1785] KEV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. I 



JO 



charity and toleration among all Christian denominations, and other 

 circumstances (some of them peculiar to our situation among the high- 

 ways and hedges of this new world) seem to have rendered absolutely 

 necessary. 



Ardent, and of long continuance, have been the wishes of many of 

 the greatest, wisest and best Divines of our Church, for some alterations 

 and improvements of this kind. Among these we have a Whitby,''' 



* The judgment and wishes of some of those great Divhic^, which could not so con- 

 veniently be delivered in a Sermon, I have collected into the following notes, for the 

 further information of the reader: 



"If our rulers (says iJr. Whi;by) would he pleased to change the present Liturgy r.s 

 mucli from what it is, as it is altered from what it was, in the days of Edward the Vlth, 

 I verily believe that alteration would render it acceptable to many, who do now refuse 

 submission to it. The Church of Christ hath judged it fit to alter many things whicli 

 were first instituted by the blessed Apostles themselves, or by the primitive age of llic 

 Church [namely the kiss of charity and some other usages;] yet I hope this tempteth 

 no man to suspect the wisdom of the Apostles of our Lord, or of the primitive profes- 

 sors of Christianity. Why, therefore, should a like jiractice tempt any to suspect the 

 wisdom of our first reformers? We have already altered many things, \vhich were 

 allowed and done by them. They at first retained chrism, prayer for the dead, bap- 

 tism by women; and many other things of a like nature. And if these things might 

 be reformed, without reflection on their wisdom, why may not other things be so? " 



"The serious and speedy review of the Liturgy," says Bishop Gauden (in the year 

 1661), "much desired by some, and not much opposed by others, may be of good use 

 for explaining some words and phrases which are now much antiquated, obscure and 

 out of vulgar understanding; which is no news after an hundred years, in which, lan- 

 guage, as well as all things under heaven change. This work, once well and wisely 

 done, may, by God's blessing, much tend to the satisfaction of all sober Christians; — - 

 for as one d^^y teacheth another, so there may be (as in all outward forms of Divine 

 Worship) both harmless additions, and innocent variations ; yea, and sometimes in- 

 offensive defalcations of some redundancies, according as men and times, and words 

 and manners and customs, vary." 



Bishop Sanderson (in a visitation Sermon, 1641), speaking of our reformation, al- 

 though he says " he had a great esteem for the moderation of it, and a great veneration 

 for the instruments employed by God in it, and a great love of that wholesome way 

 of doctrine, life, devotion and government; yet he was not such a formalist, but that he 

 wished for alterations, though he judged that all alterations, in such grand and estab- 

 lished concerns as Religion, should be done by the public spirit, counsel and consent 

 of the Prophets, Prince and People." 



"Nothing," says Bishop Beveridge, "was anciently more usual with the Churches 

 of God, than when times and necessity recjuired it, to change the laws made by them- 

 selves ; to abrogate old ones, anil substitute others and perhaps different ones, in their 

 stead." "And," says Bishop Kennet, "let us hope and pray that whatever addition 

 can be made to our hajipiness, God in his time will add those things unto us. Li the 

 Churches of Corinth and Crete, planted by an Apostle, there were some thin'^s want- 

 ing, to be afterward set in order." 



Bishop Burnet " wishes some things may be taken away, and others softened and 

 explained. Many things were retained at the reformation, to draw the people the 

 more entirely into it; which was at that time a lawful consideration, but is now at an 

 end," &c. 



