"Be not rash with thy mouth, nor let thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God." ECCLES. v. 2. "Between the Throne of God in Heaven and His Church upon Earth, here militant, if it be so that Angels have their continual intercourse, where should we find the same more verified than in these two Ghostly exercises, the one Doctrine, and the other Prayer?" HOOKER.-Eccl. Pol. lib. v. s. 23. "As if our Lord, even of purpose to prevent this fancy of extemporal and voluntary Prayers, had not left us of his own framing, one which might both remain as a part of the Church Liturgy, and serve as a pattern whereby to frame all other Prayers, with efficacy, yet without superfluity of words." Idem, lib. v. s. 26. FOR PRIVATE AND FAMILY WORSHIP: FOUNDED UPON THE PRIMITIVE LITURGIES. BY THE REV. HENRY ALLEN, B.A. VICAR OF ST. MARY-LE-WIGFORD, LINCOLN, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE SUSSEX COUNTY GAOL. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. PREFACE. THE Author of this little volume of Prayers, appreciating the Spirit which influenced the compilers of our Liturgy, and other public services, to search, and enabled them to find, amid the sacred treasures of antiquity, that strain of devotion, purity of doctrine, and sound form of words, for which these compositions are inimitable, has been induced to examine, and has deduced from the same source, a form of Family and Private Prayers, which he believes will be found to coincide with the principles |