"Sacra Privata" which relates to the Lord's Supper with this paragraph :—

"Private devotions at the altar, taken out of the most ancient offices of the Church, to render our present Communion Service more agreeable to apostolic usage, and more acceptable (I hope) to God, and beneficial to all that partake thereof, Until it shall please God to put it into the hearts and power of such as ought to do it, to restore to us the first Service of Edw. VI., or such as shall be more conformable to the appointment of Christ and His Apostles and their successors. Which may the Divine Majesty vouchsafe to grant, for His sake Who first ordained this holy Sacrament. Amen."

Alexander Knox more than once expresses his regret at the changes made under foreign influence' in the Prayer Book of 1552, and rejoices that the Communion Service of the Scotch Prayer Book of 1637, in which “the First Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth was substantially followed," had, notwithstanding its own failure, "its eventual use, in affording material guidance to the revisers of the English Prayer Book, after the Restoration." (Works, second ed. vol. ii. p. 188.)

In 1806 Bishop Horsley wrote to Bishop Skin

ner:-" With respect to the comparative merit of the two offices for England and Scotland, I have no scruple in declaring to you, what, some years since, I declared to Bishop Abernethy Drummond, that I think the Scotch office more conformable to the primitive models, and, in my private judgment, more edifying than that which we now use; insomuch that, were I at liberty to follow my own private judgment, I would myself use the Scotch office in preference. The alterations which were made in the Communion Service, as it stood in the first Book of Edward VI. to humour the Calvinists, were, in my opinion, much for the

worse."

We have thought it worth while to reprint also the Ordinal for 1549 in consequence of its great rarity, there being, it is believed, only six copies extant. It does not differ from that of 1552, except that the latter omits those parts of its rubrics which prescribe that the candidates for Deacons' and Priests' orders shall wear " a plain Albe," and for Episcopal orders "a surplice and a cope;" that the Deacon appointed to read the Gospel shall wear "a tunicle;" that, together with the Bible, shall be given to the Priest "the Chalice or cup with the bread," and to the Bishop "the Pastoral

Staff;" and that in the ordering of Bishops the Consecrators shall also be "in surplices and copes," and shall have "their pastoral staves in their hands."

We believe that in thus re-editing, in its completeness, that First Reformed Prayer Book, which was the fruit of the unbiassed and deliberate judgment of the National Church of England formally and synodically expressed, and was, as such, with equal formality, solemnly accepted by the National Parliament, we have exhibited a work which must have an undying interest for all English Church

men.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD,

June, 1869.

P. G MEDD.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE documents reprinted in the present volume have

THE

been carefully collated with the originals, whether in Oxford or elsewhere. The edition of The Book of Common Prayer here followed is that of Whitchurche, June xvi., which for this purpose has been regarded as the standard; but all other accessible impressions have been examined and compared.

It may, however, be observed that, with the exception of certain well-known differences of arrangement of contents in the earlier impressions, the textual variations in the several editions of the Prayer Book of 1549 are extremely few and unimportant; Whitchurche's issue of June, e.g., being identical, page for page, with that of May iv., and not differing more from it, viewed as an edition, than do different copies of the June edition itself from one another. The variation, indeed, as regards spelling, observable in different copies bearing precisely the same date, is one of the most remarkable features in the press-work of that period.*

The present reprint, therefore, claims to be a faithful

*The British Museum Catalogue, in fact, recognises two "editions" of the date June xvi.

reproduction, in a modern form, of the latest edition of our First Prayer Book, as finally arranged.* Nothing has been omitted, nothing added, and nothing, for the sake of uniformity, rounded off and finished; but so far as typographical conditions allowed, an attempt has been made to preserve the general effect of the original.

One characteristic feature, however, it has been necessary in the present edition to forego, viz., the placing of all Scripture references, and the titles of the Canticles and Psalms, in the margin. These insertions are therefore here arranged on a different plan.

Another detail should also be explained. The Gloria Patri after the Introits is given in the originals with great irregularity, the mere question of space seeming mostly to determine the form of contraction, or whether it shall be contracted at all. The first Gloria Patri, judging by the rubric which follows it, was perhaps alone intended to be expressed in full. In a matter, therefore, involving no principle, one convenient form of contraction, used occasionally in Oswen's May edition, is here adopted for all the Introits after the first.

The very scarce and beautiful quarto edition just referred to, with also Oswen's folio of July, is characterized by having the large cross inserted with title headings throughout the Book. This ornament, therefore, though peculiar to these two editions, has been

*Oswen's July Edition, though later, follows certain peculiarities of the March issue.