which is here assembled in Thy Name, to celebrate the com- CHAP. memoration of the most glorious death of Thy Son." : Scotch Liturgy. And we also bless Thy holy Name for all those Thy servants, who, having finished their course in faith, do now rest from their labours. And we yield unto Thee most high praise and hearty thanks, for 1 B. of Edw. VI. And here we do give unto Thee most high praise and hearty thanks, for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all Thy saints from the beginning of the world. And chiefly in the glorious and most blessed (T) Virgin the wonderful grace and virMary, mother of Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord and God, and in the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, whose examples, O Lord, and stedfastness in Thy faith, and keeping Thy holy commandments, grant us to follow we commend unto Thy mercy, O Lord, all other Thy servants, which are (V) 159 departed from us with the sign of faith, and now rest in the sleep of peace; grant unto them, we beseech Thee, Thy mercy and everlasting peace, and that at the day of the general resurrection we, and all they which be of the mystical body of Thy Son, may all together be set on His right hand, and hear that His most joyful voice, Come ye blessed of My Father, and possess the kingdom which is prepared for you, from the beginning of the world. tue declared in all Thy saints, Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen. .VI. ANNOTATIONS UPON VI. CHAPTER VI. CHAP. (A) Immediately after,' what meant by it. A bell usually rang betwixt morning prayer and the sermon; so also in Scotland. (B) Notorium' what; who notorious offenders in the sense of our Church. The hundred and ninth canon; the committee, 1641; the ordinance of parliament, October 20th, 1645; the imperial law; primitive practice; our Saviour's precedent in admitting Judas. The main reason for free admission. (C) Charity how necessary to a communicant. One loaf in the primitive Church. Agapæ. The holy kiss. (D) The table where to stand in Communion time. (E) The Lord's Prayer always part of the Communion office. (F) The Ten Commandments, with their responses, a laudable part of our service. (G) Epistles, their ground. (H) 'Glory be to Thee, O Lord,' its ancient use. (I) Standing up at the gospel very ancient, why appointed, what posture anciently used at the lessons read, and word preached. Africa differed from other Churches. (K) The Nicene Creed. Creeds enlarged in articles as heresies sprung up. The ancients observed no strict formulas. The Hierosolymitan Creed compared with other parcels of antiquity. No creed in the ancient service of the eastern Church till anno 511, nor till after that in the service of the western. (L) Postils, why so called. Bidding of prayers before the sermon. The original ground of them. An ancient form thereof. Preachers varied therein. Bidding and praying, all one in effect. Prayer before the sermon in the primitive Church. St. Ambrose's form. The people also prayed for the preacher. In the first times many preached one after another in one forenoon. The ancient homilies avoid thorny subtilties and nice questions. King James's order recommended to present practice. (M) A discourse upon the eighteenth canon of the council of Laodicea. The order of divine service then. The prayer for the catechumens began the service. Its formula out of Chrysostom. The Communion did not begin in the eastern Church upon the dismission of the catechumens. The several dismissions of that Church. All comprehended in the Missa Catechumenon of the western Church. Διὰ σιωπῆς, what, προσφώνησις. (N) Four offerings at the Communion. 'Ayárα, alms a constant concomitant, not accepted from all. Difference in the offertory sentences betwixt the Scotch service and ours, whence derived. (0) Two offerings intended by our Church. Oblations, how distributed in the primitive Church. Sportulantes fratres,' who. Mr. Selden's mistake. Oblations ceased not upon 161 VI. the payment of tithes. (P) Oblations anciently brought to the altar. CHAP. The chest for alms, where placed in the beginning of the Reformation. 162 (Q) Offering days, what. Collar days at court. Hermanus. (R) Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church. Many ancient formulas thereof. (S) Dyptichs, rolls, not tables. (T) Commemoration of the dead. Innocent at first, but after abused. (V) Two sorts of dead commemorated. The commemoration anciently used after the elements were consecrated. Why the order transposed by our reformers. A Or immediately after.] A great question there hath been of late about the alliance of this word 'after,' and to what it should relate; one would have it applied to the beginning of morning prayer, as if it had been said, 'immediately after the beginning of morning prayer,' and videtur quod sic, because the Latin translator hath in this particular assumed the office of an interpreter, rendering it, immediate post principium matutinarum precum. This notwithstanding, I approve rather of their sense who make it relative to morning prayer, and suppose as if the structure were immediately after morning prayer, that is, when it is ended: and this, I take it, is plainly inferrible from the very scope of this rubric, which was not, as some may think, to allot some space of time to make provision according to the number of the communicants; for the interstitium between the beginning of morning prayer and the time of the Communion, is so slender a space for the provision of those elements, as should there be a want, not half the country villages in this kingdom