Thoughts on Public Prayer 12+

📙 This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1849 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF PUBLIC PRAYER. As Prayer is a dictate of nature, as well as a duty required by the express command of our Master in heaven, we may take for granted that it has early and always made a part of the services of public as well as of private religion. ■ Some, indeed, have supposed that social prayer was unknown until the time of Enos, as recorded in Gen. iv. 26. But this is by no means probable. As the visible Church was constituted in the family of Adam, we must suppose that social prayer in some form was habitually performed. That it entered into the worship of the ceremonial economy of the Old Testament, is abundantly evident, as well from the book of Psalms, as from the historical records of important events during that economy. In the temple service, indeed, there seems to have been no system of common prayer. There were, it is true, "hours of prayer," and many and "long prayers" were there offered up; but these seem to have been by individuals, each one praying for himself, and by himself, and in all manner of words and ways. Of two men who "went up to the temple to pray," each one by himself, we have a very graphic account in Luke xviii. 10. They had in the temple service, sacred music, and sacerdotal ben...