as may consist with perspicuity how can it be possible that the quickest men subject to many infirmities in their bodies that must and will many times cloud their minds should upon a sudden without a previous and exact consideration word their own and the common desires of other men according to the order and method and importance of things unless they have before hand invented digested and reduced both their matter and expressions into a well studied and set form of prayer He that adventures to pray extempore in a publick audience is so selfish in the matter of his petitions and oftentimes so ridiculous in the expressions that it is impossible all should be able to say Amen to several things petitioned for if they at all use their understandings and do not implicitly joyn upon the authority of the gifted person But you will find more of this in a place of this Discourse more particularly reserved for it I do not deny but matter and words may present themselves on a sudden for private and more brief ejaculations or intermix themselves in our single devotions beyond the form which we may generally use either through the great enlargement of our minds and affections or upon sudden and unexpected necessities or by recollecting in our memories something that was either before omitted or our form does not directly enough or in particulars express But in publick where petitions ought to be so general that all present may say Amen and by this signifie their assent and wishes it is not only convenient but necessary too that men should have some time to judge and be acquainted with what is delivered in their behalf before they give their assent to it otherwise they pray not with judgement and understanding which ought to go before and lead their affections and not permit the passions to sally forth without taking notice of it in the way Now I cannot see how this can possibly be done without a form which those that joyn in may be acquainted with However methink to us Christians there are several arguments to be taken from universal pratice in former ages and reasons also from the holy Scriptures which are sufficient to determine us in this affair and to recommend this method of addressing our selves to Almighty God First The antiquity of publick forms of prayers and benedictions wherein also prayer is included is so evident that both Jews and Christians have agreed in this notwithstanding the introduction of the one religion superseded and evacuated the other Under the Law we find the prescription of a form by God himself wherewith the Priests were to bless the people by invocating and wishing that Gods blessing might descend upon them and they were the authoritative instruments in this method to convey it to them Numb 6. 22 23 c. Nay there is a form of prayer made and prescribed by the same God for those to rehearse who had payed their tythe every third year as any one may see both the form and the command to use it Deut. 26. from v. 12. onward What are the Books of the Psalms of David but a form of Confessions Petitions and Thanksgivings which were used in the worship of God in the Temple delivered to the Levites in the several Quires according to the Ordinance of the King of Israel When they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Ezra 3.10 11. Nay and what seems to me matter of wonder these very Psalms translated into English Metre are yet sung in those dissenting Congregations who refuse otherwise to pray to God by a form But to leave the form prescribed to the Jews and accordingly practised because according to some men of quick invention and volubility of language they were a carnal and an heavy people to be led on in a dull and formal way Yet unless the opposers of forms of prayer will be too nimble for the Apostles themselves and account them dull and carnal we shall find forms in the New Testament not only composed but injoyned too None surely can be unacquainted that our Saviour taught his Disciples to pray and gave them a form not only for imitation but for use men do not I hope so learn Christ 'T is true S. Matthew delivers the command After this manner therefore pay ye Mat. 6.9 yet S. Luke recording the same prayer when in another year and on another occasion our Saviour delivered it gives us the account of our Lords prescription in these words When ye pray say Our Father c. Luke 11.1 Yet this difference can only infer these two things 1. That in all our composures of prayer in which we enlarge the words of our petitions suitable to the enlargement of our minds we should have regard and bear some proportion to this pattern which Christ himself has given for our direction And 2. That we should use also the words themselves in which our Saviour has taught us to pray supplying the imperfections of our own invention by the fulness of that prayer which he has prescribed for all true Christians to use And such a method we find followed by the Church till the vanity of some men who thought themselves wiser and they may be accounted more fanciful than the aged designed to suit their expressions and tones to captivate the affections and passions of the multitude for ends at first best known to themselves but since with a vengeance declared to others Though in the mean time they offered unto God fancy for devotion and out of their pretended wisdom the sacrifice of fools And I pray God there be no Knavery in it that was also intended to the people Secondly I argue for forms of prayer to be used in publick because the Minister then is the mouth of the congregation and is to be supposed to utter all by their consent and to pray in their names testifying their unity of affection by their consent in prayer And this so prevails with the great God of infinite goodness that if but two shall agree together on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them by the Father which is in heaven Matth. 18.19 Unity of affection and consent in prayer is that which renders our publick devotions so acceptable to God This gives them strength and vertue causes our prayers to ascend as incense and the lifting up of our hands to be as an evening sacrifice Now there cannot in my opinion be this consent and unity of affection in prayer but where there is an uniformity in calling upon God that all let them come whence they will into any publick place of devotion where a congregation is assembled to offer their joynt prayers to God if they are in communion with and frequent the Churches being before acquainted with the service and prayers which all there make to God they may unite themselves immediately to
