. xcv. 6, "O come, let us worship and bow
down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker," which is cited in the Canon
of Perth about kneeling; but I answer, whether one expounded that place
with Calvin,(552) in this sense, _ut scilicet ante arcam faederis populus
se prosternat, quia sermo de legali cultu habetur_: whereupon it should
follow that it commendeth only kneeling to the Jews in that particular
case, or whether it be taken more generally, to commend kneeling (though
not as necessary, yet as laudable and beseeming) in the solemn acts of
God's immediate worship, such as that praise and thanksgiving whereof the
beginning of the psalm speaketh,--whether, I say, it be taken in this or
that sense, yet it condemneth not kneeling, except in a certain kind of
worship only. And as for kneeling in the general nature of it, it is not
of divine institution, but in itself indifferent, even as sitting,
standing, &c., all which gestures are then only made good or evil when in
_actu exercito_, they are actuated and individualised by particular
circumstances. 3. If so be the ceremony be abused to idolatry, it skills
not how, for, as I have showed before, the reasons and proofs which I have
produced for the proposition of our present argument, hold good against
the retaining of anything which hath been known to be abused to idolatry,
and only such things as have a necessary use are to be excepted. 4. The
nature of an action, wherein a ceremony is used, cannot be the cause of
the abuse of that ceremony; neither can the abuse of a ceremony proceed
from the nature of the action wherein it is used, as one effect from the
cause, for _nihil potest esse homini causa sufficiens peccati_, except
only _propria voluntas_(_553_). 5. The abuse of kneeling in the idolatrous
action of elevation, proceedeth not from the nature of the action, but
from the opinion of the agent, or rather from his will, for (_principium
actionum humanarum_, is not opinion, but will, choosing that which opinion
conceiteth to be chosen, or _voluntas praeunte luce intellectus_,) it is
the will of the agent only which both maketh the action of elevation to be
idolatrous, and likewise kneeling in this action to receive the contagion
of idolatry. For the elevation of the bread _materialiter_ is not
idolatrous (more than the lifting up of the bread among us by elders or
deacons, when in taking it off the table, or setting it on, they lift it
above the heads of the communicant