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have been

prayed for desire to re

turn praise.

Ps. cvii. 21, 22.

cxxxix. 14. Rev. iv. 10, 11.

givings for thy late mercies vouchsafed | glorify thy holy Name for this thy
We bless thee for our
unto them.]
creation, preservation, and all the
blessings of this life; but above all,

Ps. lxxi. 6. ciii. for thine inestimable love in the re

2-5.

John iii. 16.

Rev. i. 5, 6.

Acts ii. 41, 42.

1 Pet. i. 3, 4.

1 Sam. xii. 24.

Ps. xi. 5. ix. 1.
Matt. xii. 34, 35.
v. 16.
Rom. xii. 1.
Luke i. 74. 75.
Jude 26, 27.
Rom. xvi. 27.

demption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace,

Col. i. 3-5. 26, 27. and for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up our selves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

Ps. lxv. 1. 9—13.

Hosea vi. 3.

Ps. cxlvii. 8, 9.

civ. 13-15.

Ps. lxviii. 9.

Joel ii. 23, 24. 26. Isa. xii. 1.

Gen. xxxii. 10.

lxxii. 19.

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T For Rain.

GOD our heavenly Father, who by thy gracious providence dost cause the former and the latter rain to descend upon the earth, that it may Ps. cxlv. 9-11. bring forth fruit for the use of man; We give thee humble thanks that it hath pleased thee, in our great necessity, to send us at the last a joyful rain upon thine inheritance, and to refresh it when it was dry, to the great comfort of us thy unworthy servants, and to the glory of thy holy Name; through thy mercies in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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mercy, and will always declare thy loving kindness from generation to generation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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For peace and deliverance from our enemies. ALMIGHTY God, who art a strong tower of defence unto thy servants against the face of their enemies; We yield thee praise and thanksgiving for our deliverance from those great and apparent dangers wherewith we were compassed: We acknowledge it thy goodness that we were not delivered over as a prey unto them; beseeching thee still to continue such thy mercies towards us, that all the world may know that thou art our Saviour and mighty Deliverer; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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For restoring publick peace at home. ETERNAL God, our heavenly Father, who alone makest men to be of one mind in a house, and stillest the outrage of a violent unruly people; We bless thy Name, that it hath pleased thee to appease the seditious tumults which Heb. xiii. 15. have been lately raised up amongst

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35.

and Ps. cxix. 27. 32. holy 1 Tim. i. 1, 2.

Rom. xiii. 1.

1 Pet. ii. 13-17.

Ps. cvii. 21. 22.

Liturgies of Queen Elizabeth" of the Parker Society, p. 667, "I render unto Thee, O Merciful and Heavenly Father, most humble and hearty thanks for Thy manifold mercies so abundantly bestowed upon me, as well for my creation, preservation, regeneration, and all other Thy benefits and great mercies exhibited in Christ Jesus..." But it is possible that there is some older prayer, as yet unnoticed, which was the original of both Queen Elizabeth's and Bishop Reynolds'.

The remarks which have been made respecting the special clause in the "Prayer for all Conditions of Men," apply also to the special clause in the General Thanksgiving.

§ For restoring publick peace at home.

This is to be found in the margin of Cosin's Durham Prayer Book,

1 Chron. xxi.1-7. Ps. lxviii. 21.

xc. 7, 8. Hab. iii. 2.

7, 8. 12.

Rom. xii. 1. Heb. xiii. 15.

Heb. ii. 12.

Eph. iii. 21.

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¶ For deliverance from the Plague, or other common sickness.

LORD God, who hast wounded us for our sins, and consumed us Ps. xxx. 3. cxvi. for our transgressions, by thy late heavy and dreadful visitation; and Ps. lxvi. 13, 14. now, in the midst of judgment remembering mercy, hast redeemed our souls from the jaws of death; We offer unto thy fatherly goodness our selves, our souls and bodies, which thou hast delivered, to be a living sacrifice unto thee, always praising and magnifying

in his handwriting; and is, no doubt, of his composition. There are two changes made in the course of writing it, with the evident object of moulding it in as charitable a form as possible. "Madness of a raging and unreasonable people" was one of the original phrases; and, "grant that we may henceforth live in peace and unity," was another; and both are altered in Cosin's own writing. This Thanksgiving offers another illustration of the restrained and temperate spirit in which the restoration of the Prayer Book and its revision were undertaken by men who

thy mercies in the midst of thy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

WE

TOr this.

