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    serited to have forfeited their claim to the €€ esteem and honour ** generally due to " the Lancashire ministers /* Dr . Taylor first attributes €€ the

    scheme of a Liturgy , " when " started , about four hundred years from the birth of Christ /' - to the €€ sensuality , pride , ambition , luxury , sloth and ignorance—of ministers" which ,

    according to Augustin , had produced " an inability to pray . " They * were not able / ' Dr . T . says , ( 40 , ) * ' to hammer out a prayer' for themselves , but borrowed prayers from others , such as they happened to meet with , good or bad . " He then considers " the Dissenters

    in Lancashire" prepared to " form some judgment upon the new scheme of reading prayers—which has been for a long time meditated , and now is putting in execution by some of their

    ministers , " whom , however , though "innovators , " he is not " disposed " ( 48 ) " to rank with St . Augustin ' s injudicious praters , or his ignorant brethren ; " subjoining ( 47 ) the

    following note : € i I do not here , nor in any following part of this address , take in any considerable number of the Lancashire ministers , much less of the whole body ; whose characters I know to he

    worthy of esteem and honour . I mean only those who are immediately concerned in this affair . And though I cannot do justice to the subject without arguing upon the case , and their conduct in it , yet I have no design to expose their persons , but sincerely wish they , may be concealed from the inquisitive reader . "

    And now what unworthy deeds were these ministers contemplating , that Christian charity forbore " to expose their persons" ? In an advertisement to the " Scripture Account , " which the author did not live to publish , his

    Editor , very fairly , inserted the letter sent by the ** congregation at Liverpool—to several ministers who were solicited to assist in drawing up a Liturgy . " This congregation describe themselves as " a society of

    Protestants who do not entirely approve of the present method of conducting the public devotions in Dissenting congregations , and who cannot comply with the terms of Conformity to the Established Church , and are desirous to introduce a rational Liturgy into their form of worship . And as they would

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    wish it as perfect as possible , they make free to solicit the assistance of some of their learned friends , in the compilation of it , who may approve of the design . *—Their general sentiments " they thus express :

    " They would wish to have no ambiguous , disputable opinions introduced into the public service ; but that the whole may be plain and intelligible to the meanest capacity . Creeds and articles of faith of human invention , they think should have no place in a public Liturgy , as those things have

    no tendency to promote either Christian unity or a spirit of devotion . The language they could wish to have as plain as possible , but suited to the peculiar * character of each distinct branch of devotion , in every part grave , manly and perspicuous , and no where falling into the flat style of narration .

    " They think the principal part of their time should be taken up in praise and'thanksgiving , and that the other branches of devotion should be comparatively short . " They desire the petitioning part

    may be so cautiously expressed , as not to lead the people into mistakes about Divine assistance ; but that they may be led to think , that prayer is chiefly to be answered by the effects it produces in their own tempers and lives .

    " They would have some proper responses to be pronounced by the people , that they may consider themselves as more immediately engaged in the solemn service of devotion ; but what they are to say should be very

    short , generally a suitable reply to the preceding sentiment , and strictly devotional ;—and would have the whole service so short , as to leave room for the exercise of free prayer , that the advantages of precomposed and extempore prayer may be united . "

    It is obvious that there are four different methods of conducting worship in Christian congregations , unfettered by an Establishment . They adopt forms of devotion to be publicly read by one of their number , whom they have chosen for their minister : or they

    listen to his prayers delivered either extemporaneously , or memoriter , or they hear him read devotional compositions , which he has written for such occasions . I - ' agree with ^ "A Dissenter" in perceiving some weig hty abjections to the last method , > vhwc

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    644 * Mr . Rutt < m Liturgies and Free Prayer .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1821, page 644, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2506/page/12/