Lame Giles his haultings. Or, A briefe survey of Giles Widdovves his confutation of an appendix, concerning bowing at the name of Iesus Together with a short relation of the popish originall and progresse of this groundlesse novell ceremony: wherein Mr. Widdovves his manifold forgeries, oversights, and absurdities are in part detected; and the point, of bowing at the name of Iesus, together with that, of cringing to altars and communion-tables, is now more largely discussed. By VVilliam Prynne, an vtter-barrester of Lincolnes Inne.

CHRISTIAN Reader, I here present thee with a short historicall or Chronologicall Discourse, of the true originall and progresse of Bowing at the name of Ie∣sus; 1 Ceremony, (and as some write) a Duty, much pres∣sed, practised and abetted now of late by some, who though they stile themselves Christians, not Iesuites; will yet witha 1.1 Iesuites, and other Papists, monopolize all worship, all bowing to the name Iesus onely, and give none to Christ, from which their very ti••le of Christians is derived What these mens present violent enforcing, propugning of this upstarr Popish Ceremony by prea∣ching, by printing: or what the suspension, silencing or censuring of such as speake, as preach against it, meanes, or whence it springs, I cannot well determine. If it be only a misguided superstitious zeale, arising from meere ignorance of the true originall Popish rise and progresse of this Ceremony; I hope the ensuing pages will both instruct them whence it sprung, & whither it tends; and so reforme them. But if it be a wilfull obstinate symbo∣lizing with the Church of Rome, (whose Images, Altars, Cringes, Crosses,b 1.2 Bowings to, and turning of Commu∣nion-tables Altar-wise, like a Kitching Dresser, not a Ta∣ble c 1.3 at which men usually sit round; bo••h againstd 1.4 our Statutes, Homilies, Articles, & Canons, creepe in apace among us without any publike censure or controll:) I hope this Treatise, (which shewes them whose and what they strive for, even for the very spawne, the Re∣liques of the whore and Popes of Rome, from whom bow∣ing at the name of Iesus had its birth, its breeding as I shall here demonstrate:) will, if not reclaime them, yet at leastwise shame them, shew whose they are and what they aime at. Wherefore I here submit it to thy pious censure, requesting only thus much from thee; that as I have written it faithfully with an upright heart, void of all schisme of faction to beat down superstition, Popery, and declare the truth; so thou wouldest embrace & read it with a love of truth. And if thou canst not contradict it, let* 1.5 Athan••sius his Maxime be now thy resolution in this case. Quod pessimo initio nititur, in nullo unquam censeri poterit bonum. And so I rest.

Thine, and the Truthes, WILLIAM PRYNNE.

Notes

• a 1.1

  See Salme∣ron, Stengeli∣us, the Sorbo∣nists, Rhemists and others hereafter cited
• b 1.2

  ••hey say they bow to the Communion table, because it is the place of Christs spe∣ciall presence: Yet Acts 7. 48. & 17 24 certi∣fie u••; that ••od dwelleth not in ••emples made with hands; & Acts ••. 11, c 2, 33, 34 c. 3, 21, &c. 7, 56, instruct us, That our Savi∣our is now as••cended into the heavens; that hee sits now at his Fathers right hand, & that the heaven must containe him untill the times of resti∣tution of all things.
• c 1.3

  Psal. 128, 3. 1 Kings 13, 20 Math. 26, 20. Mar. 14, 18. Lu 22, 14. 27, 30. Iohn 13. 12•• 28.
• d 1.4

  See here p. 35, 36, 37, 38. & my Appen∣dix the two last pages.
• * 1.5

  Contra Gentiles lib.