XXVII. Now albeit the Admonitioners did seem at the first to allow no prescript form of prayer at all1, but thought it the best that their minister should always be left at liberty to pray as his own discretion did serve; yet because this opinion upon better advice they afterwards retracted, their defender and his associates have sithence proposed to the world a form such as themselves like2, and to shew their dislike of ours, have taken against it those exceptions, which whosoever doth measure by number, must needs be greatly out of love with a thing that hath so many faults; whosoever by weight, cannot choose but esteem very highly of that, wherein the wit of so scrupulous adversaries hath not hitherto observed any defect which themselves can seriously think to be of moment. “Gross errors and manifest impiety,” they grant we have “taken away3.” Yet many things in it they say are amiss4; many instances they give of things in our common prayer not agreeable as they pretend with the word of God. It hath in their eye too great affinity with the form of the Church of Rome; it differeth too much from that which churches elsewhere reformed allow and observe; our attire disgraceth it; it is not orderly read nor gestured as beseemeth: it requireth nothing to be done which a child may not lawfully do; it hath a number of short cuts or shreddings which may be better called wishes than prayers; it intermingleth prayings and readings, in such manner as if supplicants should use in proposing their suits unto mortal princes, all the world would judge them mad; it is too long and by that mean abridgeth preaching; it appointeth the people to say after the minister; it spendeth time in singing and in reading the Psalms by course from side to side; it useth the Lord’s Prayer too oft; the songs of Magnificat, Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis, it might very well spare; it hath the Litany, the Creed of Athanasius, and Gloria Patri, which are superfluous; it craveth earthly things too much; for deliverance from those evils against which we pray it giveth no thanks; some things it asketh unseasonably when they need not to be prayed for, as deliverance from thunder and tempest when no danger is nigh; some in too abject and diffident manner, as that God would give us that which we for our unworthiness dare not ask; some which ought not to be desired, as the deliverance from sudden death, riddance from all adversity, and the extent of saving mercy towards all men. These and such like are the imperfections, whereby our form of common prayer is thought to swerve from the word of God.
A great favourer of that part, but yet (his error that way excepted) a learned, a painful, a right virtuous and a good man did not fear sometime to undertake, against popish detractors, the general maintenance and defence of our whole church service, as having in it nothing repugnant to the word of God5. And even they which would file away most from the largeness of that offer, do notwithstanding in more sparing terms acknowledge little less. For when those opposite judgments which never are wont to construe things doubtful to the better, those very tongues which are always prone to aggravate whatsoever hath but the least show whereby it may be suspected to savour of or to sound towards any evil, do by their own voluntary sentence clearly free us from “gross errors,” and from “manifest impiety” herein; who would not judge us to be discharged of all blame, which are confessed to have no great fault even by their very word and testimony, in whose eyes no fault of ours hath ever hitherto been accustomed to seem small?
Nevertheless what they seem to offer us with the one hand, the same with the other they pull back again. They grant we err not in palpable manner, we are not openly and notoriously impious; yet errors we have which the sharp insight of their wisest men doth espy, there is hidden impiety which the profounder sort are able enough to disclose. Their skilful ears perceive certain harsh and unpleasant discords in the sound of our common prayer, such as the rules of divine harmony, such as the laws of God cannot bear.
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Footnotes
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[Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 488. “Then ministers wre not so tied to any form of prayers invented by man, but as the Spirit moved them, so they poured forth hearty supplications to the Lord. Now they are bound of necessity to a prescript order of service, and book of Common Prayer.” See also Second Admonition, 38. But in “Certain Articles,” &c. (printed the same year in defence of the Admonition,) p. 4, they say, “There is no such thing meant, that there should be none at all, but that this of theirs ought not to be tolerated. A form of prayers they deny not.” And T. C. i. 105. “We agree of a prescript form of prayer to be used in the Church.” See also Whitg. Def. 782.] ↩
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[It appears from Strype, Whitg. i. 347, 487, and in 1584 and 1586 attempts were made in Parliament to obtain sanction for “The Form of Prayers and Administration of the Sacraments used in the English Church at Geneva: approved and received by the Church of Scotland.” Which Book is for the most part reprinted in the Phœnix, ii. 204, &c. It was first printed in Latin, 1556, by the exiles at Geneva, with Calvin’s approbation. Strype, Mem. iii. 538. Bancroft, Sermon at Paul’s Cross, p. 53, says, “About four years since” (from 1588) “some two or three private men in a corner framed a book of the form of Common Prayer, Administration of the Sacraments, &c. and without any authority published the same, as meet to be embraced and used in all the parish churches in England … . The next year another Book of Common Prayer, &c. with like authority was cast abroad … with not so few as 600 alterations … . Within another year a third book is begotten and brought forth.”] ↩
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[T. C. i. 102. al. 131.] ↩
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T. C. lib. i. p. 135. [106.] “Whereas Mr. Doctor affirmeth, that there can be nothing shewed in the whole book, which is not agreeable unto the word of God; I am very loth.” &c. “Notwithstanding, my duty of defending the truth, and love which I have first towards God, and then towards my country, constraineth me being thus provoked to speak a few words more particularly of the form of prayer, that when the blemishes thereof do appear, it may please the Queen’s Majesty, and her honourable council, with those of the parliament,” &c. ↩
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[“Of this book a certain learned man” (marg. Dering) “writing against M. Harding, uttereth these words by way of challenge: ‘Our service is good and godly; every tittle grounded on holy Scripture: and with what face do you call it darkness? Surely with the same that the prophecies of the Holy Ghost were sometimes called dreams, the doctrine of the Apostles, heresy, and our Saviour Christ a Samaritan. As Elias said to the Priests of Baal, let us take either our bullocks (meaning the Pope’s portuise, and our Common Prayer Book) and lay the pieces on our altars, and on which God sendeth his fire, let that be the light.’ And a little before, ‘O M. Harding, turn to your writings, examine your authors, consider your councils, apply your examples; look if any line be blameable in our Service book; I think M. Jewel will accept it as an Article.’ ” Bancroft, Sermon at Paul’s Cross, 1588. p. 48. The book from which he quotes is “A sparing Restraint of many lavish Untruths, which Mr. D. Harding doth challenge in the first Article of my Lord of Sarisbury’s Reply, 1568.” Whitgift, Defence, 490, refers to the same passage. Of Dering, see Strype, Parker, ii. 174, 240, 265, 377; Ann. ii. 1. 282, 400; Life of Hooker, supr. p. 35, vol. i. Part of his “Readings on the Ep. to the Hebrews,” (Strype, Park. ii. 177.) as also some prayers of his, were selected to be read to Dr. Reynolds on his death-bed; as appears by a letter in Fulm. MSS. ix. 123.] ↩