XXXI. When they object that our Book requireth nothing to be done which a child may not do as “lawfully and as well as that man wherewith the book contenteth itself1,” is it their meaning that the service of God ought to be a matter of great difficulty, a labour which requireth great learning and deep skill, or else that the book containing it should teach what men are fit to attend upon it, and forbid either men unlearned or children to be admitted thereunto? In setting down the form of common prayer, there was no need that the book should mention either the learning of a fit, or the unfitness of an ignorant minister, more than that he which describeth the manner how to pitch a field should speak of moderation and sobriety in diet.
And concerning the duty itself, although the hardness thereof be not such as needeth much art, yet surely they seem to be very far carried besides themselves to whom the dignity of public prayer doth not discover somewhat more fitness in men of gravity and ripe discretion than in “children of ten years of age2,” for the decent discharge and performance of that office. It cannot be that they who speak thus should thus judge. At the board and in private it very well becometh children’s innocency to pray, and their elders to say Amen. Which being a part of their virtuous education, serveth greatly both to nourish in them the fear of God, and to put us in continual remembrance of that powerful grace which openeth the mouths of infants to sound his praise. But public prayer, the service of God in the solemn assembly of saints, is a work though easy yet withal so weighty and of such respect, that the great facility thereof is but a slender argument to prove it may be as well and as lawfully committed to children as to men of years, howsoever their ability of learning be but only to do that in decent order wherewith the book contenteth itself.
The book requireth but orderly reading. As in truth what should any prescript form of prayer framed to the minister’s hand require, but only so to be read as behoveth? We know that there are in the world certain voluntary overseers of all books, whose censure in this respect would fall as sharp on us as it hath done on many others, if delivering but a form of prayer, we should either express or include anything, more than doth properly concern prayer. The minister’s greatness or meanness of knowledge to do other things, his aptness or insufficiency otherwise than by reading to instruct the flock, standeth in this place as a stranger with whom our form of common prayer hath nothing to do.
Wherein their exception against easiness, as if that did nourish ignorance, proceedeth altogether of a needless jealousy. I have often heard it inquired of by many, how it might be brought to pass that the Church should every where have able preachers to instruct the people; what impediments there are to hinder it, and which were the speediest way to remove them. In which consultations the multitude of parishes, the paucity of schools, the manifold discouragements which are offered unto men’s inclinations that way, the penury of the ecclesiastical estate, the irrecoverable loss of so many livings of principal value clean taken away from the Church long sithence by being appropriated, the daily bruises that spiritual promotions use to take by often falling3, the want of somewhat in certain statutes which concern the state of the Church, the too great facility of many bishops, the stony hardness of too many patrons’ hearts not touched with any feeling in this case: such things oftentimes are debated, and much thought upon by them that enter into any discourse concerning any defect of knowledge in the clergy. But whosoever be found guilty, the communion book hath surely deserved least to be called in question for this fault. If all the clergy were as learned as themselves are that most complain of ignorance in others, yet our book of prayer might remain the same; and remaining the same it is, I see not how it can be a let unto any man’s skill in preaching. Which thing we acknowledge to be God’s good gift, howbeit no such necessary element that every act of religion should be thought imperfect and lame wherein there is not somewhat exacted that none can discharge but an able preacher.
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Footnotes
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T. C. lib. i. p. 133. [104.] et lib. iii. p. 184. “Another fault in the whole service or liturgy of England is, for that it maintaineth an unpreaching ministry, in requiring nothing to be done by the minister which a child of ten years old cannot do as well and as lawfully as that man wherewith the book contenteth itself.” [and Learned Discourse, ap. Bridges, p. 521. “While the whole office of a pastor shall be thought to consist in reading only a prescript number of psalms and chapters of the Scriptures, with other appointed forms of prayer, and that he may be allowed a sufficient pastor which doth the things, which a child of ten years old may do as well as he: so long shall we never lack unlearned pastors.” Whitg. Def. 482. “You might as well say, that because a child of ten years old can read the Bible translated into English, therefore the Bible translated into English maintaineth an unpreaching ministry.”] ↩
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[2d Adm. 46, 47. ed. 1617. “If to read the Scriptures, the homilies, and the course of our Book of Common Prayers were enough, . . then a boy of ten years old may do the minister’s office.”] ↩
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[Christian Letter, 37. “What be the bruises and falls that spiritual promotions ordained by Christ do or can take?” Hooker, MS. note. “O witte!” Fuller, C. H. b. ix. p. 98. “Many a bishopric so bruised itself when it fell vacant, that it lost some land before a new Bishop was settled therein; where the elects contracted with the promoters on unworthy conditions.”] ↩