Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/543

 forms are precisely those of the Book of Common Prayer. These Services are, therefore, a most satisfactory comment on the Rubrics. By examining their structure, we ascertain the views of the Church from the period of the Reformation: and we find, that the Service was always performed in strict accordance with the Rubrics, as they stand in the Book of Common Prayer. In all these Forms, the Minister is directed to read the Morning Service to the end of the Litany: then follows the Communion Service: and after that the Sermon. The Minister is then directed to return to the Lord's Table, and after the Nicene Creed certain Offertory sentences are printed, the congregation being dismissed at the close of the Prayer for the Church Militant. Thus the manner of conducting Divine Service since the accession of Queen Elizabeth has ever been the same, as these Special Forms testify. The Communion was not administered on these occasions, yet some of the Offertory sentences were always read, for they are actually printed, and the Minister is directed to read them. Even as late as the last century, the Special Forms speak in a language not to be mistaken. In one of the date of 1714, just after the accession of George I. certain of the Offertory passages are printed with this Rubrical direction, "Sentences at the Offertory:" and in another in 1720, they are accompanied with the following Rubric: "After which for the Offertory shall these sentences be used."

It is not probable that the Minister changed his dress on these occasions. He is directed to proceed from the Lord's Table to the Pulpit, and to return and commence with the Prayer for the Church Militant, without any lengthened pause. He must on such occasions have preached in the surplice: and if