they represent, substantially, the form into which the Primitive Offices for the hours of Prayer eventually settled down'. Sufficient points of resemblance have been traced between these and the daily prayers used under the Jewish economy, to make it almost certain that the former were originally derived from the latter. But there are also many particulars in which the Western daily Offices, and especially those of the English Church 3, are analogous to those of the East, and although they cannot be traced higher, in their familiar form, than the Rule of St. Benedict [A.D. 530], it can hardly be doubted that men like SS. Benedict and Gregory would build upon the old foundations of Primitive Services, such as those now represented by the hours of the Eastern Church. In the Ancient Sacramentaries there are several series of Collects for daily use: one set of twenty-three in that of St. Gregory, being entitled "Orationes de Adventu Domini quotidianis diebus :" another, of twenty, apparently for Lent, being headed "Orationes pro peccatis:" a third of many more in number being called "Orationes quotidiana." There are also other sets in the same Sacramentary, "ad Matutinos lucescente die," "Orationes Matutinales," "Vespertinales," and "ad Completorium." What place such Collects occupied in the daily Offices is not quite clear, but they plainly show that the Primitive habit of the Church was kept up, and that daily prayers were continually being offered in the Western as well as in the Eastern Church. Lessons from Holy Scripture were only read in the Synagogue on the Sabbath day; in the Temple none at all (except the Decalogue) were ever read. This custom was continued throughout the Church even until the time of St. Gregory : Epistles and Gospels being read at the Holy Communion, but no Lessons at the hours of Prayer. St. Gregory established a system which afterwards developed into that of the Breviary Lessons, but in the Eastern Church the Primitive practice of reading Holy Scripture at the celebration of the Eucharist, and on Sunday only at other offices, is still maintained.

In Mediæval times the daily Offices were developed into a very beautiful, but a very complex form; being moulded exclusively to the capacities of clergy and laity living in communities, separated from the world especially for a work of prayer and praise, which was seldom interrupted by the calls of other avocations. Those used in England differed in several important respects from the Roman Breviary, and are supposed to have had the same origin as the Communion Office, the lineage of which is traced at p. 147 to the Church of Ephesus. Like those of the Eastern and Roman Churches, they consisted nominally of seven separate services or hours [see p. xxviii], but as in those churches

1 They are given at length in Neale's Introd. Hist. of Eastern Church, vol. ii. sh. iv. * Archd. Freeman's Princ. Div. Serv. i. 65. 3 Ibid. 106. 4 Ibid. 243.

at the present day these seven hours are aggregated into three, or even two services, so it is probable was the case, to a great extent, in the Mediaval Church of England, and the whole seven were only kept by a small number of the most strict among the Clergy and religious. The Reformers condensed the seven hours, instead of aggregating them, and thus gave us Mattins and Evensong, as in the manner shown by the Table at p. xxix. At the same time, the publication of Edward VI.'s and Queen Elizabeth's Primers showed that they by no means intended to hinder, but rather to encourage those who still wished to observe the ancient hours of Prayer: and the Devotions of Bishop Cosin, with other Manuals framed on the same model, have given many devout souls the opportunity of supplementing the public Mattins and Evensong with prayers at other hours that equally breathed the spirit of the ancient Church.

In making this change the Reformers were doubtless endea vouring to secure by a modification of the Services what the theory of the Church had always required, the attendance of the Laity as well as the Clergy at the Daily Offices of Praise and Prayer. From very early days the Church of England had enjoined the Laity to be present at them, as may be seen in the collection of Decrees and Canons on the subject printed by Maskell [Mon. Rit. Ang. II. xxv.-xxxi.]; but these injunctions appear to have been little obeyed, and their constant absence led the clergy to deal with the Breviary as if it was intended for their own use alone, its structure becoming so complex that none but those who had been long used to handle it could possibly follow the course of the services day by day. In forming out of these complex services such simple and intelligible ones as our present Morning and Evening Prayer, a new opportunity was offered to the Laity of uniting their hearts and voices with those of the Clergy in a constant service of daily praise and prayer.

