does Easter Sunday mean in com. memoration of the resurrection of Christ, when every Sunday is intended for the same thing? And Trinity Sunday?-we confess we are in darkness here also. We have never been able to learn any plausible reason for such a day. Surely "the church" does not require a worship of the Trinity more on this day than at other times. And commemoration here is out of the question. In our humble opinion, a day called Christian-Sunday or God-Sunday, would have been quite as proper. The truth undoubtedly is, that all those days were found in the Roman Catholic ritual, and at the early period in which the liturgy was compiled, it did not occur to the authors that they could be dispensed with. "The Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary," is another day of the same character; and as no gospel truth is made plainer or more efficient by any of these days, we can not conceive any possible use to which they can be applied, unless it is to preserve that savor of Popery which has already resulted in the extensive prevalence of Puseyism.

Nor do we like, any better than we do these feasts and fasts, the appellation of" priest," constantly giv en to ministers of the gospel. It is contrary to New Testament usage, and contrary to fact. A priest is one that offers sacrifices. The Roman Catholic ritual retains this appellation because the priest is supposed to offer the sacrifice of the mass; but no such thing is pretended by any true Protestants. Under the Christian dispensation there is but one priest, the great "High Priest of our profession," the Lord Jesus Christ, who offered up one sacrifice for the sins of the world. The whole body of Christians are figuratively called "an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices," but no one class are so designa

ted.

We regard these general features of the Prayer-book, together with other things which we intend to mention, as extremely disastrous to the cause of truth and experimental religion in the Episcopal church. If the idolatry of the church of Rome is not directly authorized by the liturgy, yet such affinities with it are retained, as may easily decoy men into it.* We believe that the Popish dress of the liturgy furnishes a half-way house to Popery itself; and that the entertainments of that house being served up with exclu sive pretensions to ordination and validity of ordinances, and some mysterious sanctity or power conveyed by the imposition of the bishop's hands from the Apostles through the church of Rome, lead directly to this result. And instead of wondering that there have

*It is a remarkable fact that no less than

three clergymen of the Episcopal church in Connecticut have, within the last five and twenty years, become Papists. We allude to Dr. Kewley of Middletown, Mr. Barber of Waterbury, and Mr. White of Derby..

We use the phrase validity of ordinances, because this is the current language of Episcopalians; but we confess we have never been able to attach an in

telligible idea to it. We conceive an ordinance to be valid if accompanied by the divine blessing, and invalid if not. That is, we do not conceive that ordinances are any thing in themselves but only as they affect the heart, or teach some important truth. If a sinner hears the gospel and is induced by it to give up his heart to Christ, becoming regenerate by the Holy Spirit, we suppose his regeneration is valid whoever may have been the preacher; and to question the validity of preaching which issues in salvation, appears to us supreme nonsense. So also if a Christian communes with the Lord

Jesus Christ and his brethren at the Lord's table and finds spiritual nourishment thereby, in our plain way of think ing the ordinance is valid to him whether the bishop's hands had been laid on the administrator or not. The validity of ordinances is a phrase which takes its origin from the same Popery that talks of burying grounds, holy wafers, holy waholy vestments, holy houses, consecrated ter, holy crucifixes, &c.

been so many examples of it, we rather wonder that there have been so few. We regard the recent developments under the name of Tractarianism, as much the same thing, and arising from the same cause. There is a broad foundation laid for this error in the usages and preaching of the Episcopal church, and the affinity produced by them to something different from all the rest of the Protestant world. We believe it will be found that no where among Protestants has the principle prevailed, that ordination in order to be legitimate, must be derived in uninterrupted succession from the apostles, except in the English Episcopal church and the offshoots from her. We see in this fact how far the idea is from the Scriptures, since nobody has discovered it but English churchmen and those who have imbibed their modes of thinking. When Bancroft, chaplain to Archbishop Whitgift, afterwards Bishop of London, first broached this idea in 1588, it was received with misgivings by nearly all that heard it. Some were afraid it would prejudice the Queen's prerogative; for if the bishops acted by divine right derived through the church of Rome, what would be come of her supremacy as head of the church? Others were afraid of disaffecting the foreign Protestants, and by a new doctrine separating themselves from their communion. The effect which Bancroft intended of elevating the hierarchy, then confessedly founded on human authority, above Presbyterianism, would hardly compensate, in the opinion of some of the adherents of the church of England, for the loss of the confidence of the Protestant churches abroad. The idea however was so consonant to prelatical pride that it rapidly gained the ascendancy; and it has been handed down to the present day with no abatement of its arrogant pretensions. Were there any foun

