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sistency of which we speak. He could not but feel that the spirit of Christianity, especially in its primitive manifestation, was entirely inconsistent with such an interference with spiritual liberty as the authoritative prescription of a human Liturgy would have been. History had acquainted him with the fact that there was no such interference ;* but, independently of history, he knew this by à priori evidence—he knew it, we may say, by intuition. The early Christianity would, in his apprehension, have denied itself if it had submitted to the imposition of a prescribed and stereotyped Liturgy.

But, though we have no need of historical evidence, we ought not to forget this fact of history, namely, that there was no appearance of liturgical worship in the Christian Church until Christianity had become degenerate and corrupt. Liturgies were unknown in the purest times; in their beginning, their increase, and through all their changes, they were the work of uninspired men's hands; their origin is unknown: "They seem to me," says Dr. Owen, "to have had but slender originals; their beginnings were small, plain, brief; their use arbitrary; the additions they received were from the endeavors of private men in several ages, occasional for the most part;" their apology was necessity, arising from the introduction of men "into the office of the ministry who had not gifts and abilities for the profitable discharge of the work of the ministry;" the times of their greatest abundance and prosperity were the ages of darkness; and, in Dr. Owen's judgment, they had the chief influence in promoting the degeneracy of the Church before the Reformation.t

It has seemed to us an invincible objection to the general use of *The following is the account given by Tertullian of the manner of worship in his time: "Illuc (that is toward heaven) suscipientis Christiani manibus expansis quia innocuis, capito nudo quia non erubescimus, denique sine monitore quia de pectore oramus."—Apol., cap. 30. Justin Martyr's is as follows: "Alcoi pèv ovv ὡς οὐκ ἔσμεν, τὸν δεμιυργὸν τῶν δὲ τοῦ παντὸς σεβόμενοι, ἀνενδεξ αιμάτων καὶ σπονδῶν καὶ θυμιαματῶν ὡς ἐδεδάχθημεν λέγοντος λόγω ευχὴς αἱ ευχαριστίας εφ' οίς προςφερόμεθα πᾶσιν ὅση δύναμις αίνοντες.-Αpol.

+ Owen's Works, vols. iv. and xix. London, 1826. Dr. Owen has with great care examined the question before us, and the study of his powerful treatises we would earnestly recommend as especially seasonable at the present time.

Liturgies, apart from their intrinsic incongeniality with the spirit of Christianity, that they are unfavorable to the object of Christianity in these two respects:

1. The extension of the Gospel. Liturgies suppose churches al- • ready organized, power in the people to read, &c., difficulties which, we think, can not be embraced in any judicious plan for evangelizing the heathen: How could Brainerd have conducted public worship among his Indians had he been compelled to use a prayer-book?

2. Particularity in the offices of public devotion: Liturgies can not anticipate the various occasions and circumstances which demand distinct reference and mention in prayer. The life of prayer consists, in a great degree, in its suitableness to times and providences, and in particularity of petition. Herein Liturgies must needs be deficient: The state of the flock and the aspect of affairs are continually varying, but the Liturgy does not vary. The words, for general purposes, may be suitable; but they must be always read as they stand; and the new exigences rising up daily, and demanding distinct notice at the throne of grace, must be passed over with a generality of expression, which covers many other things as well as them. Surely that can not be the best way of conducting public worship which, in its very nature, has so great an inconvenience and defect.

There are, however, objections against free prayer which ought not to be overlooked. The chief objections are these two:

1. Extemporaneous or free prayer produces confusion in the minds of the worshipers. "The congregation, in extemporaneous prayer," says Dr. Paley, "being ignorant of each petition before they hear it, and having little or no time to join in after they have heard it, are confounded between their attention to the minister and their own devotion. Their devotion is necessarily suspended till the petition is concluded; and before they can adopt it, their attention is required to what follows. Extemporary prayer can not, for this rea son, be joint prayer. Joint prayer is that in which all join, and not that which one alone in the congregation conceives and delivers."*

* Works, vol. i., p. 314.

This argument confutes itself by proving too much. It proves that all that portion of mankind who can not read can take no part in public prayer. It proves that when the disciples prayed for Peter (Acts, xii.), and lifted up their voices together in prayer after the return of Peter and John from the council (Acts, iv.), they did not unite in prayer on these occasions. It concludes, moreover, as much against a joint hearing of the word as against joint praying. Truth from the pulpit can not be acquiesced in by the hearers until after its announcement is completed. It must be heard before it can be considered; but how can it be considered, since the discourse runs on, and a subsequent announcement is continually calling off attention from a previous one?

