the burial of the dead; of the invocation of the Holy Ghost, in the confeстаtion of the Eucharift; of the prayer of oblation that followed it; of the ru brick that ordered water to be mixed with the facramental wine; of the ufe of oil in baptism; and of the unction of the fick. Certain hymns also were introduced after the leffons; some occafional prayers at the end of the litany were added, and different rubrics were inserted. The ten commandments were appointed to be read after the collect in the beginning of the communion service, and the short petition which follows each commandment was inferted. The habits of the officiating minifter prescribed by the former book were, by the present one, ordered to be laid afide, and a rubric was added at the end of the communion service to explain the reafon of kneeling at the facrament.

But the labours of the reformers did not terminate here; for in the enfuing vear the indefatigable Cranmer drew up a second catechism, under this title; "a short Catechifm, or plain Instruction containing the fum of Chriftian learning." This was fubmitted to the examination of " certain bithops and other learned men," and being approved of by them, it was printed both in English and Latin, and published by the Royal authority the 20th of May, A. D. 1553. An express injunction was at the fame time prefixed to it, addreffed to all schoolmasters and teachers of youth, directing them truly and diligently to teach it in their schools, " immediately after the other brief catechifm which had been already fet forth."

Shortly after the publication of this last labour of the reformers in Edward's reign, the propitious career of the reformation was again checked by the death of the young king; and another cloud darkened the puritied church, when the bigot Mary succeeded to the throne. The friends of true religion had now not only to regret the repeal of Edward's acts in favour of the reformation, but alfo to deplore the heavier misfortune of the lofs of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, the active servants of God in the great caufe, who fell victims to the bigotry of this bloody queen. One of the first acts of Mary's reign was to prohibit all preaching without fpecial licence. The restoration of Bonner, Gardiner, and other Popish bishops to the fees of which they had been deprived, fucceeded this step; and fix weeks afterwards a bill paffed, repealing all king Edward's laws about religion, and enacting that after the enfuing 20th of December (1553) there should be no other form of divine fervice than what had been uted in the last year of Henry VIII. In confequence of these proceedings, Popery revived in all its rankness; the mafs was fet up in all places; all the exploded fuperftitions were again religioufly afferted; the most trumpery ceremonies were again adopted; roods and images were erected in every church; and long ng and venerable lift of martyrs were led to the stake, who rejoiced in bearing this teftimony to their faith. It pleased

a

God, however, that this hateful reign, which "ought to be tranfinitted down to pofterity in characters of blood," should not be extended beyond the term of five years. Mary died miferably on the 17th of November 1558, and was fucceeded by Queen Elizabeth. With her acceffion the hopes of the Proteftants again revived, and happily they were not deceived in their expectations of the reformation being fully and finally fettled under her aufpices; for though her proceedings in this refpect were ver y cantious and deliberate, yet they terminated at length in the folid establishment of Proteftantifm through her dominions. By the advice and affittance of her confidential counfellors, Cecil, Bacon, and Smith, Mary's act of repeal was reveried; and meafures were taken, and commiffioners appointed, for another review of Edward's Book of Common Prayer. The commiflioners were, Dr. Parker, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury; Dr. Guest, dean of Canterbury, Dr. Cox and Dr. May, (commiftioners for a fimilar purpose in Edward's time;) Dr. Grindal, bishop of London; Dr. Sandys, afterwards bishop of Worcester; Dr. Whitehead; Dr. Bill; and Dr. Pilkington, afterwards bishop of Durham. These learned and pious men commenced their tafk in December 1558, and compleated it in the enfuing April, when parliament ratified the review, with one amendment only, that of enjoining the communicants to kneel, inftead of standing, when they received the elements of bread and wine. With this amendment the new book was commanded to be received into public ufe on the feftival of St. John the Baptift, 1559. Amongst fome other alterations of a triffing or verbal nature, the following were fuggefted by the commiffioners, and adopted in the Book of Common Prayer now under confideration. The place in which the morning and evening service should be read (which hitherto had been the chancel) was left to the appointment of the ordinary. Proper first leffons were now appointed for Sundays; for hitherto those for the day of the month had been regularly ufed on the Lord's day.† The very harsh and objectionable deprecation in the litany was omitted: "From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his deteftable enormi ties, good Lord deliver us." The interceflions for the queen were incorporated into the fame service; and towards the conclufion of it, "a praver for the Queen's Majefty" was introduced; together with that for "the Clergy and people;" and the beautiful collect which commences with thefe words; "O God, whose nature and property is, ever to have mercy and forgive." The habits of the officiating minifters enjoined by the firtt

