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 BICENTENARY SERMONS. 
 
 TWO SERMONS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 §\$Uxt) anh Scxxplnxal ^ut\)otHti 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER; 
 
 PREACHED IN ST. MATTHEW'S FREE CHAPEL, QUEBEC, 
 
 0\ ST. BARTHOLOMEWS DAY, •.BSi, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EEV. HENRY ROE, B.A., Curate. 
 
 ^nlilislieJi Ijii Eiqum. 
 
 MONTREAL : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN LOVELL, ST. NICHOLAS STREET. 
 
 1862. 
 
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 '4 
 
 BICENTENARY SERMONS. 
 
 I 
 
 TWO SERMONS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 §\$Uti9 anir Scrtptitral <3littl|0rtti) 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER; 
 
 PREACHED IN ST. MATTHEW'S FREE CHAPEL, QUEBEC, 
 
 ON ST. BASTHOLOMEW'S DAY, ISSt, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 KEV. HENRY ROE, B.A., Curate. 
 
 ^nliltsiieti bq IS^t^mi 
 
 MONTREAL : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN LOVELL, ST. NICHOLAS STREET. 
 
 1862, 
 
 .^r 
 
Kesolution adopted by the Synod of the Diocese of 
 Quebec, Zrd July, 1862 : 
 
 Moved by Rev. H. Roe, seconded by Mr. W. G. 
 WuRTELE, and Resolved, — - 
 
 That, in accordance with that part of his Lordship's charge 
 which referred to the Bicentenary anniversary of the withdrawing 
 of certain nonconformist ministers from the Church of England, it 
 be recommended to the Clergy to observe that day by preaching 
 upon the history and excellence and scriptural authority of the 
 Book of Common Prayer. 
 
t 
 
 BICENTENARY SERMON. 
 
 I. 
 
 " Walk about Zion, and go round about her ; 
 Tell the towers thereof: 
 
 Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces ; 
 That ye may tell it to the generation following." 
 
 Fs. xlviii. 12, 13. 
 
 I announced to you last Sunday, Brethren, that 
 
 our Diocesan Synod, at its last Session, adopted a 
 
 Resolution recommending the Clergy of the Diocese 
 
 to " observe this day by preaching upon the history 
 
 and excellenc^^ and Scriptural authority of the Book 
 of Common x i^.yer." 
 
 On this day, the Feast of St. Bartholomew, two 
 
 hundred years ago, the English Prayer Book was 
 
 set forth as it stands now. In its present form, 
 
 therefore, our Prayer Book is just two hundred 
 
 years old ; although the same book, substantially, 
 
 with very trifling and unimportant differences, was 
 
 used in our Church for more than one hundred 
 
 years before. 
 
And as we to-day look back and review the 
 history of the English Church for those three hun- 
 dred years, what cause liave we not to bless God 
 for giving and preserving to our use our Book of 
 Common Prayer ! That precious book, and the 
 holy and blessed English Bible, which is insepar- 
 able from it, and which is read, by its directions, 
 in the ears of the people, through and through in 
 their mother tongue, day by day every year ; — 
 that book, under God's blessing, has made the 
 English nation what it is at this day — the salt of 
 the earth and the hope of the world. Thank God 
 for our Book of Common Prayer ! 
 
 It is my duty to-day, as instructed by the 
 Synod, to give you a brief history of the Prayer 
 Book. And as in doing so I must necessarily crowd 
 a great deal of matter into a short space of time, I 
 must beg, my brethren, your most careful attention. 
 
 1. Now, in the first place, let me ask you to think 
 for a moment what a Book of Common Prayer is. 
 It is, is it not, a form set forth by authority, for 
 the common public worship of Almighty God. It 
 is plain that if a number of persons are to come 
 together, from time to time, to worship God, they 
 must agree together beforehand to conduct their 
 worship on some plan, or else there would be 
 confusion. There must be, then, it would seem, 
 some form, or plan, or mode, well known and 
 agreed upon beforehand, if people are to come 
 together for public worship. And so we find it 
 always has been all the world over, both among 
 Christian and heathen nations ; and so it is among 
 
5 
 
 all Christians everywhere now. Not only among 
 us, but among all Christian bodies, when they come 
 together, every one knows beforehand the way in 
 which the worship of God is to be conducted, what 
 is to come first, and what next, all through the 
 service. All have forms of some kind : to cry out 
 then against forms is foolish, for all have and use 
 them. 
 
 And so it always was. But, mark this, the 
 substance, the principal parts of God's public 
 worship, have always been prescribed, appointed 
 beforehand by God Himself. Under the Old 
 Testament it was at first aacfi'ifices ; then sacrifices 
 and prayers and thanksgivings ; then came in the 
 Mosaic worship, sacrifices being still the substance, 
 the heart and soul of the worship ; then the Psalms 
 were gradually written, and introduced with music 
 into public worship. And this brings us down to 
 New Testament times, — to the setting up of the 
 Kingdom of Christ, the institution of His Church. 
 
 Our blessed Saviour before he went away insti- 
 tuted public worship in His Church. He did so 
 when He promised to be always present to the end 
 of the world, wherever two or three were gathered 
 together in His name, having agreed beforehand 
 what they would ask. And He did more. He 
 gave the Lord's Prayer for public use ; and He 
 instituted the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, 
 and bade Christians Do this in rememhrance of 
 Him. And as animal sacrifices were the substance 
 and heart of God's worship under the Old Testar 
 ment, so in Christian times the heart and substance 
 
of Christian worship are the Lord's Supper and the 
 Lord's Prayer. 
 
 I cannot stay to trace out this morning for 
 you, the many undesigned intimations and hints 
 we have scattered over the Acts and Epistles, 
 that the very first Christians had a regular form 
 of worship of some sort. I will only remind you 
 that in the very beginning of the Acts* we are 
 told that the first Christians continued steadfastly 
 attending upon the Apostles' teaching, and also 
 steadfast in contributing to the Church's fund for 
 the relief of the poor, and steadfast in attending 
 on the Breaking of Bread, which you know means 
 the Holy Communion, and nteadfast in attending 
 upon the public Prayers. And a little later in 
 the Acts,f we read that they came together on 
 the Lord's day — every Lord's day, as it seems 
 plain, to break Bread. Reserving this subject for 
 the evening, I will now hasten on to the history 
 of Christian Worship in the days when the Apostles 
 were dead and gone, and the miraculous gifts of 
 the Holy Ghost were withdrawn from the Church. 
 
