becometh an unlawful mean and lawful for us to omit it though we pray less fervently therefore he tells us p. 23. He that is by the Magistrate forbidden to go to the next church and therefore is necessitated to go to one more remote must needs be more indisposed to prayer by his long journy except some men of a temper by themselves so that he shall not perform the duty with so high an intention of mind or fervency of Spirit as might probably be experienced in case he came to the church less wearied and weather beaten but yet such a man may lawfully go to the farthest church and pray there though these hinderances of intention and fervency be consequent thereupon because they are necessary not voluntary he wisheth the case were otherwise with him but as the case standeth if he should go to the next church contrary to the Magistrates Prohibition he should sin and Evil is not to be done that Good may come of it especially when a greater evil might come of it then the good aimed at as in this Case § 20 To all which we answer God send his church in England better Divines then this Author The case is this The unlawfulness of ministers ordinary use of forms prescribed by others was indevoured to be proved because it hindred intention of mind and fervency of Spirit Two things from reason and by Gods special command and determination necessary to every good prayer He grants they are both necessary whence it followeth That he who omitteth any means given or allowed him by God being natural rational which may help him in this must needs sin against God whose law commanding an End always commandeth the use of all proper Means relating to it He granteth this a Mean in it self lawful he must acknowledge it proper and natural yet he saith It is no sin to omit it and so consequently no sin for one to serve God with a lesser intention and fervency when we have a natural power to serve him with a greater intention and fervency And why none Because he saith It is necessary not voluntary Is it not voluntary That is strange he did not put the case of the Magistrates forcing him to be draged to another place at such a distance where his Spirits must be exhausted before he could come How was it necessary then Not naturally not by coaction It remaineth therefore that it must be necessary by some divine determination In what leafe of Scripture shall we find it He offers no texts but what commands our obedience to Magistrates But is there any Scripture requireth an obedience to man in all things Or must those texts be limited to such things where we may obey them without disobeying God Thus this Author hath finely answered by begging the question which is Whether it be lawful to omit the use of a proper Mean given by God for the performance of an Act in his worship according to his will The Apostles surely determined better Whether it be better to obey God or man judge you To his instance therefore the Answer is easy If when we may with equal advantage to our souls go to a nearer church and to one farther but yet not at such a distance as before we come there we shall be spent our Spirits exhausted and we fitter to sleep then to serve God we think we ought to obey But if they will command us to go to a place at such a distance as we cannot reach in any time or without such a wasting tyring of our Spirits as when we come there we shall be unfit for the service of God we cannot obey He trifleth to say The thing is Inexpedient It is unlawful and he is a fallacious Sophister in Divinity who talkes of chusing lesser evils of sin before greater There can be no necessity of sinning § 21 In his p. 26. he seemeth to hint a time when a less intention is more acceptable to God then a greater That time we would gladly know for the Scripture saith nothing of it He tells us when the Over-plus ariseth from the gift not from the Grace This is a strange nick of time we always thought The grace exercised in prayer lay very much in Gods assistance of us to keep our minds attent to our duty and intent upon fervent with God in our duty so that to us it seems a strange piece of sense That the overplus of Attention Intention and Fervency should proceed not from the Grace but from the gift he goes on tells us p. 28. Seeing the same things are prayed for in the Litany which can be the matter of the longest conceived prayer though not in that variety novelty and elegancy of Phrase if the heat and the intention they speak of proceeded from the strength of their desire to the things themselves it would be equal in both cases but seeing it is not equal it must needs proceed from some other cause and probably from some of those assigned § 22 He saith true It must either proceed from some different matter or some other cause But 1 we doubt whether what he sayes of the Litany be true We think it far short of conteining the whole matter of ordinary Confession or Petitions or thanksgivings See what the Commissioners at the Savy in their papers since printed have said to this But suppose 2 The matter were ful Can there be nothing else frigidam suffundere to cool a Christians Spirit What if there be a mixture of something else which a Christian cannot in his judgment allow In the Popish Missal is much excellent matter but we should think him but a luke-warm Protestant that could be fervent in Spirit serving the Lord by it It is a great cooling to a Christians Spirit when his mind suggests doubts to him Whether this be a way mode or method of worship which God will accept because never directed by him Here we instead of stirring up exercising our own gifts and ministring them borrow the gifts of others and serve God with what costs us nothing but a little lip labour § 23 To conclude for this Author we need no more then Mr. Ireneus against Mr. Freeman Every man is bound to pray with the highest intention of mind and fervency of Spirit which he can by just means attain But he who having an ability to express his own wants wants of others to God in prayer in words first formed in his own heart doth in the exercise of prayer use the forms of other men doth not pray with the greatest intention of mind fervor of Spirit which can be obtained by just means Ergo. This is M r. Ireneus argument in his book called The Reasonableness of Divine service Let M r. Freeman answer it we profess we cannot The Major is made up of M r. Ireneus his own words in the aforesaid book p. 22. The Minor is not onely said by Mr. Ireneus but proved too
ministers duty in Preaching What is the reason Because he who doth not exercise his own gift in inventing and composing Christ hath bid us Go Preach What then is the meaning of that Have not all Divines agreed to interpret it thus Go stir up the gift that is in you Give your selves to the study of the holy Scriptures and to Meditation Compose discourses of Christ and Gospel-doctrines then communicate them by your voice to people opening to them the sense of the Scriptures applying the will of God reveiled in them to the consciences of all dividing the word of God aright that you may shew your selves workmen that need not be ashamed Christ hath also bid us Pray his great Apostle hath commanded That supplications prayers intercessions and givingthanks be made for all men How come we to interpret this thus Go read a form or forms of words which other men have made for you We do not so interpret Go preach It is true as we hinted before there is a praying in the Spirit which some who have no mind to consider the force of an argument may object to us but we are speaking of Vocal ministerial prayer and what is the will of God in commands which relate to that species of prayer Such prayer alone he can use who in that duty ministreth unto others and every one will grant That there is such a duty A whole Congregation must not pray in the Spirit onely without any voice heard The Question is Whether he who in prayer ministreth to others more fulfilleth the precept of God concerning ministerial prayer then he who readeth or reciteth onely other mens Sermons fulfilleth the precept concerning Preaching We think not § 3 It is yet a farther question If he onely readeth such prayers Because the words used in Scripture in all languages to express reading are quite other from those used to express our duty in praying and the action of Reading and praying are quite differently expressed to us Those who know any thing know That the Hebrews had a great scarcity of words the Radical words in their language hardly bearing the proportion of a fifth part to those in Greek or Latine So as they are forced to make use of the same words to signify sometimes quite contrary actions Ordinarily to signify diverse actions if they have but the least cognation each to other So that it is not so easy to argue from the old Testament upon this Topick Yet we cannot but observe that the words used Hos 14. 2. Joel 2. 17. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We will not be too confident of it but we are not aware of any text in the old Testament where it signifieth that kind of speech which is but the recitation or repetition of words formed by others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed which is generally used to express Reading when it is joined with upon the Lord or upon the name of the Lord doth sometimes signify the action of prayer As it never signifys to read without the addition of The book of the law or the law or some such substantive following it Both Pagnine and Buxtorf say it properly signifyes Clamare voce significativâ verbis expressis conceptis But as we before said the execeding penury of words in that language makes it hard to establish an argument from proper and significant words in it In the Greek the case is much plainer The precepts for prayer are every where expressed there by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. never by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the proper word used to signify reading In short Speaking may be conceived by us as a Generical term and is either Mental or Vocal The first we call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a speaking to the capacity and understanding or sense at least of others so as they may know what we say And this again is twofold 1 The one is The re-forming of words which others have first conceived in their minds and committed to writing for us or which they dictate to us If they be written down or printed for us and we recite them looking upon the characters in the books This we call Reading Criticks tell us That Legere est oculis scripta percurere quoniam literae oculis legi id est collegi videntur This cannot be done without the help of our eyes which gathering up the letters makes a representation of them to our understandings This action the Greeks express by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or else we Reform words conceived by others and dictated to us our ears there gathering up the sounds of them This in English we call Reciting or Repeating The Latines Recitare Repetere from re and cito or re Peto 2 There is a speaking which is the forming of words which we have first formed and our selves conceived in our own hearts Neither Legere nor repetere nor recitare in Latine Nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek are expressive of this action Every one would deride him that being to express the action of him who made an argument or pronounced an Oration should either in Greek say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in Latine Legit orationem The words express Actions specifically distinct so as though we lay a greater stress upon our arguments before mentioned then upon t is yet we cannot think this altogether vain and impertinent we cannot but make a great question Whether if we should think to fulfil the command of God for our duty in Vocal and ministerial prayer by a reading forms ready composed for us we should not come short of what God requires of us in the action and so both mock God and deceive our own souls we can find neither precept nor president for such praying CHAP. VIII The Seventh Argument from the tendency of the principle to level the sacred office of the ministry to the capacity of the meanest of the people stated proved The last from the Vnblest effects of forms universally imposed Three bitter effects or consequents instanced in proved from experience and Reason The conclusion of the Arguments against the lawfulness of prescribed forms to be universally imposed or used § 1 WE proceed to a Seventh Argument That principle which levelleth the performances of the great and sacred office of the ministry to the capacity of the meanest of the people cannot be a true principle But this Principle That it is lawful for a minister of the gospel ordinarily to perform his ministerial acts in prayer by the prescribed forms of others levelleth the performances of the great and sacred office of the ministry to the capacity of the meanest of the people Ergo. That Principle is not true The proposition doth but presume the truth of this That God would never have erected an office or order of persons in his church to
from Scripture partly from Reason § 2 We judge so from Scripture 1 Pet. 4. 10 11. As every man hath received the gift so minister it one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God If any man speak as the oracles of God if any one minister c. The Apostle is evidently there speaking of gospel ministrations and giving a Rule about them his Rule is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As every man hath received the Gift ministring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the substantive to that must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the same which the Apostle expresseth in a little different phrase Rom. 12. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As God hath divided to every one a measure of faith v. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to the Grace given to us The Apostle makes the gift 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which we are to minister and we are commanded to minister according as we have received it Now in administrations by other mens forms and prayer is the one half of our ministry we neither minister The gift nor as every one hath received the gift but as we find in the Book or in the forms prescribed A gift indeed we use Reading is a gift but not the gift of prayer § 3 But if we had no such express Scripture The very light of Nature and Reason would make this very probably appear to be the will of God to us 1 Because we use in an act of worship a less proper less natural and perfectly human mean and in the mean time we omit a more proper more natural Divine mean 2 Because wee cannot use other mens forms omitting our own gift but we must omit a mean given us by God for the act to use a mean under no Special divine prescription And we think it but reasonable that nothing but a special divine prescription should controle a general rule whether written in Scripture or approving it self to our Reason Especially if it be in matter of Divine worship and to be done ordinarily This is our first Argument delivered and opened with as much freedom and plainness as we are able to express it in We have indeed met with Six or Seven answers but such as we cannot acquiesce in we will fairly relate them all and shew why they apear to us by no means satisfactory § 4 Some have gone roundly to work denying any such gift as the gift of prayer But this is either to deny what is evident to sense viz. That there are some persons able fitly to express their minds to God in prayer or to deny the Scriptures which say Ja. 1. 17. That Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from above from the father of Lights Besides That it stubbeth up all Liturgies of Prayer by the roots none it seems having any ability to make them But those who have thus answered have been very few and very invaluable § 5 Others therefore tell us That all ministers have not this gift and it were unreasonable to presume it in such a clergy as that of England consisting of 9 or 10000 persons To this we answer If they who answer thus intend by all Ministers all who are ordained by men or all those whom the church in some stress of necessity is forced to make use off in stead of ministers have not the gift of prayer we do agree it But if they mean that All those who are sent of God into the ministry have not the gift of Prayer we think we should too much trespass upon the reverence we owe to God if we should grant That hee sendeth any into his work whom hee hath not first fitted for all the parts of it 2 We do grant That there may be such a state of the church when for the present it cannot be furnished with perfect ministers by perfect we mean such as are tolerably fit for all the parts of their work Our forefathers experienced this both in the beginnings of our Reformation in K. Edw. in Qu. Eliz. time as also did our Forefathers Brethren in other churches They were so far from finding persons enough fitted to pray preach that were well affected to a Reformation that they had much a do to find such persons enough that could read And it is said the Priviledge in our courts of Judicature which persons guilty of theft separated from Burglary other crimes have comes from this defect of former ages And we do believe that the Orginal or continuance of Liturgies upon the Reformation owes it self in a great measure to this But we say These were but Tanquam ministers better these then none their Reading may give the people some instruction But 3ly suppose some that must be made use off for the present necessity of the church have not the gift must they therefore who have it be restrained in the use of it We do indeed think that it will be hard to find nine or ten thousand scholars in England furnished with the gift either of praying or preaching in any tolerable manner and one great reason is Because they have been so tied to a Liturgy that they have never applied themselves to the study of the Scriptures and their own hearts as they should but to tie up all to the use of such forms is the ready way never to have such a number Therefore this answer is far from a satisfaction § 6 Another hath told us That the same gift may serve for several uses and he that useth it to one use is in some cases excused from using it in another especially if he be hindred by authority This gift he saith may be used another way both in the worship of God out of it In the worship of God because the same faculty which enableth a man to utter a good prayer to God enableth him to make a good exhortation to people Out of the worship else those Laymen who have it and are no ministers sin This is Ireneus Freemans answer in his book called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But certainly this author had forgot whereof he spake By the gift of prayer must be understood An ability in man fitly to express his mind to God in prayer in asking things agreeable to his will Can this gift or faculty be used in making good orations exhortations to the people or can any thing be spoken more absurdly then to say That the gift of prayer may be put to some other use out of Gods worship Surely the author doth not think it lawful to pray to Saints Angels But by the Gift of prayer he certainly understands nothing but the gift of speaking or at most of speaking sense But surely the gift or ability of working in Brass iron wood are differing abilities or gifts though at several times they be exercised by the same person proceed from the same reasonable soul But distrusting this answer he hath a Fourth § 7 That
