in his revising it, made some few little alterations; not at all varying his meaning, but his expressions, to render the whole as unexceptionable as becomes a book not designed for dispute, but for devotion." In 1687, he did exactly the same thing with respect to a passage in the "Manual" itself (to which, it is to be remembered, the Hymns were not then appended,) which had been alleged by the Romanists to give countenance to their doctrine and practice of the Invocation of Saints and Angels. The passage originally ran thus:—"Help me, then, ye blessed Host of Heaven, to celebrate that unknown sorrow, that wonderful Love, which you yourselves so much admire; help me to praise my Crucified Saviour." This he altered, by omitting the petitionary words, "Help me," and modifying the rest of the language; explaining his reason for doing so, (in Advertisement prefixed to the edition of 1687,) in these words:—
"Whereas a late Popish pamphlet has injuriously affirmed, that, in a Manual of Prayers for the use of the Scholars of Winchester College, I have taught the Scholars of Winchester to invocate the whole Court of Heaven; citing these words, page 93, Help me, then, O ye blessed Host of Heaven, &c., I think myself obliged to declare, that, by that apostrophe, I did no more intend the Popish Invocation of Saints and Angels, than the holy Psalmist did, when he calls upon the Sun, Moon, and Stars, Fire, Hail, and Snow, &c., to praise God; Ps. 148; and, to prevent all future misinterpretations, I have altered, not the sense, but the words of that paragraph:" concluding with a profession of his entire agreement, on the point in controversy, with the 22nd Article of the Church of England.
Now, it an hardly be denied, that, if the passage in the Manual was calculated to give a handle for misrepresentation, which it was expedient to remove by some modification of the language, there was quite as much reason for altering a passage in the Evening Hymn, as originally composed, to which the same considerations would at least as strongly apply; and we find, accordingly, that exactly such an alteration as those considerations would suggest was made in the text of the Evening
