CONSIDERED ESPECIALLY IN REFERENCE NINETEEN SERMONS PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF LINCOLN'S INN, BY FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A., CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN, AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN KING'S COLLEge, London. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. M.DCCC.XLIX. DEDICATION. To those who understand the Prayers of the Church best, the sufferers on sick beds; to those who often feel the need of them most, men toiling in the daily business of the world; to those who turn from them with the greatest aversion, persons harassed by doubts and confusions which seem to be mocked by their tone of calmness and trust; these Sermons are affectionately dedicated, by one who has learnt more of the inner meaning of the Prayer-Book from the first class than from all the instructions of divines; who never appreciated its practical, substantial character till he felt that the callings of the second class were as sacred as those of the recluse and devotee ; and who by converse with the last, by experiencing their difficulties, by seeking to sympathize with them, by discovering his own incompetency to help them, has been led to know what guidance and comfort there is in it for such as never have found or expect to find a home in any religious party, rest in any religious theory. PREFACСЕ. N the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn the prayers of IN the Church are read every day. If certain popular notions respecting these prayers are true, it seemed to me that I had no right to offer them to God myself, or to ask honest men to join me in offering them. Those notions assume that the Church of England is the result of a compromise; that the Articles embody the opinions of one party to the bargain, the Liturgy those of the other; that every time I put my hand to the former document I proclaim myself in the strictest sense a Protestant, that every time I use the latter I act as a Papist; that in fact, I am neither, but one of those who, as the poet has affirmed, are equally hateful to God and to his enemies. Such statements are put forth again |