were now added. The form of Service for the Communion of the Sick, was more clearly directed to begin with the Proper Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, and then to pass to the part of the Public Office, beginning, 'Ye that do truly, &c.' In the Order for Burial, the first rubric, respecting persons unbaptized or excommunicate, was added. The Psalms and Lesson were appointed to be read in the church, according to the rubric (1549). The name of the deceased was omitted in the prayer at the grave. In the Churching Service new Psalms were appointed. The Commination was directed to be used on the first day of Lent. Forms of Prayer were supplied to be used at sea, and for the 30th of January, and the 29th of May, and the Service for the 5th of November was altered.

Thus the Book remained the same Book of Common Prayer, as to all its distinctive features. Some particulars of small consequence were amended; the language was made more smooth by verbal changes and slight transpositions; some rubrics were made more clear for the direction of ministers to whom the customary manner of former years was unknown; and the selected portions of Scripture were taken from the best translation. Some new Services were also added, which had become necessary from the circumstances of the time; such as that for Adult Baptism, to meet the case of converts from Anabaptism at home, and from heathenism in the 'Plantations;' and that for use at sea, to meet the requirements of the rapidly increasing trade and navy of the country. But while all this was done with scrupulous care, it seems that no regard was paid to the objections of the Puritans. Indeed some changes were made in order to avoid the appearance of favouring the Presbyterian form of Church-government: thus, 'church,' or 'people,' was substituted for 'congregation,' and 'priests and deacons' were especially named instead of

'pastors and ministers.' And so strongly was this felt, that it was proposed in their behalf in Parliament that the existing Liturgy should be continued, and all the corrections made in Convocation should be abandoned. Many particulars, which were unfavourable to their views,—the use of the Apocrypha at certain times in the Daily Service, the form of the Litany, expressions in the Services for Baptism, Marriage, and Burial, Vestments, kneeling at the Communion, the sign of the cross at Baptism, the ring at Marriage, the Absolution for the Sick, and the greatest grievance of all, the declaration touching the salvation of baptized infants,-these were all retained by Convocation, and confirmed by Parliament. The Act of Uniformity (1662) insisted on the exact use of the Book of Common Prayer in the churches; and ordered that every minister, who would retain his benefice, should openly, publicly and solemnly read the Morning and Evening Prayer upon some Lord's day before the Feast of Saint Bartholomew (August 24), and declare his unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained in the Book. The law also required that all Incumbents should have received episcopal ordination; and should subscribe a Declaration, avowing that the Oath, imposed in 1643, commonly called the Solemn League and Covenant, was an illegal oath, and of no obligation.

To deal fairly with the history of the period now under consideration, it must be kept in mind that a nation cannot recover itself from the effect of years of civil war without much trouble being experienced by individuals. The Presbyterians now felt, in some small measure, the suffering which they had inflicted upon churchmen by the imposition of the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643, and the Directory for Worship in 1645. Not far short of seven thousand clergymen had then been turned out of their houses and benefices, some

of them with circumstances of extreme barbarity, for the crime of loyalty to their sovereign, and preference of the Book of Common Prayer to the Presbyterian Directory. At the restoration of the monarchy, those of the deprived clergy who had survived the hardships of starvation and imprisonment, returned as a matter of course to their benefices: and partly from this cause, but more especially from the refusal of some of the leading Presbyterians to comply with the terms of the Act of Uniformity, it is said that about two thousand ministers became nonconformists, and were deprived of the benefices which they had wrongfully held. This number is probably overrated; yet if it is an approach to the truth, it proves that the great number of those who had ministered according to the Directory, conformed to the Prayer-Book, and retained their benefices. And of the nonconformists, the refusal to conform arose in many cases not from unyielding dislike to the Prayer-Book and Episcopacy, but from regard to their own consistency of character. They would not with their own lips, build up what they had laboured to destroy. But some lived as guests with their successors in the parsonage-houses; and some educated their sons as churchmen.

CHAPTER VIII.

HISTORY OF THE PRAYER-BOOK SINCE THE LAST REVISION.

Attempts at the Comprehension of Dissenters-Proposals for a Revision of the Prayer-Book in 1689-Not offered to the Convocation-The Non-jurors-The American Prayer-Book -Special Services for the State Holy-days-The Queen's Accession-Metrical Psalmody-Conclusion.

THE

THE Book of Common Prayer has been the form in which English churchmen have conducted their Public Worship for more than three hundred years: two centuries have passed since it was brought into the condition in which we now use it. Not that these years have been a uniform period of repose. It was not to be expected that the nation should settle down into a state of religious peace, or acquiescence in a churchman's Prayer-Book, after the disorders of the Commonwealth, and the shortlived triumphs of Presbyterianism and Independency. Toleration was not as yet understood. The weaker party might desire it: but whichever was for the time the stronger was equally unwilling to grant it. Hence, when dissenters began to be of necessity recognized as an actually existing distinct body, the first mode of meeting the evil was not by toleration, so as to allow an entire freedom of conscience in religious matters, but rather by aiming at their comprehension.

Serious attempts were made to bring dissenters into the Church. In 1668 Tillotson (afterwards archbishop of Canterbury) and Stillingfleet (afterwards bishop of Worcester) joined with Bates, Manton, and Baxter, in the vain endeavour to prepare a scheme for this purpose, that should be accepted by the dissenters on the one hand, and on the other by the royalist Parliament. And again, in 1681, Stillingfleet proposed to allow freedom of choice in such particulars as the surplice, the sign of the cross and sponsors in baptism, kneeling at the Communion, and Apocryphal Lessons, and to require subscription to thirty-six only of the Articles. But the time was unfavourable: and the dissenters themselves refused to accept the measure of liberty, which wise and moderate churchmen would have conceded to them; for toleration of dissent, during the latter years of Charles II., and throughout the short reign of James II., was suspected, and not without reason, of being accepted by the Court only as a means to bring with it an equal toleration of Popery. In 1689, the first year of the reign of William and Mary, it was proposed in the royal speech at the opening of Parliament to provide against Papists, and yet to leave room for the admission of all Protestants. The Parliament, however, rejected the proposal for the comprehension of dissenters, but was ready to allow toleration, and requested that Convocation might be summoned, according to the ancient usage, to be advised with in ecclesiastical matters.

Arrangements were made for the meeting of Convocation by a commission issued (September 17th, 1689) to ten bishops and twenty divines (many of whom were afterwards bishops), with instructions to 'prepare such alterations of the Liturgy and Canons, and such proposals for the reformation of ecclesiastical courts, and to consider such other matters as might most conduce to the good order, and edification, and unity of the Church