Page:The Book of Common Prayer.djvu/8



N the following pages the Book of Common Prayer which was annexed in manuscript, as the authoritative record, to the Act of Uniformity of 1662, is exactly reproduced in type—it is believed for the first time.

By this it is to be understood that the text is here printed verbatim et literatim, without any attempt to modernize the spelling, or to harmonize it in the very numerous instances in which it is at variance with itself, and that the punctuation of the original MS. (often extremely faulty and defective if judged by a present-day standard) has been most rigidly adhered to, even in cases where it is, to modern readers, obviously erroneous. Wherever an erasure or correction occurs in the MS., the passage is printed as it was left after the making of such erasure or correction.

The MS. copy now reproduced was adopted by the clergy of both Houses of Convocation and of both Provinces, Dec. 20, 1661, and is authenticated by their signatures appended. Nevertheless, the earliest printed copies of the Book of Common Prayer of 1662, namely, those known as the Sealed Books, because they were declared under the Great Seal of England to be true copies of