spiman,(778) that in the days of
Tertullian the Christians _stantes sacramenta percipiebant_.

Thirdly, I say, since we all know that the primitive Christians did take
the holy communion mixedly, and together with their love-feasts, in
imitation of Christ,(779) who, whilst he did eat his other supper, did
also institute the eucharist; and since (as it is observed from 1 Cor. xi.
21, 33(780)) there was a twofold abuse in the church of Corinth "one in
their love-feasts, whilst that which should have served for the knitting
of the knot of love was used to cut the cords thereof, in that every one
(as he best liked) made choice of such as he would have to sit at table
with him (the other either not tarried for, or shut out when they came,
especially the poor). The other abuse (pulled in by the former) was, for
that those which were companions at one table in the common feast
communicated also in the sacred with the same separation, and severally
from the rest of the church (and the poor especially) which was in their
former banquets."

Since also we read that the same custom of joining the Lord's supper
together with common feasts continued long after; for Socrates
reporteth,(781) that the Egyptians adjoining unto Alexandria, together
with the inhabitants of Thebes, used to celebrate the communion upon the
Sunday,(782) after this manner, "when they have banqueted, filled
themselves with sundry delicate dishes, in the evening, after service,
they use to communicate." How, then, can any man think that the gesture
then used in the Lord's supper was any other, than the same which was used
in the love-feast or common supper? And what was that but the ordinary
fashion of sitting at table? Since the Laodicean canon,(783) which did
discharge the love-feasts about the year 368, importeth no less than that
the gesture used in them was sitting _Non oportet in Basilicis seu
ecclesiis. Agapen facere et intus manducare, vel accubitus sternere._ Now,
if not only divines of our side, but Papists also, put it out of doubt
that Christ gave the eucharist to his apostles sitting, because being set
down to the preceding supper, it is said, "_while as they did eat, he took
bread_," &c. (of which things I am to speak afterward), what doth hinder
us to gather, in like manner, that forasmuch as those primitive Christians
did take the Lord's supper whilst they did eat their own love-feasts,
therefore they sat at the one as well as the other? And so I