Services, something for its own sake. It is observable also, that parts of our Service were derived directly from the old Church, without the intervention of the German form; as the whole between the Interrogatories and the Act of Baptism.
The influence of Bucer upon our Service was negative rather than positive. When the First Book of Edward VI. was framed, he had not yet arrived in England; and in the revision which took place in Edward's reign, his objections were listened to, but the alterations were introduced without his knowledge, and independently of him. In the Baptismal Service the alterations were few, but they were all unhappily of the same character. It was the omission of certain significant rites, whereby either man's natural condition before Baptism, or the pridleges bestowed through Baptism, and the duties consequent thereon, were set before men's eyes. These were, that the first part of the Service was performed at the church-door, and the child then taken by the priest's hand, and brought towards the font, a blessing being pronounced over it, in token that, being naturally aliens, they were now "received into the holy household" of God. Again, they were anointed, in token that they needed not regeneration only, but the continual supply of "that blessed unction from above," which "is comfort, life, and fire of love." Again, the "white vestment" was given them, in token of the "innocence then given them by God," and as an admonition to keep their baptismal purity unstained. Lastly, there was the rite of exorcism, wherein, before Baptism, Satan was commanded, in the name of the blessed Trinity, to depart from the child, and "not to presume hereafter to exercise any tyranny over it." We have lost by all these omissions. Men are impressed, by these visible actions, far more than they are aware, or wish to acknowledge. Two points especially were thereby vividly inculcated, which men seem now almost wholly to have lost sight of—the power of our enemy, Satan, and the might of our Blessed Redeemer. Men now believe His power and willingness to receive again His lost sheep, who have strayed; but those who would claim to themselves the privilege of most extolling His readiness to save, seem practically to disbelieve, that after He has by Baptism brought His lambs into His fold. He ever saves any of them from falling again altogether into the power of the lion; and so they are left unguarded, as if to endeavour to rescue them were a hopeless effort. This had probably been much mitigated, or perhaps prevented, had the rites of the Ancient Church been retained.
The reviewers of our Service could not foresee the evils of their omission, and were to blame only in this, that they forsook the practice of the primitive Church, in compliance with the objections of a modern reformer. Much, doubtless, might be speciously said beforehand against the rite of exorcism previous to Baptism; that it was
