Required reading
Thoughts on public prayer by Samuel Miller (Available from Amazon or free here) - Continue Chapter 2 by reading up to the heading 'Praying toward the east'.
My summary
Today Miller continues to teach us that public prayer liturgies are a recent invention.
The section we read demonstrates that there were no liturgies in the first five hundred years of Christianity. Miller himself sums up his arguments: 'It was before stated, that we not only find no traces of any books or prescribed forms of common prayer, in the first five hundred years after Christ; but that we do find a number of facts, incidentally mentioned, which are wholly inconsistent with the use of such books or forms.'
What grabbed me
Miller came to an interesting conclusion as to why liturgical prayers were introduced: 'The result is, that liturgies were unknown in the primitive church ; that, as piety began to decline, and ministers, destitute of the appropriate intellectual and moral qualifications began to multiply, some extra aid in conducting public devotions became necessary ; that still it was left to each pastor himself to obtain the aid which he needed, as he thought proper; and that prescribed forms of prayer did not obtain general and established prevalence until the Church had sunk into a state of ignorance, darkness and corruption, which all Protestants acknowledge to have been deplorable. '
Bit of a sweeping judgement, but there may be some truth to the claim.
Next week's reading
Continue Chapter 2 by reading up to the heading 'Prayers in an unknown tongue'.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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