many missals, breviaries, rituals, pontificals, pontoises, pies, graduals, antiphonals, psalteries, hours, and a great many more, that the understanding how to officiate was become so hard a piece of trade that it was not to be learned without long practice." We willingly challenge the present Bench of Bishops to produce any one genuine liturgy used in the Christian church, during the first three hundred years after Christ.

At the Reformation a new liturgy was introduced; but the Parliament, in 1644, discarded it, and introduced a new plan for the devotion of the church. The reasons for doing this I shall transcribe from the parliamentary annals:-" It is evident, after long and sad experience, that the liturgy used in the Church of England, notwithstanding all the pains and religious intentions of the compilers, has proved an offence to many of the godly at home, and to the reformed churches abroad. The enjoining the reading all the prayers heightened the grievances; and the many unprofitable and burdensome ceremonies have occasioned much mischief, by disquieting the consciences of many who could not yield to them. Sundry good people have, by this means, been kept from the Lord's table; and many faithful ministers debarred from the exercise of their ministry, to the ruin of them and their families. The prelates and their faction have raised their estimation of it to such a height, as if God could be worshipped no other

way but by the service book; in consequence of which the preaching of the word has been depreciated, and, in some places, entirely neglected.

“In the mean time, the papists have made their advantage this way, boasting that the Common Prayer Book came up to a compliance with a great part of their service; by which means they were not a little confirmed in their idolatry and superstition, especially of late, when new ceremonies were daily obtruded on the church.

"Besides, the liturgy has given great encouragement to an idle and unedifying ministry, who chose rather to confine themselves to forms made to their hands, than to exert themselves in the exercise of the gift of prayer, with which our Saviour furnishes all those whom he calls to that office.

"For these and many other weighty considerations relating to the book in general, besides divers particulars, which are a just ground of offence, it is advisable and proper to set aside the former liturgy, with the many rites and ceremonies formerly used in the worship of God; not out of any affectation of novelty, nor with an intention to disparage our first reformers, but that we may answer in some measure the gracious providence of God, which now calls upon us for a further reformation; -that we may satisfy our own consciences, answer the expectations of other reformed churches, ease the consciences of many godly persons among

ourselves, and give a public testimony of our endeavours after an uniformity of divine worship."

That the present liturgy needs cancelling or revising, I shall shew in Chap. xxIx., "On the necessity of a Reformed Church," and intend, at no distant time, to take upon myself to draw up a new Service, for those who are fond of forms.

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CHAP. XXII.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND PROVED TO BE A CREATURE OF THE STATE.

IN the days of the Reformation, the Protestant high clergy endeavoured to divert the growing spirit of reform in the Christian world to metaphysical and useless speculations, of no benefit to the present or eternal happiness of mankind, whilst they were seating themselves at leisure in the chairs of their predecessors. But far otherwise was it, where it fell under the direction of laymen, who considered it as an opportunity put by Heaven into their hands, to free themselves from the usurpations and unjust domination of the priesthood. They made no scruple to seize and apply to public uses, a great part of those riches which the Roman clergy had extorted from old women, and superstitious and silly bigots, the compositions for murders, for public and private robberies, the plunder of dying and despairing sinners, and the support of their own idleness, pride, ignorance, and debauchery.

A bold and honest physician, whose name was Erastus, at this time started up and told the world, that all these squabbles of the clergy about their own power, were disputes de lana caprina, concerning a nonentity, and that none of them had any right to what they almost all claimed; that the quarrel amongst them was only which of them should oppress the laity, who were independent of them all, for that their ministers were their servants, creatures of their own making, and not of God Almighty's. He shewed them, both from reason and scripture, that every state had the same authority of modelling their ecclesiastical, as well as civil government; that the gospel gave no preeminence or authority to Christians over

another, but every man alike, who had suitable abilities, was qualified to execute all the duties and offices of their most holy religion; and that it was only a matter of prudence and convenience, to appoint particular persons to officiate for the rest, with proper rewards and encouragements, which persons would be entitled to no more power than they themselves gave them.

This doctrine, as little as it pleased the clergy, yet prevailed so far with the laity, that most protestant states modelled their ecclesiastical polity according to their own inclinations or interests; and particularly in England, the whole Reformation was built upon this principle, which, till of late years, was esteemed the great characteristic of the