Thoughts on Public Prayer

Samuel Miller (1769–1850), was a faithful pastor, who became a founding father and a professor of Princeton Theological Seminary. He had a deep commitment to the church and an abiding interest in seeing ministers trained ably for her service — an interest which led to him writing this book. As Dr. Jonathan Master notes in his Foreword to this edition of Miller’s work, ‘public prayer is the priority on Paul’s mind when considering public worship.’ Despite this priority, today public prayer has in some churches a diminishing place in corporate worship. Ministers especially need instruction in public prayer — Samuel Miller understood this need in his day, and so much of what he wrote remains pertinent to the practice of an edifying ministry in the present. This volume is replete with insights into the vital place of public prayer in worship, and of sound advice as to how progress may be made in this aspect of pastoral ministry.

Publisher: Banner of Truth
Type: Hardback
ISBN: 9781800402829

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Samuel Miller was born in 1769 in Dover, Delaware. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1789, he continued training for pastoral ministry and subsequently served as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the city of New York. From 1813 to 1849, he served as Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government at Princeton Theological Seminary, of which institution he was a principal founder.

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‘Public prayer is the one other public utterance common in many churches besides the preaching of God’s Word in worship services. The latter involves a pastor leading the people to hear God’s Word for them together. The former involves the pastor leading the people in approaching God together, addressing God. Samuel Miller, in this reprint of a classic from 1849, argues that we tend to give far more attention to the preaching than to public prayer but that public prayer is equally of great importance.…As may be evident, Miller offers both practical ideas and an overarching theology and spirituality of public prayer. While this certainly needs to be adapted to our current forms of worship, there is much good here to heed. The contemporary reader will note a degree of anti-Roman Catholic polemic, that would not have been uncommon to reformed pastors of his time, mostly in the sections on history and liturgy. Those from liturgical traditions would no doubt have rejoinders to his critique of the use of forms, and as he acknowledges, extemporaneous public prayers may have their own problems, and even deteriorate into forms as well. A vital, Spirit-filled and scripture-informed life on the part of those who lead God’s people in worship is truly the decisive difference. For those of us in more extemporaneous prayer traditions, this book is a gold mine of good ideas, as relevant today as in 1849.’ Bob on books