Quotations out of the Books of ancient Divines whom more commonly then safely they call Fathers though the sentences be godly and pithy how much more will it be an unsanctified kind of prayer to make up not only many Petitions together but also a whole form of Prayer out of a book lesse ancient and much more offensive 4. Let me conclude with a fourth reason and adde no more in this place He that selecteth a few prayers which in themselves are free from offensive matter but of a book lyable in the whole bulke to many just exceptions and withall imposed by one Church upon another he doth really therein hold forth and professe his subjection not only to the irregular exercise of that authority whereby it is injoyned but also to the whole order of worship injoyned in that book as Paul in practising though but seldome a few ceremonies out of the book of the Law did therein hold forth and professe his orderly walking according to the whole Law and his prosessed subjection to the whole order of worship prescribed by the authority of the Law Acts 21.24.25 which had it not been warranted by God himself fora season he had doubtless thereby sinned against the second Commandement Since then the second Commandement is so many wayes violated by reading of a prayer-Prayer-book devised and prescribed by humane authority for the publique Prayers of the Church the Lord pardon all our provocations of his jealousie by our former ignorance in this point keep us blamelesse for after times for his holy names sake in Jesus Christ Amen You know the sinnes against this Commandement do more provoke the jealousie of the Lord against his people and that for many generations then the breach of any of the rest which is the reason why the Lord setteth before his people as a flaming sword his jealousie for a sanction and fence of this Commandement above the rest Eaeod 20.5 And shall we then provoke the Lord to jealousie are we stronger than he but let us proceed with our Discourse Disc They tell us say you God hath not ordained a set prescript worship he hath not indeed prescribed it as necessary but his Word doth warrant it to us as lawfull Answ First shew us but one Text of the word that doth warrant it as lawfull any word of precept or promise or pattern from the Scripture and we shall do as you offer to do sit down in silence Secondly if God hath not prescribed a set form as necessary why is such necessity put upon all the Churches for receiving of it hath the Church power to bind where God looseth Disc Touching the externall form of words in which we should profer our Petitions we know nothing precisely commanded by the Lord and therefore judge it a thing meerly indifferent whether our requests be read or uttered whether in a stinted or conceived form of words neither do we bring in any strange manner of Prayer for in substance the prayer read and conceived is all one Answ First touching the externall form of words in prayer we may know and must willingly know what the word hath taught us that the Lord hath commanded whether expressely or by just consequence all is one First that as in Preaching so consequently in Prayer we are to expresse our minds in such a frame of words not which mans wisdome teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth 1 Cor. 2.13 Secondly that we are not to worship God after the precepts or patterns of men but do all things after the pattern in the mount Esay 29.13 Deut. 12.30 31 32. Heb. 8.5 Thirdly that we should not worship God in an Image devised by man and such are all set forms of Prayer devised helps of worship and prescribed to be read in the Church of Christ Answ 2. But suppose as the Discourse presumeth that it were a thing meerly indifferent whether our requests be read or uttered whether in a stinted or conceived form of words It seemeth to us a manifest transgression of the bounds both of Apostolicall authority and Christian liberty to bring in or take up a form of Prayer stinted and limitted by men which is left to us indifferent by God nor can we excuse a read prayer prescribed by men from a strange form of prayer seeing no such form is read or heard of in all the Scripture so great a difference is there betwixt a conceived and prescribed read prayer as is betwixt the fire from the Altar and the strange fire the one is an ordinance of God the other is an imagination of men CHAP. III. Wherein Answer is returned to Reason the second IF it be lawfull to use a prescript form of blessing prayer thanks-giving and baptising set down in the Word of God Then all prescript forms of Prayer or Liturgy are not to be condemned but the former appeareth from Numb 6.22 23. Psal 102.1 Hos 14.2 3. Joel 2.17 Deut. 5.10 Psal 92.1 Ezra 3.10 Rev. 15.3.2 Chron. 