can be timely supplied therewith. No, it is clearly otherwise, and that the design was, that the curate might have timely notice of the several persons offering themselves to the Communion, and consequently might persuade notorious offenders, or malicious persons to abstain, and if obstinate, absolutely reject them according to the purport of the two rubrics following; for that those two rubrics are of the same syntax and coherence with this, the relative pronoun 'those' infallibly implieth, for what 'those?' but they who were ordered before to give in their names over night, or else in the morning, before the beginning of morning prayer, or immediately after. Now how could the curate possibly confer with such notorious evil livers, or malicious persons, between the beginning of morning prayer (which employed him wholly) and the Communion, VI. CHAP. unless there were some vacation allowed him between those two offices; and that such a convenient space was allotted to intervene, is evident by the practice of those times. For the morning prayer and Communion were not continued as one entire service, but abrupt, broken off, and distinct, each office from the other, by these words, "thus endeth the order of morning and evening prayer:" this was done, that the holyday service might be separated from the weekly. Whether or not the congregation departed hence upon Sundays and holy-days after the end of morning prayer, and returned again to the Communion Service, I will not positively determine, I rather think not; because the authors of the Admonition, whose captious curiosity nothing could escape which seemed to promove their beloved quarrel, have these words, "We speak not of ringing when matins is done," which could not administer the least show of blame, had it been done in absence of the assembly, or had not the congregation been then religiously employed: for this bell was usually rung in the time of the second service, viz. the litany, to give notice to the people, not that the Communion Service, as hath been supposed, but that the sermon was then coming on. "All ringing and knolling of bells, in the time of the litany, high Mass," &c. was interdicted by the injunctions of Edward VI.a and Queen Elizabeth, "except one bell in convenient time to be rung before the sermon:" in reference to the sermon only it was rung, called therefore the sermon bell; so that when there was to be no sermon the bell was not rung: and ser- 163 mons were rare, very rare in those days, in some places but once a quarter, and perhaps not then, had not authority strictly enjoined them; which usage of sermon bells hath been practised, and is still, if I mistake not, in some parts of Germany; in Scotland I am sure, or the reverend bishop of Galloway deceives me. Having pursued his narrative through all the divisions of that Church's first service, at length he adds "You hear the third bell ringing, and in this space the reader ceaseth, and at the end of the bell ringing, the preacher will come." There being then, as I have said, so apparent and visible a breach between the first and second service, the a [Injunctions. Edw. VI. 1547. Qu. Eliz. 1559.] b B. Cooper's seventh day's conference. [Opp. 1623.] VI. morning office, and the litany, it is very probable, though the CHAP. assembly did not dissolve, yet was there such a ceasing and rest from sacred employments, as might give the curate time in that interval, both to receive the names of such as intended to communicate, as also to admonish, and in case of obstinacy to repel scandalous persons from that ordinance; sure I am, he was then more at leisure than he could be any other time after morning prayer begun, and before it were ended. B And if any of them be an open and notorious evil liver, &c.] Notorium amongst the civilians and canonists is threefold. First, there is notorium presumptionis, "a notoriousness of presumption," where evidentia rei est evidenter a jure præsumpta, "the evidence of the thing is taken for evident, by presumption of law;" as where it presumeth one to be the son of such a man, because he was born in wedlock. Secondly, there is notorium juris, "a notoriousness of law," when the offence is proved either per confessionem factam in jure, "by confession made in open court," or per sententiam judicis, "by the sentence of the judge." Lastly, there is notorium facti, "a notoriousness of fact," when per evidentiam rei nulla potest tergiversatione celari, "the evidence is so clear, as the accusation can by no shifts be avoided." Now to which of these three the term notorius in this rubric relateth is a great question. The learned prelate, Bishop Andrewes ̊, restraineth it positively to the second: "Our law of England," saith he, "will not suffer the minister to judge any man a notorious offender, but he who is so convinced by some legal sentence;" the law of England will not suffer it, so that should the ecclesiastical permit it, the municipal law would not; and if it comes to an antinomy, a justle between the canon laws of our Church and the law of the land, this it is must overrule. But doth our canon law give any such toleration? Doth it empower any minister to exclude his parishioner (claiming his Christian privilege in those blessed mysteries) from the Sacrament, or to make his private discretion the supreme judge of the notoriousness here mentioned? Certainly no. As for the 26th and 27th canons, which are produced to the contrary, they neither speak explicitly enough, nor do they sufficiently direct in this affair. The canon Notes upon the Common Prayer. [subjoined to Nicholls' Comm.] |