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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

TOGETHER WITH

CERTAIN PAPERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF LITURGICAL REVISION 1878-1892

BY

WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON D. D. D. C. L.

_Rector of Grace Church New York_

NEW YORK THOMAS WHITTAKER

2 and 3 Bible House

Copyright, 1893,

by

THOMAS WHITTAKER,

THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J.

CONTENTS

I. A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer:

I. Origins,

II. Vicissitudes,

II. Revision of the American Common Prayer,

III. _The Book Annexed_: Its Critics and its Prospects,

Appendix:

I. Permanent and Variable Characteristics of the Prayer Book--A Sermon Before Revision, 1878

II. The Outcome of Revision, 1892

III. Tabular View of Additions Made at the Successive Revisions, 1552-1892

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The opening paper of this collection was originally read as a lecture before a liturgical class, and is now published for the first time. The others have appeared in print from time to time during the movement for revision. If they have any permanent value, it is because of their showing, so far as the writer's part in the matter is concerned, what things were attempted and what things failed of accomplishment. Should they serve as contributory to some future narrative of the revision, the object of their publication will have been accomplished. So much has been said as to the poverty of our gains on the side of "enrichment," as compared with what has been secured in the line of "flexibility," that it has seemed proper to append to the volume a Comparative Table detailing the additions of liturgical matter made to the Common Prayer at the successive revisions.

W. R. H. New York, Christmas, 1892.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer
• 2: And they declare it to be the Liturgy of this Church
• 3: The sacrificial and the simply devotional and didactic
• 4: These seven hours were known as Matins
• 5: Let Cranmer tell his own story
• 6: The Order for Matins and the Order for Evensong
• 7: These are the primitive liturgies
• 8: If reason to the contrary can be given
• 9: Or the Napoleon of the Consulate
• 10: Besides the primers and the Litany
• 11: The structure of Evensong was similar
• 12: Thy mercy and everlasting peace
• 13: Looked forward to a revision of the Liturgy
• 14: The Exhortations were re written
• 15: The new features distinctive of the Prayer Book of Elizabeth
• 16: One and twenty Churchmen and one and twenty Presbyterians
• 17: Though scarcely in the liturgical way
• 18: As the Puritans named their list of liturgical grievances
• 19: From that appointed for the Baptism of Infants
• 20: Which about the Holy Communion might else ensue
• 21: Four years before this Convention of 1789 assembled
• 22: And also the special form for Thanksgiving Day
• 23: The thoroughly obsolete expression
• 24: Many of the words of the Common Prayer
• 25: When liturgical interests are at stake
• 26: Within the limits already pointed out
• 27: There is a serious reasonableness in it
• 28: Such changes and alterations should be made therein
• 29: It was a virgin soil the Episcopal Church
• 30: Revision is authoritative and final
• 31: Go without enrichments for a thousand years
• 32: It might be well if in the Litany the adjective sudden
• 33: The Liturgical section comes first
• 34: And available liturgical material more abundant
• 35: She should have definite rubrics
• 36: With the inherent difficulties
• 37: The men who Englished the Prayer Book
• 38: All these are instances of strictly Scriptural metaphor
• 39: The enrichments must necessarily come from such sources
• 40: Of accepted formularies of worship
• 41: To picking out the psalms by number
• 42: We pass to the versicles that follow
• 43: The Litany may be omitted altogether on Christmas Day
• 44: Approve of a daily morning and evening sacrifice of prayer
• 45: That of shortening the Lord's Day Order
• 46: But suppose such formularies were to be made optional
• 47: The ratification of the book of common prayer
• 48: And of the latter after the General Thanksgiving
• 49: Additional rubrics would be helpful to worshippers
• 50: And one from which we Anglicans have had a happy escape
• 51: But substantial unanimity may exist
• 52: The Office of the Holy Communion
• 53: The Committee betrayed timidity
• 54: An Appendix to a manual of worship
• 55: The Revised American Prayer Book
• 56: And must be dismissed as a dismal fiasco
• 57: In the shape of the liturgical material gathered
• 58: Who love these missing versicles
• 59: Is mainly confined to the deficiencies of The Book Annexed
• 60: That in the Church of England the Benedictus
• 61: Has been supplied by our hymnology
• 62: But for earnest Christians who are not Churchmen
• 63: One from the Diocese of Wisconsin
• 64: To the structural principles of liturgical science
• 65: And that to enact new rubrics now
• 66: The motive of the effort after revision
• 67: If solidarity is to be achieved at all
• 68: The standard prayer book of 1890
• 69: And of remoulding rejected ones
• 70: With the sources of liturgical material
• 71: It is inexpedient to overload a Prayer Book
• 72: Jeremy Taylor would be by far the most helpful
• 73: In the revision of 1662 the Psalter was incorporated
• 74: But embodies a wholesome principle
• 75: Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty God
• 76: Are conspicuous in the BEATITUDES
• 77: A high Anglican divine concedes
• 78: This would divide the Litany symmetrically
• 79: It would add to the merit of the formulary
• 80: As did the corresponding rubric in Laud's Book for Scotland
• 81: The proposed Commendatory Prayer
• 82: The mind of Seabury and the mind of White
• 83: Permanent and variable characteristics op the prayer book
• 84: But whence came the earlier formularies themselves
• 85: It must be a liturgy full of voices sounding out of the past
• 86: As it would interest almost anyone
• 87: Presently to annul all other rubrics whatsoever
• 88: No Churchman questions the wisdom of their innovations now
• 89: And carrying just the least suggestion of reproach
• 90: The question closed was the question of liturgical revision
• 91: Much was accepted at Philadelphia
• 92: By the accident of historical association
• 93: Journal of Convention of 1880
• 94: The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England
• 95: Liturgies Eastern and Western
• 96: So far as the Litany is concerned
• 97: On the other hand the charm of extemporaneous devotion
• 98: The Church Times for August 29
• 99: Arthur James Robinson Rector of Whitechapel
• 100: And in no sense a liturgical question
• 101: The Versicle Lord hear my prayer
• 102: May well be shy of idiomatic English
• 103: Dugdale's Monasticon quoted in above Glossary
• 104: Subsequently edited in book form by Bishop Potter