FACSIMILE OF the British MUSEUM COPY (C. 25, f. 15) to follow Appendix I.—Comparison of readings ... ... VII.-Durham, University Library, xvii, E. 19 (title-page). X.-Durham, Cosin Library, F V, 2 (fol. B. i, verso). XI. Bodleian Library, Arch. Bodl., A. I, 57 (title-page). INTRODUCTION. THE appearance of the Order of the Communion in March, 1548, had been preceded by the passing, in December, 1547, of an Act of Parliament,' in which provisions of very different kinds are curiously linked together. The first portion of the Act, after a prelude on the virtuous intentions of the king and his desire to govern his subjects by methods of clemency, indicates that some bridle of fear" is necessary for certain persons, described as "men most contentious and arrogant for the most part or else most blind and ignorant,” by whom "things well and godly instituted" are " perverted and abused," and that this tendency is especially apparent “in matters of religion and in the great and high mysteries thereof, as in the most comfortable Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar, and in Scripture, the Supper and Table of the Lord, the communion and partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ." It proceeds, after a statement as to the institution of the Eucharist, to declare that the Sacrament has been "of late marvellously abused" by "unreverent and ungodly" disputations and reasonings, and by "such vile and unseemly words as Christian ears do abhor to hear rehearsed." It therefore enacts that any persons who after the first day of May, 1548, shall by words or otherwise deprave, contemn, despise or revile the Sacrament shall suffer fine and imprisonment at the King's pleasure, and directs the mode of proceeding against offenders.2 1 The statute 1 Edw. VI. cap. 1. It is printed in Gee and Hardy, Documents illustrative of the History of the English Church, 1896, p. 322. 2 The effect of this may seem at first sight to be the giving of full liberty of speech to the revilers for four months or more. But this was probably not intended; and the gap was filled within a few days after the passing of the Act by a proclamation, forbidding irreverent and indecent discussions as to the Sacrament, and the use The second portion of the Act declares that it is more agreeable to the first institution of the Sacrament, and to the common use and practice of the Apostles and the primitive Church, that the Sacrament "should be ministered to all Christian people under both the kinds of bread and wine than under the form of bread only"; and "that the people being present should receive the same with the priest than that the priest should receive it alone."1 It therefore enacts that the Sacrament shall "be hereafter commonly delivered and ministered unto the people within the Church of England and Ireland, and other the King's dominions, under both the kinds, that is to say, of bread and wine, except necessity otherwise require"; that the priest shall, at least one day before he ministers the Sacrament, exhort those who are present to prepare themselves to receive it; and that on the day appointed, "after a godly exhortation by the minister made," declaring the benefits of receiving worthily and the peril of receiving unworthily, "to the end that every man shall try and examine his own conscience before he shall receive the same," the minister "shall not, without lawful cause, deny the same to any person that will devoutly and humbly desire it." It is not always easy to trace in the Parliamentary Journals of the time the exact steps by which particular measures passed into law. But there can be little doubt that this Act was the result of a combination of two bills, of which one was intended to repress the growing irreverence towards the Sacrament, the other to provide for the administration of the Sacrament to the lay people "under both the kinds." The Parliament met on of irreverent language concerning it (examples being cited in unnecessary quantity), under severe though unspecified penalties. (Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iv, p. 18.) This was doubtless meant to supply the necessary "bridle of fear" for the time. By the proclamation preachers were prohibited from using, on the subject of the Sacrament, till a further definition of doctrine should be made, any terms not employed in Scripture. 1 It may be noted that the practice of "five hundred years and more after Christ's ascension " is alleged for ministration in both kinds; no precise period is assigned for the duration of the other primitive usage. |