XXXII. Two faults there are which our Lord and Saviour himself especially reproved in prayer: the one when ostentation did cause it to be open; the other when superstition made it long1. As therefore prayers the one way are faulty, not whensoever they be openly made, but when hypocrisy is the cause of open praying: so the length of prayer is likewise a fault, howbeit not simply, but where error and superstition causeth more than convenient repetition or continuation of speech to be used. “It is not, as some do imagine,” saith St. Augustine, “that long praying is that fault of much speaking in prayer which our Saviour did reprove; for then would not he himself in prayer have continued whole nights2.” “Use in prayer no vain superfluity of words as the heathens do, for they imagine that their much speaking will cause them to be heard3,” whereas in truth the thing which God doth regard is how virtuous their minds are, and not how copious their tongues in prayer; how well they think, and not how long they talk who come to present their supplications before him.
Notwithstanding forasmuch as in public prayer we are not only to consider what is needful in respect of God, but there is also in men that which we must regard; we somewhat the rather incline to length, lest over-quick despatch of a duty so important should give the world occasion to deem that the thing itself is but little accounted of, wherein but little time is bestowed. Length thereof is a thing which the gravity and weight of such actions doth require.
Besides, this benefit also it hath, that they whom earnest lets and impediments do often hinder from being partakers of the whole, have yet through the length of divine service opportunity left them at the least for access unto some reasonable part thereof.
Again it should be considered, how it doth come to pass that we are so long. For if that very service of God in the Jewish synagogues, which our Lord did approve and sanctify with the presence of his own person, had so large portions of the Law and the Prophets together with so many prayers and psalms read day by day as equal in a manner the length of ours, and yet in that respect was never thought to deserve blame, is it now an offence that the like measure of time is bestowed in the like manner? Peradventure the Church hath not now the leisure which it had then, or else those things whereupon so much time was then well spent, have sithence that lost their dignity and worth. If the reading of the Law, the Prophets, and Psalms, be a part of the service of God as needful under Christ as before, and the adding of the New Testament as profitable as the ordaining of the Old to be read; if therewith instead of Jewish prayers it be also for the good of the Church to annex that variety which the Apostle doth commend4, seeing that the time which we spend is no more than the orderly performance of these things necessarily requireth, why are we thought to exceed in length? Words be they never so few are too many when they benefit not the hearer. But he which speaketh no more than edifieth is undeservedly reprehended for much speaking.
That as “the Devil under colour of long prayer drave preaching out of the Church” heretofore, so we “in appointing so long time of prayers and reading, whereby the less can be spent in preaching, maintain an unpreaching ministry5,” is neither advisedly nor truly spoken. They reprove long prayer, and yet acknowledge it to be in itself a thing commendable. For so it must needs be, if the Devil have used it as “a colour” to hide his malicious practices6. When malice would work that which is evil, and in working avoid the suspicion of any evil intent, the colour wherewith it overcasteth itself is always a fair and plausible pretence of seeking to further that which is good. So that if we both retain that good which Satan hath pretended to seek, and avoid the evil which his purpose was to effect, have we not better prevented his malice than if as he hath under colour of long prayer driven preaching out of the Church, so we should take the quarrel of sermons in hand and revenge their cause by requital, thrusting prayer in a manner out of doors under colour of long preaching?
In case our prayers being made at their full length did necessarily enforce sermons to be the shorter, yet neither were this to uphold and maintain an “unpreaching ministry,” unless we will say that those ancient Fathers, Chrysostom, Augustine, Leo, and the rest, whose homilies in that consideration were shorter for the most part than our sermons are, did then not preach when their speeches were not long. The necessity of shortness causeth men to cut off impertinent discourses, and to comprise much matter in few words. But neither doth it maintain inability, nor at all prevent opportunity of preaching, as long as a competent time is granted for that purpose.
“An hour and a half” is, they say, in reformed churches “ordinarily” thought reasonable “for their whole liturgy or service7.” Do we then continue as Ezra did8 in reading the Law from morning till midday? or as the Apostle St. Paul did in prayer and preaching9 till men through weariness be taken up dead at our feet? The huge length whereof they make such complaint is but this, that if our whole form of prayer be read, and besides an hour allowed for a sermon, we spend ordinarily in both more time than they do by half an hour10. Which half-hour being such a matter as the “age of some and the infirmity of other some are not able to bear11;” if we have any sense of the “common imbecility,” if any care to preserve men’s wits from being broken with the very “bent of so long attention,” if any love or desire to provide that things most holy be not with “hazard” of men’s souls abhorred and “loathed,” this half-hour’s tediousness must be remedied, and that only by cutting off the greatest part of our common prayer. For no other remedy will serve to help so dangerous an inconvenience.
