XXXIV. Again, forasmuch as effectual prayer is joined with a vehement intention of the inferior powers of the soul, which cannot therein long continue without pain, it hath been therefore thought good so by turns to interpose still somewhat for the higher part of the mind, the understanding, to work upon, that both being kept in continual exercise with variety, neither might feel any great weariness, and yet each be a spur to other. For prayer kindleth our desire to behold God by speculation; and the mind delighted with that contemplative sight of God, taketh every where new inflammations to pray, the riches of the mysteries of heavenly wisdom continually stirring up in us correspondent desires towards them. So that he which prayeth in due sort is thereby made the more attentive to hear, and he which heareth the more earnest to pray, for the time which we bestow as well in the one as the other.
But for what cause soever we do it, this intermingling of lessons with prayers is1 in their taste a thing as unsavoury, and as unseemly in their sight, as if the like should be done in suits and supplications before some mighty prince of the world. Our speech to worldly superiors we frame in such sort as serveth best to inform and persuade the minds of them, who otherwise neither could nor would greatly regard our necessities: whereas, because we know that God is indeed a King, but a great king, who understandeth all things beforehand, which no other king besides doth, a king which needeth not to be informed what we lack, a king readier to grant than we to make our requests; therefore in prayer we do not so much respect what precepts art delivereth touching the method of persuasive utterance in the presence of great men, as what doth most avail to our own edification in piety and godly zeal. If they on the contrary side do think that the same rules of decency which serve for things done unto terrene powers should universally decide what is fit in the service of God; if it be their meaning to hold it for a maxim, that the Church must deliver her public supplications unto God in no other form of speech than such as were decent, if suit should be made to the great Turk, or some other monarch, let them apply their own rule unto their own form of common prayer. Suppose that the people of a whole town with some chosen man before them did continually twice or thrice in a week resort to their king, and every time they come first acknowledge themselves guilty of rebellions and treasons, then sing a song, after that explain some statute of the land to the standers-by, and therein spend at the least an hour, this done, turn themselves again to the king, and for every sort of his subjects crave somewhat of him, at the length sing him another song, and so take their leave. Might not the king well think that either they knew not what they would have, or else that they were distracted in mind, or some other such like cause of the disorder of their supplication? This form of suing unto kings were absurd. This form of praying unto God they allow.
When God was served with legal sacrifices, such was the miserable and wretched disposition of some men’s minds, that the best of every thing they had being culled out for themselves, if there were in their flocks any poor starved or diseased thing not worth the keeping, they thought it good enough for the altar of God, pretending (as wise hypocrites do when they rob God to enrich themselves) that the fatness of calves doth benefit him nothing; to us the best things are most profitable, to him all as one if the mind of the offerer be good, which is the only thing he respecteth. In reproof of which their devout fraud, the Prophet Malachi allegeth that gifts are offered unto God not as supplies of his want indeed2, but yet as testimonies of that affection wherewith we acknowledge and honour his greatness. For which cause, sith the greater they are whom we honour, the more regard we have to the quality and choice of those presents which we bring them for honour’s sake, it must needs follow that if we dare not disgrace our worldly superiors with offering unto them such refuse as we bring unto God himself, we shew plainly that our acknowledgment of his greatness is but feigned, in heart we fear him not so much as we dread them. “If ye offer the blind for sacrifice it is not evil3. Offer it now unto thy prince. Will he be content, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts. Cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male, and having made a vow sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing. For I am a great king, saith the Lord of hosts.” Should we hereupon frame a rule that what form of speech or behaviour soever is fit for suitors in a prince’s court, the same and no other beseemeth us in our prayers to Almighty God?
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Footnotes
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“We have no such forms in the Scripture as that we should pray in two or three lines, and then after having read awhile some other thing, come and pray as much more, and so the twentieth or thirtieth time, with pauses between. If a man should come to a prince, and having very many things to demand, after he had demanded one thing, would stay a long time, and then demand another, and so the third: the prince might well think that either he came to ask before he knew what he had need of, or that he had forgotten some piece of his suit, or that he was distracted in his understanding, or some other such like cause of the disorder of his supplication.” T. C. lib. i. p. 138. [al. 108. Whitgift replies, Def. 500, “As much difference as there is betwixt man and God, so far is this similitude of yours from proving your purpose: except you will admit the like similitude used by Papists, to prove praying to Saints.”] “This kind of reason the Prophet in the matter of sacrifices doth use.” T. C. lib. iii. p. 210. ↩
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Μέρη τιμη̑ς τὰ δω̑ρα, τὰ παρ’ ἑκάστοις τίμια. Καὶ γὰρ τὸ δω̑ρόν ἐστι κτήματος δόσις καὶ τιμη̑ς σημει̑ον, διὸ καὶ οἱ ϕιλοχρήματοι καὶ οἱ ϕιλότιμοι ἐϕίενται αὐτω̑ν· ἀμϕοτέροις γὰρ ἔχει ὠ̑ν δέονται· καὶ γὰρ κτη̑μά ἐστιν, οὑ̑ ἐϕίενται οἱ ϕιλοχρήματοι, καὶ τιμὴν ἔχει, οὑ̑ οἱ ϕιλότιμοι. Arist. Rhet. lib. i. c. 5. ↩
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Mal. i. 8. 14. [This quotation has been altered in most editions, to suit the version in K. James’s Bible, thus: “Is it not evil?” In the Geneva version, which Hooker generally followed, the sentence is not read interrogatively, but as an affirmation, put into the mouth of those whom the Prophet is reproving. So also in the Bishops’ Bible: “When ye bryng the blynde for sacrifice, [you saye,] It is not evyl: and when ye bring the lame and sicke, [you saye,] It is not evyl.” The error in the copies of Hooker occurs as early as the edition of 1632.] ↩