Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

supplied by grace. To this I need to make no new replies, but only consider, that where there is an unavoidable necessity, we have reason to suppose we shall be helped: but we have no such need; we are taught in Scripture, by the Holy Spirit, what to pray, and how to pray, and beyond this assistance, we need nothing, save only that he be pleased to stir us up to pray; and for that also we have arguments and invitations sufficient in the divine Scripture; and I humbly conceive, it is one sort of tempting God, to call for extraordinary aids, when we are sufficiently provided for in ordinary; and I appeal to the piety and consciences of all Christian ministers, whether the Spirit of God hath not sufficiently enabled us, in all the parts and necessities of prayer, by the treasures of holy Scripture? and, 2. whether, by reading and meditating in the Scriptures, we cannot obtain all the aid we need? and, 3. whether or no, do not those ministers that are supposed to pray best amongst them, most of all use the phrases and expressions of Scripture? and, 4. whether or no, are not such prayers undeniably the best which are taken thence?

4. But, that I need no further argument in this question, I appeal to the experience of this last age, in which extempore prayers have been born and bred, whether it can be reasonable to allow such sudden prayers to be productions of the Spirit, when we have heard many spiritual crimes expressed and promoted by such prayers, and by those that pretended to such gifts? the consequence of which is certainly this; that, to prove a man to pray with the spirit, something else is required besides speaking extempore; and that this is not, therefore, it; because many do this, who do, like Ananias and Sapphira, eúσaodai tò äýiov ævɛũμa,‘belie, or falsely pretend the spirit,' who cannot dictate false, heretical, rebellious, blasphemous, or ignorant propositions: and yet it is certain, if these men, who pray extempore, did pray with the spirit; that is, if the spirit of God did dictate those words; those prayers would be as good canonical Scripture, when they are written by the short-hand writers, as any of the psalms of David, or the words of the apostles: which because it is intolerable to affirm, it follows, that praying with the spirit means not extempore prayers.

5. I add but one thing more, and that is, that Dideclavius,

[merged small][ocr errors]

C.""

the great patron of our dissenting brethren, said, in his "Altare Damasceno," that the master of a family could not, without indecency, pray with such sudden conception before a family; and as wise a man as he, said, "Nihil ordinatum est quod præcipitatur; properari sine indecoro non potest "There can be no order in sudden conception." Since, therefore, it is indecent and unorderly, let it be considered how such persons can observe the precept of the apostle : "Let all things," in the church, "be done decently and in order."

If it be asked by any man, Whether it be unfit to use, in private, forms of our own composing? I answer, it may be very fit;' but this is because this rule of the apostle, which wholly relates to the public, is not a provision for the private, for decency is a relative term, and so is order; and in private we may deliberate upon our knees, but, in public, we cannot; and although we must, neither in public nor in private, speak hastily, rashly, or without sufficient deliberation, yet we may do that in private which, in public, we may not; and there we are only to avoid rashness and hastiness; but in public we must take care of order also, and of decency, and of edification of others, all which, by extempore prayers, cannot be well provided for; but, my Lord, I forget the purpose of my letter, which is to pay to your Lordship that just acknowledgment of your care of the church's good, and the instruction of souls, which you have expressed in this material, plain, easy, and religious discourse, which, I pray God, may prove as profitable as it is rational, as useful as it is pious.

My Lord, I am

Your Lordship's

Most affectionate brother and servant,

c Seneca.

J. T.

AN

APOLOGY

FOR

AUTHORIZED AND SET FORMS OF LITURGY.

Χωρεῖν γὰρ ἀνάγκη τὸ ὅμοιον πρὸς τὸ ὅμοιον· ὅθεν καὶ μόνος ἱερεὺς ὁ σόφος λέγεται, μόνος θεοφιλής, ΜΟΝΟΣ ΕΙΔΩΣ ΕΥΞΑΣΘΑΙ· μόνος γὰρ οἶδε τιμᾶν, ὁ τὴν ἀξίαν μὴ συγχέων τῶν τιμωμένων, καὶ ὁ προηγουμέ vws iɛgelov kavтòv πgooάywv.-Hièrocl. in Pyth. Needham, p. 24.

