large majority of the clergy were too ignorant to conduct public worship without one. It was then, as it is at present, in the English Church, that no practical and heartfelt acquaintance with vital religion was a requisite qualification for one who was to have the care of souls. In a national Church,-or in a Church which relies on Baptismal regeneration, and gathers its members indiscriminately by "street rows" or parishes,-it is manifest that an attempt to require such qualifications in the priesthood must be both futile and absurd. It is a mercy to such a Church to have a Liturgy. But in Churches founded on evangelical principles, and making a distinction between the pious and the profane in gathering their members; in Churches where in addition to the gifts of nature and education, the gifts of grace are also required in the ministry, so far as these things may be determined by careful scrutiny ;-in such Churches the question of Liturgy assumes another form. Our most intelligent and devoted Churches have not found themselves either shocked or starved by the use of extemporary prayer. On the contrary, they have felt that their devotions were more satisfactorily led; and their varied wants and thanksgivings more appropriately uttered. Besides this, it is perhaps one of the very best available tests and safeguards of their ministry, that their ministers are to lead the devotions of God's people with prayer conceived in their own hearts. How difficult for any man long to play the counterfeit here! How soon the leanness of the minister's heart appears to a devout and spiritual people! What an appalling barrier to such as do not love to pray, and who have not acquired a facility of leading the devotions of public worship, by habits of earnest and frequent prayer!

Aside from such considerations, and from the considerations of our ever varying circumstances and wants, the question of worshipping God with or without a Liturgy, is a matter of taste or expediency, concerning which individual Churches and ministers should be left free to adopt their own course; rather than a question of principle or obligation about which Christians should ever contend.

But if any pretend a right to impose a Liturgy upon individual Churches or ministers, that right we deny. We know no Catholic, national, provincial, or diocesan authority, which has the right to make such an imposition. We question both the imposition and the pretended authority. The power assumed is a usurpation both of the authority of God and of the rights of man; and the thing imposed under penalty of exclusion from the ministry, of excommunication-(and in the case of the Puritans, by fines, imprisonments, or banishment) is a sheer human invention. With our Puritan ancestors we deny the right

of any human authority to impose rites, ceremonies and Liturgies, as a necessary part of the public worship of God.

If an appeal be made to antiquity, as though we had abandoned ancient or apostolic usage; then we affirm, 1st, that the present Liturgies and forms make no pretence to Apostolical rise or institution; 2d, we deny that a Liturgy at all, is any. thing more than a corruption of the simplicity of primitive and apostolic times; and 3d, we affirm that the liberty is perfect (even if the duty be not plain) of rejecting all imposed rites and ceremonies for the worship of God, which are not ordered by the only authoritative rule, his holy and perfect Word.

The authority which framed and imposed the English Liturgy was the Council and Parliament: the STATE AND NOT THE CHURCH. It was not laid before the Convocation, nor any representative body of the clergy. Its origin was neither Divine nor Ecclesiastical.

Uniformity being now established by law, and rigidly enforced, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities set themselves to the further guarding of that uniformity and to the suppression of alleged heresies. The dreadful excess of the Anabaptists in Germany, had caused their very name to be regarded with alarm and horror by the governments of Europe. In the previous reign, some who were charged with the name and doctrines of Anabaptism, were seized and burned for that offence. I know of no evidence that they were justly chargeable with the impious and horrid principles of those who had heretofore been known by the name of Anabaptists. They might have been simple-hearted and devout Christians, good subjects; holding only the peculiarities of the present Baptists. And the history of these shows, that they have, as a people, ever stood for religious freedom, and for the Word of God alone as of any authority in matters of religion. Though they have not generally shared in the honor,-they shared largely in the perils of the Reformation. In the fundamental principles of their creed, in their worship and discipline, and in their struggle for religious and civil freedom, they too were among the Puritans.

People of this persuasion now began to appear in some numbers in England, and agreed with many others in their reluctance to conform to the established ceremonies and Liturgy. A commission was appointed to "Examine and search after all Anabaptists, heretics, or contemners of common prayer," whom they were authorized, if they could not reclaim them, to excommunicate, imprison, and finally to deliver them to the secular In what respect did this commission differ from the Inquisition?" People had generally thought," says Neale "that

arm.

all the Statutes for burning had been repealed; but they were now told that heretics were to be burned by the common law."

How strange, that such good men as Cranmer and his coadjutors could ever be so blinded as to engage in such cruelties ! How slowly may the minds even of good men come to the light! and how long it takes one simple principle,-not of mercy and compassion,-but of RIGHT, to force its way through the opposing prejudices of old customs and old opinions, into the general conviction of the wise and good!

The

It has been alleged against Calvin, and many have delighted to repeat it,-that "Calvin burnt Servetus." Calvin did indeed take an active part in conducting the prosecution, and Servetus was condemned,-not simply for heresy, nor for assaults upon Christianity, but for what was in that day judged to be blasphemy,-in that, among other things, he had called One God in three persons a Cerberus,-a three-headed monster. cantons of Berne, Zurich and Shaffhausen, to whom the case was referred, replied that Servetus should be punished. The gentle Melancthon partook so much of the error of the times, as to approve the sentence of the magistrate. Farel approved of it. Beza defended the sentence. When the court of Geneva pronounced the sentence of burning, Calvin earnestly and importunately begged that the mode of punishment might be changed to a milder death: but the court refused to yield.