the man sinneth not who omiteth a gift when the using of it would hinder another and this he saith excuseth ministers that they do not pray without end but afford some time for preaching yea and for reading too Yea he saith without this most men would be inexcusable if they did not come into the church and make prayers there For in that they do not it is manifest they use not their gift He applies it p. 20. If the laws say that he who will use his gift of prayer shall not use his gift of preaching but lie in prison or worse it is manifest that it is better to use one of these gifts then by using them both to be suffered in the use of none Now good Reader judge if it be possible an ingennous soul should be patient at such Ridiculous trifling was there ever any further question then Whether it be lawful to omit the use of the gift when we are performing the Religious act to which the gift relates Did ever any say They were bound to use the Gift of prayer at all times or onely at all times when they ministred in prayer 2 Is the gift of prayer onely to be used in temples that a Layick may not use it in his family if he hath it Is not this a learned Medium to prove That those who have the gift of prayer may ordinarily omit the use of the gift of prayer given them by God as a mean for it without sin when they are performing the act to which it relates because When they are not to perform such acts but acts of a quite differing species they may omit it He saith The exercise of the gift of Prayer may be omitted when it would hinder the use of the gift of preaching He saith true if the hindrance of the exercise of the gift of preaching proceedeth from the irregular and disorderly use of his gift of Prayer by the voluntary act of him who hath both gifts and stands bound to use both in their order he may omit such a measure of the use of one as would hinder the due use of the other But certainly he otherwise speakes very impertinently and not like a Divine For in that I am hindred in the exercise of the gift of preaching by a meer human law is the fault of others nor can I sin in it if I be free to do it without such circumstances as are sinful It is the sin of others that we are not suffered to do what God hath called us to do and as he hath required us to do it Now whether such ordinary praying would not be our sin is the matter in question God needeth not mans ly for his glory A fifth answer we have met with is That a minister hath a liberty to use his Gift of Prayer before his sermon and in his own private family This is more then any thing before said But 1 It reacheth not the Question for stil he must Ordinarily perform his ministerial Act in Prayer in the omission of the Divine mean given him on purpose for the performance of it for certainly He that useth the prescribed forms of others as oft as he publickly ministreth doth it Ordinarily in his ministerial act 2 If we look wistly into the law we shall find it is but an assumed liberty men take to use their owne gift in prayer before their sermons and this Bp. Wren Cosins understood well enough therefore would indure no such thing where they had to do And this M r. Kemp hath told us in print in a sermon since printed preached in St. Maries in Cambridge with this brand upon such practice That it is a Geneva trick brought in by John Calvin Thomas Cartwright For his liberty left him in his family that is not in his publick ministry besides that we shall shew anon that granting this Principle That obedience to superiors in this case is our duty we lie at mercy for that too and both these pretended liberties may be taken away when our superiours will please to say you shall do so no more § 9 For a Sixt Answer we are slightily told by some That the Church must judge whether her Ministers have such gift of prayer or no But 1 Certainly it were a strange judgment for a church to make that none of her ministers have the gift of prayer 2 Again we freely agree That the church must judge whether men have both the Gift of prayer and preaching too but we say this should be before she trusteth them with the publick ministry for in setting them apart to the ministry she hath passed her judgment That they have an ability both to pray and preach Or else she hath dealt very unfaithfully to her Lord and Master by ordination declaring That Christ hath sent those whom he never sent when she ought first to have proved them 3 If the church hath found her self mistaken she ought to confess her error by removing them from the ministry who are not fit for it not to help them by prescribing them what to say A late Reverend Author Mr. Falconer in his Libertas Ecclesiastica p. 120. hath given us another answer viz. That gifts may be limited which he saith is manifest because by the will of God bounds limits were set even to the use of the extraordinary Gifts of Gods Spirit 1 Cor. 14. 26 27 28 33. This is all which that Reverend Author saith to this argument besides what we shewed the weakness of in our reply to the fifth Answer now to this we answer That the word Limited is a very general term We will freely grant That Limitations may be put and that by present superiors upon the disorderly and extravagant use of Ministerial gifts and that is all which is proved by that text 1 Cor. 14. 26 27 28 33. The words are these v. 26. How is it then Brethren that when you come together every one of you hath a Psalm hath a Doctrine hath a Tongue hath a Revelation hath an interpretation Let all things be done to Edifying v. 27. If any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be by two or at most by three and that by course and let one interpret v. 28. But if there be no interpreter let him keep silence in the church and let him speak to himself and to God v. 33. For God is not the Author of confusion but of peace in all the churches of the saints Here is indeed a direction given by an infallible Apostle for the exercise of those extraordinary gifts A direction whose end was Edification and this by the avoiding of Confusion and a reason given For God is not the author of Confusion The Confusion is plainly by the Apostle signified 1 That several persons who had these extraordinary gifts would at the same time be communicating to their Brethren their Psalms their Doctrines their Revelations their Interpretations Their gift in languages 2 That those who
could speak with diverse tongues never regarded to have what they said interpreted from whence nothing could proceed for Edification while many understood nothing of what was said and manifest Confusion several persons gabling diverse things at the same time To the avoiding of which the Apostle directeth 1 That they should not speak together but successively by course 2 To avoid undue lengths That not above Two or Three at most should speak at the same time 3 That if any should speak an unknown language some one should interpret That what was spoken might be understood by all This is all the Apostle saith Is there any Noncon that will not most freely grant all this 1 That Two or Three ministers should not pray and preach together to the same auditory and if any will be so disorderly the superior ought to restrain them that there be no Confusion 2 That if ministers will protract their discourses to unreasonable lengths they may be restrained 3 That if any be so vain as because he can speak Latine French Dutch or any other language not generally known to his poeple he will pray preach in such language The superiors shall forbid it that by authority of this scripture But surely our Reverend Brother is so much of a scholar a Divine as to conclude That because superiors may thus far restrain the notorious evident abuse of gifts therefore they may as they please limit the use of them yea forbid the use of them ordinarily in the performance of those Acts to which they relate If indeed he could have proved That the Apostle had sent them a Manuscript of his own and we know he had parchments of Prophesies Doctrines Psalms Revelations and commanded them that when they Prophesied taught sang they should ordinarily use them none but them This had come nearer the business yet not home to it till the same Infallibility could be asserted for present superiors as for the blessed Apostle as well as the same constitution of God for them to direct in all matters of worship and Ecclesiastical order which none can deny the Apostles to have been possessed of Yet the Apostle knew the mind of his master too well to send them books to pray preach by but onely directeth them to such an use of those Gifts with which God had blessed them as might be without what all men would cry out off as confused clamorous disorderly and unreasonable because the generality of hearers not understanding them could not possibly get any good or advantage from them Our Reverend Brothers Argument must lie thus If the Apostle Paul might in the Church of Corinth direct that none might speak in anVnknown tongue nor Two or Three gabble together nor any though he were able minister in a language which the people understood not and the Corinthians were bound to obey Then the Church or Churches of the present age may command all their ministers when they pray for three parts of four of their time so spent to spend it in praying omitting any use of their own gifts by reading or reciting the prescribed forms of prayers which they shall send them And those ministers are bound to do accordingly We leave our Reverend Brother upon second thoughts to judge of the validity of this consequence and do believe that it will not justify it self to his own private thoughts we cannot we profess reconcile it to any degree of Reason Here is a manifest arguing from things of one kind to things of another and that quite different It being one thing to restrain the abuse of gifts another thing to restrain the use and that not as to order of time and so as to make the use of them still established even in every individual act intelligible and of use to the church but so as it shall be onely denied or Suppressed as to the far greater Number of those individual acts wherein they should be used The upshot therefore of this argument is Those of our Brethren who will answer this argument must bring us some Medium which will conclude That it is lawful for ministers of the gospel having a spiritual gift given them of God as a proper mean to help them in the performance of their Ministerial acts in solemn publick prayer yet at the command of superiors ordinarily to perform those acts omitting the use of such means and using the prescribed forms of others Which we can by no means agree to 1 Because of the force of the scriptures before mentioned 2 Because we think we should allow men wiser then God if we should in practice prefer a mean of mere human invention before one that is Divine and therefore more proper and we are sure more natural § 8 We meet with no more pretended direct answers to our argument We are aware of the indeavours of some to reduce it to absurdity with what success we shall very shortly examine They tell us that admitting this Principle 1 All those Eminent Divines would be condemned who have used or do before their Sermons use a form of their own composure The vanity of this will appear from our stating the Question 2 He who preacheth must preach ex tempore This is as idle as the other we argue not for praying ex tempore but onely in the use of our own gifts which certainly excludes not previous meditation men may use what of that they please 3 We must not use the Lords prayer Let any one read our question see if it concludes against any such thing 4 The ministers also must make hymns and people must not sing by forms As if we had not scriptural forms to which we are tied in singing composed by men divinely inspired We think Apochryphal Anthems to be sang in publick worship no more lawful then Liturgical forms of Prayer Nor can it be proved that Hymn-making or singing is an ordinary ministerial act Nor that God hath to any promised the gift of Psalm or Hymn-making but it is certain he hath promised the Spirit of prayer Zech. 12. 10. Rom. 8. 26. 5 Nor do they speak any thing more to the purpose who tell us that according to our Principle None must join with others in prayer for the speakers prayer is a form to him The Question is not about him who barely prayeth who hath nothing to do but to exercise his grace but about him who is in prayer to minister unto others 6 We have met with some who have indeavored to encumber this argument with another absurdity telling us that according to this Principle Every minister who is able to interpret the Hebrew of the old Testament the Greek in the new is bound to read the scripture according to his own interpretation and not the translation received in the Church where he ministreth And indeed of any thing we ever heard objected this cometh nearest an argument to bring our Principle to an absurdity But yet we think it
is not sufficient For not to dispute whether Publick Reading of the scriptures be though a good work and fit to be used in the Congregation as Moses was read in the Synagogue strictly a ministerial act we never read Christ saying to his Ministers Go read so as for ought we know The scriptures may in the publick Congregation be read by inferiour officers as is very ordinary in other Reformed Churches we say not to insist upon this which yet were a foundation not to be shaken we take that Principle which if we remember right we have some where read in M r. Capel to be a true Principle That God never yet had a church in any place of the world but he at the first planting of it and so after as there was occasion stirred up the Rulers to employ some in making a true version of the scripture which persons so employed God hath upon experience been found constantly so to asist That they have not erred or mistaken in any point of Doctrine necessarily to be known believed and that it is his will that particular ministers members in such churches in their ordinary use reading of the scriptures should use such version or the version of some other church which they may find more exact perfect This is so fully proved by experience the frequent use which both Christ his Apostles made of the Septuagint version though as full of mistakes as any other if compared with the Hebrew that nothing is to be said against it nor need any more be said in answer to this objection The sum of what is said is this That to interpret the body of scripture to be read to people is no private ministerial act or gift nor is any single minister fit to be trusted with it nor to enter a dissent to the ordinary version used either in the church of which he is a member or some other orthodox church as to a particular text but with great modesty and upon weighty grounds § 9 We think enough said to justify our argument against all answers we have met with and those who are so ready upon all occasions to send us for satisfaction to Mr. Hooker D r. Sanderson should do well to tell us in what Page of either of their works this argument is answered for we can in neither of them find an answer to it Our adversaries may also see that we do not neglect to inquire into all their writings for satisfaction Though it be our misfortune to find them rarely speaking to the true question but first making to themselves a man of straw then pelting him with arguments and immoral language § 10 Hence also appears to our weaker Brethren an obvious reason why some of us can at a pinch hear other ministers pray in the use of such pescribed forms though our selves cannot use them When we join in prayers with others we have nothing to do provided the petitions we hear be according to the will of God but to say Amen exercising our faith c. But if we be our selves to Minister in prayer either we are mistaken which we must first be convinced of or besides the exercise of Grace God requireth also we should use Our Gifts being the mean he hath given us for those acts Whether he who ministreth acquitteth himself to God or no Viderit ipse it is nothing to us let him look to that Nor can there be any thing of scruple in the hearing of ministers praying by the forms of others provided the matter of them be good and according to the will of God Unless some should scruple it as encouraging a minister in that which they judge sinful But why may not we think That he who doth use them doth it in an humble distrust of his own abilities thinks at least that he doth agere optimum do his best Why must we think our selves infallible We dare not judge those who we think have the gift of prayer but think not fit to use it in their ordinary service because their superiors command the omission of it but as we do not judge them so we dare not practice after their copy Whether it be sin in them we freely leave to Gods determination we are sure it would be sin to us As we believe so we speak sowe must act but shall freely listen to what any of our Brethren can say to the taking away of the appearing Probability both of this argument or any other we shall bring In the mean time we would not be crowed over as such dunces who have nothing to say but are hardned with Prejudice blinded with passion biassed by false Principles c. See Dr. Asheton's Ded. Ep. Nor as meerly peevish Grubstreet Divines c. which with abundance more of such brutish stuf another useth Till these confident men have let the world know That they have given a sufficient answer like scholars to what we say and that they are good at something else besides reviling we are not careful to answer them CHAP. III. The second argument The terms opened What is meant by Attention Intention Fervency Both propositions proved M r. Freemans answer considered What M r. Falconer hath said in answer to this argument proved in sufficient The Judgment of the Leyden Professors and the Walachrian classis not duely opposed to this Argument M r. Falconers three reasons why forms should not hinder devotion answered § 1 WE proceed to a second Argument which we thus state To use such a mode in the ordinary performance of our duty in solemn publick prayer as either from the necessary workings of human nature or otherwise upon experience we find either hindring the Attention of our own or others thoughts to the duty or the Intention and Fervency of our own or others Spirits in the performance of the duty when we can so perform it as neither of them will be to that degree hindred is Vnlawful But for him who hath the Gift of prayer ordinarily to perform his ministerial Acts in publick solemn prayer is for him to use such a mode in those Acts of worship as either from the Natural workings of human nature or from some other cause scarce avoidable is upon experience found to hinder his own Attention and also the Attention of others thoughts to the duty and the Intention Fervency of his own others spirits in the duty when in the mean time he hath a natural ability so to perform it as neither of them will at least to that degree be hindred Ergo This we conceive to be what by Mr. Falconer is represented as a second Objection under the terms That it is disadvantageous to devotion We shall with what candor becomes us towards a person of Mr. Falconers worth candor consider both what he saith in answer And also ex abundanti what we find to have been said to less purpose by any others And examine whether what
