DEAR SIR:--We, the undersigned, having listened with the greatest interest to the able and exhaustive lectures delivered by you on the 12th and 19th instant, concerning the "Revision" and "Unprotestantizing" of the Book of Common Prayer, do most earnestly request that you will, at a very early day, have the same published in pamphlet form, for general distribution and perusal. We do feel that the said lectures contain much information of the most valuable nature, which is practically hidden from the general public, and their publication, therefore, cannot but serve a good purpose.

ALEXANDER BURRITT, A. ROWE, Church Wardens.

THOMAS H. KIRBY, ALFRED J. PARKER, THOMAS BEMENT, D, W: COWARD, C. E. ANDERSON, R. A. BRADLEY, W. A. MACAGY, W. H. TRACY, H. ALEXANDER, Z. WILSON, Vestrymen.

THE HON. D. CHRISTIE, President of the Senate, Dominion of Canada.

THE HONS. R. B. DICKEY, ALEXANDER VIDAL, Senators.

JAMES JOHNSON, Assistant Commissioner of Customs.

OTTAWA, 20th April, 1874.

PATERSON, N. J., May 1st, 1874.

To Alexander Burritt, Esq., A. Rowe, Esq., Church Wardens; Thos. H. Kirby, Esq., Alfred J. Parker, Esq., and others, Vestrymen; the Hon. David Christie, President of the Senate, Dominion of Canada; Hon. R. B. Dickey, Hon. Alexander Vidal, Senators; James Johnson, Esq., Assistant Commissioner of Customs:

GENTLEMEN:--If the pleasure I received in. exposing the process by which the work of the Reformers under Edward VI was deformed and defiled by three ungodly monarchs and a degenerate clergy, was shared by my large, intelligent, and earnest audiences, I am abundantly satisfied. The evils which prevail, and which have driven you to the duty of restoring the work of the Reformers, are owing mainly to the general ignorance which prevails with respect to the manner in which that work was tampered with.

How many of the clergy and of the laity are aware that the Catechism of King Edward, the ripest and choicest work of the Reformers, the "Reprobatus Catechismus" of [iii/iv] Mary, published six weeks before the king's death, has been practically suppressed in the Church of England?

How many are familiar with the seven changes made by Elizabeth, deliberately, in the direction of Rome, by which she kept her Roman Catholic subjects in the parish churches for over ten years?

How many know that Elizabeth refused to have the Articles, the Protestant section of her Prayer-book, published, until she had broken irrevocably with the Pope?

How many have studied the stealthy and insidious Romish alterations by which the unprincipled Commissioners of 1662 sought to gratify their treacherous and profligate king, and thereby to disgust, repel, and drive out from their pulpits and church, the most accomplished, devoted, and enlightened of their clergy?

That vindictive and reckless trio--Sheldon, Gunning, and Morley--who engineered the Five Mile and Conventicle Acts, and the diabolical proceedings of St. Bartholomew's Day, were the successors, in the same respect, of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, as Arenas and Caiaphas were of Moses and Aaron. They resembled their illustrious predecessors who perished amid Roman flames, in defence of the Protestantism which they disgraced, as much as the monarch on whom they fawned resembled the pious Edward.

The present clamor against the Revision of the Book set forth by these infamous characters, and the removal of the causes of the present tide of Ritualism, Popery, and Priestcraft which is sweeping over the Episcopal Church, is as senseless as the uproar at Ephesus against the interference of Paul with the worship of Diana and the trade of the silversmiths.

There is evidently little desire to know anything that might lead to the uncovering of the history of the Prayer-book--a history which will not bear an investigation.

The masterly work of Fisher on "Liturgical Purity," which I first met with in your magnificent Parliament Library, published sixteen years ago, is now out of print, and cannot be obtained. Franklin Rising's "Romanizing Germs, in the Book of Common Prayer," one of the ablest, and the most timely work written by an American Episcopal clergyman, has been practically suppressed by the Evangelical Episcopal party. It dared to assail the Liturgical Idol, and its doom was thereby sealed.

The present crop. of Puseyism, Ritualism, Sacerdotalism, and Sacramentarianism, which has startled the Protestant Episcopal Church, is the natural, legitimate, and necessary result of the use of a Liturgy and offices intentionally Romanized; and the crop will flourish as long as the seed is sown, even by professedly Protestant hands.

Thank God, the work of Reform has at last been renewed. One bishop has been found equal to the occasion. The return to Reformation times has commenced. You have had the wisdom, grace and courage to engage in the work. May your example be widely followed, and may the lectures you have so favorably received, and have so kindly requested for publication, be instrumental in throwing light on a subject of an importance as vast as the ignorance concerning it is widespread and lamentable!

I am, with great respect,

Yours, in the defence and confirmation of the Gospel,

MASON GALLAGHER, Presbyter of the Reformed Episcopal Church.

PREFACE.

Crossing Fulton Ferry recently, I met one of the most intelligent Evangelical Episcopalians of Brooklyn. I asked him "If the Episcopalian laity were intending much longer to endure the evils which were affecting their Church through the presence of the 'Romanizing Germs' in their Prayer-book? Would the General Convention employ the only remedy, i.e.; revise the Book?" He said, "He did not think they would move in the matter; that Episcopal laymen did not generally trouble themselves about ecclesiastical matters; that they minded their worldly business, and left the settlement of doctrinal questions to their ministers or priests; that the Convention might handle the Ritualists severely, to save appearances, but they would do nothing more."

The issue to-day is not between the Ritualists and the Reformed Episcopalians, but it is between the Romanizing tendencies of the present Prayer-book and the Reformers.

The crushing out of a few prominent Ritualists would be as effective in removing the spreading evil as lopping off some of the taller stalks would successfully rid a field of Canada thistles.

The roots of error are in the Prayer-book, and Ritualism and kindred errors are the legitimate and necessary outgrowth. These roots must be grubbed up, and that work the Reformed Episcopal Church has attempted. Revision thus became to us a necessity.

It is lamentably astonishing to behold the apathy of the laity to an influence which is logically certain to land some of their children in the Church of Rome. They may be roused at the General Convention to attempt Revision, but the superincumbent weight of the hierarchical pressure will probably smother all efforts of the kind. Ecclesiastics have never been known in history to [v/vi] yield prerogatives when once secured, unless, like the British House of Lords who passed the Reform Bill, after a hint from the Iron Duke that "if they threw out that measure the people would throw overboard the House of Lords."

If the General Convention can be induced, after repeated refusals, to yield Revision, the good result will be mainly due to the establishment of the Reformed Episcopal Church, and then the wisdom, courage and faithfulness of Bishop Cummins in inaugurating this grand enterprise will be so far acknowledged.

If the boon is again denied, then the duty of every Evangelical Protestant man and woman will be made clear, to abandon an Institution unmistakably and hopelessly incapable of amendment or reform.

In the words of one of the most venerable and respected of the Episcopal laity: "We must say that, but for Bishop Cummins' brave step, there would be no hope. Now there may be some hope, and we ought to thank him for opening up a place of refuge congenial to our feelings, should we be driven from our Church. . . . It appears to us his reasons are strong, and that to be consistent, in the present state of our Church's laws, all our Evangelical Bishops ought to follow his example." [Stewart Brown, Esq.]

Thus, in any case, the Reformed Episcopal Church will prove a great blessing, and its founders will receive the encomiums of posterity.

The facts presented in these Lectures will be new, generally, to the laity, and to many of the clergy, as they are not contained in works usually accessible, and are not even brought before the minds of the youths in our Theological Seminaries of the High Church persuasion.

MASON GALLAGHER.

PATERSON, N. J., September 4th, 1874.

LECTURE I.

HOW THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER HAS
BEEN UNPROTESTANTIZED AT ITS SEVERAL REVISIONS.

I AM entering on a subject concerning which I am convinced there exists generally a profound ignorance.

I asked an intelligent layman of the Episcopal Church, "Do you suppose that one Episcopalian in fifty is acquainted with the several changes made in the Prayer-book? the occasions of its various revisions? the alterations severally effected?" He replied, "I do not believe that one man in a hundred is familiar with them."

Bishop Short, who wrote one of the most candid histories of the English Church which has been prepared by an Episcopal writer, states in his Preface that the reason which induced him to undertake the work was, that after he was ordained, while tutor in college, "he discovered that the knowledge of English Ecclesiastical history which he possessed was very deficient. . . . He was distressed that his knowledge of the sects among the Philosophers of Athens was greater than his information on questions which affect the Church of England." Such is the result of much of the education in our Colleges and Universities.

We are about to examine the history of a volume which is the Religious Service Book of twelve and a half millions of people speaking the English language, who possess an amount of education and intelligence equal to the average of the most enlightened people. Fifty-seven millions of Protestants speak the English language. Ten millions of English-speaking people are Roman Catholics.

This Prayer-book has undergone five revisions in England, besides two in this country.

[8] In England, of the five revisions, the most important failed, because the wisdom and moderation of the Sovereign and the higher clergy was not shared by the clergy and laity of the rural districts.

The grand attempt of William III, in 1689, to make the Church of England truly national, was defeated by a combination of bigotry and ignorance.

Time will not allow me to dwell on the condition of England at the period in which the original Prayer-book was framed, in 1549. The population numbered three millions, rude and uneducated. Books were scarce, and beyond the reach of the masses. It took the wages of a year to purchase a copy of the Bible. The nation emerged from the darkness and bondage of Rome much as the Hebrews came out of the servitude of Egypt.

Henry VIII had thrown off the usurped yoke of the Bishop of Rome, so long borne by his predecessors. He rejected no Roman doctrine. He burned at the stake those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation.

His successor, Edward VI, was educated a Protestant by Archbishop Cranmer, who had slowly emerged from the mists of Roman error. Educated a priest, the efforts of Ridley had convinced Cranmer of the absurdity and blasphemy of Transubstantiation, and at last he enjoyed the liberty with which Christ makes his people free.

Edward, who died in his 17th year, in 1553, was the most devout monarch who has occupied the throne of England. He has been justly compared to Josiah, the youthful reformer of Israel. For her Protestantism, England is more indebted to him than to any other king. Since his death, Protestantism, comparatively, has made no general advance in the Church, to which he gave her Book of Common Prayer. If his principles had pervaded his Church at the present day, some of you who hear me would not have been compelled, as you have been, for the sake of your souls, and the safety of your children, to come out of her pale, and to endeavor to restore the Church to the condition in which the pious Edward left it!

The first Prayer-book of Edward, that of 1549, was a [8/9] wonderful work, considering that it was composed by men who had most of their lives held and advocated the doctrines of Rome.

"During the reign of this pious Prince the Reformers attained what was for them, sedulously trained for years as they had been in Romish error, a glorious measure of Divine truth. Discovering clearly such fundamental doctrines as justification by faith, they did not at once get rid of Romish deceits."

A great advance in Scriptural knowledge and sound doctrine was made by the Reformers in the next three years, as evidenced by the Second Book of Common Prayer, completed in 1552. In this work the Reformers had called in the aid of Peter Martyr, formerly a monk of Florence, made, by Cranmer, Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and of Martin Bucer, of Germany, placed in a similar position at Canterbury. John Knox and Alasco, and other Reformers, were consulted in the preparation of this work. It is the best Prayer-book which England has produced, far better than the one now used in the English Church. The Romish doctrines and practices of the Book of 1549 were expunged from the second Book of 1552.

Their First Book, mostly a translation of former Liturgies, principally that of Sarum, and of Hermann, of Cologne, "retained many remnants of doctrines and practices not Apostolic, but sanctioned by earlier Church traditions, among which were prayers for the dead, the forms of exorcism and anointing; with the prayer for the consecration of the water, the idea of the Sacrifice in the Lord's Supper, the Communion Table being called an Altar; the mixed Chalice, and Romish Sacerdotal Vestments." All these were omitted in the Second Book.

[A. J. Stephens, in his Introduction to the Book of Common Prayer, p. 78, writes: "The most material alterations were the removal of a few ceremonies and usages retained in the First Book, some of which appeared to have been at least superfluous. Such, in the office of Baptism, were the sign of the cross made on the child's breast; the Exorcism in the form of Abjuration, commanding the unclean and cursed spirit to depart; the repetition of Immersion, first dipping the right side, then the left, then the face toward the font; the putting upon the child his (or her) white vesture, commonly called the Chrism, with the address to the child on the occasion; and the anointing of the child, with the prayer for the unction of the Holy Spirit. Such, likewise, were the sign of the cross in Confirmation, extreme unction at the Visitation of the sick. In the Churching of women, the part of the last Rubric concerning the Chrism was omitted, and the former title, Purification of Women, was abandoned. Prayers for the dead, both in the Communion and Burial Offices, were expunged."]

[10] The Royal Proclamation to the Reformers, November 8th, 1548, was "to stay and quiet themselves as men content to follow authority, and not enterprising to run before, and so, by their rashness, to become the greatest hinderers."

THE SECOND BOOK IMPERFECT.

