changes,-Grafted into the Church, for grafted in the Church, and the forgiveness of sin for forgiveness of sin.] 17. Of the Lord's Supper. [Same as the Twenty-eighth English Article, with the omission of the last paragraph.] 18. Of the one Oblation of Christ upon the Cross. [Same as the first sentence of the Thirty-first English Article.] 19. Of Bishops and Ministers. The Book of Consecration of Bishops, and Ordering of Priests and Deacons, excepting such part as requires any oaths or subscriptions inconsistent with the American Revolution, is to be adopted as containing all things necessary to such consecration and ordering. 20. Of a Christian Man's Oath. The Christian religion doth not prohibit any man from taking an oath, when required by the magistrate, in testimony of truth. But all vain and rash swearing is forbidden by the Holy Scriptures. The Table of Holy Days. The following days are to kept holy by the Church, viz. :— All the Sundays in the year, in the order enumerated in the Table of Proper Lessons, with their respective services; Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany; Easter Day, Monday and Tuesday; Ascension Day; Whitsunday, Monday and Tuesday. The following days are to be observed as Days of Fasting, viz.-Good Friday and Ash Wednesday. The following days are to be observed as Days of Thanksgiving, viz.—the Fourth of July, in commemoration of American Independence, and the First Thursday in November, as a day of General Thanksgiving. The Proposed Book' was hardly out of the printers' hands before it was evident, to quote the language of Bishop White,' that, in regard to the Liturgy, the labours of the Convention had not reached their object.'1 1 Memoirs, p. 112. South Carolina,1 Virginia,2 Maryland, and Pennsylvania1 proposed new amendments. No Convention met in Delaware. New Jersey rejected the Book; and New York postponed the question of its ratification. The prospect of the speedy success of the efforts for the Episcopal Succession in the English line served to hinder the ratification and use of the Proposed Book.' Objections made by the English Archbishops and Bishops to the mutilation of the Apostles' Creed, and the omission of the Nicene, were obviated by the action of the General Convention at Wilmington, Delaware, in October, 1786. The clause, 'He descended into hell,' 1 Bishop White tells us in his Memoirs (p. 112) that ‘in South Carolina, the book was received without limitation.' A reference to the Journal of the Convention of that State for 1786, as reprinted in Dalcho's Hist. of the Church in S. Carolina, pp. 471-3, gives evidence to the contrary. The changes adopted by this Convention embraced not only matters of punctuation, but comprised important alterations and omissions in almost every part of the Service. 2 In Virginia, the only exception taken to the book was the rubric before the Communion Service' (Journal of Va. Conv. 1786, appended to Hawks' Eccl. Contributions, vol. i. p. 16, Appendix). The 'rubric held to be intolerable in Virginia, was that allowing the Minister to repel an evil liver from the Communion.' (Bishop White's Memoirs, p. 112.) 3 Maryland required the restoration of the Nicene Creed, and the addition of an Invocation to the Consecration Prayer in the Communion Office. Hawks and Perry's Reprinted Journal, i. 569, 570. 4 Pennsylvania added to the Maryland amendments a new question and answer in the Baptismal Services, and changes in the Burial Service and the Articles. was restored, and the Nicene Creed inserted after the Apostles' Creed, prefaced by the rubric [or this]. This measure having removed the still remaining hindrances to the consecration of Bishops for America by the English Archbishops and Bishops, the 'Proposed Book' was gradually laid aside, as having failed to commend itself to the Church's acceptance. At the meeting of the General Convention of 1789, the question of union between the churches of New England, with Seabury as their Episcopal head, and those of the middle and southern States, offered a topic of absorbing interest. When this measure was effected at the adjourned meeting of the same year, and the Church was at unity with herself, the preparation of a Liturgy became the first duty. The New England deputies, under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Parker, 'proposed that the English Book should be the ground of the proceedings held, without any reference to that set out and proposed in 1785.'1 Others contended that a Liturgy should be framed de novo, 'without any reference to any existing book, although with liberty to take from any, whatever the Convention should think fit.' 2 The result of the discussion appears in the wording of the resolves, as they stand in the Journal, in which the different committees are appointed, to prepare a Morning and Evening Prayer -to prepare a Litany-to prepare a Communion Service,' and the same in regard to the other portions of the 2 Ibid. 1 Bishop White's Memoirs, p. 147. Liturgy. In 1785, the phraseology was to alter the said service. The latitude of change this action of the Convention seemed to predicate, was lessened by the general disposition of the members to vary the new book as little as possible from the English model. The alterations, other than those of a political nature, were mainly verbal, together with the omission of repetitions, the addition of selections of Psalms, Office for the Visitation of Prisoners, from the Irish Prayer-Book; Prayer and Thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth, &c., and Family Prayer. Besides these, Bishop Seabury secured the restoration to the Consecration Prayer of the Oblation and Invocation found in King Edward VI.'s First Book, and retained in the Scotch Offices. In this he effected for the American Church a closer conformity in her eucharistic office to the primitive models, and fully answered the requirement of the Concordate' he had signed on his consecration. A misunderstanding between the House of Bishops and the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, with respect to the printing of the controverted clause in the Apostles' Creed concerning the descent into hell, gave occasion for uneasiness among the clergy at the north; but at the next General Convention, in 1792, the matter was definitely settled, as the House of Bishops originally intended, and as it now stands.' 1 Allusion to this misunderstanding appears in Bishop White's Memoirs, pp. 150-152, 155-160, where its bearing on the question earlier brought before this Convention-as to the The Athanasian Creed was finally rejected at this review of the Prayer-Book, although its discretionary use was agreed to by the House of Bishops. The House of Clerical and Lay Deputies negatived this proposition, and even after conference with the Bishops, 'would not allow of the Creed in any shape.' 1 '1 In this connexion we append from the original manuscript, never before printed, the opinion of the Bishop of Connecticut, concerning this Creed. It is a portion of a letter to his friend, Dr. Parker, afterwards Bishop of Massachusetts, and bears the date of December 29, 1790: 'With regard to the propriety of reading the Athanasian Creed in church, I never was fully convinced. With regard to the impropriety of banishing it out of the Prayer-Book, I am clear; and I look upon it, that those gentlemen who rigidly insisted upon its being read as usual, and those who insisted on its being thrown out, both acted from the same uncandid, uncomplying temper. They seem to me to have aimed at forcing their own opinion on their brethren. And I do hope, though possibly I hope in vain, that Christian charity and love of union will sometime bring that Creed into this book, were it only to stand as articles of faith stand; and to show that we do not renounce the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, as held by the Western Church.'2 binding authority of the Eng- that passed on this subject, giving fully the views of these distinguished men on a matter so fraught with interest and importance. 1 White's Memoirs, p. 150. 2 In the collection of the writer. |