“That there had been divers doubts raked about the manner of the ministration of the Service, rather by the curiosity of the ministers and mistakers than of any other worthy cause; and that for the better explanation of that, and for the greater perfection of the Service is some places where it was fit to make the Prayer and fashion of Service more earnest, and fit to stir Christian people to the true honouring of Almighty God, therefore it had been by the command of the King and Parliament perused, explained, and made more perfect.”

The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. was the result of that revision; and, although it was subsequently both slightly altered and added to in 1560 and 1604 till it reached its present form in 1662, we must regard that Second Book as the completion of the great work of the Reformation so ably, but still imperfectly, commenced in the First. The history, therefore, places the First Book in exactly the same position as that in which it was placed in the argument of Mr. Wood, viz., an intermediate position between the Use of Sarum and the present English Prayer Book. It was a great and noble effort but yet not complete. It was a great movement in the right direction, but there were still in it certain most serious defects; and what was more important, it contained certain passages which those who were to disposed might misinterpret in the Romish sense.

Yet this is the book to which we are now invited to return; and it is only reasonable that we should ask the reason why. We are content with our beloved old English Prayer Book, in which, ever since we began to worship at all, we have poured out our hearts in holy communion with God. Why should we either forsake it, or throw the whole Church into confusion by the admission of an alternative service?

Certainly not because the First Book is less “meagre” than the second; for, beyond all controversy, it was the more meagre of the two. Morning and evening prayer began in it with the Lord’s Prayer, and therefore contained neither texts, address, confession, nor absolution. They also ended with the third Collect, and therefore contained none of the prayers for the Queen, Royal Family, &c. The “Prayers and Thanksgivings on several occasions” were not included, so that the familiar words of the “Prayer for all Conditions of Men,” as well as the “General Thanksgiving,” were not in it. The Commandments were not there; and the Catechism contained nothing about the Sacraments. And what has become of some importance since the subject has been mooted, there was no Ordination Service. It is well to bear this in mind, because it is the fashion with some persons to quote the 36th Article as giving a sanction to the First Book. And Mr. Wood said, in his address at Derby, that “at this very moment it [11] has the direct sanction and approval of the 36th Article.” But he must have either forgotten or ignored the fact that the ordinal to which the 36th Article refers was published quite independently of the book, and was never made a part of it. In 1552 the ordinal, with certain changes, was introduced into the Second Book; but it was never made a part of the First. The Article, therefore, has no reference of any kind whatever to the First Book, and in that book there was no Ordination Service.

It must be clear, therefore, to the most superficial observer, that the attraction of the First Book does not consist in its richness. If our own Prayer Book is “meagre,” the First Book is much more so. The changes subsequently made have been chiefly in the direction of addition, and there must be some other reason which renders it so attractive. And what is that reason? There is an expression in § 743 of Bishop Short’s “History of the Church of England,” which answers the question. The Bishop there says: “On the whole, this book forms a connecting link between the Missal and the Prayer Book.” Now, if this be the case, it is no wonder if those who prefer the Missal desire the substitution of this book for our present Prayer Book. The time may not be come for the introduction of the Missal itself; but that may follow in time, if they can now secure the connecting link. If this be the case, the reasons which lead men now to desire it are precisely those which led the Reformers to reform it. It is nearer Rome than our English Prayer Book. Therefore it was that the Reformers reformed it, and therefore it is that they who prefer “the unreformed liturgies” desire to return to it. This may be seen very clearly in Mr. Wood’s address. He enumerates several of the advantages that he considers would be gained by a return to it, such is a closer conformity to the order of “the canon” of the Mass; the omission of the Ten Commandments, and the “Dearly Beloved;” “the reservation for the sick;” “the unction of the sick;” and prayer for the dead.

To these he might have added the restoration of an altar in place of “the table” with its “fair white linen cloth;” and of the name “The Mass” in addition to the “Holy Communion;” the sanction for auricular confession in the Communion Service, combined with the omission of the General Confession in the Morning and Evening Prayer; the omission from the words of administration of the clause, “Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thine heart by faith with thanksgiving” and the presence of certain other expressions which it was just possible for “mistakers” to understand as teaching the localization in the consecrated elements of the actual human person of our blessed Redeemer now seated at the right hand of God.

But there is one other result of a return to the First Book which is of supreme importance, though I have not yet seen any notice of it in the recent discussion, viz., that by returning to the First Book we should get behind the date of the Articles. The Articles were not drawn up till the year A.D. 1552, so that by adopting the First Book we should go back to a date at which the Articles did not exist, at which, in fact, the Church of England had drawn up no formal dogmatic protest against the errors of Rome. The Reformation began with the reform of the Liturgy, before there was any authoritative statement of distinctive truth, and when the minds of men were passing through a rapid transition. To this transition period the First Book belongs; and if we were to decide on adopting the Liturgy of the transition there would be a manifest inconsistency in combining with it those definite statements of truth which were carefully drawn up afterwards when the great gulf was past, and the work of the Reformation in essential points complete.

With all these facts before us, it is impossible to mistake the character of the proposal made. Whether we look at the history or the contents of the book, we are brought to the same conclusion. It is not a proposal to improve our Prayer Book or to adapt it to the special demands of the day. It is a proposal to depart from the Prayer Book altogether, and to return to the transition state through which the Church of England passed in the transition days of the Reformation. The First Book of Edward bore just the same relationship to the Use of Sarum that Basingstoke does to the city of Salisbury. The Reformers halted awhile there on the up line, but they could not rest, so they soon left it to complete their journey. We are now invited to return there; but is there any thinking man who can suppose for one moment that we are intended to remain there, when we have the public avowal of the undenied preference for “the unreformed liturgies” and the Use of Sarum? Is it not perfectly clear that the attraction to the First Book is simply this, that it is a station for the express train on the direct down line to Sarum?

And now, how will this proposal be received? or rather, how will it be received by that large body of men who wish to be considered “High Churchmen,” and who mean by that expression that they entertain a loyal, loving, and faithful allegiance to the grand old Church of England, into which they were received at their baptism, and of which those who are clergymen have been its appointed officers ever since their ordination? Will they, or will they not, be prepared for this new departure? Are they prepared to abandon all the historical loyalty of their party; to give up their beloved Prayer Book as “meagre” and “open to grave objections;” to throw overboard their Articles and the latter part of their Catechism; and to go boldly back to the period of transition, when much, we fully admit, was improved, but nothing defined; when great things were done, but when much still remained to be done; and when nothing was matured or consolidated as we now have it in our Articles and Liturgy? If they are prepared for such a movement, it will certainly be a new phase in the character of the historical, loyal, and influential High Churchmanship of England.

E. Hoare.