Ps. xcv. 8. Lam. iii. 22.

lxxix. 8.

2 Chron. vii. 13, 14.

Ps. cxviii. 15.

Isa.xxxviii.18,19.

Ps. xix. 30.

Luke i. 46, 47.
Heb. xiii. 15.
Gen. xvii. 1.

James iv. 6.
Rom. xiii. 12, 13.
Matt. xxi. 5.

John iii. 19-21.

E humbly acknowledge before Deut. xxviii. 15 thee, O most merciful Father, Prov. xxviii. 14. that all the punishments which are Ps. cxlv. 9. threatened in thy law might justly 1 Kings xxi. 29. have fallen upon us, by reason of our Ps. xxx. 2. 11, 12. manifold transgressions and hardness Neh. ix. 5. of heart; Yet seeing it hath pleased thee of thy tender mercy, upon our weak and unworthy humiliation, to assuage the contagious sickness wherewith we lately have been sore afflicted, and to restore the voice of joy and Matt. xxv. 31, 32. health into our dwellings; We offer 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17. unto thy Divine Majesty the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, lauding and magnifying thy glorious Name for such thy preservation and providence over us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

2 Cor. vi. 2.

2 Tim. iv. 1.

Rev. i. 8. xix. 16.

had suffered so much from the "outrage of a violent and unruly people," as Cosin and his coadjutors had suffered for many years.

Except the General Thanksgiving, none of these Occasional Thanksgivings are well adapted to the necessities of present times; and the introduction of several new "Memoria Communes "would be a good work of revision, provided they were worded in language whose suitableness and dignity made them fit to be placed beside more ancient parts of the Prayer Book.

AN INTRODUCTION

TO THE

COLLECTS, EPISTLES, AND GOSPELS.

THE Liturgy consists of a fixed and unvarying portion, and of a portion which varies at least once a week; the fixed part is printed by itself in a later division of the Prayer Book, and the variable part is that included under the title of "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, to be used throughout the year," and now coming under notice.

In the early ages of the Church, the Office of the Holy Communion was contained in several separate volumes, one for the Epistles, called the Comes, Lectionarius, or Epistolarium; another for the Gospels, called the Evangelistarium; a third for the Anthems, called the Antiphonarius, or Gradual; and a fourth for the fixed part of the Service and the Collects, which went by the name of the Liber Sacramentorum, or Sacramentary. These four separate volumes were eventually united into one, under the name of the Missal; and the two portions of the Prayer Book in which the varying and unvarying parts of the Communion Service are contained, constitute, in fact, the Missal of the Church of England, which is almost universally bound in a separate form for use at the Altar.

The modern arrangement of these variable parts of the Liturgy is derived directly from the ancient Missals of the Church of England, of which the principal one was that of Salisbury. Like the rest of the Prayer Book, it has undergone some condensation. Offertory sentences were formerly placed in this part of the Liturgy, but are now collected into the unvary. ing portion. There was also a short Anthem, or Gradual (with its response), placed after every Epistle, and a Collect called "Postcommunio," but both of these have been discontinued. The Introit, or Officium, was likewise appointed for every celebration of the Holy Communion, and a short Anthem to be sung during the Administration. In the first Prayer Book, the Introits were taken from the Psalms 2, and were all printed before the

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Collect; but Hymns have been generally substituted since their omission. The "Communio" was also fixed in the first Prayer Book, being the Anthem, "O Lamb of God, which takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us;" and for this, a soft and solemn organ voluntary seems to have been afterwards substituted, such as is still to be heard at Durham Cathedral and elsewhere during the Administration.

This arrangement of the variable parts of the Communion Service is, however, much more ancient than the Salisbury Missal. The selection of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays and some of the other Holy Days is attributed to St. Jerome in the fourth century; and most of the Collects come to us originally from the Sacramentaries of St. Leo, Gelasius, and St. Gregory; the last of whom died A.D. 604.

§ Collects.

The Collects which are now used in the Communion Service appear to be the growth of the fifth and sixth centuries, as is stated above; though it is far from being improbable that the Sacramentaries of that date were, to a large extent, compilations of previously existing forms, rather than original compositions of those whose names they bear. These Sacramentaries have the appearance of methodizing and rearranging established customs and formularies; and there is an antecedent improbability in the statement that SS. Leo, Gregory, or any other single individual, invented so large a body of public devotions, and wrought so great a revolution in the habits of the Church, as to bring it suddenly into use. Cardinal Bona [Rer. Liturg., ii. 5; iv.] gives some evidence in support of the supposed Apostolic origin of the form of prayer known by the name of Collect, though he thinks the general tradition of the Christian world a sufficient proof that Gelasius and St. Gregory composed those now in use.

