, celebrate this supper, is yee see we have now celebrated it The rest of the confirmation of this Arment hath been answered in the defence of our first, second and sixth arguments, and the two former treatises. His second and third arguments are answered in our seventeenth argument. The sensible manner of giving in the sacrament, is one of the chiefe reasons, wherefore we should not kneele; least we seem to adore the means when vve are in the very use of them. And as for the spirituall manner, we receive these same things in the word one by one, as vve do in the sacrament, howbeit outvvardly the vvord sound generally to the eares of all. We uncover our heads, when the scripture is read not for adoration, but veneration, whereby vve discerne betwixt it, and the voyce of men. To kneele vvhen the vvord is read, is to adore in the time of another action, and confound them, or rather to omit the duty of hearing vvith such attention, as we are bound to; or else to adore the word it selfe, which is idolatry, or else to mock God, and his publique worship. Of this we have spoken sufficiently in the seventeenth Argument. Yea, further, suppose it were lawfull to kneele at the hearing of the Word read, it is not lawfull to bow down before a creature in the Sacrament. To the fourth Argument: a table-gesture we hold necessary to the due ministration, suppose sitting in speciall be not so necessarie, it followeth not kneeling is as necessarie, as sitting, because kneeling is no table-gesture; the rest is answered in our 1. 2. 6. 7. Arguments. His fifth Argument is answered in our 1. and 2. Arguments. His six… is answered in our first Argument. The gesture of Christ at preaching and prayer, was variable; and therfore we may v…ry. His gesture at the Pa…chall suppers, and at this last Supper was one, and in a rituall action requiring some competent gesture. The seventh Argument is answered in our 16. Argument. That the Ancients changed sitting into standing, was done without good reason: Their liberty of changing that, and many other things in the Sacrament, drew on at last the abominabl Masse, and the breadie God. I… the Church now should take greater liberty, and change from siting or standing to kneeling, as they did, it were but to proceed from worse to worse. For there is great difference betwixt change of one Tablegesture into another, and a change of a Table-gesture into a gesture of adoration. The eighth Argument is answered in the 8. 9. 1…. 11. Arguments. To the ninth, Howbeit the Lutheran thinketh that Christ is not to bee adored in the bread, out of the use of the Sacrament; yet in the use and in the act of receiving, they kneele; because of their opinion of the reall presence of Christs body. The rest hath bene answered in our 11. Argument. The tenth doeth not conclude for kneeling, and impugneth sitting as thoug… urged necessarily by us. When as we onelyonly ground upon Christ, and his Apostles sitting, and other rites, the necessitie of a Tablegesture, not to the essence of a Sacrament, but to the due ministration of that action: that the rest of the commanded rites may be performed, which cannot be performed with a gesture of adoration. Sitting wee thinke ought not to be changed, no not into standing, without some waighty consideration of some urgent occasion, because it was the gesture of Christ, his Apostles, and the Apostolicall Kirkes; it is the ordinary gesture of guests at feasts, and resembleth best the familiar accesse of the soule to the spirituall Table. As for types of our Supper in heaven, and sitting at it, we have answered in the defence of the seventh Argument.
VVHat I have omitted in the answer to his ten Arguments, is either not worthy of answer, or already answered in the preceeding defence, as also in the two former treatises.
FINIS.
Pag. 2. in the Marg. quosque for quo…sque. pag. 6. at for as. pag. 32. obstued for obscuted. pag. 60. or for are.
End of the text · David Calderwood, A Defense of our Arguments Against Kneeling in Receiving the Lords Supper (1620)