said, and the rest completely omitted. Moreover, the number and hardness of the Rules called the Pie, (16.) and the manifold changings of the Service, was the cause, that to turn the Book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times there was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out.

These inconveniencies therefore considered, here is set forth such an Order, whereby the same shall be redressed. And for a readiness in this matter, here is drawn out a Calendar for that purpose, which is plain and easy to be understood; wherein (so much as may be) the reading of the Holy Scripture is so set forth, that all things shall be done in order, without breaking one piece from another. For this cause be cut off Anthems, Responds, Invitatories, (17.) and such like things as did break the continual course of the reading of the Scrip

ture.

Yet, because there is no remedy, but that of necessity, there must be some Rules; therefore certain Rules are here set forth; which, as they are few in number, so they are plain and easy

:

(16.) "The Pie," is a table or rule in the old Roman offices, shewing in a technical way how to find out the service which is to be read upon each day which consisting of numerous particulars, by the intermixing of the several offices, which sometimes fall in together to be read, makes it difficult to be understood. As to the meaning of the name; what was called "The Pie" by the Clergy before the Reformation, was called by the Greeks Пíva, or the index for that word signifying metaphorically a painted table or picture; and the indexes, or tables of books, being formed into square figures resembling pictures, or painted tables, hung up in a frame; these likewise were called Пívakɛs, (Pinakes ;) or, being marked only with the first letter of the word, It's, or "Pies." This was probably the origin of the term. But these tables being generally made with initial letters of red, and likewise some other remarkable letters or words thereof being of the same colour, it was thought that table was called "Pie" from the party-coloured letters, whereof it did consist. But upon this account, when they put it into Latin, they called it Pica. Thus in former times some of the friars, from their party-coloured habits, were called "Pies." Afterwards, when printing came into use, those letters, which were of a moderate size, not so big as the large text hand in manucripts, but were of the size only of those in the comments and tables, were called Pica letters. Nicholls.

(17.) Some text of Scripture, adapted and chosen for the occasion of the day, and used before the "Venite," which also is called the invitatory psalm. Dr. Burn.

(18.) By the latter words are understood the Apocrypha; which books our Church elsewhere declares that she doth use, "for example of life, and instruction of manners, but yet doth not apply them to establish any doctrine." Article vi. And this practice of the Church of England is agreeable to that of the ancient Church.

Dr. Nicholls.

to be understood. So that here you have an Order for Prayer, and for the reading of the holy Scripture, much agreeable to the mind and purpose of the old Fathers, and a great deal more profitable and commodious, than that which of late was used. It is more profitable, because here are left out many things, whereof some are untrue, some uncertain, some vain and superstitious; and nothing is ordained to be read but the very pure Word of God, the holy Scriptures, or that which is agreeable to the same; (18.) and that in such a Language and Order as is most easy and plain for the understanding both of the Readers and Hearers. It is also more commodious, both for the shortness thereof, and for the plainness of the Order, and for that the Rules be few and easy.

And whereas heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in Churches within this Realm; some following Salisbury Use, (19.) some Hereford Use, and some the Use of Bangor, some of York, some of Lincoln; now from henceforth all the whole Realm shall have but one Use.

And forasmuch as nothing can be so plainly

(19.) No wonder the use of Sarum, York, Lincoln, Hereford, Bangor, is mentioned. For the Missals and Breviaries of the Roman Church were of diverse models in several countries and several dioceses. The Tridentine Council first endeavoured to bring them all into one shape: yet that order was not obeyed till the year 1568, under Pope Pius the Fifth; yea, is not observed to this day; the Spaniards in some places keeping the Mozarabick form, the Præmonstratenses another, and sundry besides. Nay, that Church hath altered the Breviaries of Pius V : and new corrections have come forth under Clement VIII, in the year 1598: and what hath been done since, I know not. But why the use of those five churches? Perhaps that was accidental, that the diversities of them were more signal than others. Some historians mention Osmundus, the Bishop of Salisbury, and Chancellor, for the compiler of the use of Sarum, about 1070, or after; yet since we read of no use of Canterbury, Winton, Ely, perhaps those places observed the true Roman Breviaries, and the other five mentioned were discrepant dialects from the original Breviary. However, they are called uses and customs, not appointments from provincial Synods. Bp. Sparrow.

Lindwood, speaking of "the use of Sarum," says, that almost the whole province of Canterbury followeth this use and adds, as one reason of it, that the Bishop of Sarum is precentor in the college of Bishops; and at those times, when the Archbishop of Canterbury solemnly performeth divine service in the presence of the college of Bishops, he ought to govern the quire by usage and ancient

custom

In the northern parts was generally observed, "the use of" the Archiepiscopal church of "York;" in South Wales, "the use of Hereford;" in North Wales, "the use of Bangor ;" and in other places, the use of some of the principal sees, as particularly that " of Lincoln."

