3. They objected to the phrase consecration, which, though it appears in the modern editions of the English Liturgy, had no place in the edition used at that time in England; but their chief objection to the prayer of consecration, in Laud’s book, was the following sentence, which never was allowed a place in the English Liturgy:—“We most humbly beseech thee, and of thy almighty goodness vouchsafe so to blesse and sanctifie, with thy word and holy spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son.”
4. After the prayer of consecration, there follows, in Laud’s book, the prayer of oblation, which two prayers the Popish writers call the heart and the head of the mass, and both of which were carefully removed by the English Reformers, the former being altered, and the latter rendered innocent, by being placed as a thanksgiving after receiving the communion. In the Service Book, the oblation is replaced, under the title of a “Memoriall or Prayer of Oblation,” beginning with, “We, thy humble servants do celebrate and make here before thy divine Majestie, with these thy holy gifts, the memoriall which thy Son hath willed us to make, and humbly beseeching thee, that whosoever shall be partakers of the holy communion, may worthilie receive the most precious bodie and blood of thy Son, Jesus Christ, and be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one bodie with him, that he may dwell in them and they in him.” After this, the Lord’s prayer, which, in the English Liturgy, is not introduced till after the communion has been received, is brought in with the presumptuous preface of the missal, Audemus dicere—“We are bold to say.”
5. What was formerly called “the holy table,” and, in the English Liturgy, “the Lord’s table,” is now, after the consecration, in the Service Book, termed “God’s board.” “Then shall the Presbyter, kneeling down at God’s board, say,” &c.
6. In delivering the bread, the Minister is required, by the English Liturgy, to say—“The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart, by faith with thanksgiving.” This last sentence, added by the English Reformers to qualify and explain the former, is wholly omitted in Laud’s book, which gives us merely the words of the missal—“The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.” In like manner, when delivering the cup, the words “Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for thee, and be thankful,” are expunged from the Service Book, as savouring too much of Protestantism; and the Priest is simply required to “say this benediction—The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Here the party receiving shall say, Amen.”
7. The fair linen cloth, with which the elements are covered, after communicating, is called, in Laud’s book, the “corporall.”
8. Besides this, in the order for the communion, in Laud’s Liturgy, the Offertory, which, it would appear, was almost wholly expunged, name and thing, from the ancient copies of the English Liturgy, as having been the Popish sacrifice for the quick and the dead; is introduced in nearly all its former glory. Passages of Scripture, omitted in the English book as identifying it with Jewish oblations, are restored; and it was strongly suspected, from the Commentaries of Couzins, who openly defended the practice, that prayers for the dead, and for the honour of the saints, were insinuated under such expressions as, “We also bless thy holy name for all those thy servants, who, having finished their course in faith, do now rest from their labours—all thy saints, who have been choice vessels of thy grace, and the lights of the world in their several generations—most humbly beseeching that, at the day of the general resurrection, we, and all they which are of the mystical body of thy Son, may be set on his right hand,” &c, nothing like which is to be found in the corresponding prayer in the English Liturgy.
Various other objectionable points, in the Service Book of 1637, are noticed by Robert Baillie in his treatise “Ladensium Autokatakrisis, the Canterburians Self-Conviction,” published without his name in 1640. But the same writer has treated the subject at greater length, and in a more learned and elaborate publication, entitled, “A Parallel or brief Comparison betwixt our Scottish Booke and the Missal, the Breviarie, and other Popish ritualls this day in use at Rome, according to the Canons of Trent;” included in his MS. letters and journals, which are now being printed by the Bannatyne Club. It is needless to add, that the suspicions of the Covenanters, as to the intentions of Laud and his Clergy, in the construction of the Service Book, to bring the Church of England, as well that of Scotland, into closer conformity with the Church of Rome, were greatly strengthened by the publications and proceedings of the party in England, who wen carrying matters such a length as to disgust and alarm the rational and sober portion of the English Clergy. See, for example, Laud’s Consecration of St Catherine Creed Church, which made a great noise at the time—Rushworth, vol. ii, p. 76. See also Bennet’s Memorial of the Reformation p. 165, and Neale’s History of the Puritans.