Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Sect. 27. As for the rest of the testimonies Dr Burges produceth out of the fathers for kneeling,773 I need not insist upon them, for either they speak of the inward adoration of the heart, which we ought to direct unto Christ when we receive the sacrament (and this none of us denieth), or else they speak of adoring the sacrament, where, by the word adoration, we may not understand any divine worship, inward or outward, but a reverence of another nature called veneration. That this (which we deny not neither), and no more, is meant by the fathers when they speak of the adoration of the sacrament, Antonius de Dominis showeth more copiously.774 And thus we have suffered the impetuous current of the Doctor's audacious promises, backed with a verbal discourse to go softly by us. Quid dignum tanto tulit hic promissor hiatu?

Sect. 28. Finally, If any be curious to know what gesture the ancient church did use in the receiving of the eucharist, to such I say, first of all, that Didoclavius maintaineth that which none of our opposites are able to infringe, namely, that no testimony can be produced which may evince that ever kneeling was used before the time of Honorius III., neither is it less truly observed by the author of the History of the Waldenses,775 that bowing of the knees before the host was then only enjoined when the opinion of transubstantiation got place.

Next I say, the ancient gesture, whereof we read most frequently, was standing. Chrysostom, complaining of few communicants, saith,776 Frustra habetur quotidiana oblatio, frustra stamus ad altare, nemo est qui simul participet. The century writers777 make out of Dionysius Alexandrinus's epistle to Xistus, bishop of Rome, that the custom of the church of Alexandria in receiving the sacrament, was, ut mensae assisterent. It is also noted by Hospiman,778 that in the days of Tertullian the Christians stantes sacramenta percipiebant.

Thirdly, I say, since we all know that the primitive Christians did take the holy communion mixedly, and together with their [pg 1-221] love-feasts, in imitation of Christ,779 who, whilst he did eat his other supper, did also institute the eucharist; and since (as it is observed from 1 Cor. xi. 21, 33780) there was a twofold abuse in the church of Corinth “one in their love-feasts, whilst that which should have served for the knitting of the knot of love was used to cut the cords thereof, in that every one (as he best liked) made choice of such as he would have to sit at table with him (the other either not tarried for, or shut out when they came, especially the poor). The other abuse (pulled in by the former) was, for that those which were companions at one table in the common feast communicated also in the sacred with the same separation, and severally from the rest of the church (and the poor especially) which was in their former banquets.”

Since also we read that the same custom of joining the Lord's supper together with common feasts continued long after; for Socrates reporteth,781 that the Egyptians adjoining unto Alexandria, together with the inhabitants of Thebes, used to celebrate the communion upon the Sunday,782 after this manner, “when they have banqueted, filled themselves with sundry delicate dishes, in the evening, after service, they use to communicate.” How, then, can any man think that the gesture then used in the Lord's supper was any other, than the same which was used in the love-feast or common supper? And what was that but the ordinary fashion of sitting at table? Since the Laodicean canon,783 which did discharge the love-feasts about the year 368, importeth no less than that the gesture used in them was sitting Non oportet in Basilicis seu ecclesiis. Agapen facere et intus manducare, vel accubitus sternere. Now, if not only divines of our side, but Papists also, put it out of doubt that Christ gave the eucharist to his apostles sitting, because being set down to the preceding supper, it is said, “while as they did eat, he took bread,” &c. (of which things I am to speak afterward), [pg 1-222] what doth hinder us to gather, in like manner, that forasmuch as those primitive Christians did take the Lord's supper whilst they did eat their own love-feasts, therefore they sat at the one as well as the other? And so I close with this collection. Whatsoever gesture in process of time crept into the Lord's supper otherwise than sitting, of it we may truly say, “from the beginning it was not so.”