'Kneeling at this time is found to be the more convenient gesture': the Articles of Perth, the Jacobean Church of Scotland, and kneeling to receive the Sacrament
In his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth, David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), building on his previous exposition of the Scottish formularies on ceremonies having "the nature of things indifferent", applied this understanding to the view of those critics of the Articles of Perth, who insisted on the need to sit in order to receive the holy Sacrament:
And that he who sware, That he did thinke that no policie, and order in ceremonies can be appointed for all ages, times, and places, but that the same may, and ought to be changed, when necessitie requires; Did neuer, nor could sweare without breach of this Oath, that the ceremonie of sitting at the receiuing of the Sacrament (esteemed by our Church, at the reformation, most conuenient, but not necessarie) could bee appointed for all ages, times, and places; and that it might not, nor ought to bee altered in any case: by the contrary all who swore to the Confession of faith, did sweare, That the policie, and order of sitting at the Sacrament was such, as could not be appointed for all ages, times, and places, and that it might, and should be changed, when it did not so much edifie the people in pietie, as foster prophanenesse and superstition.
We can detect in the in final words of the above extract how Lindsay is also moving towards a broader critique of sitting to receive the Sacrament. How was this practice fostering "profaneness and superstition"? Lindsay points to the assumption that it was somehow necessary, required by the Lord's posture at the Last Supper:
And this, sitting fosters in all these that practise it, with a superstitious conceit and opinion, that the same was instituted by our Sauiour as a point of diuine worship, and by his exemplary practise commended to the Church, for an essential or integrant part of the Sacrament, which yee maintaine in this Pamphlet.
This was an insightful deployment of a classically Reformed understanding. Bread and wine with the Lord's words of institution are necessary for the Sacrament. Other rites and ceremonies are a matter for national churches to determine as they see fit. By contrast, the critics of the Articles of Perth were superstitiously exalting sitting to receive to the level of a dominical institution
This, then, provided the context for the Church of Scotland, in the Articles of Perth, to legitimately determine that kneeling to receive the holy Sacrament was "at this time ... found to be the more convenient gesture":
Whether to sit at a Table in receiuing the Communion, was most conuenient, according as our Church esteemed at the time of reformation, is not the question: but whether to sit at a Table be necessary, as instituted and left by our Sauiours example to be obserued, and that without breach of the institution, the same may not be altered? This question was neuer defined by any Canon of our Church: Therefore put the case, that our Church had sworne and subscribed, That to sit at the Communion was most conuenient, according to the iudgement of our first Reformers: yet, we haue done nothing contrarie to that oath, by interchanging sitting with kneeling, because kneeling at this time is found to be the more conuenient gesture: for that which at one time is more conuenient, may bee lesse conuenient at another. As to our Sauiours sitting (if so be he sate) it was not exemplary, or appointed to be followed of vs, as shall be afterwards proued; and his practise did only declare, that sitting might be lawfully vsed, not, that of necessitie it must be vsed, and cannot bee altered, when the Church findes the change expedient.
Sitting to receive was now "less convenient" not only because of the superstitious view of the practice but also because, as the Articles of Perth declared, "all memory of bypast superstition is past". To accuse the Church of Scotland of somehow attempting to undo the Reformation was a farcical stance; to suggest that the Articles of Perth were re-introducing the Mass was a deranged Enthusiasm. By contrast, Linsdey invoked the modest view of leading Reformed divines regarding kneeling to receive the Sacrament, that it could be a legitimate and appropriate gesture:
to haue taught that kneeling in the acte of receiuing the Sacrament is vnlawfull, were to haue contradicted the best, and most learned Diuines we haue. Beza saith of it, Speciem habet piae, ac Christianae venerationis, ac proinde olim potuit cum fructu vsurpari. That is to say, kneeling at the Sacrament hath a shew of holy and Christian worshippe, and therefore of old might haue been fruitfully vsed. Whereby yee see, he condemneth not simply the ceremonie, but witnesseth that there was a time, when the same did edifie and profite. Caluine, before him, called it Cultum legitimum, that is, a Lawfull adoration, being vsed in the action of the Supper, and directed to Christ. Petrus Martyr saith, Multi piè genua flectunt & adorant, that is, Many in receiuing the Sacrament doe bow their knees religiously, and adore Christs flesh. Paraeus speaking of the same gesture, esteemes it an indifferent ceremonie. And that which so great and learned Diuines iudged to bee lawfull, what are we to condemne?
Lindsey, of course, would have been well aware that all these Reformed divines did not themselves support the practice of kneeling to receive. His point, however, is that they did recognise that it was legitimately used in the life of churches before its abuse. Implied here, therefore, is a sense of restoring an older ceremony, legitimately used amongst Western Christians over centuries. In the words of Cranmer:
surely where the old may be well used, there they cannot reasonably reprove the old only for their age, without bewraying of their own folly. For in such a case they ought rather to have reverence unto them for their antiquity ...
This also brings us to reflect on how the Articles of Perth brought the Church of Scotland into closer harmony with the Churches of England and Ireland. The historic episcopate had been restored to the Church of Scotland in 1610: the national Churches of all three Kingdoms shared the same episcopal order. Now with the Articles of Perth, the Church of Scotland also shared in ceremonies wisely retained by the Churches of England and Ireland, ceremonies which - in the words of Cranmer - served "order or quiet discipline ... unity and concord": kneeling to receive the Sacrament was a particularly vivid outward sign of this. Such was the vision of James I/VI, an attractive, eirenic vision, described by a later Bishop of Derry (John Bramhall, who became Archbishop of Armagh at the Restoration) as "the Britannick Churches".
(The picture is of a late 17th century drawing of Brechin, Lindsay's See.)
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