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INTRODUCTION.
( iii) In the Occasional Services, the Book of 1549 retained in the Baptismal Service the use of the Exorcism, the Chrism and the Chrisome( or white garment); in the Visitation of the Sick Extreme Unction was allowed, if desired, but in terms not implying in it any sacramental character; the Funeral Service contained prayers for the soul departed, and provided specially for the celebration of the Holy Communion.
In the First Book there was no Ordinal; but a form of Service was drawn up by a Commission, and authorized, in 1550, and added in a revised form to the Prayer Book of 1552.
III. REVISIONS.- The changes which have brought the Prayer Book to its present form are the result of four revisions, in 1552 and 1559, in 1604 and 1662; these revisions themselves being, in some degree, reactive one against another. The character and result of each revision may here be briefly indicated, and will be noticed more in detail in notes on the several parts affected.
( A) In 1552, when the Prayer Book of 1549 had hardly yet had a full trial, a revision was pressed on by the Crown, influenced by some foreign reformers of the growing Calvinistic school, against the advice of Cranmer and his chief colleagues in the Episcopate. The objects of this revision were( 1) FURTHER SIMPLIFICATION OF CEREMONY, for which object the old Vestments were superseded by the use of the surplice alone: the additional ceremonies in Baptism were disused; the Introits, the Agnus Dei in the Communion Service, and the Post- Communion sentences struck out. ( 2) FURTHER PRECAUTIONS AGAINST SUPERSTITIONS, especially the doctrine of Transubstantiation and its consequences. This led to a reconstruction of the Communion Service, changing the order materially; omitting the Invocation of the Holy Spirit on the Elements and the Oblation; altering the words of Administration; appending the" Declaration on Kneeling" in such terms as to deny any" real and essential Presence" of Christ in the Sacrament; and disusing the word" Altar." It also led to the entire disuse of the ceremony of Extreme Unction, and to the prefixing of the Confession and Absolution to the Morning Service, probably indicating a disuse of private Confession, unless in exceptional cases. ( 3) URTHER DEPARTURE FROM OLD FORMS, which had been abused. This induced the disuse in the Communion Service and Burial Service of Commemoration of and Prayer for the Departed, and possibly combined with the first desire to suggest the disuse of ancient Ceremonies. This revised form could hardly have come into use, for in 1553 the reaction under Queen Mary abolished it altogether: but it materially affected all subsequent forms, and, in its chief points, the revision of 1552 has not been reversed.
( B) The next revision, however, was partly a reaction against it. Elizabeth, on her accession in 1558, desired to rally round the Reformation the mass of the people, even of those who desired to return to the position of the reign of Henry VIII. With this view the Prayer Book was revised in 1559; on the basis, however, not of that of 1549( which it is said that she herself desired), but of that of 1552. The chief alterations were as follows:-( 1) The royal. title of" Head of the Church" was exchanged for that of" Supreme