Book of King Edward, and prohibited by the second, were ordered again to be adopted. The rubric which was added at the conclufion of the communion service in the second book of King Edward VIth, denying Chrift's corporal and real prefence in the holy facrament, was now left out; and in order still further to conciliate the Roman Catholicks, and unite the nation in one faith and mode of worship, the royal injunctions exprefsly commanded, that the facramental bread which the rubrick only enjoined to be of the finest wheaten flour, should be made of a round form, fimilar in shape to the wafer used in the Romish mafs.*

Thus fettled, with wife accommodations to all parties,† the liturgy was univerfally adopted throughout the country, and continued to be generally ufed till the acceffion of James I.; when the Puritans, who had long fe

* The editions of the Holy Scriptures in English, published during the reign of Elizabeth, were as follow. The Pfalms, with marginal notes, and a dedication to the Queen, by the exiles at Gemeva, A. D. 1559. The Geneva Bible, an edition in quarto, printed at Geneva, by Rowland Harte, and pubhthed A. D. 1560; and tranflated by Bishop Coverdale, Anthony Gelby, William Whittingham, Chriftopher Woodman, Thomas Samfon, Thomas Cole, John Knox, John Bodleigh, and John Bullam. Beza and Calvin alfo were occafionally confulted. Of this edition there were above thirty impreffions in folio, quarto, or octavo, from the year 1560 to1616. The Bishops' Bible, published 1568, under the aufpices of Archbishop Parker, and receiving its name from the majority of its tranflators being prelates. The editions of it were entirely in folio and quarto, with the exception of one octavo edition. An edition of the New Testament, tranflated into English by the Romanists at Rheims, and published in quarto in 1582. In the convocation of the province of Canterbury, which met April 3, 1571, a canon was made, enjoining the churchwardens to fee that the Holy Bible be in every church, "in the largest volume, (if it might conveniently be) fuch as was lately imprinted in London."-Lewis.

+ The Roman Catholics were fo fatisfied with this arrangement of our ritual, that many of them joined in communion with the established church; and continued their conformity to it upwards of ten years. The Pope alfo would have fanctioned it, and allowed the facrament in both kinds, if the queen would have acknowledged his fupremacy.Foxes and Firebrands, part iii. p. 18.

When the exiles (who had absented themselves on account of their religion, during Mary's reign) returned to England on Elizabeth's acceffion, each party were for advancing the reformation according to their own standard. "The queen, with those who had weathered the storm at home, were only for rettoring King Edward's Liturgy, but the majority of the exiles were for the worship and difcipline of the foreign churches, and refused to comply with the old establisoment, declaiming loudly against the Popith habits and ceremonies. The new bishops, most of whom had been their companions abroad, endeavoured to foften them for the present, declaring they would use all their interests at court to make them easy in a little time. The queen alfo connived at their non-conformity, till her government was fettled, but then declared roundly, that the had fixed her standard, and would have all her fubjects conform to it; upon which the bithops ftiffened in their behaviour, explained away their promifes, and became too fevere against their diffenting brethren. In the year 1564, their lordthips began to shew their authority, by urging the clergy of their feveral diocefes to fubfcribe the liturgy, ceremonies, and difet pline of the church; when those that refused were first called Puritans, a name of reproach derived from the Cathari, or Puritani, of the third century after Chrift, but proper enough to exprefs their defires of a more pure form of worthip and difcipline in the church. When the doctrines of Arminius took place in the latter end of the reign of James I. those that adhered to Calvin's explication of the five difputed points, were called doctrinal Puritans; and at length (fays Mr. Fuller) the name was improved to ftigmatize all those who endeavoured in their devotions to accompany the minifter with a pure heart, and who were Temarkably holy in their converfations. A puritan, therefore, was a man of fevere morals, a Calvinist in doctrine, and a non-conformist to the ceremonies and difcipline of the church, though they did not totally feparate from it."-Neale's Hist. Purit, vol. i. preface, p. vii. Learning, wit, and ridicule, in the age we are at prefent concerned with, and in the fucceeding reigns of James I. and Charles II. were all united against the caufe and character of the Puritans; and hence originated a general prejudice in their disfavour (continued even to these times) which they by no means feem to have deferved. Mr. Neale has given a liberal, candid, and authentic view of their principles and manners, which the holy caufe of truth will justify me for inferting in this place. "It is not pretended, (fays he) that the Puritans were without their failings; no, they were of like paffions and infirmities with their adverfaries; and while they endeavoured to avoid one extreme, they might fall into another; their zeal for their platform of difcipline would, I fear, have betrayed them into the impofition of it upon others, if it had been established by law. Their notions of the

craly difliked the fervice, government, and difcipline of the church, as retaining (in their opinion) too many of the characteriftics, and too much of the form of popery, openly expressed their opinion, and petitioned the king for a reform of the alleged abufes of the Establishment. To gratify this powerful body with an apparent attention to their wishes, (though nothing was further from the thoughts of James than any innovation on the fettled conftitution of the church) the English monarch appointed a folemn conference to be held between a certain number of prelates and divines of the Establishment on the one fide, and the leaders of the diffenters on the other; in which the objections of the latter were to be flated, difcuffed, and finally adopted or rejected.* The conference was held at the palace of Hampton-Court, where James attended in perfon, and entered deeply into the argument in behalf of the Establishment.

