9. The Book of Common Prayer

IX. The Book of Common-Prayer.

Which is not, neither are you to look upon it under the notion of a Directory, to inform and instruct men concerning the worship of God, for doubtless it is as lawful to write books of prayer and public worship, as of faith, or love, or any other duty. But you must consider it as a Praescript Form, as a set and stinted liturgy devised and appointed by men, to be read as a part of the public worship of God, and to be kept to, both for matter and words. This is the true state of the case, and upon this account we look upon the Book of Common Prayer as a grand idol of the Church of England, for it is a breach of the second Commandment more ways than one.

The arguments of our divines against the books commonly called Apocrypha, may serve against the Book of Common Prayer, for it is an apocryphal book, introduced into the public worship of God as a standing part thereof, and imposed by force and violence. But thus to introduce another book, besides the Book of God, into his Church, is a dishonor, and an affront to the Scripture. If it be a sin for men to set their posts by his posts, their thresholds by his thresholds, as (Ezekiel 43:8) and their altars by his altars (2 Kings 16:15), is it no sin to set their books by his Book?

We do not find any precept for it in the Scripture, nor any promise that God will accept it, nor any hint of example that ever any ordinary officers took upon them to impose stinted liturgies upon the Church. If ever there had been need of such a help, surely it had been most seasonable among the Jews, in those weak and childish times: but we find no such thing throughout the Scripture. It is true, God by the hand of his extraordinary messengers did appoint some forms, but neither were they tied up to them, neither will this warrant ordinary officers to do the like. God has forbidden his people to make to themselves images, or forms, or ways of worship, but he has not restrained himself to set up what images or forms himself sees good.

It is fetched from Rome. King James said, it was nothing else but an ill-said Mass in English. King Edward VI. in his Declaration to the Popish rebels in Devonshire, which is in the Book of Martyrs, says, It seemeth to you a new service, but is indeed no other but the old, the self-same words in English that were in Latin, saving a few things taken out, which were so fond that it had been a shame to have heard them in English. If the service of the Church was good in Latin, it remaineth good in English, for nothing is altered, but to speak with knowledge what was spoken with ignorance, and to let you understand what is said for you. It was all taken out of the Mass-book, if we understand the word Mass-book in a large sense, as it is commonly taken: but to speak more narrowly, it was collected out of three Popish books. The first part of public prayers, Ex Breviario. The second part, namely the order of administering sacraments, matrimony, visiting the sick, and burials, è Rituali. 3. The order of consecration in the Supper, the epistles, and gospels, and collects, è Missali, as the form of consecration of bishops and priests, was taken è Pontificali, as you may see more at large in Didoclavius, and in Mr. Shepard. Who also shows, that as the Common Prayer was taken out of the Mass, so the principal parts of the Mass were borrowed from the idolatrous pagans, and had their original from Numa Pompilius, that conjurer, who lived 700 years before Christ, to adorn and deck, as the Bishops of Rome thought, the religion of Christ Jesus, to the which, when thus corrupted with Paganish and Popish mixtures, the Romans were with much ado at last converted, who till then were obstinate in their old heathenish religion. Insomuch that when Theodosius sent to the Senate to renounce their pagan religion, and receive the law of Christ, they returned answer that they would not, but would observe the ancient law Pompilian to avoid the ruin of the commonwealth, which they feared would come by the change of religion. And to those principal parts of the Mass taken from the pagans, namely vestments, holy water, the Confiteor, organs, incense, offertory, &c. other deckings were also added, as divers litanies, and the Kyrie Eleeson, Lord have mercy upon us, to be sung nine times, invented by Gregory a monk at first, well studied in the laws of Numa, and Tullus Hostilius. Damasus, as Platina and Sabellius show, enriched it with Gloria Patri; Sergius, with an Agnus Dei, to be sung three times. Alexander and other bishops added the Canon of the Mass, others the epistles and gospels. The gradual and collects were added by Gelasius, Anno 493; the Gloria in Excelsis, by Symmachus, 508. At last came the Host in, about 1062. Thus Mr. Shepard concerning the original of the Mass and Common Prayer. Yes, such a Popish piece is this Book of Common Prayer, that as some of the bishops have reported, Pope Paul IV. did offer Queen Elizabeth to confirm and ratify it by his authority, Ut sacra hic omnia, hoc ipso quo nunc sunt apud nos modo procurari fas esset. And in King Henry VIII. his time, Cardinal Quignonius, at the request of Pope Clement VII. made the Popish Missal liker the English for a great part, than it was to the Roman Breviary.

