Psalms when the people want Books cannot read or have them not by heart Which has ever been the Case of many since they were first Sung But the same Scripture that commands us to do all things for Edification commands us likewise to use the Psalms as I have shewed and never prescribes or mentions the defective way used by you and therefore we may be sure Singing the Psalms by a Choir Reading them by Courses and Playing to them are not contrary to Edification And to oppose the Determinations of Human Prudence to these particular Precedents is to make the Word of God of none effect by your Tradition And is what I blame in You and Mr. B. as Teaching your own Inventions I positively declared that I did not condemn Singing Metre Psalms as unlawful but only your casting out the Prose intirely in your publick praises of God and preferring the Metre meerly on the strength of our own prudential Determinations as more edifying and fitter for a Congregation This I took to be a preferring your own Reason or Tradition to the Word of God IV. The same I say concerning Extemporary Prayer I never denied but Extemporary Prayers may be lawful nay necessary on Extraordinary Occasions when a man has not a Form ready or time to Compose one I granted that in this case we may depend on the assistance of God's Spirit as in all other cases of Necessity or at least hope for pardon of course to our Infirmities But I shewed Dis. Chap. 2. Sect. 3. N. 3. That God had Commanded Forms of Prayer both to Priests and People in the Old and New Testament That the Church of the Jews use a Form of Prayer in their Publick Ordinary Service that the Psalms of David are a Collection of such Forms and so are called Psal. 72. 20. And it doth not appear that any other publick Prayers were ordinarily used in the Temple and that we have many Precedents of such I add now that such Prayers are sufficient to express all our Desires to God on Ordinary publick Occasions which are constantly the same and if any thing Extraordinary happen the Church may provide a Form for it it being unreasonable that it should be left to every private Minister to impose what Confession or Petitions he pleases on the people or at least in such a solemn affair as uttering to God the Sense of a Nation or even of a Congregation a Minister ought to reduce what he intends to say into Form and consider it well beforehand that he may be sure that the Words are fit and proper for the Publick as well as the Matter I shewed further That there is no Promise in Scripture to furnish us with Words without this care and that the Spirit of Prayer promised in Scripture doth not include any such Gift either to Minister or People And therefore to lay aside Prayers by a Form in our Ordinary publick Occasions which are still the same is plainly to prefer our own Inventions to Scripture-precedents and our prudential Application of a General Rule to the method prescribed in several particular cases under that General Rule by God himself I grant Praying Extemporarily and Prayer by a Form are different ways of Worshipping God or Modes to use Mr. B's phrase who commonly in these cases shelters himself in some new difficult Word which many of you do not understand But I say We have only precedents for one of these ways in Scripture in performing of publick Prayers in an Ordinary Setled Congregation and therefore for you to lay aside this way as you do in your most publick and ordinary Addresses for Extemporary Prayers is to prefer your own Wisdom to God's If the thing it self had been feasible the method of Answering this Argument against Extemporary Prayer was easie nor was there any need of that long Discourse you find in Mr. B's Remarks or the hard Words he gives me about it The whole difficulty incumbent on him was to shew some Command of God in Scripture requiring us to Worship or Pray to him in a Conceived or Unpremeditated or Free-Prayer as he calls it or some Example in a Setled Ordinary Congregation where it was practised Till he do this his Arguments for the Usefulness of such Prayers and for their Necessity drawn from their being more Moving and more Edifying than Forms are only opposing his own Experience to the Precedents of Holy Scripture And it seems to me that only the itching Ears of people who love Novelty and Variety give ground for such Surmises But these are Vices against which they ought to be cautioned not to be cherished and encouraged in them as Mr. B. does Rem p. 163. since they are apt to cheat men with a false Devotion and are not necessary to a true one of which had Mr. B. been throughly sensible I conceive he would not have given me such very hard words for interpreting an Itching Ear to be an Ear that loves them or affirmed as he does Rem p. 101. That no Expositor before me ever dream'd of such a sence of them I wish he would consult a few more Expositors before he peremptorily determine concerning the sence of Scriptures He might have found Estius Alâ—pide and Galvin noted Commentators concurr in this sence with me and the Context as well as the Words where they are used enforce it 2 Tim. 43. For the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine but after their own Lusts heap up to themselves Teachers having itching Ears Which words plainly give two Reasons that move people to heap up Teachers to themselves their Lusts and their Itching Ears but Mr. B. would perswade us that the Apostle meant only one of them whereas the Experience of all Ages has found that the desire of Novelty and Variety has made Men ready to entertain Fables and False Doctrines as well as their Wanton Fancies or Various Inolinations as he alledges If by Wanton Fancies he meant any thing else than a Fancy that loves Novelty and Variety and if the same be meant by it then he had no reason to abuse me for a whole Page together for interpreting the words in that sence since he himself doth the same M. B. I confess offers some Scripture Precedents for Extemporary Prayer in publick Rem p. 36. namely Solomon's 1 King s 8. 22. Asa's 2 Chron. 14. 11. Jehosophat's 2 Chron. 20. 5. Hezekia's Isa. 36. 15 16. Ezra's Chap. 9. 5. Nehemiah's Chap. 9. 5. But these are not to the purpose they are all of them on Extraordinary occasions and in Extraordinary Assemblies in which 't is granted that Extemporary Prayers may be necessary Secondly They are generally the particular Prayers of the men that offered them and not of the Assembly such is Solomon's Hezekiah's and Ezra's Thirdly It doth not appear but they were all Forms written and prepared beforehand I take it for granted That the Confession in Neh. 9. was so for eight Levites repeated
set up his Reasons against the Letter of it as I have observed him often to do To conclude That the Assemblies of Christians are places for secret Prayers of each apart when they do not interfere with any Publick Office as well as for Publick appears from the whole tenour of the Scripture and the constant practice of the Churches of God Antient and Reformed And that those secret Prayers ought to be offered with Adoration as well as the Publick is likewise manifest And therefore the Directory by forbidding Adoration at our first coming into Church has excluded it where it was most proper III. But Thirdly I take it for granted that when an Old Law or Rule is laid aside and a new substituted in the place of it all things contained in the Old repealed Law or Order are laid aside which are not contained and again injoyned in the New By which Rule the Directory doth plainly exclude all Bodily Worship For in the Preface to it we are told that They resolve to lay aside the former Liturgy with the many Rites and Ceremonies formerly used in the Worship of God and have agreed on this following Directory for all the parts of Publick Worship at Ordinary and Extraordinary Times Here then the Liturgy with all the Rites and Ceremonies used formerly in the Worship of God are laid aside not only our Praises Prayers c. are excluded but all the Rites and Ceremonies with which they were performed such as Kneeling Standing c. And instead of these we are oblig'd to no more than is ordered in the Directory Prayers Praises c. are there indeed Ordered and the way of performing them prescribed but not a word of Bodily Worship and therefore it is plainly excluded among the other Rites and Ceremonies that are laid aside IV. All that Mr. B. alledges to prove that this Bodily Adoration is required by the Directory is Rem p. 109. That it requires such as come into the Congregation after Publick Worship is begun Not to betake themselves to their private Devotions but Reverently to compose themselves to joyn with the Assembly in that Ordinance of God that is then in hand which can import no less than putting themselves into a bodily posture most suitable to that Ordinance But I answer This passage imports no such thing the Assembly has no where explained Reverence in this sence or given the least reason to believe that they thought one posture more suitable to one Ordinance than another except Sitting at the Lords Supper which posture they seem to approve thro' the whole Service for they require those that come in To take their Seats or Places which in common acceptation is to sit down and they never require them to rise It was therefore incumbent on Mr. B. to prove that by Joyning Reverently in Prayers or Thanksgiving for Example is meant Standing or Kneeling at them or else this is no Vindication of the Directory But Secondly We are not left to guess what is meant by Joyning Reverently in the Ordinance then in hand The