CHA P. V.

Of Forms of Prayer in public Worship.

LITURGIES, or preconcerted forms of

public devotion, being neither injoined nor forbidden in fcripture, there can be no good reason for either receiving or rejecting them, but that of expediency; which expediency is to be gathered from a comparison of the advantages and difadvantages attending upon this mode of worship, with those which usually accompany extemporary prayer.

The advantages of a liturgy are these:

1. That it prevents abfurd, extravagant, or impious addreffes to God, which the folly and enthusiasm of many, in an order of men fo numerous as the facerdotal, must always be in danger of producing, where the conduct of the public worship is entrusted, without restraint or affiftance, to the difcretion and abilities of the officiating minifter.

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2. That it prevents the confufion of extemporary prayer, in which the congregation, being ignorant of each petition before they hear it, and having little or no time to join in it, after they have heard it, are confounded between their attention to the minifter, and to their own devotion. The devotion of the hearer is neceffarily fufpended, until a petition be concluded; and before he can affent to it, or properly adopt it, that is, before he can addrefs the fame request to God for himself, and from himfelf, his attention is called off to keep pace with what fucceeds. Add to this, that the mind of the hearer is held in continual expectation, and detained from its proper bufiness, by the very novelty with which it is gratified. A congregation may be pleased and affected with the prayers and devotion of their minifter, without joining in them; in like manner as an audience oftentimes are, with the representation of devotion upon the stage, who nevertheless come away, without being confcious or conceiving, that they have exercised any act of devotion themselves. Joint prayer, which is the duty, and amongst all denominations of Chriftians the declared defign of coming together,' is prayer in which all join;

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and not that which one alone in the congregation conceives and delivers, and of which the rest are merely hearers. This objection feems fundamental, and holds, even where the minifter's office is discharged with every poffible advantage and accomplishment. The labouring recollection, and embarraffed or tumultuous delivery, of many extempore speakers, form an additional objection to this mode of public worship; for these imperfections are very general, and give great pain to the serious part of a congregation, as well as afford a profane diverfion to the levity of the other part.

These advantages of a liturgy are connected with two principal inconveniences; firft, that forms of prayer compofed in one age become unfit for another, by the unavoidable change of language, circumftances, and opinions; fecondly, that the perpetual repetition of the fame form of words. produces wearinefs and inattentiveness in the congregation. However both these incoveniences are, in their nature, vincible. Occafional revifions of a liturgy may obviate the first, and devotion will supply a remedy for the fecond. Or they may both fubfift in a confiderable degree, and yet be outweighed

outweighed by the objections which are infeparable from extemporary prayer.

The Lord's prayer is a precedent, as well as a pattern for forms of prayer. Our Lord appears, if not to have prescribed, at leaft to have authorised the ufe of fixed forms, when he complied with the request of the difciple who faid unto him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his difciples.' Luke xi. 1.

The properties required in a public liturgy are, that it be compendious; that it express just conceptions of the divine attributes; that it recite fuch wants as the congregation are likely to feel, and no other; and that it contain as few controverted propofitions, as may be.

t. That it be compendious.

It were no difficult task, to contract the liturgies of moft churches into half their prefent compafs, and yet retain every dif tinct petition, as well the fubftance of every fentiment, which can be found in them. But brevity may be ftudied too much. The

compofer

compofer of a liturgy muft not fit down to his work with the hope, that the devotion of the congregation will be uniformly sustained throughout, or that every part will be attended to by every hearer. If this could be depended upon, a very short service would be fufficient for every purpose that can be answered or designed by social worship: but seeing the attention of moft men is apt to wander and return at intervals, and by starts, he will admit a certain degree of amplification and repetition, of diverfity of expreffion upon the fame fubject, and variety of phrafe and form, with little addition to the fenfe, to the end that the attention, which has been flumbering or abfent during one part of the service, may be excited and recalled by another, and the affembly kept together, until it may reasonably be prefumed that the most heedless and inadvertent have performed fome act of devotion, and the moft defultory attention been caught by fome part or other of the public fervice. On the other hand, the too great length of church fervices is more unfavourable to piety, than almost any fault of compofition can be. It begets in many an early and unconquerable diflike to the public worship VOL. II. F

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