Restoration of the

Proclama

tion forbidding preaching.

which allowed the Gospel and Epistle, and the Ten Reformation. Commandments, to be read in English, but without any exposition; and forbade any other manner of public prayer, rite, or ceremony in the church, but that which is already used, and by law received, or the common Litany used at this present in her Majesty's own chapel,1 and the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed in English, until Sanctioning consultation may be had by Parliament. 12 Besides the introduction of the Litany in English into her own chapel, it is said that the Queen had on Christmas-day commanded Oglethorpe, bishop of Carlisle, when standing ready to say mass before her, not to elevate the consecrated host, because she liked not the ceremony.3

the Litany in English.

Lord-Keeper's Speech at the

opening of

To the same effect was the speech of the Lord-Keeper Bacon at the opening of Parliament (Jan. 25, 1559); Parliament. that laws should be made for the according and uniting of the people into an uniform order of religion: . . that nothing be advised or done which anyway in continuance of time were likely to breed or nourish any kind of idolatry or superstition; so on the other side heed.

'The Litany, used in the Queen's Majesty's chapel, according to the tenor of the Proclamation, 1559,' is reprinted in Lit. Services of Q. Elizabeth (Park. Soc.). 'A Confession' is prefixed, being the Confession in the Communion Service adapted to individual use: after the prayer, 'We humbly beseech thee, O Father,' &c. follows A prayer for the Queen's Majesty;' then the prayer for the clergy and people; then 'A Prayer of Chrysostome,' and 'ii. Cor. xiii.' with the note, 'Here endeth the Litany used in the Queen's Chapel.' After this are prayers, 'For Rain, if the time require,' For fair Weather,' In the time of Dearth or Famine,' "In the time of War,' 'In the time of any common Plague or Sickness,' the collect, O God, whose nature

·

and property,' &c., The Lord's Prayer, The Creed, The Ten Commandments, Graces before and after meat; ending with the words, 'God save the universal Church, and preserve our most gracious Queen Elizabeth, and the realm, and send us peace in our Lord Jesus, Amen.' This Litany, with its arrangement of collects, is an amended edition of the unauthorized (?) Litany mentioned above. Being printed for general use, other prayers were added, and the book made to par take of the nature of a Primer.

2 Cardwell, Doc. Ann. XLII. C£ Zurich Lett. VI. Jewel to P. Martyr,

3 Strype, Annals, ch. ii. p. 50. See Heylin, Hist. Ref. (Eccl. Hist. Soc.) II. p. 272, note.

Committee of
Divines.

Guest takes a leading part under

is to be taken, that by no licentious or loose handling Revision by any manner of occasion be given whereby any contempt or irreverent behaviour towards God and godly things, or any spice of irreligion, might creep in or be conceived." These were the views by which the alterations now made in the Prayer Book were guided. If we may judge by the result, it seems to have been considered that Edward's first Book did not entirely preclude the possibility of superstition, and that his second Book went within the limits of danger of irreverence. The parties openly engaged in the revisal were the committee of divines and the royal council; but the work may be traced to fewer hands, Secretary Cecil having the general supervision, and Guest2 being appointed by him to take a leading part among the select divines. Archbishop Parker was absent from the deliberations through sickness; but Guest was appointed in his place with especial instructions 'to compare both K. Edward's Communion Books together, and from them both to frame a book for the use of the Church of England, by correcting and amending, altering, and adding, or taking away, according to his judgment and the ancient Liturgies. '3 When the book was completed by the divines, Guest wrote an explanatory letter to Cecil, in which he seems to refer to a paper of leading questions, which had been put before him by the Secretary, and gives the reasons which had guided him in disallowing those suggestions. He speaks, too, in his own person, as

1 Strype, Annals, ch. ii. p. 54; D'Ewes, Journals, p. 12.

2 A very learned man, afterwards archdeacon of Canterbury, the Queen's almoner, and bishop of Rochester.' Strype, ib. p. 82. 3 Ibid. p. 82.

4 Ceremonies once taken away, as ill used, should not be taken again.

Of the cross: no image should be
used in the church. Procession is
superfluous; it is better to pray in
the church. Because it is sufficient
to use but a surplice in baptizing,
reading, preaching, and praying,
therefore it is enough also for the
celebrating the Communion. Non-
communicants should be dismissed

Cecil.

L

Committee of
Divines.

favour Puritan opinions,

Revision by though the revision had been especially his work. It is clear from this letter that the book, in the shape in which it left the committee of divines, was more favourable to Puritan opinions than was agreeable to the The Divines Queen or to her Secretary. The surplice was allowed, but no vestment was to be peculiarly used at the Communion; and the posture of communicants, standing or kneeling, was left as a thing indifferent. These things were altered in the book, as authorized by Parliament; and it does not appear that either House did more than read and approve the book in the form in which it was laid before them. It is most probable, from the known. sentiments and subsequent conduct of the Queen, that these changes were ordered by herself and her Council;1 and that the book was then laid before Parliament,2

but are overruled by the Court.

