care was taken in the choice of members (as bishop Burnet obferves) that every thing went among them as was directed by bishop Sheldon and Morley. If a convocation had been holden with the convention parliament the majority would have been against the hierarchy; but it is not to be wondered they were otherwife now, when fome hundreds of the prefbyterian clergy, who were in poffeffion of fequestered livings, had been difpoffeffed; and the neceffity of ordination by a bishop being urged upon those who had been ordained by presbyters only, great numbers were denied their votes in elections. Nevertheless the prefbyterian interest carried it in London for Mr. Baxter and Calamy by three. voices; but the bishop of London, having a power of choofing two out of four, or four out of fix within a certain circuit, left them both out; by which means the city of London had no clerks in the convocation. The author of the Conformists Piea* fays, "That to frame a convocation to "their mind great care and pains were used to keep out, "and to get men in, by very undue proceedings; and that "proteftations were made against all incumbents not or"dained by bishops."

1

The Savoy conference having ended without success, the king fent a letter to the convocation, Nov. 20, commanding them to review the book of common-prayer, and make fuch additions and amendments as they thought neceffary. Letters to the fame purpose were fent to the archbishop of York, to

• Page-35.

+ It was required, "that all propofed alterations should be exhibited "and prefented for his majesty's farther allowance and confirmation:" this was accordingly done. He was finally to pronounce on the propriety and truth of the propofed alterations. All the debates, investigations, and decifions of the clergy and bishops, had no efficacy without the fanction of the king. They might be mistaken: but he could not. There is an abfurdity in afcribing infallibility to any human being, neceffarily liable to imperfect views, to prejudices and to error. But, if poffible, the abfurdity is greater in attributing it to the fceptered, rather than to the mitred fove-; reign. The former is not educated to a religious profeffion; and his "time, from the moment he fills the throne, that is, from the moment he "becomes infallible, must be conftantly employed in civil concerns: but yet, as head of the church, to him all truth is known; to him all appeals "from the ecclefiaftical courts must be made."

A Treatise on Herefy, p. 73, 74. ED.

be

be communicated to the clergy of his province, who for the greater expedition fent proxies with procuratorial letters to thofe of Canterbury, and obliged themselves to abide by their votes under forfeiture of their goods and chattels.

"It is inconceivable, fays Dr. Nichols, what difficulties "the bishops had to contend with, about making thefe "terations; they were not only to conquer their own former "refentments, and the unreasonable demands of presbyte"rians, but they had the court to deal with, who pushed "them on to all acts of feverity."* Whereas on the contrary, the tide was strong on their fide, the bishops pushed on the court, who were willing to give them the reins, that when the breach was made as wide as poffible a door might, be opened for the toleration of papifts. The review of the common-prayer book engaged the convocation a whole month; and on the 20th of December it was figned, and approved by all the members of both houses.

The alterations were these,t

1. The rubrick for finging of lessons, &c. was omitted, the distinct reading of them being thought more proper. 2. Several collects for Sundays and holy days complained of, were omitted, and others fubstituted in their room.

3. Communicants at the Lord's fupper were enjoined to fignify their names to the curate fome time the day before. 4. The preface to the ten commandments was restored.§ 5. The exhortations to the holy communion were amended.

6. The general confeffion in the communion office was appointed to be read by one of the minifters.

7. In the office for Christmas day the words this day were changed for as at this time.

The rubrick in king James's review directed also the two lessons to be diftin&tly read, but it added; " To the end the people may better hear, in "fuch places where they do fing, there fhall the leffons be fung in a plain "tune, after the manner of diftinct reading, and likewife the epiftle and gofpel." Grey's Examination, p. 308. ED.

"

"So indeed fays bishop Kennet," remarks Dr. Grey; but they are both mistaken. The commandments were not in king Edward's first liturgy, but in king Edward's 1552, and in the reviews of queen Elizabeth and king James. Grey's Examination, p. 309. ED.

8. In the prayer of confecration the priest is directed to

break the bread.

9. The rubrick for explaining the reason of kneeling at the facrament was reftored.

10. Private baptifm is not to be administered but by a lawful minifter.

11. The answer to the queftion in the catechifm, Why then are children baptized? is thus amended, because they promise them both by their fureties; which promife, when they come to age, themselves are bound to perform.

12. In the last rubrick before the catechifm thefe words are expunged, And that no man fhall think that any detriment fball come to children by deferring of their confirmation, &c.

13. It is appointed that the curate of every parifh fhall either bring or fend in writing, with his hand fubfcribed thereunto, the names of all fuch perfons within, his parish, as he fhall think fit to be prefented to the bishop to be confirmed.

14. The rubrick after confirmation was thus foftened; None fhall be admitted to the communion till fuch time as he be confirmed, or be ready and defirous to be confirmed.

15. In the form of matrimony, instead of, till death us depart, it is, till death us do part.

16. In the rubricks after the form of matrimony, it is thus altered, After which, if there be no fermon declaring the duties of man and wife, the minister fhall read as followeth: And instead of the fecond rubrick, it is advised to be convenient, that the new married perfons fhould receive the communion at the time of marriage, or at the first opportunity afterwards.