29.30 Isa 12.1 Math. 28.19 What answer do our Brethren return to this Argument Answ Our answer is ready and plain just and short we deny both the Major Proposition and the ground of the Minor for to speak first to the former it doth not follow that prescript form of prayer invented by men is lawfull because a form prescribed of God is good and allowable the Reason whereof is sound and evident though God forbid men to make themselves any Image or likenesse in his worship yet he hath not forbidden himselfe this power to prescribe any Image or form to us he appointed his people to make the Cherubims to worship him before them both in the Tabernacle and Temple but yet when Jeroboam made to himself the like form at Dan and Bethel and prescribed them to the people it was a manifest breach of the second Commandement what reply doth the Discourser return to this Disc A meer shift say you instead of an answer for the question is not of this or that form in particular but of a prescript form in it selfe considered the Lords Prayer was indited or prescribed by our Saviour himself and they yet deny the use thereof as a prayer and most of the Reasons which they bring do conclude against every set form of prayer as well as against any one thus they argue If a set form of Prayer be lawfull then a man may carry his prayers in his pocket buy them at the Book-binders shops c. and doth not this Reason disallow all penned and printed formes as well as ours Answ Thus with one sudden and blunt dash of a Pen a holy and divine truth confirmed by plentifull evidence of Scripture and applyed generally and frequently by our best Divines against Popish Images is at once blotted out and branded as a shift I say no more but this This is a speaking evill of the Law and condemning of the Law and that in a higher degree than that which is reproved by the Apostle
need to be shouldred speedily out of the Church than to be sheltered therein one day to an end And besides if such set forms be prescribed for the succour of ignorant Ministers then such Ministers as have received the gift of prayer have no need at any time nor use of prescribed and set forms of prayer at all Object And if it be said that it is not intended to make it lawfull at any time to tye or to be tyed to a set form of Prayer so as to offer up no more nor fewer Petitions than what are prescribed in the Book but only to warrant the lawfullnesse of some set forms of Prayer for some occasions Answ It may be justly demanded whether the same authority which tyeth to a set form of prayer for such or such occasions may not as well tye to a set form of prayer for all other occasions and if authority may tye the Church to any set form of prayer upon any occasion whether may not the same Authority by the same Rule forbid all other forms of prayers besides upon the same occasion Disc In Brief say you the controversie is whether it be not lawfull to read a Prayer upon a book or to make our desires known in a set form of words when the things we beg are allowable fit and necessary and when it is done with understanding feeling of our wants faith in Gods promises and reverence of his Majesty Which Question you spread forth into three branches Whether it be lawfull in private to use a set form of prayer or upon any occasion to read as prayer a prayer upon a Book Whether a set form of prayer sound and pertinent for the substance of the matter grave and simple for the order and manner not prejudising abridging or hindering by the length thereof the preaching of the Word may in any sort be tollerated in the Church or read by the Minister in the publique Congregation In case it should be unlawfull for the Minister or the Master of the Family to read a prescript form of prayer yet whether it should be unlawfull to be present at such assemblies Your Assertion is that a stinted form of prayer is lawfull to be used both in publique and private c. And though it should be sin in the Minister or in the Governour of the family yet may the people in the Congregation and the inferiour in the family be present at such prayers without sin or scruple of conscience Answ How far we go along with you in the Question thus stated and where we stick may be expressed in these particulars First We grant a Christian man whether Minister or of private place may by the gift of prayer which he hath received compile to himself a set form of prayer and may use the same for his prayer whether in publique or private according to his place yet so as not to limit himself to those words seeing he knoweth not what further occasion may be given him of inlarging his Petitions by new occurrences of matters from Gods providence and by the inlargement of the help of Gods Spirit nor so to limit himselfe as to stick long in any set form of prayer least it turn into a customary and empty form contrary to the watchfullnesse unto Prayer which must be Religiously kept of all growing Christians 2. A man may give unto another holy directions and rules for Prayer and may also set down some forms of prayer as examples of such rules but not to prescribe them as set forms to them to be used by them for their Prayers 3. A