 It is well known to learned men that the early 
 Church all over the world had its Liturgy, — its 
 Book of Common Prayer. The Church was planted 
 in and over nearly the whole known world, by the 
 Apostles themselves ; and we find that each Church 
 so planted had a Liturgy of its own. Each Church, 
 i.e., not each congregation, nor yet perhaps each 
 diocese, but each province, each large section of 
 
 * Aots ii. 42. 
 
 t Acts XX. 7. 
 
the Church. There have come down to us many 
 ancient Liturgies or Prayer Books, that were used 
 in those Churches ; hut among these, learned men 
 distinguish {oxxr famiiliea of Liturgies, each of which 
 had evidently some one common origin. There 
 was one for the Churches of which Jerusalem was 
 the head ; one for the African Churches, of which 
 Alexandria was the head ; one for the Italian 
 Churches ; and one for the French Churches. 
 These Liturgies, though differing in many par- 
 ticulars, yet all agreed in their main features. 
 Then, again, each Diocese had its own Liturgy, 
 which differed in some small trifles from those used 
 in the neighbouring Dioceses j for each Bishop was 
 anciently considered to have the right to make 
 such additions to his Liturgy as were needed for 
 the edification of his own people, provided always 
 that he made no substantial alterations. And the 
 Church in England had its Liturgy, of course, as 
 well as other Churches. 
 
 The Christian Religion was introduced into 
 England at least as early as the Second Century, 
 certainly within a hundred years of the death of 
 Christ ; and the ancient Britons were all converted 
 to Christianity. But several hundred years after, 
 the Anglo-Saxons invaded and conquered England, 
 and made it Pagan again. 
 
 I daresay most of you have heard the beautiful 
 «tory told of Gregory, Bishop of Rome, how he 
 found some fair English boys in the slave market 
 •at Rome, and, discovering that the English were 
 Pagans, gave himself no rest until he sent a 
 
8 
 
 zealous missionary, named Augustine, with a body 
 of clergy, to convert them. 
 
 When Augustine came to preach the Gospel to 
 them, he found to his surprise a Christian Church 
 already there, in the mountains of Wales, with a 
 Liturgy of its own. He, of course, brought with 
 him the Roman Liturgy, but it could not, and did 
 not entirely supplant the old English Prayer 
 Book, though, no doubt, some of its rites were 
 adopted. Then, when the Normans, at a later day,, 
 conquered England, they brought their own Prayer 
 Book with them, and grafted on the English Litur- 
 gies some of their own peculiar usages. And so it 
 came to pass that in England, just before the 
 Reformation, there were, as we read in the Pre- 
 face* to our Prayer Book, many Liturgies used, 
 one in one Diocese, and another in another, — such 
 as the Salisbury Liturgy, the Hereford, the Bangor,, 
 the Lincoln, etc. 
 
 Those Prayer Books were not in their original 
 purity and beauty. No ! In the course of ages, 
 when unhappily corruptions in doctrine crept into 
 the Church, those corruptions crept also into the 
 Liturgies. The worship of the Virgin, the invo- 
 cation of saints and angels, and many other 
 superstitions, were gradually introduced into the 
 Liturgies ; those Liturgies remaining, in the 
 Churches of Europe, in Latin, long after that 
 language ceased to be understood by the people. 
 
 * I earnestly wish that every one would read very carefully over and 
 over again the Preface to our Prayer Book. It contains a great deal of very 
 valuable information. 
 
9 
 
 Now, my brethren, you will understand from 
 this just how matters stood in England before the 
 Reformation. The blessed Bible was in Latin, and 
 very few, even of the clergy, read it or knew 
 anything about it. There were Prayer Books — 
 probably six or seven diflferent ones in England — 
 all, however, agreeing in their main features, — 
 agreeing with one another, I mean, and also, 
 remember, with all other Prayer Books all over 
 Christendom. But they were in a language which 
 the people did not understand, and they were sadly 
 corrupted and marred. There was a sore famine 
 in the land ; a famine of the bread of life, and of 
 the living waters of salvation. 
 
 Now mark how the Reformation in England pro- 
 ceeded. There was no violent revolution, but a 
 calm and gradual reformation and restoration. It 
 was not, remember, that the old Church was pulled 
 down and a new one set up. The old Church 
 remained where it was, but it awaked out of a 
 sleep of ages, and it reformed itself. The bishops, 
 priests, and deacons remained as before. Of course 
 they continued not by reason of death, but they 
 succeeded one another by ordination, just as before. 
 The people were, as before, baptized, catechised, 
 confirmed, given the holy communion, married, 
 and buried. But now it was with a pure Scriptural 
 Liturgy, a Prayer Book in their own mother 
 tongue, one which was well called, what it 
 emphatically is, the Book of Commo7i Prayer, not 
 the Priests' but the People's Prayer Book. 
 
 The way it was brought about was this. First, 
 
10 
 
 l>) 
 
 the English Bible was set up in the Churches for 
 the people to go and read it for themselves, in the 
 year 1540, under Henry VIII. Next, in 1542, 
 the House of Bishops, led by Cranmer, ordered 
 that " every Sunday and holiday throughout the 
 year the curate of every parish should, after the 
 Te Deum, openly read to the people one chapter 
 of the New Testament in English, and when the 
 New Testament was read over, then to begin the 
 Old." This was the first step ; one chapter in 
 English, everything else in Latin. Next, in 1544, 
 two years after, Cranmer set forth the Litany in 
 English, nearly the same as we have it now. The 
 rest, or nearly the rest, of the services were trans- 
 lated into English, in King Henry's reign, but not 
 for public but only for private use. 
 
 Next, after King Edward VI's. accession, in 
 1548, an English Communion Service was set forth, 
 which was to be used at the end of the Latin mass, 
 and not yet in place of it ; and at this time, too, 
 the cup was restored to the people. But before the 
 end of the year, the Bishops had the whole Prayer 
 Book translated into English, and ready to present 
 to the King and the Parliament, by whom it was 
 sanctioned and adopted, as well as by the clergy 
 in their Synod, and set forth by authority on June 
 7th, 1549. Thus, then, the English people had 
 at length all their public services in their own 
 mother tongue. 
 