But let all true Protestants judge, whether it be fit for us to fetch our worship from that mother of harlots, the Church of Rome, and to go to the Pope to indite our prayers; as if the Pope could tell how to pray better than the people of God, who have his Spirit dwelling in them. Some indeed have said, it is no matter from where it comes; but when Whitgift said so concerning deans, canons, prebendaries, &c. that it is not material though they come from the Pope, Mr. Cartwright replies, It is as if he should say, It skills not though they come out of the bottomless pit: for whatever cometh from the Pope, which is Antichrist, cometh first from the Devil. The second Commandment forbids taking up ways and forms of worship from idolaters, and it must needs be a great encouragement and hardening to the Papists, that their Mass is the foundation of our worship.

4. It undermines that great ordinance of the ministry, the principal duties of which office are preaching and prayer (Acts 6:4), in the one whereof they are the mouth of God to the people, in the other they are the mouth of the people to God. But if we prescribe to one another set forms of prayer, why not by the same reason set forms of homilies? And then, as Mr. Cotton observes, neither the Apostles nor their successors needed to have left off the deacons' employment, to attend upon the ministry of the Word and prayer, for both are prepared to their hands by the prescriptions of others. Hence also ministers shall little need to edify the Church by their own gifts received of Christ to that end, but may edify them by the gifts of others. Yes, ministers, though destitute of ministerial gifts, yet may be fit for the public discharge of their duties by the help of other men's gifts, both in prayer and preaching. And so indeed a prescript liturgy is properly a maintenance for an idol dumb ministry. What difference is there between the carrying of the Ark upon a cart, and our prayers upon a book? Whereas both should be carried, the one upon the shoulders of the Levites, the other upon the gifts of the ministers.

5. It is a grievous sin against the Spirit of Prayer. It was set up at first in opposition to the Latin worship of the Mass, and so indeed it was a good step of Reformation, to get the worship of God into a known tongue; but now it is set up, and pleaded for in opposition to the Spirit of Prayer, and therefore it deserves now to be called by no better name but Nehushtan, an ill said Mass. Some conceive the first Reformers are not to be looked upon altogether as ordinary ministers, as being stirred up and acted by a more than ordinary Spirit in the work of Reformation, and doing some things somewhat out of ordinary course, whereof this has been not unfitly reckoned to be one, the making of formulas of divine service, which might better be done in those dark and dismal times, when there was scarce one to be found for every county, that was able to pray and preach without a book — for so it was in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's time.

But now God has poured out his Spirit upon all flesh, so that private Christians are able to pray to the public edification of a whole Church; and therefore suppose it were lawful to use such a crutch for those that could not pray without it, yet it is unreasonable and absurd to force a man to go with crutches when he is not lame. It is a vain and needless thing, to tie bladders under the wings of sea-fowls to keep them from sinking, or to help them to swim. Tertullian says, the Christians in the primitive times were wont to pray sine monitore, quia de pectore, without a prompter, because they prayed from the heart; which Mr. Shepard observes is spoken in opposition to the prompted forms then in use among the Pagans. It is but a heartless way of praying, to say a prayer out of a book. The Apostle says, We know not what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit helps our infirmities (Romans 8:26). It is the Spirit's office to intercede in us, as Christ intercedes for us. But what great need is there of the Spirit, to read a prayer out of a book? Other use therefore of the Common Prayer at this day I know not, than the quenching of the Spirit, and putting him as it were out of office, or at least limiting and stinting the Spirit, what and how many words he must manifest himself by, without alteration, addition, or diminution, and the furnishing of dumb ministers with the instrument of a foolish shepherd, without which they would be dumb indeed, and unable to say any thing. To which may be also added, the arming of persecutors with a bloody weapon and instrument of violence, whereby to oppress the consciences of God's faithful ministers and people, which some Episcopal men, who have been more ingenuous than the rest of their fellows, have been so convinced of, that they have confessed it. Doctor Maynwaring Chancellor of Chester, upon a debate with Mr. Ley about the Service-book, he confessed at last, and said, We shall never have peace and true charity in the Church, until it be taken away.

