Under the Law we all know the ordinary and outward Worship it was Sacrifice and Burnt-offerings and yet mercy and the knowledge of God Spiritual and Evangelical acts were even then most acceptable and even then upon this very account you shall finde both David and the people going up to worship Psal 122. 1. I was glad when they said unto me Let us go into the house of the Lord. Now what did the people go into the House of the Lord for or for what did David so rejoyce to go up with them was it think you to hear a Sermon No but it was to worship or as it is v. 4. To give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. And Psal 42. 4. What is it the Prophet David there so sadly remembreth and in bitterness poureth forth his Soul for the want of it but onely this I had gone with the multitude I went with them to the house of God What to do onely to hear No but to worship and to give praise to God For it followeth I went up with the voyce of joy and praise with a multitude that kept holy-day He was a great Worshipper and delighted to go up with them who went to worship And it seems to me worth observation and to our present purpose that from the beginning of the world all along in Scripture we never read of any erection raised to God but the first and prime intention of it was Worship For The first holy erections we read of they were Altars and those we know were for Sacrisice which was then Worship The second we read of was the Tabernacle and at the Door of this Moses and Aaron they went up to worship Thirdly we read of a glorious Temple built by Solomon of a second built by Zerubbabel a third by Herod all devoted and built for Worship Yea saith God by his Prophet My house shall be called the house of prayer to all nations and what is that but the house of Evangelical worship And indeed we finde to that very use the blessed Apostles did put the Temple Peter and John they went up to the Temple at the hour of prayer Yea the very first Houses that the holy Christians after them built they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oratories or Houses of Prayer And indeed what is Heaven it self and the glorious presence of our God but a place of worship Rev. 4. 10. The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sate on the throne and worship him that liveth for ever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created Yea if that Argument of St. Paul upon which he prefers Charity before Faith and Hope be concluding if Charity because it abideth when Faith and Hope shall be no more is therefore the more excellent gift certainly then since we finde Worship where Preaching shall not be since we finde Worship the employment of Angels and the everlasting exercise of beatified Saints and Souls to worship God must needs be a duty of no mean concern specially if we consider how we are taught to pray Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven for the will of God there is an incessant and an everlasting worship Now certainly either we minde not what we pray believe not we are to do as well as to say our Prayers or else we could not conceive our selves bound to worship upon Earth even him who is incessantly worshipped in the Heavens And being I have shewed unto you how all holy places that were ever erected either by Commandment from God or by the instinct or motion of the Spirit of God were all chiefly designed for worship that is for offering up unto God either Sacrifice or Prayers Praises Confession of Sins Professions of Faith Hymns Psalms and spiritual Songs therefore such places they ought to be frequented by us and that purely upon the account of these performances that is upon the account of Worship For He that enters into this House of Prayer and devoutly as did the Publican shall smite his Breast and say no more than God be merciful to me a sinner he doth God more honour than is done by the rude and ordinary hearing of a Sermon He who shall humbly fall upon his Knees and sincerely offer up unto the Father the Prayer of his own Son those two Knees do God more honour than a thousand Hats upon a thousand Heads Yea being it is the charge of our blessed Lord and Master Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven It is impossible any example should be visible unless the Reverence be sensible and the outward Expressions such as may move others to fall down and worship that is reverendly to confess to praise to bless and to glorifie our Father which is in Heaven It is an old saying and a true Occultae Musicae nullum encomium Of concealed Musick there is no praise For let an Artist have in him the sense and habit of Musick never so well be he able in his Spirit to lodge the comprehensions of all Harmony yet unless he either sing or play unless he either by Voice or Instrument discover this hidden skill he can neither give delight to the Hearer or get any praise or respect unto himself Even so it is in Religion and holy Duties let men have in Spirit the habits of Faith Hope Charity and all Graces whatsoever all this whilst but in the Spirit it onely is Occulta Musica undiscerned Piety invisible goodness nothing at all either edifying others or advancing God's glory So that whether it be Conversation or Worship Spirit without Truth inward Religion without outward Evidence Faith within without Works without they may be Arguments of a Fanatick by no means of an holy Spirit So that I shall conclude this whole Discourse with that of our Saviour Matth. 19. 6. Whom God hath joyned together let no man put asunder Whether it be in our converse with God or Men whether it be in God's Service or in God's Worship whether what we do hath respect to the Person of God or to the Commands of God Spirit and Truth whom God hath joyned together they must never be put asunder What Graces soever we have in the Spirit the truth of their being there must be evidenced by our outward carriage what Reverence what Fear what Awe and what Esteem soever the Spirit hath of the Majesty Presence and Greatness of our God that must be verified seen and proved by our outward Worship For If God in Heaven will not that Angels and Spirits worship within themselves and as some take the Notion in Spirit onely If to him all the Angels cry aloud the Heavens and all the powers therein If to him Cherubin and
distance or for not acquaintance with the Voice he oft cannot understand or understanding cannot so instantly consider and judge of as to deem it a meet oblation for his God Whether I say these acts can better be discharged and Praestantissima quaeque Deo upon a transient than a set Form let every man so judge as he will answer it to his God Sixthly Men of different Principles can never conscionably joyn in conceived or conceited Prayer For he who holds Original Sin in Infants as such no bar to Salvation he cannot abide that men in Prayer should say they are damned before born and came into the world Brands of Hell-fire Or such who hold Sacraments have no effect but in the Elect onely these cannot joyn in a preparative Prayer but either they must have a Congregation of Elect onely or they must rashly say they know not what and pray for such grace for some present which they pretend to know God will never give And indeed upon what but upon this are built all the sorry Objections against the Liturgy Seventhly Conceived Prayer or as they call it praying by the Spirit is for the most part a great cheat being the main Product of a ready Tongue and a strong Memory in which is treasured up for all occasions Scripture-Phrases Collections Notes and such Expressions as are most taking and popular For that the Holy Spirit will put words into the mouth of any man as he did once into Balaam's Ass suddainly and irresistibly or that by the Spirit of Prayer is meant a capacity to speak in the Vocative Case an Hour or two is not yet proved to a serious and a sober Christian That place of Zechary I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications it will by no means do them this service For Authority I hope undeniable to conceivers the Assembly-Annotations tells us And I will pour This Prophecy had its accomplishment partly upon our Saviour's coming and yet shall more fully upon the last conversion of the Jews So that by them the present Church seems not the subject of this promise Indeed they say the house of David typically represents the Church of Christ and the Children of God But then by the Spirit of Grace and Supplications they by no means mean the gift of Prayer or a power of a sudden to say what they list in the Vocative Case For by the spirit of Grace they onely mean an help from God to make Prayer in Believers holy and acceptable and that is far from long and indigested Rapsodies And as for that upon which Fanaticks lay the great stress the Spirit of Supplications The Comment declines it wholly and rather sides with those who render the Original by Compassion or Lamentation So that this is a pitiful Bottom to cozen and cheat the people on with or to an expectation of such a surprize of Spirit as shall make them pray what they list and as long And indeed both the learned in the Hebrew Tongue and the Context bear against it for albeit some conceive as the vulgar Latine renders it Prayer or Supplications may yet as Cornelius à Lapide whom I therefore quote because he hath prepared the Collection for me upon the place observes the Septuagint the Chaldee Pagnine the Tigurine Version and Hierom by what some Humorists call the Spirit of Prayer they rather render Compassion Commiseration a Minde tender and propense to pity and compassion And indeed if we consider the very next words and by them measure the prime end of this promise we shall finde the genuine and proper meaning of the Text must needs be thus I will pour upon the house of David and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit so tempered with Grace and Tenderness that they shall be sensibly touched and affected when they shall look upon him whom they have pierced and shall mourn for him as one who mourneth for his onely Son Enough to evince the Septuagint the Chaldee and the rest rather to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit of Commiseration Pity and Compassion than as the vulgar Latine which but to serve an interest the godly Party abhors to follow Spiritus precum the Spirit of Prayers Yea in former and elder English Versions it is read thus The Spirit of Grace and Compassion and perchance had been so still had not this pretended gift of praying sprung out not many years before the last Translation But since men have had an itch to magnifie their own gifts and as did the Scribes and Pharisees by long prayer to get into and deceive the people set Forms of Prayer hath been mightily deprest as if those Prayers were unworthy a Parlour that did decore a Church But If we shall look back to the days of Edward the sixth and Queen Mary we shall finde both at home and abroad both in private and in publick the Church-Prayers were venerable and of great use In the days of Edward the sixth one Thomas Cottesford put out the Church-prayers in the Singular Number that they might be fitted for a Closet and a personal Devotion and accommodated to every day of the Week Morning and Evening And he was held a very good man in his days and as I have been told of the Puritan way In the days of Queen Mary Dr. Taylor Parson of Hadleigh in Suffolk as in his Life appears when his Wife came in an Evening to visit him his Evening-prayer was the Letany and whilst he lay in Prison his daily Prayers were the Service-book of Edward the sixth and that Book he gave to his Wife as a pious Legacy So that it was then no strange thing to use the Common-prayer in a private house nor was that arrogancy of Spirit in holy Breasts as to think no Prayer comparable to those of their own conceiving I may take God to witness honourable Sir I can say with a perfect Heart as Moses once did Numb 11. 26. Would God all the Lords people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them But to hear ignorant rash cunning and catching people calling their own God's Spirit and their crafty effusions the Breath of God and his Dictates This my soul abhors an indignation to this was a great motive to the following Letter I conceived a necessity upon me then to assert a set Form when an abundance of what was then called Prayer savoured more of Diurnals Designes News and Villanies than of godliness or purity of the Gospel Yea the Spirits of too too many of my own calling are not yet to be trusted to speak what they list in Prayer some yet taking occasion rather to instil their present dislikes than to promote a sincere and pure Devotion Now being it is so that men of different Principles can never conscionably joyn in a controverted Prayer there seems to me even hence a great necessity that Prayer should be set and