17. In the order for vifitation of the fick it is thus. amended: Here the fick perfon fhall be moved to make fpecial confeffion of his fins, if he feel his confcience troubled with any weighty matter; after which the priest fhall abfolve him, if he humbly and heartily defire it, after this fort.

18. In the communion for the fick the minifter is not enjoined to adminifter the facrament to every fick perfon that hall defire it, but only as he fhall judge expedient.

19. In the order for the burial of the dead it is thus altered: the priests and clerks meeting the corpfe at the entrance

of

of the church-yard, and going before it either into the church, or towards the grave, fhall fay or fing,-In the office itself, these words, In fure and certain hope of refurrection to eternal life, are thus altered, in fure and certain hope of the refurrection to eternal life; and to leffen the objection of God's taking to himself the foul of this our dear brother departed, &c. the following rubrick is added; Here is to be noted, that the office enfuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptized or excommunicate, or who have laid violent hands upon themselves.

20. In the churching of women the new rubrick directs, that the woman at the ufual time after her delivery, fhall come into the church decently appareled, and there fhall kneel down in fome convenient place, as has been accustomed, or as the ordinary fhall direct, and the cxvith or cxxviith pfalm shall

be read.

Dr. Tenison, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, fays, "They made about fix hundred small alterations or additions, "but then adds, If there was reason for these changes, there was equal, if not greater reafon for fome further improve66 ments. If they had forefeen what is fince come to pass, I "charitably believe they would not have done all they did, " and just so much and no more; and yet I alfo believe, if "they had offered to move much further, A ftone would have "been laid under their wheel, by a fecret but powerful hand; "for the mystery of popery did even then work."* Bishop Burnet confeffes, that no alterations were made in favour of the prefbyterians, for it was refolved to gratify them in nothing.

But befides the alterations and amendments already men. tioned, there were feveral additional forms of prayer,§ as for the 30th of January and the 29th of May, forms of prayer to be used at fea; and a new office for the adminiftration of baptifm to grown perfons. Some corrections were

* Compl. Hift. p. 252. in Marg.

§ Befides the new forms fpecified by Mr. Neal, there were also added, Dr. Grey fays, the prayer for the high court of parliament, the prayer for all conditions of men, and the general thanksgiving. Examination, p. 310. ED.

This fervice was added, because on account of the spread of baptiftical fentiments, there were now many grown up too old to be baptifed as infants, whofe duty it was to make a profeffion of their own faith. Wall's Hift. of Infant baptifm. vol. ii. p. 215. ED.

VOL. IV.

A a

made

made in the kalendar. the converfion of St. Paul, and St. Barnabas.* More new leffons were taken out of the Apocrypha, as the Story of Bel and the Dragon, &c. But it was agreed, that no apocryphal leffons fhould be read on Sundays. Thefe were all the conceffions the convocation would admits; and this was all the fruit of the conference at the Savoy, by which, according to Mr. Baxter and bishop Burnet, the common-prayer book was rendered more exceptionable, and the terms of conformity much harder than before the civil war.

Some new holidays were added, as

The common-prayer book thus altered and amended was fent up to the king and council, and from thence tranfmitted to the house of peers, Feb. 24, with this meffage, That his majefty had duly confidered of the alterations, and does with the advice of his council fully approve and allow the fame; and doth recommend it to the house of peers, that "the faid "books of common-prayer, and of the forms of ordination, " and confecration of bishops, priests and deacons, with those “additions and alterations that have been made, and pre"fented to his majesty by the convocation, be the book which "in and by the intended act of uniformity fhall be appointed "to be used by all that officiate in all cathedral and collegi"ate churches and chapels, &c. and in all parish churches "of England and Wales, under fuch fanctions or penalties as "the parliament fhall think fitt." When the lords had gone through the book, the lord chancellor Hyde, by order of the houfe, gave the bishops thanks, March 15, for their care in this bufinefs; and defired their lordships to give the like thanks to the lower houfe of convocation, and acquaint them,

* These two holidays, though then first appointed by act of parliament, were not now added to the kalendar; for they ftand in the liturgy of Edward VI. by Whitchurch, 1549; in his Review, 1552; in Q. Elizabeth's review, 4to. 1601; in K. James's review 1609; and in the Scotch liturgy, at Edinburgh, folio, 1637. Grey's Examination, p. 311. It may be added, they are, with fuitable collects, in the liturgy printed by Bonham Norton and John Bill, 1629, penes me. ED.

§ There is one alteration not mentioned by Mr. Neal. In the fecond collect, in the vifitation of the fick, these words are omitted; "Visite him, ✪ "Lord, as thou didst Peter's wive's mother, and the captain's fervant:" which were in K. Edward's, Q. Elizabeth's and K. James's review. Id. p. 311. ED. || Id. p. 642, 3.

↑ Kennet's Chron. p. 633.

that