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Order of Contents
Intro
Articles 6+
Books 2
Quotes 5
Rutherford’s Considerations
Distributing to Those Kneeling 2
Tolerable 2
For Kneeling 3
Contra Kneeling’s Necessity 1
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Intro
While multiple views are represented on this page (for good reasons), we recommend (for more reasons than are written out below) the practice and section below:
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Articles
1600’s
Bradshaw, William – A Proposition Concerning Kneeling in the Very Act of Receiving… (1605) 29 pp.
Calderwood, David
ch. 1, ‘Kneeling in the Act of Receiving the Sacramental Elements of Bread & Wine Proved Unlawful’ in Perth Assembly... ([Leiden, 1619])
2nd Part, ‘Concerning the Unlawfulness of Kneeling in the Act of Receiving, etc.’, chs. 1-3 & 4-5 of ‘Of the Communicants’ Gesture in the Act of Receiving, Easting & Drinking’ in A Re-Examination of the Five Articles Enacted at Perth, Anno 1618… ([Holland?] 1636) The first part defends sitting at Communion.
Gillespie, George – pp. 52-80 of ch. 4, ‘That the ceremonies are idols among formalists themselves; and that kneeling in the Lord’s Supper before the Bread and Wine in the act of receiving them is formally Idolatry’ in A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies… (1637), pt. 3
State of the question: “The question about the idolatry of kneeling betwixt them and us stands in this: Whether kneeling at the instant of receiving the sacrament before the consecrated bread and wine purposely placed in our sight, in the act of kneeling, as signs standing in Christ’s stead before which we the receivers are to exhibit outwardly religious adoration, be formally idolatry or not?
No man can pick a quarrel at the stating of the question thus, for: \
1. We dispute only about kneeling at the instant of receiving the sacramental elements, as all know.
2. No man denies inward adoration in the act of receiving, for in our minds we then adore, by the inward graces of faith, love, thankfulness, etc. by the holy and heavenly exercise whereof we glorify God; so that the controversy is about outward adoration.
3. No man will deny that the consecrated elements are purposely placed in our sight when we kneel, except he say that they are in that action only accidentally present before us no otherwise than the tablecloth or the walls of the church are.
4. That the sacramental elements are in our sight (when we kneel) as signs standing in Christ’s stead; it is most undeniable. For if these signs stand not in Christ’s stead to us, the bread bearing vicem corporis Christi, and the wine vicem sanguinis, it follows that when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we are no more eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ spiritually and sacramentally than if we were receiving any other bread and wine not consecrated.
The question thus stated, Formalists deny, we affirm.” – pp. 52-53
Rutherford, Samuel – The Divine Right of Church Government... (1646)
Ch. 1, Question 5, ‘Whether the Ceremonies, Especially Kneeling in the Act of Receiving the Sacrament, be Guilty of Idolatry?’, pp. 144-192
Ch. 2, Question 1, ‘Whether Kneeling or Sitting be the Most Convenient & Lawful Gesture in the Act of Receiving the Sacrament of Christ’s Body & Blood?’, pp. 192-201
Cotton, John – ‘Of Kneeling in the Act of Receiving the Sacramental Bread & Wine’ in Some Treasure Fetched out of Rubbish… (London: 1660), pp. 65-75
Baxter, Richard
The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued (1683; London: Parkhurst, 1689)
ch. 14, ‘Of Rejecting from Communion all that Dare Not Kneel in the Act of Receiving [the Supper]’, pp. 77-80
ch. 51, ‘Of Rejecting Not-Kneelers from Communion’, p. 193
The terms of the Anglican Church post-1662 were that a minister was not to serve the Lord’s Supper to one not kneeling. Baxter, though he allowed for kneeling to receive the Supper, yet argues that this ministerial requirement is sinful, denying the right of Christians to the Supper.
On Philip Henry by Matthew Henry – pp. 98-99 of The Life of Mr. Philip Henry, ch. 5, ‘His Ejectment from Worthenbury…’ in The Lives of Philip & Matthew Henry, Two Volumes in One, ed. J.B. Williams (Banner of Truth, 1974)
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Books
Calderwood, David
A Solution of Doctor Resolutus, his Resolutions for Kneeling ([Amsterdam] 1619) 55 pp. See especially chs. 3 & 4.
A Defence of our Arguments Against Kneeling in the Act of Receiving the Sacramental Elements of Bread & Wine Impugned by Mr. Michelsone (Amsterdam, 1620) 75 pp.
