-20-51 MFT

Bates Erasmo 948-51 76065

TO THE READER.

In order to demonstrate the authentic nature of the Apostolical Constitutions, with their settlements; to recommend the reception of the same to all Christians, and particularly to the genuine members of the Church of England; and to provide a good, though imperfect, form of Christian Worship for sincere and pious persons in the mean time, till those more sacred and apostolical remains can be fully examined into, received, and put in practice by them; I do here, Christian Reader, present thee with the Liturgy of our Church, as reduced nearer to the primitive standard. I do not mean this so much of the present Liturgy, (whose modern language however newer translations and valuable improvements are hereinto admitted,*) as of that original and much better Liturgy which our pious Reformers, upon mature consideration and consultation of the old books of our religion, drew up, and made use of in the first and best period of the Reformation, under King Edward VI. This noble Liturgy, which is for the main so undoubtedly supported by the most ancient records of Christianity, was indeed forced in a few

The sense of the parenthesis is incomplete; but the Editor has no means of obtaining a correction by comparison of copies, as the Preface is omitted in subsequent editions of the Liturgy.-P. H.

years to give place to a second, much like that which we now use; but was then plainly altered, out of human prudence, and out of compliance with Calvin, and other foreigners, and was imposed on the Church by a bare temporal authority: and indeed was thereby rendered so unlike in many things to the former, and to any of the old Liturgies of the Church, that no wonder if that was a great blow on the Reformation; if those honest Papists, who complied at first, were easily persuaded to leave our communion, and to settle themselves upon their old foundations; and if the Calvinists were thereby also encouraged to desire still more and more alterations, and a greater compliance with them ever afterwards. This first Liturgy then of our Reformed Church of England, with several farther corrections and improvements, in order to render it still more like the original Liturgies of Christianity, I do here seriously recommend to the consideration of all Christians, and especially to that of the members of this Church; and I earnestly beg of our ecclesiastical governors, that if they dare not yet venture to return intirely at once to our original Christianity, and the Apostolical Constitutions themselves, yet that they will, however, think of going back to our original Reformation and its noble settlements; or at least to permit any of its members who are willing to return to the same: mean as it is here reduced still nearer to the primitive standard. For as to the principal alterations here made from our present Liturgy, in compliance with the first of King Edward VI, (such

I

as the omission of the Ten Commandments in the Communion Service; the anointing with Oil, the trine Immersion, the sealing with Ointment, and the white Garment, all in Baptism; the Manner and Forms of the Oblation, Consecration, Participation, Commemoration of, and Prayers for, the Saints departed, with the mixture of Wine and Water, all in the Eucharist; the Anointing with Oil in the Visitation of the Sick; the Prayers for the Saints departed in the BurialOffice, and the like; all which were then retained in this Church, when yet, in her very Litany, she prayed to be delivered from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities;) I dare appeal to all the truly learned whether they are not exactly agreeable to the most primitive state of Christianity. And as to the present farther corrections and improvements of that Liturgy, (such as the forms of Doxology here appointed, the omission of that called the Athanasian, and of several clauses in that called the Nicene Creed; the reformation of the first Petitions in the Litany, with the directing the rest to God the Father; the alterations in some Collects; the single repetition of the Lord's Prayer in the same assembly for worship; the joining of Baptism and Confirmation together as one intire Office, to be all performed by a priest, in the absence of the Bishop, with the omission of Infant Baptism, and its Sponsors, and of Private Baptism; the substitution of more authentic Collections instead of our Church Catechism; the omission of the Office for Matrimony,

6

of the Churching of Women, and of the Services for State Days; with some things added out of the Apostolical Constitutions, and the like ;) I dare here also solemnly appeal to all the truly learned and judicious, whether every individual alteration be not made in compliance with the earliest Settlements, Laws, and Liturgic Forms, now extant in the Church. And that in every thing this Liturgy might be more truly primitive, and Christian, and complete, I have procured from many of my learned and pious friends, of several persuasions, no small assistance in order to its correction, improvement, and inoffensive reception among all good men. I do not, indeed, hereby pretend that this is intirely a new design. The very learned Dr. Hicks, at the end of his "Christian Priesthood," has given the world already the intire Communion Service of the first Liturgy, with a plain declaration of his opinion in favour of it: in which opinion he is well known to be supported by the concurrent sentiments of not a few of the most eminent members of our Church. The reverend and pious Mr. Edward Stephens also has not only declared himself with great zeal of the same opinion, but did actually draw up several years ago an excellent Liturgic Form for its Celebration, in a great agreement with that original Liturgy, and its correspondent form in the Scotch Liturgy; and did moreover actually put it in practice, and that openly in London, for many years together, to his own and his congregation's great comfort and satisfaction. Nay, the very learned and pious