12. Free and Liturgical Prayer

Free and Liturgical Prayer

One question which can never lose its interest or im­portance, is that of the legitimacy and use of fixed forms of prayer; and we shall now consider what contribution the teaching and the practice of the Bible make towards its solution. There can be no doubt that free prayer is, on the whole, more consonant with the idea of prayer than fixed. If prayer be a real intercourse of the human heart with God, prescribed or studied words would seem to be no more natural than in intercourse with men; and, as Dr. Rainsford has said, “If all men prayed always as some men pray sometimes, there would be no need of a liturgy.” In particular, it might be argued that the true Protestant not only feels the impulse, but is under the obligation, to pray in his own words. Just as he claims the right and the duty to think for himself, so it might be said that he has a similar right and duty to express his thoughts, to God no less than to man, in his own way. But the retort would be easy. The Protestant, if he be an educated man, does not, in his thinking, ignore the thoughts of other men. He is not, and could not be if he would, an absolutely inde­pendent worker. He builds upon the labors of others, welcomes the help of all who have done or are doing work similar to his own. His independence is not absolute, but relative; it is the independence of a man who stands in human society, a debtor to the present, and a very heavy debtor to the past. Even his independence, though in a sense his birthright, was historically won for him. He can never rid himself of the obligation to learn from others, and his life would be infinitely the poorer if he could. This indeed would not be an argument for the use of fixed forms, but it would be an argument for the study of the best devo­tional literature that the world has produced; and even those who insist most vehemently on the duty of free prayer confess, by their frequent use of the Lord’s prayer, sometimes also by the abundance of Scripture quotations with which they embellish their own prayers, their enormous debt to the Bible.

Naturally the question we are discussing is not directly raised in the Bible. The only prescribed prayer in the Old Testament is that to be offered at the presentation of the first fruits (Deuteronomy 26); and, with the excep­tion of the Lord’s prayer, the New Testament pre­scribes no prayer at all. Nor is it possible to believe that Jesus, who was the uncompromising foe of the mechanical in religion, prescribed that prayer. It is simply given that men may learn how to pray: in the spirit of sons and free men they are to pray that prayer or any other like it they please. But it must be borne in mind that even the Lord’s prayer is a consecration of the past. It is original in the noblest sense of the word; but most of its individual petitions can be paralleled more or less closely from the Old Testament and other Jewish prayers. It is fresh and spontane­ous—nothing could be more so—but it does not sweep haughtily aside the prayers of the past. It recognizes their abiding value by the way in which it uses them. It at once legitimates and transforms them.

We have further seen that, on the cross, Jesus made use of the ancient prayers of His people, when His own need was very sore, and thus established the prin­ciple, in itself so natural, that our thoughts may be sent to God upon words composed by others. This meets the objection so commonly made to liturgical prayer, that, as it is not the immediate and spontane­ous expression of the speaker’s own feeling, it is very apt to be thoughtless or even insincere. But there is no reason why another, who has been in a situation essentially like my own, should not completely succeed in expressing my feeling within that situation; and there is no reason why I should not adopt that ex­pression and utter it with the same sincerity, as if it were my own. In the deepest sense it is my own. Like lyric poetry, it belongs to all whose mood it adequately expresses. No one who, in public worship, sings psalms or hymns which partake of the nature of prayer, can consistently object to the use of fixed forms of prayer. If he can lift his thoughts to God on the words of another in song, why should it be less possible in a spoken prayer? In private and family devotions, the help of others will be, in certain cases, almost indispensable. Native timidity, lack of experience or initiative, and many other reasons may practically compel those who are anxious to maintain such prayers, to resort to devo­tional helps. Just as Jesus laid the religious literature of His own people under contribution, so may we. Besides finding expression for those who cannot ex­press their thoughts and feelings for themselves, such helps, if wisely chosen, may do much to enlarge the range of their religious interests. But the helps must be used in the spirit of free men. Here again, the words of Law, whether we agree with them entirely or not, are apposite: “Though I think a form of prayer very necessary and expedient for public worship, yet if any one can find a better way of raising his heart unto God in private than by prepared forms of prayer, I have nothing to object against it. It seems right for every one to begin with a form of prayer; and if, in the midst of his devotions, he finds his heart ready to break forth into new and higher strains of devotion, he should leave his form for a while, and follow those fervors of his heart, till it again wants the assistance of his usual petitions.” The advantages of fixed prayer at public worship are obvious. Most of all perhaps is the sense which it brings—if the prayers be ancient—of continuity with the past, and with the present Church of Christ through­out the world. We pray to our Father; and the feel­ing of continuity and solidarity would undoubtedly be strengthened, if, at least in certain parts of public worship, the same prayers persisted throughout the ages and across the world. Religion has a past as well as a present, and no reverent man would wish to cut himself from that. Rather would he wish to do every­thing that was not inimical to his spiritual welfare, to encourage his sense of fellowship with his ancient and distant brethren in Christ. The Holy Catholic Church would be even more impressive to the imagination, if she raised her prayers and petitions to God, not only with united heart, but with united voice. Besides, religion, though it is creative, is also, in the deepest sense conservative. It has to do with the things that abide, the needs and the hopes of men, which are ever the same; and if a worthy expression has been found for these things—simple, true and beautiful—why may it, too, not be suffered to abide, especially as it comes to us fragrant with the memory of myriads of faithful souls? But the prayer must be a real prayer, not a recita­tion. The conduct of public worship must, it is to be feared, often create the impression that the liturgy is a performance rather than a prayer. Where a speaker is not under the obligation to create expressions for his own thoughts, but finds them ready made in the book before him, he is apt to go too fast. His own devotional mood is very seriously imperiled, while that of the people may be completely destroyed. When to this it is added that the Lord’s prayer may be repeated twice and even three times in the course of a single service, one is compelled in candor to ask whether it is ever really prayed at all. Do not use vain repeti­tions, as the heathen do. Saying a prayer is not pray­ing; and a prayer which is galloped instead of being uttered with reverent and befitting solemnity, is not likely to do much for the edifying of the Church.

