A Prayer for all Conditions of Men, to be used at such times when the Litany is not appointed to be said.

This excellent prayer is not unlike the "Orationes generales" which are found in the ancient monuments of the English church, and which, like this, comprise petitions for all estates of men. The likeness is not however sufficiently strong to induce me to occupy space by transcribing the formularies alluded to.

THANKSGIVINGS.

A General Thanksgiving.

This excellent prayer does not seem to have been derived in any way from the ancient offices of the English church, nor from any other western formularies. A prayer however, at the beginning of the very ancient Coptic liturgy of Basil, seems to bear some resemblance to it.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and lovingkindness to us, and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies,

Domine Deus omnipotens, Pater Domini Dei et Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi, gratias a gimus de omnibus et propter omnia, et in omnibus, quia protexisti nos, adjuvasti nos, conservasti nos, suscepisti nos ad te, et misertus es nostri ; auxilium dedisti nobis, et ad hanc horam perduxisti. Ea propter petimus et obsecramus bonitatem tuam, ô amator hominum, ut concedas nobis hunc diem sanctum, et omnes dies vitæ nostræ in pace cum ti

more tuo transigere—per gra

d Miss. Sar. Commune, fol. 34, &c. MS. Leofric. fol. 236, 262.

that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we may shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

tiam et misericordiam, amoremque erga homines Filii tui unigeniti, Domini Dei et Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi, per quem tibi debetur honor, gloria, et imperium, cum ipso et Spiritu Sancto vivificante, tibique consubstantiali, nunc et semper et in omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen e.

Occasional Thanksgivings.

The English ritual, I believe, is the only one which contains special thanksgivings for the mercies of God, others having confined themselves to general expressions of gratitude on all such occasions. It has therefore, in the present case, improved on the ancient customs of the Christian church, instead of being in any way inconsistent with them.

e Liturgia Basilii Coptice Renaudot. Liturg. Oriental. tom. i. P. 2.

CHAPTER III.

COLLECTS, EPISTLES, AND GOSPELS.

BEFORE I proceed to ascertain the antiquity of this portion of our ritual, I would observe, that the collects, and the lessons which we now call Epistles and Gospels, were originally recited from two books, the former entitled the Sacramentary, the latter the Lectionary. These two books, with a third called Antiphonary, contained the whole service for the eucharist. The Sacramentary comprised the collects and the canon or prayers that never varied a The Lectionary consisted of lessons from the Old and New Testaments, corresponding to our Law, Epistles, and Gospels: and the Antiphonary supplied the anthems or verses for the beginning of the communion, the offertory, &c. About the eleventh or twelfth century it was found convenient generally to unite these three books, and the volume obtained the name of the Complete or Plenary Missal, or Book of Missæ d. Of this description were all almost all

the liturgical books of the western churches, and the arrangement is still preserved in our own.

The eastern churches have no sacramentaries, because they do not employ different prefaces and collects for different days, but make use of several liturgies, each of which is appropriated to a particular season of the year. The lessons and anthems are by them recited from distinct lectionaries and anthem bookse.

COLLECTS.

The origin of collects, or prayers read before or between the lessons during the celebration of the liturgy, is involved in obscurity. Such prayers have certainly been used in all the western churches from a remote period; for we not only find them in the earliest monuments of the Roman liturgy, and of all which adopted that rite, but even in those of Gaul and Spain. None such occur in the ancient liturgies of Jerusalem, Antioch, Cæsarea, or Constantinople; but they appear in the same position as in the western liturgies in that of the Monophysites of Alexandriaf; and we conclude that they must have been used in the Alexandrian liturgy prior to the council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, because the liturgy of the orthodox of that church gives plain signs of having been altered from one resembling in this respect that of the Monophysites; and such resemblance must have been caused by the derivation of both from a common original, before their total

e See Zaccaria, p. 17, 18. Cave's second Dissertation, at the end of his "Historia Literaria," contains an account of all the ritual books of the Greek church, in alphabetical order.

f Liturgia Basilii Copt. Renaudot. Liturg. Oriental. tom. i. p. 2-8.

g Liturgia Marci, ibid. p. 131-137.

separation at that time. We have also Cassian's testimony that collects were recited in his time, amongst the psalms and lessons of morning and evening prayer, by the Egyptiansh: and Athanasius, in more than one place, seems plainly to allude to the existence of the same practice in his time, or early in the fourth century. There is therefore a high degree of probability that the collects of the Alexandrian liturgy are of great antiquity. The use of collects is certainly very ancient in the west, but they probably cannot be traced so far as those of Alexandria. The latter indeed look much as if they were the models on which those of Rome and other western churches were formed; and if I were to hazard a conjecture on the origin of collects, I should say that they were introduced from Alexandria. We know certainly that the eastern Christians at an early period devised many improvements in the mode of celebrating divine service, which did not occur to the less lively and inventive imaginations of their brethren in the west; and that the latter were accustomed to imitate the former in their rites and ceremonies). A time came, however, when

h Cassian. Instit. lib. ii. c. 5, 6, &c.

i See the passages quoted above in chap. i. part 1. §. 16.

j Thus the custom of alternate chanting, according to which the choir were divided into two parts, who sung alternately, was brought from the east by Ambrose, according to Paulinus and Augustine. The council of Toledo, A. D. 589, introduced the Constantinopolitan Creed into the liturgy, in accordance with the

eastern churches. "Constituit synodus ut per omnes ecclesias Hispaniæ et Galliciæ, secundum formam orientalium ecclesiarum, concilii Constantinopolitani, hoc est 150 episcoporum, symbolum fidei decantetur." Concil. iii. Toletan. can. 2. This custom was followed afterwards at Rome. Bona, Rer. Lit. lib. ii. c. 8. p. 387. The form Kyrie eleison was evidently derived from the east, and the council of Vaison, directing it to be used,