The rule, laid down for church music in England almost 1000 years ago, was that they should observe a plain

set forth, but doubts may arise in the use and practice of the same; to appease all such diversity (if any arise) and for the resolution of all doubts, concerning the manner how to understand, do, and execute, the things contained in this Book; the parties that so doubt, or diversly take any thing, shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocese, who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same; so that the same order be not contrary to any thing contained in this book. (20.) And if the Bishop of the Diocese be in doubt, then he may send for the resolution thereof to the Archbishop.

THOUGH it be appointed, that all things shall be read and sung in the Church in the and devout melody, according to the custom of the Church. And the rule prescribed by Queen Elizabeth in her Injunctions was, that there should be a modest and distinct song, so used in all parts of the common prayer of the Church, that the same may be as plainly understood, as if it were read without singing. Of the want of which grave, serious, and intelligible way, the reformatio legum had complained before.-And whether some regulations may not now be necessary, to render church music truly useful to the ends of devotion, and to guard against indecent levities, seemeth, as Bishop Gibson says, to require some consideration. Dr. Burn.

(20.) It appears from this, that in all points, where the rubrics are plain and express, the ordinary has no authority to release any minister from that obedience which he owes the Church in what she commands in her Rubrics. For, though the ordinary is allowed to interpret and determine the sense of the Rubric in all doubtful cases; yet it is with this proviso, that he shall not order or determine any thing" that is contrary to what is contained in the service book:" that is, in points that are clearly expressed, the ordinary is as much prohibited from making innovations, as the meanest parochial minister.

Archdeacon Sharp. (21.) See the 24th Article, and the note there. The pretence of the Papists to lock up the Scriptures, and to have the Common Prayer of the Church in an unknown tongue, are two of the most impudent crimes of all those many which that religion abounds with.--Therefore, that a stop might be put to this unreasonable tyranny of the Church of Rome over men's souls, Archbishop Cranmer

5

English Tongue, to the end that the congregation may be thereby edified; (21.) yet it is not meant, but that when men say Morning and Evening Prayer privately, they may say the same in any language that they do understand.

And all Priests and Deacons are to say daily the Morning and Evening Prayer either privately or openly, (22.) not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause.

And the Curate that ministereth in every Parish, Church or Chapel, being at home, and not being otherwise reasonably hindered, shall say the same in the Parish-Church or Chapel where he ministereth, and shall cause a Bell to be tolled thereunto a convenient time before he begin, that the people may come to hear God's Word, and to pray with him.

so dealt with Henry VIII, that first the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Decalogue, should be published in English, in the year of our Lord, 1536; after this a translation of the Bible came out in 1540: the order of the Communion, in the beginning of King Edward the Sixth's reign, March 8, 1548: and the first Common Prayer Book, 1549.

Dr. Nicholls.

The Latin services, as they had been used in England before, continued in all King Henry the Eighth's reign without any alteration; save some rasures of collects for the Pope, and for the office of Thomas Becket, and of some other saints, whose days were by the King's Injunctions no more to be observed: but those rasures or deletions were so few, that the old mass books, breviaries, and other rituals, did still serve without new impression. Dr. Burn.

(22.) By the rules of the Roman Church, even before the Reformation and the Council of Trent, the clergy were obliged to recite the "canonical hours," or the offices of the several hours of day and night, which are in the breviary, either publicly in a Church or Chapel, or privately by themselves. Wherefore our reformers chose that the ministers of the Church should be as diligent in using the English Liturgy, as the papists were the Latin: and though they thought it right that the mumbling over of the prayers in private should be laid aside, they would not exonerate the clergy from the constant repetition of the public devotions; and therefore they changed the private recital of the Morning and Evening service, which was before performed by each clergyman alone by himself, into family prayer, when a congregation could not be procured at Church. Dr. Nicholls.

But the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the ministry of Moses was only intended for a type and pledge of a spiritual deliverance which was to come by Christ: their Canaan also was no more than a type of that heavenly Canaan, which the redeemed by Christ do look for. Since therefore the shadow is made void by the coming of the substance, the relation is changed; and God is no more to be worshipped and believed in, as a God foreshewing and assuring by types, but as a God who hath performed the substance of what he promised. The Christians indeed, as well as the Jews, are to observe the moral equity of the fourth commandment, and, after six days spent in their own works, are to sanctify the seventh: but in the designation of the particular day, they may and ought to differ. For if the Jews were to sanctify the seventh day, only because they had on that day a temporal deliverance as a pledge of a spiritual one; the Christians surely have much greater reasons to sanctify the first, since on that very day God redeemed us from this spiritual thraldom, by raising Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, and begetting us, instead "of an earthly Canaan, to an inheritance incorruptible in the heavens." And accordingly we have the concurrent testimonies both of Scripture and antiquity, that the first day of the week, or Sunday, hath ever been the stated and solemn time of the Christians meeting for their public worship and service. Acts ii. 1; xx. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 2; Rev. i. 10:

In the East indeed, where the Gospel chiefly prevailed among the Jews, who retained a great reverence for the Mosaic rites, the Church thought fit to indulge the humour of the Judaizing Christians so far, as to observe the Saturday as a festival day of devotions, and thereon to meet for the exercise of religious duties; as is plain from several passages of the ancients. But however, to prevent giving any offence to others, they openly declared, that they observed it in a Christian way, and not as a Jewish sabbath. And this custom was so far from being universal, that at the same time all over the West, except at Milan in Italy, Saturday was kept as a fast, (as being the day on which our Lord lay dead n the grave,) and is still, for the same reason, appointed for one of the fast days in the Emberweeks by the Church of England; which, in imitation both of the Eastern and Western Churches, always reserves to the Sunday the more solemn acts of public worship and devotion.

But besides the weekly return of Sunday, (whereon we celebrate God's goodness and mercies set forth in our creation and redemption in general,) the Church has set apart some days yearly for the more particular remembrance of some special acts and passages of our Lord in the redemption of mankind; such as are his "Incarnation" and "Nativity, Circumcision, Manifestation to the Gentiles, Presentation in the Temple;" his "Fasting, Passion, Resurrection," and " Ascension;" the "sending of the Holy Ghost," and the "Manifestation of the Sacred Trinity." That the observations of such days is requisite, is evident from the practice both of Jews and Gentiles: nature taught the one, and God the other, that the celebration of solemn festivals was a part of the public exercise of religion Besides the feasts of the Passover, of Weeks, and of Tabernacles, which were all of divine appointment, the Jews celebrated some of their own institution, namely,

the feast of "Purim," Esther ix, and the "Dedication of the Temple," 1 Macc. iv. 59, the latter of which even our blessed Saviour himself honoured with his presence John x. 22.

But these festivals being instituted in remembrance of some signal mercies granted in particular to the Jews; the Christians, who were chiefly converted from the heathen world, were no more obliged to observe them, than they were concerned in the mercies thereon commemorated. And this is the reason that when the Judaizing Christians would have imposed upon the Galatians the observation of the Jewish festivals, as necessary to salvation; St. Paul looked upon it as a thing so criminal, that he was afraid the labour he had bestowed upon them to set them at liberty in the freedom of the Gospel had been "in vain," Gal. iv. 10, 11: not that he thought the observation of festivals was a thing in itself unlawful, but because they thought themselves still obliged by the Law to observe those days and times, which being only shadows of things to come, were made void by the coming of the substance.

As to the celebration of Christian festivals, they thought themselves as much obliged to observe them as the Jews were to observe theirs. They had received greater benefits, and therefore it would have been the highest degree of ingratitude to have been less zealous in commemorating them. And accordingly we find that in the very infancy of Christianity some certain days were yearly set apart, to commemorate the "Resurrection" and "Ascension" of Christ. "The coming of the Holy Ghost," &c. and to glorify God, by an humble and grateful acknowledgement of these mercies granted to them at those times. Which laudable and religious custom so soon prevailed over the universal church, that in five hundred years after our Saviour, we meet with them distinguished by the same names we now call them by; such as "Epiphany, Ascensionday, Whit-sunday," &c. and appointed to be observed on those days, on which the Church of England now observes them.

But besides the more solemn festivals, whereon they were wont to celebrate the mysteries of their redemption, the primitive Christians had their "Memoriæ Martyrum," or certain days set apart yearly in commemoration of the great heroes of the Christian religion, the blessed Apostles and Martyrs, who had attested the truth of these mysteries with their blood; at whose graves they constantly met once a year, to celebrate their virtues, and to bless God for their exemplary lives and glorious deaths; as well to the intent that others might be encouraged to the same patience and fortitude, as also that virtue, even in this world, might not wholly lose its reward: a practice doubtless very ancient, and probably founded on that exhortation to the Hebrews, "to remember those who had had the rule over them, and who had spoken unto them the word of God," and had sealed it with their blood. Heb. xiii. 7. In which place the author of that Epistle is thought chiefly to hint at the martyrdom of St. James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, who, not long before, had laid down his life for the testimony of Jesus. And we find that those who were eye-witnesses of the sufferings of St. Ignatius, published the day of his martyrdom, that the Church of Antioch might meet together at that time to celebrate the memory of such a valiant combatant and