The book of 1552, which has been made less Protestant by every successive revision, our American revision of 1789 included, was far from being perfect. The office for Infant Baptism is not a Scriptural office. "It begins with the proposition that the subject is dead in sin, the water is sanctified to the mystical washing away of sin, the subject is baptized, and a thanksgiving is offered for the regeneration which has just taken place." [Letter of Rev. Marshall B. Smith to Bishop Odenheimer.] The Reformers of Edward were never able to divest themselves of the Roman error which confounds Baptism with Regeneration. Their main study and effort was to arrive at clear views with respect to the Lord's Supper. In this they succeeded. With respect to the doctrine of Baptism they were not so fortunate, as far as their views are presented in the Offices for Baptism.

It is left for our generation to construct a Baptismal Office in strict accordance with Holy Writ. [This has been done in the recent Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church, as is evident in the Offices of their Revised Book.]

Still, some of the Reformers of Edward have presented clear, Scriptural views on this subject.

Bishop Hooper, Edward's favorite preacher, and designed by him as the successor to Cranmer in the Primacy, teaches, "Although Baptism is a Sacrament to be received, and honorably used by all men, yet it sanctifieth no man. And such as attribute the remission of sins to the external sign do offend."

Bishop Latimer, preaching before Edward, said, "Man must have a regeneration; and what is this regeneration? It is not to be christened in water, as these firebrands expound John iii, 3, and nothing else. . . Our new birth cometh by the word of the Living God, by the word of God preached and opened." [10/11] Far different is this teaching from that of some modern bishops, and that put into the hands of our children in the form of devotional books, and widely circulated in this country, in England and in Canada.

If Edward had lived three years longer, there would doubtless have been a third, a still more thorough and complete Revision. John Alasco, a Protestant convert from Poland, of noble family, informs us that Edward and his Council were anxious to effect a far more thorough and extensive Reformation of the Church of England. He says: "When I was called by that King, and when some laws of the country stood in the way, that it was not possible that the rites of public Divine worship used under Popery should be immediately purged out, though it was what the King himself desired; and while I was earnestly standing up for the churches of the foreigners, at length it was his pleasure that the public rites in the English churches should be reformed by certain degrees, as far as it could possibly be got done for the laws of the kingdom; but that strangers, who were not so strictly obliged by the laws of the kingdom in this matter, should have churches granted them, wherein they might freely perform all things according to apostolic doctrine and observation only, without having regard to the rites of the country; and that by this means it would come to pass that the English churches would be excited to embrace Apostolical purity, with the unanimous consent of all the States of the kingdom." (Treatise "De Ordinatione Ecclesiarum," etc., A. D. 1555.)

Thirty-two commissioners were appointed, of whom Alasco was one, to draw up this "Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum." Alasco is described in the King's patent as "a man greatly celebrated for his integrity, innocence of life and manners, and of uncommon learning."

The Protestant character of the Second Book of Edward, of 1552, imperfect as the King regarded it, will be made evident from the changes made in the direction of Rome by those who subsequently revised it.

Edward died in 1553, and was succeeded by his sister Mary, who, as all know, was a bigoted Roman Catholic. Stimulated by her bishops and priests, who had been restrained by her brother, [11/12] she fully restored the religion of Rome; burned at the stake Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper and Farrar, the foremost Protestant bishops, with numerous clergy and laymen, to the number of two hundred, who refused to recant, and drove from the kingdom those whom she was not able to imprison and punish. The old mass-book was restored, and the public services universally performed according to the Roman ritual.

It is right to acknowledge that Mary possessed some noble qualities, and acted with far greater consistency than her more distinguished sister. Her failings are to be attributed to the corrupt system under which she had the misfortune to be educated.

THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH.

After a reign of six years, Mary died, and her sister Elizabeth ascended the throne. This monarch has been called a Protestant. But we read that "during her sister's reign she regularly attended confession and mass, and conformed to all the ritual observances of Popery. She was crowned by the Roman Bishop Oglethorpe, according to the forms of the Roman Pontifical, of which High Mass is an essential part. After her accession to the throne, she continued to pray to the Virgin Mary. She believed in the Real presence; publicly censured a preacher who preached against it in her presence, and praised another who preached in its favor. She retained a crucifix, with tapers burning before it, in her own private chapel, till as late as 1572. Bishop Cox, who was concerned in the several reformations under Henry, Edward and Elizabeth, declined on these grounds to preach in the chapel, saying: "I most humbly sue unto your godly zeal, prostrate, with wet eyes, that ye will vouchsafe to peruse the considerations which move me, that I dare not minister in your Grace's chapel, the lights and cross remaining." This good bishop would have vexed his pious soul if he could have seen the exercises in Trinity Church, New York, as I beheld them recently: four reputed priests, with their backs to the people, a gilt cross on their so-called altar, two lighted candles on the same, eighteen lighted candles on either [12/13] side, one priest in the act of adoration before the elements--and all this in a so-called Protestant church, built by the money left by a sincere Protestant woman, the trust audaciously betrayed by those who were thus administering it. Similar are the mummeries acted in other churches in that city, with their high consecrated altars, attended by false priests, in coats of many colors, and countenanced by those in authority.

Elizabeth determined to make the Service-book acceptable to her Roman subjects; and, in this effort she succeeded; for they attended the parish churches, with the preaching and sacraments, for the first ten years of her reign. So acceptable did she make the Prayer-book to the clergy, that of nine thousand four hundred ministers, who had served under Mary, and conformed to Popery, under Elizabeth all remained at their posts and used the Ritual, with the exception of two hundred. Not one in forty refused to conform. (Burnet, Part ii, p. 720.) As the Prayer-book now is less Protestant than then, we are not surprised that Ritualists and Low Papists can minister in the communion of the Episcopal churches in England, and in this country. History is simply repeating itself.

In what a spiritual condition must England have been with a clergy of such flexible and elastic consciences! Some of these ministers could not sign their names. Some could not read. the Liturgy. Some years after, when Elizabeth had imbibed more Protestantism, and when some of the clergy had died or left the country, in the diocese of Bangor there was no preaching whatever; in that of Norwich, there were four hundred and thirty-four parish churches vacant; two-thirds of the churches in the diocese of Ely were not duly served. So pitiable and to be lamented," said Bishop Cox, "is the face of this diocese! and if in other places it be so too, most miserable indeed is the condition of the Church of England." (Strype's Parker, pp. 143-44.)

THE PRAYER-BOOK UNPROTESTANTIZED.

But how did Elizabeth succeed in making the Prayer-book so acceptable to her Roman Catholic clergy and subjects? In the [13/14] first place, as Hume states: "She retained eleven of her sister's councillors; but, in order to balance their authority, she added eight more, who were known to be inclined to the Protestant communion. . . . The forms and ceremonies in the English Liturgy, as they bore some semblance to the ancient Service, tended still further to reconcile the Catholics to the established religion; and as the Queen permitted no other mode of worship, and at the same time struck out everything that could be offensive to them in the Liturgy, even those who were addicted to the Romish communion made no scruple of attending the Established Church."

Bishop Tomline writes: Several alterations were made in the Communion service and Rubric, to conciliate the Roman Catholics."

The Rubric referred to is thus spoken of by Heylin, a High-Church historian: "They expunged also a whole Rubric at the end of the Communion service, by which it was declared that kneeling at the participation of the sacraments was required, for no other reason than for a signification of the humble, grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ, given therein unto the worthy receiver, and to avoid that profanation and disorder which otherwise might have ensued; and not for giving any adoration to the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, or in regard of any real and essential presence of Christ's body and blood."

Another alteration in the Communion service was with respect to the form of giving the elements. In the first Book of Edward, 1549, the words used were: "The body or blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy body and soul to everlasting life." "Which words," says Bishop Burnet, "had been left out in his second Liturgy, as favoring the corporal presence too much; and instead of them, these words were ordered to be used in the distribution of that sacrament: ' Take and eat,' etc. . . . `Drink this,' etc." They now joined together these in one.

Heylin writes: "Then, to come up the closer to those of the Church of Rome, it was ordered, by the Queen's injunctions, that the sacramental bread (which the Book required only to be made [14/15] of the finest flour, should be made round; in fashion of the wafers used in the time of Queen Mary. She also ordered that the Lord's Table should be placed where the altar stood; that the accustomed reverence should be made at the name of Jesus; music retained in the Church; and all the old festivals observed, with their several Eves." These amounted to about fifty. The petition in the Litany, found in Henry's Primer, and in both Books of Edward, "From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and his detestable enormities, good Lord deliver us," was stricken out. "By which compliance," says Heylin, "and the expunging the passage before remembered, the Book was made so passable to the Papists that for ten years they generally repaired to the parish churches without doubt or scruple." So much for the changes made in the Liturgy, in the direction of Rome.

THE ARTICLES CHANGED.

But what other alterations were made? The Articles, the Constitution of the Church, were tampered with in two important instances. Cranmer and his associates, in order to condemn as clearly as possible the error of Sacramental grace, now so widely taught in the Protestant Episcopal Church, had inserted in the articles of 1553, Art. xxvi, these words: "Our Lord Jesus Christ gathered his people into a society by sacraments, very few in number, most easy to be kept, and of most excellent signification; that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. And in such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholesome effect and operation; riot, as some say, ex opere operato, which terms, as they are strange and utterly unknown to Holy Scripture, so do they yield a sense which savors of little piety and of much superstition."

"This statement," writes Nangle, of the Church of Ireland, in the Irish Church Advocate, March, 1874, "which demolishes the foundation of Baptismal Regeneration, was expunged from our Prayer-book in the reign of Elizabeth, and the following, of a totally different aspect, was substituted for it: "Sacraments ordained of Christ are not only badges or tokens of Christian [15/16] men's profession, but rather they be sure, certain witnesses and effectual signs of grace," etc.

On this change, Fisher, in his work on Liturgical Purity, p. 207, remarks: "The same false tenderness toward the corruptions of the old superstitions which had caused, in the year 1559, the admission into the Communion Office of the Romanizing doctrine of the Real Presence, as well as the omission from the Litany of anything like a distinct protest against the errors of the Papacy, occasioned likewise, in 1571, the withdrawal from the Article on Baptism of that specific protest against the 'opus operatum' so wisely inserted in the earlier Articles of 1553." [This work of Fisher, a layman of the Church of England, is the most candid and thorough on the subject, and should be perused by every intelligent Episcopalian who wishes to thoroughly understand the matter under consideration.]

Nor was this the only alteration in the Articles. "A clause of great clearness and precision of statement, which had been introduced into the Articles of 1553, in condemnation of the doctrine of the ' Real,' nor of the Real only, but of the ' Bodily' presence of Christ in the Sacrament, was wholly omitted from those of 1562. It has never to this day been restored." It reads thus: "Forasmuch as the truth of man's nature requireth that the body of one and the self-same man cannot be at one time in divers places, but must needs be in some one certain place, therefore the body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and diverse places. And because (as Holy Scripture doth teach) Christ was taken up into Heaven, and there shall continue until the end of the world, a faithful man ought not either to believe or openly to confess the real bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ's flesh and blood in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper." When we contemplate these radical changes, this reaction, this deformation of the work of Cranmer and Edward, are we surprised at Hallam's statement?--"Pius IV dispatched a Nuncio to England with an invitation to send ambassadors to the Council of Trent, and with power, as it is said, to confirm the English Liturgy, and to permit double Communion." Another writer states: "When a copy of the Prayer-book was sent to the Pope, so well satisfied was he with it, that he offered, through his Nuncio, Parpalia, to ratify [16/17] it for England, if the Queen would only own the supremacy of Rome."

Are we surprised to find Bishop Jewel, the ablest divine of this reign, writing thus: "Now everything is managed in so slow, cautious and prudent a manner, as if the Word of God was not to be received upon its own authority; so that, as Christ was thrown out by his enemies, he is now kept out by his friends."

Cecil, Elizabeth's eminent Prime Minister, remarked of the Prayer-book: "As for external discipline, I can assure you, our Church is more replenished with ecclesiastical rites than was the Primitive Church in five hundred years after Christ, insomuch as the Church of England is, by the Germans, French, Scots and others, that call themselves Reformed, thought to be herein corrupted, for retaining so much of the rites of the Church of Rome."

A writer already quoted, in an article on "the Anglican Reformation," remarks: "Our readers are aware of the controversy as to how the celebrated clause--'The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in matters of faith'--crept into the Twentieth Article of the Church of England, when it occurs neither in the first printed edition of the Articles, nor in the draft of them which was passed by convocation, and which is still in existence, with the autograph signature of the members. It is now the universal belief that Elizabeth inserted this clause."

If time would permit, I would be glad to quote the language of the enlightened bishops of that day, Grindal, Cox, Jewel, Horne, Parkhurst, and others, expressive of their great dissatisfaction with the work of the Queen, and of their consent to remain in their places only for the reason that, if they refused, their places would be filled with men holding unscriptural views. I have said enough, however, to show that the Prayer-book of Elizabeth was far from being the Prayer-book of the Reformers; that it was a wide and dangerous departure from the views of the martyrs under Edward, with whom Elizabeth had little doctrinal sympathy.

