The Workmanship of the Prayer book in Its Literary And Liturgical Aspects

ur Prayer Book. It was both natural and reasonable that the English Reformers should look with interest towards the great religious movement on the Continent, and to the action there taken in the direction of liturgical reconstruction. More particularly the reforming efforts of the Archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von Wied, Prince Elector of the Empire (who in the end died, like Cranmer, excommunicated by Rome), attracted the attention of our Archbishop. Archbishop Hermann, though, as it would seem, not himself a man of any considerable erudition, had called to his aid Martin Bucer and the learned Philip Melancthon, the pride and wonder of the University of Wittenberg. With their aid Hermann put forth, first in German (1543) and afterwards in a Latin form (1545), a book which had a very largeinfluence upon the English Prayer Book. An English translation of the Latin appeared in 1547 entitled, " A simple and religious consultation of us Hermann, by the grace of God Archbishop of Cologne and Prince Elector, etc., by what means a Christian reformation, and founded in God's word, of doctrine, administration of the Divine Sacraments, of ceremonies . . . may be begun," etc. The demand for this book appears to have been so considerable that a second (and revised) English edition appeared in 1548. In the following year the first English Prayer Book appeared. Our Litany owes several suffrages to Hermann; and some of the most beautiful features in our two great sacramenta...