Quest. LXXIII. Are public forms of man's devising or composing lawful?

Answ. Yes: 1. The ministers afore-mentioned throughout the christian world, do devise and compose the form of their own sermons and prayers: and that maketh them not unlawful. 2. And whoever speaketh ex tempore, his words are a form when he speaketh them, though not a premeditated form. 3. And when Scripture so vehemently commandeth us to search, meditate, study the Scriptures, and take heed unto ourselves and unto doctrine, &c. what a person is that who will condemn prayer or preaching, only because we beforehand studied or considered what to say! as if God abhorred diligence and the use of reason. Men are not tied (now) from thinking beforehand what to say to the judge at the bar for estate or life, or what to say on an embassage, or to a king, or any man that we converse with. And where are we forbidden to forethink what to say to God? Must the people take heed how they hear, and look to their foot when they go into the house of God? and must not we take heed what we speak, and look to our words that they be fit and decent?

Object. Forms are images of prayer and preaching, forbidden in the second commandment?

Answ. Prove it, and add not to the word of God. 1. The Scripture and God’s servants, even Christ himself, had broken the second commandment, when they used or prescribed forms. 2. Forms are no more images than extemporate words are, as they signify our minds. Are all the catechisms, printed and written sermons and prayers, images or idols? all forms that parents teach their children? O charge not such untruths on God; and invent not falsehoods of his word, while you cry down man’s inventions.