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522 Rubric, which removes all manner of doubt respecting the use of the Offertory, when there was no Communion.

It becomes a question, therefore, seeing that the old Rubrics are decisive of the practices and intentions of the Reformers, whether any change in this respect has since been introduced. The present Rubric at the end of the Offertory enjoins: "While these sentences are in reading, the deacons, churchwardens, &c. shall receive the alms for the poor, and other devotions of the people." This is to be done, whether there be a Communion or not, since, by the very next Rubric, it is supposed at this point in the service to be uncertain, whether the administration will take place; for it stands thus: "When there is a Communion, &c." Up to this part of the Service, the Priest is not supposed to be certain, whether a sufficient number of persons will remain to admit of the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Yet the alms are already collected: and thus it is clear that the collection is to be made without reference to the Communion. Then the Rubric at the close of the Office orders, that when there is no Communion, all the Service is to be used to the end of the Prayer for the Church Militant, including necessarily the Offertory.

But it has been argued that the Offertory is abolished by the introduction of the Poor Laws. The objections, however, which lie against this argument are fatal. When the Book of Common Prayer was reviewed in 1661, the Poor Laws were in existence: