M. 1. It is not a necessary point of Salvation or communion, and therefore if they err they are not therefore to be Excommunicate, unless you will Excommunicate all that have error and sin, that is, your selves, and every living man.
2. They have the pretence of real fearing that it is a sin to differ in the Gesture from Christ's administration, thinking that a Table gesture was intended by him to signify his sacrifice-Feast.
3. They fear breaking the Second commandment, which is against corporal seeming to worship as Idolaters do though the heart mean better; and so against symbolizing with Idolaters, ⟨p. 80⟩and against scandalous hardening them in their sin: Because Papists are known to kneel to the Bread as unto God and worship it. And these Papists live among us, and are now hoping to set up their Idolatry. Though for my part I think that the public Doctrine of the Church, takes off this argument of Scandal, yet it is such as very Learned and holy men think valid: as you may see in Mr. Rutherford's Letters, and many others.
4. And ad hom̄inem, I see not what the Excommunicators can say for themselves, while they condemn all of Schism that obey not General Councils, especially the four first, and that differ from the Universal Churches customs: And yet the very first Nicene Council, and divers after forbid all Kneeling in adoration on any Lord's day in the year, and on any weeks day between Easter and Whitsunday. And all the Ancients assure us that this was one of the chief ceremonies that the Church then called Universal agreed in. And it was never put down by any other General Council, but at Rome grew out of custom by degrees, and that not till a thousand years after Christ as Dr. Heylin confesseth. And shall these same men that cry up the Church and the Laws of Councils Excommunicate those that obey them as Schismatics, and pass for the followers of the Church themselves?
In a word, I dare no more cast godly Christians from Christs Sacrament, for fearing least Kneeling in Receiving be a symbolizing with Idolaters contrary to the Second Commandment, than I durst turn Widows and Orphans out of their inheritance for not speaking the same language, or wearing the same fashions as I do.
M. 1. It is not a necessary point of Salvation or communion, and therefore if they err they are not therefore to be Excommunicate, unless you will Excommunicate all that have errour and sin, that is, your selves, and every living man.
2. They have the pretence of real fearing that it is a sin to differ in the Gesture from Christ's administration, thinking that a Table gesture was intended by him to signifie his sacrifice-Feast.
3. They fear breaking the Second commandment, which is against corporal seeming to worship as Idolaters do though the heart mean better; and so against symbolizing with Idolaters, ⟨p. 80⟩and against scandalous hardening them in their sin: Because Papists are known to kneel to the Bread as unto God and worship it. And these Papists live among us, and are now hoping to set up their Idolatry. Though for my part I think that the publick Doctrine of the Church, takes off this argument of Scandal, yet it is such as very Learned and holy men think valid: as you may see in Mr. Rutherford's Letters, and many others.
4. And ad hom̄inem, I see not what the Excommunicators can say for themselves, while they condemn all of Schism that obey not General Councils, especially the four first, and that differ from the Universal Churches customes: And yet the very first Nicene Council, and divers after forbid all Kneeling in adoration on any Lord's day in the year, and on any weeks day between Easter and Whitsunday. And all the Ancients assure us that this was one of the chief ceremonys that the Church then called Universal agreed in. And it was never put down by any other General Council, but at Rome grew out of custome by degrees, and that not till a thousand years after Christ as Dr. Heylin confesseth. And shall these same men that cry up the Church and the Laws of Councils Excommunicate those that obey them as Schismaticks, and pass for the followers of the Church themselves?
In a word, I dare no more cast godly Christians from Christs Sacrament, for fearing least Kneeling in Receiving be a symbolizing with Idolaters contrary to the Second Commandment, than I durst turn Widows and Orphans out of their inheritance for not speaking the same language, or wearing the same fashions as I do.
