Lancelot Andrewes (1556-1626) was an academic prodigy from the start. He studied so hard that his parents had to force play on him. Okay, that wasn’t my problem! The headmaster of his first school recognized his scholarly prowess and arranged a scholarship for him to begin college in his mid-teens. He mastered fifteen modern languages and four ancient ones. It should hardly come as a surprise that he supervised translating the Bible from Latin into English. It’s how we acquired the King James Version, the standard Bible translation for two hundred fifty years. Lancelot made it possible for English people to read the Bible in their own vernacular. Yet he was no mere brainiac. He was also admired for his dynamic preaching and rich prayer life. As dean of Westminster Abbey in London, people flocked to hear him preach. His sermons made elaborate use of wordplays and utilized his encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture. T.S. Elliott admired him so highly that he began his epic poem, “The Journey of the Magi” with a line from Andrewes’ 1622 Christmas sermon.
Lancelot also spent up to five hours a day in prayer. For real! He never allowed his academic pursuits to blunt his passion for prayer. He considered prayer an indispensable support to his life and ministry. I’m challenged to pick only one of his prayers to use in this prayer exercise. A quote from Andrewes that I love: “Two things I recognize, O Lord, in myself: nature which Thou hast made and sin, which I have added.”
Lancelot Andrewes
O Lord, hedge up my way with thorns,
that I may find no path
for following vanity.
Hold me in
with bit and bridle,
lest I fall away from you.
O Lord, compel me
to come to you:
to bruise the serpent’s head,
to remember my life’s end,
to cut off opportunities for evil,
to be alert,
not to sit idle,
to shun what is evil,
to cling to what is good,
to look at no worthless things,
to bring my body into subjection,
to devote myself to prayer,
to search my heart with penitence.
Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.