House of prayer

“ When this wonderful truth is made known, we are no longer astonished that God should assure us, by so many precious promises, that he will hear and answer our prayers. We are called the temples of the Holy Ghost. If the Holy Ghost dwell in us, to guide and direct us in all our ways, will he forsake us in so important a matter as prayer? O, then, what a solemn place is the Christian's closet, or the house of prayer! ”

“ It is here promised that multitudes of the Gentiles shall come to the church, not only that the few who come dropping in shall be made welcome, but that great numbers shall come in, and the door be thrown open to them: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. ”

“ This common prayer is precious and the most powerful, and it is for its sake that we come together. For this reason also the Church is called a House of Prayer, because in it we are as a congregation with one accord to consider our need and the needs of all men, present them before God, and call upon Him for mercy. But this must be done with heart-felt emotion and sincerity, so that we feel in our hearts the need of all men, and that we pray with true sympathy for them, in true faith and confidence. Where such prayers are not made in the mass, it were better to omit the mass. ”

“ If ever there was a time when every house should be a house of prayer, it is now. Fathers and mothers should often lift up their hearts to God in humble supplication for themselves and their children. Let the father, as priest of the household, lay upon the altar of God the morning and evening sacrifice, while the wife and children unite in prayer and praise. In such a household Jesus will love to tarry.”—“Christian Education,” page 221. ”

“ "Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination
The latter has the largest congregation." ”

“ Oh then, make your home a house of prayer; lead your little flock in sweet communion with God. Establish in them the habit of devotion: Shape their consciences by prayer. In this way you shall secure for yourself and them the blessing of God: His smile shall ever rest upon your household: Salvation shall be the heritage of your children; they will grow up in the divine life; and will live amid the blessing’s of prayer, and be faithful to its requisitions:
"Hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling ”

“ The Apostles frequently speak of the "Church that is in the house." By this they mean such a household as we have tried to portray—a home where the religion of our blessed Saviour permeates the whole atmosphere; where the Word of God dwells richly; where there are altars of prayer and closets for prayer—a home where Jesus is a daily, a well-known Guest; where the children, baptized into Christ, are nourished with the milk of the Word, so that they grow thereby, increasing more and more, growing up unto Him who is the Head, even Christ. ”

“ For what sense is there in our coming together into a House of Prayer, which coming together shows that we should make common prayer and petition for the entire congregation, if we scatter these prayers, and so distribute them that everyone prays only for himself, and no one has regard for the other, nor concerns himself for another's need? ”

“ They must come together in the temple, the house of the Lord their God, because that was the house of prayer, and there they might be hope to meet with God because it was the place which he had chosen to put his name there, there they might hope to speed because it was a type of Christ and his mediation. ”

“ A spirit of prayer is also comprised in this disposition of humiliation; for the more we are struck here with the greatness and with the power of the God whom we worship, the more do our endless wants warn us to have recourse to him from whom alone we can obtain relief and deliverance from them. Thus the temple is the house of prayer, where every one ought to come to lay his secret wants before the Lord; where, in public calamities, he is appeased by the general prayers; where the assembled ministers lift up their hands for the sins of the people ”

“ It is comparatively easy to be religious in the church—to collect our thoughts and compose our feelings, and enter, with an appearance of propriety and decorum, into the offices of religious worship, amidst the quietude of the Sabbath, and within the still and sacred precincts of the house of prayer. ”

“ All the gods of heaven and hell confound me, if I do not burn it, as a man burns a brand in the fire.”
So speaking he turned away, and without deigning to salute the terrified priests, quitted the precincts of the Temple.
When he was gone the priests stood weeping and praying before the altar. “O Lord,” they said, “for the blasphemies wherewith Thine enemies blaspheme Thee, reward Thou them sevenfold into their bosom. Thou didst choose this house to be called by Thy name, and to be a house of prayer for Thy people. ”

“ When I pass from the vestry to the appointed place of prayer, or from the place of prayer to the altar, or from the altar to the place of preaching, may I lift up my soul secretly as I walk, and offer up secret prayers for the gift of the Holy Ghost, for power to pray, for grace, for the Divine blessing both upon myself and the congregation assembled in Thine house. ”

“ A hymn is sung, and the New Testament blessing pronounced. Then the procession from the missionary benches files out through the schoolroom into the mission-house and the people disperse to their homes. Mere mounds they look as I see them from my window. But they are Christian homes, whence rises prayer and praise. ”

“ Every priest must feel that the church benches, or the sanctuary, with their silence, their every part awakening and reminding the soul that this is the house of God, this is the gate of Heaven, are places most suitable for prayer and are great aids to fervent prayer. The thought of the presence of Christ with His adoring angels, to whose songs of praise the priest should unite himself, should help wonderfully in the devout recitation of the Hours. ”

“ They are made by kneeling down before the altar of the Blessed Virgin in the Church, or before any image of hers, in whatever place it may be, and making use devoutly of the following reflections and prayers. Those who cannot always have access to the Church, will do well to keep a small image for this purpose in some retired part of the house. ”

“ It makes a lasting impression upon whomsoever is admitted to familiar intercourse with any of these noble families to see all the members of the household devoutly assembled in the private chapel of the mansion, for the adornment of whose altars no expense has been spared, there to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; and in the evening to behold the father of the family, by ringing a bell, again summons them into the chapel for evening prayer and examen of conscience, at which the chaplain, but oftener the head of the house, be he old or young, performs the duty of reading the prayers. ”

“ But quite apart from the matter of their prayers, their manner is very striking, and the scene in a humble house, when a large family meets for prayer—and half the members, finding no article of furniture unoccupied for the orthodox position of devotion, drop into attitudes of natural reverence, kneeling in the middle of the floor—appeals very strongly to the eye of those accustomed to the stereotyped piety of a more advanced civilization. ”

