of the aforesaid oft repeated general ('O Lord, shew thy mercy upon
us'.)

Still worse. The spirit in which this and similar complaints originated
has turned the prayers of Dissenting ministers into irreverent
preachments, forgetting that tautology in words and thoughts implies no
tautology in the music of the heart to which the words are, as it were,
set, and that it is the heart that lifts itself up to God. Our words and
thoughts are but parts of the enginery which remains with ourselves; and
logic, the rustling dry leaves of the lifeless reflex faculty, does not
merit even the name of a pulley or lever of devotion.

8. The prayer for the King ('O Lord, save the King'.) is without any
order put between the foresaid petition and another general request
only for audience. ('And mercifully hear us when we call upon
thee').

A trifle, but just.

9. The second Collect is intituled ('For Peace'.) and hath not a word
in it of petition for peace, but only 'for defence in assaults of
enemies', and that we 'may not fear their power'. And the prefaces
('in knowledge of whom standeth', &c. and 'whose service', &c.)
have no more evident respect to a petition for peace than to any
other. And the prayer itself comes in disorderly, while many
prayers or petitions are omitted, which according both to the
method of the Lord's Prayer, and the nature of the things, should
go before.

10. The third Collect intituled ('For Grace'.) is disorderly, &c....
And thus the main parts of prayer, according to the rule of the
Lord's Prayer and our common necessities, are omitted.

Not wholly unfounded: but the objection proceeds on an arbitrary and (I
think) false assumption, that the Lord's Prayer was universally
prescriptive in form and arrangement.

12. The Litany ... omitteth very many particulars, ... and it is
exceeding disorderly, following no just rules of method. Having
begged pardon of our sins, and deprecated vengeance, it proceedeth
to evil in general, and some few sins in particular, and thence to
a more particular enumeration of judgments; and thence to a
recitation of the parts of that work of our redemption, and thence
to the deprecation of judgments again, and thence to prayers for
the King and magistrates, and then for all nations, and then for
love and obedience, &c.

The very points here obj