A Committee of Lords and Commons having been appointed to report respecting plots, Mr. Waller, on the re-assembling of Parliament, after the Christmas recess, stated that not less than 160 of the old Army officers were suspected of being implicated in treasonable schemes. Some of the regicides, he alleged, were being entertained in France, Holland, and Germany; arms were being bought by them to accomplish these designs; many pretended Quakers were riding about at night to the terror of peaceable subjects, and seditious preachers were plying their mischievous trade.[278] This report, in some parts obviously absurd, was followed by no confirmatory evidence, although further information was promised.
CONVOCATION.
The day after the re-assembling of Parliament, in the month of November, the Houses of Convocation resumed their deliberations. To facilitate the despatch of business in reference to the Prayer Book, the Convocation of the province of York agreed to unite with the Convocation of the province of Canterbury, by means of proxies, binding themselves to submit to the decisions thus obtained.[279] So earnest was the Northern Archbishop, that he wrote to the Prolocutor of his Lower House to send up proxies by the next post, and told the Registrar of his diocese, "if we have not all from you by the end of next week we are lost."[280] Several clergymen came from the North to town, to act on behalf of their brethren. The two provinces thus co-operating, the business of revising the Prayer Book rapidly proceeded. Upon the 10th of October, the King had written to the Archbishop of Canterbury, directing His Grace, with the other Bishops and clergy, to discharge that duty;[281] and, probably, before Convocation met in November, the Bishops had begun to prepare for the task, although there were differences of opinion amongst them; for, whilst some pressed for alterations such as might "silence scruples and satisfy claims," others were for adopting the Prayer Book as it stood.
1661.
Before describing the alterations which were now made, it is proper to give, at least, a slight sketch of the history of the volume. The Middle Ages had no Act of Uniformity. There were several rituals, called Uses, of York, Hereford, Exeter, Lincoln, and other dioceses. These Uses, which did not materially differ from each other, gave place after the eleventh century, especially in the South of England, to that of Sarum; Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, having about the year 1085, bestowed great pains upon the revision of the ecclesiastical offices in his Church. The Missal and Breviary contained in Osmund's revision of the English mediæval formularies, constitute the basis and, indeed, the substance of the Book of Common Prayer.[282] The first reformed Liturgy for the use of the Protestant Church in England was set forth under Edward VI., in the year 1549. A second, which showed a further advance on the side of the Reformation, appeared in 1552. A primer, or book of private prayer, containing the catechism, with collects and other forms of secret devotions, was published in 1553. Elizabeth's Book of Common Prayer belongs to the year 1559; and afterwards, at different times, came particular forms of devotion, prepared for particular seasons and circumstances. The Prayer Book of 1559 underwent some alterations at the commencement of the reign of James I., after the Hampton Court Conference, but they were very slight, and were simply called Explanations. The Book prepared in the reign of Elizabeth, thus altered, was that which the Convocation of 1661–2 had to revise.
CONVOCATION.
Perhaps I shall best succeed in giving with brevity some idea of the origin of the Common Prayer, and other offices of the Church of England, if I take the Morning Service, the Communion, and the Order for performing Baptism, as they were found in the Book used before the revision under Charles II., and point out, in a general way, the sources from which those forms were derived.
Morning prayer is in the main drawn from the Matins, Lauds, and Prime of the Sarum Breviary. That which may be called the introduction—extending from the opening sentence to the end of the Absolution—was a new feature in the Prayer Book of 1552. The materials of it may be found in mediæval Lent services, the old Office for the Visitation of the Sick, and certain portions of a homily by Pope Leo. Some have supposed that some hints for this introduction were gathered from the reformed Strasburg Liturgy, published by Pollanus (or Pullain).[283] The idea embodied was that of substituting public confession, awakened by the reading of Holy Scripture, for private confession made to a priest; and, on the same principle, the using of a public form of absolution for a secret one. The object was to make that congregational and common which had previously been individual or monastic.