Prayer-book by some of the Moderate' clergy. Some prayers, it appears, were omitted, and some were shortened, and in one form or another 'the divine service so curtailed,' says South in his exaggerated way, 'as if the people were to have but the tenths from the priest, for the tenths he had received from them.' No doubt the expectation of immediate changes in the liturgy, and the knowledge that some of the bishops were leaders in that movement, had an unsettling effect, adapted to encourage irregularities. At all events we hear little more of it, when the agitation in favour of comprehension had ceased. There was often a lax observance of the rubrics; but there appear to be no complaints of any serious omissions, until three or four of the Arian and semiArian clergy ventured, not only to leave out the Athanasian Creed, but to alter the doxologies, and to pass over the second and third petitions of the Litany.

The Athanasian Creed, however, might fairly be said to stand on a somewhat different footing. If it had been a pain and a stumbling-block only to those who had adopted Whiston's opinions about the Trinity, men to whom the ordinary prayers could not fail to give offence, it would have been clear that such persons had no standing-ground in the ministry of the Church of England. But the case was notoriously otherwise. Persons who have not the least inclination to adopt heterodox opinions, may most reasonably object to the use in public worship of elaborate scholastic definitions. on questions of acknowledged mystery. Those clergymen, therefore, whether in the eighteenth or in the nineteenth century, who have been accustomed to neglect the rubric which prescribes the use of this Creed on certain days, might feel reasonably justified in so doing, on the tacit understanding that, at the demand of the bishop they should either read the formula, notwithstanding their general dislike to it, or give up their office in the Church. No doubt it was quite as

1 South's Works, iv. 191.

2 Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors, 156, 507-8. Parry's Hist. of the Ch. of E., iii. 165.

This gave occasion to a special pastoral letter of the Bishop of London, Dec. 26, 1718.

• Whiston's Memoirs, at date 1720, 249.

ATHANASIAN CREED; DIVISION OF SERVICES.

1

477

often omitted in the last century as in our own; and in George III.'s time, even if a desire had existed to enforce its use, there would have been the more difficulty in doing so. from its having been forbidden in the King's Chapel.2

The habit of reading continuously, as parts of one service, Morning Prayer, the Litany, and part of the office for the Communion, had hardly become fixed at the commencement of the century. John Johnson,3 writing in 1709, said it was an innovation. The old custom had been to have, on Sundays and holy days, prayers at six, and the Litany at nine, followed after a few minutes' interval by the Communion service. Even in Charles I.'s time they had often become joined, as a concession to the later hours that were gradually gaining ground, or, as Heylin expressed it, 'because of the sloth of the people.' But 'long after the Restoration' the distinction was maintained in some places, as in the Cathedrals of Canterbury and Worcester. And throughout the last century, 'Second Service' was a name in common general use for the Communion office.4

Bull, Sherlock, Beveridge, and other Anglican divines, who belong more to the seventeenth than to the eighteenth century, had expressed much concern at the unfrequency of celebrations of the Eucharist as compared with a former age. Our Reformers, they said, had regarded it as an ordinary part of Christian worship. In the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. there had been express directions relating to a daily administration, not only in cathedrals, but in parish churches. But now, said Beveridge, people have so departed from primitive usage that they think once a week is too often. It had come to be monthly or perhaps quarterly. The Puritans, with the idea that the solemnity of the rite was

Thus we find Dr. Parr speaking of 'reviving' its use in his parish. Johnstone's Life of Parr'-Q. Rev. 39, 268. Expressions of dislike to parts of it among Churchmen are very numerous throughout the century.

2 Barbauld's Works, by Aikin, ii. 151. Bishop Watson's Life, i. 395.

J. Johnson, Clergyman's Vade Mecum, i. 12, and Heylin (Hist. pl. ii. cap. 4) quoted by him.

4 T. Bisse, Beauty of Holiness, 123. C. Cruttwell's Life of Bishop Wilson, 265 (in the Isle of Man, First and Second Services are the regular terms used in official ecclesiastical notices). London Parishes, 8.