 Now take notice, my brethren, that all this was 
 done within nine years. It was but nine years 
 from the first setting up of the English Bible to 
 
11 
 
 the abolishing of Latin, and setting forth the whole 
 Prayer Book in English substantially as we have 
 it now. 
 
 But some persons may say, " It was done very 
 hastily ; nine years is a short space of time." I 
 don*t think so. Nine years, at a time when the 
 whole world is awakened up to think, and study, 
 and pray, and strive mightily for the truth — nine 
 years of an age when men and women in hundreds 
 are willing to die — and do die — sooner than give 
 up the truth, is a long time, and at such a time 
 rapid progress is made. But the revision of our 
 English Prayer Book did not stop there, and this 
 I wish you especially to mark and remember. 
 
 It was all in English ; and the Popish party 
 found fault enough with it, and thought it went 
 a great deal too far in altering things, while, on 
 the other hand, some thought it did not go far 
 enough. So three years after, in 1552, it was 
 resolved to go carefully over it and examine it, 
 and revise and if necessary reform it again. This 
 was done, and a good many alterations introduced, 
 all of them to please those who wished to go as far 
 as possible from Rome. Still the Prayer Book 
 remained substantiallythe same, being, in aubatancey 
 the Old English Prayer Book which the English 
 Church always had. Many Churchmen, however, 
 thought it materially injured by some things left 
 out of it at this time ; and it is remarkable that 
 some changes were made in the Prayer Book then, 
 to please that party which afterwards became the 
 Sunder of dissent among us, which were rejected 
 
12 
 
 at the next review, and were never approved of 
 by any Synod of the Church of England since. 
 
 But to hasten on. The next year good King 
 Edward VI. died, and Queen Mary succeeded, and 
 with her Popery resumed its sway, and of course 
 the English Prayer Book was cast out, and the 
 Latin Mass restored, and all seemed lost. But 
 God was only trying his people ; the blood of the 
 martyrs became the seed of the Church ; and 
 through the persecutions of Mary, Popery was 
 rooted out of England for ever. 
 
 Mary reigned five years, and was succeeded by 
 Elizabeth, who at once restored the English Prayer 
 Book, not by her own mere authority, but in an 
 orderly way, by acts of the Bishops and Clergy in 
 their Synod, and the people in their Parliament. 
 The Prayer Book was at this time again thoroughly 
 and most carefully examined and revised, and a 
 few alterations made. This was in the year 1560. 
 
 Elizabeth reigned upwards of forty years, and 
 was succeeded by King James I. in 1603. He 
 caused another revision of the Prayer Book to be 
 made, at the request of the Puritan party, who 
 were now becoming very strong in England, and 
 demanded great alterations in both Church and 
 State. They sought to have many ceremonies cast 
 out of the Prayer Book, which they thought to be 
 superstitious and Popish ; and to please them a 
 new revision was made, and a few alterations 
 introduced. The Prayer Book so revised continued 
 to be used during the reign of James and Charles 
 I., about forty years. 
 
13 
 
 Meantime the Puritan party was growing 
 stronger, and more violent and unreasonable, 
 until at last they broke out into open rebellion, 
 and murdered their King, and overthrew the 
 Church and the Prayer Book together. For 
 fifteen years the voice of the glorious and time- 
 honored Liturgy was no more heard in public. 
 In cellars and garrets of private houses, little 
 companies of English Churchmen, now loving 
 their persecuted Prayer Book more than ever, 
 met together by stealth to worship their fathers* 
 Saviour and God in their fathers' Form of Sound 
 Words. The clergy were, to the number of six, 
 seven, or eight thousand, ejected from their cures, 
 and their places filled in too many cases by rude, 
 ignorant, conceited, fanatical men ; and multitudes 
 of them without any pretence even to ordination, 
 which indeed the Independents, who were then 
 in power, rejected altogether. 
 
 At the death of Cromwell the nation welcomed 
 back their king with joy and exultation, and 
 restored the Church and its Liturgy with no less 
 gladness. An attempt, however, was made to 
 restore unity to the Church, and a conference 
 was held between the Bishops and the leading 
 Dissenters, to see if they could agree upon terms 
 of union. It was found to be impossible, unless 
 the Bishops would give up all that they held most 
 sacred in that rich inheritance which they had 
 received from their fathers — the English Prayer 
 Book. However it was again thoroughly and 
 carefully revised, every objecticJn of the Dissenters 
 
14 
 
 k >' 
 
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 [1 
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 i 
 
 to it examined, a few alterations were introduced, 
 and it was thus finally brought to that exact form 
 in which it has continued ever since, and in which 
 we, my brethren, have it in our hands now. It 
 was revised by a Committee of learned Divines. 
 The alterations which they proposed were then 
 sanctioned by the Bishops and Clergy in their 
 Synod. The Prayer Book so revised was then 
 ratified by the two Houses of Parliament and the 
 King, and ordered to be used all over the kingdom 
 by or before St. Bartholomew's day, 1662 — one 
 hundred and thirteen years after the Prayer Book 
 was first revised by our Reformers and translated 
 into English, and just two hundred years ago 
 to-day. 
 
 But even this was not the last review of the 
 English Prayer Book, and I am anxious you should 
 remember and weigh well what I am now going 
 to tell you. Twice again it has been reviewed 
 since, and once revised and altered. When the 
 American Colonies revolted from England, and 
 became the United States, about seventy-five years 
 ago, the English branch of the Church there met 
 and revised the Prayer Book. And I think nothing 
 is more wonderful than the result. The popular 
 feeling against the Church was strong. The 
 principles of most American Churchmen them- 
 selves were very low, and strongly tainted with 
 dissent. In the Synod of the American Church, 
 by which the Prayer Book was revised at that 
 time, the laity were admitted to a share, and had 
 an equal vote with the clergy and bishops put 
 
15 
 
 together* in all questions. And yet, after all, 
 scarcely a single alteration of any importance was 
 introduced by them into their Prayer Book ! Is 
 not this a most striking testimony to the hold 
 our Prayer Book has on the mind and heart of 
 all our people ? Most wonderful, too, it was, 
 that when some of the clergy wished to intro- 
 duce radical changes into the American Prayer 
 Book, the laity interposed and refused to allow it 
 to he altered ! 
 