It must, of course, be presupposed that, if liturgical forms are used, the worshippers must pray with the speaker. Public prayer is necessarily expressed in general terms; it cannot deal, like private prayer, with specific situations. It is offered for the forgiveness of sins, for the consolation of the suffering, etc.; but such a prayer can leave the worshipper completely untouched unless he pours into it his own experience, asking for­giveness for the sins which he has committed, and con­solation for the sick whom he personally knows. Free prayer easily introduces the personal element which, in the more guarded language of liturgical prayer, the worshipper has to supply by an effort of his own ima­gination; and, if the prayer is not eccentric or too specific, the worshipper may be touched and helped. The atmosphere of personal experience lies about spontaneous prayer. This is its advantage over litur­gical prayer; but it constitutes also a weakness and a danger. For behind liturgical prayer lies the wisdom, the piety, the dignity of the whole Church: the congrega­tion can depend upon “comeliness and order.” This is by no means so certain where prayer is free. It is interesting to note that Paul was led to lay down this great principle, Let all things be done with seemliness and order, by observing the dangers of an unbridled individualism (1 Corinthians 14:40). The ecstasy created by the spirit of the new religion had thrown the Corinthian Church into disorder. Sometimes two even seem to have spoken at once; and under such conditions, especially where some of the members were so powerfully moved as to express themselves in ways completely unin­telligible to others, edification was an impossibility.

Similar dangers will always be possible where indivi­dualism is not under some more or less official control. In a church in which free prayer holds, the congrega­tion is absolutely at the mercy of the leader. If he be a man of piety and culture, he can speak and pray to the edifying of the church (1 Corinthians 14:3-5); and in his prayer there may be a warmth of personal feeling and a ring of per­sonal conviction which are apt to be lacking in the more impersonal prayers of a liturgy. But what if he be a man of bad taste or little culture, a man with no sense of the serious dignity which ought to mark the worship of the Most High God? Far be it from us to over-estimate the value of culture and taste; nor must we forget that those who are in a position to know have assured us that, during the recent marvelous move­ment in Wales, simple uneducated people, who had never before opened their lips in public, could pour out their hearts to God in language of astonishing beauty. But the fact remains that many a service has been spoiled by the slovenliness, vulgarity, and even irre­verence of the public prayer. In a liturgical service this is all but impossible. The preacher has the Church behind him; and, if he does her justice, she will do him justice. If he brings to the liturgy feeling and conviction, she will give him words which will move by their beauty and edify by their truth. In free prayer, not only the speaker’s education, but even his temperament and the condition of his health will affect the nature of the prayers he offers. He will not always be able to say the thing he would. He may be dull or depressed, and this mood may be reflected in his prayers; or—especially in his earlier efforts—he may suffer from nervousness or temporary loss of memory, and this may easily disturb the devo­tional temper of the congregation. Public prayer is attended by all the difficulties that beset public speech generally. Only men of great natural gift, wide read­ing, and much experience, can address their fellows extempore in language that is really noble and graceful; and though, in the moment of prayer, feeling may be more exalted, and a man may express a better and deeper self than he can in the more critical atmo­sphere of a public meeting, it does not follow that his exaltation will exempt him from idiosyncrasies and errors due to inexperience, temperament or the state of his health. A liturgy affords an absolute safeguard in cases of this kind. The speaker may be depressed, but the prayer will not suffer; for it is not so much he that prays as the Church that prays in him, and her noble words may cheer and strengthen not only the congre­gation, but himself. He may be nervous when he faces the people, and his thoughts may swim away from him; but the prayer is not impoverished, for he says the thing that needs to be said. As a protection against the eccentricity, the frailty and the inexperi­ence of the individual, the service of the liturgy is inestimable. But what does the Bible say thereto? At first sight, it cannot be said to give much direct encourage­ment to, or supply much direct material for, liturgical prayer, The prayers of the Bible are relatively very few; and any one who has ever taken the trouble to go carefully through them will be surprised to find how comparatively little there is in them that can be used today in its Biblical form; and most of that little comes from the Psalms. The reasons for this are many. Ancient Hebrew prayer is often rendered impossible by the spirit of Jesus. Jeremiah and Nehe­miah could pray for vengeance upon their enemies, but with you it shall not be so. Even the prayers of Jesus cannot all be used by us. We may learn much from the great prayer in John 17, but it can never be our prayer. It is the Lord’s prayer, and His only. The principal reason, however, why only a few frag­ments of Biblical prayer are available for modern use is that those prayers are rooted in history. Prayer like prophecy, has a historical context. In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah (Isaiah 26:1). Only on that day and on days like it would such a song have been appropriate. The Biblical prayers are prompted by particular situations; and as history never quite repeats itself, a prayer composed for one situation— if it be at all specific, as Old Testament prayers at least usually are—would not be strictly appropriate to any subsequent situation. It is these specific allusions that help us to feel the reality of Biblical prayer and how truly it is the child of the moment. Ezra prays, for example: “O our God, let not all the travail seem little before Thee, that hath come upon us . . . since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day” (Nehemiah 9:32) And again: “Our God hath not forsaken us in our bon­dage, but hath extended loving kindness unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia” (Ezra 9:9). The prayer is cre­ated by the immediate, specific, historical need, and can therefore, in that particular form, never be offered again.