dation for this idea of apostolic succession, the Nestorian bishop who has lately left our shores for his own land, could put in a claim for it infinitely better than any of our Episcopal brethren in this country or in England. But he discarded the idea. Protestants are the last persons in the world who can reasonably assert such a claim; for they must derive it through the church of Rome-a church which has long ago excommunicated them all. They can not therefore with any show of reason pretend to exercise powers which she who gave them has officially taken away. If the church of England ever had that imaginary thing, the apostolic succession, it was taken from her by the supreme authority from which it was derived. If a man derives authority to exercise the office of a sheriff from the government, and the same government revokes that authority, it is clear that he is sheriff no longer; and he can neither communicate the office to others nor exercise it himself, unless by other authority than that from which he derived it. So also the church of England, having been disfranchised in the Roman commonwealth, must look elsewhere for her authority, or it is all a vain pretense. She can do nothing by virtue of authority from Rome, Rome having taken back whatever she gave. This principle extends of course to her de scendant in America. If it should be said that the power being once communicated is inalienable, that ordination impresses an indelible character; we reply, we can form no idea of such a thing, and we do not believe that others can. And that our Episcopal brethren do not credit it, appears from the fact that they sometimes depose a minister and by that means obliterate his clerical character, the imposition of the bishop's hands notwithstanding.

Had the reformation in the English church proceeded farther, and

the liturgy been founded strictly on the principles of Protestantism, holding forth in every shape an abhorrence of Popery-rejecting even an innocent usage which had been prostituted to idolatry, and associated with that in the minds of the people, as the Puritans wished; and had the pride and self-glorification of Bancroft and his coadjutors met with a proper rebuke, we should have seen at this day the mother church in England, and her daughter in America, much less exposed to the influx of Romish doctrines. When Hezekiah, king of Judah, perceived that even so sacred a relic of antiquity as the brazen serpent of Moses was perverted to idolatry, "he brake it in pieces," and by way of derision "called it Nehushtan." Had the men who gave character to the English church been such thorough reformers, that communion would never have been cursed as it now is with the manifestation of a propensity to relapse into the worst doctrines of Romanism. We repeat it, then, that the Popish tendencies of the liturgy, supported by exclusive pretensions to validity of ordination and of sacraments derived from the church of Rome, prepare the mind for a return to Popery. When therefore Romish doctrine appears in the Oxford tracts, and circulates extensively among those who have lived under such an influence, it is as seed suited to the soil already watered to receive it. It springs up and bears fruit abundantly. Aside from all other evidence, the single fact that Puseyism finds all its disciples among the jure divino Epis copalians, is proof enough of our assertion. Other Protestants have no more thought of becoming Puseyites than of becoming Mohammedans ; an argument after the manner of the Oxford divines having not the shadow of plausibility to their minds.

The forms of address to the peo

were

ple which are interspersed throughout the Prayer-book, were well enough to serve a temporary purpose, but are miserably adapted for perpetual use. When the clergy so ignorant that they could not make an address themselves, it was right and proper to compose one for them; but when they are able to write sermons these forms ought to be given up. There is an obvious objection to them, arising from the fact that one set of words frequently repeated as an exhortation to the people, becomes of course a matter of no significancy. It is like a constant repetition of the same sermon from sabbath to sabbath, which would be an intolerable annoyance. The first of these addresses is singularly defective in its style and composition, abounding in tautologies which no preacher of the present day would dare to put forth. The people are exhorted to acknowledge and confess their manifold sins and wickedness-not to dissemble nor cloak them, when they assemble and meet together. They are to ask those things which are requisite and necessary. These defects of language in an ordinary exhortation would be considered unpardonable. The reason they are not noticed here is, that the whole exhortation is a mere dead letter, serving only to fill up a place in the book without any meaning. It is moreover somewhat absurd, or at least it presupposes a remarkable degree of indifference to public worship, that the worshipers should need twice a day to be exhorted in the same words to pray, when that is the very object for which they · are assembled. Not only this, but all the addresses seem to proceed upon the hypothesis that the minister is incompetent to do any thing but read other men's thoughts-an hypothesis which was no doubt founded in truth in respect to many when the Prayer-book was first composed, but by no means so at

the present day. Nothing is placed at the discretion of the officiating minister but the reading or omitting to read some portions of the appointed service. What a contemptuous treatment is this of the clergy!* Let us now examine the services prescribed for every Sabbath. We have already remarked upon the address to the people as unhappy for the present day, however it might have answered a temporary purpose in the day in which it was first composed. The "general confession" which follows, is an admi

* The addresses in the Prayer-book, not only presuppose that the clergy are ignorant and incompetent to teach, but they also manifestly assume, that the people are so profoundly ignorant as to need to be told, over and over, continually, the first principles-the very rudiments of the Christian religion. Thus, in the address at the opening of the daily morning and evening prayer, the people are not only exhorted to pray-as if they did not know for what purpose they had come together-but they are treated as being so ignorant as not to know, or so stupid as not to consider, that the Scripture inculcates the sinfulness of man, and the necessity of repentance. And therefore, with much formality, these elementary truths are drawn out, and amplified, and urged, in two long, complicated, and heavy sentences, as a necessary preparation for the ordinary worship of God. The minister must say: "Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth [admonisheth] us, in sundry places, to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble nor cloak them before the face of Almighty God, our heavenly Father, but confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent and obedient heart; to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the same, by [through] his infinite goodness and mercy. And although [as] we ought, at all times, humbly to acknowledge our sins before God, yet ought we [we ought] chiefly [especially] so to do, when we assemble and meet together, to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, [to render him deserved homage,] to hear his most holy word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well [both] for the body as [and] the soul."

