former they made no objection: the Thirty-nine Articles satisfying all their wishes. Into the latter they desired to see various modifications introduced. Though generally approving of the Book of Common Prayer, they wished it to be treated rather as a directory than a liturgy. They objected to the sign of the cross in baptism, to the use of the ring at marriage, to the kneeling posture in receiving the communion, to bowing at the name of Jesus and towards the altar. "You admit," they say to the Prelatists, "that these things be in themselves indifferent; they are not so to us who behold in them a rock of stumbling;" and quoting the words of King James, they add, "It is not enough that public worship be free from blame, it ought also to be free from suspicion. We pray you, therefore, not for such occasion to hazard the peace of the Church." It is much to be deplored that propositions upon the whole so moderate should have been met in a spirit, not merely of hostility, but of contemptuous hostility. The opening sentences, in the reply of the High Church party, changed entirely both the tone and object of the discussion. "We must first observe," they write, "that they, the Presbyterians, take it for granted, that there is a

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firm agreement between them and us in the doctrinal truths of the Reformed Religion, and in the substantial parts of divine worship; and that the differences are only about mere various conceptions about the ancient forms of Church government, and more particularly about liturgy and ceremonial forms, which makes all that follows the less considerable, and less reasonable to be stood upon to the hazard and disturbance of the peace of the Church. This we deny." Here was a direct charge of heresy. The Presbyterians threw it back with and a breach, which appeared at one moment on the point of being healed, grew wider than ever.

In this, as in almost all other disputes of the kind, blame may be pretty equally shared between the contending parties. The gauntlet was unquestionably thrown down by the Prelatists; but it would have been good for themselves, and indeed for the Church at large, had the Puritans proved less eager to take it up. Ere yet the Savoy Conference was well begun, the King had pressed upon their leaders, bishoprics and other high dignities. With the exception of Reynolds they all declined the preferment, alleging as a reason, that till the points in dispute between them and their rivals

were settled, they could not, with a safe conscience, accept office in an Episcopal Church.

It is not worth while to pursue the subject further. The points in dispute between the Presbyterians and their rivals were not settled, and Baxter, Manton, and Bates, and Bowles, instead of acting with Reynolds in convocation and in the House of Lords, stood aloof to witness the passing of a new Act of Uniformity, which, under other circumstances, they might have resisted, and even defeated. Then followed the ejection of 2000 ministers—most of them pious, many learned and able men—and the permanent establishment of a systematic nonconformity, which neither active nor passive persecution could eradicate, and which, in various shapes, comprehends at this moment, about half the population of the kingdom.

Such in substance is the tale which Mr. Marsden tells, if not with the philosophical indifference of a judge summing up for a jury, still in a spirit of commendable candour and perfect honesty. That he has his leanings no one who reads his book can doubt: but he is not the prejudiced advocate either of a cause or of its champions; for he exposes with great impartiality, the faults as well of the one side as of the other. His volumes, moreover, deserve

to be studied quite as much by such as are anxious about the future, as by those who content themselves with looking continually to the past. It is clear that at the root of this continued opposition and strife lay neither questions of dress, nor forms of Church government, nor points of doctrine exclusively. These might be used, from time to time, as watchwords or battle-cries; but what the Church of England wanted then, to command the undivided loyalty of the English people, was, that which she seems destined in the present generation to receive, whether to the same good purpose, who shall undertake to foretell? For, in truth, the Reformation in England remains to this day a work incomplete; it was far more incomplete at each of the critical periods of which we have been writing. In renouncing Popery and its doctrinal errors, our Church retained too much of the pomp and circumstance of the Popish system. Her bishops continued unnecessarily raised by wealth and station above their clergy: her clergy, as priests, continued to exercise too stringent a dominion over the consciences of the laity. Beautiful as her Liturgy is, it contains expressions which jarred, three centuries ago, and still jar the convictions of thoughtful men; and its extreme length, as well as the many

repetitions which occur in it, weary. Moreover, while to tender consciences the Thirty-nine Articles may be very acceptable, because of the wise comprehensiveness of their style and doctrine, there are expressions in one, at least, of the Church's Creeds, which, however capable of being explained away, continue to be regarded by the less instructed as marvellously bold, not to say presumptuous and unchristian. So also the services for the visitation of the sick, the burial of the dead, and even the baptismal service itself, are encumbered with phrases, which would lose nothing of their true force, while they gained greatly in appearance, were it possible, by the mere substitution of modern for obsolete words, to modify them. We say nothing of canons which the whole body of the clergy subscribe, without pretending to the power, even if they had the will to obey them; or of rubrics having the force of law over both clergy and laity, to which neither clergy nor laity will submit. Of these things the world has heard of late rather too much; but it is manifest that they, like other less prominent blemishes, remain, simply because the Church of England as a reformed branch of the Church Catholic, has not yet assumed the constitution, which she ought to assume. What shape this