English Liturgy is as follows; "Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood.'

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We may assert then, that our Liturgy contains the necessary essentials to a valid consecration of the Holy Eucharist. That these are disjointed, misplaced, obscured, is matter for serious exertions to be employed upon, that they may be restored to a due order, and a more evident existence. We are not, however, driven to seek in other Forms, the certainty which we cannot discover in our own: and there can be no surer mark of the ever-abiding presence of our Blessed Lord hitherto, with this the English Branch of His Church, than that we still possess it. Whilst we regret what we have lost, let us acknowledge in deep humility the correcting hand, which has spared us what none will dare to say, we have deserved.

Although I hurry to conclude this Preface, there is yet one more subject upon which I would make some observations. In all the Liturgies reprinted in this Volume, will be found commemorations of and prayers for the dead. There is an uniform observance of the great principle that we who are alive and the Dead Saints form but One Body, one family in heaven and earth,” (as it is written in the Ephesians,) under One Head: and that the highest service which can be paid to their Blessed Lord by the living, ought to include also in its

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84 So also in the Book of 1552. See Palmer, for further remarks upon this passage.

supplications those who have been already called to their eternal rest, the Dead in Christ.

It has been a pious opinion of the Church that the Holy Angels are especially present with us in the celebration of the Eucharist. As an old Bishop of our Church has written; "In this geuynge of thankes by Christe oure Lorde, for whose merites they be onely acceptable, the Priest prayeth to be ioyned and associate with the Aungels and Archangels, and all the whole army of the blessed spirites in heaven, who than doo assist the Prieste, and be present there in the honour of hym who is offered, praysynge, honoring, and adouringe the Maiestie of almyghtye God." 85 But the Angels are in the actual enjoyment of that unspeakable bliss which is not to be bestowed on man until after the great Judgment. For them therefore the Church supplicates not any increase, or any hastening of anticipated joy: but for the Dead She does pray. At the solemn time when the Memorial has been offered to the Almighty of the Passion of the Beloved Son, She thinks not only, speaks not only of Her members who are militant here on earth, but remembers those who are equally Her members still, though removed from the carnal sight: She acknowledges by the mere remembrance, and by Her commemoration, that they are yet living although dead : that they have hopes and expectations, and (if it be not presumptuous to say so) longings for the coming of Christ's Kingdom, for the consummation of all things.

Therefore, with an undoubting and steady voice, has

85 Watson. Holsome Doctrine, &c. p. 79. So in the Hymn Tersanctus we say "Therefore, with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name."

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the Church always, East and West, North and South, prayed for the Dead. At one time, offering "for all the Saints, who have pleased God from the beginning of the world:"86 at another calling upon God to remember" all the faithful, from just Abel unto this day, and that He would make them rest in Paradise, in the bosom of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob." At another, the dyptichs of the dead having been read, entreating that God would "give rest unto their souls, in the tabernacles of His Saints, that He would dispense unto them the good things which He had promised, and vouchsafe them the kingdom of heaven." At another, offering the reasonable worship, for those "who are departed in the faith, our forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, chaste persons, and every spirit perfected in faith."89 At another, calling upon God "to remember His servants and handmaids, who are gone before with the sign of faith, and sleep in the sleep of faith."90

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Nor is the present Liturgy of the Church of England wanting in this particular: in it we still include and pray for those who are gone before we still beseech our Heavenly Father, mercifully to accept our sacrifice, and to grant that "we and all His whole Church may

87 The Liturgy of Jerusalem.

86 The Liturgy of S. Clement. 88 The Liturgy of S. Mark. "The Liturgy of S. Chrysostom. The words which follow are remarkable. 66 Especially the most holy, immaculate, blessed above all, most glorious Lady, the Mother of God, and ever Virgin Mary." Hence the observers of that Liturgy did not believe but that the Blessed Virgin remains still with other departed Saints, in Paradise, expecting and not enjoying the fulness of bliss. So S. Jerome says in his Epistle to Paulina: "the Saints enjoy the company of Angels, and are with Mary the Mother of our Lord."

90 The Liturgies according to the Use of Sarum, York, &c.

obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of His passion." How emphatical is the expression, ALL THE WHOLE CHURCH!" the Communion of the Saints.

This prayer however is so far at the discretion of the officiating Priest, that he may use one other in its stead: in which the important duty of which I have been speaking, is not, it must be acknowledged, so forcibly recognized. It looks at first sight more to the living actors, and has less in it of that forgetfulness of self, as the sole object of prayer, which characterized the Church of old. And yet after all the Catholic Truth is acknowledged and in all its fulness: that the mystical Body of the Son, by a part of which and for all of which the sacrifice has been offered, "is the blessed company of all faithful people." 91

And how great a mark of her still being a portion of Christ's Holy Catholic Church is this that the Church of England has not, in her Eucharistic service, thrown off communion with the Invisible Church. No valid objection can be made to her Liturgy upon that pretence,

91 In the Bodleian Library, is a copy of "A Form of Common Prayer, to be used upon the thirtieth of January, &c., published by His Majestie's direction, Printed by John Bill, 1661," in which the following prayer Occurs. "But here, O Lord, we offer unto Thee all possible praise and thanks for all the glory of Thy grace that shined forth in Thine Anointed, our late Sovereign, and that Thou wert pleased to own him (this day especially) in the midst of his enemies and in the hour of Death, and to endue him with such eminent Patience, Meekness, Humility, Charity, and all other Christian virtues, according to the example of Thine own Son, suffering the fury of his and Thine enemies, for the preservation of Thy Church and People. And we beseech Thee to give us all grace to remember and provide for our latter end, by a careful, studious imitation of this Thy blessed Saint and Martyr, and all other Thy Saints and Martyrs that have gone before us, that we may be made worthy to receive benefit by their Prayers, which they in Communion with Thy Church Catholick offer

and so also, whatever the individual fancies may be of any of her officiating Priests, the great duty is equally fulfilled, and cannot be omitted.

It is necessary that I should give some account of the Editions which I have used in preparing the following arrangement of the English and Roman Liturgies.

The Use of Rome is printed from the Edition by Plantin, Antwerp 1759, 4to.

The Use of Hereford has been taken from the Edition of that Missal in the Bodleian Library, the only one, it is believed, ever printed, and of which no other copies are known to exist than the two there preserved. One of these copies is upon vellum, the other upon paper: both imperfect, and unfortunately will not between them give us the perfect Book. As for example, in the Canon (see p. 59.) there is an erasure, which occurs in a leaf altogether wanting in the other copy. It is a folio, and the following are the Title and Colophon. Title:-"Anno Incarnationis domini secundo supra quingentesimum atque millesimum, die vero prima mensis Septembris,

up unto Thee for that part of it here Militant, and yet in fight with and danger from the flesh that following the blessed steps of their holy Lives and Deaths, we may also show forth the Light of a good example; for the glory of Thy Name, the conversion of our enemies, and the improvement of those generations we shall shortly leave behinde us and then with all those that have borne the heat and burthen of the day (thy servant particularly, whose sufferings and labors we this day commemorate) receive the reward of our Labors, the har ́vest of our Hopes, even the Salvation of our Souls: and that for the Merits and through the Mediation of Thy Son, our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen." If the Clergy are warranted in using the unauthorized Form for the 30th of January, bound up generally with our present Common Prayer Books, and if they may in its favour alter and omit lessons and prayers which by the Act of Uniformity they have engaged to use and none other, why should they not also sometimes use this?