namely, that using forms of prayer deadens the fervour of devotion, and indeed there is nothing about which people are more apt to be mistaken than about what they term fervour of devotion. If the object be the temporary excitement of the feelings, then indeed the loud voice, vehement utterance, and highly coloured language, which are frequently the accompaniments of extemporaneous prayer, might be preferred to the chaste and subdued tone of our liturgy. But what connexion has this temporary excitement of the feelings with the workings of the Holy Spirit? Probably nothing. God's usual manner of granting the Holy Spirit is in answer to our prayers, "Ask and ye shall have,"--and without undervaluing the prayers of others on our behalf, yet surely the more natural means for us to obtain it, is not merely by listening to the rapturous devotion of another, but by humbly offering up our own prayers to the throne of Grace; and the more certain evidence of our receiving the Spirit, is not excitement at the moment, but the finding ourselves more strengthened to fight the good fight of faith for the time to come; and then may we believe we have really experienced the greatest fervour of devotion, when we have ourselves joined in confessions of sin, and find upon our returning from our prayers that we hate all sin, particularly our own, with a perfect hatred, and that we are more steadfastly purposed not to offend.

That we always use the same form, has also been made a source of cavil; but if our wants are the same, where is the force of this objection? Did not Christ himself return to pray, using the same words each time, because his necessities continued the same? The volubility of a beggar may, by dint of importunity, compel our hand to give that which our judgment would withhold; but God is not so wrought

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on the devotion with which we approach Him, though intense, should be calm: the petitions we present, should be earnest though sober, lest putting forth, like Uzzah, an unhallowed hand upon the ark, we receive not a blessing, but a curse. "Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few." Eccl. v. 2. "God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of his saints, and to be had in remembrance of all them that are about Him." Psalm lxxxix. 7.

It has been considered by some that a written form induces formality, and when men are unconscious of their wants or insensible of their obligations, there will be much formality in their religious homage, whether they pray with a written form or without one; and in this respect the charge of formality. may be pretty equally divided between the two. But where a truly spiritual frame of mind is previously possessed, there is nothing in our liturgy to deaden that feeling, or to restrain the strongest emotions of the mind. On the contrary, every part of it has served to deepen humility, to encourage hope, and to elevate devotion.

Another objection is, that the use of forms of prayer abridges the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, which text of Scripture (frequently made use of by the schismatic to screen him in choosing whatever form of religion is agreeable to fancy, and in rejecting the legitimate authority of those who have the spiritual rule over him,) has little to do with the matter: as the freedom of which the Apostle speaks, is not an uncontrolled restraint in religious matters, but freedom from the yoke of circumcision and the other ordinances of the Mosaic law. But even supposing the passage to be applicable, it is absurd for sectarians to refer it to this sub

ject, and to talk of their liberty* in this respect, seeing that the extemporary prayer of the minister is as much a form to the people as any other: and the only choice is, whether they will have a good form or a bad one; a form of sound words with which they are previously acquainted, on the one hand, and on the other, a form upon the propriety of which they cannot at any time depend; and I cannot help believing that if the dif