 But once more it has been reviewed by bishops, 
 clergy, and laity of the English Church. In 
 Australia, at the Cape of Good Hope, in New 
 Zealand, and here in Canada, English bishops, 
 clergy, and laity, have met in Synods. And what 
 did they do ? They first of all put on record a 
 solemn declaration that they adopted for them- 
 selves, to use the language of our own Provincial 
 Synod, "the Book of Common Prayer as a true 
 and faithful declaration of the doctrines contained 
 in Holy Scripture," and resolved to hand it on 
 unaltered to their children after them. " We 
 declare," they said, " our firm and unanimous 
 resolution, in dependence on Divine aid, to pre- 
 serve those doctrines and that form of government, 
 and to transmit them to our posterity." 
 
 And now, my brethren, having thus discharged 
 the duty laid on me of giving you a history of 
 
 * It must be remembered that the House of Bishops of the American 
 Church had, at that time, no veto or negative upon the House of Clerical 
 and Lay Delegates. 
 
i' 
 
 16 
 
 the Prayer Book, let me detain you a little lou-yer, 
 while I make two brief reflections on the narrative 
 which you have heard. 
 
 And, 1st, it is a matter of the deepest and most 
 heartfelt thankfulness that we are, through our 
 Prayer Book and in the use of it, joined to and in 
 communion with the whole Church of Christ in 
 all the ages which have been before us. Because 
 it is (as to its substance) no new book, but the old 
 Prayer Book of the Church, turned into English 
 and purged clean from all the novelties of false 
 doctrine and superstitious worship which had been 
 gradually introduced into it. The Bible it teaches 
 us to read and makes us listen to, is the old Bible 
 turned into our own English tongue. The Prayers 
 are most of them the old prayers which have been 
 used from very early times. The Litany is one of 
 the oldest in the world, and certainly the most 
 perfect. And especially that Office, which is the 
 most venerable and sacred of all, the Office for the 
 Holy Communion, is primitive and pure, and in 
 using it faithfully we are of one heart and soul 
 with God's true saints in every age. When Rome, 
 then, and her followers, accuse us of abandoning 
 the ancient faith and worship of the Catholic 
 Church, and introducing novelties, we can and 
 we always ought to say to them, — We have no 
 novelties, no innovations ; we have not abandoned 
 but returned to and restored the true ancient 
 Catholic faith and worship. For we continue 
 steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellow- 
 
17 
 
 eliip, and in the Breaking of Bread, and in the 
 Prayers ; not using even our own words, but the 
 ancient time-honored words of the old Church in 
 the English Bible^ the English creeds, and the 
 English prayers. — Surely, Brethren, this is a 
 blessed, a most happy, and comfortable thought ! 
 2. But there is another reflection, and with it I 
 will conclude. And it is this : that the History of 
 the Prayer Book, which I have now given you, 
 shows most conclusively that there can be no 
 remnants of darkness and superstition — no " rags 
 of Popery," as is sometimes said, in our English 
 Prayer Book. You sometimes hear it said that 
 the Prayer Book was compiled by our Reformers 
 when their eyes were still somewhat blinded by 
 the darkness out of which they had come, and 
 when they were not yet able to look with boldness 
 and clearness upon the full light of the Gospel. 
 My brethren, you see that this is a mistake, and 
 that this objection is altogether founded in ignor- 
 ance. The Prayer Book was not compiled,* as it 
 is now, in the days of the Reformation, but has 
 been reviewed and revised and scrutinized, and 
 its every word weighed again and again and again 
 during more than one hundred — nearly one hun- 
 dred and fifty years, before it assumed its present 
 exact shape. More than that, it was reviewed and 
 revised fully a hundred years later by the American 
 
 * I hope I have made it quite clear above that the Prayer Book was not 
 compiled at the Eeformation. It is in no proper sense of the word a com- 
 pilation. It is the old Prayer Book of the English Church revised and 
 translated into English, "the same Book," as Cranmer said of it. "that had 
 been used for nigh 1600 years in England." 
 
 B 
 
■Mi 
 
 18 
 
 Churcii ; and reviewed and adopted unaltered hy 
 the English Church of this very day throughout 
 the Colonies of Great Britain. And remember. 
 Brethren, that in all those revisions and alter- 
 ations of the Prayer Book, it was not the clergy 
 alone who acted ; the laity always had their 'full 
 share, in England, in the person of the Sovereign, 
 and in the Parliament, and in the United States 
 and the Colonies, having an equal voice with the 
 bishops and clergy in the Synods themselves. 
 The Prayer Book, ^then, whatever can or may 
 be said against it, is the true voice, the true 
 chosen faith, and the chosen worship of the 
 English Church, of the bishops, the clergy, and 
 the people, but emphatically of the people; it 
 is the People^a Book. It is true that outside 
 the Church objections are still urged against it ; 
 against doctrines taught and practices required by 
 it ; but w)t one of those objections is new or 
 modern ; not one of them, I believe, is ever 
 brought forward now which was not brought 
 forward in the time of Cranmer himself, and at 
 subsequent revisions of the Prayer Book. Let the 
 people, then, remember this ; and when anything 
 is said against their Prayer Book which seems 
 plausible to them, let them remember that the 
 objection, if plausible, is nothing more; it has 
 been examined and refuted by their forefathers in 
 the faith times without number. 
 
 Thank God then, my brethren, for this inherit* 
 ance j prize it, cherish it ; examine it, study it, 
 
 i ' 
 
 
M 
 
 store it away in your hearts. For when you 
 understand, know, and believe, and love it, you 
 are one in faith with all the faithful. When you 
 love and pray its prayers, you are one in your 
 devout communions with God, with all praying 
 people in earth and in eternity. 
 
BICENTEN^Y SERMON". 
 
 n. 
 
 "And they continued stedfutly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellow- 
 ship, and in Breaking of Bread, and in Prayers."— Acts ii. 42. 
 