The other addresses in the liturgy presuppose, in the clergy the same incompetence to instruct, and in the people the

rable summary, expressed in simple language, though altogether too general. It is inferior, in our opinion, to many an extempore prayer flowing from a full heart, deeply impressed with a sense of sin, and richly furnished with scriptural language. But yet it is excellent. The absolution which follows, however, is a perfect nullity. It seems to be a general principle of the liturgy, that when confession is made, absolution follows. This can be accounted for from the fact that something like absolution, or at least

same profound ignorance and stupidity. They are also drawn up in a style equally feeble, prolix and inelegant. See the addresses to be used in notifying seasons of communion, and at the communion table; and also the addresses to be made to the sick, and to prisoners and, condemned malefactors.

It is also noticeable, that long, verbose, tautological, and ill-constructed sentences occur in every part of the Prayer-book, except in the portions translated from the Scriptures. Tautology, indeed,—or the repetition of the same thought in another form, and the coupling together of synonymous words,- -seems to have been studiously sought after, as if it was a great beauty of style: and long, complicated, and verbose sentences seem to have been regarded as most consonant to good taste.

The collects, prayers, and thanksgivings are, almost uniformly, thrown into long and complicated sentences, in which a happy precision of thought, and a pleasing vivacity of expression, are by no means usual characteristics. The collects for the several Sundays and holy days, most commonly labor to bring out some obscure or fanciful analogy between the day of the year and the worship performed; and the effort is, not unfrequently, a partial or a total failure. In some instances, such a fog is raised, and such indistinct vision produced, that the whole collect is involved in great obscurity. Thus the collect for the first Sunday in Advent contains this very confused picture: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us [thou? or we?] the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son, Jesus Christ cume to visit us, in great humility; that, in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and dead, we may rise to life immortal, through Him who liveth and reigneth

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something which should be called by that name, was necessary in the time of Edward, lest too great a shock should be produced in the minds of those who had been accustomed to such a service in the Romish ritual. The service, as the liturgy has it, appears to be an attempt to unite the Protestant idea that God only forgives sins, with the Popish, that absolution must come from the priest. According ly, the minister is directed to stand while the people continue kneeling. And what does the minister say?

with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen." Here the three dramatic unities, of time, place and action, are all disregarded; and the scene shifts so of ten, so suddenly, so totally beyond all calculation, that the mind is confused and can see nothing clearly. For similar examples, see the collects for the third and fourth Sundays in Advent, and for Epiphany, and for all the Sundays in Lent. The collect for peace, in the daily morning prayer, presents an equally confused picture to the mind. Indeed it is most manifest, that the writer had no distinct idea of the object for which he would teach us to pray. It might be peace with God, or peace in the conscience, or domestic or social peace, or peace among contending factions, or peace among warring nations, or any, or all of these combined. The language of the collect is: "O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth [is] our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; defend us, thy humble [unworthy] servants, in [from] all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely [safely] trusting in thy defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

In all parts of the liturgy, the diction and phraseology are antiquated, unpolished, and at variance with good taste. We might reasonably expect such to be the style of the work, as it was originally drawn up in the age of King Edward VI; but we are surprised to find that the same faults are continued and handed down through all subsequent revisions of the book; and are even imitated and made conspicuous in the most recent additions to the volume. The English and American compilers of the liturgy seem to have as great abhorrence of modern taste in language, as the Quakers have of modern taste in dress; for, as the latter scrupulously avoid appearing in public dressed

like other people, so the former scrupu lously avoid using in the house of God the diction and phraseology sanctioned by general custom.

Among the faults to which we have alluded, the following are worthy of more specific notice.

1. We often meet with words which are entirely obsolete, or at least are not used in the sense they have in the Prayerbook. Of this character are the following: Let, for hindrance; and to let, as a verb, in the same sense.-Prevent, for preceding, going before.-Premonish, for admonish-Health, for spiritual life, or spirituality; and healthful, for promotive of spirituality.-Governance, for providence.—Godly motions, for divine influences.-Moveth, for admonisheth.-Inspiration, for gracious influence.-Good living, for holy living. The folk, for the people.—Word, for thing, in the phrase no word impossible.-Shawms, for hautboys, musical instruments.-Picking, for pilfering-Troth, for faith, or fidelity.Estate, for state, every where.

2. We meet, at almost every step, with colloquial words and phrases, or those which modern taste will allow only in conversation. These sink the dignity of grave discourse, and sometimes border on the ludicrous. As examples of single words, we notice doings for actions; fetch, for bring; help, for aid, assistance; and hurt for harm, injury. Examples of colloquial phrases, or combinations of words, are very common. Thus we have the "sharpness of death," for the pangs of death. The "kindly fruits of the earth," for the various fruits, &c.-"This naughty world," for this evil world."The old Adam," for the old man, original sin." Comfortable gospel," for comforting gospel; and "most comfortable sacrament," for comforting sacrament."Lovingly called and bidden," for affectionately called. We pray "for all sorts and conditions of men."-We offer to God