dently till the Restoration, being softened in his principles by age and sufferings. of the sergeant-at-arms; Dr. Pocklington, canon of Windsor and prebendary of Peterborough, was complained of for two books, one entitled the Christian Altar, the other Sunday no Sabbath, which had been licensed by Dr. Bray, one of the archbishop's chaplains. The doctor acknowledged his offence at the bar of the House, confessed that he had not examined the books with that caution that he ought, and made a public recantation in the Church of Westminster; but Pocklington, refusing to recant about thirty false propositions which the Bishop of Lincoln had collected out of his books, was sentenced by the lord-keeper "to be deprived of his ecclesiastical preferments, to be forever disabled to hold any place or dignity in the Church or commonwealth, never to come within the verge of his majesty's court, and his books to be burned by the hands of the common hangman, in the city of London and the two universities." Both the doctors died soon after. The number of petitions that were sent up to the committee of religion from all parts of the country against their clergy is incredible ;* some complaining of their superstitious impositions, and others of the immorality of their lives and neglect of their cures, which shows the little esteem they had among the people, who were weary of their yoke, regarding them no longer than they were under the terror of their excommunications. Dr. Matthew Wren, late Bishop of Norwich, and now of Ely, having been remarkably severe against the Puritan clergy in his diocesses, the inhabitants of Ipswich drew up a petition against him, and presented it to the House, December 22, 1640, upon which the committee of Parliament exhibited a charge against him, consisting of twenty-five articles, relating to the late innovations. It was carried up to the Lords by Sir Thomas Widdrington, and sets forth, that during the time of his being Bishop of Norwich, which was about two years, fifty ministers had been excommunicated, suspended, and deprived "for not reading the second service at the communion-table; for not reading the Book of Sports; for using conceived prayers before the afternoon sermon," &c. ; and that, by his rigorous severities, many of his majesty's subjects, to the number of three thousand, had removed themselves, their families, and their estates to Holland, and set up their manufactories there, to the great prejudice of the trade of this kingdom. I do not find that the bishop put in a particular answer to these articles, nor was he taken into custody, but only gave bond for his appearance. Some time after, the Commons voted him unfit to hold any ecclesiastical preferment in the Church, and both Lords and Commons joined in a petition to the king to remove the said bishop from his person and service; after which he was imprisoned, with the rest of the protesting bishops. Upon his release, he retired to his house at Downham, in the Isle of Ely, from whence he was taken by a party of Parliament soldiers, and conveyed to the Tow-ble. er, where he continued a patient prisoner till the end of the year 1659, without being brought to his trial or admitted to bail. Complaints were made against several other bishops and clergymen, as Dr. Pierce, bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr. Montague, bishop of Norwich, Dr. Owen, bishop of Landaff, and Dr. Manwaring, bishop of St. David's; but the House had too many affairs upon their hands to attend to their prosecutions. Of the inferior clergy, Dr. Stone, Chaffin, Aston, Jones, and some others, who had been instruments of severity in the late times, were voted unfit for ecclesiastical promotions. Dr. Layfield, archdeacon of Essex, pleaded his privilege as a member of convocation, according to an old popish statute of Henry VI.,† but the committee overruled it, and voted the doctor into custody by threats of assassination, but continued an unshaken Protestant. The arts of the papists succeeded with his only son, whom they prevailed with to embrace the Catholic faith, and to take upon him religious orders. This was a very heavy affliction to his father, who, on this ground, left his estate from him.-Granger's History of England, vol. iii, p. 234, 8vo; and Nalson's Collections, vol. i., p. 519.-ED. *Nalson's Collections, p. 692. + There was no particular propriety, rather it was, as Dr. Grey intimates, somewhat invidious in Mr. Neal thus to characterize this statute, relative to the privilege of the clergy coming to convocation, as it must, being of so ancient a date, necessarily be popish, as is one fourth part of the statute law; and there are various instances of its being enforced since the Reformation, and even in the present century, of which Dr. Grey gives ample proof.