iii. A third set of Versicles precedes the second Lord's Prayer, and these vary in their character. The first couplet, "The Lord be with you," etc., is the salutation of the minister (after Ruth ii. 4), and the response of the people. He and they desire for each other the Divine presence while they address themselves to prayer. iv. The minister follows with a versicular exhortation, Let us pray, on which more will be said further on (§ 82). v. The three supplications for mercy coming next are commonly called the Short or Lesser Litany. Cf. § 63, § 65 (a). vi. Six couplets of Versicles follow the second Lord's Prayer. We appear to have an authoritative name for this set, as they are spoken of in the Primer of 1553 (Burt. 406) and in a rubric of the service for May 29th, as "the Suffrages next after the Creed;" and why they are designated "after the Creed" rather than "after the Lord's Prayer" may be understood from some subsequent remarks (§ 80), as well as from the circumstance of the Lord's Prayer having occurred twice. Suffrages, therefore, would seem a convenient title by which to distinguish these twelve Versicles. As to the Suffrages of the Litany, vide § 65 (a). The six couplets run :— 1. "O Lord, shew Thy mercy," etc. (Psalm lxxxv. 7). 2. "O Lord, save the Queen," etc., from the Greek 66 of Psalm xx. 9, Κύριε σῶσον τὸν βασιλέα, καὶ ἐπάκουσον ἡμῶν ἐν ᾗ ἂν ἡμέρᾳ ἐπικαλεσώμεθά σε. 3. "Endue Thy ministers" (Psalm cxxxii. 9). 5. "Give peace," etc. This couplet does not seem taken directly from any passage of Scripture; but it echoes 2 Kings xx. 19, "Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?" and Psalm xxix. 11. The response, "Because there is none other," may be compared with Psalm lx. 11, 2 Chron. xxxii. 8. Its connection is that we ask God alone for peace, not relying upon our own arm to win and keep it for us. 6. "O God, make clean," etc. (Psalm li. 10, 11). It is the nation and the Church that are in view in these Versicles; and this is accounted for by the fact that from 1549, and downwards, Morning and Evening Prayer ended with the Third Collect, and it was only in 1662 that our present State prayers which follow the Third Collect were added to this service. The Versicles in fact are the old State prayers of the morning and evening service, bringing the civil government, the ministry of the Church, the people, "God's inheritance," and public peace, before God. § 51. The Second and Third Collects.-The two in the morning are entitled For Peace and For Grace. The subject of the evening Second Collect is peace, as is expressly said in the rubric, while the title is silent. In the Primer of 1553, p. 406, the title gives it so. The Third in the evening is for Aid against all Perils. Looking more closely, we notice that the peace prayed for in the morning is in view of a hostile world about to be encountered; in the evening, after the world has been met, the peace which it cannot give is prayed for. The Third Collect in the morning asks for grace against the enemies of the soul who are about to be met; the Third in the evening is in view of possible perils in the literal darkness. The language seems borrowed from Psalm xviii. 28: "Thou wilt light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness." The rubric for the Anthem will be mentioned § 132. Some passages to be noted are "In knowledge of Whom standeth our eternal life" (quem nôsse vivere est); "Whose service is perfect freedom" (cui servire regnare est); "Who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto Thee” (ὁ τὰς κοινὰς ταύτας καὶ συμφώνους ἡμῖν χαρισάμενος προσευχάς); “There is no health in us" (Isa. i. 6); "Godly, righteous, and sober life" (Titus ii. 12); "Hath magnified me" (èrroínoré pμoi μeyaλeîa); "Bishops and curates " (" pontifices" in Gelas. Sac.) § 52. Collects.-The forms considered in the preceding section are named Collects, while those of the following section are entitled Prayers. The ancient service books recognised oratio, secreta, collecta; and in some places the two latter occur in marked antithesis, suggesting that, while secreta was a prayer said by the minister to himself, the collecta was one in which he included the assembly (collecta) with him. Oratio, the Latin for prayer, compared with the frequent injunction "oremus," "let us pray," appears to indicate a form in which the people are a party with the minister, and are prayed with rather than for. The general characteristic of the Collect is brevity and concentration, and of Prayer diffuseness; but the distinction is not always maintained. 66 § 53. The Prayers after the Third Collect.--Four of these are entitled prayers, and with the concluding Grace," entitled "2 Cor. xiii.,” make five in all. With these forms the word prayer first occurs in a title, the preceding forms being collects. The Morning and Evening Prayer had always ended with the Third Collect, until in 1662 the service was lengthened by this addition. The service of 1549, which contained neither the present beginning nor the present ending, seems rather defective in the element of prayer. Three short collects, besides the Lord's Prayer, were all. The versicle form predominated almost above the prayer form, while Psalms and Canticles immeasurably exceeded both. The whole service might almost have been called lauds. Yet in lauds prayer largely intermingles with praise. There was then no rubric for the anthem, but the whole service seemed anthem. This rubric will be reserved to a later place (§ 132), and we proceed now to consider each of the five prayers individually. (i.) The prayer for the Sovereign occurs, though in a more diffuse form, in the Primer of 1553 (Lit. Ed. VI. 393), and it had previously appeared in two private collections between 1545 and 1548 (Proc. 242). As a public form it is first seen, and then in its present more condensed shape, in the Litany adopted in Queen Elizabeth's chapel in 1559 (Lit. Eliz. 16), before the new Book was ready. In every office of general and public worship of the Church of England, such as Morning and Evening Prayer, the Litany, the Communion, the Sovereign has been prayed for from 1549 downwards, but only in the last two by name and at length until 1662. Before that, in Morning and Evening Prayer it was only in a single suffrage, “O Lord, save the Queen;" but since 1662, by the insertion of this prayer, supplications for the Sovereign have been made in the regular daily worship in fuller detail. (ii.) The prayer for the Royal Family. In 1549 and 1552 the next in succession to the crown was the Lady Mary, a bitter opponent of the Common Prayer. In 1559, and all through Elizabeth's reign, the succession was very uncertain. Thus King James's was the first royal family that would be likely to suggest such a prayer as this, and in 1604 it first entered the Prayer Book. Earlier than this it has not been traced. Its original position was at the end of the Litany, and it was transferred to Morning and Evening Prayer, as at present, in 1662. (iii.) The prayer for the Clergy and People, occurring in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, was first adopted into an English public formulary in 1544, when it was placed in the Litany. It occurs in the Litanies of 1558 and 1559, and in 1662 was transferred to Morning and Evening Prayer as now. These three were the principal prayers for the public estate occurring in Morning and Evening Prayer from 1662, throwing into the shade, though not superseding, the previous ones in the Versicles. The Sovereign, Clergy, and People occur in the order |