character of the old religion; the use of English marked the strictly national and local character of the new system. In the spring of 1548 a new Communion service, in English, took the place of the Mass: an English Book of Common Prayer—the Liturgy which, with slight alterations, is still used in the Church of England—soon replaced the Missal and Breviary, from which its contents are mainly drawn. The name Common Prayer which was given to the new liturgy marked its real import. The theory of worship which prevailed through mediæval Christendom—the belief that the worshipper assisted only at rites wrought for him by priestly hands, at a sacrifice wrought through priestly intervention, at the offering of prayer and praise by priestly lips—was now set at naught. The laity, it has been picturesquely said, were called up into the chancel. The act of devotion became a common prayer of the whole body of worshippers. The Mass became a Communion of the whole Christian fellowship. The priest was no longer the offerer of a mysterious sacrifice, the mediator between God and the worshipper: he was set on a level with the rest of the Church, and brought down to be the simple mouthpiece of the congregation.'
The authority of this First Book of Edward VI. is in all points complete. It had the sanction of Convocation as well as that of Parliament and King, although, as we have seen before and shall have to see again, the first of these was, in a vast number of instances, both before and after, held quite unnecessary, and the second not much less so.
It would be out of place to enter here into a discussion as to the theological peculiarities of this book, and its difference from those which followed it in 1552,