outward Expression be not answerable to the inward Meaning if we think one thing and say another though we say better than we think there is no sincerity nor truth in what we say Even so here if we pretend in Spirit to have in us the dreadful apprehension of our God when in outward appearance we shew nothing less if this be to worship in Spirit it is not it cannot be in Truth For the signes of Fellowship of Familiarity and of Boldness they can no more be the true expressions of the inward apprehension of Majesty Terrour and an infinite Distance than can Vomiting be of Sobriety outward Cheating of inward Honesty Railing and Wronging of inward Charity For they who know any thing of Truth cannot but know that Truth in general is nothing else but an outward Conformity to the inward Apprehension a real Evidence and Interpreter of the inward meaning And therefore wheresoever the outward conformity is not answerable to the inward conception and the outward Demeanour is not proportionable to the Spirit that acts within let people pretend what height and holiness of Spirit can be imagined Spirit and Truth are never evidenced in God's Worship or which is all one to God's honour and glory unless the outward Demeanour be proportioned to the inward Spirit and the Spirit within be really conformed to his Greatness 1 Cor. 14. St. Paul speaking of a Christian convert whose Spirit was touched with the Greatness Goodness and the Glory of his God tells us so active and powerful was the inspired Spirit that it inforced a manifestation of the truth of it for Falling down on his face he worshipped God Now without peradventure had those who pretend to have the most holy and best spirits such a feeling and real sense of the Goodness Greatness and the Glory of God as had the Convert Even they as well as he would fall upon thier Faces or at least in God's publick Worship give some more probable and better evidence that they fear God and that they are before him but as Dust and Ashes for if the spiritual man is the greatest discerner if he is most sensible of what a God he serves certainly then either there is no truth in him or he is the most devout and the humblest worshipper in the world Amongst us men in case God should sensibly reveal himself and manifest himself to the Eye as in the Bush to Moses or in the habit of the Captain of an Hoast to Joshua or in Thundring and Lightening upon mount Sinai In such a case as this I believe very few if any but would say we were bound to worship and in pursuance of that worship to humble our Bodies to fall upon our Faces and even ontwardly to use the utmost reverence that we could And here I have a special Appeal to those who themselves confessing are in the religious attendance of their God put on their Hata To them I appeal whether if the Great God even now should at this instant break in upon them and shew himself as I have already said as terrible as upon mount Sinai or in a flaming Bush or but as he did to Joshua with a Sword in his Hand I desire such to consider whether such an Apparition or such a Manifestation would not not onely move but hasten them to throw off their Hats to fall upon their Knees yea prostrate on their Faces Now then if it be so I beseech you let us calmly consider what is the solemn real and serious bottom or motive for which we ought to give unto our God all Glory Honour Reverence and Worship Is it Visibility or is it Sight If so then none are bound to Reverence Worship Kneel or fall down before him but those onely who see him with their Eyes and behold him as a thing sensible whereas God himself hath told us Exod. 33. 21. There shall no man see me and live The ground then Foundation and Motive to glorifie and worship God it is not in Sense but in Faith it is not the seeing but the believing the Glory Majesty Dominion Power and Greatness of our God that should move Christians to fear adore and worship And therefore if we believe God to be in Heaven as glorious as the Angels see him as terrible as the Damned finde him or as dreadful as he appeared upon Mount Sinai If we believe him to be a God mighty in Power glorious in Majesty and that God who is to be feared above all Gods In the Name of that God I beseech you let us but manifest that Faith and my Text is done for so to do doubtless is to worship the Father both in Spirit and in truth Matth. 18. 20. Where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them Our Saviour did not say there you shall behold or see me yet he positively said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There am I. Now being God will be worshipped where he is not seen let us but so pray so praise so sing so worship where he is though not seen as if we did see him we believe we ought there would never be any further dispute or demur about outward Worship For the Spirit of God and Truth are in such a perfect union that he who worships in Spirit that is in the due Faith and fear of God he will be devout he will be humble he will by a meet demeanour and outward deportment shew the reality and truth of such a Spirit for such cannot but conclude the truth No publick Worship can or ought to be in Spirit onely Thirdly The Christian practise of worshipping God by Adoration and Liturgies demonstrates that they held that way the way of worshipping God in spirit and in truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adoratio or as we render it Worship it is taken either in Abstracto or in Concreto as the School that is either for an Act of it self or as in Conjunction with some other Christian-duty Matth. 4. When the Devil made his last assault upon our Saviour he did require neither Prayer nor Praise nor Sacrifice nor Oblation onely thus said Vers 9. All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me He onely required an outward act of Worship abstracted from all Duty Whence it appears to me that Adoration or Worship abstractly considered when it onely imports God's Majesty and our Distance even thus and no more it is of great account with God Almighty or else the subtile Devil would never have attempted by a single act of Adoration to have robbed the World of a Redeemer by thus doing to make the Saviour of Mankinde a Sinner But by Worship in the Text we are not to understand Worship in the Abstract but as going along with other Duties such as make up Christian Worship Now that it may appear that unless the Christian Church for of Schismatical and Fanatick spirits unless by pity