by the learned Author of Altare Damescenum in conceived prayer The heart is first inflamed and made apprehensive of the Greatness Majesty of God the vileness sinfulness of its self c. And upon the working of these affections words are formed in the mind and then thrust out at the lips In the use of the prescribed forms of others words are first which indeed uttered may excite some affection or in the uttering be attended by some affection but there is a great deal of difference betwixt the workings of the affections thus commanded and prest into the service or thus caused and following words uttered and the workings of affections first inflamed then commanding our words It is true That if a man be to use prescribed forms there may be some general previous preparation of the Affections but he who will deal truly with his own soul will find it hard to keep them up and warm so long as until he cometh to his work Nor do we think it possible that the words of another should so well fit our hearts and be so expressive of raised Affections as our own An orator let him be as much an Artist as he can will find it no easy thing to give one of Tullies Orations recited by him such an accent as he can easily give one whom he himself hath formed There is something not so easy to be expressed what in our own words to express the Affections of our hearts and conducive to keep up their warmth vigour which is not in the words of another which are to the soul as Sauls armour to David we hardly think it possible we are sure not ordinary for a minister to preach a sermon of anothers with that life and vigour with which he can do one formed by himself § 9 If the minister readeth his forms there is a manifest impossibility of the like degree of intention For it is the soul which looking through the eye directeth it so as a man readeth true so is plainly diverted from its immediate contemplation of fixation upon God § 10 But here the author of The Reasonableness of Divine service comes across us tells us for a first answer to this Argument P. 30. He that prays without book especially with Vocal prayer must needs look upon the like Prints and stamps made in the brain or whatsoever things the species are without which a man can neither think nor speak they must be accounted objects And the legible signs in the book do serve to bring the inward phantasms more readily in actual view and to marshal them with less labour diversion or disturbance He saith well or what ever things the species are It is indeed a notion vulgarly received That all understanding is by some sensible or intelligible species or prints of things in the brain But it is very like the author knows that Philosophers have found it hard to determin what those effluvia are Where they lodge How the soul worketh in the use of them and in these things the best Philosopher is but a Lover of wisdom cannot say it shall dy with him Suppose a child born blind deaf yet it may understand something but by what species we cannot tell To say it is by some connate species contradicteth Philosophy Acquired it can have none If we say it is by Infused species we make it an early Enthusiast and we have better ground by far to say That he who prayeth hath such because the Spirit is promised in the case Rom. 8. 26. Because we know not what to pray for § 11 But supposing what he saith That he who prayeth Vocally by words first conceived in his own heart must first attend to the prints in his brain of the words which he is about to utter yet Surely the Author of this answer might have considred 1 That he who readeth forms must first attend to the prints in his book and then to the prints which are made by the Effluvia from the book in his brain before he can speak so as here is a double act whereas the other is but single 2 Again The first attention to the prints in our brains is necessary according to the order of Nature our author himself tells us without them we can neither speak nor think 3 Farther That Attention of the soul within it self is an immanent act but the viewing of a book and the prints there and its excercising it self in the composition of those syllables and words is not so not terminated within the soul not naturally necessary to the action nor necessary from any immediate divine precept But a perfect unnecessary diversion and a most certain hindrance of the minds intension because it is impossible that any created being should in the same action duly intend two objects We remember the schoolmen first supposing what is false That when Christ in his last Supper gave his body to his disciples he did also offer it up as a Sacrifice to God start a question How he could do both these at the same time with a due intension They say he could Quia intentionem habuit perfectissimam Because he had a most perfect intension a Priviledge we hope our Brethren will not challenge for every clergy man But this is enough to have said for the Ministers intention § 12 The Intension of the people is matter of far more subtil disquisition The very learned Author of the book called Altare Damascenum p. 1614 hath this expression Et puto ego auditores c. And I think saith he that the people do feel another kind of flame or Affection when the minister goeth before them in words determined from his affection going before then from affections following after words especially when the hearers are a little wonted to the prescribed forms We do think the same thing and believe it a notion which will justify it self to the experience of every pious deliberate Soul Possibly it is not so easy to assign the true reason of this difference whether it be some secret sympathy of pious souls 2 Or some more special assistance of God to and influence upon his ministers doing their duty suggesting to them what to speak best suted to their peoples souls Or whether we should lay it upon peoples infirmity indisposing them to bend their minds so to forms said over over Which if it be it is such as human nature is not like to quit it self off Nor in our case is it at all necessary to assign the reason The question being onely about the Ansit Whether it be so or no And we cannot but observe that the Author of the Reasonableness of Divine service p. 31. doth after some words confess That he who himself is in speaking affected is most like to affect others if he be as clear as rational and persuasive The Noncon will easily agree that he is not so likely if his discourse be irrational confused dark flat
§ 13 But the same Author offers at a second answer he had granted both the Major Minor proposition The Major p. 22 in these words Every man is bound to pray with the highest intention of mind and fervency of Spirit which can be obtained by lawful means we dare say no Noncon will ask him more The minor he grants again again Sect 7. p. 25 26 27. What will he deny then nothing remains but the Conclusion He would fix this intention of mind in conceived more then in prescribed forms of prayer upon some as he thinks false bottoms He instanceth in 8. 1 Prejudice against the use of forms 2 Novelty of words and phrases 3 The exercise of gifts with which we are more delighted then the exercise of grace 4 The Natural delight men have in their own more then in others Inventions 5 The scope men have conceived in Prayers for glory ostentation 6 The tumults of bodily Spirits 7 The bending their minds in Invention 8 The straining their bodies by drawing out words Now to this we answer First § 14 Either these must be the onely causes of greater Intension fervency of Spirit in conceived then in prescribed forms of prayers or else this is nothing to the purpose and onely concerneth those to whom these alone are the causes of such greater fervor intention But we have before shewed these are not the onely causes but because the soul is not so much diverted c. as it must be in the use of forms § 15 But Secondly When we have reminded our Reader what we understand by fervor and intention of soul we will consider the eight particulars which the Author confesseth contributary to it By the souls Attention we mean It s immediate contemplation of God without diversions to other objects A thing so necessary that the soul which doth not its utmost toward it doth but mock God and cannot be serious with him A Schoolmaster if he can discern it will not indure the Omission of it in a boys saying his lesson to him It is in short for the soul hoc agere indeed to do what it pretends to do My heart is fixed ô God! saith David my heart is fixed By Intention Fervor of Spirit we understand That holy zeal heat which the soul should be in in all religious acts required of all Gods servants Rom. 12. 11. Commended in Apollos Acts. 18. 15. But especially in Prayer called crying unto God A pouring out of our souls hearts before him A wrestling with him as in Jacobs case Hos 12. 4. This prayer is that which St. James calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jam. 5. 16. Thus Epaphras laboured in prayer fervently Col. 4. 12. We mean nothing less by it then the heat of the Brain or the body about which this Author trifleth at a strange rate we mean the heat of the Inward man which lies in the intense motions of the affection of Sorrow in confessing sin Desires in putting up petitions Joy in thanksgivings c. The eagerness of the soul to and in its work That which David calls The souls pressing after God Jacob A not letting God go The Prophet A not being quiet not holding our peace c. The duty required in the first commandment so far as concerneth prayer serving God with all our heart all our soul all our strength This being now every Ministers yea every private Christians duty We say Whatsoever means nature it self reason or our particular experience or Gods word dictateth as proper in order to it we must not we can not in Obedience to mans command barely omit And whatsoever either Gods word or nature it self or reason or our Experience sheweth us will in any degree hinder this it must be sinful let who will require it as being contrary to our Duty expressly required in the First and Great commandment And in many particular Scriptures referrable unto that § 16 This Assertion standeth upon that foundation confessed by all Divines That the precept requiring the end doth also include the means which surely must not be interpreted with an exception viz. Except superiours forbid the use of such means or commands the use of the contrary c. The precept legitimateth the means if another particular divine precept hath not forbidden them which it most certainly hath not § 17 To come then close to our Author 1 If the Bending of the mind to think what to ask of God how to ask it 2 If the exercise of gifts at the same time when grace is to be exercised will conduce to the farther exercise of grace and the not exercising them will in any degree hinder such exercise of grace 3 If the natural proness which is in man rather to have his heart dilate to be fervent in the use of words first formed in his own heart do evince that this fervor doth most usually attend conceived Prayers 4 If the tumult of bodily Spirits as he calls it being first occasioned by the souls intension upon its work being raised once will help the fervor of the soul nay 5 If the novelty of words and phrases will do it and these are five of the eight things which himself confesseth may cause it he must shew us they are sinful causes or he hath granted all we contend for § 18 If indeed as that Author would uncharitably enough insinuate the fervor of him who prayeth by conceived prayer be meerly from prejudice against forms though he should have done well to have opened to us that causation it is something hard to conceive or 2 from a sinful end of Vain glory or foolish ostentatiâ—n we do wholly condemn it And for his Eighth particular to us it wants an Interpreter how straining the body by drawing out words should cause fervency of soul So as what this Author pretendeth for an answer to our arguments is but a bundle of impertinencies having no cognation to an answer And indeed he who had so justly before granted us both Major Minor had nothing to do but like a young Logician to deny the Conclusion or to amuse us what he could with long and impertinent discourses But let us further take notice of some other loose passages in him and see whether any thing in them or in his distinctions will save him harmless § 19 He telleth us This fervency must be obtained by the use of just means This is most true and is not the use of a Gift given us by God for that end a just mean Is it not Natural Rational Scriptural Such a mean as the servants of God have used Is not this a just means think we That which he would have us to believe is That though it be our duty to pray with utmost fervor intention of Spirit and though in order to this Praying in the use of our own gifts be more proper effectual yet if the Magistrate forbiddeth us the use of this Mean it
1 If a man hath an antipathy to forms he saith It is no wonder that he can have but little intention and fervor in the use of them So then he who hath such an infirmity cannot pray with the like intention or fervor by them Now that such an Antipathy is sinful he hath not proved We suppose he doth not mean Natural Antipathy That must be necessary and by his own consequence not sinful If he means Moral It is the same with prejudice The goodness or badness of which depends upon the efficient cause If any be therefore prejudiced against them because he cannot apprehend it a way of worship instituted by God enjoned or practised by the Apostles or Apostolical church Let him demonstrate the sinfulness of this Prejudice we cannot 2 Men may be more intent he saith because of novelty of phrase Be it so so that they be more intent fervent If the newness of phrase will contribute towards it for ought we know it is a blessed Mean For surely it is lawful by Gods law and if by doing what is not in it self sinful we can advantage our selves in doing what is by a divine precept necessary he must by his next tell us why we may not do it 3 He saith p. 26. Nature it self is apt to be more intent and fervent in the exercise of a Gift then of a grace and therefore where there is a place for the exercise of both there may probably be more intention and fervor But say we the use of a gift is just no where forbidden by God but we are commanded to minister it to stir it up not to neglect it c. It is natural rational proper most immediate Given by God on purpose for the Act to which it relates 4 He saith Men are naturally more affected with their own inventions then with the inventions of others What need more What Scripture what reason makes the use of our own invention and words unlawful So that we think Mr. Ireneus hath fully proved that it is unlawful for him who himself hath an ability fitly to express his own and others wants in words unto God in prayer ordinarily to use the forms of others because he alloweth it our duty to serve God with the highest attention of thoughts intention of mind and fervor of Spirit which can be attained by lawful means and he hath also given us four or five reasons why we cannot pray with the like attention and intention by the prescribed forms of others as by words first formed in our own hearts Thus hath Mr. Ireneus concluded against Mr. Freeman and left him nothing to do but to prove That if Superiors command men to serve God in prayer with less Attention Intention Fervency it is lawful and such prayers may be more acceptable to God then such as are put up with greater Attention Intention and Fervor which we shall believe when he hath proved That if the Israelites Superiors had commanded them though they had Males in their flocks yet to offer females they might have lawfully done it and it would have been either as or more acceptable The case is the very same § 24 For what the same Author talks more of the heat of the Body and such as is caused by obstruction of breath and drawling out of words It speaks nothing but the Eructation of a profane heart more disposed to flout at Religion and to take any silly occasion true or false to reproach the Professors of it then to answer a good and solid Argument And so we have done with Mr. Freeman believing we have not left him so much as a figeale to cover the nakedness of his answer § 25 Let us now consider what is said against this Argument by Mr. Falconer the Reverend Author of Libertas Ecclesiastica who p. 120 121. thus speaketh It is further objected that Forms of Prayer are disadvantages to piety and devotion and the Noncon often plead Experience as a Testimony They are the cause of much deadness in mens Spirit and the hinderance of the lively exercise of Religion Hear on the other hand others by experience assert the advantage of set forms to promote Devotion when attended without prejudice and with a Religious design of joining in Gods worship To discern the truth in this difference it may be useful to consult the judgments of such persons as are least partial in this case and yet are able to make a true estimate of damage and advantage and then especially to consider the evidence of Reason which may be produced To which we say § 26 The sensus piorum neither is nor ever was judged by persons of our Reverend Brothers sobriety and worth an inconsiderable argument for the truth of a proposition especially a practical proposition not plainly determined in holy writ nor can be so judged as to the helps of true devotion they being like best to understand the best and truest means who are most exercised in the Acts and constant pursuit of the end Indeed it is very reasonable in this case That if the Proposition be not of that nature as the truth of it is variable with reference to several Christians that the Major part of pious souls and able should be taken into judgment And verily in this case were it possible that all religious souls having themselves the gift of prayer could be assembled we think we might trust the question in issue to their umpirage as to those though pious who have not attained to this gift we cannot judge them competent judges of what they have no experience but this being not to be hoped for § 27 We say we do not think but the experience of Christians may be different in the case and some may find the use of their own gifts more advantageous others may possibly find forms more advantageous it depends much on the degree of the gift which every one hath not in the same measure But this we judge That every one is bound in the duty of prayer to use that lawful mean which he by experience finds most conducive to himself to keep his thoughts attentive his mind intent his heart and affections fervent So as one may be under an obligation not to use forms another under an obligation for the present to use them The obligation here arising from the nature of the thing as it may be the best mean to one and not to another so he is bound or not bound Let not therefore him that useth them condemn him that useth them not nor he that useth them not condemn him that useth them And we do not think matters of this nature fit matter for a superiors command One minister by experience finds it best as M r. Herbert saith In time of prayer to seal up both his eyes shutting up the doors at which a wandring soul useth to go out Another finds it more expedient to keep his eyes open and fixed towards heaven both these aiming