Ames, William – A Reply to Dr. Morton’s General Defence of Three Nocent [Noxious] Ceremonies viz. the Surplice, Cross in Baptism & Kneeling at the Receiving of the Sacramental Elements of Bread & Wine (Amsterdam, 1622)
Ames (1576–1633) was stripped of his ecclesiastical functions and degrees at Cambridge in England for disapproving and criticizing the Anglican ceremonies. In 1622, the year of this work, Ames was installed as a theological professor at Franeker, Netherlands.
Ames’s work is a reply to part 1 of Thomas Morton, A Defence of the Innocency of the Three Ceremonies of the Church of England… (Amsterdam, 1622). Morton’s part 1 involves general arguments for the ceremonies and replies to the general, critical arguments of the puritan dissenters; hence, Ames’s response, going section by section through Morton’s work, addresses the ceremonies generally. Morton’s part 2 treats of each of the three ceremonies particularly in three chapters, with the third chapter defending kneeling at communion.
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Quotes
Order of
Gillespie
Presbyterians & Independents
Baxter
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1600’s
George Gillespie
English-Popish Ceremonies (1637)
pt. 2
ch. 2, p. 14
“Paybody thinks kneeling in the act of receiving the Communion to be expedient for the reverend using and handling of that holy sacrament, and that much reverence arises to the sacrament from it.
Answer: I verily believe that more reverence arises to the sacrament from kneeling than is due to it, but I am sure there is no less true reverence of that holy sacrament among such as kneel not in the receiving of it than among such as do kneel. I hope it is not unknown how humbly and reverently many sincere Christians, with feare and trembling, do address themselves to that most holy sacrament, who yet for all the world, would not kneel in receiving it. Thus we see that these expediencies pretended for the ceremonies are attained unto as well and better without them, than by them.”
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p. 44
“The Dr. holds him upon kneeling in receiving the sacramental elements, and denies that it is scandalous or any way inductive to spiritual ruin. But (if he will) he may consider that the ruder sort who can not distinguish betwixt worshipping the bread and worshipping before the bread, nor discern how to make Christ the passive object of that worship and the bread the active, and how to worship Christ in the bread, and make the worship relative from the bread to Christ; are by his example induced to bread-worship, when they perceive bowing down before the consecrated bread in the very same form and fashion wherein Papists are seen to worship it, but can not conceive the nice distinctions which he and his companions use to purge their kneeling in that act from idolatry.
As for others who have more knowledge, they are also induced to ruin, being animated by his example to do that which their consciences do condemn.”
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p. 47
“…It is false which he [Thomas Hooker, an Anglican] says, for kneeling in receiving the Communion is in its own nature evil and idolatrous, because religious adoration, before a mere creature, which purposly we set before us in the act of adoring, to have state in the worship, especially if it be an actual image in that act representing Christ to us (such as the bread in the act of receiving), draws us within the compass of co-adoration, or relative worship, as shall be copiously proven afterwards.”
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pt. 3, ch. 4
p. 58
“…the bishop’s own words. For he says that we kneel before the elements [of the Supper], ‘having them in our sight, or object to our senses, as ordinary signs, means, and memorials, to stir us up, to worship, etc.’ Now if we have them in our sight and before our senses for this purpose, that they may be means, signs, and memorials to stir us up to worship, then (sure) their being really before our senses is not accidental to us when we kneel. Since Dr. Burgess has been so dull and sottish as to write that ‘the signs are but accidentally before the communicants when they receive,’ he is to be ignominiously exsibilat; for making the sacred sacramental signs to be no otherwise present than the walls of the Church, the nails and timber of the material table whereupon the elements are set, or anything else accidentally before the communicants.”
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p. 69
“Where they have read that the people bowed before the altar of God, I know not. Bishop 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 and use could he have purposely set the altar before him whiles he was kneeling and praying?
The place of Micah cannot prove that God’s 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 [speaking of Gillespie’s opponents] 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 Lord’s death.”
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pp. 70-71
“Though a penitentiary kneel to God purposely in the presence and sight of the congregation, that he may make known to them his repentance for the sin whereby he has scandalized them, yet is the confessing of his sin to God kneeling there upon his knees, an immediate worship, neither does the congregation come betwixt him and God as belonging to the substance of this worship, for he kneels to God as well and makes confession of his sin when the congregation is not before him. But I suppose our kneelers themselves will confess that the elements come so betwixt God and them when they kneel that they belong to the essence of the worship in hand, and that they would not, nor could not worship the flesh and blood of Christ in the sacrament if the elements were not before them.