When we shall examine the two succeeding Revisions, in which the Book was made to diverge still further from the principles of its first compilers, you will be still more surprised, and will be [17/18] deeply grateful that you have had grace and courage given you to abandon these Romish traditions, and to plant yourselves upon the basis of the Word of God alone.

One marked reactionary change made by Elizabeth I have omitted. In the Articles of Edward there is a remarkable clause: "The grace of Christ, or the Holy Spirit, who is given through the same, takes away the heart of stone, and gives the heart of flesh." Here, grace conveyed by the Spirit, the conversion of the soul, as distinguished from grace inwrought by the Sacraments, is positively asserted. This strong Protestant statement, so powerful an antidote to the Sacramental errors of the Liturgy, was expunged by this shrewd monarch; and wherefore, if not still further to unprotestantize the Book, and to render it less distasteful to her Roman subjects?

RECAPITULATION.

Thus have we seen seven of the steps in the direction of Roman Catholicism, the deliberate work of Elizabeth and her council, a majority of whom had been councillors to the bigoted Mary:--

I. The restoration of the Roman vestments, the alb, the cope, and other ornaments expressly forbidden in the Rubric of 1552.

II. The restoration of the Roman Saints' Days, with their Eves, omitted in the first Prayer-book.

III. The removal of the petition in the Liturgy condemnatory of the Bishop of Rome.

IV. The omission of the Rubric with respect to the Real Presence in the communion service.

V. The expunging of the article which condemned the doctrine of the "Real and Bodily" presence of Christ in the Sacrament.

VI. The omission of the Twenty-sixth Article, which protested against sacramental grace, ex opere operato.

VII. The removal of the declaration that conversion, the new spiritual birth, is the direct work of the Holy Spirit.

VIII. To these may be .added the publication of Primers containing "Prayers for the Dead."

ELIZABETH'S UNFITNESS FOR THE WORK OF REFORM.

If the views of this distinguished monarch had been thoroughly Protestant and scriptural, her character would have disqualified her for the work of ecclesiastical reform. Her utter unfitness for this work is clear, from the accounts left us of her habits of life. Profanity was habitual with her. She is said to have excelled her father, the bluff Harry, in this accomplishment. We read of the "startling oaths with which she would shock her meek bishops who would undertake to remonstrate with her with respect to some of her ungodly deeds. Said her godson, Sir John Harrington, when speaking of her, within two years of her death: "She swears much at those that cause her griefs in such wise, to the no small discomfiture of all about her." (Nugae Antiquae, 1, 319.)

When Sir Christopher Hatton, a favorite courtier of Elizabeth, had risen high in favor, he coveted a slice of the Bishop of Ely's garden, which consisted of twenty acres on Holborn Hill. The bishop did not want his See to be despoiled, and resisted the encroachment, though backed by the private orders of the Queen. This refusal drew the following brief but pointed letter from her maiden majesty:--

"Proud prelate! You know what you were before I made you what you are now. If you do not immediately comply with my request, I will unfrock you, by G---. ELIZABETH."

This letter had the desired effect. Queen Elizabeth had the violent temper of her father; and when she let it loose, it was terrible. She once boxed Essex's ears in the Council chamber; she spat on her courtiers; collared her nobles; struck her ladies; and often swore, "By God's death, all who served her were truly knaves;" she stamped with her feet at bad news; walked up and down the privy chamber, and thrust her sword furiously through the tapestry. "Sometimes," writes Harrington, her godson, "she was more than man, and often less than woman."

"She was indisputably a great sovereign. Her vigor, her vigilance, her penetration, her singular talents for government, merit the highest praise, and have rarely been surpassed. When she [19/20] ascended the throne, England did not rank higher than a second-rate power. She left it among the first, if not the first of European States." (Nat. Quar. Rev., Sept., 1866, p. 274.)

Though Elizabeth would not travel on Sunday, yet, after listening to the morning sermon--when she took the privilege, from her royal seat, of openly rebuking the preacher--she would spend the remainder of the day in merriment and games, bear-baiting being among the number. "Bear and bull baiting, tilts, tourneys, and wrestling were among the noonday divertisements of the maiden majesty of England; dancing, music, cards and pageants brought up the rear of her Sabbath amusements." (Strickland's Life, p. 296.)

When we add her cruelty to the Puritans, her bitter opposition to the marriage of the clergy, we can form some opinion of her unfitness to revise and alter the Service-book set forth by her pious brother Edward.

To illustrate her ecclesiastical qualifications, her treatment of Archbishop Grindal is in point. Grindal was styled by Lord Bacon "the greatest and gravest prelate of the land." He labored assiduously to increase the number of sound and enlightened preachers. He established meetings of the clergy for their spiritual and intellectual improvement. Elizabeth, who declared that she considered "two or three preachers enough for one county," ordered Grindal to suppress these meetings. He replied that he could not in conscience do this. Whereupon this willful woman suppressed him. She shut him up in his residence, and placed his office in the hands of two of her followers until his death. The answer of Grindal to her unrighteous order is one of the noblest utterances on record, and is worthy of perusal in this age of easy consciences and smothered convictions. After an eloquent remonstrance, worthy of an apostle, he concludes; "If it be your majesty's pleasure, for this or any other cause, to remove me out of this place, I will with all humility yield thereunto, and render again to your majesty that I received of the same. I consider with myself that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. I consider, also, that he who acts against his conscience (resting upon the laws of God) edifies to hell. And [20/21] what should I win, if I gained (I will not say a bishopric, but) the whole world, and lose my own soul?"

Grindal had been, with the martyr Bradford, chaplain to Bishop Ridley, and shared with these noble Christian heroes their devotion to the truth, and their faithfulness to the dictates of an enlightened conscience.

While thus alluding to the moral delinquencies of Elizabeth, and her consequent unfitness to amend the Prayer-book, I would not detract from her political glory, or from her splendid gifts and acquirements. She was, as one says, "in courage equal to Semiramis, in accomplishments to Zenobia, in policy and energy to Catherine. She possessed a combination of talents to which none of them could lay claim."

But, with all these endowments, I think history shows that if the Pope had acknowledged that her mother was the lawful wife of Henry, and that she was the legitimate sovereign of England, she would have accepted the Papal supremacy, and England this day would have been subject to Rome. The Almighty appears to have overruled the irrepressible pride and arrogance of the Tudors to the furtherance of the truth and the welfare of His Church. The Pope refused to acknowledge the claims of Elizabeth, and she determined that she would herself be the bead of the Church of England.

REVISION BY JAMES I.

The changes at the next revision, under James I, in 1604, were not numerous, but still in the same direction of Sacramentarianism, and in one respect of immense importance.

Coleridge, in one of his letters, says: "The faith that was common to all the great Reformers continued to be the faith of the Church of England universally, till the appearance of a semi-Romanism at the close of the reign of James the First."

Coleridge should have placed the date somewhat earlier. The change among the clergy was marked in the persons of Laud and Andrew es in the beginning of this reign. Prynne writes: "In July, [21/22] 1604, Laud proceeded Batchelor in divinitie. His supposition, when he answered in the divinitie schools for his degrees, concerning the efficacie of Baptisme, was taken verbatim out of Bellarmine, and he then maintained there could be no true Church without diocesan bishops, for which Dr. Holland (then Doctor of the Chaire) openly reprehended him in the schooles for a seditious person, who would unchurch the Reformed Churches beyond the seas, and sow a division between us and them who were brethren, by this novele Popish doctrine." "This novele Popish doctrine of this seditious person" has, unfortunately, become the accepted and controlling doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and has been one of the chief causes which have produced the sad state of affairs which has compelled this separation of brethren, and this return to the principles of the Reformers.

There was no unreasonableness in Laud quoting Bellarmine, the great Papal champion, in the matter of Baptism; for the doctrine of Baptism in the offices of the two churches is the same. This is made clear by the fact that when Stapleton, another Roman controversialist, in 1565, presented a very careful Exposition of the points of difference between his own Church and that of England, among his twenty-two points he makes no allusion to the subject of Baptism. The Romish doctrine of Baptism is present in the offices of both books of Edward. It was intensified in the book of Elizabeth, and still more distinctly set forth in the Revision of Charles II, as will be hereafter shown. It is retained in the Prayer-book of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It was eliminated from the Prayer-book of 1785, but afterward restored, through the influence of Bishop Seabury, who derived his orders and principles from the Laudean non jurors.

Andrewes, with all his immense learning and devoutness, was a Sacerdotalist in sentiment. A remark he made at the Revision of 1604 shows the tendency of his views. The so-called Priest of the Church of England pronounces the absolution "standing." Bishop Andrewes said that posture was proper, because he executes this office "authoritatively." Here is expressed the clear sacerdotal idea, which has wrought such mischief among us.

At the revision of 1604, the term "Remission of Sins" was [22/23] introduced after the word "Absolution," to render the service more emphatically sacerdotal. The mischief done at this revision was with the Catechism, in some respects the most important portion of the whole book, because the part brought into especial contact with the minds of the children of the Church. The Protestant portion of the Prayer-book is especially the Articles, which Elizabeth only allowed to be published after she had, upon her excommunication, broken with the Pope, when there was no further object in conciliating the Romanists.

THE CATECHISM CHANGED.

The Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer remained as imperfect at the death of Elizabeth as at her accession. It consisted of thirteen questions and answers, of which five taught the Romish unscriptural view of baptismal regeneration.

If Edward and Cranmer had lived, the Church would doubtless have possessed a very different Catechism from the one now in the book. This is evident from the publication of another Catechism, by royal authority, six weeks before the king's death, in 1553. This work, the latest issuing from the Reformers, may be regarded as the clearest statement of their views which we now possess. Dr. Randolph says of it: "It was published in the time of King Edward VI, and was the last work of the Reformers in that reign; whence," he further adds, "it may be fairly understood to contain, as far as it goes, their ultimate decision, and to represent the sense of the Church of England as then established."

"It is beyond all doubt," says Fisher, p. 246, "the most genuine historical memorial which the country can be said to possess--not excepting even the forty-two Articles of Cranmer--of those cardinal truths of the Reformation which, as English Churchmen and Protestants, we have so much reason to prize." All the clergy and all the schoolmasters in England were enjoined by royal authority to teach the Catechism.

In the light of the present Sacramentarian controversy, mark the wonderful contrast between the Catechism of Edward and that of James I, as contained in the Prayer-book. The present [23/24] document, out of twenty-five questions, devotes sixteen to the doctrine of the Sacraments, about two-thirds of the whole.

The Catechism of the Reformers, out of sixty-seven questions, allows to this subject only seven, not one in nine. In other words, the later Catechism . makes the sacramental question six times as important as the Catechism of the Reformers. Not one of the old Reformers was living at the time of the Revision of James. Dean Nowell, who outlived the rest, died in 1602.

Bishop Overall, a highly scholastic and Sacramentarian divine, prepared the nine questions and answers at the close of the Catechism. These were confined to the matter of the Sacraments, which are treated with far more minuteness than the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, or the Ten Commandments; .and the inference is natural, from the perusal of this document, that the Church regards this subject as the most important to be brought before the minds of youth.

The supremacy of Holy Scripture is not even alluded to. Faith and repentance are mentioned as they are related to Baptism, but not explained. A distinguished author (Bentham) remarks that, with the exception of the one "allusion" to the Ten Commandments, there is "not a syllable by which, in any mind to which the matter was not made known from other sources, so much as a suspicion could be produced that any such book as the Bible had ever been written."

Elizabeth ignored the Catechism of Edward. So also did James. This document is intensely Biblical and Protestant. So much so, that it is the only document of Edward and Cranmer which was publicly stigmatized by Mary as worthy of reprobation. It was styled by her, in a public proclamation, the "Catechismus Reprobatus;" and this circumstance 'is a good reason why, as Protestants, we should look upon it with especial regard; and we should be grateful that we have this precious memorial of the truth from that noble monarch and his martyred co-laborers.

Do you wonder, in view of what has been here presented, that so many enlightened Christians in England, in these reigns, refused to use the Prayer-book, and preferred to suffer (under the opprobrious epithet of "Puritan") various penalties rather than [24/25] violate their conscience in submitting to the arbitrary, imperious, unsanctified royal will?