man that readeth a form of Prayer in a Book may be so affected with it as in the desires of his heart to go along with it and to use it for his present prayer as it may thus fall out in reading one of Calvins prayers printed after his Lectures or such other like 4. We deny not but a man that is affected with some Petitions in a Prayer devised by others he may lawfully make use of them and intersert them ordinarily into his own Prayers But not to take up an intire form of Prayer devised by another and to make it his own ordinary form of Prayer 5. We grant Magistrates or other Christians may commend some Heads or Petitions to the Church according to the present state of things which the Church as they see fit may present and commend to God in their Prayers Thus far we consent but farther we cannot go but do rather conceive it to be unlawfull 1. To set a part and take up a set form of Prayer and to use it as an ordinary prayer that which is devised by others whom God hath not called to be a mouth to me 2. We conceive it also to be unlawfull to bring in ordinarily any other Books into the publique worship of God in the Church besides the Book of God and therefore do see no more warrant to read out of a Prayer Book the publique Prayers of a Church then out of a book of Homilyes to read the publique Sermons of the Ministers of the Church 3. We account it alike if not more unlawfull for Ancestors to prescribe or injoyn set forms of Prayers to their posterity or for one Church to prescribe set forms of Prayer unto another 4. We hold it in like manner unlawfull for one Church to receive such set forms of Prayer from another and to use them for their own Prayers 5. We take it to be unlawfull also for the people of God to joyn in such prayers which are so divised and prescribed to be read unto them and to be offered up in their names as their prayers To apply these things more punctually to the particular branches of the Question as they are proposed and stated by you For your first branch we do not make it a controversie whether it be lawfull to make known our desires in a set form of words in such sence as we granted above in our first point of consent nor do we hold it unlawfull to read a prayer upon a book and therein to expresse our desires in such sort as we granted in our third point of consent But neverthelesse we do not discern it to be lawfull no not in private to use ordinarily a set form of prayer devised by others nor to read such a prayer out of a book for the ordinary prayer of a mans self much lesse of his Family For your second Branch though we neither deny the use of set form in private nor in publique so it be compiled by a mans own gists or by those whom God calleth to be his mouth Yet we dare not allow the reading of a set form of publique prayer out of a Book penned for the purpose and those prayers compiled by the members of one Congregation and imposed upon others 3. For your third Branch we for our parts cannot justifie it to be lawfull for to be present either in the family or in the
or Liturgie in the Synagogues at the celebration of the Passeover before the dayes of our Saviour Christ yet Christ never perswaded the people to absent themselves nor did he withdraw himself but resorted to their Synagogues and the Temple as did also his Apostles after his ascension Answ Of the Jewish forms of Prayer we have spoken before And have justly denied that they took up any book prayers devised by others prescribed to them and therefore no marvell if neither Christ nor his Apostles withdrew themselves from them seeing the outward face of administrations was only of Gods Ordinances not of the inventions of men at the least so farre as not to draw them into fellowship or communion with them therein the corruptions sound amongst them both in doctrine and worship Christ and his Apostles did freely bear witnesse against both to themselves and the people Disc It is not lawfull to separate from the Churches or assemblies of the Saints in whose fellowship we may serve God with an holy worship and believe in him with an holy faith for if a prayer conceived in the heart and uttered with the voice be a pure service of God the same read upon a book becometh not impure to them that hear it with holy affections Answ We do not separate from the Church and assembly of the Saints but willingly joyn with you in every part of your holy worship and in every doctrine of your holy faith only we withdraw our selves from such parts of your administrations wherein we cannot joyn with you but wrap our selves into the fellowship of such sin which in our consciences we see committed by you How the same Prayer conceived by the spirit of a Minister and pronounced in his own and in the peoples name to God may be a pure service to God yet the same written in a book and prescribed to others to be read by them as their Prayers may be an unlawfull form of worship hath been shewed above it is wearisome