6. It would fill a volume to enumerate and reckon up all the corruptions of the matter of it. The false doctrine, that it is certain by God's Word, that children that be baptized are undoubtedly saved. The intolerable dishonor done to the Scripture, setting up Hagar equal with her mistress, by appointing Apocrypha, to the number of 104 chapters, yes the very tales in Tobit, to be read in the public worship of God, but a great part of canonical Scripture quite omitted, and left out of the calendar. The superstitious observations of holy days, the sign of the cross, churching of women, those absurd broken responds, and shreds of prayer, whereby they toss their prayers, like tennis-balls, between the priest and people, tautologies, O Lord deliver us, eight times; We beseech you to hear us good Lord, twenty times. Complementing with God in their prayers, We beseech you give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not presume to ask; a most weak and legal passage, as if a believer that prays in Christ's name, might not freely ask of God any thing he needs, yes the greatest things, the Spirit, and the glory to come. Yes, there is nonsense in it, as when they call the lessons out of Isaiah, Joel, and the Prophets, Epistles. And when that collect, where they say, You have sent your Son to be born as on this day, is appointed to be said six days together one after another, as if Christ were born six times over. Yes, it appoints a most corrupt, and false translation of the Scripture to be read, and which in some places no reasonable sense can be made of; as when they read thus in Psalm 58:4, Or ever your pots be made hot with thorns, so let indignation vex them, as a thing that is raw: and in many other places.

7. Neither is the Parish Book of Common Prayer established by law. For the law of Elizabeth 1 restores and re-establishes the book used in King Edward's time, and no other or otherwise, excepting only one or two alterations there specified. But the Parish Book is not the same with King Edward's, but differs greatly from it; for there was a prayer in that against the Bishop of Rome, with all his detestable enormities, which is omitted in the Parish Book. And there be twenty-six lessons of canonical Scripture in King Edward's calendar, which are profanely and sacrilegiously expunged, and blotted out of the Parish Book.

Let it be a word of exhortation to the Bishops, and to the Episcopal Party, not to revive the superstitions and idolatries of former times, or at least not to impose them. For you see what the text says, the Lord will have them to be rooted out: and therefore he will be angry with you, if you practise them, but his wrath will burn like fire, if you impose them. I might here speak many things, to show the unreasonableness of such impositions; for I do not now speak merely against the things themselves, but against that violent, that bloody, that imposing spirit, the spirit of persecution. I think it were easy to offer such considerations to you concerning it, as might not only convince your consciences, but also move and melt your bowels. Make it your own case. If your consciences were against such things, you would be loath to be imposed upon. You may fight for them with the sword of the Spirit, and maintain them by the Word of God, if you can, but take heed of flying to carnal weapons, to oppress those truths of Christ, which by dint of spiritual reason you cannot subdue. If any of these men be present before the Lord this day, suppose you had been compelled in former times to turn Independents, or to let your children die unbaptized, or to do it without the sign of the Cross, I suppose you would have filled heaven and earth with your cries. And give me leave to tell you, that if you will be persecuting, the people of God will cry, and never cease crying in the ears of the Lord against you, till he has brought upon you the judgment written. Consider therefore how you would be dealt with, if it were your own case, and remember how you have been dealt with. I have been in Ireland these five years, and I do not know any Episcopal man, if of a good life and conversation, that has been deprived of the liberty of his ministry, but they have been tolerated and suffered as well as others to preach the Gospel, which is all that I desire this day: and will the men of that persuasion be so disingenuous, as to requite evil for good? Will you be worse than the Scribes and Pharisees? Who though they had not the grace to forgive their enemies, yet they had so much good nature as to love their friends: will you give us cause to say, that there is not so much as common ingenuity to be found among you?