at the same end and using that Mean which in their own experience they find best to keep their thoughts attent their hearts heavenly shall the superiors make a law in this Case That all ministers should pray with their Eyes shut or with their Eyes open or lifted up to heaven We do think such a law would be unjust and he that obeyed it should sin if he found the part commanded what he could not do but his heart more would wander and be less intent and less fervent Liberty in this case ought to be allowed and the private Christian cannot want it because he hath no liberty to serve God with a cold wandring and distracted heart § 28 Our Author p. 121. goth on telling us what the Leyden Professors declare in their Synopsis Disp p 36. Qu. 33. And the Walachrian classis in Apollonius his considerations Controver Anglic. cap. 7. Qu. 2. We will give our Reader a full account of what is said in the case by either of them The Reverend Professors at Leyden Disp 36. Qu. 33. do indeed say That they judge forms of Prayer not onely lawful but also very profitable if they be pronounced with due attention of mind Authority without reason signifieth little let us therefore attend to their reasons which they thus deliver us 1 Because every Christian hath not the gift This doth not at all touch the case as stated by us 2 Because in great meetings Attention is much helped by usual forms whence say they God prescribed a form of blessing Num. 6. 24. Christ used Davids form Mat. 27. 46. And the disciples had a form from Christ Lu. 11. 2. But yet Sect. 34. They confess it it very profitable yea almost necessary that all grown Christians especially pastors should stir up their gift of praying publickly without previous forms that as occasion shall offer it self they may pray and give thanks as the holy men in Scripture did § 29. The Walachrian classis begin with telling us That they do easily agree to the Leyden Doctors and D r. Ames his determination in the place by them there quoted Cas l. 4. cap. 17. Qu. 4. Now in that place that eminent Casuist thus speaketh Having put the question in general about the lawfulness of the use of forms of Prayer He thus answereth 1 It is manifest that it is lawful to use them Aliquando sometimes from the practice of the saints which the Scripture commendeth to us and the forms of blessing there used 2 It is profitable necessary Quibusdam for some to follow such forms though they onely read them out of a book 1 Because some are Adeorudes So raw imperfect that they cannot fitly express their minds in any measure 2 There are others who though they can do it well enough to serve themselves in private yet if they must pray with others they want ability to do it or a liberty we suppose he means a natural liberty of speech to exercise it 3 There are some for whom it is profitable that they may rule their Meditations and desires 3 But none ought to acquiesce in it but to labour for an ability that he may pray without this help for which he giveth us four reasons I Because while a prescribed form doth not follow our affections but plainly lead them he who so Prayeth doth that which is of the Nature of prayer less perfectly Observe that 2 Because in a prescribed form all those particulars cannot be opened which it may concern us to mention to God in prayer 3 Because God is wont in the time of Prayer to stir up in our hearts special Affections which are often hindred and extinguished by keeping to a form 4 Because by this means a laziness fear sluggishness in the performance of the duty creepeth upon us so as the form is onely customarily formally recited Thus far that incomparable Casuist D r. Ames with whom as with the Leyden Professors Apollonius and the rest of the Walachrian Divines in the first place declare themselves fully to consent The sum of what they say is That praying by forms is a less perfect way of praying and therefore not to be rested in but all ought to labour for an ability to pray without this help And surely when they have attained it then they ought to use it But they say Forms of prayer are not things in themselves unlawful But may be used Aliquando ab aliquibus sometimes and by some persons which they expound when men are so raw that they have not the gift or not in a measure fit for publick use or have not a liberty or freedom of speech We freely grant all this but it toucheth not our question § 30 But the Walachrians go on and reject 1 All such forms as are in their matter vicious having any thing illegitemum impertinens indecorum Vnlawful impertinent or indecent And upon this account they in express terms declare against the forms in our late Common prayerbook Whether justly or no we determine not but surely their authority ought not to have been brought by our Reverend Brother to countenance the use of those forms 2 They reject all those forms which by a Tyranny or violent commands are imposed upon mens consciences as parts of worship and absolutely necessary c. 3 Finally They state the Question onely about such a Prescription Quâ ad ordinem decorum cultus divini Ecclesiasticâ authoritate commendantur ut utiles conducentes iis vel facultate idoneâ vel eam exercendi libertate destituuntur c. That is By which they are by Ecclesiastical authority commended as profitable and conducive to them who either want the Gift of Prayer or a liberty to use it to express themselves decently and that by them as by certain means they might be ruled in their meditations desires words and actions and the attention of the hearers especially in great meetings of churches may be helped and directed and an uniformity in the exercises of publick worship may in all churches be observed for avoiding of scandals and for the greater edification of churches We say they do think such forms so used both publickly privatly lawful and profitable so that they be read with due attention reverence faith and Spiritual affection towards God and zeal and that not onely in a case of necessity when a minister wants ability to express himself in prayer or in other parts of Divine worship decently but when the Attention of the hearers is to be directed and helped and an Uniformity in the exercises of Gods worship is to be kept for an edification of the church of God This they prove 1 From the confessed lawfulness of singing by a form 2 Because they conceive that in the use of such forms all the essentials of Prayer may be found and observed 3 From our Saviours Prescription of a form in the Lords Prayer and for the administring of the Sacraments Hence they say
They are approved almost in all Reformed churches § 31 Our Question is not Whether forms of Prayer be lawful or no in themselves we have granted them lawful and expedient to be used where the persons to minister have not the Gift of Prayer or want a natural liberty to use it The Question is onely Whether it be lawful for them to whom God hath given the gift of prayer and a natural freedom to use it Whether they may ordinarily perform the Acts of prayer by the prescribed forms of others We think they may not As a Medium to prove it we have urged this That it at least in many hinders attention intension and fervency The great requisites of prayer What now do these Reverend Brethren say to this indeed they say Wee can say by experience That a prayer holy and lawful as to the matter may be read in a form and offered up to God with an humble sense of our wants with a desire and zeal with holy affections faith and a religious motion of the will towards God as our occasions require This we think too but it toucheth not the Question which is not about the thing in any degree but about the Magis Minus If our Brethren had said That a prayer may be read in a form with an equal attention of thoughts an equal intention and fervor of Spirit as if uttered from the immediate conceptions of our hearts they had then indeed offered their judgment and experience directly contrary to our judgment and experience But let us hear their Arguments § 32 They say The Scripture though in a form may be read with understanding humility reverence zeal a religious motion of the will towards God faith in him an application of the word read to our publick necessities and therefore why may not forms of prayer be so read We answer Because their is a vast difference between the pure words of God for which God both hath and ever will secure a reverence in all religious souls and forms composed by fallible men without any such direction from God Let any Christian experience whether it be possible for him to read any book of mans making a thousand times with that gust and holy reverence and with so little tedium as he may so read the books and chapters of holy Scripture Sic magnis componere parva solemus 2 Besides The due workings of the soul upon God in reading his word and in making known our requests unto him are of a quite differing nature To read the Scriptures fervently and to pour out our souls before God in reading Scripture or to wrestle with God in reading are very uncouth phrases such as we find not in our Bibles But to pray fervently to pour out souls in prayer to wrestle with God in prayer are scriptural proper usual phrases Nor indeed is it possible in the case to say any thing with sense as to prayers which are read For to say A soul may be as intent upon God when it must necessarily at the same time be diverted to look into a book as it might if the eyes were shut or fixed is to say what every persons Reason will tell him is impossible § 33 And to say That the Affections may be equally intense and that the prayer is as perfect when the Affections are made to follow the words as when they do procede them and are the causes of them is what we believe the experience of all serious and considerate Christians will contradict and what as we hear before Doctor Ames doth deny with whom the Walachrians profess fully to agree § 34 Again all the Authorities produced put in an If if they be produced with due attention of mind say the Reverend Professors of Leyden So they be read with attention say the Walachrians Due attention of the mind in this case must be equal attentions to what may be given in conceived Prayers for in the worship of God the highest attention is our unquestionable duty and the mean proper to that is most unqestionably to be used and no creature can controle the use of it and that less proper must be rejected now in this sense we think it impossible that any prayers should be read with Due attention that is with Attention equal to what may be had in praying by immediately conceived Prayer And therefore we cannot but observe That both the Divines of Leyden and those also belonging to the Walachrian classis speak not a word to justify the lawfulness or utility of reading Prayers Ex libro pronuncientur say the Walachrians which indeed if it be the minister may for ought we yet discern do his work with Equal Attention of thoughts For the attention of the hearers we yet a little doubt it and think that the prescribed forms of others or constant use of the same form though composed by the minister himself will be found so far from being conducive to allure or promove peoples attention that through the corruption to which we shall find all our own hearts subjected they will rather be a Temptation to the contrary Which makes us admire that our Reverend Brethren should so much as mention it as a due medium in the case § 35 It is manifest to us that both the Professors at Leyden and the Walachrians and Dr. Ames also speak rather to the question about the lawfulness of the use of Forms in general Then about the lawfulness of ministers using them And that all ministers and ordinarily as well such as have the gift of prayer in an eminent degree as such as have not Therefore the first Reason which the Professors at Leyden give and Dr. Ames also is Because all Christians have not the gift and the Walachrians in their stating the question Profess onely to speak to the case Where men want an ability or a liberty to exercise it Neither can we understand them concerning forms Vniversally imposed The word used by the Walachrians is Commendantur nor is there a word in any of them to justify the lawful use of forms imposed upon all ministers They have indeed some expressions which would make one think They judged it lawful for some ministers having the gift of prayer in publick to use the prescribed form of others commended to them sometimes For the second Reason given by the Doctors of Leyden is Because in great meetings attention is much helped by usual forms which the Walachrians also hint But we cannot possibly fathom this and think the contrary is demonstrable § 36 The Walachrians also urge some other reasons cursorily 1 That he who prayeth by them may be ruled in his meditations desires words and actions 2 That uniformity in all churches may be observed Scandals avoided The church edified Nothing in it self sinful can be done to avoid scandal nor can possibly tend to edification so as Those kind of arguments have no place while we are disputing the lawfulness of the thing In short but one
That the use of forms not particularly directed by God or parts of holy writ by reading them doth not prejudice devotion by hindring Attention Intention Fervor § 39 Our Reverend Brothers Second argument is thus by him stated p. 22 Because it is generally acknowledged that the singing of Psalms of Prayer and Praise may be advantageously performed by a set form of words and the holy Scriptures are not the less edifying nor the less applicable to our selves because they are conteined in set forms of words and both in reading the Scriptures and in prayer our hearts ought to be moved towards God though in something a different manner The Argument is this What in singing of Psalms and Reading and Applying the Scriptures doth not prejudice Devotion That in Prayer doth not prejudice devotion But set forms of words doth not as we confess prejudice Devotion in singing Psalms of Prayer and Praise nor in the reading and applying the Scriptures Ergo. The whole argument may be granted For it concludeth nothing against us Proceeding ex ignoratione Elenchi upon a mistake of the Question which is not about the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the use of set forms But of forms of words set us by men confessedly not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not authorized and directed by God to make such forms for general use by any special command The Minor therefore should have been laid thus But set forms of words in singing Psalms of Prayer and Praise being no parts of holy writ nor made by God or penmen of holy writ do not hinder devotion And if it be so formed we shall deny it for it is most certainly false § 40 For reading the Scriptures our Reverend Brother knoweth We can both shew him Precepts in Scripture for it and also Promises made to it if he can shew us but one precept for reading forms of Prayer or one promise made to it he will then have said something These precepts and promises are of that moment in the case That they make Reading the Scriptures on Gods part A sacred institution on our part A necessary duty And by reason of the promise to be done in faith Let our Reverend Brother if he can say as much for forms of Prayer made by men in these days § 41 The same may be said of the Psalms of prayer and praise which we sing They are such forms as God hath canonized and to which in our singing we conceive our selves limited Our Brother knows or may know we are as much against singing by others set forms as against Praying ordinarily by the set forms of others Besides it poseth us to fancy how it is possible that a whole Congregation should sing the same thing together otherwise then by a set form The peoples voices that we know are no where required in Prayer And for the meeter which some make an objection if it be not consonant to the Psalms in prose we abhor it if it be The words are but the words of Scriptures limited by measures for the apparent order and decency of the action singing being Gods institution it is not to be doubted but it may by a careful soul be performed by such Attention Intention and Holy workings of the soul upon God as he hath directed and will accept in the action § 42 But neither is the Major of our Reverend Brothers argument unquestionable for he knows and confesseth That the workings of the soul upon God and the motions of the soul towards God in Prayer are different from its workings and motions in Reading and Singing In Reading and Singing their should be 1 Some contemplation and intuition of God 2 Attention to what we are about 3 An exercise of faith believing what we read and sing to be truth But in prayer is required A more immediate intuition and contemplation of God 2 A striving and wrestling with God for the obteining what we ask therefore it is expressed By calling upon God crying to him pouring out our souls before him a wrestling with him a listing up of our souls it must be with strong crys groans Heb. 5. 9. Rom. 8. 26. Now that this cannot be done in reading of forms prescribed by fallible men or at least not so well done as when the soul hath nothing to do but meerly to look up to heaven and thrust out its own words by which it expresseth its own conceptions is to us next to a demonstration Besides there is as we conceive another Act of faith to be excercised in Prayer then in Reading the word c. viz. A particular motion of the soul devolving itself upon God and trusting in him for the granting of what we ask of him But enough is said to shew That neither is the Major of our Reverend Brothers Argument unquestionable § 43 His third Argument to induce us to believe that such forms do not hinder devotion is in p. 123. laid thus Because all the ages of the church from the First centuries have used them as an advantage to Religion and it is not at all probable that such excellent devout and religious men as the Fourth and Fifth Centuries abounded with should be so stupid and dull spirited as not any of them to discern between the helps and hindrances of devotion in matters of most ordinary practice wherefore though many mens minds may be most pleased and delighted with a variey of expression yet There is no prejudice to piety from a set form farther then this is caused by a prejudice against a set form and by want of a Religious temper to join in it The Argument is this What all ages of the Christian church especially such devout and judicious men as lived in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries judged no hindrance to devotion is no hindrance But all ages of the Christian church more especially those devout and Religious men who lived in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries judged prescribed forms of prayer to be read no hindrance to devotien Ergo. The Major is onely proved by It is not probable for certainly it was possible The Minor is taken for granted § 44 In the first place we cannot but observe The phrases our Reverend Brother useth they used them as an advantage to Religion So they might and yet they might be a disadvantage to the particular devotion of a great Number We do believe that the English Liturgies established in Ed. 6. Qu. Eliz. time was a great advantage to Religion in the nation in general so great an ignorance having prevailed upon the nation in general in the times of Popery as few were able to read much less to compose prayers But the tying of those to the use of it whom God had furnished with abilities that they needed it not was notwithstanding this A great disadvantage both to their particular devotion who had such gifts and so our Brethren at Francfort judged in Qu. Maries time and the general devotion of the whole church as to future
to neglect or despise it and to omit it and use others directed by man would be an implicit owning the wisdom of man as paramount to and excelling the wisdom of God 4 God hath also as we conceive expresly in his word forbidden the use of any other mean in his worship then what either nature sheweth us and directeth us as necessary as we cannot speak a prayer without the use of our tongue or what he hath prescribed in his word The first of these needeth no proof § 2 To prove the Second we need say no more then this That it is evident That the use of a mean in worship which ought not to be used quite altereth the nature of the worship and of true maketh it false To pray to God is an act of true worship but if a man in prayer set an image before him as a mean of worship it makes it idolatry So as in worship none can pretend a right to prescribe a mean but he that hath also a right to prescribe the act § 3 For the proof of the third hypothesis we desire but an instance of any Act of worship for which we cannot shew a sufficient mean either by the Light of nature or Scripture directed As to what is the matter of our present debate both the Light of nature sheweth our own invention a sufficient mean and Scripture commands us to minister as we have received the gift § 4 But for the last which we think will be most stumbled at we shall onely mention the second commandment The sense of which we say is this Thou shalt worship in no other way by no other mean or religious rites then what I have prescribed The term Graven image is undoubtedly a Generical term figuratively put to signify not onely that but any other mean that hath no more of divine institution then that hath And if this be not the sense of it it will be impossible to reduce all the precepts in Scripture relating to the manner of external worship to the second precept in the Decalogue To spare saying over again what hath already been said in justification of this we refer our Reader to a book of Mr. Cottons called Advertisements upon a discourse of set forms of Prayer p. 17 18 19 20 c. § 5 The minor proposition standeth firm until our Brethren have shewed us where God hath prescribed any such mean But here again our old Adversary M r. Freeman cometh across us and tells us There is a general command for forms of prayer when they are imposed for we are enjoined in Scripture to obey our Rulers in such things as Gods word doth not forbid and such things are forms To which we answer 1 That we can find no precept in Scripture in the terms mentioned by him 2 The same argument will prove that it is the duty of Priests in popish countries in baptism to use salt oyl spittle and cream Rulers require it where hath Gods word expressly forbidden the use of them 3 We do not know what he meaneth by not forbidden There is an explicit and an implicit forbidding God by determining the Acts of his worship and directing sufficient means for the performance of them hath we say consequentially forbidden any other means to be used § 6 But he telleth us that Both in words and deeds we grant That a particular command or example is not necessary we suppose he means to justify any acts or the use of any mean in the stated worship of God or else he saith nothing to the matter in question For we sing Hopkins and Sternholds Psalms for which is no particular command 2 