Yet how does it come that so many of the Psalms which are most, if not all, born in a definite historical situation, can be sung, at least in part, at the public worship of a people so remote in historical experience and mental outlook as we are from the Hebrews? Is it not because their writers instinctively grasped the universal element in the situation? By dropping that which is adventitious and by expressing, with superb simplicity, only that which is essential to the situation, they touch the universal heart and earn an unchallengeable immortality. In other words, where ultimate religious needs and emotions have found perfect expression, that expression may be gratefully acknowledged and conscientiously retained. Where the needs are the same, the words may be the same. In Gethsemane, Jesus “prayed a third time, saying again the same words” (Matthew 26:44). Here is an argument for a fixed form in prayer. If the situation is the same, we may pray three times, or a thousand times, “saying again the same words.”

Now is not this directly applicable to the situation created by public worship? The ultimate needs of any Christian congregation, formally assembled for worship, are ever the same. There are always the young and the old, the happy and the sad, the earnest and the indifferent, the tempted and the defeated; and it is only their common needs that can form the subject of public petition. Those, for example, for whom intercession is offered will, speaking generally, be always the same: for those in authority over us, for those in danger, doubt and difficulty, for the sick and the suffering, the bereaved and the dying, for all sorts and conditions of men, for ourselves, for the Church of Christ throughout the world. This point need not be further amplified. In every congregation these elements are constant; and if fitting expression has once been found for needs that are ever the same, why should it be abandoned in favor of an expression that is, in most cases, pretty sure to be less noble and beautiful, without necessarily being any more sincere?

Besides, the prayer which we call extempore is sel­dom really extempore. It is like many a so-called extempore speech—carefully prepared beforehand, and probably in the case of most conscientious ministers the thought to be expressed has at least been con­sidered. In this respect the man who prays is like the true orator who, in the words of a French writer, “knows what he will say, but does not know how he will say it”; and this is perhaps the ideal of free prayer. So that the contrast between what is com­monly called free and liturgical prayer is nothing like so absolute as is usually supposed. There would be a real contrast between liturgical prayer and a prayer which the speaker, without the least premeditation, uttered in immediate dependence upon the inspiration of the Spirit. But it may be very seriously doubted whether such public prayer would be fruitful or edifying. Volu­bility is one thing; worshipful prayer is another. God is a God of order, and the Church meets to be edi­fied. In point of fact, however, this is not, as a rule, the sort of prayer that is offered in the formal worship of the non-liturgical churches, but a prayer whose contents have at least been considered, if not pre­pared. Besides, almost every one, who has to engage regularly in public prayer, falls into ruts of his own, and creates a liturgy for himself—only, as a rule, infinitely less beautiful, dignified, and comprehensive than that of the liturgical churches. So that it is not so much a question whether there shall be a liturgy or not, as whether the liturgy which, in a sense, is inevi­table, shall be worthy or unworthy.