If you will be content with your own liberty, and suffer your neighbors that differ from you, to live peaceably and quietly with you, you may go to Gilgal, and pass over to Beth-aven, make haste towards Rome, be as idolatrous and superstitious as you please, I know no minister, nor private Christian, that will hinder you, or give any the least impediment or obstruction to you, further than this, that we will fight against you with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; but for any external impediment, we leave that to the magistrate to whom it belongs, to remove the high places, and break the images, and cut down the groves. But if you will not be content to sin alone, but will needs persecute and compel us to sin and perish with you, you will engage the prayers of all the people of God against you as one man. When you have stopped our mouths from preaching, yet we shall pray, and not only we, but all the souls that have been converted, or comforted and edified by our ministry, of whom you know there be, through the grace of Christ, many in this city and nation, they will all cry to the Lord against you for want of bread, because you deprive them of those that should break the bread of life to them. And how dreadful this will be to you, I think I need not tell you. For when saints pray, God will hear, especially if they unite their forces, and join together in the same requests. I had rather be environed with armies of armed men, and compassed round about with drawn swords, and instruments of death, than that the least praying saint should bend the edge of his prayers against me, for there is no standing before the prayers of the saints. You may see throughout the whole Scripture, and especially in the Book of the Revelation, what a powerful influence they have into all the revolutions of providence: before the opening of the seven seals, we read of golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8), and before the sounding of the seven trumpets, that great and dreadful dispensation of providence, consisting of four lesser woes, which made way for the three great woes; for the Pope, who appears openly under the fifth trumpet, and for the Turk, who breaks loose in the sixth, and for the final destruction of all enemies, by the seventh trumpet. The introduction to all these astonishing judgments was this, Christ appears as the Angel of the Covenant, with a golden censer in his hand, and with much incense of his own merits and mediation, and offers it up with the prayers of all saints, upon the golden altar which was before the throne; and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand, and after this there followed thunderings and lightnings, and dreadful dispensations (Revelation 8:3, 4). Lastly, before the pouring out of the seven vials, which is thought by many to be the dispensation that these times are under, the saints are brought in praying and praising God (Revelation 15), and the seven angels, the instruments of Christ in the execution of these plagues, are said to come out of the temple, that is, out of reformed churches (ver. 6), and one of the four living creatures, which some of the best interpreters understand to be church-officers, and ministers of the gospel, gave to the seven angels, seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever (ver. 7). It is their faith and prayers, and the light of Christ in their ministry, that sets all the wheels a-going for the ruin of enemies, for God puts all the prayers and tears of his saints into his bottle (Psalm 56:8), and pours them down again in plagues, and in streams of fire, and blood, and brimstone, upon a malignant wicked world. If it be so dangerous to offend the least saint, that Christ himself professes, it were better for that man that a millstone were tied about his neck, and to be thrown with it into the bottom of the sea, than to offend one of these little ones, how dreadful will it then be to offend and grieve the Spirit of God in the hearts of all his people, and so to rouse that lion, the spirit of prayer against you. For I testify to you, that as the saints will pray, so the Lord himself will fight against you, and take you into his own revenging hand. I speak it conditionally, in case you persecute, and I wish all the bishops in Ireland heard me; for in the name, and in the love of Christ I speak it to you, and I beseech you so to take it. I say, if once you fall to the old trade of persecution, the Lord Jesus will never bear it at your hands, but he will bring upon you swift destruction. And your second fall will be worse than the first: for Dagon the first time did only fall before the Ark of God. But when the men of Ashdod had set him up in his place again the second time, then he broke himself all to pieces by his second fall, insomuch that there was nothing but the stump of Dagon left. Persecution is a very ripening sin, and therefore if once you super-add the sin of persecution to the sin of superstition, you will be quickly ripe for final ruin, and for the vengeance of eternal fire. And in the day when God shall visit you, the guilt of all the righteous blood that has been shed upon the face of the earth, from the blood of Abel, to the blood of Udall, and to this day, it will come down the hill upon your heads, even upon the persecutors of this generation. The Lord Jesus, when the day of vengeance is in his heart, and when the year of his redeemed is come, which is not far off, he will then require all that blood, and revenge it all upon your heads, if you justify the ways of former persecutors, by walking in the same steps of blood and violence.