We anoint not with oyl though St. James doth command it Because we meet with this so often we who take our selves to be ready to give account of our faith to every one that asketh us shall once for all tell him what we believe and hold in this great point § 7 We believe the Holy Scripture to be a full and perfect rule as of Doctrine so of worship both as to the Acts and Means of it with no other help then the light of nature directing the application of some common circumstances either necessary to all human actions as time and place are and some common actions and signs signifying no more in sacred then in civil actions and this either from nature or the general guise and custom of the countries wherein the worship is performed 2 Hence both we and all Protestants deny a power to any man to institute New ordinances of worship for which there is in Gods word no particular precept or example either of Christ or his Apostles And certainly worship being nothing else But an homage done unto God in consideration of his excellency It is every whit as reasonable That God should direct both the Acts and Means and Rites of his worship As that an Earthly Potentate should direct his subjects or servants the manner of their addresses to him or the habits they should appear before him in Gods word especially declaring against will worship 3 Hence we judge All Acts religious Rites and Means of worship prohibited by God which either in express terms or by first consequences from some Scriptural Propositions are not in the word of God prescribed or Commanded But natural Reason assuring us That as all human actions must have some circumstances So Religious worship being a human action must have some appendant circumstances either such as are necessary to all human actions of which number are time or place or necessary for actions of that nature So we judge it as reasonable That a bell or a Trumpet should call people to worship God as scholers living in several colledges to a Convocation or Towns men living scattered up and down the town to a townhouse or Assembly We take Pulpits and Pewes Churches to be as reasonable as that in the Sessions the Judge should have a Cushion and a Taller-seat or the Major in a Guildhal or that the Commoners or Aldermen being to sit two or three hours all that time should not be put to stand but have seats pewes In this sense it is true that D r. Ashton in his case of persecution hath told us 48 after 40 before him These circumstances must be and are not determined in Scripture We do yeild our superiours a great power in determining these Circumstances of Religious duties as they are human actions without which they are neither at all to be performed or with no Conveniency Nay further There are some Circumstances necessary upon the account of Decency the not observing of which would make the action appear either from the light of nature or from the guise and custom of the country irreverently brutishly and indecently performed If any will come naked or half naked or shoulder-naked into a religious assembly or pray to God with his hat on we believe superiours may as well restrain them as they may restrain one
This is indeed true notwithstanding any law or canon yet extant onely diverse of those ministers who use any family prayer who are to be too the examples to the flock do not think fit to use it but there also limit themselves to the publick book But the question is Whether supposing it be lawful to obey superiours commanding us to perform our ministerial acts ordinarily in publick solemn prayer by the prescribed forms of others yea and necessary too supposing hereafter superiours should command men to do the like in their families obedience also in that case would not be both lawful and necessary We have a scriptural instance of a Magistrates edict reaching to families We must profess if we could grant the obligation and judge it lawful to obey in the first which is our present case we cannot see with what pretence of Scripture or Reason we could avoid obedience to a superiors command in the Second case and we would gladly learn of our Brethren § 4 Nay supposing a law of the Latitude of that of Nebuchadnezzar extensive to a closet also That we should no where pray to the God of heaven but in the use of the church prayers What should hinder but that it should be lawful yea necessary to yeild a ready active obedience to it Will any one say That it doth not follow That because we are bound to obey Magistrates commands for worship in publick prayers and publick places therefore we should be bound to obey the same commands made to extend to private worship and places such as houses and closets We must profess we are of another mind and not able to assign any sufficient reason to the contrary and should be glad to hear any could teach us Our dull souls reasón thus Are not Magistrates and Subjects Relatives and is not dominion the foundation of the Relation and Relatives use to go together surely look how far the superiours Dominion and right to that extendeth so far obedience will be found a duty So as the question onely will be Whether the Magistrate hath not a dominion over his subjects in their private houses and closets If he hath his commands reach them there which if they do if the matter be lawful say our Brethren it is necessary to obey and why is not a command as lawful enjoining the constant use of prescribed forms there as in Churches or Temples Now the Magistrates daily and confessedly just punishing enormities in families closets bedchambers are sufficient instances of the extent of the Magistrates dominion to those private places and consequentially evince the duty of obedience supposing a command if in a matter wherein the law of God hath given him a power to oblige his subjects And although it be true That the Magistrate cannot take such a cognisance of what is done in private houses and closets yet that signifies nothing in the case for our question is Whether supposing such a command it might with a good conscience be obeyed If it might then it must be obeyed according to our Brethrens principle then whether the Magistrate knowes of the disobedience or no matters not yet he may come to the cognisance of it by children by eves-droppers by confessions c. The soul of the offender how ever is made guilty and stands bound over to the Judgment of the great day So as we profess we cannot see but if we might lawfully in obedience to man perform our ministerial acts in prayer by the prescribed forms of others if the superiour commandeth We may lawfully also use nothing else but those forms in our families and closets Nay we must use no other in case of such a command so as we cannot do it without implicitly saying If the Magistrate commands us to use no other prayers while we live but the Publick prescribed forms either in publick or in private either before or after sermons either in our houses or closets we do judge that it is sinful for us to use any other though by this means the gift of prayer in all the ministers of Christ shall plainly be suppressed and made of no use § 5 We can by no means be satisfied with what we hear some say think it a sufficient answer viz. That though man may impose in part yet he may not impose upon the whole use of any ministerial gift such a command they say ought not to be obeyed This appeareth worse then a figleaf to our consciences For 1 Who shall determin what is the Quota pars How far he may impose or not impose 2 By what rule shall that limitation be made The word of God directs him no more to impose upon a part then upon the whole Let us but understand by what rule of Scripture or Reason he shall limit us to pray by forms in the Desk and not in the Pulpit Though he do's go so far he leaves room for the use of gifts in families nay why may he not command the like in families He leaves room yet for the use of gifts in the closet We know when he go's to visit the sick he must keep to them we must wait to hear what other answers our Brethren shall make to this Argument we can see no evasion from it CHAP. VI. The Fifth Argument stated from the Equal lawfulness of obeying a command requiring Ministers ordinarily to preach sermons composed by others The unlawfulness of obeying such a command proved The Proposition argued betwixt commands for forms of prayer and forms of Sermons The Vanity of Ireneus Freemans discoursed in pretending to shew a different reason Because in Prayer the Minister speaks in the name of the people and because all points to be preached on cannot be comprehended in forms § 1 WE proceed to a Fifth Argument To agree a principle which agreed would allow man also a power when he pleased to suppress all ministerial gifts in preaching is sinful But to agree it lawful for ministers to obey man in performing their publick ministerial acts in Solemn prayer by the prescribed forms of others were to agree a Principle which once agreed would allow man a power when he pleased to suppress all ministerial gifts in preaching Ergo. We do know that some of our Brethren here will deny us the Major and allow man a power to suppress all preaching and it hath been whispered in some both Pamphlets and Pulpits That Preaching in a constituted church is needless and serveth onely to breed Disputes and Schisms It was indeed necessary at the first for the first plantation of the gospel when men were Pagans But now they are converted it is not necessary As if There were not a conversion from sin to God necessary to salvation as well as from Paganism to a Christian Profession If some of these men had not plowed with a Popish Ass and a Socinian Heifer they had never found out this Riddle Dr. Fuller in his church history p. 262. tells us That it was the
prayer or of a Sermon in the Directory Who ever heard any minister tying himself to the words there Doth not the name shew the matter of that book It onely directs the general matter which fourty other books do both as to Prayer and preaching and surely it is a charitable work Where doth it so much as direct much less prescribe a form of words or command the use of any such thing M r. Freemans Readers must take heed they look with their own eyes for never were more impudent imposings of that nature then some men are now hardy enough to make But possibly he goes on to more purpose I cannot saith he conceive them to be so unlearned as yet to learn why forms of sermons should not be imposed as well as forms of Prayer A mans mother-wit may prompt him with two Reasons We must confess we are so unlearned and ready to sit at this Gamaliels feet if he can instruct us in the case and onely fear his Mother-wit as he calls it not sufficient to instruct us or any part of the reasonable world in this point But let us hear his two Reasons for any thing of that nature shall be welcome to us His first Reason as he calls it he thus delivereth § 5 Because in the Sermon the minister speaketh what he thinketh is true if it appeareth otherwise the people may reject it But in prayer the Minister in the name of the people for he saith not I but we presenteth desires to God which sometimes happen to be quite contrary to the desires of some yea of all the people It may possibly fall out that the people cannot join with him in one expression whereby it comes to pass That both the Ministers Prayer is a falshood and that the people being in a praying posture do make a kind of Profession that they say Amen to those petitions which their souls Abominate Which makes it appear why there is more Reason that people should know beforehand what shall be prayed then what shall be preach which foreknowledge is the effect of forms To all which we answer That foreknowledge indeed may be the effect of forms provided that he who Readeth readeth them true at which we have more then once heard some very unhappy but the Question is what need there is That people should aforehand know the Words and Syllables by which their minds should be expressed to God more then the Words and Syllables by which Gods will should be declared unto them both duties must be done in the exercises of Faith Love Reverence Meekness Humility c. The pretended Reason now produced by this acute Author is Because in preaching the minister speaketh what he thinkes to be truth and if it be otherwise the people may reject it It is true That the Minister in speaking if he be not a very wretch speaketh what he thinketh to be true and that too in a Theological sense for he is the steward of the mysteries of God and of stewards it is required that they should be faithful he is the Embassador of Christ and God intreateth by him 2 Cor. 5. 20. It is as true That it is possible that a ministers words may be otherwise What Remedy hath the people They may reject them he saith that is not believe them 2 They may if he goeth on complain to the church who are to say to Archippus Take heed to thy Ministry If yet he will go on in such kind of preaching they may and ought to remove him Is it not the very same case as to Prayer should not he who prayeth petition for such things as he believeth to be according to the will of God Suppose he doth not May not the people at the time withold their Amen May they not complain of him to the officers of the church Should not they admonish him And if he go's on remove him from his station What shadow is here of different Reason But he saith In Prayer the minister speaketh in the name of the People for he saith not I but we Pitiful And when he is preaching doth he not speak in the name of God Is he not in Christs stead 2 Cor. 5. 20. We would have the reader but consider Which ought more warily to be done Is there a fear that the minister in Prayer should beg of God something which the people would not have him ask which indeed as to many of the people who have no mind to be purged of their lusts he doth every time he prayeth as he ought to pray And is there no fear that in preaching the Minister should declare something which God would not have him declare And is not this full as ordinary and a thousand times greater error For it is not the peoples willings that is our Rule in prayer but Gods will on the behalf of people And we think The same reveiled will of God is the rule of our preaching too as well as Prayer And we would fain know Why the people may not withold their Amen in Prayer as well as in Preaching And their faith and Assent in hearing Are not these subtil ratiocinations for one to Domineer over his brethren with He saith It may sometime so happen that a Prayer may be put up and the people cannot join in one Petition That surely is a rare case And it may be it is nothing but the error and lusts of their hearts hinder them but that in the same prayer they may join in every petition the Prayer for all this may be for things according to the will of God and in the name of Christ which is the ministers rule not the peoples sentiments and lusts But let us now compare Is is not possible also That a preachment or Harangue may be made in a pulpit in which the people cannot find one entire proposition which they can give assent to How many discourses of late years have we had in Pulpits pretending to prove Men have a natural power to things Spiritually good That we are not justified by the imputed Righteousness of Christ but by our own works How many perfect Satyrs Raillerys and Evomitions of the lusts and choler in the Preachers hearts Such as people could not assent to one Proposition nor in hearing exercise the least Faith Love or Reverence but according to Gods will they have abhorred and abominated But he saith The people being in a praying posture do make a profession of assent to the Petitions which they abominate Doth their posture do it in prayer will not their presence and sitting still do the same in hearing May they shew their dissent in preaching by turning their backs and departing and may they not do the same in Prayer if they see cause So as this first pretended Reason signifieth just nothing Nay it may be improved to an higher advantage for us See the Commissioners Accompt of their Proceedings p. 20 21. It is known that in Preaching a man hath far greater
opportunity to vent a private opinion then in Prayer It is known de eventu That it is much more ordinary And if you say that in Preaching The minister speaks not the words of the Church but his own nor unto God but man and therefore it is a less matter We answer It is as considerable if not much more from whom he speaketh then to whom In preaching he speaks as a minister of Christ in his stead and name 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. And it is as an higher so a more Reverend thing to speak in Gods name to people Then in the peoples name to God and to speak that which we call Gods word Truth or Message Then that which we call our own desire We make God a liar or corrupt his word if we speak in his Name a falshood we make but our selves lyars if we speak a falshood to him in our own names The former therefore is the more heinous and dreadful abuse and more to be avoided We might further add That if there were any reason in this Reason it would be of equal force against all conceived Prayers before others as well in the Pulpit as in the Desk as well in the family as in the more publick Congregation Let us now see if Ireneus Freemans Second Reason hath any thing more in it He gives it us in these words § 6 Because the minister in his preaching is to expound confirm and apply all the Articles of faith as occasion shall be which is a work would require many days if not years It would be endless to comprice the substance of all Sermons in forms But we pray for the same things continually and therefore the Directory saw reason to put down the matter of prayer though not of sermons Here the Author forgot he but even now had told us the Directory had put many lamentable restraints upon preaching Here now we confess is something that hath a great shew of Reason Against the flail of Necessity there is no defence It must be obeyed and hath no law If it be true as he saith That forms of sermons cannot be made comprehensive of all we are to preach he saith something To prove this he assumes 1 That the minister in preaching is to open confirm and apply all the Articles of faith 2 That the substance of these cannot be comprehended in forms The First is granted but the stress lieth upon the Second and our advantage is That no medium will serve him to make it good But That they are infinite for if they be finite they may doubtless with all their appurtenances of Explication Confirmation and Application be limited by forms The question is not whether 12 or 24 forms will comprehend them But whether No Number of forms are comprehensive of them Are not all the Articles of faith with plentiful Explication Confirmation and Application of them conteined in many books Suppose now supperiours should command all Ministers in stead of studying the Scriptures and composing discourses of their own to read some of these books by portions The question is Whether they might lawfully do this instead of composing sermons themselves and then preaching them or of he should command them That for three parts of four of their time used to be spent in sermons of their own They should do this and leave them at liberty for a fourth part to preach from their own parts and abilities Were this lawful If he saith yes we are sure that D r. Ames M r. Perkins and all valuable authors we have met with have determined the contrary and do believe the whole company of Christian hearers would be found of another mind And could we think this lawful We should see no further need of Vniversities then to accomplish a few Gentelmen with some Philology for which four colledges might serve in stead of 34. If he saith Such a command were not lawful nor could lawfully be complied with We would understand the Reason why All ministers might not in this case lawfully obey Certainly it must be because in doing this They should contrary to the Apostolical command Neglect the gift that is in them or not stir it up nor rightly divide the word of God instead of shewing themselves workmen that need not be ashamed they should shew themselves no workmen at all If such a thing might not be lawfully commanded what can be the reason but Because man who hath no power but what he deriveth from God can have no power to suppress and smother those ministerial gifts with which the most wise God hath immediately furnished his ministers with as means in order to their ministerial acts and by their having or not having of which the Church must judge whether God hath called or not called them to the ministry We do here allow our superiours both in church and state a great power 1 In regard that he who desires that office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desires a noble work and that a Bishop as the Apostle saith should be blameless c. apt to teach 1 Tim. 3. 1 2 3. Holding the mystery of faith in a pure conscience v. 9. and therefore v. 10. He must be first proved We say the church is to prove them whether they be indeed sent of God or meerly thrust on by their desire of gain or love of preheminence And in this judgment we say The church acteth in the place of God and we do think the Christian Magistrate may appoint some of the church to do this work 2 In regard all men are fallible and those entrusted with this Judgment may be mistaken in their judgment and find that the persons they have sent our are not what they took them for but blameable persons lazy covetous unfit to teach winebibers strikers men of ill report unsound in the faith we do allow a judgment to the church in case any be found such to say to Archippus Take heed to thy ministry to admonish them to remove them and we say the Magistrate may command this from the church but still allowing them men fit for their stations We say None can hinder them in the use of their gifts though they may be restrained in and reproved for the abuse or disorderly use of them For what the superiour doth he doth vice Dei in the place of God and God having given his ministers gifts as means in order to this work cannot be presumed to will the omission of them whence it must follow That the commands of the church in such a case are contrary to the will of God and to be superseded by It is better to obey God then man The same reason holds against forms of prayer to be imposed upon all ministers yet certainly forms of Preaching are as necessary 1 For Vniformity 2 To prevent Heresy 3 For people to know and deliberate beforehand what they should give their assent unto which are the great arguments for forms of Prayer to which we shall hereafter
