LECTURES.

LECTURE I.

THE TITLE-PAGE OF THE AMERICAN PRAYER BOOKTHE CATHOLICITY OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH: ITS AUTHORITY, ITS NAME.

HE subject of this course of lectures is "The American Prayer Book:" its Leading Principles and the Law of its Use.

The term "Prayer Book" is used here as the popular and convenient designation of the entire volume of the offices and standards of our Church, which contains not only the "Book of Common Prayer," with its various services for public worship and orders for the administration of the Sacraments, but also "The Articles of Religion," "The Ordinal" of the ministry, and such other "Rites and Ceremonies of the Church" as have been "established and set forth," to be used in the "Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America."

This volume is indeed, and in a sense peculiar to itself, what it is called, "The Prayer Book" of the people. It is their constant companion and guide in every

public service of the Church. Its pages are before their eyes, its words are on their lips, its collects, litany and psalms are heard by them in every act of worship in the congregation, and oftentimes when alone or in the private service with the gathered household. They are familiar with its forms and language in the repeated ministration of the Sacraments, and all the important epochs in man's life are hallowed by its sacred associations from the cradle to the grave. Its prayers and anthems are among the earliest lessons the child has learned beside his mother's knee, and its thoughts and influences are prized increasingly the more as years bring more of reverence and higher wisdom with the snows of age.

But wide and important as are these relations of the Prayer Book to the worship of the people, it has other uses, and comes to us with other claims than to be merely a collection, however admirable, of the prayers and praises and Scripture readings appointed for the services of the Church.

It is also, and in connection often with its forms of worship, the authoritative standard of the doctrines of "this Church," the law for the ministrations of the clergy in all its appointed offices, and the teacher of the people, through its services and by its various ordinances, in all the essential elements of Christian truth and Christian living.

This combination of the doctrine, worship and law of the Church in a single volume, and placing it in the hands alike of people and clergy, gives the Prayer Book a unique character and place among the works known in other portions of the Church, and calls those

who desire to use it with full profit to a thoughtful consideration of the principles on which its leading offices are based, and of the relations of its appointed services to the instruction and worship of the people.

It would require a separate examination of each of the several offices of the Prayer Book to present these in their special character and import; but there are certain general principles on the nature, authority and worship of the Church and its relations to the Holy Scriptures which must be regarded as fundamental elements in the constitution of this Church, and in the offices it has established for the ministration of its public services. These should be clearly understood as the basis of any right appreciation of the claims or meaning of the book, or of the Church through which it comes to us.

Several of the most important of these principles have been incorporated into the title-page of our Prayer Book, and are presented there as distinctive features of the services and formularies which the book contains, and of the Church, in whose name and by whose authority they have been established and set forth for our use, so that a consideration of the several portions of the title-page will, at the same time, bring to our notice the chief contents of the book itself, and present to us the leading principles and relations of its more important offices.

The form of the title-page to the American Prayer Book is the same as that of the last revision of the English book, made in 1662, except the substitution in the American title of the name "Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America" for "The

Church of England," and the mention in the English book of "The Ordinal," which does not occur in ours. This form is in all essentials the same also as was given in the first Prayer Book in the English language, that which was "set forth" in 1549, and is generally known as the "1st Book of Edward VI." The second revision of the English book, made in 1552, departed in this, as in many other important particulars, from its predecessor, and made considerable changes in its title. The form of the title-page of 1552, as most of its alterations, passed down with no noticeable variation. until the revision of 1662, also known as "The Annexed Book," which was prepared and set forth by the two Convocations and Parliament after the return of Charles II, but in this revision the original title-page, probably under the influence of Bishop Cosin, was restored, and it has so remained ever since.

The first attempts toward an organization of the Church in the United States after the Revolution, on a national basis, were two so-called General Conventions held in 1785 and 1786. The constitutions which were suggested by these, respectively, and the Prayer Book proposed and published under the authority of the former, all allude to the "title" by which the book referred to should be known, and hence this must have received more or less careful consideration on each of these occasions. In the Convention of 1789, by which our present Constitution and Prayer Book were finally

1 It was so called because in the Act of Parliament, by which it was made a law of the realm, it was spoken of as "the Book annexed and joyned to this present Act." XIV. Carol II, 8 2.