to repeat the same things so often Disc Lastly The Scribes and the Pharisees sinned grievously in corrupting the Law with their false glosses and defiling the worship of God with their own inventions neverthelesse the faithfull held fellowship and communion with them in the worship of God and that by the approbation of the Prophets and of Christ himself but surely the health of the Church is more crazed by such great infirmities than by the onely toleration and use of a prescript form of prayer Answ The substance of this objection hath been answered even now the faithfull did and might lawfully joyn in worshiping God in his own Ordinances notwithstanding the accidentall pollution which the Scribes and Pharisees brought in both in doctrine and worship for corruptions in doctrine do not draw the hearers into fellowship of the same faith if they beware of the leaven of such doctrine and bear witnesse against it in time and place according to God as for the pollutions in worship they chiefly lay in their private superstitious devotions of washing their hands and pots and cups and brazen vessels and not in their outward administrations of publique Ordinances especially in such wherein their act and the peoples was offered up together with one accord but there is not the like reason of publique Prayer wherein both Minister and people do all joyn together as one man with one accord where any known sin in the outward administration of the Minister is the sin of all the people that joyn with him The Lord give us hearts to deny our selves and to sit close to him that he may delight to lead us on by his spirit of truth in all truth and goodnesse and still delight to be mercifull to us in pardoning and healing all our forms and present pollutions for his holy Names sake in Jesus Christ Amen Amen FINIS
congregation where and when such prescript forms are read for the prayers of the company as to joyn with them or to seem to joyn with them in such worship But proceed we now to consider the weight of the Reasons which you give for your judgement and practice CHAP. II. Wherein your first Reason is propounded and considered THat Form of prayer say you is just and lawfull wherein all things essentiall to prayer and necessarily required in the Word of God may be observed But all things essentiall to prayer and necessarily required in the Word of God may be observed in read prayer or in a prescript forme what is required in holy prayer more then that the matter be allowable and fit the manner holy reverend faithfull your hearts laid open and petitions forced with as strong or stronger Reasons than we are able of our selves to presse them with all and may not a prayer holy and fit for the matter thereof be read with knowledge feeling of our wants earnestnesse of our desires holinesse of our affection and faith in Gods promises Answ There is more required to a faithfull holy prayer then allowable and fit matter and holy inward manner in the good affections of the heart for an outward holy manner is required likewise else a man might pray to God allowable and fit petitions before an Image and I deny not but that God may sometimes assist a man in such a prayer with holy manner of inward gracious affections as for instance holy Bilney might find his heart warmed in prayer to Christ when he look'd at him as really present in the Sacrament or else he would never have called so zealously on the people to turn all that adoration of dead Images to the adoration of Christ in the blessed Sacrament neverthelesse such a prayer was unlawfull through a defect in the outward manner of it an outward means being called in for help in prayer which God had not sanctified for that end Let me give you another instance when the Corinthians prayed in the Church publiquely in the Spirit but withall in a strange tongue their prayer wanted not allowable and fit matter nor holy inward manner for they prayed in the spirit yet the prayer was unlawfull through defect of an outward holy manner because it being put up in a strange tongue before others did not tend to the edification of others In the case in hand though prayer upon a Book prescribed by the authority of man may sometimes be furnished with allowable and fit matter and sometimes uttered with inward holy affections yet still it will be unlawfull through the defect of an outward holy manner If such a prescribed book be found as we conceive it will an Image or help to prayer devised by men but not ordained by God and so no better than an Image forbidden in the second Commandement Disc In reading the Scriptures the eye doth lead the heart and yet it may be read with judgement reverence meeknesse joy and why may not the like affections be moved in read prayer Answ Reading of Scriptures is an Ordinance of God and not an Image or imagination of man and therefore God not only may assist and blesse the reading of the Scriptures with inward good affections but is usually