tance to the commands of rulers was, in every conceivable instance, a heinous sin. It was taught in their homilies."10 "It was laid down in the canons of convocation, 1606."11 Sibthorp and Mainwaring, "eager for preferment, which they knew the readiest method to obtain, taught that the king might take the subject's money at pleasure, and that no one might refuse his demand, on penalty of damnation." And for such true and loyal sentiments, Mainwaring was honored with a bishopric by Charles, and Sibthorp with an inferior dignity. Jaines considered Episcopacy essential to the existence of monarchy, uniformly embodying this sentiment in his favorite aphorism, "No bishop, no king."12 Elizabeth and her successors, says Macaulay, "by considering conformity and loyalty as identical, at length made them SO." "Charles himself says in his letters, that he looks on Episcopacy as a stronger support of monarchical power than even an army. From causes which we have already considered, the Established Church had been, since the Reformation, the great bulwark of the prerogative."13 She was, according to the same eloquent writer, for more than one hundred and fifty years, "the servile handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine right of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all their commands, were her favorite tenets. She held them firmly, through times of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness; while law was trampled down; while judgment was perverted; while the people were eaten, as though they were bread.”14 Great objection was made to the introduction of Episcopacy into this country, on account of its monarchical principles 10 Hallam's Const. Hist. Vol. 1. p. 264. 11 Ibid. pp. 567-570. pp. 43, 44. Boston ed. and tendencies, so entirely adverse to the popular spirit of our government and our religion. It was received, at last, only on its making large concessions to the spirit of our free institutions. In the revolutionary struggle, great numbers of that denomination, and a larger proportion of their clergy, remained the fast adherents to the British crown. Indeed, the monarchical spirit of Episcopacy, and its uncongeniality with our free institutions, is too obvious to need illustration.15 Our fathers came here to establish "a state without king, or nobles, and a church without a bishop." They sought to establish themselves here, as "a people governed by laws of their own making, and by rulers of their own choosing.” And here, in peaceful seclusion from the oppression of every dynasty, whether spiritual or temporal, they became an independent and prosperous commonwealth. But what affinity, what sympathy has its government, civil or religious, with that of Episcopacy? the one, republican; the other, monarchical ; in sympathy, in principle, in form, they are directly opposed to each other. We doubt not that most of the members of that communion are friends to our republican government; but we must regard their religion as a strange, unseemly anomaly here; a religious government, arbitrary and despotic, in the midst of the highest political freedom; a spiritual despotism, in the heart of a free republic! 15 See an extract from Chandler's Appeal on behalf of the church of England in America. N. Y., 1767, cited in Smyth's Eccl. Republicanism, which concedes fully the monarchical spirit of Episcopacy. CHAPTER XI. PRAYERS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. THE religious worship of the primitive Christians was conducted in the same simplicity and freedom which characterized all their ecclesiastical polity. They came together for the worship of God, in the confidence of mutual love, and prayed, and sung, and spoke in the fulness of their hearts. A liturgy and a prescribed form of prayer were alike unknown, and inconsistent with the spirit of their worship. In the following chapter, it will be my object to establish the following propositions. I. That the use of forms of prayer is opposed to the spirit of the Christian dispensation. II. That it is opposed to the example of Christ and of his apostles. III. That it is unauthorized by the instructions of Christ and the apostles. IV. That it is contrary to the simplicity and freedom of primitive worship. V. That it was unknown in the primitive church. I. The use of forms of prayer is opposed to the spirit of the Christian dispensation. "The truth," says Christ, "shall make you free." One part of this freedom was exemption from the burdensome rites and formalities of the Jewish religion. "The Lord's free man was no longer bound to wear that yoke of bondage; but, according to the perfect law of liberty, James 1: 25. 2: 12, was required only to worship God, in spirit and in truth. Paul often reproved Peter, and others for their needless subjection to the bondage of the Jewish ritual, which imposed unauthorized burdens Christians. Gal. 2: 4 seq. 3: 1 upon seq. 4: 9 seq. Rom. 10: 4 seq. 14: 5, 6. Col. 2: 16-20. Such was the perfect law of liberty which the religion of Christ gave to his followers. It imposed upon them no cumbersome rites; it required no prescribed forms, with the exception of the simple ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper. It required only the homage of the heart; the worshipping of God in sincerity and in truth. So taught our Saviour and his apostles. Indications of irregularity and disorder are, indeed, apparent in some of the churches whom Paul addresses; particularly among the Corinthians. 1 Cor. 14: 1 seq. These irregularities, however, he severely rebukes, assuring them that God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, v. 33; i. e., of harmony in sentiment, and in action, as appears from the context. He ends his rebuke by exhorting them to let all things be done decently, and in order; declaring at the same time, that the things which he writes on this subject, are the commandments of God. v. 37. He commends the Colossians, on the other hand, for the good order and propriety which they observed; "joying and beholding their order, and the steadfastness of their faith." Col. 2: 5. The freedom of the gospel was not licentiousness. It gave no countenance to disorder and confusion, in the assemblies of the primitive Christians, convened for the worship of God. But it required them to worship him in spirit and in truth; in a confiding, filial, and affectionate spirit. This is that spirit of adoption which was given them, and which, instead of the timid, cowering spirit of a slave, taught them to come with holy boldness to the throne of grace; and in the trust ful confidence of a child, to say "Our Father which art in heaven." We will not, indeed, assert that the spirit of prayer is incompatible with the use of a prescribed form; but we must feel that the warm and gushing emotions of a pious heart flow not forth in one unvaried channel. Who, in his favored moments of rapt communion, when with unusual fervor of devotion, he draws near to God, and leaning on the bosom of the Father, with all the simplicity of a little child, seeks to give utterance to the prayer of his heart,-who under such circumstances, could breathe to heaven his warm desires through the cold formalities of a prayer-book? When praying in the Holy Ghost, the Spirit itself helping our infirmities, and making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered, must we, can we, employ any prescribed form of words to express these unutterable things. "Prayer by book," says bishop Wilkins in his Gift of Prayer, "is commonly of itself something flat and dead; floating for the most part in generalities, and not particular enough for each several occasion. There is not that life and vigor in it to engage the affections, as when it proceedeth immediately from the soul itself, and is the natural expression of those particulars whereof we are most sensible. It is not easy to express what a vast difference a man may find in respect to inward comfort and satisfaction, between those private prayers that are rendered from the affections, and those prescribed forms that we say by rote or read out of a book." Such a form if not incompatible with such aids of the Spirit, and such promises of his word, must at least be opposed to them. So prayed not our Lord. Such were not the prayers of his disciples. This proposition introduces our second topic of remark. II. The use of forms of prayer is opposed to the example of Christ and the apostles. 1 Comp. Bishop Hall, in Porter's Homiletics, p. 294. |