To be short, the case of a penitentiary stands thus, that not in his kneeling simpliciter, but in his kneeling publicly and in sight of the congregation, he sets them before him, purposely and with a respect to them: Whereas our kneelers do kneel in such sort that their kneeling simpliciter, and without an adjection or adjunct, has a respect to the elements purposely set before them, neither would they at all kneel, for that end and purpose for which they do kneel, namely, for worshipping the flesh and blood of Christ in the sacrament, except the elements were before the eyes both of their minds and bodies; as the penitentiary does kneel, for making confession of his sin to God, when the congregation is not before him.
… For the very kneeling itself (simply considered) before the elements, respects them as then purposely set in our sight, that we may kneel before them: whereas in the case of the penitentiary, it is not his kneeling to confess his sin to God, which has a respect to the congregation as set in his sight for that purpose; But some circumstances of his kneeling only, to wit, When? At that time when the congregation is assembled; and where? Publicly in sight of the congregation. In regard of these circumstances, he has the congregation purposely in his sight, and so respects them; But in regard of the kneeling itself simply, the presence of the congregation is but accidental to him who kneels, and confesses his sin before God.
As touching giving thanks before the meat set on our common tables, though a man should do it kneeling, yet this speaks not home to the point now in controversy, except a man so kneel before his meat, that he have a religious respect to it, as a thing separated from a common use and made holy, and likewise have both his mind and his external senses of seeing, touching, and tasting fastened upon it in the act of his kneeling. And if a man should thus kneel before his meat, he were an idolater.
Lastly, giving thanks before the elements of bread and wine in the beginning of the holy action, is as far from the purpose: For this giving of thanks is an immediate worship of God wherein we have our minds and senses not upon the bread & wine, as upon things which have a state in that worship of the Lord’s Supper, and belong to the substance of the same (for the very consecration of them to this use, is but then in fieri), but we worship God immediately by prayer and giving of thanks: Which is all otherwise in the act of receiving [the bread and wine].”
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p. 73
“…one of our doctors objects that we lift up our eyes and our hands to heaven and worship God, yet do not worship the heaven: that a man going to bed prays before his bed: that David offered the sacrifices of thanksgiving in the presence of all the people, Ps. 116, that Paul having taken bread gave thanks before all them who were in the ship, Acts 27:35, that the Israelites worshipped before Moses and Aaron, Ex. 4:31.
Hereupon another doctor harping on the same string tells us that when we kneel in the act of receiving the sacrament, we kneel no more to bread than to the pulpit when we join our prayers with the ministers. Oh, unworthy instances and reproachful to doctors! All these things were and are accidentally present to the worshippers and not purposely before them, not respected as having a religious state in the worship. What? do we worship before the bread in the sacrament even as before a pulpit, a bed, etc? Nay, graduate men should understand better what they speak of.”
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Leading English Presbyterian & Independent Ministers
The Grand Debate between the most reverend Bishops & the Presbyterian Divines appointed by His Sacred Majesty as Commissioners for the Review & Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer... (London, 1661), ‘Exceptions’, pp. 17-18
“And we desire that the following rubric in the Common-Prayer-Book in 5 & 6 Edward VI, established by Law as much as any other part of the Common-Prayer-Book may be restored for the vindication of our Church in the matter of kneeling at the sacrament (although the gesture be left indifferent)
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Richard Baxter
The Nonconformists’ Plea for Peace, or an Account of their Judgment in Certain Things in which they are Misunderstood… (London, 1679), section 8, pp. 150-52 Baxter’s actual opinion, it appears, was that doing such was lawful; see a section below.
“IV. The Nonconformists are not of one mind about receiving the Lord’s Supper kneeling. Many judge it lawful, though neither necessary nor most eligible were they free; some judge it also most eligible: and some judge it, as things stand, unlawful. Their reasons are:
[Those who think it unlawful:]
1. In doubtful cases duty lies on the surest side. But this to them is a doubtful case on one side, and to imitate Christ’s institution by such sitting as men use to do at meat is certainly lawful.
2. Because they think this kneeling violates the reasons of the Second Commandment, being used where, by whole countries of Papists round about us and many among us, it signifies bread-worship or idolatry by the same action at the same season used. For they suppose that the Second Commandment forbids images as being external, corporal, idolatry and symbolizing scandalously with idolators, though the mind intend the worshiping of the true God alone. And such they think this kneeling is, and that it encourages the Papists (as is instanced in a story in the Life of Bishop Hall).
