A

RATIONALE

UPON THE

BOOK

OF

Common-Prayer

OF THE

CHURCH OF ENGLAN

By the Right Reverend Father in God ANTHONY SPARROW, Lord Bishop of Exon.

WITH

His CAUTION to his Diocese

against False Doctrines.

LONDON,

Printed for Blanche Pawlet, at the Sign

of the Bible in Chancery-Lane,

near Fleet-Street, 1684.

cessively of Exeter and Norwich,

was born at Depden in Suffolk, and was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, of which Society he became scholar and fellow. In 1643 he was ejected, with the rest of the body, for their loyalty to King Charles in refusing the Covenant. Soon afterwards he accepted the Rectory of Hawkenden in his own county, but was again ejected, when he had held it only five weeks, for

a

reading the Common Prayer. It was during this sorrowful time, in the year 1657, when the enemies of the Church were triumphant, that he published the work now presented to the Christian Reader. On the Restoration he was reinstated in his living, elected one of the Preachers at St. Edmond's Bury, and promoted to the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, and a Prebendal Stall in the Church of Ely. While in possession of his living he expended a considerable sum of money upon it, and he resigned it, together with his Preachership, in 1662, on his being elected Master of Queen's College. On November 3, 1667, he was consecrated Bishop of Exeter, and on the death of Dr. Reynolds in 1676 was translated to the See of Norwich, where he died in 1688.

Besides his Rationale, he is

known as the Author of a Collection of Ar