Commissioners Petitioning for Review of Book of Common Prayer, Commentary 2 · Preface · Section 2 – Section 4
Sect. 2.
[The Gift,Ans. or rather Spirit of Prayer, consists in the inward Graces of the Spirit, not in extempore expressions, which any man of natural parts, having a voluble tongue, and audacity, may attain to, without any special Gift.]
Repl. All inward Graces of the Spirit,Rep. are not properly called the Spirit of Pray…r; nor is the Spirit of Prayer, that Gift of Prayer which we speak of; nor did we call it by the name of a special Gift; nor did we deny that ordinary men of natural parts, and voluble tongues may attain it: But yet we humbly conceive, that as there is a Gift of Preaching, so also of Prayer, which God bestoweth in the use of means, diversified much according to mens natural parts, and their diligence, as other acquired abilities are; but also much depending on that Grace that is indeed special, which maketh men love and rellish the holy Subjects of such Spiritual studies, and the holy exercise of those Graces that are the soul of Prayer, and consequently making men follow on such exercises with delight and diligence, and therefore with success; and also God is free in giving or denying his Blessing to mans endeavours: If you think there be no Gift of Preaching, you will too dishonourably level the Ministry. If reading be all the Gift of Prayer or Preaching, there needs no great understanding or learning to it; nor should Coblers and Tinkers be so unfit men for the Ministry as they are thought, nor would the reason be very apparent why a Woman mightnot speak by Preaching or Praying in the Church.
Sect. 3.
[But if there be any such Gift as is pretended, Ans. Cor. 14.it is to be subject to the Prophets, and to the Order of the Church.]
Repl. The Text speaks,Rep. (as Dr. Hammond well shews) of a subjection to that Prophet himself who was the Speaker: Inspiration excluded not the prudent exercise of Reason; but it is a strange ordering, that totally excludeth the thing ordered. The Gift of Preaching (as distinct from Reading) is to be orderly, and with due subjection exercised; but not to be on that pretence extinguished and cast out of the Church: And indeed if you should command it, you are not to be obeyed, whatever we suffer. And why then should the Gift of Prayer (distinct from Reading) be cast out?
Sect. 4.
[The mischiefs that come by idle,Ans. impertinent, ridiculous, sometimes seditious, impious, and blasphemous expressions, under pretence of the Gift, to the dishonour of God, and scorn of Religion, being far greater than the pretended good of exercising the Gift; it is fit that they who desire such liberty in publick devotions, should first give the Church security, that no private opinions should be put into their Prayers, as is desired in the first proposal, and that nothing contrary to the Faith, should be uttered before God, or offered up to him in the Church.]
Repl. The mischiefs which you pretend,Rep. are inconveniences attending humane imperfeotion, which you would cure with a mischief. Your Argument from the Abuse, against the Use, is a palpable fallacy, which cast out Physitians in some Countries, and rooted up Vines in others, and condemneth the reading of the Scriptures in a known tongue among the Papists. If the Apostles (that complained then so much of divisions, and Preaching false doctrine, and in envy, and strife) had thought the way of cure had been in sending Ministers about the world with a Prayer-book or Sermon book, and to have tyed them only to read, either one or both of these, no doubt but they would have been so regardful of the Church, as to have composed such a Prayer-book or Sermon book themselves, and not left us to the uncertainties of an Authority not infallible, nor to the divisions that follow the impositions of a questionable Power, or that which unquestionably is not universal, and therefore can procure no universal Concord. If one man among you draw up a Form of Prayer, it is his single conception; and why a man as learned and able, may not be trusted to conceive a Prayer for the use of a single Congregation, without the dangers mentioned by you, as one man to conceive a Prayer for all the Churches in a Diocess, or a Nation, we know not. These words [that the mischief is greater than the pretended good] seem to express an unjust accusation of ordinary conceived Prayer, and a great undervaluing of the benefits: If you would intimate that the Crimes expressed by you are ordinarily found in Ministers Prayers, we that hear such much more frequently than you, must profess we have not found it so (allowing men their different measures of exactness, as you have even in writing.) Nay, to the praise of God we must say, that multitudes of private men can ordinarily pray, without any such imperfection as should nauseate a sober person; and with such seriousness and aptness of expression, as is greatly to the benefit and comfort of our selves when we joyn with them. And if such general accusations may serve in a matter of publick and common fact, there is no way for the justification of the Innocent: And that it is no such common Guilt, will seem more propable to them that consider, that such conceived Prayers, both prepared, and extemporate, have been ordinarily used in the Pulpits in England and Scotland, before our dayes till now, and there hath been power enough (in the