Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A63653
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An apology for authorized and set forms of litvrgie against the pretence of the spirit 1. for ex tempore prayer : 2. formes of private composition.
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Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.
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1649
(1649)
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Wing T289; ESTC R7631
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60,949
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100
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AN APOLOGY FOR AUTHORIZED and SET FORMS OF LITVRGIE AGAINST THE PRETENCE OF THE SPIRIT 1. For ex tempore Prayer AND 2. Formes of Private composition Hierocl in Pythag. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} LONDON Printed for R. Royston in Ivie-lane 1649 To His most Sacred Majesty IT is now two yeares since part of these ensuing Papers like the publike issue of the people imperfect and undressed were exposed without a Parent to protest them or any hand to nourish them But since your Most Sacred Majesty was pleased graciously to looke upon them they are growne into a Tract and have an ambition like the Gourd of Jonas to dwell in the eye of the Sunne from whence they received life and increment And although because some violence hath been done to the profession of the doctrine of this Treatise it may seem to be verbum in tempore non suo and like the offering Cypresse to a Conquerour or Palmes to a broken Army yet I hope I shall the lesse need an Apology because it is certaine he does really disserve no just and Noble interest that serves that of the Spirit and Religion And because the sufferings of a KING and a Confessour are the great demonstration to all the world that Truth is as Deare to your MAJESTY as the Iewells of your Diademe and that your Conscience is tender as a pricked eye I shall pretend this onely to alleviate the inconvenience of an unseasonable addresse that I present your MAJESTY with a humble persecuted truth of the same constitution with that condition whereby you are become most Deare to God as having upon you the characterisme of the Sonnes of God bearing in your Sacred Person the markes of the Lord Jesus who is your Elder Brother the King of Sufferings and the Prince of the Catholique Church But I consider that Kings and their Great Councels and Rulers Ecclesiasticall have a speciall obligation for the defence of Liturgies because they having the greatest Offices have the greatest needs of auxiliaries from Heaven which are best procured by the publike Spirit the Spirit of Government and Supplication And since the first the best and most Solemne Liturgies and Set formes of Prayer were made by the best and greatest Princes by Moses by David and the Sonne of David Your MAJESTY may be pleased to observe such a proportion of circumstances in my laying this Apology for Liturgy at Your feet that possibly I may the easier obtaine a pardon for my great boldnesse which if I shall hope for in all other contingencies I shall represent my selfe a person indifferent whether I live or die so I may by either serve God and Gods Church and Gods Vicegerent in the capacity of Great Sir Your Majesties most humble and most obedient Subject and Servant TAYLOR An APOLOGY for LITURGY I Have read over this Booke which the Assembly sect. of Divines is pleased to call The Directory for Prayer I confesse I came to it with much expectation and was in some measure confident I should have found it an exact and unblameable modell of Devotion free from all those Objections which men of their owne perswasion had obtruded against the Publike Liturgy of the Church of England or at least it should have been composed with so much artifice and finenesse that it might have been to all the world an argument of their learning and excellency of spirit if not of the goodnesse and integrity of their Religion and purposes I shall give no other character of the whole but that the publike disrelish which I find amongst Persons of great piety of all qualities not onely 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 prevaile by the successe of their Armies then the strength of reason and the proper grounds of perswasion which yet most wise and good Men beleeve to be the more Christian way of the two But because the judgment I made of it from an argument so extrinsecall to the nature of the thing could not reasonably enable me to satisfie those many Persons who in their behalf desired me to consider it I resolv'd to looke 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 {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that faithfull word which they had been taught by their Mother the Church of England I shall decline to speake of the efficient cause of this sect. 2 Directory and not quarrell at it that it was composed against the Lawes both of England and all Christendome If the thing were good and pious and did not directly or accidentally invade the rights of a just Superiour I would learne to submit to the imposition and never quarrell at the incompetency of his authority that ingaged me to doe 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 certaine this is the first example in England since it was first Christned 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 sometime by way of priviledge and dispensation give to some of them decisive voices in publick Councels but this was one of the things in which he did innovate and invade against the publike resolutions of Christendome though he durst not doe it often and yet when he did it it was in very small and inconsiderable numbers I said I would not meddle with the Efficient and sect. 3 I cannot meddle with the Finall cause nor guesse at any other ends and purposes of theirs then at what they publikely professe which is the abolition and destruction of the Booke of Common Prayer which great change because they are pleased to call Reformation I am content in charity to believe they thinke it so and that they have Zelum Dei but whether secundum scientiam according to knowledge or no must be judg'd by them who consider the matter and the forme But because the matter is of so great variety and sect. 4 minute Consideration every part whereof would require as much scrutiny as I purpose to bestow upon the whole I have for the present chosen to consider onely the forme of it concerning which I shall give my judgment without any sharpnesse or bitternesse of spirit for I am resolved not to be angry with any men of another perswasion as knowing that I differ just as much from them as they doe from me The Directory takes away that Forme of Prayer