before the consecration, and (as it
seems) after the offertory. The Creed
is ordained to be said only of the
communicants. Prayer for the dead
is not used, because it seems to make
for sacrifice as used in the first
Book, it makes some of the faithful
to be in heaven, and to need no
mercy, and some of them to be in
another place, and to lack help and
mercy. The Prayer (in the first
Book) for Consecration, O merciful
Father, &c.,' is to be disliked, be-
cause it is taken to be so needful
to the consecration, that the conse-
cration is not thought to be without
it: which is not true; for petition is
no part of consecration: Christ in
ordaining the Sacrament made no
petition, but a thanksgiving. The
sacrament is to be received in our
hands. The old use of the Church
was to communicate standing; yet
because it is taken of some by itself
to be sin to receive kneeling, whereas
of itself it is lawful, it is left indif-
ferent to every man's choice to follow
the one way or the other, to teach
men that it is lawful to receive

either standing or kneeling.
Annals, I. Append. xiv.

Strype,

1 Cardwell, Conferences, p. 21. 2 The statute (1 Eliz. c. 2, April 28, 1559) repealed the Act of Mary, which had repealed the Act (5 and 6 Ed. VI. c. 1) 'to the great decay of the due honour of God, and discomfort to the professors of the truth of Christ's religion' (§ 1); and thus the second Prayer Book of Edward VI. was re-established,

with one alteration, or addition of certain Lessons to be used on every Sunday in the year, and the form of the Litany altered and corrected, and two sentences only added in the delivery of the Sacrament to the communicants, and none other or otherwise' (§ 2). With the further proviso, 'that such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use, as was in this Church of England, ¦ by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of K. Edw. VI., until other order shall be therein taken,' &c. (§ 13). The copies printed in this year (1559)

which showed itself quite willing to accept the royal amendments, and authorized the Queen to ordain further ceremonies, if the orders appointed in the book should be contemned or irreverently used.1 The following variations of the Elizabethan from Edward's second Prayer Book were noted by Archbishop Parker2 for the Lord Treasurer Burghley. The first rubric now directed 'the Morning and Evening Prayer to be used in the accustomed place of the church, chapel, or chancel,' instead of 'in such place as the people may best hear. The second rubric had forbidden all ecclesiastical vestments but the rochet and the surplice: the minister was now directed, at the time of Communion, and at all other times in his ministration, to use such ornaments in the church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of K. Edward VI. In the Litany the words, 'from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities,' were omitted; and the suffrage for the Queen was altered by the addition of the words, strengthen in the true worshipping of thee, in righteousness, and holiness of life. The prayers for the Queen, and for the clergy and people, with the collect, O God, whose nature and property, &c., were now placed at the end of the Litany: of two collects for time of Dearth, one was omitted, as also was the note to the Prayer of St. Chrysostom, 'and the Litany shall ever end with this collect following.' In the Communion Service the words used at the delivery of the elements to the communicant combined the forms of Edward's first and second Books.3 Besides these

differ from each other in small particulars, chiefly in the collects at the end of the Litany. See Liturg. Services of Q. Eliz. (Park. Soc.), and Mr. Clay's Pref. pp. xii.-xv.

1 Some changes were made under this authority, such as a new Calendar

Alterations

made in 1559.

The Ordi

nal.

The Prayer Book generally accepted by the clergy.

variations, Elizabeth was now styled 'our gracious Queen ;' and the Declaration touching kneeling at the communion was omitted.1

The Ordinal differed from that of 1552 only in the form of the oath. It is styled 'The Oath of the Queen's sovereignty,' instead of 'The Oath of the King's supremacy;' and it is directed 'against the power and authority of all foreign potentates,' instead of 'against the usurped power and authority of the bishop of Rome.'

The Act of Uniformity specified the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist as the day on which the revised Prayer Book was to be used. Parliament was dissolved May 8; and on the Sunday following (May 12) the Queen caused it to be read in her chapel, and on the following Wednesday it was read before 'a very august assembly of the court, at St. Paul's.' 2

This restoration of. the reformed Service did not meet with any very strong opposition. At the third reading of the bill (April 28) only nine bishops and nine temporal peers dissented; and, of the whole body of 9400 clergy, it appears that not more than 189 refused to conform, and resigned their benefices.3

In the summer of this year royal Visitation was ordered, with the intention of suppressing superstition, and planting true religion, to the extirpation of all hypo

1 Though omitted from the Prayer Book, this Declaration was not forgotten: Bishops Grindal and Horne in 1567 say that it continued to be 'most diligently declared, published, and impressed upon the people,' Zurich Letters, LXXV. vol. 1. p. 180 (Park. Soc.)

2 Strype, Grindal, p. 24.

3 D'Ewes (Journals, p. 23) says that only 177 left their livings to continue in their Romish idolatry. Probably this number is exclusive

of bishops and the abbot of Westminster. Strype (Annals, ch. xii. p. 172) gives as the result of the visitation towards the close of the year, that 'of the clergy (i.e. bishops, abbots, heads of colleges, prebendaries, and rectors) the commissioners brought in but 189 throughout the whole nation that refused com. pliance.' See also Soames, Hist. Reform. IV. 665 sq.; Freeman, Principles, II. p. 136.