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look for perfection as he advanced, but rather to anticipate what Calvin affirmed did exist. When some of the English clergy had taken refuge at Frankfort, from Mary's persecution, they were divided in opinion about Edward's liturgy; some wishing to retain it, exactly as it had been used in England, others to amend

Calvin was applied to for his advice, and wrote in reply, 'that there were many tolerable weaknesses in it, which, because at first they could not be amended, were to be suffered; but 'that it behoved the learned, grave, and godly ministers of Christ to enterprise further, and to set up something more, filed from 'rust and purer. If religion (says he) had flourished to this day in England, many of these things should have been corrected. 'But since the Reformation is overthrown, and a church is to be 'set up in another place, where you are at liberty to establish 'what order is most for edification, I cannot tell what they mean 'who are so fond of the leavings of Popish dregs.'

Amongst the most obvious faults of the English Prayer Book, are its vain repetitions. The same sentences are uttered in the same service, again, and again, and again. Four times during the ordinary morning service is the Lord's Prayer repeated. Eight, nine, or ten times are these sentences iterated, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.' And against what can the command of our Lord, that we should shun vain repetitions, be designed to guard us, unless against such flippant sentences as the following, taken from the Litany?

We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. Son of God: we beseech thee to hear us, Son of God: we beseech thee to hear us.

O Lamb of God: that takest away the sins of the world;

Grant us thy peace.

O Lamb of God: that takest away the sins of the world;

Have mercy upon us.

O Christ, hear us.

O Christ, hear us.

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us,

Lord, have mercy upon us.'

As though it were not sufficient that the order for morning

Neal, vol. i. ch. 3.

prayer daily throughout the year should be disfigured by such wearisome and irreverent tautologies, the order for evening prayer daily throughout the year consists of a repetition of prayers used in the morning!!

The abrupt transitions of the service are a further and very serious defect. For example, we find it ordered that there shall be said or sung the Apostles' creed, and after, these prayers following.

The Lord be with you.

Answer. And with thy Spirit.
Minister. Let us pray.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Then the minister and people shall say the Lord's Prayer.

Then the Priest standing up shall say,

O Lord, show thy mercy upon us.

Answer. And grant us thy salvation.

Priest. O Lord, save the king.

Answer. And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee.

Priest. Endue thy ministers with righteousness.

Answer. And make thy chosen people joyful.

Priest. O Lord, save thy people.

Answer. And bless thine inheritance.

Priest. Give peace in our time, O Lord.

Answer. Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God.

Priest. O God, make clean our hearts within us.
Answer. And take not thy Holy Spirit from us.'

These expressions are thrown together without any regard, or with the slightest regard to continuity. They are an assemblage rather than a collection of prayers. The transitions are sudden and painful; and the worshipper proceeds not easily, but by jerks, and violent ones too. Habit may have reconciled devout Episcopalians to this jumble of petitionary sentences. Taught to use the Prayer-book in the days of youth, all their religious feelings are associated with it; and they are not in circumstances to exercise an unbiassed judgment on its merits, or its faults. The Laplander thinks his train oil the greatest delicacy which the universe supplies. The Episcopalian, from the same cause, viz., custom, thinks the Prayer-book the ne plus ultra of devotional forms. Would he, without prejudice, reconsider the subject, he would be astonished beyond measure at the extravagant value he has set upon this miserable compilation; be convinced that Calvin spake the truth when he described it as the leavings of Popish dregs; and long, with that great reformer, for something more, filed from rust and purer.

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The creeds of the Prayer-book next claim attention. They are three in number; and certainly these three do not agree in one. The first is palmed upon Churchgoers as the Apostles' creed, though the apostles had no more concern in its construction than in the composition of the confirmation service. We protest against this fraud. The Nicene creed was produced at the beginning of the fourth century, but not in its present state. The latter part of it, which describes the Holy Ghost, was added at the Council of Constantinople in the year 381. The former part was produced by the Nicene Council; which council was summoned by Constantine, and according to general belief consisted of 318 bishops, who were assembled from all parts of the Roman empire (Britain included), at Nice, in Bythinia, in or about the year 325. The opening of the council is thus described by Eusebius. After all the bishops were modestly seated, there was 'silence; the entrance of the emperor being expected. By and bye, ' one of those most closely connected with him came in, and then a 'second, and a third. Some also walked before him: not a body'guard, as is customary, but his friends, and those only who professed the faith of Christ. And when the signal was given by which the approach of the emperor was known, all rose up. He 'then walked into the midst, as some heavenly angel of God, 'seeming to be clothed with radiance, and dazzling the eyes of all by the splendor of his purple robe. He was also most richly 'adorned with gold and jewels. And whilst he was thus out'wardly adorned, it was apparent from his downcast eyes, his 'blushes, and gait, that he was decorated with the fear of God and with piety. After the emperor had come to the head of the 'seats, he remained standing. A low stool made of wrought gold 'was then placed before him, but he did not sit down till the 'bishops had motioned him to do so. The whole assembly then 'took their seats.'* After this apostolical opening of the council who will doubt that its doctrines were apostolical? This great convention of ecclesiastics, from Asia, Africa, and Europe, had several points of great importance to discuss and settle. Amongst them, as intimated above, was the exact time of celebrating Easter. The celibacy of the clergy was another controverted subject. The doubt was not, whether it were becoming in the clergy to abstain from matrimony (that it was, does not appear to have been denied or doubted), but whether celibacy should be enforced a conclusion to which these successors of the apostles were about to come, when they were saved from it by the prudence of the Bishop of Thebes, who himself practised celibacy. Another matter of contention was the Arian heresy; to check

