Sermons On the Morning Service Author:Richard Butler Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE TEMPLE. " And He went into the Temple and began to cast out them that sold therein and them that bought; saying unto them, Itis written my house is the ho... more »use of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves."—Luke xix. 45, 46. Before commencing a short series of discourses on some parts of our Morning Service, it may be well to say a few words on the places which have been appropriated for the public service of God. It is impossible that public worship should be duly celebrated if there were not a public place appointed for the purpose : accordingly wherever, even among barbarous and heathen nations, any form of public worship was established, there was also established some place, in which the people were to meet for the purpose of worship; and this place has, in general been separated from all other uses, and has been consecrated and hallowed by certain religious ceremonies. In various countries these places have differed according to the circumstances of the climate and of the people, and according to the character of the religion professed or celebrated in them. The recesses of some gloomy forest, the pleasant banks of some running stream, the misty head of some old mountain, or some uncouth and horrid cavern, have been chosen in various climates at various periods of religious enlightenment as the places where the people were to gather together to offer to their deities their common sacrifices and their united prayers. So it was with the ancient people of God. Wherever Jacob pitched his tent there he set up an altar, and called upon the name of the Lord. The Tabernacle, which was the moveable temple of the children of Israel in their wanderings in the wilderness, was made after God's own appointment, and was sanctified by God's visible presence; and when Sol...« less