It is sometimes argued that a liturgical service is more likely to produce listlessness and inattention among worshippers than free prayer. No one will deny the great dangers associated with the frequent repetition of familiar words. But it is not by any means certain that the average congregation will follow a free prayer much more attentively than a fixed. The feeling of expectancy, with which it may be supposed a new prayer is listened to, is greatly blunted by the congregation’s familiarity with the minister’s particular turns of thought and expression. The “degraded liturgy”—as it has been called—of the individual, can produce an effect just as narcotic as the noble liturgy of the church. And even when the prayer is unhackneyed, the thoughts of many will wander, especially if the prayer be long. All public prayer, whether free or fixed, demands an effort of appropriation on the part of the congregation. They must say the Amen:(1 Corinthians 14:16) they must pray with the leader, must make his prayer their own by a mental and spiritual effort; and those who do this in any church are perhaps not so numerous as we imagine.

Both free and liturgical prayers are beset by serious dangers. Much more than liturgical prayer does free prayer bring the temptation to make an impression. It is speech before men, and is therefore very apt to become speech to men. This is the most hideous cari­cature of prayer. No disposition is so inimical to the spirit of prayer as ostentation, and one does not won­der at Jesus’ scathing rebuke of the prayers at the street comers. The same spirit can too easily animate the public prayer in the congregation. The ancient “hypocrites” prayed, “that they might be seen of men”; and the modern, that they may be heard of them. Of course, the religion of Christ is a social religion, and public prayer is therefore a necessity, but its dangers are many and subtle. It is difficult, almost impossible to secure that detachment of spirit which is essential to prayer. The leader must both remember, the people, and forget them. He must remember them, for it is their united needs he has to voice. Yet he must forget them: he must hold direct and unimpeded speech with God, he must speak as if he were alone. And that is difficult: it is not easy to remain entirely uninfluenced by the presence of others. But if extempore prayer has its difficulties and dangers, no less has liturgical prayer. It was insti­tuted partly in the interests of form; and form very easily becomes formality. Where there is little variety in the service, and the same words are re­peated week after week, the spirit may easily grow insensible to their meaning. Here, more than any­where else, the letter can kill. Custom can make fools of us all. The noble prayers may be babbled instead of being prayed, and their spiritual effect upon leader and people may be no more than would be secured by a Thibetan praying machine, moved by wind or water. This danger may be partly obviated by variety in the liturgy, and by giving the congregation a greater part in the service; but it comes back to this, that a prayer, whether free or fixed, as it is a deliberate appeal to God, must always be regarded as one of the most solemn and responsible acts of the religious life, and has therefore ever to be entered upon with a sin­cerity which custom must not be allowed to dull. Probably the spiritual effort necessary to interpret feelingly a familiar liturgical prayer is greater than that needed to offer an extempore prayer.

Both kinds of prayer have their advantages. In liturgical prayer there can be no unpleasant surprises. It prevents liberty from degenerating into license: it offers the same safeguard against irresponsible indivi­dualism as a creed offers against heresy. If two of you be agreed ... a liturgy secures this agreement. Again, in prayer a man speaks to God as to his friend, that is, not formally; but the conditions of public worship demand form, and liturgy secures this. The “comeliness and order” which ought to characterize public worship may certainly be present when much is left to the initiative of the individual, but in a litur­gical service they are guaranteed. On the other hand, if religion is a real and living thing, the individual can hardly help feeling at times the impulse to express his emotion in words of his own, and he ought not to be deprived of this liberty which is his birthright as a son of the Heavenly Father. In the prayers of the Bible, pious men speak as they are moved by circumstance; out of the depths each man cries in his own way. And this great lesson of the Bible must never be forgotten or repudiated. We are often told that Jesus prayed, but seldom what He prayed. He does not bind a yoke upon the neck of His disciples: He wishes us to be ourselves. The free churches have something to learn from the dignity, beauty, and order of the liturgical churches; while these, in their turn, have to learn from the free­dom, the initiative, the versatility of the others. The ideal church would combine the excellences of both, the dignity of the one with the fervor of the other. Some of her prayers would be fixed, and some would be free. The leader of a congregation which believes in free prayer should not be deprived of the right to ex­press his thoughts in a way more beautiful and digni­fied than any expression of his own is ever likely to be; the leader in a liturgical church should not be deprived of the right to speak to God as a man to his friend. The past may be an inspiration, but it must not be allowed to become an incubus. We shall cherish and perpetuate all that is best in it, but we too will create something which posterity would not willingly let die; and so the religious instinct, as ancient as humanity, and as fresh as the morning, will continue to enrich the world for ever.