Churches without such an offering of Morning and Evening Prayer are clearly alien to the system and principles of the Book of Common Prayer; and to make the offering in the total absence of worshippers seems scarcely less so. But as every Church receives blessing from God in proportion as it renders to Him the honour due unto His Name, so it is much to be wished that increased knowledge of devotional principles may lead on to such increase of devotional practice as may make the omission of the daily Offices rare in the Churches of our land. Then indeed might the time come when the Church of England could say, "Thou, O God, sentest a gracious rain upon Thine inheritance; and refreshedst it when it was weary." It might look for the development of a perennial vigour springing from that "third hour of the day" when the Apostles first went forth in the might of their supernatural endowments; and hope to meet with answers from on high, as sure as that which was given to Elijah "about the time of the Evening Sacrifice."

The Order for Morning Prayer] The word "Order" in the sense here intended has almost passed out of use. It simply means regulation or ordinance, according to its derivation from the Latin word ordo. Morning Prayer was called by the ancient popular name of "Mattins" (abbreviated from Matutina), in the original English Prayer Book of 1549; and that name is still retained in the three Tables of Proper Lessons and Proper Psalms, and also in the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity.

THE SENTENCES.

The ancient Mattins of the Church of England began with, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," (and the sign of the Cross,) followed by an inaudible recitation of the Lord's Prayer by the Priest who officiated. Then was said, "O Lord, open Thou my lips: And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise." This opening of the service was retained in the 1519 Prayer Book, but the Lord's Prayer was directed to be said "with a loud voice," instead of secreto. In the 1552 Prayer Book, these Sentences, with the Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution, were prefixed to Morning Prayer, but not to Evening Prayer. This addition was suggested, probably, by the second reformed Breviary of Cardinal Quignonez, in which the ancient Confession and Absolution, hereafter given, were placed at the beginning of Mattins. But other reasons are also apparent

for the change. In the first place, the full effect of the dissolution of Monasteries was making itself felt by ritualists, and a penitential prefix to the service was considered more appropriate for a mixed congregation than the previous mode of opening it, which was suitable for communities professedly spending nearly their whole time in the religious portion of a Christian's duty. And, in the second place, a relaxation of the rule about private Confession made it expedient to place a public Confession and Absolution within the reach of all, day by day.

The Sentences themselves (which had nearly all been previously in use as Capitula, during Lent) are a reproduction at the beginning of Divine Service of the Invitatories which were prefixed to the Venite in the ancient Mattins. In both cases the object is to give the key-note to the service which is to follow. In the Salisbury use two such Sentences, with a Versicle and Collect, were prefixed to Mattins on Easter Day. These were still ordered to be "solemnly sung or said" in the same place in the 1549 Prayer Book; but on the appointment of the Sentences now in use, the former were directed to be used instead of Venite, and are printed before the Easter Collect. It was in this light that the Sentences were viewed by Bp. Andrewes, who suggested some others in the following note: "Adde. huc, quod ad invitandam pœnitentiam egregia sunt misericordiæ et longanimitatis encomia. Ps. lxxviii. 38. Jer. iii. 7. 12. Heh. iv." B

2 Cor. x. 1.

Acts iv. 24. Eccles. v. 1, 2. Ex. xxv. 21, 22. Heb. iv. 16.

Tsa. Ixiii. 16.
Luke vi. 36.
Isa. liii. 6.
Ps. cxix. 176.
Jer. xviii. 12.

Jer. xvii. 9. Eph. ii. 2, 3,

Dan. ix. 9, 10.

Rom. vii. 12. 1 John iii. 4. Lam. iii. 40. 42.

accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice unto the throne of the heavenly grace, saying after me.

¶ A general Confession to be said of the whole Congregation after the Minister, all kneel

ing.

Ps. xxxviii. 3.