5 Sherlock On Public Worship, 1681, 205, 219. • Beveridge On Frequent Communion, 155, 173.

enhanced by its recurring after comparatively lengthened intervals, discouraged frequent communions, and many Low Churchmen of the next generation held the same opinion.' In the country, quarterly communions had become the general rule. The number of communicants had also very much diminished. No doubt this was owing in great measure to the general laxity which followed upon the Restoration. But the cause already mentioned contributed to keep away even religious people. It must be also remembered that, during the period of the Reformation, and for some time after, stated attendance at the Holy Communion was regarded not only as a religious duty, but as an ordinary sign of membership in the National Church, and of attachment to its principles. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, although the odious sacramental test was yet to survive for many a long year, that feeling had very generally passed away, and was being gradually superseded in many minds by an opposite idea that this Sacrament was not so much a help to Christian living, as a badge, from which many excellent people shrunk, of decided religious profession. With the rise of the religious societies there was a change for the better. The High Church movement of Queen Anne's time, regarded in its worthiest form and among its best representatives, was one in which the sacramental element was prominently marked. If a comparison is made between the number of churches in London where the Sacrament was weekly administered in Queen Anne's reign, and on the other hand, in any period from about the middle of George I.'s reign to the third or fourth decade of the present century, the difference would be strikingly in favour of the earlier date. In 1741, we find Secker admonishing the clergy of the diocese of Oxford, that they were bound to administer thrice in the year, that there ought to be an administration during the long interval between Whitsuntide and Christmas. And if,' he adds somewhat dubiously, 'you can afterwards advance from a quarterly communion to a monthly one, I make no doubt but you will.' Of course there were many verbal and many practical protests against the prevalent disregard of this central Christian ordinance. Thus Fleetwood for example, Charge to the Ely Clergy,' 1716—Works, 1737, 2 Secker's Eight Charges, 63.

699.

both Wesley from a High Church point of view, and the Broad Church author of the 'Free and Candid Disquisitions,' urged the propriety of weekly celebrations. And before the end of the century there was doubtless some improvement. In many parish churches the general custom of a quarterly administration was broken through in favour of a monthly one, and in many cathedrals the Sacrament might once more be received on every Lord's Day.' But Bishop Tomline might well feel it a matter for just complaint, that being at St. Paul's on Easter Day, 1800, 'in that vast and noble cathedral no more than six persons were found at the table of the Lord.'2 Before leaving this part of the subject, it should be added that, previous to the time when the Methodist organisation became unhappily separated from the National Church, the sermons of Wesley and his preachers were sometimes followed by a large accession of communicants at the parish church.3

Kneeling to receive the Sacrament had been one of the principal scruples felt by the Presbyterians at the time when the great majority of them were anxious for comprehension within the National Church. Archbishop Tillotson, acting upon his well-known saying, 'Charity is above rubrics,' and in accordance with the practice of some of the Elizabethan divines, was wont to authorise by his example a considerable discretion on this point. Bishop Patrick, on the other hand, though no less earnest in his advocacy of comprehension, did not feel justified in departing from prescribed order, and when Du Moulin desired to receive the Sacrament from him, declined, not without many kind remarks,' to administer to him without his kneeling. After all schemes of comprehension had fallen through, the concession in question became very unfrequent. A pamphleteer of 1709 speaks doubtfully as to whether it still occurred or not. A greater licence in regard

5

1 E. C. M. Walcot's Customs of Cathedrals, 101.

2 Quoted in The Church of England Vindicated, &c., 1801, 5.

Two Letters concerning the Methodists, by the Rev. Moore Booker, 1751, Pref. iv.

156.

Burnet's Funeral Sermon on Tillotson, quoted in Lathbury's Nonjurors,

Du Moulin's Sober and Dispassionate Reply, &c. 1680, 32.

The Church of England's Complaint against the Irregularities of some of the Clergy, 1709, 15.

of posture was one of the suggestions of the Free and Candid Disquisitions.'

Through the Georgian period, a negligent habit was by no means unusual of reading the early part of the Communion service from the reading desk. Dr. Parr, in 1785, speaking of the changes he had introduced into his church at Hatton, evidently thought himself very correct in 'Communion service at the altar.'1

Even in Bishop Bull's time the offertory was very much. neglected in country places.2 Later in the century its disuse became more general. There were one or two parishes in his diocese, Secker said, where the old custom was retained of oblations for the support of the church and alms for the poor. But often there was no offertory at all: he hoped it might be revived and duly administered.3

Some remarks have already been made upon the traces which were to be found in a few exceptional instances, during the eighteenth century, of the Eucharistic vestments as appointed in Edward VI.'s Prayer-book.

The sacramental'usages,' so called, belong to the history of the Nonjurors rather than to that of the National Church. There was, however, no time when the theological and ecclesiastical opinions prevalent among the Nonjurors did not find favour among a few English Conformists, lay and clerical. Thus, the mixture of water with the wine, in conformity with Eastern practice, and in remembrance of the water and the blood, seems to have been occasionally found in parish churches. Hicks said he had found it to be the custom at Barking. Wesley also, and the early Oxford Methodists, approved of it.5

In the early part of the seventeenth century George Herbert had said that the country parson must see that on

'J. Johnstone's Life of Dr. Parr, qu. in Q. Rev., 39, 268.

2 R. Nelson's Life of Bull, 52.

Charge of 1741-Secker's Eight Charges, 63.

C. Leslie's Letter about the New Separation'-Works, i. 510.

He adds

that some clergymen of the Ch. of E. always used unleavened bread at the Sacrament.

5 L. Tyerman's Oxford Methodists, Pref. vi. Other allusions to an occasional preference for this usage occur in Bishop Horne's Works, App. 203, and Gent, Mag. 1750, xx. 75.