FORMS OF PRAYER

for Special Occasions . Besides the great festivals and fasts of the Church universal, there will be, in each Church, continually recurring occasions of thanksgiving or humiliation, and some events of importance, which ought to be thus celebrated, and for which forms of prayer will be accordingly appointed by competent authority. The days thus set apart in the Church of England for the celebration of great events in our history are four: the 5th of November, the 30th of January, the 29th of May, and the 20th of June, the reasons for which are thus set forth in the several titles to the services enjoined on those days:— “A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving, to be used yearly upon the 5th day of November, for the happy deliverance of King James I., and the three estates of England, from the most traitorous and bloody-intended ma acre by gunpowder. And also for the happy arrival of his Majesty King William on this day, for the deliverance of our Church and nation.” “A Form of Prayer with Fasting, to be used yearly on the 30th of January, being the day of the martyrdom of the ble ed King Charles the First; to implore the mercy of God , that neither the guilt of that sacred and innocent blood, nor those other sins, by which God was provoked to deliver up both us and our king into the hands of cruel and unreasonable men, may at any time hereafter be visited upon us or our posterity.” “A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to Almighty God , for having put an end to the great Rebellion, by the restitution of the king and royal family, and the restoration of the government, after many years’ interruption; which unspeakable mercies were wonderfully completed upon the 29th of May, in the year 1660. And in memory thereof that day in every year is by act of parliament appointed to be for ever kept holy.” “A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to Almighty God , to be used in all churches and chapels within this realm, every year, upon the 20th day of June, being the day on which her Majesty began her happy reign.” When pa ing events, such as a pestilence, or its removal, call for humiliation or thanksgiving, it is usual for the Crown to require the archbishop of Canterbury to prepare a form of prayer for the occasion, which is then sent through the several suffragan bishops to the clergy in their respective dioceses, with the command of the archbishop and bishop that it shall be used on certain fixed days, so long as the occasion shall demand. This charge would fall on each separate bishop, were the Church of England separated from the State, and not distributed into provinces.