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THE PREFACE.

IT 10 TITKOD

IT. hath been the wisdom of the Church| timely means were used to prevent it; of England, ever since the first com- those men who under the late usurped piling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep powers had made it a great part of their the mean between the two extremes, of business to render the people disaffected too much stiffness in refusing, and of too thereunto, saw themselves in point of much easiness in admitting any variation reputation and interest concerned( un­from it. For, as on the one side common less they would freely acknowledge them­experience sheweth, that where a change selves to have erred, which such men hath been made of things advisedly esta- are very hardly brought to do) with their blished( no evident necessity so requiring) utmost endeavours to hinder the resti­sundry inconveniences have thereupon tution thereof. In order whereunto di­ensued; and those many times more and vers pamphlets were published against greater than the evils, that were intended the Book of Common Prayer, the old to be remedied by such change: So on the objections mustered up, with the addition other side, the particular forms of Divine of some new ones, more than formerly worship, and the Rites and Ceremonies had been made, to make the number appointed to be used therein, being swell. In fine, great importunities were things in their own nature indifferent, used to His, Sacred Majesty, that the and alterable, and so acknowledged; it said Book might be revised, and such is but reasonable, that upon weighty and alterations therein, and additions there­important considerations, according to unto made, as should be thought requisite the various exigency of times and occa- for the ease of tender consciences: where­sions, such changes and alterations should unto His Majesty, out of his pious in­be made therein, as to those that are in clination to give satisfaction( so far as place of Authority should from time to could be reasonably expected) to all his time seem either necessary or expedient. subjects of what persuasion soever, did Accordingly we find, that in the reigns graciously condescend. of several Princes of blessed memory since the Reformation, the Church, upon just and weighty considerations her thereunto moving, hath yielded to make such alter­ations in some particulars, as in their respective times were thought conveni­ent: yet so, as that the main body and essentials of it( as well in the chiefest materials, as in the frame and order thereof) have still continued the same unto this day, and do yet stand firm and unshaken, notwithstanding all the vain attempts and impetuous assaults made against it, by such men as are given to change, and have always discovered a greater regard to their own private fan­cies and interests, than to that duty they owe to the publick.

By what undue means, and for what mischievous purposes the use of the Liturgy( though enjoined by the laws of the land, and those laws never yet repealed) came, during the late unhappy confusions, to be discontinued, is too well known to the world, and we are not willing here to remember. But when, upon His Majesty's happy restoration, it seemed probable, that, amongst other things, the use of the Liturgy would also return of course( the same having never been legally abolished) unless some

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In which review we have endeavoured to observe the like moderation, as we find to have been used in the like case in former times And therefore of the sundry alterations proposed unto us, we have rejected all such as were either of dangerous consequence( as secretly strik­ing at some established doctrine, or laud­able practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole Catholick Church of Christ) or else of no consequence at all, but utterly frivolous and vain. But such alterations as were tendered to us ( by what persons, under what pretences, or to what purpose soever tendered) as seemed to us in any degree requisite or expedient, we have willingly, and of our own accord assented unto: not en­forced so to do by any strength of argu­ment, convincing us of the necessity of making the said alterations: for we are fully persuaded in our judgements( and we here profess it to the world) that the Book, as it stood before established by law, doth not contain in it any thing contrary to the Word of God, or to sound doctrine, or which a godly man may not with a good conscience use and submit unto, or which is not fairly defensible against any that shall oppose the same; if it shall be allowed such just and