Sentence immediately going before explains it where the Assembly tells how the people are to Joyn in Publick Worship even by forbearing to read any thing Abstaining from private Whisperings Conferences Salutations or doing Reverence to any Persons From all gazing sleeping and other indecent behaviour which may disturb the Minister or People This is the way they are to joyn in the Service of God But not one word of putting themselves into a Bodily Posture most suitable to the Ordinance that is in hand It is plain therefore as I said before that they excluded these when they laid aside the many Rites and Ceremonies used formerly in the Worship of God and never restored them V. Let me add further That Reverence and Worship are very different things We ought to behave our selves Reverently to all our Betters and at all times But Worship is peculiarly to our Superiours who have power over us And as the things are different so there are different outward Acts that express them and neither Your Directory Confession of Faith or Catechism or any other Authentick Rule that I know of amongst you require any one visible Act peculiar to Worship in Your Assemblies Nor do I see by what Authority your Ministers can exact it from their People where they pretend to Conform to the Directory nor can it be pretended that the Composers of it forgot this For it is manifest that they remembred it so far as to forbid all Adoration where it was most proper that is at our coming into the Assembly and never require nor allow it any where after VI. Thirdly What I have said concerning the sense of the Assembly that Composed your Directory is agreeable to the Notion Dr. Twiss their Chairman had of this Matter as appears from his Letter directed to Mr. Mede dated July 27. 1635. 'T is the 59 in the Collection In which he gives this censure of Bodily Worship The Lord requires the true Worshippers should Worship him in Spirit and Truth in distinction from Worshipping him either at Jerusalem or in the Mount the Woman spake of but as to the outward gestures I doubt I shall prove a Novice as long as I breath and we affect not to make Ostentation of our Devotion in the face of the World the rather because thereby we draw upon our selves the censure of Hypocrisy And sometimes if a Man lift up his eyes he is censured as a P. I confess there is no outward gesture of Devotion which may not be as handsomly performed by as carnal a heart as breaths And in his thirteenth Letter being the seventieth in the forementioned Collection he adds And as for outward Complements nothing more pleases a Natural Man in Religious Worship and he finds himself apt enough in it yea far more apt than he who knowing and considering that God is a Spirit and they that Worship him must Worship him in Spirit are most carefull for the performance thereof Whereupon while their Minds are intent they find themselves not so free for outward Complements the care whereof is apt to cause avocation and disturbance in that unum necessarium Hence in the same Letter he blames himself for being prevailed with to rise up at the solemn Glory given to the Father Son and Holy Ghost and commends one that could never be perswaded to it Thus you see how the Prolocutor of the Assembly ridicules Outward Worship under the Names of Outward Postures and Complements You find himself likewise alledging in opposition to it our Saviours Command of Worshipping in Spirit Jo. 4. 24 And the very same Arguments that I mentioned and Answered in my Discourse Chap. 4. Sect. 3. Plainly intimating withal that it is a piece of Ostentation to use these Acts of Bodily Worship a sign of a carnal heart to be pleased with them and to neglect them a sign of an Heart intent on God's Spiritual Service Yet Mr. B.
of God by Images or any other way not appointed in his Word And in your Confession of Faith Chap. 21. N. 1. thus The acceptable way of Worshiping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited to his own revealed Will that he may not be Worshiped according to the imaginations and devises of Men or the suggestions of Satan under any visible Representations or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture This Rule is stricter and needs greater Limitations than the words of my Book For First Here is no Allowance for things Warranted by Scripture tho' not prescribed as many things are Secondly There is no Authority given to the Examples of Holy Men in Scripture which are sufficient to warrant a Religious practice in Gods Worship tho' they do not amount to an appointment or prescription and are not alwayes obligatory In short your Catechism and Confession of Faith if we take them according to the Letter make all wayes of Worship unacceptable and unlawful that are not prescribed and appointed in Scripture