Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in great condition. No notes or highlighting. Dustcover is worn. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Nearly half a century has passed since the first edition of Mr Procter’s History of the Book of Common Prayer was published: it has been a period full of an enthusiasm for liturgical studies which is almost if not quite without parallel. While these facts speak eloquently of the solidity and value of Mr Procter’s work they also explain amply why it was necessary that it should undergo considerable change. Much the same can now be said of Frere’s work. There can be few textbooks which have had a life of over a century and it was felt that ‘Procter and Frere’ was beginning to show its age. It seemed best not to attempt such a rejuvenation as Frere administered to Procter’s History but to produce an entirely new work. My object has been to arouse interest in the history of the Prayer Book and to provide a basis for further study. Reading about liturgies is no substitute for reading the liturgies themselves. I have assumed a certain familiarity with Church history and doctrine though constantly tempted to turn aside into each of these fields. It has been equally necessary to remember that this is a history not a com- mentary. Here a further passage from Frere’s preface remains apposite: It is inevitable in a book of this scale that much should be stated very briefly and dogmatically which would demand if space allowed a much fuller discussion or a much more balanced and reserved kind of statement. Such brevity and dogmatism is all the more deplorable in a study such as that of liturgical history in which again and again evidence is painfully deficient even upon points of first-class impor- tance and where deductions have to be drawn and theories constructed from data which are only too lamentably insufficient. (SP)