“ That thou mayest open thy eyes upon this house day and night, upon the place wherein thou hast promised that thy name should be called upon,
6:21. And that thou wouldst hear the prayer which thy servant prayeth in it: hearken then to the prayers of thy servant, and of thy people Israel. Whosoever shall pray in its place, hear thou from thy dwelling place, that is, from heaven, and shew mercy.
6:22. If any man sin against his neighbour, and come to swear against him, and bind himself with a curse before the altar in this house:
6:23. ”

“ Oh, let us but, in true, true-hearted consecration, yield ourselves to be, as distinctly as was the tabernacle or the temple, given up entirely to be the dwelling of the Most High, the habitation of His Holiness. A house filled with the glory of God, a heart filled with all the fulness of God, is God’s promise, is our portion. ”

“ The faithful come to church to pray. A church ought by its very form and interior dispositions surround the worshippers with an atmosphere of prayer. It ought to feel like a holy place; and nothing about it should smack of the theatre, or the halls of assembly for secular purposes. All that is presented to the gaze of the faithful in these sanctuaries of God, whether it be the ceremonies associated with the Holy Sacrifice and other offices, or the statues, pictures, and decorations which meet the eye, ought to be of such a character as to excite the spirit of prayer. ”

“ There may be individual Christians under these roofs, who sigh and cry for the reigning ungodliness; or who, in some retired place, have set up an altar where God in Christ is worshipped, as has been done in a miserable cellar, in a home where no other place of prayer was allowed. ”

“ The great point to be learned is that the Holiness of the home is to be as the Holiness of the Temple. The dedication which makes the bowls before the altar holy is also to sanctify the pots of the household, and the bells and trappings of the horses; the label which was written upon the priest's forehead, 'Holiness unto the Lord', is to be stamped upon the common things, in the street, in the shop, in the house—in fact, upon everything. ”

“ We ought to he in the church as the saints are in heaven, and in the house as the holiest men are in the church; doing our work in the house as we pray in the church; worshipping God from the ground of the heart. ”

“ We have here not only a glimpse into the manner of public worship in early times, but we may learn something of far more consequence for us, and find here a suggestion of what our homes ought to be. ‘The Church that is in thy house’—fathers and mothers that are responsible for your homes and their religious atmosphere, ask yourselves if any one would say that about your houses, and if they could not, why not? ”

“ Men who can set the Church ablaze for God, not in a noisy, showy way, but with an intense and quiet heat that melts and moves every thing for God.”
And, to return to the vital point, secret praying is the test, the gauge, the conserver of man’s relation to God. The prayer-chamber, while it is the test of the sincerity of our devotion to God, becomes also the measure of the devotion. ”

“ I will place them in their houses (all those that come at the gospel-call shall have a place and a name in the gospel-church, in the particular churches which are their houses, to which they pertain; they shall dwell in God, and be at home in him, both easy and safe, as a man in his own house; they shall have mansions, for there are many in our Father's house) , in his tabernacle on earth and his temple in heaven, in everlasting habitations, which may be called their houses, for they are the lot they shall stand in at the end of the days. ”

“ No man shall cover his head in the church or chapel in the time of Divine service, except he have some infirmity; in which case let him wear a nightcap, or coif. All manner of persons then present shall reverently kneel upon their knees, when the general confession, Litany, or other prayers are read; and shall stand up at the saying of the Belief, according to the rules in that behalf prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. ”

“ There are hours in life which press hard upon us; there are other hours when the sense of God's love and goodness fills us with thankfulness and joy. In such hours we crave the intimacy of personal communion: we want to tell our grief or our joy. And then we take our way to the temple, and know that we shall find Him there in His Incarnate Presence in His Father's House. We go in and kneel before the Tabernacle and know that Jesus is here. ”

“ Unless every clergyman is to settle the form of worship for himself, and there are to be as many forms of worship as there are parishes in the land, who is it that, in his opinion, is to determine what the rubrics of the prayer-book enjoin?—for we suppose him to consider himself bound by the directions of the prayer-book. ”

“ DAILY PRAYERS. “All priests and deacons are to say daily the morning and evening prayer, either privately or openly, not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause. And the curate that ministereth in every parish church or chapel, being at home, and not being otherwise reasonably hindered, shall say the same in the parish church or chapel where he ministereth, and shall cause a bell to be tolled thereunto a convenient time before he begin, that the people may come to hear God’s word, and pray with him.”—Preface to the Book of Common Prayer. ”

“ These are always dignified and reverent; every truly devout heart may find utterance for some of its deepest needs in the petitions of the Book of Common Prayer. But most of us have heard prayers in the sanctuary which lifted and kindled us as no written prayers could ever do. ”

“ In the earliest liturgies, in the most ancient sacramentaries, there is the prayer for "refreshment, light, and peace," as it is now found in the missals used at the daily sacrifice, on the lips of the priest, in the prayers of the humblest and most unlettered petitioner. It is the "low murmur of the vale," changing, indeed, at times into the thunder on the mountain tops, amazing the unbelieving world which stands aloof and stares, as in the instances but lately quoted, or existing forgotten, and overlooked by them, but no less deep and solemn. ”

“ Home-sympathy will prompt to family devotion. The latter is the fruit of the former. A prayerless home is destitute of religious sympathy. The family demands prayer. Its relation to God, its dependence and specific duties, involve devotion. Communion with God constitutes a part of the intercourse and society of home. The necessity of family prayer arises out of the home-constitution and mission. ”