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"We complain, and very justly too, that the Popish clergy are too assuming, and claim a superiority over the laity inconsistent with the natural rights of mankind. Pardon me, gentlemen, if I say that you claim a very extraordinary superiority over the laity every one of you claims an exclusive privilege of manufacturing our public prayers, and assumes a right of making us say to the Deity whatever he thinks fit. In the most momentous affairs in which we can be concerned upon earth, we must depend entirely upon the discretion, honesty, and ability of every private parson, and use the words and matter of our addresses to our God and Maker, such as he is pleased to give, without ever seeing, examining, or judging for ourselves. This is really treating us as if we were children or fools. We allow that you have a right to offer our prayers and as it is not fit that we should all speak, the minister may be called the mouth of the congregation. In our congregations the mouth runs before the mind, and speaks without giving us any opportunity of thinking what we ought to speak, and often say things that we should certainly reject, had we time calmly to examine them. Our mouth leads us into the gross blunders of presenting our addresses to the Deity first, and next judges whether they are proper addresses after they are offered, when we cannot mend what is wrong or alter what is improper. We absurdly begin where we should end for in the natural order of things, the congregation should first be satisfied that the prayers are proper to be offered, and then the minister should offer them in their name, just as a prudent man will think before he speaks. But in our admirable plan of worship, the congregation speaks by its mouth before it has considered what it is to say; that is, the parson offers up the petition, and the people may judge of the propriety afterwards if they please. The absurdity here is so great that it is astonishing how it escapes the observation of the laity, and it would not escape them in any other instance. Should the ablest member of the House of Commons propose to offer an address to His Majesty in the name of the House, without communicating it to the members, the impropriety would be immediately perceived,” &c. &c.— Letter from a Blacksmith to the Ministers and Elders of the Church of Scotland.

ferent extemporaneous prayers used in the different dissenting chapels on any given Sunday were to be written down, and afterwards compared with our liturgy, that any candid person would immediately confess that neither in spirit, language, or general usefulness, could they be put in competition with it. At the Reformation, the Church had just escaped from the tyranny of the see of Rome; and so far from the use of a form of prayer being thought an abridgment of Christian liberty, that, on the contrary, it was thought inconsistent with the professed opposition of the Church of England to that tyranny, to invest every private minister with such an absolute authority over the consciences of his flock as to make them entirely dependent on his arbitrary fancy in their public devotions. Had our reformers condemned the use of liturgies, they would have condemned the practice of the apostolic age itself, and run into the wildest extravagancies of enthusiasm and fanaticism.

The practice of praying extempore was first introduced into Britain by some emissaries of the Pope, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Their object was to distract and divide the Church of England, which they felt to be the great bulwark of the Reformation, and which they therefore endeavoured to overthrow by every means in their power*. The puritans derived

*The above fact has been doubted; but the evidence on which it rests is unquestionable, as furnished, first, by Sir William Boswell, English resident at the Hague, 1640; secondly, by Archbishop Bramhall to Primate Usher, 1646; thirdly, by the case of Cummin, a Dominican monk, who was tried before the Council in 1567; and fourthly, by the case of Thomas Heth, a Jesuit, in the year 1561, as recorded in the registry of Rochester. -See EVELYN's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 59; Foxes and Firebrands, pp. 7, 15, &c.

The Romish Church had before this period acted upon a like policy (and it has been but too successful in it to this day).-See STRYPE'S Cranmer, pp. 207, 208.

more of their peculiarities from the Church of Rome than they have ever been willing to acknowledge; first from the active malice of the monkish pioneers of the Papacy in Elizabeth's days, and again in the time of the great rebellion; the destruction of the Church of England being in their mind equivalent to the undisputed dominion of Popery throughout the world. The puritans meant not so; but they really promoted the object of the Romanists by their passion, by their prejudices, and by their eager zeal against much which was essentially good, and against much which they themselves acknowledged to be indifferent.

Express directions have been given for public worship in the New Testament by St. Paul, when he is instructing Timothy, his son, in the faith, concerning the government of the churches and congregations under his episcopal jurisdiction and inspection, 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2. In this exhortation we may observe the priority which the Apostle assigns to prayer, as the principal and most noble part of that duty for which religious assemblies are held: "I exhort therefore that first of all," &c.; the various parts of which he considers devotion to consist; "supplications" for the averting of hurtful things, sins, and dangers; "prayers" for the procuring all good things which we want, "intercessions" for others as well as ourselves, and "thanksgivings" for mercies already received; the universal charity which should accompany the devotions of Christians, in that they are required to pray for the welfare of "all men," the spirit of dutiful respect which the Gospel teaches towards rulers, and the end and object of devotion, which, like that of Christianity itself, is stated to be the leading of quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty.

Our liturgy accurately corresponds in these several particulars with the directions of the Apostle. Do