Book of 1662. The Translation of 1611,
then, is that from which are to be taken "such portions of Holy
Scripture as are inserted into the Liturgy." This appears to be the
_general_ rule of the Prayer Book of 1662. But that Prayer Book gives
authority to various exceptions. The most notable of these is the
provision, in a footnote to _The order how the Psalter is appointed to
be read_, "that the Psalter followeth the division of the Hebrews and
the translation of the great English Bible, set forth and used in the
time of King Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth."

If it be asked why the words of the Psalms should be sung as in the
Great Bible when other translations have superseded it for Lessons,
there is an easy answer. Books were not cheap or common in the 16th
and 17th centuries. Many people had sung them so often as to know them
by heart. A comparison of the Bible and Prayer Book translations will
show that there was no large gain to be set against the loss of
congregational worship which must have resulted from changes. The
Bishops' Bible supplanted the Great Bible in 1568, and the Authorised
Version was made in 1611. Both in 1604 and in 1662 the Revisers
decided to retain the Version of 1539-40 (the Great Bible) so far as
the Psalms and Canticles {42} were sung in the Churches. This is
plainly not an oversight in 1662, for the Revisers altered the words of
the note in the Preface, without changing the sense.

Psalms in Daily Services.

The Preface, "Concerning the Service of the Church," states that "the
ancient Fathers have divided the Psalms into seven portions, whereof
every one was called a Nocturn," and that "the same was . . . ordained
. . . of a good purpose and for a great advancement of godliness"; but
"of late time a few of them have been daily said and the rest utterly
omitted." A writer of the ninth century says that S. Jerome, at the
bidding of the Pope on the request of Theodosius, arranged the Psalms
for the Services of day and night in order to avoid the confusion
arising from variety of uses[2]. S. Ambrose was a contemporary of S.
Jerome but died more than 20 years before him. There are considerable
differences between the plan which S. Ambrose gave to his diocese of
Milan, and the plan which we may believe was generally given at the
same time to the Churches of the rest of Western Europe. But they are
similar in many respects. In both, a division was made between the
first 1