a tendency to unsettle the minds of the people, or diminish their attachment to our venerable Liturgy. Nothing can be further from the design of the writer of these pages than such an issue; and nothing, he is convinced, can be more groundless than the fear of such a result. Were, indeed, the undertaking to be committed either to enthusiastic visionaries on the one hand, or to heartless latitudinarians on the other, every evil might be justly apprehended; but conducted, as of course it would be, under the inspection, not to say personal labours, of our venerable and learned prelates, the effect would necessarily be to add to the Established Church an increased stability and efficiency, to its members an increased and rational attachment to its Services, and to its communion a large body of excellent and conscientious persons who have at present scruples against conformity.

A new Liturgy would not be presented to the people, but a revised version of the old one; it would be an improved edition of an invaluable publication. In its present

form the various excellencies of the work have been universally acknowledged; but in its renovated state, enriched with the increasing lore, and corrected by the deliberating hand of a judicious revisor, additional beauty and spirituality would be imparted to some of its most admired pages, whilst every thing which could reasonably excite the censure of its opponents, every thing which could detract from the admiration of its friends, would be carefully expunged.

To adopt the appropriate language of the London Review, "The Church Reform, or Reformation, which will be the subject of the following remarks, is of a character very distinct from the great event emphatically so called. It is more properly a continuation of the system then established. It is not analogous to the reformation of one utterly vicious and irreligious, as was the case when we shook off popery; but to the endeavours of one who has been long a serious Christian, to grow in grace and in the knowledge of his Lord.

"The Reformation found the Church of

England erring and corrupt in the discharge of every one of its bounden Offices. The Sacraments had become converted into mystic charms, and its Liturgical Offices into muttered spells. Instead of gospel truth, idle fables of saintly legerdemain formed the topic of instruction; temporal penalties enforced obedience to its discipline, and its security was pious fraud, falsehood, and violence; its chief ruler on earth was one who belonged not to the society, and he was invested with powers which Christ has reserved unto himself All this should be occasionally placed in slow detail before the mind, to enable the members of the Church, as it now exists, to appreciate the immense work accomplished by our reformers, and the candour, the piety, and the courage which it must have demanded. Could all the views of these great and good men have been carried into effect; had they even been themselves born Protestants, instead of being Catholic converts, as well as those whom they were seeking to enlighten, is it possible that

they should have left nothing for their successors to do? That the contrary was the case is notorious. They bequeathed to us, together with their reform, the spirit and the exhortation to go on."

But it may here be not unsuitable briefly to notice some of those circumstances which would naturally lead us to anticipate the necessity of a thorough revision of the Liturgy. These preliminary remarks will prepare the reader for the number and variety of the alterations which will be suggested, and tend still further to exonerate our Reformers from every serious censure with respect to their original performance.

Time, it has justly been remarked, is the greatest innovator. Were we then to assume, that the Liturgy with all its appendages was faultless at the time of its publication, it would still be next to impossible that nearly three centuries could have elapsed, without materially enervating its original efficiency. During this period, our own language, the circumstances and habits of the people, and the constitution of the

country itself, have all undergone a considerable change; if then, as is in fact the case, alterations in our Liturgy have been very rarely and always very cursorily adopted, some parts of its services, it might naturally be expected, would be found ill adapted to the present time, and others to have fallen into complete desuetude.*

"The love of things ancient," it has been said, "argueth stayedness."+ True: but it may be rejoined, that "it is hard for them to avoid blame, who stand so precisely upon altering nothing." What indeed can be more irrational than a systematic, pertinacious rejection of necessary and temperate emendations.

"I would only ask," said Lord Bacon, "why the civil state should be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws, made every third or fourth year in Parliament

* A brief account of the nature and extent of the different alterations made in our Liturgy, may be seen in Bishop Mant's "Introduction to the Book of Common Prayer," or in Mr. Shepherd's "Elucidation" of the

same.

+ Hooker.

↑ Bacon.

с