 This morning, in obedience to the Resolution of 
 the Synod, I gave you, Brethren, a short History 
 of our Book of Common Prayer. That history 
 proves conclusively, as I pointed out, that there 
 are in our Prayer Book, on the one hand, no 
 offensive novelties unknown to the Ancient Cath- 
 olic Church in the early and pure ages ; nor, on the 
 other hand, any remnants of the superstitions and 
 corruptions which crept into the Church in later 
 times. * 
 
 The Resolution of the Synod directs me to 
 " preach upon the history and excellence of the 
 Prayer Book.'* The plain unvarnished history of 
 the Prayer Book is the best possible proof of its 
 
22 
 
 excellence. That which has been from the begin- 
 ning of the Christian Keligion, which has approved 
 itself to the wisdom and devotional feeling of all 
 the best Christians in every age, must be excellent ; 
 and this is true of the substance of the Prayer 
 Book. That which has been examined during 
 the last three hundred years, over and over again 
 with the greatest care, and corrected and perfected 
 and approved from time to time, down to our own 
 day, by the Bishops^ the Clergy, and the People 
 of the English Church, cannot but be excellent. 
 What better guarantee of excellence can be 
 imagined or wished than that furnished by this 
 History ? 
 
 One point remains. The Synod instructs me 
 to speak to you upon the Scnptwal charctcter of 
 the Book of Common Prayer, and to this I now 
 proceed to address myself. 
 
 In doing so, I propose to take you rapidly 
 through the Acts and Epistles, and point out 
 some of the hints and traces which a careful 
 examination of those parts of the New Testament 
 discovers, of the existence, in the very earliest 
 Christian times, of a full and complete organiza- 
 tion of the Christian Church, and more particularly, 
 of some such mode of conducting public worship 
 as we now have. 
 
 I am not going to prove, remember, the lawful- 
 ness of a Form of Public Worship, for that no one 
 denies ; nor yet its expediency, for surely the use 
 of such forms by Christians in every age sufficiently 
 establishes it to be the general sense of men that 
 
23 
 
 they are expedient. But what I wish to show is, 
 that a regular orderly government of the Church, 
 such as we have now, and a Liturgy with rites 
 and ceremonies, were established earlier than 
 many persons imagine. 
 
 In those first days of the Gospel, when the 
 struggle of the Church was for life and death, 
 when Christians were subject to almost constant 
 persecution, when often they had to meet for the 
 worship of their God and Saviour in " deserts and 
 mountains and dens and caves of the earth," — it 
 is plain that the Church had not the facilities for 
 organizing herself which she had afterwards, when 
 Christ was acknowledged to have vanquished 
 Paganism, and the world bowed down at His 
 Church's feet. 
 
 But we must remember, on the other hand, that 
 the first Christians were Jews. They were accus- 
 tomed to the decent and well-regulated order, the 
 strict church-government, the solemn ritual wor- 
 ship, the Forms of Prayer — the Liturgy, in fact, 
 of the Jewish Church. And we must remember, 
 also, that for about twelve years the preaching of 
 the Gospel was confined to Judea.* Indeed, the 
 Twelve Apostles, or most of them, seem to have 
 remained at Jerusalem even many years later,f 
 founding, building up, ordering and governing 
 
 • The authorized "preaching of the Gospel," I mean, by men commiss- 
 ioned by the Apostles. I suppose that " its sound went out into all the 
 world " from the day of Pentecost onwards,— the Good News being carried 
 back by the converted Jewish Pilgrims who " went up out of every nation 
 under Heaven, to Jerusalem for to worship." 
 
 t Acts zv. 2, 4 22, 23. 
 
> ■!:■ 
 'I :'t 
 
 24 
 
 the Church of which they were the Twelve Foun- 
 dation-stones. What hetter opportunity could the- 
 infant Church have had for attaining organization, 
 order, stability, — for developing and perfecting 
 ordinances, — and especially for minutely setting 
 in order, for all time, all things pertaining to the 
 solemnity, glory, and beauty of the worship of 
 Almighty God ? Calmly and seriously the Apostles 
 set themselves to this great task, remaining in 
 Jerusalem till it was complete. 
 
 The work entrusted by the Lord to His Apostles, 
 we should never forget, was not simply the work 
 of the conversion of individual souls. He sent 
 them, indeed, to make disciples of all nations, to 
 baptize and teach them one by one. But He sent 
 them to preach " the Gospel of the Kingdom^ He 
 gave them " the keys of the Kingdmn of Heaven" 
 and power to admit into that kingdom and to 
 exclude from it, and to rule and govern in it. 
 He sent them to plant, not an idea but a Church in 
 the world — a visible, organized Society, with laws 
 and rules and officers — to admit men into that 
 Church or Society or Kingdom, by baptism ; and 
 after they were admitted, to train them up in it 
 as fellow members, by its holy discipline, into 
 fitness for eternal glory. And that was what they 
 set themselves to do, and what they did. And so 
 in the ages that follow we find in the world— in 
 every part of the world — ^yes, so early as the second 
 century, we find throughout Europe and Asia and 
 Northern Africa, and even in the British Islands, 
 Christianity established. But what " Christianity"? 
 
25 
 
 
 s 
 
 e 
 
 Not a multitude of individual believers, each one 
 independent of the rest, believing and doing what- 
 he would. Much less do we find a multitude of 
 small independent Christian sects and denomina- 
 tions. No, far from it. We find One Kingdom of 
 Christ in the world, as He appointed and as He 
 foretold it should be. We find a Church — one 
 great organized visible Society — having every- 
 where the same rules and order and organization ; 
 the same threefold ministry of Bishops, Priests, 
 and Deacons ; the same two great Sacraments of 
 Baptism and the Lord's Supper; the same ordi- 
 nances, the same liturgy — or rather many liturgies 
 all difiering in some things, all agreeing in the 
 main — the same Holy Scriptures ; and, above all,, 
 the same creeds. That is what we find, and that 
 we could not find except it was what the Apostles- 
 established. 
 
 Alas ! we do not find it now — that noble Society,, 
 that One Body, everywhere one in faith and order,, 
 and love and peace, everywhere at unity with 
 itself. And surely on such a day as this, when 
 we are surveying the beauty and glory of our own 
 inheritance, and rejoicing over it, we must ask :: 
 Is there no hope of the restoration of the visible 
 unity on earth of the Kingdom of Christ ? 
 