It may be considered an argument against this theory of Apostolic origin, that the Collect is a form of prayer unknown in the Eastern Church, which has always been so conservative with regard to its ancient customs and formularies. But Archdeacon Freeman has shown that there is a distinct likeness between certain kinds of hymns (called "Exaposteilaria ") of the Eastern Church, and the Collects of the Western, by which a common

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INTROITS.

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odio.

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Vide humilitatem.

St. Andrew, Apostle

St. Thomas, Apostle Conversion of St. Paul Purification of St. Mary, Virg.

origin seems to be indicated; and he gives the following hymns at Lauds on Easter Day as an example [Princip. of Div. Serv., i. 142]:

"Thou, O Lord, that didst endure the cross, and didst abolish death, and didst rise again from the dead, give peace in our life, as only Almighty."

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Thou, O Christ, Who didst raise man by Thy resurrection, vouchsafe that we may with pure hearts hymn and glorify Thee."

Although the variable Exaposteilaria in actual use are attributed to a ritualist of the tenth century, Archdeacon Freeman considers that they represent a much older system of precatory hymns, and quotes from Dr. Neale, that the aim of them "seems originally to have been a kind of invocation of the grace of God," which is a special feature of Collects.

It is not quite correct, therefore, to say that such a form of prayer is wholly unknown in the Eastern Church; and this argument against the primitive antiquity of it cannot be considered to have much force.

There are two, and only two, prayers of the Church given in the New Testament. Both of these are in the Acts of the Apostles, and both of them have a striking similarity to the prayers we now know as Collects. The first is in Acts i. 24, 25, "Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two Thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place." The second is in Acts iv. 24, "Lord, Thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: Who by the mouth of Thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ. For of a truth against Thy holy Child Jesus, Whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever Thy hand and counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto Thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak Thy word, by stretching forth Thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of Thy holy Child Jesus." In both of these prayers, the address, or invocation, is a prominent feature; and in the latter it occupies more than two-thirds of the whole prayer; while the actual supplication itself, though in both cases of the highest importance possible, is condensed into a few simple words. These Apostolic prayers, therefore, bear a great resemblance to Collects, and might not unreasonably be spoken of as the earliest on record.

But the real model of this form of prayer is to be found in a still higher quarter, the Lord's Prayer itself. If we compare some of the best of our ancient or modern collects (as, for instance, the Collect for Whitsunday, which has been familiarly known to the Church in her daily Service for at least twelve centuries and a half, or that for the Sunday after Ascension, which is partly of Reformation date) with the Prayer of Prayers, we shall find in both that the tone is chiefly that of adoration, and subordinately that of supplication; and, also, that the human prayer follows the Divine pattern in the adoption of a condensed form of expression, which is in strict accordance with the injunction, "God is in heaven, and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few." Such a comparison will bring home a conviction to the mind, that when we use this terse form of mixed adoration and prayer, we are not far from carrying out, with literal exactness, the still more authoritative injunction of Him who gave us His own prayer as the type of all others, "After this manner, therefore, pray ye'."

The origin of the name "Collect" is uncertain; and various meanings have been given to it. Some ritualists have connected

It is an ancient rule of the Church to have an uneven number of Collects. Micrologus [iv.] says that either one, three, five, or seven are used : one from tradition; three, because our Lord prayed thrice in His agony; five, because of His fivefold Passion; seven, because there are seven petitions in the Lord's Prayer.

it with the collected assembly 2 of the people; others have interpreted the name as indicating that the prayer so called collects together the topics of previous prayers, or else those of the Epistle and Gospel for the day. But the most reasonable interpretation seems to be that which distinguishes the Collect as the prayer offered by the priest alone on behalf of the people, while in Litanies and Versicles, the priest and the people pray alternately. This interpretation is found in Bona, Rer. Liturg., ii. 5. iii., Durand. iii. 13, and Micrologus, iii.; the words of the latter being, "Oratio quam Collectam dicunt, eo quod sacerdos, qui legatione fungitur pro populo ad Dominum omnium petitiones ea oratione colligit atque concludit." As of Common Prayer, in general, so we may conclude especially of the Collect, in particular, that it is the supplication of many gathered into one by the voice of the priest, and offered up by him to the Father, through our Lord and only Mediator 3.

