If a temperate and equitable revision were possible at the present time I should welcome the prospect on most accounts. But it seems to me plain that it is _not_ at present possible. And meanwhile I thank God from my inmost heart for the actual Prayer Book as a whole.
Let me point out a very few of the claims of the Book on our love and gratitude; and now specially in view of what we may sometimes hear said about it by Christians not of our own Church.
i. Observe its profound and searching _spirituality_. It is quite true that in a certain sense the Book takes all who use it for granted; it assumes them to be worshippers in spirit and in truth; it does not pray for them, or lead them in public worship to pray for themselves, as for those who do not know and love God, who have not come to Christ. But then what form of public, common prayer can well do this? And meantime the Book does, especially in the service of the Communion, and particularly in that too often omitted part of it, the "longer Exhortation," beginning _Dearly beloved in the Lord_, throw the worshipper back upon himself for self-examination. This is just the method of St Paul in his addresses to the Christian community. He writes to all as "saints," "faithful," "elect," "sanctified." What does he mean? Does he mean that those glorious terms are satisfied by the fact that all have been baptized, or even that all are communicants at the sacred Table? Not at all. He takes all for granted as being what they profess to be, when he greets the community. [Rom. viii. 9; 1 Cor. xvi. 22; 2 Cor. xiii. 5; Gal. v. 6.] But he says also, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His"; "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema"; "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you--except ye be [Greek: adokimoi], counterfeits?" "In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love." Such sentences throw a flood of holy and searching light on the sense in which St Paul "took them all for granted." And the Prayer Book is in true harmony with both parts of the Apostle's method.