we are to take no notice by a Worship in Spirit and Truth and by worshipping the Father understood worshipping in a Form for Father implies a Form and by publick Liturgies let us a little survey their Piety and their Prayers First Our blessed Lord and Master who gave this rule he himself exemplified what he gave for the exact Pattern and the very Basis of all Gospel-worship is Pater Noster Our Father The Apostolical Symbol the Canon and Square of all the Professions of our Faith it begins Credo in Deum Patrem I believe in God the Father Confession of sins as the words were by our Saviour put into the mouth of the penitent Prodigal it is an address unto the Father I will go to my Father c. And Father I have sinned against heaven and against thee The Sacrament of Initiation or first admittance into the mystical Communion it is confined to this rule In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Yea when the Church in humble thankfulness returneth Praise and Glory unto God for all his benefits it is done as becomes true Worshippers by worshipping the Father and by saying Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. And as for the Church of England is not every Collect a most exact Gospel-worship Almighty and most merciful Father begins our Confession Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begins our Absolution Then the Prayer of the Son unto his Father And the Close of every Collect is through Jesus Christ which is still an implication of the Father So that according to this rule the true Worshippers shall worship the Father Who can be truer Worshippers than that Church all whose publick Prayers are Addresses and Acts of worship to the Father And as for Spirit and Truth had it been inconsistent with publick and outward Worship or with Form then St. Paul would never have writ to Timothy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Prayers should be not onely said but made for Kings and all that are in Authority St. James the Brother of our Lord he had scornfully and ignominiously been termed Jacobus Liturgus James the Liturgist had set Forms been inconsistent with Spirit and truth Justine Martyr he would never have spoken of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of common-Common-prayers nor Ignatius before him of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one Prayer had it been a stinting of the good Spirit to have a Liturgy or a common-Common-prayer Yea there would have been no Churches to have worshipped God in no publick Assemblies to have worshipped there nor indeed no use at all of our Bodies in order to God's glory if Spirit and Truth concluded against outward worship Whatsoever then the antient Churches understood by Spirit and Truth they did not understand an opposition either to bodily or to outward worship For that which is held the best Interpreter of Scripture to wit Praxis Ecclesiae the Church-Practice you see it doth evince the contrary for they had Churches they had known and set Forms for publick worship Yea Beza himself in his smaller Notes thus Quae ad Ordinent spectant ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus Those Decencies which appertain to Order as Forms of Prayer the Apostle himself prepared and disposed By Spirit and Truth then we may very well here understand a worshipping of the Father according to those measures which the Spirit Light and Grace of the Gospel prescribeth and alloweth to us By Truth we may understand such outward expressions and manifestations as are proportionable to such a Spirit to such Light to such Grace for so by their unanimous and constant practice the primitive and best Churches understood it Lastly therefore give me leave in a word to shew how much it concerns us to give all due regard and respect to the outward and publick Worship of God under the state of the Gospel The Servants of God under the Gospel they are stiled by our Saviour Veri Adoratores the true Worshippers not the unsatiable Hearers Now it seems strange to me that Christians should emphatically be called the true Worshippers and yet many make no account at all of Evangelical Worship as if God did not as much regard the honour done unto his Person as he doth the bare hearing and listening to his Word Or as if Pray continually and Continue in prayer sounded not as much duty as doth Be instant in season and out of season By Evangelical Worship I understand Prayers Supplications and giving of Thanks confession of Sin profession of Faith making and performing of Vows oblation of Praise singing of Hymns and Psalms reception of Sacraments Adoration either with or without these So that the Father is then worshipped in Spirit and in Truth when there is a reverential address or a religious performance of all or any of these before him so that we cannot come under the honourable Appellative in the Text Veri Adoratores true Worshippers unless we outwardly and publickly even thus assemble for to worship Esay 66. 23. the Evangelical Prophet speaking of Gospel-days thus writes All flesh shall come to worship before me saith the Lord. To worship is not to clap on our Hats and sit on our Seats to hear a Sermon but to perform some act of honour some humble office some such religious Duty the reverence whereof may shew forth our distance and the Father's glory the performance whereof may move all who see it say These men are in the presence and before their God These men know what they worship These men have the Fear and Apprehension of a glorious Majesty before their eyes For being the great designe of God in all his works is the setting forth of his own Glory Worship it is the very immediate tendency to that great end For they that worship it is their actual employment to set forth his praise and to magnifie him under some glorious Attribute or other So that indeed between Hearing and Worshipping there is as much difference as between Hearing and Doing For Hearing being but a disposition to Doing Worship is the very practice Doing and actual Advance of God's honour and therefore a Duty not to be laid aside nor so coolly frequented and performed as by too too many He who in the second Commandment said Thou shalt not bow down to them or worship them He who forbids Sacrisice and Prayers and Praises yea the very bowing of the Body to false Gods doth not in so doing imply less than a reservation of this Worship to himself And therefore to him who is the everliving God and the everlasting Father to him we must ascribe and give the Glory the Honour and the Worship that evangelically is due unto him for the true Worshippers are in all duty bound to worship the Father and to worship him in Spirit and Truth Hos 6. 6. I desired mercy and not sacrisice and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings
Seraphin continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth Heaven and Earth are full of the Majesty of thy Glory If to him Ten thousand times ten thousand were heard saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing certainly then all the Earth should worship him magnifie his Name confess before him and confess him before men we should all sing and praise and laud and do every thing and nothing but such things in time of his holy Worship as may speak the Glory the Goodness the Holiness the Greatness and the Majesty of the God we worship And thus to do is to do my Text thus to do is to worship in Spirit and in Truth And so I have done with these words The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth Tibi soli Domine debetur Latria tibi omnis honos adoratio cultus nunc in aeternum Amen FINIS A REVIEW OF A BRIEF APOLOGY FOR SUCH SEQUESTER'D CLERGY Who choose rather to suffer Sequestration Than to lay aside The LITURGY And receive The DIRECTORY Written in a Letter to Mr. STEPHEN MARSHALL whose Answer is here Printed never before extant and how obtained TOGETHER WITH A brief Perswasive to the onely use of Set FORMS in Private FAMILIES By John Allington Vicar of Leamington-Hastang Quod ad formulam Precum Rituum Ecclesiasticorum valdè probo ut Certa illa sit à quâ Pastoribus discedere in Functione suâ non liceat tam ut consulatur quorundam simplicitati imperitiae quà m ut certius ita constet omnium inter se Ecclesiarum Consensus Johannes Calvinus Protectori Angliae 1 Edw. 6th LONDON Printed for Thomas Basset at the George near St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1678. To the Honourable And his much honoured Neighbour CHARLES LEIGH Esq At Burdingbury SIR THe justice of your Birth forceth me to preface you by that which I conceive is least honourable in you Your native Nobility For morally to speak look what is necessary is scarce laudible Quae non fecimus ipse Vix ea Nostra voco An adventitious is no acquired Honour And if Poetry may pass for Heraldry Nobilitas sola est atque unica Virtus There is no real Nobility which hath not more of Virtue than Blood in it And this seems patroniz'd by a great Fountain of Honour even our blessed Lord and Master who allowed the Jews to be the Seed but not the Sons of Abraham for he plainly tells them it was Works and Imitation not a Line or Descent that made Children unto Abraham The witty Atheist who in his Dialogues brings in Galatea and Doris discoursing of the love of Polyphemus tells her she should not look upon his Deformity or minde his having but one Eye and that in his Forehead for he was the Son of Neptune But the nice Nymph replied smartly An verò credis genus illi quicquam profuturum ad formam Thinkest thou that a Descent can make beautiful or because begot by a God deformities are comely Now truely as descent cannot make that lovely and amiable that is not so so neither can descent make that honourable that is not so For though I perfectly abhor to think that Dominium fundatur in Gratiâ That Right or Propriety is founded in Grace of that onely Saints have right to their Goods or onely the godly party a just title to Riches and secular Dominion yet may I distinguish between real and secular Honour I conceive such to empty themselves of all real Repute and divest themselves of all due Honour who by doing unworthy things make themselves vile unclean and that which stands in direct opposition to what is truely honourable So that a man may as well argue deformed and ugly Polyphemus was therefore beautiful because Neptune was his Father as a Vitious person therefore truely and really honourable because a person of true honour got him To you my honourable Neighbour I therefore make my Address because you have Honour of your own Intrinsecal Honour such which you merit to be honoured and regarded for Religion Sobriety Temperance and the rare Grace of these times Conjugal Chastity no man rejoycing more with the Wife of his Youth and as the holy Pen expresseth it ravished always with her love To you worthy Sir I have made bold to give the Patronage of what here followeth which being a brief Assertion of a necessity of publickly worshipping God by a set Form I therefore make yours because beside that personal Piety which your God alone is witness to your prudence in your Family hath wisely chosen constantly to use onely that Form which we rightly call Common-prayer And indeed many very many reasons may be given to confirm your choice and perswade your imitation First By the Law of the Land Open Prayer such which is for others to come to hear is onely the Service of the Church our Common-prayer So that if Law be a rule and the regular man be the laudible person he is most so who conforms to Law and regulates himself and Family by it Secondly An unknown Worship it is a proportionable folly to an unknown God For as St. Paul told the Athenians it was superstitious and unlawful for them to worship they knew not what though that unknown was thought to be the true God Even so as unlawful it may seem or else let Latine Prayers pass to worship a known God we know not how which he who joyns issue in a conceived or unknown Prayer must needs do For the Worship must be over before he can judge of it Thirdly To offer the Blinde Lame or Sick to God for Sacrifice God himself hath declared Evil. But whosoever shall bare his Head fall upon his Knees and be ready to joyn in the Oblation of he knows not what he is in a present disposition to offer up to his God for ought he knows the Blinde the Lame the Sick that is such crude and unhallowed both Petitions and Expressions as are unworthy the Almighty yea unfit to be presented to a Governour Fourthly To offer that to our God which would not please our Governour God abhors Now what man amongst us will be content that a Petition be drawn and proffered in his Name to a man of Power and he never see it nor hear it read till 't is read and offered to the Governour And shall we think it meet with less consideration to offer up our Prayers to God than Petitions to one like unto our selves Fifthly Every considering man will finde to the compleating of a publick Prayer there must be a concurrence of these six Acts. 1. Hearing 2. Understanding 3. Consideration 4. Judgement 5. Oblation And Lastly Devotion Now whether these can be better managed when a man knoweth what to pray or where a man must warily listen what through