-ED. Such was the spirit of the populace that it was difficult to prevent their outrunning authority, and tearing down in a tumultuous manner what they were told had been illegally set up. At St. Saviour's, Southwark, the mob pulled down the rails about the communion-taAt Halstead, in Essex, they tore the surplice, and abused the service-book; nay, when the House of Commons was assembled at St. Margaret's, Westminster, as the priest was be-ginning his second service at the communiontable, some at the lower end of the church began a psalm, which was followed by the congregation, so that the minister was forced to desist. But, to prevent these seditious practices for the future, the Lords and Commons pass-ed a very severe sentence on the rioters, and published the following order, bearing date January 16, 1640–1, appointing it to be read in all the parish churches in London, Westminster, and the borough of Southwark, viz.: "That Divine service shall be performed as it is appointed by the acts of Parliament of this realm, and that all such as disturb that wholesome order shall be severely punished by law." But then it was added, "that the parsons, vicars, and curates of the several parishes shall forbear to introduce any rites or ceremonies that may give offence, otherwise than those which * Dr. Grey judges it not at all incredible; because, on the authority of Lord Clarendon, he adds, unfair methods of obtaining petitions were used in those times of iniquity and confusion. The disingenuous art of which his lordship complains was procuring signatures to a petition drawn up in modest and dutiful terms, and then cutting it off and substituting another of a different strain and spirit, and annexing it to the list of subscribers. This practice, if his lordship asserted it on good evidence, deserves to be censured in the strongest terms. A virtuous mind has too often occasion to be surprised and shocked at the arts which party prejudice and views can. adopt.-History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 203.-ED. are established by the laws of the land." The design of this proviso was to guard against the late innovations, and particularly against the clergy's refusing the sacrament to such as would not receive it kneeling at the rails. be rebaptized by the parish minister, some of the congregation insisting that it should be baptized, because the other administration was not valid; but when the question was put, it was carried in the negative, and resolved by the majority not to make any declaration at present whether or no parish churches were true churches. Upon this, some of the more rigid,. and others who were dissatisfied about the lawfulness of infant baptism, desired their dismission, which was granted them; these set up by who laid the foundation of the first Baptist congregation* that I have met with in England. But the rest renewed their covenant "to walk together in the ways of God, so far as he had made them known or should make them known to them, and to forsake all false ways." And so steady were they to their vows, that hardly an instance can be produced of one that deserted to the Church by the severest prosecutions. There was such a violent clamour against the high clergy, that they could hardly officiate according to the late injunctions without being affronted, nor walk the streets in their habits, says Nalson, without being reproached as popish priests, Cæsar's friends, &c. The reputation of the liturgy began to sink; reading pray-themselves, and chose Mr. Jesse their minister, ers was called a lifeless form of worship, and a quenching the Holy Spirit, whose assistances are promised in the matter as well as the manner of our prayers; besides, the nation being in a crisis, it was thought impossible that the old forms should be suitable to the exigency of the times, or to the circumstances of particular persons, who might desire a share in the devotions of the Church. Those ministers, therefore, who prayed with fervency and devotion,* in words of their own conception, suitable either to the sermon that was preached or to the present urgency of affairs, had crowded and attentive auditories, while the ordinary service of the Church was deserted as cold, formal, and without spirit. After Mr. Canne, Mr. Samuel Howe undertook the pastoral care of this little flock; he was a man of learning, and printed a small treatise, Upon Mr. Lathorp's retiring into New-Eng-land, the congregationt chose for their pastor the famous Mr. Canne,‡ author of the marginal references in the Bible, who, after he had preached to them in private houses for a year or two, was driven by the severity of the times The discipline of the Church being relaxed, into Holland, and became pastor of the Brownthe Brownists or Independents, who had as-ist congregation at Amsterdam. sembled in private, and shifted from house to house for twenty or thirty years, resumed their courage, and showed themselves in public. We have given an account of their origin, from Mr. * According to Crosby, this is a mistake, for there Robinson and Mr. Jacob, in the year 1616, the were three Baptist churches in England before that. last of whom was succeeded by Mr. John La- of Mr. Jesse. One formed by the separation of many thorp, formerly a clergyman in Kent, but hav-persons from Mr. Lathorp's in 1633, before he left ing renounced his orders, he became pastor of this little society. In his time the congregation was discovered by Tomlinson, the bishop's pursuivant, April 29, 1632, at the house of Mr. Humphry Barnet, a brewer's clerk, in Blackfriars, where forty-two of whom were apprehended and only eighteen escaped of those that were taken, some were confined in the Clink, others in New Prison and the Gatehouse, where they continued about two years, and were then released upon bail, except Mr. Lathorp, for whom no favour could be obtain-ing Churches, vol. iv., p. 124.