them and say Amen to testifie their consent And if any thing be pass'd over before they come being morally assured from the continual custom and use there especially the Minister being pre-engaged both by an oath and severe penalties attending the violation to use no other form of worship than what is prescribed in the common Rubricks and prayers of the Church I say if any of the prayers are passed over by uniting in the rest with an easie recollection of what has been already uttered a man being acquainted with it by common use may at least better than by any other method impossible to be done in extemporary effusions joyn himself to the congregation and obtain some interest in the whole service And especially if under these circumstances he is heartily intent in the prayer of S. Chrysostom and some others in the conclusion of our worship and yet pray with some good understanding though it cannot be so well as if he had consented from part to part with all and he may not depart without a blessing if it were not a wilfull omission and neglect but only a mistake of time and a misfortune But if this reasoning will not prevail yet Thirdly I argue the lawfulness and expedience of forms of prayer from the great example of Christ himself And certainly Christians ought not to think that they can imitate a better For we find him in his agony in the Garden when his soul was sorrowful even unto death and multiplied miseries oppressed and tortured him to use only this short prayer O my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt Matth. 26.39 And when upon the same occasion he returned again to his devotion we read that he used the same prayer and the Evangelist has very little altered the phrase which yet our Saviour seemed not to change at all For when be informs us that he prayed the third time he tells us that he used the same words Matth. 26.44 However if this instance may miscarry as I see no reason why it should yet 't is plain that when he was tortured upon the Cross and in the height of his passion invocated God his words were a form long before used by David and it was a part if not the whole of the 22. Psalm My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Fourthly I argue for let forms of prayer from the practice of S. John Baptist and his Disciples who probably borrowed it as Mr Mede in his Diatribae hints from a custom among the Doctors of Israel to deliver some certain forms of prayer to their Disciples as a badge and symbol of their discipleship However it fares with this notion yet 't is evident that the Baptist himself who the Scripture sayes was more than a Prophet did prescribe some form of prayer for his followers to use though we find not upon record what it was yet probably it might be a prayer near the sense and expressions of that of our Lord for his form as to words and phrases was before in the Jewish forms a little varied and therefore Grotius infers that the Great Lord of the Christian Church was very far from all affectation of any novelty which was not necessary But to let these things pass The Scripture it self plainly informs us that John the Baptist did give his Disciples a form by which he taught them to pray For when our Saviour had as the Text declares in a certain place ended his own prayer one of his Disciples petitioned him to teach them to pray as John also taught his Disciples And our Saviour presently without any other intervening discourse replies in answer to his desire When ye pray say Our Father which art in Heaven c. Luk. 11.1 2. So that either Christ's is not a form although it is commanded to be used which no man of sense can say or our Saviour eluded the request of his Disciple in answering only a part of it but not the whole which no Christian will be bold to affirm or if he did at that time teach his own Disciples to pray as or in that manner as John also taught his then it must be necessarily infer'd that John the Baptist prescribed a form for his followers to pray by Fifthly There is no inconvenience but great advantage in a studied and set form of prayer when extemporary and unpremeditated devotions uttered in present and sudden language can neither evade the one nor be the instrument of the other Studied forms of prayer may be considered often and receive the censures and corrections of many wise and learned men before they are exposed to common judgment and they that are to joyn in them upon view of them before hand may be able to suit their affections and the intentions of their minds both to the matter and also the expressions which in extemporary prayers they cannot do but must on a sudden be bound up to the matter words and expressions of another that I may not say to the broken sense extravagant phrases dark Metaphors frequent interruptions or bodily infirmities distracting often another man or to the effects of those fears or inadvertencies that may often attend a man bewildred through worldly cares or disturbed with the thoughts and troubles of his mind Forms of prayer studied and reviewed are not subject to such impertinencies tautologies and vain repetitions that too sudden effusions frequently produce when there is a defect in the invention of matter fluency of language or apt words to express the petitions men are willing to present Nay the most ignorant and illiterate may by the frequent audience of publick set forms of prayer and quickning their memories by the due intention and affection of their minds when these are devoutly and distinctly pronounced by the Minister of a congregation or the Master of a Family fix and remember some things and expression for their more private and single use and at last be able to express their supplications to God for the private relief of their necessities and in this the publick language of the Church when no such thing can possibly be accomplished by hearing the same matter variously phrased and such expressions as are alter'd and diversified in respect of order and position of words and intermixed with new fancies and obscurities and frequent jumblings and interpositions of confessions and thanksgivings and words that declaring the excellencies of God provoke men to acts of adoration or raptures in the midst of what methodically should be prayer and petitions So that they who possess the room of the unlearned if they were able with due judgment and affection to keep pace with him who in this way can invent and utter prayer with neither yet they can no more carry away what may assist them in their private retirements than the gifted man is able afterwards to remember and repeat his own prayer For in these sudden and
Reader that there is one part of their worship in the Eucharist which is the adoration of the Host that Coster the Jesuit in Euchrid controv Cap. 8. Sect. 10. says cannot escape this charge upon it if the foundation of it be not true For says he if the true substantial body of Christ be not in that Sacrament but what we receive is in substance only bread and wine Christ dealt unworthily with his Church who by occasion of his own words This is my Body left it for 1500 Years together in so great an error and such Idolatry as was never seen or heard of in the world And moreover he delivers in the proof of this last assertion That their error was much more tolerable who worshipped a Gold or Silver Statue or any Image of other matter for God as the Gentiles in time pass'd worshipped theirs or such as worship a piece of red Cloth lifted up on the top of a Spear as is reported of the Laplanders or living creatures as anciently the Egyptians did than the error of those who worship a bit of bread which hitherto says he but very falsely the Christians have done supposing Transubstantiation not true So that according to their own confession if the sense of this Doctor renders his own opinion probable If our Saviours substantial and corporeal flesh and blood be not in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper But Christs words are to be understood Figuratively according to the expressions used before in the celebration of the Passover in which Protestants have an apparent advantage in their proofs and arguments then any man may safely say that the Papists are Idolaters when they worship a wafer instead of God Nay the worst sort of Idolaters in the world as the Jesuit says in the forementioned place And this deserves not in reason any severe censure among themselves because upon their Doctrine of probabilities the opinion of any one allowed Doctor among them may be safely followed without peril of damnation And upon the same principle it may be very lawful to shift opinions when these Doctors contradict one another This I am sure when urged home by one that has more skill in Controversie than I will take off that by which they endeavour to charge those Protestants with great uncharitableness who draw this impeachment high against them when they accuse them of Idolatry in their adoration of the Host And invalidate the best answer they have upon the supposition that Transubstantiation is false viz. That 't is true to them because they believe it and therefore although adoration of the Host would be Idolatry in another of a contrary persuasion yet they cannot be guilty of such a crime Because they worship not the Bread which they believe upon the words of consecration to be absent but the Divinity of Christ which they suppose to be present together with his body and his soul And If it be so then after they have conjured him into the accidents of bread and wine so that these hide him from any discovery by the bodily senses of mankind they seem first to make him present then adore what they have so made and at last eat up and devour him unless they can again slip him away betwixt their fingers and their teeth together Yet if Transubstantiation which is the foundation of all this be false then we may still charge the Papists with Idolatry according to the probable opinion of the Jesuit But what have we dull Protestants to do with this or their Doctrine of probabilities by which they only innocently design to serve their own turns To enter upon such points too far will overdo my present purpose And I may in the winding up of the bottom be accused for charging the Romish Church with the Doctrines and conclusions of particular men and causing all the excellent orders among them to speak by the mouths of the Jesuits which some Papists for designs best known to themselves will readily and not without cause considering all things confess to be the most pernicious Order or rather Sect that ever was established in the Roman Church i. e. the worst in the Christian World Let us leave this then and come out from among them and meddle no longer with the nice affairs of particular Societies It will be sufficient for my present purpose if from my precedent Discourse of prayer I may justly and by due consequence infer