 My Brethren, if, humanly speaking, that hope 
 exists, it is, I am deeply persuaded, to be sought 
 for in the English Branch of the Catholic Church ; 
 in her history, in her position as the Church oT 
 the greatest of Empires, in her wonderful revival 
 and expansion in our own day, but above all ia 
 
A: 
 
 26 
 
 :ii 
 
 her Book of Common Prayer. For here is a common 
 ground on which all who profess and call themselves 
 Christians may meet — a ground tried to the utter- 
 most and not found wanting, — Evangelical Truth 
 and Apostolical Order, — a Book of Divine ofl&oes 
 which are in substance as ancient and Catholic as 
 the Church herself, purged from all the older 
 corruptions, and free from all modern novelties 
 and inventions. May we not hope and pray, 
 Brethren, that it may yet please God to make our 
 Church, with this Book in her hand, the Mediator 
 among the divided families of Christendom ? And 
 while we long and yearn for that glorious time, 
 let us not forget the responsibility that lies upon 
 us, by living up to the privileges we possess, to 
 show ourselves worthy of a share in bringing about 
 so blessed a consummation. 
 
 Bearing in mind, then,that this work of building 
 up a great Kingdom of truth and peace in the 
 world — a great and well ordered Society — was the 
 work entrusted to the Apostles, and which they set 
 themselves to do, let us return to the New Testa- 
 ment, and examine it, and see if we cannot trace 
 out something of the plan and method upon which 
 the Apostles proceeded in organizing the Church. 
 That the whole plan in all its particulars was not 
 given them by the Lord Jesus Christ by word of 
 mouth, but that it was gradually developed by the 
 Holy Ghost, as the necessities of the Church pointed 
 out that each part was required, seems to me plain 
 from many particulars in the Acts of the Apostles. 
 Thus (to take one example) we read there that the 
 
^s 
 
 appointment of Deacons did not take place for 
 some time, and was first suggested by the need of 
 some body of men to superintend the distributing 
 of the alms to the poor. Nevertheless, even at the 
 very beginning we find order, and a system, and 
 I think, too, a Liturgy * 
 
 1. The first feature of an organized Church 
 which I shall name is a fixed place of worship. 
 This is what we should, perhaps, least of all expect, 
 and yet we discover very plain traces of it at the 
 very beginning of the Gospel. In the first chapter 
 of the Acts we have mention of " the Upper Room " 
 where the disciples met for " prayer and supplica- 
 tion " day by day. This was, most probably, the 
 very same " large upper room " f where the Last 
 Supper was held ; and again the same into which 
 the Risen Saviour entered on the evening of the 
 first Easter Day, and a second time after eight 
 days. J We are led to conclude from the narrative 
 that it was in the same room they were assembled 
 on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost 
 •came down. We meet again with the mention of 
 a large Upper Room used for public worship, in an 
 important passage in the twentieth chapter of the 
 Acts. "And upon the First Day of the week, 
 when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul 
 preached unto them, ready to depart on the mor- 
 row And there were many lights m the 
 
 * For the matter of the rest «f this Sermon, I am indebted to the Sixth 
 Lecture of the late lamented Professor Blunt's admirable work on " Th« 
 duties of the Parish Priest." 
 
 t St. Mark xiv. 15. 
 
 t St. John XX. 19, 26. 
 
'II 
 
 28 
 
 It'll 
 
 JJ'pj^er Chamber where we were gathered together.'* 
 That this was not any chance room, but a room 
 set apart for that purpose only, is plain from those 
 passages in the Epistles of St. Paul, where he sends 
 salutations to one and another, " and to the Church 
 in his house."* From these passages we confidently 
 gather that in each city or place one or more 
 houses were selected, and rooms in them set apart 
 for the meetings of Christians for public worship, 
 and especially for the celebration of the Holy 
 Communion. And we are confirmed in this con- 
 elusion by that passage in which St. Paul says to 
 the Corinthians reprovingly, " What ! have ye 
 not iKmaea to eat and to drink in, or despise ye the 
 Church of Oody\ The jplace, therefore, where " the 
 Church of God " met was not in any and every 
 ordinary house. 
 
 2. Next, we find that there was a regular,, 
 orderly mode of conducting the public worship. 
 The men were to be, for example, bare headed, 
 and the women covered.J And this particular- 
 order St. Paul speaks of in connection with a body 
 of rules of a similar kind, for he says, " Now I 
 praise you. Brethren, that ye remember me in all 
 things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them 
 to you.§ These were ordinances for the decent 
 conduct of public worship. And the same ordi- 
 nances were observed in every Church, for St. 
 Paul concludes his argument against women being 
 bare heavicd in Church, by saying, " If any man 
 
 * Eom. xvi. 3 ; 1 Cor. xvL 19 ; Philemon i. 2. 
 t 1 Cor. xi. 22. J 1 Cor. xi. 4 
 
 § 1 Cor. xi. 1. 
 
29 
 
 v> 
 
 seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, 
 neither the churches of God."* The churches of 
 God had all the same *' customs." 
 
 3. Then, thirdly, we have hints of a regular 
 service, a regular Liturgy, in which the minister 
 and the congregation had each an appointed part. 
 And here I will ask you to look at my text. 
 *'They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' 
 doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread 
 and in jorayera." We have here mention of four 
 things, in which the Christian converts continued 
 steadfast. First, in the doctrine of the Apostles, 
 that is, in attendance on their teaching, listening to 
 them, learning the truth and being instructed in 
 it, according to the command of Christ to His 
 Apostles, that they were first to baptize believers 
 in Him, and then proceed to teach them to observe 
 all things that He had commanded them. 2nd. 
 They continued steadfast in what is translated 
 the fellowship. But the word is literally com- 
 mtmion, and is the word generally used to express 
 the act of giving alms for the relief of poor 
 Christians. And here learned men take it to 
 mean, and I think rightly, contributing to the 
 4)ffertory. They were steadfast in their con- 
 tributions to the common fund for the relief of 
 the poor and for all other Church purposes. This, 
 remember, is exactly in agreement with St. Paul's 
 directions to the Corinthians,! and which he tells 
 them he had established in the neighbouring 
 Churches of Galatia. " As I have given orders to 
 
 * 1 Cor. xi. 16. 
 
 t 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. 
 
m 
 
 \\ 
 
 m 
 
 30 
 
 the Churches of Galatia, so also do ye Upon 
 
 the first day of the week let every one of you lay 
 by him in store as God hath prospered him." Then 
 3rd, they continued steadfast in " the Breaking of 
 Bread" — constant and regular in receiving the 
 Holy Communion every Lord's Day. And 4th, 
 " steadfast in prayers," or rather " the prayers," as 
 it is in the original. It is plain that the public 
 prayers of the Church are meant ; the well-known 
 and regularly established worship. 
 
