*■ 
 
 <73 
 
 ON READING THE PRAYERS AND 
 LESSONS. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED 
 
 At an Ordination held in Norivich Cathedral, 
 
 ON 
 
 TRINITY SUNDAY (JUNE 4), 
 1882, 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD MEYRIGK GOULBURN, D.D., D.G.L, 
 
 (DEAN OF NORWICH.) 
 
 PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF SOME OF THE 
 CANDIDATES FOR HOLY ORDERS. 
 
 [Re-printed from the Norfolk Chronicle.'] 
 
 Stevenson and Co., Printers, Market-place, Norwich, 
 * — —
 
 SERMON. 
 
 1 Coe. xiv., 15. 
 
 I will pray with the spirit^ and I will pray 
 with the understanding also" 
 
 Among the numerous topics which suggest 
 themselves in connexion with an occasion like the 
 present, I choose one, which, if not quite in the 
 foremost rank (an admission, however, which I 
 make somewhat reluetantly), fcas yet, I am 
 persuaded, far greater importance than is 
 generally ascribed to it. The public functions 
 of the clergy, those which they exercise in 
 the congregation, are twofold. That which 
 has the most obvious and direct bearing upon 
 the interests of the people is the function of 
 preaching, in which they appear as God's 
 ambassadors, charged with a message gathered out 
 of His living oracles, which they are to deliver with 
 all earnestness and fidelity. But there is another 
 side of our ministrations which, because it seems 
 to be so much easier, and to demand so much less 
 forethought and preparation, is sadly apt to be 
 neglected, to the great detriment of our con- 
 gregations, and to the lowering of the whole tone 
 of our public worship. If it be a high honour and 
 trust to be God's mouth-piece to the people in the 
 sermon, it is scarcely a lower honour, or a less 
 responsible trust, to be their mouth-piece to Him in 
 conducting their devotions, and saying the 
 Church's appointed Prayers. " Oh ; but anyone 
 can read the Prayers! " Can they ? It is just this 
 notion, — that any person, educated to the extent a 
 clergyman must necessarily have been, can offer 
 the prescribed prayers in such a way as to kindle 
 and help the devotions of the people, and thus to 
 edify them,— that makes the Service so often a dead
 
 letter, and even creates in certain congregations, 
 where the indifference to it is patent, an undefinable 
 impression of the most offensive kind, that nothing 
 transacted in Church is of any interest or 
 importance, until the sermon comes. How deeply 
 dishonouring to God, and how discreditable to 
 those who are charged, not only to preach His 
 Word, but also to administer His ordinances, is 
 such an impression, wherever it prevails ! 
 
 It may be of use, then, if on the present occasion 
 I lay down some of the principles (time will not 
 serve to do more) which must underlie our reading 
 of the public prayers, if that reading is to tell upon 
 our people for good, and to be an element, aa 
 surely it ought to be, in their spiritual training. 
 And although the Lessons, and appointed portions 
 of Scripture, are more or less addressed to the 
 people, and in this view of them would seem to fall 
 under a different category from the Prayers, I 
 shall embrace them in my remarks. For indeed 
 there is a point of view in which the ritual reading 
 of Holy Scripture in the congregation forms part 
 of the service offered to God, which indeed may be 
 said of everything transacted in the Church, 
 preaching not excepted. The ceremonial Law of 
 old had a provision analogous to the Lessons : " In 
 your solemn days," it is said, "ye shall blow with 
 the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over 
 the sacrifices of your peace offerings ; that they 
 may [be to you for a memorial before your God." * 
 The ritual reading of the appointed Scriptures, in 
 the Christian Church, intermingled as it is with 
 the prayers of the people, is the blowing of the 
 trumpet over the sacrifices for a memorial before 
 God ; and in the Pre-Reforroation Church this 
 significance of the Lessons used to be indicated by 
 the practice of burning incense during the reading 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 I. Now the first principle, which underlies all good 
 reading of the Church Service, is that announced in 
 the first clause of my text ; " I will pray with the 
 spirit,'' — the higher element of my nature, that in 
 virtue of which I am capable of holding communion 
 with God, shall be called into exercise in my prayer. 
 " God is a spirit ; and they that worship Him must 
 worship Him in spirit and in truth," Indeed 
 unless the spirit is called into active exercise, and 
 does its part, while there may still be a form of 
 
 •Numbers x. 10. 
 