Bishops and others before the Wars) to punish those that speak ridiculously, seditiously, impiously, or blasphemously: And yet so few are the instances (even where jealousie was most busie) of Ministers punished, or once accused of any such fault in Prayer, as that we find it not easie to remember any considerable number of them; there being great numbers punished for not reading the Book for playing on the Lord's dayes, or for Preaching too oft, and such like, for one that was ever questioned for such kind of praying. And the former shewed that it was not for want of will to be severe, that they spared them as to the later. And if it be but few that are guilty of any intolerable faults of that nature in their Prayers, we hope you will not go on to believe that the mischiefs that come by the failings of those few, are far greater than the benefit of conceived Prayer by all others: We presume not to make our experiences the measure of yours, or other mens; you may tell us what doth most good or hurt to your selves, and those that have so communicated their experiences to you: But we also may speak our own, and others that have discovered them to us; and we must seriously profess, that we have found far more benefit to our selves, and to our Congregations (as far as our Conference and Converse with them, and our observation of the effects alloweth us to discern) by conceived Prayers, than by the Book of Common Prayer: we find that the benefit of conceived Prayers is to keep the mind in serious imployment, and to awaken the affections, and make us fervent and importunate. And the inconvenience, is, that some weak men are apt, as in Preaching and Conference, so in Prayer, to shew their weakness, by some unapt expressions or disorder; which is an evil no way to be compared with the fore-mentioned good, considering that it is but in the weak, and that if that weakness be so great as to require it, Forms might be imposed on those few, without imposing them on all for ther sakes, (as we force not all to use spectacles or Crutches, because some are pur-blind or lame,) and considering that God heareth not Prayers for the Rhetorick, and handsome Cadencies and neatness of expressions, but will bear more with some incuriosity of words (which yet we plead not for) than with an hypocritical, formal, heartless, lip-service; for he knoweth the meaning of the Spirit, even in the groans, which are not uttered in words. And for the Common Prayer, our observation telleth us, that though some can use it judiciously, seriously, and we doubt not profitably, yet as to the most of the vulgar, it causeth a relaxing of their attention and intention, and a lazy taking up with a Corps or image of devotion, even the service of the lips, while the heart is little sensible of what is said: And had we not known it, we should have thought it incredible, how utterly ignorant abundance are of the sense of the words which they hear and repeat themselves from day to day, even about Christ himself, and the essentials of Christianity: It is wonderful to us to observe that rational Creatures, can so commonly separate the words from all the sense and Life. So great a help or hinderance even to the understanding, is the awakening, or not awakening of the affections, about the things of God: And we have already shewed you many unfit expressions in the Common Prayer Book, especially in the Epistles and Gospels, through the faultiness of your Translation, as Eph. 3. 15. [Father of all that is called [Father in Heaven and Earth] and that Christ was found in his apparel as a man] [that Mount Sinai, is Agar in Arabia, and bordereth upon the City now called Jerusalem] Gal. 4. 25. [This is the sixth Month which is barren] Luke 1. [And when men be drunk] Joh. 2. with many such like; which are parts of your publick Worship: and would you have us hence conclude, that the mischiefs of such expressions are greater than all the benefits of that Worship? And yet there is this difference in the Cases, that weak and rash Ministers were but here and there one, but the Common Prayer is the Service of every Church and every day: Had we heard any in extemporary Prayers use such unmeet expressions, we should have thought him worthy of sharp reprehension, yea, though he had been of the younger or weaker sort. Divers other unfit expressions are mentioned, in the exceptions of the late Arch-Bishop of York, and Primate of Ireland, and others (before spoken of) and there is much in the prejudice, or diseased curiosity of some Hearers, to make words seem idle, impertinent, or ridiculous, which are not so (and which perhaps they understand not): some thought so of the inserting in the late Prayer Book, the private opinion of the souls of the departed, praying for us, and our praying for the benefit of their Prayers. As for the Security which you call for, (though, as is shewed, you have given us none at all against such errors in your Forms, yet) we have before shewed you, that you have as much, as among imperfect men can be expected: The same that you have, that Physitians shall not murder men, and that Lawyers and Judges shall not undo men, and that your Pilot shall not cast away the Ship: you have the power in your hands, of taking or refusing, as they please or displease you; and of judging them by a known Law, for their proved miscarriages, according to the quality of them; and what would you have more?