that the Publick Service of the Church of Rome is such as is repugnant to Gods revealed Will that it may justly be branded with Superstition according to the proper signification of the word that it is such as the greater number of those who are commonly present at it cannot accompany with due and proper intentions of their minds that their prayers are such as God has no where promised to hear and their methods of address such as Christianity never prescribed nor were by any Church in the first times ever practised nay not by their own till they had debauched the best Religion in the World to advance themselves corrupted good Manners and caused the principles of the Gospel to truckle to their fancies and began to Sacrifice to their own net and made St. Peters Successors at Rome such cunning Fishermen as catched only such Fish as brought money in their mouths making merchandize of mens souls that they might gain a Temporal advantage by the traffick These are Heads sufficient for a Protestant to Discourse upon But I must omit such and many more if I dilate coherently to what I have confined my self And therefore I shall not now make discovery of that apparent Sacriledge in the Church of Rome depriving the people nay the Priests too unless they consecrate of half their Communion in the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper whilst they think a pretty invention of concomitancy will excuse their theft when our Saviour instituted and gave the signs of his body and blood distinct from each other that his real death might be the better signified since his blood was actually separated from his body Nor shall I write at this time concerning the villany of their Confessions and Absolutions which as they use them to base and bloody and Secular advantages are most intolerable nor of all the ridiculous indefensible and burdensom Ceremonies with which they usually so load their devotions that baffling all true Evangelical worship confound the intentions of mens minds turn the reasonable service of their bodies into Pageanty and Stage play make their prayers which they pretend to offer nothing but an external shew the labour of the lips and outside devotion turning their Priesthood into such a trade that all the preparation of Learning and Divinity can enter them but Novices into the Schools of Exercise and they had need serve another Apprentiship to teach them the postures and Giggombobs of action Though these and many other things as vain and bad are prescribed and commanded in their Books of Offices
he has a brow of brass may say to those who understand not or else never look'd into their allowed Breviary or their common and established mass-Mass-Book that we charge them with what they are not guilty of I must instance in a few particulars in which prayers are made to glorified creatures and to some inanimate things too in the publick Offices of the Roman Church since some of the professors of that Religion are so bold and apparently wicked that to serve a turn they will affirm 't is dark in the face of the Sun and light even in the midst of darkness and nothing almost according to their principles of equivocation and mental reservation if they take also the Doctrine of probable opinions in to their assistance can be propounded but they may either affirm or deny as it makes for the advantage of their Church Nay they are bound according to the determination of Bellarmin to say that Vertue is Vice or Vice Vertue if the Pope so concludes either But yet my present charge is so apparently true that all must own it to any that have knowledge of their publick Service whatever they may at any time reply to the ignorant that receive the charge upon the authority of others For in their Commune Apostolorum there is an Hymn consisting both of prayer and praise in which we find these expressions Vos saecli justi judices c. speaking to the Apostles they say O ye just Judges and Lights of the world we beseech you with the desires of our hearts to hear the prayers of your supplicants ye that shut the heavens with a word and unlock them again loose us we pray you from all our sins by your command you to whose authority is subject both the health and misery of all c. In their Office to the Blessed Virgin you have these expressions O Mary Mother of Grace Mother of Mercy protect us from the enemy and receive us at the hour of death And let the Virgin Mary together with her off-spring bestow her blessing upon us and the like I shall instance yet in one more although many know I might translate a multitude of the same nature into this Discourse and that shall be in the service relating to one who was the Founder of one of the most pernicious Sects that ever infested the Christian world in comparison to many of whom the Gnosticks were Saints the Goths and Vandals were of a Religious Order the Great Turk becomes a Christian and the wild Fanatick is temperate and mild I mean Ignatius Loyola who founded the first Society of the Jesuits to perplex and confound the Councils of Princes and carry on mischievous designs against us as well by those who have been at the top as those that remain at the bottom of the Ladder In the Service at the Celebration of his Festival there is this Prayer or Collect on the one and thirtieth day of July O God! who for the greater propagation of thy glory hast strengthened thy Church militant properly so indeed under the command of a Jesuit with a new aid by blessed Ignatius grant that we who strive or fight on earth by the imitation and help of him may deserve with him to be crowned in the heavens And if they all deserve the same lot may they together possess the same place for fear they should be as troublesome to us in the other world as they have been in this But I will no longer employ my self in translating their prayers Many