PRAYER-BOOK, A SAFEGUARD AGAINST RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENT. BY THE REV. FREDERIC W. FABER, B.A. FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, oxford. In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be SECOND EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. & F. RIVINGTON, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 1838. Price Threepence. THE PRAYER-BOOK, A SAFEGUARD AGAINST RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENT. THE Jews of old time, it mattered not how far distant they might be, though seas and mountains were between themselves and their native land, never prayed without turning their faces towards Jerusalem, the holy city of the great King. It was a centre of unity, in which the tribes met yearly at their solemn festivals, and to which their affections went up always, whereever in the wide world their lot was thrown. So we, in like manner, are furnished with a similar point of unity in our Baptism. There was the beginning of our spiritual life, there was the source and fountain of all our spiritual dignities and titles. All we are and all we have of what is good and pure and heavenly within us, we have from the Spirit Who brooded over the face of those mighty waters. What is called religious expe rience is made up of endless changes and fluctuations. Occasional fervors of piety, succeeded by seasons of coldness and of deadness; high and holy vows made, and kept awhile, and broken, and renewed again; victory and defeat, defeat and victory, sinning and repenting, repenting and sinning this, alas! is but too true a description. of the religious state of good men among ourselves. Of course so long as the taint of original sin remains even in them that are regenerate, it is not possible to arrive at a state of perfection in this world. There must be falls, there must be infirmities, clinging about us, and keeping us back in our way to Heaven. Man's best estate has still the spot of sin upon it, and his strength is after all in the confession of his weakness. But still, granting most fully all which Holy Scripture and our own consciences bid us grant, we cannot acquiesce in that state of changing and backsliding and continual beginning again which many are glad to look upon as a sad but necessary evil. When we seriously and thoughtfully read the Holy Scriptures, and are content modestly to receive the teaching therein contained, in its plain, natural, grammatical sense, we cannot but acknowledge that a height of Christian attainment is there put before us as |