XI. SET PRAYERS.

SET prayers are prescript forms of our own or other’s composing; such are lawful for any, and needful for some to use.

Lawful for any. Otherwise God would not have appointed the priest (presumed of themselves best able to pray) a form of blessing the people; nor would our Saviour have set us his prayer, which (as the town-bushel is the standard both to measure corn and other bushels by) is both a prayer in itself, and a pattern or platform of prayer. Such as accuse set forms to be pinioning the wings of the dove, will by the next return affirm, that 152girdles and garters, made to strengthen and adorn, are so many shackles and fetters, which hurt and hinder men’s free motion.

Needful for some. Namely, for such who as yet have not attained (what all should endeavour) to pray extempore by the spirit. But as little children, to whom the plainest and evenest room at first is a labyrinth, are so ambitious of going alone, that they scorn to take the guidance of a form or bench to direct them, but will adventure by themselves, though often to the cost of a knock and a fall. So many confess their weakness in denying to confess it, who, refusing to be beholden to a set form of prayer, prefer to say nonsense rather than nothing in their extempore expressions. More modesty, and no less piety, it had been for such men to have prayed longer with set forms, that they might pray better without them.