instances of their petitions to Saints and Angels have been exposed to view in most Books that have been by Protestants written against them I heartily wish that those who use such prayers understood them better because they would then more easily see how poyson is wrap'd in gilded pills Why should I relate the Attributes which the Church of Rome gives to the Cross of Christ as great as to him who suffered on it and yet have no method to shift their blasphemy but by the same way in which they translate their prayers and praises too from the Cross to him who died upon it And though I love not to pursue a Lion to his den for fear that being weary he may be hungry too and take some opportunity to rend and devour Yet it would be a strange expression from a Protestants mouth that which must needs grate upon the ears of all the devout worshippers of God and such as believe that their prayers are heard only through the merits and intercession of Christ Sancta Crux or a pro nobis Holy Cross pray for us And Ave Crux spes unica Hail Cross our only hope would be words that to us would not only seem ridiculous but abominable and if at all considered to any that hope in the mercy of God through him who suffer'd and dyed upon the Cross But notwithstanding all these are things as common with the Papists as whining and another sort of nonsence are among some Separatists that pretend to set themselves at the greatest distance from them Nay any may see if they have skill and leisure to peruse it in an office of or relating to the Holy Cross Printed at Paris 1664. by publick authority such strange expressions as these are After it has begun with a Prayer to God to free men from their enemies by the Sign of the Cross which if we should make a thousand times upon our selves we should hardly be quit from those that are so devout to it we find afterwards these expressions O Crux venerabilis c. I know not how they may edifie in Latin but I am sure that they sound harsh in English and good or bad thus they run O venerable Cross who hast brought salvation to us miserable with what praises shall I extoll thee because thou hast prepared heavenly life for us And in the close of another Hymn the style tho' a new one is in these words O victory of the Cross and admirable sign make us to triumph in the Celestial Court or the Court of Heaven But this is an ungrateful task to me thus to transcribe the most abominable Popish Prayers and as unpleasant as it can be to Protestants to read it And therefore I shall not fill these Papers with those particular addresses which many of them make to individual Saints as they account them who are departed this life for particular things which they suppose to be in the power of them singly to bestow whilst they appropriate one faculty to one and a second to another whilst they constitute a first to be a Patron to their Horses another to their Sheep a third to their Hoggs and another to keep off some Disease from themselves or at least to cure it And so they make them Grooms or Farriers or Swiniards or Shepherds or Physicians or Mountebanks or what they please For I am weary of raking in such a dunghill in which there is neither Barley-corn nor Jewel
But notwithstanding all their pretensions to the Spirit of which I shall hint something before I end which advances their rudeness into perfect Blasphemy If praying extempore they are at any time methodical and faultless 't is owing to their good chance and fortune And they have an escape when they have taken no pains at all for it But when David was bartering for the threshing-floor of Araunah and for Oxen also for a burnt Sacrifice nay the very wood to kindle the fire all which he might have been presented with for nothing David refused so Royal a gift And his reason as himself expressed it was because he would not offer burnt offerings unto the Lord his God of that which should cost him nothing 2 Sam. 24. 24. But these bold men with whom to our sorrow we have to do confidently present to Almighty God that in which no pains were taken in the composure Only a tatling and talkative Service stuff'd with little besides gibberish and impertinency that others who consider what and to whom they offer it cannot without falshood and irreverence join with them in But the halt and the blind are their common Sacrifices and strong lungs the best Altar on which these oblations are made Yet all this they think to smother when they are kindled into passion and fury in the obscurity of those phrases and length of those sentences in which they pretend to offer their comon supplications unto God And they expect the joint consent of a Congregation to what they never heard of before Nor could they understand when it was uttered For their raptures so muffle up their notions and both are so mix'd with their petitions which they wrap in Clouds and obscure Metaphors that the meaner sort cannot understand them But sigh and groan they know not why And the more considering part that are not blind have just cause to suspect such Religion which the Patrons and promoters endeavour with so much care to secure from a more severe and strict examination All that I admire in it is how they can be dark at noon-day and mount out of sight on a sudden and extempore Unless whatever their pretensions are to quickness of invention they study such unusual expressions designedly to amuse but not to inform the judgements of men As Cotta in Tully speaks of Heraclitus de nat Deor. lib. 3. Quae diceret intelligi noluit That he would not have what he said to be understood But in prayer to God when 't is made vocal men are supposed to declare their wants and petition for relief And this especially when any Community joins in it ought to be managed with an honest plainness without any mysterious riddles or equivocal language or petitions wrap'd