Common Worship: Then and Now

http://www.churchnewspaper.com/englandonsunday/index.php?read=on&number_key=5812&title=Common%20Worship:%20Then%20and%20Now

[The Church of England Newspaper] March 24, 2006--“Moreover, the number and hardness of the rules called the Pie, and the manifold changes of the Service, was the cause, that to turn the book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times there was more business to find out what should read, than to read it when it was found out.”“

And whereas heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in Churches within this Realm … now from henceforth all the whole Realm shall have but one use.”(The first Prayer Book of King Edward VI, 1549)

There were two central points set out in the Preface to the First Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Up to, and including, the abortive 1928 Book, this preface has been reprinted in each subsequent Prayer Book revision under the heading “Concerning the Service of the Church.”