XXXV. But in vain we labour to persuade them that any thing can take away the tediousness of prayer, except it be brought to the very same both measure and form which themselves assign. Whatsoever therefore our liturgy hath more than theirs, under one devised pretence or other they cut it off. We have of prayers for earthly things in their opinion too great a number1; so oft to rehearse the Lord’s Prayer in so small a time is as they think a loss of time2; the people’s praying after the minister they say both wasteth time, and also maketh an unpleasant sound; the Psalms they would not have to be made (as they are) a part of our common prayer, nor to be sung or said by turns, nor such music to be used with them; those evangelical hymns they allow not to stand in our liturgy; the Litany, the Creed of Athanasius3, the sentence of Glory wherewith we use to conclude psalms, these things they cancel, as having been instituted in regard of occasions peculiar to the times of old, and as being therefore now superfluous.
Touching prayers for things earthly, we ought not to think that the Church hath set down so many of them without cause. They peradventure, which find this fault, are of the same affection with Salomon, so that if God should offer to grant them whatsoever they ask, they would neither crave riches, nor length of days4, nor yet victory over their enemies, but only an understanding heart: for which cause themselves having eagles’ wings, are offended to see others fly so near the ground. But the tender kindness of the Church of God it very well beseemeth to help the weaker sort, which are by so great odds moe in number, although some few of the perfecter and stronger may be therewith for a time displeased.
Ignorant we are not, that of such as resorted to our Saviour Christ being present on earth, there came not any unto him with better success for the benefit of their souls’ everlasting happiness, than they whose bodily necessities gave them the first occasion to seek relief, where they saw willingness and ability of doing every way good unto all.
The graces of the Spirit are much more precious than worldly benefits; our ghostly evils of greater importance than any harm which the body feeleth. Therefore our desires to heavenward should both in measure and number no less exceed than their glorious object doth every way excel in value. These things are true and plain in the eye of a perfect judgment. But yet it must be withal considered, that the greatest part of the world are they which be farthest from perfection. Such being better able by sense to discern the wants of this present life, than by spiritual capacity to apprehend things above sense, which tend to their happiness in the world to come, are in that respect the more apt to apply their minds even with hearty affection and zeal at the least unto those branches of public prayer, wherein their own particular is moved. And by this mean there stealeth upon them a double benefit: first because that good affection, which things of smaller account have once set on work, is by so much the more easily raised higher; and secondly in that the very custom of seeking so particular aid and relief at the hands of God, doth by a secret contradiction withdraw them from endeavouring to help themselves by those wicked shifts which they know can never have his allowance, whose assistance their prayer seeketh. These multiplied petitions of worldly things in prayer have therefore, besides their direct use, a service, whereby the Church underhand, through a kind of heavenly fraud, taketh therewith the souls of men as with certain baits5.
If then their calculation be true, (for so they reckon,) that a full third of our prayers be allotted unto earthly benefits, for which our Saviour in his platform hath appointed but one petition amongst seven, the difference is without any great disagreement; we respecting what men are, and doing that which is meet in regard of the common imperfection; our Lord contrariwise proposing the most absolute proportion that can be in men’s desires, the very highest mark whereat we are able to aim.
For which cause also our custom is both to place it in the front of our prayers as a guide6, and to add it in the end of some principal limbs or parts as a complement which fully perfecteth whatsoever may be defective in the rest. Twice we rehearse it ordinarily, and oftener as occasion requireth more solemnity or length in the form of divine service; not mistrusting, till these new curiosities sprang up, that ever any man would think our labour herein mispent, the time wastefully consumed, and the office itself made worse by so repeating that which otherwise would more hardly be made familiar to the simpler sort; for the good of whose souls there is not in Christian religion any thing of like continual use and force throughout every hour and moment of their whole lives.
I mean not only because prayer, but because this very prayer, is of such efficacy and necessity. For that our Saviour did but set men a bare example how to contrive or devise prayers of their own, and no way bind them to use this, is no doubt an error. John the Baptist’s disciples which had been always brought up in the bosom of God’s Church from the time of their first infancy till they came to the school of John, were not so brutish that they could be ignorant how to call upon the name of God; but of their master they had received a form of prayer amongst themselves, which form none did use saving his disciples, so that by it as by a mark of special difference they were known from others. And of this the Apostles having taken notice, they request that as John had taught his, so Christ would likewise teach them to pray7.
