_Answ._ 1. For sitting or standing, no doubt it is lawful in itself: for else authority were not to be obeyed, if they should command it; and else the church had sinned in forbearing kneeling in the act of receiving, so many hundred years after Christ; as is plain they did, by the canons of general councils (Nic. i. and Trull.) that universally forbade to adore kneeling, any Lord's day in the year, and any week day between Easter and Whitsuntide; and by the fathers, Tertullian, Epiphanius, &c. that make this an apostolic or universal tradition. 2. And for kneeling, I never yet heard any thing to prove it unlawful; if there be any thing, it must be either some word of God, or the nature of the ordinance, which is supposed to be contradicted.[83] But, 1. There is no word of God for any gesture, nor against any gesture: Christ's example can never be proved to be intended to oblige us more in this, than in many other circumstances that are confessed not obligatory; as that he delivered it but to ministers, and but to a family, to twelve, and after supper, and on a Thursday night, and in an upper room, &c.: and his gesture was not such a sitting as ours. 2. And for the nature of the ordinance, it is mixed: and if it be lawful to take a pardon from the king upon our knees, I know not what can make it unlawful to take a sealed pardon from Christ (by his ambassador) upon our knees.
_Quest._ IV. But what if I cannot receive it, but according to the administration of the Common Prayer-book, or some other imposed form of prayer? Is it lawful so to take it?
_Answ._ If it be unlawful to receive it when it is administered with the Common Prayer-book, it is either, 1. Because it is a form of prayer. 2. Or because that form hath some forbidden matter in it. 3. Or because that form is imposed. 4. Or because it is imposed to some evil end and consequent. 1. That it is not unlawful, because a form, is proved before, and indeed needs no proof with any that is judicious. 2. Nor yet for any evil in this particular form; for in this part the Common Prayer is generally approved. 3. Nor yet, because it is imposed: for a command maketh not that unlawful to us, which is lawful before; but it maketh many things lawful and duties, that else would have been unlawful accidentally. 4. And the intentions of the commanders we have little to do with; and for the consequents they must be weighed on both sides; and the consequents of our refusal will not be found light.
In the general, I must here tell all the people of God, in the bitter sorrow of my soul, that at last it is time for them to discern that temptation, that hath in all ages of the church almost, made this sacrament of our union to be the grand occasion or instrument of our divisions; and that true humility, and acquaintance with ourselves, and sincere love to Christ and one another, would show some men, that it was but their pride, and prejudice, and ignorance, that made them think so heinously of other men's manner of worship; and that on all sides among true christians, the manner of their worship is not so odious, as prejudice, and faction, and partiality representeth it; and that God accepteth that which they reject. And they should see how the devil hath undone the common people by this means; by teaching them every one to expect salvation for being of that party which he taketh to be the right church, and for worshipping in that manner which he and his party thinketh best: and so wonderful a thing is prejudice, that every party by this is brought to account that ridiculous and vile, which the other party accounteth best.
_Quest._ V. But what if my conscience be not satisfied, but I am still in doubt, must I not forbear? Seeing "he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not in faith; for whatsoever is not of faith is sin," Rom. xiv. 23.