which rendered the book more perfect by making the Thanksgivings correspond with the Prayers1. 1 In the American Prayer-Book, the Prayer for all conditions of men and the General Thanksgiving are inserted in their place in the Morning and Evening Prayer. The Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings include additional forms, For a Sick Person, for a Sick Child, For a Person, or Persons going to Sea, For a Person under Affliction, For Malefactors, after Condemna tion, and A Prayer to be used at the Meetings of Convocation; also a Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, For Recovery from Sickness, and For a Safe Return from Sea. The Prayer for the Parliament becomes, with a slight alteration, A Prayer for Congress. In the Prayers For Fair Weather, and In time of Sickness, the references to the Old Testament are omitted. OCCASIONAL PRAYERS. The two parts of the CHAPTER II. The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels; and Proper THIS part of the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. was entitled, The Introits, Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, to be used at the celebration of the Lord's Supper and Holy Communion, through the year: with proper Psalms and Lessons for divers Feasts and days. An Introit, or psalm to be sung at or before the commencement of the Communion Office, was prefixed to each Collect. These were removed' at the revision in 1552; and the Proper Lessons were placed in the Calendar of Lessons. The Epistles and Gospels are, with few exceptions, the same that had been appointed in the Missal. They form Church-year. two series, which may be distinguished as doctrinal and practical. The ecclesiastical year is divided into two Advent to parts; the first, from Advent to Trinity, is designed to Trinity; commemorate the life of Christ on earth; and the several particulars of His life are celebrated in their order,—His incarnation, nativity, circumcision, manifestation to the Gentiles; His doctrine and miracles, His baptism, fasting, and temptation; His agony, His cross, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension; and the mission of the Holy Ghost: the object of the Epistles and Gospels during this time is to remind us of the benefits which we receive from God the Father, through the mediation and atonement of God the Son, and through the ministration of God the Holy Ghost. Hence this part of the 1 As a substitute for the Introit, in cathedrals, the hymnn Tersanctus is generally sung by the choir. TY OF THE Church's course of teaching is fitly ended with the Com- ANTIQUI memoration of the blessed Trinity. In the second part of COLLECTS. the year-from Trinity to Advent-the portions of Scrip- Trinity to ture are selected with the view of instructing us to lead our lives after our Lord's example. Advent. the Collects. The greater part of the Collects were translated from Antiquity of those which were found in the Missals of the English Church. Many of them exist in the Sacramentary of Gregory, and therefore date at least from A. D. 590; some are still older, and are found in the Sacramentary of Gelasius (494), and some may be traced to that of Leo (483). The following Tables 1 will shew the general antiquity of our Collects. I. Table of those Collects which were substantially II. Table of Collects, taken from ancient models, but which have been altered by the compilers or revisers of 1 A manuscript of the 9th or 10th century, in the Bodleian Library: Palmer, Orig. Lit. I. p. 313. its obser The observation of Advent, as a season of preparation Antiquity of for Christmas, cannot be certainly traced to an earlier vance. date than the 6th century1, at least in the West: and even then the Eastern and Western Churches did not agree in a uniform period for its celebration2. The Nestorians in the East were the first who changed the commencement of the Church-year from Easter3 to Advent; and we find this change adopted in Gaul in the 6th century. 1 See Guericke, p. 176. 2 In the Orthodox Greek Church, since the sixth century, Advent has begun on St Martin's day (Nov. 14), and has included six Sundays, and a forty days' fast, called the Quadragesima S. Mar tini, ib. p. 177, note. 3 The Easter month was naturally adopted as the πρώτος μήν (Euseb. H. E. VII. 32), from the Jewish reckoning of the year from the month Nisan. 4 Guericke, 'Remarks,' p. 178. |