 OS** 1- 
 
 
 s
 
 prayer, and a form (as all our liturgical forma 
 are) edifying, beautiful, logically symmetrical, and 
 echoing with Holy Scripture at every turn, there 
 can be nothing which deserves the name of 
 worship or prayer. The prayers of saints are said 
 to be " golden vials full of odours." * The golden 
 vial is ready to our hand in the Prayer Book, — it 
 rests with us to fill it with the odours of holy 
 aspirations and affections, — the odours of spiritual 
 incense kindled upon the heart's altar by the power 
 of the Holy Ghost, — as it is written, " Let my 
 prayer be set forth in Thy sight as the incense." f 
 This, then, is the fundamental, the indispensable, 
 condition of all good officiating, of all such reading 
 of the service I mean, as shall be helpful and 
 edifying to the people. The minister must be 
 really praying himself, holding real communion 
 with God in his own soul, — a circumstance which 
 in the long run is sure to make itself felt, — if the 
 people are to be lured on to join in the same holy 
 exercise. "The disciple is not above the master : 
 it is enough for the disciple if he be as his master ;" 
 and, if you, God's duly qualified ambassador, are 
 not engaged in secret communion with Him, when 
 you read the prayers and lessons, you cannot 
 expect to lift up the souls of your flock — (however 
 anxious some of them may be to shake off the 
 influence of the work and worries of the week) — 
 into a higher and purer atmosphere, which you are 
 not breathing yourself. The first thing is, then, to 
 realise your position as standing face to face with 
 God and Jesus Christ, and then to pour out your 
 own heart unto Them in the appointed form of 
 confession, supplication, or thanksgiving, as the 
 case may be. Your doing this habitually will act 
 as a spell upon the congregation, you may be sure, 
 without the smallest effort on your part to impress 
 them. No need to " preach the prayers," or try 
 to make them effective by your rendering of them 
 (a most offensive practice indeed) ; all will feel that 
 you are praying ; and the desire will be kindled in 
 them to pray too. 
 
 And the same with the Lessons. Eealise your 
 position. You are for the time God's mouth-piece, 
 much more entirely and absolutely than you can 
 be in a sermon, where the fallibility of the minister 
 is apt in greater or less degree to deprave the 
 ministration. With what reverence, with what 
 * See Rev. v. 8. ~ t Ps. cxli. 2.
 
 desire to bring out the full significance of the sacred 
 text, should you read! And, again, you are 
 blowing the two silver trumpets on the solemn day 
 over the burnt offering, — making the memorial 
 before God of His Word in both its sections, the 
 Old and New Testament, — with all the " exceeding 
 great and precious promises," which it holds out, 
 and whioh are the foundation of our hopes. 
 The blowing of these two trumpets is to " be an 
 ordinance for ever throughout all generations" of 
 the Church militant. How careful should we be, 
 in sounding them, to make the significance of them 
 apparent, so that "the trumpet may not give an 
 uncertain sound," — to impress upon the minds of 
 the hearers what God would have impressed by that 
 particular Lesson ! 
 