wonted so to do in an honest and good heart as delighting to breath in his own Ordinances If it could be proved that the reading of a prescript form of prayer upon a Book were an Ordinance of God sanctified for the edification of the Church as the reading of the Scriptures is we might ordinarily expect the like assistance and blessing in reading of the one as well as of the other the comparison would be more suitable if instead of reading the Scriptures were put the reading of Sermons and Homilies in the Church for which we find as little warrant as for reading of Prayers nor can we expect a greater blessing upon the one then upon the other we do not deny that read prayer may lead and affect the heart as may a Sermon read at home But then neither is such a read prayer prescribed by others nor set a part by me as my prayer no more than the reading of such a Sermon is my preaching which is not because the heart and the eye are at variance in such a case as your discourse speaketh but because God doth not ordinarily delight to blesse the heart with gracious affections when the eyes go a whoring after the imaginations and inventions of men Disc Asaph and his Brethren could praise God in a form of words set down by the Prophet David and if a set form of words may be allowed in thanksgiving which is one part of prayer it cannot be condemned in petitions Answ We do not deny a set-form either of Petition or of thanks-giving appointed by God either to be read or sung but we deny that God hath allowed either the ordinary officers in his Church whether Priests or Levites in the old Testament or Pastors and Teachers in the new to appoint such forms of read prayers for the Church or the Church to take up such forms of read prayers from them God that hath forbidden us to make any graven Image to our selves hath not forbidden or limited himself to devise and prescribe what forms of worship himself shall see good for our use the pains which are taken to paralell petitions and thanksgiving might have been spared we neither refuse the forms of the one nor of the other such as are commended to us of God in his Word the eye doth not hinder the affection of the heart in reading such things as God hath appointed to be read he that giveth the Word to be read can give the affections to read it withall and hath promised so to do which the sons of men that give us prescript forms of prayer to be read cannot doe Disc Whatsoever hath the true matter and form of prayer is truly and properly prayer but a prescript form of prayer sound and fit for matter grave for manner of penning read as prayer with knowledge faith reverence and fervency of affection hath the true matter and form of prayer Answ The Argument doth not conclude the Question in hand we might grant the conclusion without prejudice to the cause for a prescript form of prayer may have the true matter and essential form of prayer and so be for substance truly and properly a prayer and yet not every way an acceptable and lawfull worship of God through defect of some circumstances which may pertain to externall forme Baptisme may be properly and truly baptisme as wanting neither true matter nor form when it is dispenced by a Minister of the Gospel to a believer or his seed by the dipping or sprinkling of water upon him In the name of the Father the Sonne and the Holy Ghost and yet not every way a lawfull worship of God if it be administred in an outward form corrupted with
why such a necessity as hath been opened of a set devised form of singing should excuse a set form of Psalms and yet not excuse a set form of prayer but rather excuse the people from joyning in it Answ Because there is no necessity at all of a devised set form of prayer unless it be through the sinfull defect of the Ministers gifts in Prayer which is such a necessity as God abhorreth both it and the Minister for it But the necessity of a set form of Psalms is such which God himself hath put for the Celebration of that service with one accord both in heart and voyce as hath been shewed and therefore you might well have forborn that confident expression Disc If Christians shall not exempt themselves from the stinted Prayers used in the Congregation untill a materiall difference be shewed in these particulars and that distinction of Arbitrary and necessary devised forms be approved by solid Reasons and holy Scriptures the world shall end I am confident before they shall separate For you see a materiall difference in these particulars between the necessity of a set form of Psalms and the necessity of a set forme of Prayer The necessity of the one is from Gods Ordinance and therefore warrantable The necessity of the other is from mans Ignorance and such ignorance as maketh him unfit for the Ministeriall Office and therefore sinfull As for the distinction of Arbitrary and necessary devised forms in your sence we neither use it nor approve it And therefore have no cause to bring either