which all others are to be tried. And by comparing them with this the innovations and additions in after times, be they good or bad, will appear."

Being then so valuable a record 52 I cannot think that a reprint of it will be out of place in the present volume. We may refer to it as Hickes has recommended; we may look upon it with Johnson as in substance the apostolic form, and so learn to judge more truly than we otherwise might of other liturgies. As such a guide we may regard it, not to the exclusion of the Jerusalem, or Alexandrian, or Roman 53 (as if these had not also sprung from the teaching and example of apostles), but as containing in an earlier form than is supplied by any extant manuscript those rites which are essential to a valid consecration and perfecting of the eucharist, and without which no service, though it may claim the name, can be allowed to be a Christian liturgy.

Subject to the exception of the omission of the Lord's prayer in the Clementine liturgy-as we now have the text of it in the apostolical constitutionswe may agree with Mabillon's statement, that there were some certain rites and ceremonies to be found in all the liturgies, whether of the east or the west.

52 It is scarcely necessary for me to remind the reader that we have also an equally valuable commentary upon it, in the fifth catechetical lecture of St. Cyril.

53"That there were ancient liturgies in the Church is evident: St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, and others and though we find not in all ages whole liturgies, yet it is certain that there were such in the oldest times, by those parts which are extant: as 'Sur

sum corda,' 'Vere dignum et justum,' &c. Though those which are extant may be interpolated, yet such things as are found in them all consistent to catholic and primitive doctrine, may well be presumed to have been from the first, especially since we find no original of these liturgies from ancient councils." Answer of the Bishops to the exceptions of the Ministers; Cardwell, Hist. of Conferences, P. 350.

These were, he tells us, lections from the holy scriptures at the beginning of the service, oblation of the bread and of wine mixed with water, consecration by the saying of the very words used by our Lord Himself, the Lord's prayer, and communion with thanksgiving.54

We may add to these some two or three other details; such as the reading of the diptychs, whether of the living or the dead, the recital in some shape of a creed or declaration of the one Faith, the kiss of peace, and a preface or "sursum corda."

After the council of Nice, and in the age immediately preceding, additions were unquestionably made to the original forms which had been used in various churches. Some of these are easily to be traced and the observation of St. Paul to the

54 "Hæc omnibus semper communia, nempe lectiones sacrarum scripturarum initio liturgiæ, psalmorum aliorumque canticorum recitatio; oblatio panis et vini aqua mixti; consecratio utriusque verbis Christi Domini cum benedictione ac signo crucis a sacerdote facto; oratio dominica, et sacra communio cum gratiarum actione." De lit. Gall. lib. 1. cap. 2.

65 A very useful book has lately been published by Mr. Hammond, under the title of Liturgies eastern and western. This contains the texts of several of the Greek liturgies, and a careful arrangement of the Roman, Ambrosian, Gallican, and Mozarabic, in parallel columns. Mr. Hammond has drawn up some tables (pp. xxvj, xxix) showing the differences which

exist among the liturgies, and (as he truly remarks) "the marvellous substantial identity of the eastern and western" families or groups. In the first sentence of his introduction we are told that he includes under the term "ancient liturgies" "all which can trace their descent directly from some known early form." The present communion service in the book of Common prayer of the church of England is not, however, included in Mr. Hammond's tables of comparison. No explanation (I believe) is given of the omission; and we are left to conclude that in its arrangement and contents the English communion service is to be regarded as a composition of the sixteenth century and cannot be traced to any known early form.

Corinthians in his first epistle, where he says "there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you,' is as applicable to the public services and rituals of the catholic church as to the opinions of her individual members.56 During the short space when there was indeed but one mind and one faith there was little need of cautious phrases, and additional safeguards by which the truth might be preserved: very different was the case after the time of Arius, and Macedonius, and Nestorius; and epithets even became necessary which in purer days would perhaps but have seemed to mar the earnest simplicity of the prayers of the Church.

56 As Vincentius of Lirins says upon this text of St. Paul: " ac si diceret: ob hoc hæreseôn non statim divinitus eradicantur auctores, ut probati manifesti fiant, id est, ut unusquisque quam tenax et fidelis, et fixus catholicæ fidei sit amator, appareat. Et

revera cum quæque novitas ebullit, statim cernitur frumentorum gravitas, et levitas palearum: tunc sine magno molimine excutitur ab area, quod nullo pondere intra aream tenebatur." Adversus hæreses, § 20.

W

CHAPTER III.

E must now pass to the consideration of the particular liturgy from which the ancient uses of the church of England are known and acknowledged to have been immediately derived. The Roman was the earliest and the chief of the patriarchates of the catholic church. The contentions of neighbouring provinces, the irruptions of barbarians, the local influence of her bishops, and above all her anxious and untiring energy in the propagation of the true faith, rapidly strengthened the primacy of the see of Rome. We might naturally therefore expect that in the remains of antiquity which have been spared to us we should find a complete liturgy which she had used from her first foundation, with perhaps also a history detailing exactly the various alterations which it has undergone.

But we know little about it. Writers who lived long ago, and to whom we may have supposed some accounts would have come down, speak in very general terms. Durand 57 contents himself with saying “in primordio nascentis ecclesiæ missa aliter dicebatur quam modo . . . sequenti vero tempore epistola tantum et evangelio recitatis missa celebrabatur: subsequenter Cœlestinus papa instituit introitum ad missam cantari... Cætera diversis temporibus ab aliis papis leguntur adjecta, prout Christianæ religionis cultu crescente visa sunt decentius convenire." Going back some four hundred years, Walafrid Strabo tells

57 Rationale div. off. lib. 4. cap. i. 5.

us what is still less satisfactory: "quod nunc agimus multiplici orationum, lectionum, cantilenarum, et consecrationum officio, totum hoc apostoli, et post ipsos proximi (ut creditur) orationibus et commemoratione passionis Dominicæ, sicut ipse præcepit, agebant simpliciter."

"58

Hence it is that some who dislike the authority of liturgies have denied to the Roman all claim to any great age; and have ascribed its first beginning as a form to Gregory the great, or to Gelasius, or Vigilius, or Leo, in succession bishops of Rome. Others, on the contrary, have boldly given the Roman liturgy to St. Peter as the sole author, at least of the canon, and assert that it has come down to us in the main points unimpaired.

Those writers from whom I have just made extracts state their full conviction of the truth of this: for example, Walafrid Strabo in the same chapter: "Romani quidem usum observationum a beato Petro accipientes, suis quique temporibus quæ congrua judicata sunt addiderunt." And more expressly an archbishop of our own Anglo-saxon church; Elfric in his pastoral epistle: Now was the mass established by our Lord Christ; and the holy apostle Peter appointed the canon thereto, which we call Te igitur."59 The later ritualists, men of the greatest learning and of unwearied labour in these enquiries, take the same ground. Gavantus declares that St. Clement received the Roman liturgy from St. Peter. Le Brun also: "Romanæ ecclesiæ

60

58 De rebus eccles. cap. 22. Walafrid arrives at this result after premising "quantum invenire potuimus, exponamus." And he then gives much such an account of additions as Durand

and other writers.

59 Cap. 39. Thorpe, Anglosaxon laws, &c., vol. 2. p. 381.

60 Thesaurus sacr. rituum, tom. I. p. 2. Merati in his notes tells us of the altar pre