 II. So much for the first and most important 
 counsel which has to be given in the matter we are 
 now considering. But is it the only counsel, or 
 the only one of any moment ? So long as we are 
 heedful, while conducting the worship of the con- 
 gregation, to maintain in our own hearts the spirit 
 of prayer and of communion with God, is that all 
 we need care for ? May all the more mechanical 
 parts of the great function — tone, delivery, pronun- 
 ciation, emphasis, slowness or speed in reciting, — 
 be safely left to take their chance ? I reply 
 deliberately and very emphatically, No. Upon 
 principle, No. Prayer has a body as well as a 
 spirit; and the body, as well as the spirit, is to be 
 cared for. Of its spirit, and the absolute necessity 
 of maintaining it in our conduct of Publio 
 Worship, we have already spoken. The body ia 
 the outward expression, which conveys the desire 
 of the heart. And as the prayer in both its parts 
 is an offering to God, this expression must 
 be the best, the choicest, the most appro- 
 priate that is within our reach. Not only 
 must the incense give out its fragrance, but the 
 vial from which it is poured upon the incense-altar 
 must be golden, — "golden vials full of odours." 
 Now how is this to be ? The first and most im- 
 portant advice for rectifying the expression of the 
 prayer,— I mean, its expression by the living 
 voice, — is that he who recites or offers it should 
 thoroughly understand it ; — "I will pray with the 
 understanding also." " But everyone understands 
 the Prayers." Do they ? I have a very strong 
 conviction, the result of having been led for some
 
 years to study various parts of the Prayer Book, 
 that nobody understands it who has not studied it 
 (in its history and gradual construction, as well aa 
 its phraseology), and that even those of us who 
 understand it best have still much to learn in it, 
 many hidden and edifying meanings to elicit and 
 discover. At all events, this may be said, without 
 hesitation or fear of contradiction, respecting the 
 volume of Holy Scripture, the reading of which 
 in the ears of the congregation is, as I have already 
 intimated, one of the most important parts of 
 Public Worship. Whatever proficiency a man 
 may have made in the study of God's Word, there 
 still remain mines of significance in it which have 
 yet to be explored ; and each of us, therefore, may 
 humbly hope that as he gains, in the course of his 
 daily reading and meditation, fresh light upon the 
 meaning of Holy Scripture, he shall be better 
 qualified some years hence, than he is now, to be a 
 public reader of it. But the Prayers, so far as 
 they vary from the language of Holy Scripture 
 (and how little they do vary !), together with the 
 whole structure of the Services, certainly 6tand 
 upon a different footing from the Holy Scriptures, 
 as not having been given by inspiration of God; 
 and yet to one who looks into the Book of Common 
 Prayer, with the desire to acquaint himself with its 
 full significance, how entirely will it approve itself 
 not only as a composition on which a wonderful 
 amount of learning and thought has been ex- 
 pended, but which has been watched over at every 
 stage of its construction by the special Providence of 
 God ! But it is vain to expect that you can exhibit 
 the significance of these Services, unless you have 
 yourselves seized it ; and to seize it without study 
 is an impossibility. — An instance drawn from my 
 ©wn early experience will best illustrate what I 
 mean ; I trust you will pardon my egotism, if 
 egotism it be, in adducing it. Shortly after I had 
 been ordained Priest, an elderly friend, who casually 
 heard me give the Absolution on one of the first 
 occasions on which I was qualified to give it, told 
 me it was evident to him, from my manner of 
 reading, that I did not understand it. I was 
 inclined to be piqued by the censure at first, until 
 he showed me that it was perfectly just. " You do 
 not perceive the coherence of the formulary," said 
 he ; " you have never laid the parts of it together in 
 your mind. The earlier part contains an announce-
 