speak particularly § 7 Mr. Freeman assumeth in the third place what is false viz. That we are continually to pray for the same things Certainly we have neither the same sins at all times to confess nor the same wants at all times to begg a supply of nor the same receipts of mercy at all times to give thanks for and therefore forms of prayer will no more fit us then forms of preaching where neither have we any new gospel or doctrine to preach Witness that known Ipswich story Where an eminent son of the church not being able out of the Liturgy to fit the case of the man that was goared by an Ox with a thanks giving was put to it to read in his case The office for churching women We must profess we tremble at the force of the consequence of this Argument so horrid a thing do we look upon it to establish a power in man at his pleasure to smother and totally to suppress ministerial gifts The great means which God hath thought fit immediately to give and by his word to appoint for converting and perfecting souls and make them wholly useless That we stand amazed that any understanding Christian should agree to it § 8 But we hear some saying That they do not agree to any such power though they think they shall not sin in obeying such a command yet they think the superior sinneth in commanding To which we answer We must grant that there are many things which the superiour cannot command but he must sin yet the people may without sin obey if they be commanded And in requital to us for this concession we are sure the most wise and sober of our brethren will grant to us That there are thousands of other things which can neither lawfully be commanded nor obeyed if commanded The question is in which order of things The ordinary discharge of our Ministerial acts in prayer by the prescribed forms of others is Or whether in neither of them but such as may both be universally commanded also used Our Brethren we believe judge the last but for advantage against us Suppose them in the first order we think them in the Second order Because Prayer is a divine institution Praying and Preaching are both so and great means in order to the conversion edification and eternal salvation of souls and that in order to both of them God hath furnished his ministers with gifts Man saith you shall not use that means but another mean in the performance of those acts which I judge more accommodate to this end then your own gift To say no more Those who think That obedience in this case is not a disobedience to God seem not to have that Reverence for God which we desire that our souls may be possessed of to judge his wisdom paramount to the wisdom of men § 9 When we could relieve our selves by thinking But there is yet no such thing required of us or ordinarily to perform our ministerial acts in preaching by reading sermons made to our hands We find we cannot because our consciences tell us we grant the Principle That it may be done and if commanded we are obliged no more to dispute such command In granting man a power to suppress or smother one ministerial gift we yeild him a power for him to impose upon us as to the other and oblige our selves to obey We must profess let others think what they please we cannot but judge That those who can swallow this and stumble at a Ceremony do but strain at a gnat while unwarily they swallow a camel This is more to us then a thousand surplices or rings in marriages But we have said enough to establish this argument which we cannot find any where answered in the All-satisfying Mr. Hooker CHAP. VII The Sixth Argument Stated and Justifyed Whether the precept for ministerial Vocal prayer includes not the use of our own gifts The precept for preaching ordinarily so interpreted There is in all languages a difference betwixt the words that signify to Read and those by which the Action of Prayer is exprest § 1 WE proceed to a Sixth Argument which we thus form To pretend to perform an act of Divine worship and at the same time not to do it is sinful But for ministers furnished by God with the gift of prayer to perform their ministerial Acts in prayer by the prescribed forms of others is to pretend to the performance of an act of Divine worship and at the same time not to do it Ergo. The proposition will be granted by all who will be so just as to acknowledge It is sinful both to mock God and to deceive our own souls so as all we have to prove is the Assumption and that depends upon the resolution of this single question Whether the Precepts for Vocal ministerial prayer doth not imply the first forming of the petitions in our hearts which we utter with our lips Where we desire our Reader to observe That the question is not about the precept for Prayer in the general but about Vocal prayer when we are to express the desires of our hearts by the words of our lips such is all Ministerial prayer The case is quite otherwise when we onely pray but do not minister in prayer We know Hannah may pray and her voice not be heard but we also know That a minister in his publick ministry must not so pray as we hope all will grant Now we profess we do very much incline to the affirmative part of the question That is we think wheresoever God hath commanded his ministers in their Publick ministry to pray The meaning is That they should first in their own hearts form such petitions as they judge according to the will of God both on their own behalf and their peoples and then to express such conceptions and desires by their own words and we are induced thus to judge from these reasons § 2 The whole world almost the Christian world we mean thus interpreteth for Preaching No sober Divine that ever we met with ever said that a minister of the gospel could discharge his ministerial office in preaching no not in one Individual Act by reading or reciting another mans sermon Mr. Perkins Dr. Amer two of our Protestant Casuists determin the quite contrary and tell us That To Read or recite another mans sermon is not to preach and therefore a late hypercritical son of the church took himself concerned in a book printed some few years since to distinguish between Preaching and Teaching and took upon him to learn us a new lesson That a Minister is not bound to Preach but to Teach And that if we may believe him he may do By reading anothers Sermon or good book By writing a good book By setting another to teach By living a good life c. But none we know off ever affirmed That to read or recite another mans Sermon was a lawful discharge of the
do onely that which the meanest person in the church had a natural ability or power to do There is nothing plainer in the whole book of God then that God hath established a peculiar order of persons to be his ministers in his name to declare his will unto his people and on their behalf to intercede with God in prayer Now if they may do the one by forms of sermons made for them and the other by forms of prayer also made for them This is no more then the meanest of their people could do as well as they it requireth no extraordinary knowledge in the Scriptures no study and meditation c. The minister of the gospel would onely stand distinguished from the people by imposition of hands upon him He would have nothing to do but what any one might do supposing him under the same circumstances of ordination The Apostle Paul needed onely have given Timothy a charge to have found out faithful men for such as should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 able they were easy enough to find if this were all the ability requisite Now we cannot entertain any such thoughts of God especially considering how much care he hath taken in his word For a double honour for such as labour in the word and Doctrine which Divines do interpret of Reverence and Honour and Maintenance And if that be not the sense of that phrase yet we are sure that both of them are by many other Scriptures required for the ministers of the gospel Supposing this were lawful there were no great reason for either 1 Not for any peculiar maintenance it were but ordaining so many of the people and that charge might be saved Besides the reasonableness of maintenance depends very much upon their separation from worldly businesses that they might study and attend to their office and be fit for their work but none of this were needful if the great acts of their ministerial office might be so discharged 2 For Honour and Reverence God that knoweth our frame knew it would be hard to gain of the world a reverence for those whom people should onely see their superiors in a notion or by an inoperative character We therefore observe that God himself when hee called any to a place of publick employment constantly capacitated them to some farther noble and powerful actions then others could do or set upon them some special sensible marks of his favour by which rationally an honour and reverence was gained for them Moses is called up to the mount his face shineth so as they were not able to look upon him Moses and Aaron are empowred to do miracles So also the Prophets and the latter to soretel future contingencies The Apostles work miracles speak with tongues c. and though these extraordinary miraculous operations be ceased which were at first to give the gospel credit in the world yet he still gives gifts unto men and that which gains a reverence for ministers is when people see them in gifts and graces higher by the shoulders then themselves There is nothing of such efficacy to destroy the ministry and to make the officers and offerings to be a contempt as to let the people see or to induce them to believe that they are no other then what the meanest of them could offer And of this every day giveth such an ample experience That it were idle for us to spend many words in the proof of it But this would follow viz. That God hath erected a sort of officers to do that which the meanest people might do as will as they if it be lawful ordinarily to perform ministerial acts in Prayer and preaching by the prescribed forms of others for setting aside the application of those general acts there is nothing in the administration of the Sacraments but any one may do who hath hands and a tongue This makes it very probable to us That this principle is false and that it is not lawful c. § 2 It were an easy thing to multiply arguments but we shall onely instance in one thing more and that is those unblest effects which are matters of demonstration to us We hope the Argument will not be judged improper both because our Saviour hath learned us the Topick and most of the Arguments brought for such forms are beholding to this Topick Besides that we say in Logick Talis causa qualis effectus which it true where the effects are natural and any way necessary Yea or ordinary But our Saviour hath taught us to conclude what the tree is from the fruits Math. 7 Let us therefore instance in some too evident effects of forms of prayer universally imposed and to be ordinarily used by ministers 1 The First is The filling of the church of God with an ignorant lazy and sottish ministry This we confess is no necessary consequent A minister may be a diligent painful holy man that yet in his ministerial prayer may think fit to use the prescribed forms of others Blessed be God we have had and have very many that are so Far be it from us either to say or think otherwise But we say That the establishing this for universal use opens a door for such persons to enter in and as a deluge overflow the Church And while such a door is open it is not to be expected but they will enter in and it is evident many such have ordinarily entred in Experience tells us That conscience is not enough in all to oblige them to their duty nay That the very best of men had need of all the obligations that can be laid upon them over and above the bare obligation of conscience arising from the force of the Divine precept We have before said That forms of sermons may every whit as lawfully be imposed as forms of prayer Supposing both we would fain know why a minister may not neglect the use or stirring up of his own gifts improving his mind by study and meditation nay if his own lusts so incline him why he may not spend the whole week at an alehouse and be ready too for his work on the Lords day He will have no ty upon him to take more pains in his study and meditations from the work he hath to do nor from any honour in doing of it well his work if it be meerly to read first Prayers then an Homily needs no preliminary pains and may be done as laudably ex tempore as upon the longest premeditation Whereas if every one were obliged to pray and preach constantly in person and in the excercise of their own gifts men would have an obligation upon them to study to meditate and to give up themselves to their proper work and would not find so much leisure for markets and taverns and coffee-houses Or were forms of prayer onely recommended and left to liberty men would have some obligation upon them from honour and repute to Take heed to their ministry Besides the Test of
ministers upon ordination would be proportionable none would be admitted to that sacred office but such of whose abilities both for praying and preaching a trial would be first made and those fitter for any other employments would and that justly be remitted to the prosecution of them whereas indeed there is no reason for such a scrutiny if according to the Doctrine of one whom we knew but wonder how he raised it from his text That Reading is Preaching and Teaching he should have added praying too A very ordinary Ordinary may judge An legat ut clericus But this is but the first ill effect we thought reasonable to instance in § 3 A Second of no whit inferior evil consequence is The loss of ministerial gifts and abilities as to persons that minister That this de facto is and hath proved the effect of forms is past all denial from a Clericus cum libro came a clericus absque libro non valet ova duo Multitudes of instances of this nature are and have been we have known some of us persons of honour and quality by this very thing brought out of love with prescribed forms sending for one after another in a sickness and finding them not able to pray with them beyond the office for visitation of the sick and the Litany § 4 Thus is that Scripture fulfilled Math. 25. 29. For unto every one that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath To every one that hath i. e. That hath for his Masters use That hath and useth them for his Masters service and honour in the Acts for the performance of which his Master hath given them to him To him shall be given and he shall have more abundance His gifts shall improve and grow more and more But from him that hath gifts as the man in that parable had his masters talent so as to have them not for his masters use i. e. so as not to use them in his masters service for the performance of those acts to capacitate him for the performance of which his master hath given them even that which he hath shall be taken away he shall loose his parts and gifts § 5 Nor is this more then the providence of God doth ordinarily make the punishment of the not using any habits either wholly acquired or though founded in nature yet improved by study and practice whether of more or less Spiritual tendency Every days experience teacheth us it The preserving almost of any gift or faculty depending upon the use and exercise of it A knowledge and skill in writing or speaking any language or in the practice of any art whether liberal or mechanick is in a few years lost by disuse of practice So as it is not at all to be wondred at that there should be the same effect of a disuse of a Spiritual gift which we naturally do not so much delight in as in such which are of a more secular use and afford us more sensible profit and pleasure § 6 We do know That a constant exercise of the gift of prayer though it be but in our families will preserve the gift in a great measure We say in a great measure for wholly it will not we frequently see That the minister who can with great freedom preach to a few in a country-church is not able to do so in a great or learned auditory through a diffidence and distrust in himself And we believe the same of a minister that is consciencious to use his own gifts to pray twice a day in his family if he wholly omits the like performance in a congregation and tieth up himself to a form we much question whether after some few years he would be able if he set himself to it to pray otherwise then by a form in the Congregation we see he that hath used himself to notes cannot preach without them how able soever he be § 7 We do with all humble thankfulness to God and due honour to the persons acknowledge That very many of our brethren in the ministry who do conform have not felt this ill effect of their use of forms but are able to pray pro re natâ as God offers them occasions and that to great acceptation and with eminent abilities But as the number of these comparatively is very few so we believe that both they and we are for this preservation of those eminent gifts beholding not onely to their constant praying without prescribed forms in their families But also to that liberty of praying by conceived prayer before and after sermon which they have assumed and do assume a liberty no more then indulged to them The statute-law alloweth it not It is sufficiently known That diverse late Bishops Who may be presumed to have known the law both of church and state severely forbad it suspended diverse for the use of it And we do believe that even to these of our brethren who yet by this means preserve their emeninent gifts Seven years experience of tying themselves to prescribed forms in the pulpit as well as in the desk would justify what we say and that at the end of them they would find a decay at least of those gifts though all this while nursed up by a more private practice in their families Ability to the publick exercise of ministerial gifts will like some creatures hardly be kept alive in a confinement to the walls of a private house § 8 Besides that as we before proved granting the lawfulness of these commands as to and ministers practice in publick prayer and the liberty of using ministers gifts at all in publick prayer may at any time be knockt down by the same cudgel And for the liberty of using gifts in private Domestickprayer it will not be able with any modesty to ask farther favour then that of Polyphemus to be devoured last it will but wait for such a command as is now with reference to Desk-prayer and hath been lately throughout some diocesses pressed as to all publick Pulpit-prayer and as we heard before passionatly wished That it might be revived and urged for they thought there is already a warrant by law though dormant for it and then certainly all ministerial gifts would quickly sleep their last sleep § 9 Besides this How many are there while publick prescribed forms are imposed who will magnify them they must be the very sword of Goliah none to them And this must be taken defide as matter of faith because the church commands them without examining either the comprehensiveness of the matter or the decency of the form or the dueness of the connexion of phrases or the safety of any expressions or the fitness of their fashion to the present age to excite affections and while they do so they will think and do think using their gifts in their families while they have a publickbook in the house like offering a