The Puritans, so styled because they adhered to the pure Word of God, apart from traditions, which had corrupted the Book of Common Prayer, were the truest Protestants of that era, and deserve from all enlightened Christian men admiration and sympathy. The most learned scholars and eminent bishops sympathized with these men, the objects of the persecutions of Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker. Hallam, an English Churchman, writes in his "Constitutional History": "I conceive the Church of England party (that is, the party adverse to any ecclesiastical change) to have been the least numerous of the three (that is, Puritan, Popish, and Anglican) during this reign; still excepting, as I have said, the neutrals, who commonly make a numerical majority, and are counted along with the dominant religion. . . . The Puritans, or at least those who favored them, had a majority among the Protestant gentry in the Queen's days. It is agreed on all hands (and is quite manifest) that they predominated in the House of Commons. . . . They had still more effectual support in the Queen's Council--the Earl of Leicester, who possessed more power than any one to sway her wavering and capricious temper; the Earls of Bedford, Huntington and Warwick, regarded as the steadiest Protestants among the aristocracy; the wise and grave Lord Keeper Bacon; the sagacious Walsingham; the experienced Sadler; the zealous Knollys, considered the object of Parker's severity--either as demanding a purer worship than had been established in the Church, or at least as worthy, by their virtues, of more indulgent treatment." (Con. Hist., p. 255)

I present these statements to show that the ordinary view of English and American Episcopalians, with respect to the position and character of the Puritans, and also with regard to the Book of Common Prayer, is incorrect, and needs reconstruction. The present reform under Bishop CUMMINS will serve, under God, to dissipate the mists of error which have enveloped the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church, and to advance the cause of pure religion and sound Gospel truth. It is the cause of the people, of the masses, against a self-constituted priesthood, [25/26] a repressive Episcopate, who are making void the word of God by their Traditions.

We have shown how far the work of Elizabeth was a departure from the principles of Edward, Cranmer, and their associates; how the progress of the Reformation was stayed, and the work of reaction consummated, under her weak and pusillanimous successor.

We cannot now refer to the next Revision, half a century later, a still greater deformation and corruption of the Prayer-book than that of Elizabeth. Enough has been said to cause gratitude to God that you have been permitted to take part in the first effective movement to return to the principles of the Reformers, and to organize a Church and construct a Prayer-book which would meet with the full approbation of those venerated men, if they were now living; a work which, we trust, is acceptable to the Divine Head of the Church, the Common Judge of us all!

LECTURE II.

THE FINAL REVISION OF THE COMMON PRAYER-BOOK
OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II, 1662.

Our subject this evening is the progress of the Revision of the Prayer-book after the Conference at Hampton Court, in the reign of James I, 1604.

We have seen how widely Elizabeth, in her Revision of 1559, had departed from the principles of Edward and Cranmer. Seven steps, at least, of a retrograde character toward Rome, were taken by this worldly monarch, to conciliate her Roman Catholic subjects.

I will refresh your memory by repeating the catalogue of important changes made by Elizabeth. (See p. 18, Lec. I.) .

We have seen that in the reign of James I the Sacramentarian principle of the book was intensified by additions to the Catechism, two-thirds of the questions being devoted to the subject of the Sacraments, while in Edward's later Catechism the proportion was but one-ninth. In other words, the later Book, as we now have it, makes the Sacramental question six times more important than the Prayer-book of Cranmer.

We know that the Prayer-book thus tampered with, to satisfy the Romanists, was enforced by legal penalties on all Englishmen; we know that many Englishmen, for conscience sake, refused to sanction by their presence at 'the services these unscriptural changes; we know that these men were grievously persecuted; we know that they were called "Puritans," an epithet of reproach, then and now, with some Episcopalians; but with the vast majority of Protestants now the term is one of honor, and, it [27/28] is felt that the world owes a deep debt of gratitude to those moral heroes who were willing to suffer for their devotion to the letter and spirit of the Word of God.

Some of you who are now stigmatized as schismatics by those who have succeeded to the views of Elizabeth and Parker, because you have embraced the views of the martyred Reformers, can in some respects sympathize with the Puritans in the reigns of Elizabeth and the Stuarts.

When James, who had been a Presbyterian in Scotland, ascended the throne, the Reforming party, who included the more thoroughly Christianized part of the nation, petitioned for several important ecclesiastical changes in the direction of the early Reformers. At a meeting held for the purpose of conference, in 1604, called the Hampton Court Conference, James refused their requests, save in one particular, viz., that none but a lawful minister should administer Baptism. At this meeting a request was made by the most prominent petitioner, the famous Dr. John Rainolds, Professor of Divinity at Oxford--regarded as the most learned man in the nation--that a new and amended version of the Bible in English should be prepared. The King assented, and to the Puritans we owe our present standard version, called that of King James.

THE ACCESSION OF CHARLES I.

James died, and his son, Charles the First, succeeded him. Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury. The wife of Charles, the daughter of Henry of France, was a zealous Romanist; Laud was a Sacerdotalist and Sacramentarian of an extreme type. He. endeavored to introduce a semi-Romish Ritual into the English Church. At the same time, Charles began a series of oppressive acts, which were in violation of the fundamental principles of the British Constitution. Together they endeavored to enforce the infamous "Book of Sports," which enjoined for the afternoon of the Lord's Day games of various kinds, dancing and general hilarity. (See Appendix A.) The plainest principles of religious liberty were violated. Good and honest men like Prynne, and [28/29] Bastwick, and Leighton, were imprisoned, pilloried, and their noses slit, because their views of the Scripture, and manner of worship, differed from those of the Primate. They acted according to the dictates of an enlightened conscience. Englishmen could not endure this state of affairs with patience. Dr. Vaughan remarks: "That Church would be a superstitious and intolerant one, and she paid the penalty; that king would be a tyrannical king, and would deal treacherously with his subjects to the last, and the natural consequences followed."

The civil war ensued, brought on by Charles and Laud, and they paid the penalty of embroiling the nation in fratricidal strife with their lives. The clergy who had given aid and comfort to the Royalists suffered with their friends. They were ejected from their livings, but were allowed one-fifth of their stipend for their support.

We cannot justify this wholesale sequestration of the clergy; but the persecution that the Puritans had undergone for over eighty years from the Crown and Bishops had taught them a lesson which they were not slow to learn. The blame must largely rest on their instructors. "Curses, like chickens, come home to roost."

For these acts of retaliation, however, the Puritans suffered in their turn.

The principles of civil and religious liberty were understood but by few in that age. Puritanism, when allied with the civil power, became oppressive and exacting. Cromwell, the greatest English ruler of that century, with an enlightened foresight, endeavored to check and allay these tendencies. He urged forbearance, telling the parties that if they disregarded his advice, "You will be thrust to the wall. Charles Stuart will come back, and you will be all left to feed upon your little crotchets as best you may, and very sorry provender you will find it, I warrant you."

THE RESTORATION.

You are aware of the sequel. The nation, wearied with agitation, sought rest in the return of the monarch. The unanimity [29/30] with which he was welcomed was largely owing to the declaration he made at Breda, in which he promised to grant "liberty to tender consciences," and pledged his royal word that no man should be "disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in religious matters." (See Appendix B.)

After the King's return, conferences were held by the two antagonistic parties, with reference to the Church question. The Puritans trusted that an accommodating spirit would be manifested by the Episcopal party, and their differences satisfactorily settled upon the principles similar to those proposed by Archbishop Usher, the most learned man of the age, a few years previous: The difficulties might have been happily arranged but for the constitutional habit of lying, characteristic of the Stuarts. [Stephens' Notes, pp. 162, 3, 4. See Appendix C.]

But there was no thought of concession with respect to Puritan consciences, in the minds of Charles and his advisers. Their main object appears to have been to change the Prayer-book and Ecclesiastical laws to fully accord with their Sacerdotal and Sacramentarian views, and to secure the rich livings held by the Puritan clergy. This I shall show by testimony presented by Episcopal writers.

Fisher remarks, p. 281: "It was a domineering ecclesiastical party, whose scholastic and Romanizing predilections were notorious, whose writings afford little or no indication of an experimental acquaintance with the saving truths of the Gospel, but who were, nevertheless, permitted, under the auspices of a reckless and unprincipled government, to tamper with the very choicest work of their martyred predecessors, and to leave the impress of their now barren systems upon that precious heritage of truth--precious notwithstanding certain manifest defects--which those holy men had left us."

THE CHARACTER OF THE COMMISSIONERS.

Who were the men who were prominent in this final revision of the English Prayer-book in 1662? Bishop Sheldon, afterwards [30/31] Archbishop of Canterbury, was the moving spirit. What do we know of this successor to the seat of Cranmer, this chief engineer of the last revision?

Calamy, to whom Charles offered the Bishopric of Hereford, in his work on the "Life and Times of Baxter," the Puritan whom Charles also wished to accept an Episcopate, records as a positive fact, that when the Lord Chamberlain Manchester told the King, while the Act of Uniformity was under debate, that "he was afraid that the terms of it were so rigid that many of the ministers would not comply with it," Bishop Sheldon replied, "I am afraid they will." "Nay," so the narrative proceeds, "'tis credibly reported he should say, 'now we know their minds, we'll make them all knaves if they conform.'" When, after the Act came into effect, Dr. Allen said, "It is a pity. the door is so strait," Sheldon remarked, "No pity at all. If we had thought so many of them would have conformed, we would have made it straiter."

Fisher remarks, p. 483: "With regard to Sheldon himself, the above anecdotes are merely illustrations. But they are strikingly confirmed by the information which has come down to us from the most authentic sources. His character is indeed well known, and Burnet says of him expressly, that ' he seemed not to have a deep sense of religion, if any at all, and spoke of it commonly as an engine of government, and as a matter of policy.'" "Besides Bishop Sheldon," Fisher continues, "the divines to whom we are chiefly indebted for the Prayer-book in its present form were Gunning and Morley. Of the former it is said, by Calamy, that he stuck at nothing." (Baxter's Life and Times, I, p. 274.) And by Burnet, that he was much set on reconciling us with Popery in some points." As to Morley, it is said of him distinctly, by the above mentioned writers, "that he was extremely passionate, very obstinate, and unwilling to yield to anything that might look like moderation."

These were the three chief engineers, the controlling spirits in framing the Prayer-book of the Church of England as it has remained unaltered for two hundred years. Can you wonder that a book proceeding from men so utterly unfitted for a work which demanded deep piety, consummate wisdom, sagacity, moderation, [31/32] and comprehensiveness, should have been a constant source of division, contention and strife, should have alienated half the nation, and have produced the present crop of Puseyites, Ritualists, Sacerdotalists and Sacramentarians?

The whole proceeding seems to have been concluded," says Isaac Taylor, another learned Churchman, "with the express object of preventing any extensive conformity taking. place." According to Burnet, "Care was taken that nothing should be altered, as it had been moved by the Presbyterians, for it was resolved to gratify them in nothing."

Archbishop Hare, one of the noblest Churchmen of this generation, says: "All hope of union was blasted by that second most disastrous, most tyrannical, most schismatical Act of Uniformity, the authors of which, it is plain, were not seeking unity, but division." For in the words of Isaac Taylor, "While the leaders of the High-Church party were devising liturgical innovations, which they well knew would drive their antagonists out of the Church, at the same time, with an almost blasphemous irony, they inserted in the Litany a petition for deliverance from that 'Schism' which they themselves were intentionally bringing about by their own high-handed and intolerant conduct."

For the so-styled "schism" of the Nonconformists, of the Wesleys, of the Free Church of England, and of the present movement in this country, these ecclesiastics whom I have described, and the Book which they framed to be imposed by law on the whole nation, are mainly responsible. In the words of Laud, the originator of this faction, "A schism must needs be theirs whose the cause of it is. He makes the separation that gives the first just cause of it--not he that makes an actual separation upon a just cause proceeding."

John Hales, a learned Episcopalian of this age, puts this point thus strongly: "The limiting of the Church communion to things of doubtful disputation hath been in all ages the ground of schism and separation; and he that separates from suspected opinions is not the separatist." Chillingworth also, in his immortal work, has most logically elaborated this principle.

Having thus described the leaders in this work of the final [32/33] Revision, let us now examine what changes they made in the Prayerbook of Elizabeth and James.

CHANGES IN THE OFFICES FOR BAPTISM.

First. What did they do with the Offices for Baptism? They restored the words "sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin;" words which, while in the original Service-book of 1549, were carefully excluded from that of 1552. In their present connection the words become a prayer of consecration with respect to the element of water. "Here we have," says Fisher, "the very basis of the opus operatum--a remnant, too, of the old tenet of Transelementation, already repeatedly noticed, and which, on account of its close alliance to the dogma of Transubstantiation, both Bucer and Cranmer were at so much pains to expunge from the Liturgy of 1552."

Jacob, in his admirable Lecture on Prayer-book Revision, p. 15, says: The consecration prayer was omitted, on the ground, as we learn from the Scripta Anglicana of Bucer, that it implied a recognition of the superstitious, unscriptural, and essentially Pagan notion of a magical transmutation (magicas rerum mutationes) of the material element employed in this sacrament. Yet this prayer, as it stands now in our Prayer-book, is worse than the one which appeared in Edward VI's first book. That prayer had, indeed, the words, 'who hath ordained the element of water for the regeneration of Thy faithful people;' but this expression, rendered less objectionable by the addition of 'the faithful people,' is still further qualified by the concluding words, 'that by the power of Thy Word all those who shall be baptized therein may be spiritually regenerated;' while the prayer now in our Liturgy says, without any qualification: 'Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin;' thereby leading us back to the gross superstition attached to baptism in the fourth and following centuries, when prayer was made to God to sanctify the water, and to [33/34] give it grace and power, etc.; and when, by a number of ceremonies, men were taught that the water was transelementated and obtained an inherent power to wash away sin." [Dr. Jacob's work on Ecclesiastical Polity, published by T. Whittaker, is the most satisfactory of modern treatises on this subject, and should be in the hands of every intelligent Episcopal layman.]

