Royal Commission was appointed to revise the Book of Common Prayer.
The most eminent Anglican divines of the day, including Tillotson,
Stillingfleet, Patrick, and Beveridge, were among the members. To
all outward appearance the movement came to naught; for the proposed
revision was not even put into print, until in 1854, the House of
Commons, in response to a motion of Mr. Heywood, ordered it to be
published as a Blue-book. And yet in some way our American revisers
of 1789 must have found access to the original volume as it lay
hidden in the archbishop's library at Lambeth; for not only does
their work show probable evidence of such consultation, but in their
Preface they distinctly refer to the effort of King William's
Commission as a "great and good work,"[77] a thing they would
scarcely have done had they possessed no real knowledge of the
facts. Macaulay's sneering reference to the work of the Commission
is well known, but, strangely enough, the justice which a Whig
reviewer withholds, a high Anglican divine concedes, for no less
exacting a critic than Dr. Neale, while manifesting, as was to be
expected, a general dislike of the Commissioners of 1689, and of
their work, does yet find something to praise in what they
recommended.[78]

Among the real improvements suggested by the Commission was the
liturgical use of the BEATITUDES, and this in two places, once in
"The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper," as an
alternate to the Ten Commandments; and again in the Commination
Office as a proper balance to the Anathemas of the Law.

But the Commission, like the late Joint Committee on the Book of
Common Prayer, was unfortunate in its choice of a response; and no
wonder, for the task of finding the proper one is difficult.[79]

A Beatitude differs from a Commandment in that while the latter
enjoins the former only declares. The one therefore simply calls
for assent, or, at most, assent coupled with petition, while the
other peremptorily demands a cry for mercy. The immemorial form of
the cry for mercy in the devotions of Christendom is the "Kyrie
eleison," _Lord, have mercy upon us_; the immemorial form of assent
the word _Amen_. Can we do better, therefore, in adapting the
BEATITUDES to liturgical use than to treat them precisely as the
Curses are treated in the Commination Office of the Church of
England, namely, by inserting after each one of them a plain
_Amen_.

This recommendation has the great