There is a very exact and definite character in the structure of Collects; so exact, that certain rules have been deduced from these prayers of the Saints for the construction of others, as rules of grammar are deduced from classic writers.

First, may be mentioned the characteristics which distinguish this special form of prayer, and which have been loosely mentioned above :

1. A Collect consists of a single period, seldom a long one. 2. A single petition only is offered in it.

3. Mention is made of our Lord's Mediation; or else 4. It ends with an ascription of praise to God. These features of the Collect at once distinguish it from the long and often involved forms of Eastern prayers, and also from the precatory meditations which became so familiar to English people in the seventeenth century; and the chastened yet comprehensive character of Collects is owing, in no small degree, to the necessities imposed upon the writers of them by this structure.

This general outline of the Collect developes itself in detail on a plan of which the most perfect form may be represented by two of our finest specimens, the one as old as the Sacramentary of St. Gregory, in the sixth century, the other composed by Bishop Cosin, more than a thousand years later.

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3 So in the old "Mirrour," or commentary on the Divine Offices, the explauation of the word is given thus: "Yt is as moche as to saye a gatherynge togyther, for before thys prayer ye dresse you to god, and gather you in onhed to pray in the person of holy chirche, that ye sholde be the soner harde." And with respect to the ending the explanation is very properly given: "Ye ende all youre orysons by oure lorde Jesu cryste, and in hys blyssed name, by cause he sayde in his gospel, that what euer ye aske the father in my name, he shall gyue yt you." fol. Ixxiii.

some fact of Gospel history, which is to be commemorated. Upon this foundation so laid down, rises the petition or body of the prayer. Then, in a perfect specimen... the petition has the wings of a holy aspiration given to it, whereupon it may soar to heaven. Then follows the conclusion, which, in the case of prayers not addressed to the Mediator, is always through the Mediator, and which sometimes involves a Doxology, or ascription of praise." This last member of the Collect has, indeed, always been constructed with great care, and according to rules which were put into the form of memorial verses, at a period when it was the custom to write the Collect in a short form, and only to indicate the ending by "per," "Qui vivis,” “ per eundem," or whatever else were its first word or words. One of these aids to memory is as follows:

"Per Dominum,' dicas si Patrem Presbyter oras.
Si Christum memores 'per Eundem,' dicere debes.
Si loqueris Christo 'Qui vivis,' scire memento;
'Qui Tecum,' si sit collectæ finis in Ipso;

Si memores Flamen; Ejusdem,' dic prope finem 2." Illustrations of these endings will be found in the Collects for the Epiphany, the Nativity, Easter Day, and Whitsunday.

The number of the variable Collects in the Book of Common Prayer is eighty-three. These are all traced to their original sources, so far as they have been discovered, in the following pages; and it will be observed, that fifty-nine out of the eightythree have come to us through the Sarum Missal, from the ancient Sacramentaries; all but one of that number being contained in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory. Of the remaining twenty-four, the germ and spirit, and often the language, may be found in ancient Liturgical forms; and the sixteen of the twenty-four, of which no such origin is indicated in the following pages, will perhaps be discovered, by future research, to be either translations or adaptations. Only one new Collect, that for St. Andrew's Day, was inserted in 1552; and only four in 1661. The latter are written in the margin of Bishop Cosin's Durham Book, in his handwriting. That for St. Stephen's Day he adapted from one (in the Scottish Prayer Book) which is attributed to Archbishop Laud, while those for the Third Sunday in Advent, the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and Easter Even, are either composed by himself, or derived from some ancient originals which have not been identified.

The primary use of the Collect is to give a distinctive tone to the Eucharistic Service, striking the key-note of prayer for the particular occasion on which the Sacrifice is offered. But by the constant use of it in its appointed place in the Daily Mattins and Evensong, it also extends this Eucharistic speciality into the other public Services of the Church, and carries it forward from one celebration to another, linking these offices on to the chief Service and Offering which the Church has to render to Almighty God. "Used after such celebration, the Collect is endued with a wonderful power for carrying on through the week the peculiar Eucharistic memories and work of the preceding Sunday, or of a Festival. Under whatsoever engaging or aweing aspect our Lord has more especially come to us then in virtue of the appointed Scriptures, the gracious and healthful visitation lives on in memory, nay, is prolonged in fact. Or in whatever special respect, again, suggested by these same Scriptures, and embodied for us in the Collect, we have desired to present ourselves 'a

1 Goulburn on the Communion Office, p. 37.

2 A much longer form may be found at p. 73 of Chambers' Sarum Psalter, with an elaborate note on the subject. The following rules may prove sufficient for practical purposes at the present day :

1) Collects addressed to God the Father should end:-"Through Jesus Christ our Lord [or if our Lord has been previously mentioned :- Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord '], Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the [or if the Holy Ghost has been previously mentioned:- The same'] Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen."

