and growing population, and that the importance of improving the education already given is every day more sensibly felt; that though the members of the Church have shown their readiness, both collectively and individually, to contribute towards the founding and support of schools, it is highly important that their benevolence, in order to be effectual, should be assisted by such permanent provision for training masters and inspection of schools, according to the doctrine and discipline of the Church, as shall insure the sound instruction of all classes in the important truths of the Gospel, and afford a guarantee for the fulfilment of the wise and pious intentions of the benefactors. "For this purpose your petitioners humbly pray, that in considering such measures as may be submitted to your honourable House respecting the duties and revenues of the Church, the statutable number of the dignities of every Cathedral Church in this kingdom, and of the Cathedral Church of this diocese in particular, may be preserved; and that the persons to be appointed to the several stalls now vacant, and their successors for ever, together with such other proportion as your honourable House, with the advice of the Archbishops and Bishops, shall determine, may be required respectively, as vacancies occur, to perform the duties of theological professors, or lecturers, of principal of the Diocesan Institution for training Schoolmasters, and such other spiritual offices as may conduce to the greater efficiency of the Established Church. "And your petitioners will ever pray, &c." MORE FREQUENT CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST DESIRABLE. THE sacrament of the Lord's Supper was instituted by our holy Saviour as an appropriate and most solemn memorial of that great sacrifice of his own body, which he freely offered upon the cross, to certify the full remission of their sins to the truly penitent, and to secure the possession of eternal felicity to all mankind who shall embrace with faith the conditions of the gospel covenant. How necessary, then, that such a holy feast should often be set before us! and how sad a proof is it of our degeneracy from apostolic times, that we have lapsed so much in its observance from the custom of our early brethren in Christ! The first disciples "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" they continued daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house. (Acts ii. 46.) This evidently referring to their participation of the holy communion. It was "their daily bread."* In the second century, we find communion enforced at least every Lord's day in some places, every day. (Vide Bingham, book xv. c. ix.) Discipline, however, rapidly declined, till at last it dwindled down to : Hunc autem panem dari nobis quotidie postulamus, ne, qui in Christo sumus. et Eucharisticum Quotidie ad cibum salutis accipimus, intercedente aliquo graviore delicto, dum abstenti et non communicantes a cælesti pane prohibemur, a Christi corpore separemur.-Cypr. de Orat. Dom. p. 268. three times a year! This was determined on at the Council of Agde, about the year 506; and confirmed at the third Council of Tours, anno 813. (Vide Bingham.) Nay, degeneracy made such rapid strides, that we find the Council of Lateran, under Innocent III., reducing the obligation to once a year, viz. Easter. It is, indeed, a sad task to trace the constant struggles carried on against primitive devotion, by modern laxity, which makes it difficult to determine, whether the neglect of the holy Eucharist was occasioned by the decay of christian piety, or was not rather the cause of it. Our object is to show the necessity now existing to restore, in some respect at least, primitive usages and primitive zeal. Our apostolical church enjoins, that "every parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year, of which Easter shall be one." And although in cathedral and collegiate churches and colleges, the rubric directs the sacramental table to be prepared every Sunday; yet, according to the words, it is only, literally speaking, prepared for the priests and deacons there assembled. Now, Mr. Editor, would it not be highly desirable, that we should have more explicit commands on this important point? In many of our churches, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is celebrated but four times in the year;-surely this is not the way to "remember the Lord's death till he come!" Let us receive injunction from our spiritual fathers in Christ, our Bishops, to invite our flocks, at least once a week, to a participation in this Divine feast, that so we may not fall away still further from godly practices, in this our age, when, alas! "the love of so many is waxed cold." R. M. T. North Sunderland, Dec. 14, 1839. "HOURS" AND OTHER DEVOTIONAL WORKS. LETTER IX. MR. EDITOR,-In addition to the various Service