—C. ed; he therefore petitioned the king for liberty 1 Crosby says that the church of which Mr.. to depart the kingdom, which being granted, he Canne, Mr. Samuel Howe, and Mr. Stephen More went, in the year 1634, to New-England, with were successively pastors, was constituted and plantabout thirty of his followers. Mr. Lathorp was ed by Mr. Hubbard. And it is not certain whether a man of learning, and of a meek and quiet thor of three sets of notes on the Bible, which acMr. Canne was a Baptist or not. He was the auspirit, but met with some uneasiness upon oc-companied three different editions of it. One printcasion of one of his people carrying his child to Dr. Grey gives some specimens of this, which are very much in the style of those in the piece entitled "Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence." The improved taste of this age, and rational devotion, revolt at them. But Dr. Grey did not reflect that the offensive improprieties which he exposes were not peculiar to extemporary prayer, nor to the Puritans; they were agreeable to the fashion of the age, and incorporated themselves with the precomposed prayers published by royal command. The thanksgiving for victory in the north, 1643, affords an instance of this. "Lord! look to the righteousness of our cause. See the seamless coat of thy Son torn, the throne of thine Anointed trampled on, thy Church invaded by sacrilege, and thy people miserably deceived with lies." -Robinson's Translation of Claude's Essay on the Composition of a Sermon, vol. ii., p. 84.-ED. VOL. I.-Z z England. Another by a second separation from the themselves to Mr. Spilsbury. And a third, which orisame church in 1638, the members of which joined ginated in 1639 with Mr. Green and Captain Spencer, whom Mr. Paul Hobson joined.-Crosby's History of the English Baptists, vol. iii., p. 41, 42.-ED. This was the Church meeting in Deadman's Place; it all along acted on the principle of mixed communion, and chose their pastors indifferently from among the Baptists or Pædobaptists. If this monwealth, it must have been scattered by persecuChurch weathered through the period of the comtion soon after the Restoration.-Wilson's Dissent ed by him at Amsterdam, 1647, which refers to a former one, and professes to add "many Hebraisms, diversitie of readings, with consonancie of parallel Scriptures, taken out of the last annotation, and all set in due order and place." Another is commonly known, and has been often reprinted. There was also an impression of it at Amsterdam, 1664. A new edition of the Bible of 1664 is a desideratum.-Two Treatises of Henry Ainsworth, pref., p. 35, note; and Crosby, vol. iii., p. 40.-ED. Mr. Canne was, beyond all doubt, a Baptist, for the records of the church at Broadmead, Bristol, which separated from the Establishment in 1640, mention Mr. Canne as having first. settled them in the order of a Christian Church. The minutes run thus: "The Providence of God brought to this city one Mr. Canne, a baptized man. It was that Mr. Canne that made notes and references upon the Bible," &c.-Wilson's Hist. of Dis senting Churches, vol. iv., p. 128-9.-C. called "The Sufficiency of the Spirit's Teach- | preaching in separate congregations, contrary ing."* But not being enough upon his guard in conversation, he laid himself open to the informers, by whose means he was cited into the spiritual courts and excommunicated; hereupon he absconded, till, being at last taken, he was shut up in close prison, where he died. His friends would have buried him in Shoreditch churchyard, but, being excommunicated, the officers of the parish would not admit it, so they buried him in a piece of ground at Anniseed Clear, where many of his congregation were buried after him.t to the statute of the 35th Eliz. The latter they Upon Mr. Howe's death, the little church was forced to take up with a layman, Mr. Stephen More, a citizen of London, of good natural parts, .and of considerable substance in the world: he had been their deacon for some years, and, in the present exigency, accepted of the pastoral office, to the apparent hazard of his estate and liberty. However, the face of affairs beginning now to change, this poor congregation, which had subsisted almost by a miracle for above twenty-four years, shifting from place to place to avoid the notice of the public, ventured to open their doors in Deadman's Place, in South-lar statutes), were such a labyrinth, that when wark, January 18, 1640-1. Mr. Fuller calls them a congregation of Anabaptists, who were met together to the number of eighty; but by their journal.or church-book, an abstract of which is now before me, it appears to be Mr. More's congregation of Independents, who, being assembled in Deadman's Place on the Lord's Day, were disturbed by the marshal of the King's Bench, and most of them committed to the Clink Prison. Next morning, six or seven of the men were carried before the House of Lords, and charged with denying the king's supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, and with The treatise here mentioned, we are informed, displayed strength of genius, but was written by a cobbler, as appears by the following recommendatory lines prefixed to it: "What How? how now? hath How such learning found, To throw art's curious image to the ground? Cambridge and Oxford may their glory now Veil to a cobbler, if they knew but How." This treatise was founded on 2 Peter, iii., 16, and designed to show, not the insufficiency only of human learning to the purposes of religion, but that it was dangerous and hurtful. So that Mr. Neal was mistaken in speaking of its author as a man of learning. -Crosby, vol. iii., p. 39, note.