Should prayer be liturgical or extempore? In public prayer the argument is strongest for liturgical, in private prayer for extempore. But it is a striking and encouraging fact that those who use the one form or the other are invariably (in the books we have read) advocates for that particular form.
“There are times,” says Dean Church, “when it is the natural thing to pour out our desires and feelings in prayer that rises fresh to our lips for the moment—in extempore, unprepared prayer. But these are not the times of regular, stated, public worship as they come Sunday after Sunday in God’s house. Extempore prayer is for extraordinary occasions, and these Sunday services are ordinary ones—one much like another—with nothing special to call for it. For such common prayer it is far better that people should know the words of their prayers and be familiar with them; that they should not be distracting their attention by asking themselves what sort of things the minister will pray for, and how he will frame his words; but that—knowing the words—their thoughts should be fixed on the things to be prayed for. That is the reason why we think it so much wiser and better and more sober, and not only this, but really more spiritual, to pray out of a book, because then we may be sure of having the most beautiful and most spiritual words to pray in—words in which the faith, and hope, and petitions of generations of holy souls before us have gone up to God—prayers fittingly chosen for us by men who were themselves deeply filled with the Spirit of God.” [Note: Dean Church, Village Sermons, 2: 280.]
How delicately reserved and how comprehensive and suggestive such a mode of social prayer may be, we see in the place which the Anglican liturgy holds in the affections of a large proportion of English Christians. How these words of common prayer become saturated with associations and meaning as years go by! But to limit united prayer to such set forms has its peril of formality and deadness. Life is so various, so changeful, that no form of words can adequately cover its needs. Its perfection leads to the imperfection of indefiniteness, unless supplemented by the spontaneous expression of immediate necessity. There is no higher cultivation of heart and mind than such unaffected and spontaneous communion. Is there any attitude more difficult to maintain, or more fraught with benefit to our character, than fellowship in prayer? New thoughts arise, forgotten truths shine with unusual beauty. Overlooked deficiencies in ourselves are revealed by the unconscious revelation of grace in another, our emotions are deepened and strengthened. At a word the flood-gates of pent-up feeling are opened in loftiest aspirations. Seeds from another garden of the soul find place in our own. Sparks may kindle our enthusiasm from the fire of another’s zeal. Even the difficulties of such fellowship increase our power of self-suppression, the delicacy of our sympathy, and the patience of affection. We lose our narrow self-consciousness in proportion to the simplicity and reality of such an exercise.
Whether the prayer of public worship takes the form prescribed by some ritual, or is extempore, will depend upon the preference of individual minds. The liturgical prayer is more universal, the extempore prayer more particular; liturgical forms tend to develop a general religious sense, the extempore prayer tends rather to call forth intensity of feeling in a few.
Forms of prayer can help us to think towards God. If they send our mind to sleep—and they sometimes do that—we had better put them on one side. But if you persist in thinking out the grand petitions found in many prayer-books, you will find that they stimulate heavenly thoughts. Dr. Jowett tells us with great beauty that printed and written and repeated prayers are useful to the mind when it is barren, but “when the form has done its work, drop it. A form is a tug-boat to get out to the deep; when you are there, fish for yourselves.” [Note: J. A. Clapperton, Culture of the Christian Heart.]
i. Extempore Prayer.
1. 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 labours 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.
2. 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 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.
3. 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 Tibetan 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.
The use of the Lord’s Prayer by no means excludes but rather involves that we also pray with our own words; or that the prayer delivered to us by the Lord or the Church be individualized in us, corresponding to our special states and relations. The more inward prayer becomes, the more it becomes a matter of conscience, the more will individual self-knowledge, the personal consciousness and confession of sin, be manifested in prayer, while we not only in general confess our sinfulness before God’s face, but also our own special sin, our special temptations, our special hindrances; while we likewise in prayer desire to learn what the special will of God is with us, as well regarding our inner life as our external life relations, and we for the one as for the other desire His blessing. With an entirely peculiar importance this individualizing prayer comes forth in the turning points of life, in the crises of being, at great decisions; and if we would here have great examples, we may mention Luther, in the ardent, decisive struggles of whose life prayer so often poured forth from the inmost of his unique personality, although always on the foundation of the Lord’s Prayer and His promises. [Note: H. Mortensen, Christian Ethics, 1: 181.]
He never “read prayers,” he prayed. He poured forth the words of the Church service as the expression of his own deepest thoughts and aspirations. He was manifestly conscious the whole time that he was leading the prayers of a congregation, otherwise his whole manner and voice showed that he was completely absorbed in the actual communion of thought with the Unseen. [Note: The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, 1: 930.]
ii. Liturgical Prayer.
