A01760:446
A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland Wherein not…A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded vpon the Church of Scotland Wherein not…
A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded upon the Church of Scotland Wherein not only our own arguments [sic] against the same are strongly confirmed, but likewise the answers and defences of our opposites, such as Hooker, Morton ... Forbesse, &c. particularly confuted.A dispute against the English-popish ceremonies, obtruded vpon the Church of Scotland Wherein not only our ovvne argumemts [sic] against the same are strongly confirmed, but likewise the ansvveres and defences of our opposites, such as Hooker, Mortoune ... Forbesse, &c. particularly confuted.
Leiden: printed by W. Christiaens, 1637
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The sixth and last Argument, whereby I prove the kneeling in question to be Idolatry, is taken from the nature & kind of the worship Sect. 17 wherein it is used. For the receiving of the Sacrament being a mediate worship of God, wherein the Elements come between God & us, in such sort, that they belong to the substance of the worship, (for without the Elements, the Sacrament is not a Sacrament,) and withal are susceptive of coadoration, for as much as in the act of receiving, both our minds, and our external senses, are and should be fastened upon them: hereby we evince the Idolatry of kneeling in the receiving. For in every mediate worship, wherein some creature is purposely set between God & us to have state in the same, it ⟨p. 69⟩is Idolatry to kneel before such a creature, whiles both our minds & senses are fastened upon it. Our Opposites have raked many things together, to infringe this Argument. First athey allege the bowing of Gods people before the ark, the Temple, the holy Mountain, the Altar, the Bush, the Cloud, the Fire which came from heaven. Answ. 1. Where they have read that the people bowed before the Altar of God, I know not. bB. Lindsey indeed would prove from 2. Chron. 6. 12, 13, and Mic. 6, 6. that the people bowed before the Altar and the Offering. But the first of those places, speaks nothing of kneeling before the Altar, but only of kneeling before the Congregation, that is, in sight of the Congregation. And if Solomon had then kneeled before the Altar, yet the Altar had been but occasionally and accidentally before him in his adoration, for to what end & use could he have purposely set the Altar before him, whiles he was kneeling and praying? The place of Micah can not prove, that Gods people did kneel before the offerings at all, (for it speaks only of bowing before God,) far less, that they kneeled before them in the very act of offering, and that with their minds and senses fixed upon them, as we kneel in the very act of receiving the Sacrament, and at that instant when our minds and senses are fastened upon the signs, that we may discern the things signified by them, for the exercising of our hearts in a thankful meditation upon the Lords death. 2.