Repetitions In The Liturgy.
Repetitions In The Liturgy. [1]
An objection has been made to the Liturgy of the English Church that it involves vain repetitions and a useless prolixity. It is replied, repetition is one thing, but a vain repetition quite another. The repetitions in the Liturgy are principally in the cry "Have mercy upon us," and in the use of the Lord's Prayer twice, or at most thrice, in the longest services, and in the responses in the Litany and the Decalogue. Reference is also made to the example of our Saviour who prayed thrice in Gethsemane, "saying the same words" ( Matthew 26:44). Further, the petitions which we address to Heaven must, for the most part, have the sane general drift; and there can be no advantage in arranging them in a perpetually changing dress, nor will they be the better received because of their novelty.,