Whereas my Rule allows Examples and Precedents of Holy Men to be a sufficient Warrant I supposed and I think with reason that you understood this Rule in your own Catechism and Confession of Faith with due Limitations and therefore had no reason to suspect but you would understand it with the same Limitations in my Book it being a manifest partiality to except against it when used by me and yet allow of it tho' expressed with less caution in your Catechism and Confession of Faith which yet ought to be more exact in wording a Rule than is necessary in a private Man's Writings Of this partiality Mr. B. is guilty and plainly discovers by it that he has one Rule for interpreting the words of his own Party and another for interpreting those of his Adversary But Secondly I desire you to observe That in my whole Book I never used this Rule otherwise than with those Limitations that I have now expressed nor has Mr. B. produced one instance wherein I did otherwise As for Example I tax you with bringing in the Inventions of Men into the Service of God in your Use of the Psalms not for singing the Meetre Psalms for that I allow lawful but for introducing them without necessity to the exclusion of the Prose Psalms for Singing of which we have Scripture-Warrant and Example I taxed you likewise with introducing a Human Invention into the Worship of God in your Expounding Scripture not that Expositions of Scripture are unlawful but to make them necessary every time the Scripture is read is Literally such an invention and so is likewise your excluding the Regular and Orderly Reading the Word of God as he has appointed for the Edification of his Church to make room for your Lectures of both which you have been guilty these Fifty Years last past I past the same Censure on your Extemporary Prayers not that I condemned them in all Cases but because on the account of them you had turned the Lord's Prayer prescribed in God's Word and the Use of Forms in the Ordinary Prayers of the Assembly which is the Scripture way of Praying on such Occasions out of your Meetings Whereas it is manifestly a Teaching for Doctrine the Commandments of Men to Teach as you do that Praying extemporary is more acceptable to God or more edifying than Praying by a Form there not being the least colour in Scripture for such a Doctrine I might shew the like in every place of my Book where I used this Rule either in proving the Orders of our Church or in disproving yours so that Mr. B. had no reason to find fault with it But Thirdly The Rule needs not these Limitations it being agreed by all sober Interpreters That whatever can be deduced from Scriptures by Clear Consequence or Parity of Reason is sufficiently warranted by them though not expresly contained in them so there was no necessity to explain the Rule though I was willing to avoid the Exceptions even of the Captious and there fore put in the Explication you find in my Second Edition Fourthly Mr. B. excepts against my using the Phrase of Ways of Worship and alledges I used it frequently to signifie Circumstantiâ—â— Modes of it Vind. p. 30. But I Answer That I used the Phrase with which you were acquainted whereas I believe few of you ever heard of Circumstantial Modes of Worship before and I used it in the Sense you generally do when you ask for Scripture to warrant our using the Psalms by way of Answering our using Forms of Prayer our singing with Instrumental Musick our joyning our Voices in some Prayers our Receiving the Sacrament in a Worshiping posture and the other particulars against which you except in our Publick Service and I shewed these Ways are not only warranted but prescribed for the most part in Scripture Whereas those Ways you have introduced in the place of them have neither Command or Precedent in Scripture If these that I have named in our Service and yours be Circumstantial Modes they are the chief and greatest Exceptions that I ever found any of you make against joyning with us and they are the great matter of Reformation set forth in your Directory tho' Mr. B. seems to make light of them From the whole I think it appears That Mr. B. has both perverted and misapplyed my Rule and yet on this perverted sense of my Words are founded most of his Arguments against our publick Worship X. Lastly This Method of sixing Principles upon me and then writing a Book to Confute them is not new with Mr. B. He did it once before at a very unseasonable time and still persists in Taxing me with his own Consequences as if I indeed owned them Thus Vind. p. 25. he charges me with passing a Vertual Sentence of Damnation publickly upon you by Denying you to be a part of the Catholick Church and this he puts in Italian Letters as if they were my Words but there are no such Words in any Book I have yet