244 PREFACE TO THE READER.
I do not say that this fatal consequence of the introduction of humanly-devised set forms of prayer in the worship of the church, in the horrible abuse made of it, is sufficient to condemn them as absolutely unlawful; for where the opinions leading unto such idolatrous practices are openly rejected and condemned, as was before intimated, there all the causes, means, and occasions of that idolatry may be taken out of them and separated from them, as it is in the liturgies of the re- formed churches, whether imposed or left free ; — but it is sufficient to lay in the balance against that veneration which their general observance in many ages may invite or procure ; and it is so also to warrant the disciples of Christ to stand fast in the liberty wherewith he hath made them free.
Another evil, which either accompanied or closely followed on the introduction of devised forms of prayer into the church, was a supposed necessity of adorning the observance of them with sundry arbitrary ceremonies. And this also in the end, as is confessed among all Protestants, increased superstition in its worship, with various practices leading unto idolatry. It is evident that the use of free prayer in church administrations can admit of no ceremonies but such as are either of divine institution, or are natural circumstances of the actions wherein the duties of worship do materially consist. Divine institution and natural light are the rules of all that order and decency which is needful unto it. But when these devised forms were introduced, with a supposition of their necessity, and sole use in the church in all acts of immedfate worship, men quickly found that it was needful to set them off with adventitious ornaments. Hereon there was gradually found out, and prescribed unto constant observation, so many outward postures and gestures, with attires, music, bowings, cringes, crossings, venerations, censings, altars, images, crucifixes, responds, alternatives, and such a rabble of other ceremonies, as ren- dered the whole worship of the church ludicrous, burdensome, and superstitious. And hereon it came to pass that he who is to officiate in divine service is obliged to learn and practise so many turnings and windings of himself, eastward and westward, to the altar, to the wall, to the people ; so many gestures and postures, in kneeling, rising, standings, bowings, less and profound, secret and loud speak- ings, in a due observance of the interposition of crossings, with removals from one place to another, with provision of attires, in their variety of colours and respect to all the furniture of their altars, — as are difficult to learn, and foolishly antic in their practice, above all the preparations of players for the stage. Injunctions for these and the like observances are the subject of the rubric of the Missal and the cautels of the Mass.
That these things have not only no affinity with the purity, simplicity, and spi- rituality of evangelical worship, but were invented utterly to exclude it out of the church and the minds of men, needs no proof unto any who ever read the Scrip- ture with due consideration. Nor is the office of the ministry less corrupted and destroyed bv it; for besides a sorry cunning in this practice, and the reading of some forms of words in an accommodation unto these rites, there was little more than an easy good intention to do what he doth, and not the quite contrary, re- quired to make any one man or woman (as it once at least fell out) to administer in all sacred worship.
Having utterly lost the Spirit of grace and supplications, neglecting at best all his aids and assistances, and being void of all experience in their minds of the power and efficacy of prayer by virtue of them, they found it necessary by these means to set off and recommend their dead forms; for the lifeless carcass of their forms merely alone were no more meet to be esteemed prayer than a tree or a log was to be esteemed a god, before it was shaped, fashioned, gilded, and adorned. By this means they taught the image of prayer, which they had made, to speak and act a part to the satisfaction of the spectators; for the bare reading of a
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form of words, especially as it was ordered in an unknown tongue, could never have given the least contentment unto the multitude, had it not been set off with this variety of ceremonies, composed to make an appearance of devotion and sacred veneration. Yet, when they had done their utmost, they could never equal the ceremonies and rites of the old temple-worship, in beauty, glory, and order ; nor yet those of the heathen, in their sacred Eleusinian mysteries, for number, solem- nity, gravity, and appearance of devotion. Rejecting the true glory of gospel- worship, which the apostle expressly declares to consist in the " administration of the Spirit," they substituted that in the room thereof which debased the profession of Christian religion beneath that of the Jews and Pagans, especially considering that the most of their ceremonies were borrowed of them or stolen from them. But I shall never believe that their conversion of the holy prayers of the church, by an open contempt of the whole work of the Spirit of God in them, into a thea- trical, pompous observance of ludicrous rites and ceremonies, can give so much as present satisfaction unto any who are not given up to strong delusions to believe a lie. The exercise of ingrafted prevalent superstition will appease a natural con- science; outward forms and representations of things believed will please the fancy, and exercise the imagination; variety, and frequent changes of modes, gestures, and postures, with a sort of prayer always beginning and always ending, will entertain present thoughts and outward senses, so as that men, finding them- selves by these means greatly affected, may suppose that they pray very well when they do nothing less : for prayer, consisting in a holy exercise of faith, love, trust, and delight in God, acting themselves in the representation of our wills and de- sires unto him, through the aid and assistance of the Holy Ghost, may be absent, where all these are most effectually present.