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LECTURE II.

TEMPER OF THE COMPILERS OF THE LITURGY DISPLAYED IN ITS COMMENCEMENT.

ST. LUKE i., 78, 79.

The day-spring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

It is most desirable and proper that every member of a Christian congregation should thoroughly understand the meaning of those prayers in which he joins his fellow-men in the public worship of their Creator and Redeemer; for how otherwise can he comply with the exhortations of the Apostle that he should pray with the understanding as well as with the heart, and be ready always to give an answer of the hope that is in him? But it is more particularly incumbent on you, my young friends, the greater number of whom are intended for the ministry of our holy Church, to study the Book of Common Prayer, because you will, hereafter, not

only be called on to express your belief in the truths which it declares, and the doctrines which it inculcates, but it will be a portion of your duty to teach and to explain them to your flocks, and to defend those parts which the Dissenters, improperly, attack. It is not probable that you have yet thought much of these matters, but it is my earnest desire to direct your attention to the peculiar excellences of our Liturgy whilst you are young, in the hope that God will hereafter dispose your hearts to study them more deeply; and I heartily pray that his Holy Spirit may guide and assist your efforts to become worthy to bear that high and awful office to which in due time you will be called.

I shall now endeavour to explain to you some of the reasons and motives which probably governed our Reformers in the compilation of this most exemplary Form of Prayer, and the temper and disposition of mind with which it should be repeated: it is a form which was designed to enable every member of our Church to worship God in spirit and in truth; the plainness and simplicity of its language is well adapted to the

understanding of the unlearned, and the capacity of the simple, whilst its sublimity excites the admiration of the most enlightened mind; its humility tends to subdue the proudest heart, and its piety to elevate the hopes of the lowly; and all the doctrines. which it inculcates are exactly conformable to the primitive, the apostolical, the holy Catholic Church of Christ. I would wish to impress on all of you a grateful sense of our obligation to the pious men, to whose labour of love we are indebted for the Book of Common Prayer; it was a noble work, performed in zeal for the glory of God, and in charity for their fellow Christians, for those who, by the custom which had previously prevailed in the Church of reading the service in the Latin language, had been excluded from the privilege of understanding it. We, my Christian friends, who experience the heavenly consolations which are derived from uniting our humble confessions, our heartfelt petitions, our grateful thanksgivings, our joyful praises; we who, when assembled in the house of God, have the opportunity of offering our worship together, with one heart and one mind, and are excited to

devotion by expressions which warm the bosom, and touch the feelings, and suit the case of every penitent sinner; we surely ought to contrast the blessed privileges we enjoy, with the dark ignorance of spiritual truth which pervaded the minds of so many of our predecessors. They were taught to believe that a certain outward form of worship regularly observed, a certain number of prayers repeated at stated times, a private disclosure to their priest of every secret of their heart, a liberal donation to him for the absolution of their sins, and an invocation for the protection of angels and saints, would ensure eternal happiness: such was the superstition consequent on the Holy Scriptures being withheld from their perusal ; that which was designed by our heavenly Father to make them wise unto salvation, was forbidden to their use; the study of the Bible was prohibited; to possess one was an offence; and none but the clergy might venture to search for the truths contained in the lifegiving word of God. Can we then sufficiently estimate the blessing conferred on us through the instrumentality of our pious Reformers, when they opened for us the

sealed book of inspiration, that book by which we learn that prayers are not accepted unless they proceed from the heart, that the merits of angels and saints avail us nothing, but that Jesus Christ alone is mighty to save; whilst, through his propitiation, and by his intercession, every penitent believer has the promise of salvation.

In the Book of Common Prayer we are furnished with the foundation for this faith; we are instructed to implore assistance that we may act upon it; we are taught to bless and praise God for having called us to the knowledge of it; and we are made familiar with the very words which, by his Holy Spirit, He has dictated to his faithful servants, for the purpose of promoting his own honour and glory, and the everlasting happiness of mankind. Surely then it becomes us to use our Liturgy with reverence, to examine it with attention, and to feel an interest in the history of the public service of our Church, of the commencement of which I now propose to take a short review.

In the earliest days of Christianity it is probable that divine service, although substantially alike everywhere, did not univer

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