up in mourning Metaphors as if they were to be buried amongst the Dead or any other Coptical and Egyptian expressions that are difficult to decipher and much more to be understood For these are things that as well baffle the minds of the simple as too frequently vail the hypocrisie of him that makes the oblation Nay very often amuse those of better understanding so that they are not able with any judgment to say Amen at the close of all Nay it hazards also and too frequently destroys that faith which ought to be earnestly contended for and safety preserved pure and unspotted For it 's as easie and indeed attended with less difficulty to introduce a strange Creed by using this unbounded liberty in prayer as it is by an unstinted latitude in preaching and to insinuate into mens minds either old or new condemned Heresies by a frequent repetition of those things that tend to their promotion or establishment in our prayers to God When the souls of those that join in the devotions are very intent and open to receive what we say with greediness and desire Especially when men are busied in raising their affections to their utmost height There 't is not hard to introduce false Doctrine into the belief of others Which like a false story that by frequent relation comes at last to be received as true Not only by the hearers who are easily imposed on But he that tells it having so often related it forgetting that he once knew it to be false at last thinks it to be really true Nay in prayer where a false point in Religion is misted and wrap'd up in a petition 't is affected and swallowed with the petition And more easily digested than if it were declared in an Homily or Sermon Because in hearing Sermons men imploy their judgments more than their affections But in prayer the affections are usually more busie than their understandings And that it is very common with those extempore men that take upon them to conceive prayer in a Congregation to insinuate Doctrines in their petitions is so manifest to all observing persons who have been present at such meetings that a person of any judgment at all may certainly judge of the opinion of the gifted Brother that prayeth by his Confessions Petitions and Thanksgivings to God And then where people are led by the authority or examples of those whom they embrace for their Ministers which in many things the common multitude must and in most points it is notorious in many of our Separatists what they use in their prayers and speeches unto God must needs obtain a greater reputation with them than what is only address'd to men Because they then think their Ministers to be most serious cautious and devout too This therefore was warily and exceedingly well provided against after the extraordinary operations of the Spirit ceased by the Council at Laodicea Can. 18. where the Fathers Assembled injoined their Churches to use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same Liturgy or form of prayer both Morning and Evening And in the fifty ninth Canon of the same Council it was Ordained that the vulgarly composed Psalms which were the labours of persons who had not sufficient understanding in these things or any Books that were not Canonical should not be sung or read in the Churches Where also for mens satisfaction against the Papists in this matter you may find the Titles or Names of those Books which the Council then received as Canonical And in the Milevitan Council Can. 12. it was Decreed that those Prayers and Offices which were approved by an Assembly or Council should only be used excluding others in all their publick Administrations Lest any thing should either through inconsideration or ignorance be uttered before the people that might contradict the common faith received and continued among them And if the Governours of Churches in those daies were so Prophetical and cautious in their Establishments for the present and transferring the most Holy Christian Religion from their own Age to the succeeding so as nothing might be conveyed to Posterity but what was Orthodox and of Primitive constitution And to obviate that extravagant itch of men which since we have found increasing into a
part of those who being otherwise minded have separated from it And it may give some rebuke to the bold confidence of such men as are not so hardned that they think there is no need of repentance or that the shame which attends it will be worse to them than the want of the thing it self and check the rude presumption of those who to exalt themselves assume too large a familiarity with their Maker And now I shall trouble the Reader with very little more being conscious to my self how much I have already tired any that has had patience to read this Discourse quite through Yet because extravagant and very lofty men pretend to inspiration in such matters as these as if the holy Spirit dictated matter and words to all Saints when they thus pray extempore If it be true I acknowledge my self to have blasphemed in this Discourse But if it be false as I verily believe it is then they themselves have blasphemed the Holy Spirit of God And to make a judgement in this case I shall only intreat treat the impartial Reader who I suppose is come thus far with me to our journeys end 1. to consider if what I have said be argumentative to convince him then the blasphemy remains in the presumption of our Adversaries on their own side 2. If their prayers were thus inspired they would be equally Canonical with the Scriptures For what made the Scriptures a Rule of life but because they were given by inspiration from God 2 Tim. 3.16 And Saint Peter informs us that holy men of God spake in old time as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 And though men have been at sundry times and in divers manners spoken unto in the Old and New Testament