Excerpt from A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer: And Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Church of England; The Whole Being the Substance of Every Thing Material in Bishop Sparrow, Mr. Lestrange, Dr. Comber, Dr. Nicholls, and in All And thus I have given the reader an account, as well of my first attempts on this subject, as of the further progress I made upon it when it came the third time to the press; which I have done, not so much for the sake of acquainting him with the old editions as of inforrnin him more distinctly what it is he may look for in the new ones. It will be a needless caution I su pose to add that I shall stand to nothing that I have said he ore, any further than it ees with the contents of the last: the particulars indeed are but ew, as far as I can remember, where my notions are changed but where they are, it is but common justice to take my sentiments from what I deliver upon maturer judgment; and not to expect I should always vindicate an error or mistake, be cause I once advanced it in a juvenile performance. I should have very ill bestowed the pains I took to review my original papers, (which was more a great deal than it cost me at first to collect and compile them and which took up as many years as it would have done months, had they been only reprinted as they were before, if they did not come out with some improvements at last. Not t at I am so vain as to think, they are at last without faults and imperfections; I am sensible there are many; I can only plead that none willingly esca ed me, and that wherever any escaped unwillingly, nobody could ave been more industrious to find them. For in order to this, 'i not only, during the tedious delay that I then created to the press, examined the sheets upon every occasion that called the matter of them fresh to my mind but also im ortuned the assistance and corrections of such learned friends as knew were in no danger (except from too favourable an indulgence to the author) of overlooking the slightest mistakes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.