 Here, then, we find in the very earliest Christian 
 Church this complete order of Lord's Day (if not 
 daily, which is more probable) public worship. 
 First, public teaching and preaching; secondly, 
 the weekly offertory; thirdly, the weekly cele- 
 bration of the Holy Communion ; fourthly, d 
 regular service of well-known Prayers. 
 
 Now for a more particular description of those 
 Prayers. We turn to the first Epistle to Timothy, 
 where *^t. Paul describes them. " I exhort, there, 
 fore, that first of all supplications, prayers, inter- 
 cessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 
 for kings and for all that are in authority."* Here 
 is a fourfold division of the public Prayers, — 
 " Supplications, Prayers, Intercessions, and Giving 
 of Thanks," — a division which answers to the 
 general features of all Liturgies now or formerly 
 in use. We have then, I think, discovered plain 
 traces of some sort of well-known set forms of 
 Prayers — not one long prayer, but "Supplica- 
 tions, Prayers, Intercessions, and Thanksgivings,' 
 
 f> 
 
 * 1 Tim. u. 1, 2. 
 
31 
 
 which seems to require a number of shorter prayers 
 arranged under those different heads. 
 
 To proceed : 
 
 4. We find plai: ^^aces of a Greedy and as thi» 
 is a point of great importance, I ask for special 
 attention to it. You will see that St. Paul delivered 
 to all his converts a creed, — that is, a short sum- 
 mary of the principal points which a Christian is 
 bound to believe, — a Creed which they committed 
 to memory, professed at baptism, and carefully kept 
 ever after, as a rule of both faith and practice. 
 St. Paul says to the Romans,* " God be thanked, 
 that (though) ye were the servants of sin, ye 
 have obeyed from the heart that/orm of doctrine 
 which was delivered you ;" or rather (as it is in 
 the margin) " to which ye were delivered." Here 
 is a Form or System of Doctrine, professed by 
 Christians as a rule of holy living, and that, too, 
 at their baptism, as you will see by carefully 
 examining the chapter ; for the whole argument 
 of the chapter turns upon this, that our hapUrnn 
 obliges us to holiness. To the same short summary 
 of the faith, St. Paul seems plainly to allude again 
 when he says, " Mark them which cause divisions 
 and offences contrary to the doctrine whkh ye 
 have learned;" f but here it is referred to as a rule 
 oi faith, to guard them from being led wrong by 
 false doctrines. And what else but this can be 
 meant where he warns Timothy, " Keep that which 
 is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain 
 babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so 
 
 • Bom. vi. 17. 
 
 t Eom. xn. 17. 
 
32 
 
 called, which some professing have erred concern- 
 ing the faith." * The phrase, " that which is 
 committed to thy trust," is only one word in the 
 original Greek, literally, "the deposit," and is 
 evidently a Form of Doctrine, as it is to preserve 
 Timothy from erring from the Faith. However, 
 if we had any doubt as to what it was that was 
 *' committed to his trust," the doubt would be 
 removed by a plainly corresponding exhortation 
 in the second Epistle to Timothy, *^ Hold fast the 
 form of 8(mnd wards which thou hast heard of me."t 
 To this Form of Sound Words St. Paul seems to 
 refer when he exhorts tlo Hebrews to " hold fast 
 the Profea&km of their Faith loithmit wavering ^^\ — the 
 Profession, or rather Confession made, that is, 
 when we were baptized, '* washed in pure water," 
 as the previous verse shows ; and to the same when 
 he says, " let us prophecy according to the proper' 
 tion of the Faith," — let our expositions of Scripture 
 be in harmony with the Form of Doctrine which 
 we received. And to pass by other passages, what 
 are we to understand by the opening verses of the 
 fifteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians, but a recital 
 of some of the Articles of the Church's Creed ? 
 
 St. Paul, as the most effectual way of convicting 
 the false teachers among the Corinthians of heresy 
 in denying the resurrection of the body, calmly 
 recites the Articles of the Creed until he comes to 
 this very doctrine. " Moreover, Brethren, I declare 
 unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, 
 which also ye received, and wherein ye stand ; 
 
 • 1 Tim. vi. 20, 21. 
 
 t 2 Tim. i. 13. 
 
 t Heb. X. 23. 
 
33 
 
 by which also ye ire save *,if yo keep in mrmo y 
 (or " hold fast," — margin^ wli il Droacl ed unto 
 you, unless ye have believed ,< vain For I 
 delivered unto you first of all lat wl h I also 
 
 received, how that Christ died lor our sins 
 
 and that He was buried, and that He rose again 
 the third day according to the Scriptures." These 
 are the Articles, in regular order, so l\ir as they 
 go, of the Creed of the Church to this very day. 
 
 It seems plain, then, that each Church had a 
 Creed, a " Form of Sound Words," which was 
 solemnly " delivered to them," as a sacred trust, 
 by the Apostles, and which they were to " keep 
 in memory," and " hold fast." 
 
 5. It would not be necessary to say, except to 
 make my statement complete, that there were 
 Ministers in this early Church ; that is, men set 
 apart by a visible ordination and with an authori- 
 tative commission, for the performance of holy 
 functions, and distinct from the body of Christians 
 in general. There were, I need scarcely say, three 
 orders of ministers ; 1st, Apostles, whom we now 
 call Bishops ; 2nd, Elders, or Presbyters, who were 
 also called Bishops in those days ; and 3rd, Deacons. 
 They were chosen after an examination into their 
 purity of life, aptness to teach, and general fitness 
 for the office. They were ordained, after solemn 
 public fasting and prayer, by the laying on of the 
 hands of Apostles and their successors in office. 
 This is all too plainly written in the Acts and 
 Epistles to need, at least to you. Brethren, any 
 argument. So I pass on to notice 
 
84 
 
 I . 
 