yet it was God who delivered his messages unto men Heb. 1.1 And because he inspired the Writers of the Old Testament and the New to a delivery of what their words and writings have presented to the world therefore we receive them as the Oracles of God and endeavour to manage our lives by them God Almighty has no where declared what Books are Scripture and what not But this we learn by such arguments as convince us that the men that wrote them were inspired by the Holy Ghost Now could these mens prayers of which we now discourse be proved to be dictated by the Holy Ghost they would be equally valid with the Scriptures For as in the proof of the truth of the holy Scriptures if the Historical part be proved to be true the Doctrines that are included in the History will by the same evidence appear true also So if we allow the confessions petititions and thanksgivings of these persons to be inspired the propositions on which they are founded and all the Doctrines insinuated in them will be admitted as an effect of the inspiration also and then what inspired Controversies should we have Nay there would not only be additions to the Sacred Canon which St. John is quoted by themselves to have prohibited And Doctrines also and prayers too that have no foundation in that Sacred Writ which has been derived as a compleat rule for sundry Ages But we must receive such large Appendixes that they would not only surmount all Popish traditions though they should superadd those of the Jews But it might be said in the words of the Evangelist without any or but a little Hyperbole That if they were written the world it self could not contain the Books because the prayers of these are so various and long And beside this it would level the Prophets our Saviours and his Apostles prayers to the rude and indigested and extravagant conceptions which our natural Enthusiasts utter in those which all men call extempore prayers 3. If these men had that extraordinary assistance from the Spirit of God or such an inspiration to which so bold a pretence is made Then the Spirit of God must be rendered inconsistent with it self Since it would frame tedious and long prayers contrary to that plain fulness and convenient brevity which we find in those that are recorded in Sacred Writ as delivered by the Prophets or Apostles or even our Saviour himself And then the examples mentioned in the Book of God will seem to be changed by extraordinary motions from his own Spirit Lastly Consider that notwithstanding all our extempore mens pretensions their prayers cannot be the product of inspiration dictating to the speaker matter and words Because this sudden deceiving Knack is plainly discoverable by those that know and can use it also as well as themselves to be the effect of quickness of invention in one who remembers Scripture Phrases who has a voluble and ready tongue and 't is gained only by frequent use together with little arts in the composure At several times 't is done by changing the places of expressions or altering the method so that it cannot easily be observed by the vulgar And all is but like the exercise of a Military Company of men whole front or reer ranks or files are quickly altered by one or few words of Command And this great gift as 't is called by some advances or grows weak according to the increase or decay of natural abilities the abatement of knowledge or the sprightlyness and activity of mens parts the strength of memory or the infirmity of it the volubility of speech or the hesitations and stops in it and the practice or disuse of this extempore way c. To which we may add boldness and bashfulness fear and a good assurance and the like Hence a Right Reverend Prelate not long since deceased when before he arrived at this honour though he was alwaies a very great man he was pleased to write concerning this gift of prayer was willing to subject it to the rules of Art that so the Holy Spirit of God in all its infusions into good men might be supposed only to spiritualize their judgments and affections that they might be both sanctified and raised which may as well be in forms of devotion as in conceived and extempore prayers And now I have done with all that I intend at present to write on this Subject But if any Reader shall find an objection which is neither in this Discourse obviated in the state nor already answered in particular instances I must then refer him to several Cases of Conscience published by sundry Ministers of London very lately exhibited to the World and more yet that are to come forth and when they receive a full answer I may perhaps be convinced by it Although the most that I have yet seen seem to me to have prickles in them that for their Brethren as they call them to attempt a reply will render them like things gnawing thistles Yet men may adventure at what they please and I 'll assure them it shall be all one to me whether Don Quixot encounters a flock of Sheep or a Wind-mill The Conclusion THE Learned Vossius
