་ trouble the church with them, they shall die in silence with me; errare possum, hæreticus esse nolo: reason shall drive me from any opinion (for I will espouse none out of obstinacy), and truth ever command me. I shall labour effectually as I can in the service of my master Christ, and preach him crucified; I shall deplore with a bleeding heart the schisms of the church, and ardently pray for her peace and prosperity. I shall study more to live, than to dispute; for none but the devil gains by those contentions, who keeps men's heads thus busied, whilst he seizes upon their hearts. For these questions, the next age may see their issue, for me I rest in that of Gamaliel, If this counsel or work be of men, it cannot stand, if it be of God, it cannot be destroyed. For my sermon, I shall desire you to give a fair and benign interpretation, and to take it no worse than I intended it when it was preached; it and I had many more thanks than we deserved, from the best of my auditors, among others from the Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield, from the Dean of Winchester, the Dean of Glocester, Dr. Goad, Dr. Harris, and how think you of these? are they Arminians? Do not help to cast upon your friend an odious and ungrounded imputation, from which he is yet, and ever will be free. If you have any more to say, yet write no more; for I shall answer all our letters. in this kind with silence. When you and I next meet, we may more freely and safely communicate our thoughts. If I have been vehement, excuse me, and blame yourself; my reputation is dear unto me, and I could not be patient in the reproach and suspicion of heresy. In the meanwhile continue to love your poor friend, but especially to assist him with your prayers; I shall retaliate in both: and so commending you with all that are dear unto you, with my loving good cousin, Mr. Benson, his wife and family, to the rich mercies of God, in our Lord Jesus, I cease to write, but never to be Your most affectionate, true friend and July 7, 1629. C. P. *Thomas Morton. D. D, formerly Bp. of Chester, afterwards of Durham. John Young, D. D. Tho. Winiffe, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's and Bp, of Lincoln. IT ON SET FORMS OF PRAYER. By the learned JOSEPH MEDE, B. D. St. MATTHEW vi. 9. Thus therefore pray ye, Our Father, &c. T was well hoped, after the question about the lawfulness and fitness of a set form of prayer had been so long debated in our church, that the sect of those who opposed it, had been ere this wellnigh extinguished; but experience tells us the contrary; that this fancy is not onely still living, but begins, as it were, to recover and get strength afresh in which regard, my discourse, at this time, will not be unseasonable, if, taking my rise from these words of our Saviour, I acquaint you, upon what grounds and example this practise of the Christian church hath been established, and how frivolous and weak the reasons are, which some of late do bring against it. To begin therefore; you see by the text I have now read, that our blessed Saviour delivered a set form of prayer unto his disciples, and in so doing hath commended the use of a set form of prayer unto his church; "Thus therefore (saith he) pray ye, Our Father which art in heaven," &c. Is not this a set form of prayer? and did not our Saviour deliver it to be used by his disciples? They tell us, no. For thus, say they, in this place is not thus to be understood, but for, in this manner, to this effect or sense, or after this pattern; not in these words and syllables. To this I answer; it is true, that this form of prayer is a pattern for us to make other prayers by; but that this only should be the meaning of our Saviour's thus, and not the rehearsal of the words themselves, I utterly deny: and I prove it out of the eleventh chapter of St. Luke, where the same prayer is again delivered in these words, Όταν προσευχησθε λέγετε; when you pray,say, "Our Father which art in heaven, that is, doe it in hæc verba. For what other phrase is there to express such a meaning, if this be not? Besides, in this of St. Luke, the occasion would be considered. "It came to pass (saith he) as Jesus was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." From whence it may not improbably probably be gathered, that this was the custom of the doctors of Israel, to deliver some certain form of prayer unto their disciples, to use, as it were, a badge and symbolum of their discipleship; at least John Baptist had done so unto his disciples; and thereupon our Saviour's disciples besought him, that he would also give them in like manner some form of his making: that they might also pray with their Master's spirit, as John's disciples did with theirs. For that either our Saviour's, or John's disciples knew not how to pray till now, were ridiculous to imagine; they being both of them Jews, who had their certain set hours of prayer, which they constantly observed, as the third, sixth, and ninth. It was therefore a form of prayer of their Master's making, which both John is said to have given his disciples, and our Saviour's disciples besought him to give thein. : For the fuller understanding whereof, I must tell you more, and the rather because it is not commonly taken notice of; and that is, that this delivery of the Lord's prayer in St. Luke, is not the same with that related by St. Matthew, but another, at another time, and upon anoother occasion: that of St. Matthew in that famous sermon of Christ upon the Mount, whereof it is a part: that of St. Luke upon a special motion of the disciples at a time when himself