3. Because they think that the tradition and custom of the catholic Church and the canons of the greatest general councils, not repealed by any other (as Nicea 1, can. 20 & Can. Trull. etc.) are of stronger obligation than the canons of our convocation. And those canons, customs and tradition prohibit all adoration by genuflection on any Lord’s Day in the year and on any weekday else between Easter and Whitsuntide; and this custom continued 1,000 years as the tradition of the universal Church and was never repealed, but charged by degrees by contrary practice.
They that think not that they are bound by these canons or customs at all, yet think that they are enough to nullify a contrary canon of a lower power; or, ad hominem, may excuse them.
Yea the Constitutions called the Apostles seem to command all the people to receive the sacrament standing and to go for it, bk. 2, ch. 57. Having prescribed the order of worship (that after the old Scriptures read, they sing a psalm and then read the Acts and Epistles and the Gospels, and then that the presbyters one by one exhort the people first and the bishop last (for in those time every Church that had an altar had a bishop) he concludes:
‘Postea vero fiat sacrificium, cuncto populo Stante et silent•o precant•, et oblatione facta, quisque ordo sco• sim corpus Domini et preciosum sanguinem sumat, accedentes ordine cum pudore et reverentia ut ad corpus Regis. I•em mulieres operto capite, ut ordiaem earum decet, acc dant.’
That is:
‘After let the sacrifice be made, all the people standing and praying in silence: And the oblation being made, let every order apart take the body of Christ and his precious blood: Coming to it in order with modesty and reverence as to the body of the King. And let the women approach with covered heads as becomes their order.’
For such reasons as these set together, some nonconformists (lay and clergy) take this kneeling (while Papists about us by the same gesture adore the bread) to be unlawful, who yet profess as great reverence to Christ and the eucharist as any others.
But other nonconformists say that they can answer all these arguments, but that they truly render the scruples of the dissenters tolerable, and the persons unmeet to be therefore excommunicated.
2. By the [Anglican] canon and rubric, no one of these dissenters must be admitted to the holy communion, Canon 27 says:
‘No minister when he celebrates the communion shall wittingly administer the same to any but to such as kneel, under pain of suspension.’
And the ministers covenant to use no form of administering the sacraments but according to the Liturgy.”
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Rutherford’s Considerations
The Divine Right of Church Government (London, 1646), ch. 1, question 5, section 1, pp. 145-47
“1. Bowing of the knee, physically or civilly, is indifferent and is not adoration: for we bow to kings, and artificers may bow the knee to drive a nail in a bed, and yet are not adoring; but religious adoration, whether ye will or not, by nature’s impression, is a religious note of religious submission.
2. I consider four acts of the soul that may convey external adoration: 1. One of the mind, a consideration of the excellency of what we adore; 2. A will to submit to this excellency; 3. The judgments diting this to be honest to submit; 4. A purpose or intention habitual or actual of adoring; many of these may be where there is no adoring: and the religious external bowing of the body is essentially adoring, when that bowing is in a state of worship: kneeling before consecrated elements for reverence of either God or the elements, must be adoration, though we should wash it with foul water and say that there is no intention to tender God’s glory to these elements.
3. Let it be considered what is said by the Jesuit Joannes de Lugo, the Pope’s professor at Rome, which I propound with some change: 1. There is a purpose of external adoring, with an inward submission of the heart; whether this be an habitual or actual intention, it is sure it is an adoration when it comes forth in a gesture of adoring. 2. A will to bow the body in scorn and derision, as the soldiers bowed the knee before Jesus; and this being not in a state of worshipping, but in a state and case of disgracing, is not religious bowing or adoration: This is not a natural expression of inward submission, but rather of disgrace. 3. There is a willed or voluntary religious bowing for fear, for gain, or for glory; yet without any internal estimation of the excellency of the thing adored. This Suarez denies to be worshipping, it being only a feigning of worship, not a worshipping.
4. If religious kneeling require that we intend to worship everything before which, as an object, we do religiously kneel, then religious kneeling should not signify internal submission of the heart by nature’s impression or divine institution, but by the voluntary and the free institution of him that kneels: But this latter is absurd, for if kneeling should signify what it does signify by our free and voluntary appointment, then we might:
1. Put upon natural gestures what signification we pleased, and were not to stand to the signification which God and nature have put upon kneeling.
