THE NECESSITY

AND

THE VALUE

OF THE

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

BRIEFLY POINTED OUT.

BEING AN ABRIDGMENT OF A FORMER TRACT

ADDRESSED TO HIS PARISHIONERS,

BY

SIR HERBERT OAKELEY, BART. M.A.

DEAN AND RECTOR OF BOCKING.

1841.

CHELMSFORD:

PRINTED AND SOLD BY GUY,

AND RIVINGTONS, LONDON.

PART I.

"Mine house shall be called an HOUSE OF PRAYER for all people."-Isaiah, chap. lvi. verse 7.

(Jesus said) "It is written, my house shall be called the HOUSE OF PRAYER."-Matt. chap. xxi. verse 13.

MY CHRISTIAN BRETHREN,

THE words contained in the former of these two texts are the words of Almighty God, speaking by his prophet. The whole verse runs thus. "Even them" (God says, of persons who love and serve Him) "will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my House of Prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar: for mine House shall be called an HOUSE OF PRAYER for all people."

Now, brethren, it is my earnest desire that you all should be made " "joyful in the House of Prayer:" that, in joining in our Services there, you should feel all the satisfaction which they are fitted to produce: and therefore, I am going to point out to you some reasons for that joy and that satisfaction, which many of you perhaps, from want of consideration, have never perceived before.

The second text reminds you that these words of Almighty God, delivered by his prophet, were referred to and repeated by His blessed Sor, above seven hundred years after, when he visited

"It is written, my

the temple at Jerusalem. House shall be called the HOUSE OF PRAYER." This then is the purpose for which we are to "assemble and meet together" in the House of God. His House is "the House of Prayer:" we are to go thither to pray; to lift up our hearts and voices together in prayer; to perform a duty which cannot be performed in private, and which is the proper business of the Lord's day; to worship him in public; to unite with our brethren in confession, in supplication, in petition, in intercession, in praise, and in thanksgiving, to Him who hath promised that where men are gathered together in His name, He will be in the midst of them ;"* to fall down before Him, and "exalt Him in the congregation of the people,"t and in "the place where His honour dwelleth."‡ This, I repeat, is the chief and essential purpose for which we are to assemble in the House of God.

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Added to and engrafted upon this, was the custom of the primitive Church, adopted by our own, that at the close of the usual service the minister should preach a discourse to the people. Two holy Fathers of the Church, St. Ambrose and St. Austin, speak of this practice as constant on every Sabbath in their time (in the fourth century); and we find that the Sermon, thus introduced, was so connected with the preceding Service, that it was usually what we now frequently make it, an explanation of some part of

Matt. xviii. 20. † Psalm cvii. 32. ‡ Psalm xxvi. 8.

the Epistle, or Gospel, or proper Lesson, of the day, according the pattern given in Nehemiah, "They read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused the people to understand the reading."*

You will not suspect me of any intention to lower the importance of the practice thus authorised and so manifestly needful; but is it not the case, that this second part of our employment in the House of God (arising out of the first essential one, and, as I have said, engrafted upon it) is by many persons considered the chief, the allimportant purpose for which they go thither? Is not the House of God regarded by them as the house of preaching rather than the house of prayer? Do they not come there with that object (the Sermon) uppermost, if not singly, in their minds? Do they not go away talking and thinking of that alone? And according to the effect which it has had upon them, do they not speak of having been edified, or the contrary, by their attendance that day at Church, as if no other means of edification were provided there for them?

Now, even supposing that all these persons listen to the sermon with proper feelings, and with a sincere desire to profit by what they hear, still the consequences of their mistake are most lamentable. It prevents them from fulfilling that special purpose for which we are required to "assemble and meet together;" it causes them, more or less, to be inattentive, perhaps impatient, dur

*Nehem. viii. 8.