CHAP. III.

idle fancy of the day. Above all, let an ecclesias- DISS. I. tical constitution of primitive and inspired appointments be religiously supported: let no reform be thought of which would remodel without restoring this ancient edifice: let no departure be attempted from the original polity of the Church ;-a polity established by Divine authority, and for fifteen centuries continued uninterruptedly throughout Christendom.

DISSERTATION II.

ON LITURGIES.

"For so much as concerneth the form of prayers and ecclesiastical rites, I much approve, that it be determined so that it may not be lawful for the ministers in their administration to vary from it: as well to help the simplicity and unskilfulnesse of some, as that the uniformity of all the several congregations may better appear; and, finally, that the desultory and capricious lightnesse of such as affect novelties may be encountered and stopped 1."—Calvin's Epistle to Protector Somerset.

"The constant disuse of forms is apt to breed giddiness in religion, and it may make men hypocrites who shall delude themselves with conceits that they delight in God, when it is but in those novelties and variations of expression that they are delighted :—and, therefore, I advise forms; to fix Christians, and make them sound."-Baxter on Liturgies, prop. 10.

"We account it grievous to contemn all those holy Churches, which, from the times of the Apostles, and of the primitive Church, unto this day, have celebrated the public worship of God out of prescribed forms—wherefore, we blame the over nice singularity of those men who would cast out all prescribed forms from divine worship 2."—Letter from the Walachrian Classis of Zealand to the Assembly of Divines in London, about the year 1646.

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Any one may satisfy himself, from a view of all the particulars, that in the ancient Church the whole of divine worship was administered by prescribed forms. The question is, whether every minister should have liberty of obtruding private prayers, which he has himself composed, with which no one else is

1 Quod ad formam precum et rituum Ecclesiasticorum valde probo, ut certa illa extet, à quá pastoribus discedere in functione sud non liceat, tam ut consulatur quorumdam simplicitati et imperitiæ, quàm ut certius ita constet omnium inter se ecclesiarum consensus; postremo etiam ut obviam eatur desultoriæ quorundam levitati qui novationes quasdam affectant.-Calv. Ep. ad Protect. Angl.

2 Durum putamus omnes illas pias ecclesias condemnare quæ ab Apostolicis et primitiva ecclesiæ temporibus, usque ad hodiernum diem, cultum Dei publicum ex præscriptis certisque formulis celebrárunt,—proinde hominum illorum præcisam singularitatem arguimus, qui omnes præscriptas formulas ex cultu divino eliminant. Consid. Contr. in Angl. c. 7. qu. 2.

acquainted, and to which the Church is unaccustomed, instead of forms matured with grave deliberation by the servants of Christ, revised by the higher officers of the Church, and approved by the synod. This liberty we do not grant 1.”Preface to the Agenda or Book of Common Prayer in the Reformed Churches of Poland and Lithuania.-Dated at Thorn, A.D. 1636.

Two im

portant pe

Episcopacy

AMONG the peculiar marks of difference by which DISS. II. the various dissenting communities of this kingdom are distinguished, not only from the Church of England, but from the far greater number of Christian societies throughout the world, the most obvious are their form of ecclesiastical polity, and their method of divine worship. Unlike the Greek and Latin Churches, and others unconnected with them, both in the old and new world; and unlike many foreign Protestants, our English Dissenters culiarities: have neither Bishops nor Liturgies. And yet the and Liturgreat body of them, so far from impugning the doctrines of our Church, express in general their approbation, and are ready to subscribe, with more or less cordiality, our various doctrinal articles and creeds. Of the two peculiarities just mentioned, the more important was considered in a former dissertation; in which we maintained that our own Church, and most other Churches, are rightly and apostolically governed by an order of ministers superior to Presbyters, and invested especially with the prerogative of ordaining the inferior clergy

1 In Ecclesiá quoque vetere, quòd uniformiter cultus divinus in toto fuerit administratus, ex omnibus fere circumstantiis cuilibet obvium esse potest.—Verum in eo cardo rei vertitur, utrum permittendum sit cuilibet ministrorum, loco precationum a servis Christi gravi cum deliberatione conceptarum, a senioribus ecclesiæ relectarum, et a Synodo approbatarum, suas proprias, a se conceptas, nulli cognitas, et inusitatas, ecclesiæ Dei obtrudere? quam libertatem cur non concedamus, his ducimur rationibus.-Primum, &c.

M

gies.

DISS. II. as well as of confirming the laity. The second distinction, though not perhaps so indispensable as the first, is more open to common observation. A total stranger to great Britain who should happen, alternately, to visit a Church and a dissenting assembly, might not immediately discover that the one class of Christian worshippers were governed by Bishops, and that the discipline of the other deprived them of that advantage; but he could not for a moment fail of perceiving that the one employed a Liturgy, or series of preconcerted forms, as the channel for their devotions: and that the others were satisfied with extemporaneous exercises. A question, then, would naturally occur to him, as to the comparative expediency of the two arrangements. The foreign visitant would ask himself which of the two systems, that of extemporaneous prayer, or that of a precomposed or set form, was recommended by the greater weight of argument of the ques- and of authority: he would consider which of them was more agreeable to Scripture; more conformable to the practice of antiquity; and better suited to congregational worship.

Statement

tion respect

ing Liturgies.

These are inquiries to which every member of our Church should be able to return a full and distinct reply; both for the sake of others, and for his own. In the case of religious ceremonies as well as of religion itself, every devout mind must feel the high importance of being ready always to give an answer to that asketh a reason" of every man the particular ceremonies adopted.

66

DISS. II.

observa

tions always

some form

Before proceeding further, it may be proper to explain that we speak of extemporaneous prayer in opposition to set forms, rather from compliance Preliminary with popular phraseology, than because these two tion. methods of prayer are really opposed to one another. The very same prayer may at the same time be extemporaneous in one sense, and a set form in another: extemporaneous as it regards the minister; Congregaa set form as it regards the congregation. For when pray by the minister has not determined previously upon prescribed. the words and phrases to be employed in his devotional address, but trusts entirely to his own mind for suggesting at the moment such words and phrases as may fully and distinctly convey his meaning, he may properly be said to pray extemporaneously. So also in that case do the congregation. For they have never heard the prayer before, and no sooner do they hear it, than they must implicitly adopt it as their own. But, then the prayer thus implicitly adopted, (though extemporaneous and unprepared,) is really to them a set form. For they were not consulted in the composition, any more than if the words were taken from a printed volume: they can neither add to, nor take from, the language of their minister: they can neither strengthen nor weaken a single epithet, nor control the order of his ideas they must receive the whole form exactly as it is prescribed'.

1 See Bennet on Prayer.