-ED. + Crosby's History of the English Baptists, vol. i., p. 165. The following honourable testimony was borne to Mr. Howe's memory by Roger Williams : "Among so many instances, dead and living, to the everlasting praise of Christ Jesus, and of his Holy Spirit, breathing a blessing where he listeth, I cannot but with honourable testimony remember that eminent Christian witness and prophet of Christ, even that despised and yet beloved Samuel Howe, who being by calling a cobbler, and without human learning, which yet in its sphere and place he honoured-who yet, I say, by searching the Holy Scrip tures, grew so excellent a textuary or Scripture. learned man, that few of those high rabbies that scorn to mend or make a shoe could aptly or readily, from the Holy Scriptures, outgo him however he was forced to seek a grave or bed in the highway, yet was his life, and death, and burial, being attended with many hundreds of God's people, hon ourable, and how much more on his rising again, glorious."-The Hireling Ministry none of Christ's, London, 1652, p. 11, 12.-C. * the subject was got into the Commons, he knew not how to defend himself, nor which way to get out. The kings of England had always declined a reformation of the ecclesiastical laws, though a plan had been laid before them ever since the reign of King Edward VI. But the grievance was now become insufferable, by the numbers of illegal imprisonments, deprivations, and fines levied upon the subject in the late times, for crimes not actionable in the courts of Westminster Hall; it was necessary, therefore, to bring the jurisdiction of these courts to a parliamentary standard; but, till this could be accomplished by a new law, all that could be done was to vote down the late innovations, which had very little effect; and, therefore, on the 23d of January, the House of Commons ordered commissioners to be sent into all the counties to demolish, and remove out of churches and chapels all "images, altars, or tables turned altarwise, crucifixes, superstitious pictures, or other monuments and relics of idolatry," agreeably to the injunctions of King Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth. How far the House of Commons, who are but one branch of the Legislature, may appoint commissioners to put the laws in execution, without the concurrence of the other two, is so very questionable, that I will not take upon me to determine. The University of Cambridge having com plained of the oaths and subscriptions imposed upon young students at their matriculation, as subscribing to the Book of Common Prayer and to the Thirty-nine Articles, the House of Commons voted "that the statute made twenty-seven years ago in the University of Cambridge, imposing upon young scholars a subscription, according to the thirty-sixth canon of 1603, is against law and the liberty of the subject, and ought not to be imposed upon any stu***dents or graduates whatsoever." About five months forward they passed the same resolution for Oxford, which was not unreasonable, because the universities had not an unlimited power, by the thirty-sixth canon, to call upon all their students to subscribe, but only upon such lecturers or readers of divinity whom they had a privilege of licensing; and to this I conceive the last words of the canon refer: "If either of the universities offend therein, we leave them to the danger of the law and his majesty's censure." And it ought to be remembered, that all the proceedings of the House of Commons this year in punishing delinquents, and all their votes and resolutions about the circumstances of public worship, had no other view than the cutting off those illegal additions and innovations which the superstition of the late times had introduced, and reducing the discipline of the Church to the standard of the statute law. No man was punished for acting according to law; but the displeasure of the House ran high against those who, in their public ministrations, or in their ecclesiastical courts, had bound those things upon the subject which were either contrary to the laws of the land, or about which the laws were altogether silent. CHAPTER VIII. ship understood no more than a stated president over an assembly of presbyters, which the Puritans of these times were willing to admit. The most celebrated writer on the side of the Establishment was the learned and pious Bishop Hall, who, at the request of Archbishop Laud, had published a treatise entitled "Episcopacy of Divine Right," as has been related.