Forms assist the mind to take its due part in the worship which we offer to the Almighty. Worship is offered with body, mind and spirit. If one of these encroaches on the others, their share is in danger. If the tongue and the knees and the hands are too much engaged in it, the mind grows weary or idle. If the mind is too busily employed, the spirit has a diminished share, or the body is indolent. It is necessary to provide occupation for the mind, but not to occupy it in following great mental efforts for which it is unprepared. If the mind is unprepared, it no sooner reaches one point than it has to follow the speaker to another; and thereby the spirit loses its power of speeding the utterance to the throne of God.
We find that, in the Services, shares are distributed to the worshippers in five different ways, which may be called Worship-forms. The Table on p. 21 should be carefully studied. Hooker's description of them (E. P. v. xxxix. 1) is a little difficult to make out; but it will be found to verify our table. (See Appendix A, pp. 22, 23.)
Walter Travers was Reader at the Temple Church in London, when (1585) Richard Hooker was appointed to be Master of the Temple. Travers had been a friend and favourite of Thomas Cartwright, a severe critic of the Order and Discipline of the Church of England. Travers took up the criticisms, and so attacked Hooker that the latter in self-defence wrote his Books on _The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ (1592), wherein he replies to Cartwright's and Travers' criticisms.
The Worship-forms have been in use for so long that it is scarcely possible to discuss their origin. The traces of them in the Bible are interesting:
2. Responsorial or Interjectional. S. Luke ii. 13, 14.
5. Preceded. Exodus xxiv. 7, xix. 7, 8, xx. 18-21.
The Prayer Book furnishes examples of Praise and Prayer in each Form, excepting the Litany Form, which is used only for Prayer. But there is no reason why that also should not be used for Praise: the 136th Psalm will show how this might be done.
1. The Minister AMEN form The Collects Prayer of offers and the Consecration People endorse in Holy it Communion (see 1 Cor. xiv. 16)
2. Minister and Responsorial, Hymn at Sursum Corda People pursue or Ordination of in Holy different lines INTERJECTIONAL Priests Communion interrupting form Preces before Versicles one another Collects before Psalms