houses images that had belonged to any church, were required to deface them; and to dash out of their primers all prayers to the saints."

If worship was to be performed by the use of a prescribed and uniform liturgy, the Liturgy now established was probably reformed as far as the times allowed. The Papists would not endure any more; the Protestants would not be satisfied with less : to suit the exigency of the times the Liturgy was cautiously framed, while it was not all that those who framed it desired. In 1552, it underwent a revision. Some things were added; some that had been retained through the necessity of the times, were stricken out. A rubric was added concerning the posture of kneeling at the sacrament; declaring that no adoration was intended to the bread and wine; nor did they think that the very flesh and blood of Christ were there present. This was afterwards struck out by Queen Elizabeth to give latitude to the Papists; much to the grief of the Puritans: but in the reign of Charles II. it was, at their instance, again inserted. Sundry old rites which had been retained in the former book were discontinued, as, the use of oil in confirmation and extreme unction; prayer for the dead; and the use of the cross in confirmation and the eucharist. By this book of common-prayer, "All copes were forbidden throughout England; the prebendaries of St. Paul left their hoods, and the bishops their crosses." [Strype, in Neale.] "In short, the whole liturgy was reduced to the form in which it now appears, excepting some small variations that have since been made."-[Neale.]

That the Prayer Book contains many and very great excellences, all will readily acknowledge. Its compilers, however, never thought of it as a standard, beyond which the Reformation was never to advance. On the contrary, they lamented that the state of the nation rendered it impracticable to cleanse it further from the defilements of Popery. Cranmer was never satisfied with the Liturgy; and designed a thorough alteration, if not an entire change; King Edward was not satisfied with this, or with the discipline of the Church, and laments in his diary, that he could "not restore the primitive discipline according to his heart's desire, because of several of the bishops, some for age, some for ignorance, some out of love to Popery, were unwilling to it."

The desire for further reformation appears in the sermons of Latimer, Hooper, Bradford, and others. John A'Lasco wrote, "that King Edward desired that the rites and ceremonies used under Popery should be purged out by degrees; that it was his pleasure that strangers should have churches to perform all things according to apostolical observations only, that by this means, the English churches might be excited to embrace apostolic purity with

the unanimous consent of the states of the kingdom." It was left written in the preface to one of the service books, that " They had gone as far as they could in reforming the Church, considering the times they lived in, and hoped that they that came after them, would, as they might, do more."

Stillingfleet [Irenicum, p. 58] speaking of the causes which induced the reformed French churches, in order to please the Papists, to insert into their prayer-books "that which men would scarcely believe unless they saw it," says, "The same temper was used by our reformers in composing our Liturgy, in reference to the Papists; to whom they had an especial eye, as being the only party then appearing in the Church, whom they desired to draw into their communion by coming as near to them as they well and safely could."*

That this might be good state policy it is not necessary to question. Whether such a veering between Popery and the Reformation, was likely to secure a liturgy and discipline so pure as to satisfy all devout and conscientious men, is quite another affair. Certain it is, that the Reformers were not satisfied with that Book of Common Prayer, which it is now the custom to extol with praises extravagant and almost idolatrous. The articles were made such as the Reformers would have them, and are, as a system, a noble monument of a pure and enlightened faith. The OFFICES of the Prayer-Book,-drawn from popish originals, and left with the rituals and vestments retaining as much of the shape and fashion and savor of Popery as would render them not idolatrous;-and so left by the Reformers only for the present, with the hope of further amendment when the times should allow it; these offices contain many things which it is not hard to interpret into a close alliance with Popery itself. They still inculcate the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. In the Lord's Supper they are not expurgated from the consecrations, the oblations, and other popish appendages, which left King James so much reason to say that it was but "An ill mumbled mass."

To this origin of the Liturgy, and to this desire of " Keeping the popish people in the Church," it is owing-as I conceive,that the Evangelical and the Tractarian parties in the Episcopal Church at the present day, both appeal with so much justice and with such entire confidence, to the same Prayer-Book as favoring

* Indeed in after times, when the Liturgy was finally settled under Elizabeth, this design of so arranging the Liturgy and ceremonials as to "keep the popish people in the church," was boldly avowed and defended as a matter of necessary policy. Thus Maddox, who wrote more than a hundred years ago against Neale's History of the Puritans, and afterwards was rewarded with a bishopric, hesitates not to avow that "As the nation in general was popish, it plainly appeared an act of great compassion to many thousand souls, as well as necessary to the Queen's safety, and the success of the Reformation, to CONTRIVE, if it were possible, SUCH A FORM OF WORSHIP, without idolatry, which might KEEP THE POPISH PEOPLE IN THE CHURCH."

