with some alterations, our present offices of Matrimony, Visitation of the Sick, and Churching of Women.

fical.

IV. The pontifical contained those offices The Pontiwhich could only be administered by the bishop, such as Confirmation, Ordination, &c.

Primer.

V. As the service-books were all written The in Latin, a language 'not understanded of the people,' it was found necessary long before the Reformation, to publish some parts of the offices in the vulgar tongue. The books containing these translations were elementary manuals of faith, duty, and devotion, for the use of the unlearned, and were called primers, from the Latin primarium. Primers are frequently left as bequests in ancient wills; and the word occurs in Piers Ploughman, the date of which is about the middle of the fourteenth century.

During the reign of Henry VIII. three primers were printed in the years 1535, 1539, and 1545, respectively. They contained an explanation of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ave Maria, an English version of the hours, the Litany, the Dirge, &c. The first, commonly known as Marshall's Primer, was published without authority. The second was prepared by John Hilsey, or Hildesley, a Dominican friar, after

Consulta

wards bishop of Rochester; it was published by command of Cromwell, and with the consent of Cranmer, to whose censure, however, it was not submitted until it had been printed. It contains an order for bidding of the beads,' which is the basis of our bidding prayer, enjoined by the fifty-fifth canon. In another respect, also, it was followed by our reformers; for where the epistles and gospels differ from those of the missal, they generally agree with the lessons for Sundays and holidays in Bishop Hilsey's primer. The edition of 1545 was called the King's Primer, and was probably prepared under the direction of Cranmer, if not by his hand. It has the litany (nearly in the present form,) which had been published in the previous year by the king's authority. These three books have been recently republished by the late Dr Burton.

Hermann's VI. To the preceding list are to be added tion. two liturgical works, which were used in some of the reformed churches of the continent. The first is the Simplex et pia deliberatio', drawn up by Melancthon and Bucer for Hermann, archbishop and elector of Cologne, in whose name it was published at Bonn, in Latin, in the year 1545. It was not so much

1 The title deliberatio may have been borrowed from Quignonius. See supra p. 17.

a new composition as a revision of the ancient formularies, and was taken in great measure from a reformed liturgy, used at Nuremberg. Hermann did not succeed in establishing within his electorate the reforms which he contemplated, and in 1547 he resigned his see: but his book having been translated into English, and published at London in 1547, was employed by our reformers in the compilation of the Prayer-book. The baptismal service is in a great measure taken from it.

Liturgy.

VII. Calvin's French liturgy, composed Calvin's for the use of his churches at Strasburg and Geneva, and published in 1545, became better known in England through a Latin translation, which was printed in 1551 by Valerandus Pollanus, minister of a congregation of Strasburg refugees at Glastonbury. The influence which it had upon the revision of the Prayerbook in 1552, may probably be traced in the introductory part of morning and evening prayer, and in the insertion of the ten commandments in the Communion-service.

Calvin approved of set forms of prayer not less than the Lutheran reformers, and never, like his followers in after times, dreamed of praying by the spirit: but unlike the Lutherans, he chose to become an author rather than a compiler, and preferred the task of

composing a new liturgy to that of reforming an old one. The precedent, which he set, of forsaking the old paths, has been carried further than he intended by his disciples, who walk in no path at all, each praying in his own way, and according to his own discretion. Another point of difference between the Lutheran and Calvinistic liturgies is worthy of remark, that in the former the custom is retained of the congregation making responses to the minister, in the latter the whole service is read by the minister, and the congregation are not allowed to respond.

At the Reformation, all the reformed Churches laid aside the Latin service-books, and formed for themselves new liturgies in the vulgar tongue; and it is remarkable, that the Scottish Kirk is at the present day the only national Church without a liturgy. The order of Geneva,' drawn up by John Knox in 1562, was authorised by the general assembly in 1564, but never obtained general currency, and soon fell into disuse. The want of liturgical forms of prayer is at the present day a subject of regret with some of the most eminent members of that communion'.

1 See Preface to Cumming's edition of Knox's Liturgy.

CHAPTER II.

The first Prayer Book of Edward VI.

KING Henry VIII. by his successful assertion Injunctions

of Henry

of the Royal supremacy, struck the first VIII. great blow at the papal power in this country; and though in his reign no systematic reformation of the Church was effected, he made several attempts to correct abuses both in matters of doctrine and discipline. In the year 1536, he three times issued injunctions to the clergy; twice with consent of convocation, and once on his own sole authority. These injunctions, besides defining certain points of doctrine, contained explanations (not altogether such as we should now adopt) as to the use to be made of images, the honour to be paid to the saints, the prayers to be offered to them, and the use of rites and ceremonies. They abrogated many holidays, as tending to superstition and idleness; they discouraged pilgrimages; they required parents to teach their children the creed, the Lord's prayer and the ten commandments in the vulgar tongue; they ordered a bible in Latin and English to be placed in the choir of every parish-church, so that it might be accessible to all who should desire to read it.