cly in
sight of the congregation! In regard of these circumstances, he hath the
congregation purposely in his sight, and so respecteth them, but in regard
of the kneeling itself simply, the presence of the congregation is but
accidental to him who kneeleth and confesseth 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 speaketh 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 and 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.

_Sect._ 19. Moreover it is objected(750) out of Lev. ix. 24; 2 Chron. vii.
3; Mich. vi. 6; 2 Chron. xxix. 28-30, that all the people fell on their
faces before the legal sacrifices, when the fire consumed the
burnt-offering.

Whereunto it may be answered, that the fire which came from God and
consumed the burnt-offerings, was one of the miraculous signs of God's
extraordinary and immediate presence (as I have said before), and
therefore kneeling before the same hath nothing to do with the present
purpose.

But if we will particularly consider all these places, we find in the
first two, that beside the fire, the glory of the Lord did also appear in
a more miraculous and extraordinary manner, Lev. ix. 23, "The glory of the
Lord appeared to all the people;" 2 Chron. vii. 1, 12, "The glory of the
Lord filled the house." They are therefore running at random who take hold
of those places to draw out of them the lawfulness of kneeling in a
mediate and ordinary worship.

The place of Micah I have answered before; and here I add, that though it
could be proved from that place (as it cannot), that the people ha