1. The advantages of fixed prayer at public worship acre obvious. Greatest of all, perhaps, is the sense which it brings—if the prayers are 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 off 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 also 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?
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. 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; 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, of little culture, a man with no sense of the serious dignity which ought to mark the worship of the Most High God? And 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. [Note: J. E. McFadyen, The Prayers of the Bible, 226.]
2. “I suppose no one,” says Newman, [Note: Parochial and Plain Sermons, i. 259.] “is in any difficulty about the use of forms of prayer in public worship; for common sense almost will tell us that, when many are to pray together as one man, if their thoughts are to go together, they must agree beforehand what is to be the subject of their prayers, nay, what the words of their prayers, if there is to be any certainty, composure, ease, and regularity in their united devotions. To be present at extempore prayer is to hear prayers. Nay, it might happen, or rather often would happen, that we did not understand what was said; and then the person praying is scarcely praying ‘in a tongue understanded of the people’ (as our Article expresses it); he is rather interceding for the people than praying with them and leading their worship.” He gives the following reasons:—
(1) Prayers framed at the moment are likely to become irreverent. Let us consider, for a few moments before we pray, into whose presence we are entering—the presence of God. What need we have of humble, sober, and subdued thoughts, as becomes creatures sustained hourly by His bounty; as becomes lost sinners who have no right to speak at all, but must submit in silence to Him who is holy; and still more as grateful servants of Him who bought us from ruin at the price of His own blood; meekly sitting at His feet like Mary to learn and to do His will, and, like the penitent at the great man’s feast, quietly adoring Him, and doing Him service without disturbance, washing His feet (as it were) with our tears, and anointing them with precious ointment, as having sinned much and needing a large forgiveness. Therefore, to avoid the irreverence of many or unfit words and rude half-religious thoughts, it is necessary to pray from book or memory, and not at random.
(2) In the next place, forms of prayer are necessary to guard us against the irreverence of wandering thoughts. If we pray without set words (read or remembered), our minds will stray from the subject; other thoughts will cross us, and we shall pursue them; we shall lose sight of the presence of Him whom we are addressing. This wandering of mind is in good measure prevented, under God’s blessing, by forms of prayer. Thus a chief use of them is that of fixing the attention.
(3) Next, they are useful in securing us from the irreverence of excited thoughts. And here there is room for saying much; for, it so happens, forms of prayer are censured for the very circumstance about them which is their excellence. They are accused of impeding the current of devotion, when, in fact, that (so called) current is in itself faulty, and ought to be checked. And those persons (as might be expected) are most eager in their opposition to them who require more than others the restraint of them. This is an especial use of forms of prayer, when we are in earnest, as we ought always to be, viz., to keep us from self-willed earnestness, to still emotion, to calm us, to remind us what and where we are, to lead us to a purer and serener temper, and to that deep unruffled love of God and man which is really the fulfilling of the law, and the perfection of human nature.
My father, in theory, held that a mixture of formal, fixed prayer, in fact, a liturgy, along with extempore prayer, was the right thing. As you observe, many of his passages in prayer, all who were in the habit of hearing him could anticipate, such as “the enlightening, enlivening, sanctifying, and comforting influences of the good Spirit,” and many others. One in especial you must remember; it was only used on very solemn occasions, and curiously unfolds his mental peculiarities; it closed his prayer—“And now, unto Thee, 0 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the one Jehovah and our God, we would—as is most meet—with the Church on earth and the Church in heaven, ascribe all honour and glory, dominion and majesty, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen”. Nothing could be liker him than the interjection, “as is most meet”. [Note: Dr. John Brown, Hone Subsecivae, ii. 106.]
A great prayer which has been transmitted to us by our forefathers is vastly more than a chance collection of sounds or symbols; it is the expression of the highest moments of a holy life lived on earth, concentrated into a few lines of printed matter, but the outcome of his best experience in the noblest activity of which a human being is capable, viz. communing with God; and so it is the ultimate translation, intelligible to us, of things which cannot be uttered. [Note: E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 234.]
We value, with a gratitude which we cannot measure, all that is best in the older prayers in the Greek and Roman Liturgies and their many children; but we frankly recognize that the universe in which we modern men live is a bigger universe than that of our fathers, bigger in knowledge, feeling, and all that we mean by experience. Our God is a bigger God, and the need of God—a need to be expressed in prayer—under modern conditions is greater than it was in former days. Our conception of God, Creator, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Redeemer, Guide, Sanctifier, Judge, Destiny, is far larger than it possibly could have been to men of previous ages. We need to embody all this in our prayer. [Note: T. Wilson, In His Name, 4.]