2. So it were in man’s power to impose upon religious kneeling to God civil courtesy, such as a subject expresses to his prince, or a son to his father; and it were free to us to kneel to a stock, and that religiously, and yet put upon kneeling the negative reverence that we give to the Bible; and it were in the three children’s will to kneel to Nebuchadnezzar’s image, and impose this signification on the gesture, that they were kneeling to God only, all which are manifestly false: so Field says kneeling has institution from the instinct of nature.”
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That it may be Lawful to Distribute the Lord’s Supper to those Kneeling
See also, ‘On Performing Necessary Duties though Others Sin in Them’.
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Quotes
P. Henry
Baxter
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1600’s
On Philip Henry
Matthew Henry, The Life of Mr. Philip Henry, ch. 5, ‘His Ejectment from Worthenbury…’ in The Lives of Philip & Matthew Henry, Two Volumes in One, ed. J.B. Williams (Banner of Truth, 1974), p. 100
“When he was at Worthenbury, though in the Lord’s Supper he used the gesture of sitting himself, yet he administered it without scruple to some who chose rather to kneel and he thought that ministers’ hands should not, in such things, be tied up; but that he ought, in his place, though he suffered for it, to witness against the making of those things the indispensable terms of communion, which Jesus Christ hath not made to be so.”
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Richard Baxter
The Christian Religion expressed: I, briefly in the Ancient Creeds, the Ten Commandments & the Lord’s Prayer, and, II, more largely in a Profession taken out of the Holy Scriptures, containing 1, the articles of the Christian Belief, 2, our consent to the Gospel Covenant, 3, the Sum of Christian Duty according to the primitive simplicity, purity, and practice, fitted to the right instruction of the ignorant, the promoting of holiness, and the charitable concord of all true believers… (London: 1660), The Order & Discipline of this Church, agreeable to the Word of God
“VI. If any member of this Church do differ from us about the gesture in the Lord’s Supper (or any such circumstance) we desire them first to come to us and hear our reasons: and if we cannot satisfy them, we will not hinder them from receiving it in any decent gesture they desire.”
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Kneeling, though Deficient & not Proper does not Vitiate & Overturn the Substance of the Good & Obliging Action of Receiving; hence, given the Order of the Church, it may be Tolerably Done if this is the only way to Receive the Valid Supper
That kneeling while receiving the Supper is not inherently idolatry, see Tombes below on objectum significative a quo, ‘the signifying object from which’, as a consideration, worship is offered; and see Baxter on objectum motivum [the motivating object] of adoration. See also, ‘Some Impure Worship may be (and even must be) Lawfully, Personally Performed in Some Circumstances for the Inherent Good in it & for Higher, Good Reasons’ and ‘On Occasional & Partial Conformity without Sin, or Moderate Puritanism’.
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Quotes
1600’s
Richard Baxter
Five Disputations of Church-Government & Worship (London: R.W., 1659), 5th Disputation, ch. 2, pp. 410-11
Ҥ41. 2. And for kneeling at the sacrament, I doubt not at all but the imposing it, and that on such rigorous terms, tying all to it and casting all out of the communion of the Church or from the participation of the sacrament that durst not use it, was a very grievous sin and tended to persecution, injustice and Church-dividing.
It is certainly in a doubtful case the safest way to do as Christ and his apostles, and the universal Church did for many hundred years. That none should kneel in public worship on the Lord’s Day, no not in prayer, much less in receiving the eucharist, was a Custom so ancient and universal in the Church, that it was everywhere observed before general councils were made use of; and in the first general Council of Nicea it was made the last canon; and other general councils afterward renewed it; so that I know not how any ceremony can possibly pretend to greater ecclesiastical authority than this had. And to cast out all from Church communion in sacraments that dare not go against the examples of Christ and his apostles, and all the primitive Church (who long received the eucharist in another gesture) and against the canons of the first and most famous, and other succeeding general councils, this is a most inhumane part.
Either the gesture is indifferent in itself or not: If it be, how dare they thus divide the Church by it and cast out Christians that scruple it when they have these and many other reasons of their scruples (which for brevity I omit). If they say that kneeling is of itself necessary, and not indifferent, because it is reverent etc. then:
1. They make Christ an imperfect Lawgiver:
2. They make Himself or his apostles, or both to have been sinners.
3. They condemn the catholic Church of sin.
4. They condemn the canons of the chief general councils.
5. And then if the bishops themselves in council should change the gesture, it were unlawful to obey them.
All which are consequents that I suppose they will disown. What a perverse preposterous reverence is this? when they have leave to lie in the dust before and after the very act of receiving, through all their confessions and prayers, yet they will at other times stand, and many of them sit at prayer, and sit at singing Psalms of Prayer and Praise to God, and yet when Christ doth invite them to a feast, they dare not imitate his apostles and universal Church in their gesture, lest they should be sinfully unreverent.
