old priests a sense of their freedom from minute
restrictions and a burdensome ritual, it is added: "It shall not be
necessarie for the minister daylie to repeat all these things before
mentioned; but, beginning with _some maner of confession_, to proceede
to the sermon, which ended, he either useth the prayer for all estates
before mentioned, or else _prayeth as the Spirit of God shall move his
heart_, framing the same according to the time and matter which he hath
entreated of."[168] To the same effect, in the First Book of Discipline,
after recommending that in all the large towns there should every day be
either sermon or common prayers with reading of Scriptures, it is said:
"What day[169] the publick sermon is, we can neither require _nor
greatly approve_ that the common prayers be publickly used, lest that we
should either foster the people in superstition, who come to the prayers
as they come to the masse; or else give them occasion, that they think
them no prayers which be made before and after sermons."[170] Even in
the most solemn of its special services and in the most solemn part of
it, the prayer of thanksgiving and consecration in the communion, the
rubric is: "The minister ... giveth thanks either in these words
following _or like in effect_."[171] The same thing is confirmed by many
of the rubrics of the other occasional services in the Book of Common
Order,[172] and by the express testimony of Calderwood, Row, and others
who officiated as ministers of the church while the book was in use. The
first named of these, though entertaining so strong a regard for its
venerable forms that even on the approval of the Westminster Directory
in 1645 he is said to have opposed the adoption of any Act expressly
abrogating the Book of Common Order, had not hesitated when contrasting
it with the English Liturgy thus to speak of the nature and extent of
the submission expected to be given to it: "Habemus quidem nos etiam in
Ecclesia nostra Agendas, et ordinem in sacris celebrandis servandum,
_sed nemo alligatur precibus aut exhortationibus liturgiae nostrae_,
proponuntur tantum ut peradigmata, quibus precum aut exhortationum
materia et forma quoad substantialia indicantur, non ut eisdem verbis
adstringantur ministri. Totos ego tredecim annos, quibus functus sum
ministerio, sive in sacramentis, sive in aliis sacris celebrandis,
exhortationibus aut precibus quae extant in Agenda nostra, _nunquam usus
sum_. Sic etiam alii c