ration of the steps-laborious-painful-bleeding-triumphant-by which it was accomplished? That could not be called an attempt to reform or revise the Book of Common Prayer, which dislocated one link in this golden chain. There, in their proper place, these Collects stand "like apples of gold in pictures of silver."

2. There is something delightfully soothing and impressively grand in the idea that, at the same hour, on the same day, a whole nation is with one voice uttering the same confessions, prayers, supplications, thanksgivings, and adorations to the Giver of all good, the God of all mercy, in the very same words. This is an ACT OF UNIFORMITY which it is devoutly to be wished that the Christian world would establish. But to secure this-no fancied good-it is necessary to keep up the names of the Collects. Numerical Figures will not do, as they do for the FRIENDS to distinguish the days of the weeks and the months of the year, because the names commonly used are of heathenish origin. There is an insuperable objection to removing the names from what are called moveable feasts. They are therefore all retained except the term Trinity. They express events. But this term expresses nothing belonging to time. There is no day in which the living and true God began to exist or to act. The term Trinity is therefore changed into Ministry; and the following twenty-five Sundays denominated First, Second Sunday, &c., in order. "The Epistles" and "The Gospels" shew that in the compilers' minds the course of active teaching and working of our Lord, in divulging and confirming the doctrines he was sent to establish, belong to this section of Collects. In Protestant service the terms are, or ought to be, disconnected from all superstitious observances of the days or times they denote.

The Collects thus named and arranged in this present form, sufficiently clearly for devotional purposes, come under a fourfold division; but as the fast is placed in point of time in connexion with the death; while it really preceded the commencement of the Ministry of our Lord; and as his death took place in an earlier part of the year, than his birth in preceding years, not to disturb the order of the series of Collects, the third section occurs the last. Disposed in order, they are,

§ First. The Expectation, the Birth, and Early Life

of Jesus.

§ Second. The Wilderness, the Temptation and the Fast of Jesus Christ.

§ Third. The Ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fourth. The Seizure, Crucifixion, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

The terms Advent, Epiphany, Septuagesima, &c., Lent, Easter, Ascension Day, Whit Sunday, and Ministry, mark periods. The facts are there in Christian history,—the history of our redemption. The names serve, or should serve, only to guide the thoughts to the things; and to direct the thoughts and affections of Christendom to them at the same time. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Rom. xiv. 17. Literal fasting implies literal feasting. The former, if carried beyond the point necessary to the unimpeded exercise of the mind, and the best affections of the heart, is superstition; the latter is sensual, and not devotional. But the penitence, the faith, the calm devotion, the joy and triumph, excited by the EVENTS, in the Christian mind and heart, are the life of religion.

3. The great power of a liturgical service is, that ALL PRAY: not merely the Minister. All say Amen: the assent and concurrence of the whole to each short prayer. All have work to do the work of faith; and so all become a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. From the Queen upon the throne, with her august and lovely progeny, to the humblest mother of her subjects, with her loved children, whose souls in the sight of God are as precious as THEIRS,-from the most learned to the most unlettered, just able to read what is familiar to them, all are busily and if the spirit of truth be there -profitably engaged. A murmur of sweet and majestic sounds, from woman's softer tones to the deeper utterance of the manly voice, all gently, humbly, but fervently ascending, if anything can be, this is heaven on earth; and if anything can so please, this is sweet incense to the God of light and love. The Church could devise no

happier means of making earlier impressions on the young, and of enabling its members, under the blessing of God, to present the united service of penitent and grateful hearts. But to insure this holy pleasure and profit, not one single response admissible should be lost. All such have been religiously retained.

4. The tone of deep penitence, of earnest, almost heartrending intreaty for pardon and mercy, of utter prostration before Him who only is good, is too congenial to the human heart, burdened often with sorrow and guilt, oppressed with the consciousness of its infirmities, and deeply feeling the imperfection of the service of life, to allow of

any alteration. It may be abused. It may be made thoughtlessly familiar. Everything holy and useful is liable to this perversion. A few terms only are omitted, and others slightly altered, which seem to destroy all distinctions of character, and indiscriminately to charge all men with abandoned guilt and infamy.

5. The entire devotional service in all its parts, and strictly in the adjustment and arrangement of its parts, is retained. Even the Collects for the Saints' Days are preserved. In our National Church Service there is no worship of saints. No saints of doubtful reputation or fabulous existence are introduced, and no appeal to their intercessory assistance is admitted. It is well to pray that we may be imitators of them as they were of Christ. A few omissions, trifling in extent, occur, but not one which deference to Scripture phraseology did not demand.*

6. At the opening of the service a few more passages of Scripture are added relative to the nature and object of religious worship. As only a few are to be used at each service at the discretion of the Minister, these additions may be useful, and will not increase the length of time occupied.

7. The ancient style is not altered, except in those few words which in the vulgar tongue are now become obsolete. It is hoped that the language in which any alteration

*The only deviation from this rule, if so it can be called, is that the Lord's Prayer is used only once in each Service. This use of it as the perfect model of Christian prayer, and the test of all others, is due reverence for its Author. The frequent repetition of it is in every respect objectionable.

b

or addition is expressed will not make a motley mixture with the venerable original. The alterations and few additions made are expressed generally in the words of Scripture. The commencing words of every Prayer and Collect are the same as in the common service.

8. All distinctions of title amongst the Clergy are merged in the common term Minister. A priest, there is none in the spiritual kingdom of Christ, except himself, the 'APXIEPEYE-the great High Priest of our profession. A priesthood the whole Church constitutes, in the exalted and consecrated position of each sincere member; and in their appointed duty to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 1 St. Peter ii. 5.

9. The form of Absolution is in all cases turned into a prayer for forgiveness to the Minister and people, who both have confessed themselves sinners, and having no hope but in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ.

10. It was essential, to fit them for the purpose of Christian worship, that the "Prayers and Thanksgivings" should be cleared of the representation that all calamities and sufferings are judgements and punishments for sin. In the development of just religious views, even during the continuance of the Mosaic dispensation, there are distinct traces of the detection of this error. In the Christian religion it is often and expressly contradicted. One fact recorded for ever condemns such a notion: "It pleased the Father to make him, the Captain of our Salvation, (his sinless, well-beloved Son,) perfect through suffering." Heb. vi. 10.

11. In all the Prayers and Collects care has been taken to preserve the grand doctrine of Christ, i. e. the free, unpurchased grace and mercy of God, offered to all, upon the conditions of repentance and faith. The service itself, in the greatest portion of its contents, guides to the manner of accomplishing this object.

12. A creed used as a test of soundness of faith, and authoritatively prescribed, can serve no other purpose than to tamper with sincerity, or to encourage hypocrisy. In this Liturgy, the Articles of Christian faith are expressed in the words of Christ himself; and in the authentic declarations of his holy Apostles: and to these all Christian people can heartily say, AMEN.

13. In the alteration of some of the ascriptions at the close of the Prayers and Collects, the liberty is followed which was in some cases taken in the last authorized revision; in order to make them all strictly scriptural, and consistent with the rule in No. 11.

14. The Gloria Patri, when first mentioned in ecclesiastical tradition-not earlier than the fourth centurywas used in three forms; of which the one adopted in the usage of the Roman and English Churches is the most scholastic; the second the most scriptural. This is expressed thus, "Glory be to the Father, in or through the Son, and by the Holy Ghost." The adoption of this form is fully defended by Christ and his Apostles; and, indeed, by many Collects in the Church Book of Common Prayer. In this second form, the common doxology may be retained, but it has been deemed proper to place before it the more venerable and apostolic doxology furnished by St. Paul, 1 Tim. i. 17.

14. In the Services for the Ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, more alteration than was required in the other devotional services was absolutely necessary to make the former accord with Scripture, and to preserve both from legendary perversions. The explicit declaration of the effect of baptism, and much that is said and done about the bread and wine, in the Communion Service, encourage the notion of vital efficacy in the ceremonies duly administered; while in the estimation of a Protestant community these Sacraments are regarded as they are defined in the Catechism, only as 66 an outward visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace:" and they cannot be " signs," and at the same time the things themselves, which they simply represent in a figure; or causes of the grace within, when they only outwardly attest its existence. In primitive times baptism was never administered except upon confession of faith in Christ; and a confession by proxy never entered into the minds of the simplehearted men of those times. Bread and wine were never consecrated but by giving thanks for their emblematical design, and by the devout reception of them in faith and love by the communicant. The baptism of infants can be rationally regarded in no other light than as a solemn form of dedication, expressive of the intentions of the