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The

Ancient Liturgy of the Church
of England

ACCORDING TO THE USES OF

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#5398

HARVARD COLLEGE

APR 25 1888

LIBRARY.

John Harvey Treat.

IN

Preface.

N the Admonition entitled " Concerning the Service of the Church," which succeeds, if indeed it does not rather form a part of, the Preface to our present Book of Common Prayer, we find the following:

"And whereas heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in Churches within this Realm; some following Salisbury Use, some Hereford Use, and some the Use of Bangor, some of York, some of Lincoln; now from henceforth all the whole realm shall have but one Use."

In this passage the word heretofore does not relate to the time immediately preceding the last Review of the Common Prayer in 1662, for during more than 100 years, (with the exception of the period of the Rebellion, and heretical ascendancy) there had been only one Use of saying and singing in Churches. We must go back to the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth,1 and

1 With regard to uniformity of singing, the 49th of Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions declares that "because in dyvers Collegiate and also some paryshe Churches heretofore, there hath ben levynges appointed for the mayntenaunce of men & chyldren to use synging in the church, by meanes whereof the lawdable science of musicke hath ben had in estimation and preserved in knowledge: the Quenes maiestie-wylleth and commaundeth, that fyrste no alteration be made of such assignementes of lyvynge but that the same so remayne. And that there bee a modeste and destyncte songe so used in all partes of the common prayers in the Churche: that the same maye be as playnelye understanded, as if it were read without singing.”

Injunctions geven by the Quenes Maiestie. Imprinted by Jugge and Cawood. Anno .M.D.LIX. Reprinted in Cardwell. Doc. Annals. i. 196.

b

beyond that again to the year 1549, when the first Book of King Edward the Sixth having been approved by Convocation, was put forth and enjoined by the authority of the Parliament and the Crown. In the Preface to that Book, there is almost word for word the same injunction.

So also the "Act for the Uniformity of publick Prayers, and administering the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies, &c. in the Church of England," (XIV. Car. II.) begins; "Whereas in the first year of the late Queen Elizabeth, there was one uniform Order of Common Service and Prayer, and of the administration of the Sacraments, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Church of England." And the Act here recited, the first of Elizabeth, refers in like manner to the last year of Edward the Sixth, declaring that then also there was "one uniform Order." These Acts, we may say then, recognize the previous existence of various allowed forms or Uses.

There are certainly some who very imperfectly understand what is meant by these Uses of the Church of England; they have often remarked the passage which I have quoted from the Preface to the Prayer Book, and would be glad to learn something about it. Wheatley and Shepherd, authors generally applied to, pass over without remark "the Preface:" the latter however in his Introduction does say, that "it is deserving of notice, that hitherto there had not been in England any one service established by public authority for the general use of the Church. In the southern parts of the island, the Offices according to the use of Sarum, and in the

2 Introduction, p. xxxvii.

Y

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