I

HAVE read over this book, which the assembly of divines is pleased to call,' the directory for prayer.' I confess I came to it with much expectation, and was in some measure confident I should have found it an exact and unblamable model of devotion, free from all those objections which men of their own persuasion had obtruded against the public liturgy of the church of England; or, at least, it should have been composed with so much artifice and fineness, that it might have been, to all the world, an argument of their learning and excellency of spirit, if not of the goodness and integrity of their religion and purposes. I shall give no other character of the whole, but that the public disrelish which I find amongst persons of great piety, of all qualities, not only of great, but even of ordinary understandings, is to me some argument that it lies so open to the objections even of common spirits, that the compilers of it did intend more to prevail by the success of their armies, than the strength of reason, and the proper grounds of persuasion, which yet most wise and good men believe to be the more Christian way of the two. But because the judgment I made of it from an argument so extrinsical to the nature of the thing, could not reasonably enable me to satisfy those many persons, who, in their behalf, desired me to consider it, I resolved to

[ocr errors]

look upon it nearer, and to take its account from something that was ingredient to its constitution, that I might be able both to exhort and convince the gainsayers,' who refuse to hold fast πιστὸν λόγον κατὰ τὴν διδαχὴν, that faithful word which they had been taught' by their mother, the church of England.

[ocr errors]

2. I shall decline to speak of the efficient cause of this directory, and not quarrel at it, that it was composed against the laws both of England and all Christendom. If the thing were good and pious, and did not, directly or accidentally, invade the rights of a just superior, I would learn to submit to the imposition, and never quarrel at the incompetency of his authority, that engaged me to do pious and holy things. And it may be, when I am a little more used to it, I shall not wonder at a synod, in which not one bishop sits, in the capacity of a bishop, though I am most certain this is the first example in England, since it was first christened. But, for the present, it seems something hard to digest it, because I know so well that all assemblies of the church have admitted priests to consultation and dispute, but never to authority and decision, till the pope, enlarging the phylacteries of the archimandrites and abbots, did sometimes, by way of privilege and dispensation, give to some of them, decisive voices in public councils; but this was one of the things in which he did innovate and invade against the public resolutions of Christendom, though he durst not do it often, and yet when he did it, it was in very small and inconsiderable numbers.

3. I said I would not meddle with the efficient, and I cannot meddle with the final cause, nor guess at any other ends and purposes of theirs, than at what they publicly profess, which is the abolition and destruction of the book of common-prayer; which great change, because they are pleased to call reformation, I am content, in charity, to believe they think it so, and that they have zelum Dei,' but whether secundum scientiam,' according to knowledge' or nó, must be judged by them who consider the matter and the form.

[ocr errors]

4. But because the matter is of so great variety and minute consideration, every part whereof would require as much scrutiny as I purpose to bestow upon the whole, 1

have, for the present, chosen to consider only the form of it; concerning which, I shall give my judgment without any sharpness or bitterness of spirit; for I am resolved not to be angry with any men of another persuasion, as knowing that I differ just as much from them as they do from me.

5. The directory takes away that form of prayer which, by the authority and consent of all the obliging power of the kingdom, hath been used and enjoined ever since the reformation. But this was done by men of differing spirits, and of disagreeing interests: some of them consented to it, that they might take away all set forms of prayer, and give way to every man's spirit; the other, that they might take away this form, and give way and countenance to their own. The first is an enemy to all deliberation: the second, to all authority. They will have no man to deliberate; these would have none but themselves. The former are unwise and rash; the latter are pleased with themselves, and are full of opinion. They must be considered apart, for they have rent the question in pieces, and with the fragment in his hand, every man hath run his own way.

QUESTION I.

7. AND here I consider that the true state of the question is only this, Whether it is better to pray to God with consideration, or without? Whether is the wiser man of the two, he who thinks and deliberates what to say, or he that utters his mind as fast as it comes? Whether is the better man, he who, out of reverence to God, is most careful and curious that he offend not in his tongue, and, therefore, he himself deliberates, and takes the best guides he can; or he who, out of the confidence of his own abilities, or other exterior assistances, ὅμοιος ἂν εἶναι δόξαιμι τοῖς εἰκῆ, καὶ φορτικῶς, καὶ χύδην, ὅ,τι ἂν ἐπέλθῃ, λέγουσιν"; speaks whatever comes uppermost.

8. And here I wave the advice and counsel of a very wise man, no less than Solomon, "Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing

a Isocrat. in Panathen. Lange. p. 395.

« PoprzedniaDalej »