Books explained in my former letters, there are a vast number of devotional works used by the Roman Catholic laity, such as-" Les Heures à l'Usage de Rome; -"Les Heures de Notre Dame ;"-" Funiculus Triplex, or the Triple Cord of Saint Francis ;"—" Cœleste Palmetum ;"-" The Garden of the Soul;"-" The Devotions of the Sacred Heart ;"" Nouvelles Etrennes Spirituelles ;" &c. To analyze these individually would be of course a hopeless task,as useless as it would be impracticable, and I shall therefore merely give your readers a general description of their various contents. As might be anticipated from its title, a book of "Hours" is in fact a sort of lay Breviary, containing psalms and hymns, and prayers, and lessons, arranged with a view to the seven canonical hours. It is, however, by no means so full as the Breviary, and many of the prayers are sometimes in the vernacular language of the country. The Book of Hours also generally contains the Litany of the Saints; the Vigiliæ Mortuorum; private devotions to be said morning and evening; prayers to be used by the laity during the celebration of mass, and such like. Would that my pen could adequately describe to your bibliographical readers two of these manuscripts of the fourteenth century which are now lying before me. The immaculate purity of the vellum,-as smooth as the finest satin, -is beautifully contrasted by the intense blackness of the ink, and adorned with the most brilliant penmanship. The variety and splendour of the borders, in which, although gold and vermilion and ultramarine are lavishly employed, the colours are yet blended with so much taste that there is nothing gaudy; and, to crown the whole, the exquisite finish displayed in the miniature illuminations, would be viewed by the antiquary with rapturous delight, while even the uninitiated could hardly fail to appreciate their beauty. The "PRIMER," set forth in the reign of Henry VIII., was in fact a book of "Hours;" as however the prayers, hymns, Gospels and Epistles were published in English, and many of the superstitions of the original omitted or softened down, it was a most important step towards the Reformation. The above description of the "Hours" applies more or less to all the devotional books now in use among the Roman Catholic laity. In general, they also contain directions for self-examination before confession, prayers to be said by those who are about to receive the Eucharist, and sometimes a compendium of controversies. As an appropriate conclusion, I shall now supply your readers with a Catalogue Raisonnée of all the Liturgical books which have ever been used in the Church of Rome,-many of them being now quite obsolete. ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE VARIOUS ROMISH SERVICE BOOKS. ANTIPHONARIUM, contained the Invitatories, Versicles, and Responses. BAPTISTERIUM, was probably the same as the " Ritual," (q.v.) BREVIARIUM, the canonical hours throughout the year, being Psalms, Lessons, &c. arranged for the use of the Clergy. COLLECTARE, the Collects for the Sundays and Festivals throughout the year. CONSUETUDINARIUM DIRECTORIUM, a book of Rubrical directions for the use of the Clergy. EPISTOLARIUM, otherwise the "Pistol Boke," contained the Epistles for all the Sundays and Festivals throughout the year. EVANGELISTARIUM, all the Gospels throughout the year. EXORCISMS (the Book of), contained the exorcism of the evil spirit from the child about to be baptized; the service to be used over the Energumeni, (or possessed) &c. It used to be solemnly delivered by the Bishop to the Exorcist at the time of his ordination, but the Missal or Pontifical are now commonly used for the purpose. GRADALE (otherwise the Grail), contained the Tracts, Sequences, Hallelujahs, Creed, Offertory, Trisagium, &c. (See my Fourth and Fifth Letters.) HOURS, the Breviary of the Laity, explained in this letter. KALLENDARIUM, the Calendar of fixed and moveable Festivals, with rules for finding Easter, &c. as in our Book of Common Prayer. LEGENDA (or Lectionary), Lessons out of the Holy Scriptures and the Lives of the Saints. MANUALE, the same as the "Ritual,” (q.v.) MISSALE, contained the ordinary and canon of the mass; and in a word the whole service of the altar. MARTYROLOGIUM, the Lives and Sufferings of the Martyrs. PŒNITENTIALE, directions to the Priest for hearing confessions and apportioning penance: a list of Reserved Cases, and the forms of Absolution. PIE, PORTUIS, or PORTIFORIUM, the same as the "Consuetudinarium" (q.v.) PSALTERIUM, the Psalter, or Book of Psalms. RITUALE, the offices of Baptism, Penance, Matrimony, &c., as described in my eighth letter. TROPERIUM, contained the versicles used after the Introit of the Mass, and the Sequences (or responses made by the people after the Epistle). VENITARE, probably received its name from the Psalm "Venite exullemus Domino," and may