Works, Book 4 · Letter 56
EPISTLE LVI.
Mr. Mede's Answer to Dr. Twisse's Question about Genuflexio versus Altare. His freedom from self-ends in this and all other his opinions.
SIR,
FOR your question about Genuflexio or Adoratio versus Altare, I was in some pause whether to answer to it, or to pass it by in silence. I confess I have not been unacquainted with speculations in things of this nature: they were my eldest thoughts and studies, full twenty years ago, and the argument of my*Upon that Text, Sanctuar…m meum reveremini, Levit. 19. 30. See Book II. p. 398. Concio ad Clerum when I commenced Batchelor of Divinity, and before I was any proficient in the Apocalyps. And it may be I have had so many Notions that way as would have made another man a Dean or a Prebend or something else ere this. But the point of the Pope's being Antichrist, as a dead fly, marred the savour of that ointment. And besides I am no Practitioner nor active, but a Speculator only: But I am afraid there are others as much in fault, which practise before they know. I suppose you have heard something this way, and thence took occasion to move this Question to me; which is the reason I have told you this long tale by way of Preface, lest you might think I had (as some men use to do) made the bent of the Times the rule of my opinions. But if I did so, I should quickly renounce my Tenet of the Apocalyptical Beast, which I know few men here so hardy with us as to profess they believe, yea or would fain do. But alas that I am so ill advised I cannot do with all! And I thank God I never made any thing hitherto the caster of my resolutions but Reason and Evidence, on what side soever the advantage or disadvantage fell. Besides it fell out happily that the Times, when my thoughts were exercised in those Speculations I spake of, were times of better awe than now they are; which preserved me from that immoderation which I see divers now run into, whether out of ignorance or some other distemper I cannot tell. Haec omnia dixi in antecessum: now I will answer your Question briefly.
1. We must distinguish between Imago, and Locus or Signum praesentiae. To pray or worship toward the First, with respect thereto, is Idolatry; but not toward the Second.
2. The Israelites in the Wilderness bowed and worshipped the Lord toward the Cloud wherein he manifested his presence; in the Temple toward the Ark and the most Holy place as Solium Dei. When they were absent from it (though in a strange Country) yet they turned themselves and spread out their hands toward it when they prayed, as Daniel in Babel. Ergò, to worship toward Locum praesentiae is no Idolatry: or, if it were, we should commit it as often as we lift up our hands and eyes to Heaven in our prayers, as to the place of God's special Presence: Yet our Saviour taught us to say, Pater nost…r, quies in coelis, and to look that way when we prayed.
3. The reason of this difference between Imago, and Signum or Locus praesentiae, in the point of Divine worship is this; 'Tis one thing adhibere creaturam in cultu Dei per modum Objecti, another per modum circumstantiae Loci aut Sitûs, or as Instrumentum. The First is Idolatry, for God is a jealous God, and cannot endure that the worship we give to him should look towards any thing as an Object but Himself. But unless the Second be lawful, we must not look toward any created thing when we pray, not to Heaven, nor turn our selves towards the Table where God's blessings are when we say Grace, or the like; not lawful to invocate God in his Temple, not lawful to pray unto him with a Book, not use the Communion-Table as a place to give praise and thanks unto him Name. In all which Res creata adhibetur tantùm either as Circumstantia cultûs, ubi & quo-versùs, or as Instrumentum quo utimur ad invocandum, (as a Prayer-Book) but not as Objectum cultûs. But an Image, in the nature of the thing, if it be used in Divine worship as an Image, cannot but be used as an Object, that is as a Representation of the thing worshipped. For to look to a thing as it is the Representation of the Object whereto we address our Prayers and Services, what is it else but to make it Objectum mediatum & relativum? I must desire you to supply my meaning where my expression is defective. I should do better coràm; by pen …tis tedious to me.
4. Now the foreign or Altar (for they are but Synonyma's, as I take it) was ever in our Christian Oratories accounted as Solium Christi, as being the place where the Mysteries of his Body and Bloud (the Rites of the New Covenant) are exhibited unto us.
5. All the Prayers and Devotions of the Church were there offered unto God, and no where else, for many hundred years,So yet among the Lutheran…e. and still are in all the Churches of the Orient, and in the Latin Church their Mattins and Even-song, if of later ages not at it, yet always near and toward it. Desks for reading Prayers is a new device since the Reformation, never in the Church before. Whatsoever was spoken to God, was spoken at the Altar or towards it; whatsoever to the people, out of the Ambo or Pulpit and towards them, as Readings, Sermons. Tertul. Exhort. Castit. c. 10. Si spiritus apud se reus sit & conscientia erubescit, quomodo audebit orationem dicere ad Altare? An Altar is nothing else but a Table to call upon God at; whence the Scripture relates so often of Abram and Isaac, that they built Altars where they came, and there called upon the name of the Lord.
6. If it be lawful to invocate and call upon God at and toward the Altar as Solium praesentiae; 'tis as lawful to worship him toward it. The specification of Christian worship is to adore and invocate the Father through Iesus Christ crucified: why should it not then be comely, when we address our selves unto him, to look toward the place where his Passion is commemorated and the Rites thereof exhibited? 'Tis but to represent that by our posture which otherwise we express by our tongue, when we say, Through Iesus Christ our Lord.
7. 'Tis the fashion of all Nations and Religions (and ever was) to use some Reverential gesture when they enter into God's House. Our Saviour, when he sends forth his disciples to preach the Gospel, Matt. 10. saith, foreign, when ye enter into an House salute the same, i. e. (as S. Luke relates it, and the Vulgar and some other Copies have in this of Matth.) say, foreign. Agreeable whereto is that Custome now almost only retained amongst a few of the Vulgar to say, when they come into an House, God be here. Why should not some such Rite be comely, when we come into the House of God?
I am sorry now that I entered at all into this discourse, for I see so many things requisite yet for the understanding thereof, (as of the Nature of Temples and their Holiness, of the Christian Sacrifice so much decantated in the ancient Church, of the Lawfulness of Rites ordained by men, and the like) that it would require a Volume to give satisfaction herein. But you desired but to know what I thought of Genuflexio versùs Altare, and I think I have told you; and you see hereby what a mungrel I am. I know not how you will like it, I know how full of prejudice in these Things most of our Divines are. But I am verily perswaded that the Notions of Antiquity hereabout are so far from being followed, that they are quite forgotten and unknown.
I will neither trouble you nor my self any longer, but commend you to the Divine protection, and so I rest
Christ's Coll. May 13. 1635. Your loving Friend, Ioseph Mede.