had done praying: that of St. Matthew in the second; that of St. Luke in the third year after his baptism: consider the text of both, and you shall find it impossible to bring them into one and the same whence it follows, that the disciples, when it was first uttered, understood not that their Master intended it for a form of prayer unto them, but for a pat tern or example only, or it may be to instruct them in special, in what manner to ask forgiveness of sins: for if they had thought he had given them a form of prayer then, they would never have asked him for one now; wherefore our Saviour this second time utters himself more expressly, "Oтay agoσexnobe λéyers, when ye pray, say, "Our Father which art in heaven." Thus their inadvertancy becomes our confirmation; for as Joseph said to Pharaoh,The dream is doubled unto Pharaoh, because the thing is established by God;" so may we say here, the delivery of this prayer was doubled unto the disciples, that they and we might thereby know the more certainly, that our Saviour intended and commended it for a set form of prayer unto his church. Thus Thus much of that set form of prayer which our Saviour gave unto his disciples, as a precedent and warrant to his church to give the like forms to her disciples, or members; a thing which from her infancy she used to do. But because her practice is called in question, as. warranted by scripture, let us see what was the practice of the church of the Old Testament, than whose example and use, we can have no better rule to follow in the New. First, therefore, we find two set forms of prayer or invocation, appointed by God himself in the law of Moses: one, the form wherewith the priests were to bless the people, Num. vi. 23. "On this wise," saith he, "shall Aaron and his sons bless the children of Israel, saying unto them: The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Is not this a set form of prayer? For what is to bless, but to pray over or invocate God for another? The second, is the form of profession and prayer to be used by him, who paid his tithes every third year, Deut. xxvi. 13. "O Lord God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless and unto the widow, according to all thy commandments, which thou hast commanded me: I have not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them. 14. I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for any unclean use, &c. 15. Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven; and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou swarest to our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey." But what need we seek thus for scattered forms, when we have a whole book of them together? The book of Psalms was the Jewish language, or the chief part of the vocal service wherewith they worshipped God in the temple; this is evident by the titles of the Psalms themselves, which shew them to have been commended to the several quires in the same, to Asaph, to the sons of Korah, to Jeduthun, and almost forty of them to the Magister Symphonia in general. The like we are to conceive of those which have no titles; as for example, of the cv. and cxvi. Psalms, which, though they have no no such inscription in the Psalm-book, yet we find 1 Chron. xvi. 7." That they were delivered by David into the hands of Asaph and his brethren" for forms to thank the Lord. This a man would think were sufficient to take away all scruple in this point; especially, when we ourselves, and all the reformed churches, use to sing the same Psalms not only as set forms, but set in meter, that is after a human composure. Are not the Psalms set forms of confession, of prayer, and of praising God? And in case there had been no prayers amongst them, yet what reason could be given, why it should not be as lawful to pray unto God in a set form, as to praise him in such a one? What therefore do they say to this? Why, they tell us, that the Psalms are not sung in the church unto God, but so rehearsed for instruction of the people only; namely, as the chapters and lessons are there read, and no otherwise. But, if either we do, ought, or may sing the Psalms in the church, with the same end and purpose that the church of the Old Testament did (and it were absurd to say we might not,) this exception will not subsist : for what is more certain, than that the church of Israel used the Psalms for forms of praising and invocating God? What mean else those forms, Cantemus Domino, psallite Domino, and the like so frequent in them? But there are more direct and express testimonies in the 1 Chron. xxv. it is expressly said of Jeduthun and his sons, that their office was, to prophesie with a harp, to give thanks and to praise the Lord." In the second of Chron. xxx. 21. we read, . "that the Levites and priests praised the Lord day by day, singing with loud instruments unto the Lord." And as ye heard even now out of 1 Chron. xiv. that David, at the time when he brought up the ark unto Jerusalem, then first delivered the cv. and xcv. Psalms into the hands of Asaph and his sons, to confess or give thanks unto the Lord." And lastly to leave no place for farther doubt, we read, Ezra iii. 11. "that the Levites, the sons of Asaph, were set with cymbals to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David King of Israel." And that, "they sang together by course, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever." For this reason, the four and twenty courses or quires, into which the singers of the temple were divided by king David to serve in their turns, consisted each of them of twelve, according to the number 66 of |