with the existing state of things in the church; because these things were written at the time of the first organization of the church." 13 This passage asserts the free and unrestrained liberty which all, at first, enjoyed, in instructing and exhorting; and in administering the ordinances and the government of the church. There is a passage in Tertullian, also, indicative of the same absence of prescribed form and regularity. "After the reading of the Scriptures, psalms are sung, or addresses are made, or prayers are offered." 14 All is unsettled. The exercises are freely varied, according to circumstances. This absence of all established forms, and the universal enjoyment of religious liberty and equality, was, indeed, sometimes misunderstood and abused, as we have seen, even by the churches to whom the apostle writes; and yet it was far from offering any encouragement to the disorders and extravagances of fanaticism. Observe, for example, the following upbraidings of such irregularities by Tertullian: "I must not fail to describe, in this place, the religious deportment of these heretics; how unseemly, how earthly, how carnal; without gravity, without respect, without discipline;-how inconsistent with their religious belief. Especially, it is wholly uncertain who may be a catechumen; who, a Christian professor. They all assemble and sit promiscuously as hearers; and pray indiscriminately. How impudent are the women of these heretics, who presume to teach, to dispute, to exorcise, to practise magic arts upon the sick; and, perhaps, even to baptize. Their elections to offices in the church are hasty, inconsiderate, and irregular. At one time they elect neophytes; at another, men of the world; and then apostates from us, that they 13 Comment. ad Eph. 4: 11. Ambros. Opera, Vol. III. 14 Jam vero prout Scripturae leguntur, aut psalmi canuntur, aut adlocutiones proferuntur, aut petitionis delegantur.-De Anima, c. 9. may, at least, gain such by honor, if not by the truth. No where is promotion easier than in the camps of rebels, where one's presence is a sure passport to preferment. Accordingly, one is bishop to-day; to-morrow, another; today, a deacon; to-morrow, a reader; and he, who is now a presbyter, to-morrow will be again a layman." 15 In relation to this passage, which Neander quotes at length, he offers the following remarks, and we commend them to the attentive consideration of the reader. “We here see the operations of two conflicting parties, one of whom regards the original organization of the apostolical churches as a divine institution, and an abiding ordinance in the church, essential to the spread of a pure Christianity. The other, who contend for an unrestrained freedom in all external matters, oppose these views, as foreign to the freedom and simplicity which the spirit of the gospel encourages. They deny that the kingdom of God, itself inward, unseen, can need any outward organization for the support and spread of that kingdom. They contend that all Christians belong to the priesthood; and this they would practically exemplify, by allowing no established distinction between the clergy and the laity; but permitting all, in ..common, to teach, and to administer the sacraments; two parties, which we often see opposed to each other, in the subsequent history of the church. One of them lays great stress upon the outward organization of the visible church, by not suitably distinguishing between what may be a divine institution and what a human ordinance; the other, holds the doctrine of an invisible kingdom, but overlooking the necessities of weak minds, which are incapable of forming conceptions of objects so spiritual, rejects with abhorrence all such ordinances." 16 15 De Praescriptionibus Haeret., c. 41. 16 Antagonisticus, pp. 340, 341. 1825. V. The use of forms of prayer was unknown in the primitive church. The apostolical fathers, Clement and Polycarp, give us no information concerning their modes of worship in the age immediately succeeding that of the apostles. The circumstances of their meeting in secresy, and under cover of the latest hours of the night, together with other inconveniences, must, it would seem, be very unfavorable to the use of a liturgy, or any form of prayer. Tertullian and Eusebius represent the primitive Christians, of whom Pliny speaks, to have come together, ad canendum Christi, to sing praise to Christ, and this is, perhaps, the most natural interpretation of the text. We are left, then, to the conclusion, that the apostolical churches neither used any forms of prayer, nor is such use authorized by divine authority. In this conclusion, we are sustained by various considerations, drawn from the foregoing views of the simplicity of primitive worship. 1. The supposition of a form of prayer is opposed to that simplicity, freedom of speech, and absence of all formalities, which characterized the worship of these early Christians. In nothing, perhaps, was the worship of the Christian religion more strikingly opposed to that of the Jewish, than in these particulars. The one was encumbered with a burdensome ritual, and celebrated, with many imposing formalities, by a priesthood divinely constituted, whose rank, and grades of office, and duties, were defined with great minuteness, and observed with cautious precision. The other prescribed no ritual, designated no unchanging order of the priesthood; but, simply directing that all things should be done decently and in order, permitted all to join in the worship of God, with unrestrained freedom, simplicity, and singleness of heart. The one, requires the worshipper to come with awful reverence; and, standing afar off, to present his offering to the appointed priest, who, alone, is permitted to bring it near to God. The other, invites the humble worshipper to draw near, in the full assurance of faith; and, leaning on the bosom of the Father with the confiding spirit of a little child, to utter his whole heart in the ears of parental love and tenderness. Is it not contrary, then, to the economy of this gracious dispensation, to trammel up the spirit of this little child with a studied form of speech; to chill the fervor of his soul by the cold dictations of another; and require him to give utterance to the struggling emotions of his heart, in language, to him, uncongenial? Does it comport with the genius of primitive Christianity, to lay upon the suppliant, in audience with his Father in heaven, the restraints of courtly formalities and studied proprieties of premeditated prayer? The artlessness and simplicity of primitive worship offer a strong presumption in favor of free, extemporaneous prayer. 2. This presumption is strengthened by the example of Christ and his apostles, all of whose prayers, so far as they are recorded, or the circumstances related under which they were offered, are strictly extemporaneous. This argument has been already duly considered, and may be dismissed without further expansion in this place. 3. We conclude that no forms of prayer were authorized or required in the apostolical churches, because no instructions to this effect are given either by Christ or the apostles. The Lord's prayer, as we have already seen, was not a prescribed form of prayer, neither was it in use in the apostolical churches; nor are any intimations given in the New Testament of any form of prayer, prayer-book, or ritual of any kind, unless the response, to which allusion is. made in 1 Cor. 14: 16, be considered as such. Here, then, is a clear omission, and manifestly designed to show that God did not purpose to give any instructions respecting the manner in which we are to offer to him our prayers. This argument from the omissions of Scripture is presented with great force by Archbishop Whately, in support of the opinion which we here offer, and we shall accordingly adopt his language to express it. After asserting that the sacred writers were supernaturally withheld from recording some things, he adds: “On no supposition, whatever, can we account for the omission, by all of them, of many points which they do omit, and of their scanty and slight mention of others, except by considering them as withheld by the express design and will (whether communicated to each of them or not) of their heavenly Master, restraining them from committing to writing many things which, naturally, some or other of them, at least, would not have failed so to record. "We seek in vain there for many things which, humanly speaking, we should have most surely calculated on finding. 'No such thing is to be found in our Scriptures as a Catechism, or regular elementary introduction to the Christian religion; neither do they furnish us with any thing of the nature of a systematic creed, set of articles, confession of faith, or by whatever other name one may designate a regular, complete compendium of Christian doctrines: nor, again, do they supply us with a liturgy for ordinary public worship, or with forms for administering the sacraments, or for conferring holy orders; nor do they even give any precise directions as to these and other ecclesiastical matters; any thing that at all corresponds to a rubric, or set of canons.' "Now these omissions present a complete moral demonstration that the apostles and their followers must have been supernaturally withheld from recording great part of the institutions, instructions, and regulations, which must, in point of fact, have proceeded from them;-withheld, on purpose that other churches, in other ages and regions, |