In 1552 the Litany was placed within the book, and called "The Litany" only, which was its title also in the Primer of 1553. In the Ordination Service the previous title held its place, as it does at the present day.

In 1559 the petition against the bishop of Rome was dropped.

In 1604 the Litany was to be used on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

In 1662 the Litany was to be sung or said "after Morning Prayer" on the same three days, and thus, from being a separate service, it was combined with Morning Prayer.

Other changes in 1662 were as follows:

The petition to illuminate "all bishops, pastors, and ministers of the Church" was altered to "all bishops, priests, and deacons."

"" "Rebellion was deprecated after "privy conspiracy," where the "bishop of Rome" had stood till 1559.

"Schism" was deprecated after "heresy."

§ 64. The English Litany compared with its predecessor. We may notice the following points:

(a) The fulness and flow of the English diction in all the opening invocations contrasted with the condensation of the Latin. Thus, where we now have, "O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, Three Persons and one God: have mercy upon us miserable sinners," the Latin had these six words, "Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus: miserere nobis !" Moreover, each of the four invocations is responded to by the people after

the minister in the English, which used not to be in the Latin. Thus in some measure was filled up the gap left by the long list of saints omitted.

(b) In the English are grouped into one many petitions which the Latin gave separately. Thus for the English, "From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil; from Thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation, Good Lord, deliver us," the Latin had five petitions, with "Libera nos, Domine" after each, viz., "Ab omni malo; Ab insidiis diaboli; Ab infestationibus dæmonum; A venturâ irâ; A damnatione perpetuâ." Here the English condenses. Such minute subdivision ran all through the Latin.

(c) Numerous petitions are added which are not represented in the Latin, viz. :—

"From all sedition and privy conspiracy, etc., Good Lord, deliver us."

And the following, all beginning, "That it may please Thee":

to rule her heart in Thy faith'

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to be her defender and keeper"

66 to bless and preserve " (the Royal Family) .

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to endue the Lords of the Council"

"--to bless and keep the Magistrates"

66 to give us an heart to love and dread

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to give and preserve to our use (not quite all this one).

In the supplication, "We humbly beseech," all is new after "deserved." The Prayer of St. Chrysostom and 2 Cor. xiii. are also new.

Thus, what with nearly half of it new, the omission of all the saints, the amplification of diction in the opening invocations, the grouping of many short petitions, and the refrain "Libera nos curtailed in repetition, the English Litany represents a very considerable change from the medieval one, and offers a distinct model of its own.

§ 65. Its Structure. work may be considered under five heads.

The Litany in its frame

HOLY TRINITY, in"Have mercy!" is

implore mercy that

(a) THE INVOCATIONS TO THE voking mercy for us as sinners. the keynote of a litany; it was to litanies were instituted. The Lesser Litany is so called because it appeals for mercy. To this section belongs, as we are disposed to think, the prayer, "Remember not," as a conclusion and a climax; representing in a summary way the mercy that is needed, the misery that is felt, and winding up with Spare us, Good Lord. Comber, Nicholls, Wheatly, and others, however, prefer to consider "Remember not" as commencing the Deprecations (vide infr.).

In former editions of the Prayer Book, which distinguished the "Litany" and the "Suffrages,"

this first portion must be reckoned to have been the Litany in its stricter and more confined sense, and in respect to the Lesser Litany this was the Greater.

The Suffrages now follow. That the term is thus rightly applied appears from the fact of the Ordination Service describing the special petition for those to be ordained as a "proper suffrage." The same thing appears also from the early title, Litany and Suffrages. The suffrages are distinguished as

follows:

(b) THE DEPRECATIONS, or prayers against evil, commencing "From all evil and mischief." Now follows a detail of the miseries present or feared, God's judgments and chastisements, by which He takes " vengeance of our sins," unless He have mercy and give deliverance.

(c) THE OBSECRATIONS, or prayers on account of, or by reason of; i.e., prayers based on certain pleas and considerations, these pleas being what Christ has done and suffered for human redemption, all being described and enumerated, beginning, "By the mystery."

(d) THE INTERCESSIONS, or prayers on behalf of others, commencing with "We sinners do beseech." The "holy Church universal" is first mentioned, the Church (but not its ministers) taking precedence of the Sovereign. Next to the Sovereign and Royal Family come the ministers of the Church, but at one time the ministers of the Church, "Domnum Apostolicum" at their head, preceded the sovereign. This was prior to 1544, the year when "Bishop of Rome" appeared among the Deprecations (§ 63).

The Intercessions descend to much detail, and include all orders of the body politic, and the wants, dangers, and afflictions which flesh is heir to.

(e) THE SUPPLICATIONS (Wheatly), commencing with the Lord's Prayer and concluding with the Prayer of St. Chrysostom and 2 Cor. xiii. This division is sometimes called the Second Part of the Litany. Its general tone is deprecatory, indicating a sense of impending calamity, and so in full harmony with the historic origin of litanies.

Of these five heads it should be observed that the Invocations are addressed to the Holy Trinity; the Deprecations, Obsecrations, Intercessions, to the Son; the Supplications, some to the Father, some to the Son.

§ 66. Notes:

"O God the Father, of heaven" (Pater de cœlis, Deus). Cf. ὁ πατὴρ ὁ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ δώσει τοῖς αὐτοῦσιν (Luke xi. 13).

"Deadly sin," not in the Latin, introduced in 1544. The bishops at the Savoy Conference, in 1661, defended the expression on the ground (apparently) that it pointed to wilful and deliberate sin of a heinous character, without implying that any sins were venial, the wages of all sin without distinction being "death."

"By the mystery of Thy holy incarnation" (Per mysterium sanctæ incarnationis tuæ). This expression is evidently intended to represent 1 Tim. iii. 16, and may be understood in the same sense, though incarnation, strictly speaking, is not the same as