By this act the Commissioners of 1662 plainly manifested their sympathy with medieval doctrine, and here was a marked step in the direction of Rome.

It has been urged of late by those who have desired to reconcile the Prayer-book with the Bible, that the Reformers made their assertion of spiritual regeneration in connection with baptism on the ground of the answers of the sponsors, and on the faith of those who thus presented the infant. But to decide the question that that was not the doctrine of the Prayer-book, the Commissioners of Charles (in contradistinction to the action of the Reformers) made the positive declaration with regard to the spiritual regeneration of the child by Baptism, in the office of Private Baptism, where no sponsorial answers are required, but where this emphatic assertion immediately follows the simple act of administering the rite.

"When, therefore," says Fisher, "the Church has come in this way to annex, as a necessary adjunct to the performance of Infant Baptism, so positive a declaration of its regenerative efficacy, she has, we submit, pronounced most unmistakably her own doctrine upon the subject, and excluded every artifice by which the real meaning of her Baptismal offices might be honestly evaded." Here we have a second clear, reactionary step toward Rome.

Again, a Rubric was. added to the office for Infant Baptism, in these words: "It is certain, by God's Word, that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved." Here Baptism is made, undeniably, the ground of the salvation of infants.

If it be said that the Church has not pronounced upon the condition of children unbaptized, and therefore does not deny the possibility of their salvation, why, then, did the revisers of 1662 append this Rubric to the Burial Service?--"Here it is to be noted, that the office ensuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptized, or excommunicated, or have laid violent hands [34/35] upon themselves." If these unbaptized infants are fit for heaven, why are the words of the English Burial Service too sacred to be used over their remains? We thank God that the little ones fall into different hands, in the next world, from the men who prepared this so much lauded Book of Common Prayer. Are we surprised that Baxter, who was thought worthy of a bishopric, declared: "Of the forty sinful terms of communion with the Church party, if thirty-nine were taken away, and only that Rubric, respecting the salvation of infants dying shortly after their baptism, were continued, yet they (i. e., he and his colleagues) could not conform." .

Here, then, we have number three of the changes in the direction of Rome.

The Puritans had desired that parents might be allowed to present their own children at the font, and to dispense with the intervention of other sponsors. To render the arrangement impossible, a Rubric was added, for the first time, enjoining three god-parents for every child.

LESSONS FROM THE APOCRYPHA.

Again, it is well known that the severance of the Apocrypha from the Canon of Scripture has always been, with the partisans of Rome, a prominent topic of denunciation against the Reformers and their work.

The especial repugnance of the Puritans to the use of the Apocrypha was manifested by their petition at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604.

"Down to the present period," says an author (Anglican Reformation, p. 46), "there were comparatively but little of the Apocrypha used in the Calendar; and even that little, by an 'admonition prefixed' to the second book of Homilies, in 1564, the officiating clergyman was not only authorized to omit, and substitute in its. place some more suitable portion of Canonical Scripture, but he was recommended to do so. The Convocation of 1661, however, and the Act of Uniformity, based upon their proceedings, not only introduced other portions of the Apocrypha [35/36] with the daily Lessons, but rendered it imperative upon every clergyman to read them." "The reinsertion," says Fisher, "upon this occasion, of the book of 'Bel and the Dragon' in the Calendar of Lessons, was intended as a special indignity upon Baxter and his colleagues."

Here is step number four toward Rome, and proof conclusive of the schismatical intentions of these men, as well as the absence of the Holy Spirit from their proceedings.

Again, Hallam remarks: "The Puritans.. having always objected to the number of Saints' Days, the bishops ordered a few more, more than sixty of the mythical and semi-historical heroes of monkish legends." And, adds Isaac Taylor, "for the charitable purpose of annoying those who objected to all commemorations of the kind, the names of a few Popes were included in the list."

Cranmer had allowed, besides Scriptural worthies, only three names to be commemorated, those of St. Michael, St. Lawrence, and St. George.

Here is the fifth evidence of the Romish proclivities of these remarkable Commissioners.

The open, scandalous viciousness of the character of Charles II was most offensive to the religious portion of the nation. Nangle, an Episcopal clergyman of Dublin, remarks: "The thorough sycophancy of Sheldon, Morley and Gunning is sufficiently manifested in the fact, that they introduced into our Liturgy the prayer for the Parliament, in which the profligate and hypocritical Papist who then sat upon the throne of England was designated our most religious and gracious king. We put it to the common sense of our fellow Protestants," he adds, "both in England and Ireland, to say, could our Prayer-book have escaped from the manipulation of such filthy hands without defilement? Every honest man must answer the question in the negative, and a scrutiny of the changes which they actually made will justify the negation." (Tracts on Revision, p. 13.)

It must be remembered, however, that each party, priestly and royal, was playing into the hands of the other--one wanted the Livings, the other the Clerical support. It is evident that neither had much knowledge of the religion of the Bible, or if they [36/37] possessed it, it was hidden under a bushel. We see no manifestation of the spirit of the Master in the proceedings connected with this Revision, or in the general conduct of ecclesiastical affairs.

CHANGES WITH RESPECT TO THE LORD'S SUPPER.

We must simply allude to the changes in the same Romish direction in the Office of the Lord's Supper. They are not very noticeable; and with one who is not very familiar with the Theological tenets of these Carolinian divines, and with the Romish controversy, they would readily escape notice. Elizabeth, however, as we have seen, had so thoroughly tampered with the work of Edward and Cranmer, as to leave but little necessary to be done now in the same direction.

A High-Church writer, Alexander Knox, refers to the "insidious" manner in which the changes were made by these artful ecclesiastics. He says: "The revisers seized the opportunity (contrary to what the public was reckoning on) to make our Formularies not more Puritanical, but more Catholic. They effected this, without doubt, stealthily; and, to all appearances, by the minutest alteration; but to compare the Communion Service, as it now stands, especially its Rubrics, with the form in which we find it previously to that transaction, will be to discover that, without any change of features which would cause alarm, a new spirit was then breathed into our Communion Service."

"Stealthily," that is the word which expresses rightly the manner in which the Ritualists are giving our Church now a fresh impetus toward Rome--such as the allowed use of lights, incense, altar cloths, colored vestments, bowing to the altar, elevation of the elements, the use of Hymns Ancient and Modern, and the introduction of Sunday-school books defending those practices, and the doctrines on which they rest; and bishops sanctioning by their presence, and absence of rebuke, all this mixture of Romanism and Paganism. Aye, "stealthily," according to the pulse of the people, a silent current bearing the vessel on to the rapids, to be at last hurled over the precipice into the Roman gulf of impenetrable and irretrievable darkness. Well says Dr. Pusey, [37/38] the head of this movement, in his Eirenicon, "The building rises without noise or hammer. Never, I am satisfied, was the work of God so wide and deep as now, . . . , because the leaven which was hidden in the meal has worked secretly."

I will briefly notice these stealthy changes. I have stated with respect to the Rubric of 1552, where, with reference to the posture of kneeling, it is declared, no "adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine then bodily received, or unto any real or essential presence there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood," one of Elizabeth's Romanizing steps was to expunge altogether this denial of the "real presence."

What did these shrewd Sacramentarians of Charles xz do in this connection? They reinstated the Rubric of Edward, but changed it in its most important feature, by expunging the words "real and essential," and substituting the word "corporal" in its stead, thereby conveying the idea that the Church believes in the "real and essential" presence of Christ in the bread and wine, but one which is not "corporal," or "physical," or "sensible." And it is on this change in this Rubric that the Ritualists and Sacramentarians have planted themselves, and their position cannot be shaken.

Says Dr. Pusey: "I have explained the word 'corporal' by 'carnal' or 'physical,' because the framers of this Rubric deliberately rejected the denial of the words 'real and essential,' which stood in the first Articles under Edward VI, and substituted the word 'corporal.' The statement of the English Catechism that the body and blood of Christ ' were verily and indeed taken and received in the Lord's Supper,' taken in connection with the history of this Rubric, settles conclusively what is the doctrine of the Church of England on this point." Dr. Jacob remarks, p. 14, "The other Revision, at the restoration of Charles XI, after the Savoy Conference (1660), restored the Rubric about the Kneeling of Communicants, with a significant alteration, which indicates the Sacramental leanings of the time, and made another step in the anti-Reformation road. And it is to be remembered that these two additions, respectively introduced on these two occasions, [38/39] proved partly the ground of the defendant in the notable Bennet case, and thus helped to legalize a near approach to Transubstantiation and Host-worship in the Church." The ablest of the Oxford Tract writers, Dr. Newman, says of these Formularies: "They are drawn up for the purpose of including Catholics; and we are using them for the purpose for which their authors framed them."

There is no answer to Dr. Pusey's argument; and the only alternative for any honest, sincere and enlightened Protestant, is Revision or Secession.

We have, therefore, in this Act, a sixth Romeward step.

Again. Cranmer had inserted in the Service these words: "Wherefore, it is our duty to render most humble thanks to Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, for that he hath given his Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, not only to die for us but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance; as it is declared unto us, as well by God's Word as by the Holy Sacrament of his body and blood." Here the Sacrament, as a means of grace, is put on an equality with the Word of God, and not above it. But this statement appears not to have suited these stealthy Sacramentarians; so they struck out all allusion to the word of God in this passage, as a means of grace, and altered the statement to read thus: "but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance in that Holy Sacrament."

We are not surprised at the remark of Fisher, p. 311: "We certainly hold that however slight the appearance, a more objectionable alteration--or one more palpably indicative of the old mediaeval notion of sacramental efficacy--has never yet been introduced into the Prayer-book since its first establishment upon a professedly Protestant basis It amounted entirely to a repudiation of Evangelical doctrine, as emphatic and unequivocal as even the most inveterate admirer of the ecclesiastical theory of Laud himself could reasonably be expected to require."

This alteration is the more important as it is in the form of a "doctrinal statement" uttered in the presence of the whole congregation to whom this exhortation is emphatically addressed. This marked depreciation of the word of God, and undue exaltation of Sacramental grace, is step number seven Romeward.

[40] Another change was made which seems to give countenance to the notion that "some mysterious virtue, as according to the Roman Catholic view, is infused into the elements by the Priestly act of Consecration."

We find a Rubric in the older Books which reads thus: "And if any of the consecrated bread and wine remain, the curate shall have it for his own use."

To make this Rubric consistent with the sacramental teachings of other portions, it was thus altered: "And if any of the bread and wine remain unconsecrated, the curate shall have it for his own use; but if any remain of that which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the church, but the Priest, and such other of the Communicants as he shall then call unto him, shall, immediately after the blessing, reverently eat and drink of the same."

Before proceeding to the last point, which is the change which of all others may be regarded as the most important--that which respects the ministry--let me present the language of the Bishops, with respect to the changes which they effected--these, according to Dr. Tennison, amounting to about six hundred in number.

CONCESSION OF THE BISHOPS.

With regard to the charge of their opponents, that the Liturgy was the result of a compromise with Rome, they honestly acknowledge what was asserted in my former lecture: "It was the wisdom of our Reformers to draw up such a Liturgy as neither Romanist nor Protestant could justly except against."

This statement is utterly false with respect to the original Reformers under Edward. It is perfectly true as regards Elizabeth, as has been demonstrated.

The Revisers of 1662, adopting the policy of Elizabeth, made so much progress in that direction that no thoroughly intelligent Protestant, I deliberately affirm, can consistently, without mental reservation, use the Book of the Reformers, as it came marred and sadly defaced from the hands of these unfit and unfaithful men.

Jacob soundly remarks, p. 23: "What must be the case with [40/41] our congregations in the use of these words, as they always must be used, without anything to qualify them, or to interfere with their natural signification; and what the effect upon any thoughtful man, when he hears his Pastor deny in his pulpit what he affirms at the font?"

"By forced and unnatural explanations, men thus satisfy each one his own conscience; but they do not convince others who are not exactly included within the same circle as themselves. And, surely, it is no light matter if we give occasion to others to speak reproachfully, or to doubt our straightforwardness or honesty in such matters. No greater injury can be done to the cause of true religion than when men are led to surmise a want of integrity and consistency in their religious teachers. I fear the Evangelical Clergy have not always sufficiently considered or understood the way in which those outside their own ranks regard their conduct in such things. I fear that by having recourse to what seems, at any rate to others, to be non-natural interpretations and labored explanations of objectionable words, instead of totally objecting to them, they have placed themselves, as a body, in a false position, and have weakened their influence for good."