known that Prayer should be with such prudence and care composed that nothing be in any of publick cognizance which hath any thing of private Interest and Designe in it In the Offices of the Church of Rome and in factious Prayers we see and hear too much of this Upon Ash-wednesday thus prayeth the Roman party Omnipotent and eternal God spare the Penitent and be propitious to the Supplicant Et mittere digneris Sanctum Angelum tuum de Coelis qui Benedicat Sanctificet hos Cineres And vouchsafe to send down thine holy Angel from Heaven that he may bless and sanctifie these Ashes Will you see to what end It followeth Vt sint Remedium salutare Omnibus Nomen Sanctum tuum implorantibus semetipsos pro Conscientia Delictorum suorum accusantibus ante Conspectum Divinae Clementiae facinora deplorantibus vel serenissimam pietatem tuam suppliciter obnixeque flagitantibus That they may be an wholsom Remedy to all who humbly call upon thy holy Name and out of conscience of their own demerits accuse themselves deploring their heinous sins in the sight of thy Divine Clemency or humbly and earnestly begging thy most serene Piety Et praesta per invocationem sanctissimi Nominis tui ut quicumque eos super se asperserint pro Redemptione peccatorum suorum Corporis sanitatem Animae tutelam percipiant per Christum Dominum nostrum And grant that by the invocation of thy most holy Name whosoever shall sprinkle these upon themselves for the Redemption of their sins may receive the health of Body and protection of Soul through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now this Collect having that in it which the Principles of our Church allow not for as much as we are wholly ignorant of any capacity in Ashes of being blessed and sanctified or of any promise made that upon prayer for such a Sanctification God will send an Angel from Heaven on such an errand we not believing that Ashes are ordained to be an wholesom remedy to all who humbly call upon God's holy Name or that in order to remission of sin we may sprinkle them upon our Heads or if we should that thence should issue no not upon Christs account health to our Bodies or protection to our Souls we I say disbelieving all this cannot joyn in such Petitions neither give our presence or Amen to such a Prayer And many very many such extravagances are in the Roman Breviary and Missal Now if Protestants generally opine it is not lawful knowingly to be present when Petitions against their Judgement and Conscience are to be offered up in Prayer and prefer'd to God certainly then it is at least very dangerous for any Christian to frequent conceived and unknown Prayers For as bad or worse than any is in the Roman Liturgie have done and may come from men so praying And this probably was a main reason that the Independants dropt off from the Presbyterians and the Quakers both for neither having common principles neither could conscientiously endure to pray together And indeed to an unknown Prayer a discreet man may very well say he therefore will not be present at it I profess it is a grand desire of my Heart that as there is but one Shepherd so there might be one Fold I should rejoyce at nothing more than an universal Communion a Catholick Peace among Christians and perchance wise men will finde no one better expedient than an uniformity of Worship by such a Form of Prayer to which all sincere and sober Christians might say Amen Now a Form nigher to such an one wiser than my self have not seen any than our present Liturgie For let all the Exceptions to which the Roman Breviary and Missal are lyable and could they be numbred let all the insipid Excursions Vagaries Impertinences and Follies of Extemporary and conceived Prayer be reckoned up The Liturgie of the Church of England is not in any proportion for Exceptions to be compared with either our Compilers aiming as Christians more at Unity than at any discernable designe whatsoever But the Porch begins to be too big for the Building and therefore my most honourable Neighbour I thus contract In Privacies as Closets let the devout proceed a Gods Name to pour out their Souls by such expressions as may best heat Devotion and best fix the Spirit For words that most affect the Heart and best sute to private grievances and personal wantings are the best expedients there For indeed onely the Spirit of man knoweth what the Spirit would But when the religious Master in his Parlour shall call in his Family to publick Duty then the Prayer be it what it may it would be set and that were it onely therefore that the weak and more ignorant might surely learn it it being a very laudable and good thing to minister Words as well as Grace unto the hearer and also for this reason further to secure the stranger who upon this account can make but one hazard of his discretion for then he shall be able to discern whether or no it be meet for him any more to joyn in such a Form But if any worthy and devout person would that all who lodge under his Roof or come ordinarily to his Table should joyn with him at his hours of Prayer without some trespass upon prudence and civility he can neither desire nor require it unless he shall use a known and a publick Form and to chuse the Common-prayer For then shall the Strangers be Children of one and the same Mother the Church of England it would be an unhandsome refusal in them not to joyn in prayer for a blessing from God the Father in the words of our Catholick and holy Mother Which Blessing may God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost confirm to you and yours and upon all the honourable Family is the unfeigned desire of From Leamington-Hastang 1666. Honourable Sir Your Neighbour professing himself most ready to Love Honour and Serve you John Allington TO THE READER THough this little Treatise now appears under a second Impression it is the Author's First For the Father being in those days Proscriptus the Child might very proportionably be Expositivus When the Father durst not shew his Head the Childe durst not tell his Name Nor was it written with any intention of a publick View so that indeed by that shift it bear 's a fairer Front than he who writ it durst have put upon it for amongst the honourable Army of Confessors Divines sequestred upon our Church-account he held himself too too unworthy to write their Apology All his designe was to give the reasons of his own Sufferings and to shew that he conceived he had just cause to prefer the Liturgie to his peace Now for as much as these Reasons were given in such a time when if they had not been Reasons the Pressures and Indigenoes attending them would easily have discovered at their Request whom I much
