603, preachers
were instructed to move the people to join with them in prayer before
the sermon either in the Bidding form, 'or to that effect as briefly as
conveniently they may.'[1189] It was, however, no longer clear whether
it were itself a prayer, or, as in former time, an admonition to pray.
On the one hand, it was called 'a form of prayer,' and was followed
without a pause by the Lord's Prayer, and then by the sermon. On the
other hand, it was prefaced not by the familiar 'Let us pray,' but by
the old bidding, 'Ye shall pray,' or 'Pray ye,' and the congregation
stood as listeners until the Lord's Prayer began.[1190] Hence a
difference in practice arose, curiously characteristic of the
controversies, ecclesiastical and political, which were being agitated
at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth
century. In Charles I.'s reign, many of the clergy had chosen to
consider it a prayer, and taking advantage of the permission to vary it,
had converted it into one of those extempore effusions which Puritan
feeling considered so peculiarly edifying.[1191] It need hardly be added
that the Anglican party were more than ever careful to adhere to the
older usage. After the Restoration, the Bidding Prayer was for a time
not very much used, and the pulpit prayer, as adopted by Low Churchmen
from Puritans and Presbyterians, began in many places to assume a most
prominent position. 'Some men,' Sherlock said, in 1681, 'think they
worship God sufficiently if they come time enough to church to join in
the pulpit prayer.'[1192] High Churchmen could not endure it. 'It is a
long, crude, extemporary prayer,' said South, 'in reproach of all the
prayers which the Church, with such an admirable prudence and devotion,
has been making before.'[1193] The use, however, of extempore prayer in
this part of the service was defended by some of the clergy and bishops,
as agreeable to the people, as conformable to the custom of the Reformed
Churches abroad,[1194] and attractive to those among the Presbyterians
and other denominations who only needed encouragement and a few slight
concessions to exchange occasional for constant conformity. Meanwhile,
at the end of the preceding century, 'the Bidding' had been more
generally revived. Archbishop Tenison, in a circular to the clergy in
1695, had called attention to the neglect of it,[1195] and the Bishop of
London revived its general use in his own diocese, to the astonishment,
sa