holy Scriptures or solid Reasons for the proof of it But in that sence wherein we use it the distinction is so manifest from what we have said already that we think your self will require no further proof of it CHAP. V. Answering to the fourth Reason Disc YOur fourth Reason may be thus contracted If the Spirit of God do work by means and if he stir up good desires yet giveth not ability to expresse our desires in fit and significant words Then it is lawfull for us to use all godly means to stir up the graces of God in us and to premeditate how to utter our Requests in such a form and manner as may best serve for our quickning and the edification of others and if the use of a premeditated form of words in prayer do not stint the Spirit a set form of Prayer cannot be injurious to the Spirit grant the one the other will follow Answ If the speech be of publique prayer the same spirit that giveth the Minister ability to deliver a Sermon in fit and significant tearms doth in like sort give ability to expresse his desires in Prayer in fit and significant tearms no man is called of God to be a Minister of his Church but he is as well apt to Pray as apt to Preach But if the speech be of private persons it is true many good souls have better desires than utterance In regard of which defect or without such defect we willingly condescend to you It is lawfull yea and necessary to him to use all godly means to stir up the graces of God in him and to premeditate how to utter his requests in such sort as best serves for his own quickning the edification of others But this we deny that the using of a prescript form of Prayer upon a book devised and imposed by one man upon another to be used as their Prayer is a godly means to stir up the graces of God in himselfe or to edifie others For that which the Holy Ghost hath not sanctified in his Word for the stirring up of the graces of God in a mans self or others that is not a godly means for such an end But throughout the Scriptures we cannot find any where that the Holy Ghost hath sanctified such a means to such an end And then it is but an Image which will rather teach a form of godlinesse than edifie to the power of it Disc Peradventure they would creep out by saying the Spirit of God is our only helper in the time of Prayer so that though at other times we might use helps to stir up the graces of the Spirit yet not in time of prayer But this distinction is not found in Scripture neither can be deduced by any sound reason from thence The Spirit of God is at all times the sole mover and enabler of us to pray and the use of lawfull means and such as sute with the nature of prayer are at no time unlawfull as it is fit we meditate and read before we pray so it is lawfull in prayer to kneel and lift up our hands and eyes to use the help of the voyce and the benefit of a Christian friend to stir up affection Therefore we may dispute for the lawfullnesse of book Prayer thus if it be lawfull to use externall helps in time of prayer the better to stir up affections then book prayer is not to be condemned Answ To creep out being a borrowed speech from worms It being put upon us holdeth us forth as worms and not as men yea worse than worms Serpents rather than Worms That being compassed in with truth are willing to creep out by any evasion rather than to submit to the authority of the truth But let our reverend and godly brother be intreated not to deal such measures to his Brethren Least the God and Father of us both be displeased and stir up others to returne like measure to you heaped up pressed down shaken together our plain and simple Answer without creeping or shifting Is this that it is lawfll to use any externall or internall helps either before Prayer to prepare us for it or in Prayer to quicken or inlarge us in it provided they be such means and helps as God hath sanctified to such an end at such a time As we readily grant the help of books and meditation before Prayer so we do grant also the help of holy and reverent gestures in Prayer as bowing down the knees and lifting up of the hands and eyes and voyce the presence and assistance of a Christian friend for all these God hath sanctified to help the inward affections of the heart in prayer do but shew that God hath sanctified Book-prayers imposed upon us for our prayers and that by the members of other Congregations and we will neither creep nor start away But willingly blesse the Lord for his goodnesse to you in this case as well as in many others like as Phineas and the Congregation of Israel blessed God for the Rubenites and Gadites that were able to give so good an account of their actions beyond the expectation of their brethren Jos 22. Disc In prayer penned by a godly and well experienced Christian the case of a distressed soul may more pithily and amply be deciphered and anatomized then he of himselfe is able to do it and in such a case to deny him this lawfull help is to take away