fortable Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, to be taken of them in the remembrance of his most fruitful and glorious passion, by the which passion we have obtained remission of our sins and been made partakers of the kingdom of heaven; whereof we be assured and ascertained if we come to the said Sacrament with hearty repentance for our offences, stedfast faith in God's mercy, and earnest mind to obey God's holy will, and to offend no more. Wherefore our duty is," &c. &c., nearly in the words of our present Prayer-book, though some alterations have been made in this Exhortation. But in 1547 this Rubric was prefixed: "First, the Parson, Vicar, or Curate, the next Sunday or holy-day, or at the least one day before he shall minister the Communion, shall give warning to his parishioners, or those which be present, that they prepare themselves thereto, saying to them openly and plainly as hereafter followeth, or such like." In 1549 the Rubric prefixed, without desiring it to be done on any day before, merely directs the Priest, "if the people be negligent," to exhort them "to dispose themselves to the receiving of the Holy Communion more diligently, saying these or like words unto them." The latitude allowed by the last words of both these Rubrics seems to show it was expected the Preachers would exhort the people to communicate, and would give notice always of the Sacrament in their sermons; and thence probably the form of notice came to be omitted for more than a century, from

1552 to 1661, when it was restored with the two inconsistent directions as to the time of using it.

Another change made at the last revision deserves consideration. The Bidding prayer having been (to borrow Dr. South's expression) "put out of use and out of countenance," the substance of its last clause, praising God for them that are departed in the true faith, and praying that we with them may rise again, was now added to the prayer for the Church Militant. They, then, who think the Rubric directs this prayer always to be used when there is no Communion, should consider, whether it is likely that while the one party objected to the length of the old liturgy, the other should actually have made it longer. "Too tedious in the whole," was the language of the objectors: they did not, they could not think it tedious in its several parts, in the services read separately, or any two of them combined, but tedious in the whole, i. e. when the three services were read at the same time. It is but justice, then, to the majority who prevailed on that occasion, to suppose this lengthened prayer for the Church Militant was not designed to be used when the three services, performed in full with a sermon, were taken together as one whole, except for the special service of the Holy Sacrament. And so, in process of time, from its reasonableness, the practice of closing the service with the sermon came to be introduced into cathedrals also, with a return to the discountenanced, but authorized, bidding to pray; a form which, it seems,

could in no place be used before the sermon with the prayer for the Church Militant, as it now stands, after it, except for the actual administration of the blessed Eucharist.

There yet remains for us to consider, what has been before alluded to, an alteration at the last revision in wording the very Rubric proposed to be explained. In the Prayer-books of 1552 and 1603 it ran thus: "Upon the holy-days, if there be no Communion, shall be said all that is appointed at the Communion, until the end of the homily, concluding with the general prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church Militant here in earth, and one or more of these collects before rehearsed, as occasion shall serve." It was then an instruction for the course to be followed when there was a homily or sermon. At the last revision in 1661, all mention of homily or sermon was struck out, and it cannot be said the words "until the end of the homily" were omitted, merely because, the Clergy in general having become preachers, the homilies ceased to be read: the words "sermon or homily" might as well have been used in altering this Rubric, as in framing the new one at the same time prefixed to the warning for the celebration of the Holy Communion. Observe, it is not merely that the Rubric now does not mention the sermon: it omits the mention of the homily or sermon it before made. For more than a century, however, the use of it had been interrupted by the ascendency

one while of Popery, another while of Puritanism, still from 1552 to 1662 the Rubric had directed what should be read to the end of the homily, then concluding with the prayer for the Church Militant and a collect in 1662 the Clergy found all mention of the homily or sermon omitted. Was it not, then, natural for them, with these facts before their minds, to understand it as an instruction for the course to be followed when there was no homily or sermon, but as not intended to interfere, when there was a sermon, with the usage of the day? And such in both respects is the very practice which has been handed down to us: in all churches, I believe, this Rubric is complied with to the letter when there is no sermon, as for two hundred years it has been the general practice, when there is a sermon, with it to close the service. And if the practice of the Church may be taken as a fair interpreter of the Rubric with which it has been coexistent, surely a compliance with this general and long-established usage is entitled to be regarded as at least as regular a course as a departure from it, under an idea that we now understand the meaning and design of a rubric better than they did, who lived in the very time when it was enacted.

The Rubrics in our Prayer-book sometimes require careful consideration, that we may see the course intended for us to follow. For instance, if Epiphany fall on any day of the week except Saturday or Sunday, the collect for Epiphany is read during the

remainder of that week; yet no Rubric expressly directs this, but only that the collect for Circumcision, read on the Sunday, is not to be read after Epiphany; and except we take what is here implied, no collect at all is appointed for the remainder of the week. Again, if, as this year, there be twentyseven Sundays after Trinity, it is not immediately apparent that the Church has appointed any Proper Lessons for a twenty-seventh Sunday: but if we consider the Rubric after the Gospel for the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity, we find, it directs the Service of Sundays omitted after the Epiphany to be taken in to supply so many services as are here wanting; but the Service of a Sunday is its Proper Lesson as well as its Collect, Epistle, and Gospel: since, then, the services of four Sundays after Epiphany will be read in their regular course next year, what may be wanting for Sundays after Trinity this year should be taken from the services of the fifth and sixth Sundays after Epiphany. On this point, indeed, it is to be regretted that the Rubric is not more explicit: it might have secured uniformity, by ruling what it has left to each Minister's discretion: and the word "here may seem to restrict the rule to Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, yet certainly it may mean, in this Prayer-book, or in these Rubrics, and so include the Rubric for the Proper Lessons. It cannot, then, be said, that the Rubrics are a complete and perfect guide; but much consideration is necessary in some