Home      Back to Advent 2

 

 

 

 
From
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
THE ORIGINAL PREFACE (1549)
ALTERED IN 1552 AND 1662
CONCERNING THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH

THERE was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted:  As, among other things, it may plainly appear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service.  The first original and ground whereof if a man would search out by the ancient Fathers, he shall find, that the same was not ordained but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness.  For they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once every year; intending thereby, that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers in the congregation, should (by often reading, and meditation in God’s word) be stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able to exhort others by wholesome doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth; and further, that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true Religion.