 8 
 
 ment of the terms on which God forgives the 
 sinner, which are repentance and faith ; ' He 
 pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly 
 repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel.' 
 "What follows is a prayer, or an exhortation to 
 prayer, that we, the congregation there present, 
 may come under the terms so announced, which 
 can only bo by God's grace forming in us these 
 dispositions of heart ; ' Wherefore let us beseech 
 him to grant us true repentance, and his holy 
 Spirit' (i.e., the holy Spirit of faith,) so that, 
 our persons being accepted through Christ, 
 the worship we now offer may be accepted,— 
 'that those things may please him, which we do 
 at this present ; and that ' henceforth we may date 
 our course afresh from this new exercise of re- 
 pentance and faith — ' the rest of our life hereafter 
 may be pure and holy ; so that at the last we may 
 come to his eternal joy.' " "No man," my friend 
 added, " whose mind is fully possessed with this 
 connexion of thought, can fail to indicate it in his 
 voice by laying a slight emphasis on the ' us ;' 
 ' Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true 
 repentance and his holy Spirit.' You did not do 
 this ; and I saw at once that you had never given 
 any thought or study to the formulary ; your voice 
 would have gone right enough, had not your 
 understanding been in fault." It was a great 
 lesson to me at starting, which I have never 
 forgotten, how very little one may understand of 
 formularies familiar to us as household words, 
 thinking that, because the sound of them is in our 
 ears, the sense is, therefore, necessarily in our 
 minds. — I may add that the late Bishop Wilber- 
 force (who was blessed with a voice of marvellous 
 flexibility of tone) set me a thinking, when I first 
 heard him confirm children, what could be his 
 meaning in giving a stress and tone to the word 
 11 everlasting " in the close of the sentence of 
 Administration ; — " Defend, Lord, this Thy child, 
 &c, &c, that he may continue Thine for ever, and 
 daily increase in Thy holy Spirit more and more, 
 till he come ito Thine everlasting kingdom." It 
 Btruck me that the implication of such an emphasis 
 must be that the child had already come, in virtue 
 of its Baptism, into God's earthly kingdom, the 
 Church, and that what now remained was, that by 
 the defence of His grace, and by daily increase in 
 the holy Spirit, it might reach the everlasting
 
 9 
 
 kingdom, — might " finally come to the land of 
 everlasting life," as the phraseology is in the 
 Baptismal Service. So I asked the Bishop whether 
 that was what he intended to convey. "Well," 
 he said, "I do not know that I ever intended to 
 convey anything ; but certainly that is how I under- 
 stand the words ; and I suppose I say them ac- 
 cordingly." This is a good instance of a meaning 
 latent in words, being elicited and conveyed to the 
 hearer by the method of reading them. 
 
 But while the understanding of a formulary is 
 the first requisite for the right rendering of it by 
 the voice, it is not the sole one. There are other 
 points, minuticB seemingly, — but still minutiae 
 which, if not attended to, are apt to distress the 
 congregation, and hinder their devotions, — in 
 which almost all readers require correction, and 
 in which the correction must be made before 
 a faulty habit is formed. Such are vulgar, 
 broad, mincing, and provincial pronunciations 
 of certain words ; drawling (a most pernicious 
 habit, because it balks the worshipper, and 
 takes the fervour out of his devotions) ; [an 
 unduly rapid recital of the prayers in a country 
 congregation, where the comparatively uneducated 
 minds of the peasants cannot possibly move so fast 
 as that of the clergyman ; whining and snuffling, as 
 the Puritans used to do, as if forsooth, because the 
 exercise is a religious one, the voice ought to lose 
 all its natural tones, and assume an artificial and 
 querulous key. Add to which, that all of us 
 (but more especially those who have any force of 
 character or originality of mind) have certain 
 mannerisms in pronunciation, gesture, attitude, the 
 result of idiosyncracy or our peculiar temperament, 
 — some of which perhaps may be harmless (and to 
 those who know and love us even interesting, as 
 part of our personality), but others are apt to be 
 grotesque, ungraceful, painfully eccentric, and such 
 as we should do well to unlearn. How are 
 we to proceed in regard to these and similar 
 defects, which may prove a real drawback and 
 hindrance in our ministration of God's ordinances ? 
 It would be well if every young clergyman would 
 select some judicious senior friend, a scholar and 
 a gentleman as well as a Christian, and a man of 
 experience and knowledge of the world, and would 
 invite him to be a listener, and make what criticisms 
 he pleased both on the reading and preaching of a
 