ars and sciences and from whatsoever else God and good Lawes provoke us to by proposition of rewards But if Yea as most certainly God will best crowne the best endeavours then the spirit of prayer is greatest in him who supposing the like capacities and opportunities studies hardest reads most practises most religiously deliberates most prudently and then by how much want of meanes is worse then the use of meanes by so much ex tempore prayers are worse then deliberate and studied Excellent therefore is the Counsell of Saint Peter 1. Epist. Ch. 4. v. 11. If any man speake let him speake as the Oracles of God not lightly then and inconsideratly If any man minister let him doe it as of the ability which God giveth great reason then to put all his abilities and faculties to it and whether of the two does most likely doe that he that takes paines and considers and discusses and so approves and practises a forme or he that never considers what he saies till he saies it needs not much deliberation to passe a sentence Onely me thinks it is most unreasonable that we should be bound to prepare our selves with due requisites to hear what they shall speak in publique and that they should not prepare what to speak as if to speak were of easier or of lesse consideration than to heare what is spoken or if they doe prepare what to speak to the people it were also very fit they prepar'd their prayers and considered before hand of the fitnesse of the Offertory they present to God Lastly Did not the Pen-men of the Scripture write sect. 32 the Epistles and Gospels respectively all by the Spirit Most certainly holy Men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost saith Saint Peter And certainly they were moved by a more immediate motion and a motion neerer to an Enthusiasme then now adaies in the gift and spirit of Prayer And yet in the midst of those great assistances and motions they did use study art industry and humane abilities This is more than probable in the different stiles of the severall Bookes some being of admirable art others lower and plaine The words were their owne at least sometimes not the Holy Ghosts And if Origen Saint Hierome and especially the Greek Fathers Scholiasts and Grammarians were not deceived by false Copies but that they truly did observe sometimes to be impropriety of expression in the language sometimes not true Greek who will think those errours or imperfections in Grammar were in respect of the words I say precisely immediate inspirations and dictates of the Holy Ghost and not rather their owne productions of industry and humanity But clearly some of their words were the words of Aratus some of Epimenides some of Menander some of S. Paul This speake I not the Lord Some were the words of Moses even all that part of the Leviticall Law which concerned divorces and concerning which our blessed Saviour affirmes that Moses permitted it because of the hardnesse of their hearts but from the beginning it was not so and divers others of the same nature collected and observed to this purpose by a Origen b S. Basil c Saint Ambrose and particularly that promise which S. Paul made of calling upon the Corinthians as he passed into Macedonia which certainly in all reason is to be presumed to have been spoken humanitùs not by immediate inspiration and infusion because S. Paul was so hindred that he could not be as good as his word and yet the Holy Ghost could have foreseen it and might better have excused it if Saint Paul had laid it upon his score but he did not and it is reasonable enough to believe there was no cause he should and yet because the Holy Ghost renewed their memory improved their understanding supplied to some their want of humane learning and so assisted them that they should not commit an errour in fact or opinion neither in the narrative nor dogmaticall parts therefore they writ by the Spirit Since then we cannot pretend upon any grounds of probability to an inspiration so immediate as theirs and yet their assistances which they had from the Spirit did not exclude humane arts and industry but that the ablest Scholar did write the best much rather is this true in the gifts and assistances we receive and particularly in the gift of Prayer it is not an ex tempore and an inspired faculty but the faculties of nature and the abilities of art and industry are improv'd and ennobled by the supervening assistances of the Spirit And if these who pray ex tempore say that the assistance they receive from the Spirit is the inspiration of words and powers without the operations of art and naturall abilities and humane industry then besides that it is more then the Pen men of Scripture sometime had because they needed no extraordinary assistances to what they could of themselves doe upon the stock of other abilities besides this I say it must follow that such Prayers so inspired if they were committed to writing would prove as good Canonicall Scripture as any is in Saint Paul's Epistles the impudence of which pretension is sufficient to prove the extreme vanity of the challenge The summe is this Whatsoever this gift is or this sect. 33 spirit of prayer it is to be acquired by humane industry by learning of the Scriptures by reading by conference and by whatsoever else faculties are improved and habits enlarged Gods Spirit hath done his worke sufficiently this way and he loves not either in nature or grace which are his two great sanctions to multiply miracles when there is no need And now let us take a man that pretends he hath the sect. 34 gift of Prayer and loves to pray ex tempore I suppose his thoughts go a little before his tongue I demand then Whether cannot this man when it is once come into his head hold his tongue and write downe what he hath conceived If his first conceptions were of God and Gods Spirit then they are so still even when they are written Or is the Spirit departed from him upon the sight of a Pen and Inkhorne It did use to be otherwise among the old and new Prophets whether they were Prophets of prediction or of ordinary ministery But if his conception may be written and being written is still a production of the Spirit then it followes that set forms of prayer deliberate and described may as well be a praying with the Spirit as sudden formes and ex tempore out-lets Now the case being thus put I would faine know what sect. 35 the difference is between deliberate and ex tempore Prayers save onely that in these there is lesse consideration and prudence for that the other are at least as much as these the productions of the Spirit is evident in the very case put in this Argument and whether to consider and to weigh them be any