It does so

each of their discordant and irreconcilable schemes. favor them. The Reformation was purposely so mingled with Popery in that book as to quiet the Protestants if possible, and at all events to "keep the popish people in the Church;" and hence its double interpretation;-its "iron mixed with the miry clay."

The Bishop of Connecticut, in his recent charge, is pleased to draw a comparison between that Prayer-Book and the Bible alone, as a standard of "faith and worship;" making the PrayerBook, in spite of its mongrel origin, and its motley compromise between the Reformation and Popery-a much better and safer standard than the Word of God! He commiserates the lot of those who have "the Bible alone," for their "only standard of faith," as being possessed of no "sufficient bond of union and stability." He anticipates for them nothing but division, error, fanaticism, and "ignorance!" He contrasts the Episcopal Church with these, as being surrounded by "desolation"-"an Oasis in the desert;"—and declares that this happy result "has been mainly effected" by having "this Book of Common Prayer A STANDARD of faith and WORSHIP!"

But what bond of union and stability is this Prayer-Book? Never were schemes more diametrically opposed, each so justly drawn and so logically defended from the same standard; and that owing to the worldly and wavering policy used in making it up. Indeed, why should not the same book blow hot and cold now as well as in the days of Queen Elizabeth? Why should it not be able to "keep popish people in the Church," now as well as then? See what diversities are existing-yes conflicting-under this bond of union and faith, boasted as so much better than the Bible. Mr. Newman, the pillar of Oxford Tractarianism, says, that "In the English Church, we shall hardly find ten or twenty neighboring clergymen who agree together ; and that not in the non-essentials of religion; but as to what are its elementary and necessary doctrines, or whether there are any necessary doctrines at all; any distinct and definite faith required for salvation." Yet all make their appeal to the Prayer-Book.

Says the Bishop of Ohio, "What the articles and homilies so distinctly teach, that system" [Tractarianism] "directly denies; most earnestly condemns,-and most indignantly casts away."

On the other hand, the Bishop of New Jersey responds, "He" [Pusey] "is no nearer, on my word, to Rome, than the Liturgy and offices of the Church of England and of her sister in America go with him."

The Bishop of Ohio rejoins:-" Their mode of representing the way of salvation is ANOTHER GOSPEL to us; another to the Church to whose doctrines we are pledged."

"My confidence in the doctrinal integrity of the Oxford writers continues unshaken," responds the Bishop of New Jersey.

"The difference," replies Bishop MacIlvaine, "between this divinity and the true divinity for which our Reformers gave themselves to death, is a difference of great VITAL DOCTRINE; not one of doctrine merely, but of the SYSTEM of doctrine from cornerstone to roof; a difference which makes so great a gulf between, that according to the Oxford divines themselves, it makes the one side or the other ANOTHER GOSPEL." "It is little else than popery restrained, essentially Romish divinity,"-" of the house and lineage of popery.'

It is plain that the Prayer-Book speaks Popery in Maryland, and Protestantism in Ohio;-according to the authoritative decision of the respective heads of the Church in those Dioceses: while as Bishop Brownell describes these differences, as only "slight shades of difference which tincture the views of different members of our household of faith,"—the same book should seem to teach in Connecticut a mongrel theology compounded indifferently of the two.

It is only by such indifference that these discordant schemes can ever be made to cease their conflict. If one system is laid down in the Articles, it is no less plain that the Offices contain the germ and essence of the other; and most manfully is this maintained and triumphantly established by those who hold the system of the Tractarians. The true solution, I apprehend, has been given in the origin of the Offices, and in the policy which made them what they are. It does seem that in the providence of God, these hot contentions are allowed to rise, as if in solemn rebuke of the presumption which has dared to set up that PrayerBook-in fact as an idol-a safer bond of union and stability than God's own holy and perfect Word.

That the Liturgy was framed from the old mass-books, whatever reason it may have afforded for reprehension at the time, is at the present day no manner of objection. If things are good in themselves, they are not to be rejected simply because they have been used by Rome. If there were attending evils at the time, there was at least this advantage, that those who were enamored of Popery would be less offended with the change, when they knew that so much of that to which they had been accustomed, was retained in the Liturgy which they were now required to use.

Nor was the question of a Liturgy at all the same in that day with what it is at present. It had been the custom. A very

And yet that same Bishop in a few short months can join with the General Convention in a thanksgiving, that all is so united and regular in the Episcopal Church.

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