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.”
CHAPTER V.
THE FIFTH ARGUMENT AGAINST THE LAWFULNESS OF THE CEREMONIES TAKEN FROM THE MYSTICAL AND SIGNIFICANT NATURE OF THEM.
Sect. 1. That mystical significations are placed in the controverted ceremonies, and that they are ordained to be sacred signs of spiritual mysteries, to teach Christians their duties, and to express such holy and heavenly affections, dispositions, motions and desires, as are and should be in them,—it is confessed and avouched by our opposites. Saravia holdeth,[784] that by the sign of the cross we profess ourselves to be Christians; Bishop Mortoune calleth[785] the cross a sign of constant profession of Christianity; Hooker calleth[786] it “Christ's mark applied unto that part where bashfulness appeareth, in token that they which are Christians should be at no time ashamed of his ignominy;” Dr Burges[787] maintaineth the using of the surplice to signify the pureness that ought to be in the minister of God; Paybody[788] will have kneeling at the Lord's supper to be a signification of the humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ. The prayer which the English service book appointeth bishops to use after the confirming of children by the imposition of hands, avoucheth that ceremony of confirmation for a sign whereby those children are certified of God's favour and good-will towards them. In the general, our opposites defend[789] [pg 1-223] that the church hath power to ordain such ceremonies, as by admonishing men of their duty, and by expressing such spiritual and heavenly affections, dispositions, motions, or desires, as should be in men, do thereby stir them up to greater fervour and devotion.
Sect. 2. But against the lawfulness of such mystical and significant ceremonies, thus we dispute: First, A chief part of the nature of sacraments is given unto those ceremonies when they are in this manner appointed to teach by their signification. This reason being alleged by the Abridgement of the Lincoln ministers, Paybody answereth,[790] that it is not a bare signification that makes a thing participate of the sacrament's nature, but such a signification as is sacramental, both in what is signified and how. Ans. 1. This is but to beg the question; for what other thing is alleged by us, but that a sacramental signification is placed in those ceremonies we speak of? 2. What calls he a sacramental signification, if a mystical resemblance and representation of some spiritual grace which God hath promised in his word be not it? and that such a signification as this is placed in the ceremonies, I have already made it plain, from the testimonies of our opposites. This, sure, makes those ceremonies so to encroach upon the confines and precincts of the nature and quality of sacraments, that they usurp something more than any rites which are not appointed by God himself can rightly do. And if they be not sacraments, yet, saith Hooker,[791] they are as sacraments. But in Augustine's dialect, they are not only as sacraments, but they themselves are sacraments. Signa (saith the father) cum ad res divinas pertinent, sacramenta appellantur; which testimony doth so master Dr Burges, that he breaketh out into this witless answer,[792] That the meaning of Augustine was to show that the name of sacraments belongeth properly to divine things, and not to all signs of holy things. I take he would have said, “belongeth properly to the signs of divine things.”
And here, beside that which Ames hath said against him, I add these two things: 1. That this distinction cannot be conceived which the Doctor maketh betwixt the signs of divine things and the signs of holy things. 2. That his other distinction [pg 1-224] can as little be conceived, which importeth that the name of sacraments belongeth to divine things properly, and to all signs of holy things improperly.
Lastly, If we call to mind that which hath been evinced before, namely, that the ceremonies are not only thought to be mystically significant for setting forth and expressing certain spiritual graces, but also operative and available to the begetting of those graces in us, if not by the work wrought, at least by the work of the worker; for example, that the sign of the cross is not only thought by our opposites to signify that at no time we should be ashamed of the ignominy of Christ, but is also esteemed[793] to be a means to work our preservation from shame, and a most effectual teacher to avoid that which may deservedly procure shame; and that bishopping is not only thought to be a sign for certifying young children of God's favour and good-will towards them, but also an exhibitive sign,[794] whereby they receive strength against sin and tentation, and are assisted in all virtue.
If these things, I say, we call to mind, it will be more manifest that the ceremonies are given out for sacred signs of the very same nature that sacraments are of. For the sacraments are called by divines commemorative, representative and exhibitive signs; and such signs are also the ceremonies we have spoken of, in the opinion of Formalists.