female while they have a male in their flock and accordingly in hundreds of ministers families there is nothing heard but the Prayers of the Church or if any thing It must be a form Conceived-prayers are defamed the others have all the repute and hence it is That though indeed the loss of ministerial gifts be not an universal and necessary effect of ministers limiting themselves by prescribed forms in some parts of publick worship yet it is a certain effect as to very many and is like enough to be as to many more as that practice shall gain more repute and authority But we shall add no more to our discourse upon this second effect § 10 A third if not natural effect yet experimented consequence of them and that of a very sad and melancholick consideration is a floud of iniquity which the universal imposing of them hath for more now then an hundred years caused in our parts of the world This This hath been the mother of those bitter words with which many and those ministers of the gospel both in pulpits and in printed books have vexed the righteous souls of their brethren who have had nothing to reply but The Lord rebuke you Hence the uncharitable and ungodly representations to superiours of men of whom the world was not worthy Hence the suspensions and silencings of so many thousands the imprisonments and ruins of so many eminent servants of God with their families which have caused so many appeals to the great day and hath made so many thousand cases depending before the great tribunal betwixt poor ministers and their families and their Ecciesiastical superiours Hence the separations of Christians in communion one from another Upon this most be charged and at last come most of the suspensions silencings imprisonments revilings sufferings of all sorts of the righteous servants of God even from the first disturbance upon that account made at Franckfort by Dr. Cox hunting out Mr. Knox unto this very day which with a thousand evills more which we forbear to mention had been all prevented if Dr. Cox his Spirit and some others of his age could have allowed The ministers of God to have served him in the use of their own gifts or at least allowed That a puhlick Liturgy should have been by authority proposed and commended but left at liberty We will not say but many of our forefathers and brethren may by their passions have increased the heap of these sins we know they have and excuse them not unless it be a Tanto Zipporah under her circumstances might be a little excused though she threw the foreskin of the child at her husband and said A bloudly husband hast thou been to me § 11 We say That we reflecting upon these bitter effects and consequents which are obvious to every eye cannot but think it very probable That a submission to this practice is not lawful but the principle false which must justify our such submission viz. That it is lawful for us being ministers of the gospel who durst never have entred upon the sacred office of the ministry if we had not hoped and the church had not first judged That we were furnished with abilities both to pray and preach to perform our ministerial acts in prayer by reading or reciting forms prescribed by others We cannot but say surely if this thing had been pleasing in the sight of God if our Brethren that for these many years have done it had in it done what God would have had them do we should not have seen such effects and consequents of it and those so far from abating in this long process of time that we see them every day more and more increasing How be it in this thing we are far from judging our selves infallible and therefore do not condemn our brethren nor judge them who are otherwise minded to us in this case But pray God That if we be in the mistake God would reveil it to us But as we from our hearts believe so we speak so we must practice and beg no more then a liberty for us so to do leaving our Brethren to the latitude of their own consciences If we have said enough to evince to the world we are not such fools or sons of Belial as D r. Parker D r. Ashton and many more in their printed discourses would persuade our superiors we be and as we are daily represented from inconsiderate tongues of them that have the sole priviledge of publick-pulpits t is all we aim at And whether we have done that or no We freely leave to the judgment of all sober intelligent and unprejudiced persons It will be time enough when we are convinced by our adversaries or it be proved by them to the world That these arguments are of no force To examin whether we have not also probable arguments to persuade us That the use of significant ceremonies Reordination c. is not lawful We shall shut up our mouths and our discourse at present with considering in a single chapter what our Brethrens arguments are for the lawfulness or expediency of such prescribed forms to be universally imposed or used where we shall have liberty to weigh what contrary good effects of them are pretended And whether they will ballance these evil effects and consequents which we have mentioned CHAP. IX Several Arguments answered brought to prove the lawfulness of set forms by several Authors Ireneus Freemans and M r. Falconers reasons for the lawfulness or expediency of them considered and answered § 1 BEfore we come to reply to the Arguments alledged against our opinion in this case we shall onely desire our Reader to consider That all that which our Brethren labour for is but to prove the thing in dispute betwixt us may lawfully be commanded They do not so much as pretend it necessary This is all the Reverend Author of Libertas Ecclesiastica pretendeth to or indeed any other who hath wrote ought worthy of our notice § 2 But to make our work the shorter in answering objections let us admonish our Reader wistly to consider That the matter in question which was to be proved is this That it is lawful for ministers of the gospel furnished with the gifts of prayer ordinarily to perform their ministerial acts in publick prayer by the prescribed forms fothers and those such as cannot pretend to any immediate Divine Inspiration § 3 To this purpose they thus argue What God hath not forbidden is lawful But God hath not forbidden this to ministers Ergo. This is an old souldier of the churches and hath fought many a field yea never was there a Battel fought between a Con. and Noncon but this commanding Argument appeared It hath been wounded and had its head cut off oftner then ever Hydra's was by Hercules but how it comes to pass we know it not like that monster it puts up its head again in the next pulpit or press Let us once more try a fall with
it What God hath not forbidden is lawful True what God hath not forbidden either Generally or particularly either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 literally or by direct consequence of Scripture is lawful But if our Brethren by Forbidden mean Particularly and Expresly forbidden or Literally forbidden and lay the Proposition thus Whatsoever is not in the letter of Scripture particularly and by name forbidden that is lawful Our Brethren will we trust give us leave to deny the Proposition because they agree with us in determining a hundred things to be sinful and some of them in a most heinous degree sinful that are not particularly and by name forbidden onely as they fall as Specials under some other Generals or by a first and just consequence If they so understand the Major we do think That ministers are in Gods word forbidden plainly enough forbidden having abilities to express their own and their peoples minds to God in publick prayers ordinarily to perform their ministerial acts in prayer by onely reading or reciting forms of prayer composed by others being no Gods nor by any plain designation of God appointed to compose such forms for the use of the church Forbidden 1 By the second commandment as a mean of worship not instituted by God 2 Forbidden by all those texts mentioned in justification of our first argument commanding us To stir up not to neglect our ministerial gifts but as every man hath received the gift so to minister 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it c. 3 Forbidden by all those texts that command us to worship God in the best manner we can with all our hearts all our souls all our strength not having a male in our flocks to offer a female 4 Forbidden by all those texts that require of us in prayer the highest attention of thoughts intention of mind and fervor of affections All which we have before justified under our five first arguments so as in short we deny the Minor in that first Argument and if all do not think it forbidden in this manner yet we do and our consciences must be the proximate rule of our actions so as it is at least to us forbidden from Rom. 14. 23. § 4 They object in the second place the form of Blessing Num. 6. The forms of Psalms composed by David The Lords prayer The Argument is thus If it were lawful for Christs disciples to use the Lords prayer and for the church to use the form of blessing directed by God himself Num. 6. And for the church in Davids time to use his forms of Psalms Then it is lawful now for ministers having the gift of Prayer ordinarily to perform their ministerial acts in Prayer by the forms prescribed not immediately by God but by men and those no prophets nor persons divinely inspired c. But the former was lawful therefore the latter is also lawful We deny the consequence not onely because we do not think That God ever intended the form of blessing should syllabically be used so often as the Priest blessed the people but onely That the name of the Lord to that sense should be lifted up upon them Nor that Christ ever intended to enjoin his disciples the syllabical-use of the Lords prayer Nor do we read That either the former blessing nor the latter Prayer was so ordinarily used But we find diverse forms both of prayer and blessing used But also Because we think no man hath such authority now to prescribe in matters of worship as God and Christ unquestionably had or as David and other holy Penmen of Scripture had Which this argument must suppose or the consequence must be false But we have spoke to this fully before § 5 A third Argument is this What is matter of meer decency order and circumstance in the worship of God may be lawfully commanded by Superiours and lawfully obeyed by Inferiours But this is matter of meer decency order and circumstance Ergo. We deny the Minor order is not concerned in it that onely respecteth prius posterius first and last Nothing can be decent but the contrary must be indecent there is no medium participationis in the case No sober person will say it is indecent for ministers having the gift of prayer to pray without the prescribed forms of others Circumstances relate to actions as humane actions but the prescribed forms of others in prayer have no such relation to prayer it may be performed without them They must be therefore if at all circumstances appropriated to the action quatenus a religious action and no such circumstances we conceive are left to mens liberty to determin being properly Ceremonies or religious rites which in them have something of homage to God § 6 A Fourth Objection or Argument is this If all the essentials to prayer may be found or observed in the prescribed forms of others Then the minister may in his publick ministry use them But all the essentials to prayer may be found and observed in the use of the prescribed forms of others To justify this some tell us That matter and form are the onely essentials to prayer Others tell us Due affections and grace may be equally exercised in praying by a form To which we answer That Prayer may be considered either in Facto esse as a composition of words and phrases so indeed The essentials are the same as of all other compounded things Matter and Form The due matter of prayer is Things agreable to the will of God The form in the name of Jesus Christ We most freely grant That both these may be found in a form composed and prescribed by men What follows Therefore this form is a good form and it may be used It is granted it may lawfully be read for instruction by the best it may be used as an help for children or men that have not yet attained the gift of prayer All this is true But we are considering Prayer not in this notion but as an human Action and say That a religous action a piece of homage and worship which his minister in the Congregation puts up to him To this action It is essentially necessary not onely that he confesseth sins putteth up petitions c. according to the will of God and that with a sutable exercise of Grace and Sanctified affections but that 1 He useth an audible voice and this all will grant 2 Say we that if he hath them he useth his own gifts not other mens He thus understands his Lord saying to him Go and preach why should he otherwise interpret him saying to him Go and pray When he hath bidden him minister his gifts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and according to the Grace given so to minister Rom. 12. Besides we have declared both our judgments as that and our reasons why we so judge That he who prayeth by reading or reciting the prescribed forms of others cannot pray with the same Attention Intention and fervour essentiall things to acceptable prayer § 7
But then saith a Reverend person for a child or scholar to use a form which is prescribed by his Father or Master would be unlawful Let us turn it into a form What is not unlawful for a child or scholar we will add to advantage the argument or save our selves labour of more words or a private person that hath not attained to the gift of prayer or such whom the church is enforced to use in publick ministrations for want of persons better qualified to do in prayer That is not unlawful for ministers to do ordinarily to whom God hath given the gift But to pray by the prescribed forms of others ordinarily in private or publick is not unlawful for children or grown persons or such ministers Ergo. The Assumption is granted but the Proposition is unquestionably false sincerity is accepted not according to what a man hath not but according to what he hath We do believe many an honest hearted minister in the beginning of reformation who never preached nor yet was able to do it was accepted of God in reading good Homilies But we do not think That any who were able to preach otherwise was also accepted We trust He that hath ten talents must improve them all though it had been enough for him that had but one if he had not laid it up in a napkin but improved that for his masters glory and advantage This Argument therefore onely proveth That forms of prayer are not in themselves unlawful to be used not that they may not be so to some persons whose circumstances vary Our question is onely about Ministers to whom God hath given the gift or who onely want it through their own default or negligence § 8 But Sixthly A great Doctor and that in a publick Sermon as well as diverse others in their printed discourses tell us That there is a command for Prescribed forms of prayer to be used in the church under the gospel 1 Tim. 2. 1 2. 1 Cor. 10. 13. A text urged weakly enough by the author of the book called Pulpit conceptions Popular deceptions and Mr. Falconer p. 109. tells us That many have thought that the Apostle had a special eye to the composure of such forms of prayer agreable to what the Baptist and our Saviour prescribed to their disciples in commanding Timothy the Governour of the church That amongst the things which concerned his behaviour in the church of God Ch. 3. 15. First of all prayers intercessions supplications and giving of thanks should be made for all men c. For this he quotes Dr. Hammond in loc And addeth Though the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may either signify That prayers be put up to God or that they be composed in this place it may well intend both c. It is enough for us that our Reverend Brother justly alloweth That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prayers be made doth not necessarily signify That church Governours should make Liturgies for all Ministers from whence it followeth That this text will afford no cogent argument for such an institution Nor will any other text give relief in the cause coming in as an auxiliary to this It is indeed a plain command for Timothy in his publick ministry himself to pray and to enjoin all inferiour ministers to do the like but we have produced other and those plainer texts enough directing ministers how to perform their ministerial acts by ministring their gift according to the grace given Stiring up not neglecting their gift c. And because our reverend Brother is a little critical with the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall onely tell him that he knows that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Poet comes from it and we know him so much a scholar as he would judge him but a miserable poet That should onely read or recite copies of verses composed by others If indeed prayers intercessions supplications giving of thanks could not be made for all men unless superiors prescribed or ministers used the prescribed forms of others there were something in this text But it is an observable vanity that when men are possessed of some singular notion hard to be made out they fancy every verse almost in Scripture to be for their purpose The Doctor saw the word Prayers here and he fancieth it must be a Liturgy or Prayer-book Just like another who meeting in the epistle of Peter with a phrase of Offering up Spiritual Sacrifices to God runs away with as much confidence of a new 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a Liturgy though there be not a word for it near the text Yea and in his heat runs down the Puritans arguments in his way like durt But with this discretion That though it is like he saw some better forces of theirs standing by then any which he tried his skill upon yet he thought fit rather to pursue the chase of the left wing of Pigmies then to stand to hazard a battel with some other men of war that faced him all the while § 9 The Author of the Pulpit conceptions hath he thinks found out some other express Scripture 1 Cor. 1. 10. That you all speak the same thing Rom. 15. 6. That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God And he is hugely confident That the first mentioned text is not to be forced into a contrary interpretation Ridiculous Is there in that text a word concerning Prayer Is that the Theme the Apostle is there treating of Were the Divisions for a Remedy as to which he gives this advice about Prayer It not the Apostle both to the Corinthians and Romans giving Catholick directions And will not then this Argument prove that not onely Liturgies But the same Liturgies verbatim must be used in all churches to the end of the world But let us turn this into an argument That the Doctor may see we will deny him no just advantage which his learning may have upon us more then we are aware of Those who are to speak the same thing and are with one mouth to glorify God may lawfully or must use set forms of Prayer But Christians are to speak the same thing and with one mouth to glorify God Ergo. The Major is to be proved and when he hath proved it let him consider whether the same argument will not prove That in all families and closets also the same form must not be used And whether such another learned Topick will not prove That all ministers must use the same syllables words and sentences in preaching Yea and in all their more private religious discourses Certainly sober persons ever thought that by these expressions the Apostle intended onely an unity in the matter and substance of Religion not in words and syllables expressing their conceptions about it either to God or men But to do the D r. right he lays his Argument from these texts in a little different form we will not conceil it from our Readers Valeat quantum
to do which too every Romish-priest and Jesuite will help him in that is To evince to men that the Bishop of Rome in all Spiritual things is all Christians superiour And he hath done the Popes business as effectually as he could have done it had he been hired to it by a Cardinals cap. But both St. Paul Col. 2. 23. and Bp Davenant as before cited on that text have told us what kind of Humility this is § 12 An eighth Argument used by some is this The people that join with a minister in prayer pray by a form The ministers prayer is but a form to them and limitation of them c. Therefore the minister may lawfully do it We have fully answered this before but in short 1 The Question is about vocal-prayer the people are onely required to pray mentally this is quite another species of Prayer In mental-prayer God onely requireth the exercise of grace In ministerial-vocal-prayer he also requireth the exercise of gifts And that not such gifts as remotely but such as specifically relate to the Act. 2 It is one thing barely to worship in prayer Another thing to minister to others in worshipping Our question is what is lawful for him that doth not onely worship but ministreth in worshipping § 13 Ninthly say some If a minister in publick be suffered to pray by conceived-conceived-prayer he may vent Blasphemy Heresy Nonsense and how shall the people say Amen This also we have fully before answered But 1 This argument holds equally if not with much more advantage against any other preaching then by reading or reciting other mens Sermons 2 If the minister doth vent error blasphemy c. we hope every one hath his Amen within his own teeth which he may withold if he hear Petitions come out his mouth not according to the will of God nor 3 Is it impossible that men may do the like by miscalling or misplacing words in reading or reciting forms § 14 But Tenthly Forms they tell us are necessary for Vniformity but we must first enquire whether Vniformity be necessary or at all desireable in the sense we here take it Where by it we understand nothing but an uniformity in Sentences Words and Syllables used in prayer Vnity is indeed a beauteous thing whether it be in Affections or Judgment So is Vniformity if understood of a worship of God in the same solemn time That is on the Sabbath-day and by the same specifical Acts of worship or As to the matter of prayer Thus far all sober men are agreed We all observe the Sabbath we all on the Sabbath publickly Read the Word Pray Sing Preach c. In our prayers we all Confess our sins put up our petitions to God for good things which we or others need and give God thanks for good things which we or others have received here now is a great and beauteous Vniformity we all speak the same thing do the same thing and on the same day But how shall it be ever proved That that pitiful thing called Vniformity in Words and Syllables and Phrases was ever desired of God or that it ever came into his or his Sons heart Or that it is acceptable to him Or that it hath more beauty in it then would be in a Congregation where all men wear the same coloured clothes Or had the very same lines in their faces or the same fashioned periwiggs upon their heads 2. The Beauty of no end can justify any sinful mean Gods glory is the noblest end the Apostle hath told us That it needeth not our ly to promove it 3 If it be lawful for men to fancy ends as fine things which God never spake of It is no wonder if they can find no means adequate to them but such as are justifiable by no Right Reason or Divine Rule The Princes of Babylon had an end to destroy Daniel they saw that except in the matter of his God nothing was to be found against him In their opinion therefore it was necessary to establish an uniformity in prayers yet not that we read off in words but as to the object of the Act All must be commanded to pray onely to Darius possibly there might be some form limited but the end was naught so was the mean 4 But suppose Vniformity syllabicaluniformity Necessary Lawful Beautiful Desirable and certainly desirable it is as to Doctrines of Religion and some particular terms and phrases by which they may safely be expressed We remember what a difference was made both in the church and the Doctrine of it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How yet shall forms of prayer help us with it without forms of Sermons too and a constant sticking to the use of them and no other § 15 In the next place cometh Ireneus Freeman in and telleth us in p. 38. of his Reasonableness of Divine service That in case liberty be granted to some to do that for which they have a gift it will provoke others who have it not to imitate them He adds If the denial of liberty to some who have the gift be to Cut the man fit for the bed the granting of such a liberty as we desire would be to Stretch a man fit for the bed Now seing both will ly together he saith it is more equitable That the tall man should pull up his leggs then that the low man should be put to the rack The question in issue is Whether it be lawful universally to impose upon ministers Forms of Prayer to be ordinarily used in their publick ministrations Or for ministers whom God hath furnished with the gift of prayer to perform their ministerial acts ordinarily by the use of those forms though imposed Yes saith Mr. Freeman for it is necessary Every thing say we which is necessary eithir is so from nature or a supervening command The first is not pretended But the Second It is necessary because Magistrates or Superiours command us and God hath commanded us to obey our Superiours We say God hath onely commanded us to obey our Superiours in things where in we may obey them and not sin Which say we in this case we cannot You may saith Mr. Freeman And why Because it is necessary If this Medium be good It must be made so by some precept of God particularly relating to this case not by the general precepts of Gods word to obey our Superiours For the thing must first be agreed lawful before we can have in it any superiour but God onely Now whether This use of forms be so or no is the matter in question How then doth what he saith evince the necessity of them 2 All that he saith amounts but to a contingent disorder which may happen upon a liberty given by some to use their gifts in prayer But shall a contingent danger be pleaded in bar to a duty think we Or shall the sin of another be sufficient to justify our superiour in prohibiting
us from the discharge of what is our duty 3 For his Similitude it is more then ordinarily unlucky for whereas we say no similitude runs on all four feet This is so unhappy As to halt on all four for surely in the case as stated by him It is not the Magistrate that stretcheth that confident little fellow he talks of or puts him upon the rack So as the Question is Whether the superiours ought to gratify those little persons lusts Or to give liberty to those whom God hath fitted for their work to use the means which he hath immediately furnished them with in order to those specifical performances But our author will not yet have done he go's on § 16 In case liberty be given to an officer to do something for which he hath a gift and the denial of it to another officer of the same society which hath no such ability but cannot be spared any more then the former would make the weaker officer contemptible and useless Especially if he be the weaker onely in that case but far stronger in others in this case as he thinkes the first mentioned liberty ought to be denied to the officer first mentioned The Reason lies in this narrow compass It is necessary to impose forms of prayer upon all ministers and they may lawfully be used by all ministers That those ministers who are otherwise useful and of whom an use must be made may not be made contemptible to the people tho they have not such abilities gift of Prayer Every one sees That the truth of this depends upon diverse Hypotheses 1 That a man may be a true and perfect minister of Christ and yet not have the gift of Prayer This we deny Believing God sends none into his work not fitted for it 2 That the church cannot be without such ministers as are destitute of this Gift This we also deny and think she may better be without them then furnished with them 3 That some ministers praying by forms will make them contemptible we are apt to believe this hath something of truth in it But they who urge it are concerned to reconcile it with what they ordinarily say That the greater part of the people are for forms onely an inconsiderable number of singular fanaticks If so surely they will the more reverence such as keep to them When these are all proved it may be seasonable to inquire upon these two things 1 Whether it be not the sin of any man to thrust himself into the work of the ministry or of superiors to admit him into it who hath not the gift of prayer He is not fitted for his work therefore not called or sent of God to it The gift of prayer is what we question whether God denieth to any who will but duly study the Holy Scriptures their own hearts and their people as they ought The three books which Luther thought sufficient to accomplish a Divine A minister that cannot pray is to us as much nonsense as a workman that cannot work Now shall the sins of any rule Superiours conscientious in their Government to restrain others in what is either their duty or their liberty What kind of Divine is he who knoweth not what God is or under what name to speak unto him What sin is and what is Commanded and forbidden in the law of God What those things are or many of them at least which aggravate sin and make it more exceeding heinous What men have need off both for their souls and bodies And what according to the will of God they may ask What good things he or others ought to give thanks for c Or that is not more then ordinarily versed in the Holy Scriptures Which knowledge being attained surely if the man can but speak the gift of prayer is gained if want of exercise and neglect of practice hindreth not 2 Whether men can have the gift of preaching that want the gift of prayer We doubt it The same knowledge being necessary to preaching that is necessary unto prayer and nothing more as we said before being necessary unless frequent exercise 3 Whether that Church which hath twice ten thousand Christians who want not the gift of Prayer can but by her own fault want ministers who have that gift Considering That as we judge The Apostle Heb. 5. 1. hath given us the perfect notion of a minister in the description of the High-priest he is but a person taken from men and ordained for men in things pertaining to God that he might offer Prayers and Praises Preach and Administer the holy Sacraments If a church hath ministers that she hath manu errante ordained which can neither pray nor preach she may clave non errante cast them out and ordain those that are not yet ordained but fitter for the work § 17 In short our Hypothesis is That it is lawful for such to whom God hath given the gift of prayer ordinarily to perform their ministerial acts in prayer by the prescribed forms of others is not to be overthrown by an argument drawn from necessity Because there can be no necessity of sinning And whereas all necessity ariseth either from nature or the Original will of God as the First cannot be pretended so supposing the thing unlawful To say it is necessary in the Second sense is to blasphem Neither can there be any necessity in this case but what sin makes either the sinful commands of men or the sinful laziness of the minister § 18 We shall onely say this If it be necessary that some of the places for publick preaching should be in the power of some who shall have so little of conscience as either for a little mony or to make a match or to gratify a friend or to ascertain themselves obsequious servants will present most unable and unworthy persons And that the Bishop should be under the danger of A Quare non admisit If when the Clerk cometh he doth not institute him if he be but able to turn nine or ten lines of the Thirty nine Articles into Latine which a child of eight or nine year old may do We say If there be a necessity of these things there may be a necessity that not onely Forms of Prayer but of Sermons too should be made to capacitate these men to do any thing like the sacred acts of their office But this is a woful sinful necessity which nothing but the corruptions of ages and manners have made and cannot infer either the goodness of the end or any just reason for imposing forms upon all nor can infer a farther necessity for forms of Prayer then for forms of Sermons He that dreamed of an absolute necessity when he burnt his shins by the fire that the chimny should be pulled down and set farther off might with less labour and charge too have removed his leggs to a farther distance from the fire And we think That those who dream of an absolute necessity of
Scripture For the distribution of them It is no further work then every hand can do what words to use Our Saviour hath set down from which we know no need to vary In using of them can be no errour in deviating from them indeed there may For the Application of Exhortation Prayer to that act surely he that can Pray and Preach can do that The like is to be said of the other Sacrament so that a Righteous law that all should keep to the Scriptural-institution is enough we think in that case And wonder at their fancies That think of such a special need of a form in those cases believing no pretence of necessity but what depends upon a fancy of a reasonableness to add to the Divine institution in the case of which we cannot be convinced For God-fathers and God-mothers and Forms of questions to be propounded to them we understand neither necessity nor use of them much less any particular Forms of words besides those the Scripture gives us for Consecration or to be used in the Distribution of the elements in the Supper The points in dispute can this way come into no dispute that we know nor any error infused into poeple It is mens varying from the Institution in this case which alone hath given advantage to the Envious one to sow tares If any minister having the elements of bread and wine before him shall read I The words of Institution as delivered by the Evangelists or the Apostle Paul Then solemnly praying to God First That as he had instituted that ordinance for the remembrance of Christ The shewing forth of his death The communion of his body and bloud c. So he would at that time bless it to those ends c. Pardoning his peoples want of preparation and accepting them in their desires to honour him in his own institutions c. Or to that purpose Then giving the bread repeating onely our Saviours words with but a small and that necessary change Take eat This is the body of Christ in stead of my body which was broken for you And after the cup repeating onely Christs words This cup is the new Testament in the bloud of Christ c. We would fain know if this man concluding all with a prayer hymn of thanksgiving had not duly administred the Sacrament of the Lords Supper If he had what need is there of forms of words in this case other then what the holy Scriptures have given us For as to the Prayer before and after as we conceive him a pitiful minister and very unfit to be trusted with that office which often calleth him to pray upon particular emergent occasions for which a form cannot be made ready if he cannot without it apply his petitions to the particular business in hand viz. The administration of the Sacrament So if he distrusteth himself he may compose himself a form of prayer fitted for that purpose For the administration of that ordinance is seldom or never so sudden as to surprice a minister So for the other Sacrament Will any one dare to say That a lawful minister having water before him who shall first beg of God To own and bless his own institution To wash away the sin of the person to be baptized with his own bloud And to grant that it may be born again of water and the Spirit c. Or to the like purpose And then having had a previous knowledge That the parent is a believer i. e. one who either hath a true faith or maketh profession of such true faith shall take water and pour or sprinkle it upon the childs face or dip the person in it saying J. Baptize thee in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is not truly Baptized A prayer and thanksgiving usually concludes the Action But what need here of a form more then the Scripture hath furnished us with or directed us to May one minister say J. Baptize thee c. Another Let this person be Baptized c. A third Be thou Baptized c For our parts we think the difference not so much as to require a prescribed form to reconcile and should not doubt but the person were truly Baptized under any of those variations of words Water being poured or sprinkled on it and the action declared to be in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost We conclude as we said before That we can see nothing in either Sacrament but the inventions of men superadding to the institutions of the gospel diverse rites and actions of which Christ never spake which makes any pretence for a need of Forms in the administration of them There being nothing to be done in them that requireth any special ability comparable to that which Preaching Praying according to the various states of the church and the particular cases of souls in it doth require § 23 Mr. Falconers Fift Reason is thus by himself expressed To be an evidence to other churches and future times after what way and manner we worship God and that both the matter and expression of our service to him is sound and pious in our general and common worship And this may be a full Testimony That such a church receiving the true faith and expressing a right way of worship is both a true and in its measure a pure and incorrupt church We answer 1 Where hath God required the leaving any such Testimony 2 If he had forms of prayer had not been sufficient without forms of Sermons too 3 While we declare our selves Christians and that we worship God according to his word we leave a sufficient Testimony that we are a true church of God 4 A confession of faith publickly owned subscribed unto by all ministers which we never opposed doth far better effect this which may be done without making a new act or mode of worship § 24 Mr. Falconer at last comes to this argument from example which yet he doth not lay so much stress upon as to aver They evince a necessity of Forms but he thinks the countenance the lawfulness and expediency of them For what he saith about the Lords prayer it is answered by us before In short It reacheth not the case There can be no conclusion from Christs power to the power of ordinary Governors now in the church Or from the lawfulness of Christs disciples using a Form of prayer dictated by Christ himself in that time before his ascension and the effusion of the Holy Ghost to the lawfulness of ministers in after ages using a bundle of forms neither composed by Christ nor by his Apostles Besides the probabilities we have before offered that even then when it was first given it was not intended for a form of words nor do we ever read of it after so used but as a more general direction for the ordinary matter of our prayers § 25 As to what Mr. Falconer saith further of Scripturalforms it hath had its answer from