TRADITION ENDORSED.

With respect to the objection offered, that the Book of Common Prayer unduly elevates the office of Tradition, what do these Bishops of 1662 affirm? "The Church hath been careful to put nothing into the Liturgy but that which is either evidently the Word of God, or that which hath been generally received in the Catholic Church; neither of which can be called private opinion. If by orthodox be meant those who adhere to Scripture and the Catholic Consent of Antiquity, we do not know that any part of our Liturgy hath been questioned by such." Here we see that Catholic Consent of Antiquity is placed on the same level with Holy Scripture, as a standard of doctrine.

BAPTISMAL REGENERATION ASSERTED.

It has been common to say that the Prayer-book does not teach that Regeneration is coincident with Baptism, and we have had [41/42] no less than seven methods invented by which the Baptismal Services may be reconciled with the Word of God. But let us hear these Bishops of 1662 boldly affirm what the Baptismal Offices are intended to teach, and what their deliberate language unmistakably means: "Seeing that God's Sacraments have their effects when the receiver doth not ponere obicem put any bar against them, which children cannot do, we may say in faith, of every child that is baptized, that it is regenerated by God's Holy Spirit . . . . . The effect of a child's Baptism depends neither upon their own present actual faith and repentance (which the Catechism says expressly they cannot perform), nor upon the faith and repentance of their natural parents nor pro-parents, or of their god-fathers or godmothers, but upon the ordinance and institution of Christ . . . . Baptism is our Spiritual Regeneration." [Documents relating to the Act of Uniformity 1662, pp. 167-9]

In view of these words, how utterly worthless and indefensible was the declaration signed in 1871 by fifty American Bishops, that the word regenerate" in the Office for Baptism does not determine a moral change in the recipient. It was a statement etymologically, historically, and doctrinally erroneous. It was another amiable but desperate and unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the Romanism and Protestantism of the Book of Common Prayer; to harmonize truth and error; to keep the image of clay and brass upon its feet. Thank God, this unholy alliance has been at last broken, and that a Prayer-book in the Anglo-Saxon tongue has at length been framed, which makes the Word of God supreme, which rejects the traditions of men, and by which those who hold to Romish error and Protestant truth cannot conjointly worship in sincerity and truth.

CHANGES IN THE ORDINATION OFFICES.

We come now to the most important practical change in the Book, one which introduced a principle hitherto foreign to it; one which has resulted most disastrously to the Church of England, and to the interests of Christianity.

We have seen that Cranmer and the Reformers had not [42/43] succeeded in freeing the Prayer-book altogether from expressions of a Romish character with respect to Baptism. The same remark may be made with respect to the office for Ordination to the Ministry. They retained that form which had first been introduced in the middle ages: "Receive the Holy Ghost; whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained: and be thou," etc. "This clause," says an Episcopal writer, "was not used during the first thousand years of the History of the Church, when the form consisted simply of a prayer for the Holy Ghost. Morinus publishes sixteen of the most ancient forms of Ordination, in fifteen of which it does not occur. It was first found in, a book belonging to the Cathedral of Mayence, in the thirteenth century."

Bishop Burnet, Bingham, Blunt, Fisher and other writers amply confirm this statement. Fisher writes: "Cranmer did not expunge, as he certainly ought to have done, the sacerdotal element from our Ritual, but persisted in retaining, in spite both of Scripture and Ecclesiastical usage of the first ten centuries, the objectionable words--objectionable, that is, when addressed by one frail mortal to another--'whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven.' But Cranmer taught, at the same time, that 'Bishops and Priests were both one office at the beginning of Christ's religion.' In the nineteenth Article he carefully left out all allusion to any one form of government as essential to the Church, and in the Litany he made the petition for the Clergy read: 'all Bishops, Pastors and Ministers of the Church.' Moreover, he fully recognized the orders of Ministers ordained according to the Presbyterian form." [See Appendix to Bishop Cummins' Sermon, "Primitive Episcopacy." This fact, together with the views of the early Reformers, are very clearly and satisfactorily presented in Bishop Cummins' sermon at the consecration of Bishop Cheney. A list of modern standard Episcopal writers who maintain the same opinion will be found in Appendix D.]

The Church of England, down to the year 1662, recognized the validity of orders received from Presbyters, by admitting to her living Ministers thus ordained, simply requiring of them a subscription in conformity to the laws of the land.

The modern dogma, which denies the validity of Presbyterian [43/44] ordinations, had been held as a private opinion by Laud and his followers; but few of the laity received it; it was first practically accepted by the Church in 1662, by the changes in the Ordinal, and by the passage of the infamous Act of Uniformity.

In testimony of this statement, I quote the language of the most venerable of the Commissioners of 1662, Bishop eosin: "If at any time a minister so ordained in these French Churches came to incorporate himself in ours, and to receive a public charge, or cure of souls, among us in the Church of England (as I have known some of them to have done of late, and can instance in many others before my time), our bishops did not reordain him before they admitted him to his charge, as they must have done if his former ordination in France had been void; nor did our laws require more of him than to declare his public consent to the religion received among us, and to subscribe the Articles." The consentient testimony of Bishops Hall, Burnet, Fleetwood and others, might be given, if time permitted. (See Appendix E.)

The reason why the Reformers did not choose the same "platform of government" with their brethren on the Continent, was not because they regarded it as unscriptural, but in the words of Bishop Cooper, a learned writer of Elizabeth's reign, simply because they did not consider it suitable to "the state of our country, people and commonwealth." (Fisher, p. 488.)

Let us now briefly glance at the changes made in the Ordinal in 1662.

THE WORD "PRIEST" INTRODUCED.

The Revisers found the word "Minister" used to denote the Clergy in the reign of Edward and Elizabeth. In the Book of 1552 the words are: "Absolution to be pronounced by the Minister alone." As the prominent Revisers who controlled the proceedings sympathized with Archbishop Laud in his sacerdotal views, they substituted the word "Priest" for "Minister," and made the rest of the book conformable as far as was in their power. Laud had surreptitiously introduced the word "Priest" into several editions of the Book in the reign of Charles I.

[45] Here was the eighth, and most important step in the direction of Rome.

In the Revision of 1552 the form for Ordering Priests was in this wise: "Receive the Holy Ghost; whose sins thou dost forgive," etc. In 1662 it was made to read thus: "Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands; whose sins thou dost forgive," etc.

We have here introduced, for the first time, the doctrine of the tactual succession of the Priesthood.

In the Prayer-book of Edward we have "the form of Consecrating of an Archbishop or Bishop," in these words: "Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the grace of God which is in thee by imposition of hands," etc.

The title was changed to the form of Ordaining or Consecrating." The early Reformers did not regard the Bishop as a distinct Order from the Presbyter by the authority of Scripture; but they held, with Jerome, that Bishops were' placed above Presbyters by ecclesiastical custom. (See Appendix to Bishop Cummins' sermon.)

The form of Ordaining was thus altered, "Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen. And remember that thou stir up the grace of God which is given thee by this imposition of hands."

The doctrine of "Transmitted Grace" is here plainly asserted.

The older form, it is true, had departed from the simplicity of the early Church. But how grievously was it changed for the worse by these daring innovators. Ought we to be surprised at any amount of Episcopal or Priestly pretension on the part of men who have had such unwarrantable, and I fear not to assert, blasphemous, words pronounced so solemnly over their heads?

In the demoralized and distracted condition of the Anglican Episcopal Communion, wherever it has been planted, we may see the Lord's displeasure at such proceedings; and we cannot hope for the peace and prosperity of this Church until it retraces its [45/46] steps, revises its Liturgy, and makes its whole system conformable to Holy Writ.

PREFACE TO THE ORDINAL.

Having thus established the sacerdotal principles of Tactual succession, and Transmitted grace in the offices for Ordination, in order to make the Ministry exclusive, these Counsellors of Charles turned their attention to the Preface to the Ordinal, which read thus: "No man (not being at the present Bishop, Priest or Deacon) shall execute any of them (i. e. the office of Bishop, etc.), except he be called, tried and examined, and admitted according to the form hereafter following."

This was made to read thus: "No man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest or Deacon in the Church of England, except he be called, tried, examined and admitted thereunto, according to the form hereafter following, or hath had formerly Episcopal Consecration or Ordination."

This change made the Church henceforth absolutely and inexorably exclusive. No longer could the Protestant Ministry of Scotland or of the Continent, as they had done for over a century, hold livings in that Church. The Church is not, however, absolutely exclusive. There is one notable exception.

ROMAN ORDERS ACKNOWLEDGED.

In the words of Fisher, p. 332: "Our Church--to the shame of her rulers, and to the disgrace of this professedly Protestant nation, be it spoken--does not exclude the orders of the Church of Rome. The Romish Priest is at once admitted, without any special act of re-ordination, to officiate at her most solemn services, and to partake of her honors and emoluments. In this particular (and it is a most important one) the present Church of England is not the Church of Cranmer and Ridley, of Bradford and Jewel, Usher and Hall, but a very different institution." On this point Isaac Taylor remarks: "These changes, trifling and indifferent as, perhaps, they seem at the present time, struck with a [46/47] deadly malignity at the points which, to the Puritans, seemed vital points. The Puritans held that a bishop was only primus inter pares: that is, the difference between Bishops and Presbyters was a difference of degree, not a difference of order; or, to use the words of Cranmer, that 'they were both one office in the beginning of Christ's religion.' In the reign of Edward and Elizabeth, the Church of England, by statute as well as in practice, had recognized Presbyterian Ordination. At the close of the sixteenth century, 'scores, if not hundreds,' of clergymen were officiating in the Church of England who had been ordained by Presbyters in Scotland, or on the Continent. Now, however, a clause was inserted in the Preface to the Ordinal, asserting the necessity of Episcopalian Ordination, and consequently denying the validity of the Orders of all those who had been ordained during the last fifteen or twenty years. This Liturgical change was not suffered to remain a dead letter. The Act of Uniformity deprived of their Ministerial character all who had received Presbyterian Ordination, unless by consenting to Episcopal re-ordination they would agree virtually to confess the nullity of their previous ministrations."

One motive for this change, it is plain, was to drive many of the ablest ministers in England from their livings; for they could not in conscience deny the Ministry that the Lord had long acknowledged and blessed. Said John Howe, pre-eminent among divines, to a Bishop who remarked: "Pray, sir, what hurt is there in being twice ordained?" "Hurt, my Lord; it hurts my understanding! the thought is shocking; it is an absurdity, since nothing can have two beginnings. I am sure I am a minister of Christ, and am ready to debate that matter with you, if your lordship pleases; but I cannot begin again to be a minister."

PROTEST OF THE PURITANS.

In their "Petition for Peace and Concord," the Non-conformists thus remonstrate: "We doubt not but you know how new and strange a thing it is that you require in the point of re-ordination, when a canon amongst those called Apostolic deposeth [47/48] those that re-ordain, and that are re-ordained; and when it is a thing both Papists and Protestants condemn; when not only the former Bishops of England, that were more moderate, were against it, but even the most fervent adversaries of the Presbyterian way, such as Bishop Bancroft himself; how strange must it need seem to the Reformed Churches, to the whole Christian world, and to future generations, that so many able, faithful ministers should be laid by as broken vessels, because they dare not be re-ordained, and that so many have been thrust upon so new and generally disrelished a thing." (Documents relating to the Act of Uniformity, p. 166.)

But all protestations, remonstrances, and arguments, were unavailing, and the Book, with its six hundred alterations, many of them made thus designedly offensive to the Puritans, was imposed upon all ministers for subscription, "for their unfeigned assent and consent, to all and everything" contained in the order and form of words, "willingly and ex animo." Two thousand who had conscience enough to refuse to subscribe, were driven from their pulpits to wander into poverty, ignominy, and contempt. The Church has deservedly suffered; but posterity has done these Christian heroes justice, and America, mainly built on their principles, will ever hold them up for the reverence and admiration of mankind; and we shall behold them hereafter, I believe, among those nearest the throne of God and the Lamb! As I earnestly and solemnly make this statement, I recall the touching and prophetic declaration of these persecuted saints: "If you should reject (which God forbid) that which now and formerly we have made, we humbly crave leave to offer it to your consideration, what judgment all the Protestant Churches are likely to pass on your proceedings, and how your cause and ours will stand represented to them and to all succeeding ages."

If those glorified brethren could look down from the presence of Jesus, how rejoiced would they be at the work of true Reform in which you have been permitted to engage; and how they would encourage you to proceed, in spite of every obstacle, and the opposition of those who have succeeded to the principles of the men who thus deformed the splendid work of the Reformers, and [48/49] infused into the English Liturgy, for the first time, the principles of uncharitableness, exclusiveness, discord and schism. "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Behold, I set before you an open door, and no man can shut it."

RECAPITULATION.

I will here recapitulate the special changes made in the direction of Rome at the Final Revision:--

First. The restoration of the words "Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin;" thereby endorsing the doctrine of Transelementation.

