ime, whatsoever
liberty God leaves man in bodily gestures, he leaves him no liberty of an
unlawful and idolatrous gesture, such as kneeling in the instant of
receiving a sacrament, when not only we have the outward sign purposely
before us, and our minds and senses fastened upon it, for discerning the
signification thereof, and the analogy betwixt it and the thing signified,
but also to look upon it as an image of Christ, or as a vicarious sign
standing there in Christ's stead. The indifferency of such a gesture in
such a mediate worship should have been proved before such a rule (as this
here given us for a reason) had been applied to it.

_Sect._ 20. But the kneelers would yet make more ado to us, and be still
stirring if they can do no more. Wherefore one of our doctors
objecteth,(753) that we lift up our eyes and our hands to heaven, and
worship God, yet we do not worship the heaven; that a man going to bed,
prayeth before his bed; that David offered the sacrifices of thanksgiving,
in the presence of all the people, Psal. cxvi; that Paul, having taken
bread, gave thanks before all them who were in the ship, Acts xxvii. 36;
that the Israelites worshipped before Moses and Aaron, Exod. iv. 31.
Hereupon another doctor, harping upon the same string, tells us,(754) 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 minister's."
Oh, unworthy instances, and reproachful to doctors! All these things were
and are accidentally present to the worshippers, and not purposely before
them, nor 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, &c.? Nay, graduate men should understand better what they speak of.

Another objection is,(755) that a man who is admitted to the office of a
pastor, and receiveth imposition of hands, kneeleth still on his knees
till the ordination be ended, the rest about him being standing or
sitting.

_Ans._ Kneeling in receiving imposition of hands, which is joined with
prayer and invocation, hath nothing ado with kneeling in a mediate
worship; for in this case a man kneels because of the immediate worship of
invocation; but when there is no prayer, I suppose no man will kneel
religiously, and with a religious respect to those persons or things which
are before him, as there purposely in his sight, that before them he may
adore (