honour I have reviewed the thing and finde that what is Truth and Reason it will still be so change the state and condition of Seculars how they please So that look what in the days of Tryal they then did no other in these better days do they seem to me And what to me that also they appear to some so candidly judicious that upon their account and as they conceive for the good of others they again shew themselves not so much because strong but because short and plain and ad Captum vulgi and to their capacity who most need them it being thought by some that what was writ and published when the Liturgie like Christianity in the days of St. Paul was every where much spoken against that will be much sooner heeded than what hath been published since our Form of Worship hath been like the rising Sun either for the Beauty or Necessity of it received at most hands For to receive it now may be gain but to retain it then had more of godliness But as the Apostle of the Gospel the same may I say of the Liturgy whether in pretence or truth it is now used I do therein rejoyce and will rejoyce for I know this may turn to the salvation of many by the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ which being the spirit of Wisdom and Holiness will much more certainly accompany a well-digested Form than a sudden Rapsody in as much as Consideration and Prudence approach nigher to Holiness and Wisdom than rashness basty and inconsiderate Effusions One pretending to pray in my sequestred Pulpit is said to say O Lord get up upon thine Horse and make haste into Ireland or thou wilt lose more honour there than ever thou gotst in England He certainly had less of the spirit of Prayer than he who shall devoutly read the meanest of our Collects And it is very well known if it were worth the while to shovel up such Dunghils we might present the World with an huge heap of such unsavory Profanations and therefore except the madness of the people and the upholding of their Credits who have thus dishonoured God I cannot imagine what should hinder as universal joy that Forms are established and Ministers confin'd to pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding also For if St. Paul did wisely well when he preferred five Words spoken with the understanding before ten thousand in an unknown Tongue certainly it is as proportionably true to say A Prayer of five Lines deliberately made understandingly penn'd and devoutly offered is to be preferred before an whole hour of that which neither Speaker nor Hearer can give any tolerable repetition or account of Some whom I have lately treated with are come to this Truely they like the Prayers and wish there were no worse made but the Imposition that Christians should be under penalties compelled to be present at these Prayers that they like not Now for their sakes who make this Objection I must needs and especially to them remember that when the Lords and Commons acting both without and against their King were doing as the godly Ministers and Party then hoped their work then even they now Enemies to Imposition were by them stiled Custodes vindices utriusque Tabulae Not onely Gods Ministers but Gods Avengers Then it was lawful for their Magistrates in matters of Religion and Worship to Impose and if not obeyed to Dispose even of all men had Thus thought the Worthy that I have to deal with for Mr. Marshall in a Sermon upon Psal 102. v. 16 17. thus Those in Authority in things of this life may command and act ad Modum imperii by way of imposing in matters of Religion And a little after As Josiah put to death those that followed Baal so may the Parliament those that will not return to the Lord and leave Antichristianism In the year 1647 I have the testimony of many persons of Quality then Prisoners in the Tower who after an hundred Sollicitations but to have Bread out of their own Estates received from a Chair-man this Answer He would famish them into the taking of the Covenant and Negative Oath In the Articles for which I loft my Livelyhood a grand Charge is the refusal of the Directory Now if it were lawful for usurping Powers to oblige under the severity of undoing to be present at no man knew what at such Prayers as could neither be considered on nor reviewed Certainly then à Fortiori it is much more lawful for a legal and undoubted Authority to exact our presence at a Form which may be both seen and read and examined before men approach to make or give consent to the oblation of it And indeed not to make a business of this pretence it is undoubtedly clear that no party in Authority but did impose and did exact a Conformity to their Imposition Witness the Protestation the Covenant and the Engagement All Forms Humane Forms and such as have neither Command nor Example in the Book of God Yea they were Forms Contradictory and gain-saying each the other And yet whosoever refused any one of them he was proceeded against as disaffected to the present Government and by consequent unworthy to enjoy his own Bread Nor do I believe there can be found so great a difference between a Vow in Form and a Prayer in Form that it shall be lawful for Vsurpers to impose the one and unlawful for the legal and loyal Magistrate to impose the other So that refusal of the Common-prayer meerly upon the account of Imposition it seems to carry a greater measure of stomack than Conscience in it And thus thought Mr. Calvin or else he would never have writ to the Protector in the first of Edw. the sixth as in the Title-page That he exceedingly approved a set Form both of Prayer and Ecclesiastical Rituals and would have it such as no Pastor might recede from And for proof of it in England I shall onely relate what hapned some nine years after and may be read in the 1531 Page of the old and unpurged Edition of The Book of Martyrs of John Careless a Coventry-Confessor who to Dr. Martin thus The second Edition speaking of the Common-prayer of Edw. 6. is good and godly and in all points agreeing to the Word of God And then infra I will adde thus much more That the same Book which is so consonant and agreeable to Gods Word being set forth by common Authority both the King's Majesty that is dead and the whole Parliament-house ought not to be despised of me or of any other private man under pain of God's curse and high displeasure and Damnation except they repent April 25 1556. See here one ready to go to the Stake being as himself writes proclaimed Heretick at Paul 's Cross makes such a conscience of obeying the Authoritative Imposition of the Common-prayer-book that he professeth Nor he himself and will these Exceptors say he had