2) Collects addressed to God the Son should end:-"Who livest and reignest with the Father and the [or the same'] Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen."

3) Collects addressed to the Blessed Trinity should end :-"Who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen."

Some other variations, as "Where with Thee," after the mention of Heaven, will suggest themselves.

holy and lively sacrifice' in that high ordinance, the same oblation of ourselves do we carry on and perpetuate by it. Through the Collect, in a word, we lay continually upon the altar our present sacrifice and service, and receive, in a manner, from the altar, a continuation of the heavenly gift 3." Thus it is a constant memorial before God of the great Memorial which joins on the work of the Church on earth to the intercession of our Mediator in heaven; and it is also a memorial to the mind of every worshipper of the sanctification which is brought upon all our days and all our prayers by the Sacramental Presence of our Blessed Lord. [See also p. 24.]

§ The Epistles and Gospels.

The Holy Communion was celebrated and received by the faithful for nearly twenty years before St. Paul wrote his first Epistle, and for nearly thirty years before the first Gospel was written by St. Matthew; and none of the Gospels or Epistles are likely to have been generally known in the Church until even a much later time. The Scriptures of the New Testament did not, therefore, form any part of the original Liturgies. It has been supposed by many ritualists, that portions of the Old Testament were read at the time of the celebration: and the gradual introduction of our present system is indicated by the usage shown in an Irish Communion Book of the sixth century, which has one unvarying Epistle and Gospel, 1 Cor. xi., and St. John vi. This system is attributed to St. Jerome by the almost unanimous voice of ancient writers on the Divine Service of the Church; and a very ancient Book of Epistles and Gospels exists, called the Comes, which has gone by the name of St. Jerome at least since the time of Amalarius and Micrologus, in the ninth and eleventh centuries.

The antiquity of the Comes Hieronymi has been disputed, chiefly because the system of Epistles and Gospels which it contains differs from that of the Roman rite; but there seem to be several good reasons for supposing that it really belongs to as early a time as that of St. Jerome; and as its system agrees with the old and modern English one, where it differs from the Roman, the question has a special interest in connexion with the Book of Common Prayer.

This ancient Lectionary, or Comes, was published by Pamelius in the second volume of his Liturgicon Ecclesiæ Latinæ, under the title, Divi Hieronymi presbyteri Comes sive Lectionarius : and is also to be found in the eleventh volume of St. Jerome's Works, p. 526. It contains Epistles and Gospels for all the Sundays of the year, the Festivals of our Lord, some other Festivals, and many Ferial days. It is some evidence in favour of its great antiquity that no saints are commemorated in it of a later date than the time of St. Jerome: and that the Epiphany is called by the name of the Theophania, a name which was discontinued not long after in the Western Church. The Comes is mentioned in the Charta Cornutiana, a foundation deed belonging to a Church in France, and printed by Mabillon [Lit. Gall. Pref. vii.], and this charter is as early as A.D. 471. It is mentioned by Amalarius [iii. 40], who wrote A.D. 820; and in Micrologus [xxv.], a liturgical treatise of about A.D. 1080, it is spoken of as "Liber Comitis sive Lectionarius, quem Sanctus Hieronymus compaginavit:" while about the same time Beleth writes that Pope Damasus requested St. Jerome to make a selection of Scriptures from the Old and New Testament to be read in the Church. The latter statement derives confirmation from the fact, that before the time of Damasus [A.D. 366-384] the Fathers cite Scripture without giving any indications of such a selection being in use: while after that time there are such indications in the writings of SS. Ambrose, Augustine, Leo, Salvian, and Cæsarius; the three latter of whom were accustomed to use St. Jerome's version of the Scriptures, and not the Septuagint. All this seems to show that there is much to be said for the ancient statement, that

Principles of Div. Serv. i. 369.

4 On the other hand, there are those who believe that many expressions in the New Testament Scriptures are derived from Liturgies known to and used by the Apostles. See an Essay on Liturgical quotations in Neale's Liturgiology, pp. 411-474,

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