have contained the Invitatories. YMPNARE, was probably a collection of Hymns. As I have already hinted, many of these have long since ceased to exist in a separate form, having merged into the Ritual, Missal, and other Service Books still in use. And now, Mr. Editor, having conducted your readers thus far, I shall take my leave, with a grateful sense of your indulgence in allowing me to occupy so much of your valuable space. It was my original intention to have added a few letters, to show the use of these books in Controversy: I should in that case have pointed out the dramatic system of Popery as it is exemplified in the mass; and also its tendency to materialize religion by the many symbolical actions enjoined in the ritual and pontifical. I should have also selected some of the most remarkable legends from the Breviary, and proved by the actual words of their public services that Romanists pray to the saints for pardon and salvation. For the present, however, I shall lay down my pen, Καὶ αὐτὸς αὐτόθι καταπαύσω τὸν λόγον. Καὶ εἰ μεν καλῶς καὶ εὐθίκτως τῇ συντάξει, τοῦτο καὶ αὐτὸς ἤθελον, εἰ δὲ εὐτελῶς καὶ μετρίως, τοῦτο ἐφικτὸν ἦν μοι. I have the honour to be your obedient servant, IMAGE WORSHIP. TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. SIR,-My purpose was to have discontinued my remarks on Image Worship. I must beg for one word more, that I may, in candour, admit to Anglicus that the sentence in the 71st Tract for the Times, approaching to idolatrous," is not so strong as I could desire. But the word "scandal," immediately applied to that corruption, in my mind, amply compensates for the weakness of the one above, and fully * Various atrocious crimes can only be absolved by a Bishop. clears the writer of any leaning to, or extenuation of, popish idolatry. Parkhurst thus renders σkavdaλov-" a snare or toil; a stumbling-block; whatever actually makes, or has a manifest tendency to make men fall, stumble, or be remiss in the ways of duty; and particularly whatever hinders men from becoming the disciples of Christ, or discourages them in their new profession, or tempts them to forsake that faith they had lately embraced." What language could any one use more strongly to express his detestation of error or corruption? See also Tracts 78, page 7, and 67, page 67; the writers of which do not " hesitate" to state their opinions, neither "contradictorily" nor" ambiguously." Indeed, the Tract-writers continually demonstrate the want of catholicity of all the popish tenets; and as pointedly insist that the "Catholic Faith is this; that we worship ONE God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity." Pope Gregory's Encyclical Letter I do not remember to have seen; but Anglicus is very greatly mistaken, if he suppose the Pope's Bulls or Letters have much weight with the Papists in England, while surrounded by reformed Catholics, (ultra-protestants, whether in or out of the Church, they little regard,) who are, as the author of the offending Tract truly states, "a practical restraint upon the natural tendency of their system." It is a fact daily observable, that the popish priests jesuitically deny all they can, and give a colouring to what they cannot hide, in spite of bulls. Nor do I know in what the Romanist publications delight: but in a note in the smaller edition of Dr. Hook's Sermon on the Novelties of Romanism, occurs the following quotation from the Manchester Courier of Oct. 26, 1839. Dr. Wiseman, in his Lectures to Romanists, at Manchester, "broke out in a strain of passionate invective against the writers of the Tracts for the Times, denouncing them, and complaining that they had started a line of argument against their popish opponents that had been left undisturbed for a century." For the advice given by Anglicus in his Postcript, I feel much obliged; but let me tell him, that there is quite as much idolatry among ultraprotestants as papists; and I shall be glad if he as willingly take my advice as I do his, "Steer clear of it." I now take leave of the subject, assuring both Anglicus and H. M‘K. that the hammer they have used to break the Tracts in pieces, has served to rivet them much tighter in my affections; for the more I examine and understand them, the more I admire them. I am thankful, very thankful, that it has pleased God to raise up men of talent, learning, and piety, to call Churchmen to a revision of their too-long-held laxity of opinion, and prove to them the divine foundation of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the alone witness of doctrinal and disciplinary truth, the "rock against which the gates of hell shall not prevail." Feb. 11, 1840. PRESBYTER ANGLICANUS. P. S.-I would not be so ungenerous as to take advantage of what is evidently a mis-print; I must, however, say, that I was, at first See the Church Magazine for January, 1840. p. 11. |