Tertullian and St. Augustine8 do for that cause term it Orationem legitimam, the Prayer which Christ’s own law hath tied his Church to use in the same prescript form of words wherewith he himself did deliver it; and therefore what part of the world soever we fall into, if Christian religion have been there received, the ordinary use of this very prayer hath with equal continuance accompanied the same as one of the principal and most material duties of honour done to Jesus Christ. “Seeing that we have” (saith St. Cyprian) “an Advocate with the Father for our sins, when we that have sinned come to seek for pardon, let us allege unto God the words which our Advocate hath taught. For sith his promise is our plain warrant, that in his name what we ask we shall receive, must we not needs much the rather obtain that for which we sue if not only his name do countenance but also his speech present our requests9?”
Though men should speak with the tongues of Angels, yet words so pleasing to the ears of God as those which the Son of God himself hath composed were not possible for men to frame. He therefore which made us to live hath also taught us to pray, to the end that speaking unto the Father in the Son’s own prescript form without scholy or gloss of ours, we may be sure that we utter nothing which God will either disallow or deny. Other prayers we use many besides this, and this oftener than any other; although not tied so to do by any commandment of Scripture, yet moved with such considerations as have been before set down: the causeless dislike whereof which others have conceived, is no sufficient reason for us as much as once to forbear in any place a thing which uttered with true devotion and zeal of heart affordeth to God himself that glory, that aid to the weakest sort of men, to the most perfect that solid comfort which is unspeakable.
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Footnotes
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T. C. lib. i. p. 136. [107.] “I can make no geometrical and exact measure, but verily I believe there shall be found more than a third part of the prayers, which are not psalms and texts of Scripture, spent in praying for and praying against the commodities and incommodities of this life, which is contrary to all the arguments or contents of the prayers of the Church set down in the Scripture, and especially of our Saviour Christ’s prayer, by the which ours ought to be directed.” ↩
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T. C. lib. i. p. 219. [176.] “What a reason is this, we must repeat the Lord’s Prayer oftentimes, therefore oftentimes in half an hour, and one in the neck of another! … Our Saviour Christ doth not there give a prescript form of prayer whereunto he bindeth us: but giveth us a rule and squire to frame all our prayers by. I know it is necessary to pray, and pray often. I know also that in a few words it is impossible for any man to frame so pithy a prayer, and I confess that the Church doth well in concluding their prayers with the Lord’s Prayer: but I stand upon this, that there is no necessity laid upon us to use these very words and no more.” ↩
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[2 Adm. 57. “I would know what there is in Athanasius’ Creed, that that must be upon high days, (as they term them) rather than the Apostles’ Creed.”] ↩
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[1 Kings iii. 11.] ↩
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[Chr. Letter, p. 36. “Did you see in the mountaine of God the patterne of that heavenlie fraude which you say is to catch men by multiplied petitions of worldlie things?”Hooker, MS. note. “What is it which displeaseth you in this speech? Why not the fraud of man to catch men by multiplied petitions, as well as the fraud of God to catch them by multiplied promises of worldly things? I cannot think you are so dull that the use of the word fraud in that sort should offend your taste. If the matter be that you mislike, let men guesse what an unfained favourer you are of the exercise of religion now authorised, when you make so speciall exception against our publique prayers.”] ↩
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Tertull. de Orat. [c. 9.] “Præmissa legitima et ordinaria oratione quasi fundamento, accidentium jus est desideriorum, jus est superstruendi extrinsecus petitiones.” ↩
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Luke xi. 1. ↩
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[Enarr. in Psalm. 142. t. iv. p. 1592. “Ipsis (Apostolis) data est regula postulandi a Jurisperito cælesti. ‘Sic orate,’ inquit.”] ↩
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Cypr. de Orat. Dom. [c. 2. t. i. 140. “Cum ipsum habeamus apud Patrem advocatum pro peccatis nostris, quando peccatores pro delictis nostris petimus, advocati nostri verba promamus. Nam cum dicat, quia quodcunque petierimus a Patre in nomine ejus, dabit nobis; quanto efficacius impetramus quod petimus in Christi nomine, si petamus ipsius oratione.”] ↩