§42. But yet, as sinfully as this gesture was imposed, for my part I did obey the imposer and would do if it were to do again, rather than disturb the peace of the Church, or be deprived of its communion. For God having made some gesture necessary and confined me to none, but left it to humane determination, I shall submit to magistrates in their proper work, even when they miss it in the manner. I am not sure that Christ intended the example of Himself and his apostles as obligatory to us that shall succeed. I am sure it proves sitting lawful: but I am not sure that it proves it necessary: (though very convenient). But I am sure He has commanded me obedience and peace.”
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John Williams
A Collection of Cases & other Discourses lately written to recover Dissenters to the communion of the Church of England by some Divines of the City of London (London, 1685), vol. 1, ‘The Non-Conformists’ Plea for Lay-Communion with the Church of England’, pp. 73-72 Williams (d. 1709) was an Anglican bishop.
“4. It is granted [by the most sober nonconformists] not to be idolatrous. So Mr. [Paul] Baynes: ‘Kneeling is neither an occasion, nor by participation idolatry: Kneeling never bred bread-worship.’ (Christian Letters, Letter 24, p. 201)
And [Richard Baxter]: ‘Our doctrine of the sacrament [that one is kneeling to God], known to all the world, does free us from suspicion of adoration in it.’ (Baxter, Christian Directory, p. 616)
To these Mr. [John] Tombes [a baptist] adds (Theodulia, p. 256, etc.):
‘1. That the Papists adore not the bread at putting it into their mouths, but at the elevation [of it], it being inconsistent with their principles to worship that which is not above them.
2. That the worship of God not directed to a creature, but before it, as an occasional object of adoration to God, is not idolatry.
3. That yet in the Church of England the elements are not occasionally so, but [rather] the benefits of Christ in the Lord’s Supper [are]. And
4. Kneeling is not to the bread, but as the signification of an humble and grateful mind; as he shows from the rubric [in the Anglican Book of Prayer].’ (T. D., Jerubbaal, p. 41 & Mr. [Zachary] Crofton‘s Answer, p. 28; [William] Ames, Fresh Suit, ch. 4, §4, p. 382; [William] Perkins, Cases)
Fifthly, Those that do account it inconvenient, yet account it not to be unlawful. Thus Mr. [Thomas] Cartwright:
‘Kneeling in receiving the sacrament, being incommodious in its own nature, and made far more incommodious by Popish superstition, is not therefore so to be rejected that we should abstain from the sacrament (if we cannot otherwise be partakers of it), because the thing is not in its own nature unlawful.’ (Evangelical Harmony, on Lk. 22:14, etc. Second Reply, p. 262)
So it’s said of the old non-conformists: ‘Kneeling at the sacrament was disliked by all, but yet thought tolerable, and that it might be submitted to by some of the most Learned.’ (Troughton, An Apology for the Nonconformists [1681], p. 90)
From all which we may conclude with Mr. [Richard] Vines [a Westminster divine], that the posture being a circumstance of action, as well as the time and place, ‘is not of the free-hold of the ordinance’ (On the Sacrament, p. 102); and with Mr. [Richard] Baxter that those that think they must not receive kneeling, ‘think erroneously.’ (Sacrilegious Desertion, p. 19)”
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Persons & Arguments for Kneeling
Order of Contents
Article
Quotes
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Article
1600’s
Tombes, John – Theodulia, or a Just Defence of Hearing the Sermons & other teaching of the present Ministers of England against a book unjustly entitled, A Christian testimony against them that serve the image of the beast… (London: E. Cotes, 1667) 333 pp. ToC
ch. 5, section 9, ‘Receiving the Lords Supper kneeling is not directly opposite to Christ’s practice or precept; of the abstaining from appearance of evil, 1 Thess. 5:22’
Tombes (c. 1603–1676) was a student of William Pemble and an Anglican clergyman, who came to develop baptist views. In church government he is said to have been presbyterian. Towards the end of his life he was a communicating Anglican layman. This book is learned and much of it is good.
ch. 7, section 15, ‘Kneeling in receiving the sacramental elements is not idolatry’
“For, whereas worshipping God in, by, or before a creature respective [repectively], or with relation to the creature, may be understood before it respective, or with relation to it, as the terminus [end], or object to which it is directed; as worshipping before, Lk. 4:7, is worshipping of Satan, Mt. 4:9, and the relation to the creature may be as conceiving God included in it, as in the consecrated host, or represented by it, as by the golden calf, or a crucifix, or as pertaining to God, being consecrated to Him, as Gideon’s ephod, or Popish relics of saints or hallowed grains or the like, without God’s institution.
