ment into
their hands, and take it away to eat after (for permitting whereof he had
no warrant), so should they both partake the sacrament and also (according
to their mind, and to their full contentment) keep their stations, which
were often prorogated till even,(771) but ever and at least till the ninth
hour.(772) Finally, from this place, which the Doctor perverteth for
kneeling, it appeareth that the gesture or posture in receiving the
sacrament used in that place where Tertullian lived, was standing;
because, speaking of the receiving of the sacrament, he saith, _Si et ad
aram Dei steteris_.

_Sect._ 27. As for the rest of the testimonies Dr Burges produceth out of
the fathers for kneeling,(773) I need not insist upon them, for either
they speak of the inward adoration of the heart, which we ought to direct
unto Christ when we receive the sacrament (and this none of us denieth),
or else they speak of adoring the sacrament, where, by the word
_adoration_, we may not understand any divine worship, inward or outward,
but a reverence of another nature called _veneration_. That this (which we
deny not neither), and no more, is meant by the fathers when they speak of
the adoration of the sacrament, Antonius de Dominis showeth more
copiously.(774) And thus we have suffered the impetuous current of the
Doctor's audacious promises, backed with a verbal discourse to go softly
by us. _Quid dignum tanto tulit hic promissor hiatu?_

_Sect._ 28. Finally, If any be curious to know what gesture the ancient
church did use in the receiving of the eucharist, to such I say, first of
all, that Didoclavius maintaineth that which none of our opposites are
able to infringe, namely, that no testimony can be produced which may
evince that ever kneeling was used before the time of Honorius III.,
neither is it less truly observed by the author of the _History of the
Waldenses_,(775) that bowing of the knees before the host was then only
enjoined when the opinion of transubstantiation got place.

Next I say, the ancient gesture, whereof we read most frequently, was
standing. Chrysostom, complaining of few communicants, saith,(776)
_Frustra habetur quotidiana oblatio, frustra stamus ad altare, nemo est
qui simul participet_. The century writers(777) make out of Dionysius
Alexandrinus's epistle to Xistus, bishop of Rome, that the custom of the
church of Alexandria in receiving the sacrament, was, _ut mensae
assisterent_. It is also noted by Ho