NOTE N, p. 36.

The use of metrical Psalms was a concession made to the feelings of the ultra-Protestants at an early period. They form no part of our appointed services according to the rubric, but by one of Queen Elizabeth's injunctions, permission was given to those of the parishioners who chose to assemble before service commenced, or to stay after it was concluded, to sing Psalms. It is curious that we can name the precise period when the singing of a Psalm between the end of the Litany and the commencement of the Communion Service was introduced as an innovation into the Parish Church of Leeds. Under the date

1708, Thoresby in his Diary says,

"OCTOBER 3-Was much interrupted in family course, partly by guests and partly by a most severe cold which has so absolutely taken away my voice that I was perfectly disabled from some duties, as particularly singing, a new order of which was begun this day in the Parish Church, to sing a stave betwixt the daily Morning and Communion Service (as has been long done in London, &c.) and is more agreeable, making a greater distinction, as there ought to be, betwixt the several parts."ii. p. 10.

The innovation was noted and complained of at an early period.

"At the Reforming of this Church," says Heylin, "not onely the Queen's Chappel, and all Cathedrals, but many Parochial Churches, also had preserved their Organs; to which they used to sing the appointed Hymns; that is to say, the Te Deum, the Benedictus, the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis, &c., performed in an Artificial and Melodious manner, with the addition of Cornets, Sackbuts, and the like, on the Solemn Festivals, for which as they had ground enough from the holy Scripture, if the

practice and authority of David be of any credit; so were they warranted thereunto by the godly usage of the primitive times, after the Church was once restored to her peace and freedom. Certain I am, that St. Augustine imputes no small part of his conversion to that heavenly melodie which he heard very frequently in the Church of Millaine, professing that it did not only draw tears from him, though against his will, but raised his soul unto a sacred meditation on spiritual matters. But Beza having turn'd so many of the Psalms into metre, as had been left undone by Marot, gave an example unto Sternhold and Hopkins to attempt the like. Whose version being left unfinished, but brought unto an end by some of our English exiles which remained at Geneva; there was a purpose of imposing them upon the Church by little and little, that they might come as close as might be in all points to their mother city. At first, they sung them onely in their private houses, and afterwards (as beforesaid) adventured to sing them also in the Church, as in the way of entertainment, to take up the time till the beginning of the service, and afterwards to sing them as a part of the service itself. For so I understand that passage in the Church Historian in which he tells us that Dr. Gervis being then warden of Merton Colledge, had abolished certain Latine superstitious hymns which had been used on some of the festivals, appointing the Psalms in English to be sung in their place; and that as one Leech was ready to begin the Psalm, another of the fellows called Hall, snatched the book out of his hands and told him, that they could no more dance after his pipe. But whatsoever Hall thought of them, Beza and his disciples were perswaded otherwise. And that he might the better cry down that melodious harmony which was retained in the Church of England, and so make way for the Genevian fashion, even in that point also; he tells us in the same letter to Bishop Grindal, That the artificial musick then retained in the Church of England,* was fitter to be used in masks and dancings, than religious offices, and rather served to please the ear then move the affections. Which censure being passed upon it by so great a Rabby, most wonderful it was how sundenly some men of good note and quality, who otherwise deserved well enough of the Church of

* Alluding to chanting and to our Cathedral Service.

England, did bend their wits and pens against it; and with what earnestness they laboured to have their own tunes publickly introduced into all the churches, which that they might the better do, they procured the Psalms in English metre, to be bound in the same volume with the Publick Liturgie, and sometimes with the Bible also, setting them forth, as being allowed, (so the title tells us) to be sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer, as also before and after Sermons; but with what truth and honesty, we have heard before."

Heylin's Hist. of Presbyterians, p. 254, 255. I am not contending for the discontinuance of the metrical Psalms, for I delight in congregational singing, though I regret that, in our parochial Churches, they have superseded the antiphonal chanting of the Psalms of the Day. We might speak more strongly of the very novel introduction of unauthorized Hymns, which, as the present Bishop of Peterborough remarks, "if they do not directly impugn our Liturgy and Articles, may inculcate sentiments which are at variance with every fair conclusion which may be drawn from our Liturgy and Articles," may certainly be deprecated. But I intend not now to condemn the practice, but merely to notice the fact. I feel that I have no right to condemn, but I may notice an innovation, if it be only to shew who are the innovators, and to request them, while living in a glass house, not to pelt so pitilessly, as is frequently done, those of their brethren, who, in regulating the services of the sanctuary, are desirous of attending as strictly as possible to the Rubric, although they may reverence the Rubric not the less for its retention of so much of primitive usages

NOTE O, p. 36.

TURNING FROM THE PEOPLE IN PRAYER.

Among the things complained of by the Puritans in the Convocation of 1562, this was one. They petitioned "that in all parish churches the minister in Common Prayer might turn his face towards the people.”—Strype's Annals, i. pt. 1, p. 502. A petition to the same effect had been previously made, and both petitions were refused. What makes this the more remarkable, is that, as will be seen in the next note, the change had been made at the end of Edward the Sixth's reign; and, in order to please certain foreigners, orders had been given to turn towards the people in prayer. The order was reversed in Elizabeth's reign, and we see from the above quotation that the practice of turning from the people, i. e. towards the East, was instituted by the Reformers who completed our Reformation. Of those who petitioned that the minister might be compelled to turn to the people, Strype remarks: "By the foregoing Articles we may plainly perceive how much biassed these divines (i. e. those who petitioned that the minister might turn his face towards the people,) were (most of which seem to have been exiles,) towards those platforms which were received in the reformed churches where they had a little before sojourned," thus again shewing the foreign prejudices of ultraprotestants. Other passages to the same effect might be produced if it were worth while. The

K

following extract is made, because it relates to several points alluded to in this part of the discourse. In his preface to the Cyprianus Anglicus, Heylin thus describes the customs of the Church of England before the Rebellion :

"In the officiating of which acts of God's divine service, the Priest or Presbyter is enjoined to wear a surplice of white linen cloath, to testifie the purity of doctrine, and innocency of life and conversation, which ought to be in one of that holy profession. And this St. Jerome tells us in the general, Religionem Divinum alterum habitum habere in ministerio, alterum in usu vitaque communi: that is to say, that in the Act of Ministration, they used a different habit from what they use to wear at ordinary times. And what this different habit was, he tells us more particularly in his reply against Pelagius, who, it seems, disliked it, and asked him what offence he thought it could be to God, that Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, or those of any inferiour order, in Administratione Sacrificiorum candidi veste processerint, did in the ministration of the Sacrament bestir themselves in a white vesture; so he advers. Pelag. Lib. 2, with which compare St. Chrysostom in his 83d Homily on St. Matthews gospel, for the Eastern churches; and hereunto the Cope was added in some principal Churches, especially in the celebration of the blessed Eucharist. Both which appear most evidently by the first Liturgy of King Edward VI. compared with one of the last clauses of the Act of Parliament, 1 Eliz. c. 2, in which it is provided, that such ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers shall be retained and be in use, as were in the Church of England by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. But this vesture having been discontinued, (I know not by what fatal negligence,) many years together, it pleased the Bishops and Clergy in the Convocation, Anno. 1603, to pass a Canon to this purpose, viz., "That in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, the Holy Communion shall be administred upon principal Feast dayes, sometimes by the Bishops, &c. and that the principal Minister using a decent Cope, &c."-Canon 24.

"In that part of divine service which concerns the offering of the people's prayers to Almighty God, it was required of the