In these and such like relations, the adoration being directed to the creatures, whether as the only object to which, or the intermediate object, whether properly or improperly; of itself or by accident…
But he [the opponent] thought it best… to express himself more intelligibly… in the minor [proposition], that:
‘kneeling is adoration or worshipping of God before the creature respectivè, or with relation to the creature, as the objectum significativè à quo [the signifying object from which], or the motive of the kneeling.’
But in this sense I deny his major [proposition, that this be idolatry]; and that he may not think me bereft of my wits, but that I know what I say, I give him this reason of my denial:
I find the Holy Ghost inviting the Jews to worship at God’s footstool, his holy hill, Ps. 99:5, 9, which were creatures; and there they were to bow down to God, in, by or before these creatures respective, or with relation to them, as the objectum significative a quo, that is, that thing which was an object signify∣ing God’s presence there, and the motive of their bowing down to God; which, if they had not been there, that is, the ark, temple, altar, they would not have done; and there was no idolatry therein.
And to stop the evasion, that it was so, when God appointed it, though this would not avoid the instance, the bread and wine being of God’s appointment, and the use of them in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, as well as the altar, ark, temple, were, they were instituted to be memorative signs of Christ’s body and blood, communicated to the receivers by faith; yet I find that adoration or worshipping of God before the creature respective, or with relation to it, as the objectum significative a quo, and the motive of the adoration, has been performed occasionally without institution, and yet no idolatry committed.
When the Israelites at mount Carmel, 1 Kn. 18:38, saw the fire of the Lord fall and consume the burnt offering and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and lick up the water that was in the trench, they fell on their faces and they said, ‘The Lord He is God, the Lord He is the God.’ Here was adoration of God before the creature respective, or with relation to it, as the objectum significative a quo, signifying the Lord to be God; and as the motive of that adoration, which, if it had not been there, they would not have done it; and yet no idolatry committed.
Another instance is 2 Chron. 7:3, when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped and praised the Lord, saying, ‘For He is good, for his mercy endureth forever.’ Here was adoration and worshipping God, in, by or before a creature, not having special institution, abiding in their sight, as the objectum significative a quo, or the motive of their adoration, and worship of the Lord, and yet no Idolatry.
I confess that when the worship is before it, so as it is directed to it, as upon the sight of the bread, or a crucifix, the host, or a crucifix is worshipped, whether terminatively, or as the representative of another, it is idolatry: As If Job, when he had seen the un when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, his heart had been secretly enticed, and his mouth had kissed his hand, as it is Job 31:26-27, it had been ido∣latry: For then the sun had been not only objectum a quo [the object from which], the motive or occasion, but also objectum ad quod [the object to which], or the terminus ad quem [the end to which], to which it had been directed. But if he had only taken occasion, upon the sight of the sun, to worship God, as David did, Ps. 8:3, magnify or worship God the Creator, it had been no idolatry, though the moon or sun were the objectum a quo significative, or the sight 〈◊〉 it, the motive to it.
Till divine worship be given to a creature, it is not idolatry, although in the kind or means of worship, there may be will-worship; and in the opinion of those that count their act or the object to be holy, when it is not, there may be superstition of the mind; and in the use of such things, or forbearing their use, superstition in the members…
for the adoring of God, though it be at the receiving the elements, yet the elements are not objectum significative a quo, or the motive of their kneeling, according to the [Anglican] Common-Prayer Book, which says that the order in the office for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, that:
‘The communicants should receive it kneeling, is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgement of the benefits of Christ, therein given to all worthy receivers; and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion as might otherwise ensue: That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal presence of Christ’s natural flesh and blood.’
Which intimate that the elements are not the objectum significative a quo, or the motive of their kneeling; but the benefits of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, given to all worthy receivers; And that, not the sight of bread or wine, (which is not seen till the cup be in their hand) but the remembrance of Christ’s death, and the remission of sins by his blood, by faith, are the motive to kneel to God, with prayer and thanksgiving to Him, without any honor of the bread and wine, though received, eaten and drunk, to remember Christ’s death, as the procuring cause of those benefits.