The reason why I insist not now on such things as these is because the main Subject of my Discourse being prayer only I would not have my inferences transgress the Rule in charging Adversaries with such Errors as are not plainly to be concluded from the premisses It will be sufficient at this time to shew how abominable the Popish allowed prayers are without intermixing the things that attend them Now the Papists must needs offend God with their publick prayers and consequently must enrage instead of appeasing him because they are not suitable to his Sacred word nor that Worship which Christians in the purest times used in their publick Divine Service And this will be confirmed by two reasons 1. Because their publick Prayers are in an unknown tongue 2. Because they pray to creatures when they ought to pray to God only First The Publick Prayers of the Romish Church are in an unknown tongue sometimes unknown to the Priest himself who by the help of accents the advantage he has of hiding his infirmities in those he pretends as he is directed to repeat secretly and by frequent use can untowardly pronounce them But more especially are they unknown to the people at least the generality of them who cannot with any reason be supposed to understand languages beyond what their Mothers taught them unless Mother Church can inspire them with cloven tongues and turn all its Children into Apostles For Latin in which the Roman publick prayers are uttered is now become a learned Language in all those Dominions which the Pope overspreads and shadows with his wings and the gaining of it requires a distinct from vulgar education it being the general Language of no Country in the World and therefore how should the multitude of a Nation understand it Now Publick Prayer as I have shewed before ought to be so composed for matter and words that all who are bound to join in it should fully understand it that they may apprehend before they give their consent to it that so they may heartily agree in each petition and say Amen at the close and period But how can people possibly consent or intend their minds and engage their affections with any reason to such a service which is uttered in a language which they understand not In such a case they may by the imposition of anther blaspheme God when they think that they adore him and wish for a curse instead of a blessing And yet this is the general practice of the Roman Church And would be as it was in England were it established again Though I may notwithstanding without disparagement to any suppose that many that may peruse this writing however many that heard it from the Pulpit cannot pretend to understand Latin And yet this Service is what all persons in the Roman Communion are obliged to under most rigid and severe penalties unless they will renounce the Decrees of that Council beyond the Controversie of our Neighbouring Nation which they must own to be general and infallible though both the adjuncts are falsly applied For the Council of Trent Sess 22. cap. 8. determines for this unreasonable and brutish service and obliges those who understand not the Language But not without due caution in the Decree that a power of dispensing may remain to the Pope in cases that may best serve his turn with those to whom he thinks fitting to appoint Prayers in their vulgar Language who may be inclinable to receive or else to recall banished Popery For the Council has worded their Decree of this as if they were afraid of the Objections of those who on the Apostles side maintain prayers in a Known Tongue but despise the contrary viz. That it has seemed to the Fathers not to be expedient that every where Mass should be laid in the vulgar tongue This not to be expedient is a soft expression which they can when they please explain effectually that it is not lawful and every where when it serves their turn will be easily exchanged for any where But it helps Bellarmin very much in his answer to the argument against the necessity of Latin Service from the Popes Dispensation to the Moravians to use the Sclavonian Language in their Divine Offices and helps forward the like Dispensation to our selves for a present turn in this matter were we so well prepared as a late executed Papist thought to acknowledge the Supremacy of the Pope and in other things to conform so much to the Romish Church that it might in time be again compleatly planted amongst us that so the Pope might receive plentiful fruits from those trees which from Rome he had transplanted into so rich a soil as England is But at last without question whatever might be granted at the first we should be served as Bellarmin tells us the Moravians were even turned wholly to our Latin Service when the Pope had raised Bishops and Priests of his own to advance themselves and curb others and England were well inhabited by Italians But they who can dispense with Gods Law may easily dispense with one of their own Especially an Indulgence in some things may be a convenient instrument to confound the principles which men being used to are loth to renounce all at once and to introduce others gradually till they embrace all Thus 't is usual for one who intends to drive a flock of sheep before him he will let them feed beyond their bounds till he is got on the commanding side of them and then he drives them into what Coop or Pen he pleases And truly we who by the favour of God and piety of Princes Profess the truly Ancient and Apostolick Faith had need walk circumspectly and look about us for fear of those Popish snares that are set for us by Popish Emissaries to catch and imprison us first that they may in triumph lead us Captives to their great Prince and Master For the Pope is like the old Serpent if you once allow him his desired Supremacy he will quickly become Infallible and then our whole Cause is lost Give him but an hole for his head to peep through and it will not be long ere he wriggles in his whole body But Blessed be God we have no need of him though he plainly discovers that he has need of us Nor do we desire to partake in or rob him of his service but to continue in our own most holy Worship And if we can help it he shall not take it away from us 'T is true indeed some Romanists have thought us to be readily prepared for their Communion being qualified with vice and debauchery enough which they themselves have been teaching us for many years taking their advantage from that unlimited Loyal joy which possess'd the Nation at the Kings Return to take his Right and to sit upon that Throne from which he was barr'd by Usurpation and Force But this great Restauration being the handy-work of God the Devil and Rome thought