Second. The assertion of "Spiritual Regeneration" in the Office for Private Baptism, apart from sponsorial promises.

Third. The addition of the Rubric, wherein Baptism is made the ground of the Salvation of Infants.

Fourth. The addition of Lessons from the Apocrypha, with a Rubric compelling the clergy to read them.

Fifth. The insertion of a large number of Saints' Days in the Calendar, including the names of some Popes.

Sixth. The reinsertion of the Rubric in the Communion Office, with the change of the words "real and essential" to "corporal."

Seventh. The change in the exhortation to Communion, in which "allusion to the word of God" as a co-ordinate means of grace is deliberately stricken out.

Eighth. The substitution of the word "priest" for "minister."

Ninth. The alteration in the forms for Ordination of Bishops and Priests, whereby are taught the doctrines of transmitted grace and tactual succession.

Tenth. The change in the Preface to the Ordinal, which acknowledged the orders of the Roman clergy, and denied the lawfulness of Presbyterian ordination.

THE RESULTS OF THE FINAL REVISION.

Are we surprised, in view of such changes, that over two thousand ministers refused to subscribe thereto? Says a writer in the [49/50] Canadian bicentenary papers, p. 18: "They were unanimous in objecting to the Apocryphal Lessons. They could not use a Baptismal Service which in the plain intent and meaning of the word declared 'all baptized infants to be regenerate by the Holy Ghost!' The Confirmation Service staggered them. They saw no warrant for the administration of the Lord's Supper to persons notoriously unfit. They could not make the authoritative and unconditional declaration of absolution to all such persons who profess repentance. Nor could they read the sublime and touching Burial Service indiscriminately over all the dead. In these things they agreed; and when it was demanded by them to give their 'assent' and 'consent' to what they believed to be contrary to the Word of God, they nobly refused. And who of us now does not honor them more than the exalted ecclesiastics who would impose such grievous burdens on their consciences, or those who remained to serve God under such a yoke of unscriptural traditions and commandments of men?

"Imperative, indeed, must have been that sense of duty which led a Calamy, the most popular of London ministers; a Baxter, to whom Bishopric had been offered; a Howe, with his clear judgment and elevated piety; a Henry, who so loved his work that the Sabbath often seemed to him to be heaven itself, and who had a concern to be among the "quiet of the land," that he might prosecute his beloved work unmolested; and such kindred spirits as Owen, and Charnock, and Manton, and Bates, and Flavel, with others, forming a galaxy of gifted and saintly men, such as no single age before or since has produced! Imperative, indeed, must that sense of duty have been which compelled them simultaneously to vacate their pulpits, sacrifice their daily bread, and go forth into a cold world, not knowing whither they went."

"I am glad," said one who lived in their day, and who was not a non-conformist, "I am glad so many have chosen suffering rather than conformity to the Establishment; for had they complied, the world would have thought that there had been nothing in religion! but now they see that there are some who are sincere in their professions."

The day chosen for the ejection of these Christian ministers by [50/51] professed brethren was properly St. Bartholomew's Day--August 24 to give Protestantism, as well as Popery, a "Black Bartholomew." And to show the animus of the men who were tinkering this "incomparable" Liturgy, "the time was fixed at such a part of the year that, if they did not conform, they would lose all the profits of their livings for that year, which was drawing to a close." When we add that the Conventicle Act was passed, which forbade all meetings for religious worship contrary to the order of the Church of England, where there should be five persons present, besides the members of the family, above sixteen years of age, on penalty of fine and imprisonment; and the Five Mile Act, which forbade any of the ejected clergy from coming within five miles of the places where they had been "parson, priest, or vicar," under pain of imprisonment and a fine of fifty pounds for each offence; and a second more rigorous Conventicle Act, together with the Test Act, which required the Lord's Supper to be taken after the manner of the Church of England by all persons who should be placed in any office or trust, civil or military--the contemplation of the diabolical work of these Commissioners and their allies, the King and Parliament, occasions surprise that so much of the Christian religion remained in the Kingdom. But these ejected heroes and saints employed their eloquent and learned pens for the defence and confirmation of the Gospel. And it has been truly said: "Their writings have erected to their memory monuments more durable than brass or marble, which have so perpetuated and diffused their sentiments and spirit, that had their enemies anticipated the consequence of excluding them from the pulpit, they would have left them to preach, that they might have had no leisure to write."

We conclude our remarks on this point, designed to illustrate the character of the times which was so strongly impressed upon the Book that now received its final Revision, with the words of the celebrated John Locke, a most competent witness: "Immediately after this followed the 'Act of Uniformity.' This the clergy, i. e. the greater part, readily complied with; for you know that sort of men are taught rather to obey than understand, and to use that learning they have to justify, not to examine. And yet [51/52] that 'Bartholomew Day' was fatal to our Church and religion, in throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox divines, who could not come up to this and other things in the Act. And it is upon this occasion worthy your knowledge, that so great was the zeal in carrying on this Church affair, and so blind was the obedience required, that if you compute the time of the passing of this Act, with the time allowed for the clergy to subscribe this Book of Common Prayer thereby established, you shall find it could not be printed and distributed so as one mail in forty could have seen the book they were to perfectly assent and consent to. It is a fact that the Common Prayer-book, with the alterations and amendments made by the Convocation, did not come out of the press until a few days before the 24th of August, when those who could not comply with its requirements were ejected from their livings."

CONCLUSION.

The work I undertook is now accomplished. I have shown you, in the words of the address of the Church of Ireland Protestant Defence Association of Evangelical Episcopalians, that "The Protestant Prayer-book, the second of Edward VI, has been altered again and again, as a matter of State Policy, in the direction of Rome. Some would have. us regard the present Prayer-book as a sacred relic of antiquity, framed by men of God, according to a Scriptural standard, supported by Apostolic authority; whilst in reality we are in the humiliating position of having it imposed upon us, as it has been corrupted for an unholy purpose, by the imperious Elizabeth, by the vain and frivolous James, and finally by the Romish and profligate Charles; a Prayer-book which is a combination of truth and error; of light and darkness; of Protestantism and essential Romanism; Protestant articles as a standard of faith, and Romish formularies which rule our practice."

And thus we have in the bounds of the same Church three great sections: Evangelicals, who dissent from the theology of the Liturgy; Tractarians, who dissent from the theology of the [52/53] Articles; and the Essayists, who dissent from the theology of both Liturgy and Articles. And while the parties are wrangling with each other--a sad spectacle to men and angels--the masses outside are exposed to the deadly assaults of Skepticism on the one side, and of Romanism on the other.

If time would allow, I would like to speak of the noble attempt at Reform and Comprehension in 1689, of Tillotson, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Patrick, and other Divines, under William iii, of immortal memory--a reform which, though failing at that time, through the influence of the Romanized Prayer-book of 1662, for a generation, nevertheless, formed the basis of the American Prayer-book of 1785. I would speak also of the manner in which the present Episcopal Prayer-book was infused with the sacerdotal, exclusive, non-juring views of Bishop Seabury, and how since then the system of Canons made by that Church has been made to correspond with the same principles of Seabury and the Divines of Charles II; and then I would show, that the Prayer-book of Bishop Cummins and the friends of this latest Reform is built much upon the principle of the Book of 1785, of Bishop White, Drs. Wharton, Smith, and Provost, of Washington, and Jay, and the laymen of the Revolution (See Appendix F); of the Commissioners of 1689; and of Edward and Hooper, Bradford and Cranmer. But I have too long detained you on this vitally important subject.

TWO REMARKS.

With two remarks I close my theme.

There have been eight prominent Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer; four in the interest of Tradition, Ritualism, and Low Popery or semi-Romanism; four based on Holy Scripture, Spiritual Christianity, and Protestantism.

The first four: the Revision of Elizabeth, 1559; of James I, 1604; of Charles II, 1662; of Bishop Seabury, 1789; which last is the present Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

The other four: the Revision of Edward VI, 1552; of William III, 1689; of Bishop White, 1785; of the Reformed Episcopal Church, 1874.

[54] The Revisions of Elizabeth, of James, of Charles, and Seabury, have shaped and controlled Protestant Episcopacy through its whole history, from the time of Elizabeth.

The Revision of Edward was in use but one year; that of William failed to become the law of the land through the intolerance, bigotry and ignorance of the rural clergy, who were of a class like the Bourbons, forgetting nothing and learning nothing; the Revision of Bishop White was in use but four years; the Revision initiated by Bishop Cummins, which, under God, is destined to be the Revision of the Episcopal Church of the future. There is ground for this confident expectation, because this latest book has been reconstructed by men fully competent for the purpose, who have profited by all. the experience of the past, avoiding the mistakes and errors which have cramped and dwarfed the American Protestant Episcopacy into one of the smallest sects of the nation, a sect which has reached its climax, and is destined to be superseded by the legitimate, genuine successor of the Anglican Reformers.

The Reformed Episcopal Church, in the eyes of the Protestant masses of this land, will stand related to the body from which it has emerged, as Christianity stood related to Judaism. It will oppose the same tendencies to Ritualism, tradition, arrogance, and exclusiveness which prevailed in the Jewish Communion of the first century, and which are now reproduced with such striking similarity in the Protestant Episcopal body of the nineteenth century.

The Reform under Bishop Cummins is a Schism, precisely as was the Reform under Bishop Cranmer; a cutting loose of men enlightened by the Holy Spirit; an emerging into clearer Gospel light, into higher spiritual freedom.

Men, intelligent, unprejudiced and free, in accepting Episcopacy, will not long hesitate in choosing between a new and vigorous schism based on the Bible, and Truth in its simplicity and integrity, and the remains of an old and declining schism, based on Scripture and medievalism, and destined to recede gradually to the hole from which it was dug; between a Prayer-book the fruit of the Evangelical Alliance, and one the result of the [54/55] uncharitableness and fraternal discord of the civil war of the Commonwealth.

Christianity was confined at one time to an upper room, "the number of disciples together being about one hundred and twenty."

Israel at one time trembled before the Philistine, but the small smooth stone of a brave Hebrew youth, directed by the hand of the Almighty, smote the giant. God was with Israel, therefore Israel triumphed.

If the Reformed Prayer-book, where it differs from the one which it materially modifies, presents Truth, the God of Truth, the Living Head of the Church, will bless it. He who controls the hearts of men will draw them to this Body, as the doves crowd to their windows.

No weapons formed against the Truth can prosper. Bishop Cummins, by a public proclamation, is declared deposed from the office of a Bishop in the House of God, according to Protestant Episcopal Law-- a law based on Roman Catholic custom, but antagonistic to Protestant principles. The next week a whole congregation of Episcopalians, a vigorous and energetic parish, abandon that communion, and place themselves under the supervision of this victim of ecclesiastical law. Your pastor is to-night encouraging those separatists by his presence and counsel. [Rev. W. T. Sabine. We give the conclusion of the lecture as last delivered.]

Brethren, take courage! The skies are bright. Never did an Ecclesiastical movement have such an encouraging, hopeful prospect before it.

You are greatly honored in being permitted to lead the enterprise in this metropolis of the continent. Let the spirit of the Master characterize your work! Like the Master, go about doing good. Save those that are ready to perish! Let your salt have savor! Let your lamp have oil! Let your light shine so as to lead others to Jesus! And thus you will not only aid in removing detrimental error, which has encrusted the body of Christ, but you will save souls, who will prove your crown of personal rejoicing when the earthly tabernacle, with its rites and ceremonies, has given place to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

APPENDIX A.

From the "Book of Sports." Jeffreason's "Book of the Clergy," 1x, p. 135:

"Our pleasure likewise is, that the Bishop of the Diocese take the like straight order with all the Puritans and Precisians within the same, either constraining them to conform themselves or leave the country, according to the laws of our kingdom and Canons of our Church, and so to strike equally on both hands against the contemners _of our authority and adversaries of our Church. And as for our good people's lawful recreation, our pleasure likewise is,' that after the end of Divine Service our good people be not disturbed, Ietted or discouraged from any lawful recreation, such as dancing, either men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other harmless recreation; or from having of May games, Whitsunales, and Morris dances, and the setting up of May poles, and other sports therewith added, so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine service, and that the women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, according to their old custom. . . . . And we further will, that publication of this our command be made by order from the Bishops, through all the parish churches of their several dioceses respectively."

Jeffreason remarks, p. 132: "Charles followed up the affair of the Somertshire wakes, by republishing, at Laud's suggestion, the fatal 'Book of Sports,' whereby his subjects were invited to show their loyalty to their King, and their contempt of the Puritans, by spending their Sunday afternoons in riotous merriment. It is not too much to say that by exasperating the Puritan gentry and commonalty against the Bishops, by demonstrating to intelligent Englishmen how completely the supreme Head of the Church [56/57] was a puppet in the hand of the arrogant and fantastic Primate, and by planting in the minds of simple folks an unreasonable and unjust conviction of their Sovereign's hostility to religion, this untimely republication of an unwise proclamation did more than any other act of Charles' long career of blunders to bring him to the scaffold."

Richard Baxter, in his autobiography, writes: "When I heard my own father so reproached, and perceived the drunkards were the foremost in the reproach, I perceived it was their malice; for my father never scrupled Common Prayer nor ceremonies, nor spake against the bishops, not even so much as prayed but by a book of form, being not even acquainted with any that did otherwise; but only for reading the Scripture and the life to come, he was reviled commonly by the name of Puritan, Precisian, and hypocrite; and so were the godly and conformable ministers that lived anywhere in the country near us, not only by our neighbors, but by the common talk of the vulgar rabble of all about us."

APPENDIX B. DECLARATION OF KING CHARLES AT BREDA.

"We desiring and ordaining that henceforward all notes of discord, separation, and difference of parties, be utterly abolished among our subjects, whom we invite and conjure to a perfect union among themselves, under our protection, for the resettlement of our just rights and theirs, in a free parliament, by which, upon the word of a king, we will be advised;

"And because the passion and uncharitableness of the times have produced several opinions in religion, by which men are engaged in parties and animosities against each other, which, when they shall hereafter unite 'in a freedom of conversation, will be composed, or better understood; we do declare a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom; and that we shall be ready to consent to such an act of parliament as, upon mature [57/58] deliberation, shall be offered to us, for the full granting that indulgence.

"Given under our sign manual and privy signet, at our Court at Breda, the 14th day of April, 1660, in the twelfth year of our reign."

In October of the same year the king, "in a published Declaration, renewed his promise at Breda for religious toleration."--Stephens' Introduction, p. 166.

APPENDIX C. THE DEMANDS OF THE PURITAN PARTY

At the restoration of Charles II, the Puritans urged upon him "the utility of a general religious union, and that it could only be effected by confining the terms of Communion to points which were deemed essential, each party conceding the rest;" and they subsequently transmitted their proposals in writing to the King. These proposals commenced by four preliminary requests: that serious godliness might be countenanced; that a learned and pious minister in each parish should be encouraged; that a personal public owning of the baptismal covenant should precede the admission to the Lord's Table, and that the Lord's Day should be strictly sanctified. They then intimated that Archbishop Usher's system of Episcopal government should be the groundwork of the accommodation.

This, in general terms, provided that the concerns of the Church, should be transacted by four Graduated Synods and a National Council. First, a parochial synod; second, a suffragan synod; third, a diocesan synod; fourth, a provincial synod; fifth, the union of the provincial synods to constitute a National Council.

This "scheme was accompanied by proposals in which the dissenting ministers acquiesced in a Liturgy; but without absolutely rejecting the surplice, the use of the cross in Baptism, the bowing at the name of Jesus, and other ceremonies, they observed that the Church Service was perfect without them; that they were rejected by most of the Protestant Churches abroad, and that they had been the cause of much disunion and disturbance in England. [58/59] They requested that none of their ministers might be ejected from sequestered livings, the incumbents of which were dead; that no oaths, subscriptions, or renunciation of orders, might be required of them, until there should be a general settlement of the religious concerns of the nation." (See Stephens' Notes on the Book of Common Prayer, Introduction, pp. 162, 3, 4.)

The eight following points were objected to by the Non-conformists, as contrary to the Word of God:--

1. That no ministers be admitted to baptize without the prescribed use of the transient image of the cross.

2. That no minister be permitted to read, or pray, or exercise the other parts of his office, that does not wear a surplice.

3. That none be admitted in communion to the Lord's Supper that does not receive it kneeling; and that all ministers be enjoined to deny it to such.

4. That ministers be forced to pronounce all baptized infants to be regenerate by the Holy Ghost, whether they be the children of Christians or not.

5. That the ministers be forced to deliver the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ unto the unfit, both in their health and sickness, and that with personal application putting it into their hands; and that such are forced to receive it, though against their own wills, in the conscience of their impenitency.

6. That ministers be forced to absolve the unfit, and that in absolute expressions.

7. That they are forced to give thanks for all whom they bury, as brethren, whom God in mercy hath delivered and taken to himself.

8. That none may be a preacher that does not believe that there is nothing in the Prayer-book, the Book of Ordination, and Thirtynine Articles, that is contrary to the word of God. (Baxter's Life, by Sylvester, B. I, pt. II, p. 341.)

APPENDIX D.

Among modern Episcopal writers who support the views with respect to the origin of Episcopal government presented in these [59/60] lectures, are Riddle, author of Christian Antiquities, Commentaries on the Bible and Prayer-book, and a Greek Lexicon; Dean Goode, in his "Rule of Faith," and his work on "Orders;" Litton, Professor of History at Oxford, in his work on the "Church of Christ;" Harrison, on the "Church of the Fathers," which is the most exhaustive work yet written on the subject; Dean Stanley, in his account of the "Church of Alexandria," in his "History of the Eastern Church;" Lightfoot, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, in his "Dissertations" attached to his notes on Philippians; Jacob, in his masterly work on "Ecclesiastical Polity;" Mossman, in his History of the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ for the first two Centuries." Dean Alford, in his Commentaries, and Professor Smith, in his Bible Dictionary, have presented practically the same view. In this country, we have Dr. Stone's work on the "Church Universal," Dr. Sparrow's sermon on the "Christian Priesthood." Among the laity are Garratt, on the "Constitution of the Christian Church;" Seely's "Essays on the Church;" Bowdler, on "Apostolic Succession," and Dr. Ira Warren's work, entitled "The Cause and Cure of Puseyism."

The concessions of this great body of eminent and learned Episcopalians render all efforts to sustain exclusive views of Episcopacy futile and hopeless.

APPENDIX E.

One remarkable instance on record shows conclusively what were the views held in the reign of Elizabeth with respect to Presbyterian orders. It is the license given to John Morrison, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, by Archbishop Grindal, to exercise all the functions of the ministry without reordination. The license says: "William Aubrey, Doctor of Laws, legally exercising the office of Vicar General in Spiritual, and of Chief Functionary of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, to our beloved in Christ, John Morrison, M.A., born in the Kingdom of Scotland, eternal health in the Lord.

"Whereas, We have heard on credible testimony that you, the aforesaid John Morrison, about five years past, in the town of [60/61] Garvet, in the county of Lothian, in the Kingdom of Scotland, were admitted and ordained to Holy Orders and the sacred ministry, by the imposition of hands, according to the laudable form and rite of the Reformed Church of Scotland; and whereas the said congregation of that county of Lothian is conformable to the orthodox faith and pure religion now received, and by public authority established in this realm of England; we therefore approving and ratifying, as far as in us lies, and by right we may, the form of your ordination and advancement to this function alone in the manner aforesaid, grant and impart to you in the Lord, with all good will, as far as in us lies and by right we may, and with the consent and mandate of the most reverend Father in Christ, Edmund, by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Metropolitan, to us signified, license and faculty in these orders by you taken, to celebrate divine offices, to administer the Sacraments, and purely and sincerely preach the word of God, either in the Latin or vulgar tongue, according to the talents which God hath given you.

"In testimony whereof we have caused the seal which we use in like cases to be affixed to these presents. Given the sixth day of April, 1582."

The expression, "in like cases," in this precise legal document, proves that the custom of thus licensing Presbyterian ministers prevailed at that time.

As the Church of Scotland was then Presbyterian, and no bishops Episcopally ordained held office in that country, the case is settled beyond contradiction. On this case of Morrison, Hopkins, in his work entitled "The Puritans and Queen Elizabeth," vol. ii, p. 112, remarks: "Whether other like licenses were issued or not, one such high official document is sufficient for our purpose; as decisive as fifty. So clear is it taken from the Statute Book, and from the practice of the English Church, that, at least till 1582, the general sentiment of that Church ' approved and ratified' other fountains of priestly virtue than its own, and acknowledged other than the hands of mitred heads as having the ordaining power."

This case settles the point, that the dispute concerning Travers [61/62] and Whittingham, of the same reign, was not with regard to the matter of their Presbyterian orders, but on account of irregularities of another sort.

These statements are taken from a series of articles in defence of Bishop Cummins' statement, prepared by the writer of these Lectures, and signed "Historicus."

APPENDIX F.

General Washington, in reply to the address of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1789, used these memorable words: "On this occasion it would ill become me to conceal the joy I have felt in perceiving the fraternal affection which appears to increase every day among the friends of genuine religion. It affords edifying prospects, indeed, to see Christians of different denominations dwell together in more charity, and conduct themselves, in respect to each other, with a more Christian-like spirit than they have done in any former age, or in any other nation."

As a proof of Washington's statement, we quote from the weekly Monitor, June 14, 1790: "Wednesday afternoon, were interred in Trinity Church the remains of Hon. Theodoric Bland, Esq. The Hon. the Congress of the United States, and the Society of the Cincinnati, together with a great number of respectable citizens, attended the funeral. The Hon. Richard H. Lee, John Walker, Isaac Coles, Samuel Griffin, James Madison, Josiah Barber, Thomas T. Tucker, supported the pall. After the corpse was carried into the church, his Reverence the Bishop (Provost) read prayers, after which the Rev. William Lynn, D. D., of the Reformed Dutch Church, delivered a most excellent sermon, peculiarly adapted to the occasion."

The same liberality of sentiment characterized the English laity before the national mind was perverted by the use of the Book of 1662. During the civil war, while an effort was being made to reconcile the differences, Charles I, inquired of three of his most devoted councillors (Lords Jermyn, Culpepper and Ashburnham) "where in conscience he could yield the point of [62/63] Episcopacy?" They replied: "If by conscience your meaning is, that you are obliged to do all that is in your power to support and sustain that function of bishops, as that which is the most ancient, reverent and pious government of the Church, we fully and heartly concur with you therein; but if by conscience is intended to. assert that Episcopacy is jure divino exclusive, whereby no Protestant (or rather Christian) Church can be acknowledged for such without a bishop, we must therein crave leave wholly to differ; and if we be in error we are in good company--there not being (as we have cause to believe) six persons of the Protestant religion of the other opinion. Thus much we can add, that at the treaty of Uxbridge, none of your divines there present, though provoked thereunto, would maintain that (we might say uncharitable opinion); no, not privately among your commissioners." (See Clarendon's State Papers, vol. 41, p. 202, 260, 274.)

It appears from this that the Reformed Episcopal Church has, in its declaration of principles, affirmed the same doctrine with respect to Episcopacy as was held by the great body of the English laity before the final and disastrous Revision of 1662.

Lord Falkland, a royalist, in Parliament, February 9, 1640, directed his remarks at Laud, Montague and Neyle, and the rest of their Ritualistic clique, thus: "Mr. Speaker, a little search will serve to find them to have been the destruction of unity under pretence of uniformity: to have brought in superstition and scandal under the titles of reverence and decency: to have defiled our Church by adorning our churches: to have slackened the strictness of that union which was formerly betwixt us and those of our religion beyond the sea; an action as impolitic as ungodly. . . . Some have evidently labored to bring an English though not a Roman Popery: I mean not the outside only and dress of it, but equally absolute, a blind obedience of the people upon the clergy, and of the clergy upon themselves; and have opposed Popery beyond the sea, that they might settle one this side the water. It seemed their work was to try how much of a papist might be brought in without Popery, and to destroy as much as they could of the gospel, without bringing themselves into danger of being destroyed by law."

[64] If we go back to the preceding reign, we find Lord Bacon, in 1610, speaking thus of the same class of men: "Exasperated through contentions, they are falling into a direct condemnation of the contrary part as a sect. Yea, and some indiscreet persons have been bold in open preaching, to use dishonorable and derogatory speech and censure of the churches abroad: and that so far as some of our men, as I have heard, ordained in foreign parts, have been pronounced to be unlawful ministers."

In 1589, Sir Francis Knollys, Lord Treasurer of England, wrote a scathing letter of rebuke in reference to the assertion made by a Church of England clergyman for the first time in public--Dr. Bancroft, at St. Paul's Cross--that "Bishops were superior to Priests according to God's word." It was in reply to this letter that Dr. Rainolds, of Oxford--Queen's Professor of Divinity, and confessedly the most learned man in England--published his statement that this view of Dr. Bancroft was held neither by the Fathers, nor by any Reformed Church, including the Church of England. Dr. Rainold's statements are quoted in Bishop Cummins' sermon on Primitive Episcopacy.

"To my Lords, the Bishops, I say that it is hard for them to avoid, blame in the opinion of an intelligent person, in standing so precisely upon altering nothing. Law, not refreshed with new laws, was sour. Without a change of ill, man cannot continue the good. To take away many abuses supplanteth not good orders, but establisheth them. A contentious retaining of custom is a turbulent thing as well as innovation. A good husbandman is ever pruning in his vineyard or in his field--not unseasonably nor unskillfully, but rightly; he ever findeth something to do. Sure I am that the very word and style of reformation used by our Saviour--ab initio not fuit sic--was applied to Church matters; and to those of the highest nature concerning the law, moral."--Considerations Concerning the Better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England, by Francis Lord Bacon.

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