not the Spirit of God nor any private man might not under the pain of God's curse despise it pronouncing Damnation to all despisers if they repent not In the Stirs of Frank-ford reprinted you shall finde the Exiles of Frank-ford were so far from thinking it a pressure to a tender Conscience to impose a Discipline that they made it a condition without which no reception into their Congregation That not onely Ministers as with us but Men of all sorts yea and Women too were to subscribe unto it Nor is it ever to be dream'd there should ever be such a thing as Subordination or as they love to speak Ruling Elders without Impositions Or that any wise man should impose who hath not a coercive Power So that either every particular Christian must be a Church or there must be an obeying of them that have the rule over us and a Communicating in such Prayers as we our selves made not As for that fond Objection giving but not granting of it That set Forms stint the Spirit I conceive the result of that Dispute amounts onely to this Whether it is meeter every private Minister or a consultation of many Fathers should do it For both equally do it For if the Prayer which they call conceived Prayer be indeed so forasmuch as no Conception is imaginable without Form by consequence this conceived is a formed Prayer And if so then the Spirit in the Speaker is confined pro tempore to that Form If it be not conceived nor considered then 't is rash indigested a present unfit for a Ruler much more for a God However be it what it will it circumscribes the Auditors and bindes up their attention to the present speaking In a word being the Nation hath sadly found that both God hath been highly dishonoured and the Souls of men truely religious mightily grieved at the Follies Rebellions Impertinencies and prodigious Failings of private spirits even under pretence of Prayer there is a grand necessity of stinting restraining and limiting such spirits toward which there is no more excellent expedient than a Form of Prayer nor any Form that I ever yet saw beyond our own concerning which I shall adde this onely Sir Edward Cook in his famous Reports reports how in the 33 year of Queen Elizabeth Mr. Cawdry sometime Parson of South-Lussenham in the little County of Rutland was deprived as the Jury then gave in For that he had preached against the Book of Common-prayer and refused to celebrate Divine Service according to the same Now of the same little County the Writer hereof May the 5th 1646. was at the Committee for plundered Ministers in Westminster Sequestred March 17th 1653 at the General Sessions at◠Oakham Indicted And upon the 28th of November 1655 actually deprived by Major-General Butler for Officiating or Celebrating Divine Service by the same To the abiding of which Sequestration Indictment or Deprivation whether notwithstanding Mr. Stephen Marshall's following Answer the Reasons here following in the Letter were perswasive shall now be left to the censure of the patient and the prudent Reader Isaac Massey A BRIEF APOLOGY FOR THE Sequestred Clergy Wherein among other things this Case of Conscience is judiciously handled Whether any Minister of the Church of England may to avoid Sequestration omit the publick use of the Liturgy and submit to the Directory In a Letter from a sequestred Divine to Mr. STEPHEN MARSHALL Querelam Ecclesiae quisque Catholicus facit suam Printed in the Year 1649. In Nomine Crucifixi secundum illud primae ad Corinth cap. secundo vers secundo Reverend Sir THis Address may seem very strange and yet if you shall consider the occasion it will appear that I could not prudently do other for you being accounted a Light in that very House in which I stand eclipsed I could not imagine by any other mean than your splendour how to obtain the dissipation of this Cloud Sir so it is that that worshipful and worthy Knight Sir John Trever is one to whom I owe very much for it was his Letter and his Influence that first guided and planted me to and in the School of the Prophets It was respect to him that gained me a Tutor and it is now my respect to him which gains you this trouble For when about the beginning of Michaelmas-term I was at London meeting him in the Palace-yard I thanked him for a late courtesie his reply was I had disabled my self from the capacity of a courtesie I took leave to answer it was my Conscience and the tenderness thereof that hath thus streightned me He told me again in words as I conceive to these equivalent that I was more byassed by Conceit than Conscience and guided rather by Will than Judgement I have so little left that I can demonstrate to the world I have not made gain my godliness and I shall now desire to make it as evident unto you that 't is not Fancy but Scruple and Scruple onely for which my self and in me a Wife and five Children very deeply suffer so that I here with all respect implore your assistance either to satisfie my weakness and set me right or which perchance may be the shorter work be pleased to satisfie him whom I do so highly honour that you conceive my grounds and reasons are such as may conclude me a rational and conscientious though weak Brother The misdemeanours for so they are called for which my conviction bearing date May 5 1646. testifieth I am sequestred they are these 1. Adoration or worshipping God by bowing of my Body Eastward or towards the holy Table 2. For the exteriour acknowledgement of the Deity of my Saviour when summoned to it by his blessed Name Jesus 3. For deserting my Cure two whole years 4. For officiating by the Common-prayer-book with refusal of the Directory To which is added a general surmise of Malignancy against the Parliament First as of least concernment I shall give you this brief account of the third charge to which I negatively answer I never at all did desert my Cure For being as Justinian derélictum dicitur quod Dominus eâ mente abjecit ut id in numero rerum suarum esse nolit that onely is deserted which is thrown off with a minde to be no more possest I cannot possibly be said to have deserted my Cure when by Petition upon Petition by Letter upon Letter and all the ways I could imagine I implor'd my quiet at home or to have leave to know why and our Committee never would or did give way to either so that what is here called desertion is no more than what those words of Scripture will well warrant When you are persecuted in one City fly unto another Secondly Every absenting more than two years in these days of trial hath not been accounted sequestrable and therefore under favour I suppose though this by way of cumulation is put in this is not the gravamen for there is