Eusebii de vita Con. lib. 3. cap. 10.

which, the creed was prepared. The purity and grandeur of its style, and the acute discernment of nice distinctions which it manifests, are highly creditable to those who drew it up. The tenets of this creed will come under consideration hereafter. Suffice it now, therefore, to signify the most decided disapprobation of the bald and dogmatical manner in which they are propounded. The other Confession of our Christian faith,' is commonly called the creed of St. Athanasius;' and as all parties admit, falsely called so. It were quite as well, therefore, to cease from calling it so. This longest of the creeds is by some learned men attributed to Hilary; but judging from some things which he eertainly wrote, it is difficult to believe him the author of the formula in question. In truth, its age and origin are left in obscurity. Dr. Cave affirms that it was never seen till about the year 800, and was not received into the church till about the year

1000.

In reviewing these creeds, we cannot fail to observe, that even on the supposition of their being consistent with each other, and correct in sentiment, they are yet unscriptural. We never meet, in the words of our Lord, or the writings of his apostles, with such cold stringing together of doctrines. The same truths, when presented to us in the Scriptures, are presented practically, not dogmatically. And, further, it is surely unpardonable that whilst the Protestant Church of England has three creeds, that great truth, which Luther declared to be the basis of the Reformation, should not find a place in either. The Church of England has protested against the corruptions of doctrine which obtained in the church of Rome, and has nevertheless adopted her creeds; ereeds which exclude what the reformers termed the articulum stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ, and also the grand truth which our Lord first taught to Nicodemus. As a profession of a believer's faith, these symbols are not only jejune, but wretchedly incomplete; omitting entirely the two doctrines through which alone all that they contain is of any use or interest to us as sinners, viz., justification by faith and the new birth.

Nor is either of the creeds immaculate in point of sentiment. The words he descended into hell,' are at best equivocal. There is no evidence of any such expression having been in the creed, called the apostles' creed, till about the year 400, and then the words used were these, descendit in inferna;' denoting, as Pearson admits, the burial of Christ.* The phrase, the life everlasting,' is used in a sense in which it is never employed in Scripture, and in which it ought not to be employed elsewhere. As contained in Scripture, it imports the perpetual happiness

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* See Pearson in locis.

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VOL. VIII.

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of the righteous: in the creed it denotes the endless duration of all men. If it be thought that these are light matters, we grant that in an ordinary production they would be so, and that such minuteness of criticism would be unjustifiable; but we are warranted in being thus particular, when bringing to the test a book to all and every thing in which the authorised instructors of the people declare their unfeigned assent and consent. The Nicene creed contains not merely the avowal of belief in the Father and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but an explanation of the relationship subsisting between the Father and the Son, and between both and the Holy Ghost. It teaches that the Son, being divine, derives his existence from the Father by generation; and that the Holy Ghost, being divine, derives his existence from the Father and the Son, not by generation, but by procession. The reader not already conversant with the history and consequences of this latter tenet, will observe that two points are here introduced: first, that the Holy Spirit exists by procession; secondly, that that procession is from both the Father and the Son. The former of these two, is a tenet common to both the eastern and western churches, though it rests only on a dubious interpretation of this one passage of Scripture, when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify 'of me.' Now, our Lord repeatedly reminded his hearers that the works which he did were not his own only, but his Father's also and in the passage just quoted, having promised his followers that he himself would send unto them the Spirit from the Father, he seems to have added the words 'who proceedeth from the Father,' to teach them that this great gift came both from him and his Father-that in bestowing it, he and the Father were The word 'proceedeth,' in all probability relates to the Spirit's mission to the sons of men, not to the origin of the Spirit's existence. Yet on this slender and doubtful basis has the Church (falsely so called) raised the doctrine of divine existence by procession, as distinguished from generation; a distinction utterly unintelligible and perfectly useless. Nor is this all. When first the dogma of procession was introduced into this creed, in the year 381, it read thus, I believe in the Holy 'Ghost, who proceedeth from the Father.' In the fifth and sixth centuries, the words kaì ik тov viou (and the Son ') were added by the churches in Spain, without any authority; and were gradually introduced in the other parts of western Christendom. The Greek church would not admit of this addition to their faith, and so,' says Pearson, the schism between the Latin and

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* See Pearson in locis.

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