Luke xviii. 13.

we have done those things which we Isa. x. 12, 13. ought not to have done; And there is Gal. v. 17. no health in us. But thou, O Lord, .1-5. have mercy upon us, miserable of- Prov. xxviii. 13. fenders. Spare thou them, O God, Joel ii. 17. which confess their faults. Restore Jer. iii. 22. Hos. xiv. 1, 2. thou them that are penitent; Ac- Ps. xxii. 3.

li. 12.

Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And

Acts x. 36, 43.

1 John i. 9.

"Fac nos,

juste, et sobrie

mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord. 2 Cor. i. 20. And grant, O most merciful Father, John xvi. 23. 24. for his sake; That we may hereafter Domine live a godly, righteous, and sober et pie, in hoc life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Moz. Brev Amen.

sæculo vivere."

Wed. Matt, aft. Advent.

form for passing away a few seconds, while the congregation is settling into a devotional frame of mind.

The concluding words, "after me," were erased by Bishop Cosin, for what reason is not apparent, and were restored by the Committee of Revision. They define the manner in which the Confession is to be said; as also do the words "humble voice," which represent the submissa vox of old rubrics.

THE GENERAL CONFESSION.

After the Minister, all kneeling] Bishop Cosin erased the word "after" in this Rubric, and substituted "with;" but the original word was carefully restored, showing that a distinction was intended between the two words in their ritual use. "After the Minister" means, that each clause is to be said first by the Minister alone, and then repeated by "the whole congregation" alone-i. e. while the Minister remains silent, as in the case of a response after a versicle. "With" the Minister means simultaneous recitation by him and the congregation together, and is ordered in the Rubric before the Lord's Prayer. The word "all" was also one of Bishop Cosin's additions, and is illustrated by his note in another volume: "Kneeling is the most fit gesture for humble penitents; and being so, it is strange to see how in most places, men are suffered to sit rudely and carelessly on their seats all the while this Confession is read; and others that be in church are nothing affected with it. They think it a thing of indifferency forsooth, if the heart be right." This sitting posture during public confessions was one of the abuses that scandalized the Puritans; and they sought to have a Canon passed, enjoining all to kneel. The eighteenth Canon does indeed direct that "all manner of persons then present shall reverently kneel upon their knees when the general Confession, Litany, and other prayers are read. . . . testifying by these outward ceremonies and gestures, their inward humility."

The gesture of kneeling here and elsewhere is not only a mark of personal humility and reverence, but also one of those acts required of every one as an individual component part of the body which forms the congregation; and to neglect it is to neglect a duty which is owing to God and man in this respect, as well as the other. We have no right to conspicuous private gestures in a public devotional assembly; nor are the gestures which we there use (in conformity to the rules of the Church) to be necessarily interpreted as hypocritical because our personal habits or feelings may not be entirely consistent with them. As the clergy have an official duty in church, irrespective of their personal characters, so also have the laity. It may be added, that a respectful conformity to rules enjoining such official duties, may often lead onward to true personal reverence and holiness.

As far as present researches show, the general Confession appears to be an original composition of some of the revisers of 1552; but its principal features are, of course, represented in con

All the phrases of the Confession have, however, a Scrip tural ring; and it was very likely compiled almost verbatim from some old English version of the Bible, or else freely rendered (according to the habit of the day in sermons) from the Vulgate Psalms, and other Scriptures indicated above in the margin.

The manner and spirit in which a general confession of sins may be made personally and particularly applicable, is pointedly set forth in a Rubric which precedes the Confession to be used on board ship when there is danger of shipwreck: "When there is imminent danger, as many as can be spared from necessary service in the ship, shall be called together, and make an humble Confession of their sin to God, in which every one ought seriously to reflect upon those particular sins of which his conscience shall accuse him, saying as followeth." That a confession so made can be otherwise than acceptable to the Good Shepherd and Physician of our souls it is impossible to doubt. That further and more detailed confession is also at times necessary, the provisions made by the Church for her penitents, and the private habits of all pions Christians, make equally certain.

The "Amen" is part of the Confession, and is to be said by both minister and people, as is indicated by the type in which it is printed.

1 Archd. Freeman's "Principles of Divine Service," i. 320.