 10 
 
 beginner. " My only wish is to cure the faults 
 incidental to my youth and inexperience; tell me 
 candidly what they are. Notice them all, small 
 and great, it you please, all the mis-pronouuced 
 words, all the vulgarisms, all the provincialisms, 
 all the affectations, all the pieces of bad taste, 
 all the oddities, all the uncouthnesses, every- 
 thing in my manner, voice, or bearing, which 
 could by possibility distress my hearers, or 
 excite a smile on their countenances." Such 
 a Mentor might do incalculable service, if wo 
 only gave him full liberty of speech, with the 
 assurance that we should never take offence what- 
 ever his criticisms might be. But pray observe 
 that, if any such advice is to be effectual to the cure 
 of bad habits, it must be given and taken at the 
 beginning of our ministerial career. The fault, 
 which a little attention and care will servo to 
 eradicate at twenty-four, is stereotyped upon 
 us and has become part of our personality at 
 forty-four. — Hut I seem to hear some of my 
 hearers saying, "Are you not going too much 
 into minutiae ? Are such trivialities as tone, 
 manner, pronunciation, worthy of being con- 
 sidered in a sacred function, the execution of 
 which touches the highest interest of men ?" Most 
 assuredly. The worship of God, in its very humblest 
 part, should be conducted with all the dignity, 
 reverence, and scrupulous care, which we can 
 possibly throw into it. Shall I say we are never 
 quite right, until a spirit of scrupulosity (or, if you 
 prefer that word, punctiliousness) pervades and 
 gives a certain tone to our ministrations ? And 
 punctiliousness stands in small things ; and " he 
 that contemneth small things shall fall by little and 
 little." # The saying of Mr.Eomaine, which is often 
 quoted, has an admirable moral, — all the more 
 admirable, because it turns upon a very in- 
 significant matter — a piece of clerical costume, 
 which is now (for whatever reasons) falling fast into 
 desuetude. Observing his curate coming out of 
 the vestry without bands, Mr. Romaine said to 
 him, " How now, sir ? no bands ?" "I thought, 
 sir, they did not signify," was the reply. "Not 
 signify, sir? How may not the course end, which 
 begins so? First, no bands; then no surplice; 
 then no Prayer-book; and then no Bible, sir." If 
 by giving up the Bible be meant giving up belief 
 * Ecclus. xiv. I.
 
 11 
 
 in its inspiration, and in the supernatural character 
 of much which it records, many even of our clergy, 
 its professed and authorised exponents, (alas! 
 that I should have to say so ! ) are unhappily 
 fast giving up the Bible. I do not say, because 
 obviously the two things have no sort of 
 connexion, that this comes in any way from having 
 first given up the bands ; but in connexion with 
 Mr. Romaine's observation, which has become more 
 or less historical, it is a grim and grotesque fact 
 that the two surrenders appear together on the 
 same page of Church of England history ; and 
 any how the principle stands unimpeached, and 
 needs no fanciful or far-fetched connexion to 
 establish it, that minute infidelities in the service 
 and worship of God lead on to serious ones. 
 
 Presume not, then, in any part of the ministry 
 you are now about to undertake, to "contemn small 
 things." You are to labour to make everything 
 connected with Divine Worship as solemn, aa 
 reverent, as edifying to man, as acceptable to 
 God, as you have it in you to make it. And as a 
 test to your own consciences, whether or not you 
 are doing this with the pure intention of honouring 
 our Divine Master, and discharging in a manner 
 pleasing to Him the great function of conducting 
 Public Worship, let me propose to you in conclu- 
 sion this question, — whether even at times when 
 your congregation is very small, insignificant 
 alike in numbers and station (say on Wednesdays 
 and Fridays, for example, when there is no 
 sermon, and no singing, and nobody comes to 
 church but two or three old folks from the 
 alms-house), you observe the ritual of your 
 Church with the same punctiliousness, say 
 the Prayers with the same fervour and devotion, 
 and read the Lessons with the same reverence, and 
 the same desire to bring out their meaning for 
 those who do attend, as you would if you were 
 officiating in the dome area of St. Paul's on Sunday 
 evening, when that vast space is crowded with 
 upturned faces ? How far, in short, is your careful- 
 ness in conducting Divine Worship a piece of eye- 
 service, rendered by men-pleasers, — or how far (on 
 the other hand) is it done in singleness of heart 
 with reverence and godly fear ? Is not the pre- 
 sence of Him " who walketh in the midst of the 
 seven golden candlesticks," covenanted equally to 
 the two or three alms-people in the country
 
