The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments

by E. E. Holmes

CHAPTER III.

THE CHURCH'S BOOKS.

(2) THE PRAYER BOOK.

We now come to the second of the Church's books selected for discussion—the Prayer Book.

The English Prayer Book is the local presentment of the Church's Liturgies for the English people.

Each part of the Church has its own Liturgy, differing in detail, language, form; but all teaching the same faith, all based upon the same rule laid down by Gregory for Augustine's guidance.[[1]] Thus, there is the Liturgy of St. James, the Liturgy of St. John,[[2]] the Liturgy of St. Mark, and others. A National Church is within her rights when she compiles a Liturgy for National Use, provided that it is in harmony with the basic Liturgies of the Undivided Church. She has as much right to her local "Use," with its rules and ritual, as a local post office has to its own local regulations, provided it does not infringe any universal rule of the General Post Office. For example, a National Church has a perfect right to say in what language her Liturgy shall be used. When the English Prayer Book orders her Liturgy to be said in "the vulgar,"[[3]] or common, "tongue" of the people, she is not infringing, but exercising a local right which belongs to her as part of the Church Universal. This is what the English Church has done in the English Prayer Book.

It is this Prayer Book that we are now to consider.

We will try to review, or get a bird's-eye view of it as a whole, rather than attempt to go into detail. And, as the best reviewer is the one who lets a book tell its own story, and reads the author's meaning out of it rather than his own theories into it, we will let the book, as far as possible, speak for itself.