* This reverend prelate, upon the gathering of the present storm, appeared a second time in its defence, in "An humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament;" and some time after, in "A Defence of that Remonstrance," in vindication of the antiquity of liturgies and of diocesan episcopacy. The bishop's remonstrance was answered by a celebrated treatise under the title of "Smectymnuus," a fictitious word made up of the initial letters of the names of the authors, viz., Stephen Marshal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow. When the bishop had replied to their book, these divines published a vindication of their answer to the "Humble Remonstrance;" which, being an appeal to the Legislature on both sides, may be supposed to contain the merits of the controversy, and will therefore THE ANTIQUITY OF LITURGIES, AND OF THE EPIS- deserve the reader's attention. COPAL ORDER, DEBATED BETWEEN BISHOP HALL THE debates in Parliament concerning the English liturgy and hierarchy engaged the attention of the whole nation, and revived the controversy without doors. The press being open, great numbers of anonymous pamphlets appeared against the Establishment, not without indecent and provoking language, under these and the like titles: Prelatical Episcopacy not from the Apostles; Lord-bishops not the Lord's Bishops; Short View of the Prelatical Church of England; A Comparison between the Liturgy and the Mass Book; Service Book no better than a Mess of Pottage, &c. Lord Brook attacked the order of bishops in a treatise of the "Nature of Episcopacy," wherein he reflects in an ungenerous manner upon the low pedigree of the present bench, as if nothing except a noble descent could qualify men to sit among the peers. Several of the bishops vindicated their pedigree and families, as Bishop Williams, Moreton, Curle, Cooke, Owen, &c., and Archbishop Usher defended the order, in a treatise entitled "The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy;" but then by a bishop his lord Nalson, in his Collections, vol. ii., p. 279, 280, and after him, Collyer, Ecclesiastical History, vol. 11., p. 808, have abridged the arguments of this piece; but these abstracts do not show, as Dr. Grey would intimate, the extent of jurisdiction, or the nature of the power, according to Bishop Usher's idea, exercised by the primitive bishops. They go to prove only a superiority to elders; and by a quotation from Beza, it should seem that this prelate, as Mr. Neal says, meant by a bishop only a president of the presbytery of a place or district. The Presbyterians are charged with misrepresenting the bishop's opinion, and with printing a faulty and surreptitious copy of his book. If this were done knowingly and designedly, it must rank with such pious arts as deserve censure.-Dr. Grey.—ED. The debate was upon these two heads : 1. Of the antiquity of liturgies, or forms of prayer. 2. Of the apostolical institution of diocesan episcopacy. 1. The bishop begins with liturgies, by which he understands" certain prescribed and limited forms of prayer, composed for the public service of the Church, and appointed to be read at all times of public worship." The antiquity of these his lordship derives down from Moses, by an uninterrupted succession, to the present time. "God's people," says he, "ever since Moses's day, constantly practised a set form, and put it ever to the times of the Gospel. Our blessed Saviour, and his gracious forerunner, taught a direct form of prayer. When Peter and John went up to the temple at the ninth hour of prayer, we know the prayer wherein they joined was not of an extempore and sudden conception, but of a regular prescription; and the evangelical Church ever since thought it could never better improve her peace and happiness than in composing those religious models of invocation and thanksgiving, which they have traduced unto us, as the liturgies of St. James, Basil, and Chrysostom, and which, though in some places corrupted, serve to prove the thing itself." Smectymnuus replies, that if there had been any liturgies in the times of the first and most venerable antiquity, the great inquiries after them would have produced them to the world before this time; but that there were none in the Christian Church is evident from Tertullian in his Apology, cap. xxx., where he says the Christians of those times, in their public assemblies, prayed "sine monitore quia de pectore," without any prompter except their own hearts. * Laud objected to some of his positions, and some involving important principles, and Hall was compliant enough to adopt his suggestions.-Heylin's Laud, 398–402. Jones's Life of Bishop Hall, 153–166. -C. of England, as that it was drawn up by wise and good men with great deliberation; that it had been sealed with the blood of martyrs, and was selected out of ancient models, not Roman, but Christian. In answer to which, these divines appeal to the proclamation of Edward VI., wherein the original of it is published to the world. The statute mentions four different forms then in use, out of which a uniform office was to be collected, viz., the use of Sarum, of Bangor, of York, and of Lincoln, all which were Roman rather than Christian; they admit his lordship's other encomiums of the English liturgy, but affirm that it was still imperfect, and in many places offensive to tender consciences. prayer in his private devotions, and upon occasion also in the public. I would hate to be guilty of pouring so much water upon the spirit, to which I should gladly add oil rather. No; let the full soul freely pour out itself in gracious And in his treatise of prayer, he adds, there are | liturgy used in the Christian Church for three some things to be asked "according to the oc- hundred years after Christ.