Which can have no reason but this, that taking the holy things at the table standing, yet they used not to partake them, i.e., eat the bread or drink the wine, in any other gesture than what was on the station days then forbidden, kneeling; and that Tertullian wishes them to come, though they might not then kneel, and to take the bread in public, standing at the table, and reserve it, and carry it away with them, and receive [pg 1-218] it at their own houses as they desired, kneeling.
Ans. The Doctor by this puts a weapon in our hands against himself; for if, when they had taken the bread of the minister's hand, their standing was to be left and dissolved, and Tertullian, by commending to them another gesture in the eating of the bread, not standing, then whether urgeth he that other gesture to be used in the public eating of the bread or the private? Not in the private; for his advice of reserving and eating it in private, cometh after, and is only put for a remedy or next best, in case they would not condescend to this course in public, quod statio solvenda sit accepto corpore domini. Needs, then, it must be understood of the public. Now, if in the public eating of the bread standing was to be left, which gesture was to come in place of it? Not kneeling.
For, 1. Tertullian saith[767] elsewhere: Diebus dominicis jejunare nefas ducimus, vel de geniculis adorare; cadem immunitate a die Paschae ad Pentcostem usque gaudemus.
2. The doctor himself saith, that upon these station days kneeling was restrained, not only in prayer, but in all divine service.
Wherefore, if, according to the Doctor's gloss, the gesture of standing was left or dissolved, that gesture which had come in place of it to be used in the partaking of the sacrament, can hardly be imagined to have been any other nor sitting.
Well, the doctor hath unhappily raised this spirit to disquiet himself: let him bethink how to lay him again. If he cannot, I will assay to make some help, and to lay him in this fashion. The station days were not the Lord's days, together with those fifty betwixt Easter and Pentecost (on which both fasting and kneeling were forbidden), as the Doctor thinketh, but they were certain set days of fasting; for they appointed the fourth and sixth day of the week (that is, Wednesday and Friday) for their stations, as Tertullian saith;[768] whose words we may understand by another place of Epiphanus,[769] who writeth that the fast of the fourth and the sixth day was kept throughout all churches, and held to be an apostolical constitution. Howbeit herein they did err; for to appoint a certain time [pg 1-219] of fasting to be kept by the whole church agreeth not with Christian liberty, and wanteth the example of Christ and his apostles, as Osiander noteth.[770] Always we see what was meant by station days, to wit, their set days of fifty, fasting, which were called station days, by a speech borrowed from a military custom, as Tertullian teacheth. For as soldiers kept those times and places which were appointed for their watches, and fasted all the while they continued in them, so did Christians upon their station days resort and meet in the place appointed, and there remained fasting till their station dissolved. The Doctor taketh upon him to confute those who understand by the station days set days of fasting; but all which he allegeth to the contrary is, that he findeth somewhere in Tertullian statio and jejunia put for different things. Now this helpeth him not, except he could find that statio and stata jejunia are put for different things; for no man taketh the stations to have been occasional, but only set fasts. Touching the meaning, then, of the words alleged by the Doctor (to give him his own reading of them, howbeit some read otherwise), thus we take it. There were many who came not to the sacrament upon the station days, because (in their opinion) the receiving thereof should break the station, i.e., the service of the day, and that because it should break their fast, a principal duty of the same. Tertullian showeth they were in error, because their partaking of the sacrament should not break their station, but make it the more solemn and remarkable. But if they could not be drawn from that false persuasion of theirs, that the sacrament should break their fast, yet he wisheth them at least to come and stand at the table, and receive the sacrament into their hands, and take it away to eat after (for permitting whereof he had no warrant), so should they both partake the sacrament and also (according to their mind, and to their full contentment) keep their stations, which were often prorogated till even,[771] but ever and at least till the ninth hour.[772] Finally, from this place, which the Doctor perverteth for kneeling, it appeareth that the gesture or posture in receiving the sacrament used in that place where Tertullian lived, was standing; because, speaking of the receiving [pg 1-220] of the sacrament, he saith, Si et ad aram Dei steteris.
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 writers[777] 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, 33[780]) 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.”