As for his [the opponent’s] reason, if the elements were not there, they would not kneel; therefore they are the objectum significative a quo, or the motive of their kneeling; partly the antecedent is not true, for they kneel before they receive the elements brought to them, and after they have eaten and drunk, while they are in the meditation of Christs death, and the benefits by it, using holy ejaculation in prayer and thanksgiving to God…” – pp. 257-60
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Quotes
Order of
Calvin
A Publisher
Baxter
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1500’s
Calvin
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1600’s
A Publisher
The Lawfulness of Hearing the Public Ministers of the Church of England proved, by Mr. Philip Nye & Mr. John Robinson, two eminent Congregational Divines. Together with the judgment of Dr. Goodwin, Dr. Owen & other Independents, as well, ancient as modern, concerning forms of prayer, parish churches & communion with them, & the judgment of other nonconformists about kneeling at the sacrament (London, 1683), ‘To the Reader’
“But the greatest scruple that hinders them is kneeling at the sacrament; and that which pinches them most, is that this gesture is said to be adoration given to the elements; but they should consider what the Church [of England] says concerning that gesture, which me thinks should remove that scruple and satisfy every reasonable man in that particular, which for their satisfaction I here quote at large, viz.:
‘Whereas it is ordained in this office, for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, that the communicants should receive the same kneeling (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation, and disorder in the Holy Communion as might otherwise ensue);
Yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved, It is here declared that thereby no adoration is intended or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal presence of Christ’s natural flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread and wine remains still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored (for that were idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians) and the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ’s natural body, to be at one time in more places than one.’
This caution (which wholly denies transubstantiation) together with that prayer about the Gunpowder-Treason, being now incorporated in our liturgy, do (as Dr. Goodwin told a reverend doctor of the Church of England, now living) make it impossible there should be any reconciliation with the Church of Rome.
The reverend and learned Mr. [William] Perkins (an old puritan) says to this effect, that that adoration used in the sacrament is not terminated in the elements, but a token of godly reverence to Christ Himself sitting in glory, etc.
Mr. [Thomas] Cartwright says also, that a man must not refuse to re∣ceive the sacrament kneeling when he cannot have it otherwise.
Mr. [William] Fenner speaks to the same purpose.
And the learned Mr. [Richard] Vines says that gestures at receiving are moveables and not of the freehold of this ordinance.
In short, whether men are satisfied in whole or in part, I wish they would consider seriously what that excellent man, Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs (a congregational divine) says, in his Irenicon, p. 182, viz. That one great dividing practice has been this, that because men cannot join in all things with others, they will join in nothing.”
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Richard Baxter
The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued (1683; London: Parkhurst, 1689), pp. 11-12 The preface is dated 1683.
“But those [leading presbyterian and congregationalist ministers] that were called by the king, and one another, 1660 and 1661, to treat of concord, and that assembled at Sion College, and elsewhere about it, did openly make known their minds: And I think they meddled not against any of these things following, by any accusation of them as sinful:
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VI. They never accused our kneeling at the Lord’s Supper as unlawful, but only the casting godly persons from communion for not using it, when they take it to be sin. About the kneeling, the old nonconformists were not of one mind; some thought that every objectum motivum [motivating object] of Adoration was forbidden that was a creature: But others said that every creature in the world may be such an object: Our meat is objectum motivum when we pray for a blessing on it. If I see the relicts or picture of a friend that I wronged while he was alive, I may well be moved by it to beg pardon of God. All his works must move me to adore and praise Him.
But we may not make any image objectum terminativum [the terminating object], or ad quod, ‘to which’ we direct our divine worship, as a medium of our sending it to God. The only great difficulty about this is from the argument of scandalous hardening the Papists that live among us: though indeed our doctrine avoids that scandal.”
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Contra the Necessity of Kneeling to Receive the Supper
Article
1600’s
Baxter, Richard – pp. 87-94 of Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity (London: A.M., 1653), ‘Objections Answered’
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Related Pages
Meditation, not Prayer, is Proper to Receiving the Supper
Indifferent Circumstances of the First Supper
On Receiving the Bread & Wine by Hand & Not Simply by the Mouth
When Circumstances Join in Acts of Worship or Not
Homage to Images is Wrong Despite Intentions Otherwise
The Administration of the Lord’s Supper