written nor any just Ground to fix such a Sentence on me the whole Mystery of this so far as I know it is thus Mr. Manâ—y formerly Dean of Derry on his turning Papist published his Motives which prevailed with him to do so To these I wrote an Answer in the Year 1687 by which I thank God the Protestant Cause lost nothing and it was so well approved that it was Twice Reprinted in England But Mr. B. cou'd not digest it and therefore wrote Reflections on it and the greatest Exception he has against it is that I say in it That I meant by the Catholick Church the whole Body of Men professing the Religion of Christ and living under their Lawful Governours From which Words Mr. B. draws many strange and absurd Consequences alledging that they Un-Church all Dissenters all foreign Churches and render the Relation of all true Christians to our Blessed Lord as his
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is and ever shall be the Prayer of Londonderry March 13. 1695. Your Loving Pastour WILL. DERRY BOOKS Printed for and Sold by R. Clavel at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-yard THE Church History clear'd from the Roman Forgeries and Corruptions found in the Councils and Baronius In Four Parts From the beginning of Christianity to the end of the Fifth General Council 553. By Tho. Comber D. D. Dean of Durham Aristophanis Comaediae Duae Plutus Nubes cum Scholis Graecis Antiquis Quibus adjiciuntur Noctae quaedam simul cum Gemino Indice In usum Studiosa Juventutis A Daily Office for the Sick compil'd out of the Holy Scriptures and the Liturgy of our Church with occasional Prayers Meditations Directions The Catechisms of the Church with Proofs from the New Testament and some additional Questions and Answers divided into twelve Sections by Z. I D. D. Author of the Book lately publish'd entituled A daily Office for the Sick with Directions c. A Church Catechism with a brief and easie Explanation thereof for the help of the meanest Capacities and weakest Memories in order to the establishing them in the Religion of the Church of England By T. C. Dean of Durham The Pantheon representing the Fabulous Histories of the Heathen Gods and most illustrious Heroes in a short plain and familiar Method by way of Dialogue for the Use of Schools Written by Fra. Pomey of the Society of Jesus Author of the French and Latin Dictionary for the use of the Dauphin Q. Horatii Flacci Opera interpretatione Notis illustravit Ludovicus Desprez Cardinalitius Socius ac Rhetor Emeritus Jussu Christianissimi Regis in usum Serenissimi Delphini ac Serenissimorum Principum Burgundiae Andium Biturigum Huic Editioni accessere Vita Horatii cum Dacerii Notis ejusdem Chronolegia Horatiana Praefatio de Satira Romana * Mr. Craighead proves the Kneeling at the Sacrament a breach of the Second Commandment because the Signs have Coadoration with Christ partaking of the same Worship p. 113. And The Second Commandment stands in our way discharging Religious Worship designedly before any Creature p. 143. * Dr. Smith in his present State of the Greek Church owns That he admir'd whence it came that so few of the Eastern Christians were proselited to Mahometism considering their Circumstances and concludes p. 14. Praesens satis edoctus tandem dedici c. At last being on the place I learnt that the solemn Observation of Festivals and Fasts by God's assistance prevented the whole East from falling entirely from the Christian Faith chiefly if not only by means of these the Christian Religion triumphs over so many most cruel Contrivances being secured and fenced by this as by a holy Charm against the poyson of Mahometism for by the return of these Feasts which are celebrated with great Crowds with an holy Emulation The History of the Birth Death and Resurrection of Christ and the rest of the Mysteries that make up the sum of our Religion are brought to their memory c. And he observes that the History of the Apostles and Martyrs with the Courage and Patience represented in the days of their commemoration is that which arms them with Courage to endure all the Cruelties and Persecutions of the Turks Sir Paul Ricaut speaking of the Constancy of the Greeks in the Christian Religion has these words p. 15. If any Art or Policy can be said to have place over the Affections of the People none seems more efficacious than the strict observation of their Fasts and Feasts of their Church by which the People are taught as in a visible Catechism the History of Christianity more I dare say than by their ill-composed Sermons or repetition of the Scriptures in the vulgar Tongue for being severely imposed and observed with much Solemnity they affect the Vulgar with an air of something Divine See larger Catechism Q What is required and what is forbidden in the 2d Commandment