Ch. xxxi. 1. 142 Reading Prayers, though easy, requires mature Thought. BOOK V. "done" in the midst of the church83, and therefore not baptism to be administered in one place, marriage solemnized in another, the supper of the Lord received in a third, in a fourth sermons, in a fifth prayers to be made; that the custom which we use is Levitical, absurd, and such as hindereth the understanding of the people; that if it be meet for the minister at some time to look towards the people, if the body of the church be a fit place for some part of divine service, it must needs follow that whensoever his face is turned any other way, or any thing done any other where, it hath absurdity. "All these reasons83" they say have been brought, and were hitherto never answered; besides a number of merriments and jests unanswered likewise, wherewith they have pleasantly moved much laughter at our manner of serving God. Such is their evil hap to play upon dullspirited men. We are still persuaded that a bare denial is answer sufficient to things which mere fancy objecteth; and that the best apology to words of scorn and petulancy is Isaac's apology to his brother Ishmael, the apology which patience and silence maketh. Our answer therefore to their reasons is no; to their scoffs nothing. . Easiness of praying after our form. 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 itself 84," is it their meaning that the service of God ought to be a matter of great difficulty, a labour which requireth great learning and 66 82 Lib. iii. p. 187. [T. C. iii. 187. "The place of St. Luke" (Acts i. 15.) is an unchangeable rule to "teach, that all that which is done "in the church ought to be done " where it may be best heard."] 83 [T. C. iii. 186. "To all these reasons he answereth nothing "worth the naming."] 84 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 lawI fully as that man wherewith the "book contenteth itself." [and 66 The Book need not express the Minister's Quality. 143 Ch. xxxi. 2,3. deep skill, or else that the book containing it should teach BOOK V. 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. [2.] 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 "chil"dren of ten years of age85," 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. [3] 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, Ch. xxxi. 4. 144 Easiness of Reading, no Plea for Clerical Ignorance. BOOK V. 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. xxxii. 1. The length of our service. [4] 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 falling86, 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. 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 Length of our Service reverential, edifying, necessary. 145 Ch. xxxii. 2. made it long 87. As therefore prayers the one way are faulty, BOOK V. 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 nights 88." "Use in prayer no vain superfluity of words as the heathens "do, for they imagine that their much speaking will cause "them to be heard 89," 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. [2.] 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 dispatch 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 doth it come to pass 87 T. C. lib. i. p. 133. [104. "The liturgy of England.....ap"pointeth 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, con"sidering that the Devil under this "colour of long prayer did thus in "the kingdom of Antichrist banish preaching."] et lib. iii. p. 184. 8 August. Ep. 121. [130. §. 19. HOOKER, VOL. II. 66 88 146 Time spent in our Service no Burthen BOOK V. that we are so long. For if that very service of God in the Ch. xxxii. 3. 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 commend 90, 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. [3] That as "the Devil under colour of long prayer drave "preaching out of the Church" heretofore, so we " in appoint"ing so long time of prayers and reading, whereby the less "can be spent in preaching, maintain an unpreaching minis 66 try 91," 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 practices 92. When malice would work that which is evil, and in working avoid |