COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE EDITIONS OF THE PRAYER Book. Opening Sentences Confession & Absolution Te Deum, Benedicite Salutation Lesser Litany Lord's Prayer, Versicles For Royal Family, in Royal Family ... For Clergy and People ATHANASYS COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE EDITIONS OF THE PRAYER BOOK. 39 Articles, 1571 1662. MATTINS & EVENSONG. Opening Sentences Confession & Absolution Te Deum, Benedicite Private Baptism Catechism. Part ii. Holy Matrimony Burial of the Dead Churching of Women' those at Sea 42 Articles 38 Articles 1562 • Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis at Evensong from 1549. Cantate and Deus Miserentur added in 1552. INTRODUCTION. SECTION I. E USE OF A LITURGY SCRIPTURAL. y. ning of the THE word “Liturgy" is derived from the Greek λειτουργία, which in Classical means a public State burden discharged at the cost and personal self-sacrifice of an individual When, some three hundred years before Christ, ek Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was given world, forming, as it did, one of the most important of the fusion of Hebrew Theology with Greek and literature, which took place at Alexandria, islators of the Septuagint used λurovpyía as the ent of the Hebrew“ Abodah.” This word signified cificial Worship of the Mosaic Law rendered by the and Levites in the Tabernacle and Temple. he Sacrificial Worship of the “ministration of conion" passed into the Sacrificial Worship of the tration of righteousness,” we find S. Paul using this nd its kindred terms in connection with the office rk of the Christian Priesthood. [See Philippians ii. d Romans xv. 16, where he calls himself “ a αγός, who was ministering as a priest (ἱερουργοῦντα), he sacrifice (poopоpà) of the Gentiles might be ed."] Hence we find that in the Church Primitive λETOVрyía, or "The Divine Liturgy," was the ised title of the office of the Holy Communion. All services of the Christian Church were adjuncts to hoots from this the Central Act of Christian Worship, so that by degrees the term "Liturgy" came to include all those offices of Common Prayer and Common Praise whereby the Church maintains her Sacramental life, and offers her solemn Public Worship to Almighty God. Christendom, during the first fifteen centuries of its existence, knew no organised opposition to precomposed forms of Prayer and Praise. Until the Reformation the Church of Christ was content to follow Hosea's precept, "Take with you words and turn to the Lord" (Hosea xiv. 2), and did not dream of supplanting the prayers of the ancient Liturgies, hallowed by the devout use of generations of Christian people, by the ephemeral life of extemporaneous public devotions. But a reaction against effete formalisms caused an unreasoning cry for the abolition of all forms of public worship, and extreme Nonconformists have from time to time hotly condemned our Church for her use of a Liturgy. an inspired Liturgy. All denominations of Christians allow both by their principles and practice that Common Praise is scriptural, inasmuch as we have an inspired Book of Common Praise in the Psalms of David. But if Common Praise be scriptural The Psalms of David So is Common Prayer. The Psalms of David are no less an inspired Prayer Book than an inspired Hymnal. If Psalms 95, 98, and 100 (Venite, Cantate, and Jubilate) are hymns of praise, so Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143, the seven Penitential Psalms appointed for Ash Wednesday, are confessions of sin and prayers of penitence. Old Testament forms of In tracing the history of Liturgical Liturgical Worship. Worship in holy writ, we find the earliest form of Common Praise in the hymn sung by Moses and Miriam to celebrate the deliverance at the Red Sea (Ex. xv.) Further, we find (Deut. xxi. 7) a form for the expiation of an uncertain murder, to be used by the elders of the city and the Priests and Levites. Again, David appointed the Levites "to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord, and likewise at even (1 Chron. xxiii. 30), in a daily Liturgical use of the Psalter. |