 12 
 
 church, as to the multitude assembled in the 
 dome-area? "Where two or three are gathered 
 together in my name, there am I in the midst 
 of them." * Let His presence be but the ruling 
 thought in our minds, whenever we presume to 
 administer His ordinances ; and while even then 
 we shall have to throw ourselves upon His mercy 
 for the pardon of many negligences and ignor- 
 ances, yet the service, being rendered " in single- 
 ness of heart, as to the Lord and not unto men," 
 will not fail through His intercession to be 
 accepted, nor will the people fail in the long run 
 to be edified, discovering by instinct, as even the 
 least educated among them will do very rapidly, 
 the devotion which animates their pastor's heart, 
 and which will spread among them, in proportion 
 to their capacity of receiving it, the sacred infec- 
 tion of Prayer and Praise. 
 
 * St. Matt, xviii, 20. 
 
 NORWICH : 
 Stevenson & Co., Market Place.
 
 38 
 
 society is become comipt ; the light that is in it is become darkness; the 
 leaven that leavens it is not the Divine leaven of the Gospel, hut that of 
 worldliness, selfishness, sensuality, and wickedness ; therefore all these 
 miseries — the necessary fruits of sin — come upon it. The Gospel is 
 called the light of the world, the salt that is to keep it from corruption, the 
 leaven that is to leaven all man's life, and how awfully does history and 
 the course of the Divine judgements show that it is so indeed ; for if in any 
 nation that light is put " under a bushel," or is not set on a sufficient 
 <• candlestick" so that all who come in may sec it, then more and more do 
 we tee darkness of every kind covering it. And " if the light that is in it 
 be darkness," if what pretends to J^^^jistianity is, for the most part, some 
 frightful perversion of it* "how^Bp^j is that darkness!" And if any 
 " body" or society of men* 3s njfl ^Ri witjAthat salt, how visibly does it 
 decay and become utterly l '"fl ^7 " -f^^F* sa ^ have lost its savour" 
 — if the teachers and i&ifjjrrs dermic op^ron in any nation have become 
 worldly — "wherewith shuH it be salted?" "It is thenceforth good for 
 nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men." He 
 must be blind who does not, by this time, perceive how entirely it is 
 one principle, and one only which " has the promise of the life that 
 now is, as well as of that which is to come" — namely, real and true 
 Christian faith — one God, one only who in the end rules this as well 
 as all other worlds — namely, God manifest in Christ. Where that 
 faith is not, everything sooner or later decays — " it carries within itself 
 the germs of its own dissolution." All spiritual food is useless or 
 poisonous that is not leavened with this; all light is darkness that is 
 not borrowed from and illumined with this. If we would make our 
 education worth anything at all — if we would have teachers who shall do 
 any good and not wide-spreading harm — if we would teach politics in any 
 way that shall not be poisonous — all must be leavened with this leaven of 
 real uucorrupted Christianity. It is not necessary only, or chiefly, that 
 the teachers should be men who profess Christianity as their declared 
 creed, nor yet that the doctrines of the Bible should be taught at times, 
 but the main point is, that true uncorrupted Christianity should be the 
 leaven, leavening the whole character of the teacher, and giving its savour 
 to the whole doctrine taught about everything. This is the sole and only 
 true remedy for all our ills : "this it" note — just as much as shall be 
 hereafter — "life eternal to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Chuist 
 whom Thou hast sent." Leaven a nation with this faith and it will come 
 soon to " glory, honour, and immortality;" take away this, or turn the faith 
 which ought to be " leaven, leavening the whole lump" — leavening all 
 politics, philosophy, and wisdom into a dead stone separate from all life 
 — and in the end it will come to sure destruction and shame — to " indig- 
 nation and wrath, tribulation, and anguish." If men will not believe this 
 by faitli in (ion's word, they will be compelled Booner or later to 
 acknowledge it bv the ttaht of God's judgements.

 
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