Family Prayer Book, or the Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church

Excerpt from Family Prayer Book, or the Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church

The considerations which have led to the publication of the following work, were stated at large in the Prospectus of the Editor. Some of the leading ones may properly be recapitulated in this place. It is well known that the Scholars and Divines of the Church of England have expended much labour in the elucidation of her Book of Common Prayer. The history of its several Offices has been investigated, and their import fully explained; the system of doctrines it inculcates has been successfully defended and established; and the whole has been commended to the judgment, and enforced upon the conscience and the heart, by the most earnest practical appeals. But the works of these writers on the Liturgy are diffused through a great number of volumes. Some of them have become, in a measure, obsolete in their style, and some of the most valuable of them are hardly to be obtained, even in England; while no complete work on the Liturgy has yet been issued from any American Press. The result is, that those among us who wish to profit by such works, can only gratify their inclinations at great expense, and with much difficulty; while a very large portion of the members of our Church remain but imperfectly instructed in the full import of those services which constitute the formulary of her worship, and the ritual for the administration of her sacraments.

A judicious compilation from the works of the best English writers on the Liturgy; so comprehensive as to contain all that is most interesting and useful, and yet at so moderate a price that it may be brought into general use, seems greatly to be needed by our Church; and it has been the object and endeavour of the Editor to supply this desideratum.

In the prosecution of his work, he has thought it expedient to present the Commentary on the Morning and Evening Prayers of the Church, mostly in his own language, and somewhat at large; condensing what has been said by many writers into single articles, attached to each particular part of the service. As this portion of the work will probably be most frequently read in a devotional way, such an arrangement was thought convenient, to preserve the connexion, and to prevent those interruptions which must otherwise occur in passing from the observations of one writer to those of another.

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