CHAPTER III. PUBLIC SERVICES. PAGE The Lessons-Hymns preceding and following the LessonsThe Creeds-Interlocutory Sentences-Collects-State Prayers-Prayer for the Clergy-Concluding Prayers and Thanksgivings-The Litany-Communion ServiceWeek-day Services 45 CHAPTER IV. OCCASIONAL SERVICES. The Baptismal Service-Catechism-Order of Confirmation Excellency of the Liturgy-Its Imperfections-Preliminary Emendations-Arguments for a still further revision of the Liturgy. No manual of devotion has been more generally, or more deservedly commended, than the Liturgy of the Church of England. To adopt the appropriate language of an ancient ritualist-" It is so judiciously contrived, that the wisest may exercise at once their knowledge and devotion; and yet so plain, that the most ignorant may pray with understanding: so full, that nothing is omitted, that is fit to be asked in public; and so particular, that it comprises most things, which we would pray for in private. Its doctrine is pure and primitive; its ceremonies few and innocent; its method exact and natural; its language significant and perspicuous,-most of the words and phrases being taken out of Holy Scripture, and the rest, the expressions of the first and best ages." *Comber on the Liturgy. B The characteristic beauties of our Liturgy are still more graphically delineated by the accurate pen of Archdeacon Paley. "The style," says he, "throughout is excellent calm without coldness; and though every where sedate, oftentimes affecting. The pauses in the service are disposed at proper intervals. The transitions from one office of devotion to another, from confession to prayer, from prayer to thanksgiving, from thanksgiving to hearing of the word, are contrived like scenes in the drama, to supply the mind with a succession of diversified engagements. As much variety is introduced also in the form of praying, as this kind of composition seems capable of admitting. The prayer at one time is continued; at another, broken by responses, or cast into short alternate ejaculations: and sometimes the congregation is called upon to take its share in the service, by being left to complete a sentence, which the minister had begun. The enumeration of human wants and sufferings in the Litany is almost complete. A Christian petitioner can have few things to ask of God, or to deprecate, which he will not find there expressed, and for the most part with inimitable tenderness and simplicity." "Testimonies to its superior excellence," observes Bishop Ryder," abound in dead and living authors of communions differing among themselves, and all different from our own; and the well merited weight of whose opinion is therefore doubly enhanced by this undeniable proof of their impartiality." The validity of these testimonies, it may be added, is still further enhanced, by the consideration, that several of these "differing communions" statedly avail themselves of our form of prayer. The episcopal church in America, which is daily increasing in numbers and respectability, steadily retains its original predilection for the Anglican Liturgy: the numerous followers of Wesley and Whitefield, and of the late Countess of Huntingdon, and not a few of the Independent persuasion, have appointed, that a selection from our Service should be read every Sunday morning in their principal chapels. Nor is this use of the established ritual confined to our own language. It has been translated into various foreign tongues, and constitutes the form of public worship adopted by missionaries of different denominations among their heathen converts. Notwithstanding, however, the peculiar excellence of our Liturgy, it is not without imperfections, and these too of so conspicuous a character, as immediately to arrest the attention, and at the same time of so indefensible a nature, that the warmest admirers of our Church have been unanimous in regretting their existence. A brief reference to the nature and origin of these imperfections will manifest the propriety and facility of their removal. Omitting for the present the consideration of those verbal alterations, which the lapse of time, and perhaps an occasionally unguarded expression of our Reformers, might render expedient, the writer would refer to two principal objections, which are constantly brought against our Liturgy, viz. the undue length and unnecessary repetitions, which encumber the Sunday Morning's Service. In reference to this subject, Archdeacon Paley properly reminds us, "that the length and repetitions complained of in our Liturgy, are not so much the fault of the compilers, as the effect of uniting into one Service, what was originally, but with very little regard to the conveniency of the people, distributed into three." An anonymous clergyman, also, who has lately published a very sensible and temperate work on the Expediency of Church Reform, observes, that "each of the three Services is complete in itself, comprising confessions of unworthiness, prayer and supplication, profession of faith, intercession and praise and thanksgiving." Plain observations like the preceding contain a more powerful vindication of the compilers of our Liturgy, than volumes of eulogistic remarks. They at once exonerate these venerable men from the principal charges, which have been brought against them, of undue length and unmeaning repetitions, and at the same time forcibly remind us, that the existence of such imperfections in a Liturgy compounded like our own, was absolutely necessary to free their original works from objections of a contrary and more serious description. If our present Morning Service were not decidedly too long, their three distinct Services must have been decidedly too short; and were not our present Liturgy encumbered with unnecessary repetitions, their original Services must necessarily have been very incomplete, as distinct manuals of devotion. If therefore a change of circumstances renders three distinct Morning Services inexpedient, not to say im |