Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/106

 "In these their ministrations the clergy exercise functions which transcend all human authority, and if these functions are viciously or carelessly performed, but without overt scandal, they are answerable to God alone."

I have quoted at some length these sentiments because some people say that the Sovereign now has a right to alter our doctrines and has control of our spiritual heritage. Nothing is farther from the truth.

The next benefit of the Reformation was the gift of our beautiful Prayer Book. As we have remarked, before this movement many Service Books were used in England. From a comparison of these our present Book was compiled, so that most of its contents are of very ancient date, and much of it comes down from Apostolic times, as, for example, many of the Collects and the greater part of the Office for Holy Communion. We have seen that in Edward's reign two Prayer Books were published. The latter was brought about through the protestantizing influence of the Puritans. The Second Book of Edward was restored in Elizabeth's reign, with additions giving it a more Catholic tone. The Book was slightly changed in the time of James I. The last revision was made in the reign of Charles II., when a few prayers were added and some other small details omitted. This is in brief the history of our Book of Common Prayer, which is now so highly prized.

The other gift of the Reformation was the theological treatise, the Thirty-nine Articles of religion. The object for which they were drawn up was to preserve unity of doctrine in the Church. They were preceded by the Ten Articles of Cranmer. The first draft of our Articles was forty-two in