The

meeting broke up, as may naturally be imagined, without a single conceffion being apparently made to the Puritans; though from the charges brought forward by them in the course of the argument, it was deemed prudent to have another tranflation of the Bible prepared, and to adopt the following alterations in the liturgy: in the rubrick prefixed to the abfolution, the words " or remission of fins" were added, as explanatory; a collect was introduced into the morning and evening prayer for the royal family; forms of thanksgiving for various particular blessings were very judicioufly inferted immediately after the litany; the words "lawful minifter" were incorporated in the rubrick in the beginning of the office for private baptifin, in order to prevent a practice, till then common, of midwives, phyficians, and laymen baptizing infants; the title of the office of confirmation was enlarged, and made more explicit than before; and in the catechism all the questions and answers were added, which now fucceed the paraphraftic explanation of the Lord's prayer.

When, in the fucceeding reign, the throne was overturned, and the form of civil government entirely changed, the church also experienced a fimilar fate; the hierarchy was broken down, and the liturgy laid afide.

and other places, to confer together, in order to make a new tranflation of the Bible. Such of them as furvived the commencement of the work were divided into fix ciasses. Ten were to meet in Westminster, and to tranflate from the Pentateuch to the end of the fecond book of Kings. Eight, affembled at Cambridge, were to finish the rest of the hif. torical books, and the Hugiographia. At Oxford, feven were to undertake the four greater Prophets, with the Lamentarions o Jeremiah, and the twelve minor Prophets. The Epifties of St. Paul, and the remaining canonical epifties, were allotted to another company or feven at Westminster. Another company of eight at Oxford were to tranflate the the tour Gofpels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypfe Lastly, another company of feven at Cambridge had affigned to them, the Apocrypha, including the Prayer of Manatleh. Almost three years were employed in this tranflation, which was begun in the ipring of 1607. The Bible was published in 1613, with a dedication to James, and a learned preface. It was called King James's Bible; fanctioned by act of parliament; and has ever fince been the authorized version for public and general ufe.

* On the 12th of October 1643, (after the breach between the King and Parliament had become incurable) an order was fent to the Affembly of Divines from the Lords and Commons affembled in Parliament, for them to arrange "a form of Church difcipline and government, agreeable to God's holy word, instead of the then present church government by archbishops, bishops, &c. and to deliver their advice touching the fame with all convenient fpeed, to both Houfes of Parliament." In confequence of this order, on the 17th of October, a committee was nominated for the appointment of public offices in the church, for the old liturgy was already laid afide, and no fubftitute for it had as yet been ordained. They accordingly conferred together, agreed upon certain general heads for the direction of the minister in the difcharge of his duties, and fubmitted them to Parliament, which established them by an ordinance dated the 3d of January 1644-5, under the title of "A Directory for Public Worship" The following variations were upon this occafion introduced into the service of the church.

"Inttead of one prefcribed form of prayer, the Directory only points out certain topicks on which the minister might enlarge. The whole Apocrypha is rejected; private and lay baptifm, with the use of godfathers and godmothers, and the fign of the cross, are difcontinued. In the facrament of the Lord's fupper no mention is made of private communion, or adminiftering it to the fick. The altar with rails is changed into a communion table, to be placed in the body of the church, about which the people might stand or fit, kneeling not being thought fo proper a posture. The prefbyterians were for giving the power of the keys into the handsot the ministers and elders, as the independents were to the whole brotherhood; but Lightfoot, Selden, Coleman, and others, were for an open communion, to whom the parliament were most inclinable, for all they would vield was, that the minister immediately before the communion should warn, in the name of Christ, all fuch as are ignorant, Scandalous, prophane, or that live in any fin or offence against their knowledge or confcience, that they presume not to come to that holy table; showing them, that he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, cateth and drinketh judgment to himself. The prohibition of marriage in Lent, and the use of the ring, is laid aside. In the vifitation of the fick, nomention is made of private confeffion, or authoritative absolution. No fervice is appointed for the burial of the dead. All particular vestments for priests or miifters, and all Saints' days, are difcarded. It has been reckoned a confiderable omiffion, that the Directory does not enjoin reading the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandments;