intending communicants were directed to “tarry still in the quire or in some convenient place nigh the quire”; in the prayer “for the whole state of Christ's church,” the blessed Virgin Mary was commemorated by name among departed saints; prayer for the departed was explicitly retained; also an invocation of the Holy Spirit before the words of institution, the prayer of oblation immediately following them. The mixed chalice was ordered to be used, and the Agnus Dei to be sung during the Communion of the people. A large selection of short scriptural post-Communions was provided. Unleavened bread was to be used and placed not in the hand but in the mouth of the communicant. The sign of the cross was to be made not only in the Eucharistic consecration prayer, but also in Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Matrimony and the Visitation of the Sick. Reservation for the sick and unction of the sick were retained; and exorcism, unction, trine immersion and the chrisom were included in the baptismal service. The prayer in the burial service, as in the Communion service, contained distinct intercessions for the departed; and a form of Holy Communion was provided for use at funerals with proper introit, collect, epistle and gospel.
As to vestments, in the choir offices, the surplice only was to be used; the hood being added in cathedrals and colleges; and by all graduates when preaching, everywhere.
At Holy Communion the officiating priest was to wear “a white Albe plain with a vestment or Cope,” and the assistant clergy were to wear “Albes with tunicles.” Whenever a bishop was celebrant he was to wear, “beside his rochette, a surplice or albe, and a cope or vestment,” and also to carry “his pastoral staff in his hand, or else borne or holden by his chaplain.” The mitre was not mentioned.
The ordinal was not attached to this Prayer Book at its first appearance, but it was added under another act of parliament in the following year, 1550. It was very similar to the present ordinal except that the words “for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the Imposition of our hands” were wanting, and the chalice or cup with the bread were delivered, as well as a Bible, to each newly-ordained priest.
We pass on to 1552 when a new and revised edition of the Prayer Book was introduced by an act of parliament which ordered that it should come into use on All Saints' Day (Nov. 1). The alterations made in it were many and important, and as they represent the furthest point ever reached by the Prayer Book in a Protestant direction, they deserve special mention and attention.
1. The introductory sentences, exhortation, confession and absolution were prefixed to the Order for Morning Prayer daily throughout the year and ordered to be read before Evening Prayer as well. Alternative Psalms were provided for Benedictus, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis.
2. Numerous and most important alterations were made in the Order for Holy Communion, in the title of which the words “commonly called the Mass” were left out. (a) The Introits were omitted. (b) Gloria in excelsis was transferred from near the beginning to near the end of the service. (c) The ten commandments with an expanded tenfold Kyrie eleison were introduced. (d) The long new English canon of 1549 was split up into three parts: the first part becoming the prayer for the church militant; the second part becoming the prayer of consecration, the third part, or prayer of oblation, becoming the first post-Communion collect; the epiklesis or invocation of the Holy Ghost upon the elements was entirely omitted. (e) The mixed chalice, the use of the sign of the cross in the consecration prayer; the commemoration of the blessed Virgin Mary and of various classes of saints were omitted. (f) The Agnus Dei and the post-Communion anthems were omitted. (g) The words of administration in the 1549 book were abolished, viz.: “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life,” and “The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life,” and the following words were substituted: “Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving,” and “Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.” (h) A long rubric was added at the end of the service explanatory of the attitude of kneeling at the reception of Holy Communion, in which it was stated that “it is not meant hereby that any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and Wine there bodily received, or to any real and essential presence there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood,” &c. (i) Exorcism, unction, trine immersion and the chrisom were omitted from the baptismal service. (k) Unction and communion with the reserved sacrament were removed from the services for the visitation and the communion of the sick. (l) Prayers for the dead and provision for a celebration of Holy Communion at a funeral were removed from the burial service. (m) The vestments retained and ordered under the Prayer Book of 1549 were abolished by a new rubric which directed that both at the time of Communion and at all other times of ministration a bishop should wear a rochet and that a priest or deacon should have and wear a surplice only; (n) on the other hand, the directions as to daily service were extended to all clergy and made much stricter, (o) and the number of days on which the Athanasian Creed was to be used was raised from six to thirteen.
The main objects of these drastic alterations have been thought to have been two-fold.
1. To abolish all ritual for which there was not scriptural warrant. If this was their object it was not consistently or completely carried out. No scriptural warrant can be found for the use of the surplice, or for the use of the sign of the cross in baptism, both of which were retained.
2. To make the services as unlike the pre-Reformation services as possible. This object too was not fully attained; no liturgical precedent can be found for the violent dislocation of certain parts of the Order for Holy Communion, especially in the case of the prayer of oblation and of the Gloria in Excelsis; but the orders for Morning and Evening Prayer and the Holy Communion retained features of the Breviary and Missal services, the bulk of their component material being still drawn from them. While the alterations, therefore, were violent enough to alarm and offend the Catholic party, they were not violent enough to satisfy the extreme Puritan party, who would no doubt have agitated for and would probably have obtained still further reformation and revision. But this Prayer Book only lived for eight months. It came into use on All Saints' Day (Nov. 1) 1552, and on the 6th of July 1553 Edward VI. died and was succeeded by his sister Mary, under whom the Prayer Book was abolished and the old Latin services and service books resumed their place.
On the death of Queen Mary and the accession of her sister Elizabeth (Nov. 17, 1558) all was reversed, and the Book of Common Prayer was restored into use again.
The Act of Uniformity, which obtained final parliamentary authority on the 28th of April 1559, ordered that the Prayer Book should come again into use on St John the Baptist's Day (June 24, 1559). This was the second Prayer Book of King Edward VI., with the following few but important alterations, which, like all the alterations introduced at subsequent dates into the Prayer Book, were in a Catholic rather than in a Protestant direction.
1. Morning and Evening Prayer were directed to be “used in the accustomed place of the church, chapel or chancel,” instead of “in such place as the people may best hear.”
2. The rubric ordering the use of the rochet only by the bishop and of surplice only by a priest or deacon was abolished. The Eucharistic vestments ordered in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. were brought back by a new rubric which directed that “the minister at the time of the communion and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such vestments in the church as were in use by authority of parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the VI. according to the act of parliament set in the beginning of this book.”
3. In the Litany the following petition found in both the
