Another object they had in view was to give a prominent place to Holy Scripture. "So that here," they say, "you have an Order for Prayer, and for the reading of the Holy Scriptures, much agreeable to the mind and purpose of the old Fathers."
Next, they deal with the principles which underlie all ritualism. In speaking "of Ceremonies, why some be abolished and some retained," they lay it down that, "although the keeping or admitting of a Ceremony, in itself considered, is but a small thing, yet the wilful and contemptuous transgression and breaking of a Common Order and discipline is no small offence before God". Then, in a golden sentence, they add: "Whereas the minds of men are so diverse that some think it a great matter of conscience to depart from a piece of the least of their ceremonies, they be so addicted to their old customs; and, again, on the other side, some be so new-fangled that they would innovate all things, and so despise the old, that nothing can like them, but that is new: it was thought expedient, not so much to have respect how to please and satisfy either of these parties, as how to please God, and profit them both".
Finally, whilst wishing to ease men from the oppressive burden of a multitude of ceremonies, "whereof St. Augustine, in his time, complained," they assert the right of each Church to make its own ritual-rules (in conformity with the rules of the whole Church), provided that it imposes them on no one else. "And in these our doings we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe anything but to our own people only; for we think it convenient that every country should use such ceremonies as they shall think best."
It is necessary to call attention to all this, because few Church people seem to know anything about the intentions, objects, and principles of the compilers, as stated by themselves in the Prayer Book Preface.
(III) THE CONTENTS.
These a reviewer might briefly deal with under three heads—Doctrine, Discipline, and Devotion.
Doctrine.
The importance of this cannot be exaggerated. The English Prayer Book is, for the ordinary Churchman, a standard of authority when theological doctors differ. The Prayer Book is the Court of Appeal from the pulpit—just as the Undivided Church is the final Court of Appeal from the Prayer Book. Many a man is honestly puzzled and worried at the charge so frequently levelled at the Church of England, that one preacher flatly contradicts another, and that what is taught as truth in one church is denied as heresy in another. This is, of course, by no means peculiar to the Church of England, but it is none the less a loss to the unity of Christendom.
The whole mischief arises from treating the individual preacher as if he were the Book of Common Prayer. It is to the Prayer Book, not to the Pulpit, that we must go to prove what is taught. For instance, I go into one church, and I hear one preacher deny the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration; I go into another, and I hear the same doctrine taught as the very essence of The Faith. I ask, in despair, what does the Church of England teach? which teacher am I to believe? What is the answer? It is this. I am not bound to believe either teacher, until I have tested his utterances by some authorized book. This book is the Prayer Book. What does the Church of England Prayer Book—not this or that preacher—say is the teaching of the Church of England? In the case quoted, this is the Prayer Book answer: "Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate".[[8]] Here is something clear, crisp, definite. It is the authorized expression of the belief of the Church of England in common with the whole Catholic Church.