It was a horrid deed. And now a similar one, yet more horrid in its details, is to be recorded of that pattern of meekness and gentleness, the pure-minded and upright Cranmer. There was a woman named Joan Bocher, who had been seized as an Anabaptist, but whose only crime seemed to be the holding of some strange but harmless notions concerning the manner of our Lord's incarnation. To us her notions are a mere confused jargon; in that day they were judged heresy. "She had been known," says Strype, "as a great reader of the Scriptures herself; which book she dispersed in court."-"she used, for the more secresy, to tie the books with strings under her apparel, and so pass with them into conrt."-" By so doing, she had jeoparded her life to bring others to a knowledge of God's Word." But neither her excellent character nor her devoted piety could save her. She was condemned to the stake. The king thought it wrong and horrible. He refused to sign her death-warrant. Cranmer was deputed by the council to overcome his scruples. The youthful king, in reverence to the authority of the archbishop, submitted; but with tears solemnly declared, that if he did wrong, since it was in submission to Cranmer's authority, Cranmer should answer it to God. Even Cranmer shuddered. He and Ridley took the woman to their

houses, and tried every argument to induce her to give up her opinions; but after nearly a year's delay she was committed to the flames. One other person and only one suffered in this Would that even such a bloody manner during this reign. record might never have stood in connection with such venerable and beloved names!

Bonner and Gardiner refusing to discharge the duties of their bishoprics according to the new order of things, were deprived; and afterwards, for political offences, imprisoned; but it deserves to be recorded that not one single Romanist suffered death from the hands of the Reformers. Cranmer and his coadjutors appear to have seen at length the horrid wickedness of burning people for heresy; for in revising the Canon law under act of Parliament, which revision was mostly by the hand of Cranmer-the Even then punishment of death was no longer to be inflicted. they had not discovered the important principle that no human power has any right to inflict pains or penalties for such alleged offences; and that the utmost prerogative of the Church, is to exclude the heretic from her pale. The revised law,-which, however, never took effect, the king dying before he could affix his seal, required that the heretic should be "Declared infamous, incapable of public trust, or of being witness in any court or of having power to make a will.” Such was the light of those

days.

By act of Parliament, the work of reforming the ORDINAL,or forms for ordaining ministers, was given into the hands of six Prelates and six divines, to be named by the king, and whatever they should arrange and the king should seal with the great seal, was to have the authority of law. I notice the authority by which this was done, as another instance of the way in which the Reformation was carried on, and in which the entire service book was framed and established. It was not by the CHURCH, but by the KING AND PARLIAMENT.*

In the revised Ordinal, such offices as subdeacons, readers, acolytes, &c., were dispensed with; and the gloves, the sandals, the mitre, the ring and the crosier were left out. The anointing, the arraying in consecrated vestments, and the delivering of vessels for consecrating the elements in the Eucharist, were also omitted.

* Chapin, in his "Primitive Church," has a chapter entitled "THE ENGLISH REFORMATION CANONICAL." That may be so, for aught I care to dispute,-and must be so, if it be " Canonical" for the church to be the mere creature of the State, and to suffer the civil power authoritatively to frame, fix, establish, and alter at its pleasure, her ceremonies of worship, her liturgy, her articles of faith; and then to bind the Church to their observance, and require her to bind all her children to the If this be not Canonical, then it is simple folly to talk about the "English Reformation" as " CANONICA"

same.

The Council in his majesty's name, A. D. 1550, required the Bishops to see that all the altars in the churches were taken down, and a communion table placed in their room, But why this alteration? The Reformers gave the answer: Because Christ instituted the Sacrament not at an altar, but at a table: Because the Holy Ghost calls it " The Lord's table," but never an altar because the altar,-in its name, form, and very idea, -implies a sacrifice, and the people have been superstitiously taught to regard the Sacrament as a sacrifice, a propitiatory oblation of the body of Christ, for the sins of the quick and dead. The altar thus administers to a gross and impious idolatry: many of the people actually worshipping a breaden god; supposing that the very person, soul, and divinity of Christ are present on the altar. Why, therefore, should there be any longer an altar without a propitiatory sacrifice, by a sacerdotal Priest? Let us return to the truth, to the Bible form and name; let us have no more an altar, but a table. What want we of an altar, while we have no more a transubstantiation?

! We have now come to the period which marks THE RISE OF THE PURITANS. While so many things were struck off from the ancient forms and implements of superstition, there were several other appendages of Popery which those who held the power of reforming determined still to preserve. The thing which gave the first occasion to a debate that at length drew after it the great questions of religious freedom and the limits of civil or ecclesiastical power, was the GARMENTS OF the PriestHOOD: apparently a small matter, but involving the mightiest principles, and the dearest rights that concern the earthly existence of man.

We are willing, said the more ardent among the Reforming clergy, to wear distinctive garments of some sort, if you please; anything decent, but do not compel us to wear such regimentals of Popery, as will by the people be regarded a badge of the popish faith. The refusal came first from the eloquent and devoted Hooper, who had been appointed Bishop of Gloucester, but who scrupled whether he might, in conscience, submit to be consecrated in popish vestments. The martyr Hooper thus shares with Wickliffe the immortal honor of being the FATHER OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS.

The reason for refusing the garments was the same as for demolishing the altars. The garments had been consecrated by popish mummeries, and were supposed to possess a mysterious virtue, like holy water,-which mystic virtue imparted a sacredness and VALIDITY to the acts of the priest who wore them. Indeed, they were at that day very much like the bishop's hands, and the "virtue" that is by full grown Puseyites at the present