A26895:139
The Christian religion expressed I, briefly in the ancient creeds, the Ten commandments, and…
The Christian religion expressed I, briefly in the ancient creeds, the Ten commandments, and the Lords prayer, and, II, more largely in a profession taken out of the Holy Scriptures, containing 1, the articles of the Christian belief, 2, our consent to the gospel covenant, 3, the sum of Christian duty, according to the primitive simplicity, purity, and practice, fitted to the right instruction of the ignorant, the promoting of holiness, and the charitable concord of all true believers ... / by Richard Baxter.
London : s.n., 1660
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
31. So also in the public prayers, though it be lawful (in it self) to read the words of prayer prescribed us by others; yet as all Ministers should be able to pray themselves from the knowledge and feeling of their own and the peoples wants, so it is meet that their graces and holy abilities be ordinarily exercised in such prayer, and that they be not restrained from speaking to ⟨p. 45⟩God in such sound and meet expressions, as shall either presently, or by the means of their preparations, proceed from the sense of the matter of their prayers, excited and drawn forth by the assistance of the Spirit of Christ. But whether any particular Pastor should use a stinted form of words imposed by others, or invented by himself, or whether he shall pray without such stinted forms, or both, by turns, is a point to be determined according to his own abilities, and the state of his flock, and other accidents: but it is not to be made a matter of such necessity in it self, as to lay the unity or peace of the Churches, or the liberty of the Pastors and Worshippers of Christ upon it.
31. So also in the publike prayers, though it be lawful (in it self) to read the words of prayer prescribed us by others; yet as all Ministers should be able to pray themselves from the knowledge and feeling of their own and the peoples wants, so it is meet that their graces and holy abilities be ordinarily exercised in such prayer, and that they be not restrained from speaking to ⟨p. 45⟩God in such sound and meet expressions, as shall either presently, or by the means of their preparations, proceed from the sense of the matter of their prayers, excited and drawn forth by the assistance of the Spirit of Christ. But whether any particular Pastor should use a stinted form of words imposed by others, or invented by himself, or whether he shall pray without such stinted forms, or both, by turns, is a point to be determined according to his own abilities, and the state of his flock, and other accidents: but it is not to be made a matter of such necessity in it self, as to lay the unity or peace of the Churches, or the liberty of the Pastors and Worshippers of Christ upon it.