Discovering the prayer book

Daily Reading for August 17 • Samuel Johnson, 1772, Timothy Cutler, 1765, and Thomas Bradbury Chandler, 1790, Priests

Mr. Johnson was always of a serious and devout turn of mind, but averse to every appearance of enthusiasm; and he never could be thoroughly reconciled to the practice of public extempore praying and preaching, which he looked upon as the great engines of enthusiasm. When at college he had conceived an aversion to extempore prayers, by observing the use that was made of them there, and the tendency of this practice to promote self-conceit and spiritual pride. The scholars, in his time, frequently held private meetings for prayer; and those of them that had acquired something of a talent at extempore praying could not forbear appearing vain of it: one, in particular, who was allowed to excel in that way, had the vanity frequently to boast of his gifts. On the other hand, some modest young gentlemen, of good sense and fair character, who wanted the assurance to pray in this manner, were discountenanced and despised.

Mr. Johnson could not avoid making the conclusion that it would be much better to have our prayers pre-composed, with due care and attention. . . . When a form of prayer is used, we have nothing else to do than to offer up our hearts with our words, which, indeed, is the only proper business of prayer. He had been educated under strong prejudices against the Church of England, of which he knew but very little; but the next year (1716) the Book of Common Prayer was, for the first time, put into his hands, by one Mr. Smithson, a pious member of the church, who had lately settled in Guilford. On perusing the Liturgy, he found that it chiefly consisted of a very judicious collection of sentiments and expressions out of the holy scriptures; and these he had always reverenced and loved. This inspected caused all his prejudices against the Liturgy of the Church of England entirely to vanish.

From The Life of Samuel Johnson, D.D. by Thomas Bradbury Chandler (New York: T.&J. Swords, 1805).

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