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Footnotes
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T. C. lib. i. p. 133. [104. “The liturgy of England … . . appointeth a number of psalms and other prayers and chapters to be read, which may occupy the time which is to be spent in preaching; wherein notwithstanding it ought to have been more wary, considering that the Devil under this colour of long prayer did thus in the kingdom of Antichrist banish preaching.”] et lib. iii. p. 184. ↩
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August. Ep. 121. [130. § 19. tom. ii. 389. “Neque enim, ut quidam putant, hoc est orare in multiloquio, si diutius oretur. Aliud est sermo multus, aliud diuturnus affectus. Nam et de ipso Domino scriptum est quod pernoctaverit in orando, et quod prolixius oraverit: ubi quid aliud quam nobis præbebat exemplum, in tempore precator opportunus, cum Patre exauditor æternus?”] Luke vi. 12. ↩
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[Matt. vi. 7.] ↩
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1 Tim. ii. 1. ↩
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T. C. lib. iii. p. 184. [and i. 104. al. 133.] ↩
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[The same kind of argument is used by St. Augustine to Deogratias, Opp. t. ii. p. 279. “Templum, sacerdotium, sacrificium, et alia quæcunque ad hæc pertinentia, nisi uni vero Deo deberi nossent Dii falsi, hoc est dæmones, qui sunt prævaricatores angeli, nunquam hæc sibi a cultoribus suis, quos decipiunt, expetissent.” And by Tertullian, ad Uxor. i. 7. “Sacerdotium viduitatis et celebratum est apud Nationes pro diaboli scilicet æmulatione. Regem sæculi, Pontificem Maximum, rursus nubere nefas est. Quantum Deo sanctitas placet, cum illam etiam inimicus affectat! non utique ut alicujus boni affinis, sed ut Dei Domini placita cum contumelia affectans.”] ↩
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[T. C. iii. 185. “There is to be considered the common infirmity; whereby, through such continuance the powers of the mind standing so long bent are dulled, and often also a most dangerous loathsomeness occasioned. Against which our Church (as others have done) should by a godly policy have provided, where for this cause the whole liturgy or service is not ordinarily above an hour and a half.”] ↩
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Neh. viii. 3. ↩
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Acts xx. 9. ↩
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[So Whitgift, Def. 482. “The longest time (if there be no Communion) is not more than an hour.” And Bridges, Def. of Gov. p. 625. “All the forms of prayer that are prescribed in any part of our ordinary divine service may be soberly and with decent pauses uttered forth, either for the minister’s or for the people’s part, in the space of little more than one hour, yea, the lessons, and all the rest of the divine service, within one hour and a half, even where the service is longest in saying, though also much and solemn singing do protract it.” These passages seem to indicate, that the services of Morning Prayer, the Litany, and the Communion, were united in Q. Elizabeth’s time according to the present practice. The final rubric in the first Prayer Book of K. Edward is, “If there be a sermon, or for other great cause, the curate by his discretion may leave out the Letanie, Gloria in Excelsis, the Crede, the Homely, and thexhortation to the Communion.” Archbishop Grindal directs “the minister not to pause or stay between the Morning Prayer, Litany and Communion, but to continue and say the Morning Prayer, Litany and Communion, or the service appointed to be said when there was no communion, together without any intermission: to the intent the people might continue together in prayer and hearing the word of God, and not depart out of the Church during all the time of the whole divine service.” Injunctions to the Province of York, 1571, in Strype, Grind. 249.] ↩
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[T. C. iii. 184. “He asketh” (Def. 482.) “whether we can spend an hour better, than in praying, and hearing the Scripture read. Whereunto I answer, that if with that hour he allow another for the sermon, the time will be longer than the age of some and infirmities of other some can ordinarily well bear: whereunto also if another hour at the least be added for the celebration of the holy communion, he may see that either the preaching must be abridged, or not so due regard had of men’s infirmities.”] ↩