* casions of every man." St. Austin says the From the antiquity of liturgies in general, the same thing, ep. 121: "It is free to ask the bishop descends to a more particular commendsame things that are desired in the Lord's Pray-ation of that which is established in the Church er, aliis atque aliis verbis, sometimes in one manner of expression, and sometimes in another." And before this, Justin Martyr, in his Apology, says, ó πроεσтç, the president, or he that instructed the people, prayed according to his ability, or as well as he could. Nor was this liberty of prayer taken away till the times when the Arian and Pelagian heresies invaded the Church; it was then first ordained that none should pray "pro arbitrio, sed semper easdem preces;" that they should not use the liberty which they had hitherto practised, but should always keep to one form of prayer.Concil. Load., can. 18. Still, this was a form of their own composing, as appears by a canon of the Council of Carthage, anno 397, which gives this reason for it : Ut nemo in precibus The good bishop, after all, seems willing to vel patrem pro filio, vel filium pro patre nomi- compromise the difference about prayer. "Far net, et cum altari adsistitur semper ad patrem be it from me," says his lordship, "to disheartdirigatur oratio; et quicunque sibi preces ali-en any good Christian from the use of conceived unde describit, non iis utatur nisi prius eas cum fratribus instructioribus contulerit ;" i. e., "that none in their prayers might mistake the Father for the Son, or the Son for the Father; and that, when they assist at the altar, prayer might be always directed to the Father; and whoso-expressions of its holy thoughts into the bosom ever composes any different forms, let him not make use of them till he has first consulted with his more learned brethren." It appears from hence that there was no uniform prescribed liturgy at this time in the Church, but that the more ignorant priests might make use of forms of their own composing, provided they consulted their more learned brethren; till at length it was ordained at the Council of Milan, anno 416, that none should use set forms of prayer except such as were approved in a synod. They go on to transcribe, from Justin Martyr and Tertullian, the manner of public worship in their times, which was this: first the Scriptures were read; after reading followed an exhortation to the practice and imitation of what was read; then all rose up and joined in prayer; after this they went to the sacrament, in the Bishop Burnet says [Hist. Ref., part ii., p. 721 beginning whereof the president of the assem- that it was in the fourth century that the liturgies of bly poured out prayers and thanksgivings, ac- St. James, St. Basil, &c., were first mentioned; that cording to his ability, and the people said Amen; the Council of Laodicea appointed the same prayers then followed the distribution of the elements, to be used mornings and evenings, but that these forms and a collection of alms. were left to the discretion of every bishop; nor was This was Justin it made the subject of any public consultation till Martyr's liturgy or service, and Tertullian's is St. Austin's time, when, in their dealing with herethe same, only he mentions their beginning with tics, they found they took advantage from some of prayer before reading the Scriptures, and their the prayers that were in some churches; upon love-feasts, which only opened and concluded it was ordered that there should be no public prayers. with prayer, and were celebrated with singing used but by common advice. Formerly, says the of psalms. Although the Smectymnuans admit bishop, the worship of God was a pure and simple that our blessed Saviour taught his disciples a fected the Church that those forms were thought too thing, and so it continued till superstition had so inform of prayer, yet they deny that he designed naked, unless they were put under more artificial to confine them to the use of those words only, rules, and dressed up with much ceremony. nor did the primitive Church so understand it, every age there were notable additions made, and all as has been proved from St. Austin. The pre- the writers almost in the eighth and ninth centuriestended liturgies of St. James, Basil, and St. employed their fancies to find out mystical significaChrysostom are of little weight in this argu- tions for every rite that was then used, till at length ment, as being allowed by the bishop, and the there were so many missals, breviaries, rituals, ponmost learned critics, both Protestants and pa-teries, hours, and a great, many more, that the undertificals, pontoises, pies, graduals, antiphonals, psalpists, to be full of forgeries and spurious inser- standing how to officiate was become so hard a piece tions. Upon the whole, therefore, they chal- of trade, that it was not to be learned without long lenge his lordship to produce any one genuine practice. of the Almighty; let both the sudden flashes of our quick ejaculations, and the constant flames of our more fixed conceptions, mount up from the altar of a zealous heart unto the throne of grace; and if there be some stops or solecisms in the fervent utterance of our private wants, these are so far from being offensive, that they are the most pleasing music to the ears of that God unto whom our prayers come; let them be broken off with sobs and sighs, and incongruities of our delivery; our good God is no otherways affected to this imperfect elocution than an indulgent parent is to the clipped and broken language of his dear child, which is more delightful to him than any other's smooth oratory. This is not to be opposed in another which In |