The truth is, that this argument rests on difficulties which are wholly imaginary. The supposition that the attention of the hearers is suspended that they are confounded between their own devotion and attention to the minister, &c., is groundless. The movements of the human mind are quicker than this argument assumes them to be. The mind takes in the most of what is said, whether in prayer or preaching, without any measurable lapse of time. Even in argumentative discourse, the attention of the hearers keeps pace with the speaker, and sometimes anticipates him. Discourse may, indeed, be so ordered as to confound attention, but it need not, and should not be.

2. The imperfection of extemporaneous or free prayer. It is often incomprehensive, omitting many things which ought to be in public prayer: It is often loose and inconsecutive: It is often full of faults as to diction: It is often delivered in a hesitating, stammering manner, &c., &c. In reply, we say, in the first place, that faults here are to be set over against faults-the faults of free prayer against the faults of Liturgies; recollecting, moreover, this difference, that the faults of liturgical worship are, for the most part, inseparable from it, while the faults of free player may, perhaps, be corrected: In the second place, that advantages, too, are to be compared with advantages; to lose those of free prayer would be to suffer a loss which were worse to the Church than all

the faults of this mode of worship many times multiplied. What could compensate the Church for the loss of all that benefit which she has received and is to receive from the exercise of the gift of prayer in public, on the part of holy men filled with faith and the Holy Ghost, and furnished by him specifically for the performance of this important part of divine service? We add, thirdly, that if free prayer be imperfect, the door to perfection is open to it; whereas the Liturgy must not be changed, while the need of a change in some things is, by many who use it, admitted and deplored. The character of free prayer will vary, of course, with the various gifts and graces of ministers, and the various measures of aid afforded them by the Spirit at the time of prayer, and there may, of course, be instances in which the faults of performance will be unusually great; but not to insist that the reading of the Liturgy may vary with the reader's gifts, so that, in some instances, the faults of performance may be almost equivalent to faults in the Liturgy itself, the absolute uniformity of liturgical worship may be more hurtful, as we believe it to be in fact, than all the faults which are incidental to the other mode, and which, we should not forget, may, to a great extent, be corrected by general proficiency in piety, and by suitable pains directed particularly to that end. It is inconsistent with the idea of free prayer to be directly studious as to either expression, or order, or thought at the time of offering it; but there is a way of making proficiency in the exercise of this gift, and a minister who neglects the cultivation of it disregards the charge of the apostle (1 Tim., iv., 15), in regard, at least, to one part of his work, and one of no inferior importance.

We have not meant to say, we do not think, that the spirit of life and liberty in prayer can make no use of forms. In its full realization, it is indeed above all forms; but in its inferior spheres it may sometimes serve itself of forms with great advantage; and in such a Liturgy as that, for example, which is used by Episcopalians, the best extant, it may, occasionally at least, find itself much more in its proper element than in free prayer itself, as it is too often performed.

In conclusion, let us say that while we have no desire that litur

gical worship should be abolished; while we suppose it probable that worship in the Christian Church, on the whole, is better than it would be if this mode of worship formed no part of it, we can not but lament that any denomination which prefers this mode should not combine free prayer with it, and give its ministers some degree of liberty in regard to it: And that, on the other hand, we greatly regret to see, in the denominations in which free prayer has been conscientiously preferred, any dissatisfaction with it on account of the faults which are incidental to it, and any appearance of a desire to introduce forms.

NOTE K, p. 231.

On the Use of the Catechism.

"DECLENSION in the Christian faith has had no more direct cause, no more evident symptom, than the absolute substitution of the Catechism for the Bible in the religious instruction of children: And the revival of Christianity in Protestant countries has, on the whole, been produced and characterized by the preference given to the Bible above the Catechism, not to the exclusion of the Catechism, but lim iting it to its only reasonable use, which is to supply the reader of the Bible with a summary of biblical truth. When the Bible shall have its place in the religious instruction of children, there must needs be a revision of the Catechism; and he only will perform this office well who shall have taught Christianity first from the Bible: And we think we may guarantee that this kind of manual will then be conceived and prepared differently from the best of those which have been hitherto in use. But what is of the greatest urgency, is to bring those poor children to the fountain, and also to let them drink at it, who, until now, have had administered unto them drop by drop, as if it were a medical potion, the water of life, which, by its passage through such long and old tubes of human manufacture, has been rendered insipid, and has even become corrupt.

"After it shall be discovered that many Catechisms which have been authorized and consecrated by long use were made in violation of

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