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By the same Author,

The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England, according to the Uses of Sarum, Bangor, York, and Hereford, and the modern Roman Liturgy, arranged in parallel columns."

SECOND EDITION, with many additional Notes and the Preface re-written and enlarged. 1846. One Vol. 8vo.

Also by the same Author,

A History of the Martin Marprelate Controversy in the reign

of Queen Elizabeth. 1845. Crown 8vo.

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O

Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae

Anglicanae

OR OCCASIONAL OFFICES OF THE CHURCH OF

ENGLAND ACCORDING TO THE ANCIENT USE OF SALISBURY THE PRYMER IN ENGLISH AND OTHER PRAYERS AND FORMS

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C 9710-5 (1)

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

1860, puly

13.

Piebman Bequest.

Preface.

CANNOT think that any, even a short, Preface to these volumes is of absolute necessity. They will suffi

ciently explain themselves: and are intended to supply, according to the profession of their titlepages, some information respecting the ritual and offices of the Church of England, during the centuries immediately preceding the Reformation. And this information has been sought for, in the only fit repositories of it, that is, in the actual documents themselves which may yet be extant.

But I would take this opportunity of expressing my fear, that although many means and opportunities have been open to me, they have not been so profitably used as they ought to have been that instead of one Office having been selected, another rather should have been chosen:1 that the notes and observations are

1 I look forward to being permitted, in a third and concluding volume, to republish the ancient

Ordinal of the Church of England, and the Coronation Service, from the Sarum Pontifical.

not in some places required, and in others, where real difficulties exist, they have been omitted altogether: that references to more authorities should have been added on some particular subjects, or were not necessary upon others. To these and such objections (of the reasonableness of which I cannot but be too sensible) I have only to offer the answer, if answer it may be, that no one can know exactly all that is, or is not, required either by way of explanation, or selection; and that I humbly trust that these volumes, as a whole, will not be found to be entirely useless.

There is much, very much, in the succeeding pages, and in another work which will be published with them, involving doctrines of the highest importance, and opening questions over and over again debated between the various branches of the Catholic Church. To have passed all these by without remark would have been surely blameable: to have entered into them at any length, or with the pretence of exactness in the detail, would have been impossible within the space which my limits could allow. I have therefore been obliged rather to seem to lay down decisions, where reasons might have been demanded; and to give results and determinations instead of the arguments by

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