What does "homily" mean?

Homily: A serious or tedious exhortation in private on some moral point, or on the conduct of life. As I have heard my father Deal out in his long homilies. Byron. Book of Homilies. A collection of authorized, printed sermons, to be read by ministers in churches, esp. one issued in the time of Edward VI., and a second, issued in the reign of Elizabeth; -- both books being certified to contain a "godly and wholesome doctrine."