 Ill 
 
 G. That flo orderly were the arrangements of 
 thin primitive Church, that if a member, whether 
 clergyman or layman, travelled to a distant 
 country, he always carried with him, from his 
 own Church to the Church in his new home, 
 " letters commendatory," — that is, letters certi- 
 fying that he was a Christian, testifying to his 
 Christian character, and especially that he was 
 admissible to the Holy Communion. " Need we," 
 says St. Paul to the Corinthians,* in allusion to 
 this custom, " need we, as some others, epistles of 
 commendation to you, or letters of commendation 
 from you ? " "We have an actual instance of the 
 use of such letters, recorded in Acts xviii. ; when 
 Apollos was about to pass from Ephesus to Achaia, 
 " the Brethren of Ephesus," we read, " wrote 
 exhorting the disciples to receive him," and he 
 was at once admitted as a Christian minister at 
 Corinth. So again, when a collection was being 
 made at Corinth for the poor Christians of Judea, 
 St. Paul undertook to send it to Jerusalem, by 
 such persons, says he, "as ye approve hy your 
 letters,"] But the Epistle of St. Paul to Philemon 
 is itself such a letter, recommending to Philemon 
 his runaway servant or slave, Onesimus, who was 
 now become a Christian. 
 
 7. And the last point which I shall mention is 
 the institution of Synods or Cmindls, for the resolu- 
 tion of difficult questions. The Council held at 
 Jerusalem to settle the question of circumcision, as 
 related in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts, was 
 
 * 2 Cor. iu. 1. 
 
 1 1 Cor. xvi. 8. 
 
35 
 
 tho model after which all Synods or Church Coun- 
 cils have been conducted ever since. St. James, 
 as the Bishop of Jerusalem, which was the Mother 
 Church, presided; and after much debate they 
 arrived at a unanimous decision. That decision 
 was registered in due form, and sent to the Church 
 in which the question had arisen, and afterwards 
 it was delivered to be kept throughout the cities, 
 as " an ordinance of the Apostles and Elders which 
 were at Jerusalem." 
 
 Here, then, I pause ; but before concluding let 
 me briefly sum up for you the traces which we 
 have found in the Acts and Epistles of the struct- 
 ure and government of the Primitive Church. 
 We have seen that the Lord's Day was observed, 
 and that every Lord's Day, at least, there was 
 solemn public worship, with administration of the 
 Holy Communion, in places set apart for that 
 purpose only. Collections were then also made 
 in Church for the relief of the poor, the support 
 of the Clergy, and other Church purposes. There 
 were Clergy of three orders chosen by those in 
 authority, and set apart by the laying on of hands 
 for holy offices, as God's ministers, and stewards 
 of His mysteries and pastors of the people. There 
 was a regular Liturgy of some sort — forms of prayer 
 divided into regular portions, offered up in Church 
 by the Clergy, and to which St. Paul tells us the 
 People said Amen* There Avas a Creed, professed 
 at Baptism, learnt by heart, and kept carefully by 
 every Christian, and most probably repeated in 
 
 * 1 Cor. xiv. 16, 
 
I 
 
 36 
 
 public worship. And all things in public worship 
 were done according to rules laid down by the 
 Apostles ; among which were such as that men 
 should be uncovered and women veiled, and that 
 women should keep silence in the Church. There 
 were regular rules admitting strangers from one 
 Church to another by commendatory letters. And 
 (which I did not mention before)* there was a 
 discipline by which unfaithful Christians were put 
 out from the communion of their Brethren, and 
 re-admitted on their repentance. 
 
 The Primitive Church, then, was One regular 
 organized Body from the very beginning. Its 
 operations were carried on, not in a desultory 
 chance way, but with all the energy which unity 
 and order and organization always give. And I 
 appeal to you with confidence, my Brethren, if the 
 Church, of which I have now been tracing out for 
 you the main features in Holy Scriptures, is not 
 the same Church substantially in which we have 
 the happiness to find our place to-day ? Is it not 
 the same Church that we find in our Prayer Book ? 
 Do not the Bible and Prayer Book mutually 
 interpret each other ? Is not the Prayer Book, 
 then, in the highest and best sense. Scriptural ? 
 In the New Testament we have peeping out 
 everywhere the growing features of the infant 
 Church. In the Prayer Book we have the same 
 Church full-grown. In the Prayer Book we have 
 
 * I have said nothing of the Orders of Deaconesses (Rom. xvi. 1 ; 1 Tim. 
 Jl), and Widows (1 Tim. v. 9—12). 
 
' 
 
 37 
 
 "the Apostles doctrine" and "Form of Sound 
 "Words" in the Creeds, the Apostolic Weekly 
 Offertory, the Breaking of Bread, and " the 
 Prayers," — the Supplications, Prayers, Interces- 
 sions, and Thanksgivings. Well may they be 
 called " the Prayers," for they are truly the old 
 Prayers of the Church ; how old we do not know, 
 for the origin of the most of them is lost in the 
 distance of time. " Tlie Prayers," the matchless 
 prayers, which are not of the earth, earthy, but 
 heavenly ; meet at once for the lips of sin-stained 
 but penitent men, and for the ears of the Awful 
 Holiness and Majesty of God. 
 
 Again, then, I say, let us thank God who has 
 given and preserved to our use that priceless Book 
 of Common Prayer. Let us begin to be ashamed 
 of our ignorance of it, and our coldness and in- 
 difference to it ; and especially that we ever 
 listened with patience and calmness while it was 
 reviled and traduced by ignorant and unreason- 
 able men. Let us study it that we may be able 
 to commend its excellence and beauty to others, 
 as well as by its means to purify and elevate our 
 own hearts. Never let our lips be closed when it 
 is our part to join in it in this House, nor our 
 hearts cold and wandering when God and His dear 
 Son are here to accept and answer its " prayers and 
 praises, intercessions and giving of thanks." But 
 let us remember that this House is the House of 
 Prayer, as our Liturgy is the Booh of Prayer, and 
 as God is the Hearer of Prayer. For Prayer is 
 
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 communion with God here, and that is what we 
 have on earth most like heaven. God is now ever 
 near us and His eye upon us; blessed are they 
 who find it good to draw near to Him in the holy 
 